Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Guettarda (talk | contribs) at 05:49, 27 December 2007 (→User:Orangemarlin: ec). 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

Unblock of Callmebc

So, about a month ago Callmebc was indefinitely blocked because he had basically given up on "editing in a collaborative spirit" and was becoming abusive and disruptive over the topic. Since there was no apparent way to fix his behavior, he was blocked for a long period of time. While blocked, he has remained up to date as a lurker on the topic he was previously engaged in, and we have been (quite genially, I might add) discussing how his editing habits might be improved, since he has an honest desire to contribute to these subjects in a constructive fashion. As you can see from his block log, he has not been a perfect editor, to put it mildly — however, we've discussed a lot of these issues, and I think he has a sincere desire to begin "editing in a collaborative spirit".

Since I'm not here to play parole officer, or pretend I'm some kind of behavior-police (something which I do not believe is the correct role of admins), I've mostly discussed with him how to address the concerns many people brought up in his previous blocks, and the discussion which led up to his indefinite block. In any case, since I didn't want to put words in his mouth or set "conditions" for unblocking him, we decided that he should work up a statement of compromises that he's willing to make to engage his unblock.

Statement by "Callmebc"

I wish to be unblocked from Misplaced Pages. I was indefinitely blocked apparently because of my attitude -- I put accuracy above all else, and I don't play well with others whom I suspect of not being honest. This has led me to be combative and somewhat sarcastic at times, with both other editors and admins. While I feel very strongly that whatever comments I have made were entirely justified in context, I understand that Misplaced Pages is not all about being accurate at all costs -- it is a social, collaborative effort requiring some degree of patience, tolerance, encouragement and giving editors and admins the benefit of the doubt even when I strongly disagree with what is being said or done.

I've been inactive over a month and thought about behaviorial & attitude changes I can agree to that would strike a balance between my wanting things accurate and up to date in a timely manner, and the Wiki process of collaboration and WP:AGF. This is what I think would be a good compromise:

1) I will refrain from making any changes at all to the main article page without first going through a Talk page discussion. If the discussion degrades to WP:TE, and WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, and WP:GAME (as is often the case with politically sensitive topics), I will still avoid simply going ahead to make the changes anyway and instead will follow Misplaced Pages policies regarding WP:DR

The only exceptions I'll will be blatant vandalism and substantial undiscussed changes I have problems with in terms of accuracy and content -- I will just revert the first as a matter of course, and will revert the second with a note on the editor's home page to please discuss first on the Talk page. In the second case, if the editor makes an effort to discuss the changes, I will follow consensus and not object to putting the changes back even if I still have problems with them. If it is an issue with a single editor wanting to change something and there is no other feedback from anyone else, I will instead again follow Misplaced Pages policies regarding WP:DR rather than engage in an edit war.

2) I will endeavor to be polite, regardless of the circumstances and provocation. The articles I tend to be interested in are politically charged and regularly draw in anonymous IP's, sock/meatpuppets and the like. In the worst case I will only adopt a neutral tone and will strive to avoid even making sarcastic remarks, however "appropriate" the circumstances might be.

3) I will give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and then some, regardless of my suspicions. I will even go further and start with a clean sheet in regards to editors and admins I have bumped heads with in the past and regardless of my personal opinions. In real life, you get to pick your job but not your coworkers, and you are expected to get along regardless. The same is much the case with the Misplaced Pages -- you can pick which articles to work on, but you can't choose your coeditors, and you should try to get along regardless. They may include people you would never want to socialize with, but that's not the point of why you're there in either case.

4) In a nutshell, I will endeavor to improve the quality of articles without violating, however accidently, the collaborative spirit of Misplaced Pages.

-BC aka Callmebc

As you can see, it basically amounts to a self-imposed probation on all articles, with civility probation attached. I think this will satisfy most of the concerns which surrounded his editing pre-block, but I wanted to bring it up for discussion here. So, what do you think? It would be helpful if comment could focus on particular requirements you think are not met in this, if you are opposed. For consideration, --Haemo (talk) 04:02, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, I am always concerned when users try to get themselves unblocked in unusual fashions. I would rather Callmebc go through (since email is not disabled) and just request an unblock through unblock-en-l@lists.wikimedia.org first before coming here. If that is rejected, then fine, but AN/I is frankly too fast for a discussion of this type. If some admin is willing to consider it, I'd suggest unprotecting his user talk page and discussing it there instead of here. No opinion, just a random admin musing through. Frankly, after seeing your diatribes as unblock requests, I'd say to at least wait until the end of the month before even considering it and learn why your unblock requests got you deservedly blocked even worse. I'll add this: if (1) this thread goes nowhere, (2) he's emailed unblock and they've denied it as well, have him email me and I'll consider unprotecting his talk page after December 28 . Even then, I'm going to ask that at least one of the users who you are edit warring with agrees to the restrictions and will reblocked immediately and permanently for any nonsense. After this many blocks (and especially given the attitude during the blocked periods), I think I'm being way more than fair. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:10, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, this is not really an "unusual fashion". I was discussing with Callmebc on-Wiki when he was appealing his block in the usual fashion. However, our discussion was cut short when his talk page was protected, but he had contacted me via email, so we decided to continue the discussion via email. There is nothing unusual about this, and it seems slightly bureaucratic to insist on jumping through hoops like reposting an extensive discussion we've had via email on his talk pages, or emailing a list which will only result in a discussion here — since this is clearly a case where the community needs to get involved. To be fair, in addition, its now been more than 1 month since his block was implemented. With respect to the "too fast" comment, the community sanction board was merged with WP:ANI — so this is de facto the only place to bring up discussions of this nature; the consensus was that WP:ANI is not "too fast", but is in fact the correct forum for these discussions. --Haemo (talk) 08:11, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

To be honest it may seem bureaucratic but it is justified, he knew his talk page was going to be protected if he used it disruptively and he went ahead and gave a rather pointy reason for unblocking, wich was: "See below -- I was in the middle of composing an answer and proposition to Haemo when MaxSem shot first without asking me any questions. That wasn't nice or WP:CIVIL of him, was it?" the talk page was protected shortly after this last request was denied, there is no reason why the desicion to protect could be considered out of place. - Caribbean~H.Q. 08:30, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying it was out of place — I was simply explaining that the discussion we began there was continued via email, instead of by arguing over the protection. I merely made the comment to explain why it was not an "unusual fashion" — i.e. it's not as though he contacted me out of the blue, or something, asking for an unblock. --Haemo (talk) 08:35, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• If Callmebc is unblocked, it should be on the proviso that there is a topic ban from articles related to George W. Bush's National Guard service, interpreted liberally and to include all comments including on user talk, and on a permanent final warning about WP:BLP. See VRTS ticket # 2007103010015799 and VRTS ticket # 2007111410017735 for evidence of this editor's single-minded determination to pursue an agenda in violation of WP:BLP, causing great offence to a living individual in the process. I am not in favour of unblocking, personally, but as I say, any unblock should be contingent on some form of editing restriction. The above comments about "accuracy above all else" do not augur well, indicating that Callmebc self-identifies as a bearer of The Truth™, rather than accepting or engaging the numerous legitimate criticisms. Guy (Help!) 09:00, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

  I don't have OTRS access, so I'll take your word for it. Since he appears to be mostly involved in the Killian Documents issues, and global warming, I'm not sure if he'll be willing to agree to that. However, he might, so I will consider broaching it with him after this discussion wraps up. He may be the bearer of The Truth™, but I think his comments show that he's realized that he has to compromise and engaged with us unenlightened ones, as well. --Haemo (talk) 09:04, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Agree with the above. Normally he would be allowed to use his talk page to argue his point but he abused it for days so no one should act like he deserves to be unblocked or any sympathy for his circumstances. Now, he should go through the process and ask via email. Frankly, I didn't realize he was getting to the point of OTRS tickets (I probably wouldn't have even offered to unblock if I knew he was that far gone) so Guy's topic ban has to be strictly enforced (I don't even want him on the talk pages there). Maybe even a requirement that he can only go on articles that don't have WP:BLP concerns? Either way, if he does "jump through all the hoops", I'll go to each of the talk pages and ask about him. Frankly, Haemo, I'm doing him a huge favor (as I feel this is going to take a lot of my time) and honestly, I'd prefer it if I felt that he realized that editing here is a privilege, not a right that can be abused and then "I'm sorry", "all is forgiven" after a diatribe against everyone. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, he's a passionate guy — he's shown me as much in his emails. I think he has experience which might be of use to the project; however, the problems related to his behavior are an issue for the community to settle. Passion and conviction are not a recipe for temperance — as his past behavior has shown. However, I think he understand now that temperance is necessary to participate in this community. As you can see, he's made some serious concessions and appears willing to talk about things. This is a big step forward, and means a lot more than just an "I'm sorry". --Haemo (talk) 09:32, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• This editor should not be unblocked at this time. I have had first hand experience in dealing with him. Instead, advise him to participate successfully in another Wiki, such as WikiNews, for three to six months and then he can apply for reinstatement. - Jehochman 09:26, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• Do you really think that would help? The issue here is behavior; our sister projects are not test-beds for problem editors, and we should not use them as such. If we refuse to unblock him due to behavior problems, why would should inflict that behavior on a sister project in order test the waters for an unblock? It seems backwards — if he's trustworthy enough to edit WikiNews, then he should be trustworthy enough to edit Misplaced Pages — the negation of this should apply equally. --Haemo (talk) 09:32, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• Sister projects have much less visibility as Misplaced Pages. Those who merely want to soapbox won't bother. Those who have a sincere desire to participate will. - Jehochman 09:58, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• I'm not sure that's compelling. Perhaps they have a sincere desire to participate in a proper encyclopedia, not WikiNews or Simple English Misplaced Pages? An editor could very well be ready to turn over a new leaf, but not want to spend half a year doing something they have no interest in as a litmus test for whether they want to use Misplaced Pages as a soapbox. Many editors who want to contribute in good faith, and have turned over a new leaf would balk at such a suggestion and refuse. It's seem pretty punitive, and serves little purpose — if he's unblocked here, and starts soapboxing, then he'll have violated the terms he's already agreed to, and will be blocked. I don't believe in sending our problem users to other projects, especially as part of litmus tests which have no precedent (IIRC) and little evidence that they will actually do what we want. --Haemo (talk) 10:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• JzG, I have OTRS access but can't see that one, either... o.O - Penwhale | 09:55, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I really don't support him being unblocked yet, I know that unblock consideration can take place anytime but the last time he displayed disruptive behavior was about three weeks ago, while blocked this shows disregard for losing his editing privilege wich makes me question his desire to return, not to the point of assuming bad faith but I have to wonder if his intention is to push his past agenda in a more subtle manner. I wouldn't even consider unblocking this user without severe editing limitations like the ones presented above. - Caribbean~H.Q. 10:29, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify, he's come up with those above by himself as suggestions for restrictions he feels are reasonable. --Haemo (talk) 10:37, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I was refering to Guy's topic ban, and the subsecuent comment that sugested that said ban was extended to talk pages. - Caribbean~H.Q. 10:46, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Callmebc has repeatedly used talk pages to promote precisely the same offending content that was a problem in article space, and his abuse of his talk page for this was a factor in it being protected. I fixed the OTRS ticket links, incidentally. Sorry about that. Guy (Help!) 16:31, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I guess I can go along with this. The tone of his message is reasonable and the editing conditions he's come up with for himself look quite decent. Someone will always be around to enforce them. I don't think a topic-ban is necessary - if he comes back and does the same thing over-and-over-again we can just slap the ban back on. Cheers, Moreschi 10:55, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• I really do think we need to make it crystal clear that no comments about the individual concerned will be tolerated. Callmebc has offended the complainant, and the best course will unquestionably be for Callmebc to refrain form making any further comment in respect of this person. If that is acceptable to Callmebc then I have no objection; if Callmebc will not undertake to leave this person alone then I cannot support unblocking. Guy (Help!) 16:34, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I am a firm believer in second chances, but I think the myriad chances given to this user to shape up have been completely exhausted. It's rather easy for uninvolved spectators to say he should be allowed to try to edit articles again, but as a person who's borne the brunt of his attacks and incivility, I wouldn't consider it an option. ~ UBeR (talk) 19:43, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not exactly saying that; rather, I'm giving him an avenue to express his desire to contribute, and the concessions he's willing to make. You've mentioned that your concerns stem from his incivility and personal attacks. What more would you like to see from him that is not already expressed in terms of what he's agreed to? --Haemo (talk) 23:48, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, my first restriction on him potentially is that he stay off article space completely for one month, once and if he's unblocked; only talk space edits. I want to see if he is actually interested in discussing his views and can get others to agree based on persuasion, not by force. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:04, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm a non-admin who has had a lot of contact with "BC" since before he registered as Callmebc. While our opinions about the Killian Documents are quite different, I would like to note for the record that he has helped improve our articles about those documents in some fairly significant ways. "BC" has sometimes drifted into a self-defeating pattern of incivility (this appears to be cyclical, as do his bursts of amazing energy), but I'd like him to get one more chance. CWC 03:55, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Since ArbCom determined that User:Vintagekits deserves a second chance, then this erudite and productive editor deserves several - and promptly. Alice 14:22, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Callmebc was deleting my edits because he couldn't find an online copy of cited material, and later because he couldn't find what was in it. He could still do that under his understanding of truth: "The only exceptions I'll will be blatant vandalism and substantial undiscussed changes I have problems with in terms of accuracy and content -- I will just revert the first as a matter of course, and will revert the second with a note on the editor's home page to please discuss first on the Talk page." Only his unnecessary Talk messages will increase. -- SEWilco (talk) 03:45, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Callmebc doesn't have ('special counsel') Giano on his team, so I should imagine that if he pulls a stunt like calling good faith editors vandals and reverting them, he will get chopped off at the legs again - this time justifiably.

Callmebc needs to promptly give the undertaking to refrain from any personal comment whatever concerning the "complainant" (as Guy suggested) and then he should be unblocked. A preliminary step should be for his talk page to be unprotected so that he can give plain and unequivocal assurances there in full view of the aggrieved parties (and, hopefully, those same parties can confirm there and then, on Callmebc's talk page that they accept the undertakings in good faith). Misplaced Pages is a collegiate project and Callmebc needs to demonstrate that he has learnt that now; his relayed statement above certainly talks the talk - unprotecting his talk page would mean we could all be satisfied that he walks the walk too. Alice 05:29, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, just exactly that. Guy (Help!) 23:49, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

• I hope I don't seem like a sucker here, but it seems that callmebc recognizes the problems that lead to his block/ban and will endeavor to prevent them in the future. I, for one, would be supportive of a trial unblock to see how it goes. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:51, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Passionate at times. If he can control that, he will be a great editor. In addition, notice that, to the best of our knowledge, he has not used socks which supports the view that he is a good editor, just loses it at times. Give him a chance. Brusegadi (talk) 06:47, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

• unblock It is Christmas. Give him a chance (again). Seriously, he states he will make a strong effort to improve. He can always be blocked again if he reverts to his old ways. Gtstricky 17:02, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Another non-adminstrator who's had exchanges with callmebc in the past; well said, Gtstricky, and a Merry Christmas /or insert winter holiday of choice/ to you all. htom (talk) 17:51, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

It's now five days since the matter of Callmebc's block and user talk page protection was raised here.

Although Guy does not seem to violently disapprove of the protection being removed, he's still omitted to un-protect User talk:Callmebc (I also requested that here).

Mindful of ArbCom's opinion in another matter: "Since administrators are strongly discouraged from reversing one another's blocks, it is of particular importance that blocking admins respond to good-faith requests to review blocks they have made. Similarly, administrators who perform independent reviews of unblock requests are expected to familiarize themselves with the full facts of the matter before marking the unblock request "declined."" and "It is important for all users, but especially administrators, to be aware of their own agendas, feelings and passions, and to deal with them appropriately, avoiding both biased editing and ill-considered administrative actions.", can anyone now suggest a way forward since the consensus seems to be to exercise some generosity of spirit here? Alice 02:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

It looks like no admin is willing to unblock. Having said that, I will make an offer. I've had a little experience with Callmebc and think that he is capable of being a constructive editor -- even a very good editor -- if he can rein in his passions. I'm willing to unblock Callmebc and give him advice as to how he can proceed constructively. The condition I require is that if he goes over the line, I will reinstate the block at my sole and uncontested discretion. I'm willing to serve as an informal advisor but am not willing to get into an endless back-and-forth. If he gets into a rut of tendentious editing or other inappropriate behavior, I re-block and wash my hands of the matter. Raymond Arritt (talk) 03:03, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that's very fair, Raymond. I hope Callmebc and Guy will think so too.

By the way, I've stolen your Highland Cattle for my user page. Alice 03:40, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Listen, just relax. I too am willing to unblock him, given the discussion here, but I want everyone to be able to chime in, and to get Callmebc's opinion about some of the suggestions made in the thread. I have been in constant contact with him via and email, and he is pleased with the way things are going. There is no need to create any additional conflict over this issue. --Haemo (talk) 04:08, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I oppose the unblock, as an editor who sees that callmebc still thinks he's got 'The Truth', as evidenced by his opening statement justifying all he's previously done: "I put accuracy above all else, and I don't play well with others whom I suspect of not being honest." That's "I have The Truth, thus I did the right thing and you all can't see it." Why would we continue to invite someone back whose 'apology' is 'yeah, but i was right and they weren't so they started it and i was just fixing everyone's mess'? No. No more agenda warriors and POV pushers, we have plenty. ThuranX (talk) 14:25, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

With respect, Thuranx, I don't read it that way. I read it as him being honest and non-delusional about his own innate motivation and world outlook and recognising that it will take a big and constant effort from him to adapt to our collaborative way of doing things.

But I do think that this is a dialogue that you (and possibly others) need to be having with Callmebc himself - which is why I would strongly plead again for his talk page to be unprotected right now. Alice 20:40, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Using a mailing list to delete a template

This matter concerns some emails on the public WikiEN-l mailing list in May 2007. I became aware of these emails only recently and through much of my own research. In May 2007 I was not a subscriber to wikien-l and I am still not a subscriber to wikien-l.

On May 16, 2007, David Gerard, a former arbitrator and a current administrator with checkuser rights and oversight rights, wrote an email on the WikiEN-l mailing list and said "Find "what links here" from Template:Spoiler, open all articles beginning with a letter and clear that letter out. Or ten or twenty. Shouldn't take too long." David Gerard also wrote an email saying "Can we kill this creature yet? Huh? Can we?".

I don't know if admins on Misplaced Pages have any control over behavior on a mailing list, but this page says the WikiEN-l mailing list is moderated. The page also says David Gerard is a WikiEN-l mailing list administrator and a message at the bottom of the page says the WikiEN-l mailing list is "run" in part, by him.

I don't want to get into a discussion here about the merits or faults of that particular template. Is it acceptable to use a mailing list to tell other editors to remove a template from every article? --Pixelface (talk) 20:24, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

No, admins don't have any control over the Wikimedia mailing lists. They're moderated, but not by us. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:33, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I suppose I could send an email to the mailing list administrators, but this incident involves one of them. --Pixelface (talk) 20:40, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

There's really no issue here. The mailing list is open to all (unless someone is trolling or disrupting) and they are not censored. You are entitle to post there suggesting that {spoiler} is added to every article on the wiki. There's a whole cross-section of wikipedians there, posting an idea is at lightly to ensure someone opposes it as someone supports it. I can see no problems with David's post. Better people suggest things on an open mailing list, that use closed ones of like-minded people.--Doc 20:46, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I already know where you stand on that particular template Doc glasgow. You see no problem with users using mailing lists in order to delete things on Misplaced Pages? Better to suggest something on a template's talk page or guideline talk page than use a mailing list for meatpuppeting. --Pixelface (talk) 21:06, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The mailing list is open and not censored, and may well have a wider spectrum watching it than any talk page you might suggest. Anyway, I'm not saying that there are not better places to propose things, merely that proposing things there is not forbidden, either to you or anyone else.--Doc 21:08, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

This email does not look like a proposal to me. --Pixelface (talk) 21:15, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

• Pixelface, you are now beating the dust which has blown over the bloody smear where the dead horse once lay. This has been to TfD, DRV, here, the mailing list, I can't think of a forum where it hasn't been shopped. The answer is: we don't do spoiler warnings any more. We have {{current fiction}}, you can make a counterpart for current video games if you absolutely must (looks like Misplaced Pages:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 December 15 showed that we simply don't do spoilers by any name), and everybody else has moved on. And to answer the specific point, the mailing list is officially endorsed as a venue for meta debate, but the dleetion debate and reviews were on-wiki anyway. Guy (Help!) 21:13, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

• You were present at the discussion on the mailing list in May 2007 and you personally removed the template from 222 articles using AWB after David Gerard sent the email. And you closed the TFD in November before the template had been listed for deletion for seven days. Is the WikiEN-l mailing list officially endorsed so editors can tell other editors to remove every transclusion of a template so it can be deleted as "virtually unused"? --Pixelface (talk) 21:31, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

• Seven months ago, and yes, I removed it from some articles where it was used inappropriately, but that's completely irrelevant - it was seven months ago, it's been exhaustively discussed on wiki since, and bringing it up again is not helping anyone. What admin action is supposed to be taken against someone for postings made on the official mailing list seven months ago and actions widely discussed in numerous venues since? Guy (Help!) 21:38, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

• It's not irrelevant that you read that email by David Gerard and helped remove templates and you closed the TFD for that template early. What admin action is supposed to be taken? Admins can undelete things. If a former arbitrator tells other editors to remove a template from every article and then the template is deleted because it is "virtually unused", I think that's something that requires an admin action. I suppose a steward action might even be necessary. --Pixelface (talk) 21:52, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

• It's a perfectly valid reason to delete something. May I remind you of CSD G6 - Housekeeping. And what are yu suggesting by "a steward action might be necessary"?--Phoenix-wiki  21:59, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

• If a template being "virtually unused" is a valid reason to delete it, any editor could remove any template from every article in order to get the template deleted at TFD. Stewards perform desysoppings. --Pixelface (talk) 22:13, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The official Misplaced Pages mailing list is in fact used to discuss things regarding Misplaced Pages. If this surprises you, you may also be interested in learning about when the War of 1812 was fought and who's buried in Grant's Tomb. But these attempts at forum shopping are frankly pathetic, and are rapidly straining the limits of an assumption of good faith. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:36, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Is the official Misplaced Pages mailing list also used to tell other people to remove a template from every article? --Pixelface (talk) 21:41, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Stop trying to make it look contraversial. It isn't secret or anything, there are archives that anyone can look at and anyone can join the list if they want. There's no issue here.--Phoenix-wiki  21:49, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

And yes, it can be used to tell someone to remove a template from every article, if there's consensus to do so, which there is here.--Phoenix-wiki  21:51, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Phoenix-wiki, you are free to read the May 2007 mailing list archives and tell me where there was consensus to remove that template from 45,000 articles. --Pixelface (talk) 22:05, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm a subscriber to the list.--Phoenix-wiki  22:10, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

So show me where there was consensus on the mailing list to remove that template from every article. Does WP:CONSENSUS refer to consensus off Misplaced Pages? --Pixelface (talk) 22:19, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, when someone notes that they dislike the widespread use of a template on the mailing list, the mailing list is in fact an appropriate place to suggest they remove it from some uses. Come on, you can't really think there's anything untoward here. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:52, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The mailing list is an appropriate place to tell editors to check "What links here" for a template and have them remove it from every article? --Pixelface (talk) 21:59, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is. If the template is no longer wanted, it's a perfect place.--Phoenix-wiki  22:01, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying a template should be removed from every article and then listed for deletion at WP:TFD? --Pixelface (talk) 22:08, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

If there already seems to be consensus that it shouldn't be there.--Phoenix-wiki  22:10, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

It's a complete red herring anyway. The point is, most of the uses were clearly redundant: ==plot== followed by "warning, plot details follow". The bulk of removals were for this reason, and there was extensive debate at the time at WT:SPOILER and other venues. This attempt to refight an old battle is very tiresome. I closed the TfD (a little early, but only a little) because it had reached a point where no new arguments were being advanced. I had done pretty much nothign on spoilers for months, and my only removals of spoilers were clearly redundant. DRV upheld the deletion, there is no consensus to have spoiler warnings, the onus is on those seeking to add content to justify it, in this case there is no consensus, onl a continual restatement of the same rejected arguments. I suggest that the spoiler fans fork the content into a new project whose mission is to protect the reader form finding out that the boat sinks or the wolf gets it. We have had the debate, examined our navels at length, and conluded that, good faith not being in doubt, spoiler warnings are not what Misplaced Pages is about. I was wondering why the whole thing was being shopped to yet another forum, but I saw that {{tl|current fiction} was deleted, and it was deleted because the small pro-spoiler group was trying to turn it back into {{spoiler}}. It seems to me that they have had their quota of kicks of the can and should probably just find something else to think about. Guy (Help!) 23:28, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

A template should be removed from every article after a TFD that results in delete, not before. --Pixelface (talk) 00:30, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

There is just one problem with your argument, the template had largely been orphaned for at least 5 months. This is a completely different situation from removing a template just before sending it to TfD. --Farix (Talk) 00:43, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

It was continually removed from every article for several months. --Pixelface (talk) 01:49, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

As someone completely uninvolved in the debate either then or now, I would like to note that it is entirely unclear that the suggestion given in the linked emails was to remove the spoiler warning from all articles. The context appears to be:

• Someone points out that many spoiler tags are misplaced
• Someone else (apparently an admin, although I fail to see what difference this makes) suggests how to go about locating and cleaning up misplaced templates
• This same person expresses frustration that removing the template from inappropriate places is creating an edit war.

72.193.221.88 (talk) 22:43, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

When Misplaced Pages:Spoilers was locked for two weeks, Pixelface declared that he would no longer participate in any discussion about spoilers as long at the page was fully protected. Since the edit protection has expired yesterday, Pixelface returns to making the same controversial changes to the guideline page that got the page protected in the first place. and is now bringing this half hearted "bad people must have done bad things" even when there is no proof. This has gotten us nowhere in the last 7 months and has simply poisoned the well. Combine this with the edit warring over whether descriptive plot summaries based on the primary source constituted "original research" leaves a huge impression that Pixelface is simply being disruptive on the entire matter. --Farix (Talk) 23:13, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

• I see Guy has protected WP:SPOILER for four more weeks. --Pixelface (talk) 15:08, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

• You know, there is something strange about this debate. Consider for a moment: Misplaced Pages is a tertiary source, drawn from reliable independent secondary sources, yes? So any supposed spoiler must by definition already be out there in secondary sources, because of course we would never go to a movie and then come back and write a review into a Misplaced Pages article, that would violate policy and guidelines. All the pro-spoiler crowd need to do is use {{fact}} on anything which is not in the secondary sources. If the secondary sources consider it a spoiler, in the case of current releases they generally won't print it. The major broadsheets review all kinds of things, they don't tell your the plot twists because they'd never get another press pass and their readers don't want to hear spoilers. Once the cat is out of the bag and we have reliable secondary sources for the plot twists, removing, obscuring or otherwise obfuscating in Misplaced Pages is shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Can someone provide an example of a spoiler printed only in a small number of reliable sources, hidden or avoided in most, and which therefore may present a valid case for a spoiler warning if one were to achieve consensus? Guy (Help!) 23:46, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Elegant and irrefutable logic, Guy. Alice

• The {{fact}} tag will no longer exist if one can use a mailing list to recruit editors to remove it from every article and then list it for deletion. --Pixelface (talk) 00:18, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

• Spectacularly irrelevant. I see no evidence that anybody has ever proposed removing {{fact}}, and it's extremely unlikely that removal would fly, since it is of crucial importance in marking content whihc is deficient per policy and guidelines, in a way that {{spoiler}} unquestionably was not. You also failed to answer the substantive point re sourceability of supposed spoilers. Guy (Help!) 21:11, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

• David Gerard performed disruptive canvassing when he told editors on the WikiEN-l mailing list to remove a template from every article. There's your proof. Here David Gerard admits to removing the template from "10 to 20,000" articles. And here an editor says the template was removed from 45,000 articles. This is about the behavior of David Gerard using off-Wiki communication that led to 45,000 articles being changed. --Pixelface (talk) 00:15, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

David's suggestion to the mailing list is hardly canvassing. He has also been cleared of disruption charges at least twice now over his removals of the spoiler tag, especially when the concurrent RfC wasn't show a consensus of the redundant spoiler warnings which he was removing. --Farix (Talk) 00:39, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

What are you referring to when you say "He has also been cleared of disruption charges at least twice now over his removals of the spoiler tag"? Does that have to do with WikiEN-l mailing list? --Pixelface (talk) 03:21, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Two rejected Abcom requests and one rejected AWB abuse report. As for the connection to the ML, it's because you are insinuating that David's comments on how to clean the over usage of the spoiler warning is the proof that the edits to remove spoiler warings were disruptive. --Farix (Talk) 04:13, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Venue total was wikien-l, a TFD, an RFC, WT:SPOIL, AWB, arbcom, mediation, back to arbcom. And now another one, several months later. I'm slightly impressed - David Gerard (talk) 12:59, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Note: There's also further discussion on the subject at Wikipedia_talk:Spoiler#Spoiler_tag_wording and the next section. Merry Christmas everybody! Snowolf 14:17, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed block of Pixelface

The misrepresentations of this mailing list thread are bordering on spurious personal attacks, frankly. David Gerard was responding to a comment about somebody's dislike of the overuse of spoiler tags. His response amounted to "Remove them one by one." There was not, in that post, any attempt to coordinate efforts to remove the tags. The only thing that prevents these lies from being personal attacks is the simple fact that discussing something in an official and public discussion forum is not against policy, and is in fact why the mailing list exists. Would somebody please block Pixelface for these disruptive attempts at character assassination? Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:52, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I am an editor with no prior participation in the spoiler template issue, and no prior interaction with Pixelface. After reviewing this ANI report, which I can only describe as spurious, and Pixelface's talk page, which is full of warnings for similar incidents, I support Phil Sandifer's recommendation that Pixelface be blocked for repeated personal attacks, incivility, and tying up administrative resources with frivolous and vexatious complaints. —Psychonaut (talk) 01:59, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

What have I said that you consider a personal attack? I don't think I've tied up administrative resources with frivolous and vexatious complaints and I find that statement offensive. --Pixelface (talk) 03:26, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

You are taking David's comments on how to clean up the template usage and insinuating that it is proof that David disrupted Misplaced Pages when it obvious proves nothing. That is a personal attack. --Farix (Talk) 04:13, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's a personal attack to say an editor engaged in canvassing which led to the disruption of 45,000 articles. What do think about comments like "Can we kill this creature yet? Huh? Can we?" and "Kill it with a stick" and "and also please kill it."? Do those comments prove his email telling editors to remove the template from every article was in good faith? --Pixelface (talk) 04:30, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

"There was not, in that post, any attempt to coordinate efforts to remove the tags." In this email, David Gerard said "Could all reading this please go to the above URL and get hacking?", a reference to http://en.wikipedia.org/Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Spoiler. --Pixelface (talk) 11:46, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I have not misrepresented anything here. And I have not attempted to "character assassinate" David Gerard. David Gerard wrote "Find "what links here" from Template:Spoiler, open all articles beginning with a letter and clear that letter out. Or ten or twenty. Shouldn't take too long." after Phil Sandifer wrote "Nuke the spoiler template. Nuke all "spoiler" policies." on the WikiEN-l mailing list in May 2007. --Pixelface (talk) 02:11, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

As a non-admin, I support the idea of a block. It should be clear that nothing is going to happen to David Gerard from the other admins comments, and frankly the evidence you just presented doesn't even begin to constitute canvassing. So what do you want to happen? The template was unnecessary and isn't coming back, which should also be clear. So what do you hope to gain by all of this? If you're not willing to stop warring over this dead issue, you should, unfortunately, be blocked until you're ready to contribute productively. AniMate 02:25, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

If you think that template was unnecessary, that's fine, you're entitled to your opinion. But this about using a mailing list to tell people to remove a template from every article. And please do not tell me I am not ready to contribute productively. You're free to examine my contribution history. --Pixelface (talk) 03:31, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

David didn't tell anyone to do anything. All he did was suggest a way to clean up the spoiler tag's over usage. Nothing more, nothing less. --Farix (Talk) 04:13, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

He did, actually. And you forgot the part where he referred to editors trying to keep the template in an article as "blithering idiots." --Pixelface (talk) 08:58, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I won't say that a block is necessary , but a RfC on his actions is probably called for. --Farix (Talk) 02:45, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd also support an RfC instead of a block at this point. Chaz 03:45, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I sincerely hope an WP:RFCC is not being considered in order to prevent a request for arbitration from being made. --Pixelface (talk) 04:53, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

No, it would be filed to address your conduct. Your continuing assumption of bad faith is part of this behavior. Go ahead and request arbitration if you believe it's necessary. Chaz 04:55, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

At this point users have had an opportunity to present their views on this matter. It does not appear that any administrator action is called for at this time. It may be of interest that earlier this year an arbitration request on the "spoiler warnings" issue was declined by ArbCom. On the other hand, a principle currently under discussion at Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters/Proposed decision#Editorial process: fait accompli might also be of interest. I do not believe that any block is necessary if all parties move forward from this point in good faith and engage in productive discussion. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:19, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

see also: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters/Workshop#Editorial process: fait accompli --Jack Merridew 10:24, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

The request for arbitration in June 2007 did not address behavior on the WikiEN-l mailing list. Thank you for your input. I appreciate it. --Pixelface (talk) 02:33, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure the arbitration committee has any say over conduct on the mailing list, or what exactly the arbitration committee should do about Misplaced Pages editors expressing their opinion with civility and in good faith on that list. --Tony Sidaway 02:38, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

David Gerard wrote, "if, God forbid, the accursed thing isn't killed after all, its harm will have been mitigated." Saying "kill it with a stick" and referring to a template as an "accursed thing" and saying "Can we kill this creature yet? Huh? Can we?", and "Usually spoiler tags end up in nonfiction articles because someone puts a bit of irrelevant cruft in with a vague relation to the subject. Then it needs a tag because OMG SPOILER." and referring to editors trying to keep the tag in an article as "blithering idiots" is expressing one's opinion with civility and in good faith? Or were you not referring to David Gerard in your comment? --Pixelface (talk) 08:43, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Forgive me, I wrote misleadingly above about David's wikien-l comments. Yes, you're right, they were delivered with good faith, civility, common sense, and HUMOR. --Tony Sidaway 09:23, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems patently obvious to me that editors expressing opinions with civility and good faith on mailing lists is of no concern whatsoever to the Arbitration Committee. —Psychonaut (talk) 07:35, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Psychonaut, I invite you to read the WikiEN-l mailing list archives for May 2007. You can see every email with the word "spoil" in the subject line here. I realize that the Arbitration Committee deals with behavior on Misplaced Pages. But I see no reason why behavior that's unacceptable on Misplaced Pages becomes acceptable when it occurs on a mailing list. --Pixelface (talk) 08:51, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I will state for the record that I recently started a thread relating to a deleted article on wiki-en-L, as an introduction to new information that had come to light about the subject. My explicit reason for doing so was "I'm posting this to the list as opposed to AN to reduce the signal to noise ratio, knowing that there are many people moderated here right now but that a range of opinions is still available and the list is publicly accessible" (quoting my own email there). It was implicit in my email that the discussion would wind up at some page or other of Misplaced Pages; however, this was a quick way to bring the subject to the attention of a broad range of editors and admins, many of whom do not read AN or AN/I constantly, and even fewer of whom would have watchlisted DRV or the pages related to the subject. In my mind, that is an appropriate use of an official and publicly accessible Misplaced Pages communication process - to draw a subject to the attention of a broad range of people who may otherwise not be aware of the issues. The spoiler warning issue was not discussed on wiki-en-L in isolation from other related on-wiki discussions. Indeed, in my experience almost every subject discussed on the mailing list is being discussed somewhere on-wiki, frequently in little-watched pages, and the inclusion of the subject to the mailing list often brings more diverse opinion and suggestions. Risker (talk) 07:02, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I support a block of Pixelface untill such a time as he's ready to accept that we don't use spoiler warnings.--Phoenix-wiki  12:49, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

The beatings will continue until morale improves. —Steve Summit (talk) 21:43, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

For added comedy value, check the template-based notice Pixelface left on my talk page. I think he deserves 0.01 points for sheer creativity in finding a new venue to shop this to (and he didn't even hit WP:CSN the first time around, despite dark threats to on WT:SPOIL), weighed against the -10,000 points of ability to actually build consensus to keep spoilers on rather than sit muttering in a corner "we wuz robbed, it wasn't that nobody cared and those who did thought we were wrong." Possibly he would benefit from writing some article text for that "encyclopedia" project of ours - David Gerard (talk) 12:57, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

The dispute resolution steps are now venue shopping? I've written plenty of article text. You're free to examine my mainspace edits, here and here. Using a mailing list for meatpuppeting is an interesting tactic I'm unfamiliar with, but it looks like you accomplished your goal. Wait, I'm sorry. Shall we be speaking off Misplaced Pages on our mailing list David? --Pixelface (talk) 14:08, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

It certainly appears to me that Pixelface (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is a vexatious litigant and should be censured as such. ➥the Epopt (talk) 17:25, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

That's as may be, but we're much better off with Pixelface's complaints on this page than when he put them on Misplaced Pages talk:Spoiler. Small progress, but a move in the right direction. --Tony Sidaway 17:36, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed.

I've blocked Pixelface per the consensus and reasons presented here. John Reaves 18:30, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

• I applaud this decision and echo many of the statements made above. The user's behaviour has been highly problematic and his use of deliberate obtuseness to goad other editors into personal attacks or other forms of vexatious expression is unacceptable. Eusebeus (talk) 19:04, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
• Regrettable but unavoidable. The spoiler issue should not be revisited for at least six months, in my view, to allow the dust to settle. Guy (Help!) 23:10, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
• I oppose the block as I can't see anything actionable, and I think this has turned into something of a witch hunt of those questioning the dominant mindset on this issue. I actually think that the complaint is ultimately without weight, but I do not believe Pixelface knew this at the start. I think we should encourage an atmosphere where people's actions can be justly questioned and then, in cases like this where even if correct no action would have been required against the alleged protagonist, people could be credited with the intelligence to decide for themselves what the facts are and move on. Orderinchaos 05:21, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

• This is a very bad block and needs to be undone. -- Ned Scott 05:24, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Unblock

I have unblocked Pixelface (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). I believe there may have been grounds for a one hour block, but we are treating this guy worse than some of our persistent trolls and vandals, and I did not like the pack hunt mentality which was emerging above. A venue such as RfC would have been, and still would be, preferable for these concerns about Pixelface's actions / behaviour, and I propose those with more cause or knowledge than myself about the matters concerned take steps to initiate such a forum. Orderinchaos 05:26, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

A public lynching versus a forced sequestering? Excellent idea... John Reaves 08:27, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Agree with OIC. The block was unneeded and regrettable. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 10:19, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

As the likely candidate for victim of vexatious litigant, I don't think a block achieved anything more than heating tempers. "Cool down" blocks never do. And the polite and civilised rotten tomatoes and cabbages returned in his direction above say all that any reasonable person should need as a response to draw a conclusion from - David Gerard (talk) 15:18, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Orangemarlin

After numerous warnings from many editors I put an alert out on this user. In response, he has suggested that users, apparently including me, should be executed. Guido den Broeder (talk) 16:32, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I really don't like it, but I have to go right now. Snowolf 16:36, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

(ec) While intemperate, this is not a serious threat. Your userpage states that English is not your first language; please be aware that hyperbole of this sort is common in English (especially American English). Raymond Arritt (talk) 16:38, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, he clearly speaks of executing people in a figurative sense, as in blocking accounts. Nothing wrong here.--Atlan (talk) 16:42, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

This sounds like the figurative "X ought to be shot" or "...hung from the nearest tree" metaphor from my own breed of English. It's frequently used in relation to public figures, and I think most people who use it would be utterly shocked if the target of their comments did meet their end with a bullet. Orderinchaos 07:24, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

A death threat is a death threat, hyperbole or not, and should be dealt with. Guido den Broeder (talk) 19:28, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Whatever. Guido is a disruptive element to this project. He has stalked me to other articles in which he has absolutely no interest, until he went on the attack. Time for him to be blocked AGAIN. OrangeMarlin 18:51, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

This is ridiculous, and may be an insinuated threat, which is illegal and does not belong on WP. Even if it was somehow being metaphorical, it's completely inappropriate. Even if Guido is a disruptive editor. GusChiggins21 (talk) 07:04, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

It's obviously a metaphor...please have a thicker skin, people. OrangeMarlin is a prolific contributor and I seriously doubt he would ever suggest real-world violent action. Videmus Omnia 19:31, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I've thought about with respect to the coach of the Los Angeles Kings, but that was merely a fleeting thought. And as a physician, I took that oath, something to do with "do no harm." This is kind of ridiculous AN/I, isn't it? Can we close it and move on to more serious things like drinking beer? OrangeMarlin 19:38, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

This is quite silly: American English is rife with such terms. In fact, I suggest you watch 12 Angry Men, and not how Henry Fonda's character rips apart the prosecution's reliance on the phrase, "I'm going to kill you". Guido, as a linguist I know that the Dutch are generally fairly good with English: British English. Not the same thing, really. •Jim62sch• 19:54, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, but Fonda was wrong. Guido den Broeder (talk) 20:12, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I really doubt that. American television is the primary English influence in the Netherlands. A Dutchman will say gas and garbage instead of petrol and rubbish, without even knowing whether that's American or British English. But that's another discussion entirely. I will say though, that while the Dutch are generally proficient at foreign languages, colloquialisms are not their strong point.--Atlan (talk) 20:06, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

If you consider this normal conversation, then perhaps it's time that somebody gives you a wake-up call. Language differences do not play here, it's the attitude. An attitude, that is universally unacceptable. Guido den Broeder (talk) 20:23, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Really? I thought the problem here was a death threat. So now it's an attitude?--Atlan (talk) 20:39, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

• The phrase in question was "I think we should execute a few of these trolls first, and if a couple of innocent bystanders get shot too, so be it." Obviously Orangemarlin was speaking figuratively, but there is room for increased drama and misunderstanding there. If you mean "I think we should block a few of these trolls first, and if a couple of innocent bystanders get blocked as well, so be it.", then say that. Effectively, if there were any trolls around, OrangeMarlin fed them by using such language. Best to avoid using such language, rather than waste time having to defend yourself like this. Of course, the blow-up over semantic issues obscures the point that blocking indiscriminately and causing collateral damage is a bad idea, and will likely get admins desysopped rather than thanked. Carcharoth (talk) 20:40, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Fonda was wrong? Not sure what version you saw, but certainly not the real version.

As for the Dutch and learning English, I'm not so sure that British English still isn't what's taught, but perhaps it isn't. Nonetheless, colloquialisms are the hardest part of any language to learn.

I like this "An attitude, that is universally unacceptable". Shame it isn't true. •Jim62sch• 21:10, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

• There is a problem here, but not an easy one to solve. A number of articles attract virtually no attention other than from POV-pushers; that leaves one or two good Wikipedians fighting the NPOV corner against all comers, and leads to burnout - at this point trolls will often come along to poke them with a stick. It happens that many (though by no means all) of these good Wikipedians are admins. Misplaced Pages, as a project, seems to have "delegated" management of POV targets to a people who are then considered expendable, or even considered the source of the problem, when burnout strikes. As they get more experienced, the POV-pushers become more adept at querulous argumentation, citing policy and constantly trying to establish a new "neutral" average between their POV and the current state of the article, a kind of ratchet effect. Cold fusion has twice been reverted to the 2004 FA version due to the pernicious effect of "fringecruft", there are many other articles where minority activists dominate the agenda. I've seen this at articles like Simon Wessely (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), and user:ScienceApologist is one of the on-admins who is burning out fighting off the kooks. The bad news is, when that happens, the kooks will move in big time. Watching articles prone to kookery is a thankless task, I go back every couple of months to Crop circle (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and sometimes I'm horrified at what's been done. This is not an especially healthy situation for the project, but these articles at the margins, the ones that form the core of the fringe cosmology obsessions, Remote viewing (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and other paranormal subjects, simply don't get enough eyes to impede the POV-pushers, because most editors (rightly) can't tolerate the stupidity that goes on there. I also think some people are burying their heads in the sand and ignoring the fact that Misplaced Pages is now probably the number one most important place to promote your fringe view, mad theory, band or whatever. I don't know a good way to fix this. Guy (Help!) 21:14, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

• Honestly couldn't agree more with Guy's comments above. It's a big problem in politics areas too, even fairly mainstream ones. The worst ones are those who persistently fly under the radar but are pretty much incapable of improving the encyclopaedia, as they do far more damage to our credibility and integrity than even the worst vandal, who is guaranteed to get reverted by a neutral outsider or article watcher at some point. Orderinchaos 07:22, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

It is something that cannot be fixed, and that will eventually (probably soon) grind Misplaced Pages to a halt. At some point we will simply run out of undisputed topics.

What happens on Misplaced Pages is furthermore a reflection of the world, where tolerance, civility and interest in the truth diminish by the day. It is only normal, alas, to find the same here. Guido den Broeder (talk) 21:34, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

It can certainly be addressed ("fixed" is an ambitious word). It's not hard to identify accounts which employ Misplaced Pages as a venue for advocacy at the expense of the encyclopedic mission and policies. I can name offhand half-a-dozen such single-purpose advocacy accounts, most with real-life conflicts of interest. It is currently very difficult to restrict such abuse, particularly as current sentiment appears to extend significantly greater understanding and benefit of the doubt toward a nascent single-purpose agenda account than toward longtime contributors attempting to deal with such problems. The answer is simple: restrict such accounts aggressively if they prove unwilling to subordinate their real-life agenda to the goal of writing a respectable encyclopedia. As to Guido's contention that the world today is less tolerant and civil than it was 10, 50, or 100 years ago, I wonder whether someone who's not white, male, European, Christian, heterosexual, etc would share that view. MastCell 21:59, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I do not belong to that privileged group. I've experienced discrimination for many years an I can tell you: it's getting worse fast. Guido den Broeder (talk) 22:11, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Mastcell and JzG. There are an increasing number of accounts that exist only to attack stable articles, and introduce unsourced or poorly sourced nonsense. I typically see several a day. Many people in WP are like ostriches with their heads in the sand, in denial about this problem. But it is real, and I can show many many examples of just pure nonsense pushing.--Filll (talk) 22:35, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

An interesting conversation. I would favor Mastcell's approach, except that it's unclear to me that he'd identify the correct people to oust from Misplaced Pages. Perhaps a better approach would be to beef up the efforts to grant "featured" status to articles that deserve it, and then make an exception to 3RR: anyone can revert as often as they like to the most recent version that passed Featured Article Review (FAR).Ferrylodge (talk) 02:00, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Weren't you placed on some restricted editing by ArbCom? And didn't you violate it recently with a 3RR? So, you're point is what? OrangeMarlin 09:28, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not clear what your point is here, Orange Marlin. Editors placed on editing restrictions or who have recently been blocked shouldn't have that waved in their faces unless it is relevant to what is being discussed. How would you feel if people kept bringing up this incident in a few months time? For what it is worth, I see Ferrylodge's point about featured articles. The pointh is that if a group of editors take an article by the scruff of the neck and work hard on it (on a draft page if need be), and then carefully integrate the changes and pass it through FAC, then there is a standard there to keep to. That is much better than incessant low-level edit wars. And the amount of referencing needed for FAC sometimes reduces the potential for edit warring full-stop. Carcharoth (talk) 10:32, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

While not especially helpfully phrased, Orangemarlin kind of has a point: the fact is that Ferrylodge almost certainly would not agree with most neutral admins' choice of who to oust, because he's the kind of editor that sits right on the margins of actual bannability, hence the broadly worded content restriction allowing pretty much summary banning from any article on his hot topic by any uninvolved admin, given evidence of disruptive editing. That he has edited such articles disruptively despite this restriction is probably not a good sign. So, yes, there will be people like Ferrylodge who will hotly dispute the decision as to who should be restricted or politely asked to leave, we should listen to such concerns courteously but always with an eye to the editor's history. Sure, some inveterate POV-pushers may occasionally highlight a genuine problem with Misplaced Pages, but most of the problems identified by such people are actually the problem I identified above but seen fomr the other end: they are not being allowed to skew the article far enough their way. In some quarters, the existence of people like this - Judd Bagley being a canonical example discussed recently - is seen as proof positive that Misplaced Pages is evil and failing. As far as I can see it, the fact that we kicked Bagley off is a good thing and we should not feel ashamed of that, even though we may regret the fact that some people are constitutionally unable to contribute to the encyclopaedia that should not stop us from recognising these people and showing them the door. I believe that the very high profile of Misplaced Pages coupled with the relatively small resources and practically non-existent hierarchy makes this perhaps the largest single challenge we currently face. Simple things like everybody watchlisting the date article for their own birthday, or maybe choosing one hotly disputed topic of only tangential interest to them, may help to offset the problem of long-running wars between dedicated armies of POV-pushers and small bands of defenders of the wiki. Arbitration cases like Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Lyndon LaRouche and Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Lyndon LaRouche 2 are informative; see the infobox on talk:Lyndon LaRouche for the escalating dispute on that article and its related subjects. Guy (Help!) 21:55, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Just as a side note, this stuff is cropping up elsewhere in relation to Orangemarlin (talk · contribs) and/or edits he has performed in. See: user talk:JzG#User:Guido den Broeder, WP:WQA#User:Filll (II), WP:WQA#User:Orangemarlin and now WP:WQA#User:Filll (III). Seicer (talk) (contribs) 07:25, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I'm scared. Oh wait a minute, Guido is fishing for a forum to whine about me. And JzG's comments were started by me--you can read his reply. So, since I wet myself in fear of the attack by Seicer, let me go get drunk. OrangeMarlin 09:28, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Please assume good faith. This is not an isolated incident; you have been commented upon elsewhere for your rather controversial edits. Your comments above in this matter and elsewhere are evidence that you could really care less regarding the outcome of discussion. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 17:09, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, if you look more closely at the places where he has been "commented upon," I think most would agree that Orange Marlin should be proud. His editing behavior is noteworthy only because so few are willing to stand up to those who constantly add fringe gobbledygook to Misplaced Pages, quite frankly. Antelan 06:20, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Equally, I suspect, there are articles where POV-pushers have failed to gain traction, and where those keeping the articles NPOV and in good condition, are remaining civil and not burning out. What is needed is to find more people that won't burn out, or at the least to actively replace those that burn out. Burn out is, to a certain extent, unavoidable. More, and less discriminate, blocking won't solve the problem of burn out. Getting more new editors involved will. Has anyone considered that the reason some people are feeling all alone and burnt out is because their attitude to editing has driven off some POV-pushers (but not all) and new editors? Carcharoth (talk) 09:21, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Is there someplace we can figure this out? With the US Presidential Election comign up, all the political articles relevant are also taking a beating. In fat, I posted all over about a Huckabee group actively conspiring off-wiki to muddle the article, only to be rebuffed and ignored all over. The article's being defended, but I had a stretch off wiki due to real world, and in that time one of the biggest pro-Huckabee editors swept in, removed all criticism, redistributed tiny toned down versions into the rest of the article, and thus eliminated about half of the bad stuff about Huckabee in the article, despite its' being sourced and so on. It's too late to fix it now, and I'm dropping the article from my watchlist, becauseof that real world stuff (health).

Perhaps we need a POV-Pusher project, or NPOV taskforce, where we can list an article a day, and members sweep in, restore a real NPOV, and then move to the next? we could all agree to keep 'fixed' articles in our watchlists, thus assuring that multiple eyes would review for true neutrality and so on? It would really only take three or four neutral eyes on an article to keep it straight, though banging articles into shape can be tough. Those most likely to do well on this already know how to use the talk page, and build consensus... Just an idea... ThuranX (talk) 14:32, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Suspicious behaviour from User:Geryt69

Watching recent changes I noticed the above user making a small edit to an article, changing a png to a PNG in an image name. I looked at his contributions and became suspicious as he replaced the image on several pages with the edit summary "minor edit". So I compared the two images in GIMP and there is a small difference in the map shading. I've reverted as hanging an image for a different one clearly isn't a minor edit, but it looks to me as if a user created a sock in order to make the change, which seems strange. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 19:18, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Professionally speaking I would always prefer a png to a PNG or a jpg to a JPG. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:10, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

So would I but the reason I reverted was that the two images are actually different, although the difference is not obvious. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 21:31, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Steganography? - CHAIRBOY (☎) 02:14, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

The difference is around northern Greece, southern Macedonia, southern Bulgaria, Albania, and northwest Turkey. It looks like the languages spoken there have been slightly moved around. Kesac (talk) 04:16, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

The differences are slight, but real. It was marking them as a minor edit, and by a newbie, that made be suspicious. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 10:33, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

note: The relevant links here are Special:Contributions/Geryt69, Image:Languages_of_Europe.PNG, and Image:Languages_of_Europe.png. —Random832 18:50, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Based on the actual changes, looks like this is related to Macedonian nationalism. —Random832 18:52, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

User:hopiakuta

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

I've kept an eye on this user since a virtually indecipherable post made by the user on an article talk page. The user page is a ton of gibberish code and pasted templates from all over WP, and the talk page is more of the same. I don't know how the user either expects to communicate with or respond to others with the state of the userspace, but I felt it was borderline enough not to merit blanking without a second opinion. Could somebody take a look and consider a course of action? MSJapan (talk) 23:15, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Maybe the userpage should just be deleted? There should be an Mfd though. The talk page doesn't look like a big deal thoug, just a warning not to sign with a name that isn't yours--Phoenix-wiki  23:23, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

There are already three or so threads on this user; he uses a screen reader. I believe the most recent one is on a subpage of AN/I. There are users working with him. -Jéské 23:27, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/User:hopiakuta. Gimmetrow 23:37, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

(ec) With the best will in the world to User:hopiakuta (I perceive him as well-intentioned) and other users, I am aware from experience that there are communication challenges here, and it's not just a one-way issue. He (?) clearly thinks in a different manner, both functionally and structurally, from the mainstream. I feel a little guilty discussing him in his absence (?), but it seems fairly clear that the issues are not going to go away; however, I am also aware that several users have made valiant attempts to decipher the issues with him. I don't think he would welcome the deletion of his user page; having seen it, it seems to be a place where he keeps things of interest to him. It may seem like gibberish to some, but I'm sure to him it makes perfect sense. The issue seems to be how we can talk to hopiakuta, perhaps off-wiki, to try and reach some accommodation for his (and our) obvious differences. Although he uses a screen-reader, that is not the only issue, and I'm not sure where this can fruitfully go. However, with twelve minutes to go until Christmas, I wish him, and everyone else, the compliments of the season. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 23:49, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

To be sure, he does not seem to use a screen reader, he's said he uses an ordinary browser (albeit one with, apparently, unicode problems and large page issues) with a large font. —Random832 00:35, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Let's be nice to hopiakuta! Delete the user page? That's like vandalism, isn't it? For some of the world, it's Christmas. What a thing to do during Christmas; vandalise a user page and try to say it's the community's consensus. Hi, hopiakuta, welcome to WP! Congolese (talk) 05:27, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I personally think if he wants to put stuff we don't get/understand on his userpage, as long as it's not directed at other editors or offensive, who cares? We have a diverse community and many of this user's mainspace contributions improve the encyclopaedia - often minor edits making needed corrections. I'd worry more frankly about the POV pushers and vandals and trolls who actually damage the encyclopaedia. Orderinchaos 07:16, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

That would be fine, if that were the case, but there are some perfectly understandable statements made by him in that other discussion. When he can describe his symptoms without all the templates and such, and can therein avoid linking every other word, the fact that it happens elsewhere seems to me to be a matter of intent, especially if he's making a mess of things to try to make a POINT to get some sort of accessibility implementation (which I do not believe would solve the problem). MSJapan (talk) 20:57, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Please remember to assume good faith. —Random832 22:08, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, please AGF. Read the linked sub page at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/User:hopiakuta. This person, if you read their off-Misplaced Pages writings, writes like he does here everywhere. Please don't disparage a person with obvious problems! Lawrence Cohen 14:47, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

My partner's a psych and reckons whatever it is limits his ability to organise, so he have to have everything in front of them while he works. Hence the seemingly random storage of all sorts of pasted text and linked text in userspace (note he does *not* do this in mainspace). He's obviously very intelligent and is well versed in the English language, which is great as it means he can be of use and benefit to the project, and in fact, if one examines his contributions, is of use and benefit to the project. Therefore why treat him like he's doing something wrong? We're aware of the issues, so we can assist him in his goals here where he requires it and ignore whatever he chooses to do in his userspace, which he obviously sees as a necessary part of him being a solid contributor. The rules on userspace are basically for two reasons - to prevent it becoming pseudospace (i.e. articles that don't meet our notability or other criteria effectively finding a new home) and to prevent it from becoming a home for personal attacks or other directed abuse or BLP violations. Neither of these is occurring. Orderinchaos 16:30, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Boehner

I'm a bit concerned for the new user Boehner (talk · contribs). I'm not going to provide diffs here, as he only has 16 contributions so far. But of those 16 contributions, all but the one to his user page have been reverted by a variety of users. In just a short time, he managed to get into two edit wars and subtly push an anti-Global-Warming POV on three different pages, mainly through addition of unsourced weasel statements, most recenttly with a false edit summary. I'm bringing this here since I'm honestly not sure what to do with him. While his POV-edits and intentional blue-linking of his userpage scream banned sockpuppet to me, I'm very much struggling to assume good faith, as this may just be a newbie in need of serious intervention. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:17, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, who's the Global Warming editor that this might be? — Rlevse • Talk • 01:23, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Been struggling to place this one. Maybe yet another sock of User:Scibaby (who has been doggedly persistent), but the approach is somewhat different. Raymond Arritt (talk) 01:46, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I was going to suggest the username was not appropriate but its done. Happy sock hunting! Brusegadi (talk) 01:44, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Maybe, but it's a fairly common name. The leader of the Republican party in the U.S. House of Representatives is John Boehner. Raymond Arritt (talk) 01:52, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I have blocked Boehner for 24 hours as he returned about 30/40 minutes a go to Global warming with more of the same after being warned. Gnangarra 04:08, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Mathewignash, fair use and image uploading

Long story short, this user is yet again uploading images with inaccurate or incomplete licensing / rationale. He was originally blocked here for failure to heed notices about his uploading habits, after which he stopped uploading box art sans rationale. He was told here (bottom of the thread) that photos of copyrighted images can't be given free licensing because they're derivatives of copyrighted works, and has received two later warnings for uploading screen grabs of TV clips with no rationale. He's still at it. Chris Cunningham (talk) 12:01, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Just block him already. This has got to be at LEAST the fifth or sixth time I've seen him in here. Let's get that clampdown effect going already. ThuranX (talk) 14:33, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I've indef-blocked him. He was already on a parole from indef on the condition that he not upload images anymore. — Coren  15:52, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Just to point out that there was discussion on Steel's page which led to an amendment that he would be allowed to upload images if he told an admin first. He asked for permission for a bunch of files in November. But of course it's possible that his medium-term memory loss kicked in again. Chris Cunningham (talk) 16:09, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Hrm. The parole did change and currently Mathew is allowed to upload his own GFDL images (but no fair use images) as much as he likes, and he's allowed to add rationales to already-uploaded fair use images providing he doesn't remove the no rationale tag (so someone else can check it over - something that (seems to be working). I thought of noting the change in his block log, but that thing is already very long and the parole could have later changed again, so I didn't. In hindsight, perhaps I should have, and I apologise for any confusion. The warnings he got yesterday were for fair use images uploaded in mid-2006, so I'm unblocking since everything seems to be in order here. – Steel 15:05, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Quite allright; I did look around a bit but didn't find the discussion that led to changing the conditions— I'm leaving a note on the user talk as well. — Coren  16:41, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation

A persistent anonymous user is adding dubious sourcing, POV edits and edit warring concerning litigation involving this company. Also engaging in personal attacks on Talk pages and in edit summaries, such as . --Samiharris (talk) 18:13, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

This page is currently listed on WP:3O. Just thought I'd give the admins a heads-up on that. — HelloAnnyong 18:48, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Article has been protected.--Samiharris (talk) 14:16, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Editor constantly reverting page to factually incorrect state

Now, I rarely bring anything to ANI, since I try to stay out of edit wars and out of the spotlight, generally. But I noticed the other day on my watchlist that Qpel had be reverted to a factually incorrect state by User:Timharwoodx, who claimed my edits were full of grammar errors. OK, I have no issue if someone thinks my grammar is atrocious--just tell me what the problem is and I'll fix it! But reverting to a factually incorrect version is obviously inappropriate, so I reverted and asked him on his talk page to point me to the grammar errors so I could fix them, while keeping the information correct. He then proceeds to revert me again (with an inflammatory edit summary) and personally attack me on the article's talk page while refusing to engage in discussion. I reverted a second time, but as I don't want to get into an edit war (and he's refusing to do anything except insult me in the third-person on the talk page), I figured I would bring it here.

What should I do? —Dark•Shikari 18:20, 25 December 2007 (UTC)`

(Comment from passer-by) I find it quite amusing that the first reversion of the text, which cited poor grammar, contains a blatant spelling error. FWIW, I believe this reversion was a bad one. Ros0709 (talk) 18:30, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry about the reversion; I think yours is in the right. Of course, if Tim brings up some valid points then please consider them. As for him; his language is quite nasty indeed. I'd suggest taking a calm approach; the one you took on the article's talk page seems a bit too excited, though it is on the right track. I left a note on the article's talk page; hopefully the user will be able to communicate with a third party without being aggressive. I'll leave a note on his talk page about this, too. Cheers, Master of Puppets 18:34, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Although this is an English Misplaced Pages, this is by no means resolved to fluent English writers, per Misplaced Pages:Contributing FAQ#Should I use American English or British English?. In fact, we welcome those that have English as a second language. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 20:02, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Changes made by 82.148.96.68

I hope this is the right place for my questions. I cannot find any information on what to do with my problem. I noticed that 82.148.96.68 made a lot of edits. Some of these were clearly vandalism, but a lot were just changes of dates and numbers. These are quite difficult to verify. I have been at it for a while, but I cannot put all my effort on just verifying and reverting changes from this user. What should I do? Is it allowed to revert all changes from a certain user, if some changes are found to be vandalism?

For example, today the user made 8 changes on airline pages within 11 minutes. He/she changed a lot of dates from 2007 to 2008, and in one case 2009. By checking sources I managed to find evidence of at least one case of vandalism. I also found one case from yesterday, and two from before that. None of these had been detected earlier. Judging from the talk page, he/she has a history of vandalism.

Thus, I wonder about two things: Firstly, what to do with the user? I have never thought about indefinite block of an anonymous IP address is a good thing up until now. Secondly, how can I request help to go through all of the changes made by this user? Or can we revert all of the changes to save us all a great deal of work? --τις (talk) 20:34, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've gone with the Chuck Norris method. Let's see how he responds. The Evil Spartan (talk) 20:58, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I rolled back a few as they were referenced to a specific edition of Flight International from 2007 and the new figures had no reference at all. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 01:23, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

India related articles showing up as nonsense to be deleted

Don't know why or how to fix it, but a number of India related articles are showing up in Category:Nonsense pages for speedy deletion. Cheers, Dlohcierekim 22:14, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I reckon it's just a database hiccup. It should work itself out. --Haemo (talk) 22:17, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

{{IndicText}} was vandalized earlier. Null editting the pages should solve the problem.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 22:19, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Fixed now. --Haemo (talk) 22:25, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Aha! thought it might be that, but didn't see how. Dlohcierekim 22:26, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Long-time abuse by User:24.7.81.82 in television related articles

This user (under multiple IP numbers) has long vandalized multiple television-related articles by posting blatantly false information (for example, posting television premiere dates as far in the future as 2023 without any supporting resources, or sans any hope of verifiable information). When he is given a final warning, he will stop posting for a period -- basically long enough to get out from under any notion of being banned. He has, however, been banned on multiple occasions. He does not communicate with anyone when they post a warning to him or a note to him. Is there anything that can be done to stop him outside of continually watching and grabbing him each time he posts? --Mhking (talk) 22:29, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Address has now been blocked for one week following report to AIV. Can anyone determine how static this IP is, there might be a case of a tariff involving months. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:33, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

It's comcast cable internet. Thje only edits are from the vandal, so I think it's safe to assume a static IP and block for 3 months. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 22:41, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Done. Addhoc (talk) 22:48, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks -- I hope I haven't overreacted over this --Mhking (talk) 22:58, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Anon Spamming Articles

An anon is spamming Misplaced Pages with links to the Cyber Crimes Us Organization. This person is even adding such links to articles where they are not directly relevant. It seems that every single edit made from this IP address has been to add these links. Here are some diffs: , , , , , , , & . ~ Homologeo (talk) 01:49, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, he stopped about 24 hours ago, so there's not much to do. Just keep an eye on them. --Haemo (talk) 01:51, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I reverted most of what's left. But as Haemo said, there isn't much we can do, since it was a while ago and the IP has stopped. —Kurykh 01:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I nuked the remaining spamlinks. MER-C 01:55, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

GusChiggins21 blocked for edit warring by involved admin

Hi everyone. User:GusChiggins21 has been blocked for edit warring by an admin who was involved in the edit war. As I have stated on his page, I believe this was a personal block, and unfortunately, was far from the first personal block for this admin. To make matters worse, the person did not even violate 3RR, and the block was for 1 week for a first time offens; the only warning received was from another person who was just as involved in the edit war (believe me, those kind of warnings only exacerbate the situation). If this bit with RKLawton/Sarah777 tells us anything, it was that this kind of stuff is not right. The block was (surprisingly) declined without much comment, so I have brought it here. The Evil Spartan (talk) 02:22, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

On the surface, the block looks inappropriate and the {{fact}} tags look appropriate. I'll admit, though, that this is way over my head so I may be missing something ... but in the cases I examined, the places where he added fact tags seemed to be material that was not addressed in the existing cites. You should notify Raul of this discussion so that he can participate if he would like. You should also notify the admin who declined the user's unblock request. --B (talk) 02:45, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Given what I've seen I would unblock and ask the involved admin to recuse. As a noob I feel uncomfortable undoing the actions of an other admin.--NrDg 02:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Then maybe as a noob, you should look at the facts of the case, and offer an opinion that actually makes sense. OrangeMarlin 04:01, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Woha, don't bite his head off. henrik•talk 10:10, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Of course, this is par for the course for Herr Executioner. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 13:17, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why that made me LOL, but it did. :) Orderinchaos 00:14, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

First, GusChiggins is involved in an roving edit war on many intelligent design related articles with half-a-dozen editors who patrol those articles. They tend to attract POV pushers (like him). He was warned of his disruptive behavior, and persisted in it anyway. Moreover, EvilSpartan claims I am involved in this roving edit war. This is false. I haven't reverted any ID related article in two weeks or more (not withstanding the revert I did at the time I blocked him). The block is legitimate on its face. And lastly, I stand by every admin action I've ever done, EvilSpartan's insinuations not withstanding. If he has a problem with my previous actions, come out and say it. Otherwise, it's clear that they are what they are - empty claims, without merit. Raul654 (talk) 03:09, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

His editing on certainly constituted tendentious editing and most likely 3RR. I haven't looked with a microscope to see whether 3RR was formally violated, but that doesn't matter: the purpose of 3RR is to forestall edit warring of the type that GusChiggins21 was engaged in, not to provide an inviolable right to a certain number of reverts per 86,400 seconds. Raymond Arritt (talk) 03:27, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

As one of the editors who "patrol" these articles (love that terminology), GusChiggins activities were, at first, not very concerning. But I think 6RR exceeds my personal patience level (which, as most of you know, is about 4.7 seconds), irrespective of what the validity of his edits. However, since the validity of those edits are germane to the conversation, let's just say that the preponderance of evidence supports Michael Behe's absolute lack of support in science, notwithstanding the learned opinions of B and Evil Spartan. OrangeMarlin 03:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Adding one or two fact tags maybe, but this sort of fact-bombing isn't the way to win friends and influence people. Gimmetrow 03:54, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

One more thing. Did B or Evil Spartan, the obvious unbiased individuals that they are, fail to read over the fairly large number of warnings given GusChiggins? Well, just in case you missed them, and I know it was difficult, since there were SOOOO many, but here are a few.

• Speedy deletion
• Edit warring
• Edit warring and personal attacks
• Personal attacks
• 3RR warning-Note this was done by me.
• Civility request

This must be a world record for a user only around for about 30 days. OrangeMarlin 03:58, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Essentially, GusChiggins has quickly engaged in disruptive editing in violation of WP:POINT, apparently gaming the system though this is probably due to sincerely held beliefs and misunderstandings about policy rather than deliberate mischief. To take an example, here a fact tag is added with the comment The statement that they are "plausible link" need citation. when the next reference cited (at the end of the following sentence) covers the point in detail. GusChiggins does not grasp or accept NPOV: Making necessary assumptions, and supports fighting for a portrayal of evolution that deviates from the scientific consensus. The block for edit warring is amply justified, and the user needs to learn to work constructively towards consensus and to show a willingness to learn rather than barging in demanding that all others comply with his distorted understanding of policies. .. dave souza, talk 09:57, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Point of clarification – GusChiggins has been blocked for WP:Disruptive editing, not edit warring, and his actions fit the Definition of disruptive editing and editors remarkably well. .. dave souza, talk 11:36, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Raul routinely blocking users with whom he's in an edit war

If he has a problem with my previous actions, come out and say it. Otherwise, it's clear that they are what they are - empty claims, without merit.. I do have a problem with your previous blocks. I believe you have repeatedly blocked users with whom you are in an edit war or whose edits you found disagreeable, under sometimes misleading edit summaries, and always for far longer than allowed by WP:BLOCK. Since you asked for examples, I will provide almost every non-checkuser, non-maintenance, non-vandalism block you have done in the past several months:

Special:Contributions/88.97.182.121 - (The Great Global Warming Swindle) 1 week for "vandalism and POV pushing" for this. No warning, Raul directly in an edit war with this user.

Special:Contributions/24.99.55.240 - (WTC) 1 week for "vandalism" (in fact, was POV pushing, had no warning, did not deserve block).

User_talk:Obedium - (Global warming) - As stated on the talk page, "Really, the problem is that Raul654 is in an edit war with this user, and blocked him inappropriately. The indefinite block is only an extension of that. ~ UBeR (talk) ". Raul in a direct edit war with thisuser.

Special:Contributions/199.82.243.71 - (The Great Global Warming Swindle) - blocked, apparently, for having the chutzpah to state this. Reverted by Raul. Raul in a direct edit war with this user.

Special:Contributions/69.29.207.159 - (Intelligent Design) blocked for this innocuous mistake.

Special:Contributions/204.9.255.65 (Intelligent Design) "vandalism" - blocked for this and removing a small section, without warning. Article which Raul edits, giving opposite point of view.

Special:Contributions/Mawest217- (Intelligent Design) - blocked for "vandalism" for having the chutzpah to add an {{NPOV}} tag to an article you routinely watch: . Reverted by Raul, in a direct edit war with Raul.

Special:Contributions/204.52.215.13- (Intelligent Design) - blocked for POV pushing for again, adding POV tag: . Speaking against Raul's POV on an article he routinely edits.

Special:Contributions/67.180.115.190 - (Intelligent Design) blocked for "POV pushing" for . Reverted by Raul, in an edit war with Raul.

Special:Contributions/207.250.84.10 - (An Inconvenient Truth) - blocked for inserting the word "controversial", with a source, and after using the talk page, and in a direct edit war with Raul: .

Protected article - (Global warming) protected your own version of the page:

Yqtb: (Intelligent Design) locked his talk page for removing a message from you: , which is allowable by policy (not to mention blocking him 24h for quite mild vandalism on an article you were involved in).

Special:Contributions/70.144.68.148 - (The Great Global Warming Swindle) - blocked for "POV pushing": . Reverted by Raul, in an edit war with Raul.

User:UBeR - (global warming) -blocking for 3RR, etc. on an article which you clearly have a stake: .

Special:Contributions/Brittainia - (global warming) - edit warring.

User:Rtc - (Intelligent Design)- blocked for "trouble-making" (which, as every time, involved a point of view opposite your own)

User:Iantresman (ultimately global warming related) - blocked for "harassing" a user whose POV you agree with on the articles they were editing.

Special:Contributions/65.202.145.2- (The Great Global Warming Swindle) - blocked for a week for POV pushing for this (reverted by yourself of course, which is not POV-pushing, and certainly not justified without a warning, and most certainly not from an admin who is POV pushing in the opposite direction.

Special:Contributions/68.145.124.154 - (The Great Global Warming Swindle) - blocked for edit warring with you.

Special:Contributions/Zeeboid - (The Great Global Warming Swindle) - blocking an editor with whom you were in dispute, and losing a good contributor for it while at it.

Special:Contributions/216.67.29.113 - (ID) , etc. Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive229#Admin_blocking_a_user_with_whom_he_was_in_an_edit_conflict ANI thread.

At this point, I tire of going any further back than April (I believe the mountain of blocks above suffices). So, no, to answer your questions, my statements were not "empty claims, without merit." The Evil Spartan (talk) 13:13, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Once again, as is so often noted here on AN/I, an Admin has stood up for and rigorously enforced Misplaced Pages's policies, esp. about NPOV, on a controversial article, and someone is right there to file a complaint that their fringe theory isn't being given due weight. When are we going to protect good admins making good blocks? We ought to have a policy permitting blocks for spurious and malicious reporting of admin abuses. I looked at a few of these, not all, but a lot of these IPs like to add weasel words or spin the intro to fit their anti-global warming attitudes. I'd bet that a checkuser would show that some of this is the same editor, coming back week after week. Raul654 is a solid admin who is protecting Misplaced Pages from stupidity. Stop wasting WIkipedia's time, and AN/I's time, with baseless accusations. ThuranX (talk • contribs) 13:59, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't have said it better myself. It's clear from the half-dozen admins commenting above that EvilSpartan's thread here has absolutely no merit, that this should never have been brought here in the first place, and that he's wasting everyone's time. Raul654 (talk) 14:43, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

That looks like more wagon-circling from the admins, who think that there should be more policies to let them shoot the messenger whenever anybody dares to criticize their behavior and actions. *Dan T.* (talk) 14:58, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

It also looks like a continuing attempt to make the system more cumbersome and bureaucratic, so that admins are prevented from blocking disruptive editors on topics they are knowledgeable about. If pristine "uninvolved" admins are ready to spring into action every time a problem is reported this would not be an issue, but don't forget these are issues subject to organised attempts by well funded outside bodies aiming to distort WP to present their own view, regardless of policies. .. dave souza, talk 16:30, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

It would appear that you'd like admins to have Judge Dredd-style powers to be judge, jury, and executioner in all disputes, including ones in which they're a partisan themselves. Implicit in this is an ideology that admins are always right, critics are always wrong, and the ends justify the means. *Dan T.* (talk) 17:30, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

It goes without saying that all actions are open to and subject to review. If one takes a drastic action, there is more chance it will be reviewed rather than less. The review may come out endorsing the action, or reverting the action, or just serve to show the divisions in the community. Alternatively, the cost of no action may be immense - I've known of cases of active disruption in articles which I've been involved in, had to declare a conflict in, come here and got absolutely no response. Orderinchaos 22:57, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

My own two cents: The block is good. ARB has repeatedly stated that admins are to be given wide latitude in blocking tendentious editing, especially when faced with organized efforts. The corresponding complaints in ANI are simply an extension of that disruption. Yes, Raul might have gotten another admin to block, and probably would have had no difficulty in finding one— but also the blocks were not controversial by any stretch of the imagination and he did not need to do so. — Coren  16:50, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I can't sort this out but it looks like we may have a legitimate problem with Raul's use of the blocking function. Administrators of all people should follow the rules. A claim that the rules were broken for the sake of enforcing policy or protecting the encyclopedia is no excuse. We can all point to policy to support our view of what a page should look like. The WP:BLOCK policy cannot be more clear: Administrators must not block users with whom they are engaged in a content dispute. That holds as well for fringe science as it does for any other subject. When an administrator uses a block to enforce his version of a page edit, he is simply making his own edits count more than other people's. We may disagree about what constitutes good science, or which version of a page content is aligned with policy and which is not, but those disputes get resolved through dispute resolution, not blocking users. Even when dealing with POV pushers as persistent as the intelligent design proponents and global warming deniers, we have to play by the rules. Again, I cannot conclude for sure that this got out of hand but the complaint seems to have some merit. Blocking users, without warning, after one or two objectionable edits in an article he himself is "patrolling" seems to be a breach of block policy. Raul does not seem to be taking any of this to heart, so the logical next step is an RfC and if that does not resolve it an ArbCom case. Wikidemo (talk) 17:14, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Strict adherence to policy is not an end in itself. The articles at question here are infested with persistent sockpuppets, organized POV-pushing campaigns, and other obstructions to writing an encyclopedia. Editor time and energy are not infinite resources. Those resources should be devoted to writing an encyclopedia rather than battling the onslaught of obvious sockpuppets and POV-pushers. Raymond Arritt (talk) 17:21, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Lately, the "emergency exceptions" to policies, justified because "policy is not a suicide pact" and "organized campaigns" must be countered unmercifully, seem to be swallowing the policies themselves. All manner of due process, civility, not biting newbies, and so forth are considered to be quaint old-fashioned concepts that need to be set aside in the present emergency situation. But one should bear in mind that those in power anywhere like emergencies because it gives them the excuse to grant themselves emergency powers; and such powers, once granted, are rarely voluntarily relinquished. *Dan T.* (talk) 17:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Writing as one of the editors who has to contend with this endless parade of trolls, POV warriors, malcontents, sock puppets, meat puppets and even organized campaigns to disrupt these pages by public relations firms paid to do this, I applaud Raul's efforts to slow them down a bit. We need to be protected a little, or else productive editors will just say to hell with Misplaced Pages and leave. I get tired of people who want to support editors who are only here for one purpose only: to destroy Misplaced Pages, or turn it into a political or religious tract for their own minority views. Use your heads people. Do you want to build an encyclopedia or not? The people that Raul blocks, at least in the cases that I know, are not here to build an encyclopedia. They are here to stop others from trying to do so, however.--Filll (talk) 17:41, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

A problem I'm seeing is that these sorts of things are percieved of as being genuine content disputes. These are not matters of a set of sources and facts being legitimately disputed, or an editor attempting to add or remove content based on reasons presented on a talk page, but which other editors don't agree with. This is a number of mostly IPs hopping on, and pushing POV, without talk page use or clear summaries, but through the introduction of Weasel words, 3RR vios, and so on. I'd note also that some of the summaries presented above aren't as clear as they could be, and in fact, when you look at the actual history, these are borne out to be false. The ONLY one I see (and I looked at a few more) which COULD be argued is Special:Contributions/69.29.207.159, wherein even the revert summary makes a spelling error, adding a third word to the mix. Here, yeah, he might've pulled the trigger too soon, but I'm willing to listen to him on that before judging it wrong. But others here dropped out paragraphs critical of Behe, or added in 'might', 'maybe', and all sorts of weaselly terms, designed to game the system.

If this were legitimate content dispute, I'd be right here railing against Raul. If Raul and these editors were all discussing things on the talk page, and Raul said 'I'm right, block block block', I'd be cleaning the contacts to (metaphorically, lest I get yelled at) fry him. Admins can't leverage buttons to 'get their way'. However, editing a hot topic against consensus and without discussion to change facts into POVs and disparage the topics isn't real content disputation, and Raul isn't 'edit warring' or 'content warring' with them, he's maintaining the article at a higher standard of quality. I wouldn't even support 3RR warnings against him, because this type of POV pushing, without discussion, robotically adding stuff to break down the factuality, is vandalism. And the IP editors and other offenders KNOW IT IS. ThuranX (talk) 17:58, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Coren and Thuran. It appears to have been a good block. If someone (EvilSpartan? Dan?) thinks that the editor should not have been blocked, please make the case. I think people here would be interested in looking at the arguments for and against. The arguments appear to be entirely bureaucratic. Guettarda (talk) 18:06, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Not bureaucratic at all, and I certainly want to write (and am writing) the encyclopedia. I've just found that administrators acting like cowboys is at least as disruptive to the process as errant vandals, POV pushers, and so on. No matter what you call it and how clear you want to make it, the underlying question of how to cover global warming and intelligent design (not to mention Arab-Israeli conflict, the Armenian genocide, homeopathy, trivia sections, whether punctuation goes inside or outside the quote, etc.) is a content dispute. I spot checked the above list too, and most of the blocks would be premature and unwarranted for any administrator - and in the case of Raul violated the block policy if they concerned his article. I don't want to make some grand comparison of Misplaced Pages to democracy, but people need to keep their heads and stop forsaking the rules and saying the sky is falling just because we get an occasional vandal or single purpose editor. We should be counseling administrators to act with restraint, dignity, and due concern for the rules, not banging the drum for them to be blocking other editors on whim. Wikidemo (talk) 18:32, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I want everyone to follow the rules, and all blocks should be subject to proper review on request, but this looks very much like rule creep. It's a long stretch to suggest that Raul was in an edit war with GusChiggins, who certainly was breaking the rules. .. dave souza, talk 18:51, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikidemo is completely correct in his assessment. The WP:BLOCK policy means what it says. Raymond Arritt is right about one thing: that there is organized POV pushing going on -- but it is happening on both sides of the content dispute. This calls for dispute resolution, not for the abuse of admin powers and "might makes right." --Niels Gade (talk) 22:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Niels that's where you're wrong. NPOV does not state that all sides of an issue, theory or statement be used in an article. It states that the ones that can be verified with reliable sources. It is getting tiresome that someone put whatever they want in article, then whine all the up the bureaucracy of Misplaced Pages that they are the aggrieved party. NO, it doesn't work that way. I looked over Raul's blocks, including the ones I observed personally, and he was stopping POV warring. When I revert a POV warrior, I do so knowing that I have verifiability behind me. So I'm not warring. I'm keeping the barbarians away from the gate. So, what you call a content dispute is only half right. The content is being disrupted by an organized few. So, are you on the side of verifiability and reliability? Or are you on the side of everyone has an equal voice? OrangeMarlin 22:42, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikidemo, PLEASE explain how 'Science is a dirty lie, there's no Global Warming cause Jesus made it right after he made people" is really any sort of CONTENT dispute, instead of a POV push? That's exactly what goes on in these articles, faith against fact. We deal in facts here, not faith. There's no CONTENT in the CONTENT disputes you allege. Did you actually LOOK at those editors' contributions? ALL, not just the ONE conveniently leasts severe which EvilSpartan cherry picked to make Raul look bad? I did for about all of the ID ones. With the exception of 'teological/theological', which I already noted isn't so solid, all the others I looked at showed multiple POV pushing weasel word adds, removal of sections of fact and citation, or additions which made it sound like science is just a pagan faith. That stuff is directly in the face of WP:VERIFIZABILITY and WP:RS. There's LONG been a policy that religious doctrine isn't 'verifiable' inasmuch as its' interpreters address current events, like GW and ID. I'd like specific instances of how this stuff really counts as arguments over actual content, other than that they're changing words and articles contain words. They aren't adding meat and trimming fat here, they're cutting out that which offends their version of the truth. If we were to consider that sort of action genuine, resolvable content disputation, we'd be a big group of morons, because thousands of years of theology has only splintered 'Truth' more and more. Please be specific. Thank you. ThuranX (talk) 00:00, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Also endorse the block. Others including Coren, Thuran etc have put it well - it appears more than enough warnings had been issued, and it is unfortunate that those admins that work in certain controversial sections of the encyclopaedia come in for such intense scrutiny when they decide to use the power they've been entrusted with to end some of the madness and try and get things back on track. I think pretty much no-one could categorise my own views/statements on admin action as being in favour of harsh treatment - I've spoken out against some really poorly thought out and seemingly punitive blocks at times - but I also believe chances can be exhausted and good faith can be tested to its limits. Orderinchaos 22:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikidemo, you clearly are unaware of what we are dealing with in controversial areas. 3,4, 5, or 10 or more new sock puppets, meat puppets and POV warriors per day in some cases. Organized coordinated attacks on our articles (see for example). Public relations organizations paid to attack and undermine Misplaced Pages. It is a nightmare. Raul stands between a semi reliable encyclopedia and complete chaos in these areas. And if you do not realize that, you are sadly mistaken and misinformed.--Filll (talk) 23:30, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Slow edit war at Baillieston

Baillieston (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Involved users

• Rumsitna (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Smur (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Boratt (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Blairtummock (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• and others

Appears to have been going on for the last two months or so. This only came to attention after one of the participants posted on my talk page in a canvassy sort of way. No attempt has been made to discuss on the talk page and bad faith is being assumed. MER-C 02:58, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Muhammad

User:Totipooh has been disruptively removing controversial portions of this article, without any consensus. While I believe that the editor is acting in good faith, we cannot continue to just revert him all day. I request a short-term protection of Muhammed until this blows over. Lankiveil (talk) 03:00, 26 December 2007 (UTC).

Semi-related is this web petition, I unfortunately suspect we'll have a lot of new editors happy to unilaterally censor the page in the coming days. Lankiveil (talk) 03:04, 26 December 2007 (UTC).

So protection would be best? J-ſtan_{User page} 03:07, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Totipooh (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) doesn't appear to speak English and has done nothing but repeatedly blank material from the article. (6 times in an hour.) Any reason he/she shouldn't simply be blocked? I don't see any need for further protection to the article - it's one disruptive SPA who can simply be blocked. --B (talk) 03:08, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Just checked the article, it's already semied. If others come do the same thing, it might be easier to fully protect it than to block everyone, depending on how many there are. J-ſtan_{User page} 03:10, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I think protection will be best, the recent edit history of the article is nothing but the images being removed and then reverted, again and again. This particular user might be blocked (although blocking someone who doesn't speak English does not seem terribly sporting, I fear it may sadly be necessary), but that petition site should send a crop of replacements before long. Of course, I leave it up to whatever you admins deem most appropriate. Lankiveil (talk) 03:12, 26 December 2007 (UTC).

The article is already s-protected. Full protection is only used for an edit war. But in this case, it's one person vandalizing the article, not an actual dispute. --B (talk) 03:27, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

The user moved from the article to the talk page and started blanking pictures and leaving comments like "Pictures Removed By Your Brother Ahmed Natik Please Ask Allah To Reward Me The Jannah" in their place. I have blocked him as a vandalism-only account. Problem solved. --B (talk) 03:32, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Another user there is now making what appears to me to be legal threats . AliveFreeHappy (talk) 05:33, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I've now added the legal threat warning to the editor's talk page. --slakr 05:36, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Block em all, let allah sort em out? ⇒SWATJester 03:18, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

68.123.72.85 automated additions/categories

FYI - ip address 68.123.72.85 is definitely running some automated tools to improperly categorize any article related to Christianity. A quick look at the IPs Special:Contributions/68.123.72.85 is an obvious indicator of abuse; Also someone needs to mass-undo all these changes because they are all way out of hand... --Virgil Vaduva (talk) 03:12, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Please edit protected Waterboarding article

Editors have reached a consensus regarding a change of the first three paragraphs. I am asking any administrator who sees this to edit the article: please replace the first three paragraphs of the article with Shibumi2's version found here, along with expressions of support from most editors who have weighed in on the subject. Neutral Good (talk) 03:38, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

There is no such consensus. Please read the talk page. Lawrence Cohen 04:07, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

The specific section that he claims supports this edit is:

• ]

I've asked previously, as more and more people keep bringing this Waterboarding article to the noticeboards (all the noticeboards, in fact). Can we get a variety of admins to come in here and review the arguments? It's getting damned incivil in there now, and it's going to only get worse in the next two days as people return from Christmas break. Nearly all the heated disputes are directly related to interpretation of policy. Lawrence Cohen 04:18, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Just a note as well, this "new" account called Neutral Good left a warning of some sort on an another user's page at User_talk:Inertia_Tensor#Warning:_Do_not_remove, warning him to not remove that notice, which is a bit out of line. He seems to be a "bad hand" account of an editor intricately familiar with Misplaced Pages. Lawrence Cohen 04:11, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Note: a quick look at User:Neutral Good's contributions to date is consistent with the hypothesis that User:Neutral Good is a single-purpose account freshly created by an experienced editor, apparently solely for astroturfing the Talk:Waterboarding page. -- The Anome (talk) 14:07, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

And rather aggressively, at that, leaving warnings on various users talk pages with warnings within warnings that they aren't to be removed, along with threats to "fix" the article once semi-protection became irrelevant to him (this is before the article was fully protected again, before he could "fix" it). Lawrence Cohen 14:12, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly, Neutral Good edited their own talk page to remove critical comments immediately before editing WP:AN/I. I wonder just how many real people are behind the various "waterboarding is not torture" accounts, many of which have similar styles of writing and argumentation? -- The Anome (talk) 14:21, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Haizum

In looking more at this, is Neutral Good (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) actually Haizum (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)? Read this old ANI archive and User talk:Haizum. He was banned for very aggressively going after others, had a major bone to pick with me because I wouldn't let him twist policies to his suiting and break NPOV on Blackwater Worldwide, and vowed to return under sockpuppet accounts on his talk page unless he was unblocked. He wrote:

I'm fully capable of coming to terms with my actions. However, I will not volunteer this when it is clear that there is a double standard in play, specifically when my edits are trolled for alleged infractions that were never subject to administrative action. I feel that is a fair stance to take. Now, we can do this honestly; I will accept a long but limited block for my actions with the mutual understanding that there was past administrative malice and a questionable ANI, or, I will change my IP address (I subscribe to two different ISPs) and create a new account with a blank slate. Yes, I'm sure at this very moment you are recoiling at my ultimatum, but note that my preferred concession keeps me publicly accountable for my block log. I ask you, which is preferable? --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 20:57, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

This seems very, very similar. And it's been just over a month, since Haizum was removed from any editing ability when his talk page was protected. Lawrence Cohen 14:33, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Another Haizum sock

Please block User:Newanda, a demonstrated sock of Haizum as well that somehow wasn't blocked before. Thanks. Lawrence Cohen 14:40, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Block both. Evidently SPAs. Will 14:42, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Filed RFCU at Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Haizum. Lawrence Cohen 16:01, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Stalking

So... this has gone on for months now... so maybe this is pointless. There have been a number of complaints filed and 24-hours blocks enforced, but Alice continues to harass me, following me onto pages I edit and trying to start fights. After being told to shape up by multiple administrators there was about a two week break in which she left me alone. Now she is at it again, this time at Kingdom of Kongo where she has massively spammed the talkpage. She then went and encouraged another editor to get into a dispute with me. Since this user doesnt contribute anything to Misplaced Pages (see Special:Contributions/Alice), why hasnt she been banned? Jose João (talk) 03:42, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I looked at the diffs you posted, and the article history. Alice isn't the problem. You are. Mr Which??? 04:21, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

That's a really intelligent thing to say. Really, based on that comment, I truly value your input. Jose João (talk) 04:23, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't give a damn whether you "value" my input or not. You're the problem in the disupute. From the diffs you posted, and the history of the article you posted, Alice isn't a problem. Period. Mr Which??? 04:31, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Please try and maintain basic civility (

I have done so. Writing "damn" doesn't make a post uncivil. Mr Which??? 04:43, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes it does. Bstone (talk) 04:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. Or are you saying that every time someone swears in a post, it's uncivil? That seems a ludicrous proposition on the face of it. Mr Which??? 04:50, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Good natured vulgarity can be appropriate, but you have been rude and uncivil. I ask you to please stop. Bstone (talk) 05:17, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

"Good natured vulgarity"?!? AN/I is truly turning into a theater of the absurd. I have been neither rude nor uncivil in this discussion, and I'll thank you to stop accusing me of such. Ask around. Find out how many other people thinking using the word "damn" in anger makes one's post "rude and uncivil." Mr Which??? 15:05, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

We will agree to disagree. Have a good day. Bstone (talk) 15:37, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Based upon what you've posted here, it appears that no such stalking has taken place. Not only that, but it appears that your charges that Alice does not contribute to Misplaced Pages are baseless. Finally, it appears, based on what you've pointed to here, that she encouraged another user who you are in conflict with to utilize the standard procedure established for conflict resolution. Did I miss something that you are inferring here? --Mhking (talk) 04:29, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• For the record, he's now dropping 3RR warnings on my page for restoring the sourced material he deleted en masse (and without discussion at talk) at the article in question. Mr Which??? 04:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

If you do not understand what is under dispute, then do not try to mediate. Jose João (talk) 04:37, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

No 3RR has occurred yet. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 04:38, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Right. You leave 3RR warnings before any violation. When there's a violation you report it to the 3RR noticeboard. A warning prior to a report is required as proof the user was aware of the rule. Jose João (talk) 04:42, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Right. Are you aware of the rule? Because you're now on the edge of it, and violating WP:OWN all over the place, as well as making frivolous complaints to AN/I. Mr Which??? 04:44, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

MrWhich, I noticed you removed the valid warning from your talkpage, incorrectly stating it was invalid. Just so you know, if you try and revert again, I post the diff of the warning, not a link to your talkpage, on the noticeboard. Please abide by {inuse}-politeness. Thanks, Jose João (talk) 04:49, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Users are allowed to remove warnings from their talk pages, per WP:TALK. There is no incivility, except for what is being brought upon by editors who are being overly hostile in the pursuit of this. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 04:51, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• I also don't care what you "noticed", Perspicacite (Jose Joao). The "warning" was improper, as it was placed by someone on the verge of 3RR themselves, and who is far more invested in the article. I'm not going to get blocked protecting this article from your mass removal of sourced content. Mr Which??? 04:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• (ecx2) And he's now using the {{in use}} template to prevent anyone from interfering with his mass deletion of sourced material. Mr Which??? 04:40, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

No, actually, I am using the inuse template to source the material - much the same way I did with Angolan Civil War. Jose João (talk) 04:42, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

And while we're discussing politeness, isn't it considered impolite to redirect your user page to your user talk page? (as the user in question has done here?) --Mhking (talk) 04:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

No. A user is allowed to do that, per WP:USERPAGE. Can we stop making mountains out of mole hills? Seicer (talk) (contribs) 04:52, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Noted. Fair enough. --Mhking (talk) 04:55, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, it seems as if some users are wanting to make mountains out of mole hills -- on both sides of the argument. Currently, Kingdom of Kongo has an inuse template, so it is fair to assume that massive changes will occur on the affected page. Given that not all changes are complete yet, let's not rush to conclusions that sources may be curtailed or outright removed.

It would have been nice to have discussion before the massive editing would have occurred, but I see no major reason to revert all the changes at the moment. Let's see the finished result and base a discussion at the talk page based on that -- use WP:THIRD and etc. if there is any disbelief later that an error has ocurred.

There is also no appearant stalking by Alice (talk · contribs). She posted some useful guidelines and policies that need to be aided by.

Let's keep a cool head here guys. No incivility has yet been performed outside of the word "damn," which is not showing incivility -- given that Misplaced Pages is not censored for language, and that the word "damn" was not in reference to one particular user. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 04:57, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• Now Jose Joao has unilaterally deleted Alice's post to the talk page. I will be re-adding it as a vandalism reversion if he continues. Mr Which??? 06:22, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Have fun with that. Oh, and 3RR applies to talkpages too, just so you know. Jose João (talk) 06:29, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• If you continue to disrupt the talkpage (and removing appropriate comments constitutes disruption), I'm certain you will earn a well-deserved block for that disruption. Mr Which??? 06:33, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

MrWhich, you may want to recuse yourself from further discussion here. The above comment is entirely uncivil. Thank you. Bstone (talk) 01:00, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Telling someone they could be blocked if they continue to disrupt is uncivil? Care to expand? Mr Which??? 01:03, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Warning or informing someone that certain behavior is blockable is fine. Saying it is "you will earn a well-deserved block" is hardly civil. Please do take care for this. Bstone (talk) 01:16, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

• Nope, sorry. You have a right to hold that opinion, but it's simply not true. If he continues to disrupt, his block will be "well-deserved", it's as simple as that. Mr Which??? 01:20, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

We will have to agree to disagree. Have a good evening. Bstone (talk) 01:21, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

(untab) Might I suggest, as someone who is completely new to this incident, that both Mr Which and Jose João step away from their keyboards and calm down a little? Mr Which: I don't think you're being uncivil (I dislike the use of the word 'damn' greatly, and as far as I'm concerned it is uncivil, but unfortuntaly as far as general concencus is concerned it definitely isn't), but you are being abbrasive. I'd suggest cooling down a little. Equally, Jose João, I haven't looked at any histories etc., but judging from others comments, it would appear that you are in the wrong. Before retaliating again, I would suggest that you too take a step back and calm down. Perhaps if both parties did this, mole hills would stop being mistaken for mountains... _TheIslander 01:30, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Edit warring and blocking over Misplaced Pages:IRC channels/wikipedia-en-admins

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

Referred to ArbCom

I see Phil Sandifer (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) has blocked Giano II (talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log) for 72h over the 3RR violations at the subject page. I am frustrated by what is going on there as well but I don't think blocking (of one participant) is the answer. I have offered to unblock if Giano will undertake to stop revert warring and work to find a way through this. I seek consensus for that offer. ++Lar: t/c 05:01, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

This whole dispute is a despicable mess. I don't really know what Phil Sandifer is trying to accomplish by blocking Giano; the page is already protected. If Giano is not unblocked soon, then I will do it myself. Sean William @ 05:04, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

The page is not protected. Dmcdevit·t 05:19, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, so it has since expired. Then, since Giano has stopped, what's the issue? Sean William @ 05:23, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• I have to interject here. I unprotected the page. It didn't expire. The protection was without basis, as it was meant not to protect a page from vandalism, but only to allow admins to edit it but not Giano. That was obviously an attempt at winning a content dispute with the use of the buttons, and that's flat out wrong. In fact, the fact that the author of the page, who is also a primarily invested person in the subject of the page, issued the protection should never have stood even a second's analysis in the first place. Don't we worry about conflict of interest anymore? I've been accused of WP:OWN for wanting a picture to stay, but I never used protection to get my way. Geogre (talk) 06:06, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I concur. I'm not sure why Giano has been singled out, there seems to be bad behavior there by a number of parties. Videmus Omnia 05:06, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Again for the same 3RR violation? This isn't helpful. I support an unblock. SlimVirgin 05:06, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Not for the same 3RR violation, but for violating 3RR again on the same article. Raymond Arritt (talk) 05:11, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

EVERYONE really ought to undertake not to edit war over this, but if we start handing out blocks for revert warring here, the list ought to be a bit longer, there is a lot of tag team reverting going on on both "sides". So singling out Giano doesn't seem right. Still, I'd prefer if he undertook not to revert war. (regardless of who else is doing it) That was my offer. If someone else chooses to unblock him without that undertaking that's their affair and I won't oppose but it wasn't my offer. ++Lar: t/c 05:08, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I forgot, Giano's probably in bed sleeping off his holiday feast, he hasn't edited for a few hours. So an undertaking not to revert war may be some time in coming if he were willing. ++Lar: t/c 05:10, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, if it were another person I'd be happy about Lar's proposal, since a block serves no purpose when it is preventing no harm. However, this particular person has made it more abundantly clear than any other non-banned user in memory that no amount of agreements to stop disruption should be trusted. I would agree that Giano has had legitimate grievances, but his only response ever seems to be to magnify disruption and drama with the exactly wrong ways of going about disagreeing with others. I have less than zero confidence that he is interested in actually pursuing polite dispute resolution about the actual issue here, and reinforcing his immunity from community norms with Yet Another unblock. Has no one yet realized that if a user has been unblocked 10 times in expectation of good behavior only to be blocked again that we should no longer expect good behavior? Dmcdevit·t 05:19, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Blocks are preventative, not punitive. If there is edit warring on the page, protect the page (again... it was protected for a while, I assume it expired?), don't block one (and only one) party to the edit warring when there are multiple parties warring. If the edit warring doesn't stop, then seek additional remedies. Blocking Giano for 72 hours accomplishes what? Increases drama and that's about it. An arbcom case has been initiated, that would be the place to deal with long term issues. I do not agree that Giano's only response to issues is to magnify disruption and drama, I don't quite think that's a fair characterization. I do deplore his approach when the red cape is waved under his nose, to be sure, but this block of one (and only one) warring party solves nothing. That the community has figured out how to get his goat by now is an indictment of what exactly ??? ++Lar: t/c 05:26, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

No, chronically unblocking on no reasonable presumption of good behavior is what has been causing the drama. And starting this thread is just more of the same. "Punitive" doesn't mean "severe" and "preventative" doesn't mean "short." I'll tell you what the block prevents: more disruption from this user who has been involved in nothing but it for several days straight. You're missing the whole point of protection and unblocks on condition of good behavior. If someone has demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to reform after such dispensations, then you are only enabling the disruption by indulging them with page protections and early unblocks. None of this has any bearing on whomever he was edit warring with. By all means warn and/or block them as the situation calls for, but don't bring up a red herring. Dmcdevit·t 05:41, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

There are several other people, who I won't name to avoid drama, who also have chronic unblocks but have (through being an invested user) continued with the borderline behaviour. If this is a reason for a long block or ban on Giano, then those other editors should face the same summary justice. It works both ways. Carcharoth (talk) 11:20, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

He was blocked for 3RR, unblocked, and the page was protected, so there really wasn't any justification for reblocking him. SlimVirgin 05:11, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Giano should be unblocked so he can at least address an arbcom case that has been filed naming him.--MONGO (talk) 05:17, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• 1st revert: 20:55, 25 December 2007 "Arbcom has no control"
• 2nd revert: 20:59, 25 December 2007"RV not a beleif that happens to be the truth! - now stop edit warring"
• 3rd revert: 21:01, 25 December 2007"Rv back to the truth"
• 4th revert: 21:03, 25 December 2007 "rv edit warrior who seems to have an aversion to the truth'

Seems like obvious disruption per WP:POINT.--Hu12 (talk) 05:17, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

And the team of folks that was doing the reverting on the other side of the issue? Them, too? Videmus Omnia 05:19, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

You make lots of sense, Videmus. That could be a problem when dealing with those who want to see Giano taken out. Mr Which??? 05:20, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Giano has been offline for almost five hours. In the past hour, John254 has initiated an Arbcom case on this issue, and Phil Sandifer blocked Giano for 72 hours. This does not give the impression of positive interaction to resolve an issue. Risker (talk) 05:20, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Whenever someone brandishes their certitude of having "the truth" things rarely end well. Raymond Arritt (talk) 05:20, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

My gut instinct says that anyone convinced that edit-warring over this sort of "content" is a good use of their volunteer hours ought to be trout-smacked, if not blocked. Same goes for anyone who hits 5RR with an edit summary reading: "Rv to truth; Now stop edit-warring!". But that's just my gut instinct. MastCell 05:21, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I missed the memo where we stopped blocking for egregious and deliberate 3RR violation. Please go ahead and point me towards it. Otherwise, this is as straightforward a block as they come, and I am shocked to see any serious consideration of overturning it. If I missed a 3RR violation from somebody else I am happy to block them as well, but this is clear cut and deliberate disruption and a flagrant violation of 3RR. What possible justification is there for undoing the block? Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:22, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• Because it was already dealt with. You know, hours ago, when Giano was still online and available? He was blocked, then unblocked, and resolution was reached. Sheesh, it'd be really cool if you had bothered to do some research before dropping a block for activities on such a disputed page. Mr Which??? 05:24, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
  • My fault. He had been threatened with a block by Ryulong (another involved admin). Much discussion ensued (you know, in the thread right above yours on Giano's page), and resolution was reached, as East points out. Mr Which??? 05:29, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
    • MrWhich: regardless of how upset you might be, I think the level of sarcasm you're using here is not likely to produce good results. Just my view, take it as you like. ++Lar: t/c 05:32, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
    • I fail to see anything looking like a backing down or calming on the part of Giano - in fact, I see a comment to the effect of "I would rather be banned than stop." I am also somewhat perplexed by the notion that a deliberate and egregious 3RR violation is something one threatens blocks with. Giano knew full well that he was crossing an electric fence line. Threatening a block was pure theatrics. This is a simple matter - if you egregiously and deliberately violate 3RR, you get blocked. Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

To clarify, my block was for the six reverts on December 25th. I see no blocks in his log after the 23rd other than mine, and so it does not seem accurate to say that he has been blocked for the same violation twice, unless we have recently amended our blocking policy such that once you are blocked for something you can then violate that policy to your heart's content. Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:25, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Would it have perhaps been better to leave this to an uninvolved administrator, since you're apparently an operator in the IRC channel under discussion? Videmus Omnia 05:26, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I had already squashed that by protecting the page; Giano did not touch it after its expiration. Blocking him again just pours gasoline on the fire. east.718 at 05:27, December 26, 2007

My understanding is that deliberate and knowing 3RR violations are blockable more or less straightforwardly. The fact that the page was protected to stop the edit war does not seem to me to remove the validity of a 3RR block - if it did, we would ultimately not have a 3RR blocking system given the routineness of protecting pages during edit wars. Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:31, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Phil: It might be a good approach then to block everyone that was edit warring? You've singled out one person. Or perhaps to bring the concern here and seek consensus for the block? Or ask an uninvolved admin (not me, by the way, I think I'm involved enough) to carry it out? ++Lar: t/c 05:30, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Were there other 3RR violations? Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:31, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

The 3RR is not a weapon. It is also not a legitimate excuse to block a single person when everyone is revert-warring. Protection is optimal in a situation such as this. Sean William @ 05:34, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• The "bottom line" is that if blocks were going to be handed out for that messy edit war, the list should have been MUCH longer than one. Mr Which??? 05:36, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

No, there were technically not other 3RR violations, and no, Giano is not exempt, but 3RR is a bright line, not an entitlement. Unless the others revert warring during the same time period were also blocked, (there were more folks on the "other side", go look at the edit history and you'll see) you're singling out one editor and that's not really fair. Guess what, WP isn't fair and that's generally a good thing... but if you want this block to stick, you need to show equanamity in my view. ++Lar: t/c 05:37, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

The admin who dealt with the edit warring decided to protect, rather than block, so as not to have to block multiple people presumably. It might have been wiser to leave things that way. SlimVirgin 05:37, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I do not see anybody else who deliberately and flagrantly violated policy in the way Giano did. Frankly, Giano's edits were so transparently disruptive that I have trouble treating their reversion as substantively different from reverting vandalism, but that is neither here nor there - in my judgment, Giano made a flagrant and extreme violation of a policy that is explicitly a blockable offense, making his block straightforward. If there are other straightforward blocks, I will make them. Otherwise, please feel free to block for what you see fit - I deliberately limited my actions to the conservative one, which was blocking a clear and deliberate 3RR violation. Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:39, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I see many people who "gamed" 3RR by tag-teaming Giano. This is a blockable offense as well. Oh wait, they agree with you, so you consider their reversions as merely reverting Giano's "vandalism." Wow. I didn't think anything could make this block look any worse, but this last post accomplished just that. Mr Which??? 05:44, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Another note - having an arbcom case raised against you does not give you immunity from straightforward blocks such as 3RR blocks. If Giano wishes to make a statement, I'm sure somebody will move it from his talk page to RFAr for him. Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:41, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• This is an odd situation - were the other people doing the reverts on the page (Ryulong and Betacommand) participants in the IRC channel as well, or just Phil? Were the edits to the page being discussed there? Videmus Omnia 05:44, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• • I have not been in the IRC channel in a week and a half, and have no information to speak of on what the larger dispute is about. I saw a 3RR violation to the tune of six reverts. I blocked. That is the extent of my involvement in this matter. Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:50, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Unless the other edit warriors on that page (and yes, the other side was tag-team edit warring. No ifs ands or buts about it.) receive similar blocks, this seems to me it's a "Cuz it's Giano" block, and not only would I support an unblock, I would think the consensus here supports any unblock that I would make. SirFozzie (talk) 05:45, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you have evidence of tag-team reverting as opposed to multiple editors who actually and genuinely believe Giano's edit to be wrong? If so, please present it and I will block straightaway. But remember - agreement between users does not constitute tag team editing. Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:50, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• WP:DUCK perhaps? Or is the rule, "If they agree with the blocking admin, they're just participating in "agreement between users"?

Perhaps it's time to start looking for more inventive solutions: unblock Giano, on the strict condition he stops revert warring on that page; impose a temporary single revert restriction on anyone editing the page in the future, blocking any and all violators; look into the substance of Giano's complaints -- I disagree strongly with the way he's going about things, here, but the complaint itself appears legitimate, or at least worth inquiring about. – Luna Santin (talk) 05:50, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and unblocked. Sean William @ 05:51, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. I doubt the problems will end here, hence the proposals above. – Luna Santin (talk) 05:55, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I am off to bed, as it is late and I am tired, and, more to the point, I have nothing further to add to this discussion at present - Giano made six reverts in 24 hours. I blocked at a reasonable duration for deliberate and egregious 3RR violation. This block does not preclude blocks on other editors, and I will not unblock anybody if somebody feels that other editors should be blocked. But this is not a block based on deep and subtle reasoning - there are three reverts in excess of what is allowed. I blocked. Very simple.

If I missed any 3RR violations on the part of other editors (including clear cases of actual tag-team reverting as opposed to multiple editors who agree that the edits were rubbish) please note them on my talk page and I will block in the morning. I maintain that this is a straightforward 3RR block, and strenuously deny any involvement in the underlying dispute - I've not been in IRC in a week and a half, and am unaware of any history of dispute with Giano that I have, though I may well be forgetting something. I would, frankly, be shocked at any overturning of the block, as it is wholly within the letter and intent of policy. Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:54, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I suppose Phil has been in IRC and heard tag teaming there? I suppose he is counting David Gerard's "edits," which are reverts? Never mind that, though: blocking in an instance like this is obviously inflammatory, not preventative. Look how much disruption it is producing, how little it prevents. Look at how much tempers have risen, how little they have subsided.

The idea of talking to the other parties as if they were equals has never occurred to those wringing their hands over "edit warring," I know. I know this because they are absent from the talk page to the article.

When you see really widely respected people editing one way and the other, you can either form the conclusion that one side is edit warring or that the sides aren't talking. If you conclude the former, you are wrong. If you conclude the latter, then just go look at the talk page and read it. You'll see, then, whether there is dialog or monolog.

In this case, the facts say that en.admins.irc has been the home of horrible behavior. The other side wants all suggestion that such might have ever occurred (and all in passive voice) edited out, and they say that they have the facts because they spend all day in the channel. Well, there is a way to prove it: we can post the damned logs. That would be improper, so people have been e-mailing the people who don't want the edits, trying to enlighten and persuade. Oddly enough, they have gone on edit warring, engaging in WP:OWN, and saying that there are no such instances. Amazing.

Phil is neither neutral in this nor uninvolved, and blocking for 72 hours is absolutely insane when there was no attempt at resolution beforehand. In fact, there have been no attempts at resolution at all. Geogre (talk) 06:03, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a shred of evidence of my involvement? Because if not, that's a rather flagrant personal attack there. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:05, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• Are you, or are you not, an IRC-channel operator? Vested interest in the content of that page, I would say. Mr Which??? 06:27, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• No more than I have a vested interest in any other policy page for being a Misplaced Pages administrator. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

All this is very disturbing. We see experienced editors who are edit warring, and a proposal that a clear violation of 3RR be overlooked. The fact that the admin requesting the unblock is on record as a strong supporter of Giano only adds to the overall unseemliness. I agree with the gist of Giano's comments about IRC (having been a former participant there) but he went about this entirely the wrong way. Could we full-protect that stupid page for a week or so -- on the wrong or any other version -- until people's tempers cool down? Raymond Arritt (talk) 06:19, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

That might have worked, in a universe where the page hadn't already been protected several times and yet administrators continued the edit war despite the protection. I already count about eight unambiguous instances of abusive administrator action not even counting the edit warring and rampant misuse of rollback. David Gerard, Geogre, and Wknight94 all made reverts while the page was protected. David Gerard and Geogre both used protection powers during the edit war they were involved in. Doc glasgow and Sean William both reversed another admin's block without allowing enough time (10 minutes and one hour, respectively) for consensus or input on the matter. Coredesat and David Fuchs both blocked a user that they also reverted in that edit war. All for this inconsequential project-space page about an IRC channel. It's ridiculous. Dmcdevit·t 08:33, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Dom: You have made my point... while I find Giano's edit warring abhorrent, clearly he knows far far better. But, when you looked into this matter, you found bad behaviour by far more parties than just Giano. Blocking just Giano is partisan, I fear. I don't think compounding the matter by blocking everyone else you named off (now, well after the fact) would be at all constructive so I don't buy Phil's argument that others should go ahead and block whomever else they feel deserves it. That seems a recipe for a range war if you ask me. Raymond: I think it's irrelevant that I was once an adamant opponent of Giano and now find he has useful things to say while deploring his methods. I call partisanship as I see it. Geogre: If you're including me in those who are hand wringing about edit warring by one side, you far miss the mark. I think all parties here were warring and talking past each other. That includes you, at least to a certain extent, as well as Beta, David G., Irpen, AzaToth, Cordesat Ryulong, you name it. The lot of you know better. There have been bouts of people actually trying to talk a bit on the talk page but they don't seem to last very long before it descends back to talking past each other, and then edit warring again. And for what? ++Lar: t/c 13:12, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

The proper way to resolve an underreaction is not to lessen the reaction. That's the height of illogic, and it's what we do every time. If Giano reacts badly to a perceived wrong that turns out to be an actual wrong, we need to stop exonerating him just because we don't want to deal with the other users opposite him in the dispute. We ought to do something about both, not neither, or this will continue to recur indefinitely (as it already feels like it has extended indefinitely in the past). Isn't it time for someone to realize that another summary unblock simply isn't going to help? Dmcdevit·t 17:06, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

As the edit war has resumed, I have asked for page protection at WP:RFPP. It is to be hoped that the protecting administrator has nothing to do with any of the edits over the past few days or with operation of the channel. I share in Dmcdevit's sense of absurdity. Risker (talk) 08:47, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I've fully protected the article for 7 days, per policy and left the following comment on the talk page -> : Fully protected for a period of 1 week, after which the page will be automatically unprotected. - okay, folks. I'm a regular WP:RPP patroller, as many of you will know. I've not, to my knowledge, ever edited the article before. I've no interest in who-did-what-to-which-revision but I know an out of control article when I see one. This needs to stop. To that end, I've fully protected the article against editing for a period of a week. This is no more nor no less than I would do with any other article and, as with anything other dispute, please, please work towards consensus on the talk page here. All of you should know this stuff already. If there are any changes to be made in the interim, please use the {{editprotected}} template here so everyone can see it and judge accordingly and, hopefully, a neutral admin can hop in an do what's needed. If anyone does otherwise, I'll be less than impressed - you all know the rules - Alison 09:07, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Autoblock, please help

Giano has been unblocked, but remains autoblocked. Could somebody please help (and then, could somebody PLEASE teach me how to undo autoblocks according to this horrible new system? It didn't use to be a problem!) Bishonen | talk 10:25, 26 December 2007 (UTC).

I have removed Giano's autoblock. --Coredesat 10:31, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Coredesat. Would you (or someone else) have time to educate your fellow admins on how to undo autoblocks? It's a reasonable request from Bishonen. We don't want the technology to lead to a reduced pool of admins who have the knowledge of how to undo an autoblock. Do the instructions at WP:AUTOBLOCK cover the new system? Carcharoth (talk) 11:16, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I sort of found it by chance by browsing Special:Ipblocklist until I found the first autoblock mask corresponding to Giano's 72 hr block, then unblocked that number on the regular unblock page. WP:AUTOBLOCK seems to say that we have to do just that, as weird as that sounds; it states that admins have to keep an eye on the block list for any additional autoblocks that pop up as a result of an initial block. I suppose this means the tool is useless in its current form; the last time Giano was caught up in an autoblock (one I admittedly caused), it took ElinorD a little while to find the mask for it, and we both found it at about the same time. --Coredesat 12:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Checkusers can trace autoblocks a lot easier, but we could do with explicit permission from the user to do so. Of course we promise not to reveal any information from the check. --Deskana (talk) 17:09, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I have found the tool useless in its current form. I used to undo a lot of autoblocks, for instance always keeping an eye out for distress posts from the unfortunate User:WBardwin. It was easy. And now it takes a checkuser, unless you find the "mask" (wot?) by chance? Please tell me you're kidding. Why has the technology been, uh, improved to such a point? Bishonen | talk 18:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC).

Does the autoblock tool not work any more? I'm guessing not because I don't see anything there more current than Nov 27. Is it just temporarily down or is it going to be fixed? --B (talk) 18:44, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I've had the same problem trying to undo unrelated autoblocks - they just don't show up at all and I have to actually get the user to send me previewed code by email, preview that myself and use the links to unblock. Orderinchaos 22:36, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Distortions

Apparently, the air must be cleared, as people are both condemning Giano and protesting his 'unfair' block without knowing, frankly, jackshit about what they were talking about. Let's lay down the facts about what happened first:

• Giano violated WP:3RR- look at the page history; continual reinsertion of same content to prove a point. Once reverted, no discussion except 'squelching the truth' accusations in edit summaries.
• No one else violated 3RR- the edits of Giano were reverted by five editors, only on of whom reverted more than once.
• An uninvolved admin made the first block - i.e., me. I warned Giano about the 3rr violation, he continued, and so I blocked. I was not involved in the incident which caused Giano's edits in the first place.
• the block was preventative- not punative; it was only one hour because a) I knew Giano would whine to some sympathetic admin with a distortion of the truth, and b) I figured that the short block would be enough to stop Giano from continuing his edit war. You don't protect a page when only one editor is edit warring. Subsequent unblock/blocks, I have no jurisprudence about. David Fuchs 17:32, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
  • That you don't see "edit warring" there from anyone other than Giano says more about your judgment on the matter than anything Giano might "whine" (another indictment of your impartiality) about. Mr Which??? 17:37, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

David's judgement here looks sound to me. Why is everyone who disagrees with you "partial", Mr Which. Thanks, SqueakBox 17:40, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

As an admin who has nothing whatsoever to do with this dispute and hasn't been on IRC in months and was denied access to the admin channel when I requested it last spring and generally agrees with Giano about IRC, I endorse David's summary and actions. One person repeatedly reverting to their version of a page against near-unanimous agreement otherwise isn't an edit war and there's no logical reason to block anyone else. --B (talk) 17:50, 26 December 2007 (UTC) Note: I was not explicitly refused access, rather, my request for access was not responded to and I stopped pursuing it. Nothing more should be read into this than that I am not a member of the IRC channel and that I support David Fuch's actions. I'm not upset about not having IRC access nor am I overly interested in spending any time on it. --B (talk) 03:47, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Why are some admins denied access? Lawrence Cohen 17:52, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

No earthly idea. IIRC, this was back during the spring right before the Virginia Tech massacre and I ceased to care about it at that point and didn't pursue it any further. --B (talk) 17:58, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Mr. Which: for the benefit of people like you, I posted the above message. Can you tell me how there was other edit warring when Giano reverted five other editors that many times? Giano might have legitimate beef; he usually does. But his approaches, i.e., edit warring, continually incivil behavior, et al., are not solving any problems. What I mean by the 'whine' comment is that Giano is going to protest his block and an admin who didn't know what went down is going to unblock him; that's the story told by his block log. At the same time, I am not endorsing further blocks after me; blocking Giano for a longer period of time would not help fix the problem, and my attempt was only to stop the constant reversions. Am I impartial? Fairly. But that won't stop me from voicing my opinions- and that's what the whining comment was. It doesn't change the facts I enumerated above. David Fuchs 21:23, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Violation of the three revert rule and disruptive editing to prove a point should be enought to justify a block, I know that would have been my action, this is not one of those situations that justify a user breaking the 3RR. - Caribbean~H.Q. 21:30, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I have recently previously unblocked Giano (to re-apply the original tariff that had been increased without consensus) and I was pretty much aware of the reasons for the original block - which is why I reinstated it less time served. Unless you can provide diffs or any other evidence that indicate which areas of discussion I have not reviewed, I suggest that insulting statements regarding any lack of knowledge from other admins more likely indicates your own lack of perception on the acumen and cogitating abilities of those sysops who have acted differently - but also in the best interests of the encyclopedia. LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:27, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Look at the block log of Giano, and follow the discussions. David Fuchs 23:31, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• To LessHeard. Inflamatory/diatribe edit summaries really don't help. Pedro :  Chat  23:34, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Again? LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:38, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Back to the issue at hand, we are supposed to be discussing the first block on Giano's account for breaking the three revert rule, now here is what I don' understand, why is there a debate ongoing over if the action was sound or not? just take a look on the article's history, Giano reverted several users with the basis that his version was "the truth", wich is quite obviously a matter of perception thus he was edit warring over his POV wich is disruptive, regardless if his "truth" was correct or not, this is a good example of disrupting the project to prove a point, on the other hand Giano surpased the limit of the three revert rule while edit warring wich is a blockable offense, now David noticed this and proceeded to block as is the normal procedure with hundreds of cases of precedent to justify the action, that is supposed to be enough with the witness. - Caribbean~H.Q. 00:19, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

The idea here is that if those reverting Giano knew that 3RR was being flouted by Giano, they were equally aware that they were carrying out a revert already carried out by someone else. That still counts as edit warring. If you watch an edit war in progress, or look at the previous diffs, and you step in and carry out one of the reverts, then you are participating in the edit warring. It's the same analogy as in the "slow motion wheel war" described at this old version of WP:WHEEL. The correct approach when seeing an edit war like this in progress is to protect the page, contact everyone on their talk pages with warnings and an invitation to discussion, and start a discussion on the talk page. Instead, all those involved carried on merrily editing, page protection or no page protection (well, not in Giano's case, as the page protection excluded him from the party). But my point here is that a single revert can still be edit warring. It depends on what awareness is shown of the situation, as seen in edit summaries and so forth. Carcharoth (talk) 02:26, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

• The above makes a lot of sense, and is what I've been trying to say all along. Mr Which??? 02:33, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

What this is boiling down to is friends of Giano protesting that how dare we hold their hero accountable for violating 3RR, enemies of Giano wanting to hang him from a lamppost, and others caught in the crossfire. Sad. Raymond Arritt (talk) 04:04, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

That is a distortion in itself, as you missed out those who think both Giano and others were engaged in edit warring and all sides should have been briefly blocked for that, or none. I have no problem at all with Giano being blocked for 3RR. What I do object to is others claiming innocence and saying "we weren't edit warring - it was him". Carcharoth (talk) 04:16, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Possible block of user making repeated disruptive edits to Theresa Duncan article

This was posted in the middle of the page, I am just posting it at the bottom.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:14, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! I got fouled up. Candy (talk) 05:16, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

User 75.32.190.138 has recently been making repeated deletions of external links on the Theresa Duncan article, and during the past 24 hours has reverted attempts to undo his edits far more than three times. His comments are grossly uncivil and he has disregarded attempts to discuss his changes on the article's talk page. He is trying to push his own POV; no one else has come forward to support him as the authority he says he is. Note that he has identified himself as Alex Constantine on the talk page but has never registered and has made edits from other IPs as well. A review of the revision history of the Theresa Duncan page should make this clearer. Candy (talk) 05:11, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Looks like the IP was blocked for 24 hours by Pigman. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 05:42, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Ioeth (and Pigman). It took me about 20 minutes to make my post (I am not that experienced at this!), and I think that must have been done after the last time I checked the page! Candy (talk) 05:52, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

All the same, good job and thank you for making the report. Keep up the good work! Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 05:54, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Legal Threat against Wiki at Talk:Muhammad

Made by Farazilu (talk · contribs), see . --Strothra (talk) 06:13, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

User has already been warned and given a link to the policy. Nothing to see here. -- Kendrick7 06:23, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

He has been blocked until the threat is withdrawn. --Versageek 06:40, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

He has been unblocked, details are in his talk page history.. --Versageek 06:59, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Farazilu

He has, among other things, declared a cyber crusade to remove images of muhammad from wikipedia. Also, he thinks it's encyclopedic to call Adolf Hitler a hero. See: Special:Contributions/Farazilu. I honestly don't think he will ever be civil or back down. Zazaban (talk) 09:13, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Looking ay his contributions I have to say that he is here for drama rather than writing an encylopedia. Some people enjoy conflict for conflict's sake but do we need to tolerate them here? I think not. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 10:45, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. We definitely do not need more people who aren't interested in looking at things from multiple sides and respect compromises. henrik•talk 11:54, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

He is, also rather problematically, organising the edit war on Muhammed externally, (http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/removal-of-the-pics-of-muhammad-from-wikipedia) which has got that article locked down. WilyD 14:03, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Well as long as the article is protected, the only problem will be in related articles being targeted (if there is rampant vandalism is can stay protected forever, thats what edit requests are for).

Someone might want to start watching articles in related categories like Category:Muhammad, Category:Prophets in Islam, Category:Islam, and Category:Arab statesmen for cross-pollinated vandalism/POV-pushing Mbisanz (talk) 14:09, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, he's blocked indefinitely, check his block log for reasons why. We're never going to get any productive contributions out of this one in a million years, so there's no point wasting everyone's time. A depressing specimen of the Neo-Nazi-flavoured Islamism arising in the UK. Moreschi 17:25, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Talkpage posts removal

A user has just gone and removed several posts from Talk:Owen Hart. Is this against policy? Cheers, Davnel03 15:25, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

While removing other users' posts can be frowned upon, removing posts not directly related to improving the article is somewhat different. Misplaced Pages is not a message board or social network, and the posts removed regarding Owen Hart's death appeared to border on speculation and conspiracy talk rather than ideas about how to make the article better Whitstable (talk) 15:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. At WP:TALK, one of the examples given as an appropriate time to edit others' comments is when you are deleting material not relevant to improving the article. This removal seems to fit that description. There may be an argument to be made about archiving the discussion instead of deleting it, but there's really no reason to leave it on the talk page. --Onorem♠Dil 15:33, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Using a secondary account for disruptive purposes

There is a chance that Whitstable (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) is using the account Whitsttable (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) for personal attacks and incivility. I already left a warning about the incivility and personal attacks here and the user acknowledged seeing them here. Now, there is a chance that the users are not the same, based on this comment. My opinion, is that User:Whitsttable is the one that needs blocking, as they are the clearly disruptive account. Maybe a checkuser? - Rjd0060 (talk) 16:00, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

See below. Whittstable has been indef blocked for attacking, amongst others, Whitstable. LessHeard vanU (talk) 16:08, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

It appears User:Rjd0060 clicked on user:Whitsttable to issue a warning without noticing that the vandal had redirected their user page to mine and talk page to mine, hence the warning was left on my page and not that of the vandal. No harm done, though. Whitstable (talk) 16:16, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

That is correct and I have since removed the warnings, with my apologies. - Rjd0060 (talk) 16:37, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

re Whittstable (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and User:Whitstable

I have just indef blocked the former for attempted harassment of various wikipedians, including the latter. One of the acts of vandalism was to redirect User talk:Whittstable to User talk:Whitstable. I should be grateful if anyone with the requisite skills could undo the redirect. Oh, and please feel free to review the block and tell me I got it right (or tell me I was wrong, if you really must...) LessHeard vanU (talk) 16:06, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Clearly protection of that talk page is needed as he is still redirecting it. EconomicsGuy (talk) 16:10, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I should be allowed to make sockpuppets if I want, because I'm an experienced user. I am far more advanced than most of you here, so please do not even think about blocking my sockpuppets again. Whitstable. (talk) 16:15, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Too late. — Satori Son 16:17, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

These accounts are clearly a violation of the username policy, as they're attempting to impersonate another user. I've blocked two or three this morning already, and I'm expecting another 60 or 70 before lunch. --Elkman 16:18, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Impersonating a username is one thing, attempting to use such impersonations to attempt to sully the impersonated account is another. Is this grounds for checkuser to find and (temp) block the ip/range? LessHeard vanU (talk) 16:25, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Might be worth thinking about what is going on here, here and here Whitstable (talk) 16:26, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

There is sockpuppetry involved and he claims that his address changes when he disconnects his modem (see here). - Caribbean~H.Q. 16:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like Iamandrewrice. He also left these insane ramblings on Jeffpw's talk page earlier today. EconomicsGuy (talk) 16:32, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

And this edit which is an anagram of my username and appears to suggest I am a sock. WP:DUCK seems to indicate it all goes back to the same source? Whitstable (talk) 16:36, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Another - User:Whitstabble - creating redirects again. Whitstable (talk) 16:39, 26 December 2007 (UTC) Another

WP:DUCK indeed. If last time is anything to go by block first ask later. Last time Yamla had to rangeblock nearly 200.000 IP's for 3 hours to stop this. This guy is seriously annoying as you and I already know... EconomicsGuy (talk) 16:42, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

And I know too. - Rjd0060 (talk) 16:43, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Now been shown that User:Pollypenhouse and User:Listsvery now banned as socks of User:Iamandrewrice - same email addresses for the accounts, see here and hereWhitstable (talk) 17:22, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Semi protect ANI

Should ANI be semi-protected for a while, till this guy gets bored? I just RV'd another one. Lawrence Cohen 17:05, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Good idea, semi-protected for 12 hours. SirFozzie (talk) 17:12, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Range block

Something has to be done before this all gets out of control again - another apparent sock Whitstable (talk) 17:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Can you take it to RFCU. We can't block a range without knowing what it is. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 17:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

That sock now added to existing RFCU Whitstable (talk) 17:59, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I've already investigated this and there is nothing that can be done. --Deskana (talk) 18:07, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

In which case, revert, block, ignore. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 18:15, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

In that case could his pretty obvious sock Clarissamelissa (talk · contribs) please be blocked before causing more disruption and allowing him to evade his ban in general? I'm sorry if you can't stop this by repeating the three range blocks Yamla used last week to stop him. EconomicsGuy (talk) 18:25, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Blocked by User:Golbez. Could any future socks be sent to WP:AIV to DENY recognition. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 18:41, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

User:SqueakBox's disruption at Larry Sanger and related articles

• Removed Sanger's name from the article.
• Removed Sanger's name again.
• Claims that "enforcing neutrality" is his "specialty" and accuses everyone opposing his position of "trolling." In previous notes on his talkpage, he specifically accused me of "trolling" with no evidence, and refused to provide evidence of it when asked.
• Spreads this dispute to other, completely non-related issue.
• Further diffs from various Wales- and Sanger-related articles.

The above diffs are across the project, on nearly all the Sanger- and Wales-related articles. This user has shown that he's unwilling to compromise, and has insisted that he has "no POV" on these matters. The above diffs indicate otherwise. He has accused those who revert his POV edits of "stalking" and "trolling." Mr Which??? 19:29, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, in one case, it was stalking - I ended up rv'ing fourty nondiscrimate reverts. Will 19:31, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

No, it wasn't "stalking", though you're free to view it that way. Bramlet did indiscriminately revert SB's edits, but assuming good faith, I think he was simply mistaken in his reversions of some of the edits, seemingly assuming that all of SB's edits were his point-y mass edits of the Sanger- and Wales-related articles. I've presented a ton of diffs showing SB's disruption, and his lack of willingness to stop. You replied two minutes after I posted it. There's no way you even took the time to review them. Mr Which??? 19:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Where was I mistaken? I did not indiscriminately revert SB's edits. I reverted only his edits related to Wales and Sanger. Bramlet Abercrombie (talk) 21:51, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

When you start indiscriminately reverting someone forty/fifty times, AGF flies out the window. Will 19:46, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. Not when SB had been POV-pushing his edits across the project. Bramlet messed up, and reverted too many of his edits, but that does not excuse SB's actions. Mr Which??? 19:49, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Did I ever say it did? I just gave you one example where he was being stalked. Will' 19:52, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

(ec) On the same note, there is an ongoing content debate between these guys on the Sanger talk page. As soon as Squeakbox began to lose the argument, and sources were produced that buried his view that no sources supported Sanger as co-founder, he went and began editing out every reference on Misplaced Pages that called Wales co-founder or Sanger co-founder. A wrong doesn't make a right, but Squeakbox was also very wrong and needs to stop. Lawrence Cohen 19:50, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Erm, how is defending the neutrality and integrity of the project a cause for posting on AN/I. I agree with Jimbo that people like Mr Which should be told to stop trolling this issue, and end the issue there. Bramlet most certainly was stalking me, spending all his time following me around and reverting my edits in a SPA way and thus this issue has already been dealt with here, and satisfactorily. If anybody has been out of line today it has been Quackguru for claiming that reverting his POV pushing at Larry Sanger is blockable as if somehow he were the founder of the project. Thanks, SqueakBox 19:40, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

This is not a content dispute and is perfect for admin review. You were asked on the Sanger talk page if the 80+ sources that cite Sanger as co-founder were with or without merit. You then went and made all these revisions. I'd advise admins to read this section. It does appear disruptive on your part. You'd also claimed it was a BLP violation to say Sanger is co-founder. What BLP violation is that exactly? Lawrence Cohen 19:44, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Not on the Larry Sanger page I didn't. How is it relevant on pages that have nothing to do with wikipedia? IMO it is not apropriate for AN/I, its just more trolling from MrWhich, who appears to be one of a number of editors who hold a grudge against wikipedia. Its time we took a neutral stance against troll warriors who want to smear Jimbo's good name on this project. Thanks, SqueakBox 19:52, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• Accusing me of "trolling" again probably isn't your best course of action here, SB. Mr Which??? 19:47, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Well if you are trolling, which I suggest you are, it clearly is my best approach. You seem more interested in attacking Jimbo than editing the encyclopedia and this is becoming very tedious. I suggets we take Jimbo's advice and warn off all the POV trolls on this issue, there apear to be 3, Braml;et, yourself and QuackGuru. You al know you are trolling because you have been told before so there are no excuses for trying to slur Jimbo's good anme on this project. Thanks, SqueakBox 19:50, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Squeakbox, how does it violate NPOV and BLP, amazingly, to say Sanger is co-founder, when it's widely supported and sourced? Once these sources were offered up, you immediately began calling everyone a troll, and unilaterally excising any reference of "co-founder" from these articles. Lawrence Cohen 19:52, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

It clearly violates BLP because of Jimbo's numerous statements on the matter. It violates NPOV because we need to be neutral and not take Larry's stance on this as fact, as again Jimbo has pointed out on numerous occasions. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:02, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

What statements from Jimbo under BLP trump 100+ reliable news sources and supported you removing all reference of Sanger as co-founder from all of Misplaced Pages as soon as sources calling Sanger a co-founder were supplied? What reliable sources carried all these statements from Jimbo that you claim trump NPOV? Lawrence Cohen 20:05, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

None. Jimbo is no different than any other user who has an article about him.Mr Which??? 20:09, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

But if someone were to undo Squeakbox's edits to the Sanger related articles, it would be stalking? I'm confused. Because he made so many edits, anyone going through and fixing his out of policy errors would be stalking?? Lawrence Cohen 20:12, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I think you accidentally placed this reply (apparently intended for Sceptre/Will) as a reply to me. Mr Which??? 20:14, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

No, it was a reply to you based on the fact that Squeakbox's mass edits appear to unsupported by BLP as he claims--but I was implying, that, if I were to go and fix his mistaken edits, I would be tagged as a stalker. That is confusing. Lawrence Cohen 20:17, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• I'd ask reviewing admins to note these ongoing personal attacks when deciding what course of action to pursue regarding this user. Mr Which??? 19:54, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Regards these users, don't you mean?. Your own behaviiour is what is unacceptable here, Mrwhich. You appear to think you can troll Jimbo with impunity, and me too judging by this thread. I bought this issue to AN/I myself the other day, why are you repeating it. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:02, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• Note ongoing personal attacks. No trolling by me is either evident or proven. Mr Which??? 20:07, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• I wouldn't be too sure of that. Guy (Help!) 20:14, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• I'd ask you to prove that with diffs that show me trolling on this issue or withdraw. Don't make this personal, JzG. Thanks, Mr Which??? 20:17, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - I have been involved in the "co-founder issue" as well, just for disclosure. I have to say SB, that you lose credibilty when you lump ALL the editors who disagree with you on this issue as "Sanger supports" or "troll warriors who want to smear Jimbo's good name" ect, ect. It seems that you have taken this on as a personal cause or something. The reason I feel it is important has nothing to do with the indiviuals involved but more about how "facts" can be "bastardized" over time and history can morph based on people's involvement, ect. If Misplaced Pages can't even keep track of who its founder{s} were/are, why are they to be trusted with ANYTHING else? Anyways, --Tom 20:12, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

As a newbie I think there is an interesting general question to be considered here:

Are prolific, valuable and veteran editors such as Squeakbox and Giano expected to conform to the same rules as newer, less high profile contributors?

Do they deserve a greater margin of toleration and rule-bending as super heroes and guardians of righteousness- or should they be setting an example of rectitude for lesser mortals to follow?

I must admit, I don't know the answer to that one... Alice 00:01, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Happy holidays -let's have a truce

I am very happy to not edit at all on this issue till January 2. I am re-considering my approach for then and gathering information, specifically about which articles are disputed as there are a fair few, re this issue and collating it off-wiki. This issue wont be resolved here, can we please just all chill, accept that every article involved the dispute is at the The wrong version right now. I welcome comments on my talk page or via emails (private) from anybody re this issue. Thanks, SqueakBox 21:19, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Until you withdraw your personal attacks accusing me of "trolling", and resolve to stop unilaterally changing the content without consensus or verifiable sources on your side accross the project, there's no "truce" to be had. Mr Which??? 21:58, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of your opinion of SqueakBox's editing/POV this is an offer of peace that should be accepted. At the end all of this battle over co- or not co- is not helping here and the encyclopaedia does not need to be finished today. I've been watching this with some amusement since failing Larry Sanger as a good article. All concerned in this lame and self-referential edit war need to relax, have a cup of tea and reread Misplaced Pages:Don't be a dick and WP:TIGERS. - 22:36, 26 December 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peripitus (talk • contribs)

Are you serious? He accuses all who disagree with him of "trolling", and then, when someone finally compiles the evidence of disruption and posts to AN/I, he offers a "truce"? And then you post the DICK and TIGERS links? Wow. Mr Which??? 22:39, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

MrWhich, a christmas branch was extended, in keeping with the holiday spirit. Let's not get all Grinchy, shall we? just accept the offer made in good faith and enjoy the rest of the festive week. There's a whole new year standing ahead of you, just waiting to be filled with squabbling and pettiness. A few days of harmony won't kill any of us. Jeffpw (talk) 22:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

An admirable sentiment, but MrWhich is factually correct about sequencing and I don't detect any apology or sentiments of contrition in SqueakBox's "truce offer". Try and put yourself in MrWhich's shoes... Alice 22:58, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, they did agree not to make the edits between now and January 2. That allows some tempers to cool, which can only be a good thing. Orderinchaos 00:18, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Blanking the Dana Ullman article and then protecting the vandalism

• First of all, as soon as Dana Ullman was told that he was not allowed to make changes at his own biography article, he stopped doing so. That COI "warning" on that article has already been on too long. Also, the "changes" that he made were simply responding to a skeptic's request for reference information (thus, he provided reference information).

• There has not been an "edit war" at Dana Ullman's article. There was an edit that provided specific reference to the letters of Charles Darwin and to a book written by a physician who is widely known to have been Darwin's favorite doctor (James Manby Gully). This link to Dr. Gully's book confirmed that he is a physician who used homeopathy alone and/or with water-cure treatments. The skeptics also deleted an interview with Dana Ullman from UC Berkeley's alumni magazine. Because a skeptic wanted a reference that Dana Ullman was arrested and that he won his court case (this skeptic actually referred to him in his edit as a "quack" which breaks Misplaced Pages policy on biographies of living persons), it was surprising that this interview got deleted, especially because the editor's remarks prior to the interview with Ullman established the fact that he was arrested for practicing medicine without a license - and won an important court settlement.

• The most common antagonist to the Dana Ullman article has been an anonymous person who wrote: "I much prefer this version", after his page was "stubbified" and then "protected.": "Can we just delete the page now." 86.146.119.116 (talk) 20:57, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

• Please note that one of the skeptics (McGeddon) approved the good references that were provided to the Darwin letters, the Gully book and the UC Berkeley, and he simply improved the formatting of the information. And yet, 86.146.119.116 did an UNDO. He explained his actions in this way:

"The only reference is Dana Ullman, who is not a good source by Misplaced Pages standards. The Berkeley piece was an interview with him, and his articles on his website are no good either. 86.146.119.116 (talk) 22:58, 25 December 2007 (UTC)"

Someone responded:

"You are wrong about everything that you just wrote, and considering your strong biases against the man, this is predictable. The link to UC Berkeley's article included an introduction to him written by the editor of the magazine, which includes some information about his arrest for practicing medicine without a license and the victory of his court case. As for the other references, it seems that you didn't even see them. They were to Darwin's letters and to Dr. Gully's book. Considering the fact that I just said these things above, it seems that you are not even reading what others write but only seeing what you want to see. Thanx for showing your colors here. Now that you know the truth, what are you going to do to correct it? 71.198.193.248 (talk) 23:54, 25 December 2007 (UTC) "

To which, the skeptic wrote:

"Funny. Darwin's letters prove that Ullman is wrong! 86.146.119.116 (talk) 11:51, 26 December 2007 (UTC)"

It seems that this person didn't even read the Darwin letters that were linked, and even if he did, its still not clear why he chose to delete them.

• The bottomline is IF his article needs protection, it should have been protected when there were good NPOV references, not in its "stubbified" vandalized state. There appears to be a coordinated effort to delete information about Dana Ullman, or provide misinformation about him, and even to delete the entire listing, even though there was previous agreement that his article as a well known author on homeopathy was noteworthy. Arion 3x3 (talk) 20:11, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• Actually, turning a disputed biography into a stub and protecting is normal practice; calling a stripped article "vandalism" is not productive. Discuss the issue on the talk page. — Coren  03:23, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

• Just a note. When writing an edit summary, using the words "Nothing to see here, move along" is just bound to attract attention to a thread. Human nature and all that. Having said that, you were right. Now, let's see what I can put in the edit summmary. Carcharoth (talk) 03:33, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

That may or may not have been my intent.  :-) — Coren  04:43, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

the GFDL and attribution

I am trying to reconcile my understanding of {{gfdl}} with the current mechanism for renaming categories.

Currently, unlike articles, when someone proposes renaming a category, a brand new category is created, with the new name, but the text of the old category. Its revision history shows it having a single author -- the robot that created it, not the actual human authors.

Any different revisions the text of the category underwent are lost. And, if I am not mistaken, if that category had a talk page, it is silently erased.

We grant generous rights when we release our contributions under the {{gfdl}} But don't we retain an entitlement to have the history of our contributions retained?

It seems to me the current mechanism doesn't retain the attributions in our contributions to the text of categories. Geo Swan (talk) 20:19, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that the consensus is that the prose contents of categories are trivial, and mostly scenes a faire material which isn't subject to copyright in general; it's meta-information and not subject matter. I suppose there are cases where a category would bear enough originality and prose to be protectable, but then a simple acknowledgment in the edit log should do. — Coren  21:02, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

They are, or should be anyway. However, Cydebot does list the editors of the old category, so the information is retained in the history of the new page. If there's a talk page for a renamed category, it gets moved to the new name, e.g. here and here. About as good as can be done with the current system. Angus McLellan (Talk) 21:04, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Not all the editors are shown in the edit summary if the edit history is too long. Some of the edits made to category pages are creative enough that they should be preserved per the GFDL. A solution would be to move the category page to the new name (along with its talk page). The way that could be implemented is, I believe, as easy as making category pages move-protected by default, rather than having the software completely prevent movement of category pages. Carcharoth (talk) 01:30, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that that's simply a great idea. Though I have a vague recollection that categories should be "empty" before "turning into" a page (which then can be moved). - jc37 02:31, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Long-term vandalism with suspected sockpuppetry

Not sure if this is the correct place to post this. I believe user Frank mad (talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log) and I.P. 66.176.219.186 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) are the same person. Both users have contributed to the same articles, vandalizing them repeatedly by removing sourced information and pushing POV. This can be seen in their contributions page. The I.P. has just been blocked for 3 months but the user is now using their user account (Frank mad) to continue vandalizing. Edits pushing POV on White Latin American by deleting the exactly same information by Frank mad and the I.P. are identical. This user will not communicate with other users who have tried to talk to them, including myself. This makes it hard to try to come to a mutual understanding, but in this case erasing info. is considered vandalism. The user and I.P. have been repeatedly warned and told to not remove the info; they still do so, and it is reverted, however, they come back hours later to do it again. I don't know what action should or can take place but this reverting every day has to come to an end. -- LaNicoya  •Talk•  22:15, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I think this is one of the right places. WP:SSP might be another... And not only that, you should write the account up to AIV, an admin'll block him from there. After that, if he does come back, it'll just be block on sight, if possible. You may want to keep track of the socks. Happy Holidays from —BoL 00:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Vandalizing AfD

I tagged the Uka Uka article as having some article issues and also tagged for a suggested merge to the List of Crash Bandicoot characters article] on the 24th under the assertion that it does not meet the notability requirements to be a standalone article and is almost entirely plot and game quites. User:CBFan reverted the tagging on the List article on early on the 26th proclaiming there was no discussion. I retagged and started a discussion.. He removed, again, saying my merge reasons made no sense. On the Uka Uka article, he also removed all of the tags on the article, claiming I "hate" the character and he called the tagging vandalism. Since this editor was blocking all attempts at a merge discussion, I gave up and AfDed the Uka Uka article. Less than two hours after I filed it, an anonymous IP vandalized the AfD and redirected it to the Uka Uka article. From the edit summary and the IP tracing back to the UK where CBFan is also located, I strongly suspect this was CBFan acting while not logged in (edit summary again said I hate the character and am biased against the series). CBFan seems to have some serious ownership issues over these articles and I believe he is crossing the line by refusing to even allow th]]e articles to be tagged for legitimate problems. My attempts as discussing the merge proposal just resulted in his again claiming I hate the character and have never played the game..

From his own user page, he is obviously a huge fan of the series and seems to be unable to look at the articles from the necessary neutral POV. I don't think further attempts to discuss the situation from me would be useful or have any positive results, so I am asking for admin intervention. Collectonian (talk) 00:09, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Is this evasion of a permanent block?

User:The King of Clay was recently blocked permanently for unacceptable behaviour, including potemtially highly libellous comments about living people. Two requests to reconsider this block were denied because of (on my reading) the nature of the abuse, and the prior history of vandalism. I think this user has re-appeared with a slightly different username: User:Clay for the King‎ as can be seen on an apparently fellow user's talk page (see User talk:Fanku.) If it is the same user, is this an evasion of a permanent block at all? Given the behaviour of the blocked user, it may be an idea to determine whether it is or not.  DDStretch  (talk) 00:45, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Would there be anything wrong with the user creating a new account, if that is what has happened, as the User:The King of Clay was blocked, not banned? Whitstable (talk) 00:49, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Although creating a new account and using it in this manner could be grounds for the block becoming a ban, perhaps. Whitstable (talk) 00:53, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

(In answer to your first response - thanks for it, by the way) I'm not sure. That's why I asked the question. I guess the most charitable reaction would be to monitor the user's behaviour with the new username (if it is the same person) carefully to see if the same patterns of offending are manifesting themselves again.  DDStretch  (talk) 00:57, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes this is block evasion - I have indef'ed the second account. They can appeal the indef block on the first account to unblock-en-l or Arbcom or other admins, but sockpuppeting around it is not appropriate. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:55, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Sleeping sockpuppets waking up at TFD?

Something fishy is going on at Misplaced Pages:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 December 25#Template:STLmedia and Misplaced Pages:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 December 25#Template:PHLmedia. The templates were nominated for deletion by Spencer1151 (talk · contribs), the user's first edits. The only !voters so far are BombBuilder (talk · contribs) (a new user), KansasCity (talk · contribs) (joined Misplaced Pages in December 2005) and BeerBelly82 (talk · contribs) (joined in December 2006, but has very few edits). They all appear to have come to this discussion out of the blue. This comes across as sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry. Aecis 01:23, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

May I recommend that you file this case over on WP:RFCU as it's pretty obvious that abusive sock-puppetry is going on here - Alison 01:47, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

A better way is not to get all worked up. Just consider the merits of delete or keep as fairly as possible. Much of the sock problem is not really a problem at all. If there is a wacky idea, it doesn't matter if one person or 20 socks support it, it is still wacky. If your idea is wacky, it shouldn't matter if one person has a very reasonable and logical argument or if 20 socks have the good argument. A convincing reason should overcome defective reasoning, whichever side has the socks. Spevw (talk) 01:55, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that it is often the case that a majority will support a controversial stance, but without expert and unbiased input, a balanced view appears remote. This is usually left to hope, or more costly processes, in which the participants may not be qualified to assess conflicting points of view. It's also clear that Talk Page discussions are in general inadequate to deal with major types of conflict about content. It's all very well to talk about convincing reasons and defective reasoning, but given entrenched attitudes and politics, socks should be irrelevant and the process at present is a little clumsy, in my opinion. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 02:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

User does not sign posts, ignores warnings

69.143.119.244 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has made several edits to talk pages, and has been warned three times to sign his posts. He has not signed them. Can any action be taken on this? Thanks. JetLover (talk) (Report a mistake) 01:29, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Now says s/he will do that. Never mind. JetLover (talk) (Report a mistake) 01:36, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

For what its worth, signing your posts is completely optional - it's just worthwhile if you want people to listen. WilyD 01:44, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Isn't that the point of !nosine!? bibliomaniac15 04:38, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

User page that could possibly be considered to be advertising

Maybe it's fine, but I was just wondering whether this user page (user Walice111) was inappropriate, being perhaps advertising or practically a personal website. I haven't discussed this with the user because the user has not edited since Nov. 12. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:44, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

From his first edit, it would appear that he's sixteen and may not be clear what Misplaced Pages is about. Assuming good faith, I would regard this as a test, and since he's not been around for a while, move it to a subpage but leave a reference on his main page. That way, if he comes back, he won't lose that content. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 01:55, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Twsx

This user has for the last few months waged a constant edit war on at least two pages (Dissection (band) and Amon Amarth). He has been warned many times before about this. I reported him before but no action was taken as this was the first time he was reported. However, User:Scarian had a conversation with him telling everyone if they continued to edit war they would get reported and blocked. Well, Twsx refused to listen, obviously, because he's right back at edit warring. I ask for a block. As you can see from these history pages: 1 and 2, the user has waged a long running war and has an agenda that no one wants (users such as myself and other keep having to revert him). Thank you. Blizzard Beast 18:11, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Notified editor of this thread. Pastordavid (talk) 18:52, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the notification, Pastordavid. As I have had to respond to this very issue (with this very user) too many times before, I have created a small page listing my arguments on the matter. It can be found here. Thank you. ~ | twsx | _cont | 18:59, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

That page Twsx would have you look at is ridiculous and biased against me. It also brings up many old issues and edits that I have done in the past. For one it brings up that I have been blocked twice for edit warring on two different pages. I agreed to stop a long time ago and I would like to point out that Twsx is now doing the same thing I was blocked for and that is not acceptable. Blizzard Beast 19:25, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I have warned this user a couple of times about his(/her?) POV pushing and warring behavior, without any success. I have tried to stop the POV pushing through discussion on a larger scale here. As users couldn't agree with each other I proposed a truce (here). Since the truce has been in place all edit wars and POV pushing have stopped.. except for the ones Twsx was involved in, despite numerous comments on Twsx' talk page. Kameejl 20:48, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Some comments I've posted on Twsx' talk page. , , , Kameejl 21:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

On Dissection (band) and Amon Amarth edit wars are still going on, we really need help. Kameejl 01:47, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

• See WP:RPP for help stopping the edit warring. Avruchtalk 04:41, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Trenton, Ontario

I've been reverting back and forth with IP 67.70.41.80 (talk · contribs) about adding a name to the notable residents list. The user keeps adding a person they say is a PhD candidate from that town and I haven't been able to find any indication that this person is sufficiently notable to include - consequently, I've been reverting it. I've tried to engage him/her on the talk page, but no luck. I can handle the reverting, but this user has taken to vandalising my user page (adding block templates). There was a hiatus over the last few days, but today the same thing happened again from 99.249.160.47 (talk · contribs). It happens about twice a day max, but it's persistent. Would it be possible for an admin to give these IPs a warning for vandalism? Blotto adrift (talk) 02:47, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Orangemarlin

Hi, I am being harassed by this user, and am not sure what to do.

OrangeMarlin has a history of viciously attacking anyone who says a word in my defense, and has done so again today.

On December 25, he filed a request for ArbCom enforcement against me, but his request was opposed by many editors: violet/riga, Thatcher, Ghostmonkey57, The Evil Spartan, and Sbowers3. Nevertheless, OrangeMarlin continues to harass me by making frivolous threats to seek ArbCom enforcement against me, regarding the exact same issue that those other editors weighed in about. Frankly, I would like some help here. So, in the holiday spirit, can someone please risk the further wrath of OrangeMarlin by helping me out here? Thanks.Ferrylodge (talk) 05:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

You're the one on parole, not me. And my complaint was supported by many more editors. So, go for it dude. OrangeMarlin 05:27, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I have not been blocked or banned from any topic or article, and am as free as you are to edit appropriately.Ferrylodge (talk) 05:29, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

• my advice to both of you is to chill out. my observations are that both of you push the edge of what is acceptable behavior, knock it off. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 05:34, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

That's the whole point, Rocksanddirt, I am trying to get OrangeMarlin to knock it off. He is insisting upon deleting longstanding accurate images at the fetus article, against consensus. Those images have been in the article for many months, and he has no consensus to delete them. He has not suggested any particular inaccuracy about them, and the images are amply supported by medical sources. They do not represent any POV. OrangeMarlin is POV-pushing; he does not want a fetus to be accurately shown, and so he is seeking to delete the images. Simple as that. OrangeMarlin has some fantasy that I am a pro-life Christian (I am neither).Ferrylodge (talk) 05:41, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Aren't you under Arbcomm-mandated restrictions? Guettarda (talk) 05:49, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

FL, you are the editor with the long history of behavior problems, isnt that so? And the one with an agenda to push. And the one on probation for doing exactly what you just did with those images. I think someone on probation would use common sense and just recuse themselves from all editing and discussion of articles where they are known to have a problem, and are basically unwelcome. Wouldn't that be the sensible, neighborly thing to do?--Filll (talk) 05:46, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Arthur Ellis sockpuppet again

Community-banned user Arthur Ellis (talk · contribs) now seems to be using 64.26.148.20 (talk · contribs). Can someone please block it as we did for 64.26.147.175 (talk · contribs) three days ago? For more background, please see see Category:Suspected_Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_Ceraurus). See also Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Warren_Kinsella#Log_of_blocks_and_bans. Thanks, Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 05:43, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages noticeboards