Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by TheHerbalGerbil (talk | contribs) at 18:03, 8 July 2009 (→User:PrBeacon (Fhue part deux): rm Fhue pleading with his distorted view of history). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Late Show with David Letterman

The comic made poor jokes about Sarah Palin's daughter - no not the 14-year-old but Palin's 18-year-old who was an unwed mother; the talk-radio folks apparently can't milk this enough. Palin herself made appearances to make much of it, Letterman apolgized and she accepted. Really, I'm overselling this. Some very determined folks just need to inject this first on David Letterman which we've been able to halt but keep on plopping it in Late Show with David Letterman. Palin since has announced her stepping down as US Alaskan governor. The Letterman joke is seemingly on her public image article and that seems, IMHO, an acceptable place for now. Could others have a look at this? There seems no concensus to include this as yet and now I'm avoiding edit-warring with possible socks. I'm stepping back for the moment could others uninvolved have a look? Thank you! -- Banjeboi 05:15, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

What administrative action do you seek with regards to this issue? Hobartimus (talk) 06:13, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I think a semi-protect might be appropriate as my gut tells me we may be dealing with a sock issue. Anons and new accounts wishing to re-insert this would then need to discuss on the talkpage. I'm not terribly interested in sorting out which of the accounts actually may be socking and frankly those that are good at it know how to evade being detected. So absent some outside opinions I think semi-protect would help on this situation. -- Banjeboi 06:59, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

• The same thing is happening now at David Letterman, as User:Arzel is trying to reinsert it. Unitanode 07:23, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Semi-protection of the appropriate articles would seem to be in order. This is basically POV-pushing and trying to make a big deal out of a little blip. Plenty of folks have commented on Palin. Letterman is just one guy. If you had every comment made by or about those folks, you'd have a large book. Baseball Bugs carrots 09:55, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
  • David Letterman is getting some good edits by IPs, which would be collateral of a semi. If we're dealing with serious socks, problem would reoccur as soon as unprotected, so we permanently lose beneficial edits. The Late Show page issue involves established editors as well as anon and newbies (semi wouldn't block them). Are we expecting useful material to be contributed by *any* editors who aren't serious enough to bother filing an editprotected on the talk page? I'd support protection but only as a stop-gap while burning down the sock-store. DMacks (talk) 18:55, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
    • Does it make sense to let it play out more, keep reverting and see if we have sock evidence? -- Banjeboi 09:51, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

and it continues

really, I'm not interested in edit-warring with some anon. -- Banjeboi 14:12, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I looked into the content, and this appears to be a BLP issue for Letterman's page, so I'd support temp "whatever prot necessary" on him if it happens again there. I see there is discussion on several talk pages with pretty clear consensus against it on his page also, so that would also user-blockable edit-war against consensus (and viable evidence of socking). There is good ongoing discussion (where I see you've participated) on the talk-page of the show regarding inclusion there. Of the editors involved in that discussion, I don't see obivous socking right now...the recent/active participants are not WP:SPA and have varying edit histories, seem to drown out possible socking by a few IP/newbie accts. I'd support "whatever prot necessary" to stamp out this war while the discussion is ongoing (bad-faith to discuss while edit-warring). DMacks (talk) 14:55, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the uncommented reversions by two different SPA IPs with matching article in their contributions 76.26.71.32 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) and 216.12.96.104 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) are suspicious. Mfield (Oi!) 16:04, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

It hasn't stopped and the suspicious IPs have not made any comment on talk. I have protected it fully and posted a message on article talk, Mfield (Oi!) 17:15, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

User:Pmanderson

During a long debate about moving the alpine town of Merano to Meran, the final decision was to move it. Already during the debate, the user relied heavily on non-factual arguments, often making assumptions about other users nationalities instead . As a French-Swede who has never lived in Germany, I find it strage to be called a "German nationalist". Such irrelevant comments border on insults, andother users than myself objected to it . The decision to move was based on the fact that both Merano and Meran are used in English, and the principle is to use local majority names; this was already the case in 115 of 116 municipalities in the province before, and the move brought Meran into line. Rather than accepting the decission, or at least continuing to challenge it on the talk page, the use took to edit warring to support "his" name of the aticle. , , , . While technically avoding a violation of 3RR, the user is clearly edit warring over the name issue. Once again insulting the motives of those of us who wanted the move to bring the 116th article on Alto Adige in line with the 115 others. He even tried to report the user who restored the page for edit warring , showing that he is well aware of the policy. The user's disruptive and insulting behaviour does nothing to improve the situation.JdeJ (talk) 07:20, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

The English version of the official homepage of this town uses Merano. (There's only a link to the german page in the article.) So do the Baedeker guide, the Blue Guide to Italy, the AA Guide to Italy , the English Michelin Guide , etc. Aren't these guide books the place to look for English-speaking usage? Perhaps it needs a few more people to comment. Mathsci (talk) 09:18, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

As was shown during long discussions lasting two weeks, both Merano and Meran are used in English rather often. For communities in Alto Adige, we follow the local majority language and that is the case for all of the 116 communes in the province. However, my report here is directed at PManderson's behaviour, not his views. He may argue against Meran as much as he wants, I even welcome him to do that but I object to his manner of repeatedly insulting editors who do not agree with him and I find his latest trick of resorting to disruptive edit warring when decisions don't go his way to be immature and unconstructive.JdeJ (talk) 11:08, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. Cheers, Mathsci (talk) 11:46, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I have had a number of disagreements with PMAnderson. His arguing style is always assertive, sometimes aggressive; but I have never found him to employ deception or "non-factual arguments", nor to edit in bad faith. On the contrary, PMAnderson's arguments are usually far more rigorous than those of his opponents. The diffs presented are, arguably, evidence that PMAnderson has uncharacteristically fallen foul of the ad hominem fallacy; but that's about all I see here. Hesperian 12:05, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Hesperian, I take your word for it that that has been the case in your disagreements with PManderson but I do not agree in this case. Other users, including myself, repeatedly tried to get him to present factual arguments but with little success. I even asked three sraight questions to sort it out , but they remained unanswered. The other user supporting the same view as PManderson, Ian Spackman, has remained civil and factual througout the discussion. And yes, I do object to being called a "German nationalist" time and time again. Given the history of German nationalism, I consider it a serious insult. I have pointed out to PManderson that it is both insulting, irrelevant and wrong (I'm French, not German) but he continues to use it. I fail to see how repeatedly using a label that he knows is both incorrect and considered insulting isn't "non-factual".JdeJ (talk) 12:48, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I've just tried Google (English). When I typed in meran without clicking "Search", Google's AJAX lookup of popular terms gave "merano" and "merano italy". AFAIK "Merano" is normal in English and I only know "Meran" as the name of a chess opening variation.

I've checked the relevant discussions at the . Support for "Meran" was entirely based on a WP guideline which says that normal English usage takes precedence in English WP, and ignored all evidence about what English usage actually is - both there and in this discussion. IMO PMAnderson's use of "disputed" tags was quite justified.

By pushing for hard for anything other than "Merano" on English WP, the supporters of "Meran" are guilty of peristent POV-pushing and edit-warring. for any of them to complain of edit-warring by PMAnderson is outrageous. --Philcha (talk) 13:55, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Philcha you are off topic - the issue is not whether he is right in his views but the manner in which he pursued those views. If the consensus was to move to Merano then Pmanderson should have accepted that or followed the proper venue for rediscussing the topic not by singlehandedly impose his view on the article. This is editwarring. It is not editwarring that a group of editors propose a discussion, establish a consensus and act accordingly. furthermore it is of course incivil and a red herring to accuse opposing discussants of being "german nationalists" - german nationalism has nothing to do with it and it is incivil and against the assumption good faith to asume that an editor has his opinion because of his policitcal views and not for the reasons he himself gives. Reviewing the evidence I think Jdej is correct in his assesment of incivil and disruptive behaviour frm Pmanderson. ·Maunus·ƛ· 14:06, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree 100% with Maunus above, Philca is completely off topic. Philcha, I have no problem with you or PManderson thinking the page should be named Merano. I do not agree with your argument for it and you do not have to agree with mine, but that is beside the point. The point here is conduct, not views. What you are saying is that you think people who agree with your views may behave as they want, because they are right. People who do not share your views are by default guilty of "outrageous" condunct. Not because of they way we behave but because you have decided our views are wrong. While this tells us volumes about Philcha's views on freedom of expression, it has nothing to do with the report on PManderson. He is reported for repeated insults, not for being right or wrong.JdeJ (talk) 14:18, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay, this complaint seems to have been whittled down to "how dare he call me a German nationalist!". And judging by sentences like "Yes, I do object to being called a 'German nationalist' time and time again", there also seem to be an implication that he has done so numerous times. Time, I think, to inject some reality into this discussion:

PMAnderson never actually used the phrase "German nationalist". Initially he said "Very strongly oppose. This is the German national faction on the loose; there is also an Italian national faction (have they been notified of this?)."

Then follows a whole lot of "how dare you!" rhetoric in which he is twice misquoted as having used the term "German nationalist". This is a gross distortion of what he actually said. Characterising a group as a "German national faction" is miles away from calling an individual a "German nationalist", especially when he refers evenhandedly to an "Italian national faction".

Further down, PMAnderson says "This disruptive nationalism has gained no voices; this should be closed."

Then follows a whole lot more "how dare you!" rhetoric in which he is again twice misquoted as having called someone a "disruptive nationalist". Another gross distortion of what he said: it is the difference between calling a political/national position disruptive, and calling an editor disruptive.

Then, right down the bottom, PMAnderson finally uses the word "nationalist", but again in reference not to an editor but to /both/ factions: "There is no consensus to change here; there never has been. There is an uneasy stasis between two factions of nationalists, both of whom will say and do almost anything for their National Truths."

These repeated accusations that PMAnderson called you a "German nationalist" are not sustainable. Go away, figure out what he actually said, and come back when you can post a complaint that isn't full of falsified quotes. Then, and only then, it might be conceivable that we would see PMAnderson as the problem here, rather than you. Hesperian 14:37, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

The comment about "disruptive nationalism" was a direct answer to a comment I made, so I don't think my complaint misrepresent the situation. A bit surprised to see that Hesperian seems to want to pick a fight, or why should he choose to always go for small insults if he can ("go away" "come back when you can post a complain" etc.) rather than saying the same thing in a polite and civil way?JdeJ (talk) 15:15, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

JdeJ had the courtesy to mention this filing to me; I thank Hesperian for his answer, which I should probably have put worse.

JdeJ has repeatedly stated his nationality to be French-Swedish, and I believe him; his problem is that he believes Misplaced Pages guidance is (or should be) that we should always name settlements in accordance with the linguistic plurality, even when this is contrary to English usage (like Cologne) and when the majority is 51.5% (as the last Italian census showed for Merano). His actual concern would appear to be the Swedish-majority settlements in Finland, for which English usage would appear normally to be the Swedish form; and he has invented a novel and superfluous "rule" to defend this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:29, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I thank PManderson for his response, it seems our views are not as far from each other as the last weeks debate could make one believe. While I don't believe the local language majority should always dictate our naming policy, it is probably true that I place higher emphasis on it than PManderson. Needless to say, I have neither the authority nor the intention of inventing any "rules" about it. I will be more than happy to discuss this issue further with PManderson in the future, and I hope such discussions can focus on facts and that edit warring is avoided.JdeJ (talk) 16:45, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I do not place less weight on the principle he has invented; I place no weight on it at all; neither does anybody else. It is, per the discussion linked to, a temporary expedient, for places for which we have no other evidence whatever what they should be called. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:18, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

• Well, so much for the recent imposition by ArbCom of restrictions on Mr Anderson for unacceptable behaviour; the remedy was supposed to have the opposite effect. I note there have also been a number of flurries here concerning his habit of edit-warring to get his way, often on matters that might seem trivial to the broader community, but which upset other editors on the article talk page. Tony (talk) 04:45, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Should I follow the deeply serious example of this honourable and gallant editor - also restricted, who's still quarrelling over the formatting of dates? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:05, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Er, to Septentrionalis: (1) I think you wanted to link here (note the nonstandard form of the section header); & (2) I just reviewed the ArbCom ruling & I was surprised to find that his restrictions omit any mention of participating in the talk pages relating to WP:MOS. Since a number of people sanctioned by the ArbCom in that case are also explicitly banned from "any related discussions", I can only surmise that this silence means he is allowed to participate in these discussions. If that is an oversight, maybe the Arbitrators can correct themselves -- or the ruling be amended. -- llywrch (talk) 18:52, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

ASIO File

A community decision was made to redirect the article at AfD. A user has repeatedly reverted to the pre-redirected content and has unilaterally rejected the community decision. I have restored and protected the article to prevent this happening again. The user and I have some history, with which I will not bore you. However, I'd appreciate a check on my use of page protection by an uninvolved admin. Thanks, Papa November (talk) 12:42, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Appears to be Frei Hans (talk · contribs · block log). The Junk Police (reports|works) 13:01, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Concur with protection of redirect. I have also left a message on Frie Hans talkpage confirming your actions as correct. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:03, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

User Block Requested

The editor involved in the above page Frei Hans (talk · contribs) should be considered for a block based on the evidence and pattern of engagement submitted at this WQA filing. This kind of needling and disruption is intolerable. Eusebeus (talk) 14:50, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Papa November has already started an WP:RFC/U against the user (see Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Frei Hans). I would see what that accomplishes first in hopes that a block can be avoided in the interim. MuZemike 14:57, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to think that this RFC/U could encourage Frei Hans to reform his behaviour and that a block won't be necessary. I'd appreciate it if people could head across to the RFC and put in their 2p. Papa November (talk) 15:07, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

He filed an SPI just now - evidently he thinks Verbal and A Man in Black are your sockpuppets. If he continues to do this, especially if he doesn't respond to the RfC, a block may have to be made, hopefully only a short one to stop his disruption. Dougweller (talk) 16:37, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

He's refusing to comment at the RFC and is just updating his SPI to include every user who warns him. Can an uninvolved SPI clerk please make an assessment ASAP on this, please? Papa November (talk) 17:42, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm rather surprised I haven't wound up on that list yet.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:56, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm giving him twenty minutes more. If he doesn't come up with anything, I'm just gonna' close it as disruptive. If anyone would rather skip the wait, I won't complain. Watch that you don't jinx it, Sarek. lifebaka++ 17:57, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

*cough* This is kinda' ridiculous now. It appears my generosity has been rewarded. Could someone just close the fiasco quickly? lifebaka++ 18:09, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

← OK, there are now ten very well established, totally unconnected users on that list. This is pure disruption. Could someone please make an assessment ASAP before he manages to unveil our evil conspiracy? Papa November (talk) 18:10, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

What the heck? I gave him advice (based on the WQA filing) this morning, and yet I don't make his list of obvious Socks? Where's the justice??! FFS, this sucks! (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 18:21, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Such is life. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 20:37, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Blocked

I've blocked for 24 hours. Sorry to those who didn't want to see a block here, but this seriously didn't look like stopping otherwise. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 18:13, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

OK, hopefully the 24 hours will give him time to reflect and give me time to finish writing my thesis! Papa November (talk) 18:17, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Abce2|Free LemonadeOnly 25 cents!(Sign here) 18:18, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Good block. The SPI filing out of retaliation is total nonsense. --Caspian blue 18:20, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

He did a tit-for-tat WQA filing this morning too ... don't forget that (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 18:22, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Do we need to add Caspian Blue and Bwilkins to the check user request???---Balloonman 18:25, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I bet if we CU'd Balloonman, we'd find out he really is Spartacus! Big Bird (talk • contribs) 18:28, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

...or that User:Joey the Mango is User:Abductive (see Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Abductive/Archive). MuZemike 18:41, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

• At a guess, it would seem we are dealing with someone who has some sort of mental illness. Hans Adler made some persuasive comments to that effect at the RFC/U. Perhaps out of respect and us all generally not being douchebags who mock mentally unstable people we should wind this down and stop with the jokey? → ROUX ₪ 18:34, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

• UM... could we NOT diagnose other users please? It's terrifically rude and inappropriate. Comment on behaviours, not on people. You know better, I'm sure. (asking others to be calm is goodness... asking others to be calm because the victim is mentally ill (in your opinion)... not good. Thanks) ++Lar: t/c 11:27, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Since it's only a temporary block, we should facilitate a way for Frei Hans to allow him to respond to the RFC/U on his talk page until the block expires. If nobody opposes by the time I finish lunch and get back home, I'll boldly facilitate that. MuZemike 18:37, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

At this point I should make a note: he already feels that a whack of people are ganging up on him. The RFC/U is not going to help that belief. I'm one of the most patient folks, and really am having trouble with the behaviours here. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 18:42, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

What is our other option then after the block expires? I think it's safe to say that the SPI accusations et al are likely to continue tomorrow, so what process do we follow to avoid further disruption or, at the very least, what do we do if and when this happens again? Big Bird (talk • contribs) 18:48, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

The only option is to indef block if the disruption continues. Blocking is not a punishment but rather a protection of the encyclopedia. It doesn't matter whether the user has a mental illness or not if they are being absolutely disruptive and are unwilling or unable to modify their behavior. An indef block is the only way to prevent this type of thing from going on if they come off of their block and are not at all willing or able to stop the disruptive actions. Mental illness or not, disruption of this sort can not be allowed to continue without action; we can try to accomodate someone who has a problem, and be more patient with behavior than with a simple troll/vandal, but if a user's actions are consistantly disruptive, they need to be indef blocked, whether they are trying to be disruptive or honestly cannot help it. The Seeker 4 Talk 19:20, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh, the irony

User:Free Hans has been blocked as a sockpuppet of user:Frei Hans. Let's be vigilant! Papa November (talk) 23:18, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

That's block evasion (see Free Hans' edit, which has clearly occurred during the block) and hence warrants a reset and/or extension of Frei Hans' current block. MuZemike 00:10, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

...and now re-blocked 31h. MuZemike 00:16, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Reset, 31 hours. Gwen Gale (talk) 00:16, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Why not indef block him? Or checkuser back FH? The Junk Police (reports|works) 02:20, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Looks like that'll come soon enough. Meanwhile he's put up an unblock request. Gwen Gale (talk) 02:37, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

CheckUser request

Per User talk:Frei Hans, I have boldly went ahead and requested a CheckUser on the two accounts, just in case someone else is doing a number here. MuZemike 07:11, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I have a reasonable belief that Free and Frei are not the same person, merely someone trying to get Frei into additional trouble. A wise CU would compare the findings for Free Hands to a few of their recent mortal enemies, if possible. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 10:36, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a very wise CU but I am working on it. Can you enhance the SPI with who those "mortal enemies" are? ++Lar: t/c 11:41, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll have to admit I'm not happy about that terminology. Bwilkins, I'd like to know who you think they are also. Dougweller (talk) 11:46, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I think Frei Hans has suspicions about all the people he listed at the SPI above. If you see any merit in checking my account, be my guest. However, I don't think we should pander to his conspiracy theory unless you see it as being necessary. Papa November (talk) 12:08, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

"Mortal enemies"? "Conspiracy theories"? I don't think this kind of wording helps, please try to put things more neutrally, y'all. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:12, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Anyway I wrapped up the check. Free != Frei. No grounds for further checks presented, and I adjudge it unlikely anyway. ++Lar: t/c 12:36, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry if the wording was considered bad (too much Transformers 2...at least it wasn't a Meagan Fox comment) ... Frei Hand filed SPI's against a number of users. I will put $10 down that one of them, or someone with whom he is having the content dispute, is Free Hand, done as an attempt to discredit Frei. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:32, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Would anyone like to own up to that now before we find out who you are? Gwen Gale (talk) 16:41, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Possible that this may very well be a sock of Macromonkey (talk · contribs), as a similarly-named account was just created (User:Bullrangifer) to discredit User:BullRangifer). MuZemike 00:18, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I think that this type of situation does justify a fishing expedition of among all those who have been involved in this case, even myself. Creating such a sockpuppet in this type of situation is a very serious matter, and justice must be done. They must be found and suffer the consequences. Start fishing, and do it fast. Note that none of this excuses Frei Hans for his actions and extreme bad faith, but whoever did this knows better. I'm not sure that Frei Hans has the ability to know better, and that he has already shown that he is unsuitable for this environment. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:19, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Macromonkey. MuZemike 00:42, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

That's a start, but I don't see any evidence of enmity between Macromonkey and Frei Hans. Of course he could still have done it as a mischievous prank, just for the heck of it. That's the essence of much vandalism.

No, the most likely way to find the prankster is to do what the police would do - look at who has been in conflict with Frei Hans, or who has criticized him, especially recently, myself included. This is the only logical method, and it's what is usually done in such situations in the real world. Let's do it here. When a sock has been proven to be a Joe Job in such a touchy situation, then the perpetrator must be found. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:50, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I have tweaked my previous comment as it was apparently ambiguous. I've chosen the word "among". -- Brangifer (talk) 00:54, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

You're right. It came back negative. I saw the one-letter differences and the disruptive-only nature of both accounts and thought I saw a connection. MuZemike 05:54, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Longer block possibly required

After the user has been unblocked, it appears he went right back to the behavior he was blocked for, assuming bad faith of several admins and calling me a sock. Please discuss his new bad-faith and baseless accusations.— Dædαlus 06:49, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Diffs? → ROUX ₪ 06:54, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

User:Frei Hans is upset; he was screwed by the 'Free Hans' account and is venting on his talk page. I've advised him to drop the sock allegations and focus on the RFC/U. Daedalus sure isn't helping things over there and should go away. Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:37, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Admins vs contributors

Misplaced Pages has a funny culture. Since this is your first edit since August 2008 and only have 15 edits from August 2008, some may accuse you of something. I do not think your grievance will get very far. New users are not given the same weight as some others. Whether this is right is a different question. There are a number of essays on the topic, such as protecting the wrong version, cabal, etc. A lot of alphabet soup like WP:JARGON, WP:SOUP, WP:SHUTUPNEWBIE, WP:SHUTUPADMIN, etc. Good luck! Keep on writing (or maybe stop writing if trying to write provokes anger). User F203 (talk) 00:08, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• I wonder who you're a sock of. → ROUX ₪ 00:18, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

It is true that anonymous users do much good and provide valuable content, but they also provide the largest amount of cruft, spam, POV-pushing, disruption and general annoyance. Someone have to work keeping that at bay and mostly only registered users do that job. ·Maunus·ƛ· 00:35, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

RFCU or ArbCom would be a better choice

Jay, complaining about administrators to the administrators board is usually a waste of time, for various reasons. Either draft and post an RfC about the admins that you're having problems with, or else take it directly to ArbCom via a RfAR. If you draft an RfC, remember that you need to have tried to resolve the matter first via posts on the userpages of the admins in question. It would also be better if another editor has done the same, so that your RfC can be certified by two users. Good luck. Cla68 (talk) 02:01, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Jay Waxman indeed seems too knowledgeable of Misplaced Pages in contrast to his sporadic appearances. However he raises a valid point. I see William M. Connolley (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) again is brought up to ANI for his another questionable conducts. After WMC removed several editors' opinions, he was not only engaged in edit-warring with AncientObserver (talk · contribs) and Wikieditor06 (talk · contribs) on Talk:Ancient Egyptian race controversy to remove AncientObserver's comments "3 times" but also quarreled with the former and then blocked him "as an involved admin". What a nice....block (?) again in a row after the fiasco caused by his other two controversial blocks. The matter is definitely beyond ANI and RFC/U, so this must be dealt by the ArbCom.--Caspian blue 02:30, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I know WMC has been involved in arbcom rulings before... would one of the remedies not apply to these cases? --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs 02:36, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about the past RFC/U and ArbCom cases on him in detail, but just found them.--Caspian blue 02:50, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/William M. Connolley

Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/William M. Connolley 2 (due to certification matters, it was userfied)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Climate change dispute

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Climate change dispute 2

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Geogre-William M. Connolley

Solely in relation to this: "Let users generate content, and let the admins maintain wikipedia." - This isn't a valid distinction. Everyone can (and should) generate content. Everyone can (and should) do maintenance. Admin tools permit certain additional actions, but so does rollback, the ability to code bots, Twinkle, AWB and a host of other things. Euryalus (talk) 02:44, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I notified all of the mentioned editors/admins with {{ANI-notice|Ancient Egyptian race controversy}}, but you should've done that after you initiated the thread here. That is a common courtesy--Caspian blue 03:10, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice Caspian Blue. I do not yet know the ins and outs of Misplaced Pages but I do feel that WMC has been irresponsible with his Admin decisions. Perhaps I was being a bit defensive with my responses but I think it's ironic that I end up getting blocked for a conflict that he instigated. I hadn't run into any problems with Admins on Misplaced Pages until Dab got an Admin to revert and protect this page. This situation is out of hand and needs immediate attention. AncientObserver (talk) 04:15, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

The complaints about Dougweller, Akhilleus and Dbachmann seem completely without foundation. Ancient Egyptian race controversy is a highly problematic article,which has been heavily edited by the constantly multiplying socks of Muntuwandi and has been discussed multiple times here. It has been very hard to police. Caspian blue seems to be using this case as a way of getting at WMC for the block of his wikifriend ChildofMidnight: his intervention has very little to do with the afrocentrist issues involved. Mathsci (talk) 06:01, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Agreed with Mathsci. The admins are doing what they're supposed to be doing: not mollycoddling POV-pushers. This is a bunch of hot air. → ROUX ₪ 06:07, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. And, for the record, although the subject is one I try to stay away from as it is so frustrating and the pov pushers have more stamina than I do, it is definitely not one about which I know nothing. I moderate a serious Egyptology mailing list and am even more heavily involved with a website dealing with such subjects among many others. In this case I was acting only as an editor with some knowledge of the subject. Dougweller (talk) 11:03, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Jay, that is indeed how it's supposed to go. Admins don't wield tools to win content disputes, period, and any admin who is found to have done so should be compelled (by personal recognizance ideally, failing that by ArbCom) to divest themselves of the tools. On the other hand, sometimes it's a social network problem, in that people cultivate friendships/alliances with folks who will help them out on the basis of the relationship, rather than the merits of the case. This is a more pernicious and insidious problem, IMHO. Jclemens (talk) 06:06, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, Jay Waxman could be another sleeper sock account of Muntuwandi, looking at the editing history. Mathsci (talk) 06:09, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, socking and admin tool abuses are clearly different stories. I have no problem with other admins in good standing. However, if WMC is again reported to ArbCom (pretty likely much so), that is no doubt that his miseuses of the tool (in the case to AncientObserver) would be mentioned. --Caspian blue 12:38, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure many admins get complaints logged against them, but WMC's name certainly seems to turn up frequently, doesn't it? Ironically, he's among those who wants Docu defrocked over his refusal to use a normal signature. It will be interesting to see which of those two, if either, gets defrocked first. Baseball Bugs carrots 13:14, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

There is definite abuse going on here. I am not going to go as far as to accuse Admins of being racist. But are these actions biased and an abuse of power? Absolutely. I have repeatedly ask for specific examples of "POV-pushing fringe theories" and so far been ignored. Can Ice Cold Beer even point to a Misplaced Pages rule that justifies his action? If not this action needs to be reversed. I am tired of being pushed around and mislead like a rabbit chasing a carrot attached to a string. How can you justify banning editors for 6 months who have contributed months of work to an article and then participated in the discussion page to reach a consensus on the content? Enough is enough. Will someone with some integrity please step in and fix this? AncientObserver (talk) 17:45, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

caspian blue are you trying to give wmc a warning or a hidden sort of threat???...dimitri before today you have not edtied since july 2008 thats a long time between edits...man i know i have not been no wiki saint but it's clear there are socks abound and they are here trying to bolster a case aginst some sort of reversial of a "TEMPORARY" bann on a couple of fringe theory editors--Wikiscribe (talk) 01:59, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Namecalling isn't nice, Wikiscribe. If you are going to support our ban then why don't you point out evidence of us pushing fringe theories? We have reached a consensus on the recent version of the article it is there for everyone to see and we have been banned on bogus charges. I agree with you, you aren't a saint because a saint does not support people abusing their authority. That's what crooks do. We're going to have to take this up with Arbcom. Surely there is someone there with common sense who has the authority to lift this bogus ban. AncientObserver (talk) 02:14, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

This already went to arbcom

I've been watching this dispute for a while since stumbling across Muntuwandi and his socking activities (something interesting has come up concerning Jay Waxman, but I can't say anything for sure yet). However, what I think is best for this article right now is to apply this little arbitration remedy to both sides of this dispute to get this article looked at by people with fresh eyes and no emotional attachment to afrocentrism or Egyptology topics. This would effectively incorporate the following users (not everyone who would be affected, I don't know this debate too much):

• AncientObserver (talk · contribs)
• Wdford (talk · contribs)
• Lusala lu ne Nkuka Luka (talk · contribs)
• Big-dynamo (talk · contribs)
• Taharqa (talk · contribs)

I'm sure there are others and I might be picking out only users on one side of the debate because these are only the names (other than the myriad Muntuwandi socks, as Muntuwandi is already banned from the project), but this may (or may not) solve article problems currently.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 05:26, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I have banned the following four users from Ancient Egyptian race controversy and its talk page:

• AncientObserver (talk · contribs) for six months
• Wdford (talk · contribs) for six months
• Lusala lu ne Nkuka Luka (talk · contribs) for six months
• Big-dynamo (talk · contribs) for eighteen months

After a review of the article and its talk page, I have discovered a pattern of POV-pushing fringe theories from those four users. Ice Cold Beer (talk) 09:34, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

This was very long overdue. I've read (or at least looked at) several non-partisan books on the topic, but my attempts to keep the article degenerating again into an ostensible scientific, but actually ideological debate about 'race' were repelled by the editors that now have been banned from the article. I am not saying that Moreschi and Dbachmann have an accurate grip on the topic, but at least one can discuss with these people. If I wasn't currently engaged in a controversy in another article, I would get to work on the topic right away. Zara1709 (talk) 10:36, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

So after everything we have done to try to settle this dispute rationally we are all blocked for POV-pushing of fringe theories? I would like to see the actual evidence of this because all I have ever done is tried to get along with people and provide credible references to Misplaced Pages articles. This is absolutely ridiculous. AncientObserver (talk) 11:26, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Ah, the editing pattern look like Muntuwandi. Yes,  Confirmed Jay Waxman (talk · contribs) as Muntuwandi (talk · contribs). Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 12:18, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

(Reposted from elsewhere)Then why wasn't this said via a warning a month ago before AncientObserver and the other banned persons get banned today? It appears to me that this is more of people lurking in the shadows and refusing to participate in a talk page, but wanting to maintain and defend a specific point of view. While I do not agree with the way the article has been (re)written over the last 3 or 4 months (it is too long), I think this action is merely an example of abuse as opposed to any true intent to make the article better. First of all, the administrators involved while claiming to want to protect the article are allowing edits by banned sock puppets(wikiscribe). Why was all the recent activity allowed, along with attempts to generate consensus if the end result was to not change anything and then ban those doing the work of making it better? If that is going to be considered acceptable administrative behavior, it may be necessary to escalate this further. This is even more asinine considering that the last change was something I personally wrote in the talk page, but never actually edited on the article. Seems to me there is a lot here to be called into question.

Bottom line, attempts to hide from the fact that the controversy over the race of the ancient Egyptians started with racism in American society. It goes to the core of the foundations of modern Egyptology which is based largely on European and American scholarship(not Egyptians). Therefore, trying to cover up the fact of racism at the core of the development of Egyptology and Anthropology only reinforces the controversy. My opinion on the article is that we don't need two pages of talk about genetics. There is a controversy. It has been in Egyptology since the beginning and continues in many various ways. Keep it simple and to the point and stop trying to turn the article into a way of slandering African scholars and African points of view in general. That is borderline racist and POV. The fact is that the greatest recent controversy on this topic has come about due to the works of a white author Martin Bernal, not any African scientist. This disproves the idea that only Africans view the ancient Egyptians a certain way. There is no consensus on the biology and genetics of the ancient Egyptians, as various scientists have written recent studies both for and against the African affinities of the ancient populations. Misplaced Pages is not Egyptology, it does not represent Egyptology it represents the views of the people editing the article. Abusing administrative privileges to push a POV that tries to pretend to represent scholarly consensus is not only invalid but a violation of wiki policy. Misplaced Pages consensus does not equate to scholarly consensus. Anyone can edit an article and anyone can have a point of view on a topic, whether or not they have articles and books referenced that support it. In order to avoid this petty back and forth between the two sides OF the debate, I suggest that the article be deleted or simply reflect the facts of the controversy in all its forms over the last 200 years and that includes the racist expositions of Egyptian mummies across america by the likes of George Gliddon. http://books.google.com/books?id=g4WalMw26IkC&pg=PA48&lpg=PA48&dq=gliddon+egypt&source=bl&ots=cnYLNfPVVU&sig=1RZE0aZzL0aJcSc1yl0Bqj9f6Rg&hl=en&ei=zmNTSrbyFIioNtWPzeAI&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=13. Race and racism is controversial and has always been, including the race and racism of early Egyptologists and anthropologists instrumental in laying the foundations for modern Egyptology and Anthropology. Samuel George Morton is considered by some the father of modern anthropology. He was a devout racist. http://en.wikipedia.org/Egyptomania Trying to keep these facts out of the article are only evidence of a POV on the part of some editors and administrators in trying to push their own views and nothing else. In fact such actions can even be construed as racist in themselves as trying to lump all people of certain backgrounds together as representing the same views or having the same mind. This deserves to be escalated especially if some people think they can use administrative privileges in a borderline racist and abusive manner.

Big-dynamo (talk) 14:33, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

So that's how racists do things. You block an article purely because you don't agree with the content, you revert the content to a crippled version for no good reason, you demand that involved editors must thrash it out on the talk page after just one racist disrupts the article, and when the involved editors reach a consensus on the talk page which you don't agree with then you just block them from the talk page as well. Nice - typical redneck behaviour. Anybody who regards as POV any relevant content that is heavily referenced to credible sources is themselves pushing their own counter POV, and an admin who bans editors purely because they disagree with content is blatantly abusive. But as that great racist G Dubya Bush himself publicly declared, power is there to be abused. Wdford (talk) 16:03, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Ice Cold Beer, I would like to find out what your criteria is for determining a "pattern of POV-pushing fringe theories". How do you know that they are POV fringe theories, are you versed in anthropology or Egyptology to know what the mainstream theories are and what fringe theories are. It would be great if you could elaborate, and also give some examples of the pattern of fringe theories that you have identified. I think it has already been established above, that administrators are not "experts" on content and that some of the best editors are in fact anonymous.

Secondly we should note that mainstream popular culture is sometimes at odds with mainstream science. So care should be taken when labeling anything as fringe, as some of these "fringe" theories may actually be accepted in mainstream science. The best example, is human evolution which may be fringe in religious societies, but is factual in scientific circles. The basic point Ice Cold Beer, is that you may be surprised at what you are calling fringe, may not be so.Chris Mellencamp (talk) 16:15, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Just because most of the good contribs are anonymous, that doesn't mean that most of the anonymous contribs are good. SHEFFIELDSTEEL

And additionally even if most anonymous contributions were good it wouldn't mean that these particular ones were.·Maunus·ƛ· 17:31, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

There is definite abuse going on here. I am not going to go as far as to accuse Admins of being racist. But are these actions biased and an abuse of power? Absolutely. I have repeatedly asked for specific examples of "POV-pushing fringe theories" and so far been ignored. Can Ice Cold Beer even point to a Misplaced Pages rule that justifies his action? If not this action needs to be reversed. I am tired of being pushed around and mislead like a rabbit chasing a carrot attached to a string. How can you justify banning editors for 6 months who have contributed months of work to an article and then participated in the discussion page to reach a consensus on the content? This Gestapo nonsense needs to stop! Enough is enough. AncientObserver (talk) 17:51, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

User:AncientObserver

While patrolling pages with recent changes, I come across the aforementioned user removing a sock template tagged on his/her user page (http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User:AncientObserver&diff=prev&oldid=300836685) and have since reverted the very apparent whitewash. Same time, I have tagged him/her with a level 3 warning with regards to this matter on his talk page. Is it me or is it the time now to think about the actions of this editor? Admins, could this is be another case of a Quack is a Quack is a Quack? I stand to be corrected. --Dave1185 (talk) 18:57, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Please follow the appropriate procedure if you suspect someone is a sock puppet. Putting sock puppet accusations on user pages is abusive and amounts to a personal attack. If you do it again without proof you will be blocked. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:12, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• FYI, take a look closely at the user's page edit history and you will noticed that it was placed there by User:Stifle, who is an admin. Don't offload something you don't have a clear idea of onto another editor if you never bothered to check it through in the first place, makes it look really, really bad on 'ya. --Dave1185 (talk) 19:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• My understanding is that a user can edit their own userspace. Launching accusations and attacks on adversaries in editing disputes is highly inappropriate. If there is socking going on, take it to the appropriate board for investigation. There's no need to launch this kind of smear campaign, just follow procedure. Your uncivil and antagonistic comments on that user's page are wholly unhelpful. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:29, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Follow procedure? It's now at AIV, there. --Dave1185 (talk) 19:32, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I am getting tired of Dave's blatant stalking, intimidation and harassment. He is constantly coming to my page everytime I get in a conflict with another editor and leaves condescending remarks under the guise that he is enforcing Misplaced Pages policy. This editor has a personal vendetta against me for what I do not know. I came to Misplaced Pages to contribute to the articles. I had no idea I would have to become an expert on Misplaced Pages policy in order to keep from getting permanently blocked from the site but it looks like that is what I'm going to have to do because it has become clear that my presence is unwanted by certain POV-pushing editors and Admins. AncientObserver (talk) 20:01, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• Hello, Dave1185. Long time no see. You know pretty well of "sockpuppetry accusations" without evidences is just smearing one's reputation from your own experience. Please be reminded of the experience and refrain from doing that. Thank you.--Caspian blue 14:44, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Radical POV pushing and rewriting of history

I have reviewed the article talk page and uncovered a pattern of abuse and radical POV pushing. WMC and others are pushing fringe theories and attempting to rewrite history. They are repurposing the aritcle to advance the theory that research into the ethnic and racial background of the ancient Egyptian civilization originated with Afrocentrism in the 1950s and 1960s. This abuse has gone so far as to censor all content and sources that predate the afrocentrism movement. The abusive editors have tried to rewrite history and I don't see any possible outcome other than their being banned from disrupting work on the article. Editors working collaboratively in good faith can develop an article that covers the complete history and debate over the subject based on the best sources. We shouldn't allow fringe arguments and the rewriting of history to distort Misplaced Pages's coverage. Obviously the idea that investigations of Egyptian ethnicity and race started in the 1960s is completely fantastic and absurd, and we shouldn't allow this type of anti-intellectual censorship and distortion to damage Misplaced Pages's integrity. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:01, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• I'm in full agreement with this. The question is who if anyone is going to do something about it? Anyone who looks objectively at the situation can see that there is no justification for reverting this article, protecting it and then blocking users who contributed constructively to reaching a consensus on the talk page. The fact that so many experienced Misplaced Pages editors and Admins have been involved in this blatant censorship is disturbing. AncientObserver (talk) 20:08, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Uninvolved Party But Something Needs To Be Said

The point of having administrators is to maintain the content on Misplaced Pages and to help improve the encyclopaedia. This means blocking users that threaten the good nature of Misplaced Pages and protecting pages when necessary. But no admin should be abusing their powers and using intimidation tatics to win the respect of other editors. By consensus this would be unacceptable. The admin who reverted AO's blanking of his userpage acted against policy that allows contributors to do whatever with their userspace (except in rare extreme cases), even if it means removing a template added by an admin. He reverted the blanking to recover the sockpuppet template and then left a malicious warning on AO's talk page. Whether AO is a sock or not is one thing, but using intimidation and overpower tactics is unacceptable and edits by admins such as this one should not be left untreated.

AO may be a sock. AO may not be a sock and indeed a well-meaning contributor. But the truth about AO's identity is unlikely to affect the actions of admins who appear to POV push and then block and warn good contributors because they want control over a particular subject and will do anything to ensure that their POV is maintained. POV pushing is not only against one of Misplaced Pages's main policies but it is also morally wrong and does nothing to help the neutral nature of Misplaced Pages. Also, admins should cease ganging up on hard working contributors simply because they are closely affiliated with the admin involved. Misplaced Pages is all editors working together to help build an encyclopedia. It is not a game of "our team of friends" versus "that team of friends". If an admin abuses their powers, act accordingly. Supporting a wrong-doing admin simply because you enjoy working with them is not a good reason to team up on hard working contributors who are trying to help build this encylopedia. If an editor is in the wrong and the involved admin needs a neutral third opinion, fine. But a third opinion is not simply "I'll second so-and-so because he is an admin and because this guy isn't". As proven in the past, being an admin or not being an admin has nothing to do with how respectful someone is over Misplaced Pages policies. And warning, blocking and protecting pages to prevent your POV from being overshadowed by Misplaced Pages's more notable and meaningful NPOV is not exactly the best way to use the admin tool's that you are privileged of using.--The Legendary Sky Attacker 23:27, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• Thank you for saying what needed to be said, Sky Attacker. But at this point I think several Admins need to be held accountable for their actions. Misplaced Pages has a serious problem with Admins abusing their power if the activity of William M. Connolley and others is any indication of the way Admins normally operate. It must be against Misplaced Pages policy to gang up on editors in order to censor content on articles. I will read up on Misplaced Pages policy to learn how to handle situations like this in the future. AncientObserver (talk) 23:58, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Ancient Egyptian race controversy

Several editors have been banned from this article and one User:Big-dynamo has have brokened the ban by editing the talk page--Wikiscribe (talk) 20:28, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

For background, see also #This already went to arbcom (and related sections) above. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:28, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm still waiting on a justification for our banning. We didn't do anything wrong. AncientObserver (talk) 22:48, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Unilateral banning of everyone one side of an editing dispute

Can this ban be reviewed ? Ice Cold Beer stepped in and declared a ban on all parties on one side of an editing dispute. I've never seen anything like it, but it strikes me as being pretty outrageous. ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:34, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

There is already a discussion at wp:ani#Admins vs contributors and now here wp:ani#Ancient Egyptian race controversy related to the editing conflict. But I would like clarification on this particular issue of an admin issuing a ban like this. Or do I need to consult Arbcom about it? ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:37, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Per Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Dbachmann#Article probation, "any uninvolved admin" can do this on this article. I'm guessing now, but I suppose the place to appeal the ban, or its length, would be WP:AE. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:42, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I have repeatedly asked Ice Cold Beer for his justification for banning us and he has failed to answer. It looks like we will need to take the next step. AncientObserver (talk) 23:23, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

hmmmm this seems to be a patern at this article,problem editors get banned finally and than parties involved cry and cry until they find a sypathetic admin to take up their mantra and whip and badger the banning admin in submission .. a similar thing happened a while back to a constant problem editor user:deeceevoice and by some miracle got her ban lifted with the same tatics going on here...by the way childofmidnight the out of the blue interest you have in this issue you seem to have a similar behavior patern as deeceevoice reverting admins revisions twice in this case and trying to undermine admins authority not to mention your prose in your edit summaries matching deeceevoice to a t...i think somebody should check this user for being a sock of deeceevoice particlary because there has been a horde of sock puppets at this article--Wikiscribe (talk) 23:37, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Certainly banning is an extreme measure, and doing so against multiple editors on one side of an editing dispute with no diffs or substantial evidence showing disruptive editing of any sort is wholly inappropriate. I checked on the article and the article talk page, and the disruption is clearly coming from editors who haven't been banned. For example you continue to cast aspersions and false insinuations against me. These personal attacks contrast with the discussion of article content and sources by AncientObserver and others who have worked on the article. The editors who have been inappropriately banned without evidence or consensus seem also, by the way, to have the content policies on their side. The POV being pushed on the article by the other side of the content dispute is that the debate over the ethnic background of the ancient egyptians originated with Afrocentric scholarship in the 1960s. This is absurd nonsense easily disproven by abundant sources discussing the issue that predate the Afrocentrism movement by more than 100 years (not to mention earlier non-Western scholarship). ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:56, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikiscribe, where is your evidence that we are the problem editors? Go ahead and show us the evidence which is consist with Ice Cold Beer's reason for banning us. I challenge you to do so as I do him. No, it is plainly obvious that you and your cohorts are the ones causing problems, POV-pushing, breaking Misplaced Pages guidelines and abusing administrative powers. And as far as sockpuppets are concerned I have heard several accusations that you have already been punished for that specific violation. Perhaps someone needs to check you. Disruptive editors is one thing but I am disturbed by the number of abusive Admins that have come out of the woodwork over this. They need to be punished for their transgressions. AncientObserver (talk) 00:10, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

You can keep trying to flip this around to me all you want AO,i was not the one banned than after the ban took effect,all of a sudden, a slew of new editors or old editors (who were dormant for longs stretches but suddenly popped up)came to continue the banned edtors mantra with full bias,that smells of socks..and please do not suggest that i have no right to suspect anybody of sock puppetry particulary with the current circumstances around the article,you suggest that people have the right to engage in sock puppetry against me jsut because i did it once and not even at the article in question, you don't know the details around my case but i served my week block and thats that,also i could bring up the fact that CoM has a little bit of a history of being disruptive as well like a certain sombody else..like i said this is the same tatic that was imployed when deeceevoice finally got banned from this article people rallied there wiki friends some which included admins and banged the drum until they found admins who were able undermine the banning admins actions,so is to whip and and flail the banning admin into submission.As a matter of fact dmitri yankovich below has just been blocked as yet another sock puppet,say what you will about me being a sock,but what i did was not no where near the degree of going on here--Wikiscribe (talk) 17:27, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

These editors have volunteered their time to edit and maintain this article. They have added new material, copyedited and used the talk page extensively. There efforts are commendable and we actually need more dedicated editors like them. Whenever admins are asked to help out in a content dispute, they refuse to do any research on the topics to help resolve the disputes. So we should not be banning people who are willing to contribute their time and effort to research these topics. Blocks and bans should be issued to users:

• Who are consistently uncivil
• Who refuse to cooperate with other users
• Who pursue a hateful agenda
• Engage in excessive edit warring.

Blocks and Bans should never apply to users who are helping to build wikipedia. Ice Cold Beer appears to have acted prematurely and not given adequate thought to his decision. Dimitri Yankovich (talk) 00:49, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Dimitri - I'm curious. Did you edit under any other user name between July 19, 2008, when you created this account, and today? Cardamon (talk) 06:00, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I think it is very unlikely CoM and DC are the same guy. If someone thinks otherwise, they should take it to an SPI, and present a lot more evidence than common interest in one particular article. Then, if they prove me wrong, maybe I really am Santa Claus. Otherwise, they should back off and focus on article content. Baseball Bugs carrots 00:53, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Where can we go to challenge our bannings? I am glad that other editors recognize Ice Cold Beer's error but we are still banned. AncientObserver (talk) 01:07, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

WP:AE - since the topic ban was given in the name of the Arbitration decision, Arbitration Enforcement is where you would need to appeal it. LadyofShalott 01:46, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I do believe deeceevoice is female. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 18:00, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

A quick note: I have responded to complaints by a couple of the banned users (and by extension, a couple of folks involved in the discussion here) on my talk page. I would also point out that it doesn't make sense to have the banned users challenge their bans on AE when they're already being discussed here. Ice Cold Beer (talk) 05:59, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't know where the appropriate place is to voice our complaints but what I do know is that what you did is WRONG. WMC and like minded Admins and editors are conspiring to protect a biased scope of that page rather than allowing a more accurate broader scope to be maintained and you are helping them by banning choice editors from contributing to the discussion. None of us are pushing for the page to promote fringe theories. All of our contributions have been in the interest of presenting a fair and balanced account of the controversy which does include Afrocentric scholarship and I challenge you to prove any differently. What I believe you are trying to do is get rid of us in a deceitful manner in order to allow the other editors to control the page in a way that you approve of. How else do you explain banning users for months without a shred of evidence that they are doing what you accuse them of? I don't believe for a second that an uninvolved Admin would do this and if we have to take this to ArbCom or wherever else to challenge our banning and get the matter resolved we will. Your action is more than poor judgment it is malicious and deceitful. AncientObserver (talk) 16:25, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Without judgment on any item or editor, I think there are far too many issues and participants within these threads to find any resolution here at AN/I. I would imagine many of these things will need to be resolved at a higher/different venue than this AN board is capable of. I'd suggest that these topics be transported to RFC/U or more likely RFAR. Just saying. — Ched :  ?  06:45, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

there is nothing to see here. This was never a bona fide "editing dispute" to begin with, and Ice Cold Beer (talk · contribs) has only shown that they are willing to be the long overdue admin with balls to end this pathetic episode by taking the time-honoured approach of banning the trolls. --dab (𒁳) 17:34, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

User has made a threat, and is displaying ownership of articles

I am making this report because of the actions of User:Jerzeykydd, and his personal feelings of ownership and inappropriate behavior arising because of ("I made every presidential election article that way I am planning on keeping it that way" part of message left on my talk page) related to a number of election articles. The user has also engaged in threatening behavior on my talk page User talk:Highground79 ("don't push it or I'll get pissed off") (comment came as part of message left on my talk page on 00:14, 1 July 2009). Since I have been on wikipedia only briefly the last few days I hadn't paid attention to it till now. While I am in now way frightened by the user there threat is not appropriate for wikipedia and I believe someone other then myself needs to make the user aware of this.

(Rough history of underlining problem: included for background) The underling issue which started all of this is the user in question and I have a disagreement over how to label parts of a section. The user has had it suggested to them by the User:Timmeh to start a discussion on the matter but has chosen instead to continue to edit war. the user insists via claims of ownership on labeling the results of presidential election article by state in a manner in which it appears as though equal weight is given to the "by county" results and "by congressional district" results as is given to the "statewide" while in some cases the user seem to accept Result (instead of "statewide", but will not accept election result)

My edits to the labels are attempting to distinguish the fact that only the statewide total is the election result (that which electoral votes are awarded for) The county and the congressional district results are a subset of the electorate and are less important (labels I attempted to include (results by congressional districts and results by county) because it doesn't matter who wins the most counties or congressional districts in most states (I'm trying to clarify this) the electoral votes are a all or nothing deal. While this may seem obvious to you wikipedia is used by people all over the world, and the our electoral college system is completely foreign to these users (it is important for the understanding of these users to distinguish the difference between the numbers that matter and the ones that do not). I would be happy to discuss this on the talk pages but the User:Jerzeykydd insists on edit waring and inadvertently is making it harder for users in other countries to understand what is the important (determining #'s) and what is essentially just an interesting fact. I know this is long winded but I wanted to explain what is going on and how it started. Highground79 (talk) 04:29, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Please provide diffs showing the issues you mention. Several would be good. Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:12, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

He's right. Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/Special:Contributions/Jerzeykydd, pick those diffs (which are "differences between one edit and another"), and post the URLs of those "diffs" here. There we might be able to get a better understanding of what is going on. Thank you, MuZemike 07:44, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I gave an edit-warring warning on the user, going into detail of what can happen if the user's reversions do not stop. MuZemike 08:00, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

An offending diff is here. Manning (talk) 08:28, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

That is nothing like what you've said. He's clearly said he does not want to edit war, and says that he works hard on the articles you two have a dispute on.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 09:23, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• Seek true consensus: Open a topic on the related talk-pages and seek other opinions of the election labels, to see if there is other support for your label-style. The U.S. has enormous voter-fraud problems (2000 Presidential Election), such as votes in precinct exceed the total residents, and in 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court ("Supreme crooks") denied the state of Florida a statewide recount, due to lack of time to "debate counting methods": however, all disputed ballots were database-encoded (not hand-recounted every time), so recounts were by computer which could recount all votes by all conceivable counting methods (within 2 days), and George Bush would have been "mathematically eliminated" as the loser of the election, regardless of any future debate. However, the Court justices were mainly Republican appointees, and hence 5-4 held the pro-Bush bias to stop the recount while Bush led. The fraud was so off-balance, Al Gore (who actually won Florida by thousands) referred to himself as the man who "was the next president of the U.S." (quote). I mention this real-world case because district-totals & county-totals help to detect the extent of voter fraud, so people in Iran, perhaps, might be interested to see real evidence of how judicial/voter-fraud won the U.S. 2000 election. Consider how other people might prioritize the election-numbers. -Wikid77 (talk) 10:41, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

This incident really should not have been brought up here. As noted above, it looks like Jerzeykydd is attempting to help gain consensus rather than edit war. The "threat" is a very vague one, and arguably not much of a threat at all. I've advised Highground on the correct steps to take to resolve the dispute. Timmeh 16:24, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Sanity check requested

I just deleted The Commune which I had salted previously (which was very cleverly evaded by a move request) as the article in no way asserts notability. There seems to be a series of related articles including other questionably notable socialist/anti imperalist groups. Anyway, I could use a sanity check on my action here, but it will have to be other admins since everything is all deleted.--Tznkai (talk) 04:46, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

A second opinion:

• The Commune - A group formed in November 2008 with a total membership of 12. No reliable references. Founded by two people whose claim to fame is also founding another non-notable activist groups. An appropriate A7 deletion, as notability wasn't even asserted.
• Alliance for Workers' Liberty - asserts notability and might have some valid references, though it needs a copyedit.
• Hands Off the People of Iran - asserts notability but should certainly be stubbed to reduce the screenloads of polemic and personal opinion. Let's see how the AfD goes. Euryalus (talk) 05:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

AWL and HOPI are pretty well known on the British left. Not sure why you'd want to delete them. Fences&Windows 20:50, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Not being immersed in British politics, I can tell you as a neutral reader that the HOPI article looks like non notable amateurish teenage pseduocommunism. Its incoherent, and there is no way to let me know if it is, or is not significant? I mean for that matter, how significant is the Brittish left, and is it so significant that an entity within that larger group that is well known to said larger group, is encyclopedic?

I have no freaking clue - but the article as written suggests that its vanity and bias.--Tznkai (talk) 23:39, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

The article as you nominated it was appallingly written, but Craftyminion tidied it up to rid it of that writing style and then I added some references, so it's not the same anymore. I'm not sure why you posted at AN/I about AWL and HOPI, what incident has occurred that needs admin attention? Fences&Windows 00:31, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

You didn't bring up AWL or HOPI here, Euryalus did. But what relation do they have to The Commune, the deleted article? All I see are unrelated UK far-left groups. Fences&Windows 00:34, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I found what is probably the same The Commune, who have a Wordpress blog and publish a pamphlet. They seem to have nothing formally to do with any other left-wing groups. Looks like some of them like Dave Spencer have been bouncing around between various groups for years. In what sense is there a "series of related articles"? Fences&Windows 00:44, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I see now. Spencer split from the AWL. He split from the Socialist Labour Party a decade ago too. Someone creating a non-notable splinter group doesn't make the parent group non-notable. Fences&Windows 00:52, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

My concern was shared possible authorship and similar writing problems, and at least the surface of notability problems. Thus the request for help/afd. Cause you know, totally outside of my expertise, but it looked suspicious, so I threw it to consensus generating processes and it seems things have been dealt with well. --Tznkai (talk) 01:40, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

"Corrected the spelling", "fixed the bad grammar", and "corrected or fixed the bad English"

Is anyone else having problems with these types of edits on the site? I keep running into these types of edits where they summaraize the edits with things like "corrected the spelling", "fixed the bad grammar", and "corrected the bad English" and stuff like that. If you go back and check the edits though the pages had proper English and grammar and the edits simply took out a whole bunch of things from the pages. Then you will sometimes see further edits to the same page by the same users going back to what is left on the page and putting spelling and grammar errors in it after the fact. This seems to be a fairly big problem right now. I first tried reporting users individually here that were doing this to which I got nowhere and it was decided that these were perfectly legit edits. Well then I think we need to have a discussion and look at this new style of "editing". It is obviously either some sort of new bot or some sort of new trolling and/or vandalism/abuse tactic that is being employed on Misplaced Pages. Wiki Greek Basketball (talk) 06:43, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

There are always edit summaries like that here and there (I've long found that words like bad, better and grammar in an edit summary are often a hint that more's afoot). Undo the edits, leave a note for the editor. Without diffs, there's not much for an admin to do here. Gwen Gale (talk) 11:47, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

That's what I've been trying to do but the edits get immediately reverted and endless times as well. Also the user talk pages never respond to you and just delete the messages you leave. I am pretty sure now that these are some sort of new bots that are vandalizing. Wiki Greek Basketball (talk) 07:21, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Diffs? Without diffs there's nothing to do. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:25, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

The diffs would still be there in the article history. I know the kind of thing you're referring to, but without a diff or even a specific article, there's nothing that can be done here. Baseball Bugs carrots 12:26, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

That kind of edit is indeed pretty common, often as a (very poor) cloaking device for blatant vandalism (for instance an edit summary reading "corrected spelling" when the actual edit was to replace the whole page with "Pooppooppooppoop" or similar). I suppose the rationale (if one may call it such) is that changes patrollers are all complete dimbulbs who will take the edit summary as legitimate without investigating why, for example, a spelling correction has changed the page size from 26,000 bytes to 17.

However I'm confused. Editors above are asking for diffs or at least some specific pages. I've looked through your edits in the hope that I could at least see an article where you've reverted this style of vandalism and I can't see one. So I'll join the clamour - please could you supply specific diffs to illustrate what you're saying? Tonywalton  12:48, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

This isn't exactly new is it? "Sneaky vandalism" is something that happens quite a lot, and the best we can do is hope the vandal fighters or the anti-vandal bots get them before it stays too long. The normal steps against vandalism should be followed, unless it's a bot or the same user(s) as Wiki Greek Basketball suggests. Chamal 13:02, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

But isn't it almost always "bad grammer"? Even when it's genuine? It's funny how often I see that. Dougweller (talk) 13:11, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I always check those out, always. Half will be vandalism and the other half, mostly "fixes" that are worse than what was already there. Put another way, an edit summary saying bad grammar will wontedly be spot on :) Gwen Gale (talk) 13:16, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

We've heard of blocks for vandalism and trolling. Is there a block type that's directed at writers who appear to have only learned English within the last week or two? Baseball Bugs carrots 13:20, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

It does seem more than a little ironic that Wiki Greek Basketball has come here complaining about others' edit summaries, when Wiki Greek Basketball never leaves edit summaries, instead spamming the histories of pages with swathes of unexplained microedits. Isn't leaving the same (i.e none) edit summary for large changes and small, for uncontroversial ones or contentious ones, just as misleading as leaving wilfully misleading ones? 87.113.26.43 (talk) 17:02, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I raised this just a few days ago: correcting the spelling - new troll approach. 'bot or just paranoia Andy Dingley (talk) 17:18, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Brad Polard (talk · contribs) and Bacon Man 832 (talk · contribs)

User:Thatcher made this comment yesterday after Stuart D. James (talk · contribs) was indef blocked for vandalism, personal attacks and impersonating an administrator. In Thatcher's comment, it was suggested that Brad Polard (talk · contribs), Bacon Man 832 (talk · contribs) and Art Sampson (talk · contribs) are the same person as Stuart D. James.

I think there may have initially been some confusion over Thatcher's initial comment where some people, myself included, thought the comment was meant merely as an observation of suspicious behaviour rather than confirmation that these accounts are related but Thatcher confirmed that they are indeed the same person. For that reason, even after Stuart D. James (talk · contribs) was indef-blocked, Brad Polard (talk · contribs) and Bacon Man 832 (talk · contribs) were allowed to keep editing and are still editing simultaneously and receiving multiple warnings for personal attacks against other users. Bacon Man 832 did receive an indef block which was overturned after he placed an unblock request but I believe the unblock request would have been denied had the unblocking admin been aware of the sockpuppetry. Art Sampson (talk · contribs) was indeffed for other reasons. I think an indef block on one of the two remaining accounts is in order (clear violation of WP:SOCK) and the other account, if we allow it to keep editing any further, should also be indeffed on sight should he create another sockpuppet. Big Bird (talk • contribs) 12:55, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Blocked all accounts. No sign this user is going to reform his/her ways. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 13:35, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Ring of related accounts

In handling some unblock requests today, I came across a bunch of accounts that are obviously linked. In order of account creation: Magnarot (talk · contribs), Floptchy (talk · contribs), Randomer789 (talk · contribs), Camponhoyle (talk · contribs), Idiot997 (talk · contribs), Chatter333 (talk · contribs). Camponhoyle was indef-blocked for vandalism, and Chatter333 and Randomer789 got caught in the autoblock. Randomer, Camponhoyle, Magnarot, and Floptchy were all involved in pushing for inclusion of Easiteach; Randomer and Magnarot both claimed to have no connection to Floptchy. Magnarot, Chatter333, and Idiot997 all started a "chat session" on User talk:Camponhoyle, and in Chatter333's unblock-auto request, Chatter333 claimed to not be Camponhoyle. Randomer789 and Camponholye also both got involved over Kim Sears and both made comments at User talk:Skitzouk, who nominated that page for deletion. I'm posting this for review because some of the edits seem to be valuable; plus, Jpgordon (who's very experienced) declined Chatter333's unblock-auto request but took no further action. Do people think there might be one account we can leave unblocked or block temporarily? I welcome any input. Mangojuice 17:29, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I ran across this when Idiot997 was auto-reported to UAA (and blocked). I would suggest leaving a note about what Misplaced Pages is not (specifically, not Myspace/Facebook) for the unblocked users and see where it goes from there. I would bet that they've had their laughs and won't edit any longer. TNXMan 17:43, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

All the accounts are blocked now. Mangojuice 18:05, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Should an admin take a controversial decision right before going AWOL?

The answer should be no, of course, but on the other hand there is no clear rule on this. I had requested the semi-protection of an article on a controversial subject of which i am the main author and whose content had never been disputed by established editors until an IP came along and tried to impose his POV (). The admin Nja247 (talk · contribs) overstepped the mark and made a full protection instead, asking for a debate and subsequent agreement on the talk page (). I made my point there () while telling the admin that he had gone OTT (). The - previsible - result is that nobody ever bothered to answer on the talk page, the matter being clear as cristal water, but what was definitely not previsible is that Nja247 has gone lost IRL or wherever right after taking a decision he should have discussed with the author of the request. This is how the worst kind of status quo is imposed upon others! --RCS (talk) 18:30, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Semi-protection is not supposed to be used to lock good faith IPs out of content disputes, so I would endorse this in general. Of course, I leave open the possibility that the IP is not acting in good faith; I haven't looked into it beyond your report.

As for the issue of the admin going AWOL (keeping in mind that we're volunteers, we don't need to request leave ;>) you can petition another admin (eg. at WP:RFUP) to review the talk page discussion to determine if consensus has emerged and the protection can be lowered. –xeno 18:34, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• Since the IPs did not come to the table to respond to your section, I've lowered the protection. If IPs refuse to discuss content disputes at the talk page, I would endorse semi. –xeno 18:42, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Xeno. I think your action is spot on and I would say this is resolved. I do wish to note to RCS however that it's odd that he found it OTT for me to protect the page (even though he requested it at WP:RFP, and as Xeno said, at the time it appeared to be a dispute and it would have been wrong to lock out the IP), but oddly RCS didn't think taking this minor issue to ANI to be OTT. There's a section at WP:RFP to request unprotection. Anyhow water under the bridge. Cheers, Nja 22:07, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Legal threats on talk page of Taleb

Please see the following edit: with edit comment "unlawful webstalking on the part of Ulner".

I would also like the following (old) edit deleted from Misplaced Pages: "The harassment situation is far more serious than you think, which is why we worry about such obsessive users as Ulner . Taleb and the Taleb family has been getting threats by unemployed finance people who have been stalking them both PHYSICALLY and on the WEB. These threats have been reported in the WSJ journal. <ref.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123457658749086809.html?mod=rss_topics_davos#articleTabs%3Darticle</ref> —Preceding unsigned comment added by IbnAmioun (talk • contribs) 08:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)", see ]. I have sent a message to IbnAmioun asking him to delete that sentence, but he has not given any reply, see ]. Ulner (talk) 18:46, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Legal threat is not explicit. Triplestop x3 18:54, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it is not an explicit threat - you can also interpret this as incivil communication. I do not know how to end this dispute with IbnAmioun in a good way. Instead of discussing the part of the article in question (now whether to write "polyglot", "who is multilingual" or nothing) he accuses me of webstalking, harassment etc. Ulner (talk) 19:04, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I've given the user a final warning. If he keeps it up, he'll be blocked. lifebaka++ 19:27, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

This point has been taken to office. Surely wikipedia does not ENCOURAGE someone to engage in defamatory action against a living person; every person has the right to protection from character assassination from an editor with an overt axe . IbnAmioun (talk) 19:41, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Then the office will handle it. Now would you mind stopping using the legal terms? It makes it seem like you're gonna' pursue legal action, which I assume is not the case (please do let me know if I'm mistaken). lifebaka++ 19:44, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Lifebaka, so far the issue is still too minor for Jimbo Wales and Nassim to get involved --they may or may not discuss it as they are in contact on something else. But it is a matter of principle: Misplaced Pages is not about personal vendettas. Incidentally these alleged "legal threats" quoted above are from the last episode. My main point is that someone got to keep a vigilant eye on User:Ulner because you cannot invoke "neutrality" while going after the character of the person.IbnAmioun (talk) 19:48, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

You're involved in a content dispute, nothing more, as I see it. Additionally, the first diff Ulner provided is from today. So, please stop assuming bad faith on the part of other users. lifebaka++ 19:53, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Lifebaka, please read the Talk page. And to answer your earlier point we believe that Misplaced Pages is good enough to correct things, when pointed out to the persons in charge. IbnAmioun (talk) 19:57, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Trouble is, there isn't really anyone in charge. Everyone's got equal say, and consensus is what rules the day (rhyme semi-intentional). I suggest starting an request for comment regarding your dispute, since the two of you can't work it out on your own, and the talk page hasn't come up with anything. A third opinion (or more) would probably help. Or just drop it, it doesn't seem like a big deal to me. lifebaka++ 20:16, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Ulner is systematically nitpicking for every single word he finds positive and nobody can start arguing for words.

Neutrality does not mean that someone can systematically take control on a page by taking out evey positive word, and waiting for people to prove its references with lengthy discussions.

This time it was too obvious. Ulner admits for not knowing the disputed word in English use. A reference was brought to show its simple meaning to be relevant. Now Ulner came up that there is another alternative word he deems to be less positive.

The issue is hardly this single word. It is about a strategy to nitpick for every positive word meticulously. 86.157.83.15 (talk) 20:56, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I think the ONLY solution would be to ban User:Ullner from wikipedia or to ban him from editing the Taleb page. The idea of "dispute" makes no sense as he seems to dispute EVERY single word on the page. The entire concept of wikipedia is not to be hijacked by the most obsessive user or the user with a vendetta. IbnAmioun (talk) 00:01, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

• IbnAmioun - You have continued to violate our policy to assume good faith of others on Misplaced Pages. This does not appear to uninvolved administrators to be Ulner trying to abuse the Taleb article - Ulner is involved in editing many articles and not being found to be a problem on the other ones. This appears to be you and Taleb's family getting upset at Ulner, i.e. a content dispute between you and he.

  Please stop this. If there are specific edits you can point to where Ulner is doing something against policy please provide diffs for them here. If you can't do that - consider that you yourself may have created this conflict and be the source of the problem, and that administrators stepping in may have a very different result than you have asked for.

  Introspective caution is recommended at this point. Please assume good faith and attempt to work cooperatively.

  Thank you. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:25, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

  • Hello; I disagree. I see no violation in policy as you are dealing with BLP and the situation is much more delicate. I can see the difference between good faith edits and systematically negative edits as those by User:Ulner. There have been many editors on the page who disagreed with each other; in this case it is extremely different. So the problem here is activism and editor's bias: 90% of his edits are about the page. BLP is very, very delicate and risks of defamation are high under such harassment. IbnAmioun (talk) 00:35, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Actually, looking at Talk:Nassim Nicholas Taleb#polyglot I see two editors, YechezkelZilber and Ulner, having a rational disagreement and civil discussion over this edit, and IbnAmioun stepping into the middle of that discussion with this, which doesn't even address the matter under dispute. It does appears that IbnAmioun is not party to the actual content dispute at all. Uncle G (talk) 00:46, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

IbnAmioun - your statement that "90% of his edits are about the page" is completely inaccurate. A scan of his user contributions indicated roughly 30 edits in a total of over 1000. This is actually closer to 3% and not 90%. Providing misleading claims is frowned upon in these parts. You are also claiming defamation and harassment, whereas all I could see was a complaint over the term "polyglot" (which, although legitimate in context, is a rarely used term), and an attempt to make the article slightly more NPOV. Unless you can provide clear evidence of bad faith conduct, you will not win support here. Manning (talk) 00:50, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Not correct. If you look at his user contributions you would see that almost all his recent edits (since he started his thing against Taleb in the beginning of June ) are about Taleb, and related Empirica Capital, Black Swan Theory,etc.

You can assume good faith but up to a point. IbnAmioun (talk) 00:53, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

As opposed to ~100% of your edits? Ravensfire2002 (talk) 01:00, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I am not an editor but a representative, so 100% of my edits are for the page as per BLP rules I can only correct, not add info.IbnAmioun (talk) 01:03, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

IbnAmioun - it is unwise to tell an administrator that he/she is incorrect unless you can support it. Your statement that "90% of his edits are about the page" remains a wildly inaccurate distortion. I will agree that in the past month the majority of his edits have been on this article, but that is nothing unusual. I regularly have periods of time where most of my effort is focused on a single article. It also remains that there is no evidence of bad faith editing and until you provide it, you will only increase the irritation level of uninvolved admins. Your statement "You can assume good faith but up to a point." is quite appropriate here, but not perhaps in the manner which you intended.Manning (talk) 01:05, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

IbnAmioun - If Ulner were editing BLP issue comments in to the article there would be a point in invoking it. Or if he were in every instance attempting to make the article clearly more negative about Taleb.

I have been following this incident for some weeks now, and I have yet to see any edit by Ulner which is in fact in violation of BLP policy or is clearly not reasonably an attempt at a better written, neutral point of view article.

I do not exclude the possibility that I am simply missing some of what he's done - which is why I asked for specific diffs.

I am not sure that you fundamentally understand what BLP is about. BLP does not mean that we have to have only positive, cheerful articles about living persons. It means that we write reasonable encyclopedia articles, and exercise some editing discretion to avoid causing them real life harm. BLP does not give article subjects or their relatives veto power. It does not exclude articles from covering critical or negative issues, though coverage of them must be balanced, neutral point of view, and properly sourced to reliable sources.

The policies against any one person claiming ownership over an article and against editing with a conflict of interest apply in this situation. We allow BLP article subjects and their representatives some leeway, in order to encourage more accurate biographical articles and avoid the types of negative comment we've specifically prohibited. But that is not a blanket waiver from other Misplaced Pages policy. You, IbnAmioun, have been at the least pushing up against those policies in your behavior for some weeks now.

If we were to formally and forcefully begin enforcing all our policies right now, you'd be seriously warned and possibly blocked for those violations, and at worst Ulner would receive a slight warning.

I do not think that that's appropriate or necessary. We have discretion and have been using it in the hope that you'd work it out with Ulner. As that is not happening, however, we need to make you aware of that policy. If this continues to escalate those policies will of necessity be enforced.

Again - assume good faith will get you through more problems than just about anything else. If you reapply yourself to working constructively with Ulner this is likely to be resolved positively. Hopefully you can review your own conduct, and attempt to move past the previous problems.

Thank you. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:09, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I need to go on a trip but I will rapidly provide the instances of bad faith editing he saw here, with the onesided discussions on the talk page, starting with the one-sided Myron Scholes quote and the complaint about the additions of context by other editors, then the discussions then the systematic changes in every word like "essayist", the track records of Taleb as a trader (just putting the negative of his career), to the latest bickering (not really of any substance) about the polyglot, to the latest assertions of "NPOV" as anything non-negative. Any single comment on his part is meant to downgrade the character of the BLP.

All I do is watch edits. Usually the positive and negative cancel each other. But with the User:Ulner a systematically negative bias is introduced that downgrades the character of the subject of the bio. IbnAmioun (talk) 01:11, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

That's nice. Care to give some specifics? Such as diffs? lifebaka++ 04:58, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

IbnAmioun writes that "all I do is watch edits" - but he has made some edits in the Taleb article. Regarding my own edits my most substantial edit was adding criticism from Scholes ]. These sentences has been re-written and now includes a reply from Taleb in that matter. I recently suggested that these sentences describing personal attacks between Taleb and Scholes should be removed because they are not so interesting because Scholes' comments does not discuss the merits of Taleb's ideas. Ulner (talk) 07:22, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Vintagekits blocked for 1 month (since adjusted to 1 week)

Sorry to all if this has been posted elsewhere, but I am jet-lagged, sweaty and horrible, and have 15 emails in my inbox concerning this, and I can't see (at a quick glance) that this mentioned elsewhwere. So placing this here for others to decide (you can all copy-edit if you want - I need a shower: I am in complete agrrement with Chillum that was completely unacceptable. As Chillum says when so angry at Misplaced Pages one needs to step backwards. The only daft "chunt" in that post was VK himself. I told both him and Chillum, by email, that yesterday. However, prolonging this block for a month is totally ridiculous, VK lost his temper (while blocked) as have many editors. Unless Canterbury Tail (I make no comment on the name) is one of the dancers at Stringfellow's (in which case there is COI) this was VK's last post . I see no reason whatsoever for a one month block. Giano (talk) 19:25, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Ditto the sentiment. Nothing he's done today really merits extending the block. I'd say reset it to and let it expire tomorrow. For convenience: Vintagekits (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Cheers, everyone. lifebaka++ 19:38, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

And protect the talk page in the meanwhile, maybe. Nothing good seems to be happening there. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 19:41, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I also think 1 month is arbitrary and too long, and it should be reduced to 24 hours starting from when VK acknowledges his failure to adhere to policies such as WP:NPA and undertakes to try not to lose his temper so swiftly (or at least edit while not gruntled). If that takes 30 days to happen then there is nobody to blame but VK, so it then goes back to him. LessHeard vanU (talk) 19:45, 7 July 2009 (UTC) I will advise the blocking admin of this discussion, if nobody else has.

I have a strong distaste for block extensions based on post-block ranting on the user's own talk page. My feeling is to reset the block to the original 24 hours. However, VK's inability to remain calm does not bode well, and the next block for slagging off other users should escalate. Thatcher 20:07, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I also extended the block due an email VK subsequently sent to myself, available on request, that removes any faith I have left of them being a co-operative member of the Misplaced Pages community. This is, at the end of the day, a user who has a longer block history than most with a history of personal attacks and incivility to other users. As I've also said on his talk page, if he apologises to the community and myself then by all means it can be lifted sooner. I have been thinking that the month was arbitrary and too long and was actually coming back in to reduce it when I was notified of this discussion, and I'm still reducing it to a week. I'll also open the talk page and email while I'm at it. Yes it was a long block, which is why I came back to reduce it, but I really do have a zero tolerance for abusive and incivil editors. Canterbury Tail talk 20:24, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Email sent before the extension or after?

I think that this incident is illustrating exactly why we advise everyone involved to disengage from the blockee's talk page if they are upset about the block. It is extremely bad form if them venting or yelling about it purely on their talk page escalates into further blocks. If someone posts threats after a block, that's different, but our standard for tolerance for upset users venting has to be high. We can hope and expect that people be adult about being blocked, but we know factually that good people sometimes react very badly to it, and engaging in an escalating discussion with the blockee is a form of taunting (even if meant well).

I understand that VK is not calm at the moment, but this was at the very least an incident that bent our proscription against block extensions for non-threatening incivility on blocked user talk pages. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:38, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Where can this proscription be found?  Sandstein  21:55, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I thought it was an arbcom ruling but I can't find anything so far. Perhaps this was an unwritten community standard, and should be discussed and written down (either way). Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:21, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

It is a quasi standard. That is to say, there is a vocal contingent that follows it - and a vocal contingent that does not, and a lot of people in the middle. For myself, I say it falls within standard administrator discretion: use some compassion, don't be a dick, but don't be an enabler either. Judgment calls are important.--Tznkai (talk) 01:30, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, I am not aware of such a standard and do not intend to follow it; Misplaced Pages:Civility/Poll shows that most editors agree that user talk pages should be treated no differently from other pages with respect to civility. If I see a blocked user being incivil on his talk page, I'll usually react with talk page protection or a longer block.  Sandstein  05:50, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

As VK is currently under sanctions, and because emails should not be put onwiki, the email should probably be forwarded to a member of Arbcom, I think? Am I wrong?→ ROUX ₪ 20:32, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

We usually lift blocks as soon as they are no longer needed, but not sooner. Judging by Vintagekits's contributions, he does not seem to recognize that his conduct is problematic (see e.g. ) and therefore the (extended) block seems to remain needed. I oppose lifting it under these circumstances.  Sandstein  21:06, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

What is the reason the extension was not posed here? As VK was prevented from posting on his own talk or pleading his own cause, not to post here - seems unusual. Furthermore, what the hell is going on here ? Has Chillum and his new sidekick suddenly become a two man new Arbcom able to dispense instant justice at whim? Giano (talk) 21:28, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Sidekick? Another conspiracy theory? I barely know CT, please come to some sort of basis before making such implications. Chillum 22:28, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

That's just CT discussing Chillum's decision on the block extension. It's nothing like a "two-man Arbcom" because it's not the final word on the matter, just a discussion. Mangojuice 22:20, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• Actually No, as a result of that discussion Canterbury Tail raised VK's block from 24 hours to one month. That is like elevating a parking fine to grand larceny. That is a pretyy serious judicial review. Giano (talk) 22:26, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

My understanding is that the block was increased due to an abusive e-mail sent. I have read a copy of the e-mail in question which was sent prior to the extension of the block. It was basically along the lines of "You are my enemy, expect zero-cooperation", general hostilities. My opinion is that the block should not be further reduced without some sort of promise from VK not the be abusive to Wikipedians. Currently he is denying that his comments were even inappropriate(even the really nasty ones), considering this I would say this block is preventative until he acknowledges this sort of thing is out of line and promises not to continue in such a manner. Chillum 22:27, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Giano, listening to you, you'd think that admins talking to each other is a bad thing. You've been quite clear that you think the extension is inappropriate and excessive, there is no need to attack the admins' conduct beyond that, and this is just distracting from the discussion. Mangojuice 23:02, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Had you read this thread properly Chillum, you would know that I had already referred to that link and agrreed you were right to silence VK for 24 hours before he made any more abusive edits in that vein - what is not correct is that any passing Admin can then pop into your page and say - mind if I up the block? On no dear chap go right ahead - how long do you fancy? - oh 10 years sounds a good figure - Quite right why not round it up to 20? That is not how organised justice works - that is how lynching works. Giano (talk) 22:34, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually not quite what happened here. My actions are completely open to scrutiny. Chillum blocked him, I pointed out to Chillum that Vintagekits is a heavily blocked user with a great history of abusiveness and incivility on Misplaced Pages and suggesting that the 24 hour block may not be enough. As a result of me posting that talk notice on Chillum's talk page, Vintagekits sent me the email claiming that I'd made an enemy for as long as he remains standing on Misplaced Pages, would give me zero co-operation going forward and to "Enjoy my crusade", whatever that means. I discussed this with Chillum off Misplaced Pages via email, and Chillum subsequently reblocked for a further 24 hours as a result. I then unblocked VKs talk and edit priviledges, asked him to explain why he shouldn't indeed be blocked longer for sending such communications. He continued to show why people have difficulty assuming good faith with himself, continued to be incivil and abusive on the talk page, I blocked him for longer (longer than I should have, but I've already discussed that.) Canterbury Tail talk 01:41, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I read the above with complete ecredulity - it appearsf from that, that all you did was wind an editor up into a temper and then kept poking and poking and poking. If that is all the email said, I am surprised it was not stronger. After such behaviour, why should he not consider you an enemy? The crusade (the part you cannot undertsand) clearly indicates that VK beleives you to be on a civility crusade - perhaps you are - I don't know and I don't care. If you had treated me like that, i would not want to co-operate with you - who would? yet, for that you seem to think that his block should be increased. How dare you? Are you so important that anyone who does not bow and scrape to your personage must be blocked. VK should be unblocked at once. Giano (talk) 08:55, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Minor correction, I did not block VK. I first declined his unblock request. Then after that I adjusted his block to exclude talk page editing after this nasty comment. Then I added 1 day and disabled e-mail after VK sent a nasty e-mail. Chillum 01:59, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Can I suggest for a moment, ignoring whether or not Vintagekits should have acted better, that you, having been on the receiving end of a nasty e-mail going over to VK and tch tching him for being naughty and asking him, however calmly to explain why he shouldn't be punished lead to an entirely predictable and negative response? That is, wouldn't it have been better for someone else to get involved there, or perhaps for you to ignore it for the time being, and come back to it later and say "for the record, that thing you did last time? not acceptable in the future" instead of pushing while VK was obviously having temper issues?--Tznkai (talk) 01:55, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes Giano I read the thread. I was not denying your recognition of the fact that he was abusive, I was simply pointing out that he is completely unrepentant at this point. Admins are supposed to ask the blocking admin before adjusting a block. You act like the increase in block was not directly following an abuse of the e-mail tool. This block is getting plenty of scrutiny so I don't get your whole lynching analogy. I don't see anything inappropriate here except for the actions of VK. Chillum 23:13, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that users should not be held accountable for post-block incivility. While I do agree that 1 month is likely far too long; a reset of the original block length starting at the moment of the last incivil comment does not seem unreasonable. Unlike spoken words which, once uttered, cannot be unspoken, comments left on Misplaced Pages pages can be left unsent. You always have the chance to review what yoy type before hitting the "save page" button. If a user feels the need to rant, open up MicroSoft Word and rant there; if a user has posted comments like this to Misplaced Pages it is because they intend for those comments to be seen, and there is no excuse for such matters. In summation: no exemptions for post-block ranting, but one month is too long. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:31, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Can we please get back on topic?

1. Vintagekits needs to learn hold his temper, or at least walk away from the computer.
2. When extending blocks, please get a previous uninvolved administrator to sanity check you.
3. When extending blocks based on non visible reasons, please give as much detail as appropriate, and delineate a clear time line.
4. Always be prepared to have another person sanity check you.

As far as this situation, I suggest we grant Vintagekits some clemency - but not a pardon, for his behavior, with the block lifted whenever consensus for the same is achieved, and left to the discretion of administrators if he quickly relapses. In the meantime, would a volunteer from the audience speak up about trying to talk to VK about more efficient ways of dealing with his irritation?--Tznkai (talk) 01:27, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I would support unblocking VK the very moment he acknowledges that his comments( among others) were not acceptable and gives a promise to not act so abusively in the future. I think this is a very reasonable standard. I also think such a promise needs to be enforced. Unblocking a user who is currently denying that he even did anything wrong is not going to achieve anything but more of the same behavior leading to further blocks. We need to settle this users long standing issue with civility by setting a clear standard then firmly enforcing it. Chillum 01:41, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I think don't think this is a mandatory groveling/acknowledging situation. This user has proven in the past he has the ability to act sensibly - which is more important to me, than proving the ability to put one's pride away.--Tznkai (talk) 01:52, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Coming late to the party, I don't support extending Vk's block in this instance. However, considering the many, many times Vk has been told that sort of language is unacceptable, I would suggest, instead of extending the block, he simply be warned the next time that happens the block will be one month, then two, then six, then indefinitely. Lets not forget Vk was indef blocked already and was only permitted back on the basis he clean up his act. We were told he was a model editor in sports articles, and it was only Troubles related issues that cause friction. Now we see the same sort of attacks on sports articles. While he is no longer under active sanction, it would be foolish of us to ignore this pattern of behaviour. No more second (or in his case, third, fourth or tenth) chances: just start escalating block lengths. Rockpocket 02:02, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm also not convinced a block extension was necessary in this instance and I like your idea Rockpocket. While getting VK out of the Troubles was a good thing, clearly some of the problems weren't limited to that subject area. Since there's already been an indef, escalating blocks ending up in a de facto community ban is the way to go. Shell 02:17, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure who posted that, you did not sign. However I don't want groveling, I want "I won't abuse other Wikipedians". This is not an unreasonable request. The point of a block is to prevent disruption, so some sort of indication that the user is not going to do it again makes sense. Chillum 02:00, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

That was me - and its not an unreasonable request to you or I, but I think to some people it is taken as "ADMIT YOU WERE WRONG!" which people are reluctant to do. While this is silly, Misplaced Pages isn't the right place to curb such pride, and I feel asking VK to say the right words has the effect, if not the intent, of asking him to grovel a bit.--Tznkai (talk) 02:14, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

All I'd like to see is for him to assure us that he's calmed down. I also feel that while we're discussing this, I'd like to mention my opinion of what led up to VK's comments. User:Number57 left a WP:NPA warning over these two comments of Vintagekits: this and this. While the latter was definitely an appropriate comment to warn over, the former was borderline incivil but definitely not a personal attack as Number57 made it out to be. Number57 was involved in discussion of the issue, and on the opposite side of Vintagekits, though not one who had been directly interacting with VK much. The warning included a threat to block and also came with a note that VK should stop using a BBC source in the discussion. VK removed the warning and called the comments moronic. I think he was being a little flippant at a warning from an admin who was involved in a dispute with him. Number57 responded to the removal with a block for incivility. This is the kind of thing I think admins should really refrain from: first of all, users are reasonably afforded some latitude on their own talk page to remove comments; second, the warning was overstated and mixed with comments about the dispute, and third, it's never a great sign when an admin issues a civility block over rude but not egregious comments directed at themselves. The block was reviewed by Chillum in good faith but I think he erred in saying that VK had made personal attacks in the unblock request: he discussed his own comments and called the block, not the user, "childish"... not a big mistake but probably very irritating to VK since his whole point was that the comment he was blocked over was directed at a contribution (Number57's comments) and not an editor. Mangojuice 02:47, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Upon review it does appear I misread the unblock request and it was not a personal attack. I will apologize to him. Chillum 03:08, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Uhm wow - I'll admit that I hadn't looked at all the diffs and made some good faith assumptions about what happened here, so you're going to have to excuse little jaw dropping for a moment. Regardless of whether or not the initial warning was really necessary (I'm not convinced it was), blocking someone for removing your warning with a snarky comment is really hard for me to swallow. The fact that during the unblock discussion Number 57 wikilawyers the difference between involved and "directly" involved shows some additional bad judgment on their part. VK's first unblock request wasn't so bad though I understand Chillum declining to unblock since VK does have a history of issues with personal attacks (so don't beat yourself up too much there Chillum). After that point though, VK did himself in - if he disagreed with the decision he could have posted another unblock, wrote the mailing list or even asked the block to be reviewed here.

So rounding it up, Mangojuice has a good point - might be best to ask VK if he's got himself back under control before unblocking just so he doesn't do further damage to himself. And Number 57 may want to give some serious thought to the concerns raised here before using the tools in such a manner again. Shell 03:19, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Allow me to suggest two premises. First, that Vintage kits is a valuable editor and Second, the incivility and related problems need to go away. Now, one way to go about doing this is by blocking Vintagekits until he either "learns" or is eliminated from the picture, either way the problem goes away. Let me suggest that this, like all behaviorist models, is not only lacking in elegance, but is ineffective. I'd much rather see some sort of attempt at working with Vintagekits, rather than simply trying to condition his behavior.--Tznkai (talk) 02:22, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Heck, if you can accomplish that then there will be no reason to block him. Chillum 03:03, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy to volunteer to give him some guidance on what kinds of comments are and are not appropriate. Mangojuice 02:49, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

VK needs to be unblocked at once, per my edit here . This is begining to look like a case of wounded pride and confusion on the parts of 2 Admins - Canterbury Tail and Chillum, encouraged here by such admins as Sandstein. The three seem to have their own civility policy - which they seem to want to impose in Draconian way on the rest of us. VK lost his temper was poked into greater fury by this sanctimonious and holier than thou attitude of a group of Admins and then snap they spring their trap and increase his block. This is not good enough. VK needs to be unblocked at once. Giano (talk) 09:04, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I understand your conviction, but you brought this to the community so let the community discuss it without demands please. VK can email arbcom about the block should he feel it neccessary to do so, but in the meantime allow us to make comment to seek consensus. Nja 09:58, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Concencus is that he need to be unblocked! Or do we need Canterbury Tail and Chillum's permission? It was up to the blocking Admin to have brought it here, not me - althoughI can understand they were ashamed of their actions. Giano (talk) 11:18, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

You know we all love you Giano, but take a breath :) Since VK's last post on his talk didn't come out all expletives, that seems to be a good indication that the wiki will not implode if I go ahead and remove the block per discussion above. Shell 11:39, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

• I don't feel very loved at all! However, I will take several deep breaths now in response to your very wise action. It quite restores one's faith in human nature. I'm sure VK will thank you himself in due course - in the meantime you have my thanks. Giano (talk) 11:44, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I am of course completely open to whatever the uninvolved community here decides. I will take no actions until a discussion plays out, and if another admin wishes to unblock then I take no slight on it. If it is decided he should be unblocked and for me to issue an apology if people think I overstepped my mark, then I shall gladly do so, and with all seriousness. I still regard his remarks as out of order, however VK is a valuable editor when his temper doesn't get the better of him. This started after his incivility and my suggestion to Chillum that maybe the block should be longer given his history of such edits (which make up a very very small percentage of his contributions to Misplaced Pages.) Misplaced accusations of megalomania aside from an editor who has come to me on several occasions to get see about getting other editors blocked for incivility, abuse and disruption. Canterbury Tail talk 11:42, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Scammer?

Not sure quite what to make of this, but probably merits admin intervention.  Skomorokh  19:39, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Eh, it's reverted. Unless it happens again from the same IP, the guy's probably moved on and there's nothing we can do. lifebaka++ 19:42, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Not only is it a scam, it's a lazy one, too. "Set it all up and send me the money! It's that easy!" Nothing less than 250k accepted, either. TNXMan 20:23, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

i believe the we should notify an administrator who can decide to send this off to local authorites such as the Fbi or the internset sesrivce proivder (ISP) so that the scammer can be jailed Smith Jones (talk) 21:39, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Guto2003

Guto2003 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Am I missing something, or is this user going around randomly deleting dates/years and sometimes refs? I've been reverting since he started on June 4 since I can't see a reason for the removals. Could someone else take a look? --aktsu  21:27, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Seems odd. Left a note asking the user for a response of some sort -- seems the best thing to do in the meantime. Hopefully this can be resolved amicably for all involved. If the behavior continues with no reply, some escalation may become necessary. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:33, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm just as confused as you - that does look like random removal of dates, sources, little factoids and not a single explanation to be found. Unless this editor decides to start communicating now (they don't appear to have done so in the past) I'd say that an indef block is in order. Shell 21:37, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Well spotted aktsu. Indeed, user seems to be a "stealth vandal" - I can't see any other rational explanation. We'll watch and impose an immediate block in the event of further edits of this nature. I'll add a note to the user talk page to that effect. Manning (talk) 03:32, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Problematic user page

This user page: Srkhan2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) in its current version claims to be that of a famous person, which is BLP-problematic. Previous versions apparently show this to be somebody else altogether. Contributions not always constructive; blocked indef in November 2008, but userpage still remains. Not sure if this calls for oversight, but certainly deletion (at least of the few last BLP-violating revisions). 89.52.180.18 (talk) 21:44, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Non-logged-in user editing suspicious pages.

Sebas1955 (talk · contribs) appears to be editing disruptively without logging in as 200.116.62.130 (talk · contribs). The IP has been removing deletion templates from files uploaded by the User, as well as related vandalism and other strange practices. The IP has been blocked after a final warning, but should this go to WP:SPI? -RunningOnBrains 23:57, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

The account should be blocked for repeated copyvio uploads and all his uploads should be deleted. The IP is obviously the same person trying to circumvent the system. At least one of the copyvio uploads was already deleted from commons after which he uploaded it here with bogus OTRS Permission tags even. <>Multi-Xfer<> (talk) 00:04, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Ottava Rima

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

...accused me here quite blatantly of lying. He was given the chance to retract the statement, and has unsurprisingly refused to. This, especially given his history of attacks and harassment, requires attention and probably a block.

And yes, I'm sure someone is going to complain that I haven't been Miss Perfect throughout that discussion, but it's worth noting that the people who have done so have complained about me by making multiple personal attacks against me--while complaining, wrongly, that I had done so. → ROUX ₪ 00:34, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

• Response - It is clear that the statement was: "The above proves that you are 100% ignorant about what you are talking about. The statement placed about my discussing your claims about what Godwin said with a WMF member places your other claims into question. So far, you have provided nothing correct but you have laid on the insults to people in a very unbecoming manner. Thus, you have proven to talk about what you don't know, possibly make stuff up, and just insult people without cause." The phrase "possibly make stuff up" is far different than "lying". As proven by the quote from Godwin, his summary of what Godwin said was quite different than what Godwin said, so, regardless, he was incorrect. Now, he has attacked several people in that area, misquoted multiple policies, shown an inability to understand what policies state, and has constantly been rude and incivil (especially with his constant cussing). It seems that all he has contributed to that page was disruption. It is clear that Roux will not stop attacking people or causing disruption. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:38, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

• • Oh, come now, let's try for some statements that accurately reflect reality, okay? Insults.. where exactly? There are none. Attacks? Nope. Misquoting multiple policies? Again, no. The only thing that would come close would be me saying that RFC has a specific menaing on Misplaced Pages, which it does. Cussing? Twice. Sue me for using colourful language to get my meaning across. So... well it's all the usual from you, Ottava. A simple apology for claiming I was lying would be a good start, but I won't get my hopes up. Nor do I honestly have much hope that anyone will do anything about your accusation, as you seem to get away with whatever you like. But I do know if I accused another editor, baselessly, of lying.. well, I wouldn't be able to type this right now. → ROUX ₪ 00:45, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

• What a distasteful little thread that is. Why would anyone continue to participate in it? --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:40, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

• • ANI is not the complaints department. Start a user conduct WP:RFC or a WP:WQA alert...take this somewhere else. General complaining about what people did or did not say or imply or whatever is going on here is not appropriate. I am closing this before it gets even nastier than it has. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:45, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Deleted article recreation issue

The editor Varun21 (talk · contribs) has had a lingering problem over the past month or so surrounding the article ColorfulTabs, an application for Firefox. The article was deleted twice as a speedy A7, then went through this deletion discussion and was deleted yet again. Subsequently, it's been deleted as a G4 twice. I finally protected the page, because it's become quite obvious that the editor doesn't intend to give up. Today, I received a notice of a deletion review, which has yet to materialize. What *has* materialized is ColorfulTabs for Firefox, which is a precise recreation of the article that was deleted through the AFD and twice as G4. This despite a warning I left regarding recreating the article at another name and suggesting a DRV. Can I please ask that another admin look at this, make sure that I've read it right, and handle further discussions, please? Tony Fox (arf!) 01:16, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

• Deleted per WP:CSD#G4. In future you could use a {{db-g4}} tag to request deletions for this reason. I'm not sure it's quite reached the point of warranting a block, but it's close. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:59, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
  • I wanted to get a fully independent opinion, as I had done one of the deletions and salted the original page. Thanks for looking in; I see he's been blocked, so problem solved. Tony Fox (arf!) 04:20, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
• Did no-one suggest that the editor work on improving User:Varun21/ColorfulTabs instead of simply copying and pasting it repeatedly into article space? Uncle G (talk) 04:58, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Had I noticed it, I might have. As it was, the repeated warnings about recreating seemed to blow straight over the editor's head. Tony Fox (arf!) 16:23, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Strange vandalism

Probably nothing, but still a bit disturbing: IP Geolocates to California. Plastikspork (talk) 03:47, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

It's been a day for weird stuff like this. I note you've reverted the user page already which is good. I'll add an IP warning but there's little else we can do. The IP is probably someone known to the user. Manning (talk) 03:54, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Is it a copyright violation even when it doesn't fit the definition?

Three Hours of fascinated clicking on Misplaced Pages somehow drew me to Perfect Strangers (TV series), and I noticed this little blurb in Syndication

All 150 episodes of the series are also viewable via YouTube, with a few of the episodes being the original ABC broadcasts (these particular episodes feature announcements for ABC shows airing at the time over the end credits, as well as the "Closed Captioning" and "In Stereo" IDs during the title sequence).

Is this technically a violation of Misplaced Pages:Copyrights, even thought it is not explicitly linking to said episodes on Youtube?--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 06:11, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

No, it's not a copyright violation on our part because we aren't presenting the copyrighted material. Ice Cold Beer (talk) 06:15, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I did remove the passage, though, because we really shouldn't be encouraging readers to go view the copyvio on youtube. Ice Cold Beer (talk) 06:21, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I like the XKCD reference, by the way. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:31, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

User:PrBeacon (Fhue part deux)

You probably know this editor better by his old nym, Fhue. Fresh out of a suspension for edit warring, he’s decided to get right back to attacking me. I tried reasoning with him and I tried warning him, but he just treated my warning with contempt and kept it up. — NRen2k5, 06:48, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

• Let me see if I can help with some things here - NRen2k5 you seem to be misunderstanding the response you've gotten to the many reports you've made about this subject already. Yes, there have been uncivil statements made but by both you and PrBeacon. Both of you need to pull back a bit - PrBeacon, obviously your tone/words/something about your posts is a concern to NRen2k5 so please try to find a way to communicate that's a bit more civil and NRen2k5, you need to settle down a bit in general and find a way to resolve the dispute instead of making these constant time-wasting reports on every board you can find. If you'd like to give a try at resolving the content dispute that's causing the two of you to conflict, I'd be happy to help. Shell 08:02, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

User:Awnnil Kiwi

A chap with an anagrammatic username who appears to be wikistalking and harassing one particular admin (who's probly asleep right now). Please review and consider whether to block.—S Marshall /_Cont 07:03, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

User was blocked by Gogo Dodo. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:09, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Admin overrides MoS protection without discussion

It's a small matter in one way, but needs to be addressed. Will someone make it clear to User:Hyacinth, only recently promoted to adminship, that launching in and overriding the protect on the Manual of Style to insert a comma—particularly since it degrades the text—is not the way to do things, to put it mildly? Tony (talk) 09:28, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Talk page mention.

As an aside, I'm unsure why the MoS is still protected, although it doesn't affect the need for the admin to understand his role WRT to protected pages and talk-page consensus. Tony (talk) 09:28, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

As you say, small matter, but unacceptable. Consensus on the talkpage at the moment seems to be that the change was unwanted. Ironholds (talk) 09:30, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

• Oh noes, a comma! No really, couldn't this be worked out with a friendly note on the talk page of the admin who made the mistake? As you said, they're rather new and might appreciate the pointer. Unless there's some serial comma-ism or spree of editing protected pages? Shell 09:40, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Side note: Looks like it was protected during the great quotation mark wars - if that dispute's been settled I think it could be unprotected (someone else jump in here if there's something I'm missing please). Shell 09:43, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Shell, thanks for your response. It's the kind of detail that MoS sometimes deals in, and would affect the ease of reading when repeated thousands of times in our text. How about I post now at MoS talk to ask whether everyone is OK about the lifting of the protection; i.e., that all are going to respect the need for stability? Let's see what comes up in the next day. Tony (talk) 09:58, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I don't doubt the importance of keeping Misplaced Pages legible, its the edit warring instead of hashing it out that always confuses me. Sounds like you have a good plan there - you're welcome to drop me a note if everyone seems to agree that further edit wars aren't immediately foreseeable - not certain I'll be any faster than WP:RFPP though :) Shell 10:11, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

This is no small matter. With respect, the edit was a patent absurdity. The readiness of editors to barge in with this sort of thing is one reason for guideline specialists like myself to stay away from MOS. Some of us prefer not to wallow in futility. Meanwhile, the page has been locked for weeks, over a quibble that could easily be overcome, with goodwill and a little creativity.

I hope that admins will be sensitive to the special status of WP:MOS, and thoughtful in their interventions there. MOS is hugely important for WP, especially in the development of our flagship featured articles.

–_⊥Noetica!– 10:16, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Shell, I've posted at MoS talk on the stability issue WRT unprotection; let's hope editors there agree to toe the line, especially as ArbCom is due to conduct an audit of MoS stability in just over two months' time. I'll let you know on your talk page. Thanks. Tony (talk) 10:22, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

In real life, I write articles. Someone else (the editor) fixes them, and those fixes stay ... unless the Publisher says otherwise. I guess the lesson is that nobody here is the publisher, so don't over-ride unless you're 1,000,000% sure. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 10:58, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Ya' know, I'll bet Hyacinth thought he was just making a minor grammatical correction (as "he said, 'blah'" would be correct), which is an acceptable type of edit to a protected page. So why don't we just fix it (which I'll go do presently), and leave it be? Cheers, everyone. lifebaka++ 16:35, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

user:Bicycle Bill

Bicycle Bill (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This user has been substituting the term "enhanced interrogation" for the word "torture" in a number of articles, and defends his actions as being NPOV. His username makes me wonder if we may be dealing with another incarnation of a certain Wheeled William. WuhWuzDat 09:46, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

• Hmm, should I be concerned? "Administrators' noticeboard"? I'm not sure I see what the fuss is about.

"Torture" is a tendentious, extremely controversial word to use--as we all know--for enhanced interrogation techniques like walling, sleep deprivation, mock executions, and stress positions. Beatings which result in permanent severe injury or death might be incontrovertibly described as "torture," but to describe the application of these specific aforementioned enhanced interrogation techniques as such is dubious. In fact, many articles extant on Misplaced Pages are careful to use the more NPOV term "enhanced interrogation techniques" (e.g., Abu Zubaydah). Articles like George Thomas Coker should be brought up to that standard. Bicycle Bill (talk) 10:05, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

• What a coinkydink, I see juust over ten edits before he went on that little "npov" rampage. Obvious troll, smack with tbe banhammer. Ironholds (talk) 09:57, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
  • I agree, and I've indef'd Bill. Ice Cold Beer (talk) 10:12, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

• • Support action taken by Ice Cold Beer. Clearly not a new user given the familiarity with WP processes. This insistence on removing the word "torture" is certainly a curious obsession. I can (sort of) understand taking the dispute to contemporary political articles about Gitmo and the like, but replacing the term in articles about works of fiction? Quite, quite odd. Manning (talk) 11:38, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

User intentionally introducing unreferenced material into Generation Z

Please see this diff, as well as their "work" at Generation Y, which I haven't reviewed yet. The material trying to be introduced is unreferenced, and -- from the looks of the user's talkpage -- this isn't the first time they've done this type of thing. I went there to discuss with him, but when I saw all the warnings and such, I thought it best to bring this issue here for immediate admin attention. Unitanode 14:09, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm... my suspicion is that it's the user's birthdate or something similar. Anyway, warning will be issued and block to follow if needed. Manning (talk) 14:20, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Perhaps I should have just done that, but with all the warnings littered on the page, it appeared to me that this user might not be dissuaded by warnings. Thanks for your attention to the matter, though. Unitanode 14:25, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Logged in vandal

The page June 2009 was turned into an add for some restaurant with this edit by the user 'Annyd' who did this as his/her first edit. I already undid that edit and hope some more action can be taken by the admins here. - Robotje (talk) 15:05, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

A warning and welcome would've been helpful to the user. I left both. There haven't been any more edits from that account, but I'll try to keep an eye on it. Cheers. lifebaka++ 15:14, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Use of File:NLW-LAD-Logo.png violating WP:NFCC

Over the past 24 hours, I've thrice removed File:NLW-LAD-Logo.png from Arizona League Dodgers. In each case, User:Spanneraol has reverted me, once calling me a knucklehead , once saying I'm not using my head , and once claiming that WP:NFCC #10c non-compliance is not a valid reason to remove . I've attempted to explain to him the policy and what is required . He responded that I didn't mention the specific part of policy it wasn't compliant with (I did, 10c), again asserted I'm not using my head, and insisting that I fix the image rather than remove it. Admin assistance requested please. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:41, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with his insistence that image violates 10c. I asked him to explain how it violates it but he refused and just again cited the policy. Spanneraol (talk) 15:51, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Spanneraol, you need to have a fair use template on there for each use. I notice it doesn't even have a single fair use template. Just slap a {{Non-free use rationale}} on it and you'll be fine. Cheers, guys. lifebaka++ 15:56, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I thought the logo rationale on there was sufficient.. I've added that template you suggested. Does this work better? Spanneraol (talk) 16:16, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, 10c is satisfied now. Just watch the language in the future, m'kay? lifebaka++ 16:24, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

As with all facts in wikipedia, knuckleheadedness of a given editor requires independent, reliable verification. Otherwise it's just original research. Baseball Bugs carrots 16:57, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Request review of administrative action

The action for which I am requesting review is my own. Normally I would bring the issue here first, but as this involves what I perceive as the potential defamation of a living person who happens to be a wikipedia editor, I am taking the action first (ala WP:BLP) and bringing it here second. There is a current years-long struggle over Circumcision and its related articles. Recently, there has been what I perceive to be a dangerous trend trying to alienate editors, one in particular, with what I perceive to be improper conflation of WP:POV and WP:COI, claiming that a particular editor has a COI. I see no other purpose for this other than to try and marginalize this editor, who, in my opinion, while having a distinct POV has edited the article in complete accord with wikipedia polices and guidelines. The discussion stretched over various talk pages, including User talk:Garycompugeek, User talk:Jakew, User talk:Tremello22, to name a few. COI <> POV, and claiming that any given editor with an opinion is automatically conflicted is inappropriate, in my opinion.

Today, someone added a {{COI}} tag to Circumcision with the following edit summary Jake Waskett is a circumcision fetishist and rabid advocate. He joined Misplaced Pages with the sole intent to remove NPOV from this article. If the {{COI}} tag was ever justified, it is here., a blatant personal attack and unsourced allegation against a living person if there ever was one. I reverted the tag, only to see it reinstated twice in quick succession. Because this relates to a living person, I have locked the article without the tag, and now I am coming here to get a larger perspective on the appropriateness of the action. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 17:37, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I suggest you contact WP:OVERSIGHT if you want the edit summary removed. lifebaka++ 17:42, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

That is up to Jake, he has openly admitted his identity, so there is not a privacy issue per se; but if he wants it removed, I'm happy to take of that. My request for review is am I correct in locking the article even though I am a significant contributor to the article and discussions, due to the BLP nature and implied attack against Jake's integrity by continuing to attempt and paint him as a COI violator despite no evidence of any sort. -- Avi (talk) 17:46, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Good protect. I'd suggest backing it down to indef-semi at some point in the not-to-distant future, though. There do seem to be long-term problems with ip vandalism/extreme POV editing there.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:47, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I think it's fine, given the BLP concerns. If it were anything else, there might be a problem, but BLP/NPA concerns can be enough to IAR. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:53, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Fermented dairy comestibles

Hi. I can't believe I'm doing this. Can someone please go to the bottom of Talk:Yoghurt and weigh in on whether it's appropriate for an editor to post a move request immediately after one was closed where that editor was unhappy with the result.

I removed the move request banner (which is bot-linked to the list at WP:RM and told the editor that the appropriate venue for appeal is an RFC, but he decided to edit war, and to tell me that if I want to remove the banner, I need to start an RFC. Seeing as I'm happy with the way the request was closed (and would be equally happy the other way - I truly don't care), I'm not inclined to open an RFC just to stop someone from using the RM process inappropriately.

I appreciate input there from anyone with an opinion on the best way to handle this situation. -GTBacchus 17:55, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

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