Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Months of harassment from RobJ1981

I am having some health issues, so this may be my last post for a while, but as I possibly leave the project, I want the community to be clear of some of the harassment I have endured since the summer of 2007 from RobJ1981. He is supposed to be avoiding me, but has not and is not doing so, even though I have repeatedly ignored and avoided this bad faith editor. Here are some of the cautions and warnings made to him:

From Chaser on 4 October 2007: [1]

From DGG on 22 December 2007: [2]

From Casliber on 25 December 2007: [3]

From Ncmvolcalist on 6 May 2008: [4]

Notice the language from the request for comment on RobJ1981's closer: "If either of you feel the need to respond in an Afd (for example), then please completely ignore the comments of each other entirely. Do not engage in ANY discussion with or about each other - even if it involves having to ignore each others comments, no matter how much merit (or lack therof) they may have. Le Grand appears to have not replied to any of your comments, so you need to do the same."

Despite the above, RobJ1981 continues to comment to or about me: [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], etc.

Instead of focusing on the contents of the discussion he focuses on me in the above examples, which he was explicitly warned against doing. Notice by contrast that I neither commented to or about him, nor directly about anyone else in those discussions for that matter.

And he attempts to get the article for which I have made the most edits (over 100) merged: [10]

I am trying really hard to ignore him per Chaser, DGG, Casliber, and Ncmvolcalist, but I do not understand why he refuses to do the same considering Chaser threatened to block and a Request for Comment on RobJ1981 concluded with fairly explicit instructions that he avoid and ignore me.

But he didn't and so note the new warning at [11].

The post above was made by Ncmvocalist (talk) at 20:06, 26 May 2008. Notice these posts made by Rob AFTER Ncmvocalist's post in the Request for Comment:

• 23:53, 26 May 2008 (hist) (diff) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines‎ (→Weapons...: comment)
• 22:51, 26 May 2008 (hist) (diff) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines‎ (→Weapons...: fixes)
• 22:48, 26 May 2008 (hist) (diff) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines‎ (→Weapons...: comment)
• 22:42, 26 May 2008 (hist) (diff) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Soul series mystical weapons‎ (→Soul series mystical weapons: comment)
• 21:39, 26 May 2008 (hist) (diff) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines‎ (→Weapons...: comment)

In the above posts he outright says, "In response to this comment by Le Grand", "We can't assume good faith," "Le Grand is just coming here to force his anti-deletion views", etc.

We were told not to comment to or about each other and as indicated previously admins have been warning him for months now. If you ask Chaser or Durova, they can tell you that they also had offered mediation, suggested we disengage, etc., which I have done, but which he continues to ignore. Notice I have not responded to nor have I referenced any of this recent comments on wiki until now. He is admittedly assuming bad faith against me and claims that I am "coming here to force" my "views". I came to the talk page to discuss civily with other editors, to maybe even be convinced by them (I have actually changed my "votes" in both AfDs and RfAs, and several times, so I am open to reason), and hopefully come to some understanding why if we have these policies and guidelines does so much of the community in practice not seem to follow them and how we can get a more universally agreed upon consensus. While I may disagree strongly with some, I respect that they are willing to discuss with me and acknowledge that just as I mean well, I'm sure most in the discussion also do as well. If I "lose" the discussion, so be it, but notice in that discussion that I do not accuse anyone disagreeing with me of being disruptive, assuming bad faith, nor do I mention editors by name or otherwise call them out, etc. It gets really tiresome when AfDs and talk pages devolve into being about the editors rather than the articles and arguments. Sure I may go back and forth with Randomran and others in AfDs, but I would not be able to do so if they did not also reply to my posts and that's a good thing, it's what AfD is a discussion. Does it mean that I think ill of him or others? Of course not. I made over 20,000 edits here, welcomed thousands of new users, uploaded a bunch of images, created articles, etc, and so I engage people in sometimes determined conversation, but I do so because I respect them enough that I am willing to volunteer my time to do so, because I believe that if they are also willing to talk, maybe we can eventually come to an understanding.

And what's classic is I who have argued to delete more articles than Rob has argued to keep (I've never seen him argue to keep in fact) has the hypocritical audacity to harp on me for not arguing to delete more. I wasn't aware of the quota!

How does Rob deal with spirited discussion that doesn't even involve him? He tries to coordinate an off-wiki attack against me: [12], [13], [14], etc. Why when I have ignored and avoided him for so many months has he refused to do the same? Why fixate on me for so long? Why is he derailing good faith discussions and personalizing them? Why is attempting to indocritinate users against me? There is much more, and even more despicable and disturbing stuff than I am willing to post here, but again, my family and friends mean a lot to me and if content disputes are so important to someone that they want to harass and threaten me on and off wiki, it's just not worth it.

I don't know what more I can do to just ignore him that will cause him to follow the warnings he has received by admins and in the request for comment, but it isn't right that discussions that otherwise would be civil now change direction and instead of being about the articles under discussion or the guidelines suddenly become about me, because of one editor.

The bottom line is I care about my family and friends and the on and off wiki harassment from this user has gone on long enough and taken an increasingly obsessive and real world turn that even without my health issues, it is not worth allowing some wikipedian to spill things over off the project. So thank you to all who have been kind and respectful; I wish you all well and I just hope that once and for all the obsession of this editor with me is dealt with so that no one else becomes his next target. Adieu. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 23:50, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

RobJ1981's behavior here concerns me. He also has a long block log. I doubt warning again will do any good, they don't seem to have affected him before. I request input from <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Lupin/navpop.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css&dontcountme=s">others here. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:13, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I hesitate to get involved in this, since I know little about the specific interactions between RobJ1981 and LGRdC, though I do have some experience of how frustrating Grand Roi's disingenuous cluelessness can be. However, could you clarify the comment about RobJ's "long block log," Rlevse? I'm not seeing any evidence of that. Deor (talk) 01:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

He's certainly not staying away from LGRdC, or from commenting about him: see Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts#User:Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:11, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Oops. the block log item was my error, that's what I get for working on more than one thing at a time. My apologies on that. But I do feel there is room for concern here. Even after LGRdC posted this, we have {http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts&diff=prev&oldid=215399344], [15], [16]. This is after he has stated he has to leave. Why the bother? — Rlevse • Talk • 01:15, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

It's hard to avoid an editor that edits many of the same subjects as I do (many of which I've edited quite longer than he has). I shouldn't have to change my editing ways, just to avoid Le Grand. Personally I feel his attitude is an issue, and others have similar views. See recent deletion debates for examples. I think Le Grand is harassing people in deletion debates, by pushing his views of "I don't like this policy, so I wont follow it" across very strongly. Also, he quotes an editor's essay as something we must follow... but that's far from the truth. The tag at the top of: User:Fresheneesz/Don't Destroy makes it very clear, it's an opinion essay, and not a guideline for Wikipedia itself. Also, I wasn't informed of this discussion on my talk page. Isn't it good faith to notify a user about a discussion about them? I agree with Rlevse, why the bother for this section at all? I see this as a bad-faith discussion, that's just an attempt to tattle on me for my views that don't agree with his. RobJ1981 (talk) 01:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

No one has the "right" to do anything. I withdrew from both Wikiproject Professional Wrestling AND Wikiproject Videogames of my own volition as per the RfC, even though I strongly disagreed with Ncmvocalist's finding. I'm also going to note that a big part of what made me drag Rob infront of an RfC was the continual accusations of bad-faith and bogus assertion of negative motives (i.e. "an attempt to tattle"). This is bad faith in itself, and moreso, it's extremely obnoxious. The correct thing for Rob to have done would have been to utterly and fastidiously ignore Le Grande Roi, as I have done to Rob prior to this post. McJeff (talk) 01:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

The assertion regarding off-wiki harassment is particularly troubling. I don't know any of the details. Would either of the parties concerned here please clear the air? Durova^Charge! 01:43, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'm going to go out on a limb here. As I said, I know essentially nothing of any previous problems between the two parties, but I have to say that in all the diffs provided by Grand Roi above, I see no evidence of stalking or harassment, just fairly run-of-the-mill disagreement on talk pages. In particular, of the diffs [17], [18], [19] cited to show an attempt "to coordinate an off-wiki attack," the first doesn't mention Grand Roi at all, and the other two are simply requests for support in an RfC. If there is something serious going on off-wiki, I think more evidence of that is needed. And if there is something in the previous history of these two users that makes RobJ's talk-page comments more sinister than they seem, I apologize for my presumptuousness in inserting myself into matters that I clearly don't understand. Deor (talk) 02:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't have much of a history to look at here, other than what's been stated already, but I've been involved in the ongoing discussion about suitable content on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines#Weapons..., in which I warned Le Grand that he was stepping over the line with respect to tendentious editing. Numerous editors in that conversation believe he is engaging in active POV pushing and is not willing to play by the rules of consensus-building. We also advised him that, in that particular case, he should take his issues to WT:N, since they have more to do with a core Wikipedia policy than a specific guideline in the VGProj.

Given that, I can see how RobJ could easily tire of dealing with such an editor on a regular basis. As I mentioned in the WQA, I have not seen evidence of Le Grand breaking any civility policies, but I do believe he's testing the limits of multiple editors by hammering home the same point over and over again. I did also read over a conversation between RobJ and Le Grand in Le Grand's talk page, and I saw a bit of sniping between both parties in what could, at best, be called a big misunderstanding. IMO, RobJ was perhaps a little unnecessarily snippy and terse with his remarks, but I don't think anything he did in that particular case qualifies as harassment or Wikistalking. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 02:14, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Update-harassment

I'd have to say I am finding it hard to see this thread as anything other than harassment User_talk:Randomran#What_do_you_think.3F as per this. I am not uninvolved so recuse myself form action. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:59, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, RobJ1981 has done nothing wrong since 2007. In 2007, he failed to assume good faith in a few AFD discusions. Since then, he has issued a few stern disagreements to Le Grand, and has contacted me for a request for comment on Le Grand. I can honestly say that this complaint is frivelous. There has not been any breach of policy or etiquette. I'm sure Le Grand is just looking for a channel to voice his frustration with wikipedia as of late -- which he is entitled to do, but not at the expense of the administrators' valuable time. Randomran (talk) 03:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure? Robj1981 was instructed to avoid Le Grand Roi at the end of Rob's conduct RFC, and le Grand Roi provides ample evidence that Rob has failed to do so. Rob hasn't produced any evidence against Roi. More to the point, when an established editor makes a claim of off-wiki harassment the appropriate response do is to hold off from asserting such an extreme label frivolous at least until the parties have had a fair chance to follow up and clarify matters. Durova^Charge! 03:18, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

While I really do just want to depart at this point and my head is so congested it's somewhat hard to concetrate on typing and I hope that whatever happens here is enough that I will be left alone, I might as well clarify a few things. Rob and I were told over and over again that if we participate in the same discussions we are not to comment to or about each other, which he did and I didn't. There is no reason why he can't comment in say the weapons discussion without mentioning me specifically. I did not mention him after all. His comments in the weapons discussion might not seem like much, but they need to be taken in the larger context and have gone on despite administrator warnings for almost a year now. This has gone on since maybe JULY 2007. Now, regarding the weapons discussion, after editors suggested I take it to the notability guideline I did in fact do that as seen here. As far as AfDs go, I outright created a userspace page and asked editors to post feedback on my participation in them as seen at [20] and [21]. I have taken whatever advice editors have given in good faith and if I'm persistent in some discussions it is because I really believe I am arguing in the best interests of our project, I would not waste volunteer time doing so otherwise (after all, I have a family and life outside of Wikipedia), and in all cases I still am civil. If it ever seems that I go back and forth with anyone; well, I couldn't do that if others didn't reply to me as well. Even when editors ridicule me (see [22] and [23]), I still try to find ways to be friendly with them otherwise (see [24]). And if ever I seem flustered, it is in part, because I've had to also contend with guff from various now blocked sock farms (User:AnteaterZot, User:Aipzith, User:PatrickStar LaserPants, User:Noble Sponge, User:Lord Uniscorn, and User:Only Zuul were one such checkuser confirmed group; User:Eyrian, User:JohnEMcClure, User:THX1337, User:Varlak, and User:Graevemoore are another; not to leave out User:Blueanode or User:Dannycali, i.e. one anti-inlcusionist sock farm after another). Rob also says above, "Also, I wasn't informed of this discussion on my talk page. Isn't it good faith to notify a user about a discussion about them?" Funny, I wasn't informed of the Wikiquette alert on my talk page... As far as persistently going after editors, please note that I am not the only editor Rob has done this stuff to at least on wiki: [25] and [26]. Notice JzG warned Rob about Henchman in pretty firm terms only to have Neil have to warn him as well not long after. And as far as trying to get others to go after me, well, that's been going on for months as well (see [27]). Anyway, to get a sense of things, please consider Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Television series considered the greatest ever (2nd nomination). Notice every time I try to get back to the discussion, he kept focusing instead on me and every time I offered something friendly it was just dismissed. I don't mind, as many know, interactions with others, even spirited ones, but there's a difference between a spirited discussion about the article under question and one about each other and about making it about each for months and months and months. I am deeply concerned if not disturbed by this refusal to ignore the many warnings to disengage with me even though I have done so with him and with him and the trying to start up email and IRC chats on me (see [28]), it's really getting out of hand and I am deeply concerned that if it doesn't stop now it will escalate further. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 03:17, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I have long been an open friend of GRC, though not always a supporter, and therefore I too am going to be up front in admitting my involvement. To me, it does indeed look to be harassment. The diff on RR's talk page [29] & on Robj's corresponding page is indeed coordination of an attack on a contributor. To try to round people up to join in a RfC is the most dangerous sort of canvassing--people join a RfC if they spontaneously agree with the matter at hand. I point out that GRC had done and could not do any harm to the encyclopedia commenting at AfD--if his view is not accepted, as is often the case, & rather frequently with very good reason, it is not accepted. That's what AfD & talk pages are for. That he is persistent is not considered a bad thing around here. Persistence at afd and policy talk pages is how consensus gets changed. I do that also, and so do hundreds of other people, though I think most are a little subtler about it. He doesn't go deleting content, he doesn't modify other peoples talk pages or afd discussions, he doesn't add spam or revert edits, he doesnt single handedly make drastic edits to established policy, he has never to the best of my knowledge insulted anyone, in my opinion, its a valid complaint by GRC, & the simultaneous WQA thread started by RobJ is harrassment, in line with his previous behavior. But I'm not the one to judge it. DGG (talk) 03:23, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't know enough about the situation in 2007 to be able to form an informed opinion. But I'm guided by two assumptions:

• That the comments that Rob just ignore Le Grand in 2007 were merely suggestions, and thus non-binding. And so Rob ignored these suggestions at his own discretion.
• That there's nothing wrong with asking someone, in good faith, to make an honest comment about another user, which I have done.

If any of my assumptions are wrong, then perhaps an administrator should intervene. Otherwise, this is just a case of two users who have frustrated each other (regardless of who started it). Randomran (talk) 03:37, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you've missed the point. Where a user has explicitly asked not to be talked about, or talked to by another individual - where the individual ignores the request and continues to do so, on more than one occasion, on an ongoing basis, it's harassment. The RFC, the warnings, the discussion were all attempts to avoid administrator intervention - they've clearly failed, so that's why we find ourselves here. Ncmvocalist (talk) 03:47, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

So basically my first assumption is wrong: that if you ask someone to stop talking to you, the other person is obligated to stop talking to you? Can you show me a policy that supports this? Randomran (talk) 03:52, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, so common sense needs a policy, just for the both of you? "Harassment, repeated annoying and unwanted contacts, repeated personal attacks or making threats stops other editors from enjoying Wikipedia. These and other forms of harassment if not curtailed may cause disruption to the encyclopedia." You can go into other specifics at WP:HARASS. Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Could you assume a little good faith please? It was an honest question. I want to know if harassment is a subjective feeling, or if there are objective criteria for it on wikipedia. There is no "both of us" -- I'm the only one asking. Randomran (talk) 04:09, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

OK. I say both of you because clearly, he did not understand it either - but I'm not suggesting you're doing the same thing as him. Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:16, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Block

This is really getting ridiculous. It doesn't matter what modifications/discussion have taken place, or what warnings have given, R1981 efforts to change have been insufficient. A block is needed, but how long? Ncmvocalist (talk) 03:29, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

In my own personal opinion, I would give him a week long block for his harassment of Le Grande Roi, and then another block for each future incident of incivility. I have seen difs where Rob justified his right to be incivil (or in his words, "negative"), and personally do not feel that he will ever change without strict, authoritarian intervention. McJeff (talk) 03:59, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Not sure a week is long enough from what I've read. Let's see. . .

1. months of harassment (almost a year)
2. warned about it several times by multiple editors.
3. ignoring concerns expressed at the RfC.
4. filing a baseless and what appears to be a retaliatory WP:WQA (initial post at 00:43, 28 May 2008 (UTC)) after this was this was already being discussed at ANI (initial post here at 23:50, 27 May 2008 (UTC)).
5. Canvassing to recruit for an RfC? Soliciting to co-ordinate off-wiki and out of community scrutiny?

In light of the above, I'd be comfortable with at least a month break -longer if there is consensus to do so. R. Baley (talk) 04:03, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the answer is much simpler. One or both of them should avoid AFD discussions for a while. I don't think there's any proof that they've had any contact anywhere but in these AFD forums. Without any further evidence, I can't say there's any real proof of harassment. I say that as someone who has no friendship or animosity toward either party. But I also say that as someone who is unfamiliar with policy on harassment, and if there is some kind of wikipedia definition for harassment. Randomran (talk) 04:08, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I want to point out 4 things. First: McJeff has wanted me blocked since he started the Request for Comment on me. When a block didn't result due to that, he was upset about the whole RFC process. He's had a personal grudge towards me for a while, so it's pretty obvious he will support a block. Secondly: my post on Judgesurreal777's talk page doesn't mention Le Grand once. I think it's a bit wrong to assume it's instantly about him, just because I didn't want to discuss things on the talk. Third: why is nearly everyone making Le Grand out as an innocent one? There's been a good number of deletion debates I posted at, and then he popped in later. He might've not mentioned my name in the posts, but he certainly shouldn't be posting where I am... if he truely wants to be left alone. Fourth: I was not aware of the ANI post until after Jayjg had posted it in the Wikiquette alerts. As I said before: I wasn't told of the ANI thread on my talk page (before I started the alert on Le Grand). I don't constantly check ANI, so I don't think people should be assuming bad faith about me in that aspect. RobJ1981 (talk) 04:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I didn't "want you blocked", I said that if you refused to quit being tenditious, argumentative, and in your words, "negative", I would seek a block as a last resort. Big difference. McJeff (talk) 04:41, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I think this is horribly inappropriate considering the duration of the problem. Rob has a months long history of tenditious editing, personal attacks, and harassment of users he disagrees with. Please do not turn a blind eye to what he is doing because you find Le Grande Roi's insistance on dragging out deletion debates irritating. McJeff (talk) 04:39, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/RobJ1981#Outside_view_by_Ncmvocalist for more information on my issues with McJeff. McJeff was told to avoid me, yet here he is... trying to stir up trouble and encourage a block. RobJ1981 (talk) 04:48, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Then there is this: [30]. So to make it clear, McJeff agreed to it before... but now doesn't, because he saw this ANI discussion? Very bad faith indeed. RobJ1981 (talk) 05:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Please observe yet another kind of incivil behavior Rob engages in - attacking others to deflect criticism.

Ncmvocalist is aware of my participation in this topic, and has not yet requested that I leave. If he does, or if another administrator does, I will. However I feel that, as a person who has filed conduct issues with you in the past, both the RfC and a Wikiquette alert, my participation in this topic is essential. The topic is in regards to YOUR conduct, after all. McJeff (talk) 05:06, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

No need for McJeff to leave during dispute resolution, in the same way there is no need for you to leave Rob1981 - it was filed by LGR after all. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

For the sake of factual argument, please consider all of the most recent AfDs in which Rob has participated in descendeing order with the most recent on top:

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Soul series mystical weapons - his first post is a response to me, as is his next post

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Ring of Honor events - notice, how, yes he posted first there, but I do not comment to or about him (please keep in mind that I am also a member of the Wrestling Wikiproject)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Fingerpoke of Doom (2nd nomination) - notice I have not commented in that one

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Mario characters in other media - again, his first post is about me

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Table of Doctor Who characters, monsters, and aliens - again, who comments or suddenly appears to comment on whom here?

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brawl Characters' Final Smashes - he posts to delete (still not seeing any keeps from him) after me and then comments to me

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Characters in Call of Duty - his only comment is again about me

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:AndyJones/Triceratops in popular culture - nominates an article that I was the last person to edit prior to nomination and then reverts me including on article with "in popular culture" in its title on the "in popular culture" wikiproject listing and for which I am member!

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Juggernaut (wrestler) - I am a wrestling fan and yet I stayed out of that one

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Wii games (North America) - I am a member of the video game wikiproject and I stayed out of this (again, not seeing any keeps yet from him)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Moon Dog (Dungeons & Dragons) - his only post there was to tag someone as a single-purpose account, but notice that I don't say anything about him; also, please not that the discussion was marred by sock account

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Devil May Cry Demons - again, no comments from me on him and anyone who sees my AfD participation logs know that I participate in just about every list related deletion as there are

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vicious and Delicious - I totally avoided this one, which he nominated and closed as keep

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Celebrity and notable guest appearances in Doctor Who - again, no participation from me in an AfD he nominated for an article that was not deleted

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Goethean/Evolution (philosophy) - yet another I avoided

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Xbox Live Arcade releases by date - I even avoided a video game list!

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oceanic Six - his contribution is yet another comment on me

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Jeff Dahl/sandbox/Priestly - no comment from me there

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix - I also avoided this one

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Advance Wars COs - I avoided this list, too

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dyna Blade (Kirby) (2nd nomination) - I avoided this one, and as most know I tend to argue in the fictional character AfDs, but Rob was in it, so I stayed out

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/NeoGAF (3rd nomination) - another one he nominated that was kept and that I avoided

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Saturday Night Live hosts and musical guests - notice how unlike him, I can participate without commenting on him

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Pit Bulls - yet another I avoided

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Zappernapper/Bulba - still another I avoided

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/K.C. James and Idol Stevens - yet another avoided

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Réplica (band) - yet another I avoided

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Psycho Dad - yet another I avoided

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tony Barrera - yet another I avoided; his edit here wss to revert someone else I think he's had disputes with

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Booty call (slang) - again, I avoided him

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Artakha - first person to post after me

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Colin Delaney - another he nominated that I avoided and that was kept

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Stump/Nintendo DS - yet another I avoided

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:A Link to the Past/List of Nintendo DS games - yet another I avoided

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of The Fairly OddParents characters - a list and a character one that I avoided

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional video games - a video game list I avoided

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rasmus Højengaard - another I avoided

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chuut-Riit - his contribution is to comment on me in an AfD in which banned User:AnteaterZot participated

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Turanic Raiders - yet again, he has to comment on me rather than the article

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Carlito and Santino Marella - I avoided this one

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ain't That Life (album) - yet another where has to comment on me rather than the article under discussion

And the above is just THIS YEAR alone, i.e. after the edits that caused Chaser to say, "Rob, you are making improper accusations of stalking against editors who are involved in the same recent surge of popular culture deletion discussions....These improper accusations are disruptive. If this continues, I will block you." in October; after DGG said, "just discuss the 'article' at AfD."; and after Casliber asked him to assume good faith and focus on discussing the template. I have listed ALL of RobJ1981's MfD and AfDs since the beginning of January 2008 and after these administrators warnings were made. Please consider carefully what you see above. RobJ1981 accuses me of being an "extreme inclusionist" and yet since that time I have nominated several articles for deletion. Do you see any "keeps" from him above? If I am somehow acting against policy and/or consensus then why were a good deal of the articles he nominated for deletion in fact kept? Notice if nothing else how many AfDs that are exactly the kinds of AfDs people usually see me in, but I deliberately avoided. Notice how in any AfDs in which he commented first, and the incredibly small number of those that there are, how I did not post immediately after him and how I never once commented to or about him, even after he made some remark about me. Again, look at all those instances where for sometimes days in a row his participation in AfDs is focused entirely on commenting on me and me alone disregarding the article under discussion altogether. How much longer can this go on? For what it's worth, he's still apparently interested in turning another against me (see here) and please also note this edit. He says, "There's been a good number of deletion debates I posted at, and then he popped in later. He might've not mentioned my name in the posts, but he certainly shouldn't be posting where I am... if he truely wants to be left alone." You can click on that link to his contribs that focus on Wikipedia edits and not how I hardly pop up at "a good number of deletion debates" in the past few months and by contrast how he does in fact do that to me. Anyway, considering that I participate in large numbers of AfDs, what difference does it make if he happens to post in them so long as I do not comment on or about him? Why if I can avoid commenting on him can he not avoid commenting on me? If it's not hard for me to do, it shouldn't be hard for him. And if I am so wrong, then why were so many of the above kept? If I'm wrong for being an inclusionist, then why does he never argue to keep? I have no problem with him participating the same discussions as me, just not turning the discussion into being about me and not whatever we're supposed to be discussing. And what's with the cryptic "if he truely wants to be left alone"?! Come again? Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 05:36, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Please assume good faith. I have neither friendships nor grudges here, and I am judging this debate from an uninformed and neutral position. I feel like I've stepped into a situation with long-standing friendships and equally strong grudges. I've seen evidence that RobJ and Le Grand both like to visit AFDs and have collided a few times -- and I've been in enough AFDs to know that there are even more AFDs where neither of them so much as encountered each other. There's been no stalking and no overt threats. I would need to see further evidence to form a final opinion, as the other participants insist there is more to the history of this dispute. Randomran (talk) 05:14, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

My apologies - I didn't assume bad faith, and if that's how I came across, I sincerely didn't intend that. McJeff (talk) 05:21, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

One can gather Randomran is neither uninformed or neutral, and was canvassed for RFC support by R1981 - see the bottom of his talk page. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I've had zero relationship or contact with R1981 until that time. Randomran (talk) 05:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Notice the times of when I first asked Randomran about a request for comment (and the time when Le Grand made this ANI section); 22:02 for mine, and his was 23:50. Not to assume bad faith here, but I believe he made this as a revenge discussion, just because I asked for Randomran's opinion. Why exactly was Le Grand even reading Ran's talk page in the first place is a question that should get answered. RobJ1981 (talk) 05:39, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Possibly, but Le Grand has been in contact with others with updates of the situation for a while now - it was what persuaded me to make the future note, where I made it clear that if you continued going against the view of the RFC (any time after I've made the note), then it should be brought here. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:45, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I recently watchlisted Randomran's talk page, because I left amessage there. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 05:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

To respond to this (since I forgot earlier): And what's with the cryptic "if he truely wants to be left alone"?! It wasn't cryptic, so just stop. My full post (so it's not twisted AGAIN): He might've not mentioned my name in the posts, but he certainly shouldn't be posting where I am... if he truely wants to be left alone.: sounds very clear to me. In my view, I see him as following me (which I did accuse him of in the past, which I was told to stop doing). However, if I need to avoid him, he should be avoiding me at all costs as well. Seeing as how we haven't avoided each other: we are both to blame, not just me. Remember, it takes two people to have a conflict. RobJ1981 (talk) 05:59, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

R. Bailey has suggested block for a month - any other input by admins? Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

No voting on blocks

I removed the "voting" sections that were here. I have no opinion on whether Rob should be blocked, but we do not vote on blocks. Feel free to discuss it, make points why a user should or shouldn't be blocked. But this is not a vote, and as administrators, we don't count heads to see if someone deserves to be blocked. Ral315 (talk) 05:17, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Ral. I was uncomfortable with that format also. Basically I wonder what would be the best solution here: civil persuasion hasn't worked, RFC hasn't worked, and RobJ1981's conduct even at this thread is troubling: personalizing disputes, attributing negative motives to people he disagrees with, tu quoque--I have doubts that a block of X duration would solve that. Are we at risk of losing good editors if the problem behavior doesn't end? I think we are. So here's an idea: a topic ban from AFD plus civility parole, reviewable after 3 months. I once sitebanned le Grand Roi, then welcomed him back and unbanned him myself and later collaborated with him. No hard feelings toward Rob (I hope things end well with this too). Durova^Charge! 05:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd have agreed with you, given my stance on blocks (horrible), but given that he's failed to avoid Le Grand on multiple occasions (after being advised by various editors, admins, an RFC....), it seems likely that a topic ban will be ineffective. Per R. Bailey, I think a block is the only option to begin with; a topic ban and civility parole can follow upon the block expiring, if necessary. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

That is why I formatted my previous suggestion as I did. Personal feelings about Rob aside, this would be the first time he's been blocked if I'm not mistaken, and I have seen him do good work at wikipedia, so I don't feel a month long would be necessary. Rob's problem is, again, his incivility and his determination to remain uncivil. This is why I proposed a week long block - basically a means of saying "your cooperation is not optional" - and then banning on individual incidents. If he has a block history that I'm not aware of, of course, I think a month long ban would be more appropriate. McJeff (talk) 06:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that a topic ban from AFD is probably the best. There's no evidence of substantial contact outside of these AFD discussions. Civility parole and other efforts to monitor people's behavior are also good ideas. I'm not against further penalty, but then someone would have to show me that this problem is not substantially an AFD problem. Randomran (talk) 06:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Since January 1, 2008, RobJ1981 has participated in forty-one (41) AfDs and MfDs (I have probably participated in a hundred or more). In ten (10) of those he commented after me and in all of those instances his comments after me were not about the article under discussion, but about me. I commented after him a whole three (3) times and in one of which was in a discussion concerning an article that he nominated that I was the last person to edit before he nominated it. In NONE of those instances did I ever comment to or about him. But keep in mind, it’s not just AfDs and MfDs. In other discussions in which I commented first, he does not comment to someone else or focus on the comment. Rather, he comments on me or to me (again, notice in all of those discussions, I do NOT comment to or about him): [31], [32], and [33]. Is it really so hard to participate in that discussion, which I started, without mentioning me specifically? I don’t know what if any articles Rob has created or contributed to, but the one for which I made the most edits (over a hundred) happens to concern him greatly: [34]. As far as I can tell he has some kind of extensive dispute over the Smackdown vs. Raw games (which I happen to own by the way) and yet I stayed out of that. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 06:16, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that pretty much confirms my point. One editor participated in 100+ AFDs, another editor participated in 41. Is it any doubt that they bumped into each other ten times? Keep one or both away from AFDs, and you've resolved the majority of the problem. Randomran (talk) 06:21, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, if you're thinking in those terms, notice that I never once commented to or about him, but rather focused on the articles in question and even though I have extensive AfD participation, I deliberately avoided nearly forty just because he participated in them. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 06:28, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict)That's not an acceptable solution. If it were we'd just block people regardless of the merits of their comments, simply so there would never be any disagreement. The community really seems to have adopted this attitude about giving up at the first sign of a minor annoyance, and that's not good. -- Ned Scott 06:29, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

And I'm not saying he didn't do anything wrong here, just that some people are jumping the gun here. -- Ned Scott 06:30, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, I wouldn't really call 10 AFD comments over one year "harassment". It begins to build a case, but it doesn't really offer anything conclusive. We're really going to need to see more evidence beyond these AFDs. Randomran (talk) 06:33, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

You're missing that those are AFTER at least three admin warnings for earlier behavior. Those are just SOME of what has happened this year (2008) alone. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 06:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Wait a second here, I don't see anything even close to a consensus that Rob is deserving of something like a topical ban from AfD, let alone a block. Don't go making conclusions on your own here, guys. -- Ned Scott 06:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Ned, it is about nearly a year of on-wiki harassment, ignoring administrator warnings, and coordinating with other editors against me. As indicatd above, it is behavior that while recently has fixated on me, even though I have avoided him as much as possible, he has done with other editors as well and again despite warnings. After nearly a year of this behaior and given that it's happened to others and that he appears to be trying to canvass support against me, how can I not be concerned that this is just not going to stop and has a real possibility of escalating out of control? Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 06:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

As I said before: it takes TWO to have a conflict. Many of the interactions I've had with Le Grand are far from harassment. I disagree with him and state my view on a subject, so in his view: it's instantly 100 percent harassment according to him. Also that Wikiquette alerts comment was far from canvassing. Asking one editor isn't "trying to canvass", so how about stop assuming bad faith, and stop twisting things around to make me look bad. RobJ1981 (talk) 07:40, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposed one month block

The evidence that GRC presents above is compelling. GRC visits XfD to participate in the substantive discussion. Rob visits XfD to stalk GRC. I really can't see any other rational interpretation for the material laid out above.

Long-term wikistalking like this is seriously disruptive behaviour, and we must respond firmly to it. It seems that no-one is willing to stick their neck out and apply a block. Well then, I am. I propose to block Rob for one month, for long-term Wikistalking. I will check back here in about five hours, and unless if I see consensus against this proposal, I will then apply the block. Hesperian 06:43, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed; given the surrounding circumstances and other dispute resolution methods (excepting arbitration) that have been attempted to resolve this dispute, there is no option left but to prevent further damage. Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:45, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see grounds here for a block, and I don't see evidence of wikistalking. LGRdC's listing of Rob's AfD participation above shows the exact opposite: Rob's pattern of AfD participation was not primarily geared towards annoying LGRdC. Apparently, the majority of Rob's actions were on AfDs that LGRdC had not (or not yet) commented on. Rob's AfD behaviour is evidently motivated by a certain opinion about Wikipedia policy, evidently held by him in good faith, just as LGRdC's is motivated by a different opinion likewise held in good faith. If the scope of their interests overlaps so much, there is no way they could reasonably avoid each other, and there is no reason to demand that they should. Both have a wiki-political agenda they follow in these AfDs. That's legitimate. But nobody should engage in such if they can't stand the heat. If LGRdC wishes to systematically promote his (rather controversial) opinion on popular-culture inclusionism in AfDs, he will have to be prepared to systematically meet the same people and the same opposing opinions over and over again. Monitoring another user for problematic behaviour is legitimate. LGRdC wishes to be left alone, but frankly, he has no right to demand that. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:24, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Well then let's declare all our agendas then. We know where you stand on pop culture, as well as Ned Scott and RobJ, i.e. on the opposite side (often) to me and Le Roi. Ergo, it is difficult to take any of our opinions on this block. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

The above is only part of something that has gone on since July of 2007. Yes, in many of Rob's AfD posts in 2008 they are indeed not in ones I was in; however, in those in which I did participate he ONLY commented on me and not on the article under discussion. By contrast I NEVER commented to or about him in any of those AfDs. We can reasonably avoid each other, because I have been able to avoid commenting about HIM. There is reason to demand that an editor not derail discussions by turning them into being about editors rather than content. There is reason to demand that an editor not try to use any means necessary to target a particular editor despite numerous warnings against doing so. My opinions on popular-culture inclusionism is no more or less controversial than the reverse of that argument and I am totally fine with anyone interested in debating the argument. Monitoring another user and making up lies about him and making hypocritical accusations against him over several months as Rob has done about me is illeigitimate. I have ever right to demand that I not be outright harassed, lied about, belittled, campaigned against via email and in IRC, etc. And the above was just this year's AfDs and AFTER all some of the warnings and those are just the AfDs. It began as simple disagreement in “popular culture” AfDs (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/References to imps in popular culture, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Behemoth in popular culture, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Boy and his Dog films, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs in Guitar Hero II, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Garden of Earthly Delights in popular culture (note: Dannycali was blocked as a JB196 sock), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Los Angeles Police Department in media, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hell in entertainment and other popular culture, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of cultural references to Grand Central Terminal, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dark Carnival (ICP), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cultural impact of Star Wars, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Grey's Anatomy in popular culture, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/NSA in fiction, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fatal highway accidents in the Florida Keys, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional characters with posttraumatic stress disorder, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Hardy Boys Original Titles, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people youngest in their field, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Worms weapons, tools, crates and objects (2nd nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of characters in the Destroy All Humans! series, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Seinfeld girlfriends, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shinnok's amulet, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Saabs in popular culture, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Parodies on South Park, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Futurama animals (2nd nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jeb Bush, Jr. (third nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Libby Folfax, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of sidekicks (2nd nomination), etc. all in which he posted after me) during which time he also typically left missives on my talk page (see [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47], [48], [49], and [50]) to commenting about me in the AfDs (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Avatar: The Last Airbender characters (2nd nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Georgia Tech in popular culture (2nd nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Television series considered the greatest ever (2nd nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Balliol College in fiction, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Veni, Vidi, Vici in popular culture, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional devices in Futurama, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Happy Meal toys (2nd nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Mortal Kombat arenas, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Songs from The Legend of Zelda series (2nd nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of television programs in The Simpsons, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of minor Star Wars Sith characters (2nd nomination), etc. So, he goes from simply being on the opposite sides of me in AfDs to having to comment to and about me, which I would be fine with it was not in some kind of “note to closing admin” nonsense. Plus, okay, so my arguing to keep a lot somehow makes me bad, but him only arguing to delete is okay? Notice in one of these diffs when I started increasing my delete arguments (he did not say by contrast start arguing to keep), he just dismissed it. So, even when I tried to take his advice, it’s somehow not good enough. But if it was just the above, whatever, but it included taking these disagreements to extreme dishonest assumptions of bad faith wherever he could as a means of gathering support against me or in the hopes of getting me in trouble: [51], [52], [53], [54], [55], [56], [57], [58], [59], [60], [61], [62], [63], [64], [65], etc. And for what it’s worth a large number of those who argued to delete in the various in popular culture debates (Eyrian, Burnrtsauce, Dannycali, et al) turned out to be sock accounts. At the same time that I’ve had to contend with Rob, I’ve also had to contend with various Eyrian and JB196 sock farms, which would be a whole new set of diffs. So, the combination of Rob and these others is just overwhelming me and discouraging me from wanting to volunteer my time to help a project that I’ve long believed in and on which I have by contrast met a larger number of respectable and nice editors. And as for the trying to get other users against me as the above suggests it is neither new on wiki, nor off. I have seen how some of these fixations and disputes have boiled over beyond on wikipedia (heck, even non-admin me has already been mentioned on Wikipedia Review a couple times now) and just given the intensity here and the willingness to coordinate these campaigns against me on and off-wiki as I have tried really hard to avoid the user in question, I just do not want this stuff to go beyond Wikipedia. And you know I have tried to respond to criticism in AfDs and have indeed done as some suggested and offered suggestions on the consensus building talk pages, which have in fact netted some positive results. Please look again to that greatest television AfD talk page how many times I tried some kind of friendly comment to Rob only to be rebuffed over and over. Look at how many AfDs he commented after me in above before and while he tried to claim absurdly that I was stalking him. It’s one thing if people want to make legitimate criticisms and you know, some of his suggestions were valid (for example, I had a number of “per x” keep rationales initially, but I since changed to try to have more extensive reasoning), but to agree with a comment another user made about “feeling sorry for my students”, i.e. a personal insult on my profession (I am a teacher and by the way due to my user page picture, some of my students know who I am here, so how nice when they see such comments and the same goes for my family who knows who I am due to the basset hound images). Since Thursday, I have had a combination of high blood pressure, an intense head cold, etc. and given some of my previous significant general health collapses, editing on something in which someone is just bent to oppose me and to get others to oppose me hardly helps. Again, I appreciate all the many nice editors with whom I have edited and I wish even those who have disagreed with me well, and I am not necessarily saying adieu forever, but I need to step back before someone’s animosity against me grows to a far more concerning level. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 07:49, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Just an observation here, but if the only considerable poor conduct from RobJ1981 is directed towards Le Grand, yet he will shortly be departing Wikipedia, would a block (which would, as always, be undertaken to prevent further be disruption) not be somewhat moot? After all, the departure would function as an equally effective bar for future disruption towards Le Grand.

If RobJ1981's disruptive conduct "spilled out" after Le Grand departed, then certainly, measures to prevent poor conduct would have to be considered, up to and including a block, but since we seem to be speaking hypothetically with regards to that (unless, of course, evidence of poor conduct not directed towards Le Grand has been presented), that is something we would handle as it comes. Anthøny 08:26, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

No opinion on the actual merits of a block, but just on this point, while that would seem to be in line with blocking policy (preventative, not punitive), I really don't like the precedent that if someone harasses to the point where the other departs, they are no longer punished as it is moot. In this case, I would argue WP:IAR over the blocking policy. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Couldn't have said it better myself. This sort of behaviour cannot be condoned. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:37, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I would tend to agree with Ricky81682. While LGRdC has an extreme inclusionist viewpoint which I am opposed to, that does not under any circumstances excuse the wikistalking by RobJ. Stifle (talk) 08:43, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Dear Anthony, I am willing to come back at some point as I am no quitter, although with health and other concerns it is time for a break, but such a potential future return is only if it is clear to me unquestionably that there will be nothing further against me from Rob. That if we ever participate in the same discussions we do not comment about each other (there's plenty of others who can disagree with us in any given discussion), as I have been able to do for months now. That he does not try to garner support from editors against me in IRC and elsewhere. That this persistence against me does not escalate any further. That this animosity against me because I more frequently argue to keep articles (even though I have nominated or argued to delete over two dozens articles this year alone) by someone whom I don't think I have ever seen argue to keep anything and against me from someone who chastises me for not notifying him of this ANI thread yet starts a Wikiquette alert on me without notifying me; that this hypocrisy stops. That he not worry about how I go about discussing with editors in AfDs or elsewhere any further. I created a userspace page on my AfD participation at User:Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles/Deletion discussions and on the talk page, I invited honest and constructive feedback and advice from editors so that I can improve on my participation there. I even notified two editors about that page in the hopes that they will in fact provide me with advice, but by no means would I limit that offer for suggestions to just them. And those like Durova who have probably known me longest can see an evolution from admittedly just arguing to keep everything in rapid fashion and using the "keep per x" approach to trying to include some policy guideline or shortcut as well to also actively trying to find sources for and improve the articles under question and to more recently trying to approach the AfDs as interactive discussions (which I've noticied some do not seem to take kindly to, i.e. would rather it just be a vote or list of keeps and deletes) to also nominating articles for deletion myself. Moreover, while I have focused my deletes on hoaxes, I have also expanded to include original research (yes, I admit the per nom is a weak argument, however), as well as how to guides. How does Rob react? See here. Now if that came from someone who I've seen argue to keep a fair amount of articles, well, okay, but someone who practically if not never argues to keep is going to scold me and dismiss when I have tried to argue to delete more often? What good is it to change one's editing habits if he's going to still be hypocritically talked down to by someone unwilling to argue to keep articles? While I might not respond to "advice" given to me in a sarcastic manner, I do when it is presented in a friendly and constructive manner. If ever there's been AfD in which I have seemingly gone back and forth with others, well, it's a discussion and notice that I do not call people names or bring them to admin boards unless they turn out (as so many have) to be like socks of JB196 or Eyrian with whom I have also received all kinds of grief in many AfDs and elsewhere. We have thousands of editors, if anyone who is a good faith editor wishes to offer my constructive criticism, I set up a page for that. These constant threats and efforts of his to try to "get me" with Wikiquette alerts, ANI threads, or Requests for Comment defy belief. If my participation here is so horrible as he acts, then what, are all of these editors wrong? I may be firm in my convictions, but those who know me well and long enough know that I can be persuaded to change my stance in AfDs and RfAs when approached in a friendly and respectful manner. This authoritativeness that I have received from Rob is not how one convinces others of anything. In any event, if I can comment in discussions without commenting on him, there is absolutely no good reason given all the warnings he has received why he cannot refrain from commenting on me. This idea that he somehow can't resist commenting about me in AfDs or trying to get others to join him in Request for Comment efforts is mind-boggling. Look again at all forty-one of his AfDs since January that I resisted commenting about him in. It is not that hard and even in those that he said something about me, I resisted replying to his comment. Again, it is not that hard to ignore someone. If after ignoring and avoding him in these various discussions, he still cannot resist trying to garner support from others for a Wikiquette alert or Request for Comment on me or as he did last year multiple ANI threads just because he disagrees with me as an inclusionist, then I don't know what to think and I don't know how far he is willing to let this dispute go unless if firmer action is taken than the various warnings and attempts at mediation over the past several months. You know I could have taken all this that I posted here and just piled on in the Request for Comment against him, but I decided to just limit my particaption there to agreeing with some comments and just acknowledging what was referenced in regards to me. I was even outright asked by the iniator of that Request for Comment if I would start the Request for Comment against him and yet I turned down doing so. One would think I might have jumped on these opportunity, but tempting as it was, I really just did not want to escalate things further and in fact I hoped he would have picked up on that and realized, "You know, Le Grand Roi does not seem to be responding to my posts; he's not piling in the Request for Comment; maybe's it time I just leave him alone." But no such luck.

And to answer your question, no, this behavior, while perhaps having been "most" intense against me, there is evidence that he has done so towards others at various points as well. Please notice these warnings: [66] and [67] regarding one particular user and this request for comment regarding several others (please note that there was an earlier request for comment someone made against him which was deleted prior to the starting of the new one). Please also not that this warning by Chaser, Chaser cited bogus stalking accusations Rob made not just against me but also against at least one other editor and Chaser said a block would follow if it continued. I am trying to get over being sick and so once this discussion runs its course, I do plan to take some kind of break of indeterminate length and in part based on whatever happens here, but I've already received encouraging messages from others asking me to not outright leave and if it is in fact made clear that what has been indicated happened to me and to a lesser scale to others will be dealt with in such a manner that this dispute ends right here and now and any attempt to escalte it further will indeed be dealt with in a firm manner, then after things cool down and I recover, I may indeed return. I just want to be sure that any attempt to reignite this dispute on or off wiki will not be tolerated. Thank you for your time and consideration. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 09:22, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I have re-read the above, and given it a lot of thought. I concede Fut.Perf's point that Rob is not stalking GRC in the sense of following him from page to page in order to harass him. However, it is abundantly clear that Rob has become obsessed with GRC, and is unable or unwilling to control his urge to harass and attack him whenever their paths cross. Rob may well be (is presumably) going to XfD pages for the good faith purpose of D'ing the X, but as soon he encounters GRC there, this purpose is set aside for the sport of demeaning and harrying GRC. I suspect even Rob would agree to a sympathetic version of what I'm saying here: something like "I've had enough of him and will do whatever it takes to see him kicked off the project, or at least make sure that others see him for what he is". That such a campaign of harassment has been allowed to continue for nearly a year is simply unacceptable. In my opinion it is important that this community protect itself against this kind of long-term harassment. Therefore I will block Rob for a month. The stated reason will be harassment rather than wikistalking. Hesperian 11:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I respect your judgment and acknowledge the fact that you probably are more familiar with the case than I am; yet, I do not yet see either a compelling case having been made based on evidence here, nor a clear consensus for the block; I therefore reserve the right to review and, after due scrutiny, possibly overturn the block. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:03, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry FPaS, you are not uninvolved - your strong views at the TV episodes Arbcom case precludes you doing that. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:06, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

In fact, I'm so uninvolved that I can hardly even remember ever having heard the name of the editor in question, nor have I ever, to my recollection, participated in any of the disputed AfDs the two opponents have met on. I refuse to accept that my opinion on wikipolitical matters precludes me from taking action here. We all have our opinions, I have mine. I will not refrain from taking action here, if I see fit. Take me to Arbcom if you don't like it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:14, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the wikistalking aspect, he did say "As I know you will probably ignore this, I will be mentioning this in every AFD that has the essay used for keep," i.e. he seems aware that I am indeed avoiding/ignoring him, but outright declares he is in effect watching my edits and will in fact comment on them. What else do you call telling another user you have been asked to avoid multiple times that you plan to comment on his posts? And again, my concern includes discussions like User talk:Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles/Archive 7#About Deletion, which starts out as a civil and cordial attempt at understanding between Judgesurreal777 and me, which needlessly is jumped in on to become a critique on me. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 12:23, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Without knowledge of the rest of the issues, that diff above sounds to me more like he's watching the "What links here" of the essay to see where anyone is employing it. I don't think there are rules against stalking an essay, if that matters. --192.193.245.16 (talk) 14:59, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't usually take on difficult blocks. The reason I stepped up this time was because I perceived a need for this to be handled by someone uninvolved in the political and philosophical issues underlying this dispute. The idea is to have an outcome tainted by neither bias nor even the perception of bias. You haven't overturned yet — you've merely reserved the right to do so — and yet already you stand accused of having a bias in this case. Therefore I agree with Cas that for you to take direct action here would be problematic. I am sure there are plenty of people around who, like me, are uninvolved in the inclusionist/deletionist arm wrestle. Why don't you ask one of them to review? Hesperian 12:27, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Hesperian makes a good point: if the block is going to be reviewed, it would best be done by someone who--like Hesperian--comes to the subject without even the appearance of a history. This is a longstanding conflict that has been through formal dispute resolution already and could possibly end in arbitration. The best outcome is if the community resolves it with reasonable people on both sides satisfied that the actions and decisions are based upon policies, not politics or personalities. I have the highest respect for Future Perfect's integrity. Yet at a dispute where AGF is already worn and threadbare the best way to repair it is with clean new cloth. Respectfully requesting that one of the other 1500 admins review this one. Durova^Charge! 16:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm really appalled that this is all necessary to get Rob blocked. Why are the people that are arguing against a block ignoring all the incidents citing times when Rob was explicitly and directly told to cease certain behaviors by admins and then blatantly ignoring those orders? Why are people treating this as if there were some sort of equivalency between an editor with a year-long history of bad faith, incivility, and disruptions, and an editor who occasionally beats a dead horse in AfD's? Look at Rob's conduct in this very discussion, and don't give Le Grande's post a tl;dr. McJeff (talk) 17:13, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

You'd better be careful. I'm not yet through reviewing this case, but among the bits and pieces I have seen, there were a few posts from you that really looked a lot more like real harassment than anything I've seen from Rob so far. Clamouring to get your opponent blocked here isn't making you look good. Friendly word of advice. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Per above (Durova, Hesperian, Casliber), I don't think it is appropriate for you as an admin who's semi-involved (i.e. anything but entirely uninvolved) to be the one taking any action on this case. This was why it was brought here, specifically so uninvolved admins took action, rather than through contacting a particular admin who may have been semi-involved and even remotely prejudiced. As for your review, I'm assuming you're meaning recent evidence, not the pre-RFC stuff? If McJeff has followed the RFC recommendation, then there is no problem. It was RobJ1981's clear failure to follow the recommendation (and previous warnings etc.) that led to coming here. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, NCMvocalist. I was very worried about a chilling effect from You'd better be careful. McJeff presents his opinion politely and with reasons. Disagree with his logic or bring evidence forward of improper behavior (if he has done any recently), but let's share ideas in an open environment. Durova^Charge! 17:50, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

That effect is one of the reasons I don't like blocks to begin with. Education; clear explanations and warnings from third parties really should suffice ordinarily; but alas, in this case they proved ineffective. Anyway, though I'm going to be away (semiwikibreak/wikibreak) by the time he/she responds, I too was concerned by the 'you'd better be careful' comment, and the reasons that came with it. Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:39, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not saying that Rob has done nothing wrong. But on the evidence so far, his wrongs are something other than stalking or obsession. I would agree with Hesperian when he says "Rob is not stalking GRC in the sense of following him from page to page in order to harass him". But I cannot fully agree with the statement that Rob is "unable or unwilling to control his urge to harass and attack him whenever their paths cross", for two reasons.
(1) The first reason is that there are at least a few instances where the two can participate in an AFD without incident. That's in addition to the vast majority of AFDs where one participates and not the other.
(2) The second reason is that where Rob does recognize Le Grand's presence, he does not always engage in a personal attack. A few times he notes that Le Grand is using a non-binding essay. [68] [69] [70]. The worst "attack" that Rob makes on Le Grand is that he's twisting policy, which is rude at worst.
From this evidence, I might be able to conclude that Rob doesn't like Le Grand or at least doesn't like his viewpoint, and that Rob enjoys strongly disagreeing with Le Grand when their paths cross. And this dislike or annoyance has led Rob to be less than civil in AFDs (and people indicate that Rob has had civility problems in the past). Despite efforts to color my position as less than neutral, the evidence points to something other than stalking and harassment if it is examined with neutral eyes. The penalty should be developed in proportion to Rob's incivility in AFDs, but anything more than that would be undue. Randomran (talk) 17:49, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

It's one thing if their paths cross. The point isn't just that Rob gets after Le Grande in AfD's, it's that, after being specifically instructed to leave Le Grande alone, he continues to badger him. A single incident of rudeness may not be that big a deal, but when one user is unceasingly rude, as Rob has been to Le Grande, that becomes a problem. McJeff (talk) 18:15, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you in part, but I take issue with words like "unceasingly" and "badger". What we have is a handfull of rude replies that should be judged on their own faults. Keep in mind that we have just as many neutral replies, and even more times where they basically ignore each other. This is (at worst) rudeness, but not stalking or harassment or badgering. Randomran (talk) 18:26, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure you are "neutral" on this? See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Soul series mystical weapons, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Characters in Call of Duty, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brawl Characters' Final Smashes, and Talk:Resident Evil 4#Merger_proposal. Are you sure it's a handulf or merely rude replies? He made scores of posts in AfDs and other discussions (see [71], [72], [73], etc.) after I did and generally in direct response to me and at the same time somehow tried to claim that I and others were stalking him. He didn't simply comment in AfDs, he commented on multiple users' talk pages to and about me, he started various Wikiquette alert and ANI threads on me (all of which went against him), because he didn't like my stance in "in popular culture articles" and when those failed he threatened to start new threads and again went on user talke pages to the point that someone warned him for venue shopping. He dismissed when I made a good faith effort to increase my arguing to delete in AfDs. He has attempted to stir support against me, not just from you, but also from others, in IRC, on talk pages, and by emails. I am a member of the Article Rescue Squadron, and RobJ1981 (as you are not an admin, you may not be able to see all these contribs) has removed my rescue tags to articles! Please see [74], [75], and [76] for examples. These articles are not ones that he nominated for deletion and I limit my use of the rescue tag to maybe one or two articles at most a day and only for articles that I also make an effort to improve. He has been cautioned about this behavior: [77], [78], [79], and [80]. Please also consider Wikipedia talk:Article Rescue Squadron/Archive 3#List of fictional devices in Futurama. Please also see the Category:Articles that have been proposed for deletion but that may concern encyclopedic topics. The category is not exactly flooded and those that I did not myself tag, I also attempted to improve. I am a member of the popular culture wikiproject and he removed my listing of an article there (notice the name of the article): [81] and removes it a second time while assuming bad faith. For his interaction with another member of the project regarding those edits, see User talk:ErgoSum88#Comment. And as far as his comments to me go, see [82]. I gave a few reasons why I thought the article should be saved, but he fixates on one aspect of my remark. And again, I'm not the only one he has made accusations against: [83]. Nor am I the only one he has been asked or warned to leave alone: [84]. He says above, "it takes TWO to have a conflict." And yet as the hundred odd diffs show above, I keep avoiding and ignoring him, while ONLY him keeps commenting to and about me. He says, "Asking one editor isn't 'trying to canvass'," which would maybe be correct if it was again not a pattern going back into the fall when (if you search through enough of the diffs in this thread) he has indicated that he has tried to get a number of others prior to Randomran to start threads on me. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 18:58, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

RobJ1981 requesting unblock

Just so everyone knows, RobJ1981 is requesting an unblock here. D.M.N. (talk) 19:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure a one month block is appropriate. I don't have enough experience with these kinds of complaints to say if he should be unblocked, but I know that if wiki-stalking is a crime worth a one month block that Rob deserves much much less. Randomran (talk) 20:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

(ec with previous refactor) If anyone has a better solution to Rob's conduct problems than a one month block, I'm all ears. I proposed one alternative above. Durova^Charge! 20:04, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I was initially in favor of a lesser one-week block followed by civility probation and a very strict decree that he is not to interact with Le Grande in any way, shape or form, unless the two agree to do so via each other's talk pages. McJeff (talk) 20:13, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

As much as I hate to continue to comment here and especially as much I hated having to post this message also on his talk page, as I really want to just be done with it, months of removing my rescue templates, removing my additions to wikiprojects, trying to merge articles I edited extensively, commenting to or about me in various discussions (not just AfDs) rather than about the article content, making bogus stalking accusations against me and others, venue shopping for suppoort against me at Wikiquette alert, user talk pages, IRC, email, ANI, in what a hundred odd instances is indeed wikiharassment/wikistalking or whatever you want to call it. We are NOT talking about a few random instances. We are NOT just talking about AfDs. We are NOT even just talking about behavior against me. We cannot tolerate this behavior. When I have ignored and avoided him, there is no acceptable or legitimate reason why he cannot do the same. Period. And again, he has done this stuff against others as well as the evidence demonstrates. Anyway, all I want in order for me to stay on Wikipedia is for it be clear that any further escalation by Rob on or off-wiki will not be tolerated:

1. We do not comment to or about each other anywhere on Wikipedia ever again after these discussions here conclude. If he comments to or about me ever again, an admin may block him.

2. Which means we can participate in the same discussions, but NOT immediately after each other and we cannot comment to or about each other in such discussions. Any comments in the same discussions must be on the content of the discussion and cannot have a snide "Le Grand refuses to..."-esque remark included. At the same time, however, we are encouraged to avoid discussions in which the other participated as much as possible, but the key is the discussions remain about the topic at hand and not about each other. And we do not post immediately after each other in them.

3. He does not conspire with other users against me on talk pages, on IRC, or via email. He is in effect forbidden to start Wikiquette alerts, Requests for Comments, and ANI threads about my interactions with other users that do not even involve him. If I do anything questionable, which I have no intention of doing anyway, there are plenty of other admins and editors who can let me know. It is not up to him to be the one to do so. Similarly, if he does get into disputes with others, I will resist from commenting in them, even if say another ANI thread or Request for Comment starts on him. If it does not involve me, I will stay out.

4. He does not nominate articles for deletion that I have either worked on extensively or was the last editor to work on prior to nomination (such as the AndyJonesTriceratops page) nor does he try to have articles merged for which I was a major contributor (such as the Weapons of Resident Evil 4 article that I took photographs for and edited over 100 times). You obviously do not need to worry about inclusionist me trying to have any articles he created (I don't know if he has done so?) deleted or merged. And as even with most that I am interested in, such as the Smackdown vs. Raw ones, I'll continue to stay away from those discussions about the rosters being prose or lists.

5. He does not remove rescue templates I place on articles. Again, if any of them are questionable, leave it to someone else to check. If he does so, he may be blocked.

6. He does not remove listings I place of AfDs in relevant wikiprojects. If I am incorrect, someone else can remove it. If he does so, he may be blocked.

The bottom line is that this dispute not go beyond these discussions today. I am willing to coesist with someone so long as I know that they will not allow whatever dislike they have of me to spiral out of control and in effect distract any further from what should be a civil colloborative venture. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 20:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I see he has acknowledge my suggested solution. But I must say, I'm not sure what to do here, but he somehow has to be told that the only acceptable solution is he ignores me altogether and does not look for possible ways in which he can report me in the manner he describes, just as I will agree not report him for behavior of his that does not affect me. Please see the bottom of User talk:RobJ1981#Punishment for incivility.2C not stalking.2Fharassment. He says, "If I see the rescue tag being overused (again), I will be reporting it to admins." No, someone else can if they think so, which is misleading, because in how many maybe even hundreds of AfDs do I NOT use that template? My use of the template does not involve or concern him. He let's go of this issue. Period. Trying to grasp at scenarios in which he can still comment about me, when I am saying I have no desire to comment about him anywhere (I hope that after today and after I take a few days off, that there will be no more disputed interactions), will not resolve things. After months of this nonsense, it has to be total disengagement. I tried other means of communicating with him peacefully in 2007, over and over, and all of which failed. I could understand if I started posting things about him, which I will not, and he wants to tell admins, but if it does not involve him, he says and does nothing. We need to be able to move on completely without having either one of us possibly lingering over the other in any capacity. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 22:22, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Blocking for an entire month over this is absurd and needs to be undone. -- Ned Scott 00:02, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Ned, you are not neutral in this either so comments like this are unhelpful. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:32, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

How the hell am I not neutral in this? I'm saying that jumping on a block for an entire month is extreme over kill for someone who's never been blocked once for this issue before. I'm not saying he did anything right or wrong. I like both Rob and Le Grand as editors. Where on Earth did the comment that I'm not neutral in this come from? -- Ned Scott 05:18, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Excessive, maybe, but calling it absurd is ludicrous. He has been engaging in this behavior against LGRdC for over a year, engaged in it with many other editors, and has repeatedly ignored administrative requests and orders. When confronted, his attitude is that of two wrongs make a right - see this very topic and how his entire defense consists of attacking other users. He needs to be told, firmly, that this is unacceptable and it will not be tolerated. I hope to God that the block is not overturned. McJeff (talk) 01:33, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

If the block is to be lifted, I think some other remedy needs to be set in place. What Rob has proposed so far is really more restrictive on Roi than on himself (for example that Roi shouldn't be allowed to edit in any discussion where Rob has already edited, but Rob can still post after Roi). Not enough evidence has been presented regarding Roi to justify a two sided restriction. If Rob agrees to some other solution--perhaps a variant on my proposal above--I think Roi can be trusted not to game it. And if concerns remain and the parties agree, I'll take it upon myself to hold Roi to it. That is, if someone thinks Roi has gamed an agreement they can come to me with specific evidence and I'll work it out, and if I can't then I'll open an ANI thread myself. Durova^Charge! 01:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The reasons for why he wants his block reviewed show that there'd be no change if the block is lifted - needs to be declined. Ncmvocalist (talk) 03:06, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Given that there is clearly no consensus for the 1-month block, and the block seriously impedes Rob in making his own side heard, I intend to lift it sometime later today and replace it with a topic ban from AfDs and other related conflict areas. This will be as a purely provisional measure, to run for the next week, i.e. while we figure out what to do in the end. I do not think that a long-term ban from AfDs etc. is legitimate. Both sides in this dispute have strong, legitimate opinions on deletion matters; both have been systematically campaigning for them across multiple AfDs. Both sides are therefore a legitimate target of criticism, which by the nature of the situation will be as systematic as the campaigning itself. If you want to campaign but can't stand being systematically confronted with criticism for that, don't campaign. There is no right to be left alone in such a situation.

What I do think appropriate for Rob would be a mentoring scheme. A mentor could, for instance, have told him that it wasn't a good idea to tag every single instance where Grand Roi was linking to that essay as an AfD argument. That was really a pretty silly thing to do, and the only serious instance that I've seen in his recent behaviour where a harassment charge made some sense. A mentor should be ready to tell both Rob and, if necessary, his opponents to leave any given situation alone, with short blocks or topic bans as a last resort. That should be sufficient.

Personal remark: Some people above have suggested I should recuse myself from admin action for being "involved". Their opinion is appreciated, but I am not and I will not. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:21, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

This is still under discussion between Rob and me. I ask you not to intervene. Hesperian 07:17, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Regarding Rob making his own side heard, there's another solution: the transclusion template. We used to use it at CSN and it was recently used at the Betacommand discussion. I'm no coder, but if someone wants to nick it and use it here that'd be fine with me. Basically it allows him to post a statement in his own defense to his user talk page so it appears as a subsection of the sanctions discussion. Durova^Charge! 07:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, fair enough, I'll be following the discussion on his talkpage. I can see there's some signs of a problematic attitude on his side that needs being clarified first. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

To everyone, I appreciate the replies and efforts in regards to this thread that I started and hopefully we will come to something satisfactory soon. I am opinionated as everyone is, but I do invite honest, respectful, and constructive criticism made in good faith and created User:Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles/Deletion discussions, which has a talk page, on which I hope I can see some good suggestions. The thing is when I look at the criticisms he has made and continues to make against me on his talk page, I just don't know what to think.

He takes issue for some reason with my post at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Ring of Honor events. As that userspace page of mine indicates, I typically participate in list dicussions and again as the evidence provided above indicates in the over forty AfDs Rob participated in since January, the Ring of Honor one is one of only three that I posted in after he had posted in it. Notice, I did not post immediately after him, nor did I comment to or about him. Now if he made a post like the one I made there and in the manner that I did in an AfD sometime after I posted, I would not care, but when he posts after me in AfDs, his posts are: [85], [86], [87], [88], [89], p[90], [91], etc. In fact, in the last seven (7) AfDs in which Rob participated, five of them were after me and as indicated above his posts in those were not merely after me but to or about me rather than about the article under discussion. The last MfD Rob participated in was to create the Triceratops in popular culture one from Andy Jones' userspace, which I was the last editor to edit prior to his nomination. So, he says if I really want for him to avoid me I shouldn't comment in the same AfDs, but what I don't get is why I am obviously able to comment in an AfD like that Ring of Honor one without saying a thing to or about him, but in five of the last seven AfDs he was in, his whole effort there is to comment to or about me? What is key is that those comments come after all the disputed history from 2007 and after the more recent Request for Comment on him in which the closer said not to comment to or about each other any further to avoid escalation. I did that, he did not. In fact, he instead tried to recruit someone to help in a Wikiquette alert as a possible precursor to a Request for Comment.

He wrote that my linking to an essay titled "User:Fresheneesz/Don't Destroy" in AfDs somehow confuses editors, because of "others that just assume it's policy due to it being listed with a bunch of other policies." The essay has "User:Freseneesz" in it's title. It is obviously not a policy. I just don't see how that confuses people and if it is included in an argument with policies also listed, then hopefully that demonstrates that I am trying to make complex arguments not just based on essays. Plus, participants in AfDs link to user essays all the time (for example, see here and lots of us link to the Arguments to Avoid in Deletion Discussions essay); I don't think it is wrong to link to essays, especially when it's part of a larger argument.

He also claims made a claim about the rescue template: "placed on nearly every AFD article you comment". Not only is that totally untrue as my edit history is public and everyone can see that in the overwhelming majority of AfDs I participate in I do not in fact use that template, but when I do it is for articles that I typically actively work myself to improve. Who would want to edit under cirumstances in which someone has already started multiple ANI threads and a Wikiquette alert (in addition to talk page efforts to get support against me from Otto4711 and Randomran, for example, or notices to my adopt a user mentor Chaser) when many of these allegatins against me are significantly inaccurate? Again, this has been going on with varying degrees of intesnity since July of 2007 and given the ignoring of multiple warnings, given the attempts to get support from others against me, this is one instance where the only solution I see is we agree to totally and completely disengage from each other.

These disagreements extend beyond just within the AfDs. See Talk:Dead Rising#Frank West merge and Talk:W. B. Yeats in popular culture. Sometimes they haven’t seemed to bad taken as individual discussions, but they add up when taken along with everything else. And while the most focused efforts have been against me, the authoritative and paternalistic attitude against others is what is concerning as well. He calls Everyking disruptive for saying to keep notable articles. So, does everyone who argues to delete as “non-notable”, which so many do, need to be called disruptive, too? He appears to have started a minor revert war with DGG, whom Rob then accuses of vandalism and even stalking at Talk:Stephen King in popular culture#Revert merge. He seems to be assuming bad faith against AndyJones in this edit and essentially says he will watch Andy’s userfied pages with the intent to nominate them for deletion in the future. Just the tone of edits like this one or this one seems needlessly confrontational.

We can disagree with and take criticisms from other editors beyond this point, but this particular disagreement cannot escalate further. That is what concerns me most that in nearly a year and after multiple administrator comments after my own attempts to agree to disagree or avoid him and after the Request for Comment, he still saw the need to try to compell someone to start an already discredited Wikquette alert, which he said if it didn't go anywhere he would next try a Request for Comment. Why do these things to someone who is trying to avoid you? For as long as this has gone on, it was looking as if it no end was in site and that my time here would just be spent defending myself against him and I don't think I've ever experienced such determination against me before. Thus, because so many previous attempts at resolving things did not seem to work, it has to be we do not reply to each other, we do not talk about each other, we do not start threads about each other's actions that have nothing to with the other, we not revert each other, we do not nominate articles each other created or worked considerably on for deletion or merging, we do not join in on policy discussions and instead of focusing on the policy say unhelpful "Le Grand Roi refuses to believe..." remarks. If it is clear that such disengagement will be enforced, then I hope, once I recover health wise and can edit again regularly, we can move on and help improve this project in our own separate ways. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 08:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

RobJ's response [partial talkpage transclustion]

[RobJ's talkpage is partially transcluded below. When comments are made, they will appear here.]

Guettarda refuses to retract offensive personal attack

Resolved

 – This is becoming entirely pointless, remember that this is not the Wikipedia complaints department, if you want to bash each other do so on your talk pages. This entire thread is a drama magnet, the matter at hand does not require sysop attention. - Caribbean~H.Q. 22:12, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Guettarda recently claimed that I've "gone so far as to threaten to introduce pro-ID POV into articles that most people admit are pretty good" in an unspecified post at Wikipedia Review. [92] There's two problems with this: 1) I have made no such statement, and 2) Guettarda refuses to retract the claim or prove it.

Since there is no evidence, I'm left with the conclusion that Guettarda's statement was a lie, and responded based on that. [93] [94] [95] Guettarda claims this is a personal attack, but WP:AGF clearly states otherwise. I will not "discuss" something that isn't true, even if it were somehow possible to do so.

Guettarda has thus far only removed the "observation" because it made me more than a little angry, which was "distracting from its purpose." [96] I find the allegation extremely offensive, and do not want it to become a "fact" simply because Guettarda stated it and refused to retract the claim. In fact, Guettarda continues to treat the claim as if it has some truth to it, still without producing any evidence. [97] [98]

I refuse to be unfairly maligned in this way. This behavior is completely inappropriate for any editor, much less an admin. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 16:43, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd have tried discussing this with the subject of this AN/I report (previously WQA), but I'm afraid I already know what he's capable of saying in response to me. Therefore, I think it'd be better if another user discussed it with him. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Are you talking about me? If so, where have you tried discussing this? As far as I can recall, I have never interacted with you, either on Wikipedia or elsewhere. Guettarda (talk) 18:22, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

See below. Maybe I read too much into it at the time when you left that note for Shoemaker's Holiday. Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:28, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Since Guettarda has deleted and struck all of his comments about this, I am mystified as to what you want. --Filll (talk | wpc) 17:40, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I want a retraction. Guettarda is claiming that the supposed statement "undercuts his/her credibility here." [99] Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 17:53, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Nope. That was not what I was saying. Guettarda (talk) 18:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Once s/he calms down and starts behaving appropriately, I would be interested in exploring what it was that was wrong with my interpretation of his/her statement, if that's what s/he wants. But, as I said, it's a distraction, nothing more. - how about you start by linking to this alleged statement by Sxeptomaniac so we know exactly what statement you may have misinterpreted. --Random832 (contribs) 18:07, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

In response to a question by Sxeptomaniac, I said what I did to try to explain to him/her why his/her activity at Wikipedia Review is hurts his/her credibility (at least with some editors) over here. Instead of communication, my illustration brought anger and personal attacks* from Sxeptomaniac. So I edited my comment to remove the offending text. If Sxeptomaniac choses to remove his/her personal attacks, I am quite willing to discuss how it is that I mischaracterised what Sxeptomaniac wrote. All I have seen are further personal attacks.*

I removed the comment. Sxeptomaniac has repeated my comment in various places (both here and at WR), when a diff would suffice. Make of that what you will. My comment was a good-faith attempt to reflect what I wrote. Maybe once Sxeptomaniac is willing to have a civil discussion, I will learn what the problem was with interpretation. [*Sxeptomaniac has characterised my comment as a "lie". Calling something a lie is, on the face of it, a personal attack - a lie is an intentional falsehood. Thus, it is a statement about intent, rather than a statement about the action. While I may have misunderstood what Sxeptomaniac meant (I have no way of knowing what s/he meant) it was made in good faith] Guettarda (talk) 18:20, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Gaming the system: "An appeal to policy which does not further the true intent and spirit of the policy is an improper use of that policy." I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that wikilawyering about the implication of using a term like "lie" as opposed to neutral terms like "untruth" isn't the way to go here.PelleSmith (talk) 19:04, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

You know, this reads like a demand for "satisfaction". Are we talking about pistols at dawn on the hill outside of Wiki-town? But whose dawn? Are we in the same time zone? Different time zones? Oh, this is all so complicated. But I'm sure that, somehow, it furthers the mission of writing an encyclopaedia, right? Guettarda (talk) 18:43, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

This all reads like classic victim bullying by Sxeptomaniac and his pal Ncmvocalist to me. Move along, there's nothing to see here. Odd nature (talk) 18:45, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm awfully tempted to call mark this as resolved, Guettarda already moved on, perhaps Sxeptomaniac should do the same. There is no point in "demanding" an apology just to feel that you "won" an argument. - Caribbean~H.Q. 18:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

For the record, if suggesting Sxeptomaniac bring it here (from the WQA) so that there is more input means I'm his 'pal', then that speaks of your own (poor) judgement, Odd nature. I've had no prior dealings with either editor; the only reason I didn't want to comment either way was so that the dispute was resolved as quickly as possible. (Having seen Guettarda make a certain comment about me to another editor recently, I didn't see there was any point in me discussing it with him; it'd probably compound rather than resolve itself). If there's consensus that it's resolved, then I agree - it should be marked so. Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:07, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Towards who is this: "I'm his 'pal', then that speaks of your own (poor) judgement" directed towards? - Caribbean~H.Q. 19:10, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe you missed the target: "then that speaks of your own (poor) judgement, Odd nature." User:Odd nature is an editor. See [100] Cheers.PelleSmith (talk) 19:18, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Cheers PelleSmith - you hit the target. Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:28, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Caribbean H.Q., I'm not interested in "winning", but in having my name cleared of a false accusation. Let me give an example, somewhat amplified to hopefully give some idea of where I'm coming from: Suppose I posted a claim that you had admitted to being a child molester in another forum (with no evidence). How would you respond? Then suppose that, instead of retracting the statement as false, I simply blanked that accusation "because you got upset"? Would you find that satisfactory?

I believe Guettarda is attempting to ruin my credibility with a false accusation, so I'm going to do everything I can to stop that. Guettarda could have ended this very quickly with a quick retraction or a link, but has made excuse after excuse for not doing so. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 19:39, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

That's not an example, that's a hypothetical -- and a deliberately provocative one at that. You're not helping yourself. --Calton | Talk 19:42, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Calton on this one. Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:46, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm really not trying to be provocative. I'm just trying to give people an idea of where I'm coming from. Some people don't seem to understand why I'm not satisfied with the accusation simply being blanked, so I tried to give an example that most people would understand. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 19:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

If we created a Userbox that says "Sxeptomaniac has been certified never to have injected pro-Intelligent Design POV into articles", and link it to this thread, will that solve the problem? --Jaysweet (talk) 19:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I suppose at this point I'll have to be satisfied with having taken this as far as I can, in the hope that it will deter others from repeating the lie in the future. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 19:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't you think you've used up your quota of personal attacks by now? I made a good-faith attempt to accurately portray your comment. Had I anticipated your reaction, I might have used some other illustration, or none at all. My only purpose was clear communication. And at that, I failed utterly. Oh well... Guettarda (talk) 20:04, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd let it go at this point, for my two cents. Guettarda's response about "lie" being a personal attack seemed a bit much under the circumstances, but if he removed the comment that's a retraction in my book, whether anyone wants to characterize it as something else. Mackan79 (talk) 19:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

This puzzles me. Sxeptomaniac wrote:

I believe Guettarda is attempting to ruin my credibility with a false accusation

If he was afraid of his "reputation" being sullied, why is he spreading what I said all over? The statement was up on a low-traffic page for 8.5 hours before I removed it. Since then, he's repeated it at two higher traffic pages (here and WQA; I'd mention another place as well, but then we'd probably see another post go *poof*), when a link to the page history would have done the job just as well. But maybe that's just my lack of understanding of how the world works. Guettarda (talk) 20:16, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Guettarda -- I am not sure it is helpful at this point to speculate on the wisdom of Sxeptomaniac's bringing this to WP:ANI. People have their motives for what they do. Would I have done it? Probably not, but then again I did fly off the handle one time when a vandal account called me a Scientologist for no particular reason -- I mean, it was to the point where I almost asked an admin to remove the edit in question from the page history, until I decided it was better to just leave it be. ha ha ha... Anyway, my point is, people have their reasons for what they do, and those reasons don't always make sense to everyone. Sometimes people's reasons, in retrospect, don't even make sense to themselves, as in my freak-out over being called a Scientologist :D That's just the way it is.

At this point, these are the facts: Guettarda has deleted the comment in question. Sxeptomaniac has acknowledged that he may have to be satisfied with no additional action taken beyond that. At this point, other than making it abundantly clear that you guys don't particularly like each other, what more is there to resolve? --Jaysweet (talk) 20:26, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Here's my reasoning: I expected the accusation to be repeated at some point in the future, so I want to make it abundantly clear it is not true and I won't tolerate such things, since Guettarda refused to retract it. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 20:41, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to ask again for a link to the alleged statement of Sxeptomaniac saying he would insert ID POV into articles, though I'm guessing it's probably of similar quality to the evidence that Filll and FeloniousMonk produced for their accusations against Moulton. If that's the case, then when faced with a choice between malice or utter incompetence as theories for why you said what you said, he chose not to insult your intelligence. Perhaps an unfortunate choice, since it goes against WP:AGF, but there you go --Random832 (contribs) 20:49, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Right, Sxeptomaniac. So you're not satisfied with a remark being deleted, you want to keep repeating it and calling another user a liar as well as demanding that the user retracts the remark. I'm sure that when you take up issues that an indefinitely blocked user has told you about, you do so in good faith. I'd hope that you take care to disregard the sort of personal attacks that are acceptable on another site, but I'd also hope that you can also accept that views on issues differ in good faith and that someone you describe as behaving like "a foaming-at-the-mouth religious fundamentalist" may actually have a valid point. Now, Guettarda has to accept that his reading of off-wiki remarks may be mistaken and without evidence can't stand. That doesn't make him a liar, and I'd expect you to withdraw that accusation. . . dave souza, talk 20:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Dave I think the issue that Sxeptomaniac and others are having is that there is in fact currently no evidence of any "reading of off-wiki remarks" at all, and none in particular to have been misinterpreted. Sxeptomaniac can be taken to task once Guettarda makes it clear what remark he misread to come to the interpretation he stated. That is the basic amount of evidence needed to, if we assume good faith, say that Sxeptomaniac's remark was uncalled for. Until then how do we know whether or not it was a misinterpretation or actually a conscious lie? Its that simple, and the fact that Guettarda refuses to do so is rather astonishing. Either he's so proud that he is incapable of pointing directly to his mistakes or he's actually trying to wikilawyer himself out of being called a spade. With a solution this simple one wonders what the hold up is.PelleSmith (talk) 21:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

... and slinging around accusations of any kind, whether they be about "lying" or threats to insert POV into entries is a detriment to the project, and while no one likes Wikidrama letting that kind of behavior slide because its just "easier" is not the solution.PelleSmith (talk) 21:39, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Again, I reiterate: Guettarda has removed the remark in question. Sxeptomaniac has acknowledged that he is unlikely to be successful in getting any further action taken. It is abundantly clear to everyone here that y'all don't like each other. What further action needs to be taken? --Jaysweet (talk) 21:27, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

The same thing every accomplished victim bully expects: leverage over others. Until Sxeptomaniac and his pals Random832, PelleSmith, and Ncmvocalist feel they've sufficiently brow beaten Guettarda into silence and waylaid him at the articles in question, expect them to linger here and raise the ante. That is, until the community's had enough and closes this thread. Odd nature (talk) 21:55, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

That's right we are all buddies, we've just disguised it on Wikipedia, pretending to not have the same interests or communicating so that no one could tell that its true! At what point, Odd nature, do you accept that we're all just members of the "community" using a community forum to voice our concerns?PelleSmith (talk) 22:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Odd Nature, I suggest you read that blog posting you like throwing around. I have not been carrying around hurts to use in unrelated matters as per the article you reference. I have consistently been after one very specific thing: a retraction, and took it as far as I could in my pursuit of that. That said, Jaysweet is right, nothing much else is likely to help, unfortunately. I'm done. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 22:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree. This entire thing is ludicrous. It is about a possible misreading and/or misinterpretation of a post on another site that might very well have already been removed, and for which we have no record if it ever existed or was removed, by who and when. And even if the reading was correct, it is not some terrible indictment or something with terrible negative connotations; even if true, so what? And in any case, Guettarda struck and deleted all references to it. The only person spreading and repeating this nonsense over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over in a frenzy like some sort of drama queen is Sxeptomaniac. Come on people. Give this a rest. It is nothing.--Filll (talk | wpc) 21:43, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Filll, as you well know some of us like to think that there should be accountability for baseless accusations used in an attempt gain advantage in various disputes. No amount of buttering these accusations up with supposed, "oh I don't even care if he is what I spuriously claimed he is," changes the problem here, and this problem is rather clear from Guettarda's own remarks. 1) He believes that Sxeptomaniac's behavior at Wikipedia Review destroys his credibility on Wikipedia yet 2) he misrepresents (whether consciously or not) this behavior in a way that furthers this claim. I stand by the fact that this type of behavior should not be encouraged, and that Guettarda could easily lay this to rest by obliging the "drama queens," in any number of ways.PelleSmith (talk) 21:50, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

"Accountability for baseless accusations" is not an excuse for making baseless accusations of your own, like those here. Odd nature (talk) 21:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

For your convenience Odd nature, I've linked once again to the pertinent remarks that are not in dispute, unless perchance someone hijacked Guettarda's account. I'll take full accountability for anything I've said, but someone has to say it. Baseless accusations are harmful to our project, and letting everyone off the hook just to diffuse the "drama" isn't the way to go. This supposed "drama" perpetuates itself in the vacuum of responsible action by the community at large. If an uninvolved admin had asked Guettarda to apologize and or to explain his misinterpretation would that have been so evil or hard? Some people are sanctioned from posts at this board in seconds, and it sends a bad message to the community when disputes involving other people just get the "ok move along, enough with the drama" routine.PelleSmith (talk) 22:13, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I wish I had the energy to reply to some of the blather on this, but I'm tuckered out just reading teh dramaz. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 22:39, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Why was it requested? Or let me rephrase, what exactly compelled you expend the energy to add that non-comment?PelleSmith (talk) 22:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey, that was really clever. Nonetheless, this is naught but much ado about nothing. If we really want to get technical: saying that someone "lied" absent proof is basically libel, especially when one won't retract it. Hence, Guettarda's NPA comment was correct, yet he just "let it go". The rest can be ascertained from Dave's comments below. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 23:04, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Baseless remarks should be removed. There is no evidence supporting the accusation of a "lie" and that should be removed, there is no evidence supporting the accusation of announcing an intention to make "pro-ID edits" and that has been removed. Statements made on other forums may seem to some people to discredit the editors making the statements, that's purely a matter of opinion and not one that can be resolved here. . . dave souza, talk 22:46, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Dave, some statements if true, are seen to discredit any editor in the eyes of pretty much any other editor. Being unabashedly pro-ID is one thing, but threatening to disrupt the encyclopedia consciously by willfully inserting a POV into entries is quite another. Feel free to have a look at the recent CAMERA fiasco, where it was pretty clear that simply being pro-Israeli is quite different from consciously disregarding Wikipedia policy and acceptable etiquette. Consciously and vindictively attempting to unbalance entries (which is what Sxeptomaniac was accused of threatening) is likewise clearly against our basic guidelines and policies. Now, I know that you and others understand the distinction and I would appreciate a little recognition of that. This is not a matter of simply calling someone pro-ID, but of claiming that they have threatened to disrupt the encyclopedia. Given the larger context that this is all happening within (Moulton, Wikipedia Review, etc.) one would expect the nature of this accusation to be even more clear.PelleSmith (talk) 23:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

BTW, as I have stated in part already, there is no way to prove whether or not someone has in fact intentionally told a falsehood, and if no admission of such intent is available then clearly there is no way to suggest the likelihood that a lie in fact has been told. On the other hand if we assume good faith, as many are perfectly willing to do, there is at least one way to move on with more certainty that there was not an intended falsehood. If the person who claims not to have lied, but to have misinterpreted something, were to give evidence of this misinterpretation, then assuming good faith, we can accept this as true, and ask that the person claiming the lie to apologize and retract his/her claim. I think this is more than reasonable, not to mention easy and by Sxeptomaniac's own admission would solve the entire issue. He at least claims he'll retract his statement given this type of proof, and many others would undoubtedly sway towards simply believing Guettarda.PelleSmith (talk) 23:12, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

So what you're saying is that you want "proof" before you'll assume good faith? My feeling is that we should assume good faith all round, and neither assume that Guettarda lied nor that Sxeptomaniac was *threatened* "consciously and vindictively attempting to unbalance entries" which was not something I saw in any remarks made. If we can all back down from such antagonistic positions and accept the sincerity of both editors, I'm sure that there will be a reasonable explanation. . . dave souza, talk 23:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC) Corrected by striking "was" and substituting *threatened*, as PelleSmith notes. . dave souza, talk 09:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

This is the last I'm going to say on this, but I didn't claim that Sxeptomaniac was accused of doing that, but that he was accused of threatening to do so. Cheers.PelleSmith (talk) 00:31, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that correction, I've amended my statement accordingly and hope that conrrectly conveys your meaning. It's still not my reading of the sentence that Sxeptomaniac finds objectionable, and my feeling is that you're overstating its effect, but of course that's individual interpretation and not an absolute. . . dave souza, talk 09:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh Dave. I see you like to apply that subjectivist safety net when obvious meanings don't suit your interests. The appeal to individual interpretation is a non-starter, and a boring diversion from the practical aims of human communication. Keep it up and we'll have to start assuming that we probably don't understand a thing you write.PelleSmith (talk) 13:57, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Going back on my word already, one more thing. I think there is some confusion here as to the dimensions of AGF at play in a matter like this one. Hypothetically, if you claim that I have written a lie and I respond by saying that "the reason I attributed something untrue to you is because I misinterpreted something you wrote," then both you and I have made affirmative claims--you that I lied and I that you produced some piece of writing that could be misinterpreted and that I …so misinterpreted it. The main thing that differentiates these claims, that one is very possibly a personal attack, has no bearing on AGF. A personal attack may be very sincere, however much its choice of words violates civility and acceptable modes of communication. When you retort with "I don't believe that what you say is possible because I have never written anything that could be so interpreted," then whose statement is the outside observer meant to accept based on an "assumption of good faith"? Do we have to assume good faith in Sxeptomaniac's assertion that the original comment was a lie? Do we have to AGF behind Guettarda's explanation? And do we have to AGF in Sxeptomaniac's second assertion that Guettarda's explanation doesn't make sense? It is only Guettarda's explanation that you claim I'm unwilling to AGF in until he gives proof. AGF here, to me, means assuming goof faith all around until there is reason to believe otherwise. When one party is presenting themselves in a transparent manner, personal attack or no personal attack, claiming to have reviewed all his own comments and welcoming others to do the same, and the other person, sitting on the other end of a contradictory claim, closes up entirely and claims, based upon a technicality (NPA), that he no longer has to resolve this contradiction then how are we to AGF? I'll tell you how, AGF means extending the courtesy not to judge Guettarda on what Sxeptomaniac is claiming, but to let Guettarda defend himself. In taking the fifth, we are left with just that, the implication that Guettarda has chosen not to continue in order not to incriminate himself. While this may keep him from incriminating himself it also makes us lose trust in him, and trust is rather important to AGF if it is to function at all. Anyway my point here is that I'm not asking for proof prior to AGF, but simply for proof so that AGF (and trust) can be maintained.PelleSmith (talk) 01:37, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

My feeling is that such hypothesising is an obstacle rather than an aid to mutual understanding, and that all personal attacks should be withdrawn. . . dave souza, talk 09:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

It's highly suspicious that the original accusation was not accompanied with a link at all. You can say now that the post may have been edited and removed, but presumably he saw it at some point, why not have copied the link then? --Random832 (contribs) 23:52, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Guettarda has long withdrawn the comment and said he might have made a mistake. He's already met all the conditions any editor acting in good faith would expect to resolve this matter. Yet the piling on continues and a completely unnecessary drama implying Guettarda had intentionally misrepresented things has sprung up without any meaningful evidence to that effect. It looks less and less like the the aggrieved party and his pals genuinely wanted his greivance resolved and was simply setting the stage to score some point against Guettarda from their past content dispute. Odd nature (talk) 00:02, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Odd nature has (until now) only made comments in this thread that heighten the drama rather than help quickly resolve whatever issues/misunderstandings/dispute that existed between the complainant and his pal. He's continues to make unsupported accusations that editors are commenting here because of involvement in non-existent content disputes with Guettarda - could someone kindly tell him to either provide evidence, or to stop with the incivility and assumptions of bad faith? Thanks. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

WHAT content dispute? I have never, to my knowledge, edited an article that Guettarda has edited. --Random832 (contribs) 13:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

And there are two very important things he has not done: He has not actually apologized, and he has not said just WHAT he was looking at that gave him this extremely negative impression of Sxeptomaniac. --Random832 (contribs) 13:49, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

So seriously. What do you all want? Guettarda has deleted the comment, which essentially amounts to a retraction. It appears some people would like Guettarda to make an official apology, but he has made it very clear that he is unwilling to do so, and I don't see how we can force him. I have never heard of sanctions being taken against an editor because they refused to apologize, and nobody appears to be asking for this. (If you are, please say so explicitly so we can at least discuss the proposal in concrete terms rather than abstract, e.g. say, "If Guettarda doesn't apologize, I think he should be blocked for 3.1415926 hours", or "If Guettarda doesn't post an official retraction on his user page, then we'll all point at him and call his mother fat.") Sxeptomaniac originally seemed to want public confirmation that the alleged accusation was untrue, and if this is really the case then I reiterate my suggestion that we create a UBX that says, "This user is not now, nor has ever been, a pro-ID POV warrior on Wikipedia", and link it to this ANI thread. I mean, if that's really what you want, why not?

But let's have concrete requests. The level of dialogue so far has been fairly poor on both sides, which is made all the more pathetic because it involves longstanding users. At this point, everyone has aired their grievances and I think we are quite clear on that. So from now on, if you don't have a specific request, then keep it to yourself. Agreed? --Jaysweet (talk) 14:05, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed - specific request: please warn User:Odd nature to stop making assumptions of bad faith and make him retract his unsubstantiated accusations here. He's failed to provide evidence to support his accusations of me (or the other users he mentioned) being previously involved in content disputes with Guettarda, or of being in any way involved with the complainant beyond this incident. The issue is resolved if and when the relevant lines are removed. I want to make it clear - I am uninvolved (in case any future steps of dispute resolution are attempted concerning any of the users here, I don't want any ambiguity when someone refers to this in the archives). Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:20, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Is there in any of this, something that needs admin attention? --Kbdank71 19:09, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Establishing whether he made a personal attack apparently requires community discussion. If it is established that he did, well, WP:No personal attacks is still policy, and admins implement it. --Relata refero (disp.) 19:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

He who, Guettarda? Apparently the comment was struck, so a block is highly unlikely at this point. What else do you need an admin for? --Kbdank71 20:17, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the comment being struck as being the only thing under discussion, and its significance also seems disputed. --Relata refero (disp.) 22:04, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Guettarda has deleted the comment, which essentially amounts to a retraction. He deleted it citing a specific reason other than it being false, so it does not in any way amount to a retraction. There is no carte blanche to snipe at people so long as you blank it after they complain. A simple apology and/or retraction would go far at this point. --Random832 (contribs) 20:21, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Enough. It really is time to move on. At this point, this thread is becoming no more than an excuse to argue and bicker like nattering noetic nulls. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 22:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Followup Comment - Some actual admin attention to AN/I postings like this one, when they do occur, would go miles towards preventing situations like: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#Intelligent_design_editors. "Lets move along, there is nothing to see, this is all whiny drama," will surely lead to more unnecessary RfCs and arbcom requests. I know some people commenting here and reading this think that my commentary (along with that of others) belongs on a "complaint" noticeboard but as Relata suggests there are possible policy violations here to be addressed by uninvolved admins who should be 1) trained to understand them and 2) empowered to act upon them (e.g. either Guettarda or Sxeptomaniac or both could have been at the very least officially warned by an admin for violating WP:NPA). Is it preferable to zip up the drama so that it can be unleashed tenfold somewhere else? I don't think so, what do you think?PelleSmith (talk) 13:10, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Apelike on Encyclopedia Dramatica

I have no interest in a real time edit war. Apelike is inserting contentious information in violation of our BLP policy in the article. What he is inserting is, 1) just plain factually wrong, 2) not backed up with the source he has tried to use. This needs admin involvement to stop the continued insertion of BLP material. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

There was no need for that, but oh well :P CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 22:53, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

hmmmm...somebody removed their comment... CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 20:02, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia Webmaster doing Wikipedia no favors

Resolved

 – Sock drawer opened and closed. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:11, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I was blocked for being a "sock" and there was a link to a "checkuser". At that link, there is no checkuser information showing that I am a "sock".

Everything I have written is completely reasonable and not disruptive. Even if there was a checkuser review, everyone who has a password to the computer here is properly vetted and are bonded employees. Furthermore, all internet traffic is monitored.

Therefore, the conclusion is that the Wikipedia Webmaster is doing Wikipedia a dis-service by blocking people. You should also note that a search engine review of Wikipedia shows that quite a few distinguished people do not think highly of Wikipedia.

In the future, webmasters should be careful not to do careless things as it reflects poorly on Wikipedia. I have much knowledge but if you don't Wikipedia to have it, I will not insist on writing it for you. Goodbye. (a public service annoucement from the Wikipedia audience). DWISME (talk) 20:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I see that some complaints are marked "resolved". This complaint is not resolved but should be a friendly reminder to the webmaster as the problem continues. DWISME (talk) 20:30, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Huh? Bearian (talk) 20:33, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

It is completely impossible for anyone to investigate this unless you give us the username that was blocked. And note there is not such thing as a "webmaster" here. --Hut 8.5 20:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, technically, nobody "owns" Wikipedia. Jimbo Wales started it, but it's now run by the Wikimedia Foundation. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 20:49, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I blocked this account and directed them to post an unblock request on their blocked account's talk page.[101][102] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vassyana (talk • contribs)

While this would normally be a reasonable question from a confused new editor, the above editor was originally Doctor Wikipedian (talk · contribs), who is now blocked as a sock of the banned editor, Dereks1x (talk · contribs). Check the contribs for more info - Alison ^❤ 20:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I've protected the talk page. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 21:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

(I'm not an administrator)Please see Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry. You are not allowed to use more than one account for purposes that Wikipedia considers disruptive. On the checkuser page, it is possible that the requests are on a different page or that yours has been archived. By "the computer here", "bonded employees", and "all internet traffic is monitered", is it possible that the user comes from a shared computer network? Perhaps by webmasters he/she meant administrators. Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 22:09, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, this particular user, under any incarnation (see Alison's comment above) isn't allowed to use *any* account, period. D1x is banned. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v E pluribus unum)} 22:14, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Content Dispute on Delta Sigma Theta

Content dispute on Delta Sigma Theta to decipher whether or not DST is a service or social fraternity. As a result one user and an IP have broken 3RR. miranda 21:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, well warn them then and if they revert again, report them to WP:AN/3RR. Ryan Postlethwaite 21:07, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Nah, you "admins" warn them. I am busy improving content. miranda 21:10, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

No need for the bad attitude Miranda. I'll sort it out then. Ryan Postlethwaite 21:15, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Previous comment wasn't "bad attitude". I have had seen far worse conduct from others (including administrators) on Wikipedia, and you are calling my comment coming from a bad attitude? Well, thanks for blocking the IP then. miranda 21:22, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks like Ryan's blocked both 207.189.99.134 (talk · contribs) and Justinm1978 (talk · contribs) for 24 hours. – Luna Santin (talk) 23:47, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

The IP reverted again, without providing a cite or a source for their claim. Per the template documentation, as well as the discussion which led to that standard, this user is deliberately inserting incorrect, POV information. I have issued a warning and reverted back, but will not violate 3RR, even though this is encroaching on vandalism because they refuse to yield to consensus that exists for how to use this template. Justinm1978 (talk) 00:58, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Twinkle abuse by User:ILoveFran

Resolved

ILoveFran (talk · contribs) appears to be abusing Twinkle. They tagged an inoffensive article about a government official for speedy deletion as an attack page, then an ugly but inoffensive user page for speedy deletion as vandalism, and then tagged an inoffensive article about a racing driver for speedy deletion as an attack page (even though it was already incorrectly tagged for speedy deletion as nonsense). Following my warning about abusing Twinkle, they reverted another user's page back 22 edits. The history of that page, User:Samsunge100, is pretty interesting in itself...

ILoveFran also seems to have made a habit out of using Twinkle to warn users for vandalism despite not being the one to revert their changes. Can someone please take a look at this? Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:40, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the last point, that's happened to me a lot using Twinkle as well. I click "Rollback", but somebody else beat me to it. Twinkle goes on its merry way and pops up the User talk page regardless of the earlier edit conflict. I hit "Warn", and by the time I get back to my watchlist, I find that somebody else did the rollback but I did the warning. heh, oops.

I think the user is acting in good faith, but is using the tools clumsily. I will try to engage them on the user page. --Jaysweet (talk) 21:45, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

It seems unlikely that the situation you describe is happening to this user so consistently, but I assume it is possible. Reverting another user's edits on their own user page as vandalism is harder to explain. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:52, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Call me exceedingly suspicious (and maybe I've spent too much time over at WP:SSP), but there's something slightly strange going on between ILoveFran and User:Kivar2. Have a look at their contributions side by side. There's also something slightly strange about the fact that the account is created, makes two edits, then comes back a few days later when it's autoconfirmed to kick off with the Twinkle edits... _GB^T/C 21:53, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

In any event, there are just too many mis-directed twinkle edits in his/her history (including 4 edits warning the wrong user about the creation of an inappropriate article here) - they clearly don't understand the policies they are trying to enforce... _GB^T/C 21:59, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Hate to say this, but they have Twinkle installed through gadgets, so we can't remove Twinkle from the monobook and protect it. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 02:43, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The user stopped as soon as they were warned, placed on apology on my Talk page, and got someone to adopt them. If the disruptive behavior resumes, we can re-open the thread, but for now I am going to assume good faith, and that it really was just clumsy use of the tools, and mark this as resolved. --Jaysweet (talk) 13:13, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

User:ILoveFran just gave someone a level 3 warning for removing speedy deletion tags, which doesn't appear to have happened. No offense intended to the user who adopted them, but ILoveFran probably requires a hands-on approach (see User:Bjaco18, their other adoptee). I also note that ILoveFran apologised, but answered none of your questions. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:45, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up, looking into it now... --Jaysweet (talk) 13:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely correct. I have told the user that they really ought to stop using the tools if they are having so many troubles, and that any further abuse could result in a block, just to prevent disruption to the project. I am now teetering on the edge of losing good faith. --Jaysweet (talk) 13:59, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Admin action required Please revoke Twinkle privileges from User:ILoveFran, assuming this is technically possible. (I believe you can fully protect the user's monobook.js, right?) The user has on at least four occasions in the past 24 hours issues an erroneous warning, been warned about it, apologized (but not explain his or her actions), and then issued another erroneous warning shortly thereafter (see their Talk page for my numerous unsuccessful attempts at engaging the user). The user also applied for Rollback privileges (denied), as well as "Account Creator Status", whatever that is -- all despite his or her first edit occurring six days ago.

At first I assume these were innocent mistakes, but there are just too many mistakes in too short of a succession. Either this person is a troll or else they are very very dim. Their user page claims they graduated from Oxford and are a lawyer, so by deduction I have determined that either a) ILoveFran is a troll, b) ILoveFran is a liar, or c) the quality of graduates being turned out at Oxford these days is pretty sad...

Anyway, the Twinkle needs to go right now. If the user continues to be disruptive, I will ask for an indef block. I have gone to great pains to assume good faith, but I am now done with that. --Jaysweet (talk) 16:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

My outside view is that this is a misguided user. Jaysweet, have you by chance talked to this editor today since you posted this ANI? Who has adopted this user? Dusti^{complain/compliment} 16:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd say the twinkle has to go. Also, per this edit to Jaysweet's talk page after a warning about the abuse was made, seems to border on incivility to me. I'd also endorse a block. -MBK₀₀₄ 17:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

No offense intended to anyone who has replied, but I posted to ANI to get some action by an admin. My fault for assuming that Jaysweet was an admin when this was prematurely closed, but this really could have been dealt with yesterday. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:13, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

:::DC, I took the lead because I knew that someone was going to ask if it was a "misguided user" that could be reformed, as Dustihowe just did. Better than 50% of the reports filed at ANI can be resolved by just talking to the user(s) in question, so I took the lead and tried to offload some work from the admins. Didn't work out that way.

Dustihowe, did you even read this thread?! I am sorry to be rude, but I have bent over backwards to try and show this user the error of his ways, and he continues to disrupt. That's exactly what I just said like five minutes ago. Please read what I said before being so dismissive.

To be honest, I'm really rather pissed off now that on one hand I am being asked why action wasn't taken sooner, on the other hand I am being asked why action should be taken if we haven't exhausted all possible outcomes. This is, frankly, bullshit. I believe I have acted impeccably. I spent a day trying to reform the user, so that if it really was a misguided user, the admins wouldn't have to deal with it. I have now demonstrated that to be impossible, and so the admins will have to deal with it. I did nothing wrong, and I'm pissed off I'm being criticized in both directions now. --Jaysweet (talk) 17:19, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Should I not do this? I think the work I have done in the past few days on ANI has been very helpful. I don't respond to threads that clearly require admin attention, I only respond to threads that maybe would be better off starting at WP:WQA or otherwise I think can be resolved by talking. But if it's inappropriate for me to be responding on ANI, then I won't, and you admins can do all the work of sorting through this crap on your own. --Jaysweet (talk) 17:21, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, deep breath, I'll try again below to be nice

Jaysweet, I honestly meant no offense, and I appreciate your outstanding good faith attempts to talk to the user, however, if I didn't think it required admin action to prevent further abuse, I wouldn't have brought it here. I'm sure regular editors like you and Dustihowe have a role to play here, but as a non-admin myself, I'm not really qualified to speak to that. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:32, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

It's okay. Between your comment and Dusti's comment, I felt trapped in the middle and got pissed.

So let me try again: Dusti, yes I have done more than due diligence with this user, and he/she has made it abundantly clear that they are either a troll, or have no interest in listening to advice. If you check User talk:ILoveFran, you will see that I was immensely patient and explained point by point what was wrong with each of the user's erroneous edits, and got nowhere.

FWIW, I don't believe yesterday that admin action was warranted yet. We had a few screw-ups, followed by an apology. If the behavior had stopped, no need to act. But regardless of whether action should have been taken yesterday or not, it is quite obvious that action needs to be taken now.

In the future, when picking up ANI reports that I think need further work before admin intervention is necessary, I will make it clear I am not an admin and am only helping out. --Jaysweet (talk) 17:51, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Can't be 100% sure but ILoveFran has an MO and a vocabulary very similar to indef blocked Chris19910 (talk · contribs) (blocked for disruptive editing and sockpuppetry a month or so back). nancy ^(talk) 17:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

So... how do you remove TW when it's not shown in their monobook, and installed as a gadget? seicer | talk | contribs 18:03, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe User:ILoveFran can help us figure that out, as he is an Oxford-educated lawyer with a background in assembly language programming ;p

Seriously, though... if we can't revoke Twinkle, what would y'all think about an indef-block? There are too many red flags here to assume good faith. Make it a soft block, and if ILF can adequately explain in the unblock template why he/she made all those mistakes in short succession, then grant it..? --Jaysweet (talk) 18:13, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I have indef blocked but without prejudice to anyone who wishes to overturn. Since my last post above I have reviewed the edit history and I am as certain as I can be without a checkuser that this is a sock of Chris19910 (talk · contribs) nancy ^(talk) 18:31, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

• I'm familiar with this case already.  Confirmed as a sock of Chris19910 (talk · contribs), as well as several others. Good call - Alison ^❤ 20:49, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Mantanmoreland and Bassettcat

What now for Naked Short Selling, Gary Weiss, Overstock.com & Patrick M. Byrne?

Since we will now presumabley have no base against which to compare ip addresses (in the case of slips by socks) and that the individual who abuses these multiple accounts will doubtless continue to attempt to manipulate these articles, and will try harder to remain undetected, what can we do to protect them from editing by this person - short of deleting them as not sufficiently notable, and as a vandal/puppetmaster magnet, which was rejected when I proposed this earlier? I suggest that the articles be protected so only admins can edit it, and the talkpages be semi-protected to disallow manipulation by ip/newbies who may also be the same individual. I do not see any of these articles as sufficiently common knowledge subjects that would attract passing ip/new editors. LessHeard vanU (talk) 19:25, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Add Securities fraud to the list as well. The greatest challenge is that editors knowledgeable enough in the subject matter to really root out any subtle POV have shown little interest in editing the articles involved; I can't entirely blame them, as there is such scrutiny and they would have reason to believe there might be difficulties. I've done what I could with Securities fraud given my limited knowledge of this subject; and User:John Nevard, a regular editor on Naked short selling, has identified a preferred version for that article. That probably isn't sufficient though; I'd love to find a few editors with expertise in this area to really clean up the financial articles. The biographies are in better shape, I think. Risker (talk) 20:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Not being intimately familiar with this situation, I think the general approach for sock-infested articles is to semi-protect. Make the COI-nik work a little to auto-confirm his sockpuppets before he uses them; more than that is not necessary or productive, and is likely to shut out legitimate editors. To make it perfectly clear: do you really want to prevent me from editing these articles since I'm not an admin? (Not that I really care to edit them anyway, but I'm just asking about the principle.) Shalom (Hello • Peace) 21:42, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Shalom. More eyes and hands are a better solution. Why not ask members of the Finance, Companies and Business and Economics wikiprojects if they would help out? None of these projects is very active, but there are dozens of editors there with an interest or knowledge (or both) in the general area. Better to intensify our openness than radically restrict it. At least, we should try that first. Noroton (talk) 22:00, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I did solicit the assistance of Business and Economics shortly after the Arbitration Committee decision[103], and received only one response to my request[104], although other editors may have responded directly on the articles. I would be happy to continue to keep an eye on the articles, even semi-protect them and/or provide visible administrative support for neutral editors, but perhaps others might have more success than did I in recruiting editors with subject matter expertise. Active recruitment is probably needed, so anyone who knows an editor who's capable of doing a good job should go out and ask them personally to pitch in. It's an area of the encyclopedia where I've never really wandered, so I have no real familiarity with who's got the editing chops for this kind of assignment. Risker (talk) 04:56, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey folks. Some will say that any comment from me must be self-interested and biased, and hence must be ignored. I suggest, however, that such is precisely the knee-jerk thinking that let this problem persist so long, and so egregiously. When one discovers that one holds a belief in error, it is not enough simply to root out that error: one must retrace the thinking that led one to hold that error, and consider the possibility that other beliefs one holds are similarly misguided. After taking so long to get you good people to open your minds to a truth that could not be synthesized within your paradigm, now that you are there, please, please consider the following claims without reflexively responding with the obvious "oh you must be biased" stuff. You have to rethink everything you believe about this situation.

1) I concede that the perfidy of MM/GW is extreme: most people, when caught, understand that they are caught. Few can just stand in and refuse to own their acts so steadfastly, so brazenly, as MM/GW did here. It is hard for normal people to imagine such a person, so the length it took it took this community to get the joke is understandable. No blood no foul. But now that you get it, you should go back and reconsider some things you think you know. For example, I promise: Judd Bagley, Wordbomb, is the good guy. He saw what was going on, and tried to unmask MM. He thought this unmasking was for the benefit of the Wikipedia community. He may have violated some rules you have (remember, he was new to them all), but in retrospect, now that everyone clearly understands what MM was doing, does anyone really not get that Judd was trying to stop a guy who was manipulating everything that Wikipedia is about? If you see MM now in a new light, should you not see Wordbomb in a new light as well?

2) Some answer, "But what about Wordbomb's smear campaign?" To us, that is just more Bizarro World. MM hijacked pages on Naked Short Selling, twisting the facts so they read like something out of People's Daily. That coincided with a smear campaign against me and the company for which I work, so as to undercut our efforts to get the mainstream press interested in this financial scandal. Judd/Wordbomb tried to expose what MM was doing: in MM's Bizarro World that was translated into "Wordbomb is running a smear campaign".

3) Each time I try to get involved it's rejected with a claim along the lines of, "Byrne's just mad that the article about him is unflattering." Come on. That is not what this is about. There is a cover-up of a financial crime going on, Wikipedia has been used in that cover-up, and we're trying to break through a cover-up.

4) I did take a crack at editing the Naked Short Selling article, which in the eyes of any serious observer is laughably slanted, thanks to MM. Because I knew that some would claim that I was biased, I kept my edits substantively neutral. The content of the article as it stood ended with a section that was supposed to have claims from each side represented. However, the anti-NSS points were kept to a minimum, and were so badly written that they appeared to mean the opposite of what had actually been said. The pro-NSS claims were allowed to be far more numerous, and they were repeated over and over throughout the article. That was ridiculous. So I reorganized the article, keeping all the material that was there, but cut and pasted so that the start was simply factual, then had a section explicitly stating all the pro-NSS points, and another for all the anti-NSS claims. The point of view that opposed my own was completely retained, and simply brought together as one set of explicit statements. That was clearly intolerable for MM, because it created the possibility of the anti-NSS side then having a section where its own points could be stated. Thus my version was reverted and reverted. I challenge anyone to look at the version that I wrote and name anything missing in it from the current MM-approved version. It's all there. I just cleaned it up so that the MM claims no longer permeate the article, but have their own discrete location. I really do think that it would be a good place to start fixing the current article.

5) If you don't do that, you should consider just canning all the articles in question, and starting over, only with tightly-controlled involvement of well-known Wikipedia players. These events were not a random accident, or just a result of one guy, MM, having a fetish for this subject. There are reasons that he went to such elaborate lengths to corrupt them. Those reasons have not gone away. If you try again from scratch, there are people who have an interest in seeing those articles corrupted again.

6) Lastly, once again I request that you ask yourself, Cui bono? Who benefited? Did MM do this because he is just a nut? Why would it be important for someone to go to fanatical lengths to hijack a page concerning a financial crime? Now that you have as a community realized what MM was up to, you must ask yourselves, why? Otherwise, their disinformation campaign will find a new avenue of attack. (If you want to know how all of this fits into the bigger picture, I suggest you read Mark Mitchell's article on the front page of DeepCapture.com.) PatrickByrne (talk) 04:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The financial dispute does not interest me and is frankly out of my depth. As a Wikipedian I care about keeping the site honest--I'm a geek who volunteers for an encyclopedia. I'm asking a couple of uninvolved people who have good editing records, some knowledge of the topic, and zero prior involvement to give these articles a look. It's the best and fairest I can do in this very odd situation. Regards, Durova^Charge! 04:49, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

While Mr. Byrne see's something behind MM's disruption, I see all too many folks attempting pov pushing and article control on articles that don't have such a potential repucussion to others. So, I'm not neccessarily buying that point. However, the fear shown by so many of us for so long over this issue is hopefully over. Off Topic but, would mr.byrne be able to get wordbomb to distance himself from his attempts at outside damage of the project? (this may have happened already, I don't check those places, and only look in at the 'Board of outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth' very rarely). --Rocksanddirt (talk) 07:05, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I would consider your sweet reason more plausible were it not for the fact that all of WordBomb's well-documented odious activities and blatant harassment and stalking were conducted at your direction, as your employee, in your interests, on your payroll, from overstock.com IP addresses, over two years. Nothing Gary Weiss is claimed to have done comes anywhere near that. Wikipedia is not a battleground for your commercial interests. Go away. - David Gerard (talk) 13:44, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

WordBomb maintains that he acted alone at the start and was only later hired by Byrne. Do you have a citation to support your contrary assertion about the timing of his employment? --Random832 (contribs) 14:05, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea when he started, and can't seriously consider it makes any difference to his well-documented (in Reliable Sources, no less) activities since. Don't be bloody dense - David Gerard (talk) 14:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry David, but odious behaviour on the part of one party does not excuse odious behaviour on the part of another party. We're supposed to be grownups here, not grade schoolers, and we're supposed to be writing a factually non-biased encyclopedia - at least that's what it said on the flyer. Every knowledgeable person I have spoken to has indicated that the financial articles edited by Mantanmoreland are subtly but clearly slanted. Comparing the level of nastiness of these two "problem" editors (both now site-banned) is not getting us the result we need, which is non-biased, factual articles on these subjects. You've been here a long time and know a lot of editors; perhaps you could help out in identifying and asking some people with knowledge in this field to review the articles and clean them up. Your assistance in improving the encyclopedia would be really appreciated. Risker (talk) 14:18, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm certainly not claiming Mantanmoreland has acted wonderfully - but Patrick Byrne is the still-ongoing funding behind one of the sides (his paid meatpuppet WordBomb), weighing in as if to help - he isn't here to help Wikipedia, in any way whatsoever, but in an attempt to continue the battle; encouraging him in any way at all doesn't help the project. I expect Overstock is attempting a fresh press push on the matter and is seeking quotes to mine - David Gerard (talk) 14:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't be surprised if you are correct, David. All the more reason for us to get our house back into order and get these articles into decent shape. Will you help to find editors knowledgeable in this subject matter, and encourage them to participate in the cleanup of these articles? Risker (talk) 15:05, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

David, the evils of Patrick Byrne is not the topic under discussion. How about commenting on the content, not the contributor - what should Wikipedia do concerning the articles LHvU lists? Neıl 龱 14:30, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad to see DG here. DG, have you apologized yet for your wrongful block of Piperdown? If not, why not? What do you really know about the issue? The Wikipedia world wonders. Cla68 (talk) 14:34, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Cla68 - considering your conduct is currently at Arbitration, you may wish to consider this unhelpful off-topic interjection. I will simply say, it did not at all inspire me to gain the impression, "this is someone who wants to reduce distraction, close down disputes, let problems get resolved, sort out misunderstandings, cut down emotive drama spirals, encourage calm thought, get more light than heat, and not escalate problems". This is exactly the kind of concern being expressed by others about your judgement and conduct, at RFAR. I figure its best to point this out, since a live example is often helpful.

Please, think again, change conflict-style, seek advice from others you trust who don't seem to have these issues, or something. It would be helpful and genuinely beneficial. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Cla68, I'm going to ask you the same thing that I've just asked David Gerard. You too have been here a long time, and you may well have contact with some editors knowledgeable enough to bring these articles back to where they should be. Will you help in identifying such editors and encouraging them to participate in cleaning up the articles? That is what we're trying to focus on in this thread. Thanks. Risker (talk) 14:42, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I will. Cla68 (talk) 14:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Good call. Risker, if you need it, I'd be willing to help on the cleanup too. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Patrick -- being candid here, and diverting to discuss WordBomb briefly since you raise him, this was an off-wiki dispute of zero interest to us. It was mostly due to WordBomb's own activities against editors and administrators who tried to deal with the dispute - and not Mantanmoreland - that the Mantanmoreland Arbitration case was handled as it was, which confused a lot of people. WordBomb's catalog of improper actions over time shows a history of reliable testimony from a wide range of users, indicating threats, coercion, intimidation, and the like by email. Crude hacking. And of course, sock puppetry. One webforum disabled images specifically to prevent his abuses. See my comments at the time. None of this was okay, and that means both were at fault, not just one.

None of this off-wiki dispute matters to us. The Wikipedia community just doesn't care about the Overstock dramas or those people involved. And I have no illusions: your presence here and the same Overstock issue are not entirely unconnected; WordBomb (I gather) has acted as your employee or the like, in these matters. In this context, the hollowness of the following quote is very unpleasant:

Patrick Byrne: - "I promise:... Wordbomb is the good guy... He may have violated some rules... trying to stop a guy who was manipulating everything..."

No, Patrick. That isn't okay, or even representative of the case. Your "promise" means little to me. You introduced WordBomb, your apparent employee, into this thread, and so David Gerard gave you the brief summary. The detailed one is, what Mantanmoreland did pales into insignificance compared to WordBomb's actions. Do not introduce on the back of a discussion of banned user X, an attempt to whitewash equally banned and far worse user Y who seems to be your employee, I gather. We need none of that. "He may have broken some rules"... That alone has to qualify for most understated statement of this thread.

We are an encyclopedia here, not a battlefield for gamesters. Two gamesters and a number of each of their sockpuppets have been removed. Administrators will likely remove others as we notice them. My apologies for being blunt, but I'm not minded to smokescreen on this one. Thank you.

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:31, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

• Spot-on; well said. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 15:50, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

FT2, I'll just say the problem with much of this evaluation is that it fails to consider where Wikipedia acted hostilely toward WordBomb, how early it did this, and the extent it has done this. Clearly at some WordBomb went into "battleground" mode, but he wasn't the first, and the fact is at least the main person he was allegedly stalking seemed as interested in personal campaigns and PR wars on his blog as WordBomb was. Anything recent has to be seen in the context of the Wikipedia campaign that has also been carried out against him. This isn't to say WordBomb's actions have been better than anyone else's, but that when someone is in active battle with Wikipedia, it's worth being a little circumspect at some point about whether there aren't grievances on either side, and about how we judge them. It's also one reason why Wikipedia should work harder to avoid these types of battles, even with people that are seen as unreasonable, the primary issue where I think Wikipedia should realize it has slipped up here. Mackan79 (talk) 16:48, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Mackan, the stuff that went on bears no resemblance to what you're describing. It went far beyond any of the kind of things your comment suggests you have in mind. Although these are valid considerations in some disputes, on the stuff I see on arb records, these kinds of reasons carry no weight at all. They were far beyond any kind of act which these comments or mitigations might apply to. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 17:24, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

While I agree that wb's actions have been more egregiously odious than mm's, I submit that we (as en.wikipedia) pushed his unbalance button and set him on a course of awful activity that will very likely never allow him to return as a productive member of the community. Could we have known that he was easily unbalanced and prone to counterproductive and hurtful behavior? no, but we could have acted with a bit more explaination and good faith on day one and perhaps have avoided all this. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 17:42, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Er, he was never a productive member of the community. He behaved inappropriately from the word go. He went after SlimVirgin because she dared act on his initial unacceptable behaviour. Wikipedia is not so desperate for contributors - David Gerard (talk) 18:43, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

People, please, not another repeat of the same old primal scream. I know, I know -- it's important that other editors know the backround and we must answer the incorrect statements someone else made. I'd like to propose a simple rule: If anyone in the future ever makes a critical comment on WordBomb, Mantanmoreland, Patrick Byrne or about any actions anyone made in this case, here or elsewhere, at least provide a diff to something, preferably to a statement with its own diffs, as Mackan79 just did. Educate, don't excoriate. And if we don't have anything further to say about helping these articles stay unbiased, it might be helpful to close this discussion soon. This is the opera's final act and the fat lady is clearing her throat. Noroton (talk) 18:51, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

• I have WP:BOLDly gone and protected the named articles, plus Securities fraud per User:Risker's request above and at my talkpage, for 3 months and semi-protected the related talkpages per my initial suggestion and the couple of positive responses to my comments (before it degenerated into the same usual round of partisan comments regarding a banned user who was - and whisper it LOUDLY - fundamentally correct in their original complaining postings regarding an editor who was abusing alternate accounts when editing these articles). The afore mentioned "debate" also provided another rationale for the protection of the articles; we need uninvolved admins and editors to review the content of these articles sooner rather than later, and create the NPOV articles the subjects deserve. Per Risker's comments, if there are other articles that need protection to allow a consensus to form for the NPOV editing of the subject please note them here. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:28, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

• This seems like a thoroughly excellent idea for sanity's sake - David Gerard (talk) 20:37, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians

Just check the edit history of MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians. This ridiculous war has been going on for months now, and I know for a fact that it was brought here are least once before. Uuu987 (talk · contribs) and Verklempt (talk · contribs) ought to both get final warnings over edit warring. Corvus cornix_talk 23:41, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

warned. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:20, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

What solution do you suggest? uuu987 ignores attempts to engage on the talk page. I really do not know how to deal with such an editor.Verklempt (talk) 02:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, you could start by knocking off the blanking. Parsimony and context make clear that the reporter quotes the report, then quotes the individual's response. Stop playing this stupid gotcha game and work on improving the article. ThuranX (talk) 03:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

You are wrong. The speaker's identity is not at all clear. To infer the identity is to engage in original research. Furthermore, the previous statement contradicts the allegation of Indian ancestry. To elide that statement is highly POV. Finally, anthropologists and most indendent geneticists agree that DNA testing cannot establish ethnic identity. To include such pseudoscience in Wikipedia is a significant error, especially given that it is sourced only to a local tv news report.Verklempt (talk) 17:05, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

So... you won't stop playing gotcha games then. Ok. Well, Push your POV away, then. ThuranX (talk) 21:51, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Thelegendofvix

User:Thelegendofvix has been engaging in extensive edit warring on Greek (TV series), refusing to allow no less than six editors to remove his WP:NPOV and WP:OR additions. After four reverts, I gave him a 3RR warning (foolishly being generous). We discussed on his talk page, but he continued to assert his right to put the information in there. Less than hour later, an account that has not been used in nearly a year suddenly appeared to revert the article again to Thelegendofvix's preferred version, then disappeared again. Fairly obvious reason to be suspecion, so I filed a sock puppet report. Thelegendofvix made various comments there as well, before finally filing a blatantly obvious retaliatory sockpuppet report against me, claiming was the inactive account and was trying to frame him! He then messed up my user page to shove the sockpuppet notice into the middle of it (rather than on my talk page)[105]. He's since blanked the sockpuppet case notice from his own talk page[106]. I think this pointy behavior is inappropriate, and would like an admin to please take a look at the situation and respond in whatever manner seems appropriate. -- [[::User:Collectonian|Collectonian]] ([[::User talk:Collectonian|talk]] · [[::Special:Contributions/Collectonian|contribs]]) 05:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

No one should be sockpuppeteering, and if proven, the admins should give Vix the Vapor Rub. One of vix's sins, apparently, is explaining that G R sigma sigma K does not spell "GREEK", which is not OR, it's verifiable. Collectonian is death on trivia, so this seems to stem from a content dispute. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:03, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I came in at the request of another editor who posted for help in the TV project because Thelegendofvix had already reverted multiple editors removing the section. I wasn't the first, nor only, editor to say the section doesn't belong. Thelegendofvix preferred to continue an extended edit war rather than yield to overwhelming consensus. From the talk page, it looks like he's actually been at this since around August 2007 or so. -- [[::User:Collectonian|Collectonian]] ([[::User talk:Collectonian|talk]] · [[::Special:Contributions/Collectonian|contribs]]) 05:52, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it is funny that I get accused of sockpuppeteering from someone, but when I try to do the same thing I get no "due process." The circumstances are the same for both users (Collectonian and myself) even though the alleged motives are different. Interesting how her sockpuppet case was removed and mine was not. Concordantly, I also think it is funny/pathetic/sad that Collectonian cannot stand it when someone makes a valid point that is contrary to hers. She will throw every weak argument in the book at you to prove you wrong even going as far as to accuse you of sockpuppeting. If you look at her editing history, on her 20K+ so called "contributions" you will see that rather than taking a neutral and academic stance she frequently deletes anything that is contrary to her wikipedia ideology offering no respect for users out there who hold different viewpoints and opinions out there. If you want to see an example of this take a look at her precious award winning Meercat Manor. If she, the wikiGod, does not approve of what goes into the content, precisely how it reads, or its literary merit, she will remove it. If it does not flow with what she feels is true and accurate it is gone. Sounds more like a wikiBully obsessed with being right and winning internet arguments all under the guise of finding just the right statement (while ignoring the ones that are contrary) on wikipedia's vast array of guidelines. All in all, I know that I can be stubborn but wow...I have never seen anything linke this! You win the DundieThelegendofvix (talk) 23:55, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Any admin want to go ahead and deal with the sock puppet report against Thelegendofvix. I'm fine with ignoring the insults above (and his copy/pasting the same lengthy diatribe into the sockpuppet report...followed 2 hours later by the suspected sock account. -- [[::User:Collectonian|Collectonian]] ([[::User talk:Collectonian|talk]] · [[::Special:Contributions/Collectonian|contribs]]) 05:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Any admin want to go ahead and deal with the sock puppet report against Collectonian. I'm not fine with ignoring/removing my report on her. To show that I am serious, I will refile it again. And yes, I would not put it past someone, especially anyone who knows all of the deep and intimate innerworkins of wikipedia to setup someone like myself just because they annoyed her by sharing different viewpoints and opinions.Thelegendofvix (talk) 17:48, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

He has actually gone ahead and refiled his false report Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Collectonian. Can someone deal with him already, please. This is just plain silly, and his reasoning for accusing me of sockpuppetry is ludicrous. Does he really think I have nothing better in my life to do than try to frame him when he was already well on his way to a block for edit warring?-- [[::User:Collectonian|Collectonian]] ([[::User talk:Collectonian|talk]] · [[::Special:Contributions/Collectonian|contribs]]) 18:41, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Allright, I feel like I have a say in this because I, in fact allerted Collectonian about the greek issue. I think any skeptical admins should look at the Greek (TV) history page. To see how far it goes back, you will have to go to the next page. Oh, and god knows how many others. The conflict heads back to atleast a year and 1 month. My involvement was only recent. When you are looking at the history page, do not be confused by his edit summaries which say "Minor edits" and "Restoring pop culture section". Yojimbo501 (talk) 21:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Sock COI

Would an admin have a look at Grama Vidiyal's history and view the talk page as well. This sock has numerous names and continues to remove the COI and "additional citations for verification" notices, even though he's admitted to being an employee of the company and even though the article only has one reference. I'm tired of battling with him. - ✰ALLST☆R✰ ^echo 07:25, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I've agreed (on shaky grounds) to the G7 delete - the sockfarm operating there was the most substantial contributor and clearly wanted an advert, so requesting deletion when they didn't get it seems fine (one source, COI, no linked articles... nothing lost here). However, as it was shaky grounds, any other admin is welcome to undelete and deal with the problems instead if they wish. I've left the talk page up for now. ➨ ЯEDVEЯS looks at danger and laughs his head off 10:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

And immediately recreated (from a local copy, it looks like) by Chuck 7936 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) with his first edit. My but this article is a sockfest! Chuck complains that he doesn't know why it was deleted, having, as Charlie1858 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), been the one to request it here, admin only. Other obvious socks include Ted46530 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - now defending the article at AfD with 125.22.250.12 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - probably the underlying IP. 21 ice cool (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), Dudeular (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Gramavidiyal (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) are all also possible socks. Whatever can it all mean? ➨ ЯEDVEЯS looks at danger and laughs his head off 14:09, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Dunno, chuck the names in a SSP report and see how that effects the discussion at the AfD? BTW, why is there an AfD? Shouldn't it have been redeleted as a previously deleted article and the parties directed to DRV? If it gets deleted per the AfD I think the application of salt should be considered in the event of any further recreation. LessHeard vanU (talk) 19:51, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Strictly, by process, then yeah, DRV was the way to go. But i was on shaky ground in G7ing it (even the author changed his mind) and DRV would therefore have concentrated on the rougeness and the zOMG ADMINZ ABUSSSE!! rather than the status of the article. Better to let AfD (I didn't nom it) have its say. But I agree with salting if the article is redeleted. ➨ ЯEDVEЯS looks at danger and laughs his head off 20:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Copyright Vio on Wiki

Resolved

 – Image properly attributed. Oh, and yes, SUL is brilliant! RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 13:25, May 29, 2008 (UTC)

On another project site someone has stolen an image I've taken and claimed it for the own. Since I can't under stand the language I need help! The image in question is here and here is my image Image:The Age Headquarters.jpg. Bidgee (talk) 08:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. How cool is it that unified login now keeps me logged in when I visit other projects? --jonny-mt 09:17, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

• Ugh, can someone who understands the language deal with this? I have my doubts that those images are {{PD-self}}. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 22:16, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Egyptzo

This editor appears to have problems with WP:OWN and with using sources. He created an article Siege of Gezer (mainly a direct unattributed copy from Siamun which I have been editing for accuracy and references, and he has deleted those with a personal attack on me in an edit summary and no justification given for the deletions. See [107] (it's a minor point that he restored the Biblical reference to a statement about an archaeological excavation, although indicative, but a major one that he removed anything he disagreed with.). This may stem from the time he was blocked for numerious copyright violations I discovered. Note that he has also restored a paragraph of original research in addition to deleting my reference to Paul S Ash. While writing this he has restored some original research to Siamun. He has come into conflict with a number of editors over lack of references and his interpretation and use of sources.--Doug Weller (talk) 13:27, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

And we now have [108] - I removed the OR again, explaining it was based on one sentence from the Bible, but he's replaced it. He didn't write it, but it is clearly OR based upon an interpretation of one sentence in the Bible, "Pharaoh King of Egypt had come up and captured Gezer; he destroyed it by fire, killed the Canaanites who dwelt in the town, and gave it as dowry to his daughter, Solomon's wife." I am concerned that if I remove the OR from Siamun and Siege of Gezer again I will run into WP:3RR, so I'm forced to leave it there for the moment.--Doug Weller (talk) 13:51, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I have restored what he removed because there are also archaeological and documental evidence for such claims.Egyptzo (talk) 13:59, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Editor Dougweller edits things as he likes and there were even requests that he remove himself as editor of some pages in wikipedia [109]. Most of his edits are either paragraph removal [110][111], abuse reports, or delition requests without any bases[112], removal of supposed copyvio that is not viewed as such by other users[113]. It is pretty much clear who creates most problems.Egyptzo (talk) 13:59, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Please note that I did not remove the copyvio in the link above, I added a tag. Yes, a user claimed I was blocking other editors from editing a page and I had to explain that the page was not blocked and I had no blocking powers. I spend a lot of time researching for and adding references to articles (even to Pin the tail on the donkey) to help save it from deletion. And quite a bit of time on anti-vandalism. I do remove original research when I find it (often but not always suggesting in the edit summary that replacement with sourced data would be welcome, as I have done when removing the OR (the 2nd time) from Siamun but not Siege of Gezer - which I note now has a 'synthesis' tag on it.--Doug Weller (talk) 14:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Just remembered -- I have tried to encourage Egyptzo and praise him, see the bottom of this [114] - the section on Edit summaries. Doug Weller (talk) 15:16, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Re: Pin the Tail on the Donkey - Awesome. Punch it up a little bit, and I'll consider submitting it for FAC. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 15:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Doug Weller's edits are referenced and that is the key point. He provides more information on the purported events of Gezer. I trust Doug with providing reliable references and about discussing other scholar's interpretation of the Biblical reference to the sack of Gezer. The term 'Siege of Gezer' is misleading. The Bible doesn't describe the Egyptians campaign to Gezer as a siege. It just says that the pharaoh attacked and destroyed Gezer which might imply a lightning pre-emptive assault or battle. Leoboudv (talk) 19:55, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Prima Facist

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Someone (possibly Majorly (talk · contribs), who seems to hold a grudge against me) has created an account "Prima Facist" and used it to support RfAs that I have opposed. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but in this case the combination of the choice of username, signature, and contribution history ([115]) makes it clear that this is nothing more than a bad-faith attempt to parody and ridicule me, rather than a good-faith attempt to help Wikipedia. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 14:22, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I've notified Prima Fascist about this thread. Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 14:25, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

And I've notified Majorly, who may be interested as well... Fram (talk) 14:31, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks...I was just getting ready to do so myself (I'm on dialup, and my connection died right after I posted the above) when I saw your posts. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 14:32, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I am not Majorly, but I am an alternate account of a different Wikipedian, having been using ym primary account for ~3 years. I admit that the initial intention of this account was merely to "cancel" Kurts votes in RfA, because I percieve the statements he gives in opposes are personal attacks. This changed after the first edit I made, when I decided that maybe I could do some actual work from this account as well, lest something like this happened (alas, too late it seems). I had that signature for one edit and then decided it would be a bad idea and that it would be too close to a personal attack and would be quite hypocritical and so I changed it to what it is currently.

Once I get a chance to escape the pressures of every day life, studentism and such, I shall be doing a lot more substantial work on articles (which, I'm sure you'll agree, takes a lot more time than simply voting in an RfA or two) and I'm sure you'll see that this account is quite serious about wanting to improve the encyclopedia (even if its inital intentions were not so). Prima Facist 14:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

• I suggest that an admin removes Huggle from the user - a disruptive sock puppet should not be accessing such tools. EJF (talk) 14:42, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

• I don't see any disruption yet. Martinp23 14:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I can't use huggle anyway, not being an autoconfirmed user (yet) Prima Facist 14:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, I should probably point out that I was one of the earliest users of huggle and have made thousands of edits on my other account. Prima Facist 15:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I suggest that if and when the sockpuppet policy is breached, a post is made here and action is taken. Until then, nothing is being done wrong, I feel (though do enlighten me if I'm indeed incorrect). Martinp23 14:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Exactly, Martin. I will not be using this account to double-vote or do anything else in breach of the sockpuppet policy. Prima Facist 14:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Prima Facist/Aha! is, interesting... Carcharoth (talk) 14:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

But there is still nothing that requires administrator action. Nor has there been any violation. seicer | talk | contribs 14:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Interesting it may be, but no-one has yet voiced any opinions on the page... Prima Facist 14:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't know if I missed something, but Prima, are you admitting to having another account? Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 15:03, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Prima Facist 15:06, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Have you ever participated in the same RFA with both of your accounts? · AndonicO ^Engage. 15:27, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

No. And as stated above, I never will. I have been here for 3 years, I'm aware of sockpuppetry and am not partaking in such. Prima Facist 15:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Of course. · AndonicO ^Engage. 15:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, so it does like this the sockpuppet policy is being violated, per WP:Sockpuppet#Avoiding_scrutiny. Or do I misinterpret that? Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 15:26, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Not unles you assume the account is going to be used disruptively. It would be better for the accounts to be linked in some way, but I don't think the policy requires it Fritzpoll (talk) 15:32, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Gwen Gale seems to think so. Prima Facist 15:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

(e/c)Well, creating a new account in order to make certain types of opposes in an RfA could certainly be considered disruptive. This means we can't review a certain users voting history in an RfA, when said user wants to vote for a certain reason... they just log into another account. Also, I just don't see how this account is anything but trying to avoid scrutiny for the other account. Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 15:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure. The user says they aren't going to use the other account for the same things, and there is not reason to disbelieve them. If the two accounts do demonstrate similar editing patterns, however, I'm sure this would be picked up in time - especially since the RfAs this user contributes to are likely to be watched carefully for patterns of support/oppose by other accounts. Fritzpoll (talk) 15:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

But Fritz, I do doubt that Prima Fascist will ever be abusive as sock in regards to double-voting or messing with consensus. I'm not suggesting that is the problem, but rather this account was created in order to avoid scrutiny over certain types of votes in RfAs. It looks quite clear to me in policy linked above that this isn't allowed. Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 15:49, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

My proposal, in the spirit of WP:AGF, would be to ban Prima Facist from participating in any RfAs for at least six months (to avoid the account becoming a point-driven SPA sock), tell him not to use the "Go Clots!" sig anymore (which he/she already agreed to), and move on, with the understanding that there will be zero tolerance for any disruption coming from this account. --Jaysweet (talk) 15:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The "Go Clots" signature went after one use, when I decided it was a bad idea. My other account does not vote in RfAs of users I don't know anyway and I have promised, several times to not sockpuppet by dual voting. If I wanted to do that, I'd be a lot more discrete about it (This is not a self-invocation of WP:BEANS, incidentally). Prima Facist 15:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

But Prima, the actions you are taking in this account are being done because you didn't want to do it in your main account, correct? Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 15:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't creating an account that directly mocks a user who himself creates drama... thereby leading to the creation of additional drama, an act of disruption? Hiberniantears (talk) 15:43, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I think disruption would rather much end the sweeping assumption of good faith needed to get by the poilcy against undisclosed multiple accounts. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

As a general rule, we should encourage people to give their honest opinions without having to hide behind some special purpose account. Honesty helps people work together better (as long as they're mature enough to handle it.) Friday (talk) 15:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, I thought my proposal to simply ban PF from RfAs and let him go was very generous, and the fact that Prima Facist is intent on using this account for RfAs is not encouraging. PF, could you please explain precisely why you want a WP:SPA for RfA participation? --Jaysweet (talk) 15:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't want it purely for RfA participation. I intend on using this account for a substantial amount of article work independent from my other account. Prima Facist 16:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I have basically the same issue. PF has admitted to creating the account for the porpuse of SPA socking. Isn't that, in itself, enough to PermBan the username? I appreciate his candor in revealing his intentions and have no reason to doubt his sincerity but the fact remains that he did create the account to oppose Kurt Weber in RfA's - that's a banning offense, no? Padillah (talk) 16:03, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree, using an SPA to vote in an RfA would tend to skirt most of the need for responsibility, accountability and trust. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:06, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Starting with the username and there on out, the sole purpose of this account appear to be to launch a personal attack against Kmweber. Unless someone can present some compelling reason why socking to engage in personal attacks is acceptable, seems like an automatic indef block. WilyD 16:09, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Blocks aren't punishment; I just wanted it to stop. If he says he'll stop, give him the benefit of the doubt. That said, I think it would be appropriate to know his true identity, so we have a starting point should he try to circumvent this by creating another SPA to do it again. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 16:14, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting punishment. The guy (or lady) already has another account - let them use that. WilyD 16:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I have another account. I also edit anonymously sometimes. I will never double-vote so there should be no problem... Prima Facist 16:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

There is a difference between admitting that an undeclared sockpuppet who does nothing wrong is unlikely to be recognized, and supporting the sockpuppet account once it is recognized. The general intent was wrong, because one is responsible for ones votes at AfD, and it is only fair for someone to know where any opposition comes from. The specific intent was to engage is a possibly dubious voting pattern without having the regular WP identity be compromised by it. I think we should give amnesty to the sockpuppeter in appreciation of the honesty of his confession, but block any admitted undeclared sockpuppet account. PF, would you consider making it easier for us and agree to this? DGG (talk) 16:10, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I am in favor of amnesty if PF stays away from RfAs for a set period of time. Otherwise, it is too hard to police whether the account is still being used for its original nefarious purpose. Another possibility would be if PF provided an excellent reason for using the account for RfA participation, but I don't see that happening. If he wants to participate in RfAs, he can do it using his established account, or he can rack up a few months of solid contributions on this account to prove the account is no longer operating with the sole intention of undermining Kurt Weber. --Jaysweet (talk) 16:18, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I posted a trout on Prima Facists talkpage asking him to retire. I strongly believe the account should be indefblocked as disruptive, pointy, and most importantly, as a really really really stupid idea. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 16:19, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The name is having a go at KurtWeber's use of "prima facie" in his replies on RfAs. It is sort of having a go at that and almost saying KW's a fascist. The account should at least be renamed, IMHO. Sticky Parkin 16:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Oooo, that was not clear, at least not to me.

Yeah, I would say a soft-block and if whoever PF is wants to create a different account, so be it. I see no legitimate reason for him/her to continue using this account. --Jaysweet (talk) 16:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Article work seperate from my main account (which I have stated in several places is my plan for this account). Prima Facist 16:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I think one of these two options are probably the best: either PF is indefblocked, and he/she goes back to his main account, or PF is renamed and agrees not to participate in RFAs. · AndonicO ^Engage. 16:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, to those who say I will sok on RfAs and double vote: There are several users who know the identity of my main account. If they are happy with it, I am prepared to list them here and they can "monitor" my voting if it will make people happier. Prima Facist 16:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

You are missing the point. I don't care if you double-vote. The concern is that you are socking so that you can participate in RfAs without accountability. You have not explained why. If you really want to separate your article work from your main account, that is fine -- the Prima Facist account can remain (albeit perhaps with a different username), it can work on articles separate from your main account, and it is banned from RfAs. What is the problem? --Jaysweet (talk) 16:57, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm more than prepared to be accountable (on this account) for my voting (from this account). I really have little interest in RfAs save for editors I know personally (for which I will vote from my main account). I have an issue with Kurt's personal attack way of opposing people and I will vote solely to counter that. It is a given that he will oppose every self-nom, yes? What, then, is wrong with me supporting every self-nom? Prima Facist 17:14, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

How would you feel if someone created an SPA to only vote to oppose self-noms? Kurt's opposition is at least logical. Yours is pointy. Indeed, your actions are genuine WP:POINT, whereas Kurt's (despite some people thinking them WP:POINTy) are not. In some ways, you are teaching people what the real meaning of WP:POINT is, and that could be good in some ways, especially if it helps you to understand WP:POINT a bit better. Carcharoth (talk) 17:22, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Prima facist has been indef blocked by Gwen Gale. Out of fairness to Prima Facist who can no longer post here, closing the thread.Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 17:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

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

CheckUser?

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

---

This may be a little moot now that Prima Facist (talk · contribs) has been indefinitely blocked, however, there may be a very good faith admin behind this, and it would shocken me for an admin to go and get away with, quite frankly, gross misconduct in sockpuppetry. I strongly believe a CheckUser should take place so that we can find out who it is. If it is an admin, then they maybe should be desynsopped. Does anyone else think a CheckUser should take place so we can find out the culprit? D.M.N. (talk) 19:53, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

• The account is not an admin, is in good standing, and is an otherwise unremarkable, non-controversial and productive editor. Thatcher 19:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
  • OK, the person's not an admin. But surely this (what the good standing editor is done) is disruption, isn't it? The fact that only a small group actually know who the other account is needs to be addressed, I think we all deserve to know just who is behind the "Prima Facist" account. And in my view, the good-faith editor should be blocked for a short time for sockpuppetry and evidently creating disruption. I think the rest of us deserve to know who it is. D.M.N. (talk) 20:19, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Please also reveal his home phone number, employer and SSN, so that we may harass him more. Thanks! LegitAltAccount (talk) 20:33, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
      • So "bad hand" accounts are to be tolerated now? And no-one ever asked for anything but an account name; that's not personal information or private at all according to the long-standing official interpretation of the privacy policy. --Random832 (contribs) 20:36, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Agreed. We've had too much abuse of bad hand accounts in the past. The main account needs to be revealed and sanctioned. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 20:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
        • We won't be able to burn him without his personal identification. LegitAltAccount (talk) 20:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

If there's no reason to believe the user is going to operate other bad hand accounts in the future, and this really is an isolated offense, I think forgive-and-forget should apply. Remember, blocks are preventative, not punitive. PF was blocked because he made it known the account would be used for bad faith RfA contributions. If Thatcher strongly believes that the user in question is not going to use their account for malicious wrongdoings and not going to open another bad hand account, what is the point of blocking them? Heh, after all, unless you are going to hard block their IP (assuming it's even static), the user could just create another good hand account.

It's appropriate that somebody did a CU, and I imagine the user in question is on a sort of Double Secret Probation right now. But unless there is reason to suspect future disruption, what is the purpose of publicly disclosing the account? --Jaysweet (talk) 20:45, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

That aside, who is "LegitAltAccount", which was just created to troll in this thread? Is this the same person? --Random832 (contribs) 21:12, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, geez, I didn't even notice the username. We need a CU here If that is the same person, then it's not an isolated incident and we have a serious problem. --Jaysweet (talk) 21:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Please. Although this IP nettle cracked me up I'm starting to wonder if the soft block is enough. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:20, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Yep, I think we definitely need a CheckUser here now that a third account has popped up. I'm confused at the message on his userpage. D.M.N. (talk) 21:22, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The name of the editor's master account can be quickly found by looking at the IP's contributions – is a CheckUser really necessary? EJF (talk) 21:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think it is. Besides, I can't tell anything about the master account from looking at the last 5 to 6 edits (unless I've misread something). D.M.N. (talk) 21:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

It's obvious Prima Facist, be already know that. The question now is, what is the good hand account? Because, sadly, that needs blocked too (very sad to see a good faith editor go down because they are obsessed with making a WP:POINT, which is why I advocated leniency earlier, but at this point I don't think that's any longer an option) --Jaysweet (talk) 21:49, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem with this guy is that he still thinks he did nothing wrong. After 3 years here, he should not only know better, he should know that he's lucky he didn't get banished for it. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 21:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I've raised it to a hard block. Gwen Gale (talk) 22:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

And I'm drafting up a request for checkuser now. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 22:19, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Checkuser request filed at Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Prima_Facist. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 22:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Is a hard block really necessary? --Conti|✉ 22:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

• Don't bother. LegitAltAccount is not Prima Facist. I can't identify a main account, and he may in fact just be an IP editor who registered that name for trolling purposes. But he is on a different continent than Prima Facist. I am also not vouching for the future behavior of Prima Facist's other account, I was simply verifying that he is not an admin and has a clean record. Thatcher 22:26, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Astral has shown up asking for the hard block on PF to be lowered to soft. Gwen Gale (talk) 22:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I have softened the block. Martinp23 22:57, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Right, I feel I need to say something here. WTF? LegitAltAccount was nothing to do with me. I have no idea who the fuck it was (Although my suspicions say it was Kurt trying to cause trouble). Raising the block to a hard block based on that and my comment on Gwen's talk page was, IMO, completely out of line on Gwen's part. If you read the rest of the conversation aside from the diff Gwen posted, you'll see that she blanked an edit I made and then protected the page. When I asked her simply to revert that edit she did so but also unprotected the page, against my original request (which was a simple locking). Using the admin tools to be heavy handed with someone you've disagreed with is completely out of line. There was a good reason I wasn't forthcoming in revealing I was behind Prima Facist. I knew that the two accounts could be linked quite easily, given a little research, expecially after I posted from my IP. Even after Thatcher gave his staement above, the block stayed in place. Gwen should be desysoped for this level of abuse, she was way out of line. All that said, I'm done with enwiki now. There is so much bullshit and drama here and a lto of the admins need to learn what is and isn't appropriate behaviour for them. For once, I agree with Kurt, ironically enough, when he as said that admins need to remember that they are servants, not masters.

I was quite prepared to carry on and try and do something productive for this project, but I refuse to do so as long as Gwen has admin tools. Goodbye Astral (talk) 23:05, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

'There is so much bullshit and drama here...' Ah, for a rolling-eye smiley... HalfShadow 23:17, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I know, ironic, right? Recently we've had the whole fiasco over NYB, the drama about the_undertow and LaraLove and all sorts of other shit. If I had any faith left in the community, I'd start a RfC about Gwen's conduct, but I don't think it would get me anywhere. My thanks are extended to MArtinp23, Thatcher and Conti, who appear to have been the only voices of reason here. Until next time, Astral (talk) 23:22, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Weren't you leaving? Or was that drama, too? HalfShadow 23:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Kettle, meet the pot. One user alone is not a master either. Plus, for the record, the checkuser results have come back. Although you aren't LegitAltAccount, the results speak for themselves. Would you care to explain? Nwwaew (Talk Page)

(Contribs) (E-mail me) 23:28, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

(ec)I freely admit to being Prima Facist. It's not hard to work out why I did it. Astral (talk) 23:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Was that a dig there? Leaving is not an immediate thing. I have stuff to sort out over the next few days, editors to thank, pages to be tidied up, etc. When I leave, I will do what I did with Prima Facist; remove the email address and type gibberish for the password so I can't login or retrieve the password again. Astral (talk) 23:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The disheartening parts are that (1) a user on here for 3 years thinks sockpuppetry of this nature is no big deal; and (2) there's an admin who also thinks it's no big deal. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 23:32, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I never said it was no big deal. I intended to use the account as a true alternate, but never got the chance... Astral (talk) 23:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Your own words indicate that you intended to use it to counter the votes of another user while keeping your normal ID distanced from that. As a 3-year veteran, you should know that's a bad thing to be doing. FYI, I don't much care for admin self-nominations either. But when I happen to get involved in those discussions, I don't hide behind a different user ID. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 23:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh my! Have you actually read anything I've said? I said it was intended as an alternate account and that I would also use it to vote on some RfAs, due to believing that what Kurt does is a personal attack and also unfair but having a policy of not voting on RfAs of editors I don't know using this account. Astral (talk) 23:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

You're right, I had it switched around. Either way, what you did is wrong. Why the need for a second account? Why hide? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 23:47, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

(ec)As I stated, it was going to be a legitimate alternate account because sometimes I like to escape the pressures of an account where a lot of people know me. I also decided to use it to "fight" an issue I feel strongly about. It was a bad choice of username, really (although I thought it vaguely amusing at the time). Had I done it under any other username, no-one would've noticed... Astral (talk) 23:51, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

What "pressures"? Editing here is voluntary. Any pressure is self-imposed. And if you feel strongly about an issue, such as an RFA, you should be a stand-up guy and say what you think - under ONE account. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 00:05, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Unlikely. We'd be suspicious of your behavior. And if you believe what Kurt does is a personal attack, why not start an RFC against him? Why not use the legit channels already set up? Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 23:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

How would you know? If I had a good history of solid edits, I could easily "negate" Kurt's RfA votes without giving a reason for my vote and no-one woul ever know. (Please remember, I'm talking about *had* I done this, not "if I do this now"). As for RfC, it's been done. People have complained about Kurt often enough and nothing has been done. Astral (talk) 23:57, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it's because she knows that Kurt has a right to make the contributions he does as has been validated numerous times on ANI/RFC/Arbcom. Creating disruptive accounts, has never been tolerated. I have ZERO problem with the block and would have no problem with sanctions against Astral as well?Balloonman (talk) 00:03, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

That's not what I said. I was asking how you'd find the account. I know for a fact there are at least two other editors who only vote in RfAs to cancel Kurt's votes. I defy you to tell me who they are. Astral (talk) 00:13, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Assuming it's true that he's already being outvoted 2-1 by others countering his votes, you didn't even need to be voting in those RFA's. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 00:20, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

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

Things seem to have got somewhat out of hand here. People need a break over it. I'm archiving the above section and expect it to remain as such for the next 9 hours at least, to give everyone a change to have a nice cup of tea and a sit down. Anyone who ignores my doing this will be "in trouble" (don't ask me how! just AGF for now). Why am I doing this? Because I'd rather see people listening to eachother than posting blind comments - and I don't want to see this project lose another good contributor. If I have to, I'll delete the section from this page until a fair time period has passed. Thanks, Martinp23 00:24, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. --Conti|✉ 00:25, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Seconded. Thanks Martin. Remind me to buy you a pint if we ever meet IRL. Astral (talk) 00:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, thank you, Martinp23. Personally, I think ANI has been having a bad week all round. A previously unsuspected effect of global warming, perhaps? Deor (talk) 01:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Are you saying global warming is responsible for people ignoring the sock puppetry rule? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 02:07, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

No, I'm simply saying that there are several threads currently on this board in which a number of normally rational admins seem to have lost all sense of perspective. And that's all I have to say. Deor (talk) 02:40, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The rules are important and must be supported by all admins. As an ordinary editor and an observer here for awhile, I expect users to make excuses for their behavior. And I expect admins to do their jobs. Mostly, they do. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 02:55, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me like the user in question admits to violating the Wikipedia:Sock puppetry rules. And it seems to me like violating those rules should be considered important by every admin in this discussion. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 01:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Admins are volunteers, just like everyone else - it isn't a job. Neıl 龱 09:31, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

For sure. But they do have a responsibility that goes along with that volunteering. And I don't think it's fair to characterize my calm and reasoned questions as "drama". Here's an example of "drama" (with apologies to the user whose page I borrowed it from): [116] Now, compare that with the comments in the above section. For real drama, you need lots of capital letters and exclamation points. There's hardly any of that here. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 14:29, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Wait a minute...Martinp23 not only refuses to condemn, actively condones and defends a clearly unacceptable act, and then when someone calls him out on it he takes that person to task and threatens anyone else who might point it out? Something's seriously not right here. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 15:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Martin's comments on my talk page indicate he was just playing with our heads a bit. I recommnend we just leave this be for now, as the sockpuppeteer has indicated he is done with wikipedia in any case. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 15:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

? Martinp23 17:02, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

That's terrible logic Baseball Bugs. You don't "leave it be" when someone robs another, just because they say they won't do it again. Some sort of action needs to take place for this atrocity. Monobi (talk) 19:56, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

"Atrocity"???? Dude. It's a WEB SITE. Somebody made up a character to tweak somebody on a WEB SITE. Against policy? Yup. Dumb? Probably, yeah. An ATROCITY? Sure. Whatever. Overdramatize much? (/disgusted rant)Gladys J Cortez 21:24, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Personal info posted on a RFCU page

Resolved

 – Apparently. At least, I looked at the history, and I see no evidence of any real-life email addresses. J.delanoy^gabsanalyse 16:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Some IP thought it funny to post my real-life e-mail address on a RFCU page [117] (page linked, but not specific diff - for obvious reasons). Would it be possible for an admin to remove this info from the history of the page? Thanks!--Ramdrake (talk) 14:25, 29 May 2008 (UTC) Actually, the same IP seems to have published addys for at least 3 editors [118]. Can someone look into this?--Ramdrake (talk) 14:28, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I took care of the RFCU page but you'd better ask for oversight to deal with the user talk pages as they have a lot of edits. Thatcher 14:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Where do I ask?--Ramdrake (talk) 14:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Look at WP:OVERSIGHT Fritzpoll (talk) 15:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

You can email me in confidence, if you wish - Alison ^❤ 18:51, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Featured Image Requires Reference

Hello, the featured image of Wikipedia Today (29 May 2008) requires better sources. Since the image is protect from editing, this requires the attention of an administration. Please visit Image talk:Respiratory system complete en.svg for more information. Thank you. --CyclePat (talk) 18:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

OOC OCD (talk · contribs)

Resolved

Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Girl Get it has confirmed that the above user is a sockpuppet of banned user Brexx (talk · contribs). Could someone issue him the appropriate block, please? There are also a couple of IP's in the RFCU case but they are shared by other non-disruptive users.

Thanks! SWik78 (talk • contribs) 19:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Done. -MBK₀₀₄ 19:21, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

User Hudavendigar's vandalism and edit warring on Armenian Genocide-related articles

Hudavendigar (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Despite multiple warnings, user Hudavendigar's continues to not only aggressively remove any and all mention of the Armenian Genocide in articles but goes on to remove neutral sources and distorts the historical reality of the genocide by claiming that it is a myth - a grossly inaccurate assertion since most historians recognize the genocide as so: Letter on the genocide by IAGS. Along with a "my way or the way" attitude, any attempts at discussion and compromise are brushed off with disdain and hysterical accusations of a genocide conspiracy to besmirch Turks. Please see the following articles for this user's record of vandalism Sason, Sason Edit 2, Sason Edit 3, Van, Turkey, Bitlis, Van Resistance, etc., see also this user's editing history here. He fails to cease his edit warring and vandalism and after tens of warnings by several users, I hope a topic ban may be in order here. Thank you.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 20:09, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure his edits are vandalism? The official policy on vandalism defines it as something done in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia which I don't think qualifies in this case. Plus, this user has only been around for 8 days, I don't see tens of warnings left on his userpage, only a welcome note and the warning you left 3 days ago. Maybe you should try honestly talking to this editor about what you see as potential problems. You'd be surprised how much you could accomplish by doing that instad of just reporting him here. SWik78 (talk • contribs) 20:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Heh, consider his edits tantamount to inserting the notion that Jews took up arms against Nazi Germany in the 1940s, which thus resulted in their tragic fate to "relocation camps." His talk page notwithstanding, warnings and invitations for discussion were indeed stated on the talk pages and on the edit summaries of the articles, not just his talk page. I think it's indicative that a user who just ignores your comments and proclaims himself as the sole guarantor of truth and honesty on Wikipedia and labels everything else as propaganda is not doing so because he's interested in the truth. Do you get that impression when you read his edit summary, saying that he is removing "propagandistic Armenian pov" and is combative with anything that goes against his beliefs? Please see his comments on user The Myotis's talk page to see what sort of editor you're dealing with. Some users who are informed on the Armenian Genocide and Turkey's position on it will be useful also.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 21:20, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think Hudavendigar is the type of editor that can be engaged with constructively. He has been inserting out-and-out lies into articles, using as sources obscure extreme-nationalist Turkish propaganda. Hudavendigar might well believe those sources to be truthful, but they are at total odds with every credible source. However, the rest of what SWik78 said above is true, he has only been editing for a week ar so and has been restricting his editing to a small amount of related articles of minor importance. I think he will quickly tire of his unsuccessful edits and either leave or extend his POV editing and warring to so many other articles that he will get restrictions or get banned for that. So best leave things as they are for now - don't hang someone for stealing just a chicken. Meowy 14:29, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Template Warnings

How do I stop this user persistently adding a 3RR template to my talk page. This is getting extremely annoying now. Nouse4aname (talk) 20:55, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I've left the user a message here. xenocidic (talk) 21:02, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

And I've blocked them both for edit warring. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 21:09, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

You blocked the guy for edit warring on his own talk page? Toddst1 (talk) 21:17, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the original edit warring was on an article, and then it spilled onto the userpage. xenocidic (talk) 21:18, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah. Toddst1 (talk) 21:21, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Demos from the Basement to be exact. xenocidic (talk) 21:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Somehow this spilled onto my user page a bit, too. Looking at the recent contributions of Nouse4aname (talk · contribs) & USEDfan (talk · contribs) reveals that the two revert each other fairly regularly over a number of articles. Check out the histories of Shallow Believer, Demos from the Basement & Paralyzed (song). These guys need to go to WP:DR...edit warring blocks look perfectly appropriate. — Scientizzle 21:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Good call on the block for USEDfan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). I would have blocked longer, given this stance on edit warring and his numerous 3RR vios. -- which I have all but extended my last bit of good faith towards.

• [119] (have fun reading this one)
• Edit warring @ The Used over genres of all things. I put an end to this by protecting the page (twice...) and eventually went for consensus on this. Despite consensus and a lack of reliable sources for his edits, he replies with [120] [121] [122] [123]
• USEDfan cannot count his number of violations in his previous 5RR, which I overlooked in a stretch of good faith @ The Used -- I locked the page and allowed them to discuss it on the talk page. [124] [125] [126] [127]
• And quite frankly, I can't comprehend half of the comments that are made, such as this. I would endorse a lengthier block, perhaps one week, based on the edit warring of the past and the lack of communication (that is understandable). seicer | talk | contribs 04:03, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Da Costa's, just under the 3rr threshold

We have a content dispute at Da Costa's syndrome. Today, I have been called a liar by Guido den Broeder (talk · contribs). He has "warned" me that I'm "attacking him" even though I have said absolutely nothing about him and instead commented solely on his content. Editors who disagree with him get strongly worded warnings on their talk pages about "errors" and "original research".

Guido has been blocked in the past for edit warring, so he is being very careful to only make his changes three times in 24 hours, such as:

• His original, undiscussed changes to a Manual of Style page and the first and second reversions, complete with a claim that "you are reverting the wrong editor; please mind WP:3RR".

• Today, we have his first removal of information at Da Costa's syndrome followed by another and the most recent reversions. That's three, so his response is now to dump a bunch of warning and cleanup tags on the top of the article.

• Earlier in the week, we had his removal of information followed by another and a third.

Note, please, that all of this has been discussed, at length, on the relevant talk pages; Guido is the only person with significant objections. IMO it is not possible for us to reach agreement: he has a strongly held POV and is fighting anything that contradicts his personal position tooth and nail. I even had to start an RFC on whether a very widely used medical dictionary(!) was a reliable source! It seems unfair for all other editors to be tied up in these endless and wholly unproductive discussions simply because he's only making changes three times instead of four.

Does this situation justify a block, or are we just stuck with this tendentious editor? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:00, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Note an open user-conduct RfC which is languishing without much input, involving similar concerns. MastCell ^Talk 21:33, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Guido den Broeder is under a probation order on the Dutch Wikipedia. This user has been a disruptive influence on articles such as chronic fatigue syndrome, Simon Wessely (see the talk page) and now on the Da Costa syndrome page. JFW | T@lk 21:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The above information by User:Jfdwolff is false. It is a repeat of similar false statements by other Dutch users on en:Wikipedia which have already been addressed. Nor have I caused any disruption on mentioned en:Wikipedia articles. It is rather User:Jfdwolff himself who has, and now seems to seek an opportunity to bandwagon. Guido den Broeder (talk) 22:09, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The information provided by User:WhatamIdoing is also false. User keeps adding original research to the article Da Costa's syndrome, making statements for which there is no consensus, while piling insult on insult. Everyone who opposes him gets accused in one way or another. I have worked hard to turn this article into a neutral text, based on reliable sources rather than random websites and personal views. Please let this not go to waste. Guido den Broeder (talk) 22:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Note, by the way, that I only found out about this incident report because I saw User:Jfdwolff rallying troops on nl:Wikipedia. Nobody bothered to inform me. Guido den Broeder (talk) 22:22, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done Block for progressive period of 1 week - Gross incivility by GDB as per links given (edit summaries and talk page warnings to several users). 3RR is not permission to revert upto 3 times a day. Given past edit warring history & block, and past issues of failing to engage constructively with other editors or accept need to work within consensus (see RfC link), I think this warrants block from English Wikipedia whilst he rereads policies on civility himself and also WP:3RR - especially given that past repeatedly directing him to WP policy/guideline pages pages had no effect and would continue editing in complete distain for views of multiple other editors. David Ruben ^Talk 23:49, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

For clarification: GDB has not edited on the Dutch Wikipedia for a long time and seems to have withdrawn on the condition that previous sanctions against him there were declared null and void. I have asked his mentor from NL to comment here or on the RFC. JFW | T@lk 05:36, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

My opinion based on interactions with GDB on different pages and during his RFC:

1. He seems incapable of admitting that other editors' opinions may have any merit, in theory or in practice
2. His interpretations of policies are idiosyncratic, and diverge greatly from mine at least, though other editors have also mentioned they are, ahem, unusual. For example, see this discussion regards notability, and a discussion in the RFC that I can only call 'delicious' in its ability to capture everything that I think is wrong with GDB's approach to wikipedia.
3. His view of consensus is troubling - if it does not agree with his idea of what is correct, then it is a serious problem. Broad consensus is not a problem, it is something to be cherished. If an editor finds that a policy with truly broad consensus is problematic, they should perhaps seek out a different on-line venue.

Regards Dutch wikipedia - the project may have different policies and definitely has a different language. I would be cautious (actually, my personal stance is to outright reject) of any consideration of circumstances on other wikis. Everyone deserves a fresh start, and if they choose to use that fresh start as an opportunity to repeat their mistakes, that's fine with me. I see GDB as heading for a permablock that is inevitable if he does not re-evaluate how he contributes to wikipedia. The only question in my mind is if it will come from an AN/I posting or an arbitration hearing. WLU (talk) 20:22, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I was involved in commenting on the RfC, and I had considered the matters there to be at least partially resolved and in the past. I'm concerned that people are bringing those past issues up again as part of the justification for this block, and are risking opening up old debates. I haven't looked too closely, but there are always two sides to a dispute and I hope someone has looked at the conduct of the other editors involved in editing that page. Guido can be combative, but people should also remember to look past that and consider the substance of what he is saying, and if he has a point, at least support that on the talk page of the article even if you block him for his behaviour in making that point. Carcharoth (talk) 21:31, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

School Threat

Resolved

 – They're "going down" on a field trip. Oh boy. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 22:18, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

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

---

Diff. I think we all know what to do. CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 21:31, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

wrong diff. Sorry. CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 21:36, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Update: bstone is making the call. CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 21:37, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Blocked the IP for 24 hours.¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 21:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't fight me on this Monobi.... CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 21:43, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not fighting you, I was right. It wasn't a threat at all and just wasted a few Kb of space on the servers. Monobi (talk) 01:55, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing I'm just slow, but I'm not seeing the "threat"... --Onorem♠Dil 21:47, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

There is none. They're going on a field trip. Bstone Confirms. :( Sorry, CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 21:57, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Good lord. Have our amateur police gotten this far off track? Friday (talk) 21:59, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Hahaha. My first thought was... Going where? to the lighthouse? It didn't say 'going to blow up'. Sheesh. Find the real threats and act on them. Somerville cops must be laughing up their sleeves at us now. ThuranX (talk) 22:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

It seems most of inserted "GOING DOWN" in our minds, my apologies as well >.<...better unblock the IP.¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 22:03, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

It's probably good to warn the light house folks. I wouldn't put it past these kids to bring markers and write on the walls, the scamps. Friday (talk) 22:04, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

It's been known to happen. --Onorem♠Dil 22:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I talked to the superintendent of the district. We confirmed this is a location they are going on a school field trip. Once we figured out this was not an actual threat and just vandalism we had a good laugh. I have called schools to inform them of vandalism before, which this basically is. Bstone (talk) 22:05, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm really slow, but how the hell is that a threat? weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 22:14, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

LOL, sorry. What an anticlimax. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 22:17, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not. I was just calling a school to let them know one of their students vandalized an article. Nothing much to see here. Move along. Bstone (talk) 22:20, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we need to call schools to let them know one of their students vandalised an article unless there is a sustained long term pattern and even then I think an email from an admin to the school's IT would be a better response. We're going to drive schools crazy and become a laughing stock if people are going to start responding to stupid vandal edits like this. Sarah 02:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

What Sarah said. --Badger Drink (talk) 08:30, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

It was a friggin mistake on my part. Move on Please. CWii 2_{(Talk|Contribs)} 11:56, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

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

Dayewalker...harassment of my talk page and reverting good faith edits of others user

Resolved

 – Blocked the Slim Shadys that are just imitatingKralizec! (talk) 22:31, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

• Dayewalker (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) -- Reverting many good faith edits of various editors today and still happening right now. [128]. Likely a sock of Hdayejr. Need I say more?Ampm2008 (talk)

Looks like Ampm2008 (talk · contribs) is yet another in the long line of Hdayejr (talk · contribs) socks. See also: Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/User:Hdayejr. --Kralizec! (talk) 22:12, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your attention, Kralizec!. For the record, a checkuser has already proven I am not User:Hdayejr, rather I'm just one of his favorite targets. User:Ampm2008 is the one who seems to be a sock of Hdayejr. His edits are to game show articles and Dayton-area TV stations, and he's protective to the point of ownership of edits done by IP socks of Hdayejr. Thanks again. Dayewalker (talk) 22:14, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Pat Lee

I need some extra eyes at Pat Lee. To me there appear to be multiple BLP issues and I would appreciate extra eyes and extra hands as I'm getting reverted left and right. [129] The version I'm trying to edit towards is on the left, I keep getting reverted to the one on the right which utilises gossip columnists and fansites as sources. Hiding T 22:45, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Question: Does it? Oversight and administrator revision removal

Hi. See. Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 22:45, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The mirror would have to have a copy of the page between the time the offending text was posted and the time it was oversighted. Most mirrors do not keep the entire page history (or even the changelog in violation of the GFDL) so as long as the text gets removed it should be fine once oversight deletes the record. In any case, if some libelous comment is on a mirror, it is the mirror that will be sued not Wikimedia. --Selket ^Talk 23:09, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't be so sure. I don't think Wikimedia can be sued, but the mirror apparently could not be sued under US law, either. The original poster (if it wasn't a repost from somewhere else) is the one who can be sued. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

By my understanding, this is actually a legal gray area that I don't think anyone is eager to test. There is some precedent that if you knowingly host a libelous statement, even if it was posted by someone else, that could create legal issues (at the very least, someone could definitely sue you and cost lots of money, even if the case was ultimately dismissed).

I think that, in the hypothetical example of a mirror preserving a libelous statement after it had been oversighted out of Wikipedia, the fact that Wikipedia removed the statement as soon as it was discovered would go a long way to averting legal responsibility. But again, nobody can say for sure, as this has not been extensively tested in the courts. Depends on which attorney you ask, heh... --Jaysweet (talk) 18:02, 30 May 2008 (UTC) Full disclosure: I am not an admin, but I feel I can help out here anyway.

Tendentious editor on Webby Awards

A tendentious editor, Dario D. (talk · contribs · logs), has added the same material thirteen times now, accusing the Webby Awards of being a Who's Who scam, mostly by engaging in a slow speed edit / revert war but also with two bogus arbitration cases and some incivilities. Full details at Talk:Webby_Awards#Tendentious editor adding defamatory material.

I bring it here because the editor has resisted attempts to explain Wikipedia policy, vowing at the end of the second bogus arbitration case he brought on the article to spend as much time as it takes to prevail in his edits because he wants to warn the world about the organization. If anyone could, please take a look at this. Perhaps page protection (libel is probably an exception to the "wrong version" thing) or give the editor a talking-to...though he has been testy with people trying to give him advice (he seems to think I'm a Webbies employee and accused a helpful third party of being my sock, etc). Thanks, Wikidemo (talk) 23:12, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

A note on my role here - I edit lots of articles and there's nothing wrong with a legitimate, well sourced criticism section. But I'm often on the lookout for coat-racking and other problem edits. My objection is that this particular criticism in this particular form is baseless poorly sourced and unsourced material intended to harm a business. I would normally remove myself and go through dispute resolution channels first rather than getting involved in an edit war. However, he is using Wikipedia as a platform for defamation. If you read my write-up he declared that his purpose is to drive business away by calling the Webbies a scam, which is textbook libel. Indeed, people comment on the blog he used as a source that they will not enter the contest because they believed the accusation it is a scam.[130] - Wikidemo (talk) 23:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The editor has just reverted again so that's revert #13 and 14 from this one[131][132]. So I will bow out for the moment rather than edit warring. Please help if you can though. Thanks, Wikidemo (talk) 23:21, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I have issued the user a final warning. If they persist in edit warring, they may be blocked. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:28, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I was going to block this guy but I'm going to hold off out of respect for Jayron and his final warning. This guy has been edit warring over this piece of text since January and has had numerous warnings and explanations of policy and so on but continues edit warring regardless. He also uses IPs to continue his edit warring, such as 68.111.164.208. Between the warnings on his account's talk page (some have been removed) and the warnings on his IP's talk page, he's had at least a dozen warnings. If he comes back and starts reverting again, I intend to block him. Sarah 03:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, if that's the case, he'll ignore my warning. But since I didn't see how far back this went, and warned him anyways, lets see what happens. You never know, I can be convincing. Maybe he'll listen to me. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:17, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Point of clarification in the interest of transparency - I believe all the warnings until now regarding this article come from me, although he was warned by someone else about an edit to another article. Multiple people have tried to explain this to him, though, mostly telling him that he's going about it the wrong way but also a few telling him what's wrong with the content he's been trying to add.Wikidemo (talk) 05:23, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

No problems, understood. I just remember this case from when he tried to start an Arbitration back in January to force the material in and a variety of people went and tried to give him advice and assistance. I also think Newyorkbrad tried to help him on the Arb page and explained policy and DR to him. I actually put the article on my watchlist back then to try to help if the wdit warring started up again but I obviously didn't do a very good job of watching out for more trouble. :) And I just noticed that he tried another RfArb just a week ago. *sigh* Sarah 06:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

@Jayron, oh, I know you can be convincing, that's why I re-sis-ted hitting the block button. :) Sarah 06:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I posted at WP:RFPP and it's been fully protected. I'd put a third opinion on this a while back, and I thought it looked fine. It has three sources; two I'm skeptical about. (One is a blog for sure; I'm not sure about the second, but it looks like a blog.) The third source is the Chicago Tribune, and that seemed acceptable. It's an opinion piece, but the article was worded to reflect that. There was another source that was removed earlier in the edit war, this, which also seemed valid. I don't think it's fair to call this a problem user issue, even if the user doesn't understand what does and doesn't go to arbcom. I'm going to give them some pointers on DR. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 19:16, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I explain this in great detail on the article's talk page, and with all due respect, that interpretation is just flat incorrect. As I said on the talk page, please don't encourage this user. The edits are utterly improper per policy, they contradict the sources, they're defamatory, and the last thing we need is to give him more ammunition to carry out his tendentiousness. Wikidemo (talk) 19:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The only tendentiousness I see is the edit warring, which you were both doing. You two need to work toward a compromise, rather than call each other wrong. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 19:37, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Now that the article is fully-protected, this is a content dispute, not an incident requiring admin attention. The discussion should be continued on the Talk page, and if you cannot reach a consensus, file an RfC. (I am about to comment on the talk page myself) --Jaysweet (talk) 19:41, 30 May 2008 (UTC) Full disclosure: I am not an admin, but I feel I can help out here anyway.

Agreed, no additional administrative action needed at this time. Thanks all, Wikidemo (talk) 20:32, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Harvey Korman

Resolved

 – protected by User:Masem

Man just died. People are posting cause of death as heart attack during sex and "complications from stupid head disease". Please lock this biography. Edits are being made in very poor taste.

Probable socking by PetraSchelm

I’d like some extra eyes on something I’ve been looking into. PetraSchelm (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) joined us last month, and has gone straight into turning Wikipedia into a battleground in the pedophile article arena. A look through his contributions clearly show he wasn’t a new user [133]. He nominated an article for afd within an hour of joining, and then proceeded to comment at a fair few pedophilia articles with a stance against these articles being allowed. He nominated a couple for deletion in this spree. All this, on his first day here. So who is he a sock of? Well, Pol64 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was blocked in January and the similarity is unbelievably similar – they both turned this editorial area into a battleground, and have exactly the same stance on all these types of articles. I’ve run a check to compare their edits which can be seen here. So, what does this show? Well, out of Pol64s 133 edits, 64 were on the same pages as Petra. Again, all with the same POV, and battleground mentality. Their average edit time is also interesting; Petra being 13:47, with Pol at 13:17 – this is one of the closest average edit times ever seen with this tool. I don’t think CU will help here – it’s probably stale given Pol64 was blocked indef in later January. I’d appreciate some opinions on this prior to blocking. Ryan Postlethwaite 00:02, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

• While both are women they appear to be from different countries. Pol was unquestionably British (she admitted it, admitted a UK based ip anon edits were hers, spelt using British English) whereas Petra appears to be American. Thanks, SqueakBox 00:13, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
• Yes, I am in New York, and have already accidentally exposed my IP once while logged out. (Also, a quick glance over Pol's contribs makes the comparison seem very odd--I do a lot of research/add a lot of refs/am a grad student; Pol's edits are not at all... academic.) -PetraSchelm (talk) 00:56, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
  • IP: [134] Jack fixed it for me after I asked him to, as well as burying it in a series of edits to reduce the chance that someone would notice (Thanks, Ryan! :-): [135]. It's also very recognizably me in the context of the discussion on the talkpage, about the Williams/Widom research and a 1996 meta-analysis. -PetraSchelm (talk) 01:09, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Here's Pol's IP from January 28: [136] -PetraSchelm (talk) 01:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

-edit conflict- Hi to ryan etc- just to say that when I first made an account on wiki I joined precisely because I thought an article should be deleted, and I went through the laborious process of formatting an AfD. If someone feels passionately enough to do it properly, even a newbie can do it (eventually.) And it wasn't a sign I'd been on wiki before or anything like that. As to getting angry on paedo articles, a lot of people do.:) Has this editor been spoken to on her talk page and this issues discussed with her personally prior to making a thread on ANI?Sticky Parkin 01:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm obviously not going to discuss it with her - she's obviously going to deny it, and I'm still convinced that these two users are the same people. There's more to this than just getting on pedophilia related articles. Ryan Postlethwaite 01:18, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

• Strong oppose to block. No evidence of socking. The evidence is so flimsy that it's not even evidence. A quick scan of the two editors' contribs shows completely different approaches. Pol used very few edit summaries; Petra uses consistent and detailed edit summaries. Pol edited a variety of topics that Petra does not edit. Pol did not add references; Petra has extensively upgraded the articles with scientific sources, and discussed those in detail on talk pages. Pol had less than 150 hundred edits over 4 months; in two months Petra has made almost 1800 edits - that's 12 times the edits in half the number of days making PetraSchelm's editing frequency 24 times that of Pol.
• Also, I strongly disagree that PetraSchelm has made a battleground here and I object to that characterization. If not for the extensive disruption by now-blocked user Jovin Lambton, and a significant number of pro-pedophile sockpuppets and IP/proxy editors, there would have been no battle. The pedophilia-related articles are much more accurate than before she began editing. For years those articles have been under continual attack by pedophile advocates; that is well known to the readers of this noticeboard -- not just Pedophilia but many related and important topics such as Child sexual abuse and others, where pedophile-advocates repeatedly insert fringe theories that seriously undermine the accuracy of the information. If not for the very positive and admirable work by PetraSchelm, that recent progress would not have been made. Far from deserving a complaint, she deserves the hearty thanks of the Wikipedia community.--Jack-A-Roe (talk) 01:29, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

We can see both of their IPs. One is from the UK, the other from the States. I think this accusation should be withdrawn to be honest. Sticky Parkin 02:43, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose block I believe there is insufficient evidence of socking as per the above comments and the toolserver url. Pol64 made 9 edits on Anti-pedophile_activism while Petra only made one. Pol64 made one edit on Child_pornography while Petra made 92. Though there is some overlap on a few pages, it only shows a common interest on these few and as per Jack-A-Roe above, the evidence of socking is not very strong. ResearchEditor (talk) 02:42, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

• This is a tough one. On the one hand, having borne witness to Pol64's previous vitriol, I find PetraSchelm to be much less of a divisive, agenda-driven polarizing figure. Were I to judge independently, I'd come to the conclusion that Petra is not a sockpuppet of Pol. However, Ryan is an admin I mostly trust. Added to that, based on my experience of him, Ryan's proclivity is to defend anti-pedophile activists/warriors over others; If anything, his bias should be in favor of Petra. Therefore, if Ryan is concerned enough to raise it here, I can't easily dismiss that. Not all socks are detectable by checking IPs and meatpuppetry is similarly immune to technical analysis. So, give Petra the benefit of the doubt, but don't dismiss Ryan's concerns lightly. He wouldn't accuse an editor like Petra lightly. --SSBohio 11:20, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose block.I have witnessed the aforementioned IP evidence that Pol64 and PetraSchelm are from two completely different parts of the world, and I have no reason at all to think they are the same person. Granted, while Petra can be a bit forceful for my liking, she has shown herself to be very knowledgeable about the subject matter. She provided numerous scholarly references AND demonstrated that she's actually read them critically. She's shown admirable courage in confronting biased fringe material that has the potential to be quite harmful (and has earned wikipedia a bad reputation). I'm confident she can learn to compromise and converse less forcibly with time and some guidance.Legitimus (talk) 12:13, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

comment in response to SSB- we can all sometimes get things wrong, even a respected admin, and have suspicions we feel honour-bound to disclose despite the side of the argument we personally take. It's not a fault in someone particularly to be occassionally incorrect- we all are except maybe the pope when he's speaking ex cathedra. :) But being an admin doesn't confer continuous infallibility. The word of someone's belief shouldn't be enough, or even their interpretation of edit patterns. Checkuser could be done but as Ryan himself says it probably wouldn't identify Petra with Pol due to Pol's block being a while ago. That what we know of their IPs shows they are from different countries (but not the random ones such as Germany, Australia etc TOR sometimes shows) counts against it. So oppose block because it cannot be proven beyond reasonal doubt, quite the opposite, and anyway Petra's edits often seem sourced or reasoned so she's not a hindrance to the project. A lot of people mainly focus on paedo arguments- that's not evidence of socking in itself. It's an emotive subject where what people see as mistakes, can lead them to begin to contribute, I imagine. Sticky Parkin 13:00, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

OPPOSE. Unrelated IPs, different styles, different interests. In fact, Pol64 should be checked against Ztep and Blowhardforever, as all are on BT IPs, and all have very similar styles. Pol64 and socks is far likelier to be SqueakBox, [refactored] (remote admin, anyone?). Just look at the editing times of Pol64 and compare them to that editor. They seem to coincide perfectly. Just as Pol64/SqueakBox finishes, the other starts, often helping them out in some way. Same goes for Ztep. How come this remains uninvestigated if Ztep's account creation was during Squeak's ban, his editing was on similar articles, and after months of inactivity, he suddenly appeared on another SqueakBox dominated article and reverted on his behalf? The editing traits of all three socks and SqueakBox are uncanny.

This is in no way an apology for the innocent PetraSchelm. struck-through comment from now-blocked proxy ip of blocked user 208.88.52.21 --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 17:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

• Good Lord, no. Oppose block. PetraSchelm turns Wikipedia into a battleground only in the sense that people who revert (say) 9/11 conspiracy theories or holocaust denial do. PetraSchelm does not seem to me to be anyone's sock, but beyond that PetraSchelm is an important an necessary editor for fighting against the Wikipedia being hijacked by pro-pedophile activists for their nefarious ends. Herostratus (talk) 17:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose block and suggest snowballing this thread to keep sock IPs from clouding the issue further. If you'll excuse a moment of soapboxing here, one thing that has troubled me on Wikipedia is that a lot of the anti-pedophile activists we encounter are total jerks who feel that Wikipedia policies are nothing more than an inconvenient stumbling block for their holy war (see also User:XavierVE). I can understand how many of them feel this way, given the nature of their cause, but that doesn't at all lessen the disruption to the project that it creates. PetraSchelm stands in stark contrast to this generalization. I see no evidence of policy violation, no evidence of incivility or edit warring... her edits and comments are well thought out and appropriate. We need editors like this to fight the good fight against crafty pedophile apologists, without turning the whole thing into a messy holy war the way certain other anti-pedophile activists on Wikipedia have done. PetraSchelm deserves to be commended, not blocked. --Jaysweet (talk) 17:23, 30 May 2008 (UTC) Full disclosure: I am not an admin, but I feel I can help out here anyway.

Question for PetraSchelm

You say that Jack-A-Roe replaced your IP signature with your real signature.

1. How did he know that the IP was yours? 2. How did he do it so quickly. 3. If you told him to do it, why couldn't you have done it? 4. If Jack-A-Roe has no e-mail and no message from you on his talk page, how did you inform him? 5. Are you editing from the same location, or on behalf of the same special interest group? 208.88.52.21 (talk) 13:31, 30 May 2008 (UTC) struck-through comment from now-blocked proxy ip of blocked user 208.88.52.21 --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 17:34, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

If I may, this is explainable simply by being in the right place at the right time. The IP post was part of a continuous thread that was in full swing, and easily followed a pattern and content that would indicate the IP poster was Petra (which it turns out was true and there was never any denial). Jack-A-Roe was also part of that discussion, or at least was looking at it at the time, and likely just stepped in to cover it out of respect for another user's privacy. It's not unreasonable for a set of users to become familiar with one another over time, particularly in subject-matter niches.Legitimus (talk) 14:00, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Your honor, let the record show the IP above is from a open proxy.Legitimus (talk) 14:18, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I sent several "oh no!" emails asking for help when I realized I posted logged out, including one to Alison, asking her to oversight it (because there was zero plausible deniability that the post was me--I posted something about the research, Legitimus asked me a question about it, and I replied logged out). Note to Legitimus--I can tell that 208. is a sock, but how can you tell it is an open proxy? (Just curious).-PetraSchelm (talk) 15:48, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

For the record, that email was received by me and forwarded to the oversight mailing list for comment, as I was unsure as to whether it was within policy. I did not receive a response - Alison ^❤ 16:41, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks--I think I probably overreacted in the moment/when I emailed you (and I didn't know then that no one could trace my exact location with an IP/someone else explained to me that it wasn't great cause for concern; NYC is a big town, etc....) -PetraSchelm (talk) 17:07, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to claim I'm some clever cyber-sleuth and traced the IP to ultimateproxy.org, but...ah...I just typed it into Google :) Also, generally the WHOIS check only returns a single line with very little information if it's a proxy.Legitimus (talk) 17:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

;A better theory

If any socking is to be implied, we should consider:

PetraSchelm : User:XavierVE. Jack-A-Roe : User:AWeidman, User:DPeterson and socks.

After a detailed looking over their contribs, these would seem to be the most possible puppet masters. 208.88.52.21 (talk) 13:45, 30 May 2008 (UTC) struck-through comment from now-blocked proxy ip of blocked user 208.88.52.21 --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 17:34, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Well we know Xavier is based in Oregon, a long way away from New York. If we want to investigate socks concerning the Pedophile articles we also need to investigatethose who are, let us sdsay, putting forward the opposing view. There have been less than half a dozen socks from the, let us say SB camp and 50 or 60 from the, let us say Another Sollipsist camp, and a wonky one sided investigation as we are saying is genuinely not serving wikipedia. Peterson is a proven sock of Weidman though it was Peterson whop edited the pedophile articles. I certainly do not believe that Peterson is connected to Jack or Petra based on my experience of these 3 folk, nopr do I believe veryu calm Jack is Xavier, possibly the least calm person to ever edit these articles from an APA perspective. Thanks, SqueakBox 16:07, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

And what is especially silly is that an obvious sockpuppet is making these allegations...-PetraSchelm (talk) 16:30, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Having dealt with XavierVE, PetraSchelm is clearly not the same person. PetraSchelm has made at least a half a dozen posts to this noticeboard without accusing anyone of being a pedophile or pedophile apologist. Nope, definitely not XavierVE. --Jaysweet (talk) 16:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, Petra, 208.88.52.21 has now been blocked for 5 years as an open proxy, and his or her disruptive edits in this thread merely demonstrate the enormous problem faced by the pedophile articles. Thanks, SqueakBox 17:05, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The blocking two hours ago of 208.88.52.21 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) as an open proxy does not reflect favorably or unfavorably on any of the other editors who are being discussed here. (None of them are said to have used open proxies). It only suggests that the three comments that 208.88.52.21 left above need not be taken with great seriousness. EdJohnston (talk) 17:38, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, quite so. The fact that the blocked user intruded here with a proxy is relevant to the discussion though. This is an excellent illustration of the problems that continually occur on the pedophilia-related articles. Not only proxy IPs, but also endless parades of single-purpose sockpuppets as can be seen at the pedophilia-related blocked users list. So, while we should not let the IP reflect on any other editor's comments here, we should note that the battleground atmosphere on those articles is not generated by good faith Wikipedia editors improving those pages, but by activists from outside Wikipedia, possibly co-ordinated through pedophpile chat boards as has been documented in the past. Whether co-ordinated or not, that there are continuing activist-attacks to undermine those articles is not in doubt and the IP post right here in this discussion shows that clearly.

As an example of their methods, note that the IP did not support the block of PetraSchelm, instead, the IP took the opposite side and posted an "oppose" vote, while expressing various other suspicions. That is how the pedophile activists work on the articles too, under the guise of adding references or seemingly scientific content - but what they add is calculated to undermine reporting of mainstream information and to insert fringe theories and false content, even to direct misquotes of references that can't be found without reading the added references themselves - and usually those references do not include URLs so that requires searching. And not just on Pedophilia, but on a range of important topics like Child sexual abuse and Child pornography. So it's good that the IP posted here, to demonstrate for this noticeboard the challenges that editors of those topics face every day. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 18:11, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I can confirm that. They are not garden-variety sockpuppets, they are crafty, seasoned, and adept at gaslighting. My favorite was Onevictim, who used the edit summary "delete pedo weasel word." It was obvious to those of us who edit PAW articles immediately that it was a PPA sockpuppet; based on the edit, and because none of us would ever use an edit summary like that. But it took a day or two for the checkuser to come through/the sock to be blocked (along with the other three that appeared at exactly the same time). And you can't really go to the SSP board and use an edit summary like 'delete pedo weasel word" as evidence, it requires a more complicated explanation of the edit the sock made v. the misleading edit summary... a group of people has to watch these articles carefully, because it is not at all obvious to casual observers what the socks do. -PetraSchelm (talk) 19:55, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Strong Oppose to Block Petra Schlem in my experience is always courteous and respectful, and has uncompromising commitment to maintiaining NPOV. Perhaps some mistake refusing to back-down for obstreperousness. If PS is blocked, I believe the quality of articles in which she takes an interest will suffer. 71.122.96.251 (talk) 19:49, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

More RollbackUndo abuse by user:Gulmammad as well as WP:BATTLE and WP:HARASS

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

Please refer to the previous ANI THREAD.

In that thread, admin user:Tiptoety revoked Gulmammad's rollback rights however gave them back when he promised to use them only against vandalism. Gulmammad is now back to rollback abuse. He rolled my backused undo on my own talk page. Not only is this abuse of rollback undo but this is harassment. His post was clear battling along ethnic lines. He seems to refer to people he doesn't like as Armenian, I am not Armenian. He has also referred to admin user:Golbez as Armenian see here. Please consider my earlier suggestions of taking away his rollback rights as well as putting him on supervised editing. I leave it up to the discretion of the admins. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 01:36, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

In response to the accusation of rollback abuse, the diff that you provided clearly states that he did not use rollback, but instead the undo button and thus allowing him to enter a edit summary. Tiptoety ^talk 01:45, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, my mistake on that one but he still shouldn't be reverting me on my own talk page. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 01:55, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

In this instance the undo is essentially reposting his previous question with a request for you to clarify your response in the edit summary. It wouldn't be wrong for him to do this using copy and paste, so what is wrong with the undo button if the outcome is the same? Xaeon (talk) 16:13, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Mike Babic

I must ask that this user be banned from "creating" pictures for wikipedia because of copyright violations and writing of false informations about "his" pictures.

Mike Babic has been earlier suspected by me that he is making copyright violations. "His first pictures" has been deleted because of missing information on its copyright status [137] . Maybe I am mistaking but after this first deletings he has learned how to write false copyright information so new pictures has survived (example:image Cuvari Hristova groba has been deleted on 20 March, but he has recreated picture on 24 and because of new "OK writen copyright information" picture has survived [138]). Now we are having evidence that user:Mike Babic is writing false copyright information because image manastiri is copy of image on site www.kosovo.net (first and second picture). Similar thing he has done with Croatian historical map (Mike Babic, www.croatia-in-english.com). Because of this reasons I must ask that Mike Babic is banned from "creating" new pictures. About need for deleting "his" old pictures I will inform administrators of page copyright violations.--Rjecina (talk) 02:38, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Picture Lapada he has taken from National newspaper site (wikipedia, National ) and I can find many other examples but this is enough.--Rjecina (talk) 02:58, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, we've got problems. I have checked this editor's entire upload history and, in my opinion, everything is deletable as probable or confirmed copyright violation. Nothing has metadata and it is all sized for Web viewing, which suggests that even the obvious scans were things this editor nicked from other people's copyvios elsewhere on the Web. I've categorized these in case anybody wants to discuss them, but short answer is that nothing is clear from license/sourcing concerns, and everything fully confirmable is obvious copyvio. Recommend mass deleting the whole lot. No opinion on whether to impose a restriction (possible language/educational issues I haven't explored). Durova^Charge! 03:56, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

• Heraldic images

1. Image:Ba)serb.gif
2. Image:Grb1.JPG
3. Image:S4 crveni.gif

• Photographs lacking metadata

1. Image:Knin Licence Plates.JPG
2. Image:Krajisnikbrkonja20040bv.jpg
3. Image:Cuvar hristovog groba.jpg - obvious scan with visible halftoning
4. Image:Cuvari_hristovog_groba.jpg
5. Image:Famous Serbs from Krajina and Croatia.jpg - obvious copyvio composite from different artists
6. Image:N72606994 36624816 7282.jpg - not used in article space
7. Image:N72606994 36624814 6761.jpg
8. Image:Srpska banka.jpg
9. Image:Dubrovnik's Hotel Lapad.jpg
10. Image:Lapada.jpg

• Maps that lack sources and metadata

1. Image:Krajina-map.jpg - obvious scan with visible halftoning
2. Image:KFOR Structur1.2006.PNG
3. Image:Kosovo Demographic Map.PNG
4. Image:Manastiri.jpg
5. Image:Location-Europe-regions.png
6. Image:Europepolitical map.png
7. Image:VojnaKrajina.jpg - obvious scan with paper fold visible
8. Image:Krajina_ethnic_map.jpg - obvious scan with paper folds visible
9. Image:17-18cen.jpg - obvious scan with paper folds visible

• Questionable status, not used in article space

1. Image:Serb population.JPG

Yep, looks like it. I remember dealing with Image:Cuvari_hristovog_groba.jpg earlier and couldn't at the time find anything that would have contradicted the claim this was an old photograph from the uploader's personal collection; and I seem to remember I once checked on Image:Famous Serbs from Krajina and Croatia.jpg and came up with the result that all four component images were indeed free, but apart from that, the scanned maps are of course obvious copyvios, and if we now also have confirmed cases among the photographs, I'd probably go for a topic ban from further image uploads, like I've done in comparable cases. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:39, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Is there a reason why some of these are still bluelinked? Durova^Charge! 20:04, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

User :90.196.3.2

Please check User 90.196.3.2 He is making repeated disruptive edits. [139][140] [141] [142]

Also check his edit history. He is same user [143][144] [145][146] Mahaakaal (talk) 02:41, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe WP:RFCU is where Requests for Check User go. :) <3 Tinkleheimer TALK!! 04:29, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Finaldrive

Any administrators looking for a 10-minute job? I've got one.

In responding to Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Finaldrive it became clear to me that Finaldrive was blocked for repeatedly posting an article about a band that he says is notable and admins say is not notable. He is requesting an unblock for the second time, and his unblock reason is that (surprise!) the band is notable.

The smart thing to do is to resolve the underlying content issue. Once the content issue is resolved, we can worry about the user's behavior if he continues to cause problems.

To that end, please unblock User:Finaldrive and start a deletion review for Final Drive where he is allowed to comment. Note that the second user in the SSP report may be someone else but should be considered involved with respect to a DRV discussion. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 04:29, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

As the admin who deleted the article, I have unblocked the user and set up a deletion review. Gwen Gale (talk) 04:58, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Tagging by User:DAJF

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

---

Resolved

User:DAJF recently tagged the article Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany minutes after its creation with refimprove, orphaned and uncategoirzed despite the fact I added "underconstruction" template in the article. When I removed the tags with this edit summary, he issued me this. This kind of tagging is not constructive and unhelpful. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 05:02, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I left a note on his Talk Page about this thread. I don't think he was being malicious about it. He probably didn't notice the under construction tag or it didn't occur to him. I'd suggest just ignore it and continue working on the article :) <3 Tinkleheimer TALK!! 05:11, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow, I was surprised to see that such a minor incident got raised here. My actions in tagging the article certainly weren't intended to be malicious, but I was well aware of the "Under constuction tag" at the top of the page. Marking a new article as "Under construction" does not magically make it immune from being tagged as requiring references etc. The original author or other editors are of course free to remove the relevant tags once the respective issues have been addressed, but removing them before improvements have been made is not something I consider constructive, which is why I posted the warning to his Talk page. Maybe the original author should have considered using the "Show preview" button a few more times and waiting until the article was in a more complete state before uploading it for other editors to pick through. --DAJF (talk) 05:24, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh dear. DAJF, please, when you are new page patrolling check the edit count of the creators of new pages before giving them a templated warning. Otolemur Crassicaudatus has just shy of 23k edits to their credit and can reasonably be considered not to be a newbie. Using your own words not templates will always be the best way to contact an established user. See WP:DTTR. Finally, we usually give established editors much more leaway when it comes to giving articles time to develop before tagging. All that said this is a minor incident and not really worthy of much further discussion. Spartaz ^Humbug! 05:38, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

::::The overzealous edits by the above user is now bordering vandalism. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 08:00, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

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

Legal threats from anons

Over the last two days I have received some vaguely threatening messages from two anons, 155.41.160.31 (talk · contribs) and 24.60.18.243 (talk · contribs). This mainly concerns an image presently being displayed on mini-mental state examination. This test was initially released in 1975 without copyright restrictions, but in 2001 a company based in Florida acquired the rights and started enforcing copyright on it. We used to list all the questions from the test, which were removed after we were made aware of the fact that the test was copyrighted.[147]

The anons now claim that:

• An image of two interlocking pentagons is a copyright violation, even though I uploaded a new version that I have certainly drawn myself.[148]
• We might be breaking a law in 20 states of the USA.[149]
• Showing a simple copy of an image from the test somehow interferes with the administration of the test in physician's offices.[150]

The anons decline to provide evidence for their points, but I am worried about the WP:LEGAL here. Could someone have a look and see whether (1) I am right or wrong in my assessment, (2) anything of this holds any water. JFW | T@lk 05:14, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Similar behaviour has been exhibited by Npsych (talk · contribs) on the MMSE page and on Rorschach inkblot test, as well as by the abovementioned 155.41.160.31 on Image:WCST.png (which is not displayed on any page). JFW | T@lk 05:18, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

This is a copyright dispute... not WP:LEGAL. They may be baseless but it doesn't seem that they are threatening to sue you or anything. gren グレン 05:49, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

You might consider posting this to Wikipedia:Media copyright questions--Lenticel ^(talk) 06:16, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Cross-posted now. Thanks. JFW | T@lk 06:40, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

User:WebbyTaranula44444

Resolved

 – User blocked, articles G3'd.

Can someone please block this user and delete his articles? He's introduced several hoax articles about "upcoming" 2008 films (The Sword in the Stone (2008 film) and BareWolf 3-D)? Unfortunately, as hoaxes none of his contributions are candidates for speedy deletion, and his other contributions to existing articles are all vandalism as his adding links to his hoax films. AniMate 08:32, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

They are CSD-eligible: WP:CSD#G3 includes misinformation. I won't tag because I don't know if they're really hoaxes...... Dendodge .. Talk^Help 08:35, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

They are hoaxes - deleted. Neıl 龱 09:21, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The user was blocked indef by Alexf. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 09:48, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Cursing anonymous IPs - User:Hegumen

Resolved

It's just a single issue, but it seems pretty bad to me. Reverting an anonymous IP on the image map of Macedonian speakers the user Hegumen used some pretty bad words in Macedonian (cyrillic). His exact words were "F*ck of little tatar" (see [151]). Now if it was just a WP:BITE issue I'd try to settle it with him, but this is way off. Using the word tatar is considered pejorative and highly offensive by Bulgarians. I cab\n assure you it was meant as a curse (even if you disregard the f*ck part). --Laveol ^T 10:22, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Gave my one and only warning I'll give on this. That was pretty bad. Let us know if he does it again. — Rlevse • Talk • 10:59, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I feel kind of honored that I have my own little section on the Admin noticeboard. This is, I think, part of an ongoing tiff between Laveol and I. It's hardly a WP:BITE issue, I told a nasty vandal where to stick it. I stand by what I said. Night, Hegumen (talk) 20:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't you probably add a similar warning on the anonymous IP's talk page? --Hegumen (talk) 20:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Personal Attack on User Wildhartlivie from User Nyannrunning

It looks like Nyannrunning (talk · contribs) is personally attacking Wildhartlivie (talk · contribs).

Here: Talk:Jim_Morrison#New_chapter_about_Morrison.27s_relationship_with_Thomas_Reese

And is engaging in sock puppetry:

Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Wildhartlivie&diff=prev&oldid=215930491#You_are_referenced_on_discussion_page_for_Jim_Morrison

Please advise. IP4240207xx (talk) 10:30, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Further evidence: User_talk:Faithlessthewonderboy#Jim_Morrison and User:Wildhartlivie/Sandbox

Possible sockpuppet names: Dooyar (talk · contribs) and Debbiesvoucher (talk · contribs)

User:CorticoSpinal

Background of User:CorticoSpinal:

• 2008-03-09: blocked for 1 week for disruptive editing. (Disclaimer: this contained personal attacks on me.)
  • Disclaimer: This was in complete frustration to the ongoing civil POV push of Ernst and failing to listen to concerns violating [[WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT]
• 2008-03-20: warned about 3RR
• 2008-03-20: block reinstated indefinitely for repeated abuse of editing privileges
  • These were never specified despite repeated attempts to ask what I had done wrong. It's all on Archive 2 if anybody wants to look)
• 2008-04-09: unblocked on condition of behaving civilly and constructively
• 2008-04-09: renamed user from EBDCM to CorticoSpinal
• 2008-04-17: warned against personal attacks
• 2008-05-08: blocked for a short time for violating WP:3RR
  • I actually didn't violate 3RR here, I accidentally broke my voluntary limit of 1RR and went to 2RR. CorticoSpinal (talk) 14:29, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
• 2008-05-18: warned about tone and posture of comments
• 2008-05-19: warned again about combativeness
• 2008-05-27: warned for defamatory content
• 2008-05-28: Wikiquette alert for personal attack, resolved by another warning

User:CorticoSpinal continues to engage in personal attacks. Here are three examples from the past two days:

• 2008-05-29: "Filll, Mr. 'AGF' and 'I'm evidence-based' (yet refuses to consider the evidence presented that is contrary to his belief system --true denier?--) comes in and completely proves my point to a 'T' with nonsense arguments and absolutely no clue of what the evidence says."[152] (This refers to user Filll; the references to WP:AGF and to Evidence-based are ironic; a "true denier" is the opposite of a true believer.)
• 2008-05-29: "You seem to dispute all the details Eubulides. DigitalC has also said you have been pedantic. I would use tendentious, but that's just me."[153]
• 2008-05-30: "I really don't think you understand NPOV, QG.... you have not learned any lessons whatsoever with your time editing at Chiropractic"[154] ("QG" refers to user QuackGuru.)

This behavior causes considerable unnecessary work for other editors and hinders attempts to gain consensus on Chiropractic, a controversial article. (Disclaimer: I am one of the editors being attacked. Also, these attacks are in the context of a content dispute: User:CorticoSpinal strongly supports chiropractic and the editors being attacked do not.)

Eubulides (talk) 11:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Now, suddenly as there is a RfC for Chiropractic (is it fringe) Eubulides decides to take action immediately after I ask for a similar investigation into the work of QuackGuru. Coincidental? Likely not. Let us deal with the RfC Chiropractic first. If it declared fringe, I will voluntarily cease to edit Chiropractic, perhaps permanently. Thoughts?

Just to bring a little balance here, I do think it is important to notice that there seems to be a POV dispute occurring on the Chiropractic page which has attracted several editors that don't usually edit there. Their target appears to be CorticoSpinal, for whatever reason. Personally, I think CorticoSpinal may have a legitimate gripe, as does Eubilides. The rest don't really seem to have a reason other than to suppress his POV. It is important that you know that I am a chiropractor. -- Dēmatt (chat) 13:13, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

There is certainly a lot of disagreement on Chiropractic, but CorticoSpinal seems to react extremely negatively to anybody who disagrees with them. He seems to see a broad group of editors disagreeing with him as an organized war "SA and then anti-chiro skeptic alliance (ACSA) can randomly drop by here and bomb the article and try to railroad changes..."[155] and consistently fails to assume good faith "My opinion of this is that it's another classic example of stonewalling by dogmatic skeptics"[156]. This is really quite extreme poisoning of the well, which makes achieving consensus on this article currently impossible. Jefffire (talk) 13:45, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

This attempt by Eubulides to discredit me is part of a long string of overt and covert attacks on my character and contributions. I had brought Eubulides' underhanded tactics ANI previously In fact, if anything it is Eubulides' actions at chiropractic that truly deserve special attention. These include a 4 month civil-POV push of Edzard Ernst studies under the guise the research represents the majority "mainstream" health care as a deliberate attempt to subvert the majority of research which demonstrates chiropractic care and SMT is just as if not more effective than conventional medical care for back and neck pain while being MORE safe and MORE cost-effective. All the while I have been the recipient of continuous, non-stop attacks from anti-chiropractic editors. I asked admin MastCell here to help rectify the situation and nothing was done (as usual). unfortunately the attacks did not cease (clarified position, it was not to rebuke admin MastCell but rather to demonstrate I took active steps of trying to amicably resolve the non-stop character assasination by anti-chiropractic editors).

Eubulides has regularly misrepresented my views. I have counted no less than 21 separate incidents where Eubulides has twisted by comments, misrepresented my views in order to subvert my argument(s). Diffs can be provided upon request. Eubulides has been accused of cherry picking the evidene by several editors, a mining of papers of sorts, to distort the majority viewpoint of the scientific literature. Eubulides has been warned about WP:IDHT no less than a dozen times, with no change in behaviour. Eubulides has been asked to respect consensus regarding the validity of 'effectiveness' of the chiropractic 'profession' and failed to do so. Eubulides was warned for edit warring (in a covert manner too) at Chiropractic a few weeks ago. Eubulides has continuously used a string of logical fallacies in his argumentation, which when pointed out to him, went nowhere (besides disagreeing). Eubulides has acted as a judge, jury and executioner on all the research unilaterally deciding what research goes in, where and what tone and weight it is to carry. He meets all the criteria of a civil POV pusher. This is about science and research. I am a chiropractor. Eubulides is a medical doctor. These facts should be known as well. Diffs can be provided for all the aforementioned. I don't mind having 2 concurrent ANIs, one for myself and one for Eubulides. (Note: I have brought my concerns regarding Eubulides' civil POV push to an uninvolved admin who was going to look into the case). Looks like that time has come. Cheers. CorticoSpinal (talk) 14:23, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by QuackGuru:

The indef-block was reinstated.

The block was denied twice. See here and here.

To make a long story short, AGK unblocked CorticSpinal after it was declined by two admins. With the unblock, AGK explained it was conditionally. See below for more details.

To that end, I am conditionally unblocking you, with the following understanding:

1. You will contribute civilly, and in a manner that is both constructive, and free of personal attacks and hostilities.
2. You will bear in mind, that Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia, and that things work a hundred times better if you make an effort to both empathise, and get along, with your fellow editors.
3. You will make article-writing your primary focus, and refrain from getting involved in heated talk-page discussions in the immediate aftermath of your unblock. I attach this condition to facilitate an "easy re-integration" on your part, with the community, and I particularly trust that you will follow this.

I am more than open to reinstating a full block as before, if you fail to contribute in a positive manner. This is a final chance; don't blow it, please.

The conditional unblock was handled by AGK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/EBDCM In the past, there was a possible ip sock.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/99.229.74.64 Recently, there was another ip with similar editing patterns as CorticoSpinal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RRArchive72#User:CorticoSpinal_reported_by_User:Arthur_Rubin_.28Result:_1_week.29 There were at least four reverts.

CorticoSpinal wrote in part: Please do not attempt to confuse readers seeing you are confused. CorticoSpinal claims there are anti-chiropractor[157] editors.

There is evidence that User:CorticoSpinal has violated the terms of his conditional unblock. Therefore, a reinstatement of his indef-block is warranted. QuackGuru 17:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

As the 3RR reporter in question, I found 4 reverts and the closing admin found 6. CS's claim that there were only 2 (still violating the 1RR parole) is disingenuous. I didn't look into the conditions of the conditional unblock. (The question of whether his reverts were to a "consensus" version are irrelevant to 3RR and his previous and subsequent edit warring.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:40, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

As for User:QuackGuru, I find his editing style and comments such that the fact that his article edits are usually well-thought-out is well-concealed. It might be better for him not to edit in such a manner. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:50, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

This comment by CorticoSpinal was in poor taste. CorticoSpinal has exhausted the patience of the community. QuackGuru 18:18, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I am one that believes in seeing things in context, so you need to see the whole picture as POV warriors do there best to gang up on CorticoSpinal. Personally, I think he did a pretty good job fending them off. And QuackGuru has had a few warnings himself, those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, but this isn't about you. -- Dēmatt (chat) 18:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

This is very unfortunate. I hope that we can all work this out in some consensual collegial manner. So it is forbidden to disagree? What policy does that violate? I am disgusted, frankly. I mean no disrespect to any who believe that Chiropractic is a mainstream medical practice. I certainly agree that some peer-reviewed publications in the last few years have shown that for some small handful of ailments chiropractic is as beneficial as any other treatment. However, I am not convinced that the current article strikes the appropriate balance and tone. I apologize to anyone who disagrees with me and I certainly do not mean to offend anyone with this suggestion. There is so much rancor involved with warring parties that it makes me really wonder about the Wikipedia model...--Filll (talk | wpc) 18:24, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, I hate to admit it, but I enjoy the discussion. Maybe the chiropractic page is not the place to do it though. Somewhere where none of us have to worry about being blocked or banned. -- Dēmatt (chat) 18:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

You might enjoy the discussion, but frankly I think on these controversial articles the "discussion" just gets too dangerous. This is just a website after all; is it worth the threats and worse? Mark my words; sooner or later one of us is going to be killed for disagreeing with one of these zealots. This is very unhealthy and I think suggests a bad failure of the Wikipedia model.--Filll (talk | wpc) 19:00, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

You make a good point; not everyone has the right temperment for this type of discussion, and there are certainly some unstable personalities on wikipedia. But I am confused as to why you threw that fuel on the fire if you were concerned about that. Surely you aren't worried about CS killing anyone? -- Dēmatt (chat) 19:07, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

No, of course I do not claim CS or Eubilides or anyone in particular is going to kill someone. However, I have watched these controversial articles in alternative medicine and in racial topics and conspiracy theories and religious areas and political areas and so on for well over a year. I have seen how heated these things become on Wikipedia and on the websites that monitor Wikipedia, like Wikipedia review. I have heard horrendous accounts of frequent death threats and stalking and harassment over Wikipedia. As I realize how nasty and ugly things have become over what is just a website, I am increasingly dismayed. I have heard other people make this prediction that eventually tragedy will strike, and after having watched things proceeding in a very negative way, I have to say I agree. This is all much much too serious and much much too unpleasant over what is just a hobby, a volunteer persuit. Are these stupid conflicts worth it? I mean, really. This is nuts.--Filll (talk | wpc) 19:17, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

You are a good hearted editor. I am not sure it is worth it. -- Dēmatt (chat) 19:52, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

In regard CS's comment "Eubulides has been asked to respect consensus regarding the validity of 'effectiveness' of the chiropractic 'profession' and failed to do so.", I see only a partial consensus, and Eubulides has respected (most of) that. Of course, CS considers me an anti-chiropractic editor, so, of course, he'll disregard that. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:38, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, Eubilides does not own that article any more than CorticoSpinal does, so we have to make sure all POVs are represented fairly and accurately. I think that is the whole issue abotu whether Chiropractic is WP:FRINGE because that would determine whether CS could use his peer reviewed information as well as Eubilides uses his. -- Dēmatt (chat) 18:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

To address AR, I have given you props for warning Eubulides that he may have accidentally gone over 3RR. I tend to dismiss extremist positions/editors, and I would not classify you as such. We just disagree on Chiropractic, just like we might disagree on politics. Nothing personal. To Dematt, " I think that is the whole issue abotu whether Chiropractic is WP:FRINGE because that would determine whether CS could use his peer reviewed information as well as Eubilides uses his." I could not have said it any better than that myself. I will declare here publically, if the evidence suggests chiropractic medicineis moreso fringe health care, than mainstream health care, I will voluntarily retire indefinitely from Wikipedia. There would be no point to continue editing when the opinion of dogmatic anti-chiropractic editors stating it is fringe nullifies and outweighs the evidencewhich suggests its moreso part of mainstream health care if not completely within it. CorticoSpinal (talk) 19:14, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Dematt, where in heaven's name do you get the idea that all POV's have to be "represented fairly and accurately?????" Actually, WP:NPOV does not say that. We do not give undue weight to fringe theories. The vast preponderance of reliable sources say that Chiropractic is not very useful medically, and there is nothing in NPOV that states the article needs to give weight to the fringe theories.OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 21:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: Fill wrote " I mean no disrespect to any who believe that Chiropractic is a mainstream medical practice. That claim has not been made. The claim is that chiropractic is moreso part of mainstream health care". The difference is important to note. One should also note that the current context is one of a dichotomy, i.e. there's only 2 choices, mainstream or fringe. In reality, the third option is presenting itself Integrative medicine where DCs are the backbone (no pun intended) of such a model that fuses the best practices of "alternative medicine" and "conventional/mainstream medicine". I work in such a setting. That's why, in part, I'm here. To present chiropractic care circa 2008 and not some outdated model. Sure, chiropractic has warts and these need to be presented (remember I'm the one who said chiropractic needs a criticisms section) but the fringe aspects of chiropractic care (ie manipulation for non-musculoskeletal disorders) is being used by less than 10% of chiropractors. It's a weight issue. The skeptics continuously straw man the minority view within chiropractic and present it as the majority view which then, in turn is used to call the whole profession fringe with the subsequent stigma and editing rules WP:PARITY that comes along with such a designation. Bottom line: chiropractic medicine has the evidence(research) to stand on its own 2 feet, chiropractic medicine for all intents and purposes has been incorporated into mainstream health care and chiropractic should not be treated like Flat Earth, Creationism and Homeopathy nor should nonsensical comparisons to alien abductions be made. Chiropractors should be not portraued as anti-science (as assumed by default by the fringe branding by anti-chiropractic editors) and shouldn't be treated like 2nd classes citizens from a 3rd world country here at Wikipedia. CorticoSpinal (talk) 19:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

CS, I appreciate what you are saying, and I want you to know that each of these editors that are here have made edits that would be considered pro-chiropractic edits when they understood the issue and the sources. Arthur has defended the Chiropractic article for years from wackos and kooks. You and FIlll would be on the same side on the Homeopathy page. I would venture that each of them would support your edits, because they, too, think that voodoo does not belong on wikipedia. Chiropractic needs to be presented to show all POVs, including the voodoo fringe (which you are not a part of), so that readers will not be sucked in by those type practitioners (and, yes, MDs use some voodoo, too - so that is not the point). The question is the weight. Eubilides, I submit to you that CS is right, you are not allowing the 'reform' view to be fully explained before blending it with the straight view. They will need to remain separate. I have given you guys time to see if you could blend the two, but it isn't working. That's my 2 cents, though I am not sure this is the place to say it. Basically, I am here to say there are more issues on this article than the diffs that show CS's "high points". -- Dēmatt (chat) 19:52, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that there are serious disputes about content. But this ANI is not about content. It is about behavior. Although the behavior of attacking other editors is wrong, CorticoSpinal continues to engage in it despite repeated warnings. Here are two other recent quotes illustrating the behavior in question:

• 2008-05-28: "You should not play so coy. You've been doing this for 4 months now, Eubulides. Except, over time your civil POV push for Ernst representing the mainstream opinion has been exposed as a farce.… That is so underhanded…. Shame on you."[158]
• 2008-05-30: "The opinion of one man can subvert and circumvent international scientific consensus at Chiropractic. This is the push Eubulides has been making over the last 4 months, the push I've been resisting for 4 months and we're now seeing it crystallize. In Canada, we'd say this issue is the "TSN Turning Point". Eubulides assessment of the TaskForce has been demonstrated to be false. He has tendentiously pursued this point for months."[159]

This kind of personal attack needs to stop. But it isn't stopping, despite a block in the past, despite repeated warnings, and despite this ANI report. That last comment was made about 3 hours ago. Eubulides (talk) 21:35, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Peter phelps

I am concerned about the username of User:Peter phelps. This user has made some rather controversial edits to Mike Kelly (politician) ([160]), and also made some heated comments on my talk page when I reverted those edits ([161]), although they were later retracted ([162]).

The user in question has more or less claimed to be Dr Peter Phelps at this discussion at WP:AWNB. For more background on this person, read Gary Nairn, particularly the final paragraph. I am not convinced that this person is who they say they are, however. I question whether a political staffer for a federal government minister would have the questionable judgement to get involved in an internet flamewar over edits as unsubtle as these. I think it may be an attempt to make Phelps (and perhaps by extension Nairn or the Liberal Party of Australia) look foolish through impersonation (something that I think User:Rebecca was getting at in the AWNB discussion).

Does it seem reasonable to 'officially' ask this user to provide some proof of their identity (perhaps through OTRS) before engaging in further discussion, and taking some corrective action if this is not forthcoming? Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 11:56, 30 May 2008 (UTC).

Wikipedia:Username policy#Real names has some guidance on this. I suggest politely raising the issue on his talk page asking him to email info-en@wikimedia.org and show us.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:09, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Usury edits

Archilles last stand (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been continually adding what I consider inflammatory opinion to the Usury article. After a final vandalism warning and the 3RR warning the reverts continued. I reported this on the vandalism page where Wknight94 has suggested it's more suitably placed here. I've attempt to reason with the user on their talk page to no avail; the user has descended into accusations of stalking, harassments and threats. It's all become rather strange; and I don't know how to proceed, or indeed if I've ended up violating 3RR myself. --Blowdart | ^talk 14:21, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Many of the user's edits are good (removing bloat or rewriting lumpen prose), but the bit of opinion on the Bible's being an "arcane, frequently tribal and sectarian text" is unnecessary and inflammatory. I don't think it should be described as vandalism. I've protected the Usury article for two days to prevent further edit-warring; I would prefer not to block a good-faith new editor. I think he needs to be gently pointed in the direction of our policy on original research and opinionating. I am going now so would appreciate it if someone else could craft something to this end for the user. If noone has by Sunday I'll add something then. If this doesn't elicit a change in editing then yes, perhaps blocking might need to be considered. Neıl 龱 15:00, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I dropped him a note. We'll see where it goes. --Jaysweet (talk) 15:11, 30 May 2008 (UTC) Full disclosure: I am not an admin, but I feel I can help out here anyway.

Something's wrong with Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous

It seems that there's floating text there with an image with a caption that says "Avril Lavigne with horns" I can't access the top tabs due to that picture.--Lenticel ^(talk) 15:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

What the...? I'll try to fix this (hopefully without botching anything! RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 15:12, May 30, 2008 (UTC)

It's an ongoing vandalism problem the Reference Desk is having. Amusing, isn't it? I'm terrible at finding which template the vandal hides the pictures in; good thing the ref desk has 133t3r editors than I working there. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 15:14, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Another one at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science.--Lenticel ^(talk) 15:17, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Misc. one fixed by User:Algebraist, I got the science one. They hide it in the archives, which are then transcluded on to the main page. How about (fully) protecting the archives? No-one has need to edit them, really. If not, perhaps don't transclude them on to the main page, just link them. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 15:21, May 30, 2008 (UTC)

I think archive protection would be good idea. Anyways thanks for your help. Will be sleeping soon as it is almost midnight in my part of the world. Goodnight.--Lenticel ^(talk) 15:24, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

It was Template:RD Archive header monthly. still unprotected. Please protect, thank you. Hint on finding right template: Click on the Avril image and then on "What links here". ---Sluzzelin talk 15:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

(double ec)I don't think the full effect on the misc desk was intended; an unclosed div was involved. Algebraist 15:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

(blaargh! ECx2) I've warned the Science vandal (he had his User Talk: redirected to his User:, I undid this, I would imagine this isn't allowed), and could the next passing admin please protect all the refdesk archives: no-one has any (legitimate) reason to edit them, and it would avoid future silly vandalism. The Science refdesk archive was edited directly, it wasn't that template causing the issue. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 15:29, May 30, 2008 (UTC)

Re:FisherQueen. Yes, it's an ongoing problem. Sometimes it's highly disruptive vandalism of pages and templates, like in this example, sometimes it's a series of sockpuppets with first contributions consisting in non-sensical and surreal questions, probably also meant to be funny, but actually quite annoying and capable of luring good faith editors into wasting time trying to answer them. It is disrupting the desks, and both types of disruption occurred today, but from what I gathered from previous reports here, the editor also uses TOR nodes or whatnot and blocking him appears to be non-trivial. If it helps, I can collect a list of sockpuppets I'm talking about. It just looks as though it's all a waste of time and simply reverting the vandalism, protecting the templates, and removing the questions is probably easier and more effective. ---Sluzzelin talk 15:35, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

As the edits to archives illustrate, protection isn't really a good option. The core flaw is that disruptive HTML can be injected; specifically that of the form:

<div style="_position:fixed; _width=20000; _height=2000; _left:9%; _top:0%; _overflow:visible;">

(leading underscores added to make sure it doesn't break this page). Is there a technical means of restricting this sort of stuff? I'd think that stripping user-added CSS is a start, but that messes with sigs and such. "position" and "overflow" are the key exploits here -- perhaps they can be selectively stripped without much collateral damage. — Lomn 15:48, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Follow-up re: User:Algebraist's "not intended" suggestion -- the code above makes it quite clear that the disruption was intended. If you want a pic at top right, you don't define a div larger than any computer monitor with those provisions and then "forget" to close it. — Lomn 15:50, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

When you say 'injected', I assume you mean 'injected into the rendering of the page without the wikicode needing to be edited'? Otherwise, how would they get it in there? RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 16:06, May 30, 2008 (UTC)

"Injected" isn't really the right word. The code has to be inserted via normal edits, but there's not really a need for the abuser to track down an unprotected template file or other obscure source -- any edit that places the relevant code at any point on the page results in the page being obscured. Yes, yes, WP:BEANS, but I think this editor has already demonstrated that he gets the concept. So I'm wondering if filtering those CSS elements from user edits (perhaps on a sliding scale similar to page creation) would serve to inhibit the threat. — Lomn 16:16, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I removed one of these last week (in accordance with WP:BEANS, I won't mention the ridiculously easy way in which I—about as computer-unsavvy as they come—found where the code was hidden in the archive). If anyone wants the name of the throwaway account (which I warned) used in that case, drop me a note. Deor (talk) 16:21, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, of course! Sorry, I had a bit of a brain-fart moment there! I say file a Bugzilla (I can do it if you want) asking for the 'position' and 'overflow' CSS elements to be filtered from non-sysop edits. There are very few legit uses for those elements in WP, and if they ever are needed, then an admin can insert them. This should stop them from being so disruptive. Yes they can still replace templates/pages with an image, but at least they can't obscure the entire page with the @$£!@# stuff! RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 16:28, May 30, 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. And my Bugzilla competency has never been all that good, so I'd appreciate the assist. — Lomn 16:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, late-breaking thought: This guy is also fond of using character escape codes to obscure stuff -- thus far, he's used it to hide "Avril" in the image name, but similar precautions should be taken to prevent the escaped version of "overflow" and such from slipping through. — Lomn 17:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Bug 14346 filed. I'll add the stuff about escaped versions, any chance of an example diff to help the devs? RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 17:13, May 30, 2008 (UTC)

Here's the offending RD/M edit. It's easiest to find the code in question via "view source", but note the section of "[[Image:&%65;&%118;&%114;&%105;&%108;...]]" ("#" changed to "%") -- that's the escape code in question (that renders as [[Image:Avril...]]). — Lomn 17:25, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[too many colons!] The bug has been marked as a dupe of Bug 8679. I've added a reference to this spate of vandalism and a recommendation to blacklist 'overflow' to that bug. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 17:29, May 30, 2008 (UTC)

Serious legal threat following baseball card link removal

Resolved

 – Users blocked for 24 hours.

--Selket ^Talk 16:25, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I received an e-mail from the owner of a site that I warned about spamming yesterday. He demanded I provide him with my contact information for a review of my "censorship" of his links. He said any attempt to censor his links would be met with legal action and he copied a prominent intellectual property lawyer on his e-mail. As opposed to the standard legalistic, blustery threats we receive everyday, I consider this a credible threat to pursue legal action, even if the actual legal complaint itself lacks credibility and legal merit.

I acted in response to a complaint made by:

• 71.56.118.64 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)

71.56.118.64 made his complaint at:

• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Link spam violations

I investigated both the complaining IP and the histories of the two articles he cited. The complainant appeared to have a "clean history". The two articles showed a clear pattern of repeated additions of the same links by 4 IPs which were repeatedly reversed. There was also evidence of heavy, unrelated spamming of these articles prior to this.

Here are the two articles involved:

• T206 edit history
• Goudey edit history

Here are the four IPs; 3 traceroute to the New York City area; the 4th traceroute I can't decypher:

• 69.201.150.82 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
• 216.73.161.196 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
• 208.106.31.66 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
• 66.65.142.43 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
  • Note the site-owner's response made after the second warning.

I gave all four IPs standard spam warnings.^{[163][164][165][166]} I used level 2 warnings instead of level 1 warnings since the links had been repeatedly added notwithstanding messages in the removing editor's edit summaries; the four IPs had also not engaged with anyone through the use of talk pages. I also removed two other, unrelated links from one of the articles. I wrote up my spam investigation at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Link spam violations.^[167]

66.65.142.43 reversed my deletions, so I gave a second standard warning (level 3)^[168] and deleted his links using TWINKLE.^[169][170]

Subsequently, the IP responded at User talk:66.65.142.43 with a strong complaint, signing it "ds".^[171][172] He also sent me the e-mail I referred to above.

ds claims: "All of this is legitimate reference information, and as such is protected speech in the U.S." He states that I have eliminated all references for these articles, however I note each has a reference section. ds also has alleged off-line that I am acting as an agent for the owner of cardpricer.com. I was unfamiliar with cardpricer.com and took the actions I did based on the merits of the spam complaint, not some connection to cardpricer.com.

Subsequent to this complaint, I did some checking; it appears cardpricer.com may be associated with banned user Tecmobowl:

• Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Tecmobowl
  • 71.56.118.64, the IP making the spam complaint, is in the same 71.56.xxx.xxx range as some of the IPs cited in the sock puppet report.

Nevertheless, even if 71.56.118.64 owns cardpricer.com, I'm not sure what this has to do with the conflict of interest "ds" has in adding these links or his refusal to back off after being asked to stop with the first warning.

I also note that, from his Wikipedia edits and e-mail comments, ds may have more familiarity with Wikipedia processes than would be expected based on those 4 IPs' edit histories.

As I see it, ds's edits run afoul of multiple content and behavioural rules that govern the use of this site:

• Conflict of Interest Guideline
• Spam Guideline
• Wikipedia is not a Soapbox
• Wikipedia is not a Link Farm
• Vandalism Policy (after ignoring the first warning).

Given the gravity of ds's threats, I would appreciate the community's review of our respective actions in this matter.
Thanks, --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:46, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I know little of law surrounding this type of thing, but I fail to see how he has any case. Wikipedia is not a collection of links, and it is not like we are excluding his links from those articles while including other ones. Wikipedia has a right to formulate guidelines for itself, and as long as we follow them, I see no way that he can force us to add his links. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 16:03, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Heh, I didn't actually answer your question. My answer is, treat him just as you would any other spammer. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 16:07, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

We had lots of trouble with the long-since-banned User:Tecmobowl trying to post his personal baseball card page, and it was removed from all pages, as far as I know. Whoever "ds" is, he's blowing smoke, as there is no constitutional right to edit wikipedia, and hence the "protected free speech" stuff is irrelevant. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 16:16, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I have blocked 216.73.161.196 for violating 3RR on T206. I will be blocking the others for the same duration as sock puppets. --Selket ^Talk 16:17, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Agree with everyone else. You did nothing wrong. Suggest ignoring his email. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 16:19, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Ignore this spammers email harassment. User is in clear violation of multiple policies including Conflict of interest and anti-spam guidelines. --Hu12 (talk) 16:32, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I gather that no actual legal threat has yet been made on-wiki. If this happens, it is traditional to issue an indefinite block per WP:NLT until the threat is withdrawn. I didn't known that IPs could use Wikipedia email; I wonder how he reached you. If he is trying to intimidate you via email, a vigorous response would certainly be justified. EdJohnston (talk) 17:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

A.B. has her e-mail address listed on her page; one simply has to navigate through to find it. Horologium (talk) 21:17, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Looking at the bright side, this person just pretty conclusively demonstrated they're a spammer, no? – Luna Santin (talk) 19:36, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Protected speech? How is Wikipedia subject to the First Amendment? Isn't it technically a private website, that the Wikimedia Foundation can ban anyone from for any reason? Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 21:24, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Sigh, yet another legal threat from someone who knows nothing of the law(yaltfswknotw). _{1 != 2} 21:29, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

IP reverts

An IP, User:195.222.97.164, recently started disruptive editing in a significant number of articles. Basically, he just calls every single historic entity in the Balkans "Serbia" and adds the History of Serbia template. Its a full time job undoing the damage, especially when he engages in undiscussed revert-warring. He is possibly a sock of User:PANONIAN. He has been warned, could anyone lend a hand?

His edits: [173]
Revert-warring: [174]
--DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 16:32, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, this appears to be a content dispute. Warn the user for WP:3RR, once they breach it, I'm sure an administrator will..well...administer a block. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 20:25, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

A Wise course of action ;) Thanks, will do. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 20:34, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

No prob! Just a word of advice though. Don't get yourself into a revert war over this. After warning them and it happens again, come back and drop a note here. Also, continue to direct them to the talk page. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 20:38, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Continous personal attacks

I have been a target of continuous personal attacks by anon despite repeated warning.

User:24.180.3.127: Keeps making edits despite my pleas to discuss. And when he finally agreed, he wrote this. Made statements like "this guy thinks he is God here", "I think this is turning into too much falsehood", "Get off, do something else, write a book or something if you want to speak". Look at this edit summary: "undoing above the law user AI009 here who is trying to make this his webpage, stop your police state and go to college" making repeated taunts on my age. Repeatedly uses argumentative tone making it extremely difficult to continue discussion. Called me a Nazi, and this comment almost made me lose my cool as he resorted to all sought of lies. Goes on to make statements like "The threat is this guy", a 18 year old kid, and a a big fat liar. Also vandalized my talkpage and my userpage. Highly un-civil behavior making it very difficult to discuss.

Let me also add, I've never resorted to name calling and tried to make all efforts to discuss the topic in as civil manner as possible. I reported the same to Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts but did not receive any response. That's why I'm posting here.

Also, concern over his sources were also raised by others. See [175] [176]. I'm relatively new to Wikipedia and am still in the process of familiarizing myself with Wikipedia rules. Any help, feedback, advise on this issue would be appreciated. Thanks --AI009 (talk) 17:01, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I've blocked the user for 31 hours for harassment and personal attacks.-Wafulz (talk) 17:28, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Inventions in the Islamic world

Maybe this is the wrong place, maybe I shouldn't worry about it, but I'm a bit concerned about the comments verging on racialism by some posters on the talk page and feel there may be an incident brewing.--Doug Weller (talk) 19:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I removed the "This article should be removed" section as it was started entirely by IPs with highly provacative troll-style comments (and I suspect one or more of them may be an IP sock of indef blocked User:Protest against islamic imposition, but who knows). A recent AfD already ruled on that, so there is no need to rehash it, especially in the sensationalist terms being used by the IPs. --Jaysweet (talk) 19:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC) Full disclosure: I am not an admin, but I feel I can help out here anyway.

Thanks, maybe I should have been bold and done that myself, but I wasn't sure about the etiquette. Doug Weller (talk) 21:03, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

JB196 again

Just blocked Team4D‎ (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) as an obvious sock of JB196 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Given this guy's history, could use some help playing whack-a-mole. Blueboy96 19:56, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

File:Stuffed tiger wearing a sombrero.jpg

Considering who this is, you deserve this already: the Whack-a-Mole Stuffed Tiger Prize goes to sysops who tirelessly block returning sockpuppets at Carnival Wikipedia. Durova^Charge! 20:02, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Good work. Durova^Charge! 20:02, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I just looked in checkuser, and (1) as usual, tracking JB196 is like going down a rabbit-hole (2) interestingly enough, these all appear to be coming from home DSL IPs - he couldn't possibly be running out of proxies, surely? - David Gerard (talk) 20:46, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Were they the same ISP/geographic location? If not, maybe he's using a botnet? Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 21:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

George Reeves Person at it Again

My talk page is constantly being reverted by 118.98.171.74, who is the banned user BoxingWear/Projects/etc. (aka, the George Reeves Person). He had a pretty ugly incident on Jimbo's talk page yesterday using the proxy 68.144.163.60.MKil (talk) 20:58, 30 May 2008 (UTC)MKil

I do not know what happened here but it seems boxingwear simply wanted to reply to the problems at hand. Whatsupdoggy (talk) 21:45, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, he uses open proxies when the Chicago Public Library is blocked; this one is in Indonesia. I blocked it. I'm sure he'll love me even more for this than he already does (oh, and by the way, as soon as this thread is archived, he'll edit it to remove "Projects" and "George Reeves Person" from both our comments). Antandrus (talk) 21:02, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

No comments, antandrus and mkil have been working together for a long time so we know what the problem is.Whatsupdoggy (talk) 21:45, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Of course, now he's using his Whatsupdoggy account. The guy is persistent, I'll give him that.MKil (talk) 21:09, 30 May 2008 (UTC)MKil

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:MKil&action=history Mkil knows the rules on privacy, i simply tried to help, look at my account history, i tried to help with previous incident, to no avail.

I am not the one to comment if boxingwaer is this and that or whatever, but I know privacy rules have been violated and mkil and antandrus know this very very well.

The above user thinks everybody is boxignwear, i simply reverted his page: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:MKil&action=history privacy vilation, mkil is using names, not name of the account he is not supposed to use, now he even posted same reply on noticeboard, this problem truly violates wikipedia rules, i simply reverted the name, nothing more and nothing else, is that a crime? This site and articles talk about privacy policy a lot, antandrus as an administrator should enforce those rules, he is not, he is supporting mkil on this minor problem, i do not care if library or indonesia is blocked, privacy rules do not seem to matter to some people here... Whatsupdoggy (talk) 21:45, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Known sock--why not blocked?

Hi there...User:Bjbarnettmusic55 is a sock of User:Jamesinc14 (one of my unfavoritemost sockmasters) However, BJ has not been blocked and continues to edit James-inc-ishly. Could we please purge him? Thanks... Gladys J Cortez 21:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

How do you know he's a sock? — Rlevse • Talk • 21:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Zackkelly

Zackkelly (talk · contribs) is a vandal who has already had a final warning for vandalism and has been blocked once already. He came back today to vandalize some more. I reported him at WP:AIV and User:Alexf responded that the vandal has not had a sufficient number of warnings. How many final warnings does a vandal need to have before they get blocked for a second time? Corvus cornix_talk 21:13, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

LHvU has blocked him indef. — Rlevse • Talk • 21:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Concisebliss

User:Concisebliss has been posting lewd images on pages relating to Nicklodeon. He has been warned but continues to make the actions. A block would be greatly appreciated! — Chad "1m" Mosher ^Email Talk _Cont. 21:41, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

User is claiming that somebody usurped his computer while he was away. Perhaps WP:AGF first, and if it continues then a block might be in order. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 21:42, 30 May 2008 (UTC)