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

Assistance requested at Fringe Theories Noticeboard

Assistance from one or more Admins and any experienced editors is requested with issues related to this discussion at the Fringe Theories Noticeboard (yes there is such a thing). Short synopsis; we have an editor who has created around 160 articles, and almost all of the ones we have looked at so far have major problems. We over at the tin foil hat noticeboard are sending out an SOS. Any help is greatly appreciated. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:06, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Propose a Topic-Ban on New Articles in Article Space

I propose that this editor be topic-banned from creating new articles in article space (rather than via the AFC review process), since he or she is cluttering article space with a large number of articles that need deleting. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:28, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support as nominator. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:28, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
• Holy crap batman--v/r - TP 17:44, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support The combination of refusal to communicate with other editors, fringe topics (need less on here, not more) and the obvious vast amounts of original research. Their intent does not seem to be malicious, but they've chosen the wrong platform. All this belongs in their blog. §FreeRangeFrog 17:49, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support seems pretty obvious that these articles need to go through AfC and that the user isn't willing to do that without some strong handed encouragement. CombatWombat42 (talk) 17:56, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
• Comment/Question How will this go any better at WP:AFC? Some of the articles appear to me, a non expert in Hindu material, to be potentially direct translations form a worthy book or set of texts. I am wondering whether it might not be 'our' problem that 'we' cannot understand them easily as submissions in clearer English. A comment from an experienced, perhaps immersed, editor would be relevant to this discussion before moving to a draconian apparent remedy. For example, if they be direct translations or quotations from learned texts then we should, surely, treat them in an identical manner to other such texts an the editor should be granted the same courtesies as are extended to editors creating articles in other faiths/disciplines.

This material is arcane, certainly, but is it proper or improper that it is in Misplaced Pages as articles? If proper then there is no issue save for our understanding the material. If improper then remedies are already available to you, ranging from deletion through to blocking the editor. Fiddle Faddle 18:05, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

"is it proper or improper that it is in Misplaced Pages as articles?" Yes, in the way it is written. It presents material from Hindu astrology as uncontested fact. We don't do that. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:10, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

@Timtrent: A host of reasons: 1) AFC space isn't indexed by search engines, 2) AFCs arn't searched by our search bar without going to more advanced options, 3) AFCs can be deleted easier by CSD guidelines, 4) Editors in AFC space review it before the first 2 things limitations get removed, 5) AFC has a giant "THIS IS A DRAFT" banner.--v/r - TP 18:23, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

If it is not proper for the articles to be here, and I suspected it was not for the reasons stated by AndyTheGrump, might the correct route not be a bulk AfD? If it is not proper then AFC is not the place for them either, surely? I come back to my thoughts that one does not need extraordinary measures to deal with this. I have never heard of a topic ban against creation of new mainspace articles and I feel intellectually against it for a great many reasons. Fiddle Faddle 18:28, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

I am cementing and formalising my opinion as a firm Oppose. I have made a asmall edit to my original text, adding the word "clearer" as a modifier for "English"Fiddle Faddle 18:58, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose per Timtrent (Fiddlefaddle). Look at this revision of Rasasvada, for example, which Aditya soni had created, and nobody else had edited it except one editor adding a single cleanup tag. It's quite difficult to read and understand, but that's because I'm completely unfamiliar with Indian philosophy; the article appears to have solid sources, and the difficult-to-understand comes partly from the author's way of writing, which makes me suspect that the author isn't fluent in English. As a result, I can form only two conclusions: either it's a decent article on a specialised topic, warranting only some wording cleanup, or its problems are profound enough that only a specialist can understand them. Neither one warrants the ban that's proposed here: if it's a decent article, we shouldn't sanction the guy, and if a specialist is required, the article will sail straight through AFC because people over there aren't specialists in Indian philosophy — AFC is good for filtering problems that anyone can understand, not things like this. Either levy no sanctions at all, or prohibit creation through AFC as well; if the nominator were to remove the AFC creation option, I would be neutral. Nyttend (talk) 18:53, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

In the very first section, he has it entirely based on a primary source, Second Quantization (talk) 15:48, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose as much too broad. If one were to prepend "For the large majority of Hindus" to most of these articles they would be indistinguishable to me from Holy Spirit (Christianity) which begins: "For the large majority of Christians" and then is entirely based on WP:INUNIVERSE sources. 24.151.10.165 (talk) 19:00, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support I do not think the editor in question is being malicious here. But whether intentionally or not, the serious problems with so many of these articles is creating an enormous amount of work for everyone else. The FTN Board is not exactly one of the more well traveled ones and we just don't have enough regulars to deal with well over a hundred suspect articles. (Sometimes we are stretched to handle even normal posts and issues that pop up.) Beyond which the editor's refusal to engage with the community and take some advice on board or show some regard for standards and consensus makes it almost impossible not to see more problems down the road without the new article creation ban. In short, I support the ban because I believe that without it we are going to continue to see the creation of questionable articles on a scale that will further severely tax the limited resources of the community to fix or delete. I am still trying to come up with a sane way of dealing with 160 articles that need to be checked and possibly deleted or mass migrated somewhere. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:02, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

• Changing position to Oppose based on compelling arguments from several editors, as well as closer examination of the editor's record by Salimfadhley, whose judgment I trust, and who concluded the issues are likely not as widespread or serious as initially thought. -Ad Orientem (talk) 13:41, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose - Mixed view here. This seems like good content and it seems clear that the user knows a lot about Hindu astrology. The real problem here is that the articles themselves are badly written. Readers of WP should not have to be experts in Hindu astrology to get through even a single paragraph, but that's kind of the issue we have here. I think this user's material and knowledge are valuable but the articles he is making should spend some time in userspace being edited a bit. It doesn't have to be perfect by any means, but it has to at least look like it was written in English. Would anyone be available to help mentor or copy-edit this content? I can do some work with the grammar myself but I would like someone (perhaps from Wikiproject Mythology, Wikiproject Hinduism, or Wikiproject Astrology) to help out since they might have familiarity with the information and can offer more direct constructive criticism. Alicb (talk) 21:20, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support - A ban from creating new articles related to this topic might give this editor an opportunity to improve the existing articles to a point where they meet the WP:NFRINGE standard. I would prefer this than to have to manually review the hundreds of articles on this subject. My greater concern is that this editor feels that this subject (Hindu Astrology) is somehow exempt from the normal rules that govern articles about religious topics in Misplaced Pages. As a result we have over a hundred pages most of which would never have got past AFC review, this is a prime example . The comment about Einstein in the lede is an automatic 5 on the Crackpot Index. Let's not allow articles about Hinduism to be of lower quality than articles about other religions. If editors were writing such blatant gobbledygook about Christianity or Judaism I think we'd be quick to delete it. I think we need to be consistent in our standards. --Salimfadhley (talk) 22:15, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

• Why do you think this would get stopped at AFC? It appears to have decent sourcing, and to someone unfamiliar with the subject, the only problem is the comparatively poor English. Most people at AFC are totally ignorant of Hinduism and other Indian philosophy (not complaining; I am too), so if an article's not badly sourced, they have no reason to object to it. Nyttend (talk) 02:17, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• Regular AFC reviewers tend to have sufficient clue to recognize when to call upon subject specialists from relevant WikiProjects for assistance. Such requests for help are routinely done for drafts about highly technical, arcane or obscure subjects that are hard for non-specialists to evaluate. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:23, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't take an expert in Hindu Astrology to realise that it wasn't "an evil and ruinous yoga" that made Einstein perform poorly in his studies, Second Quantization (talk) 16:58, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support, definitely. Miniapolis 23:09, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

• Comment - I have been asked to participate in this discussion but I do not know where to begin from.

I started my exercise of creating new pages by first locating the most important and relevant topics that had not been earlier dealt with by any contributor, and having done that one by one I took up those topics, worked on them and created the pages on Indian philosophy and Hindu astrology, the subjects that are known to me. Nowhere have I expressed my own thoughts or done original research; I have based all information included therein as has been available to me online and in the texts that are in my possession which texts also find an online mention. I never thought my well-intentioned efforts would one day cause the kind of problem they have. As an ardent follower of Indian philosophy I was merely obeying the Vedic instruction that if given the opportunity I should unhesitatingly pass on to others, who are willing, all that I have studied and learnt. Knowledge is the light that reveals the true nature of things and removes ignorance; knowledge purifies the mind, that mind which involves all human beings in duality to suffer the pangs of pleasure and pain. It seems I have failed in this task for I have not been able to convey properly.

Friends, I am not a preacher and I am also not a teacher set in the mold of Sankaracharya, Ramanujacharya, Ramana, Varahamihira, Vaidyanatha or Kalidasa. I am an ordinary human being. Philosophy and astrology are difficult subjects to handle. This I know. They are all the more difficult for those who do not know these subjects. Where to begin from I simply do not know. It was long ago said – "they do not know who know, those who do not know, know" - which paradoxical situation will always remain due to the limitations affecting our thoughts and acts.

It has been nice meeting you all.Aditya soni (talk) 02:25, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to comment here. I think that you are making a lot of useful contributions of information that is badly needed on Misplaced Pages. There are a few concerns with language that I think we can address but as long as you provide the sources for the information that you provide (either a link to a website or the names/page numbers of print texts) then that should be good enough for other editors to work on. It may be time to call on the users at Wikiproject Hinduism to take a hand in working on these articles. Alicb (talk) 03:33, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Dear Alicb, no information in my 160 odd articles is without a direct reference to the source. I have dutifully provided the relevant links to the websites, given the names of the books, their authors and page numbers. I have neither promoted myself nor anyone else. There is no problem with the language either, because as far as is possible I have used the same words and expression that has been used by the authors of those very books and articles. Why should there be a problem in accessing those sources, I fail to understand. Moreover, there is already talk of difficulty in handling 100 odd intended AFDs pertaining to the pages I have created, doubt has also been raised about the ability of the editors who had reviewed those pages, and to top it all, my efforts have been termed as utter non-sense and a hoax and therefore already stand summarily dismissed. Then, I do not understand why so much time and effort is now being wasted just to prove my efforts are a bunch of trash. Even if all 160 pages are deleted I stand to lose nothing at all since I have already gained a great deal by way of revision of my knowledge while writing these pages, which revision has served as my Upasana (contemplation). And I am sure some readers must have also gained and improved their knowledge. Through your agency I request for the charade that is being presently played out to end, it is sickening to say the least. Already some very harsh and bad words have been used belittling my efforts, the kind of words I never use; that is enough, there should not be any more of it. There should not be any further delay in deleting my 160 odd articles. I hope you will speak on my behalf and have all 160 pages created by me deleted soon. After the requested deletion is done I shall quit Misplaced Pages and enjoy my liberation. Nice knowing you.Aditya soni (talk) 05:55, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• • the Vedic instruction that if given the opportunity I should unhesitatingly pass on to others, who are willing, all that I have studied and learnt. There is a beautiful passage in the Taittiriya Upanishad (in the ninth Anuvaka) dealing with this. Learn and pass on the knowledge. That is what Misplaced Pages is about. That is what humanity is all about. But we cannot present the Vedas here without presenting them in the correct (for Misplaced Pages) form. In the Western phrase, we do not cast pearls before swine, for they will not, cannot understand. More work is needed to aid understanding. For those that are willing. --Pete (talk) 04:34, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose for now per Fiddle Faddle/Tim.--Mark Miller (talk) 06:08, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose per Fiddle Faddle/Tim. As a side note, talking about tin foil hats in this context should be blockable. --John (talk) 06:13, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose I don't see any substantial problem here. It looks like Aditya soni is doing a pretty good job with the sources though a little more explanatory detail in some of the articles would be helpful. --I am One of Many (talk) 06:22, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

: They are claiming in wikipedias tone that Einstein did poorly because he had a bad horoscope, and claims that anyone with this horoscope has "has neither knowledge nor wealth, is penurious". Please explain how this is a "pretty good job", Second Quantization (talk) 15:37, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

super strong support; unless those "opposing" actually pull their fingers out and hold this editor's hand through the process. However, I feel Misplaced Pages requires WP:COMPETENCE, and it requires its competent editors to be editing competently rather than holding the hands of someone who cannot write a coherent sentence in the forlorn hope that something might be salvageable from the inevitable mess. Barney the barney barney (talk) 13:23, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Barney, the editor seems to me to have written some very coherent sentences, right here, in this thread. Better, grammatically, than some of the comments from native English speakers on this page, and certainly better than I could do in a language that may not be native to me. Sure, there are problems with English in some of the articles - it's complex content, with difficult translation issues, I'm sure, and it seems it may need someone to help him work through those issues (if he's still willing). It's probably important that he stops adding new articles until that can be worked through, to keep things manageable. Seems we may need someone who is familiar with the subject matter, and that's obviously not you or me. Maybe nobody will come forward to do that. If they do, I suggest it's not up to you or me to tell them how they should volunteer their time. Speaking of which - I thank Aditya soni for the substantial time he has so far donated in an attempt to create and share this content, and I hope we can help clear up any issues. Begoon  15:38, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose any sort of "ban" at this stage, for clarity, per my comments above, in case anyone is "!counting". (Sad reflection on us, in my very humble opinion, that we leap straight into a "ban" vote after one line of non discussion, then try to hold the discussion we should have already had within the !vote. I hope I'm never subjected to that, and I suspect we all hope that for ourselves.) Begoon  16:21, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Comment, Just to clarify - nobody is proposing a 'permaban'. Nobody is proposing to wholesale delete 160 articles which are obviously the result of hard work and research. Some of us are asking this editor to cool it, and respect the norms of notability and sourcing on Misplaced Pages. I note that at least four of Aditya soni's recently created articles on Hindu Astrology are all subject to AFCs for broadly the same set of reasons: Incomprehensible articles on ultra-niche that are loaded with WP:OR and rely on unreliable occult/esoteric sources. This editor has not yet pledged to do anything differently even in light of the considerable attention criticism in AFD discussions. --Salimfadhley (talk) 14:55, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Observation: Today I was glad to note that an esteemed editor had approached one page i.e.Rasasvada, with the intention of improving it. But just see what he has done. He has deleted the entire section – "Obstacles to Samadhi and their removal", in which part I have cited Sanskrit passages from Vedantasara that provide definition of the term – "Rasasvada" – in the context of Advaita Vedanta and are the basic reason as to why I decided to create this page. The editor in good faith has extracted the very heart from the body of this essay and killed it. The reason he gives is that the passage is original research based on ancient source. Three drawbacks are evident – 1) the editor does not know Sanskrit language, 2) he does not know who Sadananda was, and 3) he has never read the work of Sadananda titled Vedantasara belonging to mid-15th century, which systemizes Sankara’s Advaita philosophy. Since then, this work has been translated and commented upon by many learned savants. I chose to cite from the translation and commentary by Swami Nikhilananda which was first published in 1931 and which translation and commentary is available online, the reprint I possess is of a recent date. I have conducted no original research.Aditya soni (talk) 15:06, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

UserAditya soni, I believe that you are acting in good faith, hence any bans or threats of bans may be unwarranted in your case. I have reviewed your older articles and found some of your work on Hinduism and Buddhism in general to be of good quality and potentially useful. I remain concerned about recently created articles such as Trikasthanas (astrology) which as I have previously stated are incomprehensible and fail to articulate any kind of notability according to Misplaced Pages's standards. None of the sources I was able to verify appear to be particularly important or reliable. None of the sources I could verify seem to deal with the subject matter in any significant depth. The reason I am pointing this out is not to criticize your scholarship, but to encourage you to apply your considerable intellect to an appreciation of Misplaced Pages's rules. --Salimfadhley (talk) 15:45, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• support I have mixed feelings about this, but I think in the end something has to be done about in the form of review and guidance. To some degree my issues with the Hindu terminology articles can be ascribed to my lack of familiarity with the material, but I also get the impression that a lot of what I'm reading is slight paraphrasing of near-to-primary source material. It's rather as if our articles on Judaica were constructed from reworded passages of the gemara. It's not an appropriate approach to a general interest encyclopedia. The astrology articles are worse, bordering on incoherency. I've said over and over again that we need people who know the material to write these Indian articles, but the articles need to be actually readable too. Mangoe (talk) 17:10, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support - I was still weighing this one up and believed the editor in question could turn over a new leaf until this comment which is just completely at odds with how WP works and suggest the editor just doesn't get it. An editor has no place here if they refuse to participate in discussion, especially about their own problematic editing. St★lwart 00:21, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: Friends, I have already stated that I chose Misplaced Pages to share, with all those who are willing to know, the knowledge that I had fortunately gained through the intensive study of numerous scriptures and texts, guided by a Guru. For more than two long years I waited and kept on waiting for some good soul to turn up so as to help me improve and expand the contents I had posted. No one turned up. You will agree that most editors who are so very vocal in professing extension of aid, guidance etc., when they do appear on the scene come out with all their guns blazing, firing at will all ammunition that are in their possession ranging from code, technicality, procedure and so forth, in such a discouraging and insulting manner that persons like me who mean no offence are made to feel - "Why have I entered the dangerously dark abyss called Misplaced Pages, only to be unceremoniously driven out?" At least one really concerned editor ought to have long ago, or even recently, in a polite and purposeful manner pointed out my mistakes and volunteered to help and guide me; then he and I could have happily re-worked and re-written the 160 odd articles bringing them up to the set norms and standards. I would have been only too pleased to do so. But, now too much water has flowed down underneath the bridge, the bridge has collapsed, I have exhausted my patience, there is a very bitter taste in my mouth which I am unable to wash out, and I find my heart bleeding and genuinely crying out goading me to quit Misplaced Pages the soonest. I am being asked to turn a new leaf; I have failed to understand what is meant by this phrase. I have not rebelled. But, enough is enough. Please, for God’s sake, stop the farce which is being played out at my expense. I was here not to win praise and stars, and later become an Administrator, but all the same I have a feeling someone is being a sadist. I thank you all for allowing me to share my feelings. Be good and help the needy. Allow me to take leave. I had never had an opportunity to meet so many on a single stage; it has been a great learning experience. I have vowed not to create any new page ever.Aditya soni (talk) 03:31, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support purely for lack of a better alternative. If somebody were to offer to mentor this user, or some such, I would be far better satisfied than with a tban. Essentially, to me the user is eminently competent, but unable to distinguish between what they know and what the general reader can be expected to know; their articles are written for others like themselves. This is also borne out by the lack of wikilinks in their articles. This also raises an unusual sort of NPOV issue; though the articles may be written neutrally, their lack of context, or WP:INUNIVERSE if you will, make them harmful, because the vast majority of readers are not familiar enough with these topics to judge for themselves. To me their English is a trivial concern, and not a factor in voting "support;" there are armies of editors out there with far poorer English. Aditya soni, whichever way this turns out, I suggest you do not take this personally; take this as a break in which you can familiarize yourself with Misplaced Pages policies. A Block is not infinite; it can be appealed, and if you can show that you've addressed these issues it will likely be overturned. Regards. Vanamonde93 (talk) 08:50, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose It is clear to me that Aditya soni is highly knowledgeable on the topic, but needs to familiarize himself with WP guidelines. A break from creation and a focus on article improvement would be great. However, by the bitter tone of his reply, I am concerned that a tban like this might make him leave WP altogether, which would be pretty bad, as we would be losing an editor with great knowledge on a niche topic. However, I do not see any good alternative. Changed my mind based on discussion at the fringe noticeboard. Kingsindian (talk) 09:31, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
• Comment Misplaced Pages does not come out of this with glory. As Wikipedians we have taken a huge potential step against an inexperienced editor and are causing them grief, a lot of grief.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the way they have approached the creation of articles, they are by no means a vandal, nor disruptive. They simply failed to engage with us in the way we expect usually. We must not have tried hard enough.

Now, we are voting on whether they should be allowed to continue. That appalls me.

Patently, they have a great deal to offer. And, equally patently, we are driving them away.

This started at a fringe noticeboard, which is odd, because Hindu Astrology does not seem to me to be a fringe theory. It seems pretty mainstream to me. The folk there needed the help of an admin, though I am wholly unsure why that was. This type of issue can almost always be handled by experienced editors without invoking the bucket and mop, but here we are, at the big ban hammer board, voting on how much hammer to use.

I am ashamed of our behaviour towards Aditya soni, and feel he deserves an apology, one I am giving him on my own behalf for any hurt I may have inflicted on him myself.

We need to guide him, yes. He needs to be content to accept guidance, yes. Requesting him to use WP:AFC for his next couple of drafts may well be a good idea. Mandating him to do so is not. This whole process is very WP:BITE, and we need to correct this now. Fiddle Faddle 10:10, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

"we have taken a huge potential step against an inexperienced editor", he has been editing consistently for 2 years and has made nearly 1,700 article edits in that time. That's not new or inexperienced. "they are by no means a vandal, nor disruptive" By doing what they did, they have created a large amount of work for others to fix it by trimming down fringe claims and removing non-notable articles. I brought up the issue of fringe claims with them over a year ago , and they didn't even respond to me. Further, they acknowledge that their articles are only of interest to fellow astrologers , that's pretty much categorically in the face of WP:FRIND. If only astrologers are interested, then there are no independent sources and it's not notable (WP:NFRINGE). You also said, "This started at a fringe noticeboard, which is odd, because Hindu Astrology does not seem to me to be a fringe theory" I take it then you don't understand what a fringe theory is in wikipedia. A fringe theory is something which conflicts with an accepted domain of knowledge but which has no following amongst experts. For astrology that is science. Hindu astrology is fringe for the same reason that creation science is fringe (and creationism is used as an example in WP:FRINGE). Although they have many adherents, in terms of the relevant discipline (science) they have almost no following. "It seems pretty mainstream to me." No doubt there are some indian scientists who believe it (since it is wound up with religious beliefs in India), but science doesn't obey borders. The mainstream in science doesn't accept astrology, and the subset of that in India doesn't either from what I have read of it. Second Quantization (talk)

• Oppose. I have not examined every article created by Aditya soni but I have extreme difficulty making sense of many of those I did read. I think it is fair to assume from the responses of others that I am not the only one. I reject the assertion that this is simply due to ethnocentrism, or as another editor has suggested elsewhere, a discussion of “my religious nuttery is better than thy religious nuttery”. While I have little experiencing studying the major writings of any religion, including Christianity, I am still able to comprehend articles that touch on obscure topics of a wide variety of religions with much greater ease that this group of articles. The fact that this issue was raised in WP:FTN is irrelevant, as is the issue of whether Hindu astrology is a fringe theory or not. I would have the same opinion if this was brought up in WP:FOOTY. With that said, I oppose a topic ban on Aditya soni. It is apparent from his/her edit history that this general topic is his/her only area of interest within Misplaced Pages, and a topic ban would ensure that we would loose him/her as an editor. As problematic as I find these articles and as much as I would like to see him/her attempt to work with others, I do not see any history of objectionable behavior (e.g. edit warring to prevent others from trying to fix the articles) that would warrant that action. Location (talk) 17:03, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

One way in which the issue of whether Hindu Astrology is a fringe theory is very much relevant is with regard to the four articles currently at AfD where editors have raised WP:NFRINGE as a policy reason to delete them, among other reasons: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Equal house system (Hindu astrology), Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Unmaad yoga (astrology), Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Reka yoga (astrology) and Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Trikasthanas (astrology). 24.151.10.165 (talk) 17:54, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

The issue here appears to be whether or not Aditya soni can put together articles - regardless of the topic - that are reliably sourced and somewhat easily comprehended. Location (talk) 18:54, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• Comment Can we concentrate on one article? Trikasthanas (astrology), mentioned above, doesn't seem at all to match what a Misplaced Pages article should be. It looks more like something I'd find in a book that takes astrology seriously, or on an astrology website. Is this what we want? Dougweller (talk) 19:51, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@Dougweller: I am not sure what you mean by that. You mean the decision should be based primarily on one article? If so, I disagree. If not, as Salimfadhley, who has spent much more time than me on this says, there are many contributions, especially older ones, which are decent, and should be considered as well. Kingsindian (talk) 20:05, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@Kingsindian: That's good to hear. I'm not saying base it all on one article, I am asking if we want this one and if it is in any way typical. What do you think of it? Dougweller (talk) 20:09, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@Dougweller: Too much detail, very dense, impenetrable to people not familiar with the subject. Probably should be deleted, but I am very inexperienced in such matters. Definitely large sections should be removed. Kingsindian (talk) 21:09, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support topic ban from creating articles directly in article space. This seems to me very much the kind of thing the Articles for creation review process was created for. If the user creates articles via that process only, it'll be an advantage both for Misplaced Pages and for themselves. However, in view of the user's goodbye post above, I suppose the issue may be moot. But if they should change their mind about leaving, I do believe we need to insist they use the AFC process. Bishonen | talk 20:42, 20 August 2014 (UTC).

No, we don't need to insist on anything here. This does not even begin to rise to the level you are suggesting. I understand this is your opinion, and I will respect that, but Fiddle Faddle has this correct. We are not really trying very hard and I think a good deal of this is because some editors just don't understand the subjects and don't feel compelled to collaborate. I think that we need more patience with editors. I see no reason for admin intervention or community sanctions here.--Mark Miller (talk) 20:57, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• Comment - I previously voted support and now continue to support this. Aditya soni is clearly an expert in certain aspects of Hindu culture but feels that this expertise provides an entitlement to disregard some of the fundamental rules of Misplaced Pages. This editor resigned in protest not just because of this discussion but because of the numerous AFDs and the growing consensus that his recent Astrology articles were not up to the standards of wikipedia 1, 2, 3. Aditya soni has never conceded that any of the criticisms of these articles were valid and his refused to make use of AFC (and other processes designed to assist new editors). Now faced with a possibility of mild and temporary editorial review Aditya Soni has resigned in disgust. In the immortal words of Cartman: "Screw You, I'm Going Home!". --Salimfadhley (talk) 23:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• Comment Thank you for those words, which serve to escalate an unpleasant situation. As experienced editors our role is not only to create and edit articles but to provide a place where the less experienced can grow and become more valuable. I am thanking you for the Cartman quote, in case you are in any doubt.

People have driven away an editor whose understanding of the somewhat arcane topic appears to be great, but who is not quite working in a collegiate manner. I have read a number of the articles. They are difficult to understand. So is particle physics. They are not well referenced. Often, nor is particle physics, in that each has references from within the universe in which the topic exists. So what? We, the self styled great and good, are meant to be capable of editing the arcane and impenetrable to make it available to the ordinary reader. What we have said and are continuing to say to this editor is "Betake yourself and your topic that is difficult to understand, and go!" We disguise that as some sort of topic ban. Go us!

The wisdom of crowds often creates something far more unpleasant, and I believe we have seen it here. We have a posse and lunch law here. Yes, 'lunch', because we will have this editor for lunch.

The adult approach is to put this to bed as an understood but unwise proposal which will not be implemented, and to attempt to salvage something from the mess - we need to try to salvage this editor's feelings. I'm sorry that I asked them to come here and comment. As you see on their talk page they feel savaged the more by having done so.

For clarity, I have never met them before this, and never read their work. I joined this discussion because I felt then and feel now that this is a grave injustice being perpetrated on an ordinary person, someone like you and like me. I remain ashamed of us for doing this.

Are we not meant to guide and encourage the less collegiate editor, the less experienced editor? Or do we throw them under the bus when we don;t quite 'get' what they are trying to do? Fiddle Faddle 06:56, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support I disagree strongly with Timtrent that we are seeing articles created that are simply written by someone who understands the subject but writes articles that are difficult to understand and need better referencing. They are in fact articles which have Misplaced Pages stating in its own voice that astrology is an objective fact. The author even says as much at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Reka yoga (astrology) - " But all the same Reka yoga is a bad planetary combination; it has a restraining and at times destructive effect." Now he has the right to believe this all to be true, but not to create articles in which Misplaced Pages itself is asserting these things to be true. Dougweller (talk) 07:42, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

• Comment Misplaced Pages presents many things as facts. A good number are not facts at all, but are hypotheses, theories, etc. If something is presented as a fact that is genuinely not a fact there is a simple and expedient mechanism for making it clear that it is not a fact. We use the Edit button and make judicious edits. We do not then seek to prevent an editor from ever creating articles in main namespace again by a massive ban hammer style proposal at ANI. If we did that we would have very few editors left and the WP:AFC backlog would go up tenfold at a stroke. Not all articles are excellent. That is why we edit as a community. We don't chuck them away unless and until they are shown to be hopeless cases. We certainly do not throw their creator under a bus.

If we are very lucky we may be able to salvage the editor as a contributor for years to come, but I do not blame him at all for being extremely upset with the way he is being treated. Fiddle Faddle 12:35, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

"A good number are not facts at all, but are hypotheses, theories, etc." Presenting hypotheses as fact? Name one and I'll show you an article which needs to be edited. Also, I suggest you read Evolution as fact and theory before implying the word theory mean "not facts at all". "If something is presented as a fact that is genuinely not a fact there is a simple and expedient mechanism for making it clear that it is not a fact. ... We do not then seek to prevent an editor from ever creating articles in main namespace again by a massive ban hammer style proposal at ANI" Actually, this happens all the time, because it is a massive drain on everything to chase civil POV pushers around fixing their edits (and that's even if they don't just edit war back). Second Quantization (talk) 16:54, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose - this guy clearly knows his stuff. He needs some help fitting it into our way of doing things, but this is exactly the sort of material we could do with more of. I'm disgusted at the behaviour of those who want it gone because they don't understand, it's foreign, it's arcane or whatever. I know a little about this sort of stuff, and while it's very hard to get into, especially on a sleepy afternoon after lunch when I listened to a chap explain this area for a week, it's valid within the limits of the subject. We shouldn't be presenting it as fact, but we shouldn't be deleting this very real scholarship. --Pete (talk) 04:17, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Pete,I wish you had made your appearance earlier. I have stepped in mainly because of you. Whatever be the opinion of the people in the Western world about astrology as a pseudo-science or a hoax or a non-sense, but you know that Astrology has been a part of Hindu life and culture for the past 4000 years or so, and it still continues to play an important role in our life. Even those Indian skeptics who vehemently speak and write against astrology, in fact, secretly approach priest-astrologers in the time of need. I can vouch for this fact because I am in this field though not as a professional. After the introduction of British method of education by Macaulay, who divided the world into the educated and the barbarians, the longstanding Indian method of thinking changed; everything ancient was questioned and even rejected, which situation worsened because of the influence of Karl Marx. Hindu astrology also took a severe hit and the number of those rejecting it as a science grew larger and larger, and also because of the support extended by the then political establishment. The vexing question, whether astrology is a science or not, was finally settled by the Supreme Court of India which court on 05/05/2004 ruled that astrology is a science, and even directed the Indian Universities to teach this subject. This judgement was delivered in the Case No. Appeal (civil) 5886 of 2002 P.M.Bhargava & Others. Vs. University Grants Commission and Another. You can access the court order at Govt. of India website - http://judis.nic.in/supremecourt/qrydisp.asp?tfnm=26188 I am sure you are aware of this court ruling which is now the law of the land. Please enlighten all participants especially those who are against Hindu astrology and eager to bury my four articles already listed as AFDs. You have read the Indian Sanskrit texts. Our ancient thinkers did not use many words, they were very brief while defining and explaining the various astrological and philosophical principles. The later translators and commentators were in no position to change that method of expression lest the true meaning became lost. Hence, the language appears arcane and difficult to understand. I have not digressed from the available and referred to texts. This is it. My objecting friends should have directly asked me to re-write and if possible simplify what I had presented all that which is now under their scrutiny. They did not and you know the rest. They have driven me out.Aditya soni (talk) 11:50, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I, for one, am glad to see that you have chosen to reengage. I found the reasoning of the Madras High Court (quoted approvingly in the decision linked) particularly apt for an encyclopedia: it had "held that the very purpose of imparting education is to gain knowledge and therefore there should be every scope for making a study on very many subjects in order to enrich ones craving for knowledge. Any such attempt from any quarters in furtherance of that pursuit should not be stultified. The learned Judge further held that it was for the pupil concerned to select any particular field or subject in furtherance of his future career, and merely because the subject has got its basis or origin traceable to some cult, it cannot be held that the same would only result in propagation of a particular religion." I, for one, believe that your articles can be edited so as present knowledge more neutrally and not necessarily only result in propagation of a particular religion. 24.151.10.165 (talk) 14:26, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't say that I have read the ancient Sanskrit texts. I have a shallow understanding of the arrangement of the Vedas, the Upanishads and so on. It is a rich and deep subject! I can barely read Sanskrit, and puzzling out meaning with the help of Monier-Williams is a slow task. Though very enjoyable. Max Muller is another sage I revere, and when I next visit Oxford I am charged with visiting him at Holywell.

Despite what the court in Madras says, we cannot present astrology here as fact or science. We can certainly describe it for those who do, giving the sources and rewriting to make it less impenetrable, in line with Misplaced Pages's policies. We already present many arcane fields. Particle physics is mentioned above, but we also cover Harry Potter and Karl Marx in great detail. There is certainly room for the Vedas here, and your contributions are welcome, at least from those who have an inkling of what you're talking about. For many others, it comes across as nonsense, and I understand their confusion, though cannot support their behaviour towards a scholar. Obviously the wisdom of Advaita is yet to blossom in their hearts.

It is obvious that you are a scholar, and one who knows his texts. I can help edit your work here in line with policy, if you'll accept my feeble understanding of your field. Quite likely there are others here with better knowledge of both Sanskrit and Vedic tradition who can join in. Some of the advice given above is very good, such as the suggestion that you cease creating new articles until we have dealt with those already here by rewording them in line with Misplaced Pages policy. --Pete (talk) 19:18, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose as proposal is too broad. AlanS (talk) 14:14, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support. I've actually read some (non-Wiki) articles on Vedic (Hindu) astrology, and the long-winded and often dire articles that this user is writing sound like they come from the Middle Ages. I believe they are not only inappropriate, too long, and a detriment to Misplaced Pages, I believe they are actually misleading in terms of the belief system they purport to represent. Softlavender (talk) 05:41, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

• What an excellent idea. Let us ban every editor whose writing quality is poor, or whose style we do not agree with, from creating new articles. Far better to ban them than to educate them, because it saves so much trouble. And, even better than that, it isn't WP:BITE at all, if we say it isn't. Alternatively we can edit the articles we think are substandard. I thought that was what Misplaced Pages was about. Fiddle Faddle 13:41, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

I never said that the writing quality is poor or that I disagreed with the style. I said the articles are misleading. Do we want an encyclopedia to be misleading? If you think so, fine, but I disagree; I think an encyclopedia should be accurate and up-to-date. Softlavender (talk) 14:53, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

• Comment Yesterday, I asked User:Aditya soni, if willing, to make some changes to one or two articles so that Hindu beliefs were represented as beliefs rather than as universal truths. . Today, I note that User:Aditya soni has done just that. and . Even if one is not entirely satisfied with the results, I hope we can all agree that this is strong evidence of a willingness to work collaboratively. 24.151.10.165 (talk) 13:29, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support I was invited to ANI for a third opinion. The concepts the user writes on are "real" concepts (not WP:FRINGE) in Hindu astrology. That said; many of them do not warrant an independent article, but however need to mentioned in the master article. Trikasthanas (astrology) IMO should be merged with Bhāva and retained as a para or 2. The articles created by the user are primarily based on WP:PRIMARY sources, thus may be coloured by the author's perception (Read WP:OR). Articles like Devatas (Vedanta) seem to be WP:POVFORKs of the master article (in this case, Rigvedic deities or Deva (Hinduism)).Redtigerxyz 06:24, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Comment Dear Mr. Redtigerxyz ,I had seen the page Deva (Hinduism), but I did not know where to incorporate my written matter posted at Devatas (Vedanta), therefore, I created a new page owing to inexperience. But,I have not done any original research nor relied on primary sources -

Ref 1 Raj Pruthi’s book – Vedic Civilization is not a primary source; it is a secondary source on the topic. The entire book is available on line.

Ref 2 The book - Sree Varaha mihira’s Bhirat Jataka is not a primary source; it is translation cum commentary by B.Suryanarain Rao, and a secondary source. The entire book is available on line.

Ref 3, 5,6 Swami Gambhirananda’s book on Brahma Sutra Bhasya of Sankaracarya is a tertiary source; this is Swami Gambhirananda’s translation and commentary on the Sanskrit translation of Brahma Sutras by Adi Shankara. The entire book can be accessed at http://michaelsudduth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Srimad-Bhagavad-Gita-Shankara-Bhashya-English.pdf

Ref 7 The book – New Perspectives on Advaita Vedanta is not a primary source; it is a secondary/tertiary source. The entire book is available on line.

Ref 8 The book – A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy, as the title suggests is a masterly survey of the Upanishads conducted by Ramachandra Dattatrya Ranade.

Ref 9 The book- Patanjali Yoga Sutras contains the original Sanskrit text along with English translation by Swami Prabhavananda. It is a secondary source. The entire book can be accessed at http://www.estudantedavedanta.net/yoga-aphorisms-of-patanjali.pdf

Ref 10 The book – Eight Upanishads Vol.1 contains original text of Isa, Kena, Katha and Taittiriya Upanishads along with English translation and commentary by Swami Gambhirananda.

Ref 11 The book – Studies in Upanishads as the name itself suggests is a tertiary source.

By the way I have already sought deletion of all 160 odd pages created by me. Therefore, I request you to please quietly delete all pages without inviting or involving others, then, there will not be any kind of aspersions cast on my understanding of the subject, my ability, my sincerity and my integrity. And, by deleting all articles your precious time and effort would also be saved. I hope you will not disappoint me. I seek forgiveness from all you for having created so many thoughtless pages and thus carelessly bothered you all. I have deleted my user page but I do not know how to quit Misplaced Pages entirely (including disabling of my password i.e. access to any page), please help me. Also, please close this discussion too, which has needlessly gone on and on. I am glad you have also supported a ban on me. You may collectively ban me for ever, I won't be bothering you in future, never in any case. Thanks.Aditya soni (talk) 10:51, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support Continual fringe claims in all created articles (all with terrible sourcing too),: "Generally, a person born with Reka yoga has neither knowledge nor wealth, is penurious"." Albert Einstein was born with a Rekā yoga which made him perform poorly in his studies during the course of the dashas (planetary periods) the planets giving rise to the said yoga." That's a claim in the wikipedia voice that planet positions made Einstein do badly in school.

: "King George III born on 4th June 1738 with Unmaad yoga inasmuch as in his case Mars occupying the 10th house aspected the lagna and the Moon combining with Saturn casted its inimical aspect on Mars; he suffered from mental illness." Of course this sentence doesn't seem to make much sense since the second part seems unrelated to the first, but I think it's obvious what is being implied here.

: " These are the three evil houses of suffering whose lords and occupation invariably bring difficulties, suffering, loss, anxieties, worries, obstacles, disease, confinement, incarceration, impediments, enemies, lawsuits, accidents, injuries, surgeries, and death like experiences in the lives of all human beings." "From the 6th house are divined diseases, disappointments, ..." "The 12th house indicates disturbance to sleep, mental worry, ... ", "The lord of the 6th house should not be stronger than the lord of the lagna if so then one cannot overpower opponents and foes, and is vanquished illness and ill-health will overpower the body. " This is the Viparita Raja yoga that confers learning, longevity, fame and prosperity, illustrious friends, success in all ventures and victory over foes."

People seem resistant to the idea that poor writers shouldn't write 160 articles laden with a fringe POV, but I think it makes sense. Second Quantization (talk) 15:37, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

And I don't think I'm being unreasonable here, I did even ask him to be wary of our polices over a year ago: User_talk:Aditya_soni#Fringe_guidelines (old nick), Second Quantization (talk) 16:02, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support, reluctantly. I have hesitated over this due to the ideas already eloquently expressed by Timtrent/FiddleFaddle. However, can we really afford to have hundreds of articles which are poorly written, dense, and in universe, presenting astrology as fact? Who will go and clean them up? Who will monitor and fix every new page?

I wouldn't support this if the articles were just badly written, but writing astrology as factual in Misplaced Pages's own voice is a massive POV and FRINGE problem and I just can't support its continuation. BethNaught (talk) 15:53, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support I had intended skipping this dispute, but Reka yoga (astrology) is an abuse of Misplaced Pages. Johnuniq (talk) 23:35, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Mahadeva states that the person born with Reka yoga is devoid of education and wealth and has bad nails - Oh come now! When feeling threatened, Squirtle withdraw their limbs into their brown-orange shells and spray water from their mouth with great force. Where's the difference? We list and describe all sorts of stuff that is patent nonsense, so long as there is a significant cultural following. Pokemon, astrology, synchronised swimming. We are an encyclopaedia, not some slitty-eyed moral judge. --Pete (talk) 21:02, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
• Comment: Friends, I need not disturb you but I cannot avoid narrating to you my day's experience. Only today I noticed the reasons given by the editor who has nominated page titled – Char Dham (Vedic) for deletion. His intention suits me fine, but he has very sadly termed this topic as original research and a hoax because he could not find a reliable source that indicates Char Dham exists in Vedic literature. That hurt me. He seems to have not appreciated the contents of section – Pratardana’s description of the four Dhams in which section two significant Mantras from the Rig Veda i.e. IX.96.18 and IX.96.19 referred to by two authors, have been cited along with the explanations by those authors. Evidently this nominator does not know Sanskrit and Hindi but even then I have led him to Rig Veda Vol. 5 pages 335,336 published online by Aryasamaj Jamnagar which is actually Swami Dayananda Saraswati’s translation of the Rig Veda and his commentary on that text. The word Dham (धाम) in Vedic philosophy refers to plane of existence. In order to assist him so that he properly understands this topic I have specifically brought to his notice the words – "तृतीयं धाम" at the start of the second line of mantra IX.96.18 on page 335 which is explained by Dayananda Saraswati on page 336 as – (तृतीयं, धाम) (pronounced - triteeyam dhaam; triteeyam means 'three') (three dhams) are देवयान (Devayana or Devaloka) और (and) पितृयान (Pitriyana) इन दोनों से पृथक् (beyond these two) is the तीसरा (third) जो (which) मुक्तिधाम (Muktidham) है (is); and to the two words – "तुरीयं धाम" (pronounced - tureeyam dhaam; tureeyam or Turiya means 'the fourth') appearing in the next mantra on the same page. Dayananda Saraswati explains - (तुरीयम्) चौथा (fourth) (धाम) (dham) परमपद (the highest state) परमात्मा (Paramatman) है (is). The link to this text is http://www.aryasamajjamnagar.org/rugveda_v5/rugveda.htm . These two mantras of the Rig Veda directly speak about the Char (four) Dhams (planes of existence), and these are the mantras I have cited. I have failed to understand as to how the nominator missed noticing these mantras. I am not objecting to the proposed deletion of this page. Thanks.Aditya soni (talk) 13:27, 26 August 2014 (UTC)Aditya soni (talk) 13:37, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not the nom, but you are writing articles on the basis of original research. You are working off the primary texts, and primary religious sources (which are themselves quite old). See WP:NOR and WP:SECONDARY. Misplaced Pages does not accept original research. Engaging in an original or interesting synthesis isn't a bad thing, it's just something that is forbidden in wikipedia, Second Quantization (talk) 15:08, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Are you sure that we're getting original research? The texts are old, but there are extensive commentaries. I'm getting the feeling that all of the material is well-sourced. The problem could be that the average contributor to ANI is sadly deficient in Sanskrit, let alone Vedic lore. --Pete (talk) 17:29, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I think Pete has the right of it. Old commentary is not original research. Referring to Dayananda Saraswati's interpretations of Rigveda is no more original research than referring to Augustine of Hippo's and Thomas Aquinas's interpretations of scripture in Just war theory. 24.151.10.165 (talk) 17:54, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. The question is how we refer to it. So long as we are clear on that, there is no problem describing any belief system. Hell, if we could have a reliable source for what bunny rabbits actually believe, that would be awesome, and a great addition to our pool of knowledge. In this case we think the articles may be over detailed, badly worded, implying fact instead of description of a belief, and maybe misleading, because of that. The question is what we do about that. We can fix them, discard them because they are too misleading, too voluminous and too hard to fix, engage productively with the author, berate the author (and accept the risk of losing them, or even consider that a positive), or any number of things inbetween. Nobody ever said this encyclopedia thing would be easy. We edit, we discuss. Sometimes we reject. Sometimes we can adapt and include. As long as we consider these things properly, we are doing our "job". Begoon  18:22, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose Throw a mentor at the problem. Mentor needs to have a lot of good faith and patience. This author has created articles like A_Constructive_Survey_of_Upanishadic_Philosophy. Discouraging him may be a loss for WP. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jayakumar RG (talk • contribs)

Talkpage violations at Talk:Historicity of Jesus

No way you want to hear more about problems at Talk:Historicity of Jesus. But, I see no other good alternative.

John Carter (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is the person I'm having difficulty with.

Background:

1. John Carter has posted some oblique "warning" messages to me at Talk:Historicity of Jesus-- directed at "a certain obvious POV pusher," and "a rather single-minded POV pusher." diff1diff2 Frankly, I find these to be creepy - as if he's trying to intimidate me.
2. John Carter started an ANI a few days ago, accusing me of “tendentious POV pushing at Historicity of Jesus. He provided only one diff – to a comment totally unrelated to me, and provided no explanation of his claim. After I pointed this out, the ANI was closed, as I'd done nothing blockable. (The ANI is long and stupid. Please don't feel like you need to read it all.) diff to ANI
3. On my talk page, I asked John Carter (several times) what POV he thought I was pushing, since he never said. He doesn't seem to want to tell me, though he does go on at length about my personal failings. (You don't really want to read all this either, but I provide it to show that I'm trying to stay on topic, and am met with hostility.) diff to talk page about ANI
4. John Carter was desysopped several years ago, with the reasons listed pretty much corresponding to his recent behavior.

Current issue:

1. John Carter deleted one of my Talk:Historicity of Jesus comments, without my consent. diff to first deletion
2. When I reverted the delete, and pointed out that he knew better than to delete other users' comments, he deleted it again. diff to second deletion
3. At this point, I consider it an edit war, of sorts (if Talk pages can have those.) If I reverted again, so would he.
4. He posted this “final warning” to my talk page. diff to user talk page warning
5. He added this warning to ], misrepresenting the talkpage guidelines. diff to talk page warning

Looking at WP:TALKNO, John Carter has:

• Made ad hominem attacks against me,
• Threatened me,
• Misrepresented my comments,
• Deleted my comments,
• Misrepresented WP policy and guidelines, and
• Presented himself as if he has some authority – possibly as an admin.

Administrative action requested:

• I'm bringing this to ANI, as I don't think any other dispute resolution will be effective.
• I'm requesting a short article ban for Historicity of Jesus and Talk:Historicity of Jesus

Fearofreprisal (talk) 23:32, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

• The deleted comment in question is clearly uncivil sniping, and while I would not personally have considered it severe enough to pull from a talk page, you should not have reverted its removal. Nothing to see here. --erachima talk 23:43, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
  • It was also restored under the hatnote which he didn't mention. A review of his recent history on the visible article talk page and his own user talk page would indicate warnings are called for. John Carter (talk) 00:00, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
    • Forgetting the obviously snippy comments, what POV is he pushing on the talk page? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:04, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

He has been among other things arguing that nominal Christians and Muslims are incapable of approaching the historicity of Jesus objectively, but that others who have more often than not either rejected some of the Western Christian social morays are, which is at best a dubious assertion considering the psychology of conversion, or that adherents of faiths which would regard the Christian incarnation as basically heretical have no similar biases. Having myself studied religion, I can say everyone in class were much more "nominal" believers than society as a whole, and might like him to meet some of the monks and priests I've met who have in their 40s or 50s acknowledged becoming agnostics or atheists but stay for retirement benefits and their religious friends. John Carter (talk) 00:24, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

That's not just a POV-push, it's a violation of "no original research". He's betraying his own biases to draw such a conclusion. He has no evidence to support such a broad-brush claim. Deja vu. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:36, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Is that based on a thorough examination, or just on taking someone's characterisation of their adversary at face value? Formerip (talk) 00:39, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

As with the debate a few days ago, he's claiming that a Christian or a Muslim cannot objectively write about the historicity of Jesus. He's got no evidence to support that claim, it's strictly his personal opinion. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:47, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

(e-c)It's something that has some support in some circles so its probably more POV than OR. And I forgot to mention the 2 nuns and several non–Catholic agnostic/atheist nominally Christian ministers I've met as well. It was an an arranged meeting of the local "qualifiers" if anyone's curious. I've myself never been a religious and I was there basically as an outsider. John Carter (talk) 00:51, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

That highlights one of many core issues in this discussion. Precisely what IS a Christian? Another is the matter of what Historicity of Jesus is really about, whether Jesus existed, or whether there is any "scientific" evidence that he existed. HiLo48 (talk) 00:55, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

User:John Carter is completely misrepresenting my position, and my actions. The diffs don't lie:

Beyond this, POV, or what is a Christian, or any of this content related stuff is not an issue in this ANI. The only thing that is at issue is User:John Carter's hostility.Fearofreprisal (talk) 01:01, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

There is also this diff which you recently removed from your user talk page with the problematic "Off–topic comments" section in which Huon talks about your other recent micsconduct on the same talk page and your other problematic recent conduct still on the talk page. WP:BOOMERANG indicates that much as you apparently think otherwise your behavior is open to review as well.John Carter (talk) 01:17, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not going to get in a pissing contest with John Carter. Let's stick to his hostility: He's been accusing me of POV pushing, both in the article talk page diff1diff2, and in another ANI diff to ANI, and he's provided no evidence to substantiate it. Zippo. Fearofreprisal (talk) 01:33, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Because you'd lose. And you have demonstrated so much arrogance and self–righteousness that Huon had to call you on it before and it very clearly still hasn't apparently gotten through to you yet. John Carter (talk) 01:41, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

As I said in the last discussion, this article might benefit from a page move to Academic history of Jesus or something of that matter to determinitively distinguish the difference between religious/faith-based history and scholarly/scientific history.--v/r - TP 01:49, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I'll send you a talk page message regarding the article. I'd really like to keep this ANI focused on John Carter's hostility towards me, as it's really getting in the way of improving the article. (He even said that my suggesting the scope of the article should be "the historicity of Jesus" was POV pushing!) Fearofreprisal (talk) 02:36, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I think the editor conduct deserves a reality check, and the language that is being used, even in this ANI post is not acceptable. And you have demonstrated so much arrogance and self–righteousness... It's ridiculous. In short, you give the impression of being a newbie with a profound ego but little real knowledge of the topic and less knowledge or awareness of wikipedia policies and guidelines. Please make an effort to read WP:TPG and try to realize that, despite your own obvious conviction of your personal genius... is wholeheartedly unacceptable and uncivil language while not exactly swearing and not exactly 'confrontorary' language, is anything but civil. Indeed, comments like We have talk page guidelines for a reason whether you are capable of understanding them or not. If you can't understand that please read WP:CIR which is implying that the user is not competent enough to understand policy or guidelines. unless you are a professional in the field, however high your opinion of yourself might be, the authors there probably know more about the subject and are better sources for our content than yourself and your OR speculations regarding their possible is also in my view is unacceptable. This kind of language is what is ambiguously dealt with on noticeboards, and what needs to be policed and enforced more. I advocate that John is put on warning for these comments and should be reminded that he is to act civil and delve into the real content and sources, not about other editors. Tutelary (talk) 02:59, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I've avoided commenting on this before, but based on the while history of this dispute at WP: In my opinion JC is alleging wide-spread biases without evidence, trying to dismiss the work of almost everybody who has ever contributed to the academic or popular discussion of the subject because his own views are different. He has continued doing so to the extend that it is disruptive. His arguments here, that he can not be biased himself against Christians because he has talked to people of that religion, does not make sense to me. (It is even possible that my own views on the matter may be the same as his, but it remains the case that the position at the moment is very much a minority position, tho I would not go so far as to call it fringe, and I don't think it reasonable to pretend otherwise.) TParis, the term universally used for the RW question is Historicity of Jesus. It's not an assertion that Jesus was historically real, it's just a statement that the problem is whether he/He was historically real. "Academic history of Jesus is meaningless. The subject is precisely the question whether the faith-based account corresponds to the biography of a real individual. DGG ( talk ) 02:53, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

TL;DR version: what DGG said.

The reason why the historicity of Jesus is such a problematic topic on Misplaced Pages is that the historicity of Jesus is a problematic topic. It is an intersection of scholarly study and religious faith. Gospel scholars can debate whether Mark 13 contains an interpolation of a C1 eschatological text unrelated to the Jesus story or whether the Q-source existed despite there being no contemporary or patristic mention, without matters of faith coming into play.

The historicity of Jesus is different. It involves very deeply held beliefs about the very nature of the world and of existence. For adherents of the Christian faith in its many forms, the historicity of Jesus and its relation to the Jesus of Christianity is something that is perhaps one of the most important things in their lives. For people of other faiths, the historicity of Jesus and its relation to the Jesus of Christianity is - I will not be so presumptuous to make any comment. For non-believers, the historicity of Jesus can be a scholarly topic but often also involves very deeply held beliefs about the very nature of the world and of existence.

In short: JC - please stop making allegations of bias because someone simply disagrees with you.

Pete AU aka --Shirt58 (talk) 13:54, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Comment

I commented at the talk page, Talk: Historicity of Jesus, earlier this month, that it appears that the combined content disputes (now about whether to split the article into multiple articles) and conduct issues that interfere with resolving the content questions are likely to go to the ArbCom. Unfortunately, that again appears to be the case. Can you (multiple editors) put aside your anger to avoid having the topic area (including any future articles that are split off) placed under discretionary sanctions? Regardless of any other details of an ArbCom final decision, they almost certainly will include discretionary sanctions. For background, there was a filing at the dispute resolution noticeboard. It was declined, with the advice to take the content issues to mediation and the conduct issues here, WP:ANI. (I am not sure that mediation is the right vehicle, but that is my opinion.) I see two editors here, FearOfReprisal and John Carter, who obviously do not like each other, one of whom has been previously sanctioned by the ArbCom with respect to the history of religions. Both FOR and JC: Be civil. Equally importantly, be concise. Long WP:TLDR posts here are a common but useless practice, because they aren't read in detail. If you aren't willing to resolve your issues here, be concise, because the ArbCom doesn't accept walls of text. Enough. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:33, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

My issue with John Carter is resolved as soon as he stops accusing me of misconduct.

As for fixing the longstanding intractable problems with the article -- here are the subjects we need to reach consensus on:

1. The topic of the article. i.e., the "Historicity of Jesus"
2. The definition of the term "historicity" (see Historicity)
3. The article's scope, i.e., the "historicity of Jesus"
4. Topics that are outside the scope of the article, e.g., religious belief, Christ Myth Theory, Historical Jesus

There is currently dispute about every one of these items. So, I suspect that discretionary sanctions will be required in any event. Fearofreprisal (talk) 19:31, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

@FoR, arbitration is the way to proceed. This ANI will likely close for the same reason as the last one - it's not ANI's purview to resolve complex disputes that are a blend of conduct and content issues. Imo, there have been plenty of prior attempts to resolve both issues for ArbCom to take the case. I don't agree that filing a case will result in discretionary sanctions - the Arbs are wise enough to understand that a dispute between two parties isn't going to undermine the encyclopedia. Ignocrates (talk) 19:30, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I came here solely with a conduct issue. It's everyone else who has added in content issues. Fearofreprisal (talk) 19:33, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

You do not seem to understand that you do not control the discussion here. While I believe that there is a very real question whether Ignocrates has once again returned to edit only in regards to something in which I am involved which may qualify as a violation of his interaction ban and I would welcome input from others on whether involvement in this discussion as his only edits in weeks as can be seen here qualifies as stalking and/or other sanctionable conduct as per Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Ebionites 3 in their eyes. I also think much if not most of the problems at the article would be resolved if Fear would indicate the sources to establish the notability and weight requirements as per guidelines and policies because I've never seen them clearly indicated. John Carter (talk) 20:39, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

The idea that Christians can be objective about Jesus is silly. If you think someone is the son of God and walked on water and rose from the dead, you're not exactly objective. If you believe denying his historicity will result in eternal torment, you're in no position to be objective. But so what? Does fearofreprisal want to ban Christian editors? I'm not sure how the lack of objectivity can be applied. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Howunusual (talk • contribs) 00:48, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to try to be as concise as possible here. John Carter continues to be hostile, even in this ANI ("You do not seem to understand that you do not control the discussion here.") This is nothing new. Here are a few relevant diffs:

• Blocked for violating sanctions, Jul 2013:
• ArbCom sanctions personal attacks, Nov 2013: "John Carter has made personal attacks against Ignocrates during the arbitration case"
• Tells ArbCom that he can't control his temper, Nov 2013: "I regret to say that over the years dealing with the comments of others I acknowledge that my temper can, and particularly sometimes around Ignocrates does, get the best of me."
• Resigns as Admin, because of ArbCom, Nov 2013:
• Admits to trying to drive editors off WP through incivility, Nov 2013:
• ArbCom admonishment for disruption and incivility, June 2009:
• Desysopping discussion, Feb 2008:

I'm perfectly happy to try and work with John Carter to improve the Historicity of Jesus article. However...

• If he can't drop the condescension here in ANI, why would I think he might do so in the article and talk page?
• Over his long history on WP, he's not yet contributed a single word to the Historicity of Jesus article. Why would I think he's going to start now?

With no reason to believe that John Carter will change, the only reasonable resolution I can see is for him to be topic-banned from "historicity" related articles. Fearofreprisal (talk) 01:04, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Since you are going to the trouble of posting details back to 2008, perhaps you wouldn't mind showing a couple of links for current problems? The couple I looked at in the OP show dime-a-dozen commentary that is standard for many contentious topics—they certainly do not justify a topic ban. I don't understand DGG's above comment regarding "bias"—is that something at ANI or a talk page somewhere? I can't see it (certainly the comment at 00:24, 19 August 2014 above shows no problem). I see no link which shows anything unexpected for a topic like this. ANI is for behavior, but my preference would be for someone to point to something that matters, such as who-is-doing-what in an article. Johnuniq (talk) 11:57, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I posted mostly issues that have happened in the last year. I posted the 2008 diff to show that nothing has changed. It's about context. His "chilling admission regarding the ways he attempts to drive editors off the project through controlled incivility" should give you pause. JC is an experienced former Admin, who uses his knowledge of WP rules to attack users who disagree with him. While JC's comments, considered individually, may be dime-a-dozen commentary, taken together and in context, they show that his pattern of intentional disruption continues.

I accept that it's likely that nothing will be done here to encourage JC to drop his incivility. But I've established a record. If, as he admits, he can't control his temper, we'll be back here soon enough. Fearofreprisal (talk) 18:36, 20 August 2014 (UTC)provd

What you completely failed to do is post any indications of your providing the required reliable sources to give reason to make changes as per WP:WEIGHT and other policies and guidelines. Should you continue to engage in such behavior in violation of conduct guidelines we will probably be back sooner than you think very possibly regarding your conduct. John Carter (talk) 19:31, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Followup

It's not gotten much better. User:John Carter started a section at Talk:Historicity of Jesus#"Historicity” of Jesus or “Historicity of Jesus”?, where I can't figure out what he's talking about. I asked for a WP:THIRDOPINION, and that person couldn't figure out what JC was talking about either. It probably wouldn't matter -- I could just ignore him -- except his incivility is distruptive. The problems with this article are going to eventually go to ArbCom, but I'm trying to get things as cleaned up as possible before then, so we can deal with just one or two fundamental issues. Fearofreprisal (talk) 02:53, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but you are going to have to explain an actual problem more clearly. At Talk:Historicity of Jesus we see two sections: "What is historicity?" (in which Fearofreprisal asks for people to share their understanding of what historicity actually is), and the section linked above (in which John Carter lists several sources along with a comment which requires some missing context to understand). I don't see how you could claim the section is "incivility"—it is obviously missing a couple of sentences to explain what it's all about, but is that such a problem? Just ignore it or reply with something like what I've said here. Why would you then add a third section (here) about the same point? My third opinion would be that you all stop talking about who-knows-what and focus on the article. What is the problem in the article? Johnuniq (talk) 04:19, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

This ANI is about conduct, not content. I'll save the discussion on content for ArbCom. Fearofreprisal (talk) 05:00, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

No, that's not right. Arbcom follows a strict (and often counter-productive) policy of not even thinking about content. Perhaps the arbs privately ponder what would be best for the encyclopedia, but public discussions must not deal with content (see WP:Arbitration). At ANI, anything goes. In general, content is not discussed here, but if necessary people will consider underlying issues and might, for example, offer an opinion that an editor should be topic banned because they are adding unhelpful text to articles (with a brief explanation). That's fine here, but does not happen at arbitration. It's unlikely that third parties will want to spend the time becoming familiar with all the background so it's up to people claiming that a problem exists to show links and brief explanations as to why there is a problem. Johnuniq (talk) 10:06, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

That's correct. ArbCom will not deal with the content issue. I'm not sure all of the talk page discussion is appropriate, and I do see editors throwing "notaforum" back and forth. Editors trying to decide "What is historicity?" make me uneasy. Although it would be nice, as one editor asks, to have a " universal, clear definition for the term,", I'd be amazed if all the sources who think that they have written on this subject agree. It's just not up to editors to make these decisions. Sure, they can discuss which sources that discuss the meaning of "historicity of Jesus" that they wish to use, but they shouldn't be looking at sources that only discuss "historicity" without discussing Jesus. That's just the way we roll, and if we start opening the door to sources that don't discuss the subject of the article... But the issue is really "What conduct issue are you bringing here?" I do agree with User:Johnuniq - what incivility? Focus on the article, not abstract questions about historicity. And don't add huge templates at the bottom that belong at the top and seem to be there only to be used whack each other over the head. Hm, thinking about that again, Fearofreprisal was being pretty uncivil with that - see Talk:Historicity of Jesus#Need WP:RS citations that show "historicity of Jesus"= "existence of Jesus". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dougweller (talk • contribs) 12:16, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

You once again demonstrate a pronounced lack of understanding of wikipedia in the above comment Fear, as you did in the above sections which raises serious WP:CIR issues about you which are not helped at all by the lack of understanding of several policies and guidelines you have already repeatedly displayed on the article talk page. That specifically includes your presumptuous citation demands on that talk page. The fact that you also seem to be insisting on immediate gratification of all your demands is another cause for concern. I have yet to finish the full research of this topic I had previously indicated I was working on and find these rather tendentious demands for immediate gratification of your every whim to be both counterproductive and completely unnecessary. As I already said on the talk page your cause would be much better served if you could find the sources sufficient to establish the notability of the article you want. It is perhaps a not unreasonable question whether you may not be able to establish sch notability on your own and that might be driving your rather disruptive and less than productive postings here. The article was not built in a day nor is it reasonable to assume that major changes to it should be made in a day. Honestly, I believe your conduct in this matter in general raises much more serious concerns about you than anything or anyone else.John Carter (talk) 14:13, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Johnuniq - Thank you for the clarification on ArbCom. Is it OK to focus on John Carter's conduct in this ANI, and save content for a subsequent ANI? Or would you rather combine them into an unresolveable mess?

To clarify the conduct issue I'm bringing here: it is WP:POV RAILROADING. Would you like me to add even more diffs to show this, or are the ones I've provided so far (and that User:Tutelary has noted at ) sufficient?

A couple of question of how to deal with situations:

John Carter's language towards you is wholeheartedly unacceptable and that has not changed. Even now, he is using patronizing and almost insulting language at you in an attempt at making you leave the site. That is the language that makes other editors leave. When vandals use swear words at other users, they dismiss it outhand because a vandal is usually so easily blocked as they are blatantly disruptive. There are other users on this site that appear to be in it for the long hall, and massively influence content discussions, and when they are met with any resistance, use patronizing and euphemizing language for what would have been the equivalent of swear words from a vandal. I am not and will not get into a content dispute, but for conduct, John Carter needs to knock it off lest he face sanctions for his language. Tutelary (talk) 23:27, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

• When someone posts talk page comments that are personal beliefs, apologetics, or polemics, how shall I respond? I used the notaforum template, and Dougweller thought that was uncivil
• How should I respond when someone (in this case, John Carter) post talk page comments that are either so ungrammatical, unparseable, or elliptical as to be impossible to understand? I've tried asking -- repeatedly -- what the JC meant, and even got a WP:THIRDOPINION, and have had no luck. Fearofreprisal (talk) 20:38, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

More negative interactions with John Carter

This is truly getting old. It's really a challenge to *not* be snippy to hostile comments such these:

• Today in Talk:Historicity of Jesus:
• Here in ANI:

As I said before, this is part of a pattern of WP:POV railroading. John Carter is using false narratives, policy misuse, and incivility to try and discredit me, or drive me away. His behavior is indidious, and is not likely to stop without administrative action. Fearofreprisal (talk) 00:10, 23 August 2014 (UTC) Minor Edit 00:13, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

No this is part of an ongoing attempt at badgering and harassment while also engaging in WP:IDHT by the above editor and I personally would welcome any input from uninvolved editors as to whether this behavior on the above editors part perhaps merits some degree of administrative action against him for his misuse of this page to attempt to bully others into accepting him making changes which are in no way necessarily supported by existing policies and guidelines. His recent indication on the talk page that he believes a subject being mentioned on two pages of a book is sufficient to count as a proof of notability is one of several indicators of possible lack of competence on his part.John Carter (talk) 00:21, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

John - no comment on the rest of Fearofreprisal's comments - but you are aware that WP:CIR says "don't link this to the guy you think has a competency problem" right?--v/r - TP 00:59, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Request for sanctions

JC has been sanctioned by the ArbCom two times, and was recently blocked for violating sanctions. He is an unapologetic recidivist. (See the ArbCom motion on recidivism here: .)

I am requesting that he be given a 1 month topic ban on historicity, and a permanent interaction ban with me. Fearofreprisal (talk) 01:09, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Once again you have thrown a pile of diffs which show nothing unusual for a contentious topic. The only "bad" thing in them is that you were directed to WP:CIR, and that has already been dealt with above in TP's comment at 00:59, 23 August 2014. There is still no explanation of what the underlying issue is, and no recognition of the fact that when two people of bickering, ANI should not be used to knock one of them out with lame links. People at ANI just want the disruption to stop, so a quick fix might be to topic ban Fearofreprisal and John Carter from all articles and talk pages related to Jesus for one week. After that time, it would be easier to decide who is behaving inappropriately, starting from a clean slate. Johnuniq (talk) 02:30, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Johnuniq - You may have missed User:Tutelary's comments, at 16:27, 22 August 2014:

John Carter's language towards you is wholeheartedly unacceptable and that has not changed. Even now, he is using patronizing and almost insulting language at you in an attempt at making you leave the site. That is the language that makes other editors leave. When vandals use swear words at other users, they dismiss it outhand because a vandal is usually so easily blocked as they are blatantly disruptive. There are other users on this site that appear to be in it for the long hall, and massively influence content discussions, and when they are met with any resistance, use patronizing and euphemizing language for what would have been the equivalent of swear words from a vandal. I am not and will not get into a content dispute, but for conduct, John Carter needs to knock it off lest he face sanctions for his language.

John Carter's comments to me in this matter are similar to the personal attacks he was sanctioned for by the ArbCom. They are not "business as usual." And, though most people might be forgiven for such comments, John Carter is a former Admin, who has been twice sanctioned by ArbCom. Do you really think he should get a "pass" on conduct he knows to be improper?

It is unfair and inaccurate for you to say "There is still no explanation of what the underlying issue is." I have indeed explained that the underlying issue is WP:POV railroading by User:John Carter. I've provided detail. If it's not good enough, possibly you can explain the level of detail you need.

Ultimately, if there's a consensus to impose a WP:CBAN on me, I'll understand. But I still reiterate my request to have John Carter interaction banned and topic banned. Fearofreprisal (talk) 06:27, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Anyone can post their opinion here. My view is stated above, and of course I did not miss Tutelary's comment. Your reply does not address what I wrote, and I previously mentioned that posting links to old stuff is not helpful. What's needed is brief text and/or links that address the current issue. Please do not post any more links to essays or other disputes (you don't imagine that linking to "WP:POV railroading" is an explanation?). If there is a succinct explanation of the underlying issue somewhere, please post a link. Johnuniq (talk) 07:45, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

OK -- I'll try again. The current issues are false narratives, Policy misuse, and incivility by John Carter. The underlying issue is that he jumps into discussions I've started, and attempts to marginalize me by lying about or distorting what I've said, misrepresenting WP policies and guidelines, and using subtly insulting and demeaning language. He appears to be repeating his admitted tactic of using incivility to drive away editors with whom he does not agree.

Following are quotes from him. While some of his statements are combinations of false narrative, policy misuse, and incivility, I've tried to group them in a reasonable way.

Each of the following statements is a false narrative:

...none of the statements you made above have been sourced and your own extremely obvious history of basically demanding that this article conform not to policies or guidelines but to what is apparently your own extreme preconceptions of what it should be about.

Regarding your continuing insistence as above that this article must be changed according to your own personal schedule...

Your apparently ongoing insistence that everybody else must act according to your time schedule is extremely problematic.

I very strongly suggest a certain obvious POV pusher refrain from further presumptuous pontification and if I were that editor I would not expect any more warnings regarding misconduct before an ANI discussion on that editor's conduct is initiated.

The phrasing of the lead before a rather single-minded POV pusher, specifically, you, came in would be I think a reasonable place to start because that seemed to have some consensus which few of your own edits seem to have.

What an odd statement for you to make, conesidering I don't know that to date you have provided a single sourcewhich explicitly supports your apparently OR conclusion of academic bias yourself.

...I do see how you continue yourself to continue to engage in personal attacks as perWP:NPA.

He has been among other things arguing that nominal Christians and Muslims are incapable of approaching the historicity of Jesus objectively, but that others who have more often than not either rejected some of the Western Christian social morays are, which is at best a dubious assertion considering the psychology of conversion, or that adherents of faiths which would regard the Christian incarnation as basically heretical have no similar biases.

There is also this diff which you recently removed from your user talk page with the problematic "Off–topic comments" section in which Huon talks about your other recent micsconduct on the same talk page and your other problematic recent conduct still on the talk page.

What you completely failed to do is post any indications of your providing the required reliable sources to give reason to make changes as perWP:WEIGHT and other policies and guidelines. Should you continue to engage in such behavior in violation of conduct guidelines we will probably be back sooner than you think very possibly regarding your conduct.

You once again demonstrate a pronounced lack of understanding of wikipedia in the above comment Fear, as you did in the above sections which raises serious WP:CIR issues about you which are not helped at all by the lack of understanding of several policies and guidelines you have already repeatedly displayed on the article talk page. That specifically includes your presumptuous citation demands on that talk page. The fact that you also seem to be insisting on immediate gratification of all your demands is another cause for concern.

No this is part of an ongoing attempt at badgering and harassment while also engaging in WP:IDHT by the above editor and I personally would welcome any input from uninvolved editors as to whether this behavior on the above editors part perhaps merits some degree of administrative action against him for his misuse of this page to attempt to bully others into accepting him making changes which are in no way necessarily supported by existing policies and guidelines. His recent indication on the talk page that he believes a subject being mentioned on two pages of a book is sufficient to count as a proof of notability is one of several indicators of possible lack of competence on his part

Each of the following statements is a policy misuse:

Unfortnately as a thorough review of the existing talk page would reveal that is not the definition or scope of the article Fear personally wants to see although as has also already been at least implied there seems to be a very real question whether he can establish the notability of that topic as per WP:NOTABILITY and other relevant guides.

I also believe notability as per WP:NOTABILITY may well be relevant as the works to be used to establish notability have to be significantly about the topic rather than just one topic among several they discuss.

If you honestly believe that being mentioned on just two pages in a single book of clearly over four hundred pages is sufficient to establish the notability of that topic then I believe that it would very much be in your own interests to thoroughly acquaint yourself with all aspects of WP:NOTABILITY and also with WP:CIR. (He wants me to establish the notability of the topic "the historicity of Jesus", which is already the topic of the article.)

The one you have been wanting to change it to per the sections above. The one you have still so far as I can tell found no sources to establish the specific notabiity of. Regarding your difficulties of understanding, well, you seem perhaps to have had difficulties understanding such things as WP:NOTABILITY,WP:WEIGHT, and other similar subjects as well.

If you could produce sources as WP:BURDEN pretty much requires of you to demonstrate the specific notability of the question of whether academics are capable of reviewing this question without being overwhelming influenced by personal bias no one would have any problems about seeing that article exist.

WP:DUE and related pages are the most directly relevant guides here and it indicates that material for inclusion is judged based on the degree of attention given in independent reliable sources directly relating to the subject at hand. As none of the sources you indicate seem to relate directly to the subject of this article they cannot really be used to indicate relevance or degree of attention to give those ideas in this particular article.

Each of the following statements is incivility:

The comments in the last sentence are frankly beneath contempt and not deserving a direct reply as they seem to indicate you indulging in pure emotionalism.

Regarding your difficulties of understanding, well, you seem perhaps to have had difficulties understanding such things as WP:NOTABILITY,WP:WEIGHT, and other similar subjects as well.

Because you'd lose. And you have demonstrated so much arrogance and self–righteousness that Huon had to call you on it before and it very clearly still hasn't apparently gotten through to you yet.

You do not seem to understand that you do not control the discussion here.

I have yet to finish the full research of this topic I had previously indicated I was working on and find these rather tendentious demands for immediate gratification of your every whim to be both counterproductive and completely unnecessary.

Fearofreprisal (talk) 09:51, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose any community topic ban. It is true that User:John Carter has already been sanctioned in a related topic area, also in the history of religion, but that was after a full evidentiary hearing. This dispute has the unpleasant mix of content issues and conduct issues that also call for a full evidentiary hearing. Send to ArbCom rather than generating heat with little light at the noticeboards. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:56, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Request for topic ban of Fearofreprisal

I believe a reasonable review of the article talk page woulud raise in the eyes of most people serious questions whether that individual suffers from some form of significant cognitive impairment. This includes the length of time he had engaged in rather pointless self-serving monologing specifically including a thread title ending in a rather ridiculously pompous "I'll explain" at Talk:Historicity of Jesus#Author doesn't understand what he posted is not Historicity, But is the history of Jesus according to folklore. The article is incorrect. I'll explain." All of that it should be noted was done without providing a single source other than a definition of the term "historicity." His single-minded fixation on the definition of the term as can be seen in multiple threads he has started on the article talk page including the one linked to above and Talk:Historicity of Jesus#What is historicity? despite indicators from others that his opinion regarding that matter is not necessarily clearly supported by any policies or guidelines is another indicator that he may have some form of significant cognitive inability to deal with any degree of ambiguity. In addition to these concerns I believe a review of the sources he has provided to attempt to establish the significance of the topic of the historicity of Jesus according to his favored definition here not only fail to provide any evidence of the true notability of that subject but would also raise questions about WEIGHT considerations in other articles. It also could very easily be the case that Fear has recognized this and is seeking to use the ongoing commentary here in this thread which is itself dubiously founded on any reasonable grounds as an attempt at intimidation or harassment to attempt to quell any objections to his single-minded attempts at basically hijacking a rather poor article and making it worse. These concerns are not alleviated in any way by his regular comments here and on the talk page which seem to indicate that he seems to believe contrary to policies and guidelines that this page and that one are basically soapboxing and that any attempt to introduce for discussion anything other than the single topic he wants to discuss is not relevant and not worthy of his addressing.

In summary I believe he has provided numerous serious indicators that he as an individual may not be competent to reasonably edit at least in this topic area. That being the case I believe it is not irrational to request that he be banned from the topic area and any discussion of it elsewhere so that his disruptive influence can be removed any the editors involved given more of a chance to concentrate on improving and developing the topic area without his distractions and disruptive influence. John Carter (talk) 14:44, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

• Comment. I stopped reading at "significant cognitive impairment". Not sure this is accomplishing anything but perpetuating gratuitous insults. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 20:10, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
  • But as you yourself said you apparently stopped reading at the first sentence so you would have no way of being sure what even the rest of the comment contained or what might be accomplished by well maybe reading the entire comment would you? John Carter (talk) 20:54, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Regards the "pompous thread" John Carter mentioned -- he has confused me with someone else. Follow his link, and you'll see that it was written by an IP editor, Not me. (Though I did respond to it, saying "If you'd like to help improve this article, you're going to need to do some more homework, and try to build consensus for change.") This is not the first time he's pointed to other people's posts when talking about me.

I don't really want to engage with John Carter if at all possible, but thought I should mention this issue, just for the record. I rather figure that, if we can't get a consensus here on ANI, this is going to have to go to ArbCom. Fearofreprisal (talk) 01:36, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• @John Carter: A carefully worded attempted character assassination. However, not careful enough. How you think this avoids NPA is beyond me. I predict an in-bound boomerang soon. - Nick Thorne 07:37, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
• Based on edits on Jesus article, there is a problem with Fearofreprisal's edits - I don't watch the centre of the teacup here at Historical Jesus article so my watchlist beeped with the overflow into the Jesus article: I just saw the diff before this and clicked "thank" on the editor who reverted the addition (whose name I don't recognize but thanks anyway) and now I see that Fearofreprisal has forced through his rather outlying "Jesus of Galilee" addition to the lede over 3 other editors User:Hazhk (here) User:FutureTrillionaire and User:Tom harrison and having forced it through a 4th time against all 3 of them (and presumably a 5th time if I followed my instinct and became the 4th editor to revert the addition) and Fearofreprisal threatens (Undid revision 622607118 by Tom harrison (talk) "Now at WP:3RR Next stop is WP:AN3". To the best of my knowledge, when you make an innovative addition to a highly visible/controversial articles lead and get reverted by 3 different editors, you don't threaten the 3 editors reverting you with "Now at WP:3RR Next stop is WP:AN3". Am I wrong? In ictu oculi (talk) 15:30, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, In ictu oculi, you are wrong. My edit was factual, non-controversial, and was supported by proper citations to reliable sources. When it was reverted (after having been up for 4 days), I followed the WP:BRD cycle (posting a talk page discussion), but three other editors failed to make an effort to gain consensus, and reverted the edit without discussion. I did not break the WP:3RR rule, but when it became clear that this was an edit war, I posted a complaint at WP:AN3. See I've followed WP guidelines and policy, and have done nothing wrong. This issue has nothing to so with this ANI, and is a distraction that can only confuse the issue. Fearofreprisal (talk) 17:02, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Note: I declined Fearofreprisal's report at AN3. There was no violation, and I view the report as an attempt to game AN3 to gain an advantage in a content dispute. BRD is an essay, not policy. Acroterion (talk) 17:16, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• Based on Fearofreprisal's comment just above, and that he's been here since 2010 and so should know better by now, nothing but a topic ban for some period of time seems likely to help. Tom Harrison 17:22, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

@Actroterion: - If I misused AN3, it was a good faith mistake, trying to resolve a content dispute. I don't understand how posting an AN3 would actually "gain an advantage," or how it is WP:Gaming the system. Could you explain?

@Tom harrison: - I've actually been on Misplaced Pages since 2005. Shouldn't you mention that you were involved in this recent content dispute? It seems only fair. Fearofreprisal (talk) 19:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

You were trying to get those who disagreed with you blocked for disagreeing with you. Since you claim to have been around since 2005, I don't see that as a naive or good-faith action. Acroterion (talk) 20:12, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Support topic ban - based on User:Fearofreprisal's own response above = WP:IDHT, + the misuse of WP:AN3/ WP:Gaming the system/refusal by Acroterion, + having since above accused a 4th editor (equally uninvolved User:Calidum) at Talk:Jesus for having been the 4th editor to revert the edition, + John Carter being nowhere in sight on the Jesus/Talk:Jesus edits, find that the root of the problem is actually Fearofreprisal themselves. In ictu oculi (talk) 20:34, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Acroterion - I was not trying to get anyone blocked. In the AN3, I related what happened, accurately, and with no name calling. My goal was to find a resolution to a dispute. That's all. So far as I know, no one involved did anything that was blockable. I may have used the wrong noticeboard, but it wasn't bad faith.

In ictu oculi: WP:IDHT applies to disruptive editing, not to noticeboard conversations. I have "since" done nothing with Calidum, as the timestamp on your diff shows. Fearofreprisal (talk) 22:45, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

WP:IDHT very much applies to noticeboard conversations. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:59, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, I'll accept what you say. Wouldn't want you to think I don't "get the point." (Groan.)Fearofreprisal

Fearofreprisal, the "since" refers to my own prediction that if I was the fourth editor to revert you you'd do similar, Calidum did what I was tempted to do and you did what you did "since" I saw your reaction to the 1st 2nd and 3rd editors who reverted you. That is the "since/after/following". User:Robert McClenon, as above John Carter is not even on the Jesus / Talk:Jesus page so my comments and support of a topic ban relate to there. A Jesus article ban would also be beneficial to non-timewasting. As editors who watchlist it know Jesus (the page I mean, no comment on the individual) is a fringe magnet, and Fearofreprisal is now demonstrating WP:IDHT further at Talk:Jesus by starting an RFC on his n times reverted addition. Legally that may be the way, but listening is a better option, and this editor can't or won't. If he's going to threaten other editors when they revert him that's also not benefical behaviour to be encouraged. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:50, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

In ictu oculi - it's difficult to have a conversation with someone who is committed to playing the WP:IDHT card. Here is a link to the RfC. People can decide for themselves if I'm not listening. Fearofreprisal (talk) 03:26, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose a community topic ban on User:Fearofreprisal. His or her conduct has not been exemplary, but neither has that of User:John Carter, the proposer (who has already been sanctioned for tendentious editing on this general area, the history of religions). This dispute is the sort that community sanctions (based on which party has the louder entourage) do not work well on, and that should have a full evidentiary hearing. Send to ArbCom. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:32, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
• WP:BOOMERANG - Cwobeel (talk) 01:54, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Eyes on Zoe Quinn

Could we get some people watching Zoe Quinn, and possibly even more restrictive protection? It was previously set at admin-only which got people discussing at Talk:Zoe Quinn, but now that it's set to autoconfirmed users we've got a lot of back and forth reverting and serious WP:BLP violations. In particular, User:Crisis has been adding controversial statements based on a porn site and Know Your Meme, Reddit, and Imgur, and even blatantly misrepresenting a source. Woodroar (talk) 04:23, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

First, thank you for notifying me, second, I'd also like to call attention to the article myself, as anything that seems to be remotely negative about Miss Quinn is being removed citing unreliable sources or allegations, which is interesting seeing as one of the things removed was a blog from Quinn herself alluding to the allegations (TLDR: (Redacted)) Crisis.EXE 04:34, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I think a better solution than full protection would be the blocking of the problem users/issuing them one final warning and noting that if they add material like that into the article again they will be blocked. Let's not shut down the whole castle because a servant did something wrong. Added Note: It appears an admin just issued that final warning so if they revert again...well... Tutelary (talk) 04:38, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Bear in mind that I'm involved here, so I can't make any administrative actions regarding the article. I won't be blocking anybody here. — Mr. Stradivarius 04:42, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Note: this is also at RFPP. — Mr. Stradivarius 04:50, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

• Crisis blocked for 48 hours for BLP violations. Negative material sourced to reddit and a porn site are just beyond the pale and with this edit it is clear that Crisis intends to continue.--v/r - TP 04:59, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I personally wouldn't have blocked in this situation (if I were an admin, but I'm not), but it's on you. Since after the final warning Mr. Stradivarius gave him, he didn't revert again. Essentially a softer version of WP:ROPE (since they aren't blocked yet), where if they did just one more revert...they would've been blocked. But redundant now. Tutelary (talk) 05:05, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, if you were an admin, you should have blocked for it. I've revdeleted the porn stuff; I don't know if there's more in the history that needs removing. Thanks for blocking, TParis. Drmies (talk) 05:23, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I did a pass back as far as the 16th and revdel'd a mess of stuff, but the links you got were likely the worst of it. --j⚛e decker 07:08, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Good block. Kudos for taking swift action. We shouldn't allow that sort of nonsense to continue any longer once the pattern of behaviour was identified. Daniel (talk) 07:55, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think you understand WP:BLP, you seem quite personally invested in this particular issue too, is it possible that you don't like Zoe Quinn? --94.175.85.144 (talk) 08:32, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Please assume good faith.72.89.93.110 (talk) 05:41, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

The subject of the article is currently being targeted for harrassment by users of 4chan and reddit, and they're doing their best to spread their campaign to Misplaced Pages. There's a great deal of back and forth on the Talk page which ranges from the tendentious to the straight up BLP-violating, and the intervention of an uninvolved administrator would be very much appreciated. While much of what is being debated is a content dispute, the rate of unsupportable claim are becoming rapidly unmanagable for most editors. 1.124.49.77 (talk) 08:51, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

• There are a couple of recent IP posts on Talk:Zoe Quinn that need to be revdelled, if someone has a moment. — Mr. Stradivarius 21:52, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

 Done --j⚛e decker 02:58, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

In connection to this mess, Phil Fish and Polytron Corporation (Fish' previous company) have just been hacked in relationship to Fish' strong opinion on the Quinn matter. Those pages might see activity similar to the Quinn ones, but nothing yet that I immediately see. Just documenting this in case that needs admin help --MASEM (t) 05:02, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually, Phil Fish is lying about that hack. He was talking about a hack to his cloudflare account, which would require a 2 point verification, and unless the "hacker" stole then returned both his laptop and phone, that wouldn't be possible, as he was posting selfies he'd taking with game industry people throughout this "hack" Crisis.EXE 16:05, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Fresh off a block for BLP violations, and you're committing another BLP violation? Woodroar (talk) 16:44, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Deletionist comment Crisis, I'm pretty sure Cloudflare doesn't require 2FA. I don't know whether Phil Fish uses it or not. I can sympathize with the idea that there's a big disconnect between RS about the Quinn saga, and the content of public discourse in her sphere of notability. I.e. there's a lot of info about Quinn that's obviously accurate, subjectively relevant to the interests of readers seeking the info, and trivial to find with a search engine, but that doesn't have high-provenance RS so we have to exclude it from Misplaced Pages for extremely well justified BLP reasons. That means the article will necessarily fail a back-to-basics, non-wikilawyered version of NPOV, and I can understand it when people react angrily to this even if they haven't worked out the reasoning.

If it were up to me I'd delete the article outright on NPOV grounds--I'd rather say "Misplaced Pages does not have an article about this person" than "here is a media whitewash", and deletion is probably the most compassionate thing to do for the subject as well. But Misplaced Pages doesn't work that way. That battle raged for many years and basically converged to where we are now, so we just have to live with an unfixable neutrality deficit in a few articles here and there. There's will always be tons of things wrong with Misplaced Pages and it's less frustrating to quietly improve the fixable parts, than continue to shed blood for lost causes. In other words, I'd advise giving the Quinn thing a rest for a while, and have a better time contributing to other articles. 50.0.205.237 (talk) 20:33, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Am more a reader than an editor, but wanted to say it's cool to see the encyclopedic integrity of the page being protected with such patience and civility and attentiveness from veteran Wikipedians during this onslaught of attention. I feel like I'm learning more about Misplaced Pages just by observing. 173.239.141.98 (talk) 16:15, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

First thing on google. Also, sorry for being minorly off topic here with this Phil Fish issue, but I'm also not buying it because he at one point posted a "smoking gun" screenshot from /v/ board on 4chan claiming to be posted by "the leader of /V/" (note the never used capital) "and all 4chan" (this would be one Christopher Poole asking people to hack Phil's website.

Secondly, the file containing the employees personal details, as well as the companies financial information was 1.5 gigabytes in size. It was uploaded 15 seconds after the site was hacked.

So after the ‘hackers’ gained access to Polytron’s website they were able to locate that information and download it all, compress it into a 1.5 gig file and then upload it to the public. All in 15 seconds.

So either someone is using a military supercomputer with access to the best internet in the world to hack Polytron, or Phil Fish or one of his associates with access to that information pretended to hack themselves.

I'm not violating BLP here, I'm using basic fact. If anyone hacked Phil Fish, the likely suspect is Phil Fish Crisis.EXE 08:27, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

And yes, I'm staying out of article space for this entire incident Crisis.EXE 08:43, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Our BLP policy applies to Talk pages as well as articles. Comments and accusations like these about a living person are unacceptable. Woodroar (talk) 08:58, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

@TParis, PhilKnight, Drmies, and The Bushranger: Sorry to ping everyone, but you were all working with User:Crisis prior to and during his block. Woodroar (talk) 09:08, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

It seems to me that you are pinging all these administrators because they favor the outcome that you seek, and sided on your side. This may be a violation of canvassing. Tutelary (talk) 21:16, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I pinged all of the admins involved on his page. It's common to let admins know if someone is continuing the behavior that got them blocked. In this case, accusing someone of lying or hacking is a blatant BLP violation. Woodroar (talk) 00:31, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

IMO the Phil Fish possible hack shouldn't be mentioned in article space for now, as it's something that could get the actual culprit prison time Crisis.EXE 09:17, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

We're not here to uncover the truth, we're here to reflect the reliable sources. That's all that there is to it. Euchrid (talk) 11:18, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Crisis, yes, I know that Cloudflare has 2FA available—what I said is that I don't think they require anyone to use it. It's an option people can choose to use and I don't know if Phil Fish chose to use it. Gmail is the same way: it supports 2FA for those who want it, but almost everyone just uses a password. I don't care enough about the Quinn story to follow the details but I have a basic understanding from looking at some search hits a couple nights ago, and I understand why people on the internet want to talk about it and perform their own analyses and investigations, which is fine. All we're telling you here is that Misplaced Pages (including talk space) isn't the place for that. Consider using Reddit or 4chan or your own blog or wherever else they discuss those things. 50.0.205.237 (talk) 21:13, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

It's been pointed out by people that have looked in a white-hat hacker manner at Fish's stuff that it is legit. Cloudflare was not the hosting site, it was a relay site, and it was the hosting site that was hacked. The people that took control did everything silently, prepping the 1.5g file to other sites after assuring control so that they could do maximum damage. Given that Fish took the side of Quinn in this, there's very little doubt this was a prank, and it would be a BLP issue to assume otherwise until proven by RS wrong. --MASEM (t) 03:39, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to put Tim Schafer and his studio Double Fine Productions on the possible watch list too. Tied all this is a very loud anti-feminine-in-video-gaming stance that's tied with Anita Sarkeesian who has been trying to fairly point out the misogyny in video game entertainment. She released another video today (cue the anti group) and Tim Schafer publicly put his strong support behind the video, so like with Quinn and Fish, he could be next. Nothing yet, but I am just preparing for possible admin action. --MASEM (t) 03:39, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Modernist

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

User:Modernist seems to be on his/her own personal campaign against the WP:LAYIM, WP:NOTGALLERY, WP:GALLERY over several articles. A while ago I cleaned up too many images in the article 19th century per WP:LAYIM, WP:GALLERY - over-image "stacks" that shoved images into the next section and an indiscriminate shoehorn gallery. User Modenrnist reverted it back with the comment "seems ok". I reverted it back with explanation per guidelines and left further rational in talk. 8 months later Modernist is back reverting the same cleanup edit without comment. Since there seemed to be no rational given I reverted it back and then User:Coldcreation showed up and reverted it back to Modernists' edit. Modernist and Coldcreation seem to act very closely in votes, double team in discussions and reverts. Modernist and Coldcreation were addressed jointly about some of their edits by Curly Turkey. This pushiness to make Misplaced Pages more of an image host has shown up in Talk:Claude Monet and Impressionism. At Talk:Impressionism Modernist seemed to refuse to get the point via adding a further image gallery during the discussion, would give no other rational other than "The images are needed" or WP:MOREX arguments, and got quite un-civil re:"Lets be crystal clear - I don't and no one else here owes you an explanation of anything. Who are you?", "Yeah, that's your opinion; you clearly have no experience working on articles in the visual arts - you are owed nothing - nothing". It also came off as a campaign to drive away a productive contributor (HappyWaldo). If these editors want Misplaced Pages to be an image host I wish they would take it up at the relative guideline and policy talk pages instead of warring it over many articles. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 22:34, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

• The portrait images of very famous and important 19th century personages are fine to use in that article - The gallery contains a few other very important, famous 19th century portraits. The galleries used in visual arts articles like Impressionism and Claude Monet are crucial to our understanding of the subject of those articles. Paintings need to be seen. This thread reads like a personal attack against me...Modernist (talk) 22:41, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

• I think all three of the articles mentioned look great...Modernist (talk) 22:49, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

• I think this looks like a content dispute.--Mark Miller (talk) 23:01, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

• I agree this is a content dispute. User:Curly Turkey and I had an argument - that was a long time ago - we've collaborated together long after that argument was history, and I supported his work on 2 featured articles...Modernist (talk) 23:04, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
  • I have no desire to re-open old wounds, especially because Modernist and and I have managed to work with each other amicably for some time now, but I have to disagree it's only a content dispute. Modernist, if you're going to continue making the kind of comments pointed out above, you can only expect people to feel they need to fight back. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 00:27, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

• Do you feel that the comments deserve admin intervention? Please...get a thicker skin. No one "deserves" any explanation (just discussion and that does not mean editors have to explain every action) and unless these comments crossed a line, fighting against them is just drama...drama...drama! Don't "fight" back. If you think he/she was being a dick than just ignore them. Fighting back against every perceived insult or incivil comment just drags out the drama. We are here to write an encyclopedia not right great wrongs and...we are talking about image galleries....not BLP violations! While I believe Modernist could be nicer...until they cross the line into personal attacks...there really is nothing to do here...and frankly...I would more than understand if your good relations with Modernist were now ruined. But that is up to them. But you sure jumped on this fast enough.--Mark Miller (talk) 01:03, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
  • @Mark Miller: whose comment was this in response to? Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 01:27, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

• Look, we all work very hard here as volunteers without much appreciation - CT, me, and many many others who create this encyclopedia and its contents. I do my best; and I'm proud of the contributions made here by so many editors...Modernist (talk) 01:46, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

No we don't always get much appreciation. In fact, many times we get the very opposite. Do I agree with Modernist on everything? Heck no, but I also see that editors are trying to ask for intervention for not being very nice.... but that is a far cry from incivility that requires intervention. I really suggest this be referred to the DRN board. I can't take the case because I have had interactions with Modernist on Neoclassicism as Amadscientist, but this seems very much like a simple content dispute.--Mark Miller (talk) 01:59, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

• Images can be properly used, improperly used, or omitted. Modernist happens to have a good sense concerning the use of images in articles. Bus stop (talk) 11:05, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
  • ANI is not a place to discuss the appropriateness or not of images—that belongs on the talk page. What's being reported is the personal interactions. I get the feeling things have calmed down enough that the discussion can continue on the talk page now. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 13:16, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

The reason to bring this here is behavior. If an editor like Modernist shows contempt for other editors with comments like the ones above, or gives "flippant" edit summaries such as "seems ok" or "unrelated to your IDON'TLIKEIT - looks fine", or no edit summary at all then its going to come here. I have to really disagree with Mark Miller's above "No one "deserves" any explanation", being asked several time for a rational for an edit(s) and saying "I don't and no one else here owes you an explanation of anything" or "you are owed nothing - nothing" is disruptive editing, #4-a at WP:DISRUPTSIGNS to be exact, and, again, brings us back here. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 20:04, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I understand that you don't agree with that, but really we have no rights here and no one really "deserves" anything. Editors are expected to collaborate and the burden of evidence is on those that add or restore content. But with images we generally have to accept the consensus of the involved editors. Demanding an "explanation" could be as disruptive to editors that have come to consensus as it is to you for getting that response, and to be clear, I don't think it was very nice but many editors make comments that are not very nice. The issue is whether they crossed a line into personal attacks or incivility requiring administrative intervention. While I don't believe there is anything requiring intervention here, others may disagree. But the subjects are image related and text alone cannot get the same information across that a visual aide can. You can discuss brush strokes in a very lengthy text...but an image of a brush stroke will only help get that understanding across better.

My main problem here is your first sentence: "User:Modernist seems to be on his/her own personal campaign against the WP:LAYIM, WP:NOTGALLERY, WP:GALLERY over several articles. " Funny...but on the Claude Monet talk page it appears that there was a recent RFC that resulted in no consensus other than to add more text and captions for context. Yet, here you are now accusing an editor of having their own personal campaign. I have to admit...I do see a personal campaign here...but not from Modernist. Is 6 months long enough to start another RFC? I don't know. Try it and see what happens.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:41, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Again, I have no intention of picking at old wounds, but Mark Miller you might want to look at the edit history of Claude Monet and see how radically the page was restructured as a result of the discussion there. The point FoBM brought up was that Modernist is often not open to discussion—too frequently belligerently so—and, to be honest, if you decline to state or discuss the reasons for your edits, you are forfeiting your right to maintain them when someone else does explain their own edits. Getting there first is not a free pass except in certain areas (choice of spelling, date formatting, and a few others). If an editor intends to maintain an article on The Ecyclopaedia Anyone Can Edit, then they'd better have a rationale to back it up—otherwise it's pure OWNership. Again, I'm not trying to slag Modernist—I'd like to see him discuss the issues respectfully. I vote that FoBM open a fresh discussion at the article's talk page and invite Modernist (and whoever else) to discuss. It's my hope that having brought the interaction issues up here will now have brought some perspective on how the discussion should proceed (nad without admin intervention). Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 05:16, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

To add (but I don't see an enforcable ANI issue here, yet), I have had problems trying to convince Modernist about avoiding NFC issues in galleries on articles like these (particularly History of painting), and even considering only free images, how these pages are so bloated in considering WP:SIZE to the end user, and by simply offloading some the galleries to more detailed pages, they'd still serve the purpose they are looking for. But I got the same responses back that others have documents "but they look fine" "art needs to be seen", etc. I haven't pursued it past that point, but I can speak to the hand-waving type dismissals of NFC and image count/gallery issues. --MASEM (t) 05:30, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think we should lightly dismiss the argument that "art needs to be seen". Modernist adds a lot of good quality content on visual art. I think Modernist tries to bring out those concerns that arise with greatest frequency in scholarly discussions of visual art. Reference to imagery is very common when discussing visual art and it is preferable that images be close at hand. Linking to images elsewhere may not be a good idea when writing about visual art. It may represent a reasonable tradeoff to make allowances for larger WP:SIZE pages when visual arts is the subject. Images themselves are better seen at larger scales. And the topic of art history is probably better read at a slower pace, allowing time for the page to download. These are largely visual questions that are being addressed. We are often talking about paintings, which have to be seen. Bus stop (talk) 02:41, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not focusing on the content issue, I'm focusing on the dismissal that Modernist has done in the past with my experiences to simply say "images have to be seen" when challenged about the technical issues with so many issues on one page. That's hand-waving without discussing policy and guidelines that have been set, as well as numerous methods that the same images can be used but distributed on a larger number of subpages. Modernist flat out refuses to accept others' viewpoints when they do that, which is disruptive if a continued practice. --MASEM (t) 02:57, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I myself have never had any issues that I can think of with Modernist but it is always possible I just can't remember anything off the top of my head. I see no issue needing intervention at this time. As far as Claude Monet, as I said...there was an RFC from February and there is no consensus to remove the galleries there yet. And yeah...I did check the history, but if you want to debate the content issue further...there is always DRN. As long as trying to change the consensus will not be disruptive this soon after an RFC, I could support opening another discussion but I have to tell you I could also see if some might find it to be disruptive. I know nothing about any NFC concerns from Modernist. I just don't see anything here to block or ban over. Even Masem seems to agree with that much. But no...just because someone doesn't want a discussion does not mean we can force them. We still allow editing without discussion so just because we feel one editor is not as forthcoming as others does not mean you get to disregard their edit in this matter. Because we are talking about images...not text or claims without references etc.. On the Monet article I believe he did not have to explain himself as the RFC is pretty clear. If this is a pattern with Modernist I would support some sort of intervention but at the moment there is nothing but a content dispute and some less than cordial replies. Are there diffs to show a pattern?--Mark Miller (talk) 06:09, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

An editor that reverts changes made, where the changing editor has given reasons why something should be done within their view of policy and guidelines, and the reverting editor is just reverting without providing any comment or falling back to non-policy/guideline reasons, repeatedly, that is a problem. It's not necessarily an ANI problem but it is a civility problem in that editors are expected to explain their reasons for doing such actions. --MASEM (t) 06:23, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

No, not when the view of the policy and guidelines are this off. There is nothing that says we have to remove galleries or that they are unacceptable on Misplaced Pages. There isn't. And the entire issue of Modernist not giving a rational or explanation is exaggerated a great deal.--Mark Miller (talk) 08:06, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Also, there appears to be some issue I see with the way that the OP has attempted what looks like a good deal of exaggeration to support their position.--Mark Miller (talk) 08:09, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Mark Miller, you wrote "If this is a pattern with Modernist ...", and Masem responded that, yes, it is. I can confirm that: Monet was not the first time I've been involved in a similar dispute with Modernist (one reason I refused to back down). Discussing things with editors he disagrees with is not one of Modernist's strengths. Preferably this can be dealt with outside of ANI, but that's not going to happen if you insist on keeping this "discussion" alive, slagging those of us who disagree with you. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 10:19, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

"No, not when the view of the policy and guidelines are this off." If the person making the change is using a skewed view of policy/guideline to insist the change has to be made, the revert should be explaining that, not doing it without comment or "it looks fine to me". I'm not saying that the changer isn't scott free if they're misinterpreting policy, but reverting these should not be done without that, and discussion should take place by the reverter to explain what the problem with the changer's stance on policy is. Modernist, from my interactions, tends to simply fall back to arguments along the lines "I like it so it should stay", which is not helpful in the long run. --MASEM (t) 13:59, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Masem - you and I have been having these conversations for years; you basically know my position and I basically know your position so when we discuss those issues together I see no great need to continously and redundantly repeat endless policy and guidelines interpretations. I've been having these discussions since 2006...Modernist (talk) 14:14, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Masem I asked for diffs. I am being told, point blank that you believe this is a pattern with Modernist when I asked. Now, please provide the diffs. I have gone through all of this. I see you are involved so you should have no trouble providing clear evidence that Modernist has a pattern of refusing to discuss his edits. On occasion we have butted heads, but I find you to be extremely reasonable.....much more so than you are being now.--Mark Miller (talk) 03:08, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

This discussion when History of painting was tagged with having too many non-free images lead to a discussion that went mostly nowhere because Modernist's common line "art has to be seen" (also accusing that the idea of separating the article into smaller parts was censoring them). The aformentioned RFC (Talk:Claude Monet#RfC: Are the galleries in the Monet article excessive?) was also a case that I ran into "art must be seen" arguments. Many of the arguments in both cases are the same ones he has brougth here. Mind you, I can't claim much more than that on the specific issue of image galleries, unlike what FoBM is able to claim (which might include article edit warring - that never happened w/ Modernist in my experience). I'm just saying from what I've seen with Modernist from these points is that they refuse to discuss the issue of too many images (whether an NFC issue or a free gallery issue). --MASEM (t) 03:22, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Here we go again Masem; I stand by all of those arguments made at length over the years; regarding the visual arts and imagery, especially in those threads. I'm right from my side - and maybe you are right to some extant from your side - but we are creating an encyclopedia and the founders and the foundation have set out some interesting principles from the onset - and one of those basic principles - is to use common sense. The articles are well formulated; and they convey important and relatively accurate encyclopedic information regarding the subjects described...Modernist (talk) 03:44, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I am simply providing the information Mark asked for, the instances I found your behavior dismissive of suggestion to change. --MASEM (t) 03:52, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough; I think we both go back to 2006, and it's been a long road and in my opinion we've made great progress since those days...Modernist (talk) 04:00, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I am confused and a little annoyed right now. You state that Modernist refuses to discuss the issue of too many images (whether an NFC issue or a free gallery issue). That has already been demonstrated below to be false. In the actual diffs already provided I see huge amounts of explanation from Modernist and in the link you provide I see another huge discussion with Modernist taking the lead...again and stating: "Removed tags per long discussions; images are replaced with PD whenever possible - see also...Modernist (talk) 14:52, 19 June 2012 (UTC)", and "We have been discussing this for years and please read the link , the imagery is crucial to the subject and the galleries are practical, efficient, and economical...Modernist (talk) 17:10, 19 June 2012 (UTC) ", and "There is not one word about galleries in the link rather this paragraph that clearly is the basis for the use non-free imagery when there is no recourse (emphasis mine):

Some Wikimedia projects use media that is not free at all, under a

doctrine of "fair use" or "fair dealing". There are some works,

primarily historically important photographs and significant modern

artworks, that we can not realistically expect to be released under a

free content license, but that are hard to discuss in an educational

context without including the media itself. Because the inability to

include these works limits scholarship and criticism, in many

jurisdictions people may use such works under limited conditions

without having license or permission. Some works that are under

licenses we do not accept (such as non-derivative) may meet these

conditions. Because of our commitment to free content, this non-free

media should not be used when it is reasonably possible to replace

with free media that would serve the same educational purpose.

We use the galleries because common sense tells us it is the best, most economic way to present the information here. These are paintings - visual works that must be seen - the format used is practical and works. The proviso use of non-free imagery here is always being reduced as works from the public domain become available...Modernist (talk]) 02:09, 20 June 2012 (UTC)"

Our policy on the use of non free images in galleries is "Fair use images may almost never be included as part of a general image gallery, as their status as being "fair use" depends on their proper use in the context of an article (as part of analysis or criticism). See Misplaced Pages:Fair use for more details." Almost never is not "never" and I think that discussion deteriorated more because you seemed to be in a disagreement with more than just Modernist but Slim Virgin as well, who started an RFC due to your posts and disagreements. Clearly modernist said waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than just "art has to be seen" in that discussion and does not support your claim that Modernist does not discuss the issue of too many images. Now the last thing (I sure as heck hope this is the last thing) I should say is this, Misplaced Pages image use gives us an example of how to use galleries with: 1750–75 in Western fashion and History of painting looks strikingly similar but with far more prose and images. If there are non free images in the galleries, it is on you to demonstrate how they are against our policy. Now, you are really good at that, but you are also not always correct and many times that is simply because NFC is just a guideline. It still takes a discussion to remove them for even being non free images being used incorrectly.--Mark Miller (talk) 04:03, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

If there are non free images in the galleries, it is on you to demonstrate how they are against our policy.: we're talking about the law here, not mere Misplaced Pages policy. Images use must conform to the law, which means the onus for image use falls on whoever tries to add the image. We're lucky that the US even allows fair-use—Japan (where I live) doesn't, and their Wkipedia pages are often entirely bare of images at all as a result. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 04:16, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's why we use Fair Use Rationales when needed, although PD images are always recommended; and I agree with you - as much as I love Japan; we are far better off here, being able to use as much imagery as we do...Modernist (talk) 04:22, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes and no. There is no actual fair use "law" but case law where a number of decisions have been handed down. I am familiar with that actually. There is no exact definition of what even constitutes fair use. Copyright law is the particular area but even then it is rather ambiguous, but for Misplaced Pages, we have a much sterner approach to what we allow as fair use but the Foundation has been clear that we are to allow the use of non free content that is within our Exemption Doctrine Policy (EDP). Masem and I have discussed this at length I believe some time ago. You're in Japan Curly Turkey? Then I should say gomenasai, for not realizing you were pinged above. Gosh, I had no idea Japan was so strict with their copyright issues. Haven't been there since I was three. Born there actually. Their earthquakes are supposed to make California feel like a Disneyland ride. I would have to agree that we in the US are lucky with most of our copyright/fair use laws but many people still get a bit confused with Freedom of panorama. But anywhoo...Misplaced Pages has a much sterner policy in place than just fair use case law to protect both the uploader and the works.--Mark Miller (talk) 04:40, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

My points are related to changes at about Oct 2013 (when the pge was tagged with non-free overuse) and beyond - the stuff pre-2013 is not a question. My point is still that Modernist and others fall back on "common sense" when others have pointed out NFC requires minimization of non-free image and almost never allows for non-free in galleries, and WP:SIZE which is an accessibility issue when 300+ images in an article is going to slow down the page loading and in some cases non-accessible on some browsers. Modernist simply falls back on "I like this", "art must be seen" and "common sense" claims but without trying to demonstrate how this meets policy (yes, IAR can apply, but we're talking NFC were there is no IAR wiggle room). The claim that splitting the galleries into separate articles is akin to censorship is extremely disconcerting, and the typical sign of ownership. People have offered solutions that provide the equivalent amount of content but in multiple pages, and this is flat-out rejected, and there's no attempt at a consensus solution. That's the issue here. (Please also consider how Modernist is reacting in this thread. This is the behavior that's the problem). --MASEM (t) 04:26, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Let me add - I am not trying to open the question if there are image problems on these articles or what the proper resolution is. That's a discussion that should be done elsewhere. I am simply reporting my experience in the process of trying to achieve a solution to the images on these article to fit better with consensus on image use through the rest of en.wiki (both free and NFC), of the resistance to work towards a solution that Modernist gives, in line with the issues that Fountain brings up. I'm providing that evidence and my take on the evidence, and comparing it to what I've seen before. I still don't think Modernist's behavior here requires ANI interaction, but it is important to document that Fountain's issues aren't isolated. --MASEM (t) 04:46, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but you still need a consensus to do so. I think what is possible (and maybe you don't even realize it?) is that at the end of the day consensus requires discussion. In that discussion many different editors will use different arguments. Some will be detailed and make no sense at all, while some will be very simple and just be to the heart of the reasoning that, as images, there is no reference to show, no book to produce that contains all the answers. It still comes down to almost a simple !vote of keep or discard. At the NFC review board we are presented with stuff that is clearly a violation of the NFC criteria, some stuff that is less obvious...and sometimes things that are just not clear at all. In those case we certainly do have to go by the best and most rational argument in considering to keep or delete However, on an articles we have a slightly different standard with images alone, unless it is a formal RFC requiring a closer to make a decision based on the best rationales. I can think of a number of number of articles right now that I had to have admin reduce sizing or I, myself had to go into the rationale and add the correct information. The amount of non free content on Misplaced Pages that should not be here can be overwhelming and Masem is the go to guy for much of these issues, but...I know Masem and even I, as well as others who are very experienced in these issues, just don't have all the answers. And again, that's mainly because it just a guideline and one man/woman's opinion of a copyright violation is another man/woman's fair use for educational purposes. By the way...our standard is much higher than the laws, but by case law, educational purposes are covered. We just attempt to limit how many non free images we allow due to our own minimal use standard. But minimal use is about the minimal use of the work, (he amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole. 17 U.S. Code § 107 - Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use) not how many works...by codification in copyright law. Minimal use over more than one work is a Misplaced Pages standard.--Mark Miller (talk) 05:07, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Policy language such as WP:NFCC#8, concerning non-free images, but not confined to WP:NFCC#8 or even to non-free images, tends to require sourced text in the article as a justification for the inclusion of an image. But this is not always possible. It may not even always be advisable. I think Modernist has good sensibilities in this area and we should cut him some slack. I don't detect any ulterior motives. Modernist is just creating an article that allows the reader to virtually inhabit an area of the visual arts that in all cases has been thoroughly explored by reliable sources. I don't think art education is the same as other forms of education. I think we all instinctively know this. It perhaps could better be called, in my opinion, art familiarity. Modernist has a good sense for writing about art and for providing examples of what he is writing about. I think that numerous examples are always preferable to a limited few examples. Art education in part relies on immersion in relevant images. Bus stop (talk) 22:23, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Bus Stop, nobody here has accused Modernist of ulterior motives—he's being accused of dodging discussion and denigrating those who disagree with him. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 01:20, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps I should have been clearer. User:Modernist is not trying to promote a personal vision. He articulates mainstream ideas and provides the images of the work that presumably embody those ideas. I happen to approve of this approach. Bus stop (talk) 03:42, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Bus Stop, you're really not paying attention, and it's frustrating. Whether his approach to the articles is appropriate or not is not what's being discussed. It's about Modernist's behaviour and personal interactions with those who disagree with his approach. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 04:03, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Just a note/comment. NFC#8 says nothing about sourced text. What it is does say is the non free image is used if it will significantly improve the readers understanding of the subject and removing it would be detrimental to that understanding. Image use policy states that images must have context to the subject: "Images are typically interspersed individually throughout an article near the relevant text", but then WP:MOSIM only says: "Each image should be inside the major section to which it relates." The most common non free image used away from any relevant section or text is a film poster. Perhaps the most widely used non free content on Misplaced Pages.--Mark Miller (talk) 07:18, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

If an editor writing about visual art has no agenda we should cut them some slack. The use of imagery in art education involves familiarizing the reader with something real but intangible. Monet was a painter like any other painter. The real "education" is in seeing the painting. I don't think putting relevant images in Commons is a realistic method of immersing the reader in the relevant imagery. This immersion should take place simultaneous to reading the text. If the immersion is not automatic there is the problem that the reader may never click on the link to Commons. Bus stop (talk) 13:34, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

To Mark: 99% of the time, it is the easiest to show NFCC#8 is met by demonstrated sourced commentary about the image in question as that clearly meets contextual significance, as it takes out any question from a image reviewer of why that image is needed. Yes, you don't always need sourced commentary and we do give leeway to one or two images that have clear relevance, but if you start loading an article with multiple non-free without explaining their significance to the topic, either some have to be removed or better context is going to be necessary. Modernist has listened to this in the past (so this is a point in their favor) and has tried to justify most of the inline non-free elements with text explaining why the painting is important, so this point is not lost, but this tends to be an issue in the galleries which might include non-free as well. Galleries tend to lack the ability to give any type of contextual significance, and hence why we don't allow non-free in galleries except in very rare cases. (And the specific situation for cover art is that it is generally being used for implicit branding and identification of the notable work that it is for and as such being in the infobox is the most relevant section for the image inclusion). --MASEM (t) 13:55, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Looking at the current diffs

• The first diff, #84 was not needed and is just the OP showing us their work. The second diff, #85 is the revert by Modernist and contains an edit summary. I personally do not see anything "flippant" about it, but regardless of that, it was not uncivil.
• Diff #86 is the OP's revert back with this edit summary:"WP:LAYIM avoid over-image "stacks" and shoehorn galleries WP:Gallery (they are not "ok")". How is it not "OK"? The link that was left was to the manual of style and is not policy. It is just a guideline but more importantly...it doesn't say that. WP:Gallery does...in a paragraph below this: "However, the use of a gallery section may be appropriate in some Misplaced Pages articles if a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images. The images in the gallery collectively must have encyclopedic value and add to the reader's understanding of the subject." While I dislike the term shoehorn, that means trying to "shove" images in where they does not fit by use of a gallery. That is not what is going on here. When editors discuss the "shoehorn" part, I noticed they don't seem to mention this part (bolded for emphasis): "A gallery is not a tool to shoehorn images into an article, and a gallery consisting of an indiscriminate collection of images of the article subject should generally either be improved in accordance with the above paragraph or moved to Wikimedia Commons" So just reverting or removing galleries with that link is just wrong and is not supported by Image use policy, and does not say galleries are not OK.
• Diff 87 is where the OP states they left a rational on the talk page. That's is nice...but they failed to mention it was actually a reply to Modernist who had already begun a discussion over deletions in 2011 with no replies....none. Then the OP states "8 months later..." Uhm...seriously...the first 4 diffs show nothing of any real concern except that the OP seems to not understand the full image use policy in regards to galleries. But had there been some issue...it would be stale by now.
• Diff #88. Eight months later and the OP reverts to the same version and Modernist reverts back, as the OP says, without comment. OK...but...neither did the IP editor.
• Diff #89 is where Coldcreation reverted back after the OP had reverted where they state above: "Since there seemed to be no rational given I reverted it". The IP didn't provide one either but that seems to matter little.
• Diff #90 is a very bad attempt to claim there is tag teaming going on and only shows a random vote where the two both voted the same way. Uhm....what exactly is that supposed to prove?
• Diff # 91 is where the OP now attempts to show tag teaming in discussion. Wait.....didn't the OP say there are no rationals provided. No explanations etc.? Funny thing...diff 91 actual proves that Modernist will certainly provide a pretty detailed rational. But...this is supposed to be demonstrating tag teaming by Modernist and Coldcreation. Again...funny thing...Cold creation only has 4 posts in that entire exchange. I also noticed this comment from the OP: "There is no need to establish or follow local consensus on edits when there are clear guidelines (and Misplaced Pages recommends against it)." I gotta tell you...that's a new one on me. The actual policy is that a local consensus cannot override the broader community consensus. In other words WikiProjects cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope. The OP is attempting to tell editors that there is no need to come to a consensus because the policy is the broader community consensus. OK...but the Broader community consensus says that we can still have galleries so...I think that was clearly Wikilawyering.
• Diffs # 92, 93, and 94 are all from the same article and from that discussion where the OP appeared to be telling editors a consensus on that article didn't matter. I see no evidence that this is tag teaming.
• Diff #95 is actually a clear violation of WP:NPA. Discuss the contributions not the contributor. Curly Turkey created a thread on the Claude Monet talk page entitled: "Edits by Modernist and Coldcreation" where they accuse the two editors of "trying to scare contributors off by spamming your own messages to those talk pages".
• Diff #96 is the exact same diff as #91.
• Diff #97 is supposed to be an issue? We are still allowed to make use of BRD, are we not? If the discussion becomes intractable, that is indeed the very time to make a bold edit.

This took a great deal of time to go through (which I will never get back) and frankly I see a few problems with the overall exaggerations of the OP in both policy and guidelines as well as the overall issues with Modernist. Again, I see a campaign...but not from Modernist. We absolutely do not need to remove all galleries, just because they are galleries.--Mark Miller (talk) 08:06, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Alright, Mark Miller, you've now made it crystal clear that you're gunning for a fight—as if it weren't already obvious with this edit and (amongst other inflammatory comments) its bad-faith "But you sure jumped on this fast enough" (I was very obviously respoding to both Fountains of Bryn Mawr and Modernist pinging me for comment). I bit my tongue then, but you obviously won't be satisfied with a full-on conflict.

I said it and I mean it: I have no intention of opening old wounds with Modernist, and what follows is not intended to do any such thing---we've put this behind us, and I intend to keep it there. It is nothing more than a direct response to Mark Miller's contentious, bad-faith, pot-stirring personal attack above:

This was in direct response to these clear-cut bad-faith edits intended to discourage editors from joining the RfC: . The response to it was bad-faith accusations of CANVASSing, despite the fact the RfC notice was following to the letter the instructions at WP:RFC: entirely neutral (Quote: "Please join in the discussion at Talk:Claude Monet#RfC: Are the galleries in the Monet article excessive? about the number and choice of images in the galleries.") and posted only to the talk pages of WikiProjects the Monet page had already been tagged with. Your job: demonstrate how advertising an RfC strictly according to the WP:RfC instructions was in any way inappropriate, or strike your revisionist slander (yes, slander is precisely to the letter what it is—you're not getting around that one, Mark Miller).

So, Mark Miller, it's pretty obvious I've put every effort into getting this dispute out of ANI and onto the article talk page where it belongs. Tell everyone now what your motivation is for keeping this asinine discussion alive and slandering everyone in range. I'll take a "no one here owes you an explanation of anything" as conclusive evidence that your only goal was to stir the pot. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 10:07, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

• I did miss that you were pinged and apologize for thinking you jumped in (my computer displays links that have not been clicked in a dark blue and that, along with the size of the fonts makes it difficult to see there is a link). However, your overly aggressive manner here and your overuse of my name, mentioning me over and over is one of your problems. You don't understand that WP:NPA is a serious policy and that you breached it by creating a specific thread on an article talk page about two editors. Then you were accused of canvasing but the replies to those project requests does not seem to be bad faith or actionable either.

You said: "you've now made it crystal clear that you're gunning for a fight" Really? Is that really true from the diff you show, where I tell you not to "Fight back" because it just creates drama? Look, the reason I comment is because I disagree with a great deal of this and when I took a close look the actions of others looked worse than those of Modernist. The thread has not been closed so, I replied to the continuing discussion. I am not the one that continued to discuss this after you said things had calmed down enough to continue on the talk page but I don't feel your actions do you credit. I think your above post was horrid and inappropriate.

• Per WP:NLT, you just committed a borderline "perceived" legal threat.--Mark Miller (talk) 10:53, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
  • "Legal threat"?! Oh, go harass someone else, Mark Miller. You're trolling. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 11:36, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

• Please lets not create more drama and stay calm; especially because there are far more important things to be done - CT you have important articles to write; and MM thank you so much for your good insights. Please lets close this thread...Modernist (talk) 13:57, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Unless any action is required, I agree this should probably be closed now.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:22, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

• Just to make some things clear, Wikilawyering could also be characterized as ignoring why I brought this here. The reason is behavior/ignoring guidelines (with no rational given) at 19th century. Problem #1 (not addressed) is when you read about "Athletics" you are looking at Ellen Terry and P. T. Barnum (hey, maybe they were kick ass athletes and I just learned something ;)). Problem #2 is shoehorning more images into a gallery. We are ignoring the main aim of the guideline ---> images in the gallery collectively must have encyclopedic value and not be just an indiscriminate collection of images of the article subject. What we have is an indiscriminate collection of images of the article subject. Can it be "improved?" Yeah, by adding 97 more people to the list or by simply replacing it with a themed gallery: all the 19th century "Emperors of Russia" or something of the sort. Since one is highly unlikely and the other would not be needed there was no common sense rational for the gallery. As for Monet, it was brought here as an example of past behavior (and was nothing I ever participated in or plan to participate in in the future). Impressionism was something I participated in (and for my troubles I was told I was an idiot and was not owed any explanation). That was ANI time but Modernist seemed to see some reason in the end (it was like pulling teeth) and I (like MASEM) haven't pursued it past that point. Modernist starting it up again at 19th Century brought us here. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 21:35, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

• While as stated above this is not the proper venue to discuss content - I'll say this: galleries and images are invaluable, educational tools we have to elucidate, describe and identify information for our readers. The 19th century article is a broad overview covering 100 years - it is also a century that has produced an enormous number of people who influenced and affected most of our lives in the 20th and 21st centuries. More so than earlier time periods the 19th century has directly impacted science; religion; industry; commerce; art; medicine; literature; philosophy and much more. The plethora of images elucidate in other ways then do the brief and discreet subject paragraphs. If you want to know more about 19th century theatre for instance - you'll need to read more specific articles about that subject; to be found elsewhere in wikipedia through links and images. To fully appreciate the text and the imagery at 19th century the reader doesn't necessarily have to 'walk and chew gum' but the reader needs to read the text and peruse the portraits separately in some cases, it's really not a big deal. The idea that images and galleries convey valuable and educational information in our articles is well established. I think this thread needs to be closed...Modernist (talk) 00:21, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• Better left at the 19th century talk page but Modernist, you seem to overlook the fact that Misplaced Pages is not an image host (the Commons is). So a Misplaced Pages article will not depict everyone (everything) listed in the article (you go to a Commons category for that). The common sense cutoff across the consensus guidelines is "images should be relevant to the sections they are located in" and galleries should not be an un-encyclopedic "Gallery of X". No good reason has been put forward not to follow that common sense. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 22:00, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• You brought this here and now you say better left at the 19th century talk page. Simply you misread both guidelines regarding images and galleries. The article is an article that obviously you don't like; others apparently do like it. As you say perhaps this entire thread that you brought should have been opened at the 19th century talk page - perhaps consensus will determine the outcome there...Modernist (talk) 22:22, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• See WP:IMAGES and - MOS:IMAGES and WP:IUP Images must be relevant to the article that they appear in - all the imagery in 19th century are relevant to the 19th century article they appear in! Your misinterpretation - "images should be relevant to the sections they are located in" - where did that come from by the way? - what policy or guideline? and try this on please - Images are typically interspersed individually throughout an article near the relevant text (see WP:MOSIMAGES). However, the use of a gallery section may be appropriate in some Misplaced Pages articles if a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images. All the images used in the gallery are of highly relevant 19th century personages...Modernist (talk) 22:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Modernist, you don't appreciate how an overabundance of images with insufficient context can overload readers—and this is especially the case with broad subject overview-type articles. Too many tiny thumbnail images without the context to make sense of them is just noise to most readers. Balance and context are everything, and balance and context issues will not be solved by quoting policy back and forth at each other—they require editorial judgement. Until you accept that, you'll continually be butting heads with other editors who do see it. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 01:20, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks CT - In the article we're discussing - 19th century the relevant section heading is: Significant people - a large topic - to the left are text in subsections and to the right are portraits of many significant people of the 19th century. Not too difficult to see or to understand. The images are all basically placed in the relevant section - Significant people - just not in the corresponding subsections for want of space. The gallery contains portraits of significant people like Leo Tolstoy, Søren Kierkegaard, Henry David Thoreau, and others that didn't fit above...Modernist (talk) 12:08, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Big Brother 16

User King1559 has made numerous edits to the Big Brother 16 (U.S.) Page, putting up a chart that no one agrees upon on the talk page for BB16. Its been noted in the edit summary numerous times to see the Talk page, which they ignore.Please help --Tech-Chef (talk) 03:57, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

• Not a matter requiring admin intervention at this moment, until an edit war breaks out. A few pointers.
  • Tech-chef, NOT VANDALISM. Don't abuse the word.
  • Consensus on the talk page is claimed for the current (?) table, but it's hard to gauge because no one thought it worthwhile to include a diff pointing at the table they thought was best, and so I can't figure out who's supporting what in the various sections. Best to get a clear consensus with clear diffs pointing at the relevant version.
  • I'm glad humanity is spending so much time making sure that a little TV show about people with no life locked in a house who are being watched by a bunch of voyeurs who then draw up colorful tables: that's progress.
  • The article as a whole is a bloated bag of trivia, albeit that some of it is in nice, colorful tables. What "Have-nots" and "Voting history" is, I can't tell, but I'm not a fan. But seriously, get iron-clad consensus. Drmies (talk) 14:41, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
    • As a clarifying note: Have-nots in the Big Brother show are the people who sleep in a freezing cold room and eat basically mush on any given week. They get there because the Big Brother people think they didn't do much work the previous week. I'd say voting history is probably history on who got voted out? Not a huge fan of the show, myself, but I've watched it with my cousin enough and felt a strange need to clarify those points for some reason. - Purplewowies (talk) 16:40, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
  • I put an "Overly Detailed" template on the article. Most of that stuff belongs in Wikia. The Wikia article for Big Brother 16 has less detail than the Misplaced Pages article. Maybe the edit war can be exported to Wikia. John Nagle (talk) 20:15, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Mild edit warring continues over the background colors of table cells.. Probably not worth admin attention. John Nagle (talk) 17:00, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Single purpose account dedicated to pushing one particular religious idea

Oh_My_Volcano (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is an account created specifically to push the idea that just about anything in the Hebrew Bible goes back to volcanoes. Leviathan? Volcano. Yahweh? Volcano. He has since taken to the talk page, where he's posting a bunch of sources that fail WP:RS (and some that fail WP:COMMONSENSE), many not even actually supporting any sort of volcanic connection to Yahweh.

We have an WP:SPA who is here to push a particular POV, one that is WP:FRINGE, with awful citations meant to assign undue importance to a single aspect of a subject, who is barely listening to anyone -- all to teach us the truth about Yahweh. This is simply not the place for anyone to be "teaching us the truth" about any deity, regardless of whatever religion or lack thereof they have, especially when their sourcing is downright horrendous. Ian.thomson (talk) 04:29, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

• Block - there's a small element of significance to volcanic imagery in the Hebrew Bible, mainly in Psalms, and some notable historical hypotheses by Freud and amateur 19th Century geographers/geologists, but those sources are can be handled by non WP:SPA non WP:FRINGE editors. This account appears to have made not one single non-volcano theory related edit, of which nothing represents anything but a time sink for other editors. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:52, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Would it be considered outing if I where to point out that his username (unexplained emphasis on username) is (if you know what you're looking at) evidence of WP:NOTHERE? Ian.thomson (talk) 05:08, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, clearly WP:NOTHERE, also see his talk page edits. Love the fact that he claims changing section headings is censorship. Dougweller (talk) 07:04, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Blocked. CBWeather, Talk, Seal meat for supper? 08:15, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

• There is actually some pretty good sourcing available about the volcano thing, though being obsessed with it is surely not good. No opinion of the block since I didn't look at the user's edits. 50.0.205.237 (talk) 16:25, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

• The indefinite length of block is uncalled for. A 48 hour block would give the potentially good editor time to reflect on concerns expressed by others. You have to give potential editors adequate space in which to "rehabilitate" themselves. Bus stop (talk) 01:53, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

  Indefinite is not necessarily infinite. The "adequate space" in this case is on their talk page while blocked. --Kinu /_c 19:21, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Harassment and troublemaking by ClaphamSix

A new account, ClaphamSix (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has popped up to continue the same disruptive behavior and harassment that Festal82 and his sockpuppets carried out before his ban. The CheckUser admin on the SPI page believes the account to be another sock, but this is awaiting a behavioral evaluation by the clerks. In the meantime, this user is flooding the metamodernism talk page with as many alarmist comments and page-long screeds as they can, obviously to give a false impression of conflict--where there has otherwise been considered, calm discussion and consensus since Festal's ban--and to obscure the relevant discussions that have been taking place there. His tactic seems to be to drag in other editors from the WikiProject Philosophy page that may not be fully aware of the history and frustrations we have all experienced on this page with Festal's POV pushing, to cause chaos and bring into question the integrity of the discussion there.

The user has continued Festal's malicious, unfounded and serious misrepresentations of mine and other editors' edits (see previous ANI incident here), trying to falsely Out me by bizarrely claiming he knows my IP (which he obviously doesn't), from which he's spreading the lie that I live in a tiny village I have never even heard of (!?!), seemingly to try to discredit my transparently consensus-led edit history, and slinging a vast quantity of mud in the hope that some will stick. He's also dragged the CheckUser admin into the discussion, being seriously condescending about their actions, which is why they advised I take this matter here and request another admin look at this, to avoid a WP:INVOLVED conflict. As his latest posts seriously break just about every rule with regards to WP:HARASS, WP:OUTING and WP:NOTHERE, please could someone help here with a swift block, and save us all the headache of having to constantly defend against the barrage of lies he keeps spreading. Esmeme (talk) 10:47, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

For information, there has been a long dispute over the metamodernism article. It has ebbed to and fro with at least two socking users getting themselves indef blocked, and it is currently focused on two antagonists - Esmeme who posted here and ClaphamSix about whom they are complaining. Both are WP:SPA editors to date and inexperienced in Misplaced Pages's habitual ways. While one involved Admin suspects ClaphamSix is a sock, this user's very first edit was an appeal to the philosophy WikiProject to review the situation, so I think that suggestions of WP:NOTHERE need to be treated with caution.

Although pots and kettles spring strongly to mind, especially with respect to harrassment and outing, both editors have so far been constructive in helping me work towards a resolution at Talk:Metamodernism and I'd suggest that this ANI is a bit premature. IMHO the less smoke and heat the better. I'd personally rather wait and see how things develop for a while. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Steelpillow, please take at look at Festal82's edit history, and his repeated baseless attempts to smear my name and accuse me of being various people associated with the article (which I am plainly not). There is no doubt in my mind that this new account is the same user, and his tactics are the same. The repeated, blatant violation of WP:OUTING is surely more than enough to warrant a ban. The discussion there has not so much "ebbed and flowed"--it has simply been Festal's sockpuppets trying to give the illusion of conflict in order to push a POV that only he holds. On the other hand, I believe you will see that my own behavior here has been nothing but exemplary (and that I did not make the edits he accuses me of), and I am now fairly familiar with wiki's processes, having had to deal with Festal's devious edits for many months. It should be clear that none of the banned sock accounts have any relation to me or the neutral POV I have tried to uphold. From your comments, it worries me that some of his mudslinging is having the desired effect, so I urge you to investigate every one of his statements, and I think you will find the majority turn out to be deviously misrepresenting the facts. We all welcome your input and that of other editors on the page, but these abusive and mudslinging sockpuppets need to be clamped down on. Esmeme (talk) 11:47, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Just to reassure you, I am not looking at unsubstantiated mudslinging as anything except just that. I have seen no serious suggestion that any of the socks was you. As yet, the suspicion that ClaphamSix is a sock of Festal82 remains unconfirmed, I am just not prepared to second-guess the outcome. Hope this helps. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 13:22, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Steelpillow, that's twice on ANI that you've made a similar statement on awaiting the SPI outcome: please don't as it's not helpful. WP:DUCK is often sufficient the panda ₯’ 09:02, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification Steelpillow, I appreciate your position entirely. What we can say at this stage is that the admin has stated that ClaphamSix is somebody's sock. Esmeme (talk) 13:38, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Just to add that the user is back with more lies, bizarre WP:OUTING claims and disruptive screeds . Please can someone take a look at this urgently, as the account is obscuring and severely disrupting the genuine efforts of editors there. Thanks. Esmeme (talk) 08:10, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Again, please could an admin take at look at the constant WP:HARRASS and false WP:OUTING I am having to endure on Talk:Metamodernism‎. This needs to be put a stop to, as it is severely disrupting any useful discussion on the page, and is personally very unpleasant to have to constantly defend against. Esmeme (talk) 08:29, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Claiming they know your IP is not outing. the panda ₯’ 00:23, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Ok, sorry DangerousPanda, but isn't it an attempt at outing in order to try to intimidate/discredit me? Making continual false claims (they clearly don't know my IP, as I live nowhere near the locations they claim I do) is surely WP:HARRASS? One day the user said they "know" I live in a tiny village in Europe, the next they say that I'm someone from LA. It's tiresome and impossible to reason with, combined with their complete lies about my edits and those of other editors, and their outright denial of the previous sockpuppetry. Esmeme (talk) 07:47, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, according to some website somewhere, I'm about 10 years older than I really am with a goatee, and live on the English side of my city (the shame!) The old saying "the best way to confirm a rumour is to officially deny it" holds play. When someone says "I know who you are", say "excellent, I know who I am too!" If you're concerned that they really do know where you live and you see it as a threat, call the cops. Otherwise, if they want to randomly throw darts at a globe, denying simply allows them to get closer to the real place. It's childish, uncivil, and if used wrong can be attempted intimidation, but not outing the panda ₯’ 09:12, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Ok, thank you for the advice. There's no concern that they really do know where I live, but it's more a frustration that they are continually trying to undermine my edits, misrepresenting my every comment and trying to intimidate me and other editors there. Randomly throwing darts, indeed. Just there's a lot of darts in the air at the moment, and it makes for a very messy talk page. Esmeme (talk) 11:32, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

It looks to me like Esmeme has uncovered some hoaxing or some egregious self-promotion - probably the former - and is being harassed. Could someone with a block button please take a careful look? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 06:25, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

John Mutton AFD

In the current AFD discussion at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/John Mutton, User:Barney the barney barney has been making persistent allegations that my nomination was a bad faith attempt to misrepresent the subject's notability. The article, as written, makes no claims that inherently entitle the subject to an automatic keep under WP:NPOL — his political career took place entirely at the city council level in a city which is not large enough to confer automatic notability on its city councillors. He could potentially qualify for an article which was well-sourced enough to pass WP:GNG, a point which I've made right from the start, but as written the article relies on a single source which isn't substantively about Mutton, but rather merely mentions his name in passing as a predecessor of the person the reference is actually about.

Barney's argument has been that the subject was the leader of a political party bloc on the council — however, NPOL does not accord any greater weight to that distinction than it does to "garden-variety" city councillors. Even with that claim in place, a person still has to pass GNG on the basis of coverage which is substantively about them, and is not automatically entitled to keep an article based on a single source which only contains a single mention of his name.

But instead of making any effort to improve the sourcing so that the article could potentially be kept, Barney has consistently attacked me as an individual, asserting that I'm lying about and misrepresenting the subject's notability — even though all I'm doing is looking at the notability claims and sourcing that are in the article as written, and comparing them to what WP:NPOL accepts or does not accept as sufficient notability for a politician. And when I advised him that he was pushing the WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF lines, he doubled down with an assertion that I have a longstanding pattern of "lynching" quality articles, and that he had extended me an assumption of good faith which I had betrayed with continued "lies" (including some personally directed at Barney, but I'm really struggling to identify where I've done anything of the sort.)

Accordingly, I'm asking for this situation to be reviewed, because the back and forth about it is becoming unproductive and distracting from the fundamental issue of whether the subject qualifies for a Misplaced Pages article or not. Bearcat (talk) 20:54, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

I've blocked him for the duration of the AFD (96 hours) for disruption and personal attacks the panda ₯’ 21:25, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

This block needs reviewing by an uninvolved admin, quickly. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 00:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Is that because I've now extended it and locked his talkpage for further violations of NPA while blocked? the panda ₯’ 00:21, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

No, it is because I believe your blocking of BBB is excessive, punitive and unwarranted. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 00:30, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I've never issued a punitive block in my life. But hey, if you think personal attacks and disruption are ok, then go ahead the panda ₯’ 00:38, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• Good block appropriate length, eliminates the source of disruption as it runs for the length of the AFD in question, exactly what the situation called for. Once the AFD is done, the locus of the problem goes away. Well thought out and executed. Good call. --Jayron32 05:37, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Jayron for your review. BBB is blocked for far longer than the duration of the AfD though, and it isn't clear that you are aware of that. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 09:04, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

The original block, for the duration of the AFD, was appropriate. The revocation of talk page access was a judgment call, although it probably should have been made by a different admin than the original blocking admin. I don't see why the block was extended, and would ask that an uninvolved admin shorten the block to the original time. The original block was needed. I don't see why an off-by-two incident (disruption of an AFD, followed by quarreling about that block) requires a two-week block. Two-week blocks are usually reserved for repeat offenders. Please consider shortening the block. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:21, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Good original block. The personal attacks are tame but I suppose justify removal of talk page access, probably not what I would have done.

I think the removal of talk page access obviates the preventative nature of the block increase, thus I recommend the original duration or allow talk page access(prefer former given behavior). Both together seem excessive.

Rather than another admin do this lets give DangerousPanda time to respond. Chillum 14:36, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

•  Done Based on the above discussion, there appeared to be 2 themes: by extending the block AND removing talkpage access, it was less preventative. However, by retaining the original block length (for the AFD disruption) and removing talkpage access (for the continued attacks), it was acceptable prevention for both disruption and NPA. Based on this I have returned the block to its original length while retaining the lock of the talkpage. To be honest, if Roxy had approached me with this argument, rather than simply say "this needs to be reviewed" (reviewed for what purpose?) and instead of "I believe the block was punitive and unwarranted" (which block, and why?), it likely would have been amended earlier the panda ₯’ 14:44, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your fast and reasonable response. Chillum 14:46, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the considered responses on this thread. @DangerousPanda I take your point about my approach to this, will try harder. In my defence, I am at my worst at 1:30 AM just before bedtime, and I should have made a clearer and more constructive (less belligerent) comment. I appreciate your response. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 17:02, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Legal threat by Deletebots

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

Deletebots (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Stated "DELETE THE PAGE BEFORE I SUE WIKIPEDIA FOR PUTTING MY NAME AND INFORMATION UP ON A WEBSITE. DELETE IT NOW." here Jim1138 (talk) 05:16, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

DELETE THE PAGE. I DONT CARE WHAT YOU SEND TO ADMINISTRATORS. DELETE THE PAGE. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deletebots (talk • contribs)

• Yeah... no. Blocked per WP:NLT. And general harassment/hostility. --Jayron32 05:23, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Quick addition

For the benefit of those worried about WP:DOLT, the article the editor appears to be concerned about was already up for AFD Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Ty-Keem Sadler before the editor came along. Nil Einne (talk) 12:37, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Sock attack at List of metro systems

There is currently a sock attack going on at List of metro systems and List of tram and light rail transit systems. Socks revert the flag of China to the flag of Hng Kong. There is a consensus of editors in good standing at the talk page that this is not approppriate. I am not sure ho to proceed. I left a RFPP request, but the socks have been persistent for some time. I am not sure what socks they are, so that I can not file an SPI, and they are careful enough to not overstep 3RR in any article (and they are throwaway accounts anyway). I myself edited both articles, protected them in the past, and thus I am involved (though I have no opinion on the HK flag issue).--Ymblanter (talk) 11:01, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Sockpuppets imply gaming the system (a type of vandalism) or a banned user, both of which are exceptions under 3RR. Also the talk page seems to suggest Instantnood is to blame, as an SPI has been open for a week.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 11:40, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I am afraid they need to be blocked, and I certainly do not want to block them given there is no proof they are socks (SPI not completed). One of them continues reverting everything on sight.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:54, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

SPI is so heavily backlogged. These guys are here to disrupt and for no other reason. That's textbook WP:NOTHERE.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 13:04, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

There is now a (possibly) completely separate account that has long been on the project supporting the Instantnood socks. This needs to be stopped by someone. Also I need rollback rights again because Twinkle is being slow as molasses.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 14:17, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Topic Ban Review (2nd Attempt)

Hi, the original thread got archived, so for convenience I've copied the postings from the original thread to here again. Hopefully that's the right thing to do.
Cailil is really busy in real life and so has recommended that I ask here for someone to do the review. The previous review can be found here. I know it takes time to do a review, so thank you in advance. -- HighKing 10:14, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

This isn't about "someone" doing a review. You're now asking the community to do a review. First: you'll need to link to the discussion that led to the topic ban. You'll need to link to where you were notified that the topic ban was in effect. You'll need to educate us as to what you've been doing in the meantime - i.e. showing that you've been able to edit positively outside the area of the topic without any squabbles. Finally, you need to show us your way forward: if permitted back into that topic area, how will you act? What will you do to avoid the behaviours that led to the topic ban. Remember that if the community lessens the topic ban and you go back to the same issues, the next step is not a re-imposition of the topic ban, it's usually a block - after all, a TBAN's role is to be that "last chance before an indef" the panda ɛˢˡ” 10:41, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

FYI, some background; this stems from Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive626#User:LevenBoy which led to the issue being added to general sanctions; the page listing topic bans etc. is at Misplaced Pages:General sanctions/British Isles Probation Log. HighKing was topic-banned in August 2011, it was lifted in June 2012, and then re-imposed in June 2013. HighKing has not been a prolific editor since then, but I can see no actual violation of the topic ban (i.e. adding/removing "British Isles" in articlespace), although he has been active on the talkpages of British Isles and some others as regards naming disputes. Black Kite (talk) 11:04, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

The fact that he was let back in and did it again doesn't give me the warm fuzzies the panda ɛˢˡ” 15:16, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• HighKing has noted my extremely busy RL situation (this wont change in the short term) since this is a community sanction the community can overturn/change the topic ban if there is a consensus to do so. In the past I've been concerned more that there is no fundamental change in HK's behaviour from gnoming in British & Irish topic areas, most notably but not limited to naming disputes related to British-Irish history or historical figures or flora and fauna articles, rather than there being an actual breach of the topic ban. From my point of view as this is an indefinite topic ban there needs to be (as EatsShootsAndLeaves points out) evidence of positive attitudinal change and development of a different/productive way of editing. From my point of view showing the community *only* that ban has not been broken proves that the ban works not that it should be lifted--Cailil 18:15, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

As noted above, this Topic Ban is specifically in relation to editing in relation to the term "British Isles". From discusions with Cailil, we agreed that the disruptive behaviour was rooted in a couple of habits that ultimately led to squabbles and disruption - and although primarily with a banned sock, it was pointed out (and ultimately I recognized and accepted) that my behaviour was the "trigger" for the sock to engage. Regardless of the right/wrong of each individual situation, ultimately my editing was the common factor, and therefore something needed to change. Since that time, it is true that I've not been as prolific. Partly because my previous "gnoming" in these areas (one of the areas that needed addressing) accounted for a high proportion of my editing, and partly because of changes in real-life. Since the Topic Ban I've created a couple of articles - Sir Fineen O'Driscoll and Coppingers Court, one of the areas I was told I should concentrate on rather than gnoming. I believe I understand which of my editing habits were problematic in the past, and I won't be revisiting those habits in the future. Thanks for taking the time. -- HighKing 21:40, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Just to address Cailil's point above - it should be seen that there has been evidence of positive attitudinal change and development, specifically research and creation of articles, and avoiding gnoming. To address Black Kite - Cailil specifically stated that discussions on any issues was still fine and my Topic Ban did not forbid any discussions on any topics. I was never a confrontational editor to begin with, and I always discussed changes and been courteous to those that engaged on various topics. I think its fair to say that the deep-rooted issue was my insistence on an exact definition of "British Isles" in articles, with references to show that it was being used within the references. Other areas, involving an "exact defintion and usage", were also highlighted by Cailil even though these topics did not fall under the Topic Ban, but I understood what was being said. I don't believe there's any need for the Topic Ban to remain in place any longer as I've shown I understand the reasons why it was in place, and I've addressed those editing habits at the root of the problem. -- HighKing 12:40, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• The fact that it fell off with only dissenting opinion meant the request failed. No need to repost the panda ₯’ 14:02, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

It isn't clear to me that there were only dissenting opinions, apologies for reposting if that is the case. I saw that editors had posted some observations and questions, and it seemed to me that it "fell off" due to a lack of activity. -- HighKing 17:03, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support lifting of topic ban. I'm impressed that you've not gone the sock/evasion route & have thus respected your top ban. If the community chooses to lift the TB, I would recommend less attention to the topic-in-question, in future. I don't wann seeya getting blocked or worst. :) GoodDay (talk) 15:40, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you GoodDay. As I've said above, I believe I've addressed the behaviour that was at the root of the problem, and have shown to the community that I've learned. -- HighKing 17:03, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I've confidence in you :) GoodDay (talk) 17:07, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support lifting with the appropriate ROPE. Happy to give a second or third chance. Drmies (talk) 19:03, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Drmies - I assume ROPE is some further probation period? Is there somewhere you can point me? -- HighKing 11:34, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support lifting -- He has shown respect for the sanctions. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 09:30, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• No Support A leopard never changes its spots. Highking has been banned in the past and as soon as a ban is lifted returns to previous behaviour. To recount that Highking was never sanctioned for sockpuppetry while operating under his 2nd account - User:Popaice. No support. Dubs boy (talk) 17:16, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Deletion review

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

Sorry if this isn't the most appropriate place but it looks like the non-admin closure of Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/2009–10 Liga Bet by User:MrScorch6200 was not appropriate. Could someone open a deletion review, please? Thanks, C679 20:56, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

WP:DRV is the correct place to request a deletion review. Tutelary (talk) 20:57, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

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

While it's true DRV could resolve this, Misplaced Pages:NACD#Non-administrators_closing_discussions also allows for any administrator to revert a NAC. In this case, I agree that the debate was inappropriately closed, and have reverted and relisted. Hopefully consensus can be achieved through another 7 days; at the present point in the discussion, there definitely isn't any, and the non-adminstrator erred in closing it. Daniel (talk) 04:28, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

@Daniel: That policy states nothing about an admin having the ability to revert an NAC closure based on the admin's interpretation of the consensus (i.e. they disagree with the NA's interpretation). That is why we have DRV. When the policy says, "Decisions are subject to review and may be reopened by any administrator." It is referring to the five bullets above it:

• Deletion discussions must be decided in accordance with consensus and taking account of Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines. If you are not familiar with deletion policy or the workings of deletion discussions, please avoid closing discussions.
• Non-administrators should not close discussions in which they lack the technical ability to act upon the outcome.
• Close calls and controversial decisions are better left to an administrator.
• In cases where an administrator has deleted a page, including by speedy deletion, but forgot to close the discussion, anyone may close the discussion provided that the administrator's name and deletion summary are included in the closing rationale.
• Closing discussions in which you have offered an opinion or for a page in which you have a vested interest (i.e. a page that you have edited heavily) should be avoided. The sole exception is if you are closing your own withdrawn nomination as a speedy keep and all other viewpoints expressed were for keep as well.

MrScorch6200 (talk | ctrb) 04:45, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I disagree with your interpretation of that wording, sorry. It clearly allows any NAC to be reverted by an administrator if the administrator feels it was closed incorrectly. This has been practice for years since that wording was introduced. Daniel (talk) 04:49, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

@Daniel: So you are telling me an admin can arbitrarily revert an NAC closure based on their own agenda not listed in that policy? That's unbelievable and is against WP:BURO. I still believe this needs to go to DRV, which was already pointed to. MrScorch6200 (talk | ctrb) 04:55, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Any administrator can revert any non-administrator's closure if they feel it was incorrect, yes. "Agenda" is entirely the wrong word and inappropriately emotive. I was involved in the discussions back in 2007 that set up this policy and that was the agreed-upon check-and-balance that allowed non-admins to close XfD discussions. I am travelling at the moment but, if required, I can find any number of examples of it occuring over the past 7 years. It does not need to go to DRV for an administrator to reopen a debate closed by a non-administrator. Daniel (talk) 05:10, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

"Decisions are subject to review and may be reopened by any administrator." doesn't say why an admin can revert the closure so logic tells me that the statement is paired with the criteria above it. Also, your statement, "Any administrator can revert any non-administrator's closure if they feel it was incorrect..." almost blatantly goes against the purpose of WP:DRV and goes against WP:Equality in the sense that it gives an admin the 'ability' to revert a closure a non-admin is 'allowed' to revert. MrScorch6200 (talk | ctrb) 05:14, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I reverted it because you did not judge consensus correctly, it was not a "keep" consensus or even remotely close. Isn't that point a)? DRV's purpose is for reviewing an administrator's closure. Sorry, I genuinely feel that I was acting in accordance with the guideline there, based upon its application over the past 7 years, and there are countless examples in the archive of this noticeboard to demonstrate that. Daniel (talk) 05:23, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

No, it actually isn't the first point. "keep" was my interpretation of the consensus. Point 1 refers to someone who closes based on their opinion, not their interpretation of consensus. Also, DRV has no clear prejudice against the closer's userrights. Once again, you can't tell me that I judged consensus wrong because it is my interpretation; it's fine if you disagree. It's like saying me liking the Broncos over the Seahawks is incorrect. DRV clearly states (for usage of DRV), "1 .if someone believes the closer of a deletion discussion interpreted the consensus incorrectly;". You are taking it upon yourself to revert a closure that should go to DRV. MrScorch6200 (talk | ctrb) 05:37, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Firstly, you really need to stop altering your response multiple times after posting it - I have edit conflicted every single time I have tried to respond to your comments, and in the latest case, have lost my comment entirely. It's really quite poor form.

I had a longer response to your most recent comment, but I'm not rewriting it due to your frequent edit conflicts. Our disagreement boils down to conflicting interpretations of the policy. Ultimately, I'm not going to change my course of action, so in my opinion your best course of action would be to invest your energies on the talk page of the policy and try to amend it there. My action falls in line with common practice over the past 7 years, regardless of how you try and cite individual words from different pages to claim it is incorrect, and ultimately I have the courage of my convictions that I am entitled, as an administrator, to revert your NAC because it was not an accurate reflection of consensus. Daniel (talk) 05:47, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

"...I am entitled, as an administrator, to revert your NAC because it was not an accurate reflection of consensus." I can't believe how you continue to contradict the usage of DRV because you believe I was incorrect in my interpretation of consensus. The community should, not you. This statement was the craziest thing I heard since Obama said airstrikes on ISIS "would take time". MrScorch6200 (talk | ctrb) 06:25, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• Just posting to confirm Daniel's statement of policy is correct. It is perfectly normal for an admin to revert a NAC if they think the closer got it wrong. Spartaz 06:04, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

@Spartaz: Once again, completely contradictory to the use DRV. I also encourage you to comment on the linked RfC below. MrScorch6200 (talk | ctrb) 06:19, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• Please see WT:DPR#RfC: Can admins revert NACs if they disagree with the closer's interpretation of consensus (WP:NACD), pertaining to AfD?. I encourage you to comment. MrScorch6200 (talk | ctrb) 06:19, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Having been a DRV regular since 2006 and an admin since 2007 and having closed thousands of AFDs and being the main closer of DRVs for the best part of a year, I'm confident that I have the experience in policy and practise around this to speak confidentally when I confirm that your close was correctly reverted. You are now making yourself look petty by refusing to accept the advice of two very experienced admins and frankly this does not reflect well on your ability to work collegiately with others or recognise a consensus. Please step away from the dead horse.... Spartaz 06:33, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I never reverted his reversion because I wanted to discuss it with him. I'm a little heated right now so I think I might take a one-day Wikibreak. I am "refusing to accept" your "advice" because I believe you are incorrect, or at least the guideline is. Also, I never said that I now still agree or disagree with my close. I do believe it was controversial, but am not debating that. I am debating his ability to reverse it. Please, re-read this thread to ensure yourself I did none of the previously stated actions. And yes, I can't work collegiality with others because I only resolve disputes at DRN and not MedCom. Best and happiest of regards, MrScorch6200 (talk | ctrb) 06:45, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Its a very good thing you didn't revert him because that would have been disruptive. The language at NAC is very clear Inappropriate early closures may either be reverted by an administrator ("Decisions are subject to review and may be reopened by any administrator", from Misplaced Pages:Deletion process#Non-administrators closing discussions) or could result in a successful request to redo the process at Misplaced Pages:Deletion review. . Taking a break is a great idea. I hope you have better perspective on this when you come back. Spartaz 06:51, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I know it would've been disruptive, but so was his revert per WP:TPO - which applies to AfD. Also, read that first one a bit more carefully, "Inappropriate early closures may either be reverted by an administrator... ...or could result in a successful request to redo the process at Misplaced Pages:Deletion review" That essay says nothing about reverting due to disagreeing over interpretation of consensus. Time to sleep, MrScorch6200 (talk | ctrb) 07:05, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• To me (admin since 2003) it is clear that the rule allows an admin to reopen any AFD closed by a non-admin. The admin should be willing to explain the action, but that's true of all administrative actions. The dot-points are advice to the closing non-admin and don't restrict the reopening admin. Zero 08:05, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Richard Attenborough

Hi, Might be worth getting some sets of eyes on this as per the news of his passing . Amortias (T)(C) 21:18, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

SqueakBox again

Is a future hit list/black list like this one allowed in Misplaced Pages? User:SqueakBox weeks ago raised a big drama with the blanking & proposing for deletion of the List of pornographic actors who appeared in mainstream films article (see the relevant ANI discussion). Now, the AfD discussion is closed for weeks and the article was kept, restored and sourced, and a related RFC was closed as well, but SqueakBox seems to be unhappy with the outcome and clearly is not done. He now started some sort of a provocative hit page with a list of editors who reverted him, marked as BLP violators "who may be blocked", with diffs which dates at the time of the dispute, more than 20 days ago. The list looks a patent violation of WP:USERPAGE (see WP:UPNOT) and a blatant case of WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour, as it does not serve any scope outside keeping a personal war against a few editors who disagreed with him. Also note a while ago SqueakBox also filled an out of time request for mediation about the same topic. I ask the black list-page is deleted and SqueakBox once and for all drop the stick. --Cavarrone 23:34, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

This does not meet speedy deletion criteria. It should be settled via our regular deletion debate forums, or you could just ignore it.

Did you explain your concerns to the user? You should really try to work this out directly before seeking admin attention. Chillum 23:40, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I obviously tried to discuss on my talk page, see User_talk:Cavarrone#FYI. Cavarrone 23:48, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I see, thank you for pointing that out. Chillum 23:49, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• As much as I'd like to see it deleted, its just more evidence of Squeak's disruptive attitude. The most important thing is that we know about it and it can be used against him in the future. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 23:45, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

This is a bad idea. Unless it's being used to create an RFC/U draft, it probably shouldn't exist. It's just going to create more drama. I thought we were done with this topic, but apparently not. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 23:59, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I seem to remember an incident like this before, where an editor had a list on their user page - it was quickly removed by several admins (and possibly revdel'd, don't remember). This being a subpage, it should probably be MfD'd or possibly G10'd. Ansh666 00:17, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

This does not meet the criteria of G10. Chillum 00:20, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I remember the words "attack page" being invoked for something similar, or maybe I'm just getting confused with something else... Ansh666 00:25, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

It's an obvious "hit list" and it has to go. A good admin should delete it. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:23, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

We have a place to decide if content is appropriate for user pages. It is called WP:MfD. Chillum 00:28, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Are you an admin? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:30, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Since Nov 2006. Chillum 00:33, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I've also asked them not to mention my username on their page in this way, though I haven't yet received a response. MFD isn't an appropriate or helpful place to hear this. It should be removed immediately by the user themselves if not an admin, as seven days is too long to wait, and it's a behavior question not a content one. - Wikidemon (talk) 00:32, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

This is not just some stupid, lame page to be palmed off on MfD. This is a personal-attack page, and an admin needs to zap it pronto. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:35, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

WP:USER says "The compilation of factual evidence (diffs) in user subpages, for purposes such as preparing for a dispute resolution process, is permitted provided it will be used in a timely manner.", so this is not an open a shut case, which is why I suggest MfD. Compiling policy violations is not automatically a personal attack, I think that is an oversimplification. If squeak is not preparing for a dispute resolution process then he should remove it now. Chillum 00:37, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Ha. It's a list of alleged BLP violations, which aren't actually BLP violations, it's just stuff that Squeaky doesn't like. He has no intention of filing an RfC/U, it's just an attack page. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:43, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

If you read the discussion on my talk page, the the only claimed scope of this page according his words is "making records", "given that BLP violators were trying to get ME topic banned I am well within my rights to log BLP violations". Cavarrone 00:40, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

@SqueakBox: Could you please just store this in a text editor? Could you just short circuit yet another pointless debate about very nearly nothing? Chillum 00:45, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

The user's talk page is thataway. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:51, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

of course I can just store it in a text editor, and i have already backed it up there. Am I actually doing anything wrong here? Seems to me a group of editors have got it in me for me and continuously bring me up here even though I have done nothing wrong. The page solely indicates BLP violations and which editor did them without linking ot the editors. I am storing them precisely because I feel this group of editors is out to harrass me when I have done nothing wrong but they have, ie the BLP violations I have simply linked to. This is meant to be a private page in my user space and I suggest if people want to see it deleted they need to go through the proper processes to achieve that, and an AN/I report is NOT the proper process. Is this the way we treat all editors who enforce BLP or just the ones who do so with porn? I am seeking mediation and this page is part of that process, it is not a hit list, and I am not out to get anybody, merely to protect my right to enforce BLP on contentious pages involving porn. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 01:10, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Will you please remove my name from your list of BLP violators, or whatever it is you're accusing us of? And please don't accuse me of bad faith, etc. That makes the editing environment around here unnecessarily difficult. Thanks, - Wikidemon (talk) 01:15, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Since your comment indicates this is not for a future dispute resolution, I've deleted the page under criteria G10. If you restore the material, you may be blocked.--v/r - TP 01:16, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

"I am seeking mediation and this page is part of that process", I read that as meaning that it was part of dispute resolution. Regardless I have had my say on the matter. Chillum 01:19, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

"I am storing them precisely because I feel this group of editors is out to harrass me when I have done nothing wrong but they have, ie the BLP violations I have simply linked to. This is meant to be a private page in my user space" comes off to me differently. But I'll admit I didn't see that comment when I read it the first time.--v/r - TP 01:24, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• I accidentally xfd'd the page as TParis deleted it. Please delete Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:SqueakBox/BLP. Whoops. KonveyorBelt 01:20, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I have spoken to TPari before I institute deletion review. I think Konveyor was right and speedy was not the appropriate way to remove thos page whoch merely pointed out BLP violations. Or would people rather I opened a thread to see if an admin will block editors who persistently flout our BLP policies, cos that is what the diffs were for. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 01:24, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

The right way was for you to CSD U1'd this page from the get-go. No admin is going to block editors on your order just because you didn't get a consensus at an RFC. It's time to WP:Drop the stick--v/r - TP 01:26, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Err I havent asked an admin to block anyone. And besides you dont speak for all admins so how do you know no admin is going to block for said violations, or perhaps even the arbcom in the longer run? You dont. For the record I am involved in a mediation process here Misplaced Pages:Requests for mediation/Porn and BLP. How I am supposed to compile evidence for that? Why do you want to prevent me from compiling evidence for a dispute resolution? WP:USER says "The compilation of factual evidence (diffs) in user subpages, for purposes such as preparing for a dispute resolution process, is permitted provided it will be used in a timely manner.". ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 01:50, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Keep it in a text file on your PC until (or if) you actually use it to create an RfC/U or whatever. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:17, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I did back it up thanks. I created the page for mediation and if that doesnt work, which it may not looking at the 3 rejections of mediation so far, it will then have to go to Rfc, this was always on my mind, and I need a space on wikipedia where I can dot his work. If other editors are allowed to compile diffs for dispute resolution it strikes me that I should be too. I have instigated DR because I think Chillum is right that Mfd is what is required. All I want is to be given the same opportunities to pursue dispute resolution as other editors. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 02:25, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Squeak isn't calling for blocks? Me at least twice and others too I believe. - Wikidemon (talk) 02:24, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

That was NOT my calling for you to be blocked, it was pointing out that restoring BLP violations is a blockable offence. I have said this various times,. inc on the deleted page but I have not called for any individual editor to be blocked. Andy the Grup asked for Scalhotrod to be blocked for persistent BLP violations but that was not at my behest. I pointed out the policy to point out the seriousness of the violations but do not personally believe blocking is a good solution, that is my personal belief, being a great dela more liberal than some of you think. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 02:28, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Keep that thing on your PC until or if you actually file a complaint with it. And lose the stuff at the top about how everybody's out to get you. A filing with that kind of verbiage will be shot down faster than a government drone in a red state. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:33, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Squeak, whatever kind of block threat that is not a block threat you are promoting, please don't do it. Don't proclaim in your edit summaries, article talk pages, or process pages that other editors' behavior is blockable. It's unnecessarily antagonistic. And don't name me in an RfC, that kind of retaliation sheer tendentiousness. - Wikidemon (talk) 02:55, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• Content restored at the mediation request here. That is the appropriate place.--v/r - TP 06:44, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• TParis - except that at least 3 people decline to join that RfM, so... - Penwhale | 10:52, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Probably because it's a bad-faith complaint. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 12:27, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Yea this won't go anywhere because you really shouldn't start off a mediation request with when did you stop beating your wife. It essentially states Squeak is right and everyone else can pound sand, even though that isn't what the closed discussions say at all. Tivanir2 (talk) 13:25, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• SqueakBox should be banned. Not so much for the "attack list" per se, which I don't care much, but he's just trolling this project at this point. We don't need him, he doesn't need us. Let us show the door. --cyclopia 14:54, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
• I haven't looked into the backstory enough to know whether I agree with cyclopia, but I'm glad somebody finally put the issue in those terms. Squeakbox's insistence in keeping that list on-wiki looks like pure pointy disruption as far as I can tell. 50.0.205.237 (talk) 20:44, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• Just for the record, IP: SqueakBox's position is completely the opposite (SB wants that article gone). - Penwhale | 20:56, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• I meant Squeakbox's list of diffs in userspace, not the contested article with the list of actors. 50.0.205.237 (talk) 21:17, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

User:71.202.1.48 again

A few days ago 71.202.1.48 complained, both here and at WP:AN, that administrator User:Deb was "vandalizing" May 22 in what was actually a content dispute. When the IP continued to engage in disruptive claims, he was blocked. Deb then offered, on his talk page, to work with him after he came off block. An argument about the edits that she had made has now resulted in this: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk%3A71.202.1.48&diff=622642381&oldid=622578633

The IP claims that Deb is "being rude" and is "prevaricating", which are personal attacks. I suggest a revocation of talk page privilege until the block expires. (This is a Verizon IP address, and Verizon IP addresses often expire and are reassigned after about a week, so that an extension of the block could cause collateral damage.) Robert McClenon (talk) 02:35, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

The IP has been notified. Since the IP is blocked, any reply will be on his talk page, so please give him a day or so (and it is now 2245 in New York and 2145 in Chicago) to reply before revoking talk page. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:44, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

To be honest, Robert, I think that if I just stay away from his talk page, that will resolve the problem. He obviously isn't listening so there is no point in me continuing to try to put my side of the case. Deb (talk) 06:31, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

User:Afterwriting

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

Personal attack on my talk page in edit at 02:17 on 25 August 2014 which includes profanity. User made previous personal attack to same page at 08:09 on 10 August 2014 and was warned accordingly. User has also left inappropriate edit summaries which have also included profanity: & . AldezD (talk) 11:24, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Per WP:NOTCENSORED, use of "profanity" does not automatically turn a legitimate criticism of another user's apparently disruptive behaviour into a "personal attack". Per WP:DICK, use of the phrase "don't be a dick" is even among other uncensored/uncensorable profanities uniquely accepted on Misplaced Pages. Per WP:DTTR I would submit that the OP is in fact the one at fault here for haranguing another user on their talk page. 182.249.240.43 (talk) 11:44, 25 August 2014 (UTC) (this user's phone)

BTW, by what moon logic does Copyedits. This must be one of the most badly written and boring articles on Misplaced Pages. A complete dog's breakfast. qualify as an "inappropriate edit summary which also included profanity"? 182.249.240.43 (talk) 11:56, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

WP:NOTCENSORED does not negate WP:PERSONAL, and the user had been warned accordingly prior to the second attack. AldezD (talk) 11:50, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

What attack??? 182.249.240.43 (talk) 11:56, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Ah okay, I see it now: he called you "arrogant" and accused you of violating WP:OWN (an accusation that may or may not have merit, but is seldom made without some kind of background...), so you templated his talk page multiple times, he removed your templates, you then accused him again of making personal attacks solely for removing the templates, and now you are asking the admin corps to block him for using debatably foul language? It seems like we're only hearing one side of this story... 182.249.240.43 (talk) 12:20, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I think he's talking about the vulgarisms used in those items he linked. Or maybe he's confused about what FYI means. It means "for your information". Meanwhile "WP not censored" has to do with article content. It's not a license to hurl low-life language at another editor. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 12:22, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, when other users repeatedly link a particular guideline/policy page in a certain context, I have a tendency to take their word for it that it is relevant. Anyway, if one user harangues another user to the point where the latter is driven to use one or two curse words, the standard procedure is to block/ban the harasser and leave a polite reminder to keep it cool on the talk page of the user who used foul language. So far, the emerging timeline of this dispute indicates that that is exactly what happened here, and the OP appears to have disingenuously hidden said timeline for other users to have to dig it up. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:51, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

No one is "driven" to talk like a low-life, they choose to do so. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 20:15, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

You seem to have more patience that 99% of Wikipedians, and I applaud you for this, but please bear in mind that not everyone shares that patience. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:03, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

The user's talk page has not been "templated...multiple times". The user made an unconstructive edit to The Chase (UK game show) (that included grammatical and spacing errors, and did not follow general principles of WP:MOS) and an appropriate notification was left on the talk page. The user responded to the warning with an edit summary that included profanity () and also left a personal attack on my own page. Following the first personal attack, the appropriate template was left on the user's page as a warning, after which again the user removed the template and included an edit summary with profanity (). A warning was left today again regarding the second personal attack before the ANI was opened. AldezD (talk) 12:34, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Fiddle faddle. Stop it with the template abuse on Afterwriting's page. Don't post there unless you have something constructive to say, and use humanspeak, not templates, for the purpose or you may be sanctioned for battleground editing. Those edit summaries aren't models of courtesy, but neither is it surprising that your persistent templating irritated the user into what you call "profanity". ("Bullshit" can sometimes be a usefully descriptive word.) Bishonen | talk 15:29, 25 August 2014 (UTC).

I have only made four edits to the user's talk page—two were in response to the personal attacks already linked above. The others were the original template & clarification for the user's edit to The Chase (UK game show), and the notice of this ANI. AldezD (talk) 15:33, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

All four of those edits were to add templates, which either said, condescendingly, "Welcome to Misplaced Pages", or threatened him with a block. Of the two "personal attacks" mentioned, it seems that so far you have only linked one borderline personal attack (this one) and are under the impression that adding mild profanity to otherwise completely innocuous comments on user behaviour qualifies as a personal attack. However, it seems that the one engaged in disruptive behaviour is you more than anyone else and said behaviour just pushed another user slightly over the edge, and I think you should drop it before you see a WP:BOOMERANG effect. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:03, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

That edit summary is indeed a direct, low-life style personal attack. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 12:38, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

So, wait, you didn't like some of his stylistic choices so you posted a "Welcome to Misplaced Pages" notice on the talkpage of a user who has been here since 2005? I'm sorry, but that kind of bugs me, especially considering several other parts of his "unconstructive edits" (the parts where he was clearly fixing the broken grammar) were apparently acceptable to you. You re-inserted an obviously broken sentence to the lede, and I guess you consider this justified by the minor misprint of "the" as "thr"? Why didn't you re-revert him on this point after it was re-added? Was it just an honest mistake the first time? We all make mistakes from time to time, but when you made this mistake your talk page wasn't tagged with a "warning" from your Misplaced Pages junior that included the phrase "Welcome to Misplaced Pages", and you are not now being threatened with a block. Your OP comment here contained four diffs, two of which you claimed were personal attacks but one was just a seemingly accurate assertion that you are engaged in disruptive templating and the other was a slightly more aggressive version of the same; the other two you claimed included "profanity" but of these only one actually did. And yes, when something like 70 of the past 500 edits to the article are one user constantly (and blindly) reverting the edits of what looks like dozens of other users (who likely account for the majority of the other 430 edits), that certainly does look like an OWN scenario. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:51, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Although the user has been here since 2005, the user consistently receives notifications from BracketBot based upon the user's edits not containing proper coding. That, and the user's revision which included capitalization & spacing not consistent with WP:MOS in this edit was the impetus for the template warning on 7 August.

Have you reviewed the content I have reverted? The reversions are not "blindly" being made. The edits are either vandalism (, , , , , ), re-addition of content that was deleted following Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/List of The Chase (UK game show) episodes (, —specifically, the Episode results section and additional unsourced details, , , ) or other unsourced additions (, ). AldezD (talk) 14:50, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't give a damn about some game show in the UK, so I don't care about the content. As for the stylistic choices, I have to agree with Afterwriting on a lot of them. You reinserted inappropriate "in-universe" language with no explanation into a section title ("Final Chase" should have inverted commas), for instance. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:03, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Unbelievable stuff. Afterwriting made a pretty good copyedit of the article (which as Hijiri88 notes, you seem to have ownership issues with) that included him making one typo and not only did you make a wholesale revert, but you templated him and and added your own personal note questioning his competence. It's one of the more condescending things I've seen on Misplaced Pages and that's saying something. I think his response to you was perfectly appropriate. Jenks24 (talk) 15:38, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

So my initial template also warrants a second harassing message from the user despite no further interaction after the initial exchange? AldezD (talk) 15:41, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Reverts and edit summaries at the article would in question would still be "interaction". Jenks24 (talk) 15:48, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Please review the article's history as well as the talk pages for the user and for me. The user hasn't made any edits to the article since 7 August, the date of my reversion. The user's first personal attack was 10 August, and the second 24 August. AldezD (talk) 15:55, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• So, to be clear, the OP reverted a (mostly) perfectly good copyedit - at least one section was a clear improvement - and then templated the editor for unconstructive editing, leading him to revert it with a profane but frankly quite understandable edit summary. The OP then templated him again with a level 3 NPA for the edit summary. Under the circumstances, I'd agree with Jenks24. I don't see any reason for admin action here and would suggest closing this. Black Kite (talk) 19:35, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• No, this is not the order of events.

1. I undid an edit the user made that introduced a spelling error, removed commas and introduced capitalization & grammar issues.—
2. The user undid my revision and then made additional edits to the article that introduced additional grammar issues—
3. I cleaned up the user's edit—
4. The user made additional edits that introduced grammatical errors "If the contestants elects to play...", "Once the contestants nominates"—
5. I cleaned up the user's edit——and left a template message on the user's talk page with additional revision explaining the grammar issue.
6. The user left a personal attack on my talk page—
7. I warned the user about the personal attack and noted prior warnings by other editors for inappropriate edit summaries—
8. The user left a second personal attack on my talk page—
9. I warned the user about the personal attack and opened the ANI—

The user and I had no user space interaction between #7 and #8 above, and there were no interactions in article content after #5. AldezD (talk) 20:53, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• In reality, your (1) introduced grammatical errors ("contestants'" is correct), and your (3) isn't a cleanup as some of the language is actually poorer (i.e. the repetition of the word "contestants"). And in reality, your (5) didn't only "explain the grammar issue", you questioned their competence as an editor. Still, if you think leaving an "unconstructive editing" warning template on the talk page of an experienced editor for a couple of minor spelling errors is a good idea, then I suspect that the edit summary he left won't be the last one you get. Black Kite (talk) 22:05, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

You undid dozens of probably good-faith edits to the article. Among said edits was a mostly-good copyedit by an established Wikipedian. When said Wikipedian reverted you, fixing almost all of his own mistakes, and accused you of OWNership, you reverted back, all the time belittling him and "welcoming" him to Misplaced Pages on his talk page. When said user told you to knock it off, you continued to post inane template-talk on his page. At some point in this process you were called "arrogant" and unpleasant to work with. You took this as a personal attack, and also apparently take the use of "profanity" like "bullshit" and "don't be a dick" (I noticed he used the word "fuckwit" elsewhere, but you don't seem to be referring to that) and "dog's dinner" as personal attacks, and are now asking for this user to be blocked? Please just give it a rest. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:03, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• Try not to get wrapped around the axle over "NPA" vs "NOTCENSORED" and realize that "This must be one of the most badly written and boring articles on Misplaced Pages. A complete dog's breakfast." is a shitty and unnecessary thing to say. Yes, it is specifically talking about "content, not contributors", but c'mon. We don't need to leave edit summaries like this. However, the answer to an edit summary like that is not to find the closest Misplaced Pages policy which matches the perceived slight and template the bejesus out of the editor who left it. Protonk (talk) 15:16, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

WP:BOOMERANG?

I'm feeling increasingly that the OP deserves to be sanctioned or at least warned for WP:OWN on this article (among others?) and for abuse of usertalk templates. Immediately after being told off by myself and several admins here, he went straight back to the article and did the exact same thing again to another user. That user (unlike the subject of the above thread) is relatively new and apparently doesn't understand our sourcing standards, but it would appear that Aldez reverted to an outdated figure when "557" appears to be slightly more up-to-date as of now. (The currently-cited source is inherently WP:UNRELIABLE when it comes to up-to-date figures for an ongoing game show.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:22, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

In fact he's left four consecutive messages on that user's talk page, mostly accusing said user of adding unsourced information, even though all that happened in the other three cases was replacing of one unsourced number/date with another unsourced number/date -- Aldez did not template either of the other users involved in these "disputes". Additionally, I find it somewhat disturbing that someone is going around asking for blocks to be issued for "foul language" when that person considers "dog's dinner" to be foul language. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:37, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

User:Deass

And his many socks 86.29.182.19 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) / 86.23.68.198 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) / 86.25.33.75 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) / 86.31.229.42 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) / 86.27.20.95 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) / 86.31.22.202 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) among others continue to edit and copy and paste text into Misplaced Pages. Wondering about a range block? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 11:33, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

For some context, this is a long-time editor who has been blocked under a variety of other usernames and IPs over many years, including User:Yid, User:Nuklear, User:Aschwole. My feeling is that the contributions are mostly made in good faith, but the individual's behavior is often problematic (everything from copyright violations to original research, an unwillingness to abide by consensus, poor writing skills, scientific inaccuracies, etc.) -- Ed (Edgar181) 12:02, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, Doc, I don't know what those long IP blocks will accomplish--they seem to be quite dynamic. A range block is the best option and, given Ed's note, an SPI. Drmies (talk) 17:32, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• Far too large and busy a range for a rangeblock, I'm afraid (it's Virgin Media UK, with some 5 million customers on dynamic IPs). Is semi-protection a possibility? Or are the edits similar enough that an edit filter could work? Black Kite (talk) 19:10, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• I'd consider removing those long IP blocks as well, since the editor will already have moved on to another IP. Black Kite (talk) 19:14, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes I agree they are not doing it maliciously. They are simply unable to understand how to edit Misplaced Pages. Their edits are of one specific type. They always add information on drug synthesis. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:17, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Assistance with Creature of Havoc

Dear all, I was hoping for some assistance with the article Creature of Havoc, and some advice as to how to proceed. A person using multiple IP addresses from the same location () has displayed strong ownership of the article, and despite many attempts at mediation continues to insist on their version. The entire discussion can be found at Talk:Creature of Havoc. It started with the IP user issuing ultimatums (and not signing posts), and despite an eventual block and having one of their comments directed towards me removed, this person continues to display the same behaviour (the latest claim being that I am a poor writer). I am happy to work with this person on what is a relatively minor issue if the Conduct policies can be observed, but so far we have had breaches of civility, edit warring, harrassment/personal attacks and of course ownership. I have found this to be disheartening, as I and some other editors (who seem like really nice people) have made great strides with the other Fighting Fantasy articles. Can someone please advise as to how to proceed? Many thanks. Asgardian (talk) 13:26, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

@Asgardian: If it's a simple content dispute, then you can try dispute resolution. The best way to deal with disruptive IP editors on a dynamic IP range is to request temporary page protection. On talk pages, it's difficult to really do much about them. In extreme cases, talk pages can be protected, but simple incivility would not qualify. If the user becomes disruptive on the talk page, you can point out our talk page guidelines. Frequently, it's best to just ignore disruptive comments on the talk page, and people will usually exhaust themselves after ranting for a while. If they don't, you can try following the advice listed there, but keep in mind that reverting or censoring talk page comments often does nothing inflame tensions and drama. I've cleaned up the article a bit, but I don't think you're going to like my edits. The reception section was sourced to self-published sources, such as blogs and wikis, and I removed them. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 15:03, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the IP editor has not been friendly or helpful, and I agree with NinjaRobotPirate that the article may not be notable: I've nominated it for deletion. Drmies (talk) 17:28, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Could somebody please fix this?

Troll smashers needed, preferably with a banhamma

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

At Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2014 August 25. Go see for yourselves. Not notifying on purpose. Sorry for the short report, I'm on mobile and I gotta run to class now. Thanks, Ansh666 20:46, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

It's been taken care of, thanks. Ansh666 22:06, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Bastard Race

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

Hi, Can we get talk page revoked on the above blocked sock please, abusing talk page while blocked. Amortias (T)(C) 21:14, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Organized effort to vandalize pages

Warning to readers: transphobia, hate speech.

Admins and fellow users should be aware of an effort by users on gendertrender.wordpress.com to vandalize pages on WP related to transwomen, specifically Laverne Cox. Today, an IP editor linked to this webpage and many similar anti-trans remarks on Talk:War on Women. Today, an IP editor posted a link to this webpage and made similar anti-trans remarks on Talk:War on Women. Link to page regarding effort: link here. Thank you to ‎Ramendik for bringing this to our attention. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 01:06, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

• working link to http://gendertrender.wordpress.com/Two kinds of pork (talk) 01:18, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I used DoNotLink, but it works fine for me. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 01:26, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Ctrl-F wiki - 0 results. Two kinds of pork (talk) 01:39, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Two kinds of pork - On my link or yours? Ctrl-F works fine for me on my link (using FF 31.0). EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 01:53, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Here's direct link: link here. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 03:26, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

TheAnon IP is from a US House Representative address. This incident has been covered by mainstream media - see The hill, Raw Story, etc. The issue already has been dealt with as of several days ago but I guess they are back.

The "warning" is a bit of hyperbole, since we'd have to search around history for whatever was written and quickly reverted on Cox article. (As opposed to the rather obvious use of "C*NT" word in various recent ANI and or Jimbo Wales talk page discussions.)

Also, this header is inaccurate since you yourself say its some readers of Gendertrender not necessarily the couple individuals involved in the site. So let's not try to out people without evidence it is them - or at all?? The subject line should be changed.

Finally, re: the "War on Women" talk page, "gendertrender" itself obviously is not RS. However, the site often links to mainstream articles on the topic. Some of the issues they mentioned are gaining more mainstream attention. So at some point editors could bring them up in relevant articles with proper sourcing, if not in the "war on women" article, since the phrase would have to be used in a RS article. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 01:45, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Carolmooredc I have no idea what you mean. A user brought this up. I don't know if this is related to the US House IPs, but there's still a group trying to vandalize WP and that warrants mention on ANI. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 02:20, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

First of all one must wonder about ‎Ramendik's handle and lack of other edits. In any case, you are falsely alleging specific individuals (whoever runs/writes at) that website is doing vandalism. Do you know that those individuals have IP Addresses in Congress or those specific IP Addresses? Accusing individuals of vandalism that has been discussed in news sources is tacky at best and libelous if they decided to claim libel. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 02:58, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

The opening comment here says "users", not site-owners (it's the anonymous posters in the comment thread who are openly talking about gaming Misplaced Pages, not the people who run the site, and not known "specific individuals"). I don't think a mass of anonymous comment-thread people can claim specific libel. It's not "tacky" to warn other editors of threats of vandalism. __ E L A Q U E A T E 03:28, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

As mentioned on WP:XX, I think there was a miscommunication. I have struckout and reworded a sentence in the original sentence. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 03:29, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Re "having to wonder": my handle is my real last name; my edits are few but do include a rework of the Sex reassignment therapy article in February 2014, so not the first time I show up on this topic. I never stated anything about any specific persons or IP addresses, my concern is about plans being discussed in comments on the website. I would be honestly surprised if these people were connected to the Congress. Ramendik (talk) 05:44, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Don't use DoNotLink for links on wikipedia, as external links are already marked as no-follow, and DoNotLink is a service which will fail gracelessly when the link rots. Protonk (talk) 03:09, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Protonk Thanks for the info. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 03:26, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

• Evergreen, I read though that and found the comments. I wouldn't worry about this too much. The articles they are talking about are high visibility articles and unlikely to suffer any damage. If you are still concerned, create a list of articles they are talking about and then post a notice to the relevant projects. Two kinds of pork (talk) 03:15, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

• EvergreenFir, the thing about the IP is that it's considered a sensitive IP address (it's part of the 143.231.0.0/16 range), and if blocks are applied, WMF will have to be notified and get involved. Thus, Carol's information is very important from an admin's point of view. - Penwhale | 04:06, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
• Aint that just like Congress don't have to follow rules and no consequences if they don't.
  • Since Misplaced Pages isn't a government agency, it couldn't care less about blocking Congress. The only thing is that the Wikimedia Foundation might need to be told about this... Epicgenius (talk) 17:19, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
    • The warning is there because blocks of congress tend to get press (see here for an example) so a little additional forethought is advised before hitting the block button. Note that's for a block on an individual IP address, not the range associated with the house or senate. Protonk (talk) 17:30, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Legal threat for reverting material with unreliable source material

Please note edit where Copyrights once lasted 56 years has made a legal threat against me for reverting his edits on The Janoskians‎ which contained unreliable sources. AlanS (talk) 15:15, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

• @AlanS: Do you think this helped or harmed the situation? Protonk (talk) 15:18, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
• Left a note. I'd prefer not to indef the user for this because it's a transparently toothless threat aimed at an editor who clearly wasn't cowed by it. Protonk (talk) 15:24, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

• Considering the threat has been made twice now and a warning given I would suggest zero tolerance to further legal intimidation. Chillum 15:27, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

• @Chillum: Where was the first threat? Protonk (talk) 15:29, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

• Sorry, just the one, I misread the links. Chillum 15:31, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

• @Protonk: Agreed it was a limp threat. However, my experience so far has been that any threat limp or not aught be brought here, due to there being a zero tolerance policy around legal threats. AlanS (talk) 15:32, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't disagree with bringing it here one whit. I do think that saying "You've just made yourself a huge mistake there my friend" is not exactly the best response. Apologies for messing up the diff link in the comment I made above. Meant to point to your first response to the threat, not the threat itself. That was probably confusing. Protonk (talk) 15:36, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Point taken. I was just a little surprised about having a legal threat made (however limp it was). Will resist the urge to react and if I encounter the same situation (or similar) in the future I'll just report it here without any sort of statements against those I'm reporting (I don't know if that all made sense). AlanS (talk) 15:44, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

If we are going to warn a user instead of blocking them then that user should at the very least remove the legal threat. Policy is clear that the block should stand as long as the legal threat does so if we aren't going to block then the threat should not stand. Chillum 15:35, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Hey Chillum. I'm not seeing in NLT where we're required to redact the threat and reading Misplaced Pages:NLT#Perceived_legal_threats leads me to believe that in this case a warning w/ an explanation may be the best route. Protonk (talk) 15:44, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

"Users who make legal threats will typically be blocked from editing while legal threats are outstanding", this means that if a user is to be unblocked after a legal threat it is only to be done after the threat is not longer outstanding. As long as the threat remains on the page then it is outstanding. I think the user should remove it. Chillum 15:50, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I think that's meant to refer to an actual legal threat, e.g. "I'm going to call my lawyer to sue you over thing X" where "outstanding" means the threat itself, not its manifestation on a talk page. I don't have a problem with asking the user to retract the threat, right now I'm trying to make sure they understand that they've made the threat in the first place. Protonk (talk) 16:06, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

• (edit conflict × many) I agree it's pretty toothless, and not direct. But looking at the situation itself... what's happening is Copyrights is repeatedly adding content to the lede which deals with an incident aboard an airliner (which resulted in band members being escorted off the airliner). The sources supporting this content are of questionable reliability: one is a Feral Audio podcast (no transcript or timestamp provided), and the other is a Splitsider blog entry. I think even if this isn't blockable as a legal threat, it should be examined as an incivility/intimidation issue. Even if there wasn't evident intimidation that resulted from this action, there is surely disruption, and potential for further disruption down the line should Copyrights find someone who does cave to such statements. —/Mendaliv//_Δ's/ 15:43, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Lies, Bias and Abuse of Position: User DougWeller

User DougWeller has engaged in long term, systematic, abuse of his position in the article Arthur Kemp. motivated by a clear political bias.

1. User DougWeller has, over a long period, made blatant, politically motivated edits at Arthur Kemp, in which he posts up all manner of completely unsubstantiated allegations, and then deliberately deletes any evidence--backed up by solid documentary and referenced sources, which completely refute the allegations he has have posted up.

2. User DougWeller's continuous abuse as an administrator has included getting me blocked whenever I correct any of his blatantly biased edits.

3. User DougWeller has now posted up on my Talk page a completely unfounded lie that I have tried to abuse the system by logging in from another IP address. I strenuously deny this, and user DougWeller has absolutely no evidence to prove this allegation which he has deliberately posted up in an attempt to damage my standing on Misplaced Pages.

I request urgent action on this matter, and ask that the unbiased administrators intervene in this matter.TheFallenCrowd (talk) 15:33, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Do you have any diffs to demonstrate any of these claims? Can you give us a link to where you and this user tried to work it out directly? Chillum 15:37, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

TheFallenCrowd You were supposed to inform DougWeller that you had started this thread. Fortunately Location has done so. Please follow the proper protocol in the future. MarnetteD|Talk 15:46, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I informed DOugWeller on his talk page, where I first posted up the objections listed above.TheFallenCrowd (talk) 15:50, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Did you attempt to talk to this person before coming to the noticeboard? I see you dropping accusations on his talk page then coming directly here. Was there a more in depth conversation somewhere else?

If you want us to see the "abuse" you are talking to then you will need to provide evidence in the form of diffs that this has been going on. Chillum 15:53, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Looking at your user talk page, TheFallenCrowd, I don't see any indication that DougWeller is acting out of step with community standards. From the look of things, you've been edit warring on Arthur Kemp for months about two years. I'm really surprised that was your first block. —/Mendaliv//_Δ's/ 15:56, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Example of User DougWeller's abuse of editing: In the article Arthur Kemp, the SPLC is quoted as saying that Kemp "left South Africa because he testified in the trials of Janusz Waluś and Clive Derby-Lewis." The SPLC has absolutely no evidence for this, and it is clearly a politically-motivated allegation. Nonetheless, my edit did not delete the allegation, but merely posted up referencd evidence showing that Kemp left South Africa in 2007, 14 years after the trial.

The original allegation read as follows:

"In 1993, Kemp was a prosecution witness in the trial relating to the murder of the South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani. A 2007 report from the Southern Poverty Law Center asserted that he left South Africa because he testified in the trials of Janusz Waluś and Clive Derby-Lewis."

My edit changed this to read as follows:

"In 1993, Kemp was a prosecution witness in the trial relating to the murder of the South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani. A 2007 report from the Southern Poverty Law Center asserted that he left South Africa because he testified in the trials of Janusz Waluś and Clive Derby-Lewis. Furthermore, Kemp pointed out that he had emigrated from South Africa in 2007, fourteen years after the trial took place, and that this was "Hardly the actions of someone "fleeing in fear.""

As you can see, this did not even delete the (unsubstantiated) allegation from the SPLC, but merely gave a referenced refutation of the allegation.

User DougWeller has continuously deleted this--and other referenced edits --and when I undo his edits, he then bans me under the 3RR rule. I have never objected to this, because I know what the 3RR rule is, but my argument here is that user DougWeller leaves me no choice but to revert his edits, knowing full well that he can then get me banned under this rule.TheFallenCrowd (talk) 16:00, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

This sounds like trying to shoehorn a content dispute into a complaint about behavior. Has there been any attempt to discuss this beyond reverting and sniping in edit summaries? —/Mendaliv//_Δ's/ 16:02, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

• I have a very strong suspicion that TheFallenCrowd has COI regarding Arthur Kemp and probably should not be editing in that subject area. Zad68 16:03, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Example of User DougWeller's lies: On My talk page, user DougWeller has posted up the following slanderous lie:

"It's pretty obvious you tried to edit as an IP after you were blocked."

This completely untrue, and totally unsubstantiated. I have no idea what he talking about, and he has only put this up as part of his ongoing campaign to undermine my status on Misplaced Pages so that he can continue making the biased edits, as detailed above.TheFallenCrowd (talk) 16:03, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Have you tried discussing the issue calmly and rationally with Doug on the article talk page, instead of just hurling accusations? Just a suggestion. --‖ Ebyabe - Health and Welfare ‖ 16:07, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

The IP appeared immediately after TFC had been blocked for edit warring. The IP deleted exactly the same content that TFC had been edit-warring to keep out of the article. Paul B (talk) 16:15, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I have no idea who reverted that edit. It was a plain revert, and it is outrageous that I am accused of doing it without any evidence at all. It could have been absolutely anyone who saw the obvious bias--particularly the claim by DougWeller that the "link was not working" (which was, of course, another lie) when it clearly was. Once again, if you have any evidence that it was me who made the unlogged revert, please post it up here, or stop making this outrageous insinuation that I have tried to subvert Wiki rules.TheFallenCrowd (talk) 16:35, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Hamlet, act III, scene II. Paul B (talk) 16:59, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

This "rant" is fairly typical of the debating style of The Fallen Crowd, who has, shall we say, a clearly close connection to the subject of the article Arthur Kemp, a well known white supremacist and author of the book/website March of the Titans. TFC has repeatedly attempted to whitewash the article. He has for quite a while been attempting to delete well sourced information about Kemp's testimony in a trial in South Africa. Dougweller and other editors, myself included, have repeatedly reverted his removal of the content. TFC has just come back from a ban for edit warring, and has dived in once more with exactly the same deletions (which also make the section unintelligible). He is trying to win an edit war of attrition. Paul B (talk) 16:05, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 6)I found evidence of the political agenda here.

1) The only edits Dougweller made to the article before TheFallenCrowd were noting Kemp's connection to the BNP and pointing out problems with citing lulu.com.

2) TheFallenCrowd removed sourced information and inserted WP:SELFPUB claims that are contradicted by WP:RSs. If it was about neutrality, he'd've (at most) only added Kemp's claim with "Kemp, however, claims..."

3) I'm seeing this before the block and this immediately after the block. Looks rather WP:DUCK-y to me. And don't worry, @TheFallenCrowd:, Doug's accusations won't damage your standing, you edit warring to turn an article into a puff-piece for a white supremacist will. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:06, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

That edit by the IP sure quacks loud. It does look a lot like evasion to me. Chillum 16:13, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

• I have no idea who made that edit. It certainly wasn't me. If you have any evidence that it was, please do post it here, otherwise please stop spreading lies and disinformation.TheFallenCrowd (talk) 16:19, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Wonder why they didn't ask to be unblocked on the grounds of not being you? That still wouldn't be proof, but it'd at least be the beginning of semi-plausible doubt. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:24, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that because an anonymous poster reverted an article and then hasn't come back, that this is proof this is me? Do you have any evidence for this? If so, please post it up here so that everyone can see.TheFallenCrowd (talk) 16:42, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

The correct place to do so is here and @TheFallenCrowd: I'm not sure how familiar you are with Misplaced Pages, but we do have people who can see such things. Dusti 16:48, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Good. Why hasn't anyone looked into if it was me, before posting up these outrageous lies?TheFallenCrowd (talk) 16:53, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) As listed as WP:SOCK "Logging out to make problematic edits as an IP address" is one of the classic indicators of socking. MarnetteD|Talk 16:50, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Why did the IP make the same edit you would have if you had not been blocked, continuing the exact sort of argument you were having before you were blocked, with the exact same writing voice, and not try to be unblocked on the grounds that it wasn't you? What argument do you possibly have for us to not believe it was you? Just saying "it wasn't me" doesn't prove anything. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:53, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

As far as I can see the IP just reverted DougWeller's change, and pointed out that he had lied about the URL not being visible. What evidence do you have that it was me? Please post it here. I am more than happy for anyone to look at whatever technical details they need to. It seems as if your tactic here is just to throw political epithets and accuse me of lying wihtout any foundation at all.TheFallenCrowd (talk) 16:59, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Getting an editor's account blocked is not an "abuse as an administrator." In this case DougWeller followed correct procedure in setting up a complaint at the edit-warring noticeboard, and an uninvolved administrator imposed a block. TheFallenCrowd had the opportunity to reply, which he did, and to appeal the block, which he did not. He made more than three reverts in 24 hrs and that is usually sufficient for an account to be blocked. TFD (talk)

Note that there's now an open SPI on this issue. It would be nice to get at least one of the blatant socks blocked right off so we can get an autoblock in place and avoid having to semi ANI. —/Mendaliv//_Δ's/ 17:30, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I see that's already been taken care of. Excellent. —/Mendaliv//_Δ's/ 17:32, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Considering that this has now turned disruptive and this editor doesn't seem to be here for the right reasons, I think we should turn this into a block discussion. Dusti 17:35, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Once the check user technical whatever is completed, I will expect an apology from you on my talk page for the utterly scurrilous allegations you have made against me regarding fake accounts, sock puppetry etc. Or am I hoping for too much?TheFallenCrowd (talk) 18:11, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Provided, whatever the results are, you apologize regardless in an equally prominent place for disrupting the site with your temper tantrum over not being able to turn an article into a propaganda piece in favor of a neo-Nazi. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:15, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Topic ban on TheFallenCrowd for Arthur Kemp?

• (edit conflict) Question: Are there grounds for a topic ban for TheFallenCrowd on Arthur Kemp? (See also the previous ANI thread on this issue) —/Mendaliv//_Δ's/ 16:08, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support topic ban before it's even formalized. We do not need propaganda for white supremacists here. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:11, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support Topic ban. The Fallen Crowd is a POV warrior dedicated to whitewashing Kemp. Paul B (talk) 16:18, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oh I see. Because I dare post up referenced additions to an article, which refute unsubstantiated allegations, you now wish to ban me? Democracy only as long as it is your democracy?TheFallenCrowd (talk) 16:21, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

No, because you censored reliably sourced information and added questionably sourced propaganda for a neo-Nazi, edit warred to keep it, and lied about others when you didn't get your way. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:23, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

"Lied about others" -- where is your evidence of this? Or is it just another unsubstantiated lies from you? As for the rest of your comments, your political slip is showing.TheFallenCrowd (talk) 16:47, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Accusing others of political bias for undoing your whitewashing on a white supremacist's article is nothing but hypocritical lying. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:01, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

• Wow that boomerang came back quickly oh, I support the topic ban as well. Dusti 16:27, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS applies as well as several other policies. BTW Misplaced Pages is not a democracy. MarnetteD|Talk 16:30, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support Given the long history and lack of neutrality I think this is reasonable. Chillum 16:33, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
• Question - WP:SNOW close? Ian.thomson (talk) 16:35, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

• Community ban discussions should continue for at least 24 hours. Chillum 16:39, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support well-deserved boomerang. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 16:36, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support The repeated misrepresentation of a source back in April shows TheFallenCrowd has considerable trouble editing neutrally on this topic. --NeilN 16:38, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
• Comment this has got to be one of the fastest topic bans that'll ever be set, or am I forgetting something? Dusti 16:39, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I'd really like to see an admin snow close this. Do you think we might have a record? Ian.thomson (talk) 16:41, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Again, community ban discussions should continue for at least 24 hours. This is not a race and a record is not our goal. Chillum 16:43, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

It's nice to see good things happen, hence the enthusiasm that you're seeing. When the community comes together to stop things like this, it gives me just a little bit more faith in the ability of the community. Dusti 16:46, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

That's fine, but we have to be careful that enthusiasm doesn't slip into grave-dancing. If we approach it from a "we're sorry to have to do this, but..." angle rather than a "ding dong the witch is dead" (of which I have been guilty of in the past), there's always a chance that the editor may be able to redeem him/herself in the future. Tarc (talk) 16:55, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Scratch that; good faith went out the window with the sock votes below. Tarc (talk) 17:13, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support, and call for a quick emptying of his sock drawer as well. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:44, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Once the check user technical whatever is completed, I will expect an apology from you on my talk page for the utterly scurrilous allegations you have made against me regarding fake accounts, sock puppetry etc. Or am I hoping for too much?TheFallenCrowd (talk) 18:11, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Provided, whatever the results are, you apologize regardless in an equally prominent place for disrupting the site with your temper tantrum over not being able to turn an article into a propaganda piece in favor of a neo-Nazi. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:15, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support - This user's editing at Arthur Kemp is wholly detrimental to the integrity of the article.- MrX 18:46, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support a topic ban. Depending on the results of the SPI, a Site Ban may be necessary for sock-puppetry. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:57, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Concerns on Brahma Kumaris article

Regarding Brahma Kumaris article. Last time a new editor jumped in and started deleting large amounts of RS based material I was told at WP:SPI under the first checkuser comment it could have been handled here as WP:Duck. There may also be other policies that relate to disruptive/suspect editing that are pertinent. For the sake of keeping things tidy, the concern relates to 2 fairly new editing accounts (though one is probably now abandoned). The first account in question (that hasn't been used since May) had only one stint of edits. The same revert was made by this banned user as their first edit too. Thanks to User:McGeddon reverting, that strategy failed and the account appears to have been discarded. The second accountin question has only edited on 3 separate occasions in August, all in relation to one topic. On each of those 3 occasions, substantial RS based content has been deleted - I thought the contribs would be the easiest way to see the wholesale deletions. A bot reverted this one as suspected vandalism, so the editor simply did a slightly reduced machete job. The rhetoric is concerningly similar to comments by these banned users/suspected socks which may or may not be part of an even longer lineage of socks Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet_investigations/Lucyintheskywithdada/Archive that stalk this article. The changes now being made appear to be piecemeal cut and pastes from the way the article was at the time this user was blocked. The user openly uses multiple accounts, here creating a new account to edit their talk page because their access was removed from the old now blocked account. I don't usually like to suggest blocking people, but it's hard to see either of these accounts contributing to Misplaced Pages. My hope was to get this nipped in the bud before either of the accounts get established and resume a path of disruptive editing. The way User:Truth_is_the_only_religion edits, they are clearly not new to Misplaced Pages which raises the question of why they are not using their previous account. Their username doesn't suggest they have the most openminded approach to editing religious/spiritual topics. I have stalled posting here for a few weeks to see if anything useful came out of the account, but now consider that highly unlikely. Advice/suggestions most welcome. Regards and thanks Danh108 (talk) 19:33, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

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