Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Kww (talk | contribs) at 16:11, 15 January 2013 (→PC2 for Mangoeater targets). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

• WP:AN
• WP:ANB

• For urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems, use Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.
• To request review of an administrator's action or other use of advanced permissions, use Misplaced Pages:Administrative action review
• If you are new, try the Teahouse instead.
• Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead, follow the instructions on Misplaced Pages:Requests for oversight.
• For administrative backlogs add {{Admin backlog}} to the backlogged page; post here only if urgent.
• Do not post requests for page protection, deletion requests, or block requests here.
• Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly.
• If you want to challenge the closure of a request for comment, use {{RfC closure review}}

When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page. Pinging is not enough.

You may use {{subst:AN-notice}} ~~~~ to do so.

Sections inactive for over seven days are archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.(archives, search)

Template:Active editnotice

This page has an administrative backlog that requires the attention of willing administrators. Please replace this notice with {{no admin backlog}} when the backlog is cleared.

You may want to increment {{Archive basics}} to |counter= 38 as Misplaced Pages:Closure requests/Archive 37 is larger than the recommended 150Kb.

Archives

Index no archives yet (create)

This page has archives. Sections older than 2 days may be automatically archived by ClueBot III when more than 4 sections are present.

• WP:CR
• WP:RFCL
• WP:ANRFC

Use the closure requests noticeboard to ask an uninvolved editor to assess, summarize, and formally close a Misplaced Pages discussion. Do so when consensus appears unclear, it is a contentious issue, or where there are wiki-wide implications (e.g. any change to our policies or guidelines).

Do not list discussions where consensus is clear. If you feel the need to close them, do it yourself.

Move on – do not wait for someone to state the obvious. In some cases, it is appropriate to close a discussion with a clear outcome early to save our time.

Do not post here to rush the closure. Also, only do so when the discussion has stabilised.

On the other hand, if the discussion has much activity and the outcome isn't very obvious, you should let it play out by itself. We want issues to be discussed well. Do not continue the discussion here.

There is no fixed length for a formal request for comment (RfC). Typically 7 days is a minimum, and after 30 days the discussion is ripe for closure. The best way to tell is when there is little or no activity in the discussion, or further activity is unlikely to change its result.

When the discussion is ready to be closed and the outcome is not obvious, you can submit a brief and neutrally worded request for closure.

Include a link to the discussion itself and the {{Initiated}} template at the beginning of the request. A helper script can make listing easier. Move discussions go in the 'other types' section.

Any uninvolved editor may close most discussions, so long as they are prepared to discuss and justify their closing rationale.

Closing discussions carries responsibility, doubly so if the area is contentious. You should be familiar with all policies and guidelines that could apply to the given discussion (consult your draft closure at the discussions for discussion page if unsure). Be prepared to fully answer questions about the closure or the underlying policies, and to provide advice about where to discuss any remaining concerns that editors may have.

Non-admins can close most discussions. Admins may not overturn your non-admin closures just because you are not an admin, and this is not normally in itself a problem at reviews. Still, there are caveats. You may not close discussions as an unregistered user, or where implementing the closure would need tools or edit permissions you do not have access to. Articles for deletion and move discussion processes have more rules for non-admins to follow.

If you want to formally challenge and appeal the closure, do not start the discussion here. Instead follow advice at WP:CLOSECHALLENGE.

Other areas tracking old discussions

• Misplaced Pages:Requested moves#Elapsed listings
• Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Old
• Misplaced Pages:Redirects for discussion
• Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Awaiting closure
• Misplaced Pages:Templates for discussion#Old discussions
• Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion#Old business
• Misplaced Pages:Proposed mergers/Log
• Misplaced Pages:Proposed article splits

Administrative discussions

Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive367#Close challenge for Talk:1948 Arab–Israeli War#RFC for Jewish exodus

(Initiated 36 days ago on 13 December 2024) challenge of close at AN was archived nableezy - 05:22, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard#Sander.v.Ginkel unblock request

(Initiated 34 days ago on 15 December 2024) voorts (talk/contributions) 00:55, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

This could really use some attention—it's been over a month. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 04:08, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

 Closed by editor Beeblebrox. P.I. Ellsworth , ed.  05:05, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Place new administrative discussions above this line using a level 3 heading

Requests for comment

Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/In the news criteria amendments

(Initiated 103 days ago on 7 October 2024) Tough one, died down, will expire tomorrow. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:58, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 459#RFC_Jerusalem_Post

(Initiated 83 days ago on 28 October 2024) Participation/discussion has mostly stopped & is unlikely to pick back up again. - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 21:15, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

 Note: This is a contentious topic and subject to general sanctions. - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 21:15, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Archived. P.I. Ellsworth , ed.  22:26, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

would like to see what close is. seems like it was option 1 in general, possibly 1/2 for IP area. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 05:38, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Talk:Genocide#RfC: History section, adding native American and Australian genocides as examples

(Initiated 73 days ago on 6 November 2024) RfC expired on 6 December 2024 . No new comments in over a week. Bogazicili (talk) 15:26, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Australia#RFC: Should the article state that Indigenous Australians were victims of genocide?

(Initiated 72 days ago on 8 November 2024), RFC expired weeks ago. GoodDay (talk) 21:33, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Talk:Israel#RfC

(Initiated 57 days ago on 22 November 2024) Legobot has removed the RFC notice. Can we please get an interdependent close. TarnishedPath 23:08, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

 Note: Ongoing discussion, please wait a week or two. Bogazicili (talk) 14:08, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Discussion has slowed on the RFC. TarnishedPath 07:21, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Talk:Thomas Sewell (neo-Nazi)#RfC on the Inclusion of Guard Actions and Court Findings on Motivations

(Initiated 33 days ago on 17 December 2024) Legobot has removed the RFC notice and the last comment was a few days ago. Can we get an independent close please. TarnishedPath 22:50, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

•  Done. Yes you can.—S Marshall T/C 10:28, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

  @S Marshall Thank you. TarnishedPath 10:38, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Talk:Estado Novo (Portugal)#RFC Should the Estado Novo be considered fascist?

(Initiated 11 days ago on 8 January 2025) RfC opened last month, and was re-opened last week, but hasn't received further discussion. Outcome clear and unlikely to change if it were to run the full 30 days. SmittenGalaxy | talk! 00:54, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Does this need a close? Aaron Liu (talk) 02:35, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I would have just closed it myself, but I don't exactly feel comfortable doing so since I've responded and have a bias about how it should close. Not opposed to just letting it expire, though. SmittenGalaxy | talk! 23:23, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I think it should just be left to expire. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:59, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment#Closing the discussion. The outcome is obvious and you can let it lie unclosed.—S Marshall T/C 00:01, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

 Not done for reasons given above. P.I. Ellsworth , ed.  04:45, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Place new discussions concerning RfCs above this line using a level 3 heading

Deletion discussions

Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2025 January 18#Category:Belarusian saints

(Initiated 30 days ago on 20 December 2024) HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 23:10, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2025 January 6#Category:Misplaced Pages oversighters

(Initiated 30 days ago on 20 December 2024) HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 05:38, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 December 31#Category:Disambig-Class Star Trek pages

(Initiated 18 days ago on 31 December 2024) HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 20:54, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

 Closed by editor Xplicit. P.I. Ellsworth , ed.  16:39, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2025 January 1#Category:Category-Class 20th Century Studios pages of NA-importance

(Initiated 18 days ago on 1 January 2025) HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 20:50, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

 Closed by editor Xplicit. P.I. Ellsworth , ed.  16:37, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2025 January 6#Redundant WPANIMATION categories

(Initiated 13 days ago on 6 January 2025) HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 05:35, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Place new discussions concerning XfDs above this line using a level 3 heading

Other types of closing requests

Talk:Arab migrations to the Levant#Merger Proposal

(Initiated 116 days ago on 25 September 2024) Open for a while, requesting uninvolved closure. Andre🚐 22:15, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Winter fuel payment abolition backlash#Merge proposal

(Initiated 82 days ago on 29 October 2024) There are voices on both sides (ie it is not uncontroversial) so a non-involved editor is needed to evaluate consensus and close this. Thanks. PamD 09:55, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Israel–Hamas war#Survey

(Initiated 73 days ago on 7 November 2024) Looking for uninvolved close in CTOP please, only a few !votes in past month. I realise this doesn't require closing, but it is preferred in such case due to controversial nature of topic. CNC (talk) 10:44, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

•  Note: I'm happy to perform the merge if required, as have summarised other sections of this article already with consensus. I realise it's usually expected to perform splits or merges when closing discussions, but in this case it wouldn't be needed. CNC (talk) 20:28, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Talk:You Like It Darker#Proposed merge of Finn (short story) into You Like It Darker

(Initiated 22 days ago on 27 December 2024) Proposed merge discussion originally opened on 30 May 2024, closed on 27 October 2024, and reopened on 27 December 2024 following the closure being overturned at AN. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:22, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Talk:Selected Ambient Works Volume II#Proposed merge of Stone in Focus into Selected Ambient Works Volume II

(Initiated 13 days ago on 6 January 2025) Seeking uninvolved closure; proposal is blocking GA closure czar 11:47, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Talk:Donald Trump#Proposal to supersede consensus #50

(Initiated 8 days ago on 10 January 2025) Seeking uninvolved closure; its degenerated into silly sniping and has clearly run its course. Slatersteven (talk) 16:46, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Place new discussions concerning other types of closing requests above this line using a level 3 heading

Admin attention to an RFC/U, please

I want to highlight this RFC/U for admins' attention: Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Apteva.

In an attempt at strict compliance with closing instructions, a motion to close was drawn up on the talkpage: Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for comment/Apteva#Motion to close. The RFC has been open since 30 November 2012 (that's 33 days, as I write). Nothing important remains unconsidered, and the trickle of new contributions simply aligns with opinions that are already well exposed. The motion to close has revealed overwhelming consensus; the delay in implementing this consensus with a formal closure (and an accurately detailed summary of that consensus) perpetuates uncertainty on the Project (notably at WT:MOS).

Would an admin who is experienced in these processes please take care of it? I request an admin, specifically. The consensus is clear, but the details need to considered with care. Several comments mention an approach to ArbCom if the matter is not settled with finality.

Thank you!

Noetica 03:42, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, that RFC/U cannot be closed. You appear to be looking for option 3 under instructions which is a motion to close. However, you miss the general explanation over option 3 at the very top which says "The parties and/or participants to the dispute agree (via a motion on the talk page of that RfC/U)." Although you have a motion that has consensus, not all of the parties have agreed. So this cannot be closed yet. I might be reading this too strictly, I've only closed a handful of RFC/Us, but that's what I am seeing.--v/r - TP 13:24, 2 January 2013 (UTC)--v/r - TP 13:22, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Tom that generally user conduct RFCs are not closed except by the subject user's consent. Generally, user conduct RFCs either fade away and are delisted or are escalated to Arbcom due to the subject user's refusal to consent to consensus. It's also worth noting that while it cannot serve as the sole basis for administrative sanctions, such as a block, a user conduct RFC can be indicative of behavior which could result in an administrator blocking the subject user. MBisanz 15:56, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

If Apteva doesn't accept that consensus there, or at least abide by the spirit of the ban by stopping the disruption (which he seems to be continuing as we speak), then I'm told that a good next step is to request a community ban here at WP:AN. Is there some suggested process for that? Dicklyon (talk) 21:46, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Of course there is the option of requesting a topic ban here at WP:AN. Remember? That's what happened with PMAnderson, though that ban was later trumped by more stringent sanctions.

I have reviewed the rather confusing provisions for closure of an RFC/U. Option 3 includes this text (my underlining):

However, where a summary is disputed, all participants must agree at the RfC/U talk page on which summary to use. This is because in the absence of a clear consensus one way or another, writing the closer's own view of the dispute as the summary/close has been considered controversial in the past.

Well and good. But in the present case, the summary at the first motion to close has vastly more acceptance than any other. So how could any other summary supplant it? And why would any radically different new summary be seriously proposed? Yet I see that Hasteur has attempted another, much weaker summary, and has sought to impose it as somehow superseding those already in place. (See Motion to close (5) at the talkpage, which until I refactored for conformity with the established structure purported to be in a special category, somehow standing above the preceding motions.)

Hasteur seems to have unusual views on the closing of these things: different from the guidelines, and different from views expressed above. I have asked Hasteur to give an explanation, here in this section.

Again, if things do not proceed according to the guidelines, it may be necessary for ArbCom to settle the matter. Let's hope it will not come to that.

Noetica 07:20, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

This has already been at Neotarf (talk) 10:06, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

*COUGH* Noetica, since you seem to be out for blood please place yourself in the guillotine first.

1. You have failed to follow the instructions of this page. You must notify any user who is the subject of a discussion. It's a big yellow box.
2. The proper location to request closure of a RfC is at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure, a subsection at the very top of this page.
3. If you had shelved your bloodlust for sanctioning Apteva, you would have seen that the proposed closure I make is weaker only because that's a neutral summary that doesn't impose any next steps. RfC/U is not about making next steps, it's about informing the subject of a significant problem with their editing.
4. You'll see that I've "propose closed" contentious RfC/U's in the same manner before and been thanked for it .
5. Finally, your request here is what caused me to come look at the RfC/U again. Finessing the rules is how these lower closes can happen while at the same time leaving tracks for future disruptive behaviors to roll forward on.

I question if you, Noetica, might benefit from a vacation from the area around this RfC/U as you seem to be heavily invested (both mentally and emotionally) in seeking sanctions. Let it go. Hasteur (talk) 14:41, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Serious, guillotine? blood? I don't hear Noetica suggesting anything like that. He's just frustrated, as I have been for months, that there doesn't seem to be a way to get Apteva to stop the disruption. I thought that after a few months and warnings my request to AN/I would have been enough to get an admin to give him a firm warning with penalty of block for continued disruption, but it was ignored. Now that we've got a huge consensus that he needs to stop and avoid this area where everything he has tried to do has been firmly rejected as disruptive and against consensus, we're still nowhere in terms of a process to get him to stop. Can you help instead of trying to make Noetica the bad guy here? Dicklyon (talk) 19:05, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, Hasteur did say this: AN or RfArb, but first see if Apteva will take on board the viewpoints (Apteva hasn't. or at least has not agreed to stop what is being asked to stop). HaugenErik (talk) 22:25, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Hasteur, I answer your numbered points:

1. Do you mean Apteva? If so, that is explained at Apteva's talkpage. The discussion was not started about Apteva, but about the state of an RFC/U and how to close it according to settled procedures. If you mean I have failed to notify you, please note: You are not the subject of the discussion. The discussion is about how to proceed in a case that cries out for closure when there is already a very strong consensus established, and you have sought to act administratively in the case. Anyway, you were notified of this discussion, at the talkpage of the RFC/U.
2. A request for closure was indeed posted at the location you suggest. I sought action on that request, and that seems to be fair and normal. I also sought clarification of some very obscure closing instructions. Obviously people interpret them differently, so I feel perfectly justified in making this approach here.
3. The neutrality and utility of your attempt at an administrative summing-up are seriously questionable, in the face of a clear expression of opinion from a great majority of the participating editors. Your immoderate language against me does you no credit: "since you seem to be out for blood please place yourself in the guillotine first"; "if you had shelved your bloodlust for sanctioning Apteva". By itself, that is a good basis for action concerning your conduct. In particular, for a request or sanctions aimed at excluding you from intervening administratively in any RFC/U.
   I now formally ask you to withdraw that wording, which I say is inflammatory and abusive, and does not reflect the facts.
4. I know that you have been thanked for your actions in the past, and I don't doubt that they were well intended. I am concerned about the present very serious case, in which there is a plain consensus – one that your actions might possibly nullify, despite your good intentions here also.
5. My request here was specifically for an "admin who is experienced in these processes" to deal expeditiously with an important case where a clear consensus has emerged. It was specifically not for a non-admin. It is disappointing that you still intervened. No one is trying to "finesse the rules", except perhaps you (I regret having to say). I came here to get action, but also clarity about Byzantine rules that I am now convinced need re-drafting. (I might take some part in that, because I have experience with clear unambiguous drafting.)

Last, I note your condescending remarks about my taking a vacation. I could make similar remarks about you, with at least equal justification. I am a style specialist, with more edits at WP:MOS than any other editor (mostly to tidy things, and to guard against non-consensual or ill-documented changes), but believe me: I willingly absent myself from there for months at a time. Almost a year, in 2010. It is impertinent of you to make suggestions about my mental and emotional well-being, when I pursue the normal business of assisting to deal with disruption in a WP area that is my specialty. You have no idea what you are talking about.
I now formally ask you to withdraw that wording also.

♥

Noetica 23:10, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

@Noetica: You said

However, where a summary is disputed, all participants must agree at the RfC/U talk page on which summary to use. This is because in the absence of a clear consensus one way or another, writing the closer's own view of the dispute as the summary/close has been considered controversial in the past.

Well and good. But in the present case, the summary at the first motion to close has vastly more acceptance than any other. So how could any other summary supplant it?

You yourself quoted the most important aspect of closing an RFC/U. All participants, including the target of the RFC/U, must agree to the close. RFC/Us arnt meant to have teeth. They are a discussion that are meant to get the target to see what their poor behavior is. If they fail, then they fail and you move on to higher dispute resolution. However, ignoring the line that you underlined because you have 28 v 4 votes in favor of your preferred close doesn't mean squat and is completely against the purpose of an RFC/U. Sorry, it's unfair to you, but that's what they are. Hastuer gave good advice, I suggest you take it.--v/r - TP 17:37, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Hasteur, this is nothing against you personally, but the instructions do say specifically that an admin can be requested for the close, and this was done. While non-admin closures of RFCs are often appreciated elsewhere in the interests of clearing backlogs, in my experience, any editors who wander into the area of MOS, myself included, quickly find themselves trying to walk on quicksand. Non-admins who have tried to close MOS-related RFCs in the past have deeply regretted it. A non-admin closure simply will not be seen as legitimate. In addition, you will not be viewed as "uninvolved" since you participated in the RFC/U yourself, here: WP:Requests for comment/Apteva#Outside view by Hasteur, recommending that hyphens and en-dashes be replaced by spaces. The sky is blue, the pope is Catholic, and Noetica is Noetica. Let it go.

So we are back to Dicklyon's original question. Is there a suggested process for requesting a community ban here at WP:AN?

Neotarf (talk) 04:33, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Most people who wander over to MOS make one or two edits, almost 300 in the last couple of years, while less than half a dozen made over 50 edits, and only two over 100 edits each (one of whom quit editing WP because of being tired of "arguing with about trivia"). Not sure about it being quicksand, but it has not exactly been what anyone would call welcoming, although the talk page header says "Be polite, and welcoming to new users" (it was missing for part of last year). On the talk page almost 500 editors made one or two edits (about half), and just over half a dozen made over 500 edits each. Apteva (talk) 20:07, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Apteva, twenty-eight editors have just signed a statement saying they want you to change your behavior, and you are babbling about numbers of edits???!!1! Do you have any clue about what is going on here? Are you willing to pay any attention to them? —Neotarf (talk) 20:59, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Mostly 28 signatures, with sparse comments: Remember that the format of the RFC/U was very limited, with the restriction that other users "endorse" each view (by signature), with little commentary, where the comments were fractionated onto the attached talk-page. For those reasons, Apteva has stated, here, that it will take a while to wade through the various comments (and gobs of signatures) to find real explanations. Plus, remember, that the RFC/U did not require diff-links to prove claims, and so Apteva will have difficulty following some opinions about alleged incidents from months ago, with no diff-link text to provide specific details about each claim. In essense, that RFC/U was a pile of vague claims that there had been some problems, but few specifics. In fact, I think many people do not understand the talk of "false consensus" as meaning that although a consensus was reached to draft a wp:DASH page, that result seemed to have been forced into agreement, and did not account for true opposition, where the results should have been "no consensus" and hence no rule to suggest dashes be used in some cases. Another problem was the notion that "6,000 people" could agree and 1 opposed person be right, because actually, per wp:CONSENSUS, a wiki-consensus must align with policies, as determined by a wider consensus, and no "local consensus" (even among "6,000" people) can override a long-term policy as developed by the combined attention of 110,000 active editors each month on Misplaced Pages (33,000 editing over 5 article-edits per month). So the issues about "no consensus" were in relation to those problems, rather than the claim that "consensus was being ignored". I hope that clarified the mystery of why consensus needs to be broadened. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:32, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Proposal for topic ban for Apteva

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

Based on the RFC/U and discussion here, and User:Apteva's rejection of all relevant findings and advice, I propose that we declare a community ban for Apteva, from engaging in pushing anti-en-dash and anti-MOS theories, including the theory that MOS and TITLE are in conflict. After the clear consensus at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Apteva, summarized in Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for comment/Apteva#Motion to close with 28 editors' endorsements, and considering Apteva's rejection of those findings and continued dispruptive pushing of these theories in the New Year, I see no alternatives (since the RFC/U can't be closed without his agreement and bothering the Arbcom with this seems unnecessary given the clear community consensus).

The consensus RFC/U summary says:

Apteva's persistent pushing of the theory that en dashes are never appropriate in proper names, such as the names of wars, comets, bridges, and airports, has been disruptive. Respecting the wishes of the community as represented by an overwhelming majority of responders at this RFC/U, Apteva will refrain from any further advocating of this position, or any position against en dashes or against the MOS being applicable to article titles, and will not make any page moves or RMs based on such theories. Violation of this topic ban will be grounds for a block and/or a request for arbitration.

And the continued disruption is evident in Apteva's WT:TITLE discussion, including these 2013 items:

• WT:TITLE diff – holding out for his idiosyncratic view with "The very core of using consensus is that even if 6,000 agree with something and only one disagrees, that one just might be right."
• WT:TITLE diff – continuing his long-lost case of Comet Hale–Bopp being incorrectly named.
• contributors data – showing Apteva dominating discussion at WP:TITLE in this new year, in spite of months of being told by many that this behavior is disruptive.

Rephrasing slightly for the context, I propose the following ban be enacted:

Apteva's persistent pushing of the theory that en dashes are never appropriate in proper names, such as the names of wars, comets, bridges, and airports, and his pushing of the theory that the MOS does not apply to article titles, has been disruptive. Based on the consensus reaction of the community, Apteva must refrain from any further advocating of these positions, or any position against en dashes or against the MOS being applicable to article titles, and must not make any page moves or RMs based on such theories. Violation of this topic ban will be grounds for an immediate block and/or a request for arbitration.

I believe any uninvolved admin can close and approve this ban here based on the existing discussions linked, especially given the existing AE discretionary sanctions in place concerning MOS and TITLE; I suggest we get Apteva's response here, and then not bother to repeat the reactions that are so richly represented already in the linked RFC/U and elsewhere. Dicklyon (talk) 21:20, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

• A topic ban and community ban are different things; may want to clarify. --Rschen7754 21:22, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

  WP:CBAN says "If an editor has proven to be repeatedly disruptive in one or more areas of Misplaced Pages, the community may engage in a discussion to site ban, topic ban, or place an interaction ban or editing restriction via a consensus of editors who are not involved in the underlying dispute." I'm referring to a community-imposed topic ban. Dicklyon (talk) 22:06, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

  • Ok, that's a topic ban. When you say "community ban" or just ban in general, you're talking about an indefinite block that can only be overturned by consensus or Arbcom and is usually the result of long term abuse. A topic ban, however, is...well you know.--v/r - TP 22:09, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
    • The topic ban needs to be defined broadly though, the area of disruption has been wide. —Neotarf (talk) 22:40, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support I've been monitoring this from a distance, and the fact that Apteva does not understand what she is doing wrong is quite disturbing and disruptive. --Rschen7754 22:31, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

  While I occasionally miss these, that is he or she thank you. Or xe. Apteva (talk) 00:29, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support. This should be at ANI, not AN. I have been watching the progress of the RfCU and I must say that a topic ban on hyphens and dashes is long overdue. Binksternet (talk) 22:37, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
  • This is a ban proposal rather than discussion of a specific incident, so is entirely appropriate at AN. KTC (talk) 22:55, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
  • This was already taken to ANI. WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive777#Apteva disruption —Neotarf (talk) 22:59, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
    • And if no action was warranted then, and my behavior has changed, which it has (but not my beliefs, which I am entitled to express appropriately), why would any action be warranted today? I would ask that I be allowed to read over the reams of accusations at the RFC/U and correct my behavior on the basis of those accusations. Apteva (talk) 00:29, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
      • The difference now is that you haven't stopped beating the dead horse despite the advice from the last ANI. We know you want dash/hyphens in titles to be used a certain way. Repeated consensus has decided against this, and yet you continue to push your agenda, including to the point of disruption of talk page functionality. --MASEM (t) 00:47, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
        • It is false that I "want dash/hyphens in titles to be used a certain way". It is a fact that dashes and hyphens are used in a certain way, and I would like to propose that we use them appropriately. What we do is not under any one editors control, and wanting something a particular way is ludicrous. Apteva (talk) 02:01, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
          • It's called a "house style", where consensus has decided to uses dashes and hyphens in a certain way, because other style guides have conflicting advice. You don't like what consensus has decide and/or you believe you know what's best for WP - both attitudes are ones that lead to disruption and eventually blocks. --MASEM (t) 02:23, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
• Question: Does this propsed topic ban on hyphens v dashes extend to article content and article titles via the RM process or does it just apply to the MOS guideline? I think this aspect should extraordinairly clear in the propsal. --Mike Cline (talk) 22:55, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
  • We have also seen disruptive refactoring discussion, archiving, resetting of bots, tampering with templates, etc. None of this was a problem when Apteva was editing only in article space. —Neotarf (talk) 23:07, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
    • I am actually one of the very few editors who knows what a dash and a hyphen is, and knows when they are correctly used, so not editing dashes and hyphens and not expressing a view on them is pointless. Apteva (talk) 00:29, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
  • The proposal includes "must not make any page moves or RMs based on such theories". I have not noticed any disruption in article content, but if the dash aversion makes itself felt in articles, too, then the provision "Apteva must refrain from any further advocating of these positions, or any position against en dashes" ought to be enough to keep the disruption down, I would think. I'm not into trying to wikilawyer the details; I'm sure xe can be warned if the behavior seems like it's near the line, so xe's not going to accidentally get ximself blocked. Propose a clarification here if you think one is warranted. Dicklyon (talk) 00:44, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support the strongly expressed consensus, and the topic ban as a regrettable necessity. (I have closed the RFC/U, though I was involved. It was just a technical matter, since the transfer to this page.) There is no need for a new round of voting here, of course. Everything has already been thoroughly gone over at the RFC/U and its talkpage, with a convincing outcome.
  Noetica 23:37, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

  Which I reverted - no involved editor can close a non-consensus RfC. Apteva (talk) 00:29, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

  Not helpful to your cause or to anything else, Apteva. I have reverted your reversion. For one thing, you are centrally involved. For another, it is highly disruptive for you to revert a technical closure (fully explained as such), which any editor in good standing may perform, regardless of involvement. Nothing in the closing instructions for RFC/U provides otherwise. I call on editors to assist in keeping the RFC/U duly closed; the discussion is now correctly transferred here. Noetica 00:50, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

  Typical. I trust that an uninvolved admin will revert the above action and post a warning appropriately on the above editor's talk page. How many times was the RfC closed and reverted at MOS by the same edit warrior? Edit warring is prohibited. Apteva (talk) 02:01, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

  Uh huh. A quick and dirty link to a complex matter that was thoroughly dealt with at ANI, with no action against any of a whole bunch of parties including some shady old hand posting as an IP? Sorry – no more straws to clutch at. Move this along now? Noetica 02:50, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

  Ah, yes, now I remember that sockfarm-infested RFC. Apteva/Delphi234 admitted to being one of the IPs, that resolved to central England, even though Apteva is obviously American. But nobody ever copped to the rest of the IPs, also in central England, but writing in American English.—Neotarf (talk) 11:04, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

  Just to set the record straight, I was not involved in that RFC either as an IP or logged in. I did straighten out the archives and keep the thread from getting archived yet again. Apteva (talk) 07:14, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• support Whatever it is. I'm happy with an indef site ban by now, after it has gone on this long. Rarely have I seen an editor so clue-resistant. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:23, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support with broadly defined topics. —Neotarf (talk) 00:55, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support – even here, well into the 11th hour, ban looming, Apteva seems intent via yet more ill-judged remarks upon depriving Misplaced Pages of the one editor who knows an en—dash from their elbow. (I seem to recall that Socrates did not choose his last words optimally.) Oculi (talk) 02:07, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support Topic ban, and Oppose Community ban. Just in case, I'm gonna make it clear: A topic ban may be useful, because the user can still edit and enjoy the good parts of the pedia; also, the virus that infects his desire of changing things and all the drama is gone. I oppose a community ban because whe've had enough of that. I don't want another Jack Merridew case here. Let's just cut it simple, remove what has been bugging the community, and give the user the free will to edit elsewhere and being harmless. — ΛΧΣ 02:35, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
• OpposeConditional Oppose for now, see my comments at the Opposition to a topic ban section. As I said below consider my !vote to become support or partial support if Apteva does not keep to that. PaleAqua (talk) 04:08, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

  Switching to pure oppose, with the understanding that if Apteva breaks the voluntary ban, that I will switch to support. Would still see a statement from Apteva agreeing to the terms in the A resolution to the dispute section below. PaleAqua (talk) 22:15, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support a ban along these lines, broadly defined—I think we've had enough of this. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 06:57, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose RFC/U is a form of dispute resolution. As of right now, the RFC/U has been closed for 9 hours. Give the editor time to reflect on what has transpired. He/she now knows that the community has found their behavior to be disruptive. If they are wise, then they will learn from this. However, if in a week or two the disruption has continued, then we can revisit a topic ban. Right now though I feel such a topic ban would be preemptive rather than solving a problem that may well have been at least partially resolved through the RFC/U. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 08:10, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

  That close was to bring the conversation here, after Apteva had rejected the consensus summary of the RFC/U and continued the months of disruption into the new year. Dicklyon (talk) 08:17, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

  Obviously the purpose of all of our dispute resolution mechanisms is to help us learn to work harmoniously together, and not call for blocks and bans. It is certainly reasonable to wait a week and see if the RFC helped. But just to be specific, that close was allegedly because of the conversation here, not to bring the conversation here. But this is the "Admin attention to an RFC/U, please" thread, and an admin was specifically requested, and rejected, as the proper close was to just let it finish, which it has, but it is not correct to close it by anyone involved, and that should be reverted. Apteva (talk) 09:14, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

  AQ, Apteva has soundly rejected what was asked at the RFC/U. Even here in this page, since the RFC/U was closed, Apteva has said: It is a fact that dashes and hyphens are used in a certain way, and I would like to propose that we use them appropriately and I am actually one of the very few editors who knows what a dash and a hyphen is, and knows when they are correctly used, so not editing dashes and hyphens and not expressing a view on them is pointless. We've waited months since it has been made clear to Apteva that Apteva's campaigns are disruptive; there have been no changes. What is going to happen in the next week? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:39, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

  I fully agree his behavior and frivolous RM nominations of the past are disruptive. At least for now, he has ceased the behavior that caused the RFC/U, which was his attempts to force policy changes. The first quote you link he is correcting Masem on what his views are and the second he is explaining his reasoning for making past decisions. Now I do think he needs to admit his wrong in attempting to force policy changes and denying consensus.

• I see a lot of editors upset over the long discussions Apteva has caused these last few months, and I understand the frustration. To be honest though, I don't think this editor has reached the point of needing topic ban restrictions. He is coming very close to that point, but he hasn't crossed that line. I think the best course of action is for an admin to give him a strongly worded final warning on his talk page. Looking through his talk page archives, he has not to received one yet. That would go hand in hand with the RFC/U, which I think was an eye opener for him, Give him time to reflect on what has transpired. If Apteva goes back to push for a policy change, then we can revisit a topic ban. At which point I would support a topic ban. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 21:10, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

  I'm not sure how you can argue that Apteva has not received enough warnings. I've made it clear to Apteva several times that this behavior needs to stop, and I know other editors have as well. The comments at the RFC/U should have served as a warning. User_talk:Apteva/Archive_4#Only_warning also—notice the total lack of understanding the problem in Apteva's response: it's others that have the problem. You might be right about interpreting Apteva's comments that I've quoted, but I asked if Apteva stands by those in that context and the reply was only "a temporary 'recusal'"—so by the editor's own words we'll be back at this at some point. This has gone on long enough; it needs to stop. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:43, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

  Not so. There are appropriate ways of bringing anything up and inappropriate ways. What I am asked is to be more appropriate in my editing style. Not a problem. Apteva (talk) 04:46, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

  How can you at this point think that any of this is about your editing style? What are you talking about? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 06:08, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

  It was a polite way of saying bringing up the same issue 100 times. Or 4 times, or however many times it was. And no no one needs to say oh but it was at least x number of times. It was beyond the threshold of some. Had it been someone else, for me, they are welcome to bring it up a million times - it just gets quarantined to a subpage where it bothers no one. Apteva (talk) 07:14, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

  Agreed, that section was particularly worrisome. I saw that section when I was reading through his talk page archives earlier today. The warning from MBisanz on Apteva's talk page was over his attempted disruption of the RFC/U. (When I mentioned "giving Apteva a final warning" above, I was referring to the hyphen issue.) Apteva demonstrated his uncertainty on what section of the policy he violated. Assuming good faith here, Apteva has displayed fundamental misunderstanding of a key Misplaced Pages policy (if this is the case, he really should go back an study a refresher on policy). Assuming the worst, then he is simply playing the I didn't hear that game. Now, for the moment I am assuming good faith on the part Apteva. It's part of the reason I am opposing the topic ban at the moment. Then again, I have usually been very cautious about supporting a topic ban proposal. The other reason is I feel it is too soon after the RFC/U to make a decent decision. The editor hasn't edited enough since the closure for anyone to determine his intentions. Best, Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 22:39, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

  Once again, that is his or her, thank you. And yes feel free to open an AN/I if I bring up what I can not say during the temporary moratorium. I am certain that it is not going to happen. Apteva (talk) 04:51, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

  AQ, Apteva has been warned about hyphens. Consider the RFC/U, where the message was rejected. I told Apteva this behavior was disruptive here: Talk:Comet_Hale–Bopp#Misnamed. Others have also made this abundantly clear to Apteva, over and over, at countless other venues. It does not affect Apteva's behavior. Look—I have no doubt that Apteva is operating in good faith. Obviously Apteva is totally convinced about these issues, and is trying to help and make Misplaced Pages better. That doesn't make this behavior less disruptive. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 06:08, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support, per proposer, and on the further basis that Apteva's continued efforts to argue this tedious nonsense about lines that our readers can't tell apart, and wouldn't care about if they could, even as the ban is being discussed here. Nothing short of an outright ban is going to shut him/her up, self-evidently. AndyTheGrump (talk) 09:49, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

His attitude on his talk page would suggest otherwise. If you think about it, the concern he raised was legitimate. One's keyboard has a dash, yet articles use em dashed. It is a bit odd to say the least. There is a redirect from the dash version anyway, so ultimately the debate isn't worth much, but it is still a valid point. However, he took it too far and argued his point too long after consensus was reached. This resulted in an RFC/U where the community established that continuing to debate the topic was causing disruption. With this in mind, Apteva has two options. He can continue to debate the issue and end up with a topic ban, or he can let the issue lie and go on with editing articles. It's really up to Apteva, does he want to receive a topic ban due to the fact that he debated how many pixels a line should have in a title?

The RFC/U was used as dispute resolution in this case. It has run it's course, the community established that and his continuing the debate was disruptive, and Apteva now knows his options. So far, Apteva has ceased performing the actions that led RFC/U. Providing this remains so, the RFC/U served it's purpose and resolved the dispute. If it continues in the future, then we can revisit a topic ban discussion. Right now, a topic ban would simply be a punishment for causing past disruption. Let the past remain in the past, topic bans are not intended to be punitive, but rather preventive. There is no disruption to prevent at the moment due to Apteva having ceased. So let's lay this to rest. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 10:11, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

"There is no disruption to prevent at the moment due to Apteva having ceased". If he/she had, you might have a point - but Apteva is still arguing the case for whatever-length-lines-wherever, even in this discussion. A ban will (hopefully) prevent any more of it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:19, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

What he is asking for in the section below is cooler heads when discussing MoS topics. Yes, this is not the place or the time for it due to the fact that this is a topic ban debate concerning him, but it is a reasonable request. MoS debates can quite quickly degrade into heated exchanges. Followed by editors attempting to topic ban another group of editors or one specific editor. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 10:40, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Alpha, you do not seem to be tracking Apteva's actual activity. Instead of considering comments in the RFC/U and trying to settle on how his behavior could change to mollify the community, he simply used it as another platform for obsessive campaigning against dashes. And did the same thing at WT:MOS, and at WT:AT, and other places, as if the RFC/U were a joke. He makes claims that he's backing off and cooling down, but these are just words. His actions have not changed at all, not even after this WP:AN was opened! — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 19:56, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Well AQ, it's easy to see where you stand on the style matters that Apteva is utterly obsessed with. You are seriously mistaken in thinking that editors dedicated to MOS development want to shut anyone up. That is a distortion of history, and will not stand up to scrutiny. WT:MOS always welcomes constructive involvement from as many in the community as possible. But in the last couple of years MOS has been assailed by three or four editors who refuse to accept its consensually settled role, and do all that they can to marginalise it. Apteva is the most recent of those, and the most ingenious so far. The fast footwork continues, even here. Only as an extreme last resort do editors take an action like this RFC/U, which resulted in overwhelming agreement over its 35 days. The conclusion of the RFC/U, already settled and simply needing formalisation here? Stop the unremitting and wasteful disruption. With decisive action, for a change. Noetica 11:46, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

It is quite true, there are many editors over at MOS that are very open to constructive changes to the MOS. However, all you have to do is take a look at the ARBOM case to see that there are...problems. And yes, there have been several editors of concerning attitude at MOS over the last few years. However, there are also editors at MOS that make the place particularly volatile for anyone attempting to hold new discussions. Now I am not going to name names, that is a can of worms I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. However, I will give you a hint, some of them participated in the last ARBCOM proceedings.

The RFC/U closure itself was a procedural train wreck. First, the wording on the leading closure statement was changed and other editors accept, but it now becomes unclear whether or not everyone listed really supports the current wording. Second, the conversation from the RFC/U spills over to AN in an attempt to close, then the RFC is closed by a participant in the RFC/U as moved to AN (effectively nullifying any decisions in the RFC/U). After it is closed, the subject of the RFC/U reopens only to be reclosed by the original closure (wheel warring). And now the supporters of the topic ban are acting like the decision in the RFC/U are binding and consensus based. The only thing that had somewhat established solid consensus was that his continued attempts to change policy was causing disruption.

As for where I stand on the issue, yes, I think having em dashes in titles is silly when every keyboard on the planet doesn't have an em dash key. It goes against WP:COMMONNAME. However, community consensus has been established and I respect that. Ultimately we have redirects that use dashes, rendering the largely cosmetic em dash debate unnecessary. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 12:46, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

There was a WP:SNOWBALL consensus in that RFC/U, Alpha Q. Please look again. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:57, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

• I closed the RFC/U exactly according to the guidelines, in the strict and only correct way after checking in here for advice (see the top of this whole section). Anyone could have done it; someone had to do it; I did it: citing the plain reasons for the technical close, necessary once the process had moved to AN. That is not a train wreck; it is perfectly straightforward course of events, kept on track in part by my diligence and by the work of Dicklyon, despite attempts at derailment.
• The main statement itself was strongly and specifically endorsed, as can clearly be seen. I stemmed the disruption caused by the late addition of alternative wording, marking a clear point in time that was relevant. Again, someone had to. Any attempt to portray the RFC/U as somehow compromised is a plain distortion, for what now appear to be partisan reasons.
• As for ArbCom, some central players at MOS have exerted themselves and gone to extraordinary lengths, in cooperation with ArbCom to achieve peace and consensual stability, in two actions in recent times. In both, an arch-enemy of MOS was a central player. In the more recent case, he appeared as a sockpuppet and did all he could to impugn me personally, until he was exposed and given a one-year block and an indefinite topic ban. No MOS editor was so much as censured or warned; but another vocal advocate against MOS was given a warning. The facts are on record; get them right, please.
• MOS and its dedicated editors, who never rush to litigation and do welcome all bona fide, useful participation, are not under examination here. The topic over the last five weeks has been the egregiously disruptive conduct of one editor. Please stay on topic.
• It is appropriate now for an admin to review what the community has said at the RFC/U, and to complete the process.

Noetica 13:43, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Your opinionated description of editors in the ARBCOM case, the actual events of the ARBCOM case, the MOS editors, and the current RFC/U clearly demonstrates how deeply involved you are in this issue. You have a very positive opinion about the creator of the RFC/U and a very negative opinion of the subject of the RFC/U. That puts your closure in a very questionable position. There were other uninvolved users that could have closed that debate in time. Now regardless of whether or not your closure was technically appropriate, you should have let another user reclose the debate after the subject of the debate reopened it. If an involved admin had closed that discussion only to have it reopened (even by an involved party), it is very likely he would have asked for a second completely uninvolved admin to review his decision. It prevents drama and further conflict. The alternative is wheel warring, which is hardly appropriate given the situation. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 20:25, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support indefinite topic ban on hyphen and en-dash edits, move requests, and arguments, broadly interpreted. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:28, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
• 'Oppose per AQ, with a warning to Apteva that if they're not banned now, immediate and significant change in behavior will likely be necessary to avoid a ban in the future. NE Ent 14:08, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

  Noted, and I am certain that it will not be an issue. No ban is needed because of the voluntary moratorium. Apteva (talk) 04:46, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support: Apteva has been the single most obsessively tendentious and disruptive editor, on style matters he does not even properly understand, that I've ever encountered in 7+ years on WP. The topic ban should be extended to Wikid77 and Enric Naval LittleBenW, who form a triumvirate with Apteva of incessant WP:FORUMshopping and asking every WP:PARENT they can think of, again and again and again, because they refuse to acknowledge and pretend they can't see that virtually everyone else who's ever commented on the dispute disagrees with them, with their their tag-team WP:BATTLEGROUND abuse of talk pages, or usually both. It should also be extended to LittleBenW who has recently joined them; after his own block and a topic ban for precisely this kind of "style warrior" WP:SOAPBOX browbeating and canvassing against diacritics in article titles, he's simply switched to anti-dash campaigning, and gone right back to it. All four of these people seem to me to have begun as well-meaning, active editors working on improving articles, but have descended into some kind of WP:GREATWRONGS Hell of rage against anyone who dares to disagree with them, their community-abusive tactics or their badly broken logic. They are no longer here to write an encyclopedia, but to wage a typographical jihad just for the hell of it; they don't even seem to care any more what nit-pick they're trolling about, as long as they can keep the attention piling on and keep the flames burning higher and higher, wasting as many other editors' time as possible. My hope is that a broad (not just hyphens & dashes), MOS & AT topic ban (a la PMAnderson) for at least a year will solve the problem. If not, well, we all know where ARBCOM is. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 19:56, 5 January 2013 (UTC) Clarifications: A community ban would be okay, too; whatever works. Regardless what kind it is, it needs to include dash/hyphen, and preferably style issues more broadly, not just at MOS and AT/NC talk pages, but generally, including on article and user talk pages, XfDs, etc. Apteva does not competently understand complex style matters, or WP policy, but is 100% convinced he does and that everyone else is basically just crazy or stupid when they don't agree with him, so he'll never actually improve in this regard. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 21:57, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

• Come on now. I have dropped several issues when I saw that I wasn't getting anywhere. My last activities have been arguing in WT:MOS in Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_133#Comet_Hale-Bopp. And one RM for a minor planet (they are named by the same authority as comets) that I shouldn't have started because it was obviously going to fail. I have currently stopped because of: being tired + holidays + unsure of how to proceed + Apteva hickjaking the threads to discuss again airport names and others. In the future I might get around to emailing the IAU again and making one focused discussion in WT:MOS for only that particular topic. I have given up on other hyphen/dash names, MOS editors demand an arbitrarily high amount of proof that I can't meet for any of those groups of names. I didn't comment on Apteva's RfC/U because I am not comfortable with his behaviour. I even advised Apteva to stop participating in MOS discussions and go back to editing articles. It's a pity that he didn't listen to me. I guess I should have insisted more. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:21, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I'll take you at face value on that, and strike your name, then. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 21:50, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I've struck all my mentions of you, but I want to be clear why I included you; you showed a pattern of "following Apteva around" to post responses that seemed to entirely bolster his anti-consensus viewpoints, and to be engaging in the same kinds of anti-MOS conspiracy theories. Now, you seem to be suffering from the same "if I pretend there is no consensus, there is no consensus!" delusion. Just above, you simultaneously say you have given up on hyphen/dash and want everyone to notice how you drop issues when you realize you're not on the consensus side of them, yet in the same breath you vow to dig some kind of phantasmal "smoking gun" out of IAU to wave in our faces. You are not listening. For the umpteenth time, WP's MOS is not bound to do what some particular field does in their own journals just because they do it; we have our own house style, just as they do, and where theirs conflicts with ours, we are apt to reject their style quirk. (And they have some really weird quirks, like dropping the hyphens from hyphenated surnames, which MOS would certainly not tolerate.) Most importantly, you are "pulling an Apteva" in ignoring that we already have a long-standing, difficult-to-arrive-at consensus on hyphens and en-dashes, and are planning your own mini-campaign to go get more "proof" from IAU that we're all "wrong". I named you for a reason here the first time around. WP:JUSTDROPIT. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 22:20, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

The IAU email is because of Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#What_multiple_reliable_sources_explicitly_say_-_continuing. Unfortunately, I got dispirited by the frontal rejection of the first email. The thread has since been derailed by you, Apteva, Noetica and Dicklyon. Near the end of the thread there some attempts to rescue the thread by Peter Coxhead, Quale or Neotarf, but they are all drowned in the noise..... It's all very sad..... --Enric Naval (talk) 03:33, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I also don't think anything Wikid77 has done warrants any kind of sanctions. I've seen nothing terribly disruptive, unlike the months of forum shopping and tireless crusading that we've seen from Apteva. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:57, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't take months to be disruptive. Wikid77 says everything Apteva does, in all the same places, with all the same logic flaws, conspiracy theories about MOS, endless WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT tendentiousness, and stubborn, outspoken refusal to acknowledge consensus. I call WP:DUCK and WP:SPADE. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 22:20, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I think it does takes months. We gave Apteva months. Wikid77 joined him only about 33 days ago, and has been much less vocal and persistent; probably less than 1 related post per day. He is entitled to express his opinion, and entitled to support Apteva, to be stubborn, and to not acknowledge consensus, as long as the volume of contributions doesn't rise to a disruptive dominance like Apteva's does. Not entitled to call himself uninvolved, though. Let's not derail the discussion by dragging in people who for whatever reason take Apteva's side. Focus on the disrupter. Dicklyon (talk) 00:02, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support per SMcCandlish. --John (talk) 20:03, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
• Weak oppose. I understand the concerns, I understand the frustrations, and I understand the desire to get this thing done and archived. I do hope, though, that something voluntary - a promise to abstain as described below - could be achieved rather than an all-encompassing topic ban. Depending on events in the next few hours, I may reluctantly support a topic ban. dci | TALK 20:13, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
• Very strong oppose per Apteva's comment below. dci | TALK 22:04, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

order=-edit_count

• I can assure everyone that I will not be discussing hyphens and dashes. No topic ban or block is called for, and would certainly immediately be appealed, wasting even more of our time when the proper thing to do is close this, accept that I have agreed to a voluntary moratorium, get back to real work improving the encyclopedia and let bygones by bygone. Hey it is a new year and this is hardly the way to start out. Apteva (talk) 21:53, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

  Apteva, this is good news, thank you. Can you confirm that this is permanent, that you will not discuss hyphens, dashes, or MOS/AT interactions? Thank you! ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 22:01, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

  Oh dear, I see above you said "temporary moratorium" again after I asked this. I can't see any reason why we would want to go through this again later; a topic ban seems to be the only way to resolve this, there has been quite enough disruption. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 05:43, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

  Thanks Apteva, any chance you could agree to the terms in A resolution to the dispute section below? PaleAqua (talk) 22:15, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

  It is not very well written, and there is no need for it. Obviously we all follow all guidelines and policies. Obviously those change from time to time, but the principles behind them rarely change. Even though the five pillars page has been edited over a thousand times little has changed in actual content. Obviously some editors have pointed to half a dozen issues they have had with me, mostly from editors whom I have warned about violating policy or guideline. Obviously I am willing to learn how to edit in a manner that will not lead to them having any issues with me. I am only here to help. Apteva (talk) 01:43, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Holding the community to ransom by explicitly threatening to waste even more of our time with bureaucracy if you don't get your way? Not a great development. Besides if your promise not to engage in this dispute is even remotely genuine then why are you so opposed to a topic ban? No, no thanks; we've already explored the avenue of voluntary topic bans and it failed miserably. It's time for more formal action to end this and so I support the topic ban proposed. Basalisk ⁄_berate 22:02, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. Not "good news" at all. Apteva is trolling. This is all a game to him. Just topic ban him, let him appeal and lose, and let's all get back to doing what we came here for. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib.

Agreed. Way too little, way too late, way too slippery, as always. This latest desperate and utterly forced dodge is groundwork for yet more ingenious disruption. We have seen all this before, and the natural assumption of good faith has long expired. Apteva needs to show real insight voluntarily, and genuine change – and that means hearing the advice that admins and other experienced editors have been giving for many months, without being dragged kicking and screaming into reasonableness. Noetica 22:31, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support: I fully support a broadly interpreted topic ban in this case. There’s no downside here for Apteva since they claim they will voluntarily adhere to a topic ban anyway. However, there is tremendous upside here for Misplaced Pages. Our titling policy, naming conventions, MOS, etc. is a minefield of contentiousness already that disrupts WP every day in many ways. That has to change. A broadly interpreted topic ban in this case will serve as a message to others who seek to challenge already fragile consensus with forum shopping, tendentious editing and the “I am always right” attitude. --Mike Cline (talk) 00:06, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose topic ban of Apteva: After days of consideration, and concerns about wp:TAGTEAM hounding of User:Apteva, I see that people are willing to hound anyone who supports Apteva, but I will not empower those people by topic-banning Apteva, nor User:Enric Naval, nor myself (User:Wikid77), nor others who oppose the pro-dash push to force dashes into titles where the wp:COMMONNAME spelling has used hyphens for many years, decades, or centuries, as in the case of the 1887 "Michelson-Morley experiment" (which has been spelled with a hyphen in over 93% of reliable sources; see top 1,000 entries in Google Scholar search). However, if anyone asks why Misplaced Pages has such widespread use of dashes, when many grammar or punctuation errors exist in the same articles, then I think I can begin to explain the bizarre imbalance. Meanwhile, I applaud Apteva's willingness to reduce discussions about dash/hyphen problems, and I do not see the need for a topic ban, and BTW, I also support Apteva's wishes for a Happy New Year to all! -Wikid77 (talk) 01:13/05:52, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• Wikid77, I think that you are mistaken here. I think that Apteva has stepped over the boundaries of disruptiveness. And you are following his path, as if he was an example to follow. He is not. By following his example you are buying numbers to get yourself blocked in a not-very-far future. Apteva means well, but his actions in WT:MOS create a lot of noise and no improvement to the encyclopedia. --Enric Naval (talk) 03:33, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I think Apteva is basically correct, in almost all posts which I have read; however, perhaps the message is not understood in some venues. The big issue to me, is that a guideline (wp:MOS) does not override a policy (wp:COMMONNAME), where instead, a policy should be changed to reflect a suggested guidance as becoming a stricter rule of policy. People have rejected the pro-dash naming, as unlikely to gain consensus, in the title-name policy. The result is: there is no consensus to change wp:TITLE to force dashes. I am not shouting that "MOS is totally wrong" but, again, the core problem is when trying to consider a guideline as overriding a policy (wp:TITLE), then we might as well write essays which override guidelines to then override policies. See that problem? Another problem is that endashes titles are unusual, peculiar, or rare in the world at large, and that makes Misplaced Pages seem imbalanced to some readers. As a straight-A student in both high school and universities, I learned to notice very small details, and the widespread overuse of dashes looms large in my view. Then, another problem is wp:Accessibility between hyphens/dashes (for both keyboard and display) which, as a computer scientist, I understand in extremely fine detail (among the thousands of Unicode values), as having developed early search-engine technology (multi-word hypertext scans) years before Google was founded. However, for years here, I ignored the hyphen/dash debates, as imagining that other users would re-balance Misplaced Pages to align with the world-at-large usage, and that did not happen. Hence, I came to investigate why Misplaced Pages has pushed dashes in such an over-the-top, fanatical fashion. -Wikid77 (talk) 05:52, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

You seem unaware of this clarification to WP:TITLE and thus to COMMONNAME. If COMMONNAME ever applied to dashes, it doesn't now. Art LaPella (talk) 07:48, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• Reluctant support of topic ban of Apteva: I am particularly impressed by this statement, in which he boasts that he is but one of the few people who knows how to uses hyphens and dashes properly. This implies that he still thinks he is right and all others who disagree with him are wrong, in the face of the considerable number of editors who have expressed dissatisfaction with his flying in the face of consensus and his chronic recalcitrance. I have no problems to him expressing his opinions or concerns, but he keeps on banging his drum tirelessly whilst clearly having stopped listening a long time ago – because everyone is wrong, of course ;-). Whilst I may have been tempted to further assume good faith, the belligerent statement above strongly suggests that a topic ban may be a minimum that will be needed to end the continuing disruption. If he has no intention of continuing to discuss or otherwise war on matters related to dashes and hyphens widely construed, then a topic ban will not affect how he behaves from now on. If, however, his intention is to continuing to argue and lawyer as he has so far done on this page, then the topic ban will have bite. -- Ohconfucius  05:57, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

  That certainly was not meant as a boast. It was meant to show that that was an area that I was competent to make contributions, in fixing other editors lack of awareness, and I certainly hope that will reconsider. I do sort of liken it to not being able to use the letter k. Apteva (talk) 07:50, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support topic ban Apteva has been disruptive in the area of hyphens and dashes, and moreover seems to be not be able to admit that he's wrong or that consensus is against him. I'm not saying that dashes should be used over hyphens in the names of comets, airports, bridges, etc., or hyphens over dashes. I'm just saying that Apteva always believes xe is right, which makes consensus-finding impossible. David1217 08:59, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

  Strange. I get the same vote as everyone else, that is just the way WP works. Sometimes I am right sometimes I am wrong. It is not an issue. Apteva (talk) 09:34, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support topic ban The disruption has to stop, and it is obvious merely from this discussion, let alone the RfC/U, that the only way to achieve that is to topic ban Apteva. Discussion of what kind of dash to use should only involve editors who understand how to operate in a community that depends on collaboration. Johnuniq (talk) 11:28, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Post-close notice (Topic ban, what topic ban?)

The closer did not specifically take note of the community's consensus to ban Apteva from pushing "any position ... against the MOS being applicable to article titles", and now Apteva has restarted his disruption along that line, by introducing a proposal at WT:TITLE that is so far from any possible acceptability as to be disruptive even if it were not specifically banned behavior. I will ask the closer to review his closing statement and see if he is willing clarify the terms of the topic ban to Apteva. Dicklyon (talk) 22:25, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles, today Andy Dingley (talk) 22:33, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

• How does the wording of the topic ban cover that edit? Monty₈₄₅ 22:41, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think Apteva's comment at WT:TITLE is a violation of the hyphen/dash topic-ban (by User:Seraphim: AN ban-close 11:40, 6 January 2013), and most others here agree, as asking for "clarification" to widen the topic-ban to apply to article titles. In fact, while editing that wt:TITLE thread myself, I had noticed Apteva's posted comment, and thought, "Good that this is not a post to wt:MOS, but instead far removed from style issues in there" because wp:TITLE is a policy (with wp:COMMONNAME to name article titles to match reliable sources), and only wp:MOS deals with dash/hyphens per the MOS people insisting that dashes are a style issue, not a title-spelling issue, and so Apteva's post was far away from any hyphen/dash debate. However, claiming that Apteva made a ban violation seems like obvious 3-month wp:Wikihounding by User:Dicklyon (posted here), who also requested the topic-ban against Apteva, after starting the wp:RfC/Apteva (started 30 November 2012), and posting the most comments there. The pattern is becoming undeniable. -Wikid77 (talk) 09:15, 11 January, 16:00, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• I strongly concur. This user is not going to stop unless herded into a corner. I repeat that the editor appears to have abandoned most productive editing in favor of playing WP as a MMORPG of "who can troll the most disputes". This has to stop. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:01, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Hey, when you said, "herded into a corner" () that sounds like talking about cattle and then you said "troll" but I thought you considered Apteva a mere insect; I guess your personal attacks are getting slightly less vicious. Please re-read wp:Civility, about working with human beings. -Wikid77 (talk) 09:15, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages does not exactly have a minimum edit requirement (or if it does it is exactly one edit), but no I have not abandoned productive editing, and am currently about half way through updating all of the solar in country articles and just created Solar power in Greece. Apteva (talk) 23:49, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

• For my own thoughts here, I would say that this edit is clearly related to Apteva's activity in the area of dashes/hyphens, and that this is both a violation of the ban and that no extension of the ban is necessary for it to be covered as such. I would see this as a clear attempt at gaming the ban by not technically mentioning the previous dispute subject. However, I would encourage opening a discussion at WP:ANI for wider input. As I imposed the ban myself, I would not be comfortable also unilaterally imposing a block based upon it. Seraphimblade 23:09, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I was not asking you to block, but to revise and clarify your closing statement of the ban, in accord with what you just agreed it includes, perhaps using the wording that I quoted, that so many editors endorsed. Dicklyon (talk) 01:49, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

• I have no intention of skirting or breaking the topic ban that is already in place. MOS and Title cover a lot of other topics and it is solely those that I am addressing. I will, though be appealing the topic ban, and discussion is welcome when that is done. The dominant response is that it is not a violation of the ban. Apteva (talk) 23:11, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

"Discussion is welcome " And what happens in the meantime? You continue to act as if there just isn't any topic ban? Andy Dingley (talk) 23:19, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

What may surprise everyone is that the subject of the topic ban is of no interest to me. What is important to me is building a world class encyclopedia that everyone can be proud of, and if that is wrong, then point me to a better project that has any hope of achieving that objective. In the meantime I have every intention to follow the topic ban. That is what to expect in the meantime. Apteva (talk) 23:27, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

There was also this edit, on a discussion of MOS punctuation styling that took place on the WT:TITLE page. —Neotarf (talk) 01:36, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Per "I don't see anything here that violates the topic ban", that is not an issue. But the place to bring it up first is my talk page, not where it occurs, as it has nothing to do with the discussion. This has been at the core of the incivility at MOS, although secondary to the edit warring; discussing editor conduct, and not sticking to discussing ways to improve the page. This is not an appropriate habit to get into. Editing Misplaced Pages is not like being in a chatroom discussing anything and everything with everyone. There is a correct and an incorrect place for discussing things. Apteva (talk) 02:37, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

This has already been brought to your attention at your talk page. People can check these things, you know. —Neotarf (talk) 02:49, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

The sequence is instead of someone bringing it up on my talk page, it was brought up on the policy talk page at 23:10, 8 January 2013. Then long after it was settled, it was added to my talk page, at 01:14, 11 January 2013. I am not complaining about bringing up a settled issue on my talk page. What I am talking about is the inappropriateness of bringing up editor conduct on any guideline, policy, or article talk page, ever. It simply is not appropriate. That is what WP:FOC discusses. Focus on content, not conduct. Apteva (talk) 03:13, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Settled? No, several editors expressed their concern that this was a violation of the topic ban, since the community consensus was in favor of also restricting Apteva from pushing the "theory that the MOS does not apply to article titles". However this phrase was not written into the ban notice, so no one followed up on the issue, but merely requested that Apteva leave it at that. —Neotarf (talk) 03:59, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

The job of the closing admin is to determine consensus and decide on what action is required. As it was, the closing admin went beyond what was asked, not less than what was asked. Bear in mind that everything requires consensus, not just what one editor wants. That is where it stands. Many of those voting for a topic ban, yourself included, were barred from voting on any sanctions, because per policy, sanctions can only be applied "via a consensus of editors who are not involved in the underlying dispute". That point was never brought up. So yes there is a topic ban, no I am not happy about it, no I have no intention of violating it in any way, and yes I plan on appealing the ban. Apteva (talk) 04:24, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

The closing statement for the RFC/U, signed by twenty-eight editors, says:

Apteva's persistent pushing of the theory that en dashes are never appropriate in proper names, such as the names of wars, comets, bridges, and airports, has been disruptive. Respecting the wishes of the community as represented by an overwhelming majority of responders at this RFC/U, Apteva will refrain from any further advocating of this position, or any position against en dashes or against the MOS being applicable to article titles, and will not make any page moves or RMs based on such theories. Violation of this topic ban will be grounds for a block and/or a request for arbitration.

Pushing this theory over and over is exactly what Apteva has been doing, again, over at WT:TITLE.

I would add my voice to Dicklyon's asking for clarification of whether this activity is included in the topic ban. —Neotarf (talk) 05:34, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

The closer User:Seraphimblade has said that it is included, but said for this to be Apteva's warning. And though the told me to take it to ANI, someone there complained that I was forum shopping when I did. So, he skates again, but next time, here. I don't expect there will be a next time, though, after this clarification, which will hopefully be as effective as a block would have been. Dicklyon (talk) 02:31, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Another violation

This edit again advocates for overthrowing what the MOS says about hyphens and dashes and titles. Does Apteva get immunity by saying it to Arbcom in the guise of a withdrawal of his topic-ban appeal? Or can we stop the disruption now? Dicklyon (talk) 20:00, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

If ArbCom functions as our highest pseudo-court in all the land, anything should be discussable if it is related to the goings-on there and not against what ArbCom instructs. While your wording is off, I'd posit it's not blockable (and technically shouldn't be counted an offense). --Nouniquenames 19:07, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Good to know. If I'm ever topic banned and feel a need to publish a polemic on the topic, I'll do so in an Arbcom appeal, and then again in a withdrawal. Dicklyon (talk) 04:04, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Alternative proposal

Opposition to a topic ban

A resolution to the dispute

Wikihounding against Apteva

As an uninvolved editor who did not realize Misplaced Pages's forcing of en dashes into titles was so peculiar, unusual, and rare compared to widespread use of hyphens in titles as spelled in over 92% of wp:RS reliable sources, I first became alarmed by some low-key, understated remarks made by User:Apteva in late 2012. When I looked at the history behind the unusual forced use of dashes as pushed by wp:DASH, I found some people objected to overuse of dashes but they were ignored. Then, to my shock, several users have kept attacking Apteva with unfounded claims of "disruption" as listed in wp:Requests_for_comment/Apteva, but with little evidence to show a pattern of "disruption" rather than merely continual posts about the rare use of dashes in real-world titles where the wp:COMMONNAME spelling uses hyphens in the vast preponderance of sources. Now that this wp:AN topic has spawned a "ban Apteva" section, posted by the exact same editor who had initiated the wp:Requests_for_comment/Apteva (created-4771), who also posted the most (2x higher) edits to RFC/Apteva, I think a pattern of hounding is becoming clear. I invite others here to post evidence of how long this pattern has continued, also by other potential wp:TAGTEAM editors, to determine the extent of the abuse, and what can be done to protect Apteva from further attacks. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:53, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I left you a note at your talkpage regarding the recent dispute. dci | TALK 19:07, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for responding, as I am really concerned that wp:advocacy for pro-dash styles has gone awry. -Wikid77 (talk) 19:10, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikid77 is the furthest thing from an uninvolved editor; he so deep in the thick of this "issue" that I've recommended he be included in the sanctions. I have long half-suspected he's a sockpuppet of Apteva, or vice versa, but I'm not sure the prose style is similar enough for that to be true. The so-called logic and the tendentiousness are a 100% match, though. Wikid77 should not cite WP:ADVOCACY, as one of his principal activities for the last two weeks here has been acting as as Apteva's advocate. Kind of an unusual spin on "wikilawyering". The only WP:TAGTEAM at work here is Apteva, Wikid77, Enric Naval and, lately, LittleBenW. Note also the WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT again – Wikid77, like his comrades-in-arms in their stylistic holy war, has had it explained to him again and again and again that WP:AT (and its WP:COMMONNAME section) address matters of substance, and rely on WP:MOS for matters of style. Everyone on the system appears to understand this, with zero cognitive dissonance, except these four editors. And they are not stupid or insane, it's a safe bet, since their mainspace edits seem sensible. Thus, this can only be a trolling game they are playing to make a disruptive point, all at Misplaced Pages's expense. PS: Wikid77 needs to re-read WP:HOUNDING, since he's obviously badly misinterpreted it. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 20:34, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

• Wikid is "uninvolved"? Not according to this stern warning from admin Bisanz, about Wikid's post at Apteva's talkpage, headed "Beyond dashes" (well worth a look). And Wikid has recently posted a long four-part tirade against en dashes at WP:TITLE. Wrong forum, dead horse, implacable resistance to consensus choices already made. There's involvement and involvement. No one has to warn me for posting a war plan at a co-conspirator's talkpage. My publicly declared agenda is to serve, along with some others posting here, in the consensual development of MOS, and the quite separate area of rational article titling to serve the readers in the best way we can. Some editors have zero expertise in these areas; some of us have a great deal, and we just want to get on with the job. Wikid, Apteva, and one or two others have made doing that job all but impossible. So we have no option but to follow correct procedures in search of a solution. Hence this discussion, toward the decisive and measured outcome that the community has voted for at the RFC/U. Noetica 22:13, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, considering his tens of thousands of bytes of comments defending Aptiva, egging him on, and maligning the MOS, it is shocking that Wikid77 would refer to himself as "uninvolved". His Dec. 2 edit summary "endorse proposal to keep fighting excessive-dash rules in wp:MOS)" set the tone. They even whined to Jimbo about it together! Jimbo was not amused. In fact Wikid77's anti-en-dash lobbying extended even way beyond Apteva's narrower theory opposing en dashes in proper names; Wikid77 single-handedly opposed en dash even in eye–hand coordination and Michelson–Morley experiment for example, and acted like someone was proposing to use en dashes indiscriminately in places like double-barreled surnames (no such proposal has ever been made, yet he spent a lot of ink lobbying against it!). Dicklyon (talk) 23:15, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

• Comment nobody's hounding him, nobody's following him around WP and reverting his edits. He's so ever-present around these pages (particularly MOS and AT) that he's difficult to avoid. The criticism he's generated was something he has brought upon himself. -- Ohconfucius  10:36, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

  That is he or she, thank you. But, I think that is a stretch. I can think of at least one who has quite likely been watching my edits like hawk, perhaps hoping that I will make one that warrants a block, and spending inordinate amounts of time doing that. But no there is no one that is reverting all of my edits. And nor am I watching anyone's edits, other than watching everyone's edits (WP:RCP). Apteva (talk) 11:34, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

  Isn't that called "paranoia"? You and Wikid77 are essentially inescapable, you bring typographical nonsense up so redundantly in so many places. It's one of the major reasons you're being recommended for a topic ban to begin with. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 11:56, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps consensus has changed (or didn't exist that way), but a small contingent of very vocal editors drown out the community as a whole who might be perfectly happy using the more accessible (and possibly more correct here) character. --Nouniquenames 06:21, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

That's not what happened here though. A small contingent of very vocal editors started forum-shopping to show that changed consensus, but got no support. The editors you allude to as very vocal only became very vocal after being "normally vocal" resulted in continuing WP:IDHT from the small contingent of disruptive editors. The community as a whole, that hypothetical entity, would have to actually chime if their perfectly happy preference is to become a new consensus (WP:SILENCE), and the forum shopping presented them plenty of opportunity to do so. But it turns out that the community as a whole is perfectly happy with the current consensus and would be happier without the disruption of the small contingent of very vocal editors. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:49, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Compare this to other cases

I'm frankly rather shocked at how some people are are trying to bend over backward to keep assuming good faith in the face of a mountain of proof against it. See WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Darkstar1st: violation of policy at WP:DISRUPT, failure or refusal to get the point, tendentious editing. It's so similar, they could almost be the same user, down to ever detail – ever prevarication, ever broken promise, every fallacious debate tactic, every pretense that consensus isn't really against them, etc., etc. No one at that incident report is trying to help the problem editor dodge a long-overdue topic ban. And Darkstar1st has been considerably less disruptive than Apteva. The key to both cases is the unresolvable conflict between trite and non-credible apologetic language on one hand, and repeated, almost wiki-suicidal, refusal to acknowledge that consensus is not on their side. In both cases it ultimately means "I will do it again, and you can't stop me." At any given time WP:AN, WP:AN/I and/or WP:ARBCOM usually have several such cases ongoing that fit this exact pattern. Policies, guidelines and essays like WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, WP:TE, WP:BATTLEGROUND, WP:NOTHERE, etc. were not written because someone like that "might" show up some day, but because they're already here, the personality type is readily identifiable and toxic in a collaborative editing project, and individuals who evince it are a serious problem here. One that cannot be dealt with though voluntary promises. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 21:43, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

• I understand and respect your concerns about the way "some of us" have responded to the dispute. But there are reasons why some of us have done things the way we have. I, for one, think that disputes and problems of this nature ought to be handled by realizing them for what they are. They are pointless attempts to alter things from what consensus has determined to what a minority prefers. Those in the minority tend to have good intentions and often are reasonable or even excellent editors, yet they create disruptions by their actions. To end these disruptions, we shouldn't slap people with a "topic ban" or some similar sanction. We shouldn't fight misguided offensives with well-planned campaigns; these approaches only reinforce problems which have led to the issues described here . Instead, we should do our best as editors to resolve the issues, not by shutting them down and shelving them. In some cases, it means explaining what's gone wrong, and then accepting a statement of abstention, which I hope to see here within the next few hours. dci | TALK 21:51, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
  • DCI:

Been there, done that; didn't work, won't work again.

Noetica 22:18, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

And there's no "issue" with MOS to resolve or shelve; it's just noise. One editor (or even three) trying to pull a WP:FILIBUSTER do not magically force consensus to its knees at gunpoint until it changes. The only issue here is tendentious, pointy, trollish, disruptive editing that goes against consensus (and a consensus that was established through a big, formal process). The remedy for that is simple: Topic ban. It's just how this gets handled, routinely, when the disruptiveness rises anywhere near this level. This case is very unusual for the amount of abuse the community has tolerated and the length of time we've let it go on, with numerous parties trying to reason with Apteva and co., to no avail. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 22:56, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Please note that Apteva has agreed to what is effectively a long-term abstention, making a decision above to work on more productive things. dci | TALK 23:02, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

So? It didn't last before, or the time before that. Why would it this time? Just minutes ago, Apteva posted yet another message claiming that MOS is wrong. Can you not see the pattern here? Consensus simply does not exist for this editor unless it happens to conveniently agree with his pre-conceived notions. There's a saying, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." How many times are you going to let Apteva fool you? Isn't twice enough already? — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:16, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

• Basically the issue is someone puts something into WP, and it is wrong. I fixed something in a BLP by request from someone who personally knew the person. It was really unbelievable the length that it took to change the consensus opinion that the wrong information was wrong. I do a lot of WP:RM and I see a lot of contention. I do not care how many times someone brings up that Foo should be spelled Foobar. We have an orderly process for dealing with it. We allow debate for seven days, then attempt to choose one or the other using well established policy. If someone brings it up again that day, no problem. If they bring it up again too many times we create a subpage to discuss the issue, so that it is discussed in an orderly fashion and does not interfere with other items that need to be discussed on the talk page. This issue is no different than any other contentious issue. It does not take walls of discussion to resolve. Nor is it appropriate to ban or block everyone who disagrees, or brings it up. For now, I certainly have other more important things to do. And once again, happy new year. Apteva (talk) 22:39, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Previous discussion on confining this debate to a subpage or "list", a compromise Apteva might have accepted at that time. Art LaPella (talk) 00:41, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• • This is basically proof that you need a topic ban. Even after an RFC/U and a AN proposing a topic ban you just will not stop arguing that there is no consensus and that MOS is "wrong" and that you are "right". You're clearly going to hold this view until the end of your days, and you're never going to let it rest unless the community effectively forces you to do so or be banned. This "issue" is not contentious. No one is contending but you and two or three others. One or a handful of angry ranting voices is does not make a sea change at being louder and more aggressive and out-of-hand just cements resolve to not feed the trolls. You are not, for the love of whatever you believe in, being topic banned because you disagree with something; it's because you constantly, willfully, seemingly haughtily and for your own self-gratification, violate WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, WP:DE, WP:TD, WP:SOAPBOX, WP:BATTLEFIELD, WP:GREATWRONGS, WP:POINT, WP:CONSENSUS, etc., etc., etc., all in the name of WP:WINNING on something WP:LAME. If you were actually correct about hyphens, I would still support a topic ban, because no one has a right to violate virtually every other policy and guideline we have governing editor interaction, for months on end, making everyone interacting with him miserable, just because a trivial fact about a punctuation mark turned out to be on his side and he just wouldn't let the matter go. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:10, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
    • May I suggest the following? We ought to focus not on forcing Apteva to "conform" his beliefs, but on ending this dispute as reasonably as possible. At this point, given the other comments Apteva has made that demonstrate a willingness to move on to other things, we should allow people to go their own ways with their own thoughts. Misplaced Pages is, after all, the 💕. dci | TALK 23:25, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

• Apteva can believe whatever he wants; that's not the issue at all. Continuing to argue a point in forum after forum when you're being RFC/U'd and WP:AN'd for doing so tendentiously is a sign that something is seriously off-kilter between the user and the project. Apteva only a few days ago (and not for the first time) made a similar promise to move on to other things and stay away from this issue, but within hours was right back at it, and has been at it, arguing this infernal anti-dash nonsense, on at least four different pages the entire time (here, RFC/U, WT:AT and WT:MOS, probably others). Apteva's "comments...that demonstrate a willingness to move on" are not credible. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 00:05, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

  That is he or she thank you. The above post of mine has absolutely nothing to do with the MOS. I did not say "someone puts something wrong into the MOS". I said "someone puts something into WP, and it is wrong". Happens thousands of times every day. Some get fixed, some not. We try to fix errors when we find them, but some are more obscure than others and harder to find RSs that can be used to correct them. To suggest that I was talking about the MOS is blatantly false. Believe me, I appreciate the blue links, and read all of them, but it is not in Misplaced Pages's principles to try to introduce errors, or to try to suppress anyone from bringing them up, although it can be extremely frustrating for someone who has not made a few thousand edits to understand how to get it done and how not to get it done. And no I am not talking about the MOS. Apteva (talk) 23:39, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

• Whatever. You were earlier, and yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that, and... Just ignore the first 5 words of my prior response to you ("This is basically proof that") and I still stand by every word of it. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 00:05, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• When Apteva wrote "Basically the issue is someone puts something into WP, and it is wrong", he was basically justifying his continuing disruption by his usual argument, that his only intention is to fix what's "wrong". Basically, the problem is that he thinks he is the only authority that can determine what's wrong. That's why this response is a violation of the "voluntary recusal" that he had half-heartedly agree to; by continuing to push this tired point of view, he is proving his inability to let go, to respect consensus, or to hear the community. It's a lost cause to try to compromise with him. Dicklyon (talk) 02:16, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• This issue has nothing to do with my beliefs or knowledge. I check how many sources use one spelling how many use another, and if there are more, in this case 50 times as many, I recommend that we use the 50 times as many way. It is not rocket science, and it is not my belief, and I would be astonished if anyone or more than a very few, thought we should use the spelling that only 1/50 use. Apteva (talk) 07:58, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• I don't think it's possible for SMcCandlish to engage in polite and rational discussion. Maybe he has never heard of the Golden Rule? Maybe Misplaced Pages needs a separate namespace for bullying and insulting people, for canvassing and organizing lynching mobs? LittleBen (talk) 01:20, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
• PS: Echoing Art LaPella's suggestion above: <quote>Previous discussion on confining this debate to a subpage or "list", a compromise Apteva might have accepted at that time.<unquote> LittleBen (talk) 01:31, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• WP is nothing but compromise. No one gets to have anything "their way" we all work together, cooperatively, and harmoniously, to create Misplaced Pages. All disputes are always resolved by compromise. And seriously, I appreciate all of the suggestions and I am certain that everyone will be pleased with the results. Apteva (talk) 04:13, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• Um... very much not. One of the most serious problems with a demand for compromise is that it motivates each party to stake out their most extreme position. In the context of Misplaced Pages, compromise is especially inappropriate if it means departure from a neutral and appropriately balanced point of view. That's not to say that compromise can't work, but the statement that "all disputes are always resolved by compromise" is flat-out wrong.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 04:47, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

  One of the difficulties of English is that can often be misinterpreted. By compromise what I meant is that we all work together cooperatively, and harmoniously. Nobody expects to "get what they want". Everybody expects to compromise with other opinions in favor of adopting a consensus view. Not that we always compromise the best answer for a worse one that is a compromise between the two suggested wordings. That is a different meaning of compromise than was intended. I was using the first meaning, not the second. wikt:compromise Apteva (talk) 05:04, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

It is troubling to see two editors who are, shall we say, not well-regarded here, try to advise Apteva on how to be a successful editor. —Neotarf (talk) 05:11, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

List other editors told to not oppose dashes

Is RFC/U enough?

Proposal: Apply the same topic ban as Apteva to Wikid77 and LittleBenW

I formally propose that the exact same topic ban applied to Apteva also be applied to Wikid77 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), and LittleBenW (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), for near-identical patterns of abusive, tendentious, forum-shopping disruption, as noted above in the WP:AN regarding Aptiva, as well as at the Apteva RFC/U, and at WT:MOS, and at WT:AT, and at WP:VPP, etc. In particular, please note:

• Wikid77's anti-MOS collusion on Apteva's talk page for which Wikid77 was block-warned; his combativeness in all of these forums; and his recent WP:BATTLEGROUND-spamming of WT:AT with completely irrational, off-topic rants about dashes and MOS, despite being warned by an admin not to engage in such activities. Like Apteva, Wikid77 has entirely worn out both the community's patience and any capacity for us to assume good faith any longer. See the several "planning out how to take down MOS" threads at User talk:Apteva/Archive 4, especially #Beyond dashes, which incidentally also indicates direct participation by Enric Naval, who now disavows any further involvement. See also Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)#Discussion of hyphens for endashes, wherein Wikid77 makes it clear he is not quibbling over specific uses of en dashes, but wants to entirely ban them in favor of commas and brackets, a position that has no support whatsoever. (He's entitled to have whatever opinion he likes, but not to disrupt forum after forum about it.) Evidence gathered by Dicklyon earlier: Wikid77's WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality laid bare: "endorse proposal to keep fighting excessive-dash rules in wp:MOS)" set the tone. He and Apteva even whined to Jimbo about it together! (Note the long array of blatant straw man arguments that mischaracterize MOS's actual punctuation advice, and cast everthing in terms of conflict.) Jimbo was not amused. Here's another: Wiki77 opposed closure of the pointless, forumshopped WP:VPP thread against dashes with "Too late to stop this thread" and "There's no stopping this discussion", an obvious WP:WINNING-focused stance. The noisome thread was, of course, summarily closed as no consensus to change MOS to stop recommending the appropriate use of dashes; Wikid77, like Apteva, nevertheless continued in the jihad, right up to this very day. User:John also notes this and this, re: previous Wikid77 topic ban. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 12:47, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

• LittleBenW passed that point some while ago and has already been blocked and topic-banned for it, with no meaningful effect at all. He took up this anti-MOS, anti-dash issue, posting at the Apteva RFC/U in support, immediately after being subject to a nearly identical topic-ban for his tendentious campaigning against diacritics; he is WP:GAMING the system to return to anti-MOS verbal rampages by simply swapping one pet peeve he can browbeat everyone about for another. An argument can be made that this actually deserves an extended block as well as a topic-ban, and perhaps a community ban. Retracted: Since he only just got involved in the dash/hyhen mess, I don't think LittleBenW's participation in it rises to that level yet, on re-examination; but it's clearly an in-spirit evasion of the topic ban intended to get him to stop being disruptive on style issues. It is clearly bad-faith behavior and an observably established habitual role of abuse of the system. See also conspiracy theory about MOS as "thought police", block for similar disruption re: diacritics, diacritics MOS topic ban, blocked again for NPA relating to the same AN/I, supporting Apteva and Wikid77 at WP:Requests for comment/Apteva and its talk page (free to do that of course, but it shows the beginning of his jump from diacritics to dashes), advocated what amounts to WP:OWNership of articles to prevent "outsiders" (i.e. MOS, or really anyone but fans of hyphens) from having any input on hyphens/dashes in article titles. Note: LittleBenW's editing, since his MOS-related topic ban on diacritics debating, has actually been largely constructive and positive. I want to reiterate that I do not support a block in his case. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 10:49, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Update: Handsomefella, below, also points out that Wikid77 was part of the disruptive LittleBenW anti-diacritics WP:TAGTEAM in 2012, that used exactly the same "forum-shop this to death and beyond" tactic. There is clearly a pattern here of organized, willful disruption and tendentious campaigning. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:20, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I am not following these editors around, and have only looked at a few page histories. Both of these users have been clearly, unmistakably engaged in a pattern of miring every forum they can raise their pet "issues" in simultaneously, in pointless circular argumentation, using WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT and trolling techniques, which have escalated to the level of WP:TAGTEAM efforts at organized WP:Griefing of MOS and AT, in a WP:GREATWRONGS-style campaign about a matter of typographic trivia. LittleBenW's entry to this particular dash debate is late, but fits his diacritics pattern of histrionics. Enough is enough. Both of these editors have also made valuable contributions to Misplaced Pages, and surely can continue to do so if they stay out of style disputes they cannot refrain from campaigning about and do not fully understand anyway. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 12:16, 6 January 2013 (UTC) Updated with evidenciary links, clarifications, etc., 14:03, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support. These users have previously been defending both views and actions of Dolovis and GoodDay in the diacritics debate. They may be entitled to do that, but one can't help thinking that they are taking Apteva's side just because they've been there before. It's hard to imagine such a commitment by three editors on an issue such as hyphens and endashes based on reason. HandsomeFella (talk) 12:40, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

  Comment: It's not based on reason; it's an organized griefing campaign. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 12:46, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• You are talking pure BS, gross exaggeration, and lies, as usual. As I have said repeatedly, I couldn't care less about hyphens vs. dashes, but I do think that Misplaced Pages would be a very much better place without your WikiBullying. Apteva has always been courteous and helpful to other users, in my experience, which is a big contrast to your loud and abusive behavior. Wikid77 also seems to be pretty reasonable, trying to reach a fair compromise that doesn't involve bullying and blocking. LittleBen (talk) 12:43, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

  Compare this to User talk:LittleBenW#Notice of Administrator's noticeboard of incidents discussion (2): "You are talking rubbish. I have not been edit warring about diacritics, that's a blatant lie. LittleBen (talk) 02:10, 1 December 2012 (UTC)", shortly after which you were blocked and topic banned for edit warring about diacritics. Your knee-jerk response to any criticism seems to amount to "You are talking ; you are lying". For all I know you have some kind of script that posts these repetitive responses for you. This isn't about Apteva any more, it's about you. Wikid77 can speak for himself. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 14:03, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

  Comment: quote from WikiBullying: "Stating a real policy when it is necessary is not considered WikiBullying". You have repeatedly accused others of bullying, intimidation, threats and lynching. Why don't you put your money where your mouth is, and report all those you've accused to WP:AN/I, like WP:WikiBullying says? I guess maybe you don't follow that guidelines/piece of advice either. HandsomeFella (talk) 13:08, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• It's not just WikiBullying, it's also unreasonable criticism and screwing up other peoples' good work without any rational discussion. LittleBen (talk) 13:12, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• So, what are you waiting for? HandsomeFella (talk) 13:18, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• Waiting for him to self destruct. He's not worth wasting time on, he's surely incurable. Surely some people will never learn that Misplaced Pages is supposed to be a friendly, civil, and welcoming community until all the enthusiastic people with specialist knowledge, and all the good editors, have left. LittleBen (talk) 13:35, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• Editors who demonstrate those traits don't get blocked repeatedly and topic-banned. There is nothing "friendly" about a deluge of forum-shopped putsches against punctuation you have an obsessive loathing for, a campaign you once already refused to back down from until AN/I made you do so. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 14:26, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• I kind of knew that you wouldn't follow through. It's just hot air from your side, or possible not even that. HandsomeFella (talk) 13:58, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• I would like to be able to say that LittleBenW filing his own RFC/U or AN/I, accusing me and whoever else of "wikibullying" and whatnot, would be instructive for him, because it would fail and and he would learn something about how WP works and what its policies mean, but he's shown near-zero ability to learn from failed campaigning attempts, so why would that be any different? — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 14:26, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support for LittleBenW both; having already been the subject of a topic-ban on diacritics LittleBenW has simply moved his tendentious editing to another forum. Like the OP, I would actually suggest that this persistent pattern of behaviour deserves a block, not a topic-ban, or else I'm sure we'll find ourselves back here again. I would like to see more evidence before supporting for Wikid77The links below are plenty, especially the single one provided by John. Black Kite (talk) 13:27, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

More evidence: I've added it. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 14:52, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

No block: I do not support a block or a sweeping community ban for either editor, only a topic-ban, though a broadly-construed one about MOS/AT tendentiousness generally. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 11:13, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

• As I have said repeatedly, I couldn't care less about hyphens vs. dashes. But I think that other editors deserve to be treated civilly. LittleBen (talk) 13:35, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• So why did you recently post a call for an out-of-process RFC that would prohibit anyone, like regular MOS editors and any editors who follow MOS (i.e. almost everyone), from participating, and allow participation only from people who, due to their inclination to do whatever the IAU says, automatically oppose dashes in favor of hyphens? That's an extremely partisan position to take on a punctuation matter, exactly like the radical anti-diacritics campaigning that got you blocked and topic-banned; any attempt to actually implement such a bogus poll would be insanely WP:POINTy. You clearly just need to stay out of styles issues that you don't understand, and stay out of them entirely until you understand WP policy better; virtually every time you cite a policy or guideline you do so incorrectly, but never, ever listen when this is clearly demonstrated to you. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 14:17, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• I don't think it's productive for a lot of editors who are totally uninvolved in an issue (like foreign language article issues, or geeky subjects with different language usage rules) to canvass a lot of their cronies in order to bully editors who have considerable subject knowledge and/or have been directly involved with an article or topic area for a long time. People who understand vocabulary and usage in a subject area should be consulted, rather than changes being arbitrarily imposed. LittleBen (talk) 14:31, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

You keep "Easter-egg" linking to User talk:Montanabw#Unreasonably criticism as if you think there's some kind of "smoking gun" dispute between me and that editor that makes me look bad. You have negelected to do your homework by simply reading the related threads at my own talk page and the relevant wikiproject, which show that there is no extant dispute, and instead collaboration on how to approach WP:AT with a clarification, and how to clarify questions of "breed" definition and notability elsewhere. "Oops." — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 11:22, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

• Surely the threats on my talk page were posted before there was any mention of me here. LittleBen (talk) 15:40, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• Calling a WP:AN notification a "threat" is only part of LittleBen's victim lore. HandsomeFella (talk) 21:42, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• In point of fact, I had already mentioned him several times, along with some other involved editors in Apteva's tag-teaming, in the now-hatted discussion above when I left that notice. I am required to leave such a notice; see top of this page. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 10:49, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support extending topic ban to both after reading this comment. --John (talk) 14:00, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I was rereading this and this and recalling that Wikid77 has previously been involved in pretty problematic editing in a narrow area and then improved after being topic-banned from that area. Does that mean we should feel easier about using a similar approach here? Or does it mean we should start to think about a site-ban? --John (talk) 19:57, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
    • I think a site ban would be highly inappropriate. If a topic ban worked, why would a site ban be considered? Anyhow, I can't see anything so incredibly awful on Wikid77's part that would merit a full ban. dci | TALK 22:11, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
      • Topic-ban is fine. I'm trying to resolve an actual issue of disruptive editing patterns and tendentiousness here, not "punish" people. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 10:49, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
• Wait – I think this discussion represents fair warning to Wikid77, and he can see the clear evidence of the community's reaction to Apteva-style disruption, so if such behavior continues, a ban or block will be in order. But he has not been through the process of warnings and attempts to resolve the dispute that Apteva had been through, and his obnoxious anti-consensus activities so far would not on their own rise close to the level of a community restriction (if experience with what it took to throttle Apteva is any indication). Yes, I agree he has added fuel to the fire, but it's not his fire. Let's wait and see if things settle down now that Apteva is banned from such activities. If not, we'll be back here soon, but I don't see why he would put us through that. Dicklyon (talk) 17:30, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
  • He has been through the warning process, more than once, and even topic-banned before. See his talk page. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 10:49, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support enough is enough and they're adding to the disruption. --Rschen7754 18:30, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support, beneficial to the encyclopedia with no detriment to the encyclopedia. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:35, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. Blocking, banning, restricting editors in anyway, isn't the answer & it's not enviroment friendly, which is what Misplaced Pages should be. GoodDay (talk) 19:22, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
  • In cases of disruption, the community has two choices: be "friendly" and permit the disruption to continue, or (after discussions fail) topic ban those causing disruption. Misplaced Pages will survive even if totally incorrect horizontal lines are used, however, the community may not survive another decade of bickering repeatedly over the same points over and over again without respite. Even in this discussion, they are continuing to fight the good fight. Johnuniq (talk) 21:56, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
• I would suggest waiting, per Dicklyon. dci | TALK 22:01, 6 January 2013 (UTC) My new comments can be found below. dci | TALK 00:57, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
• Comment I see proper notification of this discussion has been given on the respective talk pages, but I seem to remember that the first step of conflict resolution is to attempt to discuss the problem with the individual directly. I suppose this typically takes place on their talk page. Has this been done? —Neotarf (talk) 22:45, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I had a brief discussion with LittleBenW on his talk page in which I encouraged him to distance himself from the MoS drama. dci | TALK 22:54, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I've had discussions with Wikid77 about this issue in particular in multiple places, including his talk page, and with LittleBenW recently on diacritics warring, which he's migrating to dash warring from. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 10:49, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose topic ban of LittleBenW: The proposed topic ban against User:LittleBenW (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) by the heavily involved wp:MOS editor User:SMcCandlish (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) (author of essay wp:SSF) is completely premature, where there has not been sufficient talk-page dialog to address concerns in actions, with time to calmly evaluate responses from LittleBenW to reply to careful, polite questions, rather than as threats to keep quiet or else. After that, perhaps an RfC/U for LittleBenW would be the next step, in attempting a wp:dispute resolution. Also, any false claims of collusion between LittleBenW and myself (Wikid77) should be cause for alarm, because we have never even posted to each other's talk-pages (see: User_talk:LittleBenW..history), and I am not an involved editor in debating actions by LittleBenW. I am concerned that this rush to topic-ban LittleBenW about hyhens/dashes, after a prior topic ban about diacritical marks, will act as wp:Wikihounding against LittleBenW to silence opinions, rather than try calmer methods of dispute resolution. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:26/23:40, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
  • You call all criticism "wikihounding". Of course I'm heavily involved in MOS; that is not damning (and neither is writing an essay that precisely zero people have been able to refute, even in part). I wouldn't have noticed this disruptiveness if it didn't keep ending up at MOS and spinning out from there to VPP, article talk pages, AN, RFC/Us, etc., etc. (places I mostly don't read). LittleBenW was subject to a topic ban the entire point of which was to getting him to stop being disruptive about style issues. It was unfortunately very narrowly worded, so he's just used that fact as an excuse to game the system by simply switching to another style nitpick to be tendentious about. Raising this concern is not "premature", it's standard operating procedure when an prior topic ban seems to not be working. I apologize if I was not clear earlier. I've never suggested that you and LittleBenW have directly colluded on this, but rather linked to proof of you collaborating with Apteva on explicitly disruptive plans against MOS and for editing-warring incessantly about hyphenation. Separately, I've shown LittleBenW wading into the anti-dash nitpicking shitstorm, pretty much immediately after his block expired, supporting you and Apteva on two pages, and making anti-consensus proposals of out-of-process pseudo-RFCs that only permit dash-haters. I hope this is clearer. I think everyone else already understood this. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 11:11, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
• Comment I'm close to supporting topic bans for both these: Apteva was maybe the general, but these two are as about as bent on the crusade as the former. I'd be happy for this to be seen as a "final warning" for Wikid77 and LittleBenW. -- Ohconfucius  01:45, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
• Comment: it appears that several of these editors have, probably informally, formed some kind of pact to oppose any proposal to sanction the others, thereby hoping to stop the community from reaching a consensus on sanctions, and ensure their own ability to continue the disruptive editing. Just check which editors oppose. HandsomeFella (talk) 10:58, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support any sort of ban on Wikid77 for this sort of repetitive quibbling. No views (yet) on LittleBenW . Oculi (talk) 13:55, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose strongly. I might be able to support iff User:SMcCandlish is included in the ban, but this looks too much like a campaign against one side of an issue. --Nouniquenames 15:25, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

  It might look like it, but is it? I haven't seen evidence that would support a ban myself (granted I haven't looked very hard) so I am not supporting the ban, but this is a nonsense reason to oppose it. It is certainly conceivable that 3 editors on the same side of a content issue ought to be banned. "I might be able to support iff User:SMcCandlish is included in the ban"—whoa, that was from nowhere! Or did I miss it? Why would you support a ban of SMcCandlish?? HaugenErik (talk) 18:38, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

  I'm not actually calling for his ban. In my opinion, though, he's gunning pretty hard for this, and the other two seem about as undeserving of a ban. If anything, it could be gaming to win a dispute. I'm against the ban. If the community decides one must be enacted, I want all of those gunning for the ban under the same terms. That includes (quite strongly) SMcCandlish. Especially if you read his essay (linked elsewhere here). --Nouniquenames 16:26, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

  Misplaced Pages doesn't work that way, and calling for an out-of-process topic ban is WP:POINTy, which you well know. I have neither violated any policy nor been a disruptive editor with regard to this issue. Your demand is akin to a jury saying in a criminal case "Yes, put the burglar in prison, but put the homeowner in the same cell, just for asking that justice be done." DOES NOT COMPUTE. It would certainly be far more censorious than just topic banning the editors who are actually being disruptive. And there is not "issue" here other than disruptive editing in various forms; this isn't an actual style dispute, much less a content dispute. See details in response to Shadowjams below. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:01, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

  Note also #nun; Nouniquenames is actually in the same anti-dash camp as Apteva, Wikid77 and LittleBenW, and is approaching this incorrectly as a dispute about style questions rather than an administrative issue of consistent patterns of disruption. I.e., his !vote is essentially off-topic and confused about what WP:AN is for. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:10, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - for the same reasons Nouniquenames is getting at. This feels too one sided. I'm always nervous about the possibility of using bans and blocks to win content disputes. I'd agree that the editors are clearly aligned in interest, and have been obnoxiously persistent, but some of this process towards banning is going too quickly. Shadowjams (talk) 00:24, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

  No one established any deadline by which this discussion had to be concluded, so your "too quickly" complaint does not apply. This is not a content dispute, it's a disruptive editors behavior issue. The question over which these editors have been disruptive is a style matter, but that's still not a content dispute (see Separation of style and content). To the extent that it's superficially similar in some ways to a content dispute, it doesn't matter. As the original WP:AN against Apteva concluded, consensus did not change and was not going to change to support his (and these two additional editors') anti-dash warpath. I.e., there is no actual dispute, in any sense that WP:CONSENSUS would recognize, about that matter, just never-ending whinging about it from a militant tagteam of editors who will not stop beating the dead horse. How can the debate be one-sided, when none of the three editors who are the subjects of this WP:AN discussion are blocked, and all three have edited this page to put their responses in? (See below about User:Alan Liefting, who was blocked and unable to respond with regard to his own unrelated topic ban; very different case). The weak nature of said response is a telling indicator that Wikid77 and LittleBenW are having considerable difficultly avoiding well-deserved scrutiny and criticism, for genuinely disruptive (especially tendentious and forum-shopping) editing patterns. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:01, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose per Nouniquenames. Though I would not be hesitant to support either editor if they chose a voluntary respite from the MoS (and think that doing so would be beneficial), the pro-ban atmosphere is a bit thick with intensity. I would prefer a calmer, more "neutral" resolution to this dispute than "ban 'em all." However, I would oppose any serious attempt to topic-ban SMcCandlish. dci | TALK 00:57, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

  What sort of "calmer, more 'neutral' resolution"? Why would be be "neutral" about violations of WP:DE, WP:TE, WP:FORUMSHOP, WP:PARENT, WP:BATTLEGROUND, and WP:SOAPBOX? Further, why would be be "neutral" on this with regard to two users who have already been previously topic banned for the same kind of problem behavior, one of them only about two weeks ago? I'm genuinely curious about your rationales on this. And "per Nouniquenames" isn't a strong one, since that editor is clearly misunderstanding the nature and history of the debate, and like Shadowjams mistaking it for a content dispute, but it's entirely about disruption. All three of these editors could actually be right about dashes (they're not, but just go with it for a moment), but this would not give them some holy natural right to be disruptive about it. That is the issue and the only issue here. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:01, 10 January 2013 (UTC) PS: Here's proof that Nouniquenames is actually in the same anti-dash camp as Apteva, Wikid77 and LittleBenW, and is approaching this incorrectly as a dispute about style questions rather than an administrative issue of consistent patterns of disruption. I'm skeptical that you would continue to be "per Nouniquenames", given this. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:10, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

  I suppose it would be more accurate that I supported per the rationales put forth in Nouniquenames' comment (excepting the unnecessary topic-ban comment). Although it may seem like poor judgement, I would have supported even had I known the details you mention in your reply. dci | TALK 00:07, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

  Fair enough, but you did not answer my questions, and they weren't rhetorical. It's unclear what you are proposing in place of this proposal. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 00:28, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

  Regarding "extremist proposals:" many of the proposals above are unrealistic and extreme, including those propagated by Apteva and Wikid77. And, regarding "neutrality": I would prefer a solution to the problem drafted by people who have not been staunchy opposed or supportive of one particular "side" in this dispute. dci | TALK 18:56, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

  I'm a person who has not been staunchly opposed or supportive of one particular "side" in this dispute. I've made no arguments other than the consensus should be respected and the disruptions should stop; I don't care which of hyphens or dashes are used, except as far as consensus-respect goes. Extending the topic ban to those who continue the "I didn't hear that" disruption is a fine, neutral solution. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:01, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

  Suffice it to say I'm uncomfortable with the intensity on the two opposing sides of this dispute and would prefer resolution elsewhere. That said, I respect your attitude and approach, JHunterJ, but I disagree on how best to come to a resolution. dci | TALK 19:11, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

  I don't think that suffices. ArbCom comments have also indicated that this is the correct place for resolution. The intensity of the sides doesn't change that, nor does it change the correct resolution: stop disrupting Misplaced Pages when consensus goes against you or be topic banned. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:37, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - per Shadowjams --My76Strat (talk) 03:38, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

  Nothing Shadowjams said is actually applicable. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:01, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - agree with Shadowjams and My76Strat. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 03:46, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

  Nothing Shadowjams said is actually applicable, and My76Strat just "me too"'d Shadowjams. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:01, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - behavior does not rise to level necessitating a ban. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 19:37, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

  A consistent, organized pattern of violation of WP:DE, WP:TE, WP:FORUMSHOP, WP:PARENT, WP:SOAPBOX, WP:BATTLEGROUND, WP:NPOV, WP:GAMING, WP:EDITWAR, WP:CONSENSUS, and more, certainly constitutes "behavior...necessitating a ban"; even only 1/5 of those problems stacked up together into one long-term pattern of obsessive, disruptive campaigning about style quirks would be enough to qualify. What on earth, in your view, would qualify if this clearly demonstrated ten-point modus operandi doesn't? — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 00:44, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• Although past experience indicates a near-certainty that Wikid77 will take his unique style of argument-by-five-thousand-paragraphs-of-text-distributed-over-a-dozen-pages to a new and unexplored area of the project once he's topic-banned here, every little helps. No particular opinion on LittleBenW. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:46, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

  That sounds like a support to me. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:01, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

A suggestion regarding the discussion immediately above

Instead of an immediate topic ban (which has drawn a few suggestions to wait a bit), why not try something else? Would it not be possible to impose some sort of "editing probation" on both Wikid77 and LittleBenW, during which neither would be the subject of either involuntary or voluntary sanctions. During this period (30 days?), their behavior could be monitored off and on to ensure that they are not engaging in tendentious or unhelpful actions regarding the MoS. If they do, a topic ban could be imposed; if not, things can be left alone. dci | TALK 23:37, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Oppose behavior has gotten to the point where a topic ban is needed. --Rschen7754 23:38, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

This really isn't a proposal, just a suggestion meant as an alternative in the case consensus favors warning the editors. I just wanted to put something forward so that a less "heavy" sanction could be applied, or so that the editors could have a way of relaxing behaviors which may have drawn criticism. dci | TALK 23:41, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

They need to chill out, starting now. —Neotarf (talk) 00:38, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I would be interested in exploring the concept of "binding voluntary restrictions" that was entertained briefly above. As pointed out in a discussion above (now hatted) there is some precedent for it here: Here is the close: I understand a block was later issued for violating the restriction.

There are some obvious advantages. The Project is less likely to have to waste time chasing down socks, as was seen recently with PMAnderson. The editor with the conflict has the opportunity to save face, and demonstrate a willingness to cooperate with the Project, also a firm motive to edit in a different area. This is particularly valuable in cases where the editor has done productive work before and truly believes they are doing something to benefit WP, however misguided. I would suggest that an agreement might also be entered into even after a formal restriction has been decided on, in addition to it. —Neotarf (talk) 01:02, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Depending on the exact terms, I would might actually be okay with this WP:ROPE approach. I am not on some kind of warpath against these two editors personally, I just want the disruption to stop. I don't want to see either of them blocked or broadly community banned, and would be happy with a simply topic ban, or your even milder approach. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 11:04, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Update: Note that most !votes about the proposal to extend the topic ban to Wikid77 and LittleBenW are in support, and the opposes are all weak. PS: The "chasing down socks" thing won't be a serious issue. These editors are such repetitive "broken records" on their pet peeves that any attempt to sockpuppet on those topics will be readily detectible. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:34, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree completely; the concept, in my mind, has roughly the same impact but has a more positive air than a sanction. Further exploration would be beneficial to dispute resolution, IMO. dci | TALK 01:21, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I would not support a proposal that may be seen to want to silence all who are ignorant about dashes, or are opposed to using them in this publication. However, let this be an official warning to anyone seeking to follow in the footsteps of Apteva to cease and desist in behaving in a similar manner, as such behaviour will not be tolerated. -- Ohconfucius  01:33, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

It's never been about ignorance of or disagreement with dashes. It's about behavior patterns that make Misplaced Pages a miserable experience for every other editor who runs across this three- (formerly four-)way WP:TAGTEAM when they're obsessing over some bit of typographical trivia and forumshopping it to Hell and back. The underlying content dispute could have been about sea urchins or flag icons or whether Bill Clinton should move to William Jefferson Clinton or whatever; that part's irrelevant. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 11:04, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't mean to sound foolish, but are you referring to the topic ban proposal or to exploring voluntary restrictions? dci | TALK 01:43, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I confess to feeling ambivalent about this. I think Apteva needed to be shut up, so the topic ban was appropriate and necessary. Hopefully, 'the other two' will see some sense and lie low, or otherwise they will have sense knocked into them. -- Ohconfucius  01:48, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

"Voluntary restrictions" draft

Closing this discussion?

I would suggest an admin close the "Admin attention to an RfC/U" section; it has grown extremely long and hasn't been excessively active today or for a significant chunk of yesterday. The only remaining issue, whether or not to topic-ban two additional editors, probably won't attain enough consensus to either pass or be prevented; this discussion could be restarted at the bottom of the noticeboard, to enable more participation. dci | TALK 00:18, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

The other remaining issue is enforceable voluntary topic bans; I'm not sure if this is the right venue, but someone suggested I post about it here. One of the reasons given for rejecting a voluntary withdrawal from the topic in that RFC/U is they did not view it as being enforceable, however there is a precedent for enforcing such a ban. —Neotarf (talk) 04:33, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't see that the issue is getting any traction. It looks to me like everyone who cared about that entire thread and its subthreads, like enforceability of voluntary topic bans, has already moved on. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 14:27, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Update: I take that back; closing this would be very premature. The proposed extension of the topic ban to the two other anti-dash battlegrounders is still in play (new support !votes were added, and the opposes are all faulty). More importantly, see #Post-close notice (Topic ban, what topic ban?); Apteva is back at it again. The "enforceability of voluntary topic bans" bit is off-topic here (should be at WT:AN, the talk page; Neotarf indicating posting a thread there about it, but there is no such thread there). — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:01, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

This was posted at WT:Banning policy, not sure why WT:AN is being recommended; however I have lost interest as it merely seems to be encouraging further disruptions from Wikid77, LittleBen and now GoodDay, whose original "enforcable voluntary topic ban" has not turned out to be particularly successful. This is what happens when a disruption in one area goes on too long. The disruption becomes so widespread that it attracts individuals who are disruptive in other areas and they congregate in an area they had no previous interest in, and begin to disrupt that area as well. These newcomers have been egging Apteva on, when the community has been trying to send a different message to Apteva. Initially, when they saw a topic ban was being considered against them too, they backed off, but now the disruption has started up again. —Neotarf (talk) 00:25, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

• As far as I'm concerned this entire thread and its subthreads are dead now, including the proposal to extend the Apteva topic ban to Wikid77 and LittleBenW (there was a lot of support for it, but it wasn't unanimous, and the alternative – to simply have the fact that the proposal was seriously considered stand as a warning against further programs of style-related disruption from those two editors – is well-reasoned enough. The "enforcing voluntary restrictions" discussion belongs at WT:AN, not WP:AN. The only other semi-active subthread left really belongs on my talk page if the other editors wants to pursue it. Might as well close and hat the entire thing at this point. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 15:18, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
• I have rescinded the above comment since another !vote in support of extending the topic ban to Wikid77 and LittleBenW has been posted, and every single one of the opposes is somewhere between weak ("me too" and IDONTLIKEIT) to pointy and procedurally invalid to completely refuted on every point. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:01, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I am not interested in pursuing the idea of "enforcable voluntary bans" any further at this time. I did start a discussion at WT:Banning policy, and got a positive reaction from Wikid77, who is now being considered for a topic ban. In the meantime, the original model for the proposed change has not turned out to be a poster child for the concept. —Neotarf (talk) 23:43, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

• I've become a bit confused on what exactly has been occurring. Has Apteva violated his topic ban? And, less importantly, why has the above section been closed as "off-topic" when it was created in response to this discussion? dci | TALK 00:02, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

  Yes, Apteva violated his topic ban, broadly construed. Dicklyon, I think, has proposed that it be clarified to prevent any further WP:GAMING. The thread on "enforceable voluntary bans" was marked off-topic because it's off-topic (its a proposal to modify banning policy and WP:AN procedure, not a proposal to do anything in particular with this WP:AN case). — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 00:19, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

A most unproductive discussion

This discussion has become nothing more than an array of extremist proposals, none of which have gained much traction and all of which have instigated controversy. The result - editors attacking every facet of one another's arguments, with no effective resolution to the dispute being reached. There is absolutely no need to continue to clutter space on this noticeboard with the discussion. Let an admin review and close it and temporarily shelve the idea of topic bans for Wikid77 and LittleBenW. Note that I'm not suggesting we silence discussion of this matter, but merely start a new section at WP:ANI, where concerns could be laid out for more expedient resolution. Regarding the new Apteva controversy, that can be sorted out at the bottom of this page, where it really ought to be, not in one of the convoluted sections above. dci | TALK 00:33, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

The discussion seemed to be having some effect on calming the disruption, I imagine that was why it was allowed to remain open. Any suggestions to close the discussion just seem to encourage Wikid77, LittleBenW, and now GoodDay, whose "voluntary topic ban" does not now appear to have been very successful. —Neotarf (talk) 00:58, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't want to insinuate, as I said, that I want everything shut down. I want to rid this noticeboard of this long discussion, and to (immediately) transfer and reopen the Wikid77/LbW/GD discussion to the bottom of the page. dci | TALK 01:23, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

You would like to be rid of this long discussion? The disruption at MOS has been going on for a looooong time. I had hoped to start a new article today, but instead find myself once again using all my wiki-time for damage control from a user that was supposed to be topic banned already.—Neotarf (talk) 04:09, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, archiving the discussion of the rationale for extended remedies and then reopening the proposal for extended remedies simply guarantees not only that the long discussion will happen all over again, doubling the amount of time an editorial attention, but also that the tendentious editors will get yet another opportunity to be tendentious about this WP:LAME style obsession of theirs. And this is not a WP:AN/I matter, since it's not an incident, it's about a long-term, WT:TAGTEAM disruptive editing pattern. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 00:36, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

What "array of extremist proposals"? There are only two proposals, and they are not extreme, but SOP: That Apteva's topic-ban be clarified a bit so he stops his brand new campaign of WP:GAMING the system by exploiting its vagueness as a loophole, to continue his anti-dash, anti-MOS holy war at WT:AT; and extending the topic-ban to his WP:GANG members Wikid77 and LittleBenW, based on piles of evidence already provided, by multiple editors. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 00:36, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Arbcom?

This really should be sent to ArbCom IMHO - the discussion's gone on for way too long and there is no consensus. --Rschen7754 09:43, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

It quite possibly should and if these problem editing patterns don't stop, surely will be. However, a careful examination of the relative merits of the responses to the proposals to extend the topic ban (to more accurately reflect Apteva's disruptive behavior, and to apply it to Wikid77 and LittleBenW, show that they do actually have consensus; the objections are largely noise. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 00:36, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• I could not agree more. An arbcom case on the whole "small horizontal lines" war is long overdue. Thge community does not seem to be able to resolve the issue or to stop the endless, pointless arguments about it. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:45, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
• Agree ArbCom should debate short-horizontal-lines war: At first, I thought endashed names were a budding world-style trend, but then discovered even major journals allow editors to mix hyphen/dash usage, and any pro-dash trend from years ago is likely to fade as computer software scans for dashes as being who-cares-hyphens (see hyphen=dash to Adobe Acrobat). Recent anti-hyphen trends, over the past 100 years, even drop hyphens totally or diaresis dots (re: teenage, windowsill, naive; recently: e-mail, email), so I suspect endashed names to also fade, not grow. WP needs to drop the extra horizontal wp:STICKpixels, and only ArbCom could say that without getting a topic-ban threat. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:37, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
• The community has reached a consensus, but the attempts so far to stop the endless, pointless arguments about it has not worked. The topic bans proposed would have helped, but if ANI is unable to do that, ArbCom might, but it seems like overkill. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:58, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
• It is likely Arbcom is the only feasible option at this time. dci | TALK 17:59, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
• It would be overkill at this point, because a WP:AN remedy is available. "The community... resolve the issue" in 2011. The "endless, pointless arguments about it" been coming from 3 to 4 editors, period, one of whom is topic banned (Apteva), and one of whom disavows any further interest (Enric Naval). Please do not miscast this as a "Misplaced Pages can't come to consensus on this style point" matter. WP did come to consensus on it, and ARBCOM endorsed that consensus as valid. ARBCOM might again be the needed solution, but it would be about a few

editors' disruptiveness, not about dashes. However, I note again that the proposal above to simply extend the topic ban here to the other two disruptive editors – both of whom have been subject to such topic bans before because they will not stop tendentious campaigning against MOS consensus – has no opposes that have not been shown to be faulty, and a large number of supports which have not been refuted. This strikes me as a clear consensus to proceed. Doing so would obviate any need to drag ARBCOM into a second case about this for no real reason. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 23:24, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• Arbcom -- is the best place for these sprawling multiple editor issues, where almost everything seems to be claimed to be "irrational" if its "on the other side." Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:31, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to draw your attention to the request that Apteva has filed: WP:A/R/C. --Rschen7754 03:30, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I think the only appropriate response to that filing is: Facepalm. — The Hand That Feeds You: 17:52, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

My last proposal (I promise)

Can we agree to this, as it's highly unlikely Arbcom will address anything (plus, Apteva's withdrawn his request)?

• Wikid77 and LittleBenW are discouraged from taking further actions in opposition to the dashes section of the MoS. They are asked to refrain from discussion on the matter. It is noted that perhaps they should stay away from MoS topics in general, but they are not required to do so. If they continue in editing patterns deemed disruptive by the community (basically, continuations of the patterns complained about above), they will be subject to topic-banning or blocks. This agreement is not a topic ban, as both editors have claimed that they are not intending to fanatically support their POV on dashes, and the community will assume good faith for the time being.

Editors willing to abide by this proposal:

1. dci | TALK 00:26, 14 January 2013 (UTC); as author

Discussion of this proposal:

Modification of Alan Liefting's topic ban

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

Note that the Alan's block has been undone, but that this section remains open. If you wish to comment on the scope of the topic ban, and whether it should be modified, do so above the archived section, please. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:30, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Per Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive240#Topic ban for Alan Liefting, Alan Liefting is topic banned from making any category-related edits outside of mainspace. Having viewed the discussion, it appears that the crux of the problem was related to a) Alan Liefting making category-related edits to files and b) Alan Liefting making category-related edits to AfC pages. I would like to suggest that the topic ban be modified to only apply to files and AfC pages. We have no policy allowing categorization of templates and it doesn't appear that there has been a problem with Alan Liefting's edits to the category namespace. My apologies, I forgot to link to give the background to this situation. Alan Liefting was recently blocked for violating his topic ban. Necessary reading would include the discussion at User talk:Alan Liefting#Category-related edits, January 2013. Ryan Vesey 23:43, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I would further add that the vagueness of the current Topic ban has caused Alan to be blocked a couple times (all by the same admin) and a clarification and modification to this ban would greatly benefit the pedia. It would allow the user to continue to edit while being able to fix the minor category problems they run across without violating the ban and the basis for the ban. Kumioko (talk) 23:57, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose The current topic ban is clear and simple, which is a great virtue for any sanction, I also have no confidence (given past edit history) that a relaxed ban, as suggested here, would still avoid Alan's problem use of categories overall.

That said, I don't support his resultant block (GF suggests a warning to please be more careful to avoid accidental overlap would be appropriate and adequate). I'm particularly concerned that all patrolling of his topic ban seems to be coming from one admin. Now that too must surely be coincidence, but it still doesn't look neutral. If Alan were to (and I hope he doesn't) breach this topic ban, then I'm sure it would be obvious and noticed soon enough to be handled by other admins – and if it was benign enough to not raise concerns, then there's no harm done and little point in pursuing blocks over it. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:09, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Andy, I don't understand how a clear and simple topic ban is better than a topic ban that addresses the problematic areas and does not extend beyond it. Alan only violates policy in the areas I mentioned. Ryan Vesey 00:19, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I also don't see how clarifying and loosening the ban to allow some and still factor out those that the community determined to be troublesome. Kumioko (talk) 00:43, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

We rarely topic ban because of a breach of clear policy – if it's that cut-and-dried, then those are usually blocks. Bans arise where the community is being disrupted by persistent edits that don't clearly breach a policy (and we just don't have a policy against most of Alan's problem edits, we'd not previously needed one), but where these edits are going against (and repeatedly and disruptively) community consensus of "good practice". We base this on our policies against general disruption, but there's no simple policy to point to for the specific issue.

I see Alan's edits involving categorization to any namespace as having been part of this disruption. Not every edit, and some namespaces (e.g. file:) have been much more of a problem than others, but it's the categorization that's the common factor, not the namespace. On that basis, the topic ban should remain defined by categorization.Andy Dingley (talk) 11:09, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I think you are trolling (the first time I have ever made such a judgement AFAIK). Perusal of my talk page and its archive will show that there is no basis in fact (as I have been repeatedly saying) for your accusations. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:43, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

You do not appear to understand what trolling means, since Andy Dingley's post did not even come close. Please read Internet troll. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 14:23, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Note that I said "I think you are trolling". It is a statement that has a qualification to indicate the I am unsure. Anyway, I used the page at m:What is a troll? as an explanation. The section on misplaced criticism is especially applicable. Also, my suggestion that he is trolling is an opinion based on his numerous edits with regard to me and not simply the foregoing comment from him. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 23:26, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Additional reading: Alan appealed the topic ban on Nov 5, 2012 and Nov 28, 2012. The block that he is currently under is the first block since the Nov 28 appeal was closed on November 30 with the message "There is clearly consensus to ban Alan Liefting from further appeals for no less than six months. — Coren (talk) 00:38, 30 November 2012 (UTC)". Here are the block notices I left when issuing the blocks under the topic ban: . I have attempted to discuss the matter, e.g. and other edits on that talk page. I would welcome any review of the blocks and topic ban. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:42, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I've not had a chance to read every word of the past appeals, but they both appear to be attempts for a full repeal of the topic ban. I was completely unaware of them when I made my request. This request also only involves a modification. Ryan Vesey 02:56, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I also think the topic ban is too broad. I think it should apply only to category-related edits in the file and user/user talk namespaces (not including his own userspace), and to articles within the AfC process. Alan has since acknowledged that he made edits which were disruptive and has apologised for them, and he says he has attempted to move away from that area. This is in the discussion on his talk page linked to by Ryan.-gadfium 01:05, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

User/User talk is probably a good extension since it applies to the same types of articles as AFC. Ryan Vesey 02:56, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

And as can be seen from my editing history I have completely steered clear of those edits. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 20:11, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support topic-ban reduction to only apply to files and AfC pages: I do not really see the need to restrict edits in categories of user/user-talk pages. If category edits still seem excessive, then I think discussion at User:Alan_Liefting would be sufficient to request fewer edits. -Wikid77 (talk) 05:02, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support, with caveat. I've had problems with Liefting's mainspace categorization before, frankly (as did many others - his talk page for a while was flooded with "STOP!" messages), but he seems more clueful now. The extant topic ban is clearly overbroad, thwarting Liefting's ability to work on the encyclopedia in legitimate ways that interest him, and resulting in unjust blocks. For those who feel that he's simply a problem editor and will remain one, see WP:ROPE. Because Liefting has previously engaged in blatant WP:FAITACCOMPLI action, I would support only after the mainspace-categories-in-templates issue reported below is resolved, so that Liefting has a consensus in place to follow, instead of a lack of consensus to sway in favor of his sometimes strange categorization notions by going on a recategorization AWB run or whatever. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 14:23, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

The way I see it is that editors have an issue with my categorisation edits with respect to user namespace pages, AfC pages, image pages and templates. For the purposes of this reply lets ignore the first three (which I have not touched since my topic ban was enacted). You want to have my current topic ban to remain in place until the "mainspace-categories-in-templates issue" is resolved. I see two problems with that idea. Getting any sort of decision on editing policy/guidelines appears to be next to impossible let alone for categories, so I will end up being penalised for no good reason. Secondly, not so much as a problem I guess, there is already an apparent consensus on template categorisation by virtue of the fact that the vast majority are not categorised in content categories. It is a consensus by virtue of convention. The lack of that realisation by some of the editors involved in prior discussions appears to be a partial reason for my topic ban. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 23:45, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

If there's really a de facto consensus against categorizing templates in mainspace categories (I feel that there probably is), others will resolve templates that don't comply. You personally don't have to be involved. Virtually all of the problems that have arisen with your editing have been category-related. This is a strong indication you shouldn't be messing with categories any time there is even a hint of controversy, or you'll just end up right back here. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 00:24, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Question, I am 100% willing to remove mainspace categories from any and all templates. Would it be a violation of Alan's topic ban, as it stands, to inform me of these templates so I could remove them? Ryan Vesey 00:27, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Kind of a moot point; he could simply send it to you in e-mail and no one would know. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 01:02, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, that makes absolutely no sense at all. Why should I be stopped from doing something for which there is de facto consensus? Please also bear in mind that a large part of my editing before having the topic ban imposed was category related. It therefore stands to reason that it is catgory related edits that would be noticed by other editors. And you are saying that if I come across a categorisation edit that needs changing I ignore WP:SOFIXIT and ignore the problem? I have tried that and developed quite a list both at the categorisation WikiProject and offline. Some of the items on my list have been attended to and sometime I leave comments at various WikiProject topic talk pages to get things sorted out. Having to do that is ridiculous and a complete waste of time. But that is what you are suggesting I do. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 00:47, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

You've asserted that there's a de facto consensus. I lean toward agreeing with you. Doesn't make it a foregone conclusion that everyone will agree. The very fact that a large part of your pre-ban editing was category-related is my point – your talk page had a strong tendency to turn into a firehose of objections to what you were doing with regard to categories, and you typically took a standoffish position with regard to these criticisms and requests to stop. To me, it does not bode well for you to re-involve yourself with categorization in any programmatic or sweeping way, especially given that various other editors are wary of you have having such involvement and looking, probably, to "jump on you" for any perceived transgression in that sector. If avoiding controversy with a little extra work is "a complete waste of your time", then why were you already doing it? "Methinks thou dost protest too much" in suggesting that I am, with "absolutely no sense at all", recommending you do what you're already doing, at least until the controversies about your categorization behaviors settle down. WP is a human endeavor, and like all other human endeavors, politics is always and automatically a factor. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 01:02, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Complicating matters in regards to templates

I apologize for complicating matters, but it's a complicated issue. Under my proposal above, Alan Liefting would be allowed to make category related edits in the template namespace. There is currently nothing in policy, that I have found, allowing mainspace categories to be used on templates (we have special categories for navboxes, infoboxes, etc.) That being said, given the fact that Alan's edits to templates have been (wrongly) used to support his ban, I think it is clear that a discussion on categorization of templates needs to take place. Given that, and under the assumption that support is attained for my suggested modification to Alan's topic ban, how should we treat Alan's ability to edit categories on templates? My suggestion is to not allow edits to mainspace categories on templates that are meant to be used in the mainspace until the discussion is closed, at which point Alan will be expected to comply with whatever the consensus ends up being. Ryan Vesey 03:13, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

This actually seems a lot like the leed up to the topic ban. There is no policy that allows it, and no policy that prohibits it. Some editors don't see a problem with it, and object to the removal of the categories. In the file categories case, we then had an RFC that soundly rejected a policy that would have supported the removals. Alan then continued removals after the RFC. I'm not really sure what is going to be different this time around. I have no doubt that Alan means well, but the topic ban really is necessary. All it would take for me to support lifting the topic ban would be for Alan to acknowledge the root of the problem and pledge not to continue courses of category edits in the face of objections, especially when there is no clear policy or guideline backing him up. If there was a proposal allow him to participate in category related discussion while still banning him from direct edits, I would probably support that as well. Monty₈₄₅ 05:37, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused about that since it appears that WP:Categorization allowed for categorization of files long before the issue began. As for templates, WP:Categorization is what allows categories to appear on pages, it does not allow categories to appear on templates, as a result, templates cannot have categories (mainspace ones that is). Ryan Vesey 10:52, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

The original problems were with the files (and some templates) and the userspace drafts. The first is a contentious, and difficult, field, the second are edits that 'have to be done', but there are several ways of doing them (removal by outright clear-cut removal, commenting them out, or colon-ising them - and it depends on which you deem the best and the least bitey to a new editor). However, the topic ban is covering all fields of categorisation, and enforced even though hardly ANY of the edits that have resulted are reverted, removed, undone, whatever - the edits stand, for months, but the editor who performs them is blocked because of an edit restriction which is too broadly worded.

I would support to restrict the edit restriction to 'mainspace categorisation of pages in the files, templates and categories namespace' (he can still suggest them to/discuss them on e.g. the categorisation WikiProject for others to solve, but no addition or removal or recategorisation of files, templates and categories when it involves mainspace categories), and that for the categorisation of userspace drafts (including articles for creation) Alan has to perform the following: 'colonisation of the categories on those pages, followed within 10 minutes with a note on the talkpage of the creator of the draft article' (or leave them alone and suggest them to others). I would also ask for the removal of the restriction on Alan that disallows Alan to discuss the lifting of the restriction on AN, which was implemented because he asked for it for the second time (sigh, that is akin blocking talkpage access of a blocked editor as soon as the editor asks for the second time to lift his block). --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra on public computers) 05:48, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

As the blocking admin, I have reviewed his category-related edits, and I can say the edits he has made to violate the current ban were recategorization of templates and categories (mostly removing categories, e.g. ). I think he has not been editing userspace drafts recently. If the goal of changing the restriction is to affect the current block, it would need to allow him to edit such pages. However, removing categories from templates was one of the things that was discussed before the topic ban was implemented, and I think the inclusion of templates was intentional. I have interpreted the current ban as allowing Alan to post cleanup messages such as , which should be sufficient. However, one problematic aspect of his editing is that he sometimes has posted the note, only to later remove the categories himself, e.g. . I think the reason few of his edits are reverted is the same reason the cleanup tags are not promptly answered: few people watchlist templates and categories. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:54, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Or the reason is that the edits are simply fine. But that does not matter anyway. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra on public computers) 14:19, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Carl, Dirk Beetstra is correct here. The reason that few of his edits are reverted is not because people don't see them. If that was the case, he would never be blocked. You chose to block him, which was in line with the technical bounds allowed to you by the editing restriction, while endorsing his edits by default. Ryan Vesey 17:54, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but let's all stop beating on Carl. Alan broke the rules of the community-endorsed topic ban several times, on several separate occasions. There's no point in a community-endorsed topic ban if it's not enforced. Sure, as I've said on Alan's talkpage, Carl might have given Alan a warning, but in all honesty, we should credit Alan with more intelligence, he knows the bounds of the topic ban, there's thousands of edits he can make without infringing it. Please stop pretending Alan is the victim here, Carl is technically right to do what he's done. Having said that, if 0.2% of my edits were called out as being bad and I was blocked for a month, I'd be upset, but then again, I would work hard to avoid that situation. Can we just focus on the idea that the topic ban phrasing could be updated to include a single warning should Alan transgress once again, and have a duration, e.g. three months? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:02, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

• Ryan seems so keen to whitewash Alan that he's now blanking any criticism of him on other projects as "removing unrelated crap" and edit-warring to re-blank it when it's restored. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:13, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

• That's completely unrelated and your idea that I'm "whitewashing" Alan is wrong. Ottawahitech made an inappropriate edit in an improper venue. Editors have a responsibility to remove crap like that. Ryan Vesey 17:47, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

• Alan Liefting is a clear deletionist and a regular at AfD. To hear him discuss editor retention with the comment, "We should also keep editor attrition in the back of our minds when !voting on deletion discussions." is thus a little surprising, at least when it's coming from him. Not surprisingly, Ottawahitech then challenged him over this and noted some of Alan's past actions that were rather at variance with his words here. Ottawahitech's comments were very far from complimentary and might have been phrased more modestly, given the fluffy kid gloves we're all supposed to wear whilst typing, but one thing they certainly weren't was "unrelated". Andy Dingley (talk) 18:12, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

• Just a question, is this actually related the topic ban we're discussing across most of Misplaced Pages, or is it a different matter that needs to be dealt with locally/elsewhere? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:14, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

• It's unrelated. Ryan Vesey 20:12, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
• When Ryan is trying to instigate presenting Alan as the innocent victim of an unwarranted topic ban, whilst simultaneously blanking other's well-founded criticisms of him, then it's related. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:14, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

• Agreed with Andy Dingley on all his points in this section. (And note that I support partial relaxation of Liefting's topic-ban; they're severable concerns.) — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 14:23, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

• Andy, your position on the quality of my edits is all over the place. You have contradicted yourself on my talk page about these supposed "well-founded criticisms". Now are you sure that your comments are not clouded by the fact that we have not seen eye to eye in past discussions? You seem to be clutching at straws to make sure that I am penalised. BTW, another editor has endorsed Ryan's edit. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 19:39, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support a narrowing of the topic ban - to File, AFC and other's user-space. Blocking an editor for making perfectly good edits shows that either we are slavishly following rules, or the rules are wrong. Rich Farmbrough, 04:12, 13 January 2013 (UTC).
  

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

The problem with this type of discussion

I am going to create this as a subsection of this because it deals with this case but it is also a wider problem. I have and always have had a major problem with ANI cases and discussions like this against users who are blocked and cannot even comment to defend themsleves or make a statement. THIS IS WRONG! It was wrong before it happened to me, it was wrong when it happened to me and its wrong now and this is the sort of conduct and dirty tactics that is frequently used on here to get peoples way. The user requested an unblock to comment here and it was denied. Ok fnie, several editors volunteered to copy the users comments here, ok fine. But now instead of the user getting a voice in this a link to his talk page was left so now, in order to get to it the reader has to wade through a whole nother discussion. Virtually no one is going to do that. We all have lives and nbetter things to do. If we are going to participate in a discussion about a user like this, then that user should be able to have a voice. That is my opinion and you may not agree but I know how frustrating and how pissed I was and still am about it. I see it too often and I finally decided its time to say something about it so at least its on record. If the user is being discussed then they need to have access to the discussion; If we are unwilling to unblock him then this conversation needs to move to the users talk page with a link here to it. This block, discuss, exclude bullshit is not a civil or mature way to handle these types of problems. Kumioko (talk) 17:55, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I feel that he should have been unblocked just to take part in this. I've seen it happen before. I'll ping a neutral admin. Ryan Vesey 18:09, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm that neutral admin, and I am in fact neutral. I'll have a look. Drmies (talk) 18:25, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, I have unblocked Alan so he can participate in this discussion. See the conditions I set on his talk page, and please be advised that I am well aware that my blocks and unblocks are always subject to community approval. I trust that Alan will not abuse this limited freedom. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 18:32, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. That at least fixes things for this case. I still stand by the statement above that it happens all too often and all too often people turn their backs too it. Kumioko (talk) 20:03, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for that. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 19:17, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

There is a systemic problem with administration of WP by our administrators both individually or collectively. I don't have any animosity to the admins involved in this discussion so my comment is not a case of sour grapes (having said that I do wish Carl would turn a blind eye to my uncontroversial edits relating to the topic ban.) Time and again there has been complaints about the behaviour of admins. Admins should have exemplary behaviour, mind you so should all other editors! -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 19:17, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Alan, you realise that comment actually has no content at all, right? You think there's a "systemic problem" but go on to explain that admins/non-admins are all the same and should all behave in the same way. Do you have a point, or is it one of those Merlot mornings? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:47, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Waddaya mean by no content? I put forward an opinion. An opinion is content. My point is that it is good that the whole RfA process is tightened up so only the good ones get through but there are some admins who have atrocious behaviour and I think it is hard to control or get rid of them. Admins control the common rabble so they should be on their best behaviour. To set the example and all that. BTW, I only drink Merlot in the evenings. Probably your mornings. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:57, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Rambling Man is correct; that was totally content-free in any meaningful sense. Alan, your verbiage was just noise, in the information theory sense, since the logic was so faulty that half of what you said cancelled the other half out. You're not parsing "content" correctly, just as you didn't understand "trolling" properly earlier. I strongly suggest that you stop trying to get into nit-picking arguments here. You were unblocked to make a case for a change to your topic-ban, not to engage in petty bickering over and act defensively and haughtily in response to criticism. Further behavior of that sort is highly likely to convince me to rescind my support of a relaxation of your topic ban. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 14:23, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Unblock of Alan proposal

Personally, it feels to me that consensus is forming to the effect that the topic ban is overly broad. The discussion should continue, but I would like to add the next step in this discussion. The block by Carl was correct as it applied to the topic ban; however, there seems to be a consensus forming that having this block in place neither helps Misplaced Pages nor prevents Misplaced Pages from being harmed. I propose that we unblock Alan Liefting (he is currently technically unblocked, but give him the go ahead to start improving the 'pedia again) as "time served" (he's been blocked for almost a week now) with the full topic ban in place until a decision is made on the above discussions. Ryan Vesey 17:56, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

That doesn't seem sensible: as long as the topic ban is in place, the block is legit and should also remain fully in force. Block conditions should never be complex as they're tricky for admins to enforce and there's a potential for the editor to misunderstand the conditions (or claim to misunderstand them, as happens sometimes - though hopefully not here). Nick-D (talk) 01:12, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Nick, there is no suggestion by Ryan to change the original topic ban at this stage. He simply wants my current block to be lifted in light of the emerging consensus above. Also, given emerging consensus the block cannot really be considered "legit". BTW, I think the current topic ban is a bit easier to understand, and therefore follow and enforce, than the modification to it suggested in the foregoing discussion. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 01:52, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

There appears to be a clear consensus from the above that the block was made in accordance with the ban conditions, and as such was a legitimate action. The issue is whether these conditions should be amended (which would then lead to the block being entirely lifted), and this appears to have general, though not overwhelming, support from the above discussion. Am I correct in reading your last statement as meaning that you don't actually want the ban conditions altered? Nick-D (talk) 02:03, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the block was a "legitimate" action but from a common sense viewpoint and as a means of protecting WP it is completely nonsensical (and no one seems to be helping me to clean out the rapidly expanding Category:Articles with missing files...). And no, I am not saying that I don't want the topic ban conditions changed. I am simply pointing out that perhaps it will be more complicated to enforce. I don't want any sort of topic ban hanging over me at all - but lets not go there! -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 02:20, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

The fact that a block is legitimate doesn't mean it is beneficial. Ryan Vesey 04:42, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Ok, here's the deal

Some of you may think that I am in no position to make a deal but here goes anyway. If I am unblocked I promise that I will abide by the intent of what has been construed as an overly onerous topic ban. I will not even do any completely uncontroversial category edits. There is work to do and I am getting behind in meeting my deadlines and clearing the backlog. (Oops, thats right, I forgot that it is not a job. It is just an addiction. ) -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:15, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

And if you break the terms of your topic ban? Are you happy to be re-blocked on the current escalating scale with no recourse? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:18, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I would hope that good sense prevails and policy and guidelines will be developed, which will then allow for the suggested modification to my topic ban. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:26, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

You disagree with the way your ban has been handled (including subsequent blocks), the community don't consensually agree with your point of view. Wait, this is exactly the status quo. So if you breach the terms of your current topic ban, things will return to the existing status quo, i.e. you get progressively longer blocks. All you're asking for now is for the current block to be removed? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:30, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Personally I read that as 'I am going to try my hardest meanwhile to change policy & guidelines so the actions that got me restricted in the first place will not be subject to restrictions'..... Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:34, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Struck out. Forget I said anything. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:38, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

So are we done here? Do you have anything further to add to AN or are you now content to sit out the remainder of your latest block? Either way, you should contact User:Drmies who was collegiate enough to allow you the opportunity to edit here despite your current block. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:01, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Rambling Man--my involvement, as far as I'm concerned, ended with the limited unblock. A "reblock" should be done by someone familiar with the issue and the discussion here. I do note that Alan has made a few talk page edits that do not pertain to this matter, though he noted that he shouldn't be conversing about other matters. Not such a big deal to me personally. Anyway, I am not well-versed enough in the matter to reblock or to leave him unblocked. You all should come up with that consensus, and the sooner the better. Drmies (talk) 18:31, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, as an "involved" admin, I've been advised to avoid any admin action here. You unblocked him with certain conditions. I suggest you now reblock him per the original conditions since Alan is demonstrating no desire to continue discussion here. It's pretty simple for me. The unblock was to assist Alan's communications here and nowhere else, right? You unblocked him for that didn't you? Please now "undo" the "unblock" and restore the original conditions of the block. Thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:36, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

TRM, you are making an incorrect assumption about my intentions or misconstrued what I said. Yes, it is true that I have "no desire to continue discussion here" but that is because I want it resolved so we can all move on. When I said "Forget I said anything" it was for the comment that I struck out. You and I have a strained relationship for some reason and it looks like the tension is increasing again. Your desire to pass punitive measure agaisnt me and which is contrary to the will of most others who have contributed to this discussion is demonstrating that animosity. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 19:35, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

No, not really, just not sure what you need to be unblocked for right now. You made your plea, you retracted your plea, everything else can take place at your talk page or after your block expires. I don't get why you feel the need to circumvent your block now you're not interested in discussing your position here. "Your desire to pass punitive measure agaisnt me and which is contrary to the will of most others who have contributed to this discussion is demonstrating that animosity." - no, I'm just asking that the original block (or the most recent block) for transgressing your topic ban should be re-enacted since you decided to remove your request. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:33, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Drmies, as far as I understand it there is nothing stopping me from editing my talk page on matters that are not related to the block? Is that correct? Anyway, looking at it from a rational and collegial viewpoint it is best to reply to questions from other editors on my talk page. If policy prevents that it would be petty. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 19:35, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

TRM, the conditions imposed on me means that I cannot post on Drmies talk page. I am essentially still blocked from editing. PLease make yourself conversant with the issue before making comments. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 19:51, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Well I assume Drmies will be watching this since he unblocked you? I was half-way through reminding Drmies of this scenario and thought better of it. Now I wish I'd pursued it sooner so we could close out this latest episode of Alan's mini-drama. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:33, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Speaking of Here's the deal, For what little my opinion is worth I still think this block is a pointless waste of a lot of editors time. Alan has abided by the purpose of the block. He has stayed away from the areas that got him topic banned. He made a few passing edits to a couple categories that have absolutely nothing to do with his ban. Block him or unblock him the decision is yours. But do it knowing that there are several editors who have voiced their disagreements with this block and the fact that in all cases the excalating blcoks were done by the same involved admin. This block is solely being done to punish the editor and to make a point. That's it. No harm to the pedia is being prevented with this block. Kumioko (talk) 19:19, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes you are right, this has nothing to do with protecting WP. I would like to point out that I have a long term strained relationship with the two editors here who want to continue with punishing me. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 19:48, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

No, we (well at least I) want to just see things done properly. Alan has been blocked but allowed some latitude to post here by the kindness of Drmies. Two questions into this, Alan has decided to tell us to "forget it" so I suggested we returned to the status quo. Big deal. Seems straight forward enough to me. And no, Kumioko, this isn't a "punishment", it's a standard incremental block on an editor who continually ignores his community-sanctioned topic ban. It's as simple as that. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:33, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

TRM first let me lead this off by saying that I have always thought you were fair and a level headed editor. Your one of the few who I still have a high degree of respect for. With that said, when he said that, he was clearly referring to the struck out comment when he said forget it. Your right about being allowed to edit here. I am glad that Drmies did that. I was one of the ones who fought for that because I personally think it is wrong to exclude a longstanding editor from a discussion like this. I also still don't agree this isn't a punishment. Its clear to me that's what this is at the detriment of the pedia. I am familiar with the background of the case and the grounds for the Topic ban but it is clear as day to me that these edits have absolutely nothing to do with that ban. The only thing they had in common was they were categories, thats it. The situation is comparing apples and oranges. Now I am not going to keep arguing about it because I have basically given up on the community and this is the sort of thing I expect to see. You get users like Alan that get blocked for petty shit like this and you have other users and admins doing whatever they want, whenever they want and to whomever they want and we just turn our backs to it. Its absolutely pathetic the way we treat our editors these days. Its disgraceful and disgusting. It makes me ashamed to tell people I edit because every time I bring it up, they tell me things like I tried to edit once but the told me I was a "fucking idiot and I need to learn to spell first". I hear many stories like that. I stopped telling people I edit. This situation is no exception. We continue to cannabolize our ranks; we burn each other down and then piss on the ashes. If Alan was doing such a horrible job then why is it the exact same involved admin who blocks him each time. I'll tell you. Because he is involved and looking for a reason to do it. Plain and simple. I don't expect anyone to care what I say or care about my opinion. But I wanted it on record I don't agree and several other editors don't agree as noted above and on Alan's talk page. So if the admins in this case want to go ahead and say there is no consensus and continue to the block then fine. But again you are doing it because that is what you want, not what the community wants. Kumioko (talk) 21:57, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

In fact, if you block him, please block me for the same duration! Kumioko (talk) 22:01, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Well said! <personal attack redacted by Dweller> -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 22:05, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Alan, consider yourself extremely fortunate that I haven't blocked you for that egregious personal attack. --Dweller (talk) 22:48, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the leniency. I am now unsure where the boundary is between describing the behaviour of others and what constituents a personal attack. Sigh... -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs)

Just to clarify I think very highly of TRM. I attribute it to the atmosphere of Misplaced Pages these days and this is in no way directed at TRM. The atmosphere here is toxic, corrosive and infectious. Even the most respected editors and admins are not immune to occasional acts of stupidity and assholery!. Unfortunately, more and more are making those acts less occasional than common. That's why I have gone from doing more than 10, 000 edits a month (some months over 20 and 30 thousand) to less than a couple hundred a month and 99% are on discussions. Kumioko (talk) 23:56, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

• Eh... There is too much focus on Alan's unblock and the conditions thereof. I unblocked him so he could participate in this here AN thread about his editing behavior. I did not unblock him so he could a. make personal attacks or b. have conversations with other editors.

• a. What was redacted above by Dweller was at the very least unhelpful. I don't like civility blocks and this, for me, was not blockable. The Rambling Man considers themselves too involved to act on it and that's probably a wise decision. Dweller's finger hovered over the block button but they refrained, wisely or not. As I said before, if any (uninvolved, I suppose) admin thinks that Alan's edits here are disruptive one way or another I won't stand in the way of ending his temporary freedom to participate in this thread. Again, I won't (re-)block for that particular remark, but YMMV and that's fine with me. I have no horse in this race, no dog or zombie either.
• b. I did not, Alan, unblock you so you could advise other editors who come to your talk page. The proper answer is "sorry I'm on the other line" or some version thereof. Again, I won't block for it, since you produced that answer after a few responses, and at any rate your talk page privileges were not revoked, AFAIK. But please stay on point, and don't comment on your block while your block is being discussed: it's foolish and there's enough bad blood already.

There's a proposal below. I hope you all can focus on that so we can bring this to a close. Ent is chomping at the bit to close this entire discussion, Alan wants some clarity, Floquenbeam is still racking up points for their Christian charity exercise (power to you, Floq), and this needs to be taken care of. In Bradspeak: I have unblocked Alan's one-month block temporarily so he could participate in this here discussion at this here Administrators' Noticeboard. If, in your judgment, he trespasses that privilege and is disruptive one way or another, reblock. Then, </end bradspeak> decide on something, close the thread, have a beer, move along. I am in no way endorsing the use or even abuse of alcohol among editors, though it makes your French more palatable. Drmies (talk) 00:34, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Proposal

Let's put aside all the personal back and forth and focus on improving Misplaced Pages. I suggest:

• Alan affirmatively states he intends to follow the topic ban.
• He's declared "unblocked" for the purpose of editing.
• All parties in the discussion stop talking about each other. Not important. NE Ent 23:19, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

• I support this per the sections above. I should like to clarify that this, and the rest of the unblock discussion I initiated, should in no way assume the topic ban modification should or should not occur. Should Alan be unblocked, he is bound by whatever the topic ban is when he is unblocked and if the modification is closed with consensus to modify, Alan would immediately be held to the new ban rather than the old one. Perhaps I shouldn't have started the unblock discussion as soon as I did, but the topic ban modification was dragging out so I jumped the gun a little. Ryan Vesey 23:34, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

• If I am unblocked I hereby affirm I will follow any topic ban imposed on me (even though the current one is seen as overly draconian). I guess I will have to wait for the day that the community decides to create comprehensive categorisation guidelines before any alteration of my topic ban can take place. Sigh... -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 23:41, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

• It might look like I'm making you grovel by repeating yourself, Alan, but as an uninvolved admin, I'm just making absolutely sure I understand what is going on. Do I understand correctly that:
  • You were topic banned from all category-related edits outside of mainspace, and have been blocked for violating it before
  • You strongly disagree with that topic ban, and believed at the very least it should have had a narrower scope
  • You made some category-related edits that weren't problematic per se, but which violated the topic ban
  • You were blocked 1 month for it
  • You still believe that the topic ban is unreasonable/unfair/too broad/what-have-you
  • You agree to abide by it anyway, and make no category-related edits outside of mainspace, no matter how obviously correct you believe they are
  • If the scope of the topic ban is modified, you'll abide by that. If it isn't modified, you'll abide by the current one
  • You have not previously affirmed that you will abide by the topic ban; this is new

If this is correct, please say so here, and I'll modify this limited unblock to a full unblock. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:57, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

• You sum up my stance and my promise with pretty much 100% accuracy. I am also sick and tired of this endless discussion. It is a wasting a lot of time and energy (although some may be here solely for this sort of thing...) Maybe even close this whole AN discussion and we can all go our separate ways. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 00:07, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• OK, then a couple of things. First, you're now welcome to edit anywhere on WP, subject only to whatever topic ban is currently in place. Second, since you're already unblocked, the only way I can figure out to modify your block log is to reblock for 2 minutes, and then unblock so I can add a note about this to the block log. With my luck, this will cause you an autoblock, for which I apologize in advance. Third, probably best if you and those who disagree with you limited your interaction for a while, in order for things to cool down. Fourth, I'll look through this again and see if I agree that the entire section can be archived. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:13, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• It should be archived from #Unblock of Alan proposal down. Thanks Floq. Ryan Vesey 00:15, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Ryan thanks for being staunch but do you think archiving the whole discussion may be a better idea? -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 00:21, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• If you have no desire to modify your topic ban, yes. It seems to me that there is consensus, or at least close to consensus, for a modification. Ryan Vesey 00:23, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• I would like to have my topic ban modified but I also want this discussion to end so we can all move on. I am willing to have the current topic ban remain in place and maybe it can be revisited at some point in the future. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 00:30, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks Floquenbeam. From my POV I don't think the discussion was particularly heated. Frustrating and interminable but not heated. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 00:21, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Blacklists and assholes

After having seen this on WP:NPP and this on WP:AfC, I was surprised that a new user could create pages with the word "asshole" in them. Aside from perhaps a work by Frank Zappa that I missed, I can't think of a single valid reason to create an article using this word. (And I got Elvis' Greatest Shit created, so I'm not averse to bad language when in an appropriate context). --Ritchie333 10:43, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

You don't think there's a single notable work with the word "asshole" in it? It took me less than twenty seconds to come up with five. IPs and other casual editors add the vast majority of our content, and every barrier that's put in their way hurts us. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:35, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I think you've misinterpreted what I've said. You probably thought I meant I couldn't search for existing articles with "asshole" in the title, as opposed to not thinking of any ideas of new articles. I also said I had created an article on a notable subject with an expletive in it myself, going via this very board to do it, so that's not really the issue - more that creating an article with this title is so infrequent that it would be a net benefit to add "asshole" to the blacklist alongside "shit". --Ritchie333 15:02, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

You missed the point. If several such articles, mostly about notable published works already exist, and "asshole" is not an obsolete word like "hungred", then logically it's a near certainty that more notable works will use this word in their titles in the future, probably the very near future. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖכþ Contrib. 14:34, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Would the edit filter block the creation of AFC pages? I just created Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit with my non-admin alternate account (containing nothing but a deletion tag and "Page created to test the title blacklist."), and to my surprise it went through quite fine. I was planning to comment on the wording of the message presented when the blacklist prevents the creation of a title, but I'm not sure how to do that without disrupting mainspace. Nyttend backup (talk) 16:00, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

The warning depends on the regex that the page gets blocked under. (By the way, do note that the edit filter and the title blacklist are two totally different things.) Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 16:03, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Oops, I knew that, but obviously I wasn't paying attention. I was only attempting to trigger the title blacklist. Nyttend backup (talk) 16:05, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

You should be able to find most of the messages here. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 16:06, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

See also this AfD. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:08, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

And, for completeness, this thread is when I noted I couldn't create an article with "shit" in it, about a fortnight after that AfD. --Ritchie333 16:20, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to the messages. The text of MediaWiki:Titleblacklist-forbidden-edit almost seems to presume that a false positive has happened and provides full instructions for creating a needed page. I don't understand Chris' last clause. Nyttend (talk) 16:25, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm surprised Asshole from El Paso doesn't have an article. I might just write this one, if only to try to get it pushed through WP:DYK and on the main page. _{(muahahahahahaha)} caknuck _° needs to be running more often 07:59, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

• I've made a change that should probably resolve this issue. Before this change, the title blacklist would have rejected names that included "is an asshole". I've changed it so that it also rejects phrases like "are assholes". ‑Scottywong| confer _ 19:55, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
• My most recent DYK was Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism, the First Sixty Years, so I definitely disagree with the premise "I can't think of a single valid reason to create an article using this word." 28bytes (talk) 11:57, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• Indeed. We also have The No Asshole Rule. Warden (talk) 23:24, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

To be clear, the title blacklist will currently only prevent IP's and non-autoconfirmed editors from creating articles that include things like "is an asshole" or "are assholes". There are very few valid articles (like The Devil is an Ass or The Masses Are Asses) that this entry would have prevented. Just the word "asshole" on its own in a page title is not restricted, to my knowledge. ‑Scottywong| prattle _ 20:40, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Deactivate my other account

How can I deactivate my other account. I just want to keep the one that I am using right now and no longer need this one.--Kazemita1 (talk) 19:41, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

you can't really. Just stop logging into it and forget about it is the best option.©Geni 05:10, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

There's a good chance the requester will not see the answer, since Apteva "helpfully" moved his query here from where he posted it. Dicklyon (talk) 05:25, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

user informed of change of venue

Actually, since you edited under both identities in the same subject area you have been, whether it was your intention or not, violating our policy on the use of multiple accounts. As such I have blocked that account. Please familiarize yourself with the linked policy and refrain from doing that in the future. Thanks. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:27, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Be nice. The accounts were not used at the same time, the editor has said that both accounts are his. Unless there's a particular reason to say so, no abuse has taken place. Sticking to one account is, though, generally a good idea. Rich Farmbrough, 17:51, 11 January 2013 (UTC).

I thought I was being nice. I am assuming this was done in ignorance not malice but the fact that they used two different accounts, going back and forth from one to the other but editing the exact same content, is not good and they need to be aware of that. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:38, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Remembering that blocking is not intended as punishment, but as prevention of possible damage, the block was appropriate. As noted, we don’t retire accounts, but if someone has two, and no longer intends to use one for any purpose, an indef block help insure that it doesn't get misappropriated.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 18:53, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Here's what I would have said "As you wanted the account deactivated I have blocked it. It's generally not a good idea for an editor to have more than one account anyway, see our policy on the use of multiple accounts for details. Hope that helps." No talk of violations, you are doing him a a favour with the block (which you are). All very friendly. Rich Farmbrough, 05:23, 13 January 2013 (UTC).

Indefinitely blocked, but not really

I've just seen a registered user place a bogus block notice on an IP's talk page. What should I do, apart from reverting? I'm afraid I've never encountered anything like this before. Evanh2008  02:06, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

If you look at Alameda's history, you'll see a lot of problems. I don't think the editor is a bad actor, but more likely generally incompetent. I suppose they need some advice at a minimum, although I'm not sure if the problems are fixable (call me cynical).--Bbb23 (talk) 02:23, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

This is not an isolated incident... Salvidrim! ✉ 02:25, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I know, you removed a bunch of the false block notices. I've now removed the rest (I think). I've left a note on the editor's talk page, and we'll see what happens next.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:35, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• OK I did not know that and some of my contributions has unexpained edits but some of them did not have vandalism. Alameda15 (talk) 23:23, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

• OK Alameda has said it and we should closed this discussion. Carson30 (talk) 04:30, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Carson30, can you explain why you think you are qualified to call for the discussion to be closed? You appear to have only made 8 edits to Misplaced Pages - none of which were of any significance to article content. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:51, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Note: per this it seems evident that Carson30 and Alameda15 are the same person - and neither account is a net benefit to Misplaced Pages. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:45, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

• I've indef'd Carson30 per WP:DUCK and blocked Alameda15 for 48 hours. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:50, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

What is the policy or guideline on people who give themselves barnstars? Carson30 has awarded Alameda15 a barnstar. 216.93.234.239 (talk) 22:45, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

User:Aaronsw RIP

FUCK. I am so pissed at this. What a stupid loss. Pardon my language. Those of you who followed his saga will understand. A total tragedy. Could the admins please do the usual stuff about his account and user pages. I just hope it's a hoax but I doubt it. Thank you. 67.117.146.66 (talk) 07:44, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Generally accounts are not blocked after death, but I have locked the userpage. The talk page is open just incase people wish to leave notes of condolences. User:Zscout370 08:33, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll probably put something there during the weekend. I'm calmer now, but sleepy. Goodnight. 67.117.146.66 (talk) 09:24, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

It's no hoax. It is a tremendously sad event; see the Wikimedia blog --My76Strat (talk) 08:42, 13 January 2013 (UTC)(condolences)

In case of any doubt, BBC has also put up an article on it. Blackmane (talk) 16:09, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Block review

• Wingwrong (talk · contribs)

User:Future Perfect at Sunrise blocked Wingwrong with a reason "for persistent tendentious editing, especially for persistent offensive advocacy for denialism on Comfort women".

• persistent tendentious editing: Wingwrong edited Talk:Comfort women on 11 January 2013 three month after the previous edit on 24 October 2012. Is this persistent tendentious editing? This block is as if the user violated a topic ban.
• persistent offensive advocacy for denialism on Comfort women: Is what Future Perfect at Sunrise call denialism a legitimate reason to block a user?

―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 09:38, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• I had a quick look at User talk:Wingwrong and Talk:Comfort women, and it is clear that "persistent offensive advocacy for denialism on Comfort women" is accurate. There is no policy that such activity must be blocked, but does anyone recommend an unblock? Is there a reason to expect that an unblock might help the encyclopedia? The user's English is not good enough for an expectation that advice would be understood, and the user recently repeated unsourced advocacy (diff) after a one-month block in August where three separate unblock requests were declined by different admins. Johnuniq (talk) 10:08, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
• (ec) Wingwrong was blocked twice before for similar behaviour; the last time was for a month. At that time, Qwyrxian (talk · contribs) told him that he was "running out of chances", that he needed to make a "complete change in attitude" and that he would likely be blocked indef the next time . Wingwrong's editing has consisted purely of politically motivated national advocacy editing on matters of Japanese foreign conflict (Comfort women, Liancourt Rocks, Senkaku Islands), and in particular on Comfort women he has persistently used the article and the talk page for agenda screeds, promoting denialist fringe positions. That article has been afflicted with these kinds of edits from several (usually Japanese) editors for years. It is my position that people misusing Misplaced Pages for pushing their agendas of Japanese-war-crime denialism should be treated no differently from those who push Holocaust denialism, Armenian genocide denialism, 9/11 "truth" conspiracy theories or other similarly outworn political fringe positions. We block such editors. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:11, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

FPoS is absolutely correct here. This user is here to push a fringe ultra-nationalist position on a large number of articles. While it's good that he stopped edit warring on the articles themselves, it's a waste of other editors time to have to constantly respond to his posts on article talk page that are generally somewhere between wrong and ludicrous. And the viewpoint he represents, especially on Comfort women is held by such a tiny number of people that it qualifies as WP:FRINGE. His last set of edits there (demanding physical evidence) demonstrate he has no interest in understanding or implementing Misplaced Pages's core policies of WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. While Phoenix is correct that the frequency of editing has gone down, the key problem has not. I support the block. It is somewhat conceivable that the user could be unblocked at some point, but he'll need to demonstrate a radically different approach to editing. Qwyrxian (talk) 11:13, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• I've had a look at the relevant talk pages, and I have to agree the block is valid. This user obviously doesn't understand (or doesn't care about) our basic policies and is determined to push a fringe POV. Their English skills don't seem to be good enough to make meaningful contributions either. I suppose we could issue a topic ban from all articles relating to comfort women, but almost all this editor's contributions relate to some sort of international controversy involving Japan and the problems are sufficiently severe that they are likely to crop up again if they try to edit anywhere else. Hut 8.5 11:24, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
• A good block, for sound reasons. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:31, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
• This looks like a good block to me as well - this editor is essentially a single purpose account for pushing a Japanese nationalist POV, and clearly isn't here to develop neutral encyclopedic articles. Nick-D (talk) 22:21, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Out of fairness, Wingwrong has stated the following on his talk page in reference to this block:

he Japanese government has consistently denied that "comfort women were forced by the military." In fact, Korean never present Physical Evidence. That is all. I'm not a denialist. I'm "evidence-supremacist". Would be required by the Misplaced Pages exactly?Wingwrong★ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ 16:23, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Then in User Talk:Wingwrong#Comfort women's question there is more evidence presented to support his position, in particular referencing a Japanese news article that claims that the Japanese government has explicitly supported the position he's pushing, and therefore it doesn't qualify as fringe. I'm too close to the content dispute to offer an opinion on this (plus, I was reading the news story through Google Translate, and that's iffy at best). Qwyrxian (talk) 03:51, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

This isn't the right place to be debating the content issues, but the Kono Statement of 1993 is the Japanese Government's official position on the issue, and it acknowledges that coercion was used to recruit 'comfort women' from Korea and elsewhere: . According to a quick Google search, the current Japanese Government is considering moving away from this position: , but that doesn't excuse this POV pushing. Nick-D (talk) 04:01, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

• I'd like to clarify what exactly is the problem with Wingwrong's editing. Hut 8.5 (and Nick-D, in different words) says that "almost all this editor's contributions relate to some sort of international controversy involving Japan", but there are many such users that are brought to this board and that's not automatically ground for a permaban. Is it the poor English competency, per Johnuniq? Some people alluded to edit-warring, but haven't provided links to ANEW discussions. I've only seen blocks issued in punishment for talk page rants at AE, and the "comfort women" issue is not sufficiently high-profile to go there.

  Like Qwyrxian, I must confess a personal interest in this issue, but I must draw a distinction between Japanese war crime denialism and attempts to rigorously verify sources. Although such attempts—as Qwyrxian alluded to in Wingwrong's talk page comments—may come from denialist motives (we can't read minds), the end result could help the encyclopedia by spurring mainstream editors to replace low-quality scholarship like R.J. Rummel mega-statistic compilations with more specifically relevant sources with an open methodology.

  Although attempts to downgrade the number of people killed in the Holocaust are universally condemned and seen as Holocaust denialism, mainstream media outlets such as the BBC note controversy over the number killed in the Rape of Nanjing, for example. Liberal Korean and Taiwanese historians have questioned some of the "victim" narratives of Japanese empire-building (some of which are constructed to conceal Korean collaborationism, for example), so we must be precise when we talk about which views are "fringe".

  Although I couldn't really defend Wingwrong as a valued encyclopedic asset, I also think the manner in which this block was executed lacked "due process", to the extent that such a thing exists on Misplaced Pages because of custom. Can the block supporters demonstrate any past efforts to sincerely reform Wingwrong into a constructive editor, so that we may not entertain giving him a second chance? Shrigley (talk) 04:17, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

  • The previous two blocks for the exact same thing should have made it clear that he or she was on an unproductive path. You appear to have misread my post BTW - I think that the block is justified because this is a single purpose account which is being used to push a POV, not that he or she is only editing on a single topic as you seem to have interpreted my comments as. Nick-D (talk) 10:38, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
• Okay, the consensus is that denialist is worth being blocked indefinitely. The denialism "is the refusal to accept an empirically verifiable reality. It is an essentially irrational action that withholds validation of a historical experience or event." So, if Wingwrong is not a denialist, he should be unblocked. Wingwrong is not denying the Heliocentrism persistent tendentiously. The forced / volunteer discussion is a matter of dispute. In 2009, the Japanese government made a cabinet decision "The evidence that the Japanese army or the military officials seized the women by force was not found.". which is exactly the same discussion Wingwrong made. This matter is worth discussing on the talk page and reflecting to the article. Suppressing the discussion of this matter by blocking the user is a gag rule of Misplaced Pages. Although I agree Wingwrong's way of discussion is poor probably because a language problem. ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 08:56, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
  • The position Wingwrong is trying to push is an isolated, extreme WP:FRINGE position, and the fact that the Japanese government endorses it makes it no less fringe (like the notorious position of the Turkish government on the Armenian genocide). Of course, such denialist fringe positions need to be covered in the article, and it is legitimate to use the article talk page to discuss this coverage. But that's not what Wingwrong was doing. He was using the talkpage not to discuss how to cover the position, but to promote that position. He was challenging Wikipedians to debate and refute its correctness (and is still trying to do so on his own user talkpage now.) This is unacceptable. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:10, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
    • The Wingwrong's blocked edit is simply placing the refute to the each books presented by User:Binksternet. The discussion is always promote the user's position. That is a discussion. A discussion is to "debate and refute its correctness". Nothing to be blamed by bystanders. You should have participated in the discussion instead of blocking the user indefinately. ―― Phoenix7777 (talk)
      • No, on Misplaced Pages, talk page discussion should never be about promoting our own opinions about historical claims or assessing the merits of such. Talk page discussion must only be about assessing what is the consensus about such matters published in reliable sources. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:29, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
        • Yes, talk page discussions are to discuss ways to improve the article per WP:NPOV and all the other relevant polices, and not to advocate the inclusion of one's own point of view. Nick-D (talk) 10:40, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
          • It is depended on how a user promote her/his own opinions. If s/he promote her/his opinions by presenting a reliable source as Wingwrong presented to User Talk:Wingwrong#Comfort women's question as Qwyrxian pointed out, nothing is to be blamed by others.―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 10:51, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
            • That post on the user talk page is actually a pretty typical example of the problematic behaviour. Wingwrong dismissed the sources on the subject by saying that they have no physical evidence, and then advanced what appears to be another original argument on the subject. That's not how we work. We don't try to criticise the conclusions of sources ourselves, or come up with novel counter-arguments to suggest why the sources may be wrong - our articles are based on what the sources say. This has been explained to Wingwrong numerous times, but they obviously don't get it. Hut 8.5 11:33, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
              • our articles are based on what the sources say -- except when they don't -- see the recent ANI discussion on what happened to an editor who tried removing unsourced stuff. Warning; it's quite long NE Ent 12:56, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
              • That was actually an incident of an editor section-blanking verifiable content that is what sources say. NE Ent is completely mischaracterizing something to attempt to support a false assertion. Uncle G (talk) 14:05, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

As documented by OP, Wingwrong's frequency of edits on Comfort Women -- zero -- in the past five months hardly qualify as persistent tendentious editing -- they're not editing at all, they're talking, which is what editors are supposed to do when addressing disputed content. The phrasing persistent offensive advocacy (emphasis mine) makes it appear that Wingwrong's being punished for their political views rather than actual WP disruption. As the advocacy consists of two talk pages posts in five months it hard to see how that is disruptive. We require articles be NPOV, not individual editors. Including minority viewpoint's such as the Japanese government's counterclaims is not POV as long as they are weighted appropriately. There is definitely a confounding issue of their weak English skills making it difficult to parse out exacting what article changes they're advocating, but that would be better addressed through discussion and simple direct questions rather than blocking. NE Ent 13:20, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree with NE Ent. A block for being offensive is a block for being in a small minority that most people in a heated discussion don't like. I agree that Wingwrong is blatantly wrong to advocate it, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a block for refusing to follow project orthodoxy. Perhaps Wingwrong should have been blocked some months ago for inserting this kind of thing into the article, but that's apparently not at all what was the basis for this block, and a block now for something several months ago would be quite inappropriate. Nyttend (talk) 13:56, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Tendencious editing is certainly possible using talk pages, too. There's a point at which repeating discredited notions becomes in and of itself disruptive as it just wears good contributors down trying to deal with it. And as for the whole "saying offensive opinions is always allowed" thing, that's just not the case. A point comes that repetition of an offensive position is disruptive, frankly, much worse incivility than a few F-bombs. If we were dealing with a Holocaust denier, would we even be having this discussion? I doubt it. We'd be throwing away the key. And with good reason: It discredits Misplaced Pages for us to entertain such people, even on talk pages, and it drives away good contributors to see this happening. The fact that the actocities committed by Imperial Japan are less well-known in the Western world than the Holocaust is does not mean their denial deserves any greater tolerance on Misplaced Pages talk pages. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 15:46, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

We actually have an article for that ... putting aside the the Godwin's law tangent; it's our mission to "tolerate" reliably sourced minority but not fringe viewpoints. It discredits Misplaced Pages to censor good faith if misguided opinions we disagree with -- the better solution is education -- explaining to ww the reliable source and original research policies. 16:20, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

You are mixing up article coverage and talkpage discussion yourself here, and I must say I'm astonished to see an editor of your experience make such a basic mistake. No, it is not our "mission" to "tolerate" advocacy for such viewpoints. It is, of course, our mission to represent them, in articles (which we of course do). But that's not what Wingwrong was trying to do; he was trying to proselytize other editors for them. And it's nothing to do with Godwin's law if we state that proselytizing Japanese war crimes denial is no different from proselytizing Holocaust denial. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:36, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, invoking Godwin's law is meant to be done when someone inappropriately compares something/someone to the Nazis/Nazism. Comparing forum moderators to Nazis, for example, is inappropriate. Comparing Imperial Japan's war crimes to the Holocaust is wholly appropriate. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 01:15, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

FPaS and Heimstern are absolutely correct here, and this is a good block. There is a massive difference between representing and promoting extreme fringe views. Black Kite (talk) 16:41, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

There's a substantial difference between blocking for "persistent offensive advocacy" despite only a few incidents and blocking someone who's constantly advocating for a problematic position. Were this the result of more advocacy of the same position, I would support blocking, but not for "persistent offensive advocacy", because that says that certain positions are inherently unwelcome here. Block only after warning the user in a way such as "Sources are consistently strongly against the position that you're taking, so it is disruptive to continue repeating the same arguments over and over again", because keeping it up is thumbing one's nose at everyone else. It's disruptive to get in the way of reasonable discussion on any topic, but what this user did was infrequent enough that it could easily be ignored. Nyttend (talk) 22:18, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Good block. My words before the edit conflict were very much the same as Black Kite's, immediately above, but more verbose - so just read that comment again for my opinion too. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:46, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Unblock: I see nothing in users contribs since the last block that would indicate this should be extended to indef. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 16:46, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

• I have considered the most recent post and believe that this comment is not a sufficiently sound basis for an indefinite block. Binksternet was citing sources to dispute a claim that prostitution was not generally forced. First source was questioned on the basis that it was a collection of testimony, and such testimonies are not reliable sources for making a factual statement. Looking deeper into that it appears the source is an advocacy organization and thus is not independent of the subject so it can only be reliable as a source about the organization's views. The second it was noted that this was citing a single individual when making the claim. I observe that nearly all of the sources are essentially just going off the testimonies and do not give any indication of independent research into the claims. One of the sources Binkster provided is actually from one of the women who has made these allegations so her book is definitely not a reliable source for anything other than her own view as she is not an independent source. Looking over it, I feel the question about the reliability of these sources are generally apt.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:52, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

There are multiple issues here. The first, and probably most significant, is that it appears from their user page Wingwrong does not have a functional grasp of of English. It may be they lack sufficient language competence to successfully participate on the English Misplaced Pages. Given the language difficulty I can't honestly determine if they're unreasonably pushing a fringe viewpoint or seeking to balance an article. Since we have an article on chemtrails this concept we don't have fringe quackery on Encyclopedia isn't supportable -- the isn't whether it's fringe, it's whether it's a notable fringe/minority viewpoint.
Wingwrong has not been well treated here. They were blocked after making a single edit to Liancourt Rocks for alleged violation of article parole (1rr). After the block expired they asked for clarification / explanation three times on the blocking admins' talk page -- I'm not seeing any evidence onwiki they ever received a reply. While I don't subscribe to the theory an admin has to justify an action to a blocked editor's satisfaction, I'd expect to see some reply per the admin accountability thing. They could've/should've been directed to a policy page or the Teahouse or something. I also see the admin failed to block another editor who was 2rr on the article and instead, asked them to revert. Such preferential treatment simply advances admin conspiracy/cabal theories.
Moving forward I suggest Wingwrong be unblocked with an explanation that Google translate isn't good enough to allow them to participate meaningfully in English Misplaced Pages and encourage them to focus on jp.wikipedia.org or find a fluent Japanese to English translator to assist them in editing here. NE Ent 19:18, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I would generally agree with this, though I am not hip to the idea of not allowing him to participate due solely to a language barrier. His comments are not incomprehensible and he seems to have sufficient grasp of English to understand what is going on, even if it hampers his communicative abilities. On a number of occasions he has raised legitimate points regarding articles, including the one in question, and made legitimate contributions.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 19:50, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

This isn't a terribly accurate representation of what happened. This edit was made after coming off a one-month block for the same behaviour. If someone returns from a block of finite duration and repeats the same behaviour that got them blocked in the first place then they clearly aren't cooperating and an extension to indef is reasonable. In that edit Wingwrong dismissed various sources on the grounds that they don't measure up to their personal standards of proof, which is clear original research. If you look back over the talk page you can see that Wingwrong has made numerous previous comments dismissing sources for an alleged lack of physical evidence and other personal reasons, so they obviously haven't listened to the explanations of how Misplaced Pages works that they received. The article probation on Liancourt Rocks is much stricter than a simple 1RR restriction, as you can see from the box here. The fact that we have encyclopedic coverage of fringe views is simply irrelevant here - it certainly isn't justification for tenaciously pushing those views in violation of core policies. Hut 8.5 21:20, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. A user previously warned and repeatedly blocked for serious problem behavior, who is warned then that further misbehavior may result in an indefinite block, does not require further additional warnings prior to indefinite blocking. It is already established that advocacy of war crime denialism is disruptive of the encyclopedia and brings it into disrepute and is serious problem behavior, though this set of war crimes are not the ones we most often have to respond to denialism about. Good block. A more verbose block message with links to all the history would have avoided the confusion, perhaps, but the warnings and prior block notices are still in the users' talk page.

This would not be controversial if this were a neo-Nazi Holocaust denier. This is not exactly as bad but is along the same lines. It's nearly as offensive to Koreans, and similar denialism about atrocities in China and elsewhere is to those peoples, as the Holocaust deniers are to survivors and descendants of the Shoah. It may not be as well known in the west, but that's not a good reason to treat it differently.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:53, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

UAA backlog

Can someone drop over to UAA and help sort out the backlog? It's been over eight hours since the last name was actioned on. Thanks, Intelligentsium 05:05, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I knocked out a bunch of them, still a few on the pile. Beeblebrox (talk) 06:47, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

WP:RFPP

Heavy backlog at WP:RFPP (28 open requests), with some sitting there for over one day. Admin attention needed. Ready, set, mop! Armbrust 00:13, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Neutralhomer's editing restrictions

Some of you may remember the hot water Neutralhomer (talk · contribs) got hisself into last year, and the indef-block that resulted from it. That block was lifted (OK, nice passive there--I lifted it) with certain conditions and restrictions (more details here, for instance). In the meantime, Homer has, as far as I can tell, stayed out of trouble and has edited productively. He comes to my talk page with questions about reverts and such, he hasn't been brought up on any of the boards, and he hasn't been edit-warring (again, all this to the best of my knowledge: I'm not exactly following his every move). Anyway, it seems to me that I can loosen some of the restrictions he's been under; in a nutshell, from a limited 1R (I urged him not to make reverts in contentious areas and to keep me posted of problem edits he would before have Twinkled away) to 2R. More explanation on his talk page at User_talk:Neutralhomer#Reverting.

I'm bringing this here because I can fully understand admins having concerns still about Homer, given what he was initially blocked for, and the matter caused some controversy (or at least discussion) last October. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 15:55, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Just for clarification — by "initially blocked for", do you mean the incident leading up to the indef, or do you mean this edit, which is linked in his first block log entry in 2007? Nyttend (talk) 16:09, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

(ec) It might be helpful if you linked to a more complete history, here. Saying "some of you may remember the hot water" and "given what he was initially blocked for" is a tad vague, it it not? What did Neutralhomer do, and when did he do it? Has he done similar things before, or was it a one-off? Which accounts has he edited under? What, specifically, were the conditions of his unblock, and how were they arrived at? Finally, did you discuss this request with him at all, or are you springing it on him as a surprise? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:21, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

The administrators who were involved with those various discussions know what I'm talking about, and if they're not and they're interested, there are plenty of links on the talk page discussion I linked to. No, I am not giving a complete history; a brief redux should do. This isn't about the unblock; it's a simple note about loosening some editing restrictions. Drmies (talk) 16:34, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

The AN thread leading up to the indefblock (which, Nyttend, is what I would guess Drmies is referring to) is here, with a section asking for a community ban for Neutralhomer right below it (obviously, that request didn't gain consensus). The ban request was specifically in response to Neutralhomer's actions during the thread, as admitted in this diff. My opinion is that I have no opinion, but I will be happy to do more digging here when I have more time, to find out what my opinion might be. bonus points if you know what that's a paraphrase of Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 16:29, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

WK, did you call to see what condition your condition was in? Drmies (talk) 16:32, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

"Benjamin Franklin" in an episode of "John Adams"? Yeah, I Google'd it. :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 00:51, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Drmies, I'm not faulting you for bringing this here, because that seems to be the prevailing approach in this type of situation, but WP would use up a lot less bandwidth on bikeshed issues if we just left these decisions up to the admin who understands the situation best (i.e. you). IMHO, just do what you think best. You were trusted to use sound judgement on this before, no reason not to trust you to do it now. I'd hate to see this degenerate into a "I think the 1RR should last for 3 more weeks" ... "Well, I think it should last 4 more weeks" ... --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:33, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Thanks Floq. I disagree partially, of course, or I wouldn't be here--thing is, we didn't really formalize much about mentorship and all that, nor did the community really build a consensus on conditions. Not that they needed too, and I'm the last person to want to be so bureaucratic, but Homer came awfully close to being banned. I'm pleased to say that he hasn't even come close to getting into trouble again, and I suppose I wanted to mark that publicly. Drmies (talk) 16:38, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
    • OK, well I've "voted", so I'll go find something to do and leave you to your self-inflicted discussion :) --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:40, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
• I trust Drmies decision to slightly loosen restrictions, and would support his judgement to decide further lifting in the future. Homer will ping me when Drmies isn't around, so I'm familiar with the situation and have noted a good effort to avoid issues. Some restrictions are still warranted but a slight lessening seems to be a good idea at this time. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 17:00, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

As the unblocking admin, Drmies is probably in the best position to judge this one. I'm all for editors who learn from their mistakes regaining full editing privileges over time. A block that is learnt from should not be held against an editor for ever and ever. If Drmies thinks the restriction can be loosened to 2RR then I would support such a course of action. Neutralhomer is no doubt aware that any repeat of the original behaviour would result in another indef block. Mjroots (talk) 21:23, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I also agree, if need be we can always tighten them back down again. Kumioko (talk) 21:34, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

• Too drastic; support reducing to 1.903 RR. NE Ent 22:29, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
  • <(())>< Here is your trout, Ent. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 23:29, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
• Seems sensible. NH has been a good editor whenever I've come across him. Rich Farmbrough, 23:55, 14 January 2013 (UTC).
  

• I don't know what constructive things Neutralhomer used to do, but I think there is reason to be very sceptical. My first contact with him was in 2009 after he was a first responder to an admin's question at AN, managed to push things in a very bad direction and closed the thread after the innocent IP victim was blocked. I had to reopen the thread and leave a few harsh words there, resulting in gracious apologies by several admins for blocking or not unblocking. After which Neutralhome attacked me on my talk page for having notified him when I reopened the thread. I don't think he ever apologised or understood why he was wrong. (The issue was edit-warring against this static single-user IP on their own talk page.)
  It's interesting to see that he was indeffed recently for phoning an IP's employer to get them sacked.
  Is there reason to believe he is going to learn from this? He has now promised to stop editing TV chain articles completely. That's good, but I am not very optimistic: (1) In early 2008 he socked while blocked for a "fuck you" (in Polish), then continued with another sock after being caught. (2) In April 2010 there was the block summary: "Misuse of the Twinkle automated edit tool, despite multiple instances of being chastised for its misuse and repeated instances of his agreeing to stop using it at all."
  TLDR: Don't rely on any assurances. What seems required here is strict topic/behavioural bans enforceable without discussion by blocks. I doubt that 2RR is enough without a supporting topic ban. Hans Adler 00:41, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

@Hans: I am not going to defend what I have done, but I have tried to do better. Unlike most, I screw up a good bit, but not for the lack of trying. I do try to be a better editor. For example, after the "fuck you" in Polish, the editor that I directed that to and I are on speaking terms and we aren't snapping at each other's throats. After my last block, I voluntarily gave up TWINKLE. I work with not one, but three different admins to make sure my nose is kept clean. I actively triple-check everything I am going to say and if I think I am being to snarky, I let an admin say it for me (they are better at getting a point across without snark). That last one actually helps me in real life as apparently I am too blunt when I speak. Comes with the territory, I guess.

To say that I need strict topic bans when I have limited my editing to just radio station pages and a couple non-radio pages (town pages, a Faroe Islands network, the ELCA page, and the usual talk pages) with the only TV station posts on December 23rd when a new TV network took over (and that was just to change a Wikilink), would be the same as blocking me. I would like to think I am doing better, but anymore limitations and I am pretty much not editing.

@Everyone: I am trying my best to make the last block the last block. Prior to my last block in October, I had gone almost a year and a half without a block. That's pretty good for me consider my block log and yes, it sucks. I could say a million times I am trying, but I can only say it enough before people say "yeah, right, heard that before". Something I don't like to admit, mostly cause it is used against me and people think I used it as a crutch, I have Aspergers, which is a high-functioning form of Autism. I am not great in any social situation, but everyday is a learning experience. I am blunt, but people with Aspergers tend to be blunt. We aren't rude, we just speak our minds, which tends to get us in trouble. I try to change my behavior but like with everyone, we fall back into old habits, so do people with Aspergers. Am I making excuses? No. Should this excuse my behavior? Definitely no. But please know that while it seems like I am screwing up and getting better repeatedly, I am actually trying. I am trying to be a less snarky person, less blunt, less on the attack and more to help, walking away from areas that I genuinely like (TV stations) to avoid conflict, asking for help from others (not something I am big on having Aspergers, think Psychology). I try daily to act "normal" here and before my October block, I did go too far. I even went so far to get a medication change to prevent that from happening again. I am trying.

TL;DR: I'm Autistic, not an excuse, I'm trying, stick with me, don't punish me, I'm trying to get better, to do better, to act better, to edit better. I'm trying. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 01:24, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the information. You were of course under no obligation to volunteer it, but for me this changes everything. Under these circumstances I support relaxing your restriction even without a topic ban on TV chains. I am assuming that you will continue to work closely with other editors, and that they will assist you to stay out of problematic areas without the need for any explicit threats.

I happen to believe that being autistic is a valid excuse for occasional overreactions. Of course, on the negative side, if things ultimately don't work out, it can't prevent a full ban. Hans Adler 02:42, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I will continue to work with Drmies, Dennis and others, probably after the restrictions are all lifted whenever in the future. I don't want people to see my Aspergers as an excuse or a crutch, or treat me different, which is why I don't volunteer it that much. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 08:00, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose any reduction in restrictions. Frankly, if you don't think it's an excuse you're doing a pretty good job of trying to use it as one - and I haven't seen a single point here that actually addresses why you got in hot water. Editors saying "fuck you" in polish was not why you were blocked. Giving up twinkle does not solve why you were blocked. "Being blunt" is not an explanation for your behaviour. Ironholds (talk) 01:36, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, people with Aspergers do have a lot of trouble judging appropriateness in social situations. While they may be up to speed with their academic work, it takes much longer for their people skills to mature. It's just the nature of the condition. The steps outlined here, a change in medications and especially "three different admins to triple-check everything", seems like a reasonable plan. If only there were more "normal" people with such self-awareness about their personal limitations. —Neotarf (talk) 02:05, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Ironholds, Homer was blocked for outing, for a pretty bad version thereof. He has not engaged in such behavior since. It seems to me that he gets in hot water when he gets caught up in revert wars, esp. if he believes he's reverting vandalism (and it's established that he's not always been correct in establishing whether something is or isn't). That's why a revert rule was a good idea, at least in my opinion, and that's why I think 2R is a good idea: essentially it's self protection. You may have noticed, on his talk page, his mentioning a particular sock who's active in that field that Homer chooses to work in, and he was asking if he could simply revert those sock edits since there is an SPI, proof of socking, etc. I said no, precisely because I want him to stop thinking that he is exempt from 3R even if he is absolutely positive. Moreover, his past edit-warring typically led to all-too much personal involvement (i.e., cussing and yelling, sometimes an extension of bluntness if I may put it that way), and he did address that point. So, I have good reasons for proposing what I did but, as I said before, this is subject to community approval.

  On that note: I don't want his restrictions relaxed because I'm supposed to be trustworthy (ask around; the stock of my reputation has certainly plummeted recently); you should choose to agree or not based on his recent past which, in my opinion, has gone well enough. Drmies (talk) 02:18, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Ironholds, this is why I don't volunteer my having Aspergers, because people take my volunteering that information as my creating an excuse. It's not, it's me telling you and everyone why I act the way I do and what I am trying to do to change that. I am aware that Misplaced Pages isn't a therapists office and we aren't here to stand around and help NH get better. I'm doing that on my own, offline, what my volunteering my Aspergers is to show is that yeah, I have a problem, yeah, I am trying to fix that, yeah, I screwed up in the past, yeah, I am working with others to prevent that from happening again. One should never use or view Aspergers as a crutch or excuse, a person should acknowledge it is there, it isn't going anywhere (God knows I wish it would) and to work around it (I have to on most days). It isn't an excuse, it's something alot of people deal with and get better at overtime. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 08:08, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• I know. I'm one of those people. And I cannot understand, even with my experience of the communications and propriety problems it causes, how it could possibly have led to the actions you took. Ironholds (talk) 15:17, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I'd rather not force NH into this corner, but I can say that with the research into ASD I've done, I'm not as surprised as you are Ironholds. The typical Aspie becomes very focused on something - anything. Sometimes "common sense" is placed well into the background in favour of "immediate resolution". Not that I want to speak on behalf of NH, and I'm sure not excusing the behaviour, but it's not abnormal (✉→BWilkins←✎) 15:27, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support Drmies' decision. Drmies knows what he's doing and is trustworthy, and I'm quite certain he'll take appropriate action if the relaxation doesn't work. Neutralhomer is genuinely trying to do better, and that's worth supporting. After all, we're only talking about relaxing from 1RR to 2RR here! -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 01:54, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support relaxing; if any new abusive behavior starts, we can always ratchet back up again. But staying out of hot water for a while and complying with the restrictions is the right way back and seems to have been successful. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:57, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support relaxing the restrictions. I'm confident in Drmies' opinion and I trust Neutralhomer to be on his best behavior. Ryan Vesey 03:41, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose lifting restrictions and request that Neutralhomer edit another Wiki for four months. In this diff, you can see that I was not able to work up and post an analysis before the unblock was carried out.  If I recall, Fram was the only other admin involved in the decision to unblock.  Give Neutralhomer credit for being forthright about the action, but in the WP:AN post of "04:34, 4 October 2012 (UTC)", NH states that his goal in calling the editor's employer was to get the editor unemployed so as to stop alleged vandalism on Misplaced Pages.  A look at the WP:AN closing statement shows, "There's not going to be a consensus for a community ban, nor is any admin going to be dumb enough to unblock, so we can all move on."  So in effect, community discussion has been bypassed, both at the time of the failed community ban proposal, and at the time of the unblock.  Caveat: I have been the target of personal attacks by both Neutralhomer and Drmies.  Unscintillating (talk) 06:24, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

@Unscintillating: Forgive me, but it is 3:13am EST and my brain isn't working (lack of sleep) but I don't remember personally attacking you. Whenever I did, I am sorry. It doesn't really do much at this point, but there is no reason I should have personally attacked you and I shouldn't have been stubborn enough to not apologize immediately. I was then, I'm not now. I am sorry.

I would like to address one thing you said in your linked post above: "Time is needed for behavior change". You are right and you are also wrong. Yes, behavior changes do take time...but with someone with Aspergers or Autism, they don't take 4 months or a year as you stated. They take many years, sometimes never, depending on the person. Not saying that is going to happen in this case (I would hope not) but it does happen. People on the Autism spectrum vary in many ways and behavior, like with all of us, is one of the toughest things to change in someone on "the spectrum" (ie: the Autism spectrum). People on the spectrum are highly resistent to change and we don't respond well to it. We must want to change before we will. I do want to change, I want to stop being as blunt as I have been, I want to stop being snarky, I want to stop being an asshole to anyone and everyone around me. It's a process and like with anyone, spectrum or no, it will take time and it will take more than a year, more than 5, I don't know how long. Autism, Aspergers, PDD-NOS, childhood disintegrative disorder, and Rett syndrome (the conditions on the Autism spectrum) are a learning experience and one that is a lifetime long. I'm not asking for Misplaced Pages to stand still while I get "better", I am just opening up on a subject I don't like talking about, my Aspergers. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 08:23, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support slight loosening of restrictions Look, I'm not going to get into a discussion of how ASD/Aspergers causes X and Y - indeed, from what I see, NH is not using it as an excuse or crutch for his behaviour anymore (yes, long ago he did, but he's not now). Do I know for a fact that ASD has caused some pretty bad decisions on his part in the past? Yup. Blocks and restrictions are designed to prevent future problems, and if someone can show me somewhere how NH has willfully and/or recklessly violated his conditions over the past 3 or 4 months, then please show me where he caused those problems - I'm not seeing it. As such, the restrictions have been successful, and granting him some additional freedom is due as part of the rehabilitation process. Besides, it's not like we're giving him access to delete the entire wiki - we're simply going to allow him to be a normal editor (✉→BWilkins←✎) 10:15, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Surprising support. I was the editor that called for the community ban and I'm disgusted with what NH did. I'm also fairly shocked that he was unblocked without (it seems) further discussion here. However, given that he is back and has been editing, it seems without offence, I am consistent in my opinion that people can change their ways and that we need good contributors. I'd support the easing of restrictions, but I'll be leading even stronger calls for a community ban if I see NH being reported here for disruption because, frankly, outing editors in a bid to get them dismissed from their jobs, is an offence far far worse than the vandalism, misuse of bots and other infractions of policy we normally dish out bans for. --Dweller (talk) 10:40, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support loosening restrictions, probably fully. Seems we're at a weird technocratic point where NH knows exactly the process, and it's just slowing NH down from doing otherwise normal work. Shadowjams (talk) 10:54, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Just to note that I took over mentorship of Neutralhomer for a while whilst Drmies was unavailable. During the period he was under my wing, I was pleased with the work that I observed and how he handled issues he came across. More than that, I was impressed that he spotted potential issues and discussed them with me early on. Unfortunately, other commitments have meant that I am no longer able to mentor Neutralhomer, but I agree with Drmies on this relaxation. Support Worm(talk) 15:22, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Possibly Free images

I'd appreciate some admin eyes on : Category:Possibly_free_images , Thanks :) Sfan00 IMG (talk) 19:22, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Off-wiki possible canvassing regarding Teresa Perales

• LauraHale (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
• Thine Antique Pen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

The last time I tried whistleblowing, at WP:Requests for adminship/Σ, it didn't go too well. Everyone piled on and said I shouldn't have posted IRC screenshots, so this time I'm only going to quote. In a private channel today, LauraHale (often known as purplepopple on IRC) said 11:26 AM <purplepopple> TAP|away: If you get the time, could you consider doing the GA review for http://en.wikipedia.org/Teresa_Perales ? LauraHale had been working on the article beforehand, even having an interview with the Paralympian subject to expand the entry. This private channel, same one as I linked to in Sigma's RfA, is open to only a few people, which include LauraHale, myself, Thine Antique Pen (hence with referred to as TAP) and others which shall not be named. Now, I suppose you could consider us all friends. I know TAP is a GA reviewer and so does Laura. But asking someone close, and dare I suggest, involved, to do the review for you instead of waiting? Who could not consider this a covert attempt at a canvass at a pass. Now, I've no doubt the article could potentially reach GA if it is reviewed properly, but one done on request is unlikely to be too thorough and could skip over some demeaning aspects of the article. As of yet TAP has not replied. So, I ask for the community's opinion on is this canvassing, and what should be done? Rcsprinter (orate) @ 23:11, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

• It's not unheard of for editors who are friendly with each other to review each other's articles. Now, as to how good a review the other gives... As for any possible canvassing, in my opinion she asked for a review, which is not explicitly asking for a pass. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:18, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
• I find myself agreeing with Crisco here. More likely, they weren't asking for a free pass, they were asking for a fast pass, simply getting a review now instead of in a few weeks. Was it proper? Meh, maybe not. Get in line like the rest of us. Was it canvassing? Not really, since they didn't ask for a specific outcome, just a quicker one. Probably not a good idea (because it can be misread, like here) but unless there is more to the story, I don't see it as "actionable". Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 23:28, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I on the other hand must be having my cynical day, because I find Crisco's remark about "not explicitly asking for a pass" a little naive. Nobody is going to explicitly ask for a pass. Asking a friend for a review instead of waiting is tantamount to asking for a pass. In my opinion. Mind you, although I think the request is inappropriate, I agree that it's not actionable. I'm sure similar requests for review go on in complete privacy (e-mail and other one-on-one communication) all the time. Well, some of the time. It wouldn't feel right to sanction someone for being a little more open. Bishonen | talk 23:35, 14 January 2013 (UTC).

    I totally agree. Bad form due to the medium used, but not actionable unless there is an explicit rule about this that I don't know. Note that an on-wiki request would be fine IMO. Hans Adler 00:52, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

    • • Anything and everything can be argued as asking for support, which is why I generally don't cross post my PRs, FACs, and GANs. Even the most neutrally worded request for review can be seen as gaming the system. Unless it is explicit or decidedly not neutral, I don't think we should consider it a violation of our canvassing policy. Not naivety, but a hope to avoid drama by establishing objective criteria. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:17, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• What's my opinion? Easy. I'd suggest that Laura is most likely overenthusiastic rather than malicious. What should be done? Well, if ThineAntiquePen takes up Laura's invitation to review it, he gets a slap with a trout. And if Laura treads as closely to the canvassing line in the future, she gets a trouting too. There. Swift justice from Tom's School of Administrative Common Sense™. —Tom Morris (talk) 00:58, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
  • If TAP gives a solid review, or ends up failing it? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:17, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
    • I'm hoping he has the sense not to. Not because it'd be wrong but because people would make a flap about it and he's grown to be a sensible user who knows that not getting people into a flap even if you aren't at fault is a good way of behaving. —Tom Morris (talk) 03:26, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• It is not disallowed, or even uncommon, for nominators to request reviews, so I don't think this in itself is worth sanctioning. I am more worried about the semi-private way in which it was done. It is not the first time. I personally have received an email from Laura (neutrally worded, but a little pandering) requesting I look into a WP:GAR someone started on one of her articles. I also have suspicions of some off wiki contact at a reassessment of Laura's I initiated. Again, contacting other editors and asking them to comment on this processes is not uncommon, but it should at least be done transparently. Maybe that could be made clearer here. AIRcorn (talk) 04:01, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

How can it be addressed here, if it requires new guideline or policy? Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:58, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I was categorically not asking for an easy pass. Rcsprinter should properly disclaim that this might be retalation for me having criticized his ability to effectively review GAs after Rcsprinter said an article passed at GA that I had contributed to failed to meet a non-existent criteria and because Rcsprinter made the comment without having bothered to read the article in question. Beyond that, Rcspinter has violated rules regarding citing IRC conversations and demonstrated a failure to understand what canvassing is. Most of my GAs take a while to pass and I generally very patiently wait for them and ask others for assistance in fixing these issues. There was ZERO attempt to get an easy pass. The problem here is not me.--LauraHale (talk) 06:27, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Ok, ok, enough with the sniping. Let's take things one at a time here:
  • Laura, while you didn't violate our canvassing guidelines here, you did put TAP in an uncomfortable position by privately requesting his help. It's not uncommon for users in channels like #wikipedia-en to throw out a "hey, anyone want to do a GAR?", but much like putting a request onwiki, asking in a public channel means you get who you get, and is considered acceptable (by most people, at least). Asking in a private channel where you're friendly on a personal level with the members is a bit less cool, because no matter what wording you use (and no matter how absolutely pure your intentions), you're then asking someone to either review your work favorably (whether because it's good, or because they like you) or to make the uncomfortable choice of reviewing unfavorably the work done by a friend. It's not canvassing, but it is both reducing the chances of you getting a good review and putting your requested reviewer in an awkward position - and those things aren't great. I know you prefer to interact with people on a one-on-one basis for requests, but sometimes that's a bad call.
  • Rcsprinter, while it's good that you didn't publish a whole log this time, you've sort of stepped into an awkward gap here between "misbehavior on IRC" (which is not ANI's problem) and "off-wiki collusion" (which is, sometimes, very much depending on the case). Generally if someone is doing something untoward in an IRC channel, the way to handle that is to speak to the channel's ops, because it's their job to handle behavior that goes on there - or, if the ops can't handle it, the Wikimedia GCs, who have responsibility for administering all our IRC channels. Copying excerpts of conversations onto WP, whether in full logs or in snippets, rarely leads to anything but drama, largely because it results in trying to cram together two worlds that only vaguely touch in the normal course of things.
  • Everyone that's sniping in this thread: oh for heaven's sake. Do you think everyone else isn't just shaking their heads and muttering about the "usual suspects" here? We get it, some people are friendly with each other, other's dislike each other. Could we at least attempt to act like everyone's also capable of putting aside their personal preferences and evaluating matters on their merits? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 14:34, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Help with possible range blocks

• ANEW report
• My talk page discussion

There is ongoing IP disruption of multiple articles based on the report at ANEW and the update by User:RJFF. Although I've semi-protected a few of the articles, that doesn't seem to be sufficient (too many articles) to protect User:Danrolo's IP puppets. I believe the best fix is range blocks. There would need to be more than one because the address ranges begin with different high-level qualifiers. I don't consider myself good enough at this to determine the most efficient blocks, so I am seeking help. Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:59, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

• Are you going to throw in an indef block and possibly a ban proposal, or do we feed out more rope? Sorry Bbb--that sounds like I'm ragging on you; I'm really ragging on us, since that talk page suggests action should have been taken much earlier. Drmies (talk) 02:28, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• If you're referring to the Danrolo account itself, I extended the block to a week yesterday, and I'm prepared to indef him, but it wasn't my number one priority because he's blocked. I was more interested in preventing further disruption from his puppets, and indeffing the master won't fix that.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:58, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Looks like he's working out of a /15 and a /16. That's be 192K addresses. I'd really have to be convinced the guy is a major disaster before I'd put in a block that big.—Kww(talk) 03:14, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I was afraid of that. So what's the alternative?--Bbb23 (talk) 03:25, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Widespread semi-protection. I wind up keeping custom lists. User:Kww/Fragments of Jade, for example, and I can monitor it at http://en.wikipedia.org/Special:RecentChangesLinked/User:Kww/Fragments_of_Jade. —Kww(talk) 03:37, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

How does one operate on such a massive range? Is it something one can do intentionally, or do we simply have a sockmaster whose ISP uses a ton of dynamic IP addresses? Nyttend (talk) 05:36, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Does he always work on certain types of articles, or is there a pattern to what he adds/removes from articles? If so, you could consider making an addition to the edit filter that prevents edits from his IP range only if they match a specified pattern. I can help with this, if needed. ‑Scottywong| spout _ 14:43, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

PC2 for Mangoeater targets

As anyone who monitors AN/I, SPI, CSD, AFD, or even, lately, RFA knows, de facto banned Mangoeater1000 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · logs · block log · arb · rfc · lta · SPI · cuwiki) has been incredibly persistent in his disruption, generally in relation to articles on NYU Poly (promoting it) and Cal Poly Pomona (trying to minimize it). It got so bad that two weeks ago Reaper Eternal full-protected Polytechnic Institute of New York University and List of NYU Polytechnic Institute people‎ until March 28 and March 6, respectively. To me this seems unfortunate (though I completely understand and agree with Reaper's decision), especially as both articles are in serious need of improvement. So, I was wondering if we could discuss the option of implementing Pending Changes Level 2 protection (in conjunction with semi-protection, probably). While there was never any community endorsement of its use, neither was there, as King of Hearts pointed out at AN/I recently, explaining his decision to apply PC2 to 1948 Arab-Israeli War, any consensus against its use, meaning that there's nothing to stop the community from making ad hoc IAR decisions to apply it to certain articles. (Elockid has since applied PC2 to First York, Transdev York, and York Pullman.) Clearly it's better to let users edit an article, subject to review, than to not let them at all, and both articles are monitored by several reviewers and admins. Furthermore, Mangoeater has been active since May, had his first sock blocked in July, and has been indeffed since October, so there's no reason to believe he won't just start up again come March. I suggested at the Arab-Israeli War AN/I thread that we hold future discussions PC2 discussions here, as AN/I can be so hostile that well-respected community members steer clear of it, limiting the degree of consensus that can be achieved on anything policy-related. So, I'm putting my money where my mouth is. Thoughts? — Francophonie&Androphilie 00:06, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Makes me somewhat uncomfortable. Not because I don't think putting PC2 on as an alternative to full-protection is a bad idea to protect against banned socks (etc.) but because the community consensus in the PC RfCs doesn't endorse PC2 and use of it is likely to lead to accusations that we are setting off down a slippery slope, on an express train through some undemocratic wasteland. So, yes, support in theory, but in practice it seems like the community will excrete a brick. —Tom Morris (talk) 01:04, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Incidentally, the previous discussion I mentioned can be found at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive781#What is the appropriate level of protection for an article with the following characteristics ? Everyone who commented agreed that PC2 was merited, simply leaving the question of whether the community allowed its implementation. The only objection to KoH's decision was by The Devil's Advocate, who himself noted that he supports PC2; considering that this managed to fall off the board, it's clear that no one, even at AN/I, had a serious enough objection to raise hell in the ways you describe. — Francophonie&Androphilie 01:43, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Support. Both PC2 and full protection are game-able by socks, but this won't be substantially easier for them, while this will be substantially easier for good-faith editors than it would be to force them to use editprotected requests all the time. Nyttend (talk) 02:41, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support per IAR, even though I believe it would be more optimal to gain consensus for its use to avoid any possible shenanigans. I would also think an edit filter would be a good alternative in many cases, but here it seems that the behavior is not truly consistent enough for that.--Jasper Deng (talk) 02:51, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support, this seems to be one of those cases for which IAR exists. --Nouniquenames 04:43, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Note, if anyone would like to reference the note I ended up leaving on the talkpage of the article referenced above, that kind of note should suffice to explain the reasoning for the PC2. As long as we don't go PC2 on everything, I think it's okay for a very select few articles. gwickwire_edits 04:47, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. A little ironic, because I like PC2 and detest PC1, but with the amount of dishonesty that went on with the original implementation of PC, I think anything that even smells of going against community consensus needs to be avoided. The primary opposition to PC was based on "slippery slope" style of arguments, and this just feeds them.—Kww(talk) 04:58, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose This is ridiculous. Maybe Elockid added PC2 by accident, but either way this should not be getting implemented like this, period. It can only create confusion for admins and reviewers. So I implore any admin to immediately remove the PC2 protection from any articles that have them. As far as I know this would just be the 1948 Arab-Israeli War article, the Transdev York article, the First York article, and the York Pullman article.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 06:01, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• I know it confused me to see an article on my watchlist (1948 Arab-Israeli War) with PC2 protection when I knew the RfC did not get consensus for that level of protection. You may also have the old "other people are doing so it must be acceptable" reaction and then have admins imposing PC2 protection like any other protection under the impression it is now legit. Not to mention that we don't have a clear procedure set out for reviewing changes of the sort PC2 is being used to stop in these ad-hoc cases. Although not related to the above, the whole notion of half a dozen editors using AN/ANI as a workaround for an RfC that involved several dozen editors is not the sort of thing I endorse.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 06:29, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, I don't understand your last sentence; could you clarify what you mean? Nyttend (talk) 06:12, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• I believe TDA is listing the four articles currently under PC2 protection (according to the relevant category; it's possible that others are, but haven't been tagged with {{pp-pc2}}, which auto-categorizes them). In response to TDA's general points, though, I, like, Jasper, don't really follow: This is about as visible a forum as it gets; if it's good enough to ban and unban users, I'd think it's good enough to apply protection to a single article. So I don't really understand what could be confusing about this. I don't see what's ridiculous about trying to stop a lone troll from permanently stalling the improvement of two articles in need of substantial cleanup. — Francophonie&Androphilie 06:26, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• You may find this astonishing, but plenty of people edit Misplaced Pages without paying any mind to cesspools such as this page and certainly many edit without looking at it on a regular basis. Circumventing a broad and lengthy community discussion involving dozens of editors by using AN because you want to thump on the socks is not appealing to me at all.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 06:40, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• I'm not circumventing consensus; I'm seeking it. Circumventing it would be to find some out-of-the-loop admin and email them to ask if they'd mind downgrading it to PC2. Starting a thread at the board that we use for some of our most substantial discussions is seeking it. "No consensus" is not a valid reason to oppose a proposal, for rather obvious reasons. If the consensus here is that this really needs to be done by RfC, so be it, but WP:PC2012/RfC 1 closed as "No consensus", so it's really not circumventing anything to start a discussion in a prominent community forum as to whether we should apply PC2 to a particular article. — Francophonie&Androphilie 06:52, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• I'd normally agree with you that you can't subvert a "no consensus", but since the original PC trial was marred by such blatant dishonesty and efforts to bypass our normal consensus process, I think we need to tread especially carefully.—Kww(talk) 16:11, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose I have been a firm supporter of using PC2 in limited circumstances, and this is certainly one of them. But the PC debate has been a feculent clusterfuck of drama in large part because of the failure to end the initial trial on time. As such, doing *anything* new with PC, including any use of PC2, without an explicit and broad community consensus, seems foolhardy due to the risk of disrupting the community. It's "cheaper in the long run", to do this right, even if it means a few full protects in the meantime. Want PC2? I'll be there at the RFC supporting it. But not until. --j⚛e decker 06:35, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support In this case, I believe WP:IAR applies. This is a wayyy better solution than full protection here since good faith editors don't need to make edit-requests all the time. It also protects against socks. It's a win-win situation, and it works extremely well here. Vacation9 13:16, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support. Gives editors in good standing better leverage against likely POV changes from socks. Binksternet (talk) 14:45, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support. Use this as a test case if necessary but the more countermeasures we use for persistent socks the better off we will be.
   — Berean Hunter (talk) 16:06, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

AfD on a high profile topic ready to be WP:SNOW closed

By my reading Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Opération Serval, which is the main article on the current high-profile French military intervention in Mali (the main story on the BBC news website at the moment), is ready to be closed per WP:SNOW. Could an uninvolved admin please do the honours? The article has received 17,466 page views since it was started 3 days ago, and it's not a good look to have it up for deletion for any longer than is necessary. Thanks, Nick-D (talk) 07:54, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

After looking the AfD over, I come to the conclusion that a SNOW close would be premature. While I personally just watched a news report on the topic and it certainly seems worthy of note, I see interesting (and numerous) !votes for a Merge/Redirect to Mali conflict#French intervention. Of course, another admin may see it differently, and I'm leaving this thread open for another opinion. Salvidrim! ✉ 08:09, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

All the merge votes were from the first day of the discussion. The votes since then (when this has been reported as a major story) have been to keep the article separate. Nick-D (talk) 09:52, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I have closed it as a WP:SNOW keep. No one aside from the nominator is arguing for deletion here. Any potential merges back up into the main conflict article can be discussed per WP:PM. KTC (talk) 11:44, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

The problem isn't that we're considering merging the article, the problem is that we've tagged the article with a stupid wiki-insider notice that makes it sound as if we're going to delete encyclopedic coverage. After spending some time trying to reverse engineer what the heck the overly complicated template does -- it's really crappy code, by the way -- I've iar substituted more specific wording the box. Probably broke some bot crap or invisible category crap -- don't care that much because we're supposed to be about the reader, right?NE Ent 11:12, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Lynette Nusbacher (2nd nomination)

This AfD completed its seven days a few hours ago. Because of its BLP connections and especially because its subject has been in contact regarding the AfD, I think we ought to close it, one way or another, as soon as possible. I'd be grateful if an uninvolved admin would take the time to take a look. Many thanks. I've cross-posted to BLPN --Dweller (talk) 10:07, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

 Done. Salvio 14:24, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages noticeboards
• Administrative backlog