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• Refining the administrator elections process
• Blocks for promotional activity outside of mainspace

Long-term socks & evasion of accountability

I am certain that Partisan1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) (and Catherine2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)) is the newest reincarnation of Bloomfield (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) (35 identified socks since at least 2005). See this edit where Partisan1 in essence reverted the article to October 2006 version by his other sock AHAPXICT (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). All older socks are too stale for a checkuser. This user has a very long history of (at best) questionable edits: he creates what seems as legit content, but upon closer investigation becomes clear that it's total OR & POV. It literally takes years to clean up after him. See my ANI report in 2007 His latest hobby is copy & pasting bits & pieces of WWII articles about the Baltic states.

Opinions what to do? Renata (talk) 03:16, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

For future reference, the {{user5|Username}} template helps provide us much easier access to analysis links/tools - if you're making a complex report here, I recommend its use.

I'm looking into the histories now. Are you aware of archived sockpuppet / checkuser investigations on this set of socks?

Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 03:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I changed to the user template. The main checkuser is here: Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Bloomfield. There has been additions to it in Dec. Here's another: Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Kidsunited. And for a desert: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Tõnu Trubetsky. Renata (talk) 03:37, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for updating the report... I agree with the behavioral evidence on these two. I have indefinitely blocked both of them on that basis. Also see below... Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 03:41, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I just discovered this thread. Sorry for being late, but the indefinite block is a very serious matter and has to be supported by foolproof evidence, which is NOT there. I looked carefully at all the links provided and wonder why there was no request for check user filed in light of such serious accusations of sockpuppetry. User:Renata3, who is Lithuanian, is also User:Partisan1’s content opponent over a series of controversial articles written by Partisan1 about Lithuania including Kaunas massacre of October 29, 1941 and Lithuanian partisans (1941) , which I edited also by adding Google book references to it. In my opinion the article was legit, but was replaced with a disambig and vanished without as much as a deletion request (an insidious way of getting rid of controversial content). Renata claims in her opening statement (above) that Partisan1 is a sock of AHAPXICT, but please consider that there’s no proof of that other than her own earlier suspicion dating back to February 2007. None of the links to earlier incidents are about Partisan1, so where is the fail-safe connection to Bloomfied? I don’t see it. In any case, the decision to block this account indefinitely was made entirely on smoke and mirrors. That’s not good enough. --Poeticbent talk 18:28, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Here are two more of Bloomfield's socks who I believe have falsely been accused of being someone else's socks: Poetcourt1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) and Belarus2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). -- Petri Krohn (talk) 23:36, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Community ban proposal on User:Bloomfield

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

Per multiple massive sockpuppetry incidents listed above, numerous indef blocked sockpuppets - I believe Bloomfield (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has reached the community ban threshold. I recommend that the community ban him from editing on an indefinite basis, confirming the repeated indef blocks already handed down into an outright ban. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 03:41, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, please. Long overdue. Renata (talk) 03:46, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

And can we please {{db-banned}} some of his recent creations? Like Anti-partisan operations in Belarus which is a copy&paste from some POV book? Renata (talk) 04:09, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Thoroughly supported, though I don't doubt the person in question will continue to drain the time of normal editors through later socks. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 04:11, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

• Support one of the most persistent "crazy sock" on Misplaced Pages I personally have happened to come across, and the guy keeps coming back again and again. The clean up work after this guy has been tedious and is a neverending story. He has created a number of hoaxes as his specialty has been nobility and fake states, for example the Kingdom of Livonia , , etc. and the United Baltic Duchy get reverted into an insane version in regular bases. The most amazing hoax created by the sock I have come across has been WP:Articles for deletion/Principality of Estland. The guys has been also very active on his family history and attempts to get this WP:OR sorted out has been failed. etc. The only good thing about this sock is that his edit patterns are very easily distinguishable. well, at least for people who are familiar with the problem. His favorite area of editing has been anything that has to do with the historical Polish, Baltic-German, Belarusian and Lithuanian nobility and states.--Termer (talk) 05:27, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support. I also suggest keeping this and this updated. Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:49, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support - Not much to say, really. — neuro 19:51, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support Kill it; kill it with fire. HalfShadow 23:57, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support, user is obviously not here to help the project. Lankiveil 01:05, 15 March 2009 (UTC).
• Support long overdue; keep Category:Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_Bloomfield, too. --Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 09:47, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support - the level of sockpuppetry is absurd. ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢ 09:52, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support, has worn community patience down far enough.  GARDEN  10:35, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

For what it is worth, I support and express my surprise that it had not been formalised yet. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 12:51, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

 Done PeterSymonds (talk) 12:54, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Orthomolecular psychiatry and Orthomolecular medicine

Discussion to continue at AE as recommended by Ronnotel. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 17:57, 13 March 2009 (UTC) Please see part of this discussion which took place at AE, but discussion has now been moved back to here. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 19:03, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Unmarking this as resolved and unarchiving. The issue here cannot be resolved at WP:AE; see my comment there. II | (t - c) 18:15, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Having failed to make for a case for a merge of Orthomolecular psychiatry and Orthomolecular medicine (see Talk:Orthomolecular medicine and Talk:Orthomolecular psychiatry) editors User:Verbal, User:Orangemarlin and user:Keepcalmandcarryon are resorting to edit warring on the article as a WP:TAGTEAM. As you can see from the talk page they really don't have much of a leg to stand on either in terms of consensus or policy put continue plugging away at it and WP:SHOPPING.At times their tone has strayed into the territory of the obstructive and the WP:UNCIVIL and it is beginning to become quite disruptive. I request that someone ask them to give it a rest, and if they are really that set on a merge to attempt to carry it out via the proper procedures (which is what should have happened in the forst place on that article, but that's a long story). Artw (talk) 09:05, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

While I am not familiar with the case above, I ask admins to also have a look at the very same editors approach to mediation efforts here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Unomi (talk • contribs) 09:20, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

as an independant person: the redirect is a clear breach of the concencus not to.  rdunnPLIB  09:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Please ban these editors, as well as any other disruptive troll who believes science should be afforded the slightest respect on our social network. Badger Drink (talk) 10:22, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not an issue of science (despite continual attempts to portray it as a battle against the anti-science forces), but one of ignoring the results of a RfC, which concluded "the results of the above discussion are clearly against the merge." --Michael C. Price 11:03, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

correct diff for that sentence --Enric Naval (talk) 13:13, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Your sarcasm is out of place. Respect for science doesn't mean that unscientific tendencies need to be censored, it means they need to be framed properly. I haven't seen much of Keepcalmandcarryon, so I can't comment about this user. But OrangeMarlin has been "pro-science" hooligan for a long time, and recently Verbal tends to act in a similar manner. Just look at their childish behaviour at WT:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2009-03/Aspartame controversy, linked to by Unomi above. (The main advantage of this page is that it's must shorter than e.g. Talk:Aspartame controversy, so it's easier to see what's going on. Oh, and there is a neutral editor there trying to moderate.)

I am sure I am not the only editor with a firm science background who is sick and tired of seeing these editors' confrontative tag-teaming and complete failure to communicate in a meaningful way, each time they are confronted with a new user they don't agree with. It is my impression that they often prevent discussion and proper framing of notable fringe opinions in articles where it belongs, by refusing to discuss anything but the editors who propose such discussion. I am sure if these editors were editing under their real names they would be more careful, because there would be a real chance for them to hurt their real-life careers with their recklessly sloppy approach to writing about science. The fact that a large number of "pro-science" editors support each other in this misbehaviour doesn't exactly help, either. --Hans Adler (talk) 11:38, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

• I support the complaint and consider the behaviour of the offending editors to be quite outrageous. The topic falls within the scope of a general Arbcom finding which requires especially careful behaviour when editing such topics. User:ScienceApologist was involved in this matter and has now been banned for his bad behaviour and refusal to accept Misplaced Pages norms and sanctions. These editors show similar open contempt for policies such as civility and engage in similar game-playing and wikilawyering. Since they espouse the same methods and goals as a banned user, they should be subject to the same sanctions. Colonel Warden (talk) 12:21, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. The correct venue for this is probably Arbcom enforcement. Is there some reason this wasn't filed there? Ronnotel (talk) 12:58, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that there is a general fear of being labeled 'anti science' kook when confronting users who purport to represent Science and proclaim themselves as those that hold the barbarians at the gate. I believe those involved do not follow scientific principles or value intellectual honesty. I further believe that the costs incurred by an overbearing attitude towards them are quite substantial and real. This is one of the consequences, and part of a wider discussion on village pump regarding this kind of behavior. Unomi (talk) 14:14, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying I disagree with your sentiment. All I'm saying is that the admins who monitor WP:AE have been tracking this issue more carefully than the reader of this board. They are probably better equipped to render a decision and take action that is in line with the outstanding ArbCom decisions. I think you need to take this there. Ronnotel (talk) 14:33, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the list of suggestions at the head of this page, we seem spoilt for choice as there seem to be separate noticeboards for uncivil communications, edit warring, long term abuse and ban discussions. Perhaps someone should add arbcom enforcement to this list too but it's not clear what one is to do when there's a combination of all these. Anyway, you are an administrator - is there some reason that you do not wish to act upon this matter yourself? Colonel Warden (talk) 15:14, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Different admins tend to specialize in different areas. Given the long-running nature of the dispute here and the personalities involved, there are a relatively small number of admins who have the requisite knowledge of relevant ArbCom cases and other precedents that would be needed to be comfortable in building community consensus for any actions that are needed. I think you'll find these admins tend to congregate at WP:AE. I'm not saying I won't take action, all I'm saying is that this seems like an appropriate case to bring to WP:AE and that you will be more likely to generate a consensus there. Ronnotel (talk) 16:10, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I am the user who performed the merger after asking for input and receiving positive feedback. I don't co-ordinate with other editors as a tag team, and I respectfully ask that my interests in common with other editors not be used against me.

The articles had extensive duplicated information; also, what is called "orthomolecular psychiatry" and "orthomolecular medicine" are inseparable, and have been from the very first article by Linus Pauling coining the term (a term which is not accepted by medicine and never has been). User: Enric Naval eloquently made this case on the talk page. It seems that the major objection to the merger afterwards was that the final article was too long. However, the readable text occupies less than half the memory recommended by WP:SIZE. The discussion in general was marked by clearly partisan remarks versus arguments from policy by users such as Naval and the only truly uninvolved editor to respond to the RfC. As a result, based upon WP:VOTE, I saw the reversion by User:Coppertwig as unjustified and an example of Misplaced Pages at its worst: when sheer numbers of passionate advocates can sway content beyond what WP:WEIGHT, WP:RS, etc. would justify. Again, consensus is not a vote, and sheer numbers should not trump policies. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 16:03, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I am pretty much uninvolved at these articles. I don't know much about the subject other than what I've learned here on Misplaced Pages. I have no opinion on the subject with regards to its medical efficacy. I am the editor who brought up WP:SIZE. The current readable prose occupies about 50k. While this is significantly more than the 30k which the policy suggests is a good size, it does fall into the category of: "Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading time)". That can be an argument either way. However, in my RfC comment, I stated that I oppose the merge per Phil153's comments. Phil brought up the most relevant policy to this dispute: WP:N. The question should be: Does Orthomolecular Psychiatry merit its own article? This can be addressed by looking at the sources that are out there discussing this specific topic and weighing them against the requirement of WP:N: Has the topic received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject? My searches on Google (Web, Books, Scholar, and News) returned a plethora of independent, reliable sources, and have thus - in my mind - proved the notability of this topic.

Okay, this is neither here nor there, as this isn't the place to make such an argument. What has happened at the articles and what continues to happen is atrocious. The small group of editors mentioned in this complaint are ignoring the closing admin's interpretation of the RfC discussions: The discussion stalled and no consensus for the merge has developed. However, as I said below, the results of the above discussion are clearly against the merge. This small group of editors are now relying on personal attacks, edit warring and gaming the system to further bully their POV here. It is my opinion that the Orthomolecular psychiatry article be reinstated (and its POV issues be addressed immediately). -- Levine2112 16:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

WP:SIZE recommends 30 to 50 kb of readable prose, not "30k". The guideline also recommends "6,000 to 10,000 words of readable prose", and the merged article is below this range. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 21:45, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

<-- outdent

Here's the relevant chart from WP:SIZE:

While I think this is a reason to support separating the articles, I think the most relevant policy is WP:N which answers if Orthomolecular Psychiatry merits its own article. In my estimation it does. -- Levine2112 22:14, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and the text says 30 to 50 kb, or 6,000 to 10,000 words. Clearly, this is just a very rough guideline, so rough that no one has bothered to make it internally consistent. Even so, the current word count of the readable prose (by definition excluding boxes, tables, markup, headings), is just over 3000 words and thus well below any sort of arbitrary cutoff. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 22:27, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

WP:SIZE exists to keep articles at a length which is easy-to-read, so in that sense, word count matters. However, it also exists for swifter page downloads, and in that sense, page size is important. The readable prose is roughly at 50kb, which places it in the "May need to be divided" category. So it doesn't have to be divided per WP:SIZE, but it may need to be.

Again, what should be more relevant to the discussion is WP:N, as that is the true test of whether a topic merits its own article or not. I hope that you and the others participating in this discussion will address WP:N rather than get caught up on supposing individual editor's motivations or biases. The latter is not helpful. Stick with a civil discussion of WP:N and you should be all right. In the meantime, please abide by the reading of the RfC's closing admin and allow the article to exist (at least for the time being so WP:N discussions can proceed in good faith). I would really appreciate your cooperation here and think that it would be a grand gesture of Wikilove if you were to revert the latest redirect. Thanks. -- Levine2112 23:05, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

• I personally would love to see these two articles merged, and I'm happy to add what criticism I can find to the orthomolecular medicine article (along with balancing opinion, per WP:NPOV). However, I can't reward poor behavior, and thus I have to oppose the merge. The blatant lies and edit-warring that are occurring here reflect a basic misunderstanding of Misplaced Pages's basic principles: process, good faith, honesty, neutrality and civility. One convenient case in point is Keepcalm's words above. He says "Naval and the only truly uninvolved editor to respond to the RfC". What he doesn't say is that in the original RfC, DGG and Phil153 voted oppose, and had never edited the article before. On the talk page, the continuous assertion from Verbal is that "there was consensus to merge, therefore a RfC on the issue with no consensus is no consensus to demerge" . Keepcalm has said similarly that "since the merge occurred boldly and with consensus (at least at the time), I have reverted it". As I pointed out on ANI last time, the "consensus to merge" occurred when the 3 editors above, along with ScienceApologist, decided to merge in a discussion titled "This article was a POV fork". No note was made to the broader orthomolecular medicine talk page. Even then, Coppertwig, Colonel Warden, and myself expressed disagreement with it. The argument was actually immediately 4-4 (counting noted partisan editors ScienceApologist and John Gohde). How do you reconcile that with the frequent statement that there was consensus to merge? You tell me. In a place like Misplaced Pages, lying is usually easy to ferret out, but that doesn't seem to bother the above editors. II | (t - c) 16:49, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
• Comment One point which is not made clearly above is that the merge in question was the subject of an RfC. Admin User:Ruslik0 found against the offending editors and restored the article in question. As I understand it, this admin was previously uninvolved and so was acting impartially. By reverting this admin, there seems to be an element of willful disobedience/wheel-warring here. What is one to do when the results of dispute resolution are not respected? Colonel Warden (talk) 17:01, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

• This appears to be a content dispute, not an incident. Why doesn't somebody nominate the purported POV fork for deletion, and see what the consensus is? Jehochman 19:16, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

• Deletion is not appropriate for this per WP:BEFORE and not even SA proposed this. The only sensible alternative is merger and we have already had that discussion which produced a result. What we now have is editors refusing to accept the result and so this is a behavioural incident, not a content dispute. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:34, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

• (ec; executive summary: what Colonel Warden said). Thank you very much for the suggestion, Jehochman. Earlier in this same dispute, although I favour keeping it as an article, I wanted to put it to AfD in order to get a broad community consensus with a discussion lasting a reasonable length of time (neither too long nor too short) and a definite, enforceable decision one way or the other. However, after I inquired here I was told that AfD was not appropriate since no one wants to delete the article outright, only convert it to a redirect (though the effect on content is essentially the same); I therefore pursued an RfC and asked that it be closed by an uninvolved admin after 5 days, figuring that this would be essentially the same as AfD as far as getting broad community input. This was done.
  This is an incident rather than a content dispute because some editors are editwarring against the outcome of the RfC as stated and clarified by the closing admin. I would appreciate administrative action, beginning with statements as to whether it's acceptable to revert to a redirect under the current situation (as Verbal and Keepcalmandcarryon have been doing), or not. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 19:49, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I stated some little while ago on Talk:Orthomolecular psychiatry that my perusal of the sources indicated that probably there is only enough notability for a single article, with psych. treated as a particularly notable facet of OMM in general. Psychological syndromes are easier to see via apophenia, so this makes sense. At that point and at least as of earlier today, much of the WP:SIZE argument is obviated by vast swaths of tangentially related cruft clogging the articles. Since that point, there have been no sources introduced indicating that the topics obviously would be better treated separately and distinctly. I respect that other good faith editors have reached the opposite conclusion, and request that they improve the OMP article to the point that it is obviously distinct from OMM in general. Given that such improvements may as readily carried out in a section as an article, I am unclear concerning why anyone cares deeply about this particular issue one way or another, or why the usual battlelines have been drawn on this particular article. Frankly, it is a little bit frustrating to be having the same conversations with the same people when there is so much encyclopedia out there. Why do people seek out editors with whom they seem incapable of editing harmoniously? Eldereft on a public computer 74.179.112.100 (talk) 22:16, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

If that is the case, take a sharp knife and trim out any cruft or poorly referenced material. Then you can take the resulting crisp prose and add it to the other article as a section, and redirect. Is that a possible solution? Saying we need two articles because of length when one or both are bloated is not a convincing argument. Jehochman 00:15, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Re-reading this discussion, I see 7 or 8 editors (Artw, rdunnPLIB, Michael C. Price, Colonel Warden, Ronnotel, Levine2112, myself and arguably Hans Adler) supporting the idea that the uninvolved admin's close of the RfC should be respected, i.e. both articles kept; 2 (Keepcalmandcarryon and Badger Drink) apparently taking the opposite position; and two editors (Eldereft and Jehochman) presenting arguments in favour of a merge although this is not a forum for content discussion, but not as far as I understand their comments arguing that it's OK to revert against the consensus mentioned in the RfC close. This looks to me to be strong support for respecting Ruslik's close of the RfC. (involved editor) ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:46, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

To be fair, the major thrust of my post was a request that we drop all this faintly pointless drama and just go write an encyclopedia. The rest was historical context for uninvolved editors who happen to wander through this thread. And Jehochman - yes, that is exactly the solution I proposed; a couple editors, most notably Keepcalmandcarryon and Orangemarlin (this article is fairly close to the edge of my editing interests), were doing an admirable job of improving the quality and relevance of the sourcing and removing material not well supported by the references. And now we have this interrupting article improvements. Can we please just close the thread and move on? Not try to censure people volunteering for a generally thankless task? Does that sound like fun? Eldereft on a public computer 74.179.112.100 (talk) 01:20, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

OrangeMarlin, who had been informed of this discussion, has again redirected the page, citing consensus at the earlier discussion (which at the time of Keepcalmandcarryon's redirect had 6 editors, 4 for the merge and 2 opposed, a talk page discussion without merge tags or other notices) but going directly against the consensus of the later, broader discussion here (12 opposing the merge, 6 supporting) which had greater participation due to editors at the other of the two pages to be merged being notified, as well as a link from AN/I which apparently brought in more participation from editors who had been previously uninvolved at that time; that this was a consensus was perceived and noted by uninvolved admin Ruslik as part of the RfC closure; OrangeMarlin's revert is going directly against Ruslik's RfC closure, against the consensus here in this thread that that closure should be respected, and against my statement that I would consider such reverts under current conditions to be disruptive. I do not oppose further discussion of a merge through proper channels. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:10, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

And OrangeMarlin has reverted yet another time, leading to the page being protected. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:17, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

An IP or editor who was not logged in reverted an edit leading to page protection. Why Coppertwig did not mention the IP reverting OrangeMarlin's edit. QuackGuru (talk) 18:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Eldereft. My personal feeling is that one poor-quality article is preferable to two poor-quality articles, but it's clearly not worth fighting about to this extent. That energy should probably be spent on improving the two poor-quality articles. I do have to chuckle at Jehochman's well-intended comment. Back when I was more naive and optimistic about Misplaced Pages, I did actually attempt to "take a sharp knife and trim out any cruft or poorly referenced material" from orthomolecular medicine. I came away convinced that doing so was impossible given the currently prevailing tolerance for various unencyclopedic editorial practices. I don't want to speak for User:TimVickers, but I suspect he came to a similar conclusion after trying the same thing. I found it slightly less productive and rewarding that beating one's head against a brick wall. So more power to whomever tries it next. I'm not convinced that these articles are worth another second of anyone's time; these sorts of unencyclopedic morasses are probably best accepted as the price we pay for an encyclopedia which anyone can edit. MastCell  19:00, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi, MastCell, nice to see you. :-) Hi again, QuackGuru. In reply to QuackGuru: this is not just about editwarring. This is about causing disruption by editing counter to the consensus that was established in a broad discussion (18 editors) and recognized by an uninvolved admin as consensus. It's roughly as disruptive as repeatedly re-creating a page after it's been AfD-ed, except that here the consensus was to keep both articles. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:56, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, apparently the reason the page was protected was that OrangeMarlin requested indefinite full protection with a rationale which misrepresented the situation, 5 minutes after having reverted the page to a redirect: . Here OrangeMarlin stated, "Anti-science editors are insisting to remove redirect, which was established by consensus. The anti-science editors did an RfC which ended in non consensus to remove redirect." when in fact Ruslik's close of the RfC said, "The discussion stalled and no consensus for the merge has developed. However, as I said below, the results of the above discussion are clearly against the merge." ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:06, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

(There were 3 discussions. Ruslik's close mentions the last 2 discussions; OrangeMarlin's claim of consensus is based on an earlier discussion involving fewer editors than the 2nd discussion which had consensus against the merge.) ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:50, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Amazing, he's still continuing this course of action? I think the time has come to consider a block or ban. Artw (talk) 05:42, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

His repeated calling of those who disagrees with him "anti-science" (latest examples here and here, plenty more distributed across the talk pages of the disputed article) are pretty unhelpful and not particularly WP:CIVIL as well. Artw (talk) 06:19, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories

This article was recently moved to a new title by User:Sceptre with a claim that a "rough consensus" on talk supported it. In fact, there has been no recent discussion of a name change at all and all past discussions have more or less rejected a move (an example at the bottom here ]). Per BRD i notified scepter of my intent to revert and did so. As i tried to start a talk page discussion he immediately reverted my move (within 1 minute). As this article is on probation and i don't want to edit war, i come here. He's making a rather dramatic change that has been rejected by a consensus of editors on numerous occasions in the past.Bali ultimate (talk) 14:18, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

A BLP problem can make what looks like no consensus into a good consensus. Besides, consensus can change. Seeing as no-one's explained how the old title isn't a BLP problem, I'd rather have it at the title I've moved it to. Sceptre 14:24, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure you would. Wouldn't we all? But you ought to know better. Move-warring after a move has been reverted is considerably more serious than "simple" revert warring. Move-protected for a week, for now. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:30, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The divide on that article is the issue of whether all of it is a conspiracy theory or whether some of it is sincere. The catch is that conspiracy theorists usually think they're sincere, or at least they put on that front. The title Sceptre proposed might be more technically correct, but a title that goes clear across the screen seems excessive. And I don't get the "BLP violation" part. The mere presence of the article has been argued to be a BLP violation, and messing with it's title doesn't change any of that. Baseball Bugs 14:44, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean by "clear across the screen"? On Modern at 1440*900, it only goes to about two-thirds. The only limit is the software limit, which is 255 characters, and if we can fit a title in there, it's hardly nexcessive. Sceptre 15:49, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Some of us have smaller screens. But what BLP issue does the longer title fix? Baseball Bugs 15:52, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The assertion that some of the people mentioned in the article are conspiracy theorists when we have no indication that they are. Sceptre 16:12, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

One does not need to be a licensed, board-certified "conspiracy theorist" in order to promote a conspiracy theory. Your average disgruntled voter can promote it. The title makes no "assertion" that anyone is anything. But if it somehow has that implication, then how about something even more objective, like...Barack Obama citizenship fringe theories? :-) Cosmic Latte (talk) 16:33, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Wow, that's an actual redirect. I was expecting a redlink. Nice. Cosmic Latte (talk) 16:34, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Given that "conspiracy theory" is a loaded term, BLP indicates that we don't use such a term to describe someone('s actions) unless we can undeniably say that that is the case. Sceptre 16:36, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

In short, through citations that say so. And that's the dilemma, right? That some of these items can definitely be cited as "conspiracy theories", but not all of them? Baseball Bugs 16:59, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Pretty much. And we have ethical concerns to not lump those that can't be cited with the verifiable crackpots. Sceptre 17:06, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

If the "wrong" title raisies BLP concerns why is the page protected as such and this thread marked resolved? There doesn't seem to be much disagreement that this title lumps all of the parties making legal challenges as conspiracy theorists. This seems to be a legitimate BLP problem. ChildofMidnight (talk) 17:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

See m:The wrong version. Horologium (talk) 17:41, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Still, marked as unresolved. Sceptre 17:42, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Of course it's resolved here. As the old saw goes, what administrative action do you want now? Yes, you made a unilateral move you knew well would be controversial and you did so with an edit summary claiming a "rough consensus" supported your action (when in fact there had been no discussion on the talk page recently at all, pro or con; all past dicussion had rejected this move). Your unilateral action led to a flurry of move-warring that resulted in an admin protecting the page against moves for a week, and now discussion is underway at the talk page. Which seems well and good. So (again) what admin intervention do you want now?Bali ultimate (talk) 17:52, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Apart from the POV issues of titling the article with "conspiracy theories", the title seems to be a clear BLP violation that lumps people into this category. The alternate title maintains the conspiracy theory assertion and notes the legal challenges. This seems a very reasonable compromise that eliminates the BLP concerns. A good case could be made that the title should be "Legal challenges to Obama's citizenship" based on our NPOV policies, so I think a compromise title is very reasonable. What is the argument against alleviating the BLP problems of the current title? ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:10, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, all should be put into the conspiracy theorist category, as that is precisely what they are, as I have explained on the article talk page. The assertion that the current title is violating BLP in regards to those who have made these allegations of ineligibility is a false one. We have several articles with "conspiracy theories" in their titles, from fake moon landings to 9/11 to JFK's assassination. Reliable sources have described them as such, and we follow suit. Tarc (talk) 18:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Funny that, because I don't see sources that specifically call Fessler or the Tennessee representatives conspiracy theorists. Sceptre 18:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I suggest moving it to "Right wing whack job opinions from the people who got us in this mess"... it may be a little partisan though... ;-) Hiberniantears (talk) 18:21, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

While I tend to agree generally with your characterization, that might not be the most encyclopedic title. The proposal isn't to remove the conspiracy theory part of the title, but to also note that there are legal challenges. The proposed title would be "Conspiracy theories and legal challenges regarding Barack Obama's citizenship". I'm sorry I didn't mention it earlier. I think it satisfies the concerns of all parties. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:05, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest that this sounds more like a content dispute which does not belong on AN/I and those who are arguing here and not on the article's talk page, please take it there. As far as things being resolved, the page has been protected for a week, as far as this section was started for, it is resolved. Brothejr (talk) 19:14, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Disruptive conduct by Sceptre

The real problem here is that Sceptre is engaged in bad-faith tactics and disruptive conduct, in violation of article probation. He has made it clear on several occasions that he doesn't believe the article should exist in the first place . He's AfD'd it twice , and sent it to DRV once when the community disagreed with him ; he has repeatedly proposed name changes for which he has obtained no consensus; he has repeatedly reopened old discussions (and by old, I mean only a few weeks old) to reopen issues and make the same arguments that were rejected last time around; he has attempted to impose a name change without consensus by move-warring ,,; he has publicly rejected the validity of consensus , and appears to believe that he is the sole arbiter of policy. His current concern about the article's name is little more than a smokescreen for whittling down, and ultimately getting rid of, an article that he has failed to get rid of by other means. His conduct on this article over the past three months is an absolutely textbook example of disrupting Misplaced Pages to make a point, and Sceptre is lucky not to have been blocked for it. (That may yet happen.)

The article has been largely stable since its creation last December; the only real exception has been the disruptive wrangles and move wars caused by Sceptre. This is not fundamentally a content dispute; it's mostly the result of a single editor refusing to accept consensus and repeatedly disrupting the article in consequence, apparently to either impose his preferred solution or to bully or wear down other editors into letting him have his way. This is a canonical violation of the article probation regime which is in force across Obama-related articles. The probation empowers uninvolved administrators to sanction any editor for "disruptive edits, including, but not limited to, edit warring, personal attacks, incivility and assumptions of bad faith."

Given this record of disruption, I propose a topic ban on Sceptre editing, moving or participating in the talk page of Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories for a period of at least three months. Failing that, it will probably require an arbitration case to deal with Sceptre's misconduct, but I would like to see if the community can deal effectively with disruptive editing before involving the arbitrators. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:18, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Even though the matter is resolved, I'd like to chime in that the (repeated) move was obvious bad faith by Sceptre. The name has been repeatedly discussed and polled, and every single time a consensus resolved to keep the original name. I completely agree with ChrisO that a topic ban for Sceptre is appropriate and needed, since his/her entire contribution history to this topic has been disruptive. LotLE×talk 19:22, 13 March 2009 (UTC) (note my emphasized word, BTW; I absolutely do not support a general ban on Sceptre, just a restriction from working on this specific topic)

I think I remember a history of disruption on other content areas, also.. Any reason we're still tolerating this guy? Friday (talk) 19:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah.

He's brilliant at article-writing, particulary with bringing pages up to GA/FA standard. He's an asset to Misplaced Pages in that sense, and this being an encyclopedia, that's great. You can't seriously be suggesting that he's banned? ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢ 19:38, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Topic-banned. That simply means that he can't edit articles relating to the topic area - in this case Barack Obama - for the duration of the ban. He is still free and unimpeded in editing any other articles on Misplaced Pages. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:45, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

No, I was replying to Friday, who seemed to be implying an actual ban. ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢ 19:53, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, thanks for clarifying that. I wouldn't support a full ban on Sceptre, though a short block for the recent move war would not be inappropriate. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:20, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

What exactly would you be preventing by blocking me for move-warring? FutPerf already protected the page. Sceptre 20:27, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

You know what, forget it. It's only a trivial matter of defaming people. Sceptre 19:41, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Which, fortunately, Misplaced Pages is not doing. Reliable sources have associated their actions with the conspiracy theories and that is how they are presented in the article. --Bobblehead 19:46, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Again, where are the sources that Fessler and the Tennessee representatives are conspiracy theorists? We need them, or it's a BLP problem. What part of this don't you understand? Sceptre 19:48, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Sadly, the only defamation is what you see. However, Misplaced Pages is not here to soften things. Not here to call things other then what they are reported as. We call the issue, what the reliable sources call the issue. Plus, if you look up the definition of conspiracy and then look at each citizenship theory, it's vary hard not to call them what they are, conspiracy theories. Finally, something that must be keep in the back of our minds, we should not, and cannot legitimize these theories if the reliable sources do not legitimize these theories. The title change could be construed, whether intended or not, as legitimizing the theories in the article. Brothejr (talk) 19:51, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not removing "conspiracy theories" from the title. I'm adding "legal challenges", because it then removes the unsourced implication of Fessler and the TN representatives being conspiracy theorists. It's actually more accurate than the current title, and less BLP-volatile. Personally, I'd rather unintentionally leigitimize a theory than deliberate debunk a theory on Misplaced Pages. Sceptre 19:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

• No problem here, move on - Sceptre and I have rarely agreed on anything. He has been mean and rude to me a lot. With that said, I don't see any problems here. I think he has followed standard processes and that there is an assumption of bad faith on the part of Chris O. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:51, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Huh? Chris O was not the one to continually try for RFD, Chris O was not the one to continually bring up and re-bring up changing the title. Chris O was not the one who kept on changing the title against consensus. Brothejr (talk) 19:55, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Move-warring, rejecting consensus and failing to engage in any dispute resolution whatsoever are the polar opposite of "following standard processes", and are what the current article probation was specifically implemented to prevent. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:55, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

AGF, please Chris. Once you do that, you won't see these things as disruptive. However, with each moment you make it harder and harder for me to assume that you aren't disrupting and that you are here out of good faith. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:57, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Once again, OR, you're backing the wrong horse and slaying the messengers. Nice work. Chris O is the one who followed good procedure, not the one dragging around the fermenting chunks of equine carcass, flogging it in the streets. ThuranX (talk) 23:12, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

• Page moving wars are stupid, and Sceptre should not be doing that, but a topic ban (or any kind of ban) is unnecessary for this highly productive editor. These are legitimate concerns. The title of the article essentially lumps everyone mentioned in the article into a group claiming an Obama birth conspiracy, which is not entirely accurate and not fully supported by reliable sources. Although I personally think everyone who questions Obama's presidential eligibility is a wack-job, I think we have to be mighty careful with article names that characterize their content with such loaded terminology. Surely a less loaded title can be found? -- Scjessey (talk) 19:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure, let's also find a "less loaded title" for 9/11 conspiracy theories, Apollo Moon Landing hoax conspiracy theories and Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories while we're about it. We use the term "conspiracy theories" for good and well-sourced reasons. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:00, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Apples and oranges. I'm seriously doubting your good faith too. Sceptre 20:02, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

"Any editor may be sanctioned by an uninvolved administrator for disruptive edits, including ... assumptions of bad faith." Violating article probation on a thread about your violations of article probation is not a good idea. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:12, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Doubting good faith isn't the same as assuming bad faith. Otherwise, you could be topic-banned too. Sceptre 20:30, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The difference is that you have already more than adequately demonstrated bad faith through your conduct, as documented by the diffs I posted above. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:46, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Difficult situation. Sceptre has clearly been seeking some kind of conflict. He could have let it drop here after not getting blocked for move-waring, the page was move protected, and yet another time-wasting discussion was begun on the relevant talk page. But he insisted on keeping it here. He lied (a hard, but accurate, word in this case) about a "rough consensus" for his original move when there in fact there had been no discussion on it whatsoever recently and past discussions, which he participated in, ended in a consensus not to change. He's being flip now, and obtusely seeking to use BLP in a manner that would make it impossible to describe any conspiracy theory on the planet as such. He's shown no indication that he's willing to work within the rules and framework here (at least when they don't suit his own interests). And (according to his block log) he's a guy who's had a lot of last chances. However, I don't know that he's sought to rename the article before (doesn't show in the logs, but i'm not that savvy; maybe those get purged unlike regular edits?) and hasn't edit-wared over content there (at least not recently). Maybe he gets a strict warning not to make any possibly controversial edits without support on the talk page over there and if he fails in that, then just give him a nice long timeout. Maybe a further proviso that he can't propose a name change more frequently than once a year.Bali ultimate (talk) 19:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Sadly, there isn't and the current title is the most accurate. If you see something in there that is not considered a conspiracy theory, then remove it. Brothejr (talk) 19:58, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

For the fiftieth time, where are the sources for Fessler and the Tennessee representatives? Sceptre 19:59, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

That their actions have been linked to a conspiracy theory? The sources are used and cited in the relevant section of the article. I made helpful edit summaries "for sceptre tktkt" when i added the quotes.Bali ultimate (talk) 20:03, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

No, that they're conspiracy theorists. That's how high the bar needs to be set. Guilt by asssociation is unacceptable for Misplaced Pages. Sceptre 20:07, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

What nonesense. No one is calling them "conspiracy theorists." The article says that they appear by their actions to believe there is some merit (i use appear because maybe they're doing and saying things they don't believe to be disruptive, time-wasting, score cheap political points etc...) to what a preponderance of reliable sources describe as "conspiracy theories." There is no guilt by association. They openly state and do things consistent with the things called "conspiracy theories." And on this note, i support a topic ban or other steps that might curtail your ongoing disruption.Bali ultimate (talk) 20:11, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

And what the article says violates BLPs. We need concrete sources that show they believe in this theory. Stringing together the facts that they want Obama's birth certificate to be released, and that some people who want Obama's birth certificate to be released are conspiracy theorists, to imply that they're giving merit to the theory is synthesis and is prohibited per BLP. Sceptre 20:23, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

As someone who has been totally uninvolved looking at this, I agree that it has gotten woefully out of hand. I see sources listed in the article that have already associated the actions with conspiracy theory even for the protested individuals, so I don't see a BLP problem. I agree that ending the debate and moving on is appropriate, and that the issue can be raised again in a few months or if there is new information on the topic that suggests a change. To paraphrase an old yarn, "the problem with consensus is that sometimes the other guy wins." There are many other things to be done on Misplaced Pages, and the world does not end if Misplaced Pages is wrong. SDY (talk) 20:02, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I would certainly like to move on but the problem is that Sceptre has not allowed anyone to move on. Every time a consensus has been reached or (so we thought) a dispute settled, Sceptre has waited a few weeks before reopening the issue again. This can only be resolved by Sceptre either voluntarily agreeing to disengage from the article (which he's showing no signs of doing) or for him to be topic-banned for violating the article probation, which he has unquestionably done. Or of course he could simply be blocked. Which do you prefer, Sceptre? -- ChrisO (talk) 20:09, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose. I'm against a topic ban in this case, for reasons explained by Scjessey and others. However, I would recommend to Sceptre that edit-warring is not very useful, and that posting at the BLP Noticeboard might be a more useful pursuit. I agree that there is a very serious BLP problem here. The fringetard conspiracy theorists are being emphasized in the article title, to the exclusion of people who merely believe that a clause in the U.S. Constitution should be enforced more actively. So, it's basically a smear job, and Sceptre is right to be concerned. As far as the Tennessee representatives are concerned, a source says they are continuing a conspiracy against Obama, not that they are theorizing any conspiracy by Obama (and one of those representatives merely speculated that some unnamed people might view them as conspiracy theorists). Sceptre, would you please indicate that the edit-warring has ended? Thanks.Ferrylodge (talk) 20:10, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

  I kind of find the concepts of edit warring and BLP enforcement to be mutually exclusive. I do agree, though, that I should have gone to the talk after the first move back. Still, what people are missing in this thread is being bold. I thought that there was a rough consensus that the title, in its current form, was not the best title, and given BLP concerns regarding Fessler and the TN representatives, that gave me the justification to move it. Sceptre 20:23, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

  Well, given your history, you're unlikely to get a break here unless you acknowledge that you were way out of line. There was no consensus to change the title, and being bold has nothing to do with edit-warring.Ferrylodge (talk) 20:35, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

  I don't do forced apologies, as I don't think they're sincere. I will say that I acted like a bit of a cock and made a rash mistake, because that's true. Mind you, if I said I was out of line, someone's bound to jump on that and say, "he admitted he was disruptive! Topic ban him!" Sceptre 20:43, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to remind Ferrylodge that SCOTUS disagrees with you about whether or not the constitution was sufficiently enforced; the actiosn of lesser representatives after the fact is without constitutional argument merits as a result. Off topic, no state can pass a law making the requirements for candidacy for federal office more stringent, a fact that any sitting representative at state or federal level ought to know. This is all theater for the right wingers desperately grasping their straws by politicians hungering for votes and favors. ThuranX (talk) 23:19, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

This probably isn't the place to get into detail about that. Suffice it to say that the Constitution gives the separate states freedom to decide how presidential elections are run ("Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors....").Ferrylodge (talk) 23:27, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Completely different. Each state may determine the method of voting, but NOT place additional state laws on top of the federal constitution, which sets the eligibility of candidates. You keep building strawmen, though... ThuranX (talk) 04:09, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

If a thirty-year-old seeks to get on the presidential ballot in a state, the state is perfectly entitled to pass a law requiring proof of age, given that the constitutional minimum age is 35. If you dispute that, fine, but it's the simple truth.Ferrylodge (talk) 04:19, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

• Comment As a reminder of history, Sceptre was permanently banned from Misplaced Pages in 2008, for disruption. The indef block was changed to a 2 month block as a "last chance". This was extended to a 3 month block after he started socking. The block expired in December, and since then he has continued to be disruptive. You would think that a person with this history would learn to be a bit less assertive, but that doesn't seem to have happened. Looie496 (talk) 20:20, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

That's interesting. See the discussion at . -- ChrisO (talk) 20:24, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

• Topic Ban, both editors - IMO, I think a Topic ban is appropriate for both editors. It is clear that both editors are way too involved. If Chris truly has the best intrest of Misplaced Pages in mind, then there will be no more issue here. If Sceptre has the best intrests in mind, then he will realise that the community does not want a war over this. The community can step in during the ban and decide what should be done to the article. Sceptre may indeed be a star editor, but that is no excuse for inapproprite conduct such as edit/move warring. As editors, we need to clear our heads before we use our keyboards:) Good luck to all involved. Sephiroth storm (talk) 20:29, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

"Both editors"? I've had no involvement whatsoever in the move war and I've not edited the article in a week. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:41, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Please allow me to clarify, I mean to suggest a restriction, by consensus, for both editors to stay away from the topic, not nessesarily an administrative action. Sorry for the confusion. Sephiroth storm (talk) 20:51, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Please present evidence of disruption by ChrisO, otherwise please stike your accusations against him. Jehochman 21:17, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

• Support - Please topic ban both User:Sceptre and User:Ferrylodge for their entirely disruptive activities at Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. Scepter prosecuted a page move war against consensus and policy, and Ferrylodge has engaged in argumentum ad nauseum and endless talk page disruption. Please read Talk: Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories and its archives to see what's been going on there. Note: I am an involved editor, not acting as an administrator in this matter. Jehochman 21:14, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

• Well, let's just bring out the guillotine and ban everyone. Let's ban Scjessey too, since I've just been endorsing what he's been saying.Ferrylodge (talk) 21:20, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

• What is this, the King Solomon response? Threaten to hurt both sides and see which one folds out of the concern for the true subject? Bah. This is a melodramatic situation. Such ultimate responses are unneeded. Come on Jehochman. This can't be -that- crazy yet. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

• Comment - Well, consensus, now and in the dozen other times this has been brought up, is rather clearly against removing the "conspiracy theories" from the title. A topic ban would probably depend on what Sceptre plans to do at the article once the move protection expires. Tarc (talk) 21:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

  I can adapt to it. I've recognised that the page won't be deleted, hence why I've stopped nominating it for AFD. I should point out I'm didn't remove "conspiracy theories", I added "and legal challenges". Sceptre 21:57, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it's pretty clear that he has no intention of abiding by the consensus decision and has gone past the line from "bold" to "too bold" (Thank you, Mr. Spenser). His point isn't entirely ridiculous, consensus can come to a bad decision if the participating editors are biased, but that's why we have mechanisms like requests for comment, the BLP noticeboard, and arbitration (unless, of course, the whole world is against you). Disruptive editing is not the solution to an unacceptable outcome, and it should be punished in some fashion if it has taken place. A topic ban appears to be appropriate if the allegations listed here are confirmed. SDY (talk) 22:09, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Just curious, is there any official written Misplaced Pages policy which allows positive contributions to serve as protection from repercussions for disruptive editing? I was simply wondering if it had ever been formally articulated. If not, doing so genuinely might be a good idea, as long as it includes limits to how many times it could be used. arimareiji (talk) 22:28, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

IAR allows you to screw the rules (affluence not required), but whether you can get away with it depends on how popular you are. Sceptre 22:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

There isn't anything formal, but that doesn't mean that it's not taken into account. I'd strongly oppose a formal guideline, since some people would use it as a license to be disruptive. SDY (talk) 22:34, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

If it can be openly referred to as a reason to protect someone from repercussions, as it has been several times in this thread, then it would seem nothing is lost by bringing it all the way out into the open. In fact, there could be substantial gain if doing so allows a limit to be placed on how many times this defense can be used. At present, it seems there is no limit - and that goes a long way toward driving away other positive contributors. arimareiji (talk) 22:52, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I see your point, but I still think it would be ill-advised. Maintaining and enforcing such a system would be a massive drain on resources too, since the quality of edits is not something that is easily judged and the volume of edits often means little. SDY (talk) 23:44, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I was a little bit too bold, but I will abide by a consensus decision that's in line with BLP. I'm trying to do so on the talk page, and we're getting there (by discussing removing tenuous paragraphs, instead of moving), but there's still some work to do. I think everyone got a little too heated earlier on and we're hopefully settling down now. I think that topic banning me would damage the efforts to improve the article; doubly so seeing as Scjessey's quit the discussion in disgust. Oh, and ArbCom don't rule on content. Sceptre 22:27, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Not directly, no, but they would intervene in cases where it's obvious that someone is acting based on motivations other than improving the article (certainly a possibility on political topics). SDY (talk) 22:34, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

That simply isn't good enough, Sceptre. You've already appointed yourself as the sole arbiter of what is "in line with BLP". You've already stated your intention to disregard any consensus that you feel doesn't follow BLP. You've justified all your actions to date in the name of BLP. You've repeatedly rejected consensus decisions because you deem them incompatible with BLP. And despite everything that's been said so far, you still haven't stepped away from the article. Do you really want this to go to arbitration - not for a content ruling, but to put your conduct under a microscope, with your past conduct coming up for review as well? -- ChrisO (talk) 23:16, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break: "Disruptive conduct by Sceptre"

I support a one month topic ban. Long enough for Sceptre to cool off about this topic and build interests in the areas in which Misplaced Pages benefits. Otherwise, I suspect it will be well under a month when we see the 'Sceptre causing problems on Obama CT page again' AN/I. ThuranX (talk) 23:19, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Whoa Chris, Why don't we give Sceptre a chance here? Give him the chance to abide by the BLP descision and work out the articles issues. If continues to "disrupt" the activities, then feel free to take other measures. Sephiroth storm (talk) 23:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd suggest you re-read what he's written above: "I will abide by a consensus decision that's in line with BLP". His approach all along has been to reject consensus because it doesn't accord with his personal views on BLP. After his two AfDs and one DRV were rejected, he made this approach clear in the article (see edit summary here) and only a few hours ago on his own talk page . He's literally promised to do nothing differently to what he's already done, since he's justified all his actions to date - including the move war - in the name of BLP (see edit summaries here and here). His "in line with BLP" clause is nothing more than a get out of jail free card. Note that he's given himself room to ignore consensus if it's not "in line with BLP" in his judgment. That is how we've got into this problem in the first place. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:13, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

That's because, if there's a consensus decision that's not in line with BLP, BLP will always win out. You can't make a consensus decision to defame someone. Sceptre 00:18, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

If the consensus is that it isn't defamation, what then? SDY (talk) 00:21, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Exactly right, SDY. Sceptre, the point that you are consistently missing - or ignoring - is that you are setting yourself up as the sole arbiter of what meets BLP and other Misplaced Pages policies. If there is a consensus of other editors that something meets the requirements of BLP, then it's not your place to override that consensus. When the AfDs and DRV rejected your position, your response was to festoon the article with tags and declare "AFD stupidity does not override NPOV and FRINGE". You've made no attempt to go to the BLP noticeboard. When you raised the issue at the fringe theories noticeboard you were told that the article was created as a result of a discussion on the noticeboard, to which you replied: "You've got to be fucking kidding me, right? ... Jesus Christ, was everyone's brains on holiday that day?" The consistent theme is that you believe that you are right and everyone else is wrong, and that if consensus comes to a decision with which you disagree, you are empowered to ignore it and act against it. That's a canonical sign of disruptive editing: "Rejects community input: resists moderation and/or requests for comment, continuing to edit in pursuit of a certain point despite an opposing consensus from impartial editors and/or administrators." -- ChrisO (talk) 00:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

You raise an interesing point here. I think the point is that a consensus to keep content in an article, and a consensus that said content doesn't violate our policies, are not necessarily the same thing. Take, for an example I know of, the South Park episode "Volcano". An AfD could plausibly end in a "keep", but that doesn't make it not a violation of WP:NOT#PLOT. Transplant this onto the conspiracy theory article: a consensus could end up in keeping the content, but that doesn't automatically make it not a violation of BLP. It would be best to focus the discussion on whether the content is BLP-compliant, not whether it should be kept. Otherwise, we run around in circles. The reason why I keep harping on on the talk page is that no-one's given me a reasonable explanation on how the stuff about especially the TN representatives and Fessler are BLP compliant. Most of the replies tend to use circular logic, or at the very least, detours to answer the question. By the way, I won't move the article again rashly, but I will advocate for strict BLP enforcement on the talk page. If only for the fact that we screwed up articles about the last president, and we don't want to do it for this president. Sceptre 00:36, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

That doesn't answer my question. If consensus is that it is not a BLP violation, will you abide by that consensus? SDY (talk) 00:42, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Although that's an academic question, because there's no consensus either way. And there's no consensus on what "no consensus" defaults to regarding BLPs, funnily enough. Sceptre 00:50, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not an academic question. Are you willing to accept a decision that you do not agree with if consensus is against you? If you always claim that there is no consensus when you don't agree with it, then a block is probably the best option. If you are willing to work with other editors and concede defeat when consensus is against you, then I don't see a reason for any administrative action. SDY (talk) 01:28, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

The BLP policy says that the burden of evidence is on people who wish to add or restore information, rather than on people who wish to remove it. In other words, consensus is required to retain information, and if there is no such consensus then removal is acceptable even if there is no consensus to remove. I'll leave it to you to figure out how all of that applies under present circumstances.Ferrylodge (talk) 01:37, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

That is a pretty fanciful twisting of policy there. What we have here is a user who lied about there being "rough consensus" to move the article, and when challenged, came up with "OMG BLP!" BLP is obviously an important policy to adhere to, but like WP:AGF it is oftentimes raised as a shield, or cudgel, to get one's way when other methods have failed. Suffice it to say, the claim of BLP violations was met with deep skepticism by most of those who participated in today's discussion. It is up to Sceptre, and you if you choose, to overcome that skepticism. Not the other way around, I'm afraid. Tarc (talk) 04:25, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

There are real BLP violations occurring at this article (including by the admin who started this thread), and being reverted. This incident with Sceptre raises the interesting question about what happens if an article title contains a BLP violation. There was no consensus to change the title, but also no consensus to restore it after Sceptre changed it. Anyway, I've already agreed that Spectre shouldn't have edit-warred about it. Sceptre said at this page: "I should have gone to the talk after the first move back….I acted like a bit of a cock and made a rash mistake." So, there seems to be some contrition.Ferrylodge (talk) 04:37, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Wow, I must say this is the most interesting conversation I've had to date on Misplaced Pages, I'm please to be participating. So it appears we need to find a consensus on the BLP status of the article. That should be step one, correct? AFTER we have done so, we can see what happens and take action, IF nessesary. Sephiroth storm (talk) 03:41, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

• As many know, I worded/proposed/enacted Obama probation after a lot of time and effort - so if my words end up deaf ears, then this will end up at RFArb, which is not good news for anyone.
• I'd like to make a criticism on Chris O at this time prior to any further comments. Chris O, in opening this subsection, you've gone against what Obama probation set out to achieve - avoid these sorts of discussions. You've either doubted ability to sanction (if you are uninvolved), you are unwilling to sanction over the merits as you have doubts as to whether you're in the right, or the final possibility is you don't use Obama probation in the same way BLP Special Enforcement is treated by much of the community. I don't know which it is.
• When BLP is used to justify certain edits or actions, they need to be considered carefully. On the other hand, using BLP to game the system is not acceptable and still qualifies as disruptive. And moves wars (and the like) definitely fall within the ambit of Obama probation.
• If you proceeded to sanction, this would've been so much easier; either the community would be discussing an appeal by Sceptre, or if that failed to produce a clear consensus, then it would be ArbCom considering an appeal by Sceptre (which is all that is necessary if you're not interested in a total ban on Sceptre).
• Now we're here, it's unlikely that this will be resolved without going to ArbCom. I'm not ruling out the possibility of resolution, but it is much more difficult to achieve unless the community outright agree/disagree with you. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:17, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid you're missing the obvious points: as an involved administrator the article probation forbids me from sanctioning him myself (which I would certainly have done otherwise), and the probation page specifically says: "Please direct all discussions of this remedy to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents", which is exactly what I've done here. If the community is unable to agree on how to deal with clear-cut violations of a community sanction, then ArbCom is inevitable - but that's the community's failing, not mine or yours. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:44, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I've struck a large chunk of what I said above; I misread a few earlier comments - apologies! Thank you for politely clarifying, and I agree; if the community can't deal witih an issue, then ArbCom is inevitable. I will also note at this point that this isn't a view either way on Sceptres conduct; just comments with respect to how the remedy should've worked in this sort of incident if an uninvolved admin shared similar concerns. Ncmvocalist (talk) 12:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Irfan Yusuf

I've edited this article to try and make it more NPOV, but may have overdone it. The situation involves user_talk:Irfsol who identifies himself as the subject of the article and who has edited the article and who has contacted user_talk:Michellecrisp complaining of defamation . I'm posting it here for wider consideration of the issues involved and to garner additional attention to watch the article. Thanks. ChildofMidnight (talk) 16:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Everything you added was either already sourced, or sourced by you, so I don't see any issues myself. I added the article to my watchlist in case of any potential removal of cited content.-- Darth Mike  (join the dark side) 19:34, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

This lawyer had already been warned last year of our "No legal threats" policy. After examining his latest screed, I had to block him for violating it. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:36, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Did he actually threaten legal action? I think he said he would mention it to his publisher, but I didn't see an actual legal threat. But perhaps what he said was enough to violate the policy. I am new to those issues. Anyway, thank you both for your consideration. I agree this is resolved.ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:42, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Orange Mike, wasn't that his professional address? I am not so convinced of the validity of the block. -- FayssalF - 20:05, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Comment after resolution The history here shows that user:Michellecrisp as far back as December last year was trying to stop continued attempts for the blocked editor Irfsol to have her contact him, and explains why. It appears improper to me that he continue to address her user page as late as a few days ago, providing further information clearly designed to have her contact him. I also note that Michellecrisp has not edited since Mid-January making it even more perplexing why he continue to address her in this manner. I was of two minds to provide the block myself but chose to remove the two lots of information from Irfsol on Michellecrisp page in the first instance (before I saw this thread). That said I can see the link between Michelle's summation of the request and Orange Mike's action. I support that action.--VS 23:08, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the background information Steve. Fair enough. I've also reviewed the article today and found nothing problematic thanks to user:ChildofMidnight's recent edits backed by reliable sources. FayssalF - 11:47, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

User:Axmann8's User page

Is the campaign image on User:Axmann8 acceptable? Besides the fact that there is no copyright statement attached to the image (the Palin campaign probably would not mind the image being put up wherever they can get it), is the use of a campaign image a violation of the no polemical statements provision of WP:USER? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 20:22, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Other than the copyright thing, I don't see anything too wrong with that. We have "this user is a democrat/republican/anarchist/whatever-the-hell" userboxes which more or less serve the same purpose. The image isn't attacking anyone or deliberately provoking them, so it can stay until it's deleted for the copyright thing. Hersfold 20:27, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Is he still here? Huh. *checks* Oh, he only got a week this time. I've seen some other similar pages, doesn't really bother me either. (Besides, I have a strange suspicion that editor won't be around much longer anyhow.) Tony Fox (arf!) 20:29, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

As much as I disagree with him, I dont take issue with it, Its a copyrighted image, so thats the only issue. As was said earlier, we can have userboxes that say "This user voted for hope and change, not country first." --DemocraplypseNow (talk) 20:31, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm a stolid Democrat, and I don't see any problem with it. The sour-grapes item about Obama is gone, and that was polemic. Wishful thinking about a possible future candidate, in a positive way, is harmless enough. Besides, she's cute. :) Baseball Bugs carrots 22:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

MZMcBride continuing automated deletions despite injunction

MZMcBride is continuing to make automated deletions despite the ArbCom injunction :

MZMcBride is directed to refrain from using automated tools (including bots and scripts) to delete pages or nominate them for deletion while this arbitration case is pending. This is a temporary injunction and does not reflect any predetermination on the outcome of any issue in the case. This temporary injunction shall take effect immediately. Passed 9 to 0 at 23:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC}

-- Norvy (talk) 20:34, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I would say the user is highly abusive in reguards to editing wikipedia. However, I'm not aware of any way to check to see if an IP is a shared IP. Maybe an Admin can look into this. User is currently blocked. Sephiroth storm (talk) 20:36, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Load forty tabs on Special:Delete, then go through them quickly. Undiscernable from a bot. Mind you, I recall Beta doing that and still being sanctioned... Sceptre 20:39, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The Arbitration Committee is aware of this thread. MZMcBride had previously noted on his talkpage that his recent deletions have been manual, not automated. If anyone believes there is concrete reason to dispute this, or if any of the deletions are actually problematic, evidence can be presented in the arbitration case. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

@Newyorkbrad: How should one be able to do 44 deletions per minute manually? :) — Aitias // discussion 22:16, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Using tabbed browsing: with tabs, I've reviewed a load of pages to delete; and even I've made close to 44 deletions in a minute, and they've all been manual. I haven't done it for a long time, however. Acalamari 22:57, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Just curious, what's the substantive difference between using a bot to delete pages and using a tool which allows rapidly deleting swaths of pages without actually looking through them? arimareiji (talk) 21:58, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I've asked MZM to respond here. — Rlevse • Talk • 21:59, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

When you're a bot, you don't respond to questions or concerns. That's a pretty significant difference when we want our admin corp to be responsive. Cool Hand Luke 22:03, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Then it would seem the big question would be whether MZM has been responsive to questions and concerns raised about the deletions, or simply continues. And the answer probably depends on who you ask. arimareiji (talk) 22:13, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I noted these manual deletions on my talk page. (Tabs, anyone?) After I delete broken redirects, I don't usually stay on the computer for sixty hours straight in case someone has a question. All users have talk pages for a reason. Admins are supposed to be responsive, but they are allowed to do other things (like go outside), as far as I'm aware. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:47, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

• twitch* there's an outside? ;) JPG-GR (talk) 17:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with keeping an eye on him, but there's no reason at the moment to doubt MZMcBride is complying. The important thing about manual editing is that each action is being taken willfully and with visual examination of the page being deleted. And don't forget that with tabbed browsing the deletions are usually done in bursts after a preparatory loading and visual examination period. Dcoetzee 23:07, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

User Delibrately Creating false pages

Washingblack, a new user here at Misplaced Pages, has very recently begun creating obvious hoaxes. In addition to being unsourced, there is not a single piece of evidence. I suggest that the community take the appropriate action through deleting the entire list of articles and proceeding to either give a final warning or block directly. Cheers. Imperat§ r 21:20, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I chose option #2. DS (talk) 21:21, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd be careful when nuking, however. His article Chapple Norton has had a source added, . ∗ \ / (⁂) 21:22, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

What happened to dont bite the newbies. Have we thrown that out the window? SunCreator (talk) 21:26, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Norton fought in the War of 1812 but was born in 1731? That's what I'd call a spry senior citizen. arimareiji (talk) 21:51, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Houston, we have a problem. While a bunch of these are hoaxes, a few are actually real. I'm individually searching the authentic ones now...Cheers. Imperat§ r 21:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Can you give an example of a hoax? The few I checked all looked sensible. SunCreator (talk) 21:37, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure. One of them, Scottish_Captain_Donald_McDonald has been already deleted. Would you like more? Cheers. Imperat§ r 21:44, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

And another. Cheers. Imperat§ r 21:45, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

one we could actually look at would be helpful. Artw (talk) 21:46, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Whoah... Articles about people who took part in the American War of Independence, where, on checking sources, seem to veer off into fantasy. Rings a bell, that does. There were a couple of those a few weeks ago from a different user. Going through my contributions of two weeks ago, but style and content is very familiar. FlowerpotmaN·(t) 21:51, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I was about to say the same thing, it's very familiar. Mfield (talk) 21:52, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Which resulted in me posting this ANI :) Cheers. Imperat§ r 21:54, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) OK, Adelhoch (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is who I was looking for. The problem a couple of us had there was that while the articles were built on existing redlinks, the details didn't stand up to any scrutiny. There were a couple of members of the British artistocracy mentioned, and a quick look through the various copious sources available indicated that the details of the lives, even birth and death dates were fabricated. And all the articles created related to participants in the Ameerican War of Independence, on both sides. I notice at least one of this batch of articles has a reference to the Battle of Flamborough Head, which was something that popped up in one of Adelhoch's articles. FlowerpotmaN·(t) 22:04, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

In the above-referenced article on Chapple Norton, some facts matched the source and some appeared to have been created from whole cloth. arimareiji (talk) 22:18, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Yup, that's about the size of it. I came across Adelhoch while I was patrolling at New Pages when I was looking at the Henry Mowat article. I originally thought all the article needed was a few sources and an unref tag , as Mowat did exist and was involved in the Burning of Falmouth. I was looking for a few quick sources just to send the article on its way, and noticed that the article asserted that Mowat was later killed at the Battle of Flamborough Head, and that's when Houston was called, as none of the sources there mentioned anything about him, which was a bit unlikely. Really, everything will have to be checked thoroughly in every article created this case. (Yes, obviously by that statement I mean "more so than normal" :)) FlowerpotmaN·(t) 22:30, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I've had a quick look at this - my initial impression is that he's being quite sly about this, he's picking people who *could* have been involved in such battles at that time and in those places. However when you dig into the sources, it certainly appears that the battles and events are fabrications. --Cameron Scott (talk) 22:33, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

• I think this is almost certainly Adelhoch (talk · contribs) back again. He did James Campbell, 5th Earl of Loudoun - a real person, with all sorts of picturesque detail, and when checked every single detail - dates of birth and death and marriage, father's name, wife's name - was wrong. He's doing deliberate fiction, and should be blocked a.s.a.p. It's bed-time here, but I'll help clear up in morning. JohnCD (talk) 22:46, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Considering the incredible effort this person put into these hoaxes, I suggest we do a checkuser. I'm guessing this is one of those "prove that Misplaced Pages is unreliable" editors. I doubt this is their first time, or that blocking would stop them. Dcoetzee 23:02, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Checkuser isn't for fishing. Unless there is some evidence of a link between this and another account checkuser would be inappropriate. ∗ \ / (⁂) 23:07, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

There's an obvious link between Adelhoch and Washingblack. And, frankly, CU should be used for fishing. Yeah yeah, I know. Never happen. But we'd have FAR fewer problems. //roux   23:11, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Sigh, I actually passed several of those articles as "patrolled" when doing some new page patrolling, and worked to do some cleanup (spacing and spelling type issues), categorization, and adding relevant wikiprojects. What a waste of time, and that was probably far less than that spent by many of you in cleaning up after this guy's mess. :( Aleta 01:37, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Have to disagree with you about you wasting your time :). Categorization and adding relevant WPs will at least send the article in the right direction and people specializing in the relevant area would soon spot the fraud. All of these articles were based in some sort of fact and at least one or two facts at the start of each article would check out. I have seen a lot of articles that were in a lot worse condition that these ones, but were the basis of useful articles. Doing a bit of gnoming on articles that aren't in the best of condition when they arrive is a heck of a more useful time spent than tagging for speedy deletion anything that arrives at New Pages which isn't a perfectly formed Featured Article candidate. FlowerpotmaN·(t) 02:51, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, you make some good points, and I appreciate hearing them. Aleta 03:13, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I have optimistically filed an RFCU at Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Adelhoch. We'll see what transpires, I guess. Looie496 (talk) 05:22, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Request denied by OhanaUnited. See reasoning above. Cheers. Imperat§ r 12:45, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

A very large and widespread CopyVio problem

• GrahamBould (talk · contribs)

I am an editor in WikiProject Gastropods. I discovered on March 7th, first posted March 8th, that we currently have a very major CopyVio problem which is spread across a huge number of gastropod articles (approximately 800 to 1,000) and which also spills over into many (?hundreds?) of articles on the other molluscan groups. It appears that all (or nearly all) of the articles in the Category:Molluscs of New Zealand contain (in all or almost all cases right from the start) a lot of text that is copied verbatim or almost verbatim from a 1979 book by Powell, New Zealand Mollusca.

Unfortunately none of us in the Project have a copy of the book (which is uncommon outside New Zealand) otherwise this copying would have been caught a long time ago. I think that the creation of new articles with copied material has been going on for approximately 3 years. I asked the editor responsible for this about that possibility more than a year ago, on the 26th February 2008, in a message entitled "Doto pita and others" where I gave him a link to the WP Copyrights guideline, and quoted part of those guidelines in my message... but somehow he managed to sidestep the question while making it look like a no.

On March 7th 2009 I was able to quickly consult a copy of the book at a museum I was visiting in another State. I was able to examine a few species entries and compare them directly to the Wp articles. As soon as I had confirmed the copying, I told the editor responsible for this ( User:GrahamBould ) on 8th March 2009. Although he admitted he had copied, and agreed to work on fixing the articles, in the last 5 or 6 days he has not really made useful contributions in starting to fix this problem, despite several suggestions from me and another editor. An hour ago today I tried to alert everyone on Project Gastropods to how serious the situation is. The other editors are still replying to me as I write this. I do not need to tell you that this is an urgent problem of great magnitude.

I imagine that perhaps we may have to simply start the process of blanking some but not all of the content in all of those articles, possibly by using a bot? Doing it by hand may I imagine take too long because there are so many articles and this needs to be addressed urgently.

Of course I was not able to check all of the articles against the book, (it seems I may possibly be able to borrow a copy of the book for a few weeks, in a few weeks' time), but my general impression is that the majority of the text is copied verbatim or almost verbatim. However, as far as I can tell:

• The taxoboxes and photos are OK, although the taxonomy is totally out of date. The first sentence in each article is OK. Maybe the size info at the end of the description is OK. Any info that was subsequently added by other contributors is very likely to be no problem at all.

Very best wishes, Invertzoo (talk) 22:36, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I've advertised this thread in a few relevant places. Dcoetzee 22:58, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe a bot can tag all those pages with {{copyvio}} and then editors can check the articles afterwards, now the copyvio text has been blanked from view? SoWhy 23:12, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, my. I'm inclined to second SoWhy's suggestion; the important thing is to block publication of them immediately for full clean-up. (Coincidentally, I'm in the process of trying to build a WikiProject for just this sort of thing at User:Moonriddengirl/WikiProject Copyright Cleanup.) --Moonriddengirl 23:13, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, this being the consensus I will proceed with automatic tagging of the category. Might want to examine User:GrahamBould's other contributions and interview him about other sources he may have copied. Dcoetzee 23:16, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Can your script (I hope that's the right word) work for listing his contributions? Is there any way to exclude those that are in the category? --Moonriddengirl 23:21, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I've added the user links above; the relevant diff where he acknowledges copying is here. It would be very nice to get hold of somebody with the book. Perhaps Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Resource Exchange can help. --Moonriddengirl 23:26, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I've placed a request at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Resource Exchange#Potential massive copyright infringement; can your project help?. For further clarity, here is the February 2008 post where User:Invertzoo first broached the topic: . Here is the partial response admitting one infringement (from a different source than Powell): . --Moonriddengirl 23:41, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Just to let you know I'm doing a ContributionSurveyor run on GrahamBould, but it'll take several hours as he has over 26000 edits. Filtering out the articles from this category tree would be straightfoward. Dcoetzee 02:05, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Compliments to all on the fast response. I'd support a ban of the editor in question for his actions. ThuranX (talk) 23:28, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Barring a very good response here, I suspect I do too. --Moonriddengirl 23:42, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Don't be hasty. I suspect this is not intentional, as in a deliberate action to copyvio. He must give a comprehensive response soon tho, or events might overtake him. Kaiwhakahaere (talk) 23:50, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I will be interested in hearing from the contributor, but I don't know how he would be able to justify continuing to infringe after being notified in February 2008 that this was inappropriate, should it prove that articles such as this also copy from that source. If he infringed accidentally, I do not know why he would not have admitted this over a year ago and taken efforts to rectify the error then. --Moonriddengirl2 (talk) 00:04, 14 March 2009 (UTC)yes, the same user :)

. Events have indeed overtaken him, because he has been indef blocked, which might discourage him from giving an explanation. You say he was notified Feb 08 he was acting inappropriately. I couldn't find anything relevant on his talk page for Feb 08. Back to my barbie. Hot enough for the T-bone. Kaiwhakahaere (talk) 03:15, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

. (The link is above, but this is already sprawling, and I'm sure it's easily missed. :)) --Moonriddengirl 11:58, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Related discussion solving Gastropoda afected articles is at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Gastropods#A very large and widespread CopyVio problem! and other general tasks can still be solved here. --Snek01 (talk) 00:10, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Update: I'm now automatically tagging all articles in the category tree as copyvio from the stated source (see Special:Contributions/DcoetzeeBot. Took longer than I thought, haven't done editing against the API before and got hung up on idiosynchrasies of cookie manangement. :-P Dcoetzee 01:49, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

The articles have been edited since their creation, I cannot see how this is a copyvio. The allegation of copyvio is one editors view, isn't this response a bit excessive? cygnis insignis 02:26, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

The contributor says, here, "Yes, you are right about copying." That would seem to me to move it beyond one editor's view. --Moonriddengirl2 (talk) 02:34, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I was heading over there to ask him to weigh in, but after seeing he'd been warned a year ago and continued, I decided to block him indefinitely. Please review. Blueboy96 02:54, 14 March 2009 (UTC) Ooops, after seeing he's probably in bed now and hasn't had a chance to respond, I've unblocked pending an explanation. Blueboy96 06:20, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Please calm down. There was only one sentence written by GrahamBould in New Zealand mud snail. (LOOK AT THE ARTICLE!) I corrected it. I believe that there are only certain books we need to find out in GrahamBould's edits. If we discover copyvio, do we need to tag it immediatelly or do we have a time to correction? There is always necessary to look in history and delete only one or two captions. It is necessary to do manually. How much time do we (members of wikiproject gastropods) have to manually remove all copyvios while we know now that they were here years? --Snek01 (talk) 02:59, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

The point of blanking before review is because there are so many. Once they are blanked, we don't have to worry about infringement; they can be investigated and cleaned. That's why the bot is blanking these articles pending investigation. Ordinarily, copyright articles are blanked for eight days before closure, but exceptions are routinely made for clean-up or verification of permission. I'm very sorry for the hardship that this is causing your project, but very glad that your project is proactive and willing to undertake it. (Sorry if I'm not eloquent; it's late for me, but I didn't want to leave you hanging. :)) --Moonriddengirl 03:09, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

(LOL, I am happy for simple English. Maybe you are lucky I do not know what is "leave you hanging".) I am not good in English, what does this mean? "copyright articles are blanked for eight days before closure." What is the closure? --Snek01 (talk) 03:28, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

To 'Leave you hanging' means to put a person in the position of awaiting, for a undue amount of time, an answer which they feel is important. ThuranX (talk) 04:05, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

See also wikt:leave_somebody_hanging. Dcoetzee 04:26, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the use of an unfamiliar idiom. :) That defined, closure is when an administrator looks at an article that has been tagged as a copyright problem and determines what needs to be done with it. Sometimes, an article is deleted. Sometimes, the content is rewritten. As I said above, this deadline is routinely pushed back when circumstances require. --Moonriddengirl 12:01, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

What were the criteria for DcoetzeeBot, that was tagging articles? Are all articles according to chosen criteria tagged? It was stupid to tag articles including taxobox, because there can not be copyrighted material in taxobox and now articles do not provide information. I suggest to not remove taxoboxes next time. --Snek01 (talk) 03:38, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

• My goodness! There is no reason to assume anything but good faith that I can see. Can I draw attention to the point made by Invertzoo above: The taxoboxes and photos are OK, ... The first sentence in each article is OK. Maybe the size info at the end of the description is OK. Any info that was subsequently added by other contributors is very likely to be no problem at all. and was not able to check all of the articles against the book. Who else has compared the text to the articles to confirm the extent of any copyright. In the stubs I have seen this would leave around 5 - 10 words that may be a copyvio. cygnis insignis 03:42, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
• Sorry, I did not mean to remove the taxoboxes, I will fix them. It tagged all articles in the Category:Molluscs of New Zealand category hierarchy. The tags are a temporary measure to hide the copyvio content while the articles are being reviewed. Dcoetzee 03:50, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Administrators need to be aware of the following. A suggestion was made on the project page to use a bot to tweak the wording and I think user:cygnis insignis's changes to janthina janthina are a manual implemetation of the same idea. Concealing a copyright violation is worse than the current situation. wp:copyvio is quite clear, the offending content needs to be removed and replaced, not concealed. Celestra (talk) 04:25, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, see Misplaced Pages:Close paraphrasing. Merely tweaking, or even rewriting phrase by phrase, the content is not sufficient. (This is a different issue from the copyvio template hiding the content, which is standard procedure.) Dcoetzee 04:30, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Huh! Is there a problem with the article now? Have I made it worse? cygnis insignis 04:39, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

And are you suggesting that I am a "clever contributor gets out their thesaurus and changes things around a bit" by advertising your essay? cygnis insignis 05:14, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

No, I have not examined your changes or the project page. Celestra may be misrepresenting the situation. However, I am concerned that you removed the copyvio template, and left some potential copyvio material introduced by GrahamBould in the article, such as the Habitat section. I strongly suggest letting these articles be processed by standard procedure. Dcoetzee 05:22, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying that, Dcoetzee, you might be better positioned to find a solution to the issue here if you had reviewed the current circumstances. Now, what have you to say Celestra? cygnis insignis 05:27, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I now have reviewed the suggestion on the project thread and it is out of the question; this would constitute close paraphrasing ("superficial modification of the text") and not eliminate any concerns of copyright violation. It'll be a long time before anyone can write a bot intelligent enough to substantially rephrase written material. Please be calm; the articles will be reviewed and cleaned up in a timely manner, and the contributions of others will not be removed. Dcoetzee 05:36, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

What sort of timely manner are we talking about? I'm curious in general whether the copyright violations should be allowed to stand on Misplaced Pages for any amount of time, even in the history of the article, although I don't know what the rules are for this. The times I have run into copyright violations they have been removed from the edit history completely. The articles can be rewritten with no text except for the taxobox and a line saying the species is a mollusc from New Zealand, or at the family level preferably. Could this be done with a bot? How about, Cadulus colubridens is a mollusc in the class Scaphopoda?

Anyway, I rewrote one article, Cadulus colubridens based on the source used by the book author, the book read over the phone by a friend, and I added a brief bio on the authority, Robert Boog Watson (maybe a bot can run through the taxoboxes where he's mentioned). It took a lot of time to research and write. I am wondering in how timely a fashion such an extensive copyright violation can be removed. I'm not a mollusc expert, only rarely editing their articles, so possibly other editors specializing in this area see this task as requiring less time. --KP Botany (talk) 07:54, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Some users are quite dedicated rewriters of copyvio articles, but more typical is stubification. I haven't heard of stubification being automated before, but that's actually not a bad idea. I could automate that based on Taxobox material (where available), but I'll want to see what User:Moonriddengirl thinks first, as she might hope to salvage more of them. Dcoetzee 08:11, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

My preference for bot-stubifying is just that there are so many with such a substantial total copyright violation sitting on the encyclopedia. I guess it is one thing to have Misplaced Pages the holder of 3 pages from a book, but to be the holder of a large volume of a single work might be an issue of greater concern. Possibly Moonriddengirl, if she intends to rewrite many of them, could just work from the stubs plus taxoboxes? However, her input on the general possibility of rewriting so many and the volume of the copyright might be useful. --KP Botany (talk) 08:30, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

The point is that these are stubs, I am loath to point out the numerous bot generated stubs with a single source. At what point does rephrasing scientific concepts, classification, and data in a source, such as a short entry in a general work, constitute copyvio? If one is guided by your essay, which seems to be a fusion of the copyvio and plagiarism pages, any stub with a single source could be tagged this way. Or risked being being tagged as inappropriately sourced or original research. A bot assisted editor, perhaps from the project, could use a scheme (derived from consensus) to reword what seems to be only single sentences in stubs. It seems that any rewording of sentence could be shown to conflict with that essay. Has the bot corrected the mass tagging to address the specific problem, identified by Invertzoo and repeated by myself, to restore the parts of the stubs that are not considered problematic? cygnis insignis 08:41, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

(Edit conflict)

I'm not following you? What essay? You're saying the stub I wrote is a fusion of the copyright violation and plagiarized works? I don't think so, but I'm not sure what you're saying. I suggest a bot could remove the material that has been largely copied from the reference by turning the article into a single line species stub with a taxobox, referencing the work. A bot generated stub with a single source is not the problem, I don't think. If it is I don't understand why. The number of sources does not matter so much as whether it is a copyright violation from the source. --KP Botany (talk) 08:52, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I was addressing Dcoetzee with that remark, see the previous indented section. Apologies for misunderstanding. cygnis insignis 08:57, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

He seems to have been speaking to me. Cygnis, I repeat, the copyvio boxes are a temporary measure to hide the copyvio material while the articles are under review. They may be short, but they are not the one-sentence stubs described by KP, and they contain substantial copyvio content. It is not possible (with present technology) to create a bot that can automatically remove copyright issues, or to separate GrahamBould's contributions from those of others. The people who deal with copyright problems will clean them up in a timely manner, without removing your contributions, and then the tags will be removed. Dcoetzee 09:01, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

My contributions not my primary concern, the improvement of our document is. Can you please answer my questions above, taking some time to consider my take on copyright and copywriting scientific stubs. Your assertions regarding "rephrasing" would seem to have potentially wide-ranging implications. cygnis insignis 09:28, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I think I know what I'm being unclear about here, Cygnis; your edits to Janthina janthina to repair parts of the "Description" section were definitely a step in the right direction - my main complaint is that you removed the copyvio tag before the other sections were corrected. Additionally, the selection and order (or format) of presentation of the facts was not altered; it was a sentence-by-sentence rewording. It's better than it was before, but it's not done and I'd appreciate it if you would restore the tag until it's been reviewed, according to standard process. Dcoetzee 09:16, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

That content was substantially contributed by me, from another source. I crosschecked the facts with at least 5 other online sources. The article barely resembled the stub created by the user in question, and that was before I returned to it today. I removed the tag and immediately fixed it, what is your complaint? I reworded the original contribution to absolutely remove any question of cv, why on earth would I put the tag back? Please consider and answer my questions above. cygnis insignis 09:38, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

These animals are really well known and interesting, with much of the same basic information written about them in many sources. I've added some of the more interesting information that is often omitted in the most general articles about Janthina janthina, and it now just needs a bit of effort to group and order it well for the reader. For this organism which is well known and extensively studied, focusing now on getting a good article might be worthwhile.

For the other articles, I would like to see them mostly stubified, simply because there are too many for any small group of editors to check, and the cumulative volume of the copyrighted material on Misplaced Pages is great.

Part of the issue with scientific information is that the order of presentation and the level of information within that is somewhat standardized, even on Misplaced Pages the organism groups may have guidelines that reflect this, the distribution, habitat, ecology, include certain details depending upon depth of article. This is why natural history guides to organisms often look so much alike, or so I discovered writing similar information: the authors use the same primary references to the organism, outline the information the same way, and have similar defaults to the breadth of the description sections. --KP Botany (talk) 10:05, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

←I think we should probably move this conversation elsewhere, except with respect to issues that do require admin intervention. The contributor's response to this issue, for instance, is of relevance here. I have crafted a reply to some of the points above at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Gastropods#ANI conversation and am trying to gather some way of moving forward there. But I do have one burning curiosity that I think I need to address here: I don't know what's going to happen when DumbBot tries to list all those tagged articles on CP tomorrow, as it will. Is it going to break the 'pedia? or just CP? Or is it all going to be okay? :) --Moonriddengirl 12:49, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I want to greatly thank all of the admins who rallied around in an attempt to address this major problem. it is a great relief to have it be at least somewhat addressed, rather than all just resting in my hands as it has been for quite a while. At the WikiProject Gastropods talk page and probably on a new subpage there, a few of us will try to work out what realistically we can try to do in terms of rewriting. If at some point we decide to give up and delete some or many of the offending articles, we will be back in contact with this group again. My very best wishes to you all, Invertzoo (talk) 14:28, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Barack Obama

I have unprotected Barack Obama as things seemed to have calmed down. I ask that everyone keep an eye on it for the next few days to prevent further trouble. Thanks! KnightLago (talk) 01:55, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, but please don't refer to the POTUS as an "it" ˉˉ╦╩ 02:12, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the secret service spends quite enough time keeping an eye on him (Obama), but I expect they leave the keeping our eyes on it (the Obama article) to us.  :-) — Coren  03:02, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Reminds me of John McCain's infamous "that one" gaff. :-P Dcoetzee 03:16, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

This is a joke right? Keep an eye on the Obama article? Ok, I'll add it to my watch list. Maybe you should also advise the BLP board so we can make sure we have enough eyes watching it.(jokeing) Tom 03:24, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Someone else can watch it this weekend. I dealt with enough of the killer mushrooms last weekend. Baseball Bugs carrots 22:28, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Please tell me your're not serious, the president article is the most vandalized page on all Misplaced Pages! The Cool Kat (talk) 12:50, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

What you call vandalism, some of the rest of us call properly cited, verifiable, and notable material.--Jojhutton (talk) 13:29, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

You may well be right about that. Baseball Bugs carrots 13:07, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Blue Lacy

Can one of you busy people have a look at Special:Contributions/Bluelacy? This seems to be an SPA with some kind of axe to grind--out of the blue they claim some sort of conspiracy theory, that some group is contaminating the entry for Blue Lacy with references to their own websites and mentions of feral pig hunting (or some such thing). User went as far as to strike out what they though to be incorrect information. I've lost my patience a bit at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Blue Lacy, for which I apologize--but I really think that an admin's quick intervention is warranted here. It's obvious, I think, that AfD is not the right place for these issues, and that this brand of dog is notable enough. (Disclaimer: I have a dog too--a mutt who snores and is not the official dog of any state.) Thanks, Drmies (talk) 05:10, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Editor notified of this discussion and asked to withdraw nomination. I think they simply don't understand how Misplaced Pages works. dougweller (talk) 10:58, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick response, Doug. Also, I posted this late last night and totally forgot to notify the user--I apologize. Listen, I wasn't suggesting that this user is bad to the bone or something like that, but I notified them that AfD wasn't the place etc., and did not receive a response that gave me the feeling they either understood or cared to listen. I thought speedy closure of the AfD would settle at least that part. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 15:19, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Canadian Relations in Africa

My articles Angola · Benin · Botswana · Burkina Faso · Burundi · Cape Verde · Central African Republic · Chad · Democratic Republic of the Congo · Republic of the Congo · Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) · Djibouti · Equatorial Guinea · Eritrea · Gabon · The Gambia were deleted by Fram (talk · contribs) i understand why but i know my self it was not copy paste i had rewritten it from the internet article so it wouldn't be copyright. Basically what i am request is if someone can restore the pages to my sandbox so i can edit them to be accepted as not copy paste. My intent was never to violate and copyright issues and i'm hopeing i can be able to fix it with your help. Cheers and sorry if this is in the wrong place Kyle1278 (talk) 05:23, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Be careful with the phrase "my articles" as WP:OWN is never a good thing! (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 10:05, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

User has also raised this at WP:AN#Canadian Relations in Africa where Tony Fox has advised him that the articles are still too close to the original, with only a few words changed, and that he should rewrite from scratch or else go to DRV. JohnCD (talk) 11:14, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Ahhh, so WP:COPYRIGHT + WP:OWN + WP:Forum shopping = WP:MISTAKES (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 12:03, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

98.165.129.90 on Chester Bennington

Over the past week or so, 98.165.129.90 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) has persisted on adding unsourced additions to the Chester Bennington article. The IP user has been prompted to cite the source of the information but has failed to despite multiple requests. I have further looked into the matter by following the IP's suggestion - searching the Arizona Secretary of State and performing a few searches on google - neither search turned up anything that supports the anons claims. I issued one severe warning, followed by a final warning, which have specifically mentioned WP:Cite, WP:Verify, and WP:RS. I am requesting input or appropriate actions--  StarScream1007  ►Talk  06:54, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

A quick look at the ip's contribs and their talkpage indicates that they are disruptively adding the same uncited content, and that they have been adequately warned about doing so. Should they violate the last warning, report them to WP:AIV for admin action. LessHeard vanU (talk) 10:55, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

ScienceApologist ban

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

I appreciate there is a large and long-winded thread above that mentions aspects of this ban. Is there a way of summarising in a precise and coherent way the events that led up to the ban, and the incident that precipitated it, i.e. its proximate cause? Thanks. I also started a thread on the alternative ANI about this. Peter Damian (talk) 12:26, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Fringe theorists and their ilk prevail; Misplaced Pages credibility suffers, film at 11. HiDrNick! 12:41, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Really, it's comments like this that prolong the drama. When everyone takes their turn doing potshots, hackles get raised and it prevents a lack of civil discussion and consensus. (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 12:51, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for these comments but these are opinions which do not answer my question: what were the events &c which led up to the ban. A very short summary required only. Thanks. Peter Damian (talk) 12:52, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Simple, a variety of his past actions/behavior had been questioned and led to the fringe arbcom case. From there he was given a six month fringe ban where he was only allowed to talk on the fringe talk pages, but not edit any of the articles. Soon after being informed this, he decided to push the limits and started editing fringe articles (correcting spelling mistakes) even though he knew that could be considered gaming the system and even wikiwillring (SP). He was blocked for 24 for evading his ban, by editing said fringe articles. During this time, the ban was clarified to mean that he was not to edit any fringe articles at all, including small spelling edits. However, his comments on his talk page and again gaming the system by editing an article, that while he was given permission to edit, was very close to being a fringe article, led to a review of the ban. After the review, the Arbcom committee decided to impose a further ban on editing anything in Misplaced Pages for three months due to his behavior after the first fringe ban and his first ban will restart after he comes off the three month ban. Brothejr (talk) 13:00, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Some people make things up out of whole cloth and call it 'science'. People who know real science, or even just people who dont like making shit up, try to keep an encyclopedia full of, you know, *facts*. SA got banned. Also, he was kind of a dick, so he made it easy. Sums it up. -M 13:04, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

User Jersay

Jersay (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Can something be done about this editor please? He originally created Second Northern Ireland Revolt, which was unanimously deleted by Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Second Northern Ireland Revolt. Since then it has been reposted at Republican Violence in Northern Ireland (where it was originally moved during the deletion discussion), Paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland, and Northern Ireland 2009 Paramilitary Conflict. Thank you. O Fenian (talk) 14:49, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Guy obviously needs a slap upside the head with the banhammer; he hasn't paid any attention to the repeated deletions or being informed why his posts are incompatible with WP policy. Ironholds (talk) 15:23, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Blocked for 24 hours. Let us see if that suffices to stop the disruption. LessHeard vanU (talk) 17:41, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

He has also vandalized List of terrorist incidents, 2009 in spite of repeated warnings. Wikifan12345 (talk) 20:25, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

He's also made contentious edits to many other articles about past and present conflicts: , many many reversions in List of terrorist incidents, 2009, and IMHO the entire article Guadeloupe Revolution, which portrays an industrial dispute as a war. (I'll be nominating it for deletion shortly.) AlexTiefling (talk) 21:35, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Edit war at Socialist Unity Centre of India article, breaches of WP:NPA, allegations of sock-puppetry

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

Could someone take a look at Socialist Unity Centre of India and the editors involved with it at present? User:Radhakrishnansk left a message for me after seeing that I'd tried to intervene in a previous dispute on that article, and it looks way too messy for me to work out what's going on.

As far as I can see:

• Radhakrishnansk (talk · contribs) may be a sock-puppet of User:Suciindia;
• Various IPs in the 59.91.253.* range (59.91.253.27 (talk · contribs), 59.91.253.113 (talk · contribs), 59.91.253.76 (talk · contribs) and possibly others - I've not looked back that far) may be sock-puppets of User:Kuntan;
• There's edit-warring over the article;
• There's been at least one personal attack (I've warned the editor).

This has occurred before, in case it seems familiar... I gather the dispute boils down to sectarian differences between various factions of India's communist parties.

(Adding: both parties have now been warned for WP:3RR by me (as well as by each other), and been notified about this thread. I've also received this charming message from the IP.)

Cheers, This flag once was red_deeds 16:56, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

• The article has been a site of frenzied manipulation by group accounts of this fringe cult and it finally resulted in blocking all those role accounts. User:Suciindia, User:Sekharlk etc. User:Radhakrishnansk is a new avatar of this group account. I am of course what I am accused of, but if you look at my edits on the article you will see that they are valid additions based on reliable sources whereas the group account is trying nastily to whitewash the image of the party by removing criticism parts. If this herd instinct is allowed a free rein here, the fringe will have a field day. 59.91.253.27 (talk) 17:09, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
• I am no puppet of any user. I know some of these members and I happened to review a lot of material regarding them while I was editing the Nandigram violence page. He is calling a party with members and state committees in several states of India as a fringe group or clut. Another User: Soman also refuted his argument, but he seems sticking to calling this party a fringe group for some reason; most probably his personal hatred. If it was not his personal hatred why is he worried of only a single wikipage? Admins please intervene. --Radhakrishnansk (talk) 17:25, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

• You seem to have the wrong link for the "charming message". I assume you're referring to this? --aktsu  17:10, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, oops! The IP has left a couple of messages for me, both seem to leave good faith well alone.

Incidentally, I've been trying to go offline all day and it looks like I'm finally going to run away. I have no strong view on how this could/should be solved - I'm not convinced merely protecting the article will be enough to end the personal attacks and allegations - so I'm happy to raise this and run away ;-) Cheers, This flag once was red_deeds 17:15, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Just to see how fringey this fringe group is look at the edit made by the Radhakrishnansk (talk · contribs) here . How he cites a self-published article of one of his party apparatchik on Einstein to prove that his guru is a theoretician after all, wow. 59.91.253.27 (talk) 17:17, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

• Well, we now have a case of disclosure of personal information here . I wonder if policies are worth the salt now. 59.91.253.27 (talk) 17:22, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

• I have deleted the edit, and warned the editor. Per WP:AGF I have not blocked in this one instance. LessHeard vanU (talk) 18:11, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

• Well if your edits were Wiki like and if you had not abused people, they may not have been interested in finding out who you are. I have the email from another Wiki editor as evidence and if the admins require it I will post it to them.--Radhakrishnansk (talk) 17:32, 14 March 2009 (UTC)'
• Do take note of the fact that this puppet of User: Kuntan is pasting personal threats in my discussion page. All the more reason for him to be banned.--Radhakrishnansk (talk) 18:08, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

R left some appallingly badly formatted reports at WP:AN3, but after amusing myself with sarcastic edit comments I did get round to blocking the anon, who had clearly broken 3RR. R probably has too, but wasn't so obviously incivil as the anon, so I didn't block him, though it might have been pleasingly symmetrical.edit made by William M. Connolley 20:57, 14 March 2009, note by --Abd (talk) 04:11, 15 March 2009 (UTC)]]

The IP editor, above, acknowledges being the banned User:Kuntan, and has acknowledged in an edit to your talk page, William, being a banned user. Edits of this banned user may be reverted on sight, and the decision not to block R was correct. Many editors encountering situations like this, being inexperienced, will file badly formatted reports; we should try to look for the substance. Been there, been disregarded for not knowing how to put a proper diff together, even though I did provide contributions links that clearly showed the behavior, arguably more efficiently than the expected diffs, and the result was continued disruption for some time, ending when a new sock puppet of the same puppet master, User:Nrcprm2026, rather stupidly created specially for the purpose, filed a 3RR report on me, and the admin took one look at the situation and blocked everyone in sight, including me, then unblocked me when he realized what I'd been facing. Congratulations, William, for dealing properly with the report in spite of bad presentation. Some admins wouldn't do that.--Abd (talk) 04:11, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Dear Admins, another puppet of User:Kuntan has appeared. It is User:59.91.254.3. Please check the discussion page of User:William M. Connolley challenging every one to go for another range block. I don't know what a range block is, but it seems that he is going to continue his miscreant efforts.--Radhakrishnansk (talk) 08:38, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

William is more than capable of dealing with posts, by whomever, on his talkpage. I see that this is the ip's only edit this month, so there is nothing a block can achieve (and I am not even considering thinking about possibly raising to the bait of blocking another range - one wonders why the ip would suggest it if there was not the possibility of collateral damage). As far as we have got in WP:RBI - William may or may not Revert as he chooses, and I don't believe Blocking to be justifiable - why not just put the "Ignore" part into practice? LessHeard vanU (talk) 11:41, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Please, Radhakrishnansk, do not make more reports to AN/I about this. It's not necessary. If you need help with this, and well before you hit 4RR, as you did yesterday, you should go to WP:RFPP and request page semiprotection, or ask an admin or other experienced user. You could be blocked by an admin who shoots first and asks questions later, and, though you could be unblocked rather easily, given the circumstances, there is no need for the disruption and fuss. I'm watching the page now, but I'm not reliable for rapid response; encouraging a few other responsible editors to watch the page will help. Yes, the editor switches IP constantly, within the range. I've suggested that R scrupulously avoid incivility, it is not necessary to make any accusations at all toward this editor except "banned." The IP has acknowledged being the banned User:Kuntan. While it isn't terribly useful, it also isn't terribly difficult to short-block the IP, but the first and most effective line of defense is users like R who will see the edits routinely and can revert them without comment other than to note the ban. This makes no assumption at all about other behavior of Radhakrishnansk, but R is acting properly here in reverting these IP edits.

For the information of others, I'd removed an edit from related IP from User talk:William M. Connolley from this IP. WMC would still see it, of course, and remained totally free to deal with it as he chose. He left it deleted, and then deleted another comment from the same IP with "you are banned." Yes, WP:RBI. Editors reverting disruptive edits from this IP are simply enforcing a block with a little more intelligence than the automated block tools. --Abd (talk) 14:15, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Apologies for posting after closure: I just wanted to say thanks to all who have dealt with this. Cheers, This flag once was red_deeds 14:25, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Edit warring, plus suspected sockpuppetry on both sides.

The involved parties are 86.156.208.244 (talk · contribs) and Wikireader41 (talk · contribs). They were arguing over the reliability of government pages. I accidentally stepped in the middle by making a revert with huggle, and have ascertained that they both suspect each other of sockpuppetry. There is a lot of discussion relating to the matter at my talk page, and at User_talk:Wikireader41. Thank you Fahadsadah (talk) 17:29, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I suspect 86.156.208.244 (talk · contribs) is a sock of Nangparbat (talk · contribs). he has generally been very incivil and is pushing pakistani islamist POV on multiple articles even as the # 9 Failed state#2008 of Pakistan is sinking deeper into crisis and needs to be blocked. The Indian govt websites are widely regarded as a credible source of info about India. I dont wear socks ;-)--Wikireader41 (talk) 17:45, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

The above is Wikireader41's accusation of sockpuppetry. 86.156.208.244 appears to be away right now, but he accused Wikireader41 of being a sockpuppet of Hkelkar: . Fahadsadah (talk) 07:57, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

AS Admins can see his hate and POV pushing for pakistan is clear his edits are similair to Hkelkar and Kashmircloud (who suddenly disappeared) anyways as his comments have shown his pov motives he speaks of matters not relating to this issue e.g failed state i will continue to remove his vandal edits 86.151.123.189 (talk) 13:34, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

User:Fasach Nua

Fasach Nua (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

The user was blocked briefly last fall for tendentious editing, and this month in particular has drawn increasing attention, apparently due to deleting stuff he doesn't agree with, with little or no discussion. Baseball Bugs carrots 18:16, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

*sigh* Did anyone on either side try discussing the issue? Sometimes I think the culture of automated tools and templates does more harm than good. henrik•talk 19:40, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

He is not deleting "stuff he doesn't agree with": he is deleting lists of Notable Players where, despite the presence of the Template:Famous players, in some cases for several months, no attempt has been made to provide any justification for the inclusion or exclusion of players in such lists. The lists are therefore Original research, and it is quite proper that they be deleted. Ample chance was given for those with an interest in these sections to improve, and thus secure, them. Kevin McE (talk) 20:23, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

The lack of discussion and edit-warring is very disappointing. However, on at least one of these articles, there is a talkpage consensus for removal of the section, and as Kevin McE points out these lists almost always fail WP:V and WP:OR.

I would suggest starting a discussion at WT:FOOTY to see if there is a consensus for a project-wide solution to these problems. Knepflerle (talk) 20:54, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think that would be a good idea (suggested the same ting over at Fasach Nua's talk). henrik•talk 21:07, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

The tip of this iceberg for me was on the Minnesota Twins page. I would probably not favor such a list, as it's typically arbitrary, unless it's from a reliable source. However, sniping at each other in the edit summaries hardly constitutes "discussion". Stating where the alleged consensus is, in the edit summaries, might be constructive. Baseball Bugs carrots 22:25, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Fasach Nua's approach is unnecessarily abrasive. He won't talk with other editors unless its to make some sort of unnecessary condescending or insulting remark. Its been fairly peaceful in many respects during his absence and I'm not thrilled at the prospect of his returning to stir things up unnecessarily. Just whitewashing stuff without working it through is sloppy thoughtless editing. Wiggy! (talk) 02:19, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

User:Rastrojo

• Rastrojo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Auslli (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This usuary have a point of view that is different of the one I've been working for months. He simply told me he went to erase revert all my articles he didn't like, maybe because he has a political orientation like he says in his userspace, and don't understand that in wikipedia can be other points of view than his categorizedand don't respected the rule of trying a consensuos. He "advertised" to me and undid again my work. I would like this actitud will finish, because I spend a lot of time creating articles and improving them everyday and this user comes twice a month for destroying. Thank you--Auslli (talk) 18:22, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Could you provide diffs? Or at least what articles you are talking about? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:43, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the auto edit summaries in a large portion of Rastrojo's contrib history is some indication, a lot of reverting of one editor over a range of articles (although the subjects appear to be often related). I will have a look at some examples, and see what is being reverted... LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:54, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, this appears to be a content dispute - Auslli adds the category Kingdom of Leon to articles, and Rastrojo removes them (with terse messages to Auslli giving notice). I don't believe this is an admin related matter, as the obvious path is to dispute resolution. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:02, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

It seems a little more general than that. The dispute is whether places and institutes in the area that what was once the historic Kingdom of Leon should go in categories saying so--involving both places & things which were present in the area of that Kingdom at some time during the period when it existed, and those which did not come into being until later. I have no person opinion. There needs to be a centralized place to resolve this, and I suggest either the ethnic conflicts noticeboard or the talk page for the Kingdom. DGG (talk) 22:51, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, first of all, I consider that Auslli is violating the NPOV. He's adding the category Kingdom of León to all the articles related to the provinces of Salamanca, Zamora and León. Some examples: Baloncesto León (Basketball Club of León), Roman Catholic Diocese of Astorga, List of municipalities of Salamanca and a lot of examples. Then, he has added the leonese names to some articles (León airport with "Llión" and curiously, he does the opposite thing with articles about Asturias and Asturian names: Luarca, deletion of the Asturian name) and he has created some categories like Category:Airports in Llión (deleted) with a bad name and no sense, because there is one only airport in the province of León and the articles can be added to Category:Airports in Castile and León. Another example can be Category:Political parties in León, that can be included in the category about Castile and León, but the user says that there're parties with activities only in León... so what? UPL has activity in Zamora and Salamanca, so the correct category is Castile and León, or should we categorize those articles with the province and not the autonomous community? I don't want an edition war, but I consider that Auslli is categorizing articles with political interests (Leonesism: es:Leonesismo) and the NPOV is being violated. Best regards, Rastrojo (talk) 23:19, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

It is a matter of obtaining a consensus; do articles that may have an affiliation with a historical kingdom that is now incorporated into a sovereign entity have a category in respect of the historical political entity (much the same argument could be made of the historical kingdoms that made up England, which is now part of the United Kingdom - noting that England/Scotland/Wales/Ireland (and Cornwall...) a still categories within the larger - might be so categorised) or not. It is not a matter of reverting, it is a matter of finding what practice and consensus and policy seem to determine. NPOV is not one middle ground viewpoint, but a distillation of various viewpoints that are noted within the context of the subject. Start an RfC, go to mediation, ask for a third opinion but please, do not edit war, do not try to get each other banned, do not seek to divide opinion but resolve the matter through discussion, compromise, and polite debate. LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:59, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Disruptive behavior and incivility by User:Off2riorob

Off2riorob (talk · contribs), an WP:SPA promoting the topic of Osho movement, is engaging in disruptive behavior on the WP:GA-quality rated article 1985 Rajneeshee assassination plot. Most disturbingly he made a comment on the article's talk page violating WP:NPA, referring to the primary writer of the article (myself) saying: this article could have been written by the kind of person that at the time was gettin his gun to go shoot some rajneeshees.... I have asked him to refactor this comment. He has not.

The user is also inserting wholly unsourced material into the article while simultaneously removing sourced material , . He was warned about this, but simply chose to remove this from his talk page. In his latest edit he again removes sourced material, replacing it with unsourced material - note the edit summary - (removed the army referance and inserted sheela's position taken from her wiki page) he acknowledges he is adding this unsourced material by pulling it from another Misplaced Pages article!

Would appreciate it if another administrator looked into the issue of the incivility and personal attacks, and the continued insertion of wholly unsourced POV-pushing changes. Thank you, Cirt (talk) 18:32, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

It is extremely important for all introduced sources to come from truly neutral and reliable locations, and this is something that Off2riorob appears to be dismissing. I will leave a similarly worded warning on his user talk page explaining how crucial this is. PeterSymonds (talk) 18:53, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

This editor has been blocked for 24 hours for continued disruption despite warnings. PeterSymonds (talk) 23:16, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

As a further note, I removed some personal attacks directed against the editors of those articles. PeterSymonds (talk) 23:24, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Jersay removing sourced material from List of terrorist incidents, 2009

user talk:Jersay has deleted roadside bombing from List of terrorist incidents, 2009 3 times. 1, 2, 3. I left two warnings on his userpage, 1, 2. In any of the cases did he leave a summary or an explanation.

Wikifan12345 (talk) 19:37, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Jersay has been blocked for 24 hours, see the discussion a few sections above this one, here. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 19:50, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Bill Ayers / BLP vio

I am up to 3RR (and believe I should revert indefinitely) what looks like a very significant BLP violation at Bill Ayers - a poorly founded accusation of murder, made for political purposes. This is a placeholder. I will comment in more detail in a bit, once I have found the extent of the problem. If any admin is tempted to block me, please just warn me instead and I will stop. However, BLP violations should not be allowed to stand in the encyclopedia, particularly accusing well-known people of murder. This comes on the heels of the media hoax by the Web News Daily reporter on the same subject. Wikidemon (talk) 19:45, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

For convinience: Ism schism (talk · contribs) is inserting this text repeatedly. It has references, though I haven't checked out how reliable they are.--Patton 20:05, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I have looked into it and those three supporting references appear reliable. Don't know about the format of the info and having it in its own section though.--Patton 20:06, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

FYI, Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, and Weatherman (organization) BLP issues?.--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 20:17, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Page is now protected for 24hrs to sort this out. Toddst1 (talk) 20:43, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. My battery just died and I have to leave for a few hours to attend to other matters but I'll see if we can figure out the best forum for discussing this proposed content addition, which as I said I think is a pretty grave BLP vio. There are 42 current google news sources on this latest thing (including unreliable ones), and this one at least suggests that it is a politically motivated statement rather than a legitimate accusation. At the very least we should frame it correctly. However, when political partisans accuse people of murder there is a very high threshold regarding whether the information should be repeated at all. We've dealt with this very issue a few times before, in this specific article. Wikidemon (talk) 21:37, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to the wise and fast administrative action for diffusing / calming with the least fuss. This gives me hope that not everything here creates drama! Given that the discussion is over at BLP/N now, maybe we should mark this resolved as a "pages protected - discussion moved elsewhere". Cheers, Wikidemon (talk) 21:50, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

There's one article you missed, which the editor in question has continued to revert war on: San Francisco Police Officers Association‎. Could you please edit protect that one as well? Wikidemon (talk) 13:07, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• This is a notable event that has been the subject of numerous reliable sources. Wikidemon has yet to show where there is any BLP violation in including this event in related articles. For more information, please see;

San Francisco Chronicle - S.F. police union accuses Ayers in 1970 bombing

The Politico - Group puts Ayers back in spotlight

Fox News - Report: Police Union Accuses Ayers in Deadly 1970 San Francisco Bombing

WorldNetDaily - Cold case: Will Ayers be brought to justice?

Fox Business - San Francisco Police Officers' Association Supports Effort to Bring Charges in 1970 Bombing Case

FrontPage Magazine - A Murder Revisited

KGO-TV - Union accuses Ayers of 1970 bombing

The San Francisco Examiner - Police union targets ’60s radical

Chicago Tribune - San Francisco cops target Bill Ayers

Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 13:49, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Ism Schism is not dealing a full deck here. Edit warring that into five articles at last count is just just plain tendentious. The editor recently edit warred it back into an unprotected article, after three other articles were protected due to the edit warring, and left me a 3rr template (and a cut-and-paste of the above list of sources) in the process. This whole thing is another tentacle of the fringe stuff that just caused so much trouble on the Barack Obama page, with the same off-wiki cast of characters. Wikidemon (talk) 14:25, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

These are members of a police union, in conjunction with a partisan organization called "America's Survival Inc."speaking out about their personal opinion of the matter, rather than the result of an official law enforcement investigation. If you actually read some of the links above (apart from WND and FrontPageMag, which do not meet Misplaced Pages's WP:RS criteria), no one has ever been charged in the death of Sgt. Young. The articles also state that there is no evidence to connect Ayers, or anyone, to any of this.

This isn't an issue of reliable sourcing at all. It is an issue of whether or not the personal opinions of private citizens in regards to Ayers being responsible for a murder are fit to be included in the Misplaced Pages. IMO, any sane and sensible reading of WP:BLP policy would find that it is wholly unfit for inclusion. Tarc (talk) 14:28, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Urgent RFPP

I have posted at RFPP, but it's getting beyond a joke - could somebody please semi-protect John Fenzel and The Lazarus Covenant whose AfD templates have been removed ELEVEN timesand four times respectively by anonymous IPs ? JohnCD (talk) 21:01, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

OK William M. Connolley (talk) 21:04, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Battleground

I'll note this IP is using the article as a battleground against censorship and is repeatedly reinserting graphic link to illustrate a point. Best, NonvocalScream (talk) 21:59, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I have removed the link for style reasons and offered my thoughts on the talk page. The edit warring is not a positive, but I don't think it's quite as clear-cut as you make out that the website should not be included. J Milburn (talk) 22:28, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Rajinder Kumar Kamboj AFD

Can some admin saunter over to this AFD and inform User:Sze cavalry01 of the AFD process as well as WP:CIVIL ? I don't want to do this myself since I have !voted on the AFD and the incivility is directed towards all user who have not voted keep. See (which includes the threat to recreate the article, if it is deleted) and user's earlier comments. Note that the user has voted multiple times, and also copied other users comments, so that my signature appears at least 3 times on the page, even though I have commented just once. Abecedare (talk) 23:11, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

• Done, removed all the duplicate !votes, and removed all the personal attacks. Black Kite 00:04, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Abecedare (talk) 00:15, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Another Politician Texas sock

It seems we've got another sock of PoliticianTexas (talk · contribs) adding the same old edits on Española Valley High School and New Mexico related articles. User D3wallFields (talk · contribs) has popped up, making the same changes as before. For evidence, compare this edit to his previous edit as his most recent sock as TrentZee (talk · contribs) .

I don't know what his obsession is, but this one certainly seems to be quacking. Dayewalker (talk) 00:57, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm checking this out ... it does seem suspicious. He's clearly not a new user, as evidenced by his first edit. But is he a sock? Gonna take more digging. Blueboy96 01:16, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Just becuase I have re-added information from a previous user does NOT make me a sockpuppet what so ever. It is a shame that useful information was not used on the page, So I did some reverts and added a few things and also added a new State Champion from the school. By the way this is my first time on wikipedia and i created my account a month ago. D3wallFields (talk) 01:37, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

For any editors and admins who are new to the PT MO, usually the blocked editor will show up with a sockpuppet and make changes to a set of New Mexico-related articles. Often his changes are apparently supported by references, but the references to not actually support the material. He's quite the time consuming bore, really. Dayewalker (talk) 01:52, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, it took a little digging, but after discovering his edits were almost exact copies to another confirmed PoliticianTexas sock, JWillems (talk · contribs), that explained the quacking. Blocked indef ... most (if not all) edits either reverted or deleted. Blueboy96 02:23, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

User:70.67.163.110

70.67.163.110 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Please look at this user's contributions. You will see repeated uncivil attacks on everyone that reverts his vandalism. He persists despite more than one block for incivility or vandalism. As the last was a combined uncivil remark with vandalism and his last block was for incivility, I reported him on the wikietiquette page, but they referred me here.--2008Olympian 01:32, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Three edits in the last month? With all due respect, this doesn't look like a significant problem. – iridescent 01:38, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Also possibly editing under Mortamar Kahn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), and I would guess others, but although the IP was belligerent and vulgar, it doesn't seem very frequent yet. Baseball Bugs carrots 01:58, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Also similar edits by 96.54.0.231 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Looks like a small sockfarm waiting to be harvested. Baseball Bugs carrots 03:49, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

If you start poking around, you see lots of similar edits made by different IP's. Could be just copycats, but it would take a checkuser to determine that. Baseball Bugs carrots 04:07, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

disruptive user

• Whiteroll (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This user received three edit war blocks in seven days. Since his last block ended a few days ago he has made five edits, four are reverts and none on talk despite my request. He edit wars, move-wars, and uses the talk pages for personal attacks. Could someone give him a longer block (he has had 24, 48, and 55 hours) or give him a meaningful warning? Ostap 03:07, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I blocked him for two weeks with and left him a message explaining that it will not be allowed to continue any further next time. Mfield (talk) 03:20, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

You beat me to it. I was going to give a 2 week block. If he edit wars after that, then it will likely be a block of undetermined length. Chillum 03:22, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the quick response, administrators. Ostap 03:32, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Users continually re-inserting LINKVIO links

At We Don't Wanna Put In, there are users continually re-inserting WP:LINKVIO links into the article. . I left a warning on the talk page at Talk:We Don't Wanna Put In, advising people that these are linkvios, yet they have been re-inserted; first by an IP user and then by a user who has previously re-inserted the links twice. I have asked for lyricstranslations.com to be added to the blacklist at MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#lyricstranslations.com due to the re-insertion of the links by the IP user, but the re-insertion by an established user is just not on. I think I have made it quite clear why these links have been removed, and why they should not be re-inserted, and it's unacceptable that users continue to re-insert them, even after being advised why they have been removed. Admin presence is requested here. --Russavia 07:38, 15 March 2009 (UTC) I have also alerted the latest registered user to reinsert the links on his talk page at User_talk:Hapsala#Admin_intervention_has_been_requested. --Russavia 07:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Did you try to have a discussion with any of these users on their own talk page? From what I can tell, you haven't. -- Darth Mike  (join the dark side) 13:29, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

From what I can tell, he has: . It seems, that User:Hapsala has now reinserted the WP:LINKVIO material for the fourth time, all the warnings given: Offliner (talk) 13:50, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

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