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User:Δ editing restrictions on NFCC

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

This lengthy discussion explored a number of options, but ultimately there is no consensus to do anything. Δ is, in the end, just one more combatant in the NFCC enforcement wars, albeit one subject to edit restrictions. Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Non-free content enforcement is an attempt to make peace break out. In the mean time Δ needs to be very cautious about sticking to his edit restrictions, and others need to stop thinking they can treat him as punching bag in the NFCC arena with impunity (they may have got away with a lot, but their luck may run out). Rd232 15:24, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I've just blocked User:Δ for a week for violating the Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Betacommand_2#Community-imposed_restrictions on speed of edits (brought to my attention here). In addition, I propose extending the restrictions, noting i) the recent civility incident related to NFCC; ii) the recent speed violation related to it; iii) some of the recent edits were removals of a bunch of logos which had fair use rationales, on the basis that they had "no valid fair use rationale". I could be wrong but that strikes me as controversial at best. So

User:Δ is restricted from making any edits relating to the WP:NFCC. Talk pages are explicitly excluded from this restriction.

Rd232 14:53, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Can you point out the specific edits that you're claiming he removed citing no valid rationale that did have a rationale? In this latest batch, I'm seeing several Disney articles that seem to suggest that situation, but properly noted by Delta, they lack a rationale for the use of that image on the specific pages they were removed from, which is a failing of NFCC.

I recognize that its hard to defend Delta on his civility and the speed issue as long as the current restrictions stand but his NFCC handling seems absolutely in line, spot-checking his contributions, and a ban on his activity in that area seems unwarranted. --MASEM (t) 15:03, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Could you please point me to which exact logo removals you mean. To me, there is nothing controversial there.

Seen that, I do not think that there are many major errors on NFCC work, and if there are/were errors, then Δ has been very responsive about them. Since NFCC is non-negotiable, we are talking about copyright violations here, I find it improper to ban Δ from NFCC work on the basis that that work is causing him to violate speed restrictions and civility restrictions - those two are not linked, and banning him from NFCC would not necessarily stop speed restrictions or civility restrictions, it would only leave the problems in place. Hence oppose this extension. --Dirk Beetstra 15:09, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I meant removals like this. This was a logo used in a dozen articles about the company's subsidiaries, and a fair use rationale could have been added just as easily into the relevant file page, if not more easily. And - particularly relevant for Delta - that would have required one edit instead of a dozen. On a related note: when repeated uses of an image all have exactly the same rationale, is there any way to avoid repeating the same large box over and over? We could just have a brief template {{fur-asabove|article|article with main FUR}} that states the rationale is the same, no? Rd232 15:32, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

It has been long a contentious point that some argue that those that are seeking deletion/removal of images must fix "simple" problems, but this is not a simple problem, and it's been long established that the burden is on those seeking to keep NFCC to provide all valid parts to meet NFC policy. Here, in this case, there is no way that it is immediately obvious if the original uploaded intended for the image to be used across all the subsidiaries, if the subsidiaries actually use that logo, and so on, and thus it is impossible for us to expect Delta to fix the error. This is far different from a case where, for example, there may have been a rationale for use in "Disney Channel Aisa" when it is really used in Disney Channel Asia, and all that would take to fix is a simple corrective spelling.

As to your second question, no there actually isn't. There needs to be a new separate rationale for each image use. I know more often than not it is the same language used over and over in each one, but it still needs to be a clear, separate rationale. --MASEM (t) 15:40, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

There is {{Non-free image rationale}}, used in conjunction with {{Non-free image data}}. Frankly, if all FUR were structured as a clear two-template system like that it would be a lot clearer. Rd232 16:11, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

While the non-free image data would be able to have a single use, you'd still need to repeat non-free image rationale for each article its in. What we can't have is a single template that ends up saying "This image is used in article X, Y, and Z for this rationale: blah blah blah". --MASEM (t) 16:17, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I didn't mean that. Incidentally I've tweaked {{Non-free logo}} to clarify things. Rd232 16:23, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Removing the Disney Channel logo from Disney Channel UK, Disney Channel Asia, Disney Channel India etc, on the basis that there is no separate fair use rationale for each, was unnecessary, legalistic and disruptive. These removals may have been technically correct according to a pedantic reading of NFCC, but that does not mean they were beneficial to the project. If someone felt, as Delta apparently did, that insisting on having separate FURs was important, then it would have been more constructive, and just as easy, to have written the missing ones rather than removing the images. If this is typical of the kind of NFCC work Delta does, the project would be better off without it. (Non-administrator comment) Thparkth (talk) 15:38, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

If I recall correctly it was exactly these sorts of removals that he was last told he shouldn't be doing. When it is clearly obvious that the images are valid with a slight fix to the rational on the page that it was more beneficial to the project that he fix the rational instead of remove them. -DJSasso (talk) 15:43, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

This is required by the Foundation, and in fact, Delta's actions follow exactly from the Licensing Resolution (Media used under EDPs are subject to deletion if they lack an applicable rationale). As I've mentioned above, there is no way for Delta to know if there was appropriate intent to use these logos on these pages, and thus assuming its an easy fix is incorrect. --MASEM (t) 15:43, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

" there is no way for Delta to know if there was appropriate intent to use these logos on these pages" - indeed, a company logo in an infobox on a company subsidiary - it's a complete mystery, best remove the image. Rd232 15:46, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Exactly, this is a clear as day scenerio. There may be other cases where it was too hard to tell. But this certainly was not one of them. This was as obvious as it can get. -DJSasso (talk) 15:48, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

(ec)The subsidiary could have its own logo. The uploader may not have intended for the image to be used on those pages. It may not be necessary to illustrate the subsidiary with the logo (there are no required or mandatory uses of NFC). Sure, I would say that more than likely the end effect was that editors wanted to use that logo on those pages and failed to add a new rationale, but that's not a lock-solid assumption compared with, say, a simple misspelling that I would expect Delta to correct. --MASEM (t) 15:51, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

If these removals are acceptable, then we might as well get a bot to do them all, and save Delta the trouble. The bot could provide a comment on the relevant article talk page, explaining what to do in relation to FUR. Rd232 15:59, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

He had a bot which ran during the period right after the Resolution was passed, doing exactly this, and of course that was killed back when Beta was arbcom'd. Also, as I understand what Delta is doing now, he was working down a list of NFC with the highest reuse count on WP, and validating by hand each use. --MASEM (t) 16:03, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

The question of whether the logo is the correct one for the specific article is up to the editors involved in writing the page. If they added it, you should assume they are correct unless you know otherwise. Thparkth (talk) 15:56, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

(ec)Consider also that we're talking about the reuse of the same image more than ten times. I would worry a bit more if there were two uses and only one with a rationale, and the second rationale could possibly be inferred, but when an image is repeated multiple times, that's becoming a violation of WP:NFCC#3a for minimal use. Again, the expectation here cannot be on Delta to correct a more difficult situation than it appears. --MASEM (t) 16:00, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

There's a reason we don't have a upper limit set on the number of times an image is used. 100 times may be the minimum number we need to be used. Perhaps a thousand! It's a single image being used appropriately. Delta removed them all on a technicality without any discussion or any effort to correct the oversight. — BQZip01 —  16:11, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

The Foundation have never required us to abandon common sense. If there is a FUR for "Disney Channel", there is a presumption that the same FUR would apply to "Disney Channel UK". Thparkth (talk) 15:56, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

The Foundation expects a unique FUR for each use, there is supposed to be a unique, highly specialized rationale to explain why each use of the image is justified. While logos tend to be a special case where the same language can be used across each, we still cannot assume this to be the case. --MASEM (t) 16:00, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Sure we can. All we need to do is create a template which adds these to a list of articles for which the logo is acceptable. Are we a bureaucracy? — BQZip01 —  16:05, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

There are in fact two very good reasons why the mass addition of that logo was problematic, and removal may have been appropriate: (1) there's precedent. The last time this came up (some time in 2008 or thereabouts, about some radio station logo), the community decided that a single mother company logo should not be used on dozens of daughter company articles. (2) there's a replaceability issue. Until a few days ago, all these articles had a text-only, copyright-free wordmark logo (File:Disney Channel wordmark.svg) rather than the non-free graphic logo (File:Disney Channel - Blue-Yellow.png). No argument was raised why the free wordmark image was unacceptable or inaccurate and why there was a need to switch to the non-free file. In these circumstances, it was absolutely not obvious if and why the new non-free file must be used on all these articles. If an editor were to make a case for it and explain why, then fine, let them add those rationales. But it's absolutely not something you could just expect somebody else to do for you as a matter of mere formality. Delta acted correctly. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:00, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

That's interesting. But it's another, concrete example of how impenetrable this issue is. What it really needs is not for a handful of experts to go around policing everything, but to put a lot of effort into making these issues clearer to the average editor, with specific guidance made clear on different things like that, leaving as little as possible to interpretation and recruiting average editors to fix these problems. Also using automated tools to generate warnings, etc (with links to relevant guidance). I'm sure if Delta and Damiens.rf dropped the policing in favour of pursuing this route to tackling the problem, it would work out better for everyone. Rd232 21:29, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Do you really think every time an image patroller sees an inappropriate non-free image uploaded, they should go and patiently and individually explain the policy to the uploader until he actually understands it and is prepared to enforce it himself? Dude, that would make me spend two hours typing for every single time I look over the new uploads log. "Using automated tools to generate warnings etc."? But of course, that's being done all the time. The existing guideline texts and explanations are quite sufficient. But most uploaders never read them. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:03, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

• Reply to the point of the image removal. The point is, the images do (did?) not have a proper fair-use rationale for the pages where they were displayed on. In other words, that is a copyright violation. Yes, it is blatantly clear here that it is easy to solve by adapting the image pages properly, but if this involves 10,000 images, where 200-500 are blatantly clear and the rest is not, then dos one really expect an editor to check all 10,000 for how far it is blatantly clear? No, I would not. The removals is not wrong, it is solving a copyright problem in one way. Most of the people who notice the removal of the image there because they have the page on their watchlist are likely more knowledgeable about the image and the page then the one removing the image on the basis of a copyright violation. So the problem is that there were the standard violations (speed limit, incivility), and a perceived other violation, which is now crafted into a new resolution to tie Δ down. I find this expansion absurd, the real problems are with sanctions in place, and without additional problems the sanctions are expanded. NFCC still keeps editors being uncivil against Δ, baiting him over and over. How often do you have to kick a pitbull before it bites back. --Dirk Beetstra 08:33, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

In other words, that is a copyright violation. No. At no point was the use of these logos a copyright infraction. Fair use in law does not depend on having a documented fair use rationale, and it certainly doesn't depend on having a separate one for each use in closely-related articles. What this was, "in other words," was a technical infraction of Misplaced Pages policy with no real-world legal implications, and with an obvious and easy solution that didn't involve removing the images. Let's keep some context here. Thparkth (talk) 11:38, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

As i mentioned downthread, it actually does. Fair Use is an affirmative defense placing the burden of proof on the defendant to show they pass a four-point test. The burden of proof is reversed and infringement is assumed unless you prove it meets the four point fair use standard. This has been set by the supreme court for a while. -- ۩ Mask 11:41, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Yes, Thparkth - but a) the image was tagged as non-free b) there was not a rationale for the display on the image on a certain page -> hence, at that point, the image is according to the state here on Misplaced Pages in violation of copyright -> hence it should be removed. Now there are several causes of why an image can look like it is in violation of copyright -> a) it does not have a proper fair-use rationale, b) there is overuse, c) it is tagged wrong. It is not up to Delta to guess or solve that, even though it is blatantly simple in this case. What if the case is slightly more complex, and Delta, unknowingly, thinks it is a logo, and changes the tag from non-free to PD (or whatever free format) - if then the image is actually not a logo, but a copyrighted image, it would be a real problem. My point is not that this specific case actually the tag is wrong, the point is, that because of the current (wrong) tagging it looks as a violation of copyright, which should be solved by those knowledgeable in the situation, most of the editors who have the image and/or the page on their watchlist - this specific case does not have real-world legal implications, but why would we need to take the risk? If it is tagged as non-free and there is not a proper fair-use rationale, it goes - whether it is tagged wrongly as non-free, or it really has a wrong fair-use rationale, and it is not up to the remover to repair it, at most to notify interested editors. --Dirk Beetstra 11:50, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

• Support

(ec x2) I concur that this is certainly an issue prevalent within the NFCC realm. Some people think I've got a bone to pick with delta in particular. I don't. I'm more interested in simply stopping abuse. Reasonable people can disagree about whether an image meets NFCC, but it requires reason. Too many people are treating WP:NFCC like a sledgehammer. "What the...? It doesn't have a completely, properly worded FUR. I'd better delete it as soon as possible!" Deletion is NOT the first option, but should be the last. Discussion should be attempted first. Too many people fire first and ask questions later. There are some clear-cut examples for deletion (i.e. a low-res blur that couldn't possibly be used for anything on WP), but likewise, there are plenty that could be better resolved with a simple conversation:

"Hey I noticed that you uploaded File:XYZABCPDQRSVP1, File:XYZABCPDQRSVP2, File:XYZABCPDQRSVP3, and File:XYZABCPDQRSVP4, but the FUR you provided links to a non-existent website. Since you are the uploader, would you be so kind as to please fix that? If you don't, unfortunately, they may have to be deleted."

Let's stop pretending that WP isn't a bureaucracy when, in fact, it is. This thread alone is a perfect example when we are told "this isn't the proper forum" or "Image XYZ doesn't comply with Rule ABC I'm going to try and get it deleted". When we demand that people comply with our policies, we are indeed a bureaucracy.

Specifically with Delta, he's contributing FAR too much to the NFCC realm. Let's say that 90% of his edits aren't problematic. That means 10% of his contributions ARE problematic. 1 in 10 times he touches the keyboard, a problem is created. That percentage is WAY too high. I've got 18,000 edits and only a single block...which was lifted early when I stated I understood where I went wrong. Delta's been blocked 3 times this month alone! When is enough going to be enough? — BQZip01 —  16:04, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

NFC and BLP are the only two areas where the Foundation has asked us to be vigilant in removing offending material, and thus are the only "rules" among everything else. Could Delta handle these better? Yes, that's a civility issue. But his actions are in line with the Foundation requirements. We can't add language to our NFC policy that says "if you see a missing rationale, you need to give the editors notice for x days before you remove it" (what you're asking for) because someone can go around it via the Foundation's expectation. He can be a lot more civil with the approach, but the actions are not at fault, save to those that do not appreciate the Foundation's goal. --MASEM (t) 16:11, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

But we could have a bot which handled the issue, and gave editors notice (to article talk page and/or uploader). Interested editors would probably leave the bot to do that, and maybe focus on helping with the issues the bot would be flagging. Surely this would be a better solution all round. Rd232 16:30, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Again, we did have a bot, BetaCommandBot, that did that, but that's long gone. Now, if someone can write a similar bot to do the same, I can agree that that should not be an action that Delta should do any more. But even with a bot and Delta requested not to perform this duty, any other editor can do exactly what Delta did, within the Foundation's requirements, and either no one notices, or we get yet another incident situation here. --MASEM (t) 16:38, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Your pessimism is noted. Now, if Delta had a satisfactory bot once, maybe we could ask him to turn over the code to someone else to operate it? Rd232 16:45, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

IIRC he did turn over and/or open the code to someone, but that was likely back during the ArbCom case. So it's probably around somewhere. --MASEM (t) 16:47, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

To summarize: Delta's actions with respect to current NFC policy are not wrong. It would be completely inappropriate to block him from NFCC editing for this action. (Again, civility and edit rates are different issues that he's under community restrictions for). If people want to challenge these, they need to suggest the change at NFCC (though I believe we recently had such a conversation, consensus favoring the current status quo). If that change is made at NFCC and Delta continues in contrary to that, then by all means blocking him from NFCC is appropriate. --MASEM (t) 16:42, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

The restriction is not just "for this action". It's for the extended role NFCC has played in Delta's long troublesome history. To some extent, the restriction would merely be protecting Delta from himself. Rd232 16:48, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately the real problem is Delta himself. While his conflicts often crop up from things related to NFCC, the real problem is that he wasn't taking care with his edits and questioning him or opposing him met with incivility. Were he to stay away from NFCC and get involved in something else, I'm not sure if that would entirely solve the problem. If he just as heavily focused on categorizing things and applied the same mindset to it, we'll probably just be right back here.--Crossmr (talk) 23:00, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose sanction. As explained above, Delta acted correctly. He understands the rules, his detractors don't. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:02, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
  • His understanding of the NFCC rules can be applied in other ways than going around with AWB removing files without FURs - which carries risks with respecting the speed restriction. He can contribute to managing the issue in other ways, educating users, improving templates (using edit requests on the talk page, userspace drafts etc) and so forth. Also the terms of the proposal would permit him to use AWB to post NFCC-related issues on article talk pages, for others to act on. It's deliberately not a wall-to-wall topic ban. Rd232 19:15, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

• comment. He may understand the rules, but it appears that he failed to abide by them (yes, I'm speaking of the speed limit editing restrictions). To be honest, I'd rather see him working here as well, and I understand his concern in regards to the Foundation's wishes as far as the non-free content is concerned - but he should still have enough sense to abide by what community consensus established. Hey, I was one of his defenders in the "civility" issue, but to come back after his block got reduced and immediately violate a restriction that he was subject to was just outright wrong. Sorry FPaS, but I think you're reaching on that one. — Ched :  ?  18:15, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
• comment He might understand the NFCC rules, but he clearly doesn't understand or respect his editing restrictions as terms of his probation. He has clearly violated these terms both repeatedly and flagrantly. It's time to remove him from these nominations/discussions (discussions on image pages or talk pages is fine as it will likely increase the number of images that are improved). I would also support a user-created subpage where he can create lists of images that he feels should be deleted along with reasons. Other people (acting as filters) can then look at that list and make nominations based upon his recommendations. — BQZip01 —  23:08, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

• Support. I've been surprised at the latitude the community has granted Betacommand in the past, given his obvious (to me) recidivism. TotientDragooned (talk) 18:47, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
• Support Beta has displayed an repeated and continuing defiance of the community in this, and its time to take more definitive action. He does have unique positive abilities, but has no right to follow his own wishes in how to use them. I admit to a certain pessimism that he will follow any restriction whatsoever, but the present proposal is at least clean-cut enough to see. DGG ( talk ) 21:03, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
• Support though I'd prefer an all out ban. On May 10, 13:10-13:19 93 edits, that's over twice the rate permit that he's allowed. Delta has been repeatedly thumbing his nose at the community just as he did before. There is no reason he should be here at all. The community carried on fine without him while he was gone and it will continue to do so.--Crossmr (talk) 22:41, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

  To be honest it looks like Delta was gaming his editing restrictions as well. In april a lot of his contribs are: Make 20-25 edits in 2-3 minutes, then stop editing for a short time, come back make 20-25 edits in 2-3 minutes then take a short break. While it doesn't violate his restriction over a 10 minute block, it violates the spirit of his restrictions.--Crossmr (talk) 22:51, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

  The restriction says "Betacommand must not average more than four edits per minute in any ten minute period of time." I'm unable to divine any "spirit" of that which would sanction doing less than 40 edits in 10 minutes. PS your "93 edits on 10 May" info is wrong somehow, there were zero edits in that timeframe. Rd232 23:03, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

  I think there is an issue with one of our time settings, I can clearly see the 93 edits on the 10th, I've linked them to you, perhaps they show a different time on your machine. The sanctions say 4 edits per minutes over 10 minutes. They don't say 40 edits/10 minutes as a flat amount, while that works out to what he's allowed, that is how I tell the difference between the spirit and the letter of the law. The intention of those sanctions were to get delta to properly consider his edits before making them and ensure they were technically correct, not just to slow down. By making 8-9 edits per minute over 2-3 minutes then not editing for an hour and doing it again, and again and again, this is violating the spirit of those sanctions. He isn't properly considering edits when he's making them at a rate of twice what he's allowed. The whole point of the "over 10 minutes" was to prevent him from getting nailed for say doing 30 in 10 minutes where he did 4/4/4/5/3/4/6/2 or something like that. Not where he does 8/8/9/stop wait 8/8/9 stop wait, etc.--Crossmr (talk) 23:18, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

  Remember, the point of the edit limit was to make him review his edits as a human even if he was using an off-line script or other function that helped to make the tools easier to use (eg like AWB), as when he was editing with unrestricted rates, he started to incur a high error rate from his semi-auto bots. 4 per minute (40 in a ten minute period) was agreed on because that seems like a reasonable rate for someone doing an easily evaluated and repeating task to validate the change is doing what it is supposed to do and no immediate harm. If, in Delta's case, this means he is preloading 8-10 changes to run in one batch script, which may take a few minutes to set up and validate for their correctness, then that's still in line of the intent of the editing restriction. He still must throttle them appropriately per the restrictions (he can't load up >40 and run that within a single ten minute period). --MASEM (t) 00:37, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

  Yes, exactly, and to be honest, the onus would be on him to prove that he was doing that. The time differentials between these edits was around an hour or two or so. It certainly wasn't taking him an hour to queue up the 20 or so edits he executed in 2-3 minutes.--Crossmr (talk) 03:57, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

• Support. This is actually better then a ban, since we can track what he's doing this way. (of course, he can still use a sock, but... this way at least he doesn't have to use a sock account)
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:58, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Were seriously considering topic banning someone because their following the rules correctly? Let me put it simply: If the people incorrectly using these photos solved the problem, Delta wouldnt be doing anything to complain about. It's not our problem some cant figure out how to properly use and upload to the encyclopedia. -- ۩ Mask 23:23, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

  Except he's not following the rules correctly. Delta has rules on his behaviour that limit his edit rate, proposals on big tasks, and his civility, he's followed none of those. What delta is doing to complain about is thumbing his nose at the community which he has been doing for years. His behaviour has shown time and time again that he has no regard for the members of this community. It's not really our problem that Delta can't figure out how to properly edit on wikipedia and work within a community and it's a shame that years later we're still dealing with it.--Crossmr (talk) 23:32, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

  (after a bunch of ECs) Except that he is following the rules correctly, as regards the project's policies on Non-free images. I don't condone his uncivil comments (and they are uncivil at times) or his violation of the edit throttle established by the Arbitration Committee, but if editors were to properly follow the policies governing the use of non-free images, Δ would neither blow up at clueless users nor spend an inordinate amount of time and effort removing inappropriate uses of images which are copyrighted. Most of the people who are complaining about Δ's editing are those who disagree with WMF's (admittedly conservative) policy towards use of non-free images, and I suspect that many of them could not care less about the civility issues, which are nothing more than a convenient pretext to use against a user who has demonstrated that he does not deal well with others. For those who dislike the whole NFU issue, please take a look at the first section of User:Angr's userpage, which has a parable about free-use vs. fair-use, and which is relevant to this entire discussion. Horologium (talk) 00:21, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

  So what you're syaing is that Delta is not responsible for his behaviour? Oh yes, we played that arguement for years too until the vast majority of people who used it grew tired of him and switched sides and supported his removal. But if you're honestly telling me that Delta cannot control himself and isn't responsible for his actions because other people make him do it, well a few things should happen. He should be immediately and indefinitely blocked until such a time that he can prove that he can control his actions, and the authorities should be dispatched to his house because obviously there must be someone with a gun to his head making him act this way. Admittedly hyperbole, but your argument is just as ridiculous. Delta is fully responsible for his behaviour, regardless of what other people do, and this whole "people make mistakes and make him angry, or people bait him" argument is honestly garbage. No one forces him to do anything he does here, and he's either responsible for it and rightly staring down a ban/block or he's not responsible and should be banned/blocked.--Crossmr (talk) 03:54, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

  But importantly, editing rating restrictions have nothing to do with NFCC. It would be like punishing someone with a DUI for going 5 miles over. Blocking him on violating the community-set editing rate or civility problems is within line, but save for people that feel that NFCC needs to be handled more touchy-feely than the Foundation requires us to do, there's nothing wrong with his NFCC enforcement. --MASEM (t) 23:41, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

  This. The proposal has nothing to do with anything Delta is doing wrong. And I'd challenge the whole assessment Delta cant edit as part of the community. He's been block free up for most of a year up until some fool pulled up a days-old borderline uncivil edit and used it to railroad Delta out of, well, non-free enforcement, just like whats being attempted here. -- ۩ Mask 23:45, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

  First of all, he was blocked a few days prior for other violations too. Second, calling me a "fool" isn't exactly civil... — BQZip01 —  23:58, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

  I wasn't calling you a fool. Well, I may have been if you were the one who dug up that days old diff to make petty attacks, but thats the point many who seem to get fed up with Delta get stuck up on. Civil tells us to comment on contributions, not contributors. If you do an absurdly stupid thing expect for it to be called so. Civil doesnt protect you from criticism, it makes sure criticism is directed at actions people have taken instead of themselves. -- ۩ Mask 01:19, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

  Being block free for nearly a year is false. He was blocked last october, thats' only 7 months at best, and honestly his ability to dodge a block and him editing well are two different things. I've found countless violations of his editing restrictions that he wasn't caught on so to be honest that's a pretty weak assessment.--Crossmr (talk) 04:12, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

  I said most of a year. If you would like to contest whether seven months is the larger portion of a year or not, I can only direct you to the Mathematics secion at the Help Desk. -- ۩ Mask 04:21, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

  I suppose saying "Most of a year" makes it sound like much more than it is, why not just 7 months? Regardless it's false logic since I found violations as far back as December.--Crossmr (talk) 07:09, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

  It doesnt make it sound like anything more then it was. Those of us not following Delta's every move couldn't spit out the exact number of months since he was last blocked, but I was aware from the last ANI thread that it was longer then 6 months ago. And if the violations you found werent complained about, they obviously weren't disruptive. -- ۩ Mask 07:23, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

  Escaping notice is not evidence of innocence. I also don't follow Delta's every move, it was extremely trivial to check his block log and count to 7. Just because there are tons of disruptive things on wikipedia that don't get noticed right away. Your entire argument is built on some of the flimsiest logic I've ever seen. It's disruptive in that it shows on-going disregard for the community by Delta, exactly what led to his community ban last time.--Crossmr (talk) 11:36, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

  Masem, he ongoing problem with Beta's NFCC enforcement is that he seems to be sometimes incapable of effective communication to concerned editors without lashing out. His seeming insitence on making these edits as fast as possible exarcebates the situation. From my observations, yourself, Hammersoft and Dirk Beetstra seem quite capable of making the assessments and edits and explanations yourselves, which you seem to need to do on his behalf with surprising frequency. Beta adds unnecessary friction to this process, for instance lately to the discussions on images in subsidiary and compilation articles, which, let's be honest, are discussable applications of the EDP, not the imminent end of the wiki, and contrary to the assertion above certainly not "copyright violations" if they are properly attributed. Franamax (talk) 23:56, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

  And that's why we have the editing restrictions in place so that he communicates these issues in a civil manner and using human-assisted tools (as I recall, the edit rate restriction was because he was using semi-auto tools without checking if the output was valid, and then having severely faulty outcomes). If we want to add "not treat NFCC violations as the end of the world" to that, then that should be proposed and added (and yes, I do believe that's a realistic solution that would stop 90% of the complaints I see against him on his talk page) , and/or NFC policy changed to make it less drastic. But we're still talking about one of the few editors on this wiki that take NFCC seriously, in fact making it his primary goal on the work as far as I can tell, and the idea of blocking him from NFCC issues would basically be a defacto eviction from the work. That's my concern is that there are editors here with a lot of vitriol for Delta and coming up solutions that don't address the core issues. --MASEM (t) 00:04, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

  As I noted above, the proposal still allows him to do quite a lot to contribute to NFCC enforcement and improvement. It could be tweaked to allow a little more leeway, eg permit editing of File: namespace for NFCC issues, excluding deletion nominations, that sort of thing. Rd232 00:17, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

  What about 1RR then? After that, talk page or noticeboard? Beta'a focus on NFC is good in a way ('cause of our free mission) and bad in other ways (!). You're right that he's "one of the few" - but there are others to watch and carry things forward. On the easy ones, like NF images on a user page, I can handle that myself, in a forceful way if the other editor has a problem. Franamax (talk) 00:22, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

  Well, we can easily split Delta's NFC policing into two categories: those clearly defined as inappropriate use (like on user pages), and those that are likely incorrect but may have an intermediate solution. On the former types, he shouldn't be restricted (outside current community restrictions like edit rate) because that's a black and white issue, but for the latter, a 1RR-to-block without seeking talk/nb discussion certainly would be a solution to this above disney logo thing, as an example. If you want it more simply: Delta could be under 1RR editing restrictions for non-free issues within main space as I can't immediately think of any mainspace NFCC issues that require immediate correction. --MASEM (t) 00:31, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

  "X is restricted to 1 revert per 24 hour period (1RR) per-image-per-article in article space when enforcing NFCC guidelines. After the first reversion, X will engage in talk page discussion in the appropriate space or file at a noticeboard. X is cautioned that although 1RR is a birght-line rule for this purpose, ongoing reversions while discussion is actively taking place will be considered as a bad-faith observance of this restirction and further sanctions will be considered." ? Franamax (talk) 00:58, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

  Close enough to start with for me. I think that captures the essence of the core problem of Delta's insistence that he is right (even if he may be) that leads to incivility and the like. I would explicitly mention that this is not enforced in non-main space but all other restrictions still remain. --MASEM (t) 01:04, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

  The unfortunate problem is the proposal does nothing at all to address Delta. This is a user who is on extensive restrictions for his actions and yet he continues to violate them repeatedly and here you are simply proposing a couple of trivial restrictions. In the last month he's violated his civility restrictions, violated his edit restrictions so many times I gave up counting, and violated his restictions on proposing a task before doing it. Most of those editing violations occurred during the violation of the proposal restrictions. What do you think any more restrictions are going to do at this point? When he violates them, should we just propose a few more tweaked restrictions? and more and more and more? I know his supporters have tried to blame everyone else for his failings, but they are his own and he needs to start bearing responsibility and consequences for his actions.--Crossmr (talk) 04:08, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

  If he has been violating his editing restrictions so many times, why are there only 4 blocks since 2008 on him (at least, as recorded?) And I would think that if there were that many blocks, the community would have thrown up its collective hands and banned him by that point. The point of this 1RR - in addition to the warnings on his page - is that he should continue to recall that he is operating under a microscope from people that rather see him gone from the project. 1RR, as I outline below, helps to keep his temper in check, validate his NFCC actions better and education other users in a manner that is more appropriate for editors in the first place. --MASEM (t) 04:36, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

  Because anyone who watches him too closely is accused of stalking him. When he was first let back in, I caught him going over his limit and was told by numerous people to stuff it. I've only discovered the violations now because his block-free record was put up on some kind of pedestal when really its only a result of him flying under the radar. Even when he is blocked look at the situation we end up in. How many admins really want to rush in and block him, even if he deserves it? May 12th has at least a dozen, probably in the neighbourhood of 2 dozen individual times where he violated his restrictions, and I found violations as far back as Dec 31 (on NFCC stuff no less), before I got busy with something else.--Crossmr (talk) 07:04, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose He violated his speed limit and was blocked for that, fine with me. I see absolutely no reason to ban him from NFCC. Yoenit (talk) 09:17, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Rd232, your actions in this have been generally well thought out and applied correctly. This one has not. If you're going to ban him from doing NFCC work for removing images for violations of WP:NFCC #10c, then please ban me from this work as well. I've done literally thousands of these edits. I just did six of them for one logo: . A better idea; ban anyone from doing it. No, even better; change the policy. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:39, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
  • "...then please ban me from this work as well..." - is the sort of reaction that conflates Delta's specific issues (primarily with NFCC enforcement) with the unsettled policy battles over NFCC enforcement - a common reaction, but not helpful. It's better for Delta to be banned from NFCC than to be site-banned. And the proposal was worded to not exclude all NFCC input, and I'm please there's been further discussion of a sanction that might be more targeted (1RR, below). See also Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Non-free content enforcement, which I created. Rd232 14:51, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

• I will continue to take this stance as I see necessary. People are claiming that removing files for failing WP:NFCC #10c is disruptive period. Fine. If it is, then prohibit me from doing it too. If Δ doing it is disruptive, then it is so when I do it. There are things that Δ does that are problematic. This is not one of them. 10c compliance enforcement isn't the problem. If it is, then anyone who does it needs to be prevented from doing it. The discussion Masem and I are having may be headed in the right direction. We'll see. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:58, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

• HS, you and I disagree about some stuff (ok, a lot of stuff), but I think you are missing the distinction between yourself and Δ. He is not disruptive because he removes files for failing WP:NFCC #10c. He is disruptive while he accomplishes these types of removals, not the removals themselves. Everyone admits he has a temper. Everyone admits he has sanctions against him further restricting his actions on WP more so than the average user. What it truly boils down to is whether the community thinks that violations of these restrictions (which are options for an admin to impose, not a requirement) should result in further sanctions. I do (so do others). You don't (so do others). Δ has a past that cannot simply be ignored. These sanctions exist and must be upheld if they are to have any meaning. Δ has repeatedly walked into blocks for stuff he knows he shouldn't do, but did it anyway. In order to make these sanctions meaningful, we need remove Δ from the areas which are causing the problems. This proposal does just that. — BQZip01 —  03:03, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose - I am also forced to oppose this on the grounds given. Wether we like it or not he is following policy be deleting the images. As for the speed issue. This was submitted because he did 46 edits in 10 minutes which violated his 4 edit a minute restriction. I doubt seriously that we need to be so stringent on the rules that this rates a full blown ANI unless we are looking for a reason to cast him from the hill. --Kumioko (talk) 14:28, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

  Actually, on a single day, he did that somewhere between a dozen and two dozen times and at one point reached a rate of 93 edits in a 10 minute window. Violations of his editing rate restrictions were found as far back as december, and it has in fact been a constant problem for him since he was reinstated, regardless of whether or not he ended up blocked for it. In addition the day that he violated his editing restrictions countless times, he was also violating his restrictions on starting large tasks without first strating a thread about it. It wasn't until 2 days later that he went ahead and bothered to do that. No one has gone looking for any reason that Delta hasn't freely given them.--Crossmr (talk) 07:51, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

• I would like to see any evidence to suggest that where his edit throttle has been exceeded, a problem for the project has been generated. I'm not suggesting that he should glibly ignore his restrictions. My point is; you put restrictions in place to protect the project. Otherwise, what's the point, right? You note (rightfully) that he did not seek approval for a task until his feet were really put to the fire about it. I don't dispute that. But if sanctions are to have meaning, they have to have a continued purpose. If we can go "as far back as December" yet nobody's raised any alarm about it in the half a year since then, what damage was he causing to the project? --Hammersoft (talk) 13:11, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

• Whether his edits were problem free is irrelevant. If you check the restrictions they do not say "You may exceed these restrictions if you make no mistakes". The point of the restrictions was to get Delta to properly focus on his editing, he didn't do that, and thus violated the restrictions. As I've already pointed out many times, what the restrictions violations show is that Delta still refuses to properly work with the community, regardless of whether or not he is "right", The latest outburst further hammers home that disdain and shows that he really hasn't changed at all even after being given more than ample time.--Crossmr (talk) 11:38, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

• May I interpret from this then that you have no evidence to suggest that where his edit throttle was exceeded a problem for the project was generated? --Hammersoft (talk) 13:18, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

• May I interpret that to mean that you could care less what the community previously decided? A problem being generated is irrelevant, however his removal of images that are still in articles indicates that his edits were probably not right and one could interpret that as a problem. Instead of generating an appropriate fair use rationale and saving everyone the trouble he simply removed them from the article causing further work for editors. And that was done while violating his throttle.--Crossmr (talk) 05:35, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

• So if he were to drive off a cliff while not violating his restrictions, that would be ok. His removal of images? Again, what he has done is exactly in line with policy. You want to string him up from the nearest tree for removing images failing WP:NFCC #10c, fine, then string me up too along with several other users that do the same work. That someone fixes the problem and later restores the image doesn't mean that the person that removed it is in error. No, in this cae, it is you who is in error as you are flat wrong about policy. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:58, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

• Dial back the hyperbole here. Crossmr is not stating things the way you are twisting them. It all boils down to policy and the further restrictions delta has, not one or the other. Delta can do everything correct IAW policy and still violate his sanctions; in such a case he should be blocked for said sanction violations. It doesn't matter in the slightest if a policy was violated or not. The point is that he violated his sanctions...again... Since he keeps violating his sanctions, we can either continue to block him with increasingly longer blocks and/or we can institute further sanctions to remove him from the areas where he is violating these restrictions. I and 6 others opt for the latter. HS and 4 others currently are opting for neither. — BQZip01 —  20:14, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

• I think a time limit on this sanction could also be useful, like for 3 months. — BQZip01 —  20:22, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

• Support (or permanent ban) This user engages in pointless battles that serve no useful purpose, driving away content producers and debasing the encyclopedia, and is obstructive when challenged about his damaging behaviour. 86.175.61.96 (talk) 23:49, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Alternate 1RR restriction

Another alternate 1RR restriction

Double standards?

Bringing this back around

We're getting too lost on NFC policy here, and forgetting that we're trying to resolve how Delta is expecting to interact with users on NFC issues. I realize that some of this is how NFC that fails policy is expected to be dealt with, but I would encourage those that want to discuss that more to take it to WT:NFC or more specifically Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Non-free content enforcement that resulted from this discussion.

The question here at AN on the table is: what can we do via either existing or new community restrictions to prevent Delta's name from being a weekly reappearance at AN when it comes to his NFC actions?

To me, reading the responses above, this is about the vigilante style of editing that Delta imposes - he may be absolutely correct in his determination in NFC issues, but the methods to do so are what causes distaste to others. Edit warring is never a solution, even if dealing with a persistent user that edit wars right back. But there are cases where Delta has the strength of policy and consensus on his side (eg obvious copyvios, non-mainspace NFC) but has to deal with users that refuse to accept that. As this makes it difficult for 1RR-type enforcement, I will suggest another possible one:

When either removing or reverting the addition of non-free content from an article, Delta must inform either the talk page of the article, the image, or the image's uploader of the reason for removal (templated/canned messages are appropriate). Delta must not engage user(s) in edit warring over NFC, but instead call for discussion of the images' use at an appropriate message or noticeboard (such as WP:NFCR) to affirm that removal is appropriate.

(I'm not eloquent with the wording, feel free to offer better) This really is what I think most editors expect to see, akin to WP:BEFORE, where discussion of the merits of images is approached before removal is performed. It requires Delta to engage in at least some type of fleshed out discussion before he re-reverts the additions from stubborn users, and brings such issues to a larger audience should it get into a 3RR type situation. This removes the vigilante-style approach in adoption for something more akin to consensus. Mind you, we still need to be fully aware of NFC issues and do our best to meet the Foundation's resolution, so "consensus" here is skewed towards what NFC policy already is, but I'm sure there are fringe cases that merit better discussion. --MASEM (t) 14:06, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I think this is closer. Perhaps some more honing is needed though. I do a lot of the same work. Here's a worst case scenario of how this can play out when I'm doing it (minus arm flapping histronics endemic to such issues):

1. Remove NFCC violating content, using edit summary to inform as to why it was removed (Δ does this)
2. It gets reverted by someone wanting to keep it
3. (in most cases) I remove it again, and leave a message for the editor (if not a dancing IP) (Δ doesn't often do this) or on the article's talk page (Δ does this more now in overuse situations; I developed User:Hammersoft/3 as a notice to be used in such cases, and he uses it).
4. Editor reverts again.
5. Depending on the situation, I'll escalate warning tags if its a blatant violation and continue reverting (Δ does this, just not in the same way). Alternatively, I'll take it to a noticeboard for assistance (Δ doesn't often do this, but does on occasion).

I think where we face the most problems in Δ's edits are in communication. He is usually very accurate in his edits. His error rate is actually quite low, probably a lot lower than mine or any other average editor on the project. So, I think rewording to provide a more clear structure; (1) remove, (2) if reverted, communicate to editor/talk page and revert, (3) if reverted again go to noticeboard do NOT revert (leave it for someone else). I don't know if that's a 1RR or 2RR (only one revert, two edits). Whatever you want to call it, it stops reversions and starts discussion and leaves the problem for someone else. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:27, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Yea, the language I proposed is not meant to be final, but I think the concept (and this is after reading Delta's response below) is that when these discussions after the 2nd or 3rd revert take place in Delta's talk page isolation, it feels like one user is acting as judge, jury, and executioner to the process. By having the discussion move to a wider venue, you get more eyes on it and people affirming Delta's assessments as correct. This also helps towards the whole civility thing - when discussion is in a wider venue, people tend to respond better. In essence, I am likely proposing that while under restriction, Delta be required to follow the accepted process of dispute resolution, as a means of preventing situations of incivility.

And on the mention of incivility, as Delta points out below, we can't just be accusing Delta of this and not looking at the editors he's responding to. Knowing Delta's behavior long enough, he doesn't become uncivil until pushed that way, so there's likely a similar violation in such conversations that should also be dealt with. --MASEM (t) 15:06, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

• To incivility; the WP:NPA policy is effectively void. It isn't enforced, and has no bearing anymore. Occasionally, you might see something happen, but such actions are outnumbered 1000:1 with the incidents of incivility all across the project. Nobody really cares about civility requirements anymore. It's seriously a whopping big joke. How it is normally invoked is as in this case; as a bludgeoning tool so that the horribly wrong and out of line editors can find something, ANYthing with which to get back at the people they disagree with. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:42, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

This looks like what I was attempting to have happen from the get go.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 17:54, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, at least partially. The mass nomination issue still appears to be outstanding. If there's an identifiable class of files that need to be dealt with, what say we have a central discussion about that and deal with the class at once, rather then the current situation where we have this slow motion process where clumps of FFD nominations are sprung on the community when one user or another decides that it's time to take care of some files.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 17:57, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

• Huh? That's really conflating issues. "Mass nomination" issues haven't been a part of this. Since July of last year, Δ's edited WP:FFD a grand total of 7 times. He's barely involved in FFD. Further, every time someone tries to come up with some throttle to stop people from nominating too many images at once, it fails. There's a message in there. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:06, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

  Yea, it's conflating issues, but that conflation was done a few days ago. This section is specifically about delta, but the two threads are seriously intertwined already, here.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:13, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

• There's no reason to continue it. Δ hasn't been involved in mass nominations. It has no relevance. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:18, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for the triple reply, but here's a thought: I've seen a lot of "well then, change the policy" and "don't shoot the messenger" sort of talk. I think that it's important to point out that, from the end of the dispute that I'm standing on, a big problem here is that I don't have confidence in your guy's (those of you who police files) judgement on the basic question here. That has very little to do with statistics though, which is why the repeated claims of "{User x's} error rate is very low" just doesn't seem to have any traction. The issue here is somewhat ideological. It's obvious to me that myself and (for example) hammersoft have slightly different interpretations of "the 💕" and/or the foundations non-free content resolution. I seem to be slightly more permissive than those of you who regularly work at FFD. However, that doesn't mean that there's no commonality here. The reason that I suggest having a central discussion about this is so that all of us have the leisure to examine the motivations and reasoning behind the potential action of removing a bunch of content from the encyclopedia. Without clarifying exactly what is and is not permissible, and identifying the characteristics that make files permissible, this issue will remain unresolved.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:12, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

• It isn't just somewhat ideological. It's precisely ideological. There are those that believe in it, and those that don't. It's even called a "movement"; see Free culture movement. Yes, there's considerable overlap in people's tolerance levels. But, there is considerable disparity too. We routinely get NFCC arguments because of the attempt to stand a middle ground that ultimately is indefensible in any clear terms. We've been whacking away at this for years, and despite the best efforts of every concerned party in all that time, we're still left with the mess we have. It isn't going to get any better. It will not resolve. Count on it. The only way to resolve it is to be very clear about what is and is not acceptable. The only way to achieve that is do not allow any non-free content or allow it to the maximum of fair use law. The middle ground will never, ever, achieve what you hope. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:17, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

  so... basically, do nothing? If we're not going to say all-or-nothing, then we should just forget about trying to resolve anything?
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:51, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

we're trying to resolve how Delta is expecting to interact with users on NFC issues. actually I think we're here to resolved how Delta acts all the time, everywhere, and to that end, I think nothing short of a full ban will fix it. His continued disregard for the community shows that he really hasn't changed at all. If he'd been caught violating his editing restrictions once and shown remorse, it'd be one thing, but he's been caught violating them since he's returned and he just continues to do it over and over and over again showing a total lack of respect for the community and it's decisions. He's shown that he cares only for the end and that the means are irrelevant to him because as always "He's right!", and of course there is no shortage of people who will come along and enable him.--Crossmr (talk) 22:36, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Have you asked him? There are people in this discussion that want to vilify the editor and see him gone from WP for good because of past actions. They assume there's no reason, just that Delta wants to flaunt the restrictions as much as possible. Maybe he is and if you ask him why he violated the edit rate limit and he refuses to respond or provide any reason and only snub the response, there's possibly some legs to calling for a ban on the editor. But what if he goes "oh, sorry, I didn't notice, I had gotten caught up in a series of repeated edits." and apologies for it, that's a different story. But no one asks him this, and instead points the finger of blame there. His restrictions are community enforced restrictions, and are only enforced as good as the community enforces them. If he went over those edit rates several times and no one noticed or mentioned it until logs were reviewed, well, then how has that harmed WP?. If no one noticed and didn't point these out to Delta, how would he know that there was a problem?

The goal of the current restrictions and any future ones is to bring Delta back to being a productive editor, not to chase him off the project. Those trying to reach the latter goals should consider how much time and effort they are doing towards that instead of improving the work themselves. I'm not saying Delta doesn't have problems to still overcoming to gain the community's trust again, but there are editors that seem to want to allow this possibility to happen. --MASEM (t) 22:57, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

And all of that would be grounds for his removal. If he said "Oh I didn't notice" it would clearly violate his restrictions and he should be removed. The entire point of the restrictions was to get him to notice what he was doing. There is no defence for his actions. If he did it intentionally, he's thumbing his nose at the community and if he did it unintentionally he's not paying attention to his editing which is the entire point and he should be banned. He's been reminded of his editing restrictions from day 1. It's his responsibility to pay attention to his edits and make sure he stays within the community sanctions, there is zero good reason for him to ignore them, zero. There is absolutely nothing he must edit, and there is nothing that couldn't wait or be passed off to someone else, and it's clear what he was doing wasn't an emergency. As for his reasoning, he gave it on his page Yes I fucked up here and exceeded my edit throttle and will quietly take my lumps for that, because I was not paying close enough attention to the clock. Yes I find the throttle really annoying but I should have been paying closer attention to the clock.. This alone should nail the coffin shut. He's been blocked for it, he's been warned for it, he's had it held constantly over his head, and he still can't pay attention? The reason his past actions are brought up is because they're still going on. Years later and he still can't pay attention, for hours on end. He's basically saying that he wasn't paying full attention to what he was doing for hours and hours on-end while he was editing. The restrictions have failed. Delta simply cannot comply with how the community wants him to act, and he's shown that time and time again. We survived and flourished while he was gone and we will continue to do so when he is gone again. He would have to the most productive model of an editor ever for years on end to even remotely have a shot at hitting net positive again, and so far he's shown no indication he can do that.--Crossmr (talk) 11:30, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

• We survived and flourished for 20,000 edits of his with hardly a peep of trouble until just recently, and still nobody has produced any evidence that the violation of the edit throttle caused any actual damage to the project. We're not here to hang his head on a pike. Any editor who can perform 20,000 edits without causing problems deserves our praise. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:14, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

• And you still haven't shown me where in the restrictions that is relevant. And it seems he has caused problems, or else we woudln't be here. Several of the images he's removed simply needed a fixed/added rationale, rather than removal. He violated his editing throttle removing those images--Crossmr (talk) 05:30, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

• @Masem; Δ did acknowledge his error in going over the edit throttle. "yeah, I fucked up there and I am quietly taking my lumps for going over the throttle". --Hammersoft (talk) 13:42, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

• Exactly, which shows he's communicating and still trying to work within the bounds. But here's a claim that he's overthrottled before but was never accounted/admonished for that, and so people want to throw a ban hammer at him without asking why (much less showing exactly where). --MASEM (t) 13:48, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

• I've shown exactly where. May 12, all day long, and while he's communicating, that communication is telling us that he's not doing what was required of him per his restrictions. He's not paying attention. And the blocking admin User_talk:CBM#Curiosity, has stated that he did not take into account the numerous times he violated it on the 12th. As for earlier, may 10th, I could provide you with 93 individual links for the 10 minute period:

• Dec 31, relating directly to NFCC work:

• And in fact several of these were problems, they were appropriate for the article and just needed fair use rationales added. A discussion above seems to indicate Delta shouldn't be making these kinds of edits in the first place and yet here he is making them and violating the restrictions while doing it. Yes no problems at all.--Crossmr (talk) 05:30, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

• Ah, I see. So, it's a problem that he's removing non-free images from articles because the images lack a rationale for that use? You do understand this is policy, yes? How is it a problem that he enforces policy? Is it also a problem that I do exactly the same thing (in fact more than 2000 times)? --Hammersoft (talk) 13:07, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

• When he could just as easily fix the rationale and save work for the enyclopedia rather than add to it? Yes. And this discussion has been had above and several people feel he shouldn't be making these kinds of edits. The policy is not that they be removed. The policy is that appropriate rationales be present if required, if they can't be provided they should be removed. It's funny how you'll try to bend every edit to Delta's favor rather than let them stand on their own. If you want to take a hard line on removing images rather than simply providing a missing rationale (and of the few random ones I checked all the images are still there, and rationales have just ben added), then I hardly see how you can support trying to wiggle out of his constant editing violations by claiming he caused no problems. I could simply ask you the sam,e were any problems caused while these images were in the articles without rationales?--Crossmr (talk) 00:03, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

• double standard, Crossmr. Delta is here enforcing a policy with legal implications, in the edit by you that I cite, you, without ANY discussion remove a set of external links from an article. That is just a guideline. So the question remains .. except going over the threshold, and hence breaking a restriction applied by this community (which he indeed should not have done), did anything go wrong? --Dirk Beetstra 18:55, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

• It's already been pointed out that the legal risks are highly over-exaggerated, and it's not a double standard at all. There is very little opposition from anyone but spammers and self-promoters when the external links are cleaned up on articles. I've in fact never had an issue removing excessive ELs from any article where they were inappropriate. In this case the images WERE appropriate for the article, Delta just chose to remove them rather than add a missing rationale, this added work to the encyclopedia and isn't remotely the same as cleaning up a link directory (which is also policy, btw covered under WP:NOT.)--Crossmr (talk) 00:03, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
• Policy requires a proper rationale - For some cases writing one is simple, for others it is not. It is up to the person wanting to include it to write a proper rationale, not Delta, me, or whoever finds an image without rationale. And the legal implications were already discussed above - having a rationale is apparently not always enough, so not having a rationale is certainly not enough - it is our task to make sure that everything has a proper rationale. In stead of shooting the messenger, one could also start writing rationales before the messenger removes them from display, apparently some people think that is is so simple ... until that time, removing them from display because they do not comply with a rationale is nothing different then removing external links or removing unreferenced material. --Dirk Beetstra 15:52, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
• One more reply to Beetstra: No, nothing much did go wrong, but that is beside the point. The point is that he DID violate his restrictions and has done so either knowingly or out of sheer indifference 3 times in may alone (for which he recieved blocks for all of them). Furthermore, he needs to show that he can follow the rules like the rest of us. Since he has demonstrated that he cannot do this, we are left with three options: 1) Hope he's learned his lesson and just let it go. Given that he's violated his restrictions 2 times immediately after being unblocked, I and others find this doubtful. 2) Implement further restrictions on his actions since it does not appear he has learned his lesson thereby preventing his ability to cause said problems. 3) Block him for a longer length of time (the last lengthy block was a year...and it was violated too). Option 2 seems to have the most community consensus (7v5). — BQZip01 —  21:57, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

• No, nothing went wrong, I have seen no complaints where Delta made an error in editing - in 20k edits, and he even received praise for the edits. There may have been an error here or there (an edit mistake - but we make them all, there may even have been one or two cases where he was patently wrong in removing an image, but I have not seen any complaint about that). Most of the complaints were of the order 'why did you remove the image, you could have written a fair-use rationale' - that is not Delta's task, sure, it is very, very simple in some cases, in others it is not, and sometimes it is unclear - and if Delta (or I .. or whoever does this work) would repair those which are unclear in a wrong way, then for sure you would have reason to expand his restrictions) - or complaints where he removed a fair-use image, which actually after inspection was not non-free but public domain - again, it is not Delta's, or my, task to understand and figure out whether an image is mistagged as non-free, if I would think that something is public domain and I would tag it as such while actually for some reason it is not, I would put a copyright violation there. For all of these, it is the task of the ones who include the image, or upload the image, or those who want to re-include the image to make sure that the rationales or tagging is correct - non-free images need a proper rationale - and note that the Foundation is putting stronger restrictions than the law - it may be that there will never be legal consequences - but that reasoning is the same as saying 'I can kill whoever I want as long as the police is not doing anything about it'.
• But you are right, that is all besides the point - still, practically all of you complain about mistakes, that it should not be done at all, whatever. The only reason you all have, is that he violated his community restrictions. Plain and simple. All the rest is circumstantial, or plainly untrue - Delta did not make any mistakes except for breaking the restrictions. So .., and that is what happened, block him for breaking the restrictions. Why are we here expanding violations, putting violations on things he is doing only good with (as no-one here can show any substantial errors - show me more than 20 individual (which is 1 in 1000 .. a low error-rate), or 3 where he made more than 3 consequtive errors), edits for which he is even praised, and which are done by a handful of other editors in exactly the same way). And much of consensus to expand the restrictions I don't read - it appears pretty vague what is wanted or needed. Truth is, that if Delta would not have broken his restrictions for another 80.000 edits, but carried on with this work, you would still have considered this extra restriction, as it is clear that the only reason we want to restrict him is because we don't like him doing what he is doing (while others are doing the same ..), and another truth is, that if Delta would not have broken his restrictions for another 80.000 edits, no-one would still consider to lift the restrictions, because he is doing something that editors don't like, and most in favour of the restrictions are sure that if he is allowed to edit faster again, that he will go wrong, and yet another truth, editors who are not in favour of Delta, do not assume good faith anymore with him, he is being bashed around, the first thing those editors do is have the banhammer ready, and other continue to yell beyond any form of decency waiting for him to bite back .. again I ask - how often do you have to kick a pitbull before it bites. This one took 20.000 edits, I know one who saw one violation of a restriction and bit immediately. It is pathetic. --Dirk Beetstra 08:03, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Copied from User talk:Δ

I find the fact that many people are seeking more restrictions on me asinine. Other than the one outburst I have remained very civil. If you don't like policy get it changed, don't shoot the messenger. Here is a counter proposal, people want me to communicate more, when I do communicate people don't listen, take for example the issue with currency recently, there where countless notification across multiple talk pages and wikiprojects. The users dont give a fuck until me and Hammersoft actually start removing the overuse (after a month of attempted discussions). Also take a look at Template:Politics of South Africa I left a explicitly clear reason for the edit twice and was reverted both times because of WP:ILIKEIT completely ignoring the core policy which is non-negotiable about NFC in userspace/templates. Here is my proposal create standard set of templates (the uw style works well) about incorrect usage of NFC, add it to twinkle and stress that files must be left out until the issues are resolved with them. If the issues are not resolved and the users insist on ignoring policy, admins must be willing to step in, and either protect the image free article, delete said files, or block the user until they get the point. I often try to explain NFC but too many users refuse to listen. Adding more restrictions on me will not solve the problem, we need a wider community push to get files in line with policy. This worked fairly well back in 2007-2008 with both the TV episode image removal and the push to ensure that all files have at least one rationale. Another request that should be made, (and Ive asked for this for years and have been ignored) is that admins who monitor both my talk page and the discussions I'm in would actually do something about the personal attacks directed towards me, instead of ignoring them, we could avoid situations like what recently happened when I was insulted and attacked one too many times by the same user. ΔT 14:42, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

copied on behalf of Δ - Kingpin (talk) 14:49, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

OK .. first, apologies if this belongs in one of the other sections above, I've never been good at jumping inbetween as far as cronological posts go .. anyone is free to move to the proper section. OK, couple things here. In large I agree with Horologium, Dirk, and Rd232 (and others). Delta is trying very hard to achieve a resolution to legal issues that extend to the very core of the "Foundation". To those seeking this witch-hunt "ban him", I say this. What happened in the past was addressed, he ran afoul of many, was banned for a year, and lost his admin. bit. time served, and end of. Delta made one post that wp:bite someone .. 4 days later, he got blocked (48 hours commuted to 24). He came back and exceeded his "speed limit" .. blocked. Again, time served (or rather serving) and should be "end of". We're not here to "punish" editors, and once something has been addressed, it should be considered over. I don't see a disclaimer at WP:AGF that says "except anyone who has been sanctioned in the past". To those who say we shouldn't be discussing the NFCC/non-free/fair use issue, just Delta ... I say that is just SO wrong. If you resolve the root of the problems in regards to the confusion revolving around this "non-free" problem. A problem that is so concerning in legal ramifications that the "Foundation" itself has voiced concerns about it, then you resolve the problems for everyone. I might add, that were this at Arbcom in this fashion, Delta would not be the only one that was being discussed as far as bans go. Copyright and non-free issues are HUGE, and in the real world, if you don't find a way to comply with the laws, you will suffer the consequences eventually. Thank you for your time. — Ched :  ?  22:10, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Just on the issue of "we shouldn't be discussing NFC" issue - the point is that we shouldn't be discussing that issue here at WP:AN, because admins have nothing (directly) to do with it. Instead there's an RFC that is proposing ideas to improve NFC matters open to all. --MASEM (t) 22:14, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

"and once something has been addressed, it should be considered over." And yet, here we are, FOUR years later, discussing the same behaviours from the same editor. Over indeed. Resolute 22:19, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

You agree with Horologium who essentially said above that Delta is not responsible for his behaviour and shouldn't be held accountable for it because everyone else makes him the things he does? Delta made 1 post that bit someone, he also violated his editing restrictions so many times I gave up counting, he also did this while violating his restrictions regarding proposing large tasks, he's violated his restrictions as far back as December, showing continued on-going issues.--Crossmr (talk) 22:30, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I wish people would back off a bit from this OMG legal issues tack. Take a look at WP:CP or WP:CCI to see where the real problem with copyright violations is. But nothing of what we're discussing here is even remotely litigable, we are so far on the good side of fair-use that even the cloudy cases are easily defensible in court. And the WMF isn't at legal risk anyway, the editors are. The Foundation made a resolution, and at the discovery phase they can deliver up several gigabytes worth of documents showing due diligence on the part of the volunteers (and of OTRS and OFFICE, assuming anyone has ever even once complained about their copyright image being used in two articles instead of just one). I can go out right now and buy a book with images of every stamp or coin or banknote ever made through history, they are NOT full of copyright violations. And neither is showing each different banknote in a list article. That may or may not violate our own resolution on minimal use, but it's not remotely something that anyone will be getting sued over. Yes, it's important we get it right but lets ease up a tad on the deeply-furrowed brows and talk in the spirit that we're all going to get there if we keep at it. Franamax (talk) 23:01, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you all for taking the time to comment. I'm not sure that Horologium was implying that Delta was not responsible for his actions, but if he was then I certainly would disagree with that part of it. I'll try to find that RFC, and follow along there. I'll also certainly accept any consensus the community comes to as that's simply the way it works here. If I am overly concerned with "legal" issues, then I apologize to taking up your time. I admit that I oppose any ban being piled on top of Delta's block. He has been helpful to me personally in the past with advice, and I think much of his work here benefits the project. I understand that some folks have issues with Delt/Beta, and I even understand why. That being said, thank you all again for your insightful comments, and have a good day/night. — Ched :  ?  23:16, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

No, Horologium wasn't implying that at all. Horologium was stating that while Delta has some issues with dealing with other users (particularly those who personally attack him, those who bring up issues from 2008, and those who disagree with the project's current position on fair-use images), he is properly upholding the policy as written. Most of the complaints here are squawking about him exceeding his throttle, with no examples of this being problematic; and that blowup was an understandable, frustrated response to a sustained and incorrect campaign against him while he was operating within policy (it had nothing to do with his editing speed, only with the edits themselves, which are justified, and the editor attacked him for deleting the images, which he cannot do, because he is not an administrator). As for the throttle, it is unlikely that the anti-BC cabal will ever allow for a consensus to be reached about suspending it, although I think it's a bit too tight. (I have been known to edit that quickly when I am doing a repetitive task, and I don't use any form of automated assistance for anything other than initiating XfDs or reverting some forms of vandalism.) Tagging images is unappreciated and thankless, but without it, the foundation's policy on image use would be totally unenforceable. That's not Delta's fault; it's the fault of admins who don't stand behind the policies that they are supposed to be upholding, or even (gasp!) actually FIXING the problems, such as adding FUR or copyright tags, or adding rationales for additional pages on which the image is displayed. If every active admin did just one problem per week, there would be 753 fewer images tagged each week, and some of our newer editors might learn how to handle it without getting bitten by an automated process. I did one earlier this week, and the newbie editor thanked me (and likely took note of what I did to prevent it from occurring again). And for those of you who are not admins, you can do the same thing; adding the relevant templates does not require the admin tools. Horologium (talk) 18:42, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Really? Because here is what you wrote: but if editors were to properly follow the policies governing the use of non-free images, Δ would neither blow up at clueless users nor spend an inordinate amount of time and effort removing inappropriate uses of images which are copyrighted. You place the blame for his behaviour squarely on others. Delta is responsible. What others do is utterly irrelevant. His blow-up isn't remotely understandable, he can walk away any time, and he does not need to be here, and if he can't be here and not blow up at people, he certainly doesn't need to be here.--Crossmr (talk) 00:07, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

The only reason I re-engaged in this thread is because my initial comment was being used as a club by you (repeatedly), just as Delta's previous behavior was being used (repeatedly, and equally incorrectly) by a clueless user who clearly had no idea what he was talking about. Like Delta, I have an issue with my words and actions being used (inaccurately) as a weapon by those who are opposed to my position on an issue. Unlike Delta, I have not waded into an area which is desperately in need of users who are willing to deal with the nonsense generated by the hordes of "anything goes" editors who want untrammeled use of unfree images to decorate, illustrate, and otherwise adorn their creations, mostly of pop-culture nonsense which is in no way encyclopedic and shouldn't even have a single article on Misplaced Pages, let alone dozens of articles, sub-articles, lists, and so forth. I applaud Delta for going where angels fear to tread, and wish him the best, because a dedicated knot of users want to do everything in their power to drive him from the project, because nobody else is willing to tackle the nonsense which "fair use" images engenders. You may have the last word, because I'll not say anything more about this topic, except to oppose any topic or site ban proposals against Delta for enforcing the project's image policies. Horologium (talk) 00:29, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

• Right at the beginning of this topic, it was noted that this is not to do with Fair Use compliance but Δ's inability/refusal to comply with the communities requirements for him to conduct himself within acceptable community practices of conduct when dealing with issues arising from application of Fair Use policy - and to stay within the community set bounds to try and ensure his compliance - and yet here we are again with the usual suspects exhorting their stance on Fair Use criteria. It does not matter if Fair Use is a legal requirement and it does not matter if Fair Use or Copyright is some variation of "property is theft" (I believe that is the anti capitalist mantra, or was). What is at issue here is that we have an editor who is disruptive in the manner of their contributing (or at least that is a consensus for some of the interactions resulting from same) and has been allowed to continue to edit providing they do so under strict adherence to some agreed provisions and limitations - and this editor has breached those limits in several instances, and is presently giving no indication that they feel they need to be constrained by them in the future. The community should be deciding if they are content to allow the restrictions to be dropped, to be modified, or to be enforced, but all we seem to be doing is talking shit about Fair Use criteria - and how hard it is to get anyone but a rude fucker with contempt for the majorities concerns over his conduct to deal with it. If Δ gets banned again, now or in the future, and fails to get the community to overturn the sanction and then persuades ArbCom (or Jimbo) to allow him back (and never mind what conditions may be agreed this time) I am going to indef every involved person for disruption. So help me. LessHeard vanU (talk) 01:04, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

• 20,000 edits without any complaints about rudeness, then he gets pushed and pushed until he breaks (I say again: 'how often do you have to kick a pitbull before it bites?') - calling Delta here a 'rude fucker', LessHeard vanU is a patent personal attack, which Delta did not deserve here. That is yet another example of double standard, LessHeard vanU. You now have a carte blanche to call Delta a 'rude fucker' as he can not respond with similar, or even less rudeness to this. So, similar to you, I am going to indef every editor who addresses such personal attacks at Delta, especially if such personal attacks result in Delta having to bite back. --Dirk Beetstra 11:24, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

• Yay, dueling indef threats over trivialities? This can only end well. Tarc (talk) 11:42, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

• Yay, throwing personal attacks at others, and no-one reacting -- no, this will never end well. --Dirk Beetstra 11:44, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

No one has to respond to "aggravation" (i.e. questions regarding actions taken, clarification sought) with incivility and personal attacks - but it is certainly being suggested above that Δ should be given leeway as regards compliance with such policy (and never mind the undertakings that allowed him to return to editing following his last ban) when no such flexibility is being demonstrated in regard to observance to others. That is a double standard being advocated in these discussions, for someone who apparently believes that "abuse" is an neutral language variation of "policy violation". What issue do you have with my descriptive term, the adjective or the amplifier or both? LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:52, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

No, LessHeard vanU .. This is not 'No one has to respond to "aggravation" (i.e. questions regarding actions taken, clarification sought) with incivility and personal attacks', this is 'No one has to respond to "aggravation" (i.e. continuous personal attacks, incivility, insults &c.) with incivility and personal attacks. There is no suggestion that Delta should be given leeway on the former, but the only outburst in 20,000 edits to a person, which is the incivility by Delta that is being discussed here, and for which he got blocked, is in response to such personal attacks, incivility and insults. Still, that is the attitude that many, many editors display towards Delta. It may be that his language is not to everyones liking, it may be even be rude or incivil or however you see certain remarks, but it certainly does not help if editors feel that they can use incivility towards Delta in return. If we expect Delta to behave, then also behave yourself - and I do ask administrators not to think along lines of 'Delta is incivil, so who cares about others being editors being uncivil against Delta' and leaving those things be. Maybe it is time to also tone done those editors who are incivil against Delta (and no, that does NOT mean that I argue that Delta can be incivil, this means that I expect everybody to be civil). --Dirk Beetstra 13:12, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

• As I have stated I am not asking for special treatment, We have WP:NPA (policy) in place for a reason, I just want to see it apply to all editors calling me a rude fucker is about the worst personal attack that I have seen in ages. Yet because its directed at me, no less than 6 administrators that I have quietly asked to take a look have refused to do anything. And it looks like nothing will happen. I just want to see NPA/CIVIL apply to both sides, not just used as a club to harass me. As it stands the historical pattern is that you can call me what ever insult that comes to mind, and if after a while I get pissed of and lash back, I get blocked without as much as a second glance at those who pushed me to the point where I snapped. When I snap its never after just one or two comments, its after repeated attacks and insults, but most admins do not have the backbones to enforce NPA equally. If I had called anyone rude, or a fucker without a doubt I would be looking at a month block, LessHeard vanU sinks to a level where he calls me both and what happens....... Nothing. THIS IS THE SAME FUCKING CYCLE THAT HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR FOUR YEARS, ANY ATTACKS DIRECTED AT ME ARE IGNORED. This needs to stop. I'm tempted to send a note to Jimbo and see how long LessHeard vanU keeps his administrator privileges after such a crude and rude personal attack is brought to his attention. ΔT 15:00, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
  • We could escalate this, or we could all draw a deep breath try and draw a line under it and vow to be nicer to each other in future. Let's try the latter. Rd232 15:24, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Doncram NHRP stubs

Last month, we had a very long discussion regarding the NRHP stubs created by User:Doncram: Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive223#Topic ban proposal re NRHP stubs. It didn't really end with any firm conclusion, due in part to the promise by doncram to no longer create such stubs (template-like stubs with statements like "It was built or has other significance in c.1817 and c.1855.". However, it appears that no change in actual behaviour has happened, with again many articles being created with the same annoying words and structure, e.g. Joseph Elliston House, Douglass-Reams House, Dortch Stove Works, Jacob Critz House and Robert Hodge House. Perhaps it's time to revisit the previous proposal and/or work out some other means of putting a stop to this? One can also wonder whether a supporting article like Central hall plan architecture isn't awfully close to a copyright violation, when 90% of the article is an attributed quote to a copyrighted text, and the rest is filled with meaningless stuff like "as opposed to having another layout." But that is a different discussion. Fram (talk) 14:25, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with this. Editors are more willing to edit an article once its created than they are of creating the whole article from scratch. Additionally, many of these link to lists that cannot be built up or submitted to FL until all or at least most of the red links have articles created on them. I admit that he could probably make them a little longer and add some more detail but I don't see the problem here. --Kumioko (talk) 14:34, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I have heard the "first create it, then people will edit" song many times, but in reality many such articles lay around for years and years. And creating poor stubs because some list has to become a FL is a very poor reason. But the main problem is that he already promised to improve them, but that he hasn't done this (or reverted back to his old system). Fram (talk) 14:38, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I admit that I don't like the wording or shortness of them either however I am of the school of thought that if we have a small amount of information on a subject its better than nothing. Your also right that many lay around for years, many do not however and some eventually get to FA. We have to have faith in the system. These stubs Doncram is creating at least have some structure with an an infobox, a template and inline citations which is more than I can say for a lot of the geographical ones that are one line of less than ten words. As for the comment about the FL argument being a poor reason. That may be your opinion and your entitled to that however the rules clearly state that red links on FL's should be minimal if there are any at all. Additionally, the Misplaced Pages rules clearly allow the creation of stubs. So if people have problems with folks creating stubby articles then they should first change the rules allowing them to be created in the first place. I am not trying to play devils advocate here but after reading the very lengthy string you linked to above from last month I didn't see anyone post anything resembling a policy violation other than comments like "articles like this damage wikipedias reputation", "I don't like them", etc. --Kumioko (talk) 14:50, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I re-read the Archive223 discussion recently. The major commitment that I made there in response to one editor's specific request was that I would, in a future NRHP article drive, set up a /batch system that would support editors editing in Talk-space draft articles, before copying them over to mainspace. That would provide facilitation for local or otherwise interested editors to develop articles in non-mainspace, while giving them many of the considerable benefits of my first batch drafts. I look forward to doing that.

In the Archive223 discussion, several editors were concerned about specific new articles linked from National Register of Historic Places listings in Grand Forks County, North Dakota. Some took combative-seeming-to-me steps of moving mainspace articles to userspace unnecessarily, or opening AFDs. All the AFDs closed Keep. All the articles specifically discussed were moved back to mainspace and were improved, in either order.

I don't think there is any problem requiring ANI attention here. There will be future discussion at the NRHP wikiproject, I am sure, which I will open myself, when I do open a new article drive using a batch supporting system as discussed. --doncram 15:58, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Also, it is and was horribly inappropriate to seriously consider banning statements like "It was designed and/or built by" a person, when the statement is sourced and accurate. I have been developing a system that suggests accurate statements like that, which is better than the most commonly used NRHP article generation system supported off-line by another editor, which provides flat assertions that the person was an architect and designed the building. The other system's assertions are false about 5-10% of the time, and are often not questioned by editors relying upon them. That's the scandal, if there is one. The accurately ambiguous statements, on the other hand, obviously do provide a prompt to an editor to find out the facts more specifically, which is good. By the way, towards providing a further significant refinement to my system, I have been doing the work to identify what is the actual status of the most frequently named architects or builders of NRHP-listed places. Namely by creating articles about the most frequently named ones, and sorting out whether they are a covered bridge builder in Indiana or a "master builder" or what, rather than being an architect. I plan to use this more specific information in the generation of future batches of /draft articles. --doncram 16:51, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I find Nathan Vaught particularly interesting. Why is it you have to dump random assertions into mainspace and then clean up your mess later? Why not just do the research and get it right the first time? Then there's the "Possibly related" section... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:09, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

There you go again, posting link to a first-draft article, which in this case already clearly established notability, that was subsequently improved. You can cause a lot of misunderstanding and unnecessary concern that way. I also take minor offense at your unnecessarily inflammatory language. --doncram 17:20, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

P.S. You're not properly seeing the merit of getting the articles created, and sorting out correct information. The problem can be viewed as being the fact we didn't start all these articles long ago, and get all the imprecise information sorted out by now. Consider the Elm Springs (Tennessee) article, which since 2007 has included infobox assertion that Nathan Vaught was the architect of that building. That assertion appears now to be false. I should be clear: that article and the articles generated by the main provider of draft NRHP articles, does not contain a text statement. The assertion is in the infobox description of the person as "architect", which is bad enough. In many articles, further, editors have stated the person was an architect based upon the infobox assertion. --doncram 17:34, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually, if what an article contains can be listed in {{Infobox building}} and an embeded {{infobox NRHP}} do we also need to repeat that in the article? Should that article exist if everything can be in infoboxes? I'll note that this is not the only user creating short stubs or area where we have short stubs. The geography stubs have similar problems, but they are being created by more editors. Is there a perfect solution? No. Is there a solution? I don't know. If anyone wants to look at the other end of the spectrum, cleaning up some of the long stubs might be a nice break. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:16, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

These articles are meant to include more information than is included in an infobox. Any one can be considerably developed if an editor collects the NRHP nomination document (as I have for some sites in the county). Fram picked out ones where I could not easily find any online sources to use immediately in the article. Roper's Knob Fortifications is another recent Williamson County article i started on the same basis, where i found an online Tennessee Archaeology journal article, which provides a lot more. Andrew C. Vaughn House is another without a lot more information, but happens to be a bit more satisfying I think, for connecting to the other similar houses in the same county. For one of the ones Fram picks to comment upon, I had noticed substantial coverage in The Tennesseean newspaper about the place, but could not access it behind a paywall, so the current article is indeed minimal. I left a note at Talk:Robert Hodge House, hoping for a local with access to Tennesseean archives will be able to develop the article. That's how it is supposed to work. Before starting an article, it is not clear what is going to be found. It's great if an editor starting an article does find additional sources and develops it right away. But if additional sources are not easily findable, it is still a contribution to give basic facts about the historic site, and to connect to appropriate architecture articles and categories and so on, and to facilitate other editors developing it more later (or not, which is not a tragedy either). --doncram 21:02, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

In the interests of clarity, here is a summary:

• Doncram was doing something many editors found objectionable
• Doncram promised to stop doing this thing
• Donram is doing the same thing again

We are humouring this because..? → ROUX ₪ 20:28, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I suppose you are being glib for effect. But in the previous discussion I agreed to do something which I still agree to do. There are no promises broken. What Fram picks up upon is that I created several more articles in an already ongoing article drive, for Williamson County, Tennessee articles. I happen to have taken some more care to avoid "stilted" language or whatever in these, which was a concern for some editors previously. I don't think i am in violation of anything and I am not "doing the same thing" exactly, either, though I don't suppose you'd actually care to really look at the details to see that. --doncram 21:36, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

He does not belong to the Alpha Command structure? LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:49, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

There's an Alpha Command structure? Is the Cabal aware of this? -- Derek Ross | Talk 21:01, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Because he knows he can get away with it, being that he isn't strictly violating any Misplaced Pages policies. Also, because anyone who criticizes Doncram's work more than a few times will eventually be labeled as a stalker and a harasser. Doncram will never change the way he operates, so we're going to be stuck with hundreds or thousands of crappy stubs that are just barely informative for the actual reader of Misplaced Pages. Debating this is just becoming useless, so my reaction is to simply give up and avoid participating in the project. Luckily, nobody gives a flying flip if I write articles about historic places in Minnesota or not. --Elkman 20:59, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Well the thing is, he promised something and failed to abide by it. That usually results in sanctions. → ROUX ₪ 21:16, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

What precisely did he promise to do, and how has he failed at that? I think I agreed to set up a future article drive differently, and I plan to do that. --doncram 21:36, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Proposal

• User:Doncram is banned from creating these or similar stubs in the mainspace.
• He may create as many as he likes in his userspace
• Before moving them to mainspace, must gain consensus for each one at WP:NRHP, and may nominate batches of no more than ten at a time in order to minimise the project being bombarded. One batch may be nominated at a time
• In six months, should a supermajority (70%+) of these stubs have been approved for use in the mainspace, these restrictions are lifted.

• Support - as proposer → ROUX ₪ 21:16, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose, requirement to get consensus at NRHP is not reasonable, in my opinion, and neither is requiring 70%+ "approval". --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:18, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

• NRHP are the subject matter experts here. 70% seems completely reasonable to me; either doncram will learn to make articles which are useful or he won't. → ROUX ₪ 21:21, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. --doncram 21:36, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. If there's a problem with these articles as a general rule, start an RfC on the notability of things listed on the NRHP. But making what should be a policy discussion into a referendum on an editor is never a good idea. -- ۩ Mask 23:59, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Since, ironically, the NRHP project's genesis was due to me creating a bunch of crappy stubs for Florida in the first place. --Ebyabe (talk) 19:47, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

• Ebyabe, you may think your stubs were "crappy," but your creations (example) did not contain blanks to be filled in later (such as the date "19__"), embroideries on the lack of information like "was designed and/or built by", or meaningless statements like "the listing is for less than one acre and, when listed, included one contributing site." --Orlady (talk) 13:48, 2 June 2011 (UTC) I forget to mention unforgettable items like "Dinnie Block is or was a property in Grand Forks, North Dakota." --Orlady (talk) 14:25, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
• Actually, Ebyabe, it wasn't the "crappy stubs" that got WP:NRHP started -- it was the classification of NRHP sites as being Protected areas, when they weren't officially protected. That situation led to Misplaced Pages's recognition that stuff on the National Register needed its own categories and infoboxes, instead of being lumped in with protected areas, and that was a good thing. --Elkman 15:32, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

• Weak oppose. I agree that these "articles" are irritating and little more than transposition of the NRIS database, but I also agree that the consensus requirements are unreasonable. Something should be done, but it shouldn't be this. PhantomPlugger (talk) 20:35, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
• Strong support. I know that Doncram is fully capable of writing decent stubs that are not padded with empty blanks waiting to be filled in, placeholder language, non-information (like saying that the article topic "is described in" a cited reference), or deliberately vague language like "is or was a building", "designed and/or built by", and "has some significance in c.1880, c.1910, and 1952". However, he is continuing to create this kind of noncontent, and until he voluntarily stops putting his rough-draft articles in article space, some sort of ban is needed. His reaction to the admonitory note I put on his talk page 5 days ago clearly indicates that he fully intends to continue doing things his way, regardless of what anyone else thinks or says. --Orlady (talk) 20:46, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

  To anyone not aware, Orlady has stalked my edits for years and it amounts to wp:wikihounding. In these diffs which i accumulated and posted in the last AN discussion, it is documented that Orlady states she personally dislikes me, and I repeatedly requested she stop posting to my Talk page and engaging in other harassment.

  1. User talk:Orlady/Archive 11#it's harassment. Please stop.
  2. User talk:Orlady/Archive 11#Old Town Bridge
  3. User talk:Orlady/Archive 11#Moved to this page from User talk:Doncram who added the title "counting"
  4. User talk:Orlady/Archive 11#causing drama by wikihounding, again
  5. User talk:Orlady/Archive 11#your following me on Confederate Monument
  6. User talk:Orlady/Archive 11#Butting in on yet another case, Veterans Administration Hospital
  7. User talk:Orlady/Archive 11#hey what's going on, again

  She has also repeatedly expressed scorn and dislike for historic sites, for NRHP, for architecture, and in the last AN discussion she explained she maintains membership in WikiProject NRHP in order to have standing as a critic. Orlady has repeatedly refused mediation or other dispute resolution. I do object to her posting anything at my Talk page, to her using Administrative tools to insult me by userifying pages she does not like and block their return to mainspace, and in general to her inflammatory, nasty-spirited participation among what is largely a community of history-interested writers in NRHP. Some, including Elkman further above, have accused me of accusing any critic of wikistalking. No, I only accuse her. I will say that at times I have been frustrated by different others following my edits, who at times seeming to me to be interfering unproductively. But in general I do welcome others following, in general I do learn from others' edits and comments. For no other editor in Misplaced Pages have I ever sensed anything like pure nastiness and evil in their motivations. I think Orlady's hatred of me overrides her probably-usually-good judgement, and then she comes up with obtuse and totally unproductive positions. I have pointed out her outright lying on multiple occasions (and if I recall correctly she never disagreed that she was lying), and at this point I do not respect her opinions. If she says X, i expect it is motivated towards causing contention and causing discomfort for me, and is counter to the purposes and values of Misplaced Pages, while I am sure I would interpret someone else saying the same X quite differently. I tend to believe what Orlady states is not even her true belief, what she would say about another's editing. So, yes, I deleted her latest threat at my Talk page. I think it is not a matter for wp:AN, but it is probably a matter for Arbitration to address the personal conflict, personal insults, and vast, poisonous negativity. That's all for now. --doncram 22:21, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

goals

There was a comment by editor Choess in the previous discussion, that "I can't help but think, in looking over this, that part of the problem is that people's implicit goals seem to be quite different, and exposing some of those goals and assumptions to fresh air might improve understanding on both sides." I don't think ANI is the best place to discuss it, but Choess was right, there must be different implicit goals between camps of various NRHP editors and various outside critics. I don't understand what Elkman's bigger goals are, at all. My goals include sharing out information in accessible form to readers around the U.S., who would like to have a clue about their local historic sites, and to provide useful links between them (via geographic list-articles, via categories, via informative architect/builder articles that list the places the architect/builder's works). Some info, within a good structure of these lists and all that, is a good start. Then a local person might have a chance to add further context from old clippings and such available at a local library. Some editors would withhold any info, and not develop the supporting structure, to "save" the topic for themselves to develop in some future year and to grab DYK glory, perhaps, I dunno? Or is it a goal to "protect" readers from imprecise, not super-detailed information? Or to keep readers from becoming editors, because they might not be qualified in some way? --doncram 21:36, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Picking up on one point you make above: "Some editors would withhold any info, and not develop the supporting structure, to "save" the topic for themselves to develop in some future year and to grab DYK glory, perhaps, I dunno?" I used to create short stubs, but was not really satisfied with them and noticed that they weren't being developed by others as much as I thought they would be (to be fair, that might be due to other reasons, such as not filling in back-links from other articles). I now try and create longer stubs, tending more towards start-level articles, and do a fair amount of research before creating a new article. Certainly that satisfies DYK criteria, but more importantly I think it provides the reader with a better article. And one of the points made above was that some of these stubs are being created to fill out red-links in various list articles. I strongly disagree with this, ever since a list I had been carefully nurturing and making plans to create the articles to fill in the red-links, got taken to featured article status and I watched in horror as the nominator rattled off about 20 stubs (some were sub-stubs and only 1 or 2 lines) in one evening to "fill in the red-links" and satisfy the featured list (FL) criteria. So your comment about 'DYK glory' should probably be balanced by 'FL glory'. I also feel strongly that when you create an article, you have a duty to at least try and eventually raise it to C-class or B-class level, if not further, but that is more a personal view. Carcharoth (talk) 00:27, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I was into doing DYKs for a while, but it was too predictable, that anything long enough would automatically qualify.

Many NRHP articles should stay short. Take Robert Lindemann House, which "is locally significant as the best preserved Queen Anne style property in the area", long owned by one family, now abandoned. If a reader is seriously interested in more details, they can consult the online NRHP nomination document linked to that one. Some editors, on the other hand, have stated that they believe every shred of info in an NRHP nom document should be put into an article, before it is allowable in mainspace. I think less is more. And readers everywhere else around the U.S. deserve some info. If an NRHP editor chooses to spend a week or whatever developing a too-long-for-the-topic B or C article, they're misspending their effort, honestly, I believe. --doncram 00:44, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

You're wondering what my goals are? I'll tell you: I believe that every new NRHP article should give the reader enough context to identify the property, why it's significant, and what made the place historic. For example, let's say that someone was browsing Google Maps in Chisago County, Minnesota, and finds out that the Moody Barn is a historic building. They might click on the Misplaced Pages link and find that it's the last remaining round barn in the county, built in an era when farming was diversifying. That's the sort of thing that gets me interested in historic places, and the sort of interest that I want to encourage in readers. On the other hand, suppose I'm looking at a map of Brentwood, Tennessee, and I find there's a placemark for Joseph Elliston House. I might check it out (assuming I'm an end reader of Misplaced Pages, not an editor or an "insider"), and I find out that it may have been built in 1817 or 1855, depending. It has a central hall plan (which may or may not hold a staircase), and... what else? Is the house a notable piece of architecture? Who was Joseph Elliston? I guess I'd have to look for some more information on Joseph Elliston. Ah, never mind, I'm going to give up and find something else.

I switched to my Misplaced Pages editor hat and tried to find something about the Joseph Elliston House, and read through the 52-page MPS document, but I still couldn't find anything substantial. It shouldn't be my job to have to support the articles you create, though. If you create a bunch of thin stubs, then it just means that someone else has to go back and fix what you've created. It's like deferred maintenance. --Elkman 04:47, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

No, it's not like that, IMO. The Elliston House article is a good start, and actually conveys a lot more than you give it credit. It shows the state of information available, not quite satisfying yet, certainly. It conveys to the next editor that maybe it is not so easy to find online references to improve it. (Heh, heh, not like some other articles in North Dakota where you have pointed out it would be easy to add more info from the NRHP document that I had linked. Which was true, but missed the point that the starter article did provide a good link to the further information.) The existence of this Elliston House article might enlist the interest of a local historical society, or anyone else actually holding relevant information, to improve it. Its existence already provides something to local readers, and vastly increases the chances that next year there will be a lot more there. --doncram 18:37, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't have a lot extra to add to this discussion but perhaps some context is useful. I dealt with doncram about a year ago with regards to disambiguation pages and NRHP pages. There are a number of discussions you can browse here. The NRHP project always seemed to be given carte blanche to create stubs for any of the NRHP sites so long as they met a very low threshold for stub notability, because the assumption was the underlying topic is notable. Or at least from the disambiguation page perspective it seemed like that. This is part of a wider debate about kitten-esque articles in general though. There's an awful lot of them that go on, but yet there's no consistent or quick way to deal with them. It's quicker for me to write a script to create them than it is for me to amalgamate them together, write an AfD about it, and then deal with the impending discussions. It was hard enough to even get a relatively softly written policy about it under the BOT approval group (see this and the subsequent outcome here and also here).

I'm not saying there's not value to creating these kinds of articles... and early in my wiki career I did some of this myself. I've since proded some of the worst of these, and expanded others to be useful articles. But the central problem is that we tend to split off into inclusions versus deletionist corners and nobody has any serious debate about this kind of specific issue. At least not debate that doesn't have the same usual suspects popping up with predictable opinions.

Perhaps a more broad based discussion of stub threshold notability, or at least making authors be thoughtful about their creations, is appropriate. But I have limited expectations that will actually happen. Shadowjams (talk) 06:19, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

What does "It has other significance in c.1880." even mean? (example from John Pope House (Burwood, Tennessee)). Fram (talk) 08:22, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

The National Register database has fields in it to indicate that a building has "significance" in one or more particular years. For example, the Floyd B. Olson House in Minneapolis has significant years of 1922 and 1936. The database doesn't indicate why 1936 was significant. There's another information source, the Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission, which indicates a period of significance from 1922 through 1936. I'm checking out another book, Larry Millett's AIA Guide to the Twin Cities, which states that the house was built in 1922 and Floyd B. Olson lived there until he died of cancer in 1936. But, the database itself (which is where Doncram is getting this information) doesn't explain why 1936 is a year of significance. My assumption is that the earliest date for "year of significance" is when the structure was built, so that's what I've been putting in the infobox. It takes more research than just looking in the database to determine other years of significance of a property. In fact, one of my frustrations is that Doncram is generating articles based only on the database, without consulting other research materials. --Elkman 14:07, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

That Olson was created by Elkman in 2008. From what you say here, plus informed understanding of how the NRIS database works, it appears the "built=1922" assertion in the article is incorrect. Rather, the house was likely built earlier but is significant for its association during 1922-1936 with notable person Floyd B. Olson. If i were Elkman, I would rant on and on about how terrible it is that an erroneous assertion has been out there in Misplaced Pages since 2008. --doncram 17:52, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Um, no, it appears it is correct. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:16, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I also checked out the Hennepin County Property Information System. 1914 49th St. W. is listed as being built in 1922. It's also listed as lot 28 in the Harriet Heights Minneapolis addition, with a market value of $646,000. --Elkman 20:01, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Okay, great, good. I thought Elkman was confessing to having relied upon imprecise information in a mainspace article, as the article then and now shows no other source for the built=1922 interpretation of NRIS, but I stand corrected. Or Elkman lucked out in this case that assuming the NRIS info meant built turns out to be the case (usually a pretty good bet). I thought the info he was providing here suggested a different reason why NRIS included a 1922 date, and the one other source he mentioned here could have been echoing that, but it sounds like the facts are it was built in 1922. Thanks. --doncram 22:34, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

(reply before Elkman's separate reply inserted above) I'll explain. Please don't complain about the explanation being long. The statement reflects the fact that the National Register's NRIS database gives two dates of significance for the place, c.1806 and c.1880. This reflects National Register staff doing data entry from the approved NRHP nomination form for the property, soon after approval. They entered the address and basic facts about the property, including significant dates. The NRIS database provides for data entry of up to 4 date fields, plus a corresponding number of "circa" qualifier fields. For an antebellum mansion built in Greek Revival style during 1830-1835, and then greatly remodelled into Colonial Revival style in 1925, that would get entered as three significant dates: 1830, 1835, 1925. In a small percentage of articles, the first date in the series is something different, like the date of founding of a cemetery on the property of a church that was built later.

My system's /draft for the John Pope House, which you can see at Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Williamson County, Tennessee/drafts#John Pope House (Burwood, Tennessee) used the NRIS database to report both c. 1806 and c. 1880 in the "built=" field of the infobox, including with the "circa" qualifier, although the dates are not 100% sure to be dates of building. And it includes /draft text clarifying that the dates are "significant" dates, not necessarily built dates, i.e. "It was built or has other significance in C 1806 and C 1880.<ref name=nris/>" For an editor using the /draft system, that obviously provides a prompt to try to find more specific information. For comparison, Elkman's system will simply report the earlier date, with no qualifier, as "built=1806", giving no hint to an editor that the date might not actually be a built date, and providing no prompt.

In the mainspace article that I created from the /draft, I used additional information from a source that I found, to state more precisely that "The original part of the house was built of logs in c.1806." I am pretty sure that the c.1880 date is in fact the date that the house was remodelled from being a "single pen" of logs into being a full, respectable, "Hall-parlor plan" house. I strongly believe that will be borne out in the NRHP nomination document, if/when someone chooses to collect that from the National Register or when the National Register makes the Tennessee documents available online (which it has done for OK, MS, ND, DE, CT, AK, and some other states and territories). What I left in the article was "It was remodelled, expanded, or has other significance in c.1880.", sourced to NRIS, which is an educated, accurate statement interpreting the NRIS database information. It properly begs the question, to a local potential editor, of what specifically happened in 1880. Which is fine and good.

You say that "It was remodelled, expanded, or has other significance in c.1880" is "fine and good." I contend that it's original research. All you know is that the date appears in a cryptic entry in a database, and you have guessed at what it might possibly mean. That's original research. --Orlady (talk) 20:51, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Please note this is better for the Misplaced Pages than an overly confident statement with no ambiguity based on the more minimalist article draft system provided by Elkman, and no other sources. It is far better for Williamson County readers to get to know something about the property, rather than nothing. Elkman can say that he prefers for more information to be provided upfront, which no one can argue with, more to a certain degree is certainly better. But I don't understand Elkman's preference that no information be provided, where some good information is available but not enough to answer all questions. I strongly believe that the amount of info provided in the John Pope House article is pretty darn good, way better than nothing at all. I also don't understand why Elkman prefers to give editors less information to start with than I have proven can be feasibly provided in a /draft system, based on the same NRIS database.

About this John Pope House article, I have already done a probably decent job of looking for available information online, both in the Williamson County MRA document that I cite in the article, and in the Google book cited, and otherwise, and I am pretty sure the 1880 question is not immediately resolvable without actually getting the NRHP nomination document (I'd be very happy to be proven wrong, if someone finds a source online right now). I myself have collected the free NRHP documents for several other Williamson County, Tennessee NRHPs, but I am not so interested in this one, so I don't plan to request it. Resolving the 1880 question can wait for any other Misplaced Pages NRHP editor to get interested, or perhaps for one of the local historical societies to get interested, or for the National Register to get around to posting the Tennessee documents (quite likely within the next couple years).

This was a serious reply to Fram's question. I hope it is helpful also in showing more how I am thinking, that providing a pretty good starter article is valuable. --doncram 13:59, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I get that this is what you are trying to convey, but the sentence does't make any sense as it stands. "The John Pope House has other significance in c.1880." is meaningless and incorrect. What you are trying to express is something like "Something significant wrt the John Pope House, perhaps remodelling, an extension, ..., happened in 1880." I am aware that I am not a native English speaker, and that my texts are far from error-free, but I can't imagine that "It has significance in or about ca. 18XX", which you used in many, many articles, would be considered a correct sentence by native English speakers. "It was built or has other significance in c. 1830, c. 1850, and c. 1907" (Mordecai Puryear House, which you revised today): why not change your template to something like "Significant years in the history of the property were ..." or something similar? Expressing ambiguity can be done in a meaningful, correct way and shouldn't be done in some extremely grating format instead. Fram (talk) 14:16, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Sure, thanks, I will be happy to try that language in my next batch of /drafts. That is the kind of actually helpful suggestion that I have actually been seeking from NRHP editors. I will be reviewing this and other discussions in the process of reprogramming for the next batch, and will necessarily dismiss all the shrill, simplistic complaints that are not about trying to actually help editors. I am sure that others will complain about this language too, but I believe it is better, and I will be happy to blame you for the wording. :) We might call for Elkman to modify his system to provide something better than the incomplete "built = 1806" that appears in his draft article generator, too. To see what his system suggests, go to http://www2.elkman.net/nrhp/infobox.php and enter "Pope, John" and "TN" and then hit "Submit". That provides a cut-and-paste-ready draft article which is better than my /draft in one respect, in that it includes coordinates data. (Elkman is using one version of a National Register coordinates database which I can't find easily in the National Register's systems, and which Elkman has declined to answer about sharing with me. I and Elkman both should use a different National Register database that provides better quality coordinates than that version. I am working at bringing that into my /drafts system). Elkman's draft is worse than my /draft for the same house in that it provides no actual drafted text prompting editors to try to figure out the meaning of the 1806 and 1880 dates, and in some other respects. Depending on the particulars of the NRHP place, my system can provide considerably better information. --doncram 15:30, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I never meant for my infobox generator to generate draft articles. I intended for it to generate the code that goes into {{Infobox NRHP}}, as well as the categories that can easily be surmised from the architectural style data and some of the historic functions listed in there. In fact, every infobox generated through my tool contains the text, "The infobox is NOT enough for a standalone article. You need to enter some more information about where the property is located, its history, and why this property is notable. In other words, don't use this infobox generator to create one-sentence stubs." If there's a need to add more fields to the infobox or to provide a minimal summary of other information in order to prepare a draft article, I haven't received any major requests for changes from anyone except you. And, I'm wondering if your comments about my infobox generator are your way of deflecting conversation away from criticism of your editing behavior. --Elkman 17:51, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually, Elkman, your disregard for minor requests (such as a multiple-times repeated request for you to remove an inconvenient line-break before the NRIS reference), and general respect for you and what your system does provide, holds off other requests from NRHP editors. I and other NRHP editors do respect what you provide, "on your own dime" as I have put it many times previously. NRHP editors politely ask one another at their Talk pages not to bother you with requests. If you were amenable to requests, on the other hand, you would receive them. In particular, I would be very glad to work with you to improve your generator in substantial ways, such as building in intelligent linking or not to builders and architect articles, and building in usage of the better, available coordinates database. And, as Dudemanfellabra agreed in the past AN discussion, probably the biggest specific help you could provide would be to build in a draft inline reference to the NRHP nomination document for NRHPs in the many states and District of Columbia where that is available online already.

About deflecting, I am kinda seeing this now as a pretty good strategy, maybe, to point out contradictions in what one major critic says, sure. It is maybe worthwhile to educate others at wp:AN who get concerned from time to time, but it is probably better for Misplaced Pages as a community to shut down these episodes here more quickly. (striking, as I didn't really mean that or say that right).

Are you suggesting you might be amenable to requests if you received them? That is great news, if the case. --doncram 18:43, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Why should I be amenable to requests like this if you're going to bring them up on an administrators' noticeboard, where I'm presumably in trouble for even being a participant in this discussion? I've got plenty of other things to do in "real life", in my spare time. And if you're going to ask me, under duress, to make updates to the infobox generator as part of an administrative action, that's hardly enough to motivate me to do the extra work. I've got enough projects going on in my real life to keep me busy. I might be amenable to NRHP requests if I had the time to do them. But, since you keep bringing up my conduct over and over and over again, I'm going to open a separate subsection below to ask the other involved admins (and uninvolved admins) exactly what the hell I'm doing wrong around here. --Elkman 19:56, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Doncram, I think you're creating a false dichotomy between "overly confident statement with no ambiguity" and your style of phrasing. The third alternative is to simply say nothing at all about, say, the John Pope House in c.1880 until we, as authors, have a less ambiguous idea of what it was. Consider the extreme of the logical tautology: "Leonard Coreman was or was not German." This statement is a completely true fact about Leonard, but it's absolutely inappropriate for a Misplaced Pages article, because even though it's true, it fails to usefully inform the reader. Now consider a less extreme case: "In c.1850, Alfred Sjogren either won the Battle of Mukden, planted a basil patch, or became ill from a surfeit of ice cream." Even if this statement is completely true and verifiable, I think the vast majority of us would agree that it's not appropriate for a biographical article; while in theory it informs the reader about Alfred, in practice it's likely to leave them more confused than they were before about what Alfred's been up to. I think these "Something happened to the building in year..." statements are of the same stamp; either we can say more or less definitively what event made that year important for the building, or we should leave it out until we have the information that explains it. As Wittgenstein would have it, "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen." (Whereof one cannot speak, one must remain silent.) The theory that we should leave these things in the article to "provide a prompt" for or "enlist the interest" of some hypothetical eventualist future editor is a bit like leaving your defunct 1973 Dodge Dart on the lawn in the hopes that someone will eventually show up with its missing piston rings. Yes, it may happen occasionally, but in the meantime, everyone who drives by has to gaze at the rusting hulk on the lawn. Choess (talk) 06:27, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Choess, I appreciate what you are saying and will take it into account, before drafting a new batch of /draft articles. I have indeed listened to and acted on other feedback I have gotten already.

Not to take away from what you say, but I am not sure if you missed that the /draft in non-mainspace, which had several ambiguities, was not what I wrote into mainspace, which was this first draft by me of John Pope House article. That had exactly one inexact statement, that "It was built or has other significance in c.1806 and c.1880." Prior to this AN discussion, if i am reading times correctly, I edited it up to this version, with "The original part of the house was built of logs in c.1806. It was remodelled, expanded, or has other significance in c.1880." It then included good wikilinks to architecture articles i created, and good categories, and additional interesting info in the article. I don't think either version was a rusting hulk. Then, during this discussion i edited it to implement Fram's wording suggestion. Station1 has since edited it to remove that. I think the article is now somewhat worse for not mentioning the c.1880 date at all. --doncram 22:40, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Don, could you explain why you include the phrase "...or has other significance..."? That strikes me as being exactly the sort of uninformative wishy-washy statement that everyone is complaining about. Blueboar (talk) 00:00, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Fram asked that above, within this #goals section, and I replied and then Fram eventually suggested different wording, which Station1 now removes from the article. Please read the above and ask a further question. --doncram 00:17, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I removed the sentence "Another significant date in the history of the property is c.1880" because it gave no clue as to what happened around 1880, nor, to the best of my knowledge, is there anything in that sentence's citation (which apparentlty requires downloading an executable file to access). Station1 (talk) 02:03, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I have no problems with getting rid of these sentences alltogether, my concern was that if it was included, it should at least be correct English. "The building has significance in 1880, 1895 and 1920" is just nonsense, "significant events in the history of the building happened in 1880, 1895 and 1920" is easily understandable. It is, however, rather vague, so not much is lost by not including it. Fram (talk) 08:38, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Elkman's conduct, inability to provide information in the generator, etc.

Since Doncram is making issues of my infobox generator, my participation in WP:NRHP, my conduct in general, and anything else, I'd like to know exactly what I'm doing wrong around here. Go ahead, let's discuss my behavior, not Doncram's. Tell me exactly where I've screwed up. And, if there's an admin sanction involved here, go ahead and make some proposals. --Elkman 19:56, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you've very much screwed up by stating your opinions here and elsewhere, but I don't understand your interest in criticizing the existence of starter articles on historic places in the United States far away from your own area. You've repeatedly stated that you wish for a certain standard in NRHP articles, including that it should include a decent explanation of the historic significance of a site. But, if the significance of a site is not readily identified (usually because the NRHP nomination document is not readily available), why do you oppose that other factual information be made available? What is the harm? And, don't you think that having some information is more likely to lead to local editors developing information, or do you really believe that having no information is more likely to lead to more information? I really don't understand your perspective.

Also, you are the main provider by far of stub articles on NRHP-listed places, which are used by many editors who are either starting a stub article using just the NRIS information you serve up, or they are adding more information from other sources. Given that your generator could provide more drafted information, comparable to what my /drafts provide (such as drafted inline references to the NRHP nomination documents where those are available), are you willing to provide more? Note, I won't say it is easy to provide more, because I think it is a pain to go back and reprogram anything, from my own experience. And to provide a decently worded English language sentence to communicate the number of contributing and non-contributing buildings, sites, structures, etc., is not simple (I developed a fairly decent version of that sentence only in my later /drafts). But, don't you think that providing more, is more likely to lead to articles having more? Or do you sincerely believe that having less, and including a big warning sentence that needs to be deleted, leads to articles getting more? How about including "find sources" searches set up, in the drafted Talk pages, as I have been doing, for the main name and any alternative names of the NRHP-listed place? --doncram 23:44, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

At this point, I'm willing to scrub the whole idea altogether. I'm tempted to remove the infobox generator completely just so you will stop bitching about it. I'm really tired of having to waste my time responding to your repeated complaints that my infobox generator (which is designed to populate the fields in {{Infobox NRHP}}, in case you forgot) isn't giving you enough content. I also had to interrupt my workday in the middle of the afternoon to reply to one of your complaints. You aren't even using my infobox generator, so why are you complaining about it? I suppose if you really felt the need, you could go back to your own generator or your own database query tools, look up the number of contributing buildings/structures/objects/whatever, and plug those numbers into someone else's articles.

Maybe some of the admins on this admin noticeboard can tell me whether I should just throw in the towel, get rid of the infobox generator, stop writing NRHP articles in my own state (where I have plenty of reference material handy), and let someone else do this. I'd like to get the opinions of other admins here, since, after all, this is an admin noticeboard. --These two paragraphs were written, typed, and/or have other significance by Elkman 23:56, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Please do your best to keep maintaining it and making it available — I use it all the time, as it's far superior to anything else, and I've never figured out how you get some types of information from the database. I've used it in two ways: (1) Infoboxes for new or greatly-expanded articles such as Epsilon II Archaeological Site, and (2) Basic information for description pages for photos of NR-listed sites that I upload to Commons. Nyttend (talk) 02:55, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Every previous time that Elkman has threatened to withdraw his off-wikipedia website, one or more NRHP editors has likewise asserted how helpful his site is, and asked him not to withdraw. I have generally been respectful and repeatedly expressed my appreciation about what he provides. However, the negativity that Elkman repeatedly brings to discussions at wp:AN and wt:NRHP is a drag, IMHO. Personally, I have respected his wishes about Minnesota NRHP-listed places. I have asked him above what is his concern about faraway places and he has not replied. Also, I have made suggestions for his NRHP article generation system (he says it is not one, but I don't understand the hairsplitting on that point), which he has sometimes accepted and sometimes not. He has not generally been receptive to suggestions; a main one that he has declined to address is whether he could incorporate a draft inline reference to the NRHP nomination document and its photos document, in new articles. I have asked him to share whatever database of coordinates he has, and he has declined to answer. I have asked him other questions, such as about his use of wp:MPS data and about incorporating better information about MPS studies, and he has declined to answer. There's potential now to improve what his system provides about architects/builders/engineers for about 10,000 out of 85,000 NRHP-listed places, but upfront I am not hopeful he will.

At some point, the benefits of his voluntary participation may not be worth the costs. It would not be the end of the world to accept Elkman's offer to withdraw. I can provide some partial substitute for what Elkman's site provides, and would make more effort to do so if he did withdraw. Several other better programmers have downloaded and used the NRIS database (including Anome, including some German wikipedia programmer who has recently generated disambiguation pages using it, including NrhpBot's programmer years ago), and someone else could provide the equivalent or better to what Elkman provides. In fact one factor in my choosing to program my system as far as I have, has been out of sympathy for Elkman, who seemed to want to get out of the business. Elkman notably has not updated his system to use the NRIS database that has been available since June 2010. His system serves up data only through March, 2009. There are complications in the 2010 version which necessitate some extra programming, in contrast to previous updates, and I myself have used the 2010 version only in some reports, not yet used it in generating /draft articles for any article drive.

I don't want him to withdraw and am not here asking him to do so. But, if Elkman is so personally bothered by regular development of NRHP articles in Misplaced Pages, and by many people using his article generator system in ways that he disapproves of, I wonder if it would be better for him to just withdraw it. In his repeated threats or offers, is he asking for affirmation or is he actually asking for permission to withdraw?

Elkman asked me at my Talk page for me to comment about his system and his behaviors in this section, rather than anywhere else right now. I don't suppose me commenting this way is going to improve the chances he will actually cooperate, programming-wise, to improve his and my complementary systems, which is what I would most like. But currently I think he is not likely to cooperate anyhow. Or, Elkman, would you in fact be willing to consider some suggestions for your generator, and to share some information to help my complementary one? --doncram 21:48, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I'll let other admins weigh in on whether I should still be contributing my INFOBOX generator (not ARTICLE generator, since articles contain more than infoboxes -- or do they?) I'll also let other admins weigh in on whether my contributions at WT:NRHP and WP:AN are a drag. As far as the 2010 database is concerned, they changed large parts of the schema of that database. I've done most of the work on writing new PHP code to do new queries by city, county, and architect, as well as generating the new infoboxes, and I've been experimenting with it for some of the new articles I've done. But, since my conduct has come into question here, and since my support of the query tools is an issue, I'm not sure it's worthwhile to bring the tools into general availability. --Elkman 21:58, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

You asked me to comment specifically here, so I am not sure if you are now suggesting you only want to hear others / administrators comments, not mine. If you wish to disregard my suggestions because they are from me, that's unfortunate because I am probably the most informed person about the good and the imperfections in your system. It's inefficient to ask administrators not familiar with NRIS to comment, if that is what you are doing.

Anyhow, great to hear you've done some more programming work. If I and other NRHP editors prepared a good list of architects/builders/engineers, comparable to the wp:MPS list about MPS/MRA documents, would you be willing to consider using that to improve what your generator serves up? It could use the (implemented or pending) new NRHP infobox field for builder=, instead of the one for architect=, where we now know, or could soon know, that a given person was primarily a covered bridge builder or whatever. And it could be smart about wikilinking the names, where we know this is an article for the person. And it could correct known typos in NRIS that I have tabulated where I know that an architect/builder/engineer name is spelled wrong and/or should pipelink to a specific differently named article. I would do the same in my complementary system, addressing one complaint about accuracy/ambiguity in NRHP draft articles. --doncram 23:12, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

It sounds like you are asking Elkman to improve his generator so you don't have to do any real work. Good articles are not written by bots. Instead of relying on Elkman, you could do some actual research on these people... looking for sources beyond what is available in the NRIS database. Blueboar (talk) 13:47, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Consensus

Though I am new to it, I can see that this issue has been kicking around for a while with little to no progress. It seems that people are jumping to the "solution" without first gaining a consensus on the base action. Clearly, some people don't like what doncram is doing and others don't see a problem. Additionally, there is a lot of disagreement on what should be done about it. It seems a lot of people objected to the Archive 223 proposal and object to the above proposal (myself included), but agree that the behavior should be discouraged (myself included), creating more confusion and more off-topic arguing. I propose that we first reach a consensus on whether or not the practice is undesirable, then work on a solution (if one is needed). It seems that we can get a lot of the arguing out of the way if we first reach a consensus on whether or not the action is a problem. (A support vote indicates that you believe doncram's actions to be sufficiently disruptive as to necessitate some sort of action.)

• Support I find his pattern of "stub" creation to be disruptive because it typically derives its information solely from NRIS database fields and presents it in such a manner that renders the article unusable. Stubs can be very valuable and should be used to stimulate further editing and expansion. However, I believe doncram's style discourages further editing because it is so difficult to make sense of the information and/or find a jumping-off point. An example of this is his newly created article Rubush & Hunter. I created this redlink recently with the intent of eventually creating an, at minimum, Start-class article on the firm and hoping that in the meantime someone would come along with some additional info or a good starting point. However, the article that doncram created accomplishes little more than clicking "What links here?" Any attempt to create a decent article on the subject would require blanking the article as it fails to offer any useful information in a usable format. PhantomPlugger (talk) 21:08, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Not to mention that the stray bits of text like "coord_parameters region:US_type:landmark | locmapin Indiana | built 1927 | architect Rubush and Hunter ; William P. Jungelaus Company, Inc. | ..." and other copy/paste remnants make the article look more like rubbish than Rubush. (And don't forget to complain about my "rubbish" smart remark in the section immediately above.) --Elkman 21:15, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Those were stray bits, yes, now incorporated/removed. Note the Under Construction tag on the article; it really was under construction.

I'm sorry, PhantomPlugger, I would have been glad not to start the Rubush & Hunter article 2 days ago if I had any idea it was on your or anyone else's radar screen to start it. I don't know what redlink list you are speaking of. I created it off a different list of redlinks, namely of architects and builders and engineers associated with many NRHP places. As you might or might not have gathered, the usage of NRIS information by Elkman to assert that these persons are architects is objected to by me, and the usage by me to state they are architects or builders or engineers, is objected to by some others. It seems best to me to figure out what these people are, so that articles on the NRHP places can state accurate information immediately, and this is best done by beginning to develop articles about them. Any builder or architect with more than 10 NRHP places listed for their architecture is pretty surely Misplaced Pages notable. I guess it is good we agree that there should be an article for the topic. I am happy for you to develop the article in any reasonable way. By DYKCheck, it shows as a 280 character stub (the list is not included for DYK-eligibility), so if garnering DYK is your concern you should have no trouble, you'd only have to develop the minimum 1500 character DYK threshold, to achieve DYK eligibilty under its 5X expansion option instead of as a brand new article, if you're not ready to develop it right now.

I don't think you have to say that blanking the article is necessary to improve it. If you wish to create a different list or table of the works of this firm, by all means go ahead, anyhow. But aren't the individually notable places which I listed out, worth mentioning in the article? I should think you should at least check whatever different list you have, to compare its completeness vs. this starter list of works based on NRIS information. --doncram 23:08, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

PhantomPlugger, with the removal of the stray bits, do you have any objection to the article in this current version? I don't understand what you mean about it being "difficult to make sense of the information and/or find a jumping-off point"? Couldn't it be easily developed by expanding the lede text, like was done by me and others for Alfredo S.G. Taylor, another architect article that i created today, and which garnered newly uploaded photos and moved from this early version to this current version today? --doncram 03:49, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm not worried about DYK or anything like that and your familiarity (well beyond my own) with the database can certainly be useful. I hope to expand the article well beyond 1500 characters if someone else doesn't beat me to it, but even so, my primary goal is expanding the information on Misplaced Pages in a certain sector that I find to be important.

The current version is certainly better, but the only piece of information in that article that didn't exist on Misplaced Pages before that article was created is the first names of the partners. If one were to type Rubush & Hunter into the search box before the article existed, one would get a list of their works, with links to those articles. The only difference now is that the list is in article form instead of in search results form. I'm not opposed to you creating stubs, in fact, I would have appreciated a good-quality stub on Rubush & Hunter as it would have helped me organize the general outline of the article. When stubs like this are created, at best, they add nothing to Misplaced Pages; at worst, they confuse, obscure and discourage.

I hope you don't see me (or anyone else for that matter) as just another lemming pile-on because I do think you have the capability to contribute positively. I just think we should set a good example to avoid WP:FAIL. PhantomPlugger (talk) 14:12, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate what you are saying. But the Rubush & Hunter article provides more than you say, it includes what is likely to be a nearly complete list of works of the firm that are NRHP-listed and hence already known to be individually notable (15 in number) and it details them out, including 6 redlinks. You could not search for and find the firms' association with those non-article places in Misplaced Pages before. For an interested editor, i.e. you, it suggests that you can probably start articles on those (you may use tools and tips given at wp:NRHPhelp). The Rubush & Hunter article provides a place that the existing and future NRHP and other articles on their works can now explicitly link to. For a reader using "What links here" to navigate, it already provides means for reader to navigate among the existing 9 articles on their works. It clarifies that these are architects, not builders or engineers, which Elkman's NRHP article generator or my system can use to suggest more precise and accurate draft infoboxes/articles, and clarifies that the 9 articles are not likely to include incorrect infobox assertions (as Elkman's generator would have assumed correctly that the firm was an architect). Of course it will be better if you improve it. But I think Misplaced Pages is better for having the article now, rather than not having it, don't you? --doncram 19:10, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

• Support, of course. The Rubush&Hunter article isn't even particularly bad, when compared with the universe of potential examples. The list I compiled at User:Orlady/List includes many gems like Valley Falls Cotton Mill Site, created 6 months ago (current version) -- "is a property" (what kind? who knows?), "The property is also known as Site No. 146-04" (what does that signify? who knows? anyway, who cares? -- surely it's not encyclopedic information), "was built or has other significance in 1849" (since we don't even know for sure if it's a building, I guess it's not surprising that we have no clue what happened in 1849), "when listed the property included one contributing structure and one contributing site" (the only salient information here is that whatever it is, there is only one of it). If it were any other contributor, I would move that page out of article space with a suggestion that the contributor keep it in user space until there was enough there to justify an article. (I've tried that with Doncram, but it only leads to endless wikidrama.) --Orlady (talk) 21:30, 1 June 2011 (UTC) While we're on the subject of content that shouldn't be added to article space, let's not forget the one-sentence paragraphs in the bodies of articles that describe database codes in ALL CAPS, such as "Its listing status is DR, which means DATE RECEIVED/PENDING NOMINATION." When newbies generate that kind of thing, it usually is corrected with a gentle level-one warning message, but when an experienced user like Doncram creates that sort of thing -- and leaves it untouched for weeks and months -- it conveys the message that Misplaced Pages is utterly uninterested in quality. --Orlady (talk) 21:54, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

  As Orlady fully well knows, that Valley Falls Cotton Mill Site article was created in an article drive for the 49 NRHPs in Tolland County, CT, supported by a batch of /drafts here which included drafted inline references to NRHP nomination documents. That one is alone, or among few, of NRHPs in that county for which it turns out the NRHP nomination document which would answer all those questions, is not available online. In the other articles, there is some further development using the NRHP nom document. In at least one improved (not started) during that drive, Orlady actually helped. In the larger context, I and others think it makes sense to have a starter article at the Valley Falls article's level, which some term a "sub-stub", rather than having no article at all. To anyone else, please do review the articles of that county. I think it is obvious that readers are better served by having these articles than not having them. --doncram 22:51, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

  I don't "fully well know" what you were doing in creating that stub, as (your beliefs to the contrary) I don't follow you around. As it happens, with minimal research I have learned that the Valley Falls mill site is a small part of a large public park that is extensively documented (including the history of the mill) online. I would not be surprised if the stub you created will deter local residents from developing an article about the park, as a newbie likely would find it daunting to try to force content about the park into the current sub-stub article about a small part of the park.
  As for Mansfield Training School and Hospital, I don't think you should point to your involvement there with pride. The article was created as a stub, with good content and sources, by another user. In February 2010 you visited the page, adding an NRHP infobox and some text about the NRIS database entry, complete with one of your "fill-in-the-blank" reference citations (including "date=, 19", "author=____", and "Accompanying ____ photos, exterior and interior, from 19___"). Ten months after that, you came back to fix some of the problems with your edits and add some more of those non-informational sentences that you use to describe NRIS database entries ("It was built or has other significance in 1917" and "The listing is described in its NRHP nomination document."). Largely because you had shoehorned those sentences in between other parts of an article that had actual content about the actual history of the establishment, when I stumbled upon the article, I saw it as an article in serious need of editing attention. I confess I kind of enjoyed the research I did to expand the article and sort out the disconnected statements I found there, but I consider that my expansion of the article was more in spite of you than because of you. --Orlady (talk) 03:12, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

  Okay, that is a bald-faced lie, that you don't follow me around. Evidence of hundreds of cases where you edited shortly after I first edited at an article can be shown. If I compiled a list of say 200 clear cases of you following me around in the last 2 years, would you agree to stop following me around for a future 2 years, with some severe penalty if you do? In the last AN discussion, you said that you do! Anyhow, you lie! Liar liar liar liar liar!!!!!!!!! I am just astonished at that. --doncram 03:55, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

  Actually, looking at a few of the Tolland County ones, I see there do remain examples of the accurately ambiguous statements, but these are easily cleared up as here I amend the Mansfield Center Cemetery article by use of the fully developed inline references to the NRHP documents. In the last AN discussion, editor Polaron offered to visit the Connecticut NRHP articles and develop them out further from their linked NRHP documents. I repeat, that the Tolland articles are better to have than not. It happens many of them can be easily improved using the good sourcing already developed for them. --doncram 23:31, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

  It's nice to know that you thought the Mansfield Center Cemetery article was "easily cleaned up," since your "It was founded or has other significance in 1693" sentence remained in the article for 5-1/2 months after you put it there. I gagged, however, when I saw that you had "cleaned it up" by inserting a very short direct quotation from the National Register nomination form. After seeing that, I took the time to edit the article with some information from the source (not quoted, but in my own words). It is unfortunately true that most of the meaningless verbiage you have inserted into article space could be relatively easily cleaned up. Similarly, the dog droppings that are left in in public parks by the pets of thoughtless dog owners could be "relatively easily cleaned up," but the world is not full of people who want to devote themselves to selflessly cleaning up after other people's dogs. Similarly, when meaningless verbiage is added bot-style to hundreds (if not thousands) of pages in article space, there is no army of selfless volunteers waiting around for the opportunity to research the topics and replace that verbiage with worthwhile prose. I would prefer to delete it and insist that it not be recreated in article space. --Orlady (talk) 19:35, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

  What part of wp:civility do you understand? That's obviously offensive, and your edit summary in this edit was also offensive to me. I think you are completely wrong, if you think that is plagiarism or copyvio or "obnoxious" in any way. It is an unusual situation, where the cemetery is not clearly identified as having been founded that year; the best way I saw to explain the significant date was to include the short quote, which very nicely resolved the implicit question. --doncram 21:57, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose In the statement above, I don't know what is meant by "this issue". I think in this discussion and others, there are many issues, which some would identify as basic questions about Misplaced Pages values, or about concerns about editor Elkman's article generator, or about many other matters. In the label of this new subsection, it seems to suggest PhantomHugger sees a consensus. I'm sorry what is the asserted consensus here? I think this is suggested as a vote, which could lead to a consensus? I don't agree that the above statement is a new consensus. --doncram 23:31, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

• Support Something has to be done here. The entire situation is a mess and consensus is as valid as policy as any of those which Doncram has used to support his position in past debates. I may be wrong, but promised change in how things will be done always has the appearance of being some time in the future. - Sitush (talk) 00:17, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

• Comment I'm not interested in devoting the time it would take (reading archives, etc.) to make a well-reasoned !vote regarding this matter (should this not be a WP:RFC, however?), nor do I wish to spark a tl;dr debate about our past interactions, but let me just add that I find Doncram's incomplete, sometimes incorrect, and vaguely worded NRHP stubs aggravating, especially those that could be improved with less than 10 minutes of online research, and am glad to see that it's not just me who has that opinion. I've learned to preserve my low blood pressure by discovering it's easier to just avoid/unwatchlist/ignore most of these stubs for a suitable interval, while acknowledging that although the work is imperfect and ends up making a lot of work for other people, people like Doncram do get a lot of work done that might not otherwise. This is not an endorsement of his approach, just the way I choose to handle it. I'm not optimistic things will change. YMMV. Valfontis (talk) 00:44, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
• Support This matter has gone on too long. There's a good reason that NrhpBot was stopped after doing just a small portion of Ohio — that bot did basically what Doncram is doing, mining the database to create substubs such as Richard H. Mitchell House, except that it presented the statements factually without all the "It might..." statements. And guess what — the large majority of its stubs have never been improved, and I'm responsible for most of the ones that have been. Given the history of these articles, there's no reason to believe that people will improve Doncram's stubs either. Nyttend (talk) 03:02, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

  I did not create that Richard H. Mitchell House article and never edited it. I am not responsible for what the NrhpBot did years ago; I would have objected to its running back then as it could have done better. I have so far created /draft batches of articles, not in mainspace, only for a few counties, none in Ohio, and only in counties where NRHP nomination forms or a good MPS/MRA document was available on-line. I have created scattered articles in Ohio relating to List of Masonic buildings or other list-articles that I deemed worth completing out, or for reasons of stopping contention about disambiguation pages. In Ohio, I also probably developed NRHP list-tables and I may have created multiply-sourced articles for NRHPs that are on List of NHLs in OH. I'm not likely to create more than an occasional Ohio NRHP article because the NRHP nomination documents are not generally available on-line, and also because you Nyttend (and I think some others) are informed and working on NRHP articles in the state. I don't think there's a general problem with articles I have created or will create in Ohio. Does this address your concern? --doncram 04:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

  I think you might have missed the point of this comment. I won't speak for Nyttend, but my understanding is that he is making an analogy. Just like NrhpBot created poor stubs by simply taking bits of info out of a data base, so are you. And because NrhpBot was creating poor stubs, it was stopped. And because very few of NrhpBot's stubs have been improved after creation by anyone other than Nyttend, it's likely most of yours will remain as you create them for a very long time. Nyttend did not say or imply that you had anything to do with NrhpBot nor that you created Richard H. Mitchell House, nor does this have anything to do with Ohio per se. The first two sentences, especially, of your reply make it appear as if you are either purposely creating a red herring or simply do not comprehend the objections to some of your work. I wouldn't mention this if this was an isolated case, but in my experience these types of diversionary responses are very much a pattern. Station1 (talk) 19:08, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

  Thanks. My first two sentences are deliberate, to head off misunderstanding of other readers like in the last wp:AN discussion where a British editor complained about something else completely unrelated to me, and one or more others incorrectly thought that i was responsible. These analogies are a bit dangerous. I think it is probably good also to address Nyttend's possible concern about Ohio articles, like Valfontis has concern about Oregon ones. I asked Nyttend to clarify if that addressed his concern or not, that is not avoiding his comment at all. I actually would appreciate if editors would be honest about what they are concerned about, like for whom. If you've got some intention to start architect articles in your area, and you're afraid you might not get first author "credit", or if you are honestly trying to build up NRHP articles in your area and you just want to do it your way. P.S. Actually I don't know what happened to NrhpBot and am not sure it was "stopped" by any discussion or action anywhere, maybe just the programmer lost interest. The programmer did not reply to my inquiry when I came upon its work later. Nyttend and/or Station1, do you actually know what happened, can you point to some past discussion? --doncram 22:22, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

  No, I don't know what happened to NrhpBot, but since we all agree "it could have done better", it doesn't really matter. This seems like another red herring, intentional or not, whose scent I'd rather not follow. But I must say I really doubt any editor on this page is not being honest about their concerns, or would be satisfied if you left just 'their' state alone. Station1 (talk) 02:29, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

• Support Doncram should not be creating stubs where he can't answer basic questions about the information he puts in the article. --SarekOfVulcan (talk)

  Different editors are speaking of different things. I can answer basic questions about any information I put into any article. I am pretty scrupulous about ensuring every statement I make is sourced. There may be cases where I am using informed judgment to interprete a source in a way that is not obvious to another reader of the same source. I would be very happy to be questioned and to answer why I did what I did in any such case. Here, SarekOfVulcan is referring to, I think, what he proposed in the last AN discussion, where he wished to ban specific accurately ambiguous phrases, such as a sourced statement that a person was an architect and/or builder. Again, SarekOfVulcan would seem to prefer a confidently stated inaccurate statement, like Elkman's generator provides, that a person is an architect when that is not true. Again there are many thousands of articles with Elkman-generated infoboxes asserting that persons are architects when that has not been verified, and many of those also contain text statements echoing the infobox assertion. I think SarekOfVulcan has also said he does not mean that, that he would prefer nothing be said. I just happen to disagree, that if you have a sourced factual statement to make which is not as precise as one might wish, you can still just say it, and that provides a good implicit request to readers with expertise to refine the statement. That's a subjective preference of mine vs. his. Anyhow, there's some momentum now I hope to improve the quality of information available about the builder vs. architect question, in part by my having recently figured out what is the status for about 100 of the most prolific of these persons (by starting articles for them and developing information about them). And there was a further discussion at wt:NRHP which my articles since have taken account of (SarekOfVulcan, please note I have actually not used a couple phrases you objected to there). And I agreed to something in the last AN discussion which I still do agree to. --doncram 04:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

  I swear, if you mention my name and your quibble about the "architect" versus "builder" versus "engineer" business, I am going to blow a fucking gasket. Would you like for me to go back to each and every one of those articles generated by the infobox generator and put in a bunch of weasel words, saying, "This person may be a builder, architect, engineer, or someone whose name got written in the wrong line of the form?" Would you like those articles deleted entirely? You say you're "making an implicit request to readers with expertise to refine the statement". I interpret that as saying, "Here's the most minimal article I can get away with on the topic. I'm not going to read any sources or do any research because that's someone else's job." You're putting a huge deferred maintenance burden out there, and that's a whole lot worse than someone using my infobox generator to say that someone was an architect when in fact someone was a builder. --Elkman 05:13, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

  Elkman, indeed I do think it would be reasonable to go back to every article having the architect= assertion, and call those into question. I suggested we might have to use a bot to do so, at Template talk:Infobox NRHP#Built information, and follow that by a long cleanup campaign to fix them. I am not particularly blaming you, because you served up what you did in good faith, but you facilitated the introduction of a lot of unverified/sometimes inaccurate information into Misplaced Pages. Note, the private website www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com, while it has other errors of interpretation of NRIS, gets this right, correctly labelling persons "architect, builder, or engineer". Indeed it causes a lot of what you term "deferred maintenance" now. You don't yourself have to go back and fix all the articles; it can be done by others in a slow cleanup drive. But it would be nice if you would cooperate in improving your generator to help prevent extension of that particular problem, which indeed you are partially responsible for, IMO. And it would be nice if you would not repeatedly blow a gasket whenever you consider a new article that is not as complete as you would like. --doncram 21:51, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

  As much as I'd like to tell you off in the sort of language I think you deserve right now, I'm going to spare it, because I'd only get warnings for breaching civility. Also, it would look bad in the Request for Arbitration that will no doubt be submitted soon. You are alone in assuming that I'm the only person introducing unverified or inaccurate information into Misplaced Pages. Nobody else has made that allegation. In fact, nobody other than yourself has used my name in this discussion, other than Nyttend saying he's using my infobox generator and finds it useful. To address the particular situation: You and I both know that the "architect" field in the National Register database can refer to either the architect, the builder, or the engineer. It is NOT POSSIBLE to extract any information from the database that isn't there. You can't classify someone as only an architect, or only a builder, or only an engineer, and then assume that's the way to route that information in the infobox and the article. Take the Peavey–Haglin Experimental Concrete Grain Elevator, for example. The National Register database lists "Haglin,Charles F." and "Peavy,Frank H." (sic) as the architect, builder, and/or engineer. Do you personally know what Frank H. Peavey's occupation was? The NHL summary says that he owned a grain company (Peavey, which later merged into ConAgra Foods.) It doesn't sound to me like he spent a lifetime designing, building, or engineering structures -- he just wanted to try a cylindrical concrete grain elevator. Now, how about Charles F. Haglin? You could assume, from the NHL description, that he was an architect by trade. But, from other sources I've read (like this), he and his firm were chiefly builders, not architects or engineers. His firm built Minneapolis City Hall, the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, and many other buildings in Minneapolis. Let's also consider Rand Tower, which lists "Holabird & Root" and "Haglin,C.F., & Sons" in the architect/builder/engineer field. It turns out that Holabird and Root were the architects, at least according to Larry Millett's book AIA Guide to the Twin Cities. Apparently, C.F. Haglin and Sons were the builders. Given that example -- and I'm sure there are others -- how do you possibly expect that I could apply any sort of a database script or a classification system to determine that someone is an architect, a builder, or an engineer, and to be able to say that with 100% truth for every article that someone uses my infobox generator to create? --Elkman 02:34, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

  I believe you are angry and have been angry for years; i don't see why you should be, really. I was thinking we could build a table of architects/builders/engineers like the wp:MPS one that I joined into building, and which I believe you used to improve your generator (to include proper links to MPS documents). Elkman, did you or did you not use the wp:MPS table in that way, or did you find your info somewhere else? I've asked before and you have never deigned to answer; it's a bit frustrating trying to collaborate with you. About 90% or more of the time, a person in that NRIS field is an architect. About 8,000 - 10,000 NRHPs are associated with the 907 persons having 5 or more hits in the 2010 NRIS database; with recent work we are well on our way to knowing whether each of those are usually a covered bridge builder or a stone mason or a construction firm, unlikely also to be architect of an NRHP-listed place. This would permit better, not perfect, guesses than your 90% accurate guess is. It would permit 8-10,000 wikilinks to be set up. Another option would be to put nothing into an architect= field, but rather put some text note that the person (hopefully with wikilink to an article on the person) is an architect or builder or engineer, and ask the editor to verify. Some discussion at template talk:infobox nrhp and/or at wt:NRHP could probably build out some better options, enlist others, if you'd actually be willing to discuss. --doncram 02:55, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

  I honestly don't know what the hell your problem is. People talk about your stubs, and then you deflect the question by saying I don't know the difference between a builder and an architect. Someone mentions your fill-in-the-blank approach, like, "date=, 19", "author=____", and "Accompanying ____ photos, exterior and interior, from 19___", and you go completely berserk and assert that the person has no right to be complaining about you because she's been following you around all over the place. Well, guess what? Other people can also read your fill-in-the-blank-later approach. You've been operating for two or three years now with this approach: every time someone suggests that you should change your style, you absolutely refuse to cooperate. I honestly don't think you're going to change your behavior without a Request for Arbitration. I'm getting more and more ready to file one, except that would take many, many hours of my time. I'd rather be doing something more productive and personally rewarding than drawing up an RFAR. --Elkman 05:13, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Another question regarding consensus on article quality

As long as this is being turned into an RFC on editing style, one practice that Doncram has embraced to deflect criticism over his articles is the use of lengthy quotations to populate articles. These are not quotations from authorities on a topic, statements of opinion, or quotations used to convey the flavor of a source, but verbatim replication of objective statements from sources. For example (reference citations omitted for reasons of space):

• From Andrew Crockett House

It's nomination included:

"The Andrew Crockett House is a notable example of an ante-bellum central passage plan frame residence with Greek Revival detailing. The house is also notab1e through its association with early settler Andrew Crockett. Crockett received a 640 acre land grant from North Carolina and was one of the earliest settlers in the Brentwood area. His log residence which forms the nucleus of the house is the oldest structure in this section of the county."

According to a 1988 study of Williamson County historical resources:

"Also receiving a 640 acre grant for Revolutionary War services was Andrew Crockett. Crockett settled southeast of Brentwood and constructed a log residence by 1799. This residence was later enlarged ca. 1850 but the original log pen of the Crockett House remains (WM-86). His son, Samuel Crockett later began the construction of a two-story brick residence he completed ca. 1808 and named 'Forge Seat' (WM-82). In addition to the house Crockett also constructed a log building containing a forge where he made iron implements and specialized in rifle making. Crockett's guns were in great demand and Andrew Jackson purchased several on his way to New Orleans. The log building containing the forge still stands adjacent to Forge Seat."

• From Sherwood Green House:

According to a 1988 study:

"Sherwood Green settled east of Nolensville in the early 1800s and constructed a two-story log residence (WM-194). Green was a surveyor and he accepted land as payment for his services. By the 1820s Green owned over one thousand acres in this section of the county. Numerous log residences were also built in the valleys west and south of Nolensville. The most notable of these which remain are the Lamb-Stephens House (WM-1066), John Winstead House (WM-108) and Abram Glenn House (WM-204). These residences were all originally single pen log residences... that were later expanded."

• From George A. Berlinghof: They designed "many important structures in Lincoln and established a position of prominence. Among the buildings designed by Berlinghof and Davis were the Lincoln High School, Bancroft School, the Security Mutual Building, and Miller and Paine. They also designed a large number of schools and courthouses in Nebraska."

Note: The examples given above are just examples, not intended to be an exhaustive list of articles where I consider the use of quotations to be excessive. Other examples exist, including Fargo City Detention Hospital, Mordecai Puryear House, Moolah Temple, Northwood Bridge, John W. Ross (Iowa architect), and Charles L. Thompson. --Orlady (talk) 20:28, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I consider this practice to be inappropriate, as excessive quotation of copyrighted text. IMO, it's contrary to the spirit, if not also the letter, of WP:Plagiarism and it is certainly contrary to much of the advice in the essay Misplaced Pages:Quotations. If my interpretation is consistent with the community's interpretation regarding the use of quotations, Doncram needs to be informed that his use of quotations is inappropriate and will not be sanctioned. (Suffice it to say that he will not give me the time of day, much less credit any interpretation of Misplaced Pages policy or guidelines that I might offer.)

Please comment below. --Orlady (talk) 02:19, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

• Agree (as proposer) with this interpretation of Misplaced Pages guidelines on use of quotations. The examples given are excessive use of quotations from copyrighted material. --Orlady (talk) 02:19, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

  If you think those were copyright violations, then your quote here, without citation, is a further copyright violation plus wp:plagiarism, because you did not give credit to the original authors. --doncram 03:12, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

• Agree. There's no good reason to have such large quotations from documents simply to keep the article from being absurdly short, especially since the presence of the nomination form means that Doncram has plenty of information about the place. Nyttend (talk) 02:57, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

  The nomination forms are not available for most places in Tennessee; there is not plenty of information available for these. Two of the four quotes above are from the Williamson County MRA document, which I believe was written under contract for the Tennessee Historical Association using state or federal money. The document is published by the U.S. National Park Service. It may be in the public domain, in which case copying the whole darn document in full would be fully acceptable. They are longish quotes, but I don't know if they are too long for copyright purposes. Supposing the copyright is believed held by the Tennessee Historical Society, i give pretty negligible chance to the idea that the copyright holder objects to the usage in these articles. This doesn't seem to be a matter for wp:AN though. --doncram 03:12, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

  • The issue at hand is your copying significant amounts of text from nomination forms when you have them, either online or in articles such as The Wilson, which you told me you requested from the NPS by mail. Do we need to quote from the forms in order to understand their subjects? No: you could easily rewrite the original text and have it come out equally well. For that reason, and because objections or lack thereof from copyright holders isn't really the determining factor, this is an improper use of copyrighted material, and thus an issue worthy of administrative action. I would be inclined to block for copyright violations if I weren't obviously involved. Nyttend (talk) 04:22, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

    About Orlady's accusation that these sourced, explicit quotations represent wp:plagiarism, that is absolutely 100% false and shows a complete lack of understanding by Orlady of what plagiarism is, and/or reckless disregard for truth and for my reputation. In the context of a long pattern of her seeking fault on any random matter that she can contrive regarding me, this is yet another, adding to my perception of her activity as wp:wikihounding. It is an insult, I think perhaps technically qualifying as a personal attack, for her to make that accusation here. --doncram 14:14, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

    Hey, Nyttend, I take copyright and plagiarism issues very seriously, and sincerely do not want others to get any impression that I do not. About The Wilson, this is the first mention of any concern about copyright. You apparently now object to this edit in March 2010 by me adding one sentence from its nom form. That was in response to Orlady having nominated the article for deletion, which you and I opposed, and in response to her immediately preceding edits in that article. Then and in several recent Williamson County, Tennessee articles, honestly I think I have used explicit quotations emphatically, more than I would otherwise, specifically to head off further potential interaction with Orlady. Orlady is a Tennessee-focused editor and follower of my edits who is likely to scrutinize and raise issues about Tennessee NRHP articles, about the notability of those articles. My only involvement ever with wikipedia copyvio noticeboards has been to raise issues and to help in addressing mistaken claims that all NRHP nomination documents are public domain. Since you and editor Fram, far above, have just now expressed some concern, I would be happy to reconsider these examples and what is actual policy or best practice. I will myself seek copyright-focused editors' views at an appropriate noticeboard. --doncram 13:49, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

    P.S. Please see Misplaced Pages:Copyright problems/2011 June 2. --doncram 14:14, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

• Agree that Doncram has been using quotations excessively to pad out stubs that he doesn't have sufficient information to write otherwise.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:25, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
• Agree. This is an issue the editor in discussion has that we can address without making the larger policy discussion the issue. Quotes fall under NFC, and their use here is clearly not minimal. -- ۩ Mask 21:01, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Context

Some numbers for context and to give an idea of the likely, or potential, scale of this:

• From National Register of Historic Places: "Of the more than one million properties on the National Register, 80,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts. Each year approximately 30,000 properties are added to the National Register as part of districts or by individual listings."
• From National Historic Landmark: "2,442 or so current s".
• From National Historic Sites (United States): "There are currently 90 National Historic Sites".

If you look at the closest equivalent in the UK, you have Grade I listed buildings in West Midlands (as one example of a list). There are "over 6000 Grade I listed buildings in England". But you don't see people trying to generate stub farms for those buildings (though there are more when you include Grade II* and II - around half a million). Anyway, my point here is that given the numbers involved, something probably does need to be done. Carcharoth (talk) 01:31, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

There was a drive concluding on July 4, 2008, to create articles for any missing National Historic Landmarks and to include at least a good reference to a corresponding National Park Service webpage for each one. We did a great job, I think. I am sure there are articles for all the National Historic Sites already. There are about 30,000 articles for the 85,000 NRHPs. It's my general understanding that U.S. NRHPs are equivalent to Grade II* or higher English listed buildings. For each individually listed NRHP, there is a generally good nomination document, which is a reliable source written by architectural historians and equivalents, including numerous references. U.S. contributing buildings don't have reliable sources like that, generally, and there's no interest in creating articles for them (which i think i was told may be equivalent to Grade II buildings). There's really no controversy about whether NRHP places are notable.

All the NRHPs have had articles created in Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, almost all of Connecticut and New York, all of Detroit and its surrounding county, and in many other areas. I think there are no general problems, no general complaints from readers in those areas. I think readers in those areas are pleased to be able to learn a bit about the NRHP-listed places in their areas. --doncram 02:55, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that you've been creating substubs for so many places when you have plenty of information. It's bad enough that we have substubs for much of New England and southwestern Ohio, but when we have the documents online, you should do better. Nyttend (talk) 03:05, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

You're referring to the running of a User:NrhpBot(?) years ago which generated stub articles in Ohio, at a standard below what Elkman's or my /drafts provide for. I don't agree that it's "bad enough" to have articles for these areas. But, I do agree that where NRHP nomination documents are available on-line, they should be included upfront in new articles. I do that. Elkman's article generator does not. --doncram 03:23, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Unlike your pages, the bot didn't add meaningless fluff such as "built or had other significance". When are you going to learn that Elkman does not provide drafts? More importantly, when are you going to learn that repeated AN threads just might mean that there's a problem with your actions? Your pages provide virtually nothing of significance to the reader: if you want to help readers and build an encyclopedia, stop creating these pages and instead produce fewer-but-better pages such as the Maryland articles you cite. Nyttend (talk) 04:26, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Nyttend, I am really taken aback by wikipedia administrator Orlady's outright lie, above, that she does not follow me. I do believe that the cumulative effect of her as one consistently hateful commentator in multiple forums does build up to contribute to a negative situation here, and contributes significantly to there being several successive AN-type discussions. Many followers at wp:AN do tend to believe that where there is smoke there is fire, whether or not various views are contradictory or not, whether or not a major negative voice is outright lying here and repeatedly elsewhere. Some commenters here, at least Sitush for one, only know me from having followed Orlady's previous attacks.

You ask about "my pages". I don't know what you are referring to. Which pages do you think that I "own" and also that do not contribute to Misplaced Pages? I have created a lot of articles in concentrated drives in counties in New York, in Virginia, in Connecticut, in North Dakota, in California. I have created a lot of list-articles, and developed articles in those topic areas. Relatively recently, I have developed about 100 architect/builder/engineer articles, of the most prolific NRHP-associated persons. I have created many pages which solve particular problems, about disambiguation-focused editors or other situations. Many, many have been further developed by me and by many other editors. Which would you wish removed from Misplaced Pages? I have not heard anything here about the notability of any topics that I have correctly identified as important. --doncram 05:59, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

"Some commenters here, at least Sitush for one, only know me from having followed Orlady's previous attacks." - Doncram, that is just your perception. For example, I see Sarek's page & others. I do in fact look at some of your articles, and fixed one that was just dreadful IMO (but over which you then sought to assert ownership by reverting in the face of the work of three other editors). Also, I did not pile on with the initial proposal above, and still haev not even though I saw it within minutes of its being posted. So, your point is? - Sitush (talk) 12:24, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I've had a look at this myself. The combination of apparent sincerely and unselfaware obliviousness - e.g. the LIAR LIAR LIAR!!!!! stuff up above, the inability to draft an article before creating it, as if there was some kind of time limit - intrigues me. It reminds me of the issue with Playboy Playmates, from a couple of months ago. In brief, until recently there were articles on every Playboy Playmate, which generally consisted of "X was Playmate of the Month for January 1975. Her centrefold was photographed by Y" plus some vital statistics. They were subsequently folded into e.g. List of Playboy Playmates of the 1970s, which will at some point be folded into List of Playboy Playmates. By which time the magazine will be as relevant to modern audiences as the Pall Mall Gazette; and then List of Playboy Playmates will be reduced to "each month the magazine featured a nude centrefold" in the main article. I digress.

This situation is even worse, though; the articles have less information and are in fact actively user-hostile. After stumbling on one accidentally I assumed it was part of a machine-generated project; one of many robotic initiatives no doubt sanctioned by a higher power, accorded the same holy air as the articles on North American primary schools. Articles created by scripts that will only ever be edited by scripts. They will - hopefully sooner rather than later - be redirected to List of Historical Buildings in Michigan and so forth, and reduced to a photograph, a name, and a reference to a directory of listings. A handful will merit more than a paragraph.

And so, ultimately, Don, if your goal is to create something of lasting worth that you can be proud of, you're wasting your time on this. This "article drive" you talk about will be a complete waste of time. If your goal isn't to create something of lasting worth then you're just one of the many process-orientated editors that infest Misplaced Pages as they do the real world. Except that if your goal is to bump up your edit count, you're also going about it the wrong way. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 13:16, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

To Ashley Pomeroy, I am sorry that you get the impression you state. I am indeed reeling about Orlady's lie in this forum about her following me or not, in conjunction with her opening new issues regarding articles, and where I have already provided multiple links further above to her Talk page archives about her following me to multiple articles. And I am reeling about her suggestion of plagiarism "in spirit" for use of longish explicit quotations in several articles. I don't know how to talk to such a person. About articles I have created, I absolutely do wish and strive to create articles of worth and I absolutely do not want them to be "user hostile". --doncram 14:26, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Doncram, you should know by now that calling other editors liars, despite the veracity of their statements, is a violation of WP:No personal attacks. Please stop. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:35, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Lying itself is a violation of Misplaced Pages:Civility. If an editor is lying, and especially if that is part of a pattern of behavior, however, I think it has to be noted, and it cannot be ignored. I understand that back-and-forth accusations of various things, like Orlady suggesting that I have been plagiarizing (which she suggests, above, and which is false), and me calling her behavior lying (which I believe is the simplest interpretation of her statements here and in other cases), is not productive. Honestly i don't know how to handle this situation properly. But it cannot be right to rule out statements that another editor is lying, when they do seem to be lying. Lying has to be a worse sin than noting that lying is going on. --doncram 18:27, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

As I said to Doncram over a year ago, "I believe if I told you what day of week it was you would claim that I was lying." --Orlady (talk) 19:26, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

In last month's version of this debate, Orlady said "I figure I pretty much "have to" look at your recent work in order to see if your recent editing is consistent with the promises that Dudemanfellabra has asked you to make in order to resolve this discussion. I don't "have to" edit the pages I've looked at, but sometimes I see things I can improve, and I can't resist the urge to do so." In this month's version she said "I don't "fully well know" what you were doing in creating that stub, as (your beliefs to the contrary) I don't follow you around." I believe this contradiction is the lie Doncram is referring to. They certainly are not statements that are consistent with each other. Lvklock (talk) 00:13, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Doncram, as long as you're throwing around accusations of lying, I might note that according to Misplaced Pages policy, "Correct use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing errors or violations of Misplaced Pages policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles." That last clause seems to pretty well describe Orlady's recent activity with regards to you, and describing it as "Wikihounding" might also be considered an untruth.

But none of this addresses the real problem, which would still be here if Orlady were dragged away by the Lie Police tomorrow. The long threads about your conduct that keep popping up on admin noticeboards are not occurring because everyone reads Orlady's prose and says "Wow! Doncram is awful!" They are occurring because people read the stubs that you write and say "You know, this isn't really suitable for article space". And every time this blows up onto the admin noticeboards, a few more previously uninvolved people concur. At some point, you are going to have to make a fundamental shift in your editing patterns (rather than a little tweaking around the edges); I proposed trying to outline our collective goals for writing these articles in part because I thought it would give you a clearer sense of where your philosophy diverges from the community's.

Ultimately, all of us need to respect consensus. Most experienced Wikipedians can probably think of at least one thing they'd do things differently from the way almost everyone else does it. That's perfectly OK. What's not OK is refusing to acknowledge and work with the consensus, even if we don't personally agree with it; that's disruption. You've been cut a lot of slack as far as formal sanctions, in part because most contributors here have a principled reluctance to sanction someone who's contributing content in good, if misguided, faith. But you need a better answer to the question "Why are so many people hostile to the articles I've created?" than "Because Orlady lies about me!" because people's patience is going to run pretty thin soon. Choess (talk) 06:02, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

To respond to above — by "your pages", I mean the ones of the type you produce, which Choess also accurately calls "the stubs you write". They're obviously "yours" in the sense that nobody else writes them the way you do. Nyttend (talk) 12:33, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

It's not just that Orlady lies, it's also that she makes up charges repeatedly on random new topics and repeats them, until someone else might reasonably become concerned. She badgers. She has accused me of being a Republican, of being a plagiarist, of being racist and/or racially insensitive, among other things. She has criticized my focus on disambiguation and other thankless efforts. She has come up with innovative ways to insult and denigrate me. She challenges anything and everything, including being so petty as to actually argue with me whether I am working on an article that I have just edited and confirm that I am working on (about one such discussion, another observing editor termed commented that "of all the angry bitter venom-filled arguments I've seen on talk pages, this one is just so petty and color-of-the-bikeshed, it disgusts me."). The repetition of false, simplistic, and overstated negative charges is a cumulative drag on me and editors of various forums (such as the Talk page of WikiProject NRHP) to which she posts. It seems to me that she is determined to find any kind of fault, and perhaps to drive me from Misplaced Pages, and that she engages in sadistic and/or hounding and/or otherwise negative behaviors because she enjoys it or otherwise serves her personal needs in some way. As has been agreed by many editors in many discussions, including in her RFA which I and a good number of others opposed, she can be sarcastic and snarky. I feel sorry for any editor that she focusses upon. It does not seem to me to serve Misplaced Pages, for her to follow me (which she denies, above, absurdly). As Orlady notes above and as I also state above, at this point I do not give credence to her remarks. In my view she has cried wolf about false issues, and lied, and otherwise contributed negatively too many times. In every case there would be a positive alternative which an editor intending to be constructive could pursue instead. In my view, over the years she has striven harder to find new criticisms and to find new ways to insult and to cause trouble. She is fully aware that I have repeatedly requested her not to post to my Talk page and, when she disregards that, I delete what she posts there.

There are indeed editors who have noticed pages that I started and had concerns, independent of poisoning by Orlady. I'll comment about some examples in one or more subsections below. --doncram 20:51, 3 June 2011 (UTC)ou

You know, Doncram, there are shorter ways to say "Oh, please block me now"... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:23, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

SarekOfVulcan, when I read your comment above "despite the veracity of their statements", I read it as meaning you objected to calling lying what it is, whatever the truth status of given statement. I could agree that in a civil community, naming a bad behavior can be unhelpful and maybe should generally be avoided. I could have a discussion about how to deal with stuff with that better. I have had discussions with others, about the Christian meaning of "turning the other cheek", and otherwise dealing with bullying in wikipedia by Orlady and others. The Christian perspective is not, by the way, simply to allow bullying behavior to continue unopposed, unnamed. I am deeply concerned, and I don't say any of this lightly.

But, you actually mean to suggest you think Orlady does not follow my edits? If so, that is completely absurd. I offered, off-the-cuff, above to come up with 200 instances where it's clear Orlady followed me, if she would agree to stop. Although 200 is a huge number to document, she did not reply, and will likely not accept that offer, because...why? --doncram 23:49, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages and linked NRHP articles for example

Many editors have come across disambiguation pages which include NRHP entries and have had concerns; also, many have come across scattered NRHP articles scattered across the U.S. which I created to resolve or avoid contention by disambiguation-focused editors. I have created more than 2,000 disambiguation pages and I have developed developed a system of 0 articles in Category:Disambig-Class National Register of Historic Places articles overall. I manage Category:NRHP dab needing cleanup which currently contains 0 article.

Orlady has repeatedly criticised me, absurdly, for having done "too much" disambiguation. This is wrong and reflects ignorance on Orlady's part, or just obfuscation/negativity in pandering to what less informed editors might be concerned about.

Years ago, there were regular AFDs about disambiguation pages amongst same-named NRHP places, which rallied NRHP editors to defend them. That's rare now, as new notes of concern by newly arriving editors are usually addressed quickly, mostly by my educating them about disambiguation policies and practices. I consulted disambiguation-focussed editors in this extended past discussion "What is wp:NRHP doing wrong RE disambiguation" at WikiProject Disambiguation and other discussions. I took on the role of mediating between hard-line disambiguation editors who did not like NRHP redlinks, and hard-line NRHP editors who do not like short stub articles. The upshot then was a compromise that two, then later one, NRHP article must be created in at least stub form, for disambiguation editors to back off. I eventually achieved negotiation that no NRHP stub article need be created, so there are currently one or two hundred short NRHP dab pages of all redlinks. During a long time, anyhow, I started many short NRHP articles as needed to support disambiguation, and gradually adapted practice of explaining that in my initial edit summaries. This probably resulted in more than 500 scattered new short NRHP articles nation-wide. I informed local editors including Elkman who I knew were interested in developing them, when I created an article for that purpose.

I identified that the slow process of creating NRHP dab pages was itself a problem, allowing for continued arrivals of disambiguation-focused editors to become unnecessarily concerned, and allowing contentions to build up when editors in one state would create an article at an ambiguous basename, unaware there were other usages of the same name. Creating the missing dab pages would avoid article name conflicts and avoid contentions and article move discussions being needed in such situations. So, with announcement to disambiguation and NRHP editors, I drove to create all the needed disambiguation pages, and did so, working from this NRIS-derived checklist of NRHP name duplicates. During that time, Orlady opposed their being created, nonsensically IMO, and raised contention about the ones in progress in the Category:NRHP dabs needing cleanup, despite rapid progress on my part to finish them all, which I completed pretty promptly.

In my continued maintenance of the NRHP disambiguation pages, I am going through and checking all of them, and in some cases coming across new contention. I occasionally, pretty rarely, choose to create a new short NRHP article and/or other articles to settle or head off contention. For example, when an editor recently contended to eliminate the Midway Bridge disambiguation page by redirecting the name to the article for an extremely obscure, not-worldwide-important rural bridge in North Dakota, and by deleting mention of other Midway Bridges in the world, I tried adding MOSDAB-compliant entries with supporting bluelinks to List of bridges in the United States, and actually had to contend with the editor going to that list and removing the entries there and their supporting footnotes (which a bridges-focused editor restored). The issue was only finally settled it by my creating another Midway Bridge article. SarekOfVulcan watched that little contention -- and I think deleted one other Midway Bridge article which i started to try to settle the issue first but which turned out not to be as easily documented as the later one-- by the way, and might comment.

There have been many temporarily determined editors who have arrived and dismantled good disambiguation. Another example is a White House-focussed editor insisting upon removal of all redlinks at White House (disambiguation), addressed by my creating articles for the NRHP-listed ones.

I don't think anyone has ever given me a barnstar or otherwise appreciated all this work, but I am proud of it. I believe there is zero, zip, nada reason for wikipedia editors to be concerned about my development of disambiguation pages, and my tactical creation of short stub NRHP articles on occasion to defuse contention and preserve good structure. --doncram 22:24, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

"Incomplete, to be developed." That describes a lot of things you do around here, and the very reason why people are complaining about the kind of articles you write. Yet now you've managed to deflect this discussion into criticisms of my INFOBOX generator and complaints about Orlady following you around. --Elkman 21:22, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I completed what I was writing above. Please feel free to comment about disambiguation and related, tactical creation of short NRHP articles in this section. --doncram 22:24, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Here's a lovely new technique -- pasting one of his database dumps onto a talk page and going "Hmmm, I wonder if any of these are in the article." Guess actually reading the article to answer that question is too much work for him.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 04:15, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

That's not about disambiguation. Weird on your part, S, to go out of your way to delete a posting from a Talk page. I restored it. It did tally up notable, NRHP-listed places not yet mentioned in the article. Seemed like one or two times owners of architect pages have objected to additions of differently formatted or ordered items; here I merely provided some info at the Talk page; your objecting to that, and your bragging about it here, seems petty, not lovely. --doncram 14:53, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Oregon NRHPs for example

This to respond to Valfontis's specific concern about an Oregon NRHP article mentioned far above, and to comments by Choess and Nyttend in "Context" section. Oregon is different than any other state because it has the most active Misplaced Pages editor community. It has a highly productive Collaboration Of The Week (COTW) which I have participated in occasionally. It has multiple editors knowledgeable about NRHP information and sources and who occasionally develop NRHP articles. The state-wide list and at least one county NRHP list-article have been COTWs. What I know about Oregon-specific NRHP sources, and reflected in wp:NRHPhelp, is from them.

In 2009, I developed out the majority of Oregon's NRHP county list-articles (adding to Portland area ones already tableized), bringing them into table format and performing a painstaking reconciliation between competing sources of Oregon NRHP information. I may have then started some NRHP articles to capture complicated information. See really long Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Oregon#Developing and see Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Oregon#Reconciliation of wikipedia tables vs. Oregon PDF, in which i worked cooperatively and painstakingly to address Oregon editor concerns and get the wikipedia coverage all corrected.

I have since occasionally created an NRHP article in Oregon, but would not start on any Oregon county-specific drive as there is no need. I created a couple articles in one county, one which I brought to DYK, hoping to encourage a local who was uploading pics of all the NRHPs in two counties (my nomination for other articles in those counties to be created shows on Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Oregon/Collaboration#the COTW nominations page). When engaging in drives on List of Masonic buildings and List of Elks buildings and some others, I created short articles for the Oregon ones. These drives achieved other things, such as development of the list-articles themselves and of new relevant categories about their architectural styles and other aspects.

I recently identified that two Oregon architects were among the top 200 NRHP architects/builders/engineers, and created articles for them. I notified Oregon editors by suggesting these two at the COTW nominations page. I am amazed just now to notice that Valfontis, without explanation, immediately deleted that suggestion!??! Aren't they valid, good COTW topics? Valfontis, could you please comment?

Another Oregon-specific issue is hyphenation vs. en-dashes or em-dashes in article titles. I don't care about the issue, but some Oregon editors do, and they edited all NRHP list-articles to use dashes, including in redlinks, which causes some overhead, explained at Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Oregon#NRHPs with ndash in title. Related to the intersection of that issue and to disambiguation page cleanup at Jones House, I recently created short article Jones–Sherman House. I would be happy to notify Oregon editors if/when i ever created a new article there, but I have seen that Valfontis and others already do monitor Recent changes to WikiProject Oregon articles. Valfontis further developed that Jones–Sherman House article within 24 hours.

I think there is zero, zip, nada reason for Misplaced Pages editors to be concerned about my past and rare-but-occasional starting of NRHP-related articles in Oregon. --doncram 22:59, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

This is all tl;dr, and the topic at hand is Doncram's behavior, not mine. Doncram is not a member of WP:ORE, so I routinely delete his suggestions for WP:ORE COTW (which, incidentally, isn't as much of a going concern as it once was), and I'll note that it is not the place for notifying the project of new articles. The architect articles in question were on my watchlist as redlinks, and I was actually dismayed to see them appear on my watchlist as new articles when I saw who had created them. I, like several others in this discussion, would rather see no article on a topic rather than a bad article. Here's an example of Doncram's work on an existing article, with its "whoever may be editing here" in his edit summary. I occasionally do "data dumps" such as this for articles, but I think it's far better for our readers to do this sort of thing on the talk page, or on a personal subpage rather than clutter up mainspace. Here is a lengthy discussion, in which I recuse myself from the sausage making, which was indeed "painful to watch". (Under my former username, which starts with "K".) In a nutshell, the only reason for concern about Doncram editing Oregon-related articles besides the general problem being discussed (his editing style, which I agreed is problematic), is that I do not enjoy working with him and tend to stay away from the articles he edits. This is mostly my problem, but it's sad when a highly productive and accurate editor with excellent research skills who is rarely uncivil such as myself feels she needs to stay away from the project because we have an inability to deal with problematic but not-quite-disruptive editors who appear to lack collaboration/social skills. Valfontis (talk) 04:39, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Ah, thank you for explaining to me who you are. I now can understand you were being deliberately rude, or politely dismissive, or something like that, unfathomable to me otherwise, about what I thought was a good suggestion of the new architect articles at the COTW.

I also did not understand your recent abrupt, immediate reversion at the Walter D. Pugh architect article, to which I believed i was contributing something substantial by adding new works. In my followup edits after yours, I did not take offense but rather just made small improvement to the article (wikilinking one and providing slightly better referencing) and soon acknowledged in my edit summary that in fact "all NRHP ones were already there"; my additions were not in fact substantial, I agree. I note, however, that the Wade Hampton Pipes article as i started it], one of two that I suggested for COTW, was very much equivalent to the Walter D. Pugh article before I visited there.

So what you're saying, I now interpret, is that in 2009 you didn't like my style in developing the NRHP list-articles in Oregon. It was indeed tedious doing the reconciliation between sources there, addressing your then-strong-preference for the Oregon state source which turned out to have many errors (as also did the nation-wide NRIS), and it was a bit unpleasant, but the development got done. I recall also that you also didn't like my application of disambiguation page MOSDAB guidelines in another discussion around that time, where I asked disambiguation-focused editors to consider an issue and the consensus was with me, as i recall. That's okay. I would hope that would eventually be water under the bridge.

At wp:ORE I don't see any alternative way to notify Oregon editors of new articles; please advise if wp:ORE would actually like to receive an announcement of new articles like the two architect ones. --doncram 05:41, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Featured lists

I admit I've only read a fraction of the very long thread above, but if the problem is that uninformative stubs are being created just to create a featured list, wouldn't the sensible thing to do be to change the FL criteria, to either make redlinks acceptable, or else to require that all links in the list are "Start" class? Gatoclass (talk) 04:05, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe that Doncram is motivated by the desire to create featured lists. As it happens, I think my first interaction with him (possibly when he formed the idea that I have some sort of personal vendetta against him) was over his nomination for featured list status of a National Register list article, back in August 2008. He didn't like the review, so he pretty much packed up and left. He did participate later (December 2008) in the review for another FL candidate that succeeded, but I have the impression that he was (and still is) deeply resentful the fact that another contributor made changes to that list to meet FL criteria. I expect that he will make a long statement here on the subject of FLs. --Orlady (talk) 04:44, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that Doncram does not seem to be motivated by a desire to create featured lists... but he does seem to be motivated by a desire to create lists (and then rework them into sub-lists lists, and list-like dab pages, etc). As long as there is a minimal stub with just enough information to justify inclusion of the property in one of his lists (and to have the list entry blue-linked) his interest in researching the property further and improving the stub essentially dies. Blueboar (talk) 12:54, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Further to the notion that this is not about lists, much less featured lists: Many of Doncram's comments about the stubs, disambiguation pages, and list articles that he creates support the view that his principal goal is to have an article about every one of the tens of thousands of properties listed in the National Register. Related to this has been his strongly held position that historic districts on the Register should be documented in articles separate from the articles about the neighborhoods/communities associated with those districts. This position of Doncram's has resulted in lengthy contention and a few megabytes of discussion, and is illustrated by article pairs such as Wauregan Historic District and Wauregan, Connecticut, Hazardville Historic District and Hazardville, Connecticut, Wilder Village Historic District and Wilder, Vermont, and Peace Dale Historic District and Peace Dale, Rhode Island. --Orlady (talk) 12:38, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

There's a #goals discussion further above. Back in 2008, i do recall that Orlady's insinuation into the New York State NHL list-article peer review and then FLC nomination was unpleasant and seemed to derail what I thought was a good nomination, but it wasn't the first interaction. I recall being appalled then that she extended use of nasty language that had really damaged good momentum in WikiProject NRHP, earlier, and I recall realizing that her involvement was likely to be an oppressive vendetta that I would likely never get away from. That certainly contributed to me not pursuing other list-article FL nominations, where I perceived that one determined opponent could have an undue negative effect. --doncram 15:15, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

It seems that you are correct. I find that we had some NRHP Wikiproject interactions before that FL nomination. As I have told you repeatedly, you were convinced that I was engaged in a personal vendetta against you before I had noticed that I had interacted with you in multiple situations. This pretty well demonstrates what I mean when I say that.
As for that FL discussion, I thought that the list was an excellent candidate for FL, but there were some basic issues related to how the scope of the list was defined. I was expecting to have some back-and-forth discussion and collaboration that would lead to the list being acceptable for FL, as had happened with other FL nominations that I had commented on. Your interpretation of my comments was surprising to me at the time, but re-reading it now, I see now that it was in many ways consistent with other interactions over a "relationship" that has continued for almost 3 years. That is, you somewhat condescendingly informed me that the list article was practically perfect and that my failure to discern its perfection was a shortcoming in me. That interaction was far more civil than many of the interactions that have succeeded it, but the theme is the same: you are convinced that your work is practically perfect, and any flaws that others see in your work are due either to (1) others' inability to perceive your perfection or (2) bad things that other people have somehow forced you to do. --Orlady (talk) 16:22, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't want to have a relationship with you, Orlady, that's the problem. --doncram 16:47, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

You will note that I surrounded the word with quotation marks. I would prefer that my interactions with other users focus on content and not on personalities, but you have persistently tried to personalize all interactions. Furthermore, your propensity to create drama around topics that I am predictably engaged with (such as the drama you created over Norris District, documented at Talk:Norris District) leads me to wonder whether you truly want to avoid me. --Orlady (talk) 19:51, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Really, I want you to stop following me. I think you should be ashamed of how you participated in that July 2009 discussion about Norris District; that is nothing to be proud. You have to be kidding to think that is an invitation now in 2011. I most emphatically tried to break the relationship with you in multiple requests during 2010, and the relationship has only gone downhill since. It is distressing to some others, and bad for Misplaced Pages in general for this to go on. It is tedious for me to respond to new misinformation you suggest in wp:AN proceedings and elsewhere. In general I feel experience shows that it works badly to allow you to suggest misinformation and not reply, so I feel I often have to answer. In this wp:AN discussion you have used offensive language about dog shit, you have accused me of plagiarism and copyvio, you have absurdly claimed not to follow me and have not responded to my calling that a bald-faced lie. You have not responded to my related offer that would end this relationship. You have been following me, not the other way around. --doncram 14:51, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Given that both Doncram and Orlady are active members of the same WikiProject, I don't think we can say that either of them is "following" the other. It is only natural that they would frequently cross paths in editing the same articles. That said, given that Doncram's edits are so often problematic, I think it would actually be appropriate if Orlady (and other members of the NRHP project) did follow him around... someone has to clean up after him. Blueboar (talk) 15:06, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

It's 100% observable that Orlady follows me around, has done so for years, there should be no doubt about that. Other NRHP editors privately or publicly agree; it can clearly be documented. Why does Orlady not answer my question about if 200 clear instances are documented. E.g. following can be seen in instances of me editing for the first time in a new article on any subject, and Orlady editing immediately afterwards. There is no suggestion of the reverse and that can easily be objectively shown. Blueboar, I am afraid you are unquestioningly being duped by Orlady's lie that she does not follow me; that is an absurd lie. The extent of following is extreme, that is an incontrovertible fact.

I do welcome feedback on my edits from others' follow-on edits, whether they are following me or otherwise arriving at articles, and I actively ask for feedback from time to time in various explicit ways. I completely buy into how Misplaced Pages can work properly in providing feedback implicitly and explicitly to editors. I can get mildly frustrated at some following edits that seem tendentious to me, for some bursts of attention from some following editors, but overall I accept and value them. My purpose is in fact to see to development of Misplaced Pages on topics of interest to me.

What I object is to the personally-toned, hatefully-motivated, oppressive, negative, snarky wikihounding that Orlady pursues (I can support every one of those adjectives with diffs in a forum that would resolve this.) She has provided helpful improvements and useful implicit or explicit feedback to me at times. She seems to me to be hatefully seeking out new criticism, and is often 100% wrong to my knowledge. Others are welcome to follow my edits from time to time; she should not be allowed to continue this, IMO. There has to be a point where a bullying editor's malicious and intellectually dishonest behavior has consequences; there has to be a point where a victim of bullying can get relief. I am asking for relief. Since I have now stated this request to her and otherwise publicly several times, it just gets worse. It seems to me Orlady tries harder and harder to come up with new criticisms to prove the value of her following and criticizing me. She invests considerable time into coming up with creative new ways to insult, denigrate, use administrative powers, etc., all dancing around the margin of obvious blockable/bannable behavior on her part. She can't hide the long-running pattern though. She's stated her dislike; others can objectively discern the hatred. There's direct and collateral damage from all this going on. It destroys good momentum; it drives away active and potential editors; there is no good purpose served by her behavior. --doncram 19:12, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

So it's all someone else's fault, and never your own ... sorry, I don't buy it. In case you haven'tt noticed... Orlady isn't the only one complaining about your editing here. And this isn't the first time you have been the topic of complaints. You say you welcome feedback... unfortunately, my own experience with you is that you actually highly resent feedback... at least when it is critical. Blueboar (talk) 21:01, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

What is posted here are complaints, yes, and yes there have been complaints before, about different matters. I also have many rewarding interactions with new and experienced editors elsewhere. I have been extremely patient and polite with many editors newly coming into contact and having concerns of various kinds. Including I believe I was with you Blueboar and other Masonic-interested editors, for quite a while at beginning of a long phase of AFDs and ANI and RSN and other proceedings you were a big part of, during a long period in which you and others extremely opposed there being disambiguation, list-articles, and individual articles on Misplaced Pages-notable historic places associated with Masonry. It took a long time to work through that, and now I perceive you happily contributing to further development of the list-articles and many individual articles. I was exasperated at your stubbornness at times during that; you no doubt perceived me as being stubborn too. But while that went on for a long time, it did not run for many years.

Whatever, I am not seeing a lot of point of discussing much here, so i am going to try to wind down my commenting here. Thanks. --doncram 21:55, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Abd

Given EnergyNeutral (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) following on from an unsuccessful appeal of the topic ban re Cold fusion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), I am assuming that Abd (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is now considered banned? It's probably best if someone else tags the user page and links to the various sockpuppets. Guy (Help!) 02:26, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

He's under an indefinite block and a cold fusion ban, but I don't think he's site-banned...yet. T. Canens (talk) 15:37, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I would say that sockpuppetry to evade ArbCom sanctions is pretty much a slam dunk for a siteban, wouldn't you? He's topic banned from cold fusion, appealed the topic ban, was declined, registered a sock pretending not to be Abd, was rumbled and permanently blocked. Sockpuppetry to evade a topic ban leading to an indefinite block - who's going to lift that block? Especially given that the whole problem with Abd has always been an inability to accept that he is anything other than 100% right? Guy (Help!) 19:43, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

He's been documenting his evasion of his block at Wikiversity . Given that he's turning topic ban evasion into a research project I think a siteban is more than called for. Hut 8.5 23:01, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Honestly, given that, I wonder if it's possible to arrange a *global* ban from all WMF projects, because I can't see how it could possibly be appropriate to allow him to edit on ANY Foundation page, as he'll clearly use it as a way to try to further push his cold fusion POV. rdfox 76 (talk) 01:15, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

You've hit the nail on the head. Given that Abd is already permanently banned from editing the english Misplaced Pages, and further given his use of Wikiversity to document his disruption of Misplaced Pages, the topic of discussion here should be if and how to impose a ban on him on all WMF projects. The best venue to do it, I think, would be to work through it with the Office people. Raul654 (talk) 19:27, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Calling for a global ban is a bad idea. Partially for the reasons listed below (tl:dr LBJ's comments on J. Edgar Hoover: "I'd rather have him inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in".) but also because the absolute last thing you give to someone who loves nothing more than spinning tales of persecution is a good reason to keep going. Seems fairly harmless to have him writing to himself on wikiversity until the folks over there decide otherwise. Protonk (talk) 21:01, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

• It seems to be implied here that Wikiversity somehow cares about someone being banned on the English Misplaced Pages. Trying to go to the Office to get a global ban instated seems like a method of avoiding having to say that, if Wikiversity didn't want him, then they would ban him themselves. Since they haven't, they obviously don't care about his actions on English Misplaced Pages (nor should they, since his actions aren't vandalism, they're just the cold fusion topic area). Silverseren 19:45, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
  • WMF projects don't have to "care" about each other, per se, but they do have a responsibility not to aid and abet people causing damage to other WMF projects. if Wikiversity didn't want him, then they would ban him themselves. - That would be true if they had competent administration. They do not, as was illustrated the last time a Misplaced Pages-banned user went to WV and tried to conduct a "research project" into distrupting editing, with tacit approval of the WV administrators. (That ended when Jimbo stepped in and shut it down, to the gnashing of teeth of the WV administrators who had until then stood idly by). Since they haven't, they obviously don't care about his actions on English Misplaced Pages - Agreed, this is obviously true. nor should they, since his actions aren't vandalism, - Wrong. He disrupted Misplaced Pages for years on numerous topics, wasted the time and energy of innumerable users, and to this day has yet to make a single useful edit. After he was deservedly community banned, he came back to sockpuppet, causing yet more disruption. Raul654 (talk) 19:55, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
    • If Abd's socks come to attention here, they'll be blocked. If he's quietly editing some non-cold-fusion-related topic with socks, then what's the harm? I don't think we have any jurisdiction over Wikiversity. I agree that they've made some really self-destructive decisions, but if they want to position themselves as a less interesting and more self-deluded version of Misplaced Pages Review, it's on them.

      Abd clearly has a great deal of prose of which he needs to unburden himself on a daily basis, and it doesn't seem to matter to him whether anyone is actually listening. So Wikiversity is actually sort of a good fit. At some point, the site will have to decide whether it wants to be an echo chamber for boring Misplaced Pages vendettas or whether it wants to be taken seriously, but I don't think we as Wikipedians can force that decision. MastCell  20:53, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

• Two problems with Abd's involvement at Wikiversity: the tendency of a small cabal there to abuse WMF resources to refight battles they lost on Misplaced Pages; and the attempt to set up in competition to enWP as an information resource on topics where he is banned here. I think we know enough by now to be certain that Abd lacks self-criticism and is unable to distinguish between MPOV and NPOV. That said, I was actually questioning whether he should be considered formally banned from enWP at this point (and hence subject to WP:RBI and the game of whack-a-mole). Guy (Help!) 19:49, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Quick help with strange page move

Hey, I don't know if it is possible for an admin to move a regular page in File:space to usersapce, but I sure can't. A user created something similar to an article at File:7312 deleted edits.png, which is the page of an image at Commons. I tried to move it to User:Kristijan gjorshoski/Slatino but can't because of the namespace. If someone could move it or delete it or something that'd be great, thanks! ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 05:04, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

After trying to move the file a couple of times, I deleted it and re-created it in the user namespace. It turns out that it's now impossible for anybody to move pages from the file namespace to another namespace. I don't remember having any problems when doing a similar history merge at Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages-mode.el in November 2009. Graham87 05:25, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 05:27, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Would the problem be because the File page is on Commons? The Mark of the Beast (talk) 18:24, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Reporting abusive allegations of vandalism and abusive generalised 'warning' threat

WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF have been breached by the other party to a disagreement arising from redundant POVFORKing of Last surviving veteran of World War I — Preceding unsigned comment added by FascistCommandantToBeLookedUpTo (talk • contribs) 20:17, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

I sense a boomerang coming here. The username is unacceptable, and looking through this user's edits there are some obvious concerns. → ROUX ₪ 20:35, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

An article that has been here for years is a POV Fork of a redirect that *you* just created? -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:52, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

I have indefinitely blocked this user as a sockpuppet of banned User:SuperblySpiffingPerson. Hut 8.5 20:53, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Had to be him, I guess, thanks -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:58, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Has now been confirmed by checkuser. Hut 8.5 23:20, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

List of surviving veterans of World War I has been full-protected 24 hours as a result; the article should immediately go back to semi-protection once that expires. –MuZemike 23:22, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

And as soon as it was changed back to semi, he was back with another newly-confirmed sock - it's fully protected for a month now -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:51, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Anyone?

I'm a little too adult to be baited here. However, I would not be overly susprised to find a connection between this user and the one mentioned in the last post on my talkpage. Cheers. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 23:55, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm having a hard time hearing much over all the quacking coming from there. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 00:21, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

] Seems to be blocked. Dlohcierekim 20:32, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Vandalism, or not ?

It has been suggested that a discussion be opened about the effects of Template:Convert. Let me give some background. I was using Huggle and up came an edit I considered vandalism here, so I reverted the edit and warned IP 72.193.240.28. The IP continued the same type of edits on other pages, so in no time I was reporting the edits to WP:AIV . I was asked by Materialscientist at AVI why did I think this was vandalism and why did I revert them ? here and here the subsequent discussions you can see. I was glad to see Fastily's comment at AIV . My reply was "Why would anyone remove a conversion template and hard edit the values ?" Since Fastily comments sided with my rational I posted a question on his talk and here we are.

If Materialscientist rational for hard editing these values instead of using the template, and I agree this does make sense, then we or at least I need to know how to approach and handle these situations in the future. Peteypaws (talk) 00:22, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

• Involved user notification diff's
• Fastily
• Materialscientist
• IP 72.193.240.28

There are good reasons to hard code conversion values -- mainly, it can reduce server load. However, the values that were hard-coded in these NASCAR articles (for example, representing 211.6 miles as 340.537 km) represented false precision. (Alternatively, if the tracks are actually measured to that precision, then the miles value should also be rendered in thousandths of a mile.) --Orlady (talk) 01:04, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

While the focus of this discussion is the use of the template in large pages and consequently server load as it applies to the rate at which the page loads, the accuracy of the values is not. Peteypaws (talk) 02:16, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

LOL at "it can reduce server load." Got statistics or something to back that up? Not that it matters, since that's none of our concern anyway... Oh, and there's a parameter to take care of the false precision. How the heck is this an administrative problem, regardless? Go hash this out at WP:AIV.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 02:59, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that we should have no concerns about server load in writing normal articles. The convert template has a "round to x significant figures" (sigfig=) parameter that can be called to give the correct level of precision. Typically it does pretty well without that parameter, and doesn't need tweaking.

Is changing format between templated and non-templated vandalism? No, it is a change in style. Such changes are trivial to the reader, having no affect on the way the article looks, and should not be made into a campaign to 'fix' all the articles. Binksternet (talk) 04:14, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/2011 LBC United Football League

This is a dumb question, but do we not put the old afd notice on the talk pages of surviving pages of a group afd? Dlohcierekim 15:28, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Even dumber question, why are the team pages being deleted as "A7:does not indicate the importance or significance of the subject", when they survived a group AfD as a notable team? --64.85.216.36 (talk) 16:20, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I've restored the ones that were deleted, and have tagged each Talk page with AfD "keep" notices -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:25, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Because they were shortened. I narrowly missed deleting one and only checked the history belatedly. All good now. Dlohcierekim 20:23, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2011 May 24#Riscos.info and Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2011 May 27#Slammiversary IX

Would an admin (or admins) close Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2011 May 24#Riscos.info and Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2011 May 27#Slammiversary IX? The first discussion is about to fall off the DRV log. Cunard (talk) 22:10, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

The latter might need discussion; give me a shout if I can help (obv, I am 'involved' to say the least)  Chzz  ►  22:13, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Both closed now. --RL0919 (talk) 23:41, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Community ban discussion for Maheshkumaryadav

User links: Maheshkumaryadav (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Maheshkumaryadav was the subject of discussion in a few prior WP:ANI threads; most notable are Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive693#User:Maheshkumaryadav and Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive696#User Maheshkumaryadav creating a slew of poor articles. In the latter, he was indefinitely blocked for about 4 hours because he was not listening to the emerging community consensus that he was creating new articles improperly (issues which were first addressed at length on xyr talk page). After being unblocked upon a promise to listen to the community, the article creation topic ban was formally enacted. Less than a day later, Mahesh tried to get the article creation ban removed, despite showing no understanding of what the underlying problem was, basically including the fact that xe was 1) creating stubs with no usable information and no verification, 2) that method xe was using to do splits was violating our licensing agreements, and 3) the splitting was never discussed and turned out to be against community consensus. After that, the community moved to enact a full ban on Mahesh, because xe clearly seemed to be not understanding key Misplaced Pages policies and was showing a continuing unwillingness to respond to community concerns (basically, a "My way is right, you all must be wrong or not understanding me" approach). That discussion appeared to be heading towards consensus. During it, I stepped in and offered to mentor Mahesh; my belief at the time was that he clearly has a passion for adding information to the encyclopedia, and he's working in an area (coverage of India) that we currently don't do a great job in covering (it's one of the most obvious cases of Misplaced Pages's systemic bias, that the largest English speaking country in the world is so relatively under-covered). I offered a strict set of guidelines that would enable Mahesh to start learning about Misplaced Pages, working first out of sandboxes and gradually moving back to regular editing. Mahesh accepted these guidelines, with the specific understanding that violating them would result in the original ban proposal likely being returned to and confirmed.

For a week or so, things seemed to be improving. At the suggestion of User:Anna Frodesiak, Mahesh began work on expanding our coverage of dowries in India, and Mahesh was working on a draft in xyr userspace to that regard, which I was giving feedback on. Through the end of May, his editing was trickling off; in response, he stated at one point that he was "getting less spare time", but that would continue to work on the userspace draft. Mahesh's last edit was on 31 May.

On June 1, a new user, Creatingabetterworld (talk · contribs) joined Misplaced Pages. Xe very soon began making edits in the same topic area and of the same style as Mahesh (note, in particular, the creation of multiple highly improbable redirects for the new articles he created). User:Sitush opened an SPI on June 2; on June 4 a checkuser found that the possibility of the two accounts being the same person was  Likely. Same dynamic ISP, and same UA's. As such, Mahesh and the sock were both indefinitely blocked. Since then, Mahesh has made no edits to xyr talkpage to explain what happened.

I believe that we have no choice but to follow through with the originally promised ban. Mahesh was given a final chance with clear conditions and a clear explanation of what the consequences would be for not following those conditions, and xe went ahead and broke them anyway. Perhaps some day in the future Mahesh will be able to demonstrate that xe has learned how Misplaced Pages works, that it is not a platform for advocacy, and that, fundamentally, it requires a collaborative approach. For now, the behavior is too disruptive (if you want an idea of how disruptive, please read this section of xyr talk page, which i a copy of a document that Anna Frodesiak, Sitush, and myself worked on containing the massive number of articles, splits, etc. that Mahesh created that required us to spend dozens of hours trying to fix, some of which is still not done).

I will go notify Mahesh (et al); I will let Mahesh know that if xe has any comments xe wishes to make regarding this discussion, I will copy them from xyr talk page. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:31, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

• Support with caveat - User doesn't get it, and refuses to listen. Socking to get around the restrictions is completely unacceptable. However. Just to be sure that we are only dealing with competence issues, has an editor who has a native language in common with Mahesh (as I presume from his writing that English is a second language) spoken to him in that language in an attempt to resolve any communication difficulties? If not, I suggest we pursue that option before enacting a full ban. And should a full ban be enacted, that someone with a native language in common explain in that language exactly what the ban means. → ROUX ₪ 02:44, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment: As far as I know, his actual native language is unknown to users here on Misplaced Pages, since we were never informed on such details. Someone correct me if I am wrong. India (assuming that is where he is from) is home to many different languages, and it would be difficult to assume or guess which one. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 03:24, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
    • Per here, Standard Hindi or Bengali would be the best bets, depending on exactly where Mahesh's IP geolocates to. Could someone from WP:INDIA help out perhaps? I wish to note that I really don't think there's a communication barrier here; it's merely intransigence. But a community ban is a fairly nuclear option, so we should at least double-check to be 100% (as opposed to 99.99999... %) sure it is not a communication issue. → ROUX ₪ 06:45, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
• Support ban as I did before but with more understanding and resolve now. Clearly the editor's attitude towards the project has gotten the best of them. I had hope the mentoring would work out but it didn't.--NortyNort (Holla) 02:49, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
• Support - I am not familiar with this editor, if there is a chance of a communication gap then this avenue should be exhausted first, provided we can determine what language Mahesh is more comfortable with. On the other hand the act of Sock puppetry has the same intent regardless of language and the CheckUser information has been verified by Courcelles, couple that with the initial agreement I see no other recourse than to enforce that agreement.
  Mlpearc powwow 04:08, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
• I've asked this editor if there is another language that we can communicate in. Mjroots (talk) 06:47, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
  • The editor has stated that Hindi is their mother tongue. I think it is worth an attempt to communitcate in Hindi, so that the editor can have no doubt what policies they need to adhere to etc. The editor is also asking about a clean start. Whilst not elibigle as blocked, is there a way around this in the medium term? Mjroots (talk) 08:47, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
    • There's a Hindi Misplaced Pages. If the editor can address the concerns raised in this ban discussion and not violate copyright, then a clean start may be a possibility. Support ban. MER-C 13:32, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
• Support ban. I'm familiar with the issue, which I followed at AN/I. I applaud the efforts of several editors first to channel Mahesh's enthusiasm and then to try and control it when it became disruptive.; it was a good example of the community showing exemplary patience rather than reaching for an immediate banhammer. Sadly Mahesh has not proven receptive and I don't think it's a language issue (hir posts and edits were always in reasonable English) and more of an attitude one. Kim Dent-Brown 06:53, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
• Support ban. This is not a communications issue. Indeed, his command of English puts to shame quite a few native English speakers whom I have come across. The user has time and again attempted to subvert Misplaced Pages processes, taking a half-step back and then lunging forward over the line once more. He simply does not get it. The community has wasted far, far too much time trying to deal with this and has explored every other option that I can think of. I personally am absolutely exhausted with it all, and disappointed for all of those who put the hours in trying to resolve this. Even now, in the message to which Roux links above, he is not in the slightest apologetic. - Sitush (talk) 08:16, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
• Strong support of a ban. He has no excuse. Not language, not misunderstanding policy, not even competency. Nothing. Any claim that the aforementioned disabilities are a factor, can be sharply refuted by edits that he's made that favour his position. There is overwhelming evidence that he is selectively obtuse, and uses that to get his way. This editor has caused more damage to this project than any other I have seen. On top of all that, he has betrayed our trust. A third chance? I think not. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:47, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
• I was hoping that more rehabilitation would work, even if it required more topic bans and short term blocks. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:52, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Support If you sock to avoid a restriction placed on you by the community, you just lost your editing privilages. The fact that they were told in no uncertain terms multiple times about their creation of articles gives creedance to the community blocking. They've somewhat used their standard offer by socking after the previous Indef to do the exact same thing they were blocked for. Hasteur (talk) 12:23, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

• Support The restrictions were clear and there is no question that the editor had clearly understood both the restrictions themselves as well as the reasons behind them. Socking to create a slew of articles to get around an article creation ban is about as egregious as it gets. --rgpk (comment) 13:35, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

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