Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Dennis Brown (talk | contribs) at 12:54, 31 October 2008 (→Suggestion: clarify). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

• WP:ANI
• WP:AN/I

This page is for urgent incidents or chronic, intractable behavioral problems.

• Before posting:
  • Consider other means of dispute resolution first
  • Read these tips for dealing with incivility
  • If the issue concerns a specific user, try discussing it with them on their talk page
  • If the issue concerns use of admin tools or other advanced permissions, request an administrative action review
  • Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly.
• Be brief and include diffs demonstrating the problem
• Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead go to Requests for oversight.

When starting a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page; pinging is not enough.
You may use {{subst:ANI-notice}} ~~~~ to do so.

Closed discussions are usually not archived for at least 24 hours. Routine matters might be archived more quickly; complex or controversial matters should remain longer. Sections inactive for 72 hours are archived automatically by Lowercase sigmabot III. Editors unable to edit here are sent to the /Non-autoconfirmed posts subpage. (archives, search)

• Refining the administrator elections process
• Blocks for promotional activity outside of mainspace
• Voluntary RfAs after resignation

Remarks by Everyme

I really hate to do this. I'm pretty thick skinned, and generally detest people coming here to complain of incivility or personal attacks. But completely unprovoked remarks about me by Everyme (talk · contribs) have left me speechless. I'm not going to say more, to resist poisoning the well, but I'd very much appreciate some admins to examining this comment and then this thread, and take whatever action seems good to them.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 23:48, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I should note that I tried to resolve this situation, unsuccessfully. See my comments here. ~ L'Aquatique 23:51, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm grateful to L'Aquatique for her attempts. Unfortunately, the user doesn't seem to get it.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 23:53, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Now that Everyme has been made aware of this discussion, can I summise the concern is that Everyme has offended Scott MacDonald's sensibilities by inferring that an good faith difference of opinion by SM has been termed "intellectual dishonesty"? If so, I agree that Everyme should apologise for the lack of good faith shown and intemperate language used - different philosophies can produce different results from the same evidence; to label a differing conclusion as "dishonest" is both arrogant and incivil. LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:33, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

First of all, apologies for not informing everyme, but I didn't want to be seen as baiting him, so I was staying off his userpage. If it had just been the accusation of intellectual dishonesty, I'd have let it pass. But he also, without any provocation, compared me to Ashley Todd (a liar and a "race baiter"), and then when I (fairly mildly) invited him to remove his comment, I was subjected to a further abusive tirade. An apology would be nice personally, but that;s not the point, it is more important from the project's point of view that we communicate that there are limits, beyond which we don't tolerate this attitude. I repeat, that I'd never interacted with him before.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 00:42, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Would Everyme been aware that use of that name (it means nothing to me) would have been particularly offensive to you, or to anyone, and is it possible that they still misunderstand that this is the case? I have to say that I missed this point when reviewing the links. LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:53, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Em, his post doesn't make sense without it. But read all his remarks and draw your own conclusions.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 00:58, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I hadn't noticed that Ashley Todd is the name of the hoaxer... On repeat review I don't think that Everyme meant what you have taken it to mean (IMO, regarding concerns over the BLP considerations of someone who themselves are admitted liars coupled with the "intellectual dishonesty" language), but they have not made any effort to explain themselves better and certainly not taken the route of apologising for any misunderstanding - but rather simply requested you to review the past content and draw different conclusions. I would prefer that Everyme made some comment here before seeing if any admin action is required. LessHeard vanU (talk) 01:21, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, maybe he meant something else? Maybe when he called me dumb, and stupid or dishonest, he was actually trying to say something nice as well?--Scott MacDonald (talk) 01:26, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course the real issue here is that this is ultimately about McCain-Obama. In a couple of weeks, Everye will lose interest in this, and probably Scott as well. Looie496 (talk) 02:14, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Personally I'm not American, and have no partisan allegiances. I'm not sure that political stress excuses Everyme's behaviour.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 03:18, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

What then excuses your behaviour? Concern about BLP? Hardly so. And for anyone who doesn't know: Yes, I'm for Obama and I despise vicious racebaiting, whether it comes from a confused young woman or from anybody else. More importantly however, I'm worried about encyclopedic accuracy and quality of discussion. Consider that the entire dispute began when Scott actually tried to argue against "Ashley Todd's mugging hoax" as the article title thusly. I responded to that by bitchslapping his comment, and I maintain that I was not only right, but doing the right thing. Everyme 07:04, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

• First off, Scott, thank you for your honesty in not informing me about this ANI thread. Thank you so much. I'm not entirely sure where I gave you the impression that I might possibly prefer not being notified over being "harassed" (a favourite buzzword of BLP-policy-fans btw, oh the irony). Well, for the record: I would have preferred it had you notified me, which I personally regard as a matter of basic politeness. Maybe you, Scott, would interpret a simple notification of an ANI thread about yourself as "harassment", but, just to kindly inform you about it, not everyone would and certainly not myself. Thank you very much for being so very considering and honest there. Wonderful.
  
  As to the merits of the thread itself: I've explained my position and my reasoning over and over, without getting any reply as to the merit of my reasoning. For Scott to say that " he also, without any provocation, compared me to Ashley Todd (a liar and a "race baiter"), and then when I (fairly mildly) invited him to remove his comment, I was subjected to a further abusive tirade" is yet another comment I can only ... marvel at. I made it clear, both in my initial comment, then again at my user talk, that what I meant was the perception of some extent of intellectual dishonesty (for the record: my according reasoning has not been responded to by anyone so far). Deliberately mixing it up with Todd's racebaiting (an entirely different point in my initial comment, mind you) is, well, a wee bit far-fetched to say the very very least. So far-fetched indeed that I yet again can hardly think of any other valid explanation for why he would do that (and Scott did it in his initial comment at my talk page already).
  
  Scott refused to respond to my explanations, instead chose to be "just rather stunned". Well, again, I ask you, and this is all I care about: Why, just why, would you, at that article talk page, produce an arbitrary definition of "hoax" which you must know is entirely made up by yourself and wrong on top of that — and, most ironically, serves your stance in the article? Why would you do that? There are not so many possible explanations I can conjure up for that. Please respond to my reasoning for once. You, or anybody else who feels up to the task. Consider that I also made it very clear that in saying that I perceived his comment there as intellectually dishonest, my intention was obviously (or so I think) not to personally attack Scott. It was merely something I arrived at as the imho most likely conclusion of my reasoning. I did not comment on Scott, I commented on his comment, and told him in no unclear terms what I think of his comment, and, more importantly, why I do. Everyme 07:04, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
• Just a footnote here, but I'd like to note that Scott's memory appears to fail him when he claims above that "I repeat, that I'd never interacted with him before." Everyme 07:38, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

This kind of comment about another editor is completely unacceptable: "I didn't assume for a second that you, Scott, might actually be dumb enough to believe your own bullshit, like your definition of what a hoax is. But ok, I'll leave the choice to you: Either you are intellectually dishonest, or you're stupid." The fact that you refuse to admit it was wrong or strike it is concerning as this is clearly a personal attack. (Full disclosure, I've had previous disagreements with Everyme) Oren0 (talk) 08:41, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

What is your explanation for his awkward definition of "hoax" at that article talk page? I merely summarised all the possible alternative explanations I could think of. Since I believe Scott is intelligent, that leaves intellectual dishonesty as the most likely explanation for why he would give an arbitrary definition that just so happens to play to his stance on the article. Again, and for hopefully the last time: It's not a personal attack, it's applied logic. Also, again: Prove me wrong and I'll happily retract. But right now it's just not in my hands, I feel like I've done my homework. Please respond to my reasoning, which concluded with me seeing some degree of intellectual dishonesty as the most likely explanation for Scott's initial comment. It's the most charming of the possible explanations I could think of: I was actually being polite and carefully weighed my limited knowledge of Scott. Everyme 09:13, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't currently have the time to get involved with this, so I can't give an opinion either way, but I have previously had to negotiate with Everyme over gross incivility after Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/2008 South Carolina Learjet 60 crash and I got the impression that was not the first time, either. Maybe, if we decide this was unsuitable (again, remember I haven't actually gone over this in detail), it's time somene dished out a block. How long are we going to leave this? Blood Red Sandman 09:04, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

That's a truly hilarious situation. I can either renounce, against my better current knowledge, what I assume to be flawless reasoning on my part, or face a block. Well, I'll have to go with the block then because I am unable to discover a flaw in my reasoning and nobody bothered to even respond to my reasoning. Nevermind that I felt insulted by Scott's way of POV pushing there, and how he insulted his fellow editors' intelligence. But at least he did it civilly, didn't he. And that's what counts. Fuck my reasoning, fuck encyclopedic accuracy. Right on. Everyme 09:19, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

• Also, I'd appreciate it if the section could be renamed from the imho quite misleading "remarks" name to "Reasoning by Everyme", or alternatively "Flawed reasoning by Everyme", depending on a response by anyone who actually bothers to look at the situation at hand and doesn't merely respond on their own grudge. I am as civil as the situation allows me to be. No more, no less. And it's once again fantastic to see for how little valid reasoning counts on Misplaced Pages, and how zero effort to provide a valid reasoning is being constantly indulged if only the user follows the hivemind definition of "civility". Everyme 10:29, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

"...what I assume to be flawless reasoning..." is beyond hilarious; it goes a long way to evidence Scott MacDonald's complaint. No matter how "flawless" you might consider your reasoning, you have a duty to explain yourself in civil terms to a query (and you are required to AGF as regards such queries); your responses are uncivil, and arrogant, and unconducive to engendering a consensual editing atmosphere - being right isn't enough. Speaking of being right, are we not supposed to use reliable sources when ascribing motive or characterisations to a living person? Verifiability, not truth, is the basis of complying with BLP concerns, so ultimately "flawless reasoning" or lack of is unimportant. I strongly suggest that the discussion is directed to how the reliable sources describe the individual, and take it from there. LHvU (talk) 10:39, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

You do of course realise that Scott's reasoning there was based on his definition of "hoax" as "implying a deception over time, not claims made then quickly retracted." — To which, taking your edit summary cue re: WP:V, I responded e.g. by linking to the Merriam-Webster definition of the term. Now, why would an intelligent person like Scott make up that exact erroneous definition, on an article talk page where to me personally, he appears to be concerned more about the BLP policy than about encyclopedic accuracy? Why would he do such a thing? Why? What exactly is your alternative explanation, if you so decidedly disagree that it's intellectual dishonesty? At any rate, his wasn't valid reasoning, according to Merriam-Webster. He also displayed a less than neutral approach in inaccurately portray the situation as "Someone who may be unstable said some untrue things." — Which, come to think of it (and on top of Scott's downplaying the situation, i.e. Todd's lying to the police, the racebaiting and the self-inflicted injuries to make her story more believable), contains an actual BLP violation, namely his labelling a living person as "unstable" without presenting a reliable source for that extraordinary and potentially libellous claim. As to "unconducive to engendering a consensual editing atmosphere" : Are you trying to make me laugh or cry with that? Everybody else disagreed with him, I just took issue at the way he insult his fellow editors' intelligence in making up that definition right out of the blue. I felt insulted, and I reacted by carefully pointing it out to him. Obviously, he didn't like that. But I'm pretty sure he knows deep down that my criticism of his comment was spot-on. That's why he didn't react to any of my reasoning. He didn't comment on that at all, not even reiterating his definition of a hoax. He knows I'm right, he's just pissed off that someone called him on it to the fuller extent to which his comment was unacceptable. Everyme 10:54, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

You do not, of course, realise that the question over the correct interpretation is irrelevant; we should use the term only if it is applied by the reliable source. Whether they are using the term in the correct sense is unimportant. Deliberating what constitutes the correct use is therefore original research, a point which Scott MacDonald also misses. The matter of the "consensual editing atmosphere" is in relation to your continuing incivil manner, and not to who is wrong or right. You earlier commented that you were frustrated by the fact SM was - in your view - incorrect yet their civil manner meant that they were not being castigated for their error. You seem blissfully unaware that ANI is not a venue for dispute resolution but for questions on violation of WP policies. You were and continue to be in violation of WP:Civil, and are displaying a lack of appreciation of WP:V. SM has also not understood the application of WP:V, but he has conducted himself in an appropriate manner in this instance. I am uncertain if sanctioning you is going to improve your understanding on how editors are supposed to conduct themselves, so I see no further purpose in continuing this discussing this with you here. LHvU (talk) 12:13, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Google says hoax, not incident. Great dispute resolution, everybody. Let's move on. Everyme 12:55, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

This is not about the suitability of the term hoax. I made a case, and two people quite civilly told me I was wrong. That's fine and needs no dispute resolution. However, you then came in with gratuitous personal attacks, and when asked refused to remove them and engaged in more. Since that reflects on your weaknesses rather than mine, I've removed them myself and consider the matter closed. You, perhaps should reflect on your aggression, because if you continue in this manner I predict your future with this project will be short. I grant you the last word, and just hope it will not compound your incivility.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 14:28, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

For the record: Last word was here. 78.34.141.200 (talk) 17:57, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Everyme: Why don't you tone it down about 5 rhetorical notches? Your excuse that you "felt insulted" doesn't hold much water, I have to say. Your own response, on the other hand, was remarkably insulting. Just like Scott MacDonald can be wrong and civil, you should strive to be both right and civil. A conclusion of "intellectual dishonesty" is not supported by what Scott wrote, and certainly your further evaluation of him as either stupid or dishonest is also unsupported by any evidence. The flaw in your logic is this: You assume that in order to be wrong in this instance he must be stupid, deduce that he is not stupid, and conclude that he must be lying. Your first assumption is incorrect - you can be wrong without being stupid. Therefore your conclusion is not as flawlessly logical as you believed. Avruch 16:06, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not logical at all. It's simply rude, and ad hominems are a logical fallacy. If someone does something wrong, there are other ways to react than arrogant and accusative speech. -- Logical Premise 20:16, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Calling someone stupid is a personal attack, even if it's true. You can't logic away the fact that your comment was insulting and that's why you should retract it IMO. Oren0 (talk) 05:07, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Scott feels rightly insulted here. The comments by Everyme were highly insulting and should be withdrawn. Hobartimus (talk) 06:29, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Despite an outstandig example of wiki lawyering by Everyme, an apology is in order to insure that he understands that such insults wont be tolerated. Failiure to do so would most likly warrant a block as the user is well aware of our policies on civilty.   «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l»  (talk) 00:50, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikilawyering? I suppose you simply don't understand that term. Anyway, you forgot to mention that you yourself have been featured at the noticeboards for egregious incivility, and also that we have had some conflict in the past (was admittedly too lazy to dig through the AN/I archives, should be in there somewhere). I suppose you just forgot to mention that. You certainly did not omit it so as to appear more uninvolved. 78.34.141.200 (talk) (Everyme logged out) 17:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know either person, it just happened that I was reported above this discussion and my eyes wandered down. Does the guy go about insulting people all the time? If he does he should be warned, the discussions should be about articles, not about the editors, but insisting in getting "apologies" and "retractions" looks to me a bit like kids having a fight, let's behave like grownups, the guy should be warned not to voice again his opinion about fellow editors because it's against the rules (even if he considers he's right) and that should be it, insisting in getting apologies is a bit silly (oh my, will I be banned from Misplaced Pages because I said "silly"?) And by the way, I don't really get this. How can we ask (and actually force) somebody to be dishonest by apologizing for something that he obviously believes in? (this is a bit scarry, you know like 1984 and thought control...) At most the admins could say: "delete that sentence because is against the rules or you'll be punished for breaking the rules and don't continue to discuss editors", simple as that. BTW, shouldn't things that deal with incivility be reported in another part of Misplaced Pages? Isn't there a process, you need to warn the person and if the person continues with incivilities then you report them to WP:WQA. Has this noticeboard become a place where "justice" is dispensed summarily? Why are people reported here instead of where they should be reported? man with one red shoe (talk) 02:06, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

As much as I dislike posting in these threads, it is probably relevant to mention User:Wizardman's conclusion at Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Dorftrottel#Conclusion. Also, an IP claims to be the individual under discussion as seen in this edit. --A Nobody 23:43, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

A Nobody, I believe you posted in the wrong thread. ~ L'Aquatique 05:15, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Why? It looks like Everyme was Dorftrottel. man with one red shoe (talk) 05:23, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah yes, I see that now. My apologies, I wasn't reading carefully enough.

So, the question now: Everyme has not responded to this thread, has apparently not retracted his remarks. Do we want to let this fly or take action? I don't have a preference. ~ L'Aquatique 18:51, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Everyme has been clearly shown to be unwilling to avoid completely unacceptable remarks in disputes, or incapable of doing so. This needs to be changed. Action. --Kizor 00:14, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

You're yet another editor who rightly thinks their life would be easier without me around. Maybe my memory is just better than yours, but when I saw your comment here, I immediately remembered having challenged some minor bullshit from you in the past. I suppose you simply forgot to mention that. You certainly did not omit it so as to appear more uninvolved. 78.34.141.200 (talk) (Everyme logged out) 17:45, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I recalled that we'd had some kind of unpleasant encounter in the past. It looks like we met once, briefly, six months ago. Less time than that passed between me being blocked and me being granted adminship. Your presence here has little bearing on my life and my time on Misplaced Pages, so I don't consider exchanging thirteen to fifteen inconsequential lines last spring to constitute involvement or a taint on my judgement. Others are welcome to weigh in on this. --12:15, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

This search indicates that I also comment on your nomination here, last February. We are both present on a few talk pages, but not in the same sections. And no, I don't think that this counts as involvement, either. --Kizor 12:42, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Elisabeth, I was rolling on the floor at "As much as I dislike posting in these threads." 78.34.141.200 (talk) (Everyme logged out) 18:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) A bit of a strong attack considering that scott mcdonald made a single two line posting on the subject. One would, I presume, need a lot more rhetoric for a charge of intellectual dishonesty. But, insulting? I wouldn't really call it that. We all spend a good part of our day being intellectually dishonest (come on, admit it!) and it should be no big deal if one is labeled that in a debate (read, for example Intellectual dishonesty). It is certainly not the same as being called 'stupid' and is not properly an Ad hominem argument since it is the argument that is being attacked rather than the speaker. But, I agree that it is probably not productive to throw labels around especially when an editor has made a single objection, that objection has been addressed by others, and the editor has not yet had the opportunity to comment on the logic of the responses. I see that scottmcdonald has deleted the remarks that he/she found offensive, so it probably makes sense to close this report and let the matter rest. --Regents Park (sink with my stocks) 15:55, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

but it would be reasonable to suppose that this sort of absolutely inexcusable abuse will be continued, here or somewhere else--judging by the edit history of even the last few weeks. At some point this has to stop. I suggest a 24 hour block, with the understanding it will be increased upon repeats. People who edit here need protection against this, and the appropriate time to have stopped tolerating it was a good while ago. (If we hadn't disagreed about various things at various times i'd do the block myself.) DGG (talk) 03:11, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

What purpose would that block serve, iyo? What do you think the value of blocking me is? Give me a warning? Seriously? The "incident" was several days ago, the former admin now known as "Scott MacDonald" has unilaterally done what none of the morally outraged people here cared to do, which was to refactor the (logically deduced, no less) "personal attack" against his comment him. Please also consider that I'm not hellbent on editing via a registered account either. The adding of references and formatting I mainly do is entirely possible via IP. If the community decides to indef block/ban me, I'd just continue doing such largely uncontroversial edits via IP, with a non-editing sock account to maintain a watchlist, and maybe do very minor edits on semiprotected articles. In other words: Do your worst. You will not keep me from working on the encyclopedia. Also, David and anyone else reading this, if you honestly believe that people like e.g. Promethean and "A Nobody" are more valuable and --in contrast to myself-- worth having around, I suppose nothing short of a long-term electroshock regimen could possibly be done to change your mind anyway. Not that I propose such a thing, but it's getting too ridiculous and I'm tired of defending myself against the torrent of people commenting here against me in a dishonest or at least mindless way, many of them omitting mention of prior encounters they've had with me -- possibly because I have been right in most those encounters, and they were wrong. It wouldn't help their vested goal against me one bit if they mentioned those run-ins. Anyway, I honestly don't care either way. I just wonder, with some of those editors who are defended at every turn here and elsewhere, who needs vandals and trolls? But calling one of them on their bullshit, that's a big no-no. Especially when it's a former admin, like "Scott MacDonald". Right. And nobody bothered to refactor my "unacceptable personal attack" on the article talk page. Nobody but Scott himself. Best practice? Hardly so. 78.34.128.69 (talk) 10:31, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

User:Ariobarza

Resolved – Ariobarza blocked for one week by Alvestrand. --Elonka 03:00, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I've recently been working on articles relating to ancient Babylonian history, but I'm getting increasingly concerned by the behaviour of Ariobarza (talk · contribs). While he is an enthusiastic contributor, he appears to reject the prohibition of original research. He constantly promotes original research and regularly makes edits, or even writes articles, on the basis of his own personal interpretations of sources. His additions are rarely if ever accompanied by citations. He treats Misplaced Pages as a battlefield, is aggressive, confrontional and accuses other editors of pursuing an anti-Iranian or even "neo-conservative" agenda (it's news to me that there's a neocon viewpoint on ancient history!). When his edits are questioned or criticised, he gets angry and posts long, rambling and often angry rants to article and user talk pages to justify his edits and views. He responds dismissively or with hostility to advice given in good faith and assumes bad faith of others who do not share his POV or question his use of original research. Key diffs:

• Promotion of original research. Numerous examples of articles created on the basis of uncited OR and personal interpretations: Battle of the Tigris (ongoing AfD - Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Battle of the Tigris); Siege of Ecbatana (repeatedly created and deleted via AfD - Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Siege of Ecbatana); Siege of Halicarnassus (repeatedly created and deleted); Battle of Media (deleted); Battle of Mylasa, Battle of Pedasa, Siege of Pasargadae Hill, Battle of Pasargadae, Mitradates, Persian Revolt etc (all will need to be cleaned up as appropriate). Repeated unsourced additions to articles, which other editors have reverted: , , , , . He is quite open about pursuing OR (which he calls "connecting the dots") in articles.

• Treating Misplaced Pages as a battlefield / lack of good faith. Believes it's "up to me to stop Xerxes hordes". Accuses other editors of pursing "an agenda". . Accuses me of pursing "neo-conservative" agenda (Ariobarza apparently believes this is a westerners vs Iran situation and that he's defending Iranian honour) .

• Incivility. Numerous personal attacks against other editors. for just a few examples. Has been warned by other editors and admins to stop this behaviour - - but has continued regardless .

• Tendentious conduct on talk pages. Routinely posts long, rambling self-justifications and rants to talk pages (too many examples to list, see for one example).

• Inappropriate canvassing. Canvassed Tundrabuggy (talk · contribs) to participate in Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Battle of the Tigris with a characteristic angry rant against myself. (See also #User:Tundrabuggy below.)

I gather that Dougweller (talk · contribs) has been trying to "reform" Ariobarza for some months, but without any success. Given Ariobarza's complete refusal to listen to any outside advice from other editors and admins, his obvious anger management problems and his ongoing use of Misplaced Pages to promote his personal views, I think a topic ban covering articles relating to Near Eastern and classical history would be appropriate. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:18, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I GATHER that ChrisO is wrong that Dougweller has not reformed me, because I greatly made and improved the Battle of Hryba and almost got and I am in the process of getting a GA award for it, so I have great potential, but The Wall of Pink Floyd has is trying to block me, thanks.--Ariobarza (talk) 00:47, 29 October 2008 (UTC)Ariobarza talk

• A NOTE ALL SHOULD READA topic ban, I'll still can edit articles you know. Now the message, ChrisO is lucky I do not have time to make a list of his faults and misconducts, which if I did, it would be longer that this page. So please do NOT remove this message, let it be a reminder to those that come here, so when they come here they get the FULL picture, not only ChrisO's side of events (unfairness is the biggest problem on Misplaced Pages, for lack of representation) and know that ChrisO were onced blocked, which now he is trying to get me mad, so I can get blocked. And all users will regret agreeing with ChrisO that the Battle of the Tigris did not happen, which as right now I am gathering the sources, thank you.--Ariobarza (talk) 20:32, 28 October 2008 (UTC)Ariobarza talk

I can confirm that Ariobarza has been incivil to ChrisO (and others; he called me "Mr. Wall" here), and that Ariobarza has engaged in WP:OR on the articles under discussion. Since I've pointed out to Ariobarza that he has no sources for his claims, I suppose I should regard myself as a participant. I'll leave it to others to take action, if warranted.--Alvestrand (talk) 20:38, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I did warn the user in question regarding the "Bratz dolls" uncivil comment made on Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Battle of the Tigris after looking through that day's list of AfDs as usual. I felt that, instead of coming to ANI, that a RfC for user conduct should have been initiated, as this seems to be a blatant misconduct issue in which multiple editors have failed to resolve. However, since we are here now, I would leave the decision on the action to be taken to whomever. MuZemike (talk) 20:57, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

An RFC might be helpful. I don't think we are about to ban or block this user here and now. To me, Ariobarza's editing seems more confused than malicious. A thread on ANI does not serve much purpose. Jehochman 21:26, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I did consider an RfC, but many different editors have offered advice to him over many weeks and months and he has consistently responded by attacking them, dismissing them or ignoring them. I don't believe that Ariobarza is willing to respond positively to feedback. An RfC can serve no useful purpose in that situation. He isn't contributing anything useful, he's creating a poisonous atmosphere by constantly attacking those with whom he disagrees, he's actively degrading articles by pushing OR all the time; why exactly are we letting him continue to edit? -- ChrisO (talk) 21:35, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I've only really been involved at the Battle of the Tigris AfD, although have been aware of issues on related articles. In my view the comments on that page, both from Ariobarza and from others, sum up the overall problems pretty clearly on the one page. When editors start here they often dive in over-eagerly into articles, perhaps excited by the possibility that their views and thoughts will actually get integrated into content here. Gradually most either drop out altogether when they realise that they can't force their personal views into articles against consensus and/or policy, or stay but become a little more cautious and take on board the limitations imposed by core policies on original research, verifiability etc. Others just continue brazenly on, demanding the right to impose their personal world views and analysis all over various pages. Those editors lose the right to fall back on the excuse that they're new, or that they don't understand. Ariobarza even appears to claim the right to conduct original research and make "discoveries", about matters that are presumably hitherto unknown to scholarship. This latest example means we have a whole article here about a supposed battle that no reliable source appears to have any record of (and even were these sources to exist, they should be found first and the article then built around them, not the other way round of course). It totally diminishes the credibility of this place as an encyclopedic resource of any sort. Maybe strictly it should have been the first step, but I can't see what an RfC would accomplish - Ariobarza is constantly subject to comments from a wide range of editors, but just shouts back at them while asserting to right to do what he wants. --Nickhh (talk) 22:13, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

That has been my experience at Talk:Battle of Opis, which has been one long tedious OR-fest from Ariobarza. He has ignored everything that has been said by other editors and created Battle of the Tigris as a POV-fork of the first article, after he couldn't persuade people to include his OR. His conduct at Talk:Battle of Opis - in particular his constant insistance that he's right and everyone else is wrong or biased - is what leads me to believe that an RfC would not be of any use. Everything's already been said that needs to be said. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:36, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Firstly I never said I HAVE THE RIGHT TO ORIGINAL RESEARCH. The original research article says if in original research I find a discovery, then I could include it in Misplaced Pages, IF it is supported by sources. Your making up and jumping to conclusions about what I say, is very offending to me. Shall I say, this cornering and trapping reminds me of a saying... (The few against the many). I am currently minded my own business, so please, if I am going to suffer the same fate as Caesar, better do it now when my gaurd is down, than later. (When ariobarza says stuff like this he is being sarcastic.) OR, you guys can help me find sources for the battle, and not try to hinder progress on Misplaced Pages by deleting me. Thanks a lot.--Ariobarza (talk) 23:32, 28 October 2008 (UTC)Ariobarza talk

The article you are linking to is a(nother) rather badly written and referenced Misplaced Pages article, not the policy. I've already pointed this out to you here, but you seem to have ignored that. Nor does it even say anything approaching what you are claiming it does in any event. And finally the whole point is that you do not anyway have any sources for claiming that there were such events as "Battle of the Tigris" or "Siege of Kapisa". Your attempts to invoke this irrelevant WP article as justification for your behaviour merely serves to highlight the nature of the problem I'm afraid. --Nickhh (talk) 23:53, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

*Ahem*, canvassing and forum shopping alert: ChrisO has been canvassing a number of involved editors (, , , , , , ) to post here and echo his comments. As for Ariobarza, (s)he has already been warned for her inappropriate comments which were made in an apparent moment of frustration, and this is sufficient enough for now. If ChrisO feels otherwise, he should follow due process and initiate and RfC for user conduct which would allow a broader community input. Khoikhoi 23:29, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

• Khoikhoi, don't you remember? Ariobarza's already had an RFC a few weeks ago: it just got deleted for some strange reason or other. I think. Best, Moreschi (talk) 23:46, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Khoikhoi, I notified the people who were already involved in the discussions with/about Ariobarza, so kindly keep your aspersions to yourself. As for Ariobarza, I note that you haven't addressed his continuous promotion of OR (which is the centre of the problem), and it's insufficient to blame "an apparent moment of frustration" for repeated personal attacks on various editors on many occasions recently. Judging from his contribution, he's been behaving like an angry crank for months. We don't need this kind of editor. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:49, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe that was for conduct that involved two other users (Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Ariobarza, CreazySuit, Larno Man). The log says that it was deleted because it was "uncertified." If that's the case, we should open a solo one as there is more of a case this time around for one. MuZemike (talk) 23:57, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually it was certified; there was a dispute over whether it had been properly certified. I didn't bother appealing the deletion at the time because I felt the RfC had served its purpose. Unfortunately I seem to have been wrong about that. If others feel that an RfC is needed, I could probably create a fresh one based on the evidence above, but it will probably end up in arbitration. To be honest, I think this is something that the community can and should deal with - we shouldn't need to ask the arbitrators to do what we should be doing anyway. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:09, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

JUst recently I been acting up because of ChrisO, AND I called 4 users Bratz dolls, GET OVER IT! Suggesting from ChrisO's tone, he is saying, OFF WITH HIS (ariobarza's) HEAD. Sure you guys do not need me, its not like it I made 3,000 valid contributions to Misplaced Pages. Your right ChrisO I should be Quarantined.--Ariobarza (talk) 23:55, 28 October 2008 (UTC)Ariobarza talk

Dear, All user involved (HMM) I have come to the conclusion that I have been acting up a whole lot. Therefore I am currently writing a Public Apology to all the users I have offended and I have been wrong on most of the things. So for the sake of good faith I declare that we please put this behind us, and not escalate things, therefore we can resume progress on Misplaced Pages. I am willing to fix all my faults tommorow, if you and others do this now. My problem is I am short on time and often forget to source articles in the first place (which leads most users to think I am doing original research) and this is understandable from my part, so my main and maybe only problem is time managment. With best regards, thank you all (users for contributing free knoweldge to humanity) for reading.--Ariobarza (talk) 01:07, 29 October 2008 (UTC)Ariobarza talk Sincerly, Ariobarza

Ariobarza's outbursts are merely the icing on the cake as it were of the problem. The bigger, more fundamental problem is that this editor is dumping extremely poor and inaccurate content into this encyclopedia, based on their own amateur guesswork and original research, and has been doing this for over 8 months, with around 2,000 mainspace edits. You only have to stop and look at what they're doing for a couple of minutes - as I did - and work this out. I really would urge others to analyse what is going on rather than simply suggesting that an RfC would be better or whatever, on a point of procedure. Other editors have had to spend hours trying to stem or rollback the more egregious errors, and counselling Ariobarza on how to edit within the rules. But it just doesn't stop. As I've said it's damaging, and ultimately embarrassing. --Nickhh (talk) 08:06, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I've gotta agree with Nickhh. I've taken the time to have a look through a fair bit of Ariobarza's editing history (in addition to the diffs provided here) and the quality of his contributions is pretty grim. It's one thing to have an editor who makes the odd spelling and grammar error but whose contributions of net benefit to the 'pedia, but this situation is something else altogether. I'm sure that Ariobazra means well, but his contributions are seriously diminishing quality of the articles he focuses on. X MarX the Spot (talk) 08:33, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I like the excuse that he's "short on time" and "forgets" to provide sources. Add that to the Pantheon of the Lame. Baseball Bugs 10:04, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I've tried to work with this editor since June, trying my best to explain about original research, using references, advising him that he shouldn't self-assess his own articles (he just ignored the criteria and gave an unreferenced article a 'B' classification), using his sandbox (I was the third editor to suggest this, he was first asked to do this in February rather than create articles with no references), etc. I tried my best to work with him and support him for some time, then started to simply give up and ignore him - which isn't easy simply because he does things that shouldn't be ignored. For a while on Persian Revolt he was adding huge chunks of stuff straight from a mid-19th century book by Rawlinson, footnote numbers and all - which I reverted when I discovered that as old as it was, it has a current copyright - but it looked ridiculous . It would be useful if people looked at his talk page to see just how many editors have commented on problems with his edits. There are still quite a few articles that he created with no references that he hasn't deal with, and as we still here he hasn't learned from past comments. I'm also unhappy with the way he adds infoboxes with information in them that is often based on his OR. I don't know what to do about him, but I think a review of all the articles he created is probably necessary, he's been given months to sort them out. Eg Siege of Pasargadae Hill where I asked him four months ago for references, Siege of Doriskos which has been waiting since February for references, etc. I think he should request adoption and if he does that, seek guidance as to which of his articles that he created he can improve and which he himself should take to AfD. He shouldn't be working on any other articles until those he created are cleared up. If he doesn't accept adoption I think more stringent action needs to be taken for the sake of Misplaced Pages. He has been given advice which he hasn't followed for a very long period of time, and it looks as though crunch time has finally arrived. Doug Weller (talk) 11:07, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

You people just don't stop. Despite my efforts to say I am sorry and will make wiser contributions to Misplaced Pages. You do three things, keep damning my efforts, making uneccessary critisims on things I am taking care of as of now, and finally taking things to the extreme. Why, I am already before God, is he showing me a list of my sins? Did you guys read the bolded message I put, or ignored it, which Dougweller has said openly? I am thinking of taking this to administrater abuse, not because you have abused your powers, but are now engaged in stalking my edits, taunting, and threatening me with uneccessary things. And I thought I could talk to you people (a small group of admin with special dreams). I have been only mean to one or two users, so why are you, 90% admin coordinating your attacks. You make it seem like I am the only one with faults here, whereas some of you have done more terrible things than I have, (it might be because this is my ANI page) I have been here for just over a year. Seeing that I am short on time, and edit fast, you could have helped me with my research (not only pointing out my wrong things) on the Battle of the Tigris, and many other articles, but you chose to accuse me of not putting sources, and blaming me for vage sources and taking it to speedily delete (A DAY AFTER IT WAS MADE). So its up to you guys if you want to escalate things, I WILL not hesitate to go the administrater abuses page. THANK YOU.--Ariobarza (talk)

Please calm down. The editing you have been doing does seem to legitimately be a big problem. Attacking administrators back only leads to getting blocked, in the end - it's not OK, it's not acceptable user behavior. Please calm down and describe what you will do to fix your prior editing problems, and make it clear that you understand what those problems were. Thank you. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:29, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

• Click on the links ChrisO provides for you here, and read my messages to end, and then DECIDE whether most of them are valid arguements or not.

Ariobarza has now taken to removing links to problem articles in ChrisO's original post on WP:ANI. I am sorry but surely this is the proverbial last straw in terms of what they are doing in WP as a whole? --Nickhh (talk) 00:13, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

He's also taken to altering my comments on talk pages to make it appear as if I'm saying things I haven't said. . Not a good idea. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree that those diffs are problematic. I will have a word with Ariobarza. --Elonka 00:27, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd seen that too. A preference for mentorship and a short topic ban has now turned towards support for a total block. This kind of behaviour cannot, surely, be tolerated. What is this editor contributing apart from poor content, endless obfuscation and outright fraud? --Nickhh (talk) 00:26, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Can somebody take a mentorship of Ariobarza. It looks like an enthusiastic editor that may need some help. Maybe Khoikhoi? Alex Bakharev (talk) 05:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Khoikhoi would not be a good choice; his behaviour is problematic in its own way. See my comments at the bottom of #User:Tundrabuggy below. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:29, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Apparently someone did not get that Siege of Kapisa does not belong here I stand by what I did. Now ChrisO because he feels he was defeated in the feud of Opis he is LITERALLY TRYING TO DELETE ALL THE ARTICLEs I HAVE MADE, IF HE CONTinues to do this I will take him ADMIN BANNING. ANd I will offend Nickhh, for is Bull**** comments, OBFUSCATION AND OUTRIGHT FRAUD? Please get a life or stay out of mine. As you all for falling for ChrisO bones in his closet, you have drived me up the wall, I already said this here, your welcomed to include this entry in my uncivil behavior section. If I go down, all on this page will be sucked into the black hole to, so do not think your GANG is going to get away with this, LACK OF REPRESENTATION is the biggest problem on Misplaced Pages, so do not worry, policy changes and (Admins) being removed is in the works/ pre-production. Thanks.--Ariobarza (talk) 06:12, 30 October 2008 (UTC)Ariobarza talk

While I don't see how he plans to implement his threats, he's definitely being threatening. Threats have no place in Misplaced Pages discussions. Blocked for a week. --Alvestrand (talk) 06:45, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

He's referring to my nomination of Siege of Kapisa for deletion - see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Siege of Kapisa. This is exactly what I had feared would be the case; he appears to think he WP:OWNs the articles he's created and gets abusively hostile when his edits are questioned. The message he left on my talk page is a case in point. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:47, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Editing restriction proposal

I don't recall editing any articles in common with Ariobarza, but I have interacted with another editor (Ramu50) who was recently blocked for similar behavior: repeated poor quality, albeit good faith edits, followed by unfounded accusations against those editors pointing out said problems. My position then was it is now: Ariobarza's editing privileges have to put in balance with the amount of clean-up work he generates for other editors. The articles in question seem to revolve around ancient history. I would propose the following topic restriction: Ariobarza is prohibited from making edits on ancient history article without discussing them first on the talk page of the article. Failure to comply could result in a short block (12hrs). VG ☎ 16:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Airobarza already generates huge blocks OF TEXT (I really wish he'd break his caps lock key) on talk pages, both user and article, and usually ignores the replies. Although I think this is a good idea, past evidence suggests it isn't enough, he really needs a mentor. Doug Weller (talk) 16:56, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• I don't think that such a sanction will work in its current wording. Additionally, I'd like to see an RFC/U. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:05, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

He's just reappeared, despite his block, in IP form on the Battle of Tigris AfD . --Folantin (talk) 17:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, well. Does anyone still think a RfC/U would achieve anything? VG ☎ 17:53, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

And now on the article itself. As for restrictions once the block expires, the above seems reasonable in principle. However it would have to be specific about covering the creation of new articles, and would probably have to relate to anything to do with Iran as a whole too. It would also leave him free to continue filling out talk pages, and to a certain extent of course it would be encouraging him to do that - not harmful per se, but mildly disruptive. --Nickhh (talk) 18:41, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Some admin should explain the concept of WP:BLOCK to him. He doesn't seem to get it. --Folantin (talk) 18:57, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

As with WP:OR, I think he understands knows well what the policy says, but he either doesn't agree with it or he doesn't think it applies to him. Look at the IP he's using - it's an open proxy in a school district in California. This is (one of) his normal logged-out IP addresses, an ISP in Texas. That is deliberate block evasion, quite clearly. Re VG's comment - what would an RfC/U achieve? He's shown time and again that he simply doesn't listen to what other people say. He was warned not to make further personal attacks by three admins and promptly got himself blocked after posting further rants. He's said several times that he'll change his ways but has promptly gone back to the same behaviour again. He ignores all the advice he gets on talk pages and his own user talk page. He's just ignored a block, deliberately evading it through an open proxy and continued editing regardless.

As for a topic restriction, part of the problem with Ariobarza's behaviour is his abuse of talk pages; he posts reams of original research and bogs everyone else down in endless circular discussions. Restricting him to talk pages will simply mean that instead of adding OR to articles some of the time and behaving tendentiously on talk pages the rest of the time, he will end up behave tendentiously on talk pages all of the time. Let's just get this over with - block him or topic-ban him and have done with it. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:24, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'm not sure what the benefit to Misplaced Pages would be having him back. If we spent as much time trying to retain experts as we do trying to reform problem users this encyclopaedia might actually get somewhere. As it is, having persistent troublemakers around tends to scare most experts away. --Folantin (talk) 19:32, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I support a complete ban at this point. Given that he edits from proxies while blocked, Ariobarza's obviously going to ignore any topic ban. Enough time wasted with him. VG ☎ 20:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Given the now-increased veracity of the situation and the actions taken as a result of this thread, I am now not sure that an RFC/U would help. However, it can't hurt to ask for input from the broader community on what should be done, which is what that would accomplish. MuZemike (talk) 21:21, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

What more "input from the broader community" do we need and what would that accomplish? We have a perfectly straightforward situation here of a disruptive, abusive, block-evading editor who's already wasted far too much of people's time. As Vasile says, "enough time wasted with him". I agree that a complete ban would be appropriate now. He's had enough second chances. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:04, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

How is this possibly resolved? A topic ban at the very least is still on the table. Ariobarza has violated his block already. Not what I'd call resolved. Aunt Entropy (talk) 03:20, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

After looking at the very recent mess on his talk page, I think maybe we should now bring this to WP:AN for a ban discussion. I'm sorry, but I tried to assume good faith as much as I could. MuZemike (talk) 06:51, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Not really sure why we have to move this to AN when all the evidence is here. Given the monkeying around with block evasion, this looks like a pretty clear-cut case for a ban. Why should we waste any more time? --Folantin (talk) 10:08, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

User:Tundrabuggy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A few notes:

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

Cheers, Jaakobou 02:26, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

p.s. I have not read the "Ariobarza" section above this subsection. Jaakobou 03:06, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

User:Kuban Cossack and never ending edit wars

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Request for intervention

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

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

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

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

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

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

Natalia Korolevska

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

User:ScienceApologist

This thread was started by banned user:Iantresman, is there anything here that needs actual admin attention? Thatcher 12:11, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Grburster

Could people reading this thread review what I've written at Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Grburster? I'm rather unhappy that a checkuser request was filed purely on the basis of this ANI thread and the name similarity. It looks like fishing to me, pure and simple. It also looks like an attempt to deflect from the criticisms being made by Grburster of ScienceApologist. As someone said above, please don't shoot the messenger. Have a look at Special:Contributions/Grburster - I see nothing wrong there. It looks to me like someone who has admitted (without disclosing) a prior account (that's fine) and who came to ANI to make a criticism of another editor, is now being 'investigated' on spurious grounds. Carcharoth (talk) 08:39, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Recheck your assumptions please. Thatcher 12:11, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

The checkuser was fully justified. As far as I can tell, an editor noticed what appeared to be a sock of a very disruptive user he was familiar with, and called for a check user. You should spend more time examining the situation before you call 'checkuser abuse'. Its exactly this kind of feel-good huggy enforcing of the rules without any knowledge of the actual situation that the disruptive users will take full advantage of of. Guyonthesubway (talk) 14:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Carcharoth, you are one of my favorite admins. I wish you would come over to WP:SSP or WP:RFCU and help us with the backlogs. Before criticizing, walk a mile in the other editor's shoes. Jehochman 14:08, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I think Carcharoth does has a good point, the justification for the checkuser I requested was arguably borderline, but I did have a gut feeling I couldn't ignore. If that suspicion had been wrong it would have been me people would be criticising, rather than him. As a note, I've unblocked User:GammaRayBurst and apologised for my mistake in linking him to a banned user. Mark as resolved? Tim Vickers (talk) 15:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Tim, even if GammaRayBurst (talk · contribs) wasn't socking, it still looks like a vandal-only account. If you don't mind, I'll leave an unambiguous final warning for the account. — Scientizzle 15:32, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, fine with me. Tim Vickers (talk) 15:39, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the late response (was out last night). It seems things have moved on a lot since I posted yesterday morning. As I started the thread, I would have liked the opportunity to respond before things were marked resolved or collapsed, but sometimes things do happen quickly round here. I've reviewed what my thoughts and actions were here and the points I want to make before moving on are as follows:

• (1) I'm not in any way defending socking by User:Iantresman to evade his ban.
• (2) However, I stand by my opinion that before the checkuser was run, there was no way to tell who User:Grburster was. Did ScienceApologist recognise the style? Did Tim Vickers? Did MastCell? Did anyone else in that thread above (now collapsed by Thatcher)? There were some concerns, but those were focused on the new nature of the (self-admitted) experienced account, not on the connection TimVickers made with another account (which turned out to be unrelated, as Thatcher said, justifying the point I made at the checkuser request, though Thatcher failed to note that when asking me to recheck my assumptions).
• (3) I'd like to thank User:Crossmr and User:TimVickers, who understood the point I was making about the checkuser request. See here and here.
• (4) I would like to note for the record that I object to what was said in the posts by User:ScienceApologist (here - saying that those who accepted Grburster at face value at the checkuser request, and didn't know at the time that he was Iantresman, were "defending the indefensible" - a most unfair accusation to make: Thatcher "saved the day" because he had checkuser, while others (including me) only had the contributions history to go by) and User:Guyonthesubway (here - incorrectly stating the reason TimVickers filed the checkuser request and saying that I hadn't taken the time to examine the situation - obviously I feel I had taken the time to examine the situation, by reviewing every single contribution by User:Grburster and the other account named at the checkuser request). I don't want to go into more detail here (it would distract from the other points I'm making), but if those editors want to discuss this further, we can take it to talk pages.
• (5) I'm still concerned that User:Thatcher (who asked me to "recheck my assumptions") seemed to miss the point I was making about checkuser. Yes, I know Thatcher does huge amounts of checkuser work, but that is a reason for more scrutiny, not less. I would like to ask Thatcher directly what his reason was for running the checkuser (e.g. what was the reason given in the checkuser log?). Was it because of the request made by User:TimVickers (which didn't mention this ANI thread at all)? Or was it because he (Thatcher) saw a new account (self-admitted as an experienced editor), editing physics articles, who had made an ANI post criticising User:ScienceApologist, and alarm bells began to ring?
• (6) The final point, leading on from the previous one, is where do the boundaries of checkuser lie?

• (a) Is it acceptable to routinely run a checkuser over banned users (such as User:Iantresman) to catch sockpuppets?
• (b) Is it acceptable to routinely run a checkuser over people who criticise User:ScienceApologist?
• (c) Is it acceptable to routinely run a checkuser over new accounts who criticise ScienceApologist?
• (d) Is it acceptable to run a checkuser in a particular case (even if not technically justified) because you think it might reveal something else unrelated, and how much of that is left to the discretion of the checkuser?

My answers would be: Yes, No, Maybe, Yes (according to discretion). Could Thatcher or another checkuser (but preferably Thatcher, as it relates to the checkuser he carried out) confirm this is how things are done, or correct me if I'm missing things here? Thanks.

Apologies for the length of that response. As I said, I was out last night, but wanted to respond here and (hopefully) get some answers to the questions I posed above, and then move on. Carcharoth (talk) 09:08, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

need block of POV-pushing static IP

Can't bring to AIV because I always catch him when 24 hours have passed. (19 in this case)

71.59.26.123 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), Matilda gave him a level 4 warning on 14 October for removing anything related to India (Hindu translations, references to Vedra, etc) and adding stuff that makes Afganisthan/Pakistan look more important than warranted, including modifying sources. He made POV edits again on 18 October, but AIV report was rejected as stale, so I gave him another level 4 warning on 24 October. Now he has made POV edits again on the following day after the level 4 warning on 25 October (falsifying the title of a source among other things) and now again 27 October. He has done edits on October on 11 different days, and makes POV edits every time, last time he removed the hindu translation of an article about a frigging cheese and then unlinked them from another article (presumibly because it's an indian cheese), while modifying the article so it looks like Pashtun only ever had influences from Arabic with none of those pesky influence from indians and stuff.

It would be pointless to give a third level 4 warning, since it's obviously the same person and has not engaged on anysort of explanation or justification.

Please block for a few days, as he will surely return in 2-3 days. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:12, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Agree. Blocked for one week. Tan | 39 16:16, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Ugh, I'm going back through some contributions of him that I left for good, and it's turning out that even the most innocent-looking changes (a removal of an alternative name) were POV-pushing. And people are still fixing some of his changes that I didn't notice . I hate it when people introduce subtle POV pushing. It's a real pain to check stuff that I have no idea about. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:18, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Finally nailed the last one: claiming on August that Sinbad the Sailor was from Pakistan. I can't believe he edited for two months before he got his first warning :( --Enric Naval (talk) 17:36, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

User: Caspian blue

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Both of you (Bukubku and Caspian blue) need to keep your fighting off Misplaced Pages. This constant bickering and accusing each other of wrongdoing is disruptive. This discussion is closed. ···日本穣 05:13, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

• Caspian blue (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) keeps anti-Japanese racial attacking, see as below examples.

• Caspian blue (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) intentionally falsely citated the source and racial attacked. He appealed only Japanese called Empress Myeongseong as Queen Min from falsely citation. Then I rightened his propaganda.
• Caspian blue (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) intentionally deleted citated sentences "He involved in the assassination of Queen" from Official Gazzete of Korea. Then he revised intentionally "The Japanese government was allegedly involved in the assassination of Empress Myeongseong, who had carried out policies against the Japanese, and, although there are controversial viewpoints on the subject, it is apparent that the Japanese government attempted to divert the blame to the Koreans.". This source recorded that Korean King Gojong testified Woo Beom-seon (禹範善) was the criminal and ordered cut his head off. But he intentionally converted the citation from "He involved in the assassination of Queen" to "it is apparent that the Japanese government attempted to divert the blame to the Koreans". He deleted even {{fact}}. These {{fact}} pasted sentences suspicious Japanese racism. And he deleted "<"references /">", his intention was no one could read the source
• Caspian blue (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) intentionally deleted again.
• Caspian blue (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) intentionally deleted Korean King's testify again. Moreover he intentionally added several none cited Japanese Racizm. One example is apparently not, he intentionally deleted "Then Japan was also ruled by the United States." and add "The policy was aiming to hinder Koreans from obtaining technological knowledge and to profit from selling the seeds to Koreans at a high price.". However Japan is under the United States rule at that time, so Japan has no their own policy.
• Caspian blue (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) intentionally deleted and racial attacked again.

Then I appealed Administrators, Administrators recommend us go to Misplaced Pages:Mediation. So I sent a message for him, I said him to go to Meditation. But he refuged and he told me talking in Talk page. Who can belive this shameless man's words. Furthermore, He said that much of contents was written by Wikimachine (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). It do not make sense, he deleted {{fact}} and "<"references /">" and add deleted Wikimachine (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)'s articles.

Please expel this shameless man. See his contributions, he harassed Japanese countless times.

Suspicious socks puppets:

• Caspian blue (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Appletrees (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Appleby (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Wikimachine (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

These users are fond of editing Korean Culture and Anti-Japanese articles.

--Bukubku (talk) 18:08, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Am I suffering déjà vu, or have we done this before? Regardless, I left a note for the party mentioned. --Kralizec! (talk) 23:52, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, déjà vu, is here. Same old song on the long-running Japan-Korea saga, one of wiki's long running ethnic wars. Bukubku's alleged socking by Caspian Blue, well let's see, Appltrees was his old account before he was RENAMED to Caspian Blue by a crat. This is NOT socking. Appleby's last edit was over two years ago, so these edits are WAY STALE, and Wikimachine has only made one edit all year. This is a very weak socking claim and I'm not even going to look at it. As for the other claims, been there, heard that before, ie, déjà vu. So, and as I've said before, these guys need to go to meditation since they can't work this out on their own. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Rlevse. You read my message. I'm sorry, I annoyed you frequently. We need third persons.--Bukubku (talk) 06:56, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Checkuser's attention needed and newbie User:Bukubku's harassment

The above report would be déjà vu just as Kralizec!'s comment. Please reference to these above reports by sockpuppeters (they were all indef. blocked) associated with 2channel and stalking site http://www3.atwiki.jp/apple-tree/ *filed by Jazz81089 (indef.blocked)

• filed by Opoona (indef.blocked)

I sense that same pattern here as well. Besides, the stalking site recorded my converstation with other users, and I think Bukubku is the operater of the site.

This report on 2channel's disruption is why Bukubku (talk · contribs) antagonizes me and calls me "vandal". (what a pathetic gesture).

• Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive380#Long time abusing Misplaced Pages by Japanese editors from 2channel meat/sock puppets
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Pabopa
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/KoreanShoriSenyou
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Yuan.C.Lee
• Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/Azukimonaka
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/2008FromKawasaki
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Opoona

As the newbie who knows about and analysizes me too much and Wiki knowledges unlike his registered date (one and half month old) is falsey accusing me, the user harrasses me with the hoax report. The user was warned for his falsifications on Empress Myeongseong by several admins. Morever, Appletrees is my "former screen name", and I wonder how this newbie found out this. I changed my name via WP:CHU, and this attempt is even nothing new. Other accounts have nothng to do with me and the 2channel people know it, but try to link me with others, so that they try to gain attenton with their hoax report. I don't insert any wrong info to articles, but Bukubku did. Admin Kwami would confirm this. Bukubku has refused to provide his rationales for massive deletions on mentioned articles, and refused to come to talk page. Moreover, he also lies about my suggestion to him to open a discussion. If the Bukubku is a sock of indef.blocked users (I believe the user is highly likely) found on the RFCUs, well a block is quite in order again. I also think that this user is either a sock of Pabopa (talk · contribs), or Opoona (talk · contribs), Jazz81089 (talk · contribs) who made above hoax ANI reports.--Caspian blue 01:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Caspian, you are my No.1 teacher. Your edtion teach me lot. And you inform me your helpful fan sites. I appreciate to Admin Kwami as third person even if things going to bad for me.--Bukubku (talk) 06:56, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

That is exactly the same as the stalking site. So you're admitting the operator of the shameless site? :) Your falsification is nothing new at all since you have done so many times, and make this hoax report. --12:58, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar used as personal attack

I’m concerned about this barnstar placed on the talk page of Crossthets (talk · contribs) by Walnutjk (talk · contribs), which seems to be a thinly-veiled attack on admin Future Perfect at Sunrise, referring to him as a “certain all knowing administrator” and his contributions and efforts to maintain neutrality as ”propaganda,” “nationalistic views”, and the reason “Misplaced Pages is crap.” I would like to see it removed, and I think some sort of warning is in order. Thanks, Kafka Liz (talk) 19:22, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

• Note: I became aware of the issue via this thread at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Greece. Kafka Liz (talk) 19:42, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I really don't think there's much action to be taken here. If CrossthetsFuture Perfect (the presumed target, per the WP:Greece thread) is personally slighted by this to the level of wanting admin action, he/she can bring it up here themselves. Tan | 39 19:45, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Admin action here might cause more drama than it solves; that said, this sort of thing shouldn't continue. – Luna Santin (talk) 19:51, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

It actually says "certain administrators and their collaborators"- it doesn't name names and is just the sort of thing seen on many barnstars, sadly:) Sticky Parkin 20:02, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look, in any case. Luna Santin, I think you are correct about admin action causing more drama than it's worth, but the whole thing seemed very mean-spirited and was disappointing to see. Thnaks anyway, Kafka Liz (talk) 20:15, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

It is very clearly directed at me, and it is part of an ongoing persistent pattern of harassment directed against me by Crossthets and now aided and encouraged by Walnutjk, so yes, I would appreciate admin action. This is only a small part of a pattern that has reached a stage where bans are needed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:02, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the barnstar box as a blatant personal attack. Gwen Gale (talk) 22:05, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Offending user has apparently decided that (s)he is too good for Misplaced Pages.--Tznkai (talk) 22:13, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I am too ... but I still stick around :-) -t BMW c- 23:59, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks guys. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The stuff about "certain admins and their collaborators" reminds me of one of the songs from The Mikado - "... what'cha-call-it, thing-a-me-bob ... and tut-tut-tut, and what's-his-name, and also you-know-who ... the task of filling up the blanks I'd rather leave to you ..." Baseball Bugs 23:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Those mean admins, wrecking all that nationalistic fun. Gwen Gale (talk) 17:32, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Can 85.73.224.212 (talk · contribs) be blocked, as well as Walnutjk (talk · contribs), now that he's unretired to use IPs. Grsz 17:41, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Walnutjk has already been blocked, as for 85.73.224.212 I've done the deed, blatant, ongoing personal attacks. Gwen Gale (talk) 17:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I can get banned for linking a well-sourced Misplaced Pages Article? WTH?!

The page Anonymous (internet culture) has this message embedded in the KTTV Fox 11 section:

<!--DO NOT mention any names of living individuals unless they were EXPLICITLY stated in the Fox 11 report. Any user who adds the individual's name may be blocked. See http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons-->

Now if i'm not mistaken, the Jake Brahm article has enough reasonable references (even copies of the court documents from The Smoking Gun) and his mugshot was used in the news segment, even thought he wasn't identified. To me, I have enough justification to link the article (my intent is to like thus: "bomb sports stadiums") and i'm not violating the rules outlined in Misplaced Pages Biography, because, I can reference the news articles and the court documents, which satisfies Misplaced Pages: Citing Sources. So what's compelling someone to write this "threat" down in the first place?--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 21:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

• Because plenty of people were adding it because they thought it was cool, because other channers were doing it, or a number of other reasons that don't come from building a good encyclopedia. Most of those 4chan/anon articles have to be policed pretty heavily because they aren't important enough to be on hundreds of watchlists but bad faith/silly changes get past NPP (because it isn't obvious vandalism). Comments in articles help let people know that someone is paying attention. Edit notices help sometimes too. If you are making a good faith addition, I wouldn't worry about the admonition there. Protonk (talk) 21:26, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I suggest asking on the talk page of the article before taking action, though. Looie496 (talk) 21:33, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Looie. This should probably be fine but discussing it on the talk page is probably a good idea. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:01, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted the edit for now; while it seems valid, the suggestion here is to discuss on the article's talk page first and there has been no discussion. (As well, the link probably should not be "hidden" in that manner. That is just a matter of reformatting, however.) --Ckatz_spy 17:34, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Disruption on Obama talk page

Please review Thegoodlocust (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - just back from 1-week ban, immediately engages in old behavior: edit warring, incivility, 3RR vios, fringe theories, disruption.

• 5-6 fringe theories posted and repeatedly posted (after community deleted, closed, archived, etc) in 2 days on Obama talk page - see his edit history
• 3RR report here fore re-opening closed discussions: [[Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR#
• Now wikistalking / harassing other editors: disrupts an editor's editor review by accusing him of being in cahoots with "friends"; trolls my talk page (last one was re-posting accusations on my talk page after I deleted them)

In a more general sense there are several editors returning or joining the page who have been causing disruption. We could use some no-nonsense help on the page, probably for the next few days until the election. Wikidemon (talk) 22:42, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Note - Thegoodlocust is blocked for 2 weeks based on the 3RR report. The broader issue about what to do about Barack Obama and Sarah Palin remains (John McCain and Joe Biden too, I suppose, but they are much quieter). Wikidemon (talk) 23:09, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

More Obama-Drama

the post above was written apparently while I was writing this. Great minds think alike, doncha know! First of all, let me just say, I'm sorry to put this on you guys- I know all the election related edit and flame warring got old about three years eleven months ago, but as a sort of semi-involved admin watching from the sidelines, there's a situation that's going to spiral out of control pretty fast if we don't put a cap on it somehow and I'm sort of unsure exactly what the right course of action is.
On Talk:Barack Obama, Thegoodlocust (talk · contribs), who was blocked earlier in the month by me for edit warring and incivility, has returned from his block and is continually adding posts to the discussion attempting to connect Obama with ACORN. He is being repeatedly reverted by Wikidemon (talk · contribs). No, here's where it gets sticky. Wikidemon is warning Locust for edit warring by recreating his posts, while others are warning Wikidemon for edit warring by repeatedly deleting said posts. Wikidemon claims that his edits don't count as edit warring because he's removing blp material. I'm inclined to agree with him, but I'd like some outside opinions. ~ L'Aquatique 22:51, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

One more thing. This might be totally wrong and against everything we believe in, but wouldn't it be nice if someone just happened to full protect Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, John McCain and Joe Biden for, oh, say... six days? ~ L'Aquatique 22:54, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm 100% in favor of that. Forcing consensus by making everything go thru {{editprotected}} isn't a bad way to handle articles like that. --barneca (talk) 23:04, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi, this may just be my own bias, but I don't think consensus is the problem, rather signal to noise/disruption. Folks at the Obama and related pages are burning a ton of resources in re-explaining BLP, NPOV, RS, NOTNEWS, UNDUE, etc. very frequently as each new talking point appears (or in many cases, re-appears.) regards, --guyzero | talk 23:34, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi L'Aquatique, the further background is edits from Thegoodlocust (talk · contribs) on the talkpage yesterday as seen here and here. He was warned just yesterday to not disrupt the talkpage by inserting fringe theories and BLP-violations. --guyzero | talk 22:57, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I would support full protection as a very last resort if there is no other way. I cannot think of any change to the major candidate pages that is so burning that it cannot wait until after the election. However, locking down articles in anticipation of future vandalism may create an unwise precedent. Please note a few things - the "warning" on my page is incorrect - I am at 0RR or 2RR depending on whether you count my BLP revert and re-closing a disruptive discussion. I am on article patrol along with 6-12 other editors at a time. We close, archive, and delete many discussions per day on the Obama talk page. If not it would be mayhem, as you can see by looking at the page as it stands or the edit history. As far as I know (correct me if I am wrong) marking a discusison closed, consolidating discussions, or changing headings to be more descriptive, are not reverts. Disruption has increased several-fold in the past few days and I don't know if we can hold this back. We are, as I note on the talk page, up to 3-5 blocks per day on that page, mostly for vandals - I try to keep up with them and put them on the log at Talk:Barack Obama/Article probation, but I'm sure I miss quite a few. Wikidemon (talk) 23:05, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I assume that you'll be constantly watching these pages and reverting the vandalism floods? Baseball Bugs 23:10, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I do my best at Barack Obama, but one non-admin isn't enough, and even six are not enough. Even on article patrol we try to be on best behavior and not to violate 3RR or article probation terms. It's like being a policeman who has to wear white gloves and a tophat all the time. It's harder for me on Sarah Palin, the other big problem article, because unless you follow it minute by minute it is sometimes hard to tell who the troll is, or what is a legitimate question / proposal versus what is a fringe theory that has already been dismissed ten times. Some problem editors have a way of mimicking the accusations of the regular editors.Wikidemon (talk) 23:43, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

At least there's no risk of any of those articles appearing as a Featured Article on November 5th. Baseball Bugs 23:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

(undent)Unfortunately, there has been so much vandalism like these gems, and so many people reading the article, that some readers have been rightfully appalled and left messages on the talk page asking what is going on. You can't revert fast enough to avoid some people being hurt. And then there is the constant trolling on the talk page. It's sure to get worse. At the very least, more admins watching these pages through the election would be very helpful. Thanks, ~ priyanath  23:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Wow, I'm not hearing all the opposition I thought I would get to that little proposal of mine. We could even narrow it down to just Barack Obama and Sarah Palin, the two major problem articles. The real question: would it solve more problems than it would cause? I don't know the answer. ~ L'Aquatique 03:45, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid that extremely high profile BLPs (US presidential candidates days from election obviously qualify) lend themselves poorly to the Wiki Way. It wouldn't take much bad luck to end up with a PR catastrophe on our hands. I would support a week-long protection for all four, personally; having to use {{editprotected}} for a few days is not that onerous a price to pay to protect the encyclopedia and the foundation. — Coren  04:05, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Unless something dramatic and unexpected happens, I don't see what new information warrants adding until after the election. Protection is a good idea. Baseball Bugs 04:27, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't have to tell me twice. I'm going to go make sure there are no problems with current revisions and protect them, I guess. Of course, it will invariably be the wrong version, but I'm only human after all. ~ L'Aquatique 04:39, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

(e/c) If, as it seems, the level of vandalism is so high that it's impractical to keep up with it by reverts, then protection for a short time will be needed. It's unfortunate. I would recommend protecting all 4 of the candidate pages, if any 1 of them is protected. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:40, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I also think that a full "this page is protected due to vandalism" template (not a small icon) is worthwhile for these. They are protected for a short time, and only because of heavy vandalism. So we should be up front about this, so that editors who wonder why they can't edit have some clear explanation. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:59, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:01, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree with both your sentiments, my dear MzM. Moving on, however, I have fully protected Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, and Barack Obama (John McCain was already fully protected) with an expiry time of 6 days (which may need to be tweaked so that it doesn't expire until after the election depending on time zones) and left notes of explanations on all the talk pages. Next, I will add the protection tags.

In other news, I just recieved a rather angry note from User:Thegoodlocust claiming that I'm a cabalist and an all around evil person. Whoops... I just accidentally deleted it. Oh well. ~ L'Aquatique 05:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

(e/c)Thank you for protecting those articles through the election, L'Aquatique. People should note that these are the candidate's biographies, and nothing significant is likely to change in the next week regarding their lives. If it does, then {{editprotected}} works just fine. Some of the trolling and vandalism is so appalling that this is for the best - for the articles and for Misplaced Pages. Note that the articles about the election have not been protected, for example United States presidential election, 2008, Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2008‎, John McCain presidential campaign, 2008‎, and others. They can continue to be updated with current events. The bios seem to be the worst hate and vandalism magnets, unfortunately. ~ priyanath  05:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I have gone through all 4 articles alphabetically and changed the template to pp-vandalism, not small. This should make it clear why the articles are protected - because of heavy ongoing vandalism - and it also tells editors how to request changes using editprotected. — Carl (CBM · talk) 05:10, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

This is undoubtably the best thing to do. J.delanoy_adds 05:35, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree that full protection seems wise, given the circumstances. I also think Coren is correct with the comment that wide open editing on these incredibly heavily trafficked articles could open us up to a last minute public relations disaster. I wonder how many people are out there would potentially allow Misplaced Pages content to influence whether they would or would not vote for a particular candidate? I bet there's more than a few... In any event, again, full protection, I believe is best, especially given what we've seen on the Palin and Obama articles thus far.   user:j    (aka justen)   05:44, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. It's not worth the endless BLPvios that will surely be happening at an even faster pace as E-Day approaches. Good job, LAQ.   05:45, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

To prevent needless drama, accusations of elitism, and/or a shit-storm like around the time Sarah Palin's VP candidacy was announced, I would like to request that administrators as a body pledge not to make any non-trivial edits to those pages without gaining consensus on the talk page. (IMHO, noting on the pages who won the election, as well as updating the infoboxes, would be trivial, since all or most of the details should be placed in the article about the election). J.delanoy_adds 06:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

CBM: You slapped full protection on John McCain and claimed it was because of "heavy ongoing vandalism". That's totally bogus. There isn't any "heavy ongoing vandalism" to this article. Kindly revert to the semi-protection that was operating satisfactorily before you needlessly interfered. Thank you. Writegeist (talk) 06:57, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I support locking up all four articles through November 5. However, the huge tag is hideous. The small padlock symbol would work just as well. We have been through this before.Ferrylodge (talk) 07:09, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Uh, Sarcasticidealist fully protected the John McCain article over 2 days ago. CBM just modified the tag.

Cheers,  This flag once was red  07:15, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Again, the lockdown is totally bogus. There is NO "heavy vandalism". But it stands to reason that our pet McCain campaign worker would support a tactic that echoes his own efforts to obstruct further additions regardless of the fact that this stated reason for the lockdown is a lie. — Writegeist (talk)

I have no connection to the McCain campaign, and I have the same stance toward all 4 articles in question. Perhaps Writegeist is projecting.Ferrylodge (talk) 07:38, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

The tag states "This page is currently protected from editing to deal with vandalism"; it doesn't mention that there has been heavy vandalism, the inference I draw that is that it seeks to prevent future vandalism.

(Also no connection with the McCain campaign; if you want to know what my politics are you can check this edit)

Cheers,  This flag once was red  07:43, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Red Flag: I did not, as you imply, say that the tag cited "heavy vandalism". I simply pointed out that CBM invented "heavy ongoing vandalism" as justification for the lockdown. (See CBM's unequivocal statements above: (1) should make it clear why the articles are protected - because of heavy ongoing vandalism and (2) They are protected...because of heavy vandalism.) Certainly where the McCain and Palin BLPs are concerned that's a figment of CBM's imagination. See also the tag at the top of John McCain talk: John McCain is temporarily protected from editing until November 5, 2008 because it has been subject to heavy vandalism. There was no "heavy vandalism", "ongoing" or otherwise. Ergo the tag was applied for bogus reasons and should revert to semi-protection. — Writegeist (talk) 21:26, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

You're quite correct; I hadn't seen the talk page tag when I made that comment. I retract my comment re: the tag not mentioning heavy vandalism.

Cheers,  This flag once was red  07:15, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Preserving thread

I'm preserving this thread linked from the protection log with a fake timestamp for transparency's sake. The bot will automatically archive it after the election is over.--chaser - t 05:39, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Protection notices

The huge protection notices are absolutely hideous, and a huge disservice to our readers. For every person with an account who wonders why they can't edit the article (nevermind that it says why when clicking the "view source" link) we have hundreds, if not thousands, of readers who will have to scroll down a maintainance templace with absolutely no relevance to the content they're interested in. Folks, we need to grow up and recognize that wikipedia is just not for the active editors. There is a silent majority of readers that outnumber the editors a hundred times and we shouldn't needlessly force them to start with scrolling down or reading irrelevant internal nonsense on some of our most visible pages. The large notices have a place for articles locked down due to a content dispute, to warn that the content is in dispute, but that is not the case here! A small padlock icon is definitely sufficient. henrik•talk 07:56, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

As mentioned above, I agree 100%. The huge tag at the top of each of the articles is hideous. The small padlock symbol would work just as well, and anyone would understand what's happening from reading the tag at the top of each of the talk pages. The McCain article has already been locked up for a couple days without using the huge tag at the top of the article. This issue arose previously, and it was decided to keep the Palin article frozen but get rid of the huge tag at the top.Ferrylodge (talk) 08:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually with respect to the previous actions on Palin, the banner was removed in the absence of consensus by an admin that ignored the discussion on the issue and ultimately ended up in Arbitration over their reckless behavior with respect to Palin's article. It is no way a precedent that I would follow for only using padlocks. Dragons flight (talk) 08:13, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

It was still an excellent suggestion by New York Brad, and in fact the suggestion was fully implemented without subsequent reversion.Ferrylodge (talk) 08:17, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Because only a fool will edit war on an article already in arbitration, in my opinion it was a bad decision and many people preferred the large tag. Dragons flight (talk) 08:26, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Nope, the article was locked up for many days, while changes were made by consensus, and there was never consensus to reinstall the huge tag.Ferrylodge (talk) 08:34, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

That discussion didn't affect the big tag. It wasn't until later that Jossi removed it (without participating in or even being aware of the discussion about the tag). In my opinion there was never consensus to remove the tag. I might concede that there was "no consensus" on the issue, but I don't believe your side had consensus. Dragons flight (talk) 08:43, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's water under the bridge. We've provided links to the relevant discussion. I think Henrik makes some excellent points below; e.g., unregistered users have been unable to edit these articles for months so why would they suddenly find a huge tag useful? I'm telling you, the huge tags will reduce the number of people who read these articles by at least a factor of ten, which would be a huge shame given all the work that's gone into writing these articles.Ferrylodge (talk) 08:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, a factor of 10 is probably an exaggeration. But they're still ugly :-) henrik•talk 08:59, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Using the large tag to point out that these articles are being subjected to unusual treatment is a benefit to our readers. We want our readers to be aware that these articles are being subjected to different standards than normal articles. Dragons flight (talk) 08:13, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

The vast majority of readers will see the tag, and read no further. The tag is hideous, and says the article's been vandalized. We are talking about four Misplaced Pages articles that have typically been getting (collectively) over 250,000 hits per day, and that number will increase dramatically during the next few days. So let's get this right, please. Editors will easily figure out what's going on, from the tags at the tops of the talk pages.Ferrylodge (talk) 08:17, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Then we should use another {{pp-xxx}} tag instead. I'd put {{pp-dispute}} there, because most readers will understand that those articles are subject to dispute shortly before an election and will not be scared by those tags. But most new readers have no idea what a talk page is or why they should open it. They want to read information and maybe correct things and they should be told why they cannot do so. We have to think about thousands of anon or newbie readers that do not use WP usually. Regards SoWhy 08:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

These articles have been constantly semi-protected for months already, so newbie readers have never been able to correct things directly. The only difference now is that non-administrator established editors can't edit them. The only people not being able to edit now are those who have auto-confirmed accounts, and they can be expected to find their way to to talk pages. I do not understand why restricting auto-confirmed users merits a huge banner, while restricting anonymous users routinely is done with a small icon. {{pp-dispute}} is not the right answer either, because there is no significant dispute. These protections are mainly a technical measure because the regular editors can't keep up with the (expected) traffic. henrik•talk 08:36, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Why is the reader likely to be interested in that? I'd wager a significant amount that the average reader is more interested to read the biography of the candidate in question than learning about wikipedia internal debates on article protection standards. While protection policy and article standards are interesting, it is not sufficiently interesting to occupy the whole first paragraph of such high profile articles. Again, the protection is a technical measure to solve the problem of our inability to effectively deal with the vandalism, not a warning that the content is thought to be unreliable (which the current notices certainly imply by saying " in not an endorsement of the current version"). henrik•talk 08:24, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Most readers have at least vague idea how Misplaced Pages operates to the extent that it reflects an open editing philosophy. If prominent articles are being treated differently than those expectations suggest, then I think readers ought to have those expectations corrected. I am open to discussing a different presentation to the message box though, if you have some suggestions for what would be a better way to explain this particular protection. Dragons flight (talk) 08:32, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Unregistered users have been unable to edit these articles for months so why would they suddenly find a huge tag useful?Ferrylodge (talk) 08:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Semi-protection is still a good approximation of the open editing process. Virtually all active editors are autoconfirmed and even new editors can quickly obtain that status. Full protection is different since it hands control to only a fraction of editors and generally changes the dynamic of how pages are edited. I'll assume that most readers will not be editors regardless of the protection status, but most readers still have an idea (in broad terms) of how articles are written and protection changes that. It is that change is process that I think should be announced. Incidentally, you assume protection is a turn off to large numbers of people. You ignore the other possible position. Some people will see that an article is protected and assume that it therefore is less likely to contain vandalism and hence more trustworthy. It isn't obvious to me that announcing a protection status is inherently a large net negative in public perception. Dragons flight (talk) 08:58, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

These protections, (as well as the Sarah Palin wheelwar) are really a new and evolving form of protection for us. We're discovering that some articles have become so high-profile that even semi-protection is insufficient, but we haven't really evolved the tools or policies needed to deal with those cases yet. I guess the best we can do is just try what seems best at the time :-)

My main problem is the size and length, plus that the standard template message isn't really suited to this particular case. As a compromise, could we craft a one-line message, with a smallish lock that explains that the articles are locked down and a link to a page with further details? henrik•talk 08:54, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm bowing out to get sleep (I'm in Connecticut). I can barely spew out one line of text.  :-)Ferrylodge (talk) 08:59, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I suspect I'll want more like 2 or 3 lines but I open to shortening the message from the 5 lines it currently displays in my browser. Dragons flight (talk) 09:01, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

What about using the small icon in conjunction with the new Mediawiki edit notices? That way, readers don't see the large template, while those who choose to edit can see a detailed explanation of what is going on. Thoughts? --Ckatz_spy 09:33, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Support Ckatz's suggestion, above. I was going to suggest alternate phrasing for the template drafts below, but edit-conflicted with what looks to be a way better idea. Sorry for being a mediawiki noob, can you point to an example? thanks, --guyzero | talk 09:38, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Edit notices are only shown to people with permission to edit. In the case of fully protected pages, that is admins only. Other people who click "view source" will never see them. Dragons flight (talk) 09:37, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately this is true, otherwise it would have been a good idea. henrik•talk 09:48, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah bummer =( --guyzero | talk 09:54, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't realize they had that restriction. Another thought - we use the collapsed-form templates at the bottom of articles; what about using a similar technique at the top? The title line could simply state that the article is protected, with a link to expand it if readers/editors want more details. --Ckatz_spy 10:04, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me.Ferrylodge (talk) 10:22, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Drafts

In the spirit of the above, here is my draft for custom notice. Dragons flight (talk) 09:15, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

This page is currently protected to prevent vandalism until after the US election. Please discuss any necessary changes on the talk page; you may use the {{editprotected}} template to ask an administrator to make the edit if it is supported by consensus.

I was thinking something along this line, where the full policy, {{editprotected}} and other details are explained on the talk page or a subpage. I am of course open to tweaking the wording, I am sure that could be improved. henrik•talk 09:31, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Due to the US election, this page is currently protected to prevent vandalism. For more details, see this page.

One advantage of having the details on a separate, but easily accessible link, is that it will allow us to explain everything in full without being constrained by space. It should allow us to make a more accessible introduction to wikipedia protection and editing than what could be done in the box. henrik•talk 09:35, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm back! Just for a little while. I still think ordinary people will not understand what "protected" means, and the word "vandalism" will be scary. How about....

Due to the US election, this page currently cannot be edited as usual. For details see here.

Ferrylodge (talk) 09:44, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

If you and henrik want to do the see details "here" thing, then I would like to see what text you intend to provide at that destination as well. Dragons flight (talk) 09:48, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe the "here" could just be the top of the respective article talk page? There's a huge protection tag at the top of each of the talk pages right now, which is fine with me.Ferrylodge (talk) 09:52, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, that is of course a reasonable request. Again, feel free to edit away on this. henrik•talk 10:14, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

This page of a US Presidential candidate is currently protected from editing to deal with vandalism, due to the large amount of traffic they recieve because of the US Election. While normally any wikipedia article is open for editing by anyone, we've been forced to restrict these pages until after the election. If you've found a problem with the article or have a suggestion for an improvement, please discuss it on the talk page; you may use the {{editprotected}} template there to ask an administrator to make the edit if it is supported by consensus. You may also request that this page be unprotected.

Suggest perhaps replacing the first paragraph "While normally any Misplaced Pages article is open for editing by anyone, we've protected this article from editing to deal with vandalism due to the US Election", above? thanks, --guyzero | talk 10:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

A collapsible box was an excellent idea, how about this: henrik•talk 10:38, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Due to the US election, this page is currently protected to prevent vandalism. For more details, click show.

This page of a US Presidential candidate is currently protected from editing to deal with vandalism, due to the large amount of traffic they recieve because of the US Election. While normally any wikipedia article is open for editing by anyone, we've been forced to restrict these pages until after the election. If you've found a problem with the article or have a suggestion for an improvement, please discuss it on the talk page; you may use the {{editprotected}} template there to ask an administrator to make the edit if it is supported by consensus. You may also request that this page be unprotected.

Well, I just have seen the four-way lockdown. (I'm the leading editor at Joe Biden and co-leading editor at John McCain.) I don't like it – we made it through the long, heated Obama-Clinton primary without having to resort to this (certainly the Clinton article, where I'm also the leading editor, was never locked down), and I don't see anything that's made it necessary here. But I can see I'm in the minority and that the decision has already been made. I strongly agree with others that the current huge tag is gross and unnecessarily throws all the current content of the articles into doubt. It doesn't even make sense – how could vandalism cause us to not be able to endorse a version of the article?? We revert vandalisms to good versions all the time! It makes us sound like we have no clue about what we are doing, which is not the case. I don't care that much which of these alternative tags you pick above, but please put them into place as soon as possible. The current tags make me feel like all the work I have done here is being disrespected. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:12, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I think that if we DO protect these articles, (and I am totally WITH Wasted Time R. Premptively protecting the articles is kind of the Bush Doctrine approach to Misplaced Pages, and we know how well THAT has worked out...) we should ONLY semi-protect them. Semi-protection will stop the sort of "drive-by" vandalism that we expect given the election, and any other vandalism can be dealt with by swift account blocks. At worst, if a whole slew of autoconfimed accounts shows up to attack the article, it will serve as sockpuppet bait; we can cause sockfarms to reveal themselves, which may be a good thing. There doesn't seem to be any real benefit from full protection here... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 12:21, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Jayron--semi-protection would eliminate 99 percent of the problem edits (which seem to be drive-by vandalism from new accounts). I do think a tag is needed, though--something like this: Blueboy96 12:38, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Due to the US election, editing by new or unregistered users is currently disabled on this article to prevent vandalism. For more details, click show.

Due to a large amount of edits that violate our policy on biographies of living persons, editing of this page of a US Presidential candidate is currently restricted to established users. While normally any Misplaced Pages article is open for editing by anyone, we've been forced to restrict these pages until after the election. If you've found a problem with the article or have a suggestion for an improvement, please discuss it on the talk page; you may use the {{editprotected}} template there to ask an administrator to make the edit if it is supported by consensus. You may also request that this page be unprotected.

I see that Henrik has put in the show/hide tag proposed above. Thanks, that's a big improvement over what had been there. And I'll never criticize Henrik, given how many times I've used the wonderful page view count tool! Wasted Time R (talk) 12:33, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. http://stats.grok.se/ is a great tool. Thanks Henrik.Ferrylodge (talk) 23:01, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

As Wasted Time R noted, I've put in the less obtrusive collapsible protection notice on all four candidate's pages for now. You can find the template at {{pp-uselection2008}} (swiftly copyedited and improved by User:Kane5187). I have no strong opinion on the issue of protection itself, but my guess is that it could probably have been handled with shorter full protections as needed. Then again, a lot of people will read these, and even vandalism for a few seconds will be seen by a lot of people. henrik•talk 12:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I want to register my support for this version of the tag. And also to register my full agreement with Dragons flight that the padlock icon is insufficient. Users of Misplaced Pages, the 💕 that anyone can edit, deserve to know that why these articles are being treated differently. Mike R (talk) 13:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

These articles should not be under full protection for any length of time. Semi-protection is clearly called for and full protection can be used for short spikes of vandalism by autoconfirmed accounts but there will be so many experienced editors watching these articles, locking them down for a week or more will stir up more harm than help to their content. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:53, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

The McCain article was already full protected until after the election, since 2008-10-27. Editors above were reporting that they were unable to keep up with the vandalism at the Obama page, which was semiprotected. It seemed very unlikely to me that the Obama article would make it to Nov. 4 without being full protected; at most, it might stay unprotected another day or two. When the people watching a page start to burn out from the effort, that's when protection becomes more viable. And I think there is a relatively clear benefit to treating all 4 of the election biographies equally in terms of protection. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:42, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Red diaper baby, MILF, Trollop and a string of other articles have also been dragged into this and some of them have been semi protected, I suspect some vandals will get more inventive in the next few days. But I do think we owe it to the IP editors to patrol and action the talk pages when we semi protect, this has worked quite well for the Russell Brand Show prank telephone calls row saga and also a few weeks ago when the LHC was switched on. ϢereSpielChequers 14:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

The McCain article was already full protected until after the election: Only sort of. Yes, the expiry date was after the election, but the admin who imposed it had said he intended to lift it sooner, as soon as the particular conflict he imposed it for was over. He was in fact about to lift it this morning, before noticing that this new decision had been made to protect it.

I protest this decision, especially since it was imposed with no discussion at all on the talk pages of the affected articles. I don't know what it's been like at Obama, but at Palin and McCain there's been lots of content dispute but no significant vandalism. Whatever vandalism there has been was quickly reverted by the many editors, from all sides, who are watching the pages; no need for uninvolved vandalism patrollers. Seriously, I've seen less vandalism at Sarah Palin than at Cole & Dylan Sprouse. -- Zsero (talk) 14:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

My response to all this is below, I just wanted to throw out some kudos to the folks working on templates above. The collapsable ones look great and definitely have my !vote. ~ L'Aquatique 17:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely ridiculous. While normally any wikipedia article is open for editing by anyone, we've been forced to restrict these pages until after the election. Really? There is no consensus for such a draconian measure... who is "we"? Certainly not the Misplaced Pages community, but a few people that have rushed this through. I am restoring the normal templates in these pages. I am removing that text from the template, as it is misleading. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:52, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

• I have removed these new tags. Prevention of possible vandalism is not a valid reason for protecting an article: protecting is not to be used preemptively. See WP:PROTECTION ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:31, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think just taking off the tags is the answer - either we accept this pre-emptive protection and leave the new tags on so this exception to normal Misplaced Pages practice is explained, or we go back to semi-protection and have no tag other than the lock icon which is standard policy. Full protection without explanation adds to confusion, I think. And I don't see consensus for full protection here. Tvoz/talk 07:05, 31 October 2008 (UTC) And here's a reason why removing the tag is not a good idea. Tvoz/talk 07:28, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I do think that taking off the tags is a big improvement, whether or not the articles continue to be full-protected. The new tags devised by Henrik et al. were pretty good, but I do think Jossi is correct to go with the little padlock symbols instead. The respective article talk pages can have huge tags at the top, but the articles themselves really should not, IMHO. Thank you Jossi.  :-)Ferrylodge (talk) 07:11, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I also concur with Jossi's action to remove the narrative reason on the main article, regardless of whether a decision returns these to semi-protection. The narrative, while accurate, may have conveyed an unintended "we do not trust you" WP position, and as I've mentioned elsewhere, it also understated the vast good work WP editors have done on these articles for many months. Anyone who attempts to edit the page will immediately realize they can't, and I can't imagine any previously uninvolved serious contributors will surface in the waning days prior to the election who won't be familiar with the concept of the talk page. Regardless of full-protection, should a significant event occur in the next few days, we can be certain there will be many editors ready to collaborate on its inclusion. Fcreid (talk) 10:35, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Should the election bios stay full protected through the election

It looks like there is some divided opinion about the protection. On one hand,

• reports near the top of the thread show that editors who follow the Obama page say it is becoming too much to keep up, and the McCain page had been full protected for a couple days.
• there is a benefit to keeping the 4 pages in sync with regard to protection.
• it's a reasonable guess that vandalism rates will go up before the election.

On the other hand

• people are also reporting that the McCain/Palin pages had less vandalism than the Obama pages
• there is a benefit to not fully protecting pages that don't need it.

It would be helpful for uninvolved editors to weigh in, to get a better sense of the overall opinion about the balance between these conflicting concerns. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:27, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Semi-protect per my comments above. Blueboy96 16:32, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

All of these articles had been semi-protected for months. You seem to have missed the fact that we are talking about excessive activity that was already not stopped by semi-protection. Dragons flight (talk) 16:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

If only because perception is reality in politics, protecting uniformly is the only reasonable method of avoiding appearance of bias. Spending a few days without being able to directly edit four articles is far from onerous, and a reasonable method of protecting Misplaced Pages's reputation. — Coren  16:35, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• Full-protect. Anything that should or need to be inserted during this time can be done through the usual method. BLP policy needs to be respected, the likely surge in vandalism is utterly avoidable, as is another ArbCom case. Additionally, the article probation that we pulled through isn't going to be effective on its own during this time. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:41, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

  I concur with Ncmvocalist and Coren. Tomer 16:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I think it's overoptimistic to expect that the vandalism is going to decrease immediately after the election. If anything, I'd expect it to ramp up for at least a few days afterward. —KCinDC (talk) 16:58, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm under the impression that it would be protected during the election and for a few days following it - seems sensible for the exact reasons you've noted. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:17, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• Honestly, I think this is probably unnecessary at the moment. Barack Obama has been getting 30-40 edits per day, while John McCain was seeing about a 10-20 per day. In my opinion, those levels are manageable with the conventional level of watchlist attention that high profile articles get. For comparison, when Sarah Palin was initially locked it was getting 500-700 edits per day! That's more than an order of magnitude higher. I agreed with locking Palin at that time, but I don't think there is a crisis here that requires locking these now. Maybe such a problem will develop as the election comes closer, but I think that this protection is overly preemptive at the moment. Dragons flight (talk) 17:04, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
• Support full protection firstly, what seems to be missed is the fact that semiprotection will not help- these articles have been semi-ed for a long time which apparently did not fix the situation. When I decided to protect my decision was based on a wide variety of things- firstly common sense that these articles would be under incredible dispute considering the current climate in the US and indeed the world. I also had reports from vandal fighters on the page that it was getting overwhelming, they couldn't handle it, and that was in many ways the straw that broke the camels back. Misplaced Pages is a big deal, I think sometimes people forget that we have a ton load of presence in the greater world and it's important that we show a good face. We're the third hit on google for search string "Barack Obama" and the first that is not run by him. I'm sure the situation is similar for the other three. People are coming here for information about the candidates, information that they may use to make an extremely important decision in a few days and it's up to us to make sure that they get the best quality information they can get. If that means restricting editing on these pages, so be it. There's so much more at stake here than editing priveledges. ~ L'Aquatique 17:15, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

  these articles have been semi-ed for a long time which apparently did not fix the situation. What situation? There was no significant vandalism problem on Sarah Palin or John McCain. Lots of content dispute, but not vandalism. Semiprotection clearly was working, and there was no "situation". John McCain had been fully protected for a short time over an content dispute, but that was about to be lifted when you came along and slapped your blanket protection, because of nonexistent vandalism. -- Zsero (talk) 18:59, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• John McCain is also the third google hit. VP candidates' articles are both the first google hits for their names.--chaser - t 18:40, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• Thank you, chaser. Zsero, even though there was less of a problem on John McCain, the decision was made to protect all of them in order to avoid the appearance of bias. ~ L'Aquatique 19:02, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• Not yet I understand the desire for pre-emptive protection, but aside from the wiki way issues, there was a previous thread that concluded with a number of non U.S. admins keeping an eye on things, I believe.--Tznkai (talk) 17:18, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
• support full protection, even though I would rather not - I think that the onus of blp concerns out weighs the 'any one can edit' philosophy, through the election, due to the past experience on these articles. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 18:04, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
• Support full protection through the election... and it wouldn't hurt to have more eyes on the more prominently linked articles as well--If vandals can't trash the main candidate articles, they may just switch targets rather than desisting. Jclemens (talk) 18:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
• Comment The page view stats aren't as severe as they were for Sarah Palin, who got 3.5 million page views over two days, but that was four days before we full protected it. When that finally happened on 3 September, her article was at about 500k per day, far higher than Obama's current 80-150k per day. The other candidate articles are getting still fewer page views than Obama's (McCain 40-87k, Palin 60-75k, and Biden 25k or less).--chaser - t 18:40, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
• Support full protection because of the obvious BLP concerns which are heightened in this final week up to the elections because of the increased scrutiny that the public will undoubtedly have on these articles. -MBK₀₀₄ 18:41, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
• Note, since both McCain and Obama are featured articles, there is a proposal at WP:TFA/R (WT:TFAR) to run them side-by-side on the main page on Nov 4 or 5. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:43, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - These articles are being closely watched by many many Wikipedians. I think the articles are manageable, and it goes against the wiki spirit. Also, the articles may be put on the main page, and not sure fully protection is good in that situation. Semi-protection is fine. If anything, I think we should think about limited use of Misplaced Pages:Flagged revisions for very high profile articles prone to vandalism and BLP violations, and possibly for featured articles, which the McCain and Obama articles are. --Aude (talk) 19:53, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
• No, there's no need for full protection. These types of situations are exactly why semi-protection was created. These articles are very closely watched which limits the BLP concerns. It's the BLP's that are not watch very closely that are the big problem. RxS (talk) 20:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
• Protect - Last thing we need on the even of the US election is someone, somehow sneaking in "Candidate X was caught propositioning a male prostitute on Monday" and for even 1 novice user to read/believe it and spread it through R/L -t BMW c- 20:25, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
• I brought this exact topic up on AN just two days ago at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard#Planning ahead for U.S. elections on Nov. 4; the consensus there seemed to be that protection above and beyond what is already in place was unnecessary. Further, User:Risker is planning a special watchlist for concerned editors that will contain the pages most likely to be hit by vandalism and over-eager result announcers. As the initiator of the protection idea, I obviously will not complain; as many have said above, I do not see what vastly important information will surface right then that cannot wait until the next day, or be handled by an editprotected request. However, many others disagreed, and the slippery slope argument has some weight (see particularly Pedro's response in the AN thread); I will bow to any larger consensus that is established. GlassCobra 20:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

All these articles need to be unprotected (semi protection is OK). This is Misplaced Pages, after all. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'll go with jossi: semi when needed, but otherwise unprotected. Attraction to the articles in question over the next week will be detrimental but also will probably gain us two or three good new editors for the price. Worth paying, IMHO. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ a sweet and tender hooligan 21:51, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• Support full protection. I am convinced by L'Aquatique's argumentation above. Given the real world importance of Misplaced Pages for background information and the traffic they get, keeping these articles accurate for every second of the next few days outweighs the drawbacks of the lost editing opportunities. henrik•talk 21:57, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• No I understand the good faith worries but full protection will harm content. Gwen Gale (talk) 22:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
• Full Protect We have enough to do with our usual vandals. Toddst1 (talk) 22:08, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• Comment Misplaced Pages loses a great deal of credibility, and probably a net loss of new editors, when people looking for information about Barack Obama read on Misplaced Pages that he's a "half-monkey", "dumb nigger", and that his religion is "Islam". See the comments from disgusted readers on the talk page, and you'll see that this type of vandalism can't be reverted quickly enough. Keep the articles protected, please. ~ priyanath  22:12, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm with Blueboy, Dragons, Zsero, Tznkai, Aude, RxS, jossi, Redvers, Gwen Gale et al. L'Aquatique, panic-stricken by false reports of vandalism that he/she didn't bother to verify vis à vis McCain and Palin, has grossly mishandled the situation, reacting as if to a major crisis when in fact the articles were already perfectly under control and practically devoid of vandalism. His/her "vandalism" argument is totally specious. Which, if he/she had bothered to check, he/she could have learned for him/herself. Really, we must hold administrators to higher standards than this. Otherwise--as in this instance--they just waste everyone's time. — Writegeist (talk) 22:22, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Writegeist, would you mind commenting on actions, not people, and maybe trying to assume good faith? Your portrayals of me as a crooked, power-hungry alarmist are so blatantly false it makes me laugh,, and frankly it's growing tiresome. If you disagree with the protection, fine, state your opinion by all means. But attacking me doesn't solve a damn thing. ~ L'Aquatique 23:15, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

L'Aquatique: I...had reports from vandal fighters on the page that it was getting overwhelming, they couldn't handle it, and that was in many ways the straw that broke the camels back.

Writegeist: L'Aquatique, panic-stricken by false reports of vandalism that he/she didn't bother to verify vis à vis McCain and Palin, has grossly mishandled the situation, reacting as if to a major crisis when in fact the articles were already perfectly under control and practically devoid of vandalism. His/her "vandalism" argument is totally specious. Which, if he/she had bothered to check, he/she could have learned for him/herself. Really, we must hold administrators to higher standards than this. Otherwise--as in this instance--they just waste everyone's time.

So where precisely, L'Aquatique, is the falsehood in my representation of your reckless and ill-considered action? By your own admission the McCain and Palin articles were locked purely on the say-so of people whose stories you evidently did not check (otherwise you would have known that they were untrue). Whichever way you look at it, this is shamefully inept administration. Without it, we wouldn't be in this absurd situation. Thank you. — Writegeist (talk) 23:33, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Let's be collegial here. The reports of vandalism were for the Obama page, and included diffs. The McCain page was already protected. Quite a few other editors supported the protection before L'Aquatique made it. There's no reason to speak as if the protection was done with no discussion. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:38, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• Semi-Protect There is no need to stiffle editing by logged in users. Much of what is being called vandalism are actually Good Faith edits by users who feel that the pages are too biased and don't cover every point of view. Each of the four articles have packs of editors determined to keep as much of what they call un-biased and recent content out of the articles and are attacking any and all editors who oppose their views.--Jojhutton (talk) 23:53, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• The pages were already semi-ed, just so you know. : ) ~ L'Aquatique 00:09, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

It may become necessary to full protect them (Let's face it; a good percentage of the users here don't seem to have the brains God gave fish), but we shouldn't pre-protect them. If things go shitstorm, I'm sure there are more than enough people watching them to ensure it's a very short one. HalfShadow 00:16, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

• Support full protection the articles are getting an very high level traffic (Sarah Palin has received up too 823.5k page views a day) and as the election comes even closer it will likely spike again, coinciding with a dramatic increase of POV-pushers who's edits, even if they are reverted within minutes, will still been seen by thousands of people. I know the we do not usually preemptively protect articles but as these people will be using out information for such an important purpose I think it is imperative that the article remain stable. Icewedge (talk) 00:25, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

  Agree: This is politics 101. If you can say McCain is a moron for free on Misplaced Pages, then you very definitely should do so until someone at Misplaced Pages prevents you from using their website as a political tool. That someone would be us. That said, let's leave Palin unprotected, since that is *ahem* her official position. Hiberniantears (talk) 00:30, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

• Strong oppose first of all, we are a wiki. The higher the profile of the article, then the GREATER the reason to maintain the wikiness as that's how we recruit users. Policy is to keep high profile articles open, that's why the articles on the main page (which receive higher vandalism) are never locked. If you want to change that policy, get a super-majority consensus. Secondly, any bad stuff put in these articles will be quickly reverted BECAUSE lots of people see them, thus there is LESS need to protect, not more. why special leading for the US elections, basically this is more US systemic bias and should be resisted. Are people sick of reverting vandalism here? Well, unwatch. At the point that no-one can be bothered reverting the vandalism, then we can consider protection.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 00:33, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe that protecting these articles fully would be a very bad idea. Misplaced Pages is going to be very closely watched by the media over the coming election, look at the media attraction Sarah Palin has had already. With the high profile of the articles in question, any vandalism would last seconds, especially if you have people who'se huggle is set to just watch those articles (I think you can do that). Misplaced Pages has often gotten praise in the past for being very very up-to date on major current events, and the coming week is going to be a brand new challenge for wikipedia as we know it, it was nowhere near as significant last election. This is a chance for us to show the world that wikipedia can do, and we want the media to see us at our absolute best. Who knows, if we pull this off, perhaps it'll be Barack/McCain vs Jimbo for the wikipedia party come 2012--Jac16888 (talk) 00:40, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose full protection. You may as well just delete and salt the articles until after the election and force people to derive their opinions of the candidates from outside sources. More than anything, however, I fear the precedent this sets, as before long, we'll be full-protecting any candidate immediately prior to an election. —/Mendaliv//_Δ's/ 00:45, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
• Indefinite semi-protection for editing; full protection for moving. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:10, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
• strongly OPPOSE protection.I have a BIG problem with the improper "cloak of silence" that has desceded from above over these 4 articles. These articles have been, and would have continued to be, instantaneously protected by the legion of good faith editors that have worked dillegently to create quality. This so-called protection is an afront to every editor involved and should be reverted ASAP. It is a clear case of aggressive over-reaction and censorship and calls into question the good faith qualities and abilities of those same editors. What should have happened was a conversation with everyone involved. As soon as protection ceases..that conversation can begin.--Buster7 (talk) 01:16, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose full protection. I had high hopes that John McCain could get through the election without it. The recent incident was largely due to an edit war over a peripheral biographical point that several editors who don't normally work on the article much got into a slugfest over. Vandalism on McCain has never been unmanageable. The Joe Biden article has recently gone several days without any edits to it, it certainly doesn't need full protection. Sarah Palin has edit wars more than vandalism. That leaves Barack Obama, which I believe has always been subjected to numerous incidents of gross, disturbing vandalism (the second place finisher in that category would be Hillary Rodham Clinton, but we never had to give full protection to that either during the long heat of their primary battle). The concern over WP's public image with these high-profile articles is legitimate, but I believe that concern should always be there. It bothers me when I land on one of these and some sicko has changed it, whether that happens in March or November. So we really need the "stable versions" WP scheme in place for articles like this, so the public never sees the vandalism. But with the system we have now, I don't see why these days are more sacred than any other days. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:32, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

A tally, a counting, a status report as to where we stand.....as of approx 1:45 31 OCT (UTC)...

• 14 EDITORS OPPOSSED
• 11 EDITORS SUPPORT
• 2 EDITORS FOR SEMI-PROTECT
• 1 EDITOR STILL ON THE FENCE>>>Glass Cobra...--Buster7 (talk) 01:43, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but that's not the count I got. Assuming that users who support semi-protection don't support full protection, here is what I got:

• Users who support full protection: L'Aquatique, Barneca, Wikidemon, Coren, BaseballBugs, Carl, priyanath, J.delanoy, J, Ferrylodge, Roux, Ncmvocalist, Tomer, Rocksanddirt, Jclemens, MBK004, BMW, Toddst1, Icewedge, Hiberniantears (20)
• Users who don't support full protection: Writegeist, WastedtimeR, Jayron32, Gwen Gale, Zsero, Blueboy96, Dragons flight, Tznkai, RxS, jossi, Redevers, Jojhutton, HalfShadow, ScottMacDonald, Jac16888, Mendaliv, MZMcBride, Buster7 (18)
• That said, we do not determine consensus by straw polls. ~ L'Aquatique 02:11, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
  • This is ludicrous, L'Aquatique. You protected these articles not in accordance of WP:PROTECTION. Where is the vandalism that you claim? I see no evidence of that. Please explain why did you protect these articles, and why are not you unprotecting given the lack of consensus for your actions? Protection of articles cannot be applied preemptively.≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:27, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I suggest not fully protecting, but rather semi-protecting. I don't know if any of you were here in 2004, but the election then was a horrible time for vandalism and POV-pushing. The history of John Kerry from the period is interesting -- we didn't have semi-protection then, so had to resort to full protection on that article on October 28 (the election was on November 2). With semiprotection we can stave off the drive-by rock-throwers. It's times like this that I wish we had another level of protection -- three months of account history and two hundred edits, or something -- but full protection I think sends the wrong message. We avoid full-protecting the featured article as well, and I think a similar concept applies. If it is a very high profile article, you may still edit, -- but perhaps with some additional guarding in the form of needing to have an established account. Antandrus (talk) 02:02, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Let me take this opportunity to make a point. A very important point. A point that is abused time and time again. When is consensus met and who decides?. I only counted from where Carl established a starting point: a point where carl, wisely, said "Let's see where we stand"...and he asked....Should the election bios stay protected thru the election. It was at this point where editors started to make a defintive, declarative statement about their stand on the issue in question. In bold they said what they thought...or they replied within this section. My "straw poll" does not attempt to judge what an editor MAY mean in his/her comments prior to carl asking his question. THAT is when consensus evaluation should begin. Not before. Not during the discussion. Those editors that hinted at support or non-support should have made a definitive, definite, no-doubt-about-it statement in THIS section. If they did not respond to carl's question, I did not include them in my tally. In my experience unless a clear, decisive BOLDED statement is done consensus is elusive because it is never clear and visible to all. --Buster7 (talk) 05:06, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose full protection I also oppose full protection on these articles. I'm one of the high-count editors on Barack Obama (#2), Hillary Rodham Clinton (#3), and John Edwards (#1), and have done some work on John McCain, Sarah Palin, Joe Biden , Ron Paul, Fred Thompson, etc., as well as many of the related subarticles, and like Wasted Time R object to the characterization that vandalism has made it impossible to leave the articles with semi=protection alone. Content disputes do abound, but vandalism is kept in check by the many editors watching these articles and their integrity is fairly promptly kept intact. I have long advocated semi-protection for these articles - I think it is essential and should be permanent - but I think full-protection is overkill and frustrating, especially to long-time editors who don't want to have to wait for edits to be effected by admins. If we have full protection, I think we should accompany it with an "established" account scheme that would allow experienced editors to continue editing, as Antandrus describes. I also support the concept of a "stable article" version for high profile pieces. Tvoz/talk 05:15, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Support Indefinite semi-protection for editing; full protection for moving per MZMcBride. Tvoz/talk 08:06, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose any sort of preemptive full protection, per Mendaliv, Buster7, and WP:AGF. That well-meaning editors would be automatically censored during an election strikes me as just...scary. Cosmic Latte (talk) 05:28, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
• Comment No strong opinion here on whether the page is fully protected or not (and I patrol Obama related articles, though less-so than many others.) At the Obama-Drama-top of this thread, the original complaint was that the folks patrolling Obama-related pages are barely able to keep up with addressing the escalating frequency of poorly sourced smears, despite a ton of effort, good faith, a FAQ on the talkpage, etc. The issue isn't really article vandalism, but talkpage disruption (and now daily BLP-violations on the talkpage) that invariably bring us daily to SSP, ANI and other noticeboards. I agree that this is how it is supposed to work per wikiprocess, but I'm also seeing the same few volunteers spending what appears to be 8+ hours a day in getting this done. What would be really helpful is if a few more admins would watchlist the Obama-related pages and help with implementing daily-needed WP:RS and WP:NPOV explanations and greasing WP:DR. thanks and regards, --guyzero | talk 06:17, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose preemptive protection per the basic premises of a wiki. If semi-protection fails to stop torrents of vandalism, then upgrade to full. But don't do it preemptively. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 09:07, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose preemptive full protection - I am one of the many editors that contribute to and watch Sarah Palin and other related articles. There is no evidence of "excessive vandalism" or BLP violations on the candidate's bios. This was anecdotal and a misrepresentation of the current status of the articles. Proper procedure should have been followed including a complete review of the four articles in addition to further discussion prior to full protection being applied. IP75 (talk) 10:17, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Version control using subpages

Here's the idea. Each of the four figures will have an unprotected subpage in the talk namespace, for example Talk:Barack Obama/Draft. We will link to the subpage draft from the main (fully-protected) article with an explanation and people will be able to edit the draft freely. Admins will sync the page throughout the election day (obviously first using the "Show changes" button and linking to the /Draft subpage in the edit summary). Edits will only be allowed to the /Draft subpage until things calm down. Thoughts? --MZMcBride (talk) 01:19, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I like it, sounds like a good idea. MBisanz 01:20, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

• Nope, just treat these articles like any other on the mainpage. No to special treatment.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 01:22, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
• Also a No...special treratment not required--Buster7 (talk) 01:36, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Support. ~ L'Aquatique 01:48, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

• Too overly complicated; finding a solution for a problem that doesn't exist in this severity. seicer | talk | contribs 03:53, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
• Unnecessary. — Writegeist (talk) 04:03, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

The default state of Misplaced Pages articles

... is that articles are editable. There is absolutely no reason for having these articles protected any longer than necessary, and that means a day or two. These articles need to be all put back in their default state, that is articles in an Encyclopedia that anyone can edit. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:42, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

There is no consensus for protecting these articles and the protecting admin is not addressing the concerns presented in the talk pages and the clearly lack of consensus for having these articles protected when there is no evidence of vandalism that could not be taken care by the many eyeballs watching these articles. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:25, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

As an uninvolved editor I have to agree with Jossi. There's clearly no consensus for protection here. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:32, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, there is clearly no consensus for anything here, with opinions on whether the article should be protected or not split pretty evenly. Whether or not that should result in unprotection as a default state, or status quo as default state isn't a judgment I'd want to do unilaterally, given the disaster the Sarah Palin wheel-was was. I would urge careful deliberation before any actions though. henrik•talk 06:36, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

(additional comment) These discussions reflect Misplaced Pages's evolving role in the world, something our current policies don't do a good job of taking into account how influential Misplaced Pages has become. I would suggest it might not be a bad idea to put together a coherent set of guidelines to handle very high profile articles, such as these, including what to do if the administrator on call feels that semi-protection is insufficient. We can't handle these cases in an ad hoc manner forever. henrik•talk 06:45, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

The users who want the articles kept unprotected should put their money where their mouths are, and devote the next 5 days or so doing nothing here but dealing with vandalism and POV-pushing on those articles. Baseball Bugs 11:27, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary and arrogance of American-based FRANK.

I am sick and tired from arbitrary some self-proclaimed censors demonstrate on Wiki pages.

As understood, “Frank” had deleted my article of modern internationally accepted innovator, engineer and publicist Michael Kerjman whose input in world progress is surely not less substantial than those of “Frank Lorenzo”

http://en.wikipedia.org/Frank_Lorenzo

Perhaps, a CEO of NY local airline tries to avoid possibility public worldwide to realise unaccountability of American carriers as provided with http://mkwrk2.livejournal.com

Moreover, my assesses to Wiki and Yahoo!Mail were blocked since my publication appeared unsuitable to this Newyorker.

Thank you for your ultimate attention to such a McCartney-style deeds.

A.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.214.68.59 (talk • contribs)

Huh? I understand none of this. You need to explain better what the problem is and what administrator intervention is required...I'm not going to go to your blog to figure that out. — Scientizzle 01:07, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

And vandalism is not going to help your cause, whatever it is... — Scientizzle 01:08, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

'McCartney-style deeds'? I doubt that Macca goes in for that sort of thing. Now your hard-core Lennonist, on the other hand... --CalendarWatcher (talk) 01:11, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Be nice to the IP address. He just paid a visit to Gibberish-R-Us.com. Baseball Bugs 01:17, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

It appears that the anonymous IP is referring to Kerjman, created by A2325 (talk · contribs) and deleted by Frank (talk · contribs). --CalendarWatcher (talk) 01:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

checked that article. brief bio about a Russian inventor with very little published work. Deleted as G11,promotional, which is fairly vague criterion. But I doubt it will be overturned, because there is no chance whatsoever that the material included would conceivably show him meeting the Misplaced Pages standards for an article based on his work, via BIO, or PROF or any other criterion. No reason for blocking someone submitting it, but I see no block on the account A2325 or the ip listed. DGG (talk) 18:31, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

User:ValeriyD and Russian movies commercial spam

{{resolved}} User ValeriyD (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam) appears only to insert links to russian-dvds.com (a purely commercial site) into various articles on Russian films. I have posted a notice on spam noticeboard, but haven't warned the user as I don't know the correct procedure. Will someone more knowledgeable please review this -- 131.111.223.43 (talk) 02:12, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

User:Seidenstud issued a warning and no further spamming has been seen. I'm marking it resolved until we see otherwise. JodyB _talk 12:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

He aded his link once again - I've slapped him with level 3 warning. MaxSem 16:44, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Yoelmo (talk · contribs)

Yoelmo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has succeeded in creating two fake album articles in the course of a few days of editing. He recreated Autumn Goodbye (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), which MSoldi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was blocked for. He has now created Fearless (Ali Lohan album) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), and AliPersonal (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), both of which are near copies of Interpersonal (Aliana Lohan Album) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), which I believe was also an MSoldi hoax, and has been repeatedly recreated and salted. Can someone let me know the creator(s) of Interpersonal so I can open a sockpuppeting or checkuser case? Or you can feel free to shout "QUACK" and block if you think it's appropriate after looking at the history.—Kww(talk) 02:17, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Please? Would someone just tell me who created the various versions of Interpersonal (Aliana Lohan Album) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)? I'll do the hard parts of matching contribution histories and such.—Kww(talk) 12:10, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Looks like Ohmygod1234 (talk · contribs) was responsible for the original incarnation between 10 Sep and 11 Sep, and the last edit before its first deletion was by Heyheyi'moutboy (talk · contribs) on 16 Sep, who then recreated it the next day (when it was deleted again). Final version was created by LucasHaider (talk · contribs) on 20 Sep before being deleted an hour later. _Gb 13:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser#MSoldi has been filed.—Kww(talk) 14:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Problem user: 65.254.165.214

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

User:Forryga and User:TrueForryga

This looks like it falls between WP:UAA and WP:RFCN, and it involves potential issues (the similarities in the usernames is obvious), so I am bringing this to admins' attention here (per the instructions at WP:RFCN). Also, I do not want to make any hasty judgments. The latter is claiming "forgery" of the former username. MuZemike (talk) 04:08, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Both accounts could probably be indefinitely blocked. First one is a vandalism only account, second one is a troll. Theresa Knott | token threats 09:12, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Done, nothing helpful about either account. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:24, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

More problems with Libro0

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

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

Legal threat from Wolfberry man

}

I've just received by Wiki e-mail what could be read as a legal threat from Paul144 (talk · contribs).

This concerns discussion at WP:COIN#Wolfberry re the COI of Paul144 (talk · contribs) linking to his own book and articles. Paul144 is a.k.a. the "Berry Doctor", who founded a company selling berry-based nutraceuticals and has written a book about wolfberries (see official site with its copious commercial links) co-authored with the head honchos of Rich Nature, a prominent vendor of berry nutraceuticals, and produced by that company.

But he's objecting to my opinion, based on the above background, that his work is commercial!

Here's the relevant section:

However, what is objectionable in your posts -- by Wiki criteria -- Misplaced Pages:OUTING#Posting of personal information is personal listing of names of the Zhangs and me in a way that could be interpreted negatively as if their business and I are not reliable sources.

I am a consultant so reputation matters. The Zhangs' business is of course important to them.

These sections below are violations of Misplaced Pages rules on harassment, and I ask you to remove them or I will have to take the matter to administration. (my bold)

"We can start by calling bullshit on that? A quick Google finds the book was produced by Rich Nature Nutraceutical Laboratories, which sells wolfberries and wolfberry products (here's their press release) and is copiously linked from the book's official site wolfberry.org. The two other co-authors, Richard Zhang and Xiaoping Zhang are the founders of Rich Nature."

and

"We can also call bullshit on the idea that Paul Gross is just some disinterested academic/freelancer who fancied a commission to write a book on wolfberries. Whatever his other credentials, his job is promoting berries as nutraceuticals, as the Berry Doctor, via promotional articles at NPIcenter ("the leading global online information resource for professionals in the Nutraceutical, nutritional, dietary supplement, cosmetic, and food industries"), and as founder of Berry Wise Inc, which sells berry-based nutraceuticals."

FYI, I have never been employed for any purpose regarding berries. My intent with my writing is purely educational and my reward is to volunteer independent literature in an industry where misinformation and fraud are prevalent. I donate my time to write about berries because I think they are an interesting scientific topic and valuable food source. There are no commercial motivations to what I write. I know this is evident from the content of those articles.

Paul

Contrary to the e-mail, I haven't "outed" him; he has self-identified twice on Misplaced Pages (see Misplaced Pages:COIN#Wolfberry).

I'm happy to go with consensus on this, but I'm not happy with this kind of threat from someone with clear commercial connections to a topic who has repeatedly linked to his own promotional articles. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 16:58, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to go way, way, way, waaaaaaaay out on a limb here and assume that the "administration" he refers to in the same sentence that he mentions Misplaced Pages is...Misplaced Pages:Administrators. John Reaves 17:15, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I get the same read. Not a legal threat at all. Toddst1 (talk) 17:17, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how on earth that can be construed as a legal threat. On the contrary, the plain meaning is that he is accusing you of violating WP policies, and threatening to take it up with the WP administrators. Which is exactly what someone should do if they believe someone else is violating policy. (Whether his accusations have any substance is beside the point.) -- Zsero (talk) 17:17, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, it's generally considered a no-no to post a private e-mail on-wiki. John Reaves 17:18, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I know. But when they're used as a form of harassment - to affect content and discussion by threats behind the scenes - I take that privacy as waived. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 17:30, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree, this does not sound like a legal threat but a statement of intent to use the mechanisms internal to Misplaced Pages. Mishlai (talk) 17:20, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, OK - this could be a regional difference, but in the UK (where I am) "take to administration" can mean "take to legal procedings". Gordonofcartoon (talk) 17:30, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

User:Firefly322

This user was discussed at WP:WQA here. My initial attempt with the WQA was to induce Firefly to refrain from calling me a troll and other uncivil comments. He was warned about his commentary here, here, and here. Of course, there are all the attempts at calming down Firefly within the WQA. Yet he continues here and here. Please assume some good faith on my part. I ran across one of Firefly's articles this week, which was going through an AfD here. Then I noticed several articles that were just not notable (in my opinion) which coincided with my desire to be more involved with the AfD process. In fact, Firefly has started several articles that I did not AfD, and thought were pretty useful (though poorly written, but that's an opinion). Since it would have seemed patronizing to make a remark on his better articles, I didn't. I believe his personal attacks against me should stop, and he should be blocked. I am most certainly not a troll. I'm lots of things, but continue to not assume good faith and calling me a troll is uncivil. OrangeMarlin 17:52, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Warned. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Not to be picky Gwen, but how many times does Firefly need to be warned? I see at least 3, possibly many more warnings, yet he/she continues with the personal attacks. OrangeMarlin 18:18, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I understand. Let me know on my talk page if it happens again, ok? Gwen Gale (talk) 18:44, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Eh, you missed one... because he removed it here. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 18:55, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Since you're an admin, and you've given him a warning, I've got to ask--how many warnings does he get? OrangeMarlin 19:59, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Ooops. His attacks continue. So, he continues to call me a troll, pretty soon, I'm going to have to sit under a bridge. OrangeMarlin 20:19, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Once upon a time I pleaded with my parents, à dancer sur le pont d'Avignon. They cringed, way, but did it for me anyway. Argh, I may never get over the shame of it. Blocked for 31 hours, personal attacks. Gwen Gale (talk) 20:39, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Gwen beat me to it, but not by much. How many angels can dance on a pinhead? No wait, that's not right. Anyway, I hope this answers your questions, OM. Regards, SHEFFIELDSTEEL 21:13, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I think this is a reasonable block, since there's a whole submerged iceberg of poor behavior of which this is the tip. It's possible that the situation could be remedied with a bit of education - Firefly322 is quicker to cite acronyms than he is to understand their meaning, and he's abrasive (, ). He seems to think that anyone making a value judgement is a "troll", when in fact the page says that calling someone else a troll constitutes a value judgement (ten points for spotting the faulty leap here - it involves use of ). Anyone more "ingenuous" than me interested in working on this? MastCell  21:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Did he actually compare your comments to Mbeki? I'm so flummoxed, not a witty remark comes to my mind. OrangeMarlin 21:21, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps I should have blocked for 72 hours. Ok, I know, I'm flawed. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:24, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm shocked that this is his first block, so a one day block is probably appropriate. But the list of his personal attacks far exceeds anyone I've seen on here. I've been going through his contributions over the past 2 or 3 months, and the number of personal attacks couched in his links to various wiki-policy is amazing. Hopefully, he gets this. OrangeMarlin 21:28, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Reply to MC. The faulty leap would be that I have friends? LOL. OrangeMarlin 21:30, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I just have to say that I tried to settle things peacefully both in WQA and even on their Talk page, but being told to "drop it" rather rather ... rude, shall I say. -t BMW c- 21:34, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I recently pointed out that Firefly seemed to be making sport of harassing admins. Fully support this block as I feel it's long overdue. Toddst1 (talk) 21:41, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• What I've yet to see here or elsewhere, is an explanation of why OrangeMarlin keeps nominating articles started by Firefly for deletion, when these nominations are constantly found to be lacking in merit. Maybe I'm missing something but this seems to be a prima facie case of WP:STALK and WP:HARASS. Why is OM not being sanctioned for this behaviour? Colonel Warden (talk) 23:07, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Please immediately retract your personal attack. OrangeMarlin 23:11, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Another possible answer: because those AfD nominations are not constantly found to be lacking in merit. Yet another alternative: because the nominations are being made in good faith (i.e. when the nominator states that the article subjects are not notable, he means it). SHEFFIELDSTEEL 23:15, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't matter, personal attacks aren't allowed. Gwen Gale (talk) 23:18, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

In response to Colonel Warden's uncivil personal attacks, please see WP:NPA, this was not found to be lacking in merit. Oh, yes, this one seems to be under discussion. And of course, this one is still under discussion too. Oh, and Firefly has started a number of articles that I haven't touched. Because of this AfD did I choose to review his other new articles. So, you may apologize here, or how about leaving your personal and inappropriate comments precisely where they belong...in your head. OrangeMarlin 23:19, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I note that Colonel Warden and Firefly322 have quite a history of helping and supporting one another (for examples, see their respective Talk pages and the many AfDs that are linked from them), so I suppose it's not surprising that Colonel Warden would want to offer help to Firefly322 in this situation, but I agree with the other editors here that the above post is a personal attack and should be withdrawn. The root cause seems to be a failure by Colonel Warden to assume good faith on the part of OM. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 23:44, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, this pretty much proves that I'm not a stalker. I had no clue who Warden was/is. Now I have to look, of course.OrangeMarlin 08:16, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

IP requests block?

147.72.126.130 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) After a short spree of vandalism (which terminated as soon as a final warning was issued), the IP actually requested to be blocked as a school IP. Is this something we'd oblige? —/Mendaliv//_Δ's/ 18:02, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Probably, but their network administrator (or someone else in charge) should contact OTRS with the request. —Travis 18:05, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

We don't wontedly block editors by their own request. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:07, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Even with no request, it should've been blocked, which it is now. Spellcast (talk) 18:13, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

There's software they can get which blocks editing Misplaced Pages. They could simply add "http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=*&action=edit*" to their local URL blocklist, or however it is they block websites. Just a thought. Cheers. lifebaka++ 18:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

As if I mind the block. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:48, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Admin Gwen Gale abusing admin tools

User:Gwen Gale is abusing her admin powers by threatening to block me over a legitimate content dispute. As can be seen at User talk:Gwen Gale#RedSpruce, she is also refusing to engage in any rational discussion. RedSpruce (talk) 19:15, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

No comment on anything else at this point, but it's well-established that a threat to block does not constitute the use of admin tools. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 19:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Um, have you tried to engage in any sort of discussion regarding the content dispute with Richard Arthur Norton anywhere? —kurykh 19:20, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

No admin tools have been used yet. It appears to me that Gwen has threatened a block to stop an edit war. —Travis 19:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I may be thinking of some other users, but haven't RedSpruce and Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) been at each other's necks for a long time? I seem to recall seeing their rivalry on other boards here in the past year or so. Hiberniantears (talk) 19:24, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

This isn't a "legitimate content dispute", its pointy behavior. RedSpruce visits certain articles once a month and removes content in lieu (or in same cases in spite of) dispute resolution. Since his stated goal is to wait until other editors aren't watching so he can sneak his changes in and since he's been blocked multiple times for similar behavior, I'd say Gwen in on the right track here. Shell 19:25, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

If somebody is edit warring over content, it is not abuse for an admin to state "I will block you if you carry on deleting verifiable content". No admin abuse here, only questionable edits by RedSpruce. - auburnpilot talk 19:26, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Obviously, an improper threat to block constitutes an abuse of admin tools, and there is no edit war involved here. And User:Shell_Kinney's characterization of events is incorrect.RedSpruce (talk) 19:27, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Well yes but the question is - was it an improper threat? You can be blocked for more than just edit warring, we can, and do block for disruption all the time. Theresa Knott | token threats 19:32, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Notifying you that if you continue making the same types of edits that you will be blocked is not an abuse of administrative tools, especially when the edits are disruptive, so please stop claiming that. After having reviewed the situation I think that I would pretty-much completely agree with Shell Kinney's assessment. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 19:34, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Why should we allow this disruptive gaming the rules to continue? Is RedSpruce ready to stop behaving disruptively, or are external controls needed. Jehochman 19:29, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

It seems that RedSpruce does not even understand why his edits are disruptive and gaming the system, so I highly doubt he's ready to stop behaving that way. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 19:31, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Yep. My warning stands, if you delete verifiable content from the encyclopedia (moreover clarifying quotes in footnotes), I'll block you. I care not a wit about the dispute and am wholly uninvolved. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:32, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Knock it off, RedSpruce, or I'll block you myself. Tan | 39 19:33, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Ditto. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 19:34, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Good grief, isn't anyone here interested in addressing the actual issues? If I'm behaving disruptively here, kindly explain how. If this isn't a valid content dispute, kindly explain why it isn't. Anything else is just ad hominem personal attacks. RedSpruce (talk) 19:37, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

We did address the issue, which was if Gwen Gale was "abusing the admin tools". She was not. We then focused on you, as is permissible and usual on this board. We found that you were engaging in disruptive editing. It's not a content dispute because there's no discussion whatsoever regarding the "disputed content". Does that help? —kurykh 19:40, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You have been removing well-sourced, verifiable content from articles without engaging in discussion or so much as using an edit summary. That is disruptive. Also, please read WP:AGF and try to understand why accusing administrators and other editors of personal attacks, etc. when there are none is not tolerated. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 19:41, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Heya RedSpruce, please chill and see WP:V. Most readers are smarter than you may think, even those whose lips move whilst they sound it out. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:42, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not so much that it's not tolerated (most of us should be used to it by now), but that it's not a particularly effective way of convincing people. —kurykh 19:43, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

(EC x 3) It is a content dispute which you are handling poorly by slow edit warring. When the dispute spills into the mainspace, where text is added to and removed from articles, its an edit war and any uninvolved admin has the right to block any user who is engaged in such behavior, in order to stop the edit war. Gwen left an appropriate warning on the issue, which basically said "stop the disruption or risk being blocked". I would say there is no probelm at all with what she did. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 19:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

We said knock it off. He didn't. I blocked for 72 hours. See prior block log. Tan | 39 19:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Unblock requested (sort of) and declined. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 19:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

And now he has apparently decided to retire from editing. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 19:52, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

As an aside, here's some fun reading for y'all: . This issue has been beat into the ground already. Later. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 19:57, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

So he's been 'cut down to size'? See, his name is 'Red Spruce' and so I...I'll just go sit in the corner, shall I? HalfShadow 23:53, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Oy. Thanks for the diff, Jayron :/ Gwen Gale (talk) 21:15, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

69.117.205.213

This user's latest edit summary: go back to the ovens you fucking kikes (and the blanking of Who is a Jew?). The user's talk page reveals a lot of blocking notices but also the need for a new block, I'd think, due to the extreme offensive nature of the hate. I understand it is an IP, but something needs to be done. Thanks. Best, A Sniper (talk) 19:44, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Need Some Admin Input

I am having a bit of trouble with an image and it's true ownership. The image is question is Image:OSS-seal.JPG, the seal for the Office of Strategic Services (the organization before the CIA was founded). According to User:Lucasbfr, there is a trademark by the OSS Society of McLean on the image (USPTO# 78641357) and an OTRS ticket claiming so (OTRS# 2007122210004268). Now, I gave the OSS Society a call (number: 703-356-6667 if one would like to call and confirm) and the lady I spoke to said the image could not be copyrighted as it was public domain.

This is where my confusion comes in. Who is right? Is it public domain or is it copyright? It would be silly for a group to have a copyrighted image and claim it was public domain. I ask for some admin input. Thanks...NeutralHomer • Talk • October 30, 2008 @ 19:52

Looking into it now. Please stand by. — Coren  20:05, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Any work created by a US government employee in the course of official duties is automatically in the public domain, and cannot be copyrighted. But the explanation of why the image was removed doesn't talk about copyright, it says the seal is trademarked, which is a different thing, and I don't know the rules about that. Looie496 (talk) 20:07, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry I've seen your message but couldn't reply before you posted here (I'm still trying to gather information on this). I am not sure this is something that can be resolved on this forum, though. I'm probably going to email Mike Godwin about this, but the logo is indeed trademarked. Now, whether or not it is public domain (I'd say because it is the work of a US Federal agency, not because it is old) is an other matter. Considering that the image was being used as a Fair Use picture, and that there is a clear statement from someone owning the trademark, and claiming that this is not a US government work, that we are infringing their Intellectual Property we ought to err on the safe side (as a host). If there is proof the image is PD, and if can confirm that we can use the image in this context, it might be restored but IANAL (and I'm not sure this is worth the fight). -- lucasbfr 20:15, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I can confirm that (a) the image is subject to a live trademark and that (b) someone purporting to be Charles Pinck, the President of the OSS Society (who owns the trademark) has requested in ticket 2007122210004268, repeatedly, that it be removed from Misplaced Pages.

There is still a legitimate question about the origin of the email (AOL address), but at least provisionally, we must consider it legitimate. I'm going to be attempting to contact the OSS Society directly to make certain the email is legitimate, but that cannot be done now and we must proceed presuming that it is. — Coren  20:21, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I confirmed the email address with a tad of googling :). -- lucasbfr 20:24, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I've still offered a phone call, I'll use the opportunity to discuss a valid release of the image instead of simply cutting off bridges.  :-) — Coren  20:30, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Allright, the straight dope after talking directly with the OSSS president: this whole mess is a big misunderstanding.  :-) (a) They will favorably consider giving us permission to use the Trademark (it would need to be a board permission) if we ask nice. (b) We probably don't want to use the Trademark at all: it never was used as a logo of the actual OSS, but created ex post facto after the war by vets! (The CIA site has it erroneously and the OSSS has already asked them to remove it). According to Mr Pinck, the OSS never had an official logo at all (he would have been glad to point one out to us if there was). — Coren  20:47, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah that's what an other email of his asserted. -- lucasbfr 20:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Just to make sure I understand, there isn't an image/logo for the OSS at all? - NeutralHomer • Talk • October 30, 2008 @ 21:01

That's correct, not while it existed. It was created after the OSS was split/replaced by the CIA by veterans. — Coren  21:39, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Okie Dokie....that clears up that massive confusion. Sorry for uploading the image again, I thought it was public domain. My mistake and my apologizes. - NeutralHomer • Talk • October 30, 2008 @ 21:41

Legal threat from User:Tswenson

Diff. They quickly removed it; but the principle remains I guess. --Blowdart | 19:56, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

The point of our no legal threat policy is to prevent intimidation. Obviously a removed threat isn't a threat at all. No way should this person be blocked. Theresa Knott | token threats 20:10, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I would hope the Communications Department could spell better, especially when it comes to their own name. Little Red Riding Hoodtalk 20:12, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• (ec x 4) This IMHO was an unwarranted block, as the legal representative Young Life Service Center trying to get there copyrighted photo removed they are of course going to use legal terminology. The message was in no way disruptive, they were simply trying to get their picture removed. We cannot hold it against them that they do not know Misplaced Pages policies; the correct response would have been to provide them a link to a suitable venue to get the picture removed and tell them that we will work with them and that by Wikipedias guidelines legal threats are heavily discouraged. Icewedge (talk) 20:19, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

(ec, agreed with above)We could also point them to the appropriate venue for that kind of things instead of clicking on the OMG button. They are not intimidating other users (which is the point of WP:LEGAL) and may be right... -- lucasbfr 20:19, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

It seems I was in the wrong in issuing a block here per WP:NLT. I've unblocked the user and left an explanation and apology on their talk page. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 20:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Theresa Knott | token threats 20:25, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you indeed :) -- lucasbfr 20:25, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out my misinterpretation of the policy and mistake that resulted from it! Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 20:31, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

The purpose of 3RR

Yesterday, I was blocked for edit warring. I can't deny I made more than 3 reverts on 2008 Weliveriya bombing, though the blocking admin failed to look into the talk page of the article. I had rationally discussed the matter with User:Watchdogb on that page. Isn't the purpose of 3RR to be if someone doesn't do that??? We had come to a concensus that the categories in question should stay, and the "revert war" had ended minutes before admin User:Alex Bakharev blocked both of us. Now, I was blocked for 12 hrs, which really isn't that bad considering I was watching the Phillies win the World Series (yay!) and was sleeping, but Watchdogb received 72 hrs (originally shortened from 168). My point is that 3rr blocks need to be overhauled, as clearly this was a punitive action instead of preventative. I would like something like a 1 second block confirming that this was of no fault of mine and he to be unblocked.

I requested to be unblocked, but that wasn't even responded to until after my block expired. Clearly this also needs to change. And no, I'm not some newbie who is pissed off about a rule I don't like. I've been here for 10 months and am pissed off about the enforcement of a rule that can be (but is helpful in some cases) both arbitrary and ridiculous. ~one of many editorofthewikis ~ 20:17, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

The timing of the response to your request for unblock is odd, but it doesn't matter if you tried to discuss on the Talk page, 3RR is almost always 3RR, unless it was purely vandalism. When it gets close to 3RR, you need to bring in some admins on the 3RR noticeboard. -t BMW c- 20:29, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. In looking at the article talk page, I don't see a consensus there at all. Sometimes if a block is not reviewed quickly you could email the unblock list. JodyB _talk 20:33, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Actually on my first revert I thought it was vandalism. I really didn't need to bring in any admins into the issue, as Watchdogb and myself were perfectly able to work the problem out ourselves. My point is, no disruption was being caused, as we both thought we were right and discussed the matter, and no block was needed.

Reply to JodyB: On Watchdogb's talk page, you can see that he agreed with my reversions. ~one of many editorofthewikis ~ 20:37, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Sigh... Ed, you miss the point. Revert warring on an article is harmful, regardless of how many reverts you did, or whether you agreed to it or not. The way to solve this? Don't edit war – ever. That way you won't even give the impression to an admin that you're violating 3RR (which you did). – How do you turn this on (talk) 20:54, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Let me simply note that the edit war had come to a peaceful conclusion before Bakharev blocked, and that blocks are to be preventative, not punitive. Nousernamesleft (talk) 20:55, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Still, the two were edit warring, and violated 3RR. Edit warring is never productive. – How do you turn this on (talk) 21:01, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Sorry Nousernamesleft, that's not quite so clear. The last dit was at 23:32, the block at 23:55 and the agreement on the users talk page at 00:04. From the perspective of the admin, the block was appropriate and the edit war was still ongoing. JodyB _talk 21:04, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but I still don't see why his request for unblock was declined. Nousernamesleft (talk) 21:05, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Then why block at all? Someone is vandalising, they say they'll stop on their talk page, does it then become punitive? – How do you turn this on (talk) 21:08, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Without commenting on the subject of this thread, if somebody indicates they will stop whatever disruptive behavior they've been warned about, and they stop, a block would be punitive. But most cases aren't so clear, and judgment is used to weight whether or not the disruption will actually stop long term. - auburnpilot talk 21:14, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I've notified the blocking admin of this discussion as should have been done when bringing this here. Toddst1 (talk) 21:20, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

(ec)So in this case, was there any reason to believe it would continue? – How do you turn this on (talk) 21:21, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I think this was all due to a huge misunderstanding. I originally reverted Watchdogb for removing cats from an article, thinkinking he was vandalising. I soon realised that there was a huge controversy going on categorising these as terrorist attacks. So, Watchdog rightfully reverted me. It had been referred to as a suicide bombing, which for all intents and purposes is a terrorist attack but may not be technically one, as per his comment on the talk page. It had to be cited as a "terrorist attack" itself. I reverted Watchdogb again supplying a source. All the time I thought these were uncontyrovercial on Watchdog's part, otherwise I would have never reverted at all. Apparently that source was considered unreliable, so I found another that was. The problem was solved, but we both were blocked. No disruption intended on either side, and the block was obviously punitive. ~one of many editorofthewikis ~ 21:34, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• You have an excellent point there, EditorOfTheWiki. In fact I would venture to say that you are absolutely correct- an edit based upon consensus of formerly warring parties cannot and is not (by definition) an edit war. 3RR makes a lot of sense and it's very important to hold to, but with anything there is the rule and then there is the exception to the rule. The exception here is the conflicting parties chatted about it on the article talk page, came to a consensus and in the end an edit was made reflecting consensus. This may very well exceed three reverts but it is not a violation of WP:3RR. Lastly, your frustrating at no one responding to your unblock request within the time of your block is horrifying. ArbCom has clearly stated that administrators must explain their actions within a prompt period of time and if the blocking admin- or another admin- did not even respond to your unblock request then it seems to me to be a clear violation of that ruling. Bstone (talk) 22:12, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I saw four reverts made both parties of the dispute. Watchdogb has long history of edit warring and just 3 days off a 1-year old 1RR restrictions. Editofthewiki is an experienced editor but without previous history of 1RR blocks. Deletion and reinsertion of terrorism-related categories is rarely a simple vandalism, everybody knows that one person's terrorism is very often another person's freedom fighting. The edit war was a sterile one - no attempts to compromise, no attempts to look for a second opinion, etc., all reverts (except the first deletion of categories made by Watchdogb) were complete reverts made by semi-automatic tools. Taking all this into account I gave 72h to Watchdogb and 12h Editofthewiki. I think it was fair. The 12h for Editofthewiki has already expired if anybody think that Watchdogb should be unblocked earlier please go ahead. Alex Bakharev (talk) 00:27, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

First off, I only pressed the undo button. Second, no attempts to compromise eh? I stongly suggest you to look into the history of the edit war before giving out blocks (and Watchdogb should be unblocked - he was not at fault either). I could care less if hes edit warred in the past - the fact of the matter is, he is currently blocked punitively. Look, I'm working on several FAs right now and do not have time for this ANI drama. Something has to be done - I suggest we allow blocked users to edit the talk page of their blocker? This edit war (if it can be described as such) diid not need admin intervention, but the whole enforcement of 3RR does. ~one of many editorofthewikis ~ 00:43, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

It's really a matter of Alex Bakharev giving a knee-jerk block for a seeming 3RR violation without actually looking into the fact of the situation. Alex Bakharev, if you cannot issue appropriate blocks then please allow another admin to step in. ArbCom has recently ruled that admins are required to place notes on the appropriate notice boards if they are unable to objectively deal with a situation. Please respect this ArbCom ruling. Bstone (talk) 01:07, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Those are some pretty heavy allegations, Bstone. If you have any evidence that Alex was in some way less than objective or was careless, please present them. Otherwise, let's tone down the rhetoric. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 08:39, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I would again suggest that everyone look at the time line. The so-called agreement was reached until after the block was implemented, at least that's the way the numbers show here. And the discussion was not fully held on the talk page of the article but on the talk page of one of the users. There's nothing wrong with that but given the immediate circumstances as the admin saw them the block was appropriate. Please remember that we have the benefit of hindsight here. JodyB _talk 02:07, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Listen, all: just don't put yourself in this position. Don't even rack up three reverts. Discuss, discuss, discuss. Was this an unfortunate block? Possibly, but the way to prevent it is not some overhaul of the 3RR eforcement system; it's to stop reverting, start discussing. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 08:34, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Strange Socking

• Mingusyeal (talk · contribs)
• Mingushead000 (talk · contribs)
• Jackerdacrakka (talk · contribs)
• User:Minguemeringue (talk · contribs)
• 12.179.223.85 (talk · contribs)

I've been monitoring this for a few days now, and thought it was time to bring it here. The userpage of indef blocked User:Mingushead000, was attracting a fair amount of odd edits, in particular that the x picture was changed to this one Image:Index finger.JPG several times. I deleted the page since it no longer served any purpose, MingusHead was blocked for vandalism, and for attacking User:Mingusyeal. MingusHeads page was often attacked by this user, who i also indef'd since they were clearly not trying to help the project, and who seemed to be under the impression they were a sysop. MingusHead's talk page also got replaced with "I'm a meringue", , by User:Jackerdacrakka, who also made this very stange monobook, User:Jackerdacrakka/monobook.js. Also brought to my attention was User:User:Minguemeringue, not yet blocked, meringue and mingu seem to much of a co-incidence to me, especially considering this, Template:WarChallenge, a template inviting an edit war with another user, and virtually identical to Template:EditWarChallenge created by Mingushead. This all seems very strange, and i would appreciate some outside input thing. One more thing, that also set my spidey sense tingling, are those two edits by the apparent subject of the attacks, this, very similar in style to jackers monobook edit, and this, , adding the same picture to their userpage which kept being added to MingusHead's.--Jac16888 (talk) 23:25, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Annoying User

A user called DyingxToxLivexAgain wrote annoying messages on my talk page, he did this twice in the past couple of weeks. So is there a way that's wiki-legal to get this guy under control? By the way, I've deleted his first message already.

Eisenhower 23:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Warn the user, and if he persists, report the user to the vandalism noticeboard. Erik the Red 2 ~~~~ 23:53, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Have warned him. He's got one chance to stop it, although this, , suggests he won't.--Jac16888 (talk) 23:58, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks guys, I appreciate it. Eisenhower 00:20, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I've blocked that account, because there's a real editor on the receiving end of this, and since we routinely block confirmed vandalism-only accounts, I see no reason not to block a self-confessed harassment-only account. I'm happy for an admin to accept any unblock request that seems reasonable. Of course, if consensus here is that I'm being draconian, please go ahead and reverse the block. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 00:28, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Clearly a vandalism-only account. If it were me that had cross paths with him, I would have taken him straight to WP:AIV. Baseball Bugs 11:16, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Abuse of AFD

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

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

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

Uh, yes, isn't that the way Misplaced Pages works? Tan | 39 02:02, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Suggestion

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

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

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

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

Arbcom Elections

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eh, block wasn't necessary. Highly likely to be a troll but blocking simply created more drama than anything else. The post would have been ignored or we would have given the user a polite explanation. And in the unlikely case this was a real user it would have been a very bad bite. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:59, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

Looks like a He-who-shall-not-be-named bombing is starting up.

Ladies and gentlemen, have your rollbacks ready. HalfShadow 05:19, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Pardon?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 06:25, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

This guy or one of his many castratos; my guess is the former due to the title. -Jéské Couriano 06:49, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Closures by involved editors

• WP:AN#Misplaced Pages:2008 main page redesign proposal/straw poll 2008-10-18
• User_talk:ChyranandChloe#Closure

Please see these discussions. - jc37 05:26, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Is it just me, or are we getting a lot of these lately?? I count four questions regarding these types of closures just within the rest of this page (as of 6AM CDT 10/31/08), which leads me to believe that either a)policy needs to be clarified and/or reiterated; or b)current policy is perfectly acceptable but is being widely ignored. Either way, it seems something needs to be done/clarified/rewritten...is this one for the Village Pump, or should we keep it here??? Gladys J Cortez 10:47, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Please block this WP:SPA who is POV-pushing

Twoggle (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is a WP:SPA designed solely to POV-push in defiance of almost every single policy we have. The vast consensus on Talk:Aspartame controversy is that the edits were improvements, but this particular editor is simply interested in maintaining prose that had to be removed due to WP:FRINGE, WP:RS, WP:V, WP:UNDUE, WP:SOAP, etc., etc., etc.

A block is in order.

ScienceApologist (talk) 05:32, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Twoggle has opened a MedCab case here. As part of the ground rules for hearing the case, I ask all participants to refrain from any editing of the article until the case is concluded one way or the other. Assuming that Twoggle agrees to those terms, can s/he be kept unblocked while the case is worked through?   07:22, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Concerns about 76.185.232.165

User at 76.185.232.165 (talk · contribs) seems to be adding various {sport}Xpert links to a number of sites. I see nothing on these sites by advertising. Could an admin look into this person's edits and determine if WP:ADERTISING is being broken? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjquin id (talk • contribs) 05:56, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

All necessary warnings added. This really is a spamlink only account so far. MarnetteD | Talk 06:21, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Blocked for one month. --Kralizec! (talk) 07:43, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Non-admin closing requested move discussion he participated in

Would someone care to have a word with User:ww2censor regarding his (early, although it was a WP:SNOW situation) closure of the requested move on Talk:Counties of Ireland, a discussion which he participated in? I'd usually do it myself, but as I've just been involved in a contentious debate with some fairly unpleasant Irish nationalists, I'd rather not. пﮟოьεԻ 57 09:54, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Hell no! Why? You said yourself it was a snow situation. Theresa Knott | token threats 09:56, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Tendentious debates like that need closed, since the result is crystal clear, it matters not by whom. Slapping people for perceived procedural irregularities when eh result is good and uncontroversial is not the wiki-way.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 10:01, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I just thought it was an obvious no-no, regardless of the way the debate is heading (this is certainly what WP:DPR#NAC and Misplaced Pages:Non-admin closure#Inappropriate closures seem to suggest). If it's acceptable, I stand corrected. пﮟოьεԻ 57 10:48, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Those guidelines are there to stop contention, but if the close result is not going to be contentious, they can be ignored. Results (particularly if uncontentious) are always more important than process. But, it is fine that you asked, and I'm sorry if the reply sounded like a slap-down. Asking is good, it is how we learn.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 10:52, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Kinobe

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

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

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

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

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

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

The template police strike again

In my previous incarnation as "Doc glasgow", I created a well-used template {blatantvandal} . (No, I realise that gives me no rights over it). Now, that template was subsequently moved to {{Uw-bv}} - which is fine. (It seems to have been a cut and paste job without proper GFDL attribution, but we'll let that pass.) On looking at the template page yesterday, I noticed documentation stating "This template has been carefully designed based on guidelines by the user warnings project". That's simply not true (and difficult since the template pre-dates the wikiproject in question). Now, it might be pedantic, but the documentation is not good because it 1) is factually incorrect 2) more importantly, it gives the false impression that to create a useful template you need to follow someone's guidelines - you don't, you create it, and others edit it. No "rules".

I removed the erroneous documentation wholesale (it too was on a template), and when someone reverted me, I tried to "subst" the documentation to excise only the error. I left clear explanations on the talk page for my actions.. Now, apparently I am breaking more "template project rules", since not only were my changes reverted, but comments on the talk page have been repeatedly removed (I am apparently not allowed to post to the talk page of the template to discuss/record the dispute - the wikiproject doesn't like that), and I've been threatened with the 3RR.

Now, I am probably a silly pedant, and I do appreciate the work other people do on templates, but the fixation with standardisation, and the insistence that the whole project must comply with guidelines drawn up by a few, and the impression that a wikiproject is some sort of "governing authority", is totally opposed to how I've always understood this project to work. I'm bringing this here because I obviously can't use the talk page of the template (and I really don't want to go to a place where my deleted comments were copied by someone under a hostile heading).

If I'm out on a limb here, I'll shut up and kowtow to the wikiproject. --Scott MacDonald (talk) 11:41, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Fuck the wikiproject. Wikiproects can't just make up "rules" and expect people to do anything but laugh at them. John Reaves 11:44, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Just a note here, the current {{uw-bv}} was created by Gracenotes , the template Doc created was redirected at a TFD , so yes, the current bv template is based off of the discussion at WT:UTM and no, anyone can create a UTM template using any wording they want, there are no "rules" to create a template. Some people, myself included, do like to go around and tweak templates created by other people to try and make them easier to use. MBisanz 11:47, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Pedantic me, but Gracenotes cut and paste blatantvandal, (s)he didn't create anything. Compare and . They are identical. I tried to point that out, but my comments were removed somewhere.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 11:51, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Erm, I just noticed an active discussion at Wikipedia_talk:UTM#Edit_warring_at_Template:uw-bv, what sort of administrative action is required for a discussion in progress? MBisanz 11:55, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

What discussion. Someone removed my explanations from the template talk page, and took it to some wikiproject per their "rules" and then placed it under an accusatory heading. That's not a discussion.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 12:01, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Wonderful. Anomie (talk · contribs) has just labelled me "disruptive" and placed a big (guess what) template on the talk page, telling people that they shouldnot discuss things there, but at the wikiproject proscribed page. See Template talk:Uw-bv. Sigh.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 11:57, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

There are 1,409 warning templates on Misplaced Pages, having a central place to discuss them seems like a reasonable idea... MBisanz 12:01, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Sure perhaps for general discusison, but it is no reason to remove comments that relate to one particular template from it's talk page. Besides which comment on a particular template which is placed on a general wikiproject, will be impossible to find later. I wished to point out errors on the template in a way that would be seen in future by those interested in the template. I watchlist various templates I use for changes, I don't watch general discussion on 1,409. Not everything is best centralised.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 12:07, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Scott, your issue though was with the documentation, which is used on several dozen pages, the community at large could benefit from a change the the basic documentation. Its not a rules situation or a stopping change, just trying to have a central discussion among lots of people about what is the best way to move forward with the system. Its been down that way since at least 2006, pre-dating the Wikiproject. MBisanz 12:14, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you are being pedantic and disruptive. Few people watch all 482 individual templates in the uw-* system; we redirect all those talk pages to one centralized location so people with comments have half a chance of those comments actually being seen. I tried to tell you that twice, but you insisted on ignoring my advice. It's not a "rule", it's just common sense to post where people are actually watching. As for the rest, you are welcome to join in the discussion at WT:UTM. Anomie⚔ 12:09, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I made a change, it was reverted. I tried again with a different version, it was reverted. I went to the talk page, and gave reasons. How is that disruptive? Instead of suggesting another venue, threatened me with 3RR and repeatedly moved my comments to another place under a hostile heading. I was (and am) willing to have a civil discussion about this. But you sort of made that difficult.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 12:14, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not really seeing the pedantic and disruptive bit - however, {{Uw-bv}} was created with the edit summary "(create uw-version of the uber-cool {{bv}})". In my books, this satisfies the GFDL concerns (under the Title Page section or something) and properly leads back to the original creator. The content has now been adapted to new purposes under new claims, but the traceback to the original author is there. Doc/Scott, I think you're out on a bit of a limb. Franamax (talk) 12:17, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

This Wikiproject is marvellous. I've repeatedly seen that members own the UW-series templates. Changes to templates seem verboten, as are new ones, unless the Wikiproject has approved in advance. I made {{uw-welcometest}}, a combination of two UW-permitted templates. The Wikiproject was horrified, insisting that it be moved to {{welcometest}} because it wasn't approved or endorsed by them and - get this - that the redirect so created also had to be deleted. Dawkins help us if their blocks are not all lined up in a neat row.

This type of thing is typical of several Wikiprojects, particularly the ones to do with Misplaced Pages's arcane internal functions: they are the Wikiproject that controls the implementation of x-function, so what is done in Misplaced Pages that uses x-function is therefore under their control (down even as far as where stuff is discussed, how stuff is approved for use by Misplaced Pages by the project and what sanctions are applied to people who knock over the blocks).

This isn't how Wikiprojects were designed to operate, but the only solution is to join them and be very active and thus be assimilated or expelled for not conforming. Meh. Not worth the trouble. Better to let them control their stuff, then at least they're being kept centralised somewhere. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ a sweet and tender hooligan 12:19, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe I understand Scott's objection and have fixed the base documentation at to better reflect template authorship. MBisanz 12:23, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

If a WikiProject becomes a cabal with its own little set of rules, then the obvious thing to do is MfD the project. "This project should be deleted because it violates the spirit of Misplaced Pages and has turned into a cabal that seeks to subvert community consensus." Hopefully, the project participants will get a clue before this becomes necessary. On the other hand, I created {{uw-coi}} and could care less what other people might want to do with it. Scott, you might try harder to be apathetic. Jehochman 12:25, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Templates are on the list of items (including date formatting and categorization) that are on constantly shifting sand, and thus not worth messing around with. Content is what matters, not this cutesie stuff. Baseball Bugs 12:28, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, thank goodness we have people looking after this stuff rather pedantically. They look good; they work well; we have tools and scripts that are built on top of these, so naturally people get a bit worried when others start hacking away with a sickle on one of them - if every template "author" started re-asserting rights over their "artist" works, we would have mayhem, ugliness, and moar tool breakages. Nothing to see here, move along, per Jehochman. John Vandenberg 12:40, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I only dream of the day when my little templates User:Bwilkins/didnotnotify and User:Bwilkins/welcomecivil became "standard" and "improved" by the masses. -t BMW c- 12:53, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages noticeboards