Misplaced Pages

I would recommend people check Scuro's contributions and you will see that this problem has been going on for years rather than months. Their contribs show that they essentially live on article talk pages. The few edits they make to articles are usually to delete stuff or at least recently edit war over uncited positions. Doc James has had problems with scuro for years whereas I have had problems for months. This editor has been disrupting talk pages and editing and has been for years, they never contribute any citations for their forum like debates on the talk page and seem to be playing a game of wearing people down on talk pages. They churn out 100 kb per week of endless debates and drama on article talk pages without using citations for their position. Seems wikipedia is a recreational debating club for them. Essentially if you check their contribs they live on talk pages, filling them up without anything constructive ever being produced other than engaging hours upon hours of constructive editors time engaging them in debates, accusations, drama making the article talk pages like a forum. They have been asked to contribute constructively by simply providing citations by multiple editors but they refuse and then accuse editors of ownership and file requests for comments etc when editors refuse to edit the page according to their POV. All that is asked is that they provide citations as their POV cannot warrent changes to an article without reliable sources. From what some old time editors of the ADHD articles have told me and from reading the talk pages scuro has chased off editors including a consultant psychiatrist who had published on ADHD.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 10:15, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Notes on the aforementioned comment:

1. From my search of logs, no RfC has been filed against user:Scuro. Nja 10:45, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
2. Whilst ADHD related articles is the current focus of disruption and therefore the topic ban being considered here, it seems that user:Scuro may have a pattern of 'wearing down' editors as shown in a discussion relating to a non-ADHD dispute about one year ago: "We've had over a month of discussion over 3 disputed sentences, and it hasn't solved anything." -- Nja 10:35, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Here is another example from the consultant psychiatrist that Scuro chased off wikipedia complaining about scuro wearing down opponents. It wouldn't be so bad if scuro had citations for their POV.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 10:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your ADHD related example. It shows that this dispute has ran much longer than I thought. Thus is it your overall opinion that a topic ban (the subject matter of this discussion) would be appropriate to address this long running disruption? Nja 10:49, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Thank you Nja. I think that a topic ban rather than a full ban from wikipedia would be the most appropriate action.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 11:05, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support. I'm relatively new on the ADHD pages, and would like to reiterate that it takes some time to see the problem. Many (most?) of scuro's entries seem earnest and innocent, taken alone. But they are mostly avoidance of real on-topic discussion. Screens full of quotes from policy, guidelines and talk of "the true spirit of Misplaced Pages", for example, are generally unhelpful. Complaining of POV, ownership etc., is, at length, not constructive. And as this diff shows, I have had to point out that scuro has put words in my mouth, saying the opposite of what I've said. - Hordaland (talk) 12:17, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

It's been a long time since I've read the name "Scuro" on Misplaced Pages, but I immediately remembered my discussions with him on the talk page of Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder controversies in May 2008. I was called to the page from the reliable source noticeboard (if I remember correctly). Trying to add publicly verifiable reliable sources from JSTOR documenting either the controversy to or criticisms of ADHD was not something particularly welcomed by Scuro who believed that the page should not even exist. Several diligent editors attempted to work with him on the page, but apparently they have stopped trying (note: I stopped following that page last year after I saw it as a waste of time). To be honest, I've always thought it strange that Scuro proudly wears his POV on his sleeve by notifying readers of his intention to promote the "truth" (whatever that means) about ADHD on Misplaced Pages. But it's his user page. He can write whatever he likes on it, I suppose. As for a time-specific topic-ban (perhaps six months?), I honestly think it's a good idea. Scuro should branch out a bit on Misplaced Pages and calmly reflect on the possibility that writing an encyclopedia has more to do with balancing Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines (all of them) with one's personal need to contribute in the first place. J Readings (talk) 12:51, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Support I strongly believe that a topic ban of User:Scuro will making editing and improving Misplaced Pages easier for all.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:38, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Support, unfortunately. Scuro has been disruptive and has driven off at least one expert and wasted a great deal of editor time, with too little benefit. I dislike topic bans imposed at AN/I, it's a hot environment and can easily make ill-considered decisions. However, a neutral close here will set up a go-to administrator who can lift the ban at his or her discretion. If Scuro wishes to formally challenge the ban, and if the closing admin doesn't lift it upon his request, Scuro could start an RfC on himself, I'd certify it on request! -- so, effectively, this ban would be ad-interim, somewhat like an ArbComm injunction, an injunction issued by a neutral administrator quite like injunctions are issued by an individual judge based on immediate impression. I recommend that the ban include the Talk pages, because it's reasonable to conclude that there has been Talk page disruption, not just article problems. However, a topic ban doesn't prevent an editor from finding a cooperative unbanned editor to make Talk suggestions or even article edits as he suggests and upon review by the editor, provided that the cooperating editor takes full responsibility for them. I would be happy to consider suggestions from Scuro, though I know he doesn't trust me at all, and he would probably approach others. But that's up to him. I saw the apparent 3RR violation and didn't warn Scuro because he's demanded that I stay off his Talk page, and I generally respect that kind of request absent emergencies, and preventing him from being blocked wasn't an emergency. A 24-hour block is pretty harmless. --Abd (talk) 14:46, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• I support a topic ban and I favour the suggestion by admin J Readings of a 6 month topic ban.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 15:04, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. Nja247 asked "Would I be supported in a topic ban?" I would not support the ban being issued by Nja, unless Scuro consents. (The issue would be whether or not Scuro trusts that Nja247 is sufficiently neutral to make fair decisions about the ban ongoing.) My impression is that Nja247 can reasonably considered involved, so, absent emergency, the close here should be by a neutral administrator. We should avoid even the appearance of use of tools while involved, and there is no necessity for Nja247 to personally take this on, and it's good for the project and any possible future re-integration of Scuro into the community of editors involved with his topic of interest, that Scuro be given as little reason as possible to think himself the victim of discrimination or bias. He might still think that, and he might still blame others, but we should make sure that this isn't due to our lack of care over neutrality and fairness. Having said that, suppose Nja247 had posted to Scuro's talk, something like: "pending discussion at AN/I , I am requiring that you not edit pages related to ADHD, and will block if this ban is violated, pending review." My opinion is that involved administrators may take emergency measures, provided that they disclose involvement and recuse as soon as practical. For example, the notice could say, "Any administrator may lift this ban without consulting me, or reverse any block issued under it." That I would have supported fully. What Nja247 did was just fine, though, probably better than treating this as a rip-roaring emergency, and what's best, here, is to wait for a neutral close. (If Nja247 has to ask if the community will support an action, Nja247 should not be the one to make the decision as to whether or not the community supports it!) --Abd (talk) 15:09, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• • Comment. Nja only became involved because of repeated reports of scuro's behaviour. Nja has not edited any of the ADHD articles and has no interest that I can see in the ADHD articles. Their only involvement was to try and mediate which Nja did so diplomatically. Also note that Nja asked for other admins support of whether to ban or not and they appear to be supporting the decision so I disagree with your reasoning, however, I guess ultimately it really doesn't matter who issues the ban.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 15:14, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Comments. I'd like to make a couple of points: If a ban is imposed as a result of this discussion, it'll be a community ban, not a ban by Nja247. Someone other than the proposer should close the discussion and determine consensus. I do not think that the discussion ought to close in less than 24 hours. This means that Scuro will have an opportunity to comment here. No opinion, at this time, on the ban itself. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 15:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• The sanctions page is very clear that it is not used for individual editors: "general sanctions on all editors working in a particular area." Sorry, but there is no grounds for this. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:32, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Note - the link was changed, so this no longer applies. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:58, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• • Please read my post immediately above, and those following, which demonstrate that a ban will be within policy if there is a consensus for it. Opposing a ban just because Nja247 included a link to WP:SANCTION would be wonkery of the worst kind. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 15:51, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Ottava Rima, I think that perhaps you are reading the wrong wiki policy page. You should be reading this one Misplaced Pages:Editing restrictions which deals with individual editors I think. You copied that from a policy which is used for mass disruption by multiple editors, this policy page Misplaced Pages:General sanctions. Unless I am incorrect in my interpretation I disagree with your reasoning for opposing as I believe that you are using the wrong policy document.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 15:39, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment Which sanctions page are you reading again?
    • General restriction
      • Administrators may impose one or more specific restrictions (as listed in each individual case) on editors.
    • Discretionary sanctions
      • Administrators may impose any sanctions which they believe are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project.
  • Seems pretty cut-and-dried to me...--SarekOfVulcanExtra (talk) 15:42, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
    • Missed the hatnote, sorry.--SarekOfVulcanExtra (talk) 16:08, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, Nja simply erred in linking WP:SANCTION rather than WP:RESTRICT. Otherwise, everything is above board here. –xeno 15:47, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Odd how the two pages are eerily alike (perhaps they were edited to have similar language). Ottava Rima (talk) 16:48, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

The latter is a child of the former which applies to editors generally rather than specifically. –xeno 16:57, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

(ec x 2) Abd writes: "I recommend that the ban include the Talk pages..."
I'm sure that anyone supporting a topic ban would absolutely agree with this. (!)

Else: I agree with SHEFFIELDSTEEL about community ban and closing.
- Hordaland (talk) 15:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• • • Important comment. Please note that the problem is NOT just on the main ADHD page but also on the ADHD controversies article and adhd treatment article and previously on the stimulant related articles, methylphenidate, dexamphetamine. If a topic related ban or block is made it will have to include all the related articles on ADHD and the stimulants used to treat it,,, otherwise in less than a week we will be back on the admin noticeboard.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 16:03, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Here are some of the important topics that he will need to be resrticted from.

• Adult attention-deficit disorder
• Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder management
• Methylphenidate
• Dextroamphetamine
• History of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder
• Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder controversies
• Social construct theory of ADHD
• Neurodiversity

• • • • The topic ban will no doubt be broadly construed. –xeno 16:15, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Support community topic ban. I've read somewhat of the Talk page of the AHDH controversies article, and while it's possible that Scuro is the lone voice of neutrality, and the only editor trying to seek consensus, it's more reasonable to conclude that there often is a consensus and that Scuro just isn't part of it. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 16:15, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

There is actually a range of editors with differing viewpoints. Editors with differing POVs or editing history have challenged my edits and I have challenged their edits, they are reasonable and most importantly they use sources and we come to a compromise. Hordaland has a differing viewpoint on ADHD and has altered some of my edits which is fine. Scuro is not the "lone voice" for pro ADHD. We have quite a flavour of opinions on the talk pages, trust me. :) I have noticed there are editors some of whom have commented here who either have ADHD themselves or have a "pro" ADHD viewpoint also have had problems with scuro. Please don't see this as a matter of differing POVs. This is about serious disruption which has gone on years. I don't mind editors with a differing viewpoint even if they are over enthusiastic if they are constructive and use sources.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 16:30, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• I have just look through some of the the talk pages involved--to the best of my rememberance I've never done anything substantial with this group of articles. I do not see Scuro as the only or even the principal source of contention. Most of the recent controversy seems to have been about the placement of NPOV tags. This is lame, if there is a NPOV dispute, there is a NPOV dispute, and the effort should instead have gone to improving the article. My advice would be to tolerate him. I see no need for emergency measures. DGG (talk) 17:24, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Have you considered that this has been ongoing for years with various editors who simply gave up? There are examples noted towards the top. Also two 3RR's in one month and the fact that there have been numerous unanswered requests for sources should raise some flags. Nja 17:32, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

DGG, scuro lives on talk pages and this has been going on for years. The reason that scuro has gotten away with this huge amount of disruption is because admins and reviewers look at small section of dispute in time. You have thousands of contribs to review and lots of archives on talk pages. They are creating 100 kb worth of endless and pointless debates per week on talk pages and never produce sources for their POV. Why do you think there are so many people complaining and even people who give up and leave wikipedia including a consultant psychiatrist? I actually believe that their editing is using professional tactics to wear down opponents. I am going to place a conflict of interest thing on scuros page. I am not the first to say this as the consult psychiatrist believed this to, see my diff above.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 17:44, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Comment I'd like to comment on the statement "it seems that user:Scuro may have a pattern of 'wearing down' editors as shown in a discussion relating to a non-ADHD dispute about one year ago: "We've had over a month of discussion over 3 disputed sentences, and it hasn't solved anything." -- Nja247" First off, that was two years ago. And I don't see anywhere where you have linked to specific the user he has done wrong, as you are suppose to. If there is a pattern of wearing anyone down, then surely it happened more than just that one incident two years ago. And some editors always have a problem with certain others who disagree with them, and always will. Deal with everything case by case, and link to specific edit histories of what you consider proof of a problem. Dream Focus 17:45, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose I have been following the ADHD pages for a while, having stopped editing them because it became unpleasant for anyone not anti-psych/anti-pharm to edit these pages. I am another professional bullied off the page but by JMH not Scuro. My take on it, is that although Scuro is misguided in fighting small points that should probably be let go, it has been very difficult for him/her to do anything without being reverted, hence the move to the talk pages and the frustration. A topic ban will not solve the problems.--Vannin (talk) 17:45, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose I read some of the talk page, and don't see as he being the problem. Reading Vannin's comment above, I have to agree, and am oppose to any topic ban. Dream Focus 17:51, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea what vanin is talking about because his last discussions, I said "please do cite the source" in the article (meta-analysis) even though I am not convinced by it. See this discussion Talk:Attention-deficit_hyperactivity_disorder#Disorder. Vanin's claim of being chased off wiki is nonsense because the outcome was please cite the source even though a couple of editors have a different opinion. Judging by vanin's slurs of anti-pharm and anti-med (which includes National Institute for Clinical excellence who say ADHD is controversial and hundreds upon hundreds of peer reviewed secondary sources) that he is motivated to side with scuro by making things up that he was forced off ADHD articles from a single discussion which went in his favour!--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 17:56, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Please read the archive to see past history with JMH. I have added references only to have them removed less than an hour later. Why bother?--Vannin (talk) 18:01, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

JMH had indicated I believe in the WQA linked to above that he admittedly made mistakes in handling things in the past. Nja 18:33, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I misread your original post Vannin and thought that you said "not Doc James", which then I thought you were referring to me as I was last person you talked to. Anyway I am reviewing the archives now. Doc James was opposed to you using a small primary source controlled trial to debunk a systemic review of the literature. You then were arguing with Doc James saying that sometimes refs like the Mayo Clinic trump peer reviewed secondary sources. I am sorry but Doc James was correct so far in what I am reading. I recommend familarising yourself with reliable sources for medicine related articles vannin. See this page. WP:MEDRS

Anyway your dispute with Doc James does not in any way give a reason for scuro to continue churning out 100 kb worth of drama without producing citations, causing drama. Saying I had an argument with Doc James, scuro opposes Doc James therefore scuro should be allowed to disrupt wikipedia and use talkpages as a debating forum is not valid. Maybe I am being a little oh I dunno the word but degrading your argument a bit but essentially that is what you are saying.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:50, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok read more of archives vannin, your position was that there is no controversy at all with ADHD and then cited a book by someone employed by the drug companies as proof. You then also seemed deceived by the title of a ref saying by the same employee "international consensus" and used it as proof as well to basically dispute hundreds of peer reviewed secondary sources. You then tried to argue further down the page that a bi-weekly newsletter or drug bulletin should trump a secondary sources. Basically you appeared to want to totally delete anything which says anything critical or controversial about ADHD using poor quality primary sources or quotes from employees of the manufacturers of the drugs. I am not surprised people opposed your edits. I am not being biased at all. You are free to check over at the reliable sources project for medicine related articles. Primary sources should not be used to debunk and certainly not delete cited data by secondary sources.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 21:00, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Outsider question: this is related to the question about a topic ban how? Can we focus people? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:03, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

When dealing with other editors regardless of POV things are focused on discussions of citations and are thus productive so I think the issue is scuro's refusal to use citations and churning out 100 kb of drama on talk pages. Oh yes, another revealing point. When I first edited the ADHD pages, my very first day, scuro looked at my edits didn't like them and if I remeber correctly they reverted me and then I reverted them because I was using seconday sources, anyway after a single revert they abused 3 revert warring template. I think they thought I was a newbie or someone who didn't know much about wikipedia and would panic and back down or something. Anyway this is what I mean by I think they have a conflict of interest and why they live on article talk pages to try and drain constructive editors if their POV differs or intimidate people with template warnings.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 21:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I oppose dream focus's oppose because he did not investigate the issue properly in my opinion. He automatically assumed vannin was in the right and doc james in the wrong and then by his own admitance said that he only read "some" of the talk page. The problem is hours and hours of pointless debates month after month, year after year using professional tactics to wear down opposition without using citations. The problem is for the past number of years admins and reviewers only look at one small piece of text in isolation and not the 100 kb worth of pointless debates week after week on article talk pages. I can see the result of this discussion,,, "we reviewed a small part of the talk page and endorse scruo's right to drain opponents by using talk pages as a debating club". I am about to give up. Thankfully though I am nearly finished editing the ADHD pages anyway and 95% of my edits have been using high quality sources. I am sorry I am losing my cool but so would anyone after wasting hours and hours and hours per week engaging in senseless debates which produce nothing.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 21:39, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Final comment, NJA said towards start of this conversation that no RFc had been filed against scuro. I said by scuro, sorry for confusion. Anyway here are links showing that this drama has been ongoing for a while long before I started editing ADHD articles. Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/jmh649, Wikipedia_talk:Mediation_Cabal/2008_Archive_1#a_case_of_a_another_editor_constantly_focusing_on_me_as_a_contributor_in_talk and Misplaced Pages:Wikiquette_alerts/archive63#Scuro_and_editors_generally.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 22:01, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I would agree with LG. Scuro has attempted to drive other editors away He also posts on my talk page after I have asked him not to and . This is after I have provided four references and the author who first developed the idea.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:44, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Yea but yet he uses the tactic of accusing other people of ownership when scuro is the one guilty of ownership or personal attack and just about every policy. That is another thing that annoys me is their repeated false accusations publicly on article talk pages against other editors.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 22:59, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Comments by Scuro

User noted the below on their talk page, reposting here and removing transcluded section per the same. –xeno 20:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC) and now user is provisionally unblocked so that they may participate directly

1. I will not post on the proposed topic ban until I am granted the same rights as anyone else.
2. This is a gross abuse of process.
3. That the process shouldn't be closed until I have had a chance to fairly confront my accusers.
4. ...and finally that I have virtually added no original material or taken any material off of the ADHD page for over 1/2 a year. Why is a topic ban necessary?--scuro (talk) 20:22, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• Procedural oppose. The proposal for a topic ban doesn't actually link to any evidence of disruption or to specific prior dispute resolution attempts. Two of the people who have supported this proposal appear to be in a dispute with Scuro, yet have failed to disclose their involvement at the sanctions discussion. Furthermore, they have been templating Scuro repeatedly at his/her user talk. That's a very odd way to interact with an experienced editor, and it obviously isn't yielding positive results. Also, a review of the article talk page demonstrates that Scuro has not in fact been dominating recent discussion. Perhaps there is legitimate grounds for a sanction on this editor, yet the case has not only not been made for it, but the circumstances superficially resemble a railroading attempt. A topic ban is a serious matter, and if the requesting editors aren't dedicated enough to make reasonable efforts to substantiate a legitimate need for it then the community should never endorse the proposal: sooner or later that yields laziness and actual railroading, which is not acceptable. Durova 01:15, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
  • I considered striking my comment based on that of Durova here. However, procedural opposition could be an error here. The substance is substantial long-term concern regarding this editor's behavior, both with articles and with Talk. I would certainly hope that a closing admin would look at whatever evidence was provided, and I'd also hope that this admin, if closing with a ban, would consider possibilities such as mentoring. Scuro is an SPA with a strong POV; his protestations of not editing the article are weak; he was blocked for 3RR violation. I would not, however, have brought Scuro here for a ban; however, note, what I would have done has been negated by Scuro, he's highly reactive to me, objecting to friendly comments, not just critical ones. I have no reason to think Nja was biased. Hence I decided to support the ban, but to suggest that Nja not close or interpret this process as support for Nja banning. I'd prefer an indefinite ban to a fixed term, not because I think that a long-term ban is necessary, but "indef" simply means "until something shifts," and "community ban" should not mean "really bad." It's part of my philosophy re admin decisions on Misplaced Pages that admins are always personally responsible for decisions; everyone here could be screaming for Scuro's head, but no admin should close with "consensus is to take off his head," unless the admin personally agrees after review of evidence and arguments. And if an admin considers the evidence too thin to support a ban, that's also fine, a close should be based on arguments, not on !votes. (However, if an admin closes this without a ban, given how much support there has been for a ban, the admin should take responsibility for monitoring the situation; my view is that an admin may always reverse a decision upon new evidence or argument. I.e., an admin could close here with no ban, but later ban based on related developments. --Abd (talk) 03:58, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Unless you are offering to mentor this editor yourself, I would really appreciate it if you moved that comment as distant from mine as possible. The solution to 'they haven't demonstrated any case for sanctions at all' is not 'then we'll wish a mentor into existence where no one has offered and require that this person engage with the phantom mentor.' That's the wrong response to lack of evidence and absolutely the wrong approach to mentoring (I speak from experience on the latter point). Durova 04:22, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

If not mentoring then probation. It's not that we're shooting for anything, but overall it's our belief that community action of some sort is needed. If you consider the admittedly few links provided, I'd hope you find that this has been going on for over a year. My proposal is based on my limited experience with the user and therefore I haven't too much to provide (though editors involved currently or in the past have provided their experiences and some examples throughout). Generally, I believe the fact that the user's only contributions are geared towards a single subject; the general tendentious editing; two 3RR's in a month, and further a look over my talk page and its archives to see how often they're used to discuss this user would have established a need for community action. The fact that it's been on-going for so long tells me that the community has ignored it long enough. Also Abd: I hope it's clear I wouldn't personally close this. Nja 05:54, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Hm? Under what rationale does you haven't presented enough evidence to merit any action at all get misconstrued as a negotiating stance to achieve a 'compromise' of probation? Bring forth evidence, please. Striking the word 'procedural' from my opinion. This is outright opposable. Durova 01:31, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Some evidence has been submitted, see above where I cited 3 wiki links to past mediation and RfCs. Also a couple of editors submited diffs. See above. Ok, the only way to prove that suro contributes no sources for their POV and lives on talk pages making unconstructive arguments and has caused a large amount of distress for editors for years is to examine all of their contributions. You are asking the impossible to cite a few diffs. Doing that will not in isolation show any major disruption. The evidence is on the talk pages but even then you probably won't fully grasp what is going on unless you familarise yourself with the article and the citations and even then you won't be able to see the back and forth on talk pages either to understand what is going on on article talk pages, so it is a lost cause when you set such standards for this problem. Here is about 5 - 10 thousand contribuitions to wade through. Special:Contributions/Scuro. If you know of a better method of proving that an editor has spent years filling up talk pages with endless recreational debates without referring to their edit history then please let me know otherwise all I can do is submit their entire edit history. I can't "single out" one or two diffs to show prolonged disruption. Also if you were even moderately familar with the recent problems with scuro you would realise that the template warnings were actually a last resort after being driven mad by scuro who you cannot reason with. They were also blocked twice after the template warnings so the admins who blocked him recently must also have bad interpretation of the facts as well then. Incidently remember it was I who got attacked with a 3 revert template after doing a single revert on my day editing ADHD articles but then suro went on to break 3 revert rule twice! So I find the template criticism ironic. To provide individual diffs will turn into a he said she said which is more of the recreational drama which is going on the talk pages and I don't see how it will benefit anyone. Ok basically I can see where this goes, rule is don't use talk pages as a forum, however, this is unenforacble and users can break the rule anyway because admins and reviewers can't read through the megabytes and megabytes of thousands of edits to confirm it. I couldn't be annoyed with this anymore. Lets just let scuro have his recreational fun and close this chat. I vote close discussion.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 05:22, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Not so fast, Lit-geek. We've tried to argue that practically all diffs, taken together, will prove our point (and our frustration). Durova isn't accepting this, saying "... and if the requesting editors aren't dedicated enough to make reasonable efforts to substantiate a legitimate need for it then the community should never endorse the proposal..."

Providing all relevant diffs isn't possible (without breaking a server or something...). Perhaps we could make a few categories and provide 5 diffs in each of them. For example:

1. Posts containing several paragraphs of lecturing on Misplaced Pages guidelines/policy followed by "I'm ready when you are" or "The ball is in your court".
2. Entries consisting (almost) solely of complaining of victimization / paranoia / martyrdom.
3. Posts accusing people of being uncivil / rude.
4. Complaints that no one (else) is willing to try for consensus and/or compromise.

What we probably won't be able to find in the last few months are 5 diffs showing reasoned suggestions for specific/concrete changes/edits/sources. - Hordaland (talk) 07:17, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Section Break

Scuro's behavior is suboptimal. I am, however, concerned about the editing environment in psychiatric articles. There has been a subtle yet long-term effort to minimize and denigrate mainstream psychiatry - not only in controversial areas like ADHD but in articles on antidepressants and benzodiazepines. Opposing ideas are often met with spurious accusations of vandalism, or complaints about article length, or innuendo about shilling for Big Pharma. Meta-analyses are often cherry-picked and selectively quoted to frame the issue in a POV manner. Voluminous templating of regulars occurs. I'm not surprised Scuro has reacted negatively to this. This area would benefit from fresh editors and admins, particularly those with access to and understanding of medical journals. Skinwalker (talk) 00:16, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

For the record, I advocated last year the use of academic and medical journals widely available on JSTOR in addition to mainstream newspaper articles found in LexisNexis documenting the controversy. I outlined the citations here. The discussion that followed speaks to the problem at hand. J Readings (talk) 00:33, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Please don't label benzos in the same league as antidepressants. The mainstream consensus on antidepressants is that overall they are benefitial drugs (apart from parxoetine which is controversial drug). The mainstream opinions on chronic use of benzos is they are harmful hence why virtually every single regulatory body if not all regulatory bodies only recommend short term use. The FDA, UK CSM, Australia, european countries, everyone recommends short term use. Infact many countries actually have reducing benzos as a sign of good clinical practice and are goals for local health trusts and nationally. They have never ever been licensed long term. There are is a small minority of psychiatrists who officially recommend them long term. You are comparing apples and oranges here. Benzos quit working after a matter of days or weeks or a few months. Rapid tolerance like that does not occur with antidepressants for one example. Another example is benzos consistently worsen sleep quality by suppressing REM and other sleep stages and this is accepted by all sleep researchers and used to promote alternative sleep meds by manufacturers and sleep experts. I could go on and on. Antidepressants in general don't worsen depression except for a small subgroup who experience paradoxical reactions. Benzos can even make you mentally ill with chronic use with agoraphobia, worsened anxiety, worse sleep, muscular problems and on and on, not to mention protracted withdrawal lasting months, years.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 00:36, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the lecture. I'm not sure you know what you're talking about. That aside, your response has completely ignored my concerns about poor editor behavior. I made no comparison between antidepressants and benzodiazepines. I was speaking of an overarching set of tactics that you and others are employing across multiple articles. It seems that you're trying to use AN/I to chase off an editor who disagrees with you. Skinwalker (talk) 01:00, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I think unfortunately the same can be said of just about every 'controversial' topic on wikipedia, certainly my talk page can attest to the manner of welcome I received when venturing to add sourced and relevant information to Aspartame controversy. I haven't played an active role in the adhd related articles but I do have some of them on my watchlist after using some refs from them. From what I have seen I have to support Nja's analysis. Unomi (talk) 00:49, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I think if you looks at the references supporting the controversial view points one will find that most are of very good quality and sufficient to justify the existence of a controversy.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:18, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually I think that the benzo articles have been relatively drama free. I did regretably get involved initially unwittingly defending faked refs in the temazepam article when the author of the fake edits abandoned me to defend the article about 1 or 2 years ago. When I was new to wikipedia I did add in some animal data not realising the evidence base process wikipedia worked upon but I believe compared to a year ago my sourcing is much much better. Ironically Skinwalker, I almost defended you when I saw you being unfairly attacked by someone who said "there you go again,,,," on the paroxetine page but you probably don't believe me. I didn;t say anything as I didn;t want to butt into an argument that did not involve me. I have hardly edited the antidepressant articles at all except engaging in some talk page discussions on paroxetine and small edits about discontinuation/withdrawal symptoms. The only other very short lived dispute on benzo articles I had was with an editor who used a ref totally out of context. You can actually read a bit about it on my talk page and you will see that I was correct and the editor disappeared once I pointed this out. Please cite your evidence where I have used a particular tactic. The idea that I am trying to chase off editors off of ADHD pages is so far from the truth it is unbelievable. You do realise skinwalker that there are at least two people with a Pro ADHD viewpoint here complaining about scuro chasing off productive editors and wanting him blocked. This is NOT POV motivated. You have on your profile that you are a member of the "rational skepticism project" but yet you jump to evidenceless false assumptions rather quickly as in this case falsely accusing me of using this to chase people off of wikipedia when the opposite is true.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 00:05, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Skinwalker, if you have a differing viewpoint you should be explaining why scuro has a right to use the talk pages as an internet discussion forum, why he is right to chase off multiple editors including a consultant psychiatrist, why he is right to in the words of the consultant psychiatrists "rule the articles" and wear down opponents also the psychiatrists words. Also explain why even people with opposite views on ADHD also want scuro blocked as their patience with him chasing off productive editors. Can you explain that? I am not looking to be your enemy on here.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 00:25, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Have you considered this? Thoughts from Scuro

What has been proposed is a topic ban. Misplaced Pages could be more clear about topic bans, it speaks mostly about processes. The reasoning behind a topic ban looks to be about being disruptive. On the ADHD article page I've added virtually no original material, or deleted material, for over 1/2 a year. I have done this because the vast majority of my edits over the last year have been deleted or reverted. It's called page ownership. If one were to look at the edit history of the article page, one would have a hard time finding my edits amongst all the other edits. I'm certain that they make up less then one percent of the total edits. Surely no one would contend that I am disruptive on the article page. The article has undergone a large transition during this time and it made no difference if I was editing or away for a weeks time.

Have I been disruptive on the talk page? To be truly disruptive on the talk page I will contend that you would have to demonstrate that a contributor is disrupting consensus building, which is leads to the betterment of the article. My point is that there is no true wikipedian consensus on the ADHD article page. Sure you have contributors stating that they have reached consensus. They agree with each other and make changes accordingly on the article. But, I believe what Jim Whales means by true consensus is that this process happens when contributors who hold opposing views and sometimes polar opposite views consent that an article is fair. This process requires a thousand written and unwritten consents, and requires the good faith of both parties. I hold the polar opposite view of many of my detractors. I've been seeking consensus the entire time. You would hope that a group who holds the polar opposite view of a contributor would be: generous, be protective of abuse, and seek common ground where ever they can find it. I would thrive in such a environment.

As a contributor I've gone through the processes and I have learned and grown the whole way along. When I saw page ownership, I stopped working with content. When I saw consensus looked impossible on the page I went through two & mediation processes where the other contributor backed out both times. When I saw that I couldn't stop page ownership I took a break from all of Misplaced Pages for two months. When I returned, page ownership was still alive and well. My first 3R block was me simply repeatedly posting a POV tag on the top of the page. It was taken down every time usually without discussion, certainly without an attempt at consensus. I felt it to be very wrong that I was not allowed to let other contributors know that I felt the page was biased. The contributor who filed the 3R ban had committed to:

1. seek consensus
2. leaving tags on top of the page until all are happy
3. and reverting only once..

None of this happened on my return. The second 3R is wrong but I've got my hands full and haven't been able to respond, even to this process, until now. This is the third major complaint filled against me in a little over a weeks time. All were filled by Nja247. The first wikiquette alert end with this observation.

What I see here now is admissions by editors in general, and a lot of discussion that would be best served back on the article talkpage. Some monitoring of the ADHD pages may be a good idea, but I would suggest at this point that there are no violations of WP:CIVIL nor WP:NPA to be dealt with, so this WQA filing can be closed as resolved. I advise all editors to stay cool, especially when editing "challenging" topics.

The wikiquette alert was reopened soon after, and end with these two observations.

Trying to use any of the above to show behaviours in the editor are as far of a stretch as can possibly be done. You can't corner an editor, slap 3rr and WQA filings and not expect a little bit of frustration - and frustration is all that is being shown: no attacks, no swearing, no bullying.

Per BMW. This sort of abuse of this dispute resolution mechanism is unacceptable, and the claims of disruption personal attacks and "claiming to be victim" amount to incivility in itself - the claims are unjustified. Further reopening of this thread by Nja247 should result in a block.

To repeat, I am not impeding the development of the article either on the article page or the talk page. If my behaviour is a problem there are several wiki processes to engage me and mediate compromise. No contributor on these pages has ever initiated such a process with me, nor have they initiated content mediation. In discussing processes, Nja247 stated on his talk page that wikiquette alerts are "quicker". Mediation has it's place, to take a "shortcut" was not the right thing to do.--scuro (talk) 05:28, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

You provide no sources, no wonder you hardly contribute to articles. Your home is on the talk pages where you also refuse to provide citations. More recreational debating with false claims of ownership. Asking for citations on wikipedia is not ownership. I submit this statement by scuro as evidence by the way. As for deleting material you were only blocked just over 24 hours for 3 reverts of deleting material! This is an example of false accusations and manipulating the truth and the endless debates that go on ADHD pages without any citations being provided or productive editing ever occuring..--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 05:52, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Scuro:If one were to look at the edit history of the article page, one would have a hard time finding my edits amongst all the other edits. Actually, some hard numbers might prove useful here. According to Wikichecker, Scuro is the most frequent editor of the Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder controversies mainspace and talk page. Indeed, out of 275 editors to the page over the past few years, Scuro's edits (456) on the mainspace page far surpass the edits of the runner-up on the page by 190%: Jmh649 (157). On the talk page, it's the same phenomenon. According to Wikichecker, out of 84 editors, Scuro checks in at the number one slot with 404 comments (amazing) versus the runner-up (Sifaka) at 85 edits. As a tool, Wikichecker actually provides a very dispassionate third-party analysis of Scuro's edit history on Misplaced Pages. J Readings (talk) 06:04, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

And what are the numbers for the ADHD main article if we use my 6 month time frame? That after all is what the quote refers to, not the controversies page for three years. Also, If we believe that people change, and I have demonstrated that my editing patterns have changed why are you implying that I am static? How about the total numbers for all the off shoot articles plus the ADHD page? I've tried to clean up the controversies article many times, also when I edit I usually don't have a clean first draft. I will multi-submit the same information several times...like am doing right now with this edit.--scuro (talk) 07:21, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

My notes of the above statement:

• I'd like to note that I had already noted the WQA in the first paragraph of my proposal, thus this is not new information. I've never been part of the dispute itself, but I have been active in trying to bring this year issue to an end. Whilst two editors are currently involved, we've had six other editors support the proposal, some of whom shared their past experiences with you.
• I do not think your statement above addresses any of the issues raised, and it's in fact the same line you've been running since I first became involved.
• I'd also like to note that disruption to this topic area extends beyond the talk page itself. For example you decided to use the comments section here to apparently steer members of the Wikiproject Medical collaboration team away from the article. The comment by user:Unionhawk was particularly valid in my opinion.
• I still await a response from my queries yesterday on your talk page regarding essentially WP:SPA and WP:TE and the lack of a provision of sources. Nja 08:39, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

A response to Nja247,

-There were 4 editors who took the time to actually be part of Doc James RFC. For anyone who has actually filled an RFC this is not an easy process and is time consuming. One of the filers was an administrator. On the other hand, it's easy to take pot shots, especially when you are in a crowd. May I suggest the possibility that no mediation process has occurred to date with me because these contributors would have to demonstrate that two users have tried but failed to communicate with me on my talk page and resolve the problem. I would appreciate it if this happened. I would like it if they talked to me and tried to solve problems. What I get is a large amount of personal attacks and derision. As noted on the RFC already filled, some contributors simply want me topic banned back then, and things don't look different now.

-You know Nja247 there have been so many accusations made against me recently, I don't where to begin. Funny thing about my detractors is they waffle back and for between this is a content dispute and this is a behaviour dispute. My grip doesn't change. There is a HUGE ownership problem on the ADHD page. Can I respectfully ask that my detractors refine their complaint and get consensus on exactly how I am uniquely stopping progress of the article? Then let me respond. I'm not perfect, it's been a long frustrating experience, but I try to play by Wikipedian rules and try to make this a better place. I did recently respond to your SPA complaint.--scuro (talk) 09:57, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I have seen the response, but personally I don't think it answered what I put to you at all. The genius of this process however is that that's for the community to decide. In light of your response above, I move for an uninvolved admin to consider the discussion here and on the user's talk page and decide on a closure. Nja 10:08, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Multiple people are accusing me of many things. I've been up most of the night putting responses together. I'm sorry if the length, and content, and questions not answered on my talk page didn't meet your expectations. Given the situation, one has to gage where one is going to sink ones time. Give me enough time, and have this community be specific, and I can respond at length about any topic.--scuro (talk) 10:30, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

(undent) Edit count as requested on the ADHD talk page: Scuro (648) Jmh649 (373) *Kat* (123) Ss06470 (111) On the main ADHD page Jmh649 (454) Scuro (353)*Kat* (277) --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:39, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

The point I was making earlier was that I virtually didn't edit the ADHD article page for over 6 months. Sure there are some recent edits...a dozen?.. but then it gets very sparse for a long time. Doc James, the tool you are using measures total number of edits since 2002, so we are measuring apples and oranges here. I post a lot on talk, mainly because page ownership keeps me off the article. Also don't forget that it's not uncommon for me to continue to edit posts multiple times as I fix grammar and sentence structure. So one post of yours may be worth say 3 of mine.--scuro (talk) 16:04, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Obviously I'm attempting work avoidance today, so here's the requested info:

Main ADHD article edits since November 1, 2008

• 168 (155/13) Jmh649
• 76 (62/14) Hordaland
• 55 (46/9) Literaturegeek
• 35 (22/13) Snailgoop
• 24 (22/2) Astanhope
• 19 (16/3) Scuro

Controversies edits since November 1, 2008

• 131 (115/16) Jmh649
• 65 (58/7) Literaturegeek
• 53 (40/13) Hordaland
• 36 (27/9) Sifaka
• 12 (12/0) Lawrencekhoo
• 8 (8/0) Ss06470
• 8 (7/1) Unomi
• 6 (0/6) SmackBot (bot)
• 6 (6/0) Scuro

And, as Scuro says, many of these edits are multiple consecutive edits within a short time.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:22, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

It'd be interesting to see the talk page stats as his contribs are almost exclusively ADHD related. Regardless this doesn't address the concerns and examples noted above by those who've had current or past experience with the user, nor does it address my concern of WP:SPA, WP:TE nor does it supply me with sources I've requested so many times now. Sources should have been forthcoming straight away as this is an encyclopedia. I made it clear initially that I would have liked a sample paragraph that was in dispute with amendments and sources, which would have meant a fresh perspective. Unfortunately that was hundreds of kilobytes of talk page and another 3RR block ago so that time has come and gone. I urge the user to consider accepting the ban and moving on as so little has been accomplished, whilst somehow he's managed two 3RR's by two different admins in a month. Nja 16:44, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I didn't run the talk page stats because he admits above that he posts a lot to the talk page. Also, I wasn't trying to address any of the concerns you brought up, just providing Scuro with the information he wanted.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:21, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

According to Wikichecker, Scuro's edits for the past six months are also predominantly related to ADHD articles and user talkpages related to ADHD articles. Naturally, Scuro will counter-argue that he's fighting against "ownership" of these articles. All SPAs attempt this type of counterargument from time to time; the SPA's "truth" about an article's topic is the correct "truth," hence the need to keep hanging around these articles and never branch out to other types of articles. Scuro -- if you were interested in improving the Misplaced Pages project, you would happily accept a Wiki-break of (say) six months of ADHD-related articles and branch out a bit. J Readings (talk) 20:46, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

The ownership accusation is false. Here is an example of where I asked scuro to contribute to the article with reliable sources. and here is another. .--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 17:22, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Myself appealing again for scuro to use reliable sources for their POV.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 17:26, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

On their talk page more appeals to use reliable sources for their position. and and . I have as you can see made numerous appeals and other editors have been trying tirelessly as well to try and stop this disruptove debate clubs on the talk pages by simply requesting scuro uses reliable sources.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 17:32, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Here are some diffs and concerns

• He deletes well referenced material that he disagrees with He referred to this as trimming material that says the same thing. Than latter says there is no evidence to support the controversy.

• Keeps explaining wiki rules

• Says that no scientists consider ADHD controversial. This is after I provided a paper listing 34 scientists who do. Scuro response was none of the listed 34 were real scientists. Even though Timmi's is published in the most prestigious psychiatric journals Scuro labels his view FRINGE --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:23, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you so much Fabrictramp for doing that, it is appreciated. We have my three main detractors on the ADHD page alone, making 299 edits to my total 19. And on the controversies page my four main detractors made 285 edits to my 6. Does this demonstrate, that I don't make up things? This information shows that I limited my edits for a lengthy period of time and I've stated that I did this due to ongoing page ownership. Do we all agree that this is the case because that is something well worth looking into. To understand effect you must understand cause.--scuro (talk) 03:58, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes you have limited your edits to the main page over the last 6 months. It however is that talk pages that are more of an issue recently when it comes to edit volume. Unfortunately Fabrictramp did not give us that information and I have no idea how to find it. Cheers --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:01, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

You can get these numbers for any time frame you'd like for any page you like. Go to the history of the page in question, and two lines up from where you see the "Compare selected versions" button you'll see a line that ends in "external tools" followed by three links. The first link is the one you want. HTH.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:30, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Just a little note, though. If you are clicking that link from a talk page history, the tool has a default of the article page. You need to type in the "Talk:" prefix manually. Running for the same time frame I used above, the top five contributors to the controversies page are Scuro with 108, Jmh649 at 64, Sifaka at 47, Literaturegeek at 46, and Hordaland at 31. The other 9 contributors each had less than 10 edits.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:35, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Then if we can all agree that my recent behaviour demonstrates that I have not interfered with the article pages we are making progress. We can now begin to focus on what exactly the main issues are.--scuro (talk) 04:10, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

No that was not what I said. There was the repeated placement of the POV tag on the article even after three separate editors removed it resulting in your first block. The TALK pages count as part of the article pages and this is were we feel much of the disruptive editing is currently taking place. If we were to look at the numbers of edit in these spaces in the last 6 months we would see that they were many. --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:14, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not disputing that virtually all of my limited edits on the article page over those 6 months was an attempt to put different tags up which were mostly POV article tags or POV section tags. How many times did I do that in over 6 months? A dozen times perhaps...including the 5 for my 3R block? Every time those tags were posted they were always pulled down unilaterally, never with discussion first, even though those tags state, something to the effect, do not pull these tags down until the dispute is resolved. If there were comments made, they were almost always made in the edit summary. No attempt at true consensus on this issue was ever attempted with me by any contributor pulling down tags. That is, except at your RFC where you agreed not to do this, but you did it anyways once the RFC was closed. So when I complain of page ownership, this is exactly what I mean.

I am not disputing that I posted on the talk pages at a much higher rate. That is what one does when one has a beef.--scuro (talk) 04:37, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

• After my post here, I really thought you'd finally try to see beyond repeating the same old same old mate. Please do consider what I've said. Above you again assert the admins were wrong in issuing 3RR's, and that you have no blame for this endless dispute. This is not how to make progress at all, and again this ban seems supported and therefore I ask you to reconsider my offer. But the first step will be you realising you're not completely blameless mate. Nja 07:40, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I am considering your proposal, and as already mentioned, I will respond today. I am asking that there be order with issues presented, so that I can respond to each charge individually. I will have a detailed post in the, multiple complaints, can we have some order?, thread shortly specifically about this.

If we can agree that Doc James had page ownership issues from after his RFC until the present, and that his Med Cab and RFC established page ownership issues from back to three months after he joined Misplaced Pages, there will be no need to rehash this issue. Outside contributors have commented that my posting of NPOV tags was "lame". Context gives outside contributors insight. --scuro (talk) 11:20, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Scuro, I have asked you multiple times to provide evidence. Everything I have added has been referenced and mostly to the peer reviewed literature. You have changed what I have added as shown below to things the ref does not say and you have removed well referenced statement. I how no idea how this constitutes page ownership.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:05, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

yet another break

• Support topic ban for psychiatry. Three months, six months, a year? I'm not committed to any particular timeline. But I'd give up on naming specific articles, because there are far too many of them, and define it as "anything connected to the field of psychiatry." My somewhat limited experience with Scuro has not been spectacularly negative, and he very occasionally makes a point that I agree with, but much of it has been needlessly tedious -- we once had a long conversation that covered such things as whether a literature review article quits being a review when its information is outdated (and it becomes what? A dictionary? The report of an original experiment?) -- and I can guess at the frustrations that the affected editors are dealing with. Scuro has a reputation (well-deserved, IMO) for running off less tenacious editors and for producing spurious objections. Filling talk pages with demands that your POV be accommodated can be every bit as disruptive as directly editing an article to represent your POV. I think that in the pragmatic interest of getting productive editors back to work on Misplaced Pages, and in not losing any more potentially useful editors than we already have, that a topic ban "vacation" for Scuro will be effective. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:46, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

To provide diffs as requested I have gone thru Scuro last 500 edits which occured over the last 7 month. Included are all his edits to the main page related to ADHD. All his other edits took place in the talk pages. During this time he added one reference to a continuing education page, removed four referenced points, added 6 unreferenced statements, added 11 tags, and changed one reference so it no longer reflected what the ref states. This means he made about 450 edits to the talk pages / mediation / RFC / etc. His edits include:

• Unsourced material:

• Removing sourced material:

• Changed reference material so that it was no longer correct as per the ref (this ref originally said 2 years):

• Tags:

• Added ref:--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:04, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

multiple complaints, can we have some order?

We have the initial complaint of Nja247, based mainly on the complaints received from contributors on ADHD pages. Contributors on the ADHD pages have added further accusations, as have others. If a topic ban is warranted, those on the article page should be able to come to consensus and make a specific overall complaint dealing with specific compelling issues. I don't mind if they are coached. Then I should be allowed to respond. To allow what is happening now is to do a trial by a mob. I ask only for due process.--scuro (talk) 03:37, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Reading this whole thing over again, there was nothing new made that wasn't in the original complaint. This is a community forum where anyone can respond. People who work in the ADHD areas are obviously going to take more interest, but we have had admins and editors alike who've commented here that do not frequent those articles. You have been allowed to respond and make your case, but you don't seem to be winning anyone over and that apparently makes you believe the process is unfair. That attitude, the denial of blame, and the aversion to complying with good faith requests for sources is all covered at WP:TE. From that, here's some choice examples from WP:TE that I think are applicable:

• You have been blocked more than once for violating the three revert rule; you argue about whether you in fact reverted four times or only three.
• You find that nobody will assume good faith, no matter how often you remind them.
• You find yourself repeating the same argument over and over again, without persuading people.
• You ignore or refuse to answer good faith questions from other editors, ie for sources. --Nja 07:56, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

You are putting lots of words in my mouth. I'd ask you kindly to stop.

I agree with you that anyone in the community can respond. All I ask is that there is due process. You have made a number of accusations above. I'm asking most respectfully that I be allowed to respond to each accusation separately, and that since you filled this proposed topic ban, that order is kept. There have been numerous complaints about my lack of response, or a muted response to issues. I have a family and a job and so time constraints are an issue with me always. When I don't have enough time in the day, I don't think it is reasonable to accuse me not responding to everything.

Can we agree to the above procedure? Does anyone have any objections?--scuro (talk) 11:28, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, because the process you want has been going on for two days now already. We all have lives, and this drawn out drama must come to and end and cannot be strewn out for any longer. You should have provided a clear statement on why the topic ban is unneeded immediately, rather than continuing to run the same story and deflecting blame. Thus, to prevent the continuation of an endless circular cycle you are asked to please detail these new accusations against you in a list below. Do not restate things you have already mentioned directly above. Also consider providing a statement as to why a reviewing admin shouldn't close as having consensus immediately? Nja 11:51, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

The reverse, actually: the obligation is upon the individuals who wish to impose a topic ban. Have any direct links been provided to the formal dispute resolution attempts that preceded this request? None are in the opening statement and if they've been added further down I missed them. Durova 16:11, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

The WQA was linked to in the first paragraph, and random links and examples have been scattered throughout. Nja 18:38, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

• After readin through all of this and looking at the user conduct this dispute is a long way from seeking to have individuals sanctioned, what I suggest is that a request for comment or a request for medation be attempted before even considering a ban. If the editor is violating a the WP:3R then a blocking with esculating time periods should be applied but do it through the Noticeboard and get some independent eyes on the circumstances because it take more than one editor to have 3 reverts. Gnangarra 17:17, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Going through user contribs seems to be the only way of getting tangible dispute resolution history:

• Wikiquette alert on Scuro earlier this month.
• Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/jmh649 Related to the ADHD disputes.
• Misplaced Pages:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2008-10-09_Attention-deficit_hyperactivity_disorder
• An informal attempt at content RfC on ADHD?
• Misplaced Pages:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2007-05-01_Electroconvulsive_therapy

Other than the recent Wikiquette alert, it is not obvious that Scuro was the principal focus of attention in any of these dispute resolution attempts. What's worrisome is the divergence between those page histories and this: "This editor has been disrupting talk pages and editing and has been for years, they never contribute any citations for their forum like debates on the talk page and seem to be playing a game of wearing people down on talk pages. They churn out 100 kb per week of endless debates and drama on article talk pages without using citations for their position. Seems wikipedia is a recreational debating club for them." (from Literaturegeek at the top of this thread), contrasted against last October's mediation where Scuro does appear to be citing sources and Scuro's behavior over the last past year where s/he has not been dominating ADHD article talk.

This looks like a dispute that was heated 6 months to a year ago, which mostly subsided and had a minor flareup in the past couple of weeks. A community sanction on Scuro would appear to be punitive rather than preventative, given Scuro's current level of participation. Community consensus is unlikely to form at this point (here's wishing these DR links had been supplied in the opening statement), but there's enough prior dispute resolution to justify a request for arbitration, if the participants think it's worth that. Durova 17:54, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

• It may be prudent, regardless of the consensus here for the topic ban, to archive this and simply consider a temporary topic ban and possibly a 1RR limitation due to two recent 3RR's in a month, pending the outcome of a request for comment. What's the thought on this? Nja 18:34, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Nja, my thought on this has already been stated three times: no, no, and no. There hasn't been sufficient evidence for any sanction at all. After two days of requesting the background I finally dug it up myself. This is beginning to resemble a tendentious quest for sanctions. That's more worrisome than the putative disruption itself because it's a step on the slippery slope to POV groups railroading editors who hold minority views. A request for community sanctions is a serious matter. Durova 18:43, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Have there been any prior attempts at dispute resolution? It would have been good to list them at the top of the thread for transparency. I had to wade through endless discussions to find the list here, at the bottom. This seems backwards. Jehochman 18:52, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
    • Jehochman, I waited two days for listings of the prior dispute resolution attempts. Finally dug them up myself. You see the bullet pointed links in my second post above; it is backwards. Durova 18:55, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
      • Right, in that case, as a totally uninvolved administrator, I see no consensus for implementing a community sanction. I concur with User:Gnangarra's advice above. Content disagreements should be submitted for mediation and user conduct can be addressed first by having two Wikipedian's make good faith attempts to address the user. Wikiquette alerts may be a good place to get uninvolved editors to review the dispute. Should that fail, the next step would be user conduct RFC. In the event of serious disruption needing an immediate block, WP:ANI is open for business. This thread should be closed, because I do not see anything further that needs to be done here. Jehochman 19:04, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
        • It's been through mediation last fall, and a conduct RfC more recently (although the RfC was on a different user ADHD was the underlying topic). So unless these editors want to start a second conduct RfC in under a month, the viable alternatives are formal content RfC or arbitration. Considering how much Scuro has scaled down involvement, possibly best to let sleeping dogs lie. Durova 19:12, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Durova, what you state is with respect totally inaccurate and easily disproved. It has nothing to do with POV (please cite your evidence for this). Your evidenceless accusation that this is POV motivated can easily be disproved by the fact that people of opposing POVs have asked that scuro be blocked, eg hordaland has a "pro-adhd" view point whereas doc james and I have added a lot of data to the controversy article. Thus you have differing POV editors, wanting scuro blocked. Secondly one of the main complaints is that scuro never provides citations and thus his POV has no impact on the article as he does not add anything. I am not concerned with his edits to articles as uncited or deleted data can be reverted. The issue is really not to do with editing the article but is his behaviour on the talk pages. Thus it has no impact on the outcome of the article. I have seen no one be able to justify scuro's behaviour at all. All I have read here is conspiracy theories that those with a different viewpoint are conspiring against scuro.

To the uninvolved administrator. Content dispute resolution won't work because scuro never uses citations and just engages in endless circular arguments. Misplaced Pages works via citations as you know so there is no dcontent dispute to resolve. I actually asked for the discussion to be closed a couple of days ago as I could see that it was going nowhere. It is ironic no one has actually produced any evidence to show good behaviour for scuro just false accusations like "it is POV motivated", "article content motivated" etc.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 19:43, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Literaturegeek, please reread with better faith. One of the primary concerns three years ago when the disruptive editing guideline was in proposal stage was to structure a response that was flexible enough to deal with disruption while insulating it against exploitation and misuse. I do not accuse you or anyone here of deliberate misuse of process. The problem is that most of the safeguards against misuse have been sidestepped in this proposal. So even if everyone who supports the proposal were perfectly neutral and Scuro were a tendentious POV pusher, we don't endorse this because the case hasn't been made for it. And we don't endorse a lesser remedy when insufficient evidence has been presented for any remedy at all. If we implemented sanctions based upon this sort of presentation then sooner or later someone would get sanctioned due to POV railroading; attempts of that type have been made. Durova 19:55, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually make that 2 editors who have a dare I say have a pro adhd editing "bias". I don't like to lable people as pro or anti editing but anyway the theme of this debate has gone this way. Abd actually has ADHD him or herself by their own admitance on talk pages. They also support a ban on scuro. I would like the now debunked theory that this is POV motivated conspiracy against scuro to be retracted.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 19:51, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

No such accusation exists, at least not from me. Durova 19:57, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry for coming across hostile. It is just when you have endless debates one loses their cool a bit. This is what motivated this admin noticeboard discussion. What is happening now is a daily job on the talk pages. Nja is an uninvolved admin and he refers to scuro as "mate" and similar. I have not met a more diplomatic admin on wiki. Nja has tried very hard to mediate with scuro but eventually reached the conclusion like the editors on adhd pages that you can't make progress with scuro and there was no alternative to a block. I also understand the safe guards against misuse of the system. I do think that there has beem enough evidence submited but the most important part using talk pagess as an endless debating forum is difficult to prove unless you read through their circular arguments which provide nothing are unbelievably pointless and petty at times. If you wade through all of the comments I think that you will see that a lot more evidence has been submited by doc james and myself since you first requested it. What specific evidence do you want?--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:05, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Here is more evidence. The first day of scuro seeing my edits, I had edited teh articles for a few days before that, then scuro saw me as a new editor to the adhd articles and decided to give me a 3 revert warning. I have seen on other people's talk pages how he did this, to the consultant psychiatrist and otehrs to intimidate them from editing the article. Here is diff, . Would you like more evidence of this type of behaviour?--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:12, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

The problem was was that I had only reverted ONE time his edits. When I pointed this out he started just argueing for the sake of arguing that he was correct to use 3 revert after a single revert. He will argue ANYTHING and it drives you up the walls as it is non-stop.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:14, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, two questions then. Why now? A year ago Scuro was much more active on the page. It looks like Scuro has toned down involvement to the point where--if everything you say is true--it doesn't add up to much more than minor annoyance. Second question is why not take Scuro to conduct RfC? If matters are worse than they seem, then that might either resolve the problem directly or clarify the situation for those of us who don't edit the topic. Durova 20:21, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

There are several ADHD pages or medication pages that scuro frequents. I guess his activity flared up because there was an increase in edits to the controversy pages when I wanted to cite some stuff. He didn't like it so decided to try and wear me down with endless cicular arguments and also other editors. I was made aware that scuro has driven other editors away so I knew if I doon't bring this to admins attention weeks will turn into months of him trying to wear me down. I have better things to do than give up hours of my time on talk pages to scuro. Also the dispute is not just about me. Other long term editors of the adhd articles have had long term problems stretching back months or years.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:29, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Also can I point out that scuro has made about 250 edits to the ADHD articles, almost all on talk pages in the last month. I wouldn't call that toning things down lately. That is a lot of pointless circular debating for us editors to deal with on a daily basis. I never saw him bring up a citation one time for these endless debates. He would try and dispute conclusions of reliable sources the article based on their opinion and reality according to scuro.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 21:58, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

No need to point it out; of course I've had a look. As characterized above, relatively little activity since last November's mediation except for a recent flareup in the last couple of weeks. Are you willing to pursue content RfC or a user conduct RfC on Scuro? Those really seem like the most viable options. Durova 22:05, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

No mediation attempt was ever made with me from any contributor of the ADHD page. No editor from those talk pages has even tried to communicate with me on my talk page to begin the very first steps of seeking consensus.

This current process has felt like trying to crushing a nut with a hammer in a very pressured and punitive way. Within the space of a little more then a week, Nja has filed a Wikiquette alert, reopened it after it was closed, and then filed a topic ban. To top that off, I was under what I felt to be a questionable 3R block, while this TB was underway. I had no opportunity to respond in a fair way, as I was painted in a very unfavourable light. It astounded me that a number of contributors who have never had any involvement with me, jumped on the bandwagon of a topic ban before I had even said a word.

Doc James and I had gone through a lengthy RFC. Excellent progress was made but the ball was dropped before resolution. I would welcome some sort of mediation-mentoring process with him. Consensus on these pages may very well happen when we are both in broad agreement.--scuro (talk) 20:35, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict with below) I did say I supported the ban, above, though not without reservations and alternate suggestions. I don't like bans when measures short of that can serve. I tangled with Scuro back before he slowed down his article editing; debates tended to become ... extended, like this AN/I report. I was attempting to mediate between Scuro and two "anti-ADHD" editors; Scuro was tenacious, and appears to have become convinced that I was poison, I don't know what words he would use, they varied, but several times when I tried to calm things down, he demanded that I stay away from his Talk page. (I don't always remember these prohibitions; when I do, I honor them, unless protection of the project requires it.) To me, the greatest damage done was through his interaction with Dr. Simon Sobo (who has been mentioned above), and who was basically driven off. Sobo is a psychiatrist in private practice who has published on ADHD. He uses drugs like Ritalin when appropriate, but he has expressed concerns that drugs were being overused as a substitute for more cautious and thorough consideration of the needs of a particular patient. This was apparently viewed as a hostile (anti-ADHD) opinion by Scuro, who was quite uncivil; this was a sign of a content attachment on Scuro's part, which, in the absence of some clear restraints, can lead to disruption as we have seen. I haven't been following his recent discussions at the ADHD articles, so my support of the ban was based on two things: his older history, and the present frustration of Nja247, who intervened as a neutral administrator. I'd be fine with a mentorship, if Scuro can find an experienced editor willing to serve, or if he simply were to negotiate some behavioral rules for himself with the other editors involved. It's a bit of a shame that Scuro did not trust me, because I would have been able to help him. --Abd (talk) 22:29, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

There are links above of official mediation, rfc's and other wiki type discussions opened up about you or involving you and another editor. Now you would like yet another official mediation for recreational debating. I think that more than enough mediation has been done on the talk pages of articles and the various other official wiki discussions. Nja volunteered a lot of his time trying to mediate with you as well but now is getting castigated for it on your talk page and here. My stance is I don't enjoy recreational pointless debating, circular debating minor issues like they are major issues etc. My stance is I am not interested in debating your POV of the reality of ADHD on talk pages but would like you to cite sources for your debating otherwise it is recreational. If I wanted recreational debating I would go to an internet discussion forum. There is no point in mediation as you have shown no insite into the problem of using talk pages as discussion forums, demanding we debate removal of uncited data and edit warring over you wanting to keep uncited data in a 100 kb article. I am tired of it. Anyway it looks like this discussion is going to be closed soon without any admin action. I would be delighted if you converted your behaviour and started using sources for your debates. If recreational debates start again on the talk pages I guess we can open up another discussion on the admin noticeboard again.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 22:10, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments Abd. Good to get comments from someone with a differing viewpoint on ADHD so people realise the problems are not POV related. I would like to submit some more evidence from the consultant psychiatrist that was driven away. The follow evidence shows that scuro basically spends his time deleting anything productive added to the article of the other view point. It shows people complaining of scuro wearing down his opponents and it also shows people describing him as "ruling" the talk pages. But yet scuro is always throwing out accusations of page ownerships. Please do read the diffs of the consultant psychiatrist and of how scuro drove away multiple editors., , , .--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 23:14, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Reading the problems that that psychiatrist had with scuro actually made me angry as scuro's essentially has been making editors experiences on wikipedia a living death until they give up and leave and still a year later he is getting away with it. What amazes me is the ability of scuro to almost get people hypnotised and manipulate them (like on this admin discussion board for example and else where over the years) that he is an innocent persecuted victim and his opponents who he forces off wikipedia and removes all their contributions are terrible people. But then again I do understand because human beings are the perfect hypnotic subjects but that is another debate for another day. :) He wants these big discussions to wear people out. I see now Nja is being seen by some as persecuting poor scuro and poor scuro needs a break, I have been seen as the bad party, this is what I meant by scuro being professional in how he disrupts wikipedia and the levels he goes to and why I am willing to invest so much time in this admin noticeboard as enough is enough, years of forcing editors off, deleting anything they add which scuro doesn't like. Scuro knows when to be aggressive and knows when to calm down, it is all manipulative behaviour and he invests an enormous amount of time into doing this but yet admins can't see it as they don't follow it. The only time I have been involved in official wiki discussions was a discussion was when I was being harassed by sock puppets of mwalla, a vandal. I do not enjoy these debates.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 23:29, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Literaturegeek said: "...his POV has no impact on the article as he does not add anything" and "The issue is really not to do with editing the article but is his behaviour on the talk pages. Thus it has no impact on the outcome of the article." I can't agree that Scuro's debating on the talk pages 'has no impact on the article(s)', as driving away otherwise willing contributors certainly has an impact. But I do agree that any attempt to treat the problem as a content dispute is a waste of time; it is not a content dispute.

To Durova: This is more than a minor annoyance. The user cannot be ignored. For example, s/he wrote above "Can we agree to the above procedure? Does anyone have any objections?", and that is so very typical. When such questions are not responded to, Scuro argues that consensus has been achieved for whatever suggestion has been made; therefore a response is necessary and an off-topic discussion usually ensues.

If an acceptable, competent and active mentor could be found, that might be a solution. Otherwise, if the present topic ban proposal is not enacted, the only other potentially useful remedy so far suggested seems to be a formal user conduct RfC, which likely would look much like the present discussion. (I assume that that would be a necessary step before considering arbitration.) - Hordaland (talk) 23:43, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Hordaland, I agree. Again good to get more honest comments from individuals with differing viewpoints on ADHD from myself or The Doc.

I have read the policy on disruptive editing WP:DISRUPT and honestly I thought that it was describing perfectly scuro. It is good reading. I also fail to see how the definition of disruptive behaviour has not been proven. Most of the views opposing the block of scuro's accounts if not all have been rapidly disproven with evidence. A lot of diffs have now been brought forward. It has been demonstrated that there is a diverse range of POVs regarding ADHD agreeing that scuro should be blocked from psychiatry articles thus proving it is not POV motivated but major prolonged disruption ruining wikipedia and forcing good editors off the articles. In the words of the consultant psychiatrist who gave up after repeatedly having his edits deleted and endless debates with scuro stated, it is unbelievable that scuro can rule the articles and get away with their behaviour and that was one year ago and still nothing is being done! See my diffs added today above in earlier comment for psychiatrists problems with scuro.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 00:17, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I would like to thank Nja 247. He has been a neutral party all along who has had to put up with some less than civil comments for all his efforts which have all been in good faith. I have for one year now been asking Scuro to provide references. He keeps wanting mediation / civility / consensus etc. All I want is references. They has never been provided. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:23, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

One final thing that has come to my mind. One or two years ago I was going to edit the ADHD articles, specifically the ritalin page as they were severely biased, full of inaccurate facts and poor quality sources but on checking the talk pages I could see how heavily "guarded" they were that I thought that it is not worth wasting my time.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 00:41, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

The articles in question regard a diagnosis and strong amphetamine based medications used in children. Opinions differ on this, thus is controversial. Faking referenced by scuro eg changing from 2 years to 5 years, deleting all contribs eg like the all of the psychiatrist (see above diff in other comment for evidence) even remotely critical to ADHD or ritalin when well referenced is a serious matter as parents, health professionals will be reading this article for info regarding treating, sometimes young children. It should be strictly kept to cited data and if disputed it needs to be disputed or made neutral with reliable sources. Whilst wikipedia is not meant to give medical advice we still need to bare in mind its influence and not allow wanted ruling of articles as the consultant psychiatrist stated regarding scuro ruling articles and deleting all his contribs and forcing editors off to keep his POV. I have realised the importance of these articles and have used for 95% of my edits high quality secondary peer reviewed sources for my edits. Please take this issue more seriously, it is not a joke. Scuro should not be allowed to delete the entire article on controversies as he once tried to do, should not allowed to run editors down and off wikipedia and delete all of their edits.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 01:11, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

This is what I am used on the adhd pages. Accusations, no order, and no one remotely interested in seeking consensus with me.--scuro (talk) 03:24, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Scuro: no one remotely interested in seeking consensus with me. Scuro, consensus does not mean that a single editor can hold up the editing process indefinitely simply because the editor doesn't like or disagrees with the cited material. If other editors do not agree with you after a while, please drop it. Plain and simple. "Consensus" does not mean 100% agreement, otherwise a tendentious editor can hold up the improvement of an article forever. Also, it makes a lot of sense to call your attention to disruptive editing. In particular, "Signs of disruptive editing." Here are some signs of a serious problem: 1. The editor is "tendentious" (Wikichecker indicates for both the long-term and short-term -- and your own user page reinforces -- the pattern of someone who edits in a very narrow range of ADHD-related articles in the pursuit of promoting what you call the "truth" (whatever that means) about ADHD). 2. Fails to cite sources (multiple examples were provided above), 3. Engages in disruptive cite-tagging (you were doing this last year and apparently you are *still* doing it). 4. Rejects community input (Nine editors here on ANI have complained about your editing behavior; another four or five (at the very least) have complained about you in the past on the controversies talk page and elsewhere.) It's unfortunate that the bureaucratic nature of this process will allow you to keep doing what you've been doing until it gets to the point that even Durova will be forced to agree that something needs to be done about this situation. Given the circumstances and history of this case, c'est la vie. J Readings (talk) 04:52, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Beware

Mwalla a banned member appears to be likely back harassing me. Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet_investigations/Mwalla/Archive. They hate me because I dared revert their vandalism to talk page comments and then harrassed me and other editors with sock puppets and so forth. The Ddave2425 person who opened up an admin noticeboard thing is almost certainly Mwalla. That admin notice thing was resolved and has disappeared from below, probably archived. Anyway I am bringing this up to warn people that this conversation may be targeted by a stalker with a grudge that I and others got them banned for 3 months for sock puppeteering and persistent vandalism. They have a gift of causing arguments. I think already some people here read the bogus filed report by Ddave2425 (who really is very likely Mwalla an experienced banned editor) and it influenced their opinions on me. So watch out for newly registered users is all I am saying showing up complaining about me or disagreeing with me etc and trying to cause arguments.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 02:05, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Moving forward

Nja asked me a few days ago to keep an eye on this thread and also provide input where I could. There seems to be some genuine issues at work here, the most common of which raised in this discussion is scuro's recent tendency to debate at length but fail to provide sources to back up his position. However, I share the concerns raised by Gnagarra, Durova (especially at 17:54, 16 May 2009) and Jehochman that ANI isn't the best venue for this type of discussion. I've asked scuro on his talk page to consider taking a break/take it easy on these articles while either a an RFC/U on his behaviour specifically or an RFAR on editor behaviour on these articles generally is conducted that might bring order to these disputes. –xeno 04:04, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

With respect extended toward the editors who have obviously been having a difficult time at this page, ANI isn't well suited for this particular type of problem--at least not at the stage where this is right now. There are three basic solutions here, none of which are ideal:

1. Let sleeping dogs lie.
2. Initiate conduct RfC or content RfC, with the hope of either solving it there or returning to the admin boards if problems continue.
3. Proceed to arbitration.

My suggestion is number 2, but I'm willing to initiate an arbitration request if 1 and 2 aren't satisfactory. Durova 05:24, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Similarly, this was not well-suited at WQA, which was why it was recommended that an RfC/U is tried (when it was brought to WQA. It's premature for arbitration in the absence of a conduct RfC, so it's either #1 (which isn't working), or #2 as has been recommended on more than one occasion now. I've seen Nja247 urge the parties to initiate an RfC on more than one occasion, but they still have not tried that means of dispute resolution - I'd like to know why they have not. Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:07, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I had started an RfC but I guess set it up wrong. It really was not going anywhere. --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:02, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

What you've linked to is essentially a content RfC which is more suited for determining whether certain content is appropriate for inclusion or not. Nja247 was of the opinion that there are conduct issues that are preventing content issues from being resolved, so what I'm referring to above is a conduct RfC - more suited for determining whether an editor's conduct is appropriate and what steps can be taken to ensure it is appropriate. Though I think you have tried a content step, I don't think you've tried that step on conduct. Have you looked at this page and how previous conduct-RfCs have been run? Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:18, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Scuro also suggested "medcab with a twist" . However, I get the feeling that most parties are probably fed up with the other various forms of dispute resolution for one reason or another. While it would add to ArbCom's caseload, the organized/controlled approach of arbitration may be beneficial for all involved. –xeno 07:20, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Xeno about arb. I definitely do not think option 1 will do anyone justice (as I'm doubtful any cease fire will last long). I wish 2 had been tried earlier on, though now I think it might turn into another episode of what we've seen here, ie circular discussions without a result. I am inclined to think 3 would be most suitable. Nja 08:13, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Technically, nothing prevents anyone from filing a request for arbitration. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:20, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Right, but Xeno and myself have no experience with drafting an RFAR, which is why I'd be very appreciative of Durova's kind efforts on that. Nja 10:07, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Here is my point of view. Where was any attempt made to seek consensus on my talk page or seek out other forms of mediation? That is a "going up the ladder" approach. When contributors go up the ladder, time is an essential part of the process. If all the proper steps are taken, contributors are given the chance to stop and reflect upon their behaviour. I assume that many self correct their behaviour or the ArbCom's caseload would be totally swamped. What happened over the last 10 days was nuts. This was taking a major shortcut. It was a witch hunt. When everyone circles with pitchforks it's hard to comment without uneven communication. Lots has been written here, and one on one, I think most of my actions are easily defendable. I didn't deserve to be painted in that light at this moment in time.

Moving forwards, is it right that I spend large swaths of my time defending myself from every accusation, when I have been the only one following the processes to seek consensus on those pages? I've made an offer for a med cab to seek consensus. I've made it with the party where the issue started, and with whom most of the issues occurred. We made excellent progress at his RFC, check out near the end of the discussion page,] starting from 14 "Moving forwards". Many issues were solved. A two party med cab would be the right spot to continue. I'm totally willing and eager to seek consensus. Misplaced Pages has laid out policy on how to do that even with parties who hold polar opposite viewpoints. If we commit to process and guidelines, and assume good faith, it can be done. I've asked for mentoring to go with that because processes used to date, and the approach of contributors, including myself, hasn't worked. That outside guidance is needed.--scuro (talk) 13:01, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Arb will actually be beneficial in that its structured approach to handling disputes will ensure you're not ganged up on, whilst also allowing for concerns of others to be addressed (ie sources, circular arguments, etc). I'm doubtful the other parties involved will be up to med cab at this point, though you could ask them directly, but if they decline there's nothing that can force them into it. Regardless I fail to see the point when the situation has deteriorated and only drug new people into the ongoing drama since the last Med Cab from November 2008. Overall, ArbCom won't allow you to be railroaded mate; it's time to stop dragging this out and sort it. Cheers, Nja 13:54, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I suggest #2, for several reasons. One, why escalate prematurely? Two, there is a good chance this wil be rejected by ArbCom if there is not significant effort to resolve prior to bringing the dispute there. If an Rfc or other DR is unsuccessful, then ArbCom can always be pursued at that time - but hopefully it will not become necessary. KillerChihuahua 13:59, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Prematurely? This has been ongoing for over a year with a Med Cab, a WQA and other processes noted above already attempted. Yes an RfC would have been great, and I've advocated for an RfC/U for over a month now (to be opened by involved editors), but now after seeing the endless circle of discussion here, an RfC would likely be very unbeneficial and would only further string things along (imo). Nja 14:06, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Apologies, I meant before pursuing all possible avenues of DR prior to approaching ArbCom. I did not mean to imply other avenues had not been attempted. KillerChihuahua 14:08, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

If the medcab option is acceptable to the parties, then perhaps it is an alternate to explore. Personally, I think AC is the best choice here, but if scuro can find a MedCab co-ordinator willing to help work through this, and the parties are amenable to it, then I'm sure ArbCom would appreciate the time to focus on other cases. –xeno 14:24, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

MedCab or MedCom, or Rfc. KillerChihuahua 14:28, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Xavexgoem was involved in the previous mediation; he's very experienced. If that's acceptable to all sides it's a lot less painful than arbitration. Durova 17:01, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

If Scuro is actually interested in adding to and improving wikipedia he needs to start using references. All these difs make me wonder if he is interested in added references: He describes this as defensive editing. But unless he changes his position on this I am not sure there is anything to work on.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:29, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I am amazed and at the same time disappointed at the amount of bureaucracy involved in cases such as these. What will probably happen is scuro will maybe cut down his level of disruption down by 50% or so as scuro realises that they are close to being blocked, but will remain on the articles wearing people down for months and years to come. I think that this has been a waste of time. People get blocked for persistant vandalism which really is quite easy to defend against, a quick revert and warning template but the major disruptors to wikipedia seem to have free reign. I am rather disappointed in this aspect of how wikipedia is run but what can be done. It looks like the decision has been made.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 18:37, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

The steps necessary for a conduct rfc are also missing. No one has even bothered talking to me about seeking consensus. Even when we are supposed to be seeking solutions, right here right now, I can't believe the digs and distrust still present in this situation. What should normally happen is that we come to the table, talk, agree, and shake hands. We were already at the table and we had a good chat, and that's about it. For those who think they can't come to the table because they could never trust me, I have to ask what are you doing on Misplaced Pages?

I would like to request an administrator as a mentor. From the way I've been painted here, one is surely warranted! Seriously, at times I feel very frustrated on the talk pages and easy access to administrator would be welcome and helpful. They may know more and have a fresh perspective on how to deal with roadblocks. I think admin eyes watching would also stop a lot of petty behaviour and abuse of policy. I don't plan to edit the ADHD pages a lot or any page for that matter...I've really got a bad taste in my mouth after these last 10 days. So, it wouldn't be that much of chore.

What I don't want is anymore abuse of process. Let those who have a beef with me on the page, come to me as they should have all along. Play by the rule book. No shortcuts.--scuro (talk) 19:13, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

What needs to be agreed is that no one is interested in your analysis of reality and POV but ONLY on discussing reliable sources. We cannot cite your POV into the article or use your POV or anyones POV to write the article. Only reliable sources can be discussed. If you disagree with this we DO NOT need to debate it as the debate is not with any of the editors on the talk pages. What you need to do is take yourself over to this page WP:MEDRS and debate with the wikipedians over there that you would like the rules to be changed to allow your POV to be considered a high quality reliable source superior to peer reviewed sources and then get them to change the citation rules to have you as the most reliable source on wikipedia. Then your forum like debates would be productive according to wiki policies. So seek consensus with the correct people and project and that is on the talk page over here WP:MEDRS. There is zero chance of getting anyone to consent to your POV trumping reliable sources on article pages. Please go to WP:MEDRS to discuss this proposal.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 19:36, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Also that doesn't mean starting debates on "the title of the reliable source is not neutral either" or starting arguments by ignoring what part of the ref is cited and pretending that bit doesn't exist and oh there are too many examples, I giveup. To be quite honest I really think that there is zero chance of getting any consensus but who knows.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 19:39, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Another go at mediation will only work if all parties agree. I'm not seeing that agreement. If that's so let's quit stalling and recycling the arguments and move on to the next logical phase. Thus I've asked the three I believe to be most involved (LG, Doc, and Horda) to pop over and clearly say yea or nay to med. Nja 19:43, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

If you feel that opening up another official wiki discussion then I will go along with it. I was just saying that I am not going to come to a consensus that scuro can continue disrupting wikipedia. I have already stated many times he is free to contribute to the article as anyone is using reliable sources and conrtibute to discussions using reliable sources and also not using manipulative arguments, pointless arguments, non-existent arguments to wear down opponenets.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 19:47, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Mediation is not an option as there is nothing to mediate about as this is not a case of editors having opposing views or having a falling out so there are no fences to mend or anything like that. So I don't want mediation. I would like to see action taken to prevent continued disruption to wikipedia and editors. Where would be the appropriate venue for assessment of whether scuro needs blocked or not if it is not here? Mediation would simply be trying to come to an agreement that scuro should be allowed to disrupt wikipedia and whether editors can accept scuro being above the law on wikipedia as a professional untouchable disrupter of wikipedia. This is nonsensical. There is nothing to mediate about. Months and years have been invested by multiple editors battling scuros disruption and he has not changed.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 19:59, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Since evidence based medicine came into existence in the 1970s the mantra has been "show me the evidence" That is all I am asking for. This is the only step that is needed. If finding evidence is to difficult then one should not be editing content on Misplaced Pages. To answer you question of what is the point of evidence this is how you get other editors to listen to you and how you build consensus.

I do not know what else there is to say beyond what has already been said. In my opinion an RFC/mediation will not add anything to all that we have already gone thru (the FRC 6 months ago, the WQA, and previous mediation). If the opinion is that we should go to mediation and others think it is a good idea I will come and repeat what I have said already. Cheers--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:58, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't really know enough about all these procedures.

• User conduct RfC - "An RfC cannot impose involuntary sanctions on a user, such as blocking or a topic ban; it is a tool for developing voluntary agreements and collecting information." - IMO this would be probably be just a repeat of the present discussion.
• WP:MEDCOM - "The role of the Mediation Committee is explicitly to try to resolve disputes, especially those involving content, ..." N/A, content it ain't.
• WP:MEDCAB - "The Mediation Cabal is a bunch of volunteers providing unofficial, informal mediation for disputes ..." Too informal, I think?
• WP:ARBCOM - Fine, if/when expert admins agree it's necessary and best.
• Misplaced Pages:Mentorship - "...and act as an advocate for the protégé. When mentorship arises as an outcome of the dispute resolution process, the mentor has formal supervisory powers over the protégé. (...) Users may be placed under mentorship by a ruling of the community, ..." (Where 'community' is defined as AN/I.)

• It sounds, by what Scuro says above, that this is what we're talking about. If so, great! And IMO the purpose of the supervised editing should be to restrict use of the Talk pages to improvement of the articles (facts, balance, weighting and all that) and their references. Who finds mentor? To be registered at Misplaced Pages:Editing restrictions? Who decides how long it should last, expectations/responsibilities, re-visiting of the arrangement, etc.? (Also, IMO, no 1RR or civility restrictions need apply.) - Hordaland (talk) 22:30, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Mentoring will not work. Nja already tried that and gave up hours and hours of his time doing that and then got trodden down for his voluntary work as an admin by 1 or 2 admins here. He even called scuro "mate" to be very friendly and was extremely diplomatic until he threw his hands up in air with frustration. I agree that the others are not appropriate.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 23:08, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Maybe a mentor who verifies all Scuro's edits before they are added to the article or talk page would work?--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:43, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Has anyone stepped forward and offered to mentor? And if so, has Scuro accepted? If not, forget that option. Durova 00:02, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Durova is right, of course. But if Scuro should find one quickly, I think it should be formalized here quickly with rules as suggested above. Then we'd see within a few weeks if it can work (provided Scuro doesn't take a vacation again). If it doesn't, then we'd have an objective result, rather than LG's POV that it cannot work. Then we could come back here, the doubters would doubt no more, and the result would have to be arbcom or topic ban.

Scuro, are you busy recruiting a mentor?? --Hordaland (talk) 00:19, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry H, wish I could have looked but I've got a real life with responsibilities and don't have all day on the computer. I would be seeking an informal mentor, someone to help me with frustrating experiences and to offer second opinions. From what I gather, that's not what any of you want for me.

There has been a lot of information presented here and I think far too many people are assuming that the versions given are true. Simply because I choose not to defend myself, in front of several detractors at any moment in time, doesn't make something true. I could spend large swaths of my time defending myself from every accusation. That might be meaningful if they were generally all accurate, and also gave the proper context of what was happening at the time. But they generally don't do this at all. ( for an example of presented bias take a look at # 2.7 I don't provide citations? )

I'm not sure how much longer I really need to put up with this. First off, it's been a series of process abuses to get here. Putting me through over 10 days of this is punitive in itself. It is also unjust. I find it troubling that this goes on. Secondly, the degree of uncivilness here is remarkable and with all the administrators around, I surprised that we haven't seen one warning. Thirdly, nothing is going to get solved here. Those folks on the ADHD page who want a pound of my flesh are not going to get it here and now. The best solution here is a med cab with DJ. I've stated reasons. Others can be added later but I think they would only hinder the process to begin with. It should be a closed process. I say that in total good faith. I'm willing to seek consensus, it would be real nice to hear that just once from anyone involved in this topic ban proposal.--scuro (talk) 06:03, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

This is going around in circles. I think that this case should be referred to ArbCom. I think that this discussion is a waste of people's time and that this discussion should be closed.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 13:34, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I have crossed paths with most of these editors before, on some of the pages in dispute and elsewhere. We do not settle content disputes by treating them as user conduct problems. --Una Smith (talk) 15:51, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Reasons for not blocking scuro

All of the people who opposed blocking scuro had their reasons quickly debunked (I can't think of a more neutral or better word than debunked). Reasons were like it is POV motivated but that was disproved when it was shown that there were at least 2 editors with pro ADHD and pro amphetamine medication views also supporting the block. The other complaint was lack of evidence but then one or two dozen more diffs were provided to enhance the evidence against scuro. So basically we seem to have 100% support for scuro being blocked. So what reason remains that this hasn't happened?

If scuro is not going to get blocked then lets just close this discussion. It is less time consuming to just deal with scuro on the article talk pages rather than this admin notice board..--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 23:08, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Scuro has been asked over a dozen times by many different editors to provide evidence / references. He has not once agreed to start doing this. I do not understand why. He is an experienced editor who has good knowledge of Misplaced Pages procedures and protocols. Misplaced Pages:Verifiability is one of Misplaced Pages's core content policies. --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:38, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

So currently there are no reasons for not blocking scuro? Any admins like to reply?--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 11:39, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't provide citations?

Here are some citations and evidence about Ss06470. He is the Psychiatrist that "I drove off of wikipedia".

1. Administrator Shell Kinney warns Ss06470 back in 2006 not to make personal attacks]
2. Administrator Rockpocket first warning]
3. Administrator Rocketpocket final warning]

Ss06470 comments about another user: "You are pathetic" ... ] "Oh right. Your illness interferes with this capacity to concentrate on things you don't like." ]

One of many rude comments Ss06470 made against me: "No Scuro You are not powerful. Nor clever. Instead of holding forth why don't you take a look at the Frontline program and quietly consider what is being presented there? Then you can decide if your opponents are getting smoked. Most of the "experts" on that show emphasized how little we really know. You might also take a look at Benedict Carey's articles in the New York Times on this subject. Then if you have any integrity at all you will change your tone and perhaps go away and allow those with considered ideas to discuss the issues. But then I'm sure you won't. You wouldn't be Scuro if you gave any thought to your opinions".

So what my detractors have been telling us during this proposed topic ban is that Ss06470 was forced off of wikipedia because of me. May I present another thesis. Ss06470 was frustrated that his article( it was not a paper at the time ) was challenged and removed from the page. If I remember things correctly the source was an anti-psychiatry website. He didn't like bold edits to controversies article and resorted to nastiness when material he added to the article was removed. He has attacked two different contributors and has been warned 3 times by two administrators to stop. After the third warning, he didn't edit for 11 weeks and his edits tail off significantly during this time frame. Taking a cause and effect look at the facts one could conclude that when he realized that he could no longer call people names, he left. I'm sure he was frustrated but there are better ways to handle things. --scuro (talk) 05:36, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I've checked out some of that before. No angel, the good doctor.

Your heading here is confusing. I think you mean diffs, not citations? The talk of providing citations has been about references to the articles, I believe, not about diffs here. - Hordaland (talk) 07:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I think that that is evidence of how hostile and unwelcoming the environment was and remains to be on the ADHD controversies page. The reason my dispute with you deteriorated so quickly was your hostility for example within first day of meeting you I get a 3 revert edit war template after doing a single revert.

Dr Sobo is not anti-psychiatry so I cannot imagine him trying to cite to an antipsychiatry websites. See this diff. He doesn't want to have anything to do with the likes of dr breggin and he denounced the CCHR in the diff that I just gave. Here is an exerpt.

If I gave you an interview it would have to follow strict rules. I would have to approve of the edited footage! Because I have no intention of being part of a documentary that completely denounces these drugs as child killers or killers of any type. In my experience they have saved many, many more children than they have harmed. That would have to be in your documentary. I genuinely feel you will, despite good intentions, harm far more children than you will help if you scare the hell out of parents and they won't allow their children to be medicated when they could be helped by them. I am already finding that happening due to sensationalist news reporting. Your docuumentary sounds like it would merely reiterate the hysteria against the medications and that I am very against. So in that context you are the enemy as much as the drug companies.

From read that diff and also the talk pages and his edits I doubt the claim that he was "trying to cite antipsychiatry websites because he will have nothing to do with antipsychiatry including Breggin as he opposes their anti-medication stance, see diff above. --Literaturegeek | T@1k? 11:13, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I would like to submit scuro's above post as evidence for part of the problem of distorting the truth and facts.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 11:15, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

LG is correct. On the controversies page, Ss06470's article linked to] which is not a anti-psychiatry source but a self published source. At the time I believe the article was removed because it was self-published. I did note above that this was a recollection and not a fact. When I research something I will look at many sources and probably remember the anti-psychiatry connection because anti-psychiatry uses his work.] This could be the source in my error of memory. Hordaland is also correct in that what I have provided is not citations but diffs. I don't think it matters because I believe the claim has also been made that I also don't provide evidence. If this is just about citations, and I've noted that Doc James has virtually "page ownershipped" me off the article page for over 6 months, don't you think I have a little justification for not being forthcoming with citation requests? I can think of no more of a "hostile" and "unwelcoming environment" then when virtually every edit you post is pulled off the page for an extended period of time.

In reading Dr. Sobo complaints again, he speaks of the drastic change to the article at that time. That has also occurred recently with Doc James and LG. We have nearly two hundred edits of a significant proportion, on the controversies page, within a 6 month time frame. Did I call people names while this occurred? Simply stating that you are a Dr. on Misplaced Pages gives you no special privileges. In reality I could be Dr. Sobo, you never really know with the internet.--scuro (talk) 14:15, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

You keep saying that my page ownership is what has kept you from finding references and editing? It is your lack of finding references that keeps you from editing and why your edits have been removed. This has nothing to do with page ownership. One can add whatever they like as long as it is backup by good evidence with good evidence being well spelled out at Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (medicine-related articles). All we ask is that you follow WP:V and stop removing information and tagging statements that do.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:15, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

The link that you gave is not an anti-psychiatry group but a reform psychiatry group. There is a big difference between critical psychiatry and anti-psychiatry.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 16:25, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Arbitration requested

This is not getting resolved here. None of the suggested alternatives have been pursued, so have filed a request for arbitration. Durova 16:16, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Series of possible hoaxes

A while ago, before I started editing here, there was a series of hoax articles concerning one Vitus Barbaro, amid claims that he came from a noble Italian family and was involved in a wide variety of activities. A partial list of the articles involved can be found at User:Barneca/watch/Barbaro. There was a great deal of sockpuppeteering and AfD, ANI and Talk page discussion in which the various perpetrators continued to claim that everything they had written was true. The various socks came from the Chicago, Illinois area, in particular Fenwick High School (Oak Park, Illinois). There is now a similar series of articles: Battle of Lemos, Don Manuel Joseph Martín López de Prado Rodríguez Díaz de Armesto y Varela, X Baron of Lemavia and House of Lemavia. All of the edits to these articles are by new accounts with no edit history. Perhaps not so surprisingly, when I did a search on Google for "Baron of Lemavia", I found a link to "Lopez De Prado, Baron of Lemavia Location: Chicago, IL". None of the multitude of references that the various editors have provided mentions a Baron of Lemavia or a Lopez de Prado. They keep referencing books which, may, in fact, prove that their claims are true, but which nobody is going to be able to find. None of the various wesites they cite actually supports the claims, and in general, when they cite a website, it's to a main page, not to a particular page which supports the contentions. Now, I may be way out of line here, and these may in fact be valid articles, but it reads a lot like the Barbaro hoaxes which I found fascinating back when they were being fought. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 07:33, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I found one more: Order of León-Sable. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 07:42, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Who then was a gentleman?, I'm sorry to hear about User:Barneca/watch/Barbaro. As bad as an experience it may have been, this doesn't make other people guilty. First you accused me of being from Chicago, and I have proven you wrong (follow my IP address). Second, you said there were no references to these battles, and I proved you wrong again sending you the article of Dr. Brian De Toy. Third, you asked for a website (as if websites were the only acceptable source in Misplaced Pages), and I even sent you a link extracted from a history book fully dedicated to the "Batalla de Monforte de Lemos" ( http://www.1808-1814.org/articulos/monforte.html). Fourth, you said this was a hoax, and I pointed out websites citing the list of people killed that day ( http://club.telepolis.com/apenela/HISTORIA.htm). Fifth, you started to nominate a whole bunch of articles for deletion without reading any source. Sixth, every time I prove you wrong, you keep shooting in the dark for the next "nice try". Please, I understand where you are coming from, but as a new contributor I find hard to believe ONLY VETERAN CONTRIBUTORS CAN WRITE? This would be the end of Misplaced Pages.

A hoax? This link comes straight from the Ministry of Culture of Spain. These are protocols of nobility about the House of Lopez de Prado, another article you nominated for deletion without ever reading it: http://pares.mcu.es/ParesBusquedas/servlets/Control_servlet?accion=2&txt_id_fondo=184080

I hope this answers all your questions and we can keep working together. (Qqtacpn (talk) 07:51, 17 May 2009 (UTC))

I never said you were from Chicago, I said a Google source shows that someone claiming to be Baron of Lemavia is from Chicago. Are you now claiming to be Baron of Lemavia? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 07:53, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

1-Your link to mcu.es is dead, and 2- a search for "Lopez de Prado" comes up with lists of archives, not articles. None of the lists can prove your claims. 3- telepolis.com appears to be a social networking site, and therefore not a reliable source. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 07:56, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

And that brings me to another question: How did you, Niaps (talk · contribs) and Primadodelemavia (talk · contribs) happen to decide to come to Misplaced Pages and edit the same group of articles at the same time? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 08:02, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Some more fuel here: User:Qqtacpn, User:Niaps, User:Primadodelemavia, User:167.206.29.162, all have been editing the same closely related articles as pointed out above, no prior history apart from a few edits on the IP, User:Qqtacpn, User:Niaps, and the IP are also involved in articles related to Napoleon (Talk:The Crime of Napoleon, Napoleon I of France, Talk:Peninsular War, First French Empire, Talk:Napoleonic Wars, Arc de Triomphe) where they are fixated on painting Napoleon as a genocidal maniac of the caliber of Hitler and on the claim about a "murder" of a thousand of Spanish civilians during the Peninsula War, in connection with the articles currently under AfD. I am not familiar with the Barbaro hoaxes, I wouldn't think this is related though, this here looks to me like it's a case of original research by someone obsessed about that Don Manuel bloke and events surrounding his death. Equendil Talk 08:28, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Qqtacpn (talk · contribs) identifies himself on Talk:House of Lemavia as the author of the lemavia website. Mathsci (talk) 09:39, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

There are also these edits on es.wikipedia , who edits here with the same IP 69.120.8.27 (talk · contribs) and seems also to be connected to the author of the website. Qqtacpn (talk · contribs) made this edit on en.wikipedia , an exact translation of what was added to the corresponding article on es.wikipedia by the IP. Mathsci(talk) 10:55, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I have answered all your questions for hours. You have made very offensive accusations based on:

• 1) Your inability to read Spanish.
• 2) Your lack of insterest for sources published in paper. You only accept websites as sources.
• 3) You are not interested to search the websites of the Spanish Goverment I have provided (search "lopez de prado", between quotes, at http://pares.mcu.es/ParesBusquedas/servlets/Control_servlet?accion=0).
• 4) The fact that my area of expertise (War crimes commited in Galicia during the Peninsular Wars) has offended a group of French Wikipedians (Equendil, Frania W., etc.).
• 5) Ridiculous suppositions (do I live in Chicago? Are these 5 users in the same Continent? Why are they interested in similar topics?)
• 6) Discrimination based on being a new contributor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Qqtacpn (talk • contribs) 11:56, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Anyone with access to this Encyclopedia (http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/geneal/index_gc.html), available at the Library of Congress and everywhere in the Spanish Speaking World, please go to Volume 72, pages 101-120. Or go to the http://www.granenciclopediagalega.com/, also available in the Library of Congress, and search the article dedicated to Lopez de Prado. These are but a few more proves that these individuals are making false accusations. I do not doubt your intention is right, but the conclusion here is that a very small number of Wikipedians ignorant of well published research actually have the power to remove legitimate content. Fine, if this is how flawed Misplaced Pages is, please go ahead and remove these articles. They belong to the paper encyclopedias available in the Library of Congress. End of discussion. (Qqtacpn (talk) 11:06, 17 May 2009 (UTC))

I took up Qqtacpn’s request to search the Spanish Archives portal using the given query. It turned up several individuals named, in part, “López de Prado” or “de Prado”, but none with the name he has supplied as the X Baron of Lemavia, Don Manuel Joseph Martín López de Prado. Furthermore, “Lemavia” produces zero hits on that site – not even the page that Qqtacpn provided a link to originally – and which doesn’t mention Lemavia (as other than a search term). Googling “Lemavia” turns up an interesting entry: Dr. Lopez De Prado, Baron of Lemavia, has an Amazon.com wishlist! This suggests we might have some COI issues here (and who knows, possibly BLP as well). Askari Mark (Talk) 04:47, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Askari Mark, thank you for verifying the sources. Let me clarify a few of your comments:

• 1) You have found about 10 people from the House of Lopez de Prado in the Royal Archives, who are listed as noblemen. Well, this rebuts those who accused that article to be a hoax.
• 2) As you may know, the Sala de Hijosdalgos only deals with noblemen who want to be inscribed as such in another location, normally when they move from a distant land. Since Don Manuel Joseph Martín López de Prado never changed residence, he didn't need to appeal to the Sala de Hijosdalgos.
• 3) You have also found mentioned Don Andres Lopez de Prado, listed as Knight of the Order of Carlos III at the Royal Archives. As you probably know, this is the equivalent in Spain to the British Order of the Bath. Most of its members are Grandees, the highest nobility in Spain. Again, the claims of hoax are ridiculous.
• 4) I have provided numerous certified transcripts at http://s591.photobucket.com/albums/ss358/qqtacpn/, where you can find Barons of Lemavia being addressed as such.
• 5) Dr. Lopez de Prado has never been mentioned in any of the articles. The claim of possible COI, BLP also falls apart.

In summary, accusations of hoax have been proven wrong, and they MUST be withdrawn. For example, http://en.wikipedia.org/Category:House_of_Lopez_de_Prado should be removed. Besides, these articles were deleted by my own request (G7), and I do not want them re-published. Please read User_talk:Qqtacpn#Accusations_of_hoax_must_be_withdrawn.

People who made those accusations never took the time to verify the sources. I want to end thanking Askari Mark for taking the time. Thanks. (Qqtacpn (talk) 17:14, 18 May 2009 (UTC))

As someone who's spent a lot of time on the Barbaro hoaxers, this sure does smell pretty similar, right down to insisting that all mention of the hoax be whitewashed from the record - presumably so it can be shoved our way in a few months' time. This bunch, like the last, seems determined to test our reliable sources guidelines to the extreme by editing their bizarre stories into other web sites, then trying to cite them here. Keep these on your watchlists, all. (ESkog) 18:54, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

ESkog, this is unworthy of Misplaced Pages. You have failed to proof your accusation of hoax, now it is time to repair the damage. Again, these articles were deleted at my own request, I do not wish them re-published, and I have stated I'll abandon Misplaced Pages as soon as you recognize your error. It is called fairness and presumption of innocence. Show to the public that you know how to amend your mistakes. The alternative is public embarrassment from academics and historians who know about these facts and do not have Misplaced Pages's approach in high regard. Set the record straight, and you will regain my respect. (Qqtacpn (talk) 19:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC))

Legal threat

This seems to be a legal threat . Mathsci (talk) 11:50, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Blocked. I have not reviewed the rest of this thread, but that is a clear threat worthy of a block, regardless of any other actions. J Milburn (talk) 12:09, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Username redirect

User talk:WikiProjectSpain redirects to User talk:Qqtacpn. Two points here. Is WikiProjectSpain and acceptable username, and surely a redirect is an admission of sockpuppetry? I don't know exactly, but I feel it's relevant to this discussion. WikiProjectSpain on Commons has uploaded images relevant to this, with 'own work' as copyright descriptions, which would make him a very good artist, and therefore worth asking where he got his source from. - Jarry1250 12:08, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

• There seem to be multiple problems with this user. He has uploaded some copyrighted images onto wikimdedia commons claiming them as his own work. Here for example is a book cover by the living illustrator Richard Hook , a detail from one of the plates inside the 2004 book Spanish Guerillas in the Peninsular War by René Chartrand, which corresponds to this wikipedia image (now deleted on commons ). Mathsci (talk) 14:44, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
• Jarry1250, if you go and read the history, you'll find that the redirect is part of an account renaming, by EVula, that took place precisely because the username wasn't appropriate. The redirect isn't an "admission" of anything. MediaWiki creates it automatically when a bureaucrat renames an account. Uncle G (talk) 00:04, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Ah, that would explain it. Sorry, my mistake. The account remained active on commons, but that's being dealt with. - Jarry1250 09:05, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Another sock?

Irmandino (talk · contribs), whose first edit is to Irmandiño, an article created by User:Qqtacpn. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 19:23, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

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