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This Month in Education: January 2014

Recent Multiple Blocks

Hi Kevin, since you're the admin who blocked the two users in an edit war I was watching, I was wondering if you could clarify a couple of things. I'm not trying to second guess your decision, I believe it was broadly fair; I'm just trying to understand a somewhat complex situation. 1) In this situation, BM and Stuff both edit-warred, that's quite clear, ergo they both deserved some kind of sanction/block. But their behaviour was not symmetrically disruptive, so why is the sanction identical? 2) Even if edit warring merited identical blocks, what of BM's other policy violations? Do they become moot points once the user has been blocked? They definitely misrepresented sources, was incredibly obtuse on the TP, reverted RS, etc.

Cheers, Vanamonde93 (talk) 22:42, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Partly: I'm actually really busy today, and can't fully evaluate all of their alleged misconduct (which is why I invited other admins at ANI to up the block if they felt it necessary.) Partly: generally speaking, I believe in giving people enough rope with which to hang themselves. A well-meaning editor who went too far (and they both went quite a bit overboard) will eat a 36 hour block, which isn't really a big deal - plenty of productive editors, including more than a few admins - have done the same. If BM comes back and continues to violate policies, every block they get will be longer and longer. The same is true of Stuff. Now that I'm actively watching both of them, they're both going to have less room to edit in disruptive ways in the future without pulling long or indefinite blocks. Basically: giving them both short blocks means that if they decide to be productive editors in the future they get to stick around, and if they don't, then they'll end up gone. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:59, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough. I guess the moral of the story is to drag somebody to ANI instead of fighting it out. Thanks a lot, Vanamonde93 (talk) 23:15, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I'd usually suggest WP:ANEW to report editwarring in progress, and both actively asking the person to desist and trying to bring outside editors in for additional opinions from places like WP:RSN or WP:NPOV. Oftentimes, having uninvolved editors come in can stop something before it starts. Things at ANI often turn in to unnecessary drama that consumes a ton of time for all involved, so it's usually worth avoiding when possible. Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:43, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I was referring to generic bad behaviour, not just edit-warring, but I will keep that in mind. Again, thanks. Vanamonde93 (talk) 23:59, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Vanamonde93, I misrepresented no sources. Find me one? If the user is uncapable to search the book(I doubt), it doesn't means so. And only 1 source is unavailable to most. Not other 2, that he accused. Or just you believe anything which is said in your favor? Remember, not everything that looks yellow, would be gold.

This is not the place for an argument with me. Go look at your talk page. Yes, you did misrepresent sources. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:27, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

• Bladesmulti: it would be a really, really good idea for you to leave the past in the past. If someone has accused you of misrepresenting sources, go to the relevant article talk pages, and make a coherent explanation as to why you think you are representing them correctly. Don't get bogged down worrying about past accusations. If you didn't misrepresent sources, past accusations don't matter. If it turns out you did, and you continue to do so, you will be indefinitely blocked in the near future. And again, that's a prediction, not a threat. One thing that may help: when you are engaging with other editors on the relevant talk pages, try to literally forget who you are talking to. Reply to what they say without considering who they are. Kevin Gorman (talk) 16:34, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Also, Kevin, it was impressive of you that you wouldn't get inspired from these complaint. But as you see, right after the block, StuffandTruth had removed/disturbed 3 edits of mine, 2 of them being days and months old. And other being few hours old. In short he was uninvolved in basically these 3 pages of all these times. Is it Misplaced Pages:Harassment? Since he made no improvement, but only removed the sourced material, that he certainly claimed to be "inserted by banned user". Bladesmulti (talk) 09:56, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

As a blunt warning Bladesmulti: be careful. You now have a large number of admins who are more experienced than I watching your behavior, and a lot less latitude to do things that might not get other editors in less trouble. I would advise you to leave the past in the past, and move forward trying to forget the fact that any of the editors involved have annoyed you previously. Any further blocks you receive are likely to be longer regardless of who they are imposed by. I have looked over your contributions and seen that you have improved the encyclopedia in multiple places, so I would prefer that you don't end up outta here, but to ensure that happens, you are likely going to need to edit more calmly than you have in the past. Please take this as a friendly warning and not a threat - I legitimately do not want to see you indef blocked, but instead, want to see you able to help contribute productively. Kevin Gorman (talk) 16:25, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Right now. When you review any of my case, kindly see the both sides(like you know already), now Stuff and truth allege that i WP:Canvassing yet he can't mention when i do that which is inappropriate. But Thanks a lot for the precious advise. Bladesmulti (talk) 16:28, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

"Forget who you are talking to." Yes, seems solution for everything. Bladesmulti (talk) 16:36, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

User:Kevin Gorman/Investment Underground

Perhaps it could be moved to be a sub-page of Misplaced Pages:Long-term_abuse/Morning277? —rybec 03:01, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi @Rybec: - that actually sounds like a pretty good idea, and once I get everything set up, I'll go ahead and do so (although I may keep them in my userspace until I find enough to restore.) These are for potential use in an upcoming Signpost; do any particularly bad examples of Wiki-PR's work come to mind to you? Especially interested in any of the ones that involved vatalyst. Thanks for the suggestion, Kevin Gorman (talk) 03:03, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

On Misplaced Pages:Long-term_abuse/Morning277, in the section "Sublimeharmony sandbox topics", the table it has 75 examples that were all posted from a single account into a single page. They're linked from the "draft" links. The 22 which mention Vatalyst are listed in my post on the blacklist talk page. —rybec 05:40, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

I do routine searches for things like the pay for play award Network Products Guide and promotional phrases like "industry-leading" for things to chop or AfD, but I've gotten us down to only 87 articles that mention industry-leading (mostly in press release cites) and two with Network Products Guide (both associated with a client of a PR firm I use to work at about 4 years ago, so I just left it alone). This is just how I occupy spare time on commercial breaks while watching TV sort of thing. I won't participate in the Wiki-PR article or hunt-down for obvious reasons (though I saw someone mentioned me on the Wiki-PR Talk page here), however if your investigation helps me find new ways to find articles that need cleanup, I'd be interested in any tips, such as pay for play awards or phrases that are predominantly only used on spammy pages or illegitimate sources not related to them specifically, but rather more broadly.

It's good for someone to maintain an actual record of actual events, even if the media is rather easily influenced by whoever they speak with. Cheers. CorporateM (Talk) 23:22, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

AfC review of User:Kevin Gorman/ResortsandLodges.com

The draft has been submitted for review at Articles for creation, but as it is a fully protected page it cannot be reviewed. You need to either remove the protection or the AfC submission. It is currently the oldest unreviewed submission to AfC. BTW I'm quite curious to know why a userspace draft would need to be protected in the first place? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:08, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

• hi Roger (Dodger67) - Well, that's awfully awkward. The horribly written page is a piece of work done by Wiki-PR - I undeleted it and userfied it so that I could use it as an example of Wiki-PR's quality of work, since their execs have recently claimed their main role is just dealing with legally actionable libel. The article I restored had two pending AfC templates in it originally, one at the top of the article, and one nested inside. I nuked the one at the top of the article, but I totally missed the second. I protected it to ensure that it stayed intact as an example of their work and wasn't modified by one of their socks to look better if the piece ended up getting linked somewhere. Since many of their socks are way past autoconfirmed (a year old sock was blocked yesterday,) I went ahead and did full instead of semi. Sorry to you and anyone else I confused. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:06, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks for fixing it. I'm not so sure we should really be preserving any of Wiki-PR's spams, just my 2c. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 22:12, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

The pages are already noindexed, so google won't pick them up, and at some point today I'll be adding warning banners to all of the pages to ensure that no one mistakenly believes they are articles. We already actually do preserve a lot of Wiki-PR's historical spam - see sublimeharmony's sandbox, where the revision history has copies of many Wiki-PR articles. I think that the value of preserving some of their spam in order to demonstrate to those curious the quality of their work outweighs any negatives. People are unlikely to believe they are real articles (especially once I throw up a red warning banner,) and if Wiki-PR wanted the wikitext back for some reason and didn't have a copy themselves, it's preserved in Sublime's sandbox anyway. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:16, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

• The Sublimeharmony drafts can be linked to Wiki-PR because of the Scarsdale Media citations. Another that may be connected to Wiki-PR is the prior version of the SouthWest Energy article. One revision says ((quote|1=4/28: add the following information to Southwest Energy's page in a neutral and encylopedic way. Darius will bill for an additional $500 for this update.}} One of the principals of Wiki-PR is named Darius. Others that would be good choices would be the articles about clients named in the press: Priceline, Ehud Rahim, etc. Wiki-PR hired many freelancers, some of whom probably did their own original writing. For example, User:Amatulic/PR article template looks like the work of Floralfs who has a distinct writing style and might not even have been a Wiki-PR subcontractor. —rybec 02:29, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Edit warring by Arildnordby

Hey Kevin. I went through the edit ban history/edit warring pages. I found that you were the admin who had blocked Arildnordby, he has made 3 or more reverts in last 24 hours on Sati (practice) page. See the diffs here:-

Also the user refuses to talk about his changes, as he made 2 of these reverts before typing a one liner on talk page. His edit speaks enough too, that how much unsourced, Fringed, unwanted he has added to the page. Including WP:GEVAL(list of non-notable incidents).

I don't get why he brought incident to ANI. Instead of solving on talk page. Reply me back. Once you are there. OccultZone (talk) 18:36, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I'll be reviewing this in more detail when I get home later this afternoon, but 3rr only applies to more than three reverts, not exactly three. Moreover, those three reverts occurred in more than 24 hours. Taking an initial look at it, Arild's writing appears to both have plenty of sources and not be of unacceptable quality. This looks like a content dispute to me, not editwarring. You also might want to read WP:BOOMERANG.

I'll be taking some other action tonight on this suite of articles as well. Kevin Gorman (talk) 18:46, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, Arid probably wants to contribute with a lot better version of Sati. I can withdraw this complaint back at this moment. OccultZone (talk) 20:09, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Problem with user Kwamikagami

Please see:

• Upper Silesian: , I reverted this one time, and again
• Template:Slavic languages: , I reverted this one time, and again
• Silesian German: , I reverted this one time, and again.

Why other users (ie. Sobiepan, Kwamikagami) can change articles according to own opinion, even if the topic is controversial? I can not go back it some times because you're scaring me with blockade. This can not be. Kwamikagami introduced POV to article, changing the name of the article on redirect and despite waged discussion, change on Silesian Polish. Franek K. (talk) 20:13, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

and this. Kwamikagami reverted my bold edit + personal attack. Next personal attack. Franek K. (talk) 21:40, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi Franek, I'll be taking a look at this within the next couple hours. Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:02, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I have not blocked Kwami, but have warned them, and will be keeping an eye on their behavior in the future. Trust me, you're not the only person who is at risk of getting blocked in this mess if they go way overboard :) Thank you for relatively keeping your calm in recent edits, even when provoked. Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:46, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Could you at least review the situation so you know what your talking about before handing out warnings? Much of the warning you gave me is just silly. And there can't be secret discretionary sanctions: such things need to be posted on the article so people know about them. — kwami (talk) 01:12, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

I replied to you on your page, but you seem not to have read my entire initial comment. Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:17, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
	For your work at User:Kevin_Gorman/Wiki-PR. Bearian (talk) 01:29, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

• Thank you... I hoped that resurrecting a few pieces of their past work would help counter some of Wiki-PR's recent public rhetoric. It's worth noting that I didn't pick out the worst seven pieces I could find, and also only resurrected pieces that could 100% be linked to them. I did offered to French via email that I would be happy to add any pieces of work they had done that were of substantially higher quality than the ones I had already resurrrected; he didn't reply. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:42, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thanks for answering my "conflict of interest" question. Jessica0Peace (talk) 01:54, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

• Hi Jessica0Peace - thanks to you for starting to edit Misplaced Pages :) please feel free to stop by my talk page if you have any followup questions about anything or need any help with anything. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:43, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Recent Edits

Hi! You recently helped edit Michele Colucci, an article I wrote, and I would appreciate if you would please consider contributing to the ongoing discussion about possible deletion of this article. Thank you. --Vindeniträden (talk) 21:45, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Please see

User:Smallbones/Questions on FTC rules Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:43, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks for the invitation Smallbones, but I'm going to hold off signing for now due to an interesting series of in-progress events. Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 17:19, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Libyan Civil War

Hey, you protected this page as a result of IP disruption after this AN discussion; one of the IPs went back to the page after the protection ended and continued their previous crusade, and the other notified me of it on my talk page today. What do you suggest is the best course of action? Thanks, ₆ansh₆ 20:33, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

• I'll reprotect it if they return again, but the edit you reverted was ~10 days old and they haven't come back yet. Kevin Gorman (talk) 20:36, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Sounds good. I haven't been watching the page, and the other IP just noticed it, so we'll see if the first IP comes back and does it again. I'll let you know. Thanks, ₆ansh₆ 20:43, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
    • The IP is back: see - I don't appreciate my good-faith edits being called "possible vandalism", but whatever. Do you think a formal RfC or something of the sort would help there? ₆ansh₆ 20:24, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
    • Both IPs are also back at it on National Transitional Council... ₆ansh₆ 20:33, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Ansh - for now, I've thrown semiprotection on both pages because I agree that the IP edits are disruptive. I will review the length and other action necessary later tonight, as I'm in a bit of a rush atm. I'll try to provide advice about how to move forward as I can, but it is likely going to be faster if you ask another admin - unfortunately, I have a >60 hour week this week. Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:16, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Alright, no problem. Take it easy! Thanks, ₆ansh₆ 21:23, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

User talk:KajMetz

Hi, Kevin, I just unblocked KajMetz based on their unblock request. I normally don't unblock without first consulting with the blocking admin, but you said at AN3 that you were off to bed and gave permission to any admin to act as they wished. Hopefully, you had a good rest. Regards.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:39, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

• No worries, looks good to me; thanks for handling it. Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:45, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you

Someone needs to take a stand against what vested contributors are doing to our community.

		The Admin's Barnstar
		For an uncommonly, and very justifiably, brave start to your career. Pakaran 00:24, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Have another one...

		The Resilient Barnstar
		For calmly and coolly dealing with a deluge of abuse, personal attacks and harassment that resulted from a good-faith effort to enforce Misplaced Pages policies. You handled this ugly mess far better than most users would. Robofish (talk) 00:46, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

		The Barnstar of Integrity
		For recognising that actions on-wiki have implications off-wiki too. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:15, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

	The Resilient Barnstar
	For believing in the importance of human dignity and being willing to defend that belief. Kaldari (talk) 03:51, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

		The Barnstar of Integrity
		For standing by your values in the face of calls to step down as a brand-new administrator. Jackmcbarn (talk) 04:17, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Elizabeth Camp

Probably I'm missing something, but she seems to have significantly less of a publishing record than most academics who would pass WP:PROF. Based on AfDs, Associate Professors even at places like Berkeley are often not accepted here , & I usually avoid working on their articles unless there is something special. DGG ( talk ) 00:19, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

• Hi DGG: it's one of my pieces that is still in progress; I have a good number of severely paywalled RS'es talking about her. Once some of the current situation calms down a little bit, I'll update the article and drop you a note to see what you think about it. Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:49, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

• Hi DGG: just to ensure you I haven't forgotten, this is still on my radar. Unfortunately, some of the sources I need to write the article a bit more I'll only be able to access on Monday. To give you some idea of why I wrote an article about her on the first place: Quite a bit has been written about Camp's work, definitely more than enough to pass WP:AUTHOR. Brian Leiter, who runs a very well respected philosophy blog (not dissimilar in stature to Groklaw or The Volokh Conspiracy,) singled out her move to Rutgers as solidifying Rutgers' standing as the #2 philosophy department in the US. Her organizational work has also been written about quite a bit.

All in all, I wrote about her because I think she's an interesting person who definitely meets WP:AUTHOR, I would strongly argue meets WP:ACADEMIC, and certainly meets the GNG - she certainly stands out over most academics. (It's also worth noting that Rutgers has a much stronger philosophy department than we do at Berkeley - Rutgers is typically ranked #2 in the US by the Philosophical Gourmet Report, which is the most widely accepted ranking of philo departments in the English speaking world, whereas Berkeley is normally ranked around #17. That said, I'll add in more sources as I can (and once I've finished my first round of making bios that are close to being stubs, I intend to go over them again, and add significantly more information about their work.) I'm also hoping to get some USEP classes involved in the near future to help build out some of the conceptual articles that will allow for the bios I'm writing to more easily explain the work of the philosophers I'm writing about (right now, we're missing almost all conceptual articles in the fields a lot of the people I am writing about are active in.) Best, Kevin Gorman (talk)

Do something that you enjoy....

.... is great advice, given to me several years ago. Misplaced Pages is about contributing your own time, free of charge (for most of us), to better the collection of human knowledge that's freely available. Becoming an admin is a good thing mostly, it means once you've had enough experience, you can help reduce the ever-increasing tide of detritus (alternatively, it opens you up to a tirade of insults, false accusations etc). It also makes you feel that you are better enabled to wade into situations. Most often, that wading will end up with you up to (if not over) your neck. There's an inherent inertia (or forcefield, or something) in Misplaced Pages in certain corners, and there are dark and dusty and cobwebby cubbyholes where you are probably best advised to avoid, a bit like a "dark Misplaced Pages", where all the normal pillars are ignored.

I see you're through the maelstrom, and hopefully that means you can return to doing (a) what you found interesting and enjoyable about Misplaced Pages and (b) things to benefit the encyclopaedia. Getting involved in certain patches around here is inevitably going to end in disaster, and sadly you picked one of those. My advice is harmless, really, but I do get tired of some editors spewing bile, threatening retirement time after time after time after time after time......., diva-esque, while their defensive minions rush around screeching. To reiterate, do something you enjoy. Best wishes. Feel free to delete, of course. Just some ramblings. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:30, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, TRM... one of the kind of funny things about this week has been that I've actually spent a huge portion of it doing fun, enjoyable work that is going to result in quite a bit of benefit to the encyclopedia. One of the reasons that many of my replies have been delayed on issues this week on-wiki is that I've been spending large chunks of time in meetings with GLAM's about content donations, as well as training upper division undergrads in preparation for having them write significant missing articles about environmental justice issues :) I find it a bit amazing that we don't even have an article about climate resilience, and soon we shall. Best wishes, Kevin Gorman (talk) 20:43, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

This Month in Education: February 2014

WP:AIV

I responded to your block notice in diff; this is more an conflict dispute than vandalism. Cheers, Deville (Talk) 01:55, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Responded to you there... but repeatedly blanking content that belongs there both according to literally every source you can find on the subject and common sense isn't a content dispute. It's vandalism. I can go make an ANEW report as necessary since it'll pull a block either place, but it seems a bit silly to send an obvious case that can fit in to two boards from one board to another. Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:02, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

For future reference, there are discretionary sanctions on the Ayn Rand topic areas from Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Ayn Rand that can be used. Mark Arsten (talk) 02:42, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I went beyond the report at WP:AIV and did a preliminary look into the edit war. Admittedly, I have very little knowledge about the subject which may have serendipitously assisted in terms of uninvolved. What was clear to me was that there were seemingly legitimate grounds that this person should be included on that list as there was a reliable source, the article was a GA, and that there were plenty of supplementary articles like Objectivism (Ayn Rand) that supported the claim she was a female philosopher. My block was already in place when I saw Mark Arsten's link about the ArbCom case. As such I blocked under the grounds of disruptive editing. Blanking can be a grey area and I think at this point we should all move on give the net result was (hopefully) agreeable to all reviewing parties. Mkdw 07:52, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

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