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Resumed threats from Tokerdesigner

• Tokerdesigner (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Cannabis smoking (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Several editors have been maintaining quality of some cannabis articles subject to fluff edits and vandalism. I have had to revert Tokerdesigner's edits several times. He once made a run on many articles I wrote in retaliation, and today left a message threatening the same on my talk page, literally threatening the notability of the 44 film articles I've contributed. Please read the message carefully as it is typical of his threats. Standard methods of mediation don't work with this user. I don't feel like defending my 44 articles. Can someone help? Mainly see history of article Cannabis smoking. In addition I have archived a multitude of threats, retaliatory and insults from Tokerdesigner. I need this to stop.Mjpresson (talk) 21:17, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

This is the message on my talk page to which I responded on User talk:Mjpresson:

== June 2011 ==

Please do not add unsourced content, as you did to Cannabis smoking. This contravenes Wikipedia's policy on verifiability. If you continue to do so, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia.

Note: I am herewith signing this segment in response to reminder (below). As some editors have noted, Mjpresson has furnished no proof of any "threats' from Tokerdesigner and even, it appears to me, attempted to deceive editors voting in this proceeding by adding his/her own boldfacing after the fact to a comment (cited below) which I did leave on the User:Mjpresson talk page. I have never threatened to "tag", delete or vandalize any article by Mj or anyone. To get an idea of what User:Mjpresson intends to do if User:Tokerdesigner is banned for a week (as proposed below) view recent edits to Cannabis smoking (photo of a "man smoking a joint" promoted to top of article) and my response thereto on Talk:Cannabis smoking. I will also, as time permits by tomorrow, because User:Mjpresson has objected to my defense argument (also below) as too long and even proposes deleting some of it, present my argument at the MP:WikiProject Cannabis Discussion page with links to it inserted on this page.Tokerdesigner (talk) 01:20, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

That above addition was not left by me. It's Tokerdesigner, who didn't sign his entry above. Yes and I will continue to warn him for disruption but that does not warrant threatening me and the articles I've written.Mjpresson (talk) 22:22, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Why isn't this inquiry getting any response?Mjpresson (talk) 22:23, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

What would you like an administrator to do about this? Where are these threats you're talking about? How can someone "threaten notability"? You're not making a good case here, I think that's why you're getting no response. I'm not saying there's nothing for an admin to do about it, but you have to give us something to work with. -- Atama頭 23:25, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Wow. Super good help. Did you even read the bizarre comments and threats which include asking to meet me in person? It's all quite obvious if you read what I asked you to read. Perhaps I neglected to mention I had to archive them all. When I revert or warn user he threatens to tag 44 articles I've contributed for notability. He's already done retaliatory hits on my articles. I can deal with this myself, apparently. At least my complaint is documented here, although blown off. I've been here a while and know what to do, or maybe someone else is able to help me. Please at least read the comment he left on my talk page as it's typical response to simple and civil reversions and warnings. I knew I would regret trying to improve the cannabis articles. --Mjpresson (talk) 00:33, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Mjpresson seems to be referring to [1]. Chester Markel (talk) 07:59, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

And edits like [2] suggest a disregard for verifiability. Chester Markel (talk) 17:10, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm a bit late on the scene, but having looked at TDs edits over many months, I can't find any indication that they understand WP:V. They have continously littered our cannabis related articles with there own POV and suggeting that other editors who disagree are in someway linked to tobacco companies - I explained in depth to them on my talk page earlier this year why the way they edit is problematic, but they've carried on editing in the same vein since. A review of their talk page reveals that this has been going on for years, and despite multiple people trying to explain nothing has changed. In light of this, I believe it would be best for the project if TD was topic banned from cannabis-related articles. (Apologies if this isn't the right place to suggest a topic ban, but I can't remember where else it could be). SmartSE (talk) 16:57, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

On the other hand, since cannabis-related content is the only thing Tokerdesigner edits, it would be simpler in terms of enforcement to community ban him. Also, there's no indication that he could correctly apply the verifiability policy to other subjects. Chester Markel (talk) 19:22, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Tokerdesigner temporarily banned

Tokerdesigner (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is community banned for a period of six months, with email and talk page access disabled.

Support, per Smartse's explanation of the systematic verifiability problems with this user's contributions, and unwillingness to improve his behavior despite numerous requests, including being indefinitely blocked in 2009[3] for violations of the verifiability policy. The reversal of this block has definitely sent the wrong message. If we give Tokerdesigner a six month block that will actually stick, both because of its status as a community ban, and because he won't be able to post an unblock request on his talk page, this might be sufficient to convince him that his behavior has been unacceptable. If not, a longer block/ban can be implemented later. Chester Markel (talk) 19:19, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm placing a future time stamp here, to avoid premature archiving of this thread. Please remove when resolved. Chester Markel (talk) 19:19, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, I support this ban. This user causes a lot of cleanup work, and I've been archiving his nasty insults on my talk page for too long. Sorry for not providing more diffs, I just didn't know where to start, but I have begun the process. --Mjpresson (talk) 03:25, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Procedural oppose I can't see how this is an administrative issue. It appears to be a content and editor civility issue. While Tokerdesigner seems to be a bit uncivil in their arguments, and constantly points to how an admin (potentially) was banned that may or may not have been related to them, that isnt an attack (more annoying than anything else) they havn't done anything that warrants ban. I could not find the "lets meet in person" that Mjpresson claims happened and Mjpresson has failed to show a diff of it when asked by Atama and even went as far as being uncivil themselves in their response. I would remind both editors to knock off the personal attacks and use proper channels like WP:3O and WP:WQA in the future before ANI. SmartSE's have more strength in the argument than Mjpresson does, but explaining WP:V can be done without a block.--v/r - TP 18:14, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

As explained above, attempts to inform Tokerdesigner of the requirements of the verifiability policy, including a prior indefinite block for violations, have all failed. Exactly how are persistent violations of a core content policy not "an administrative issue", unless admins are supposed to sit idly back while users disrupt Wikipedia, then punt the issues to arbcom? Doesn't the arbitration committee have enough on its plate already? Chester Markel (talk) 18:31, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I've seen a lot of editors being very aggressive with this user. Why not try to get the user involved in Wiki guides or the adoptee program where he can be mentored by established editors? I have a procedural close because I haven't seen attempts to resolve this at WP:WQA or other non-admin venues. Everything involving this user has been agressive and overreactive - including the user himself. I would like to see everyone calm down, slow down, and try to come to some sort of agreement. Has anyone tried to personally engage this user like perhaps by email?--v/r - TP 22:20, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

WP:BLOCK requires that policies be explained to good-faith users before they are blocked for violations, under most circumstances. But it doesn't set bureaucratic requirements on what form the explanation might take. Discussions at WQA and via email aren't required, if the problems with a user's contributions have been explained to him an inordinate number of times on user and article talk pages. Ultimately, a user has to bring his editing within the basic requirements of core content policies, or he will be blocked. It might seem that "Everything involving this user has been agressive and overreactive" only because nice explanations, beginning two years ago, didn't work. We don't have to treat editors with kid gloves indefinitely. Chester Markel (talk) 00:07, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose: going from a 20 hour block 18 months ago to a 6 month ban is overkill. Start with shorter blocks and escalate as necessary, per usual practice. -Atmoz (talk) 15:51, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose - (non-administative comment). This is a riled up single-topic editor but I haven't seen any evidence that a 6-month bazooka should be used on him. (By the way, there is something screwed up with the sectional "Edit" links on this page at the moment...) Carrite (talk) 18:42, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
• (Non-administrator comment) Oppose we should let him have more rope and let him to acknowledge better and change his ways. Switch to Support. He should know not to do that. Also, the 6 months would give hime time to change his ways. ~~EBE123~~ ^talk_Contribs 22:49, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Tokerdesigner banned for one week

Tokerdesigner (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is community banned for a period of 7 days.

Support as an alternative, per rationale given for longer community ban, and concerns regarding appropriate block length. Chester Markel (talk) 17:10, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Support. Tokerdesigner has been causing trouble at least as far back as 2008, but the trouble he's caused is relatively low-level. If this doesn't get his attention, then heavier penalties may be warranted. Frotz (talk) 20:47, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Support. Please see [4].Mjpresson (talk) 05:12, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Note: I have provided some documentation on this issue here [5]. Mjpresson (talk) 05:13, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Oppose. Thanks in part to the effort of Mjpresson in gathering the evidence, I will present my case day by day as library time permits.

As to alleged "threats from Tokerdesigner":

Revision as of 17:43, 3 June 2011 (edit) (undo)Mjpresson (talk | contribs) (→Re: Cannabis smoking edits, and Block Warning)

Revision as of 15:20, 3 June 2011 (edit) (undo)Tokerdesigner (talk | contribs) (→Hash Oil)

Please note that Mjpresson, not Tokerdesigner, has added the substantial amount of boldfacing which may make the message appear more menacing than intended by Tokerdesigner. Am I entitled to suspect an intent to deceive editors who may be voting in this proceeding?

Then, in his compilation referenced above, you will note that Mjpresson has added on further quotes, all drawn from October-November 2009 in the period after User:Altenmann (now permanently banned from Wikipedia) had reduced the Kief article from over 4000 to 1000 bytes and Mjpresson had begun curtly reverting efforts by Tokerdesigner to restore (in revised form) a small part of the deleted information.

That is when I contributed small edits to several articles by Mjpresson, mainly by way of letting him know I was interested in learning of their nature. As he admits, none of my edits defaced, vandalized, deleted or "tagged" any of the articles in any way, nor as far as I can see "threatened" to do so. Yet his response to those edits, and to some messages in which I tried to use humor but was possibly missunderstood, was this:

Revision as of 18:23, 31 October 2009 (edit) (undo)Mjpresson (talk | contribs) (→A note regarding user "Tokerdesigner")

"... This user is totally stalking me, trying to ridicule my edits, and uses his own wiki-posts as references. This is a complete and utter loser. If you want to see the saga of an asshole, see his talk page. A complete antipolicy wank..." --Mjpresson (talk) 18:23, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I added the italics. What is a "wank"? As for policy, Tokerdesigner is not "anti-policy" (whatever a "wank" is). I affirm that in the vast majority of cases policy rules. (Or rules police.) But Jimmy Wales and partners instituted Wikipedia:Ignore all rules for a reason. Wikipedia/Wikimedia was intended to be a progressive project as indicated by the 2008 fund raising slogan, seen here above pages for several weeks: "Help Wikimedia change the world!" If readers want conventional strict encyclopedic rules and total neutrality they can go to Britannica. WP:IAR must be invoked in one particular situation: "SAFETY FIRST!" That means: SAFETY TRUMPS POLICY. Anyway, I henceforth abstained from any further edits to Mjpresson's articles, or messages to User:Mjpresson until this month when I felt I had to protest after he reduced the length of the Hashish article (which gets 6000 hits a day according to the Full Wiki rating service) by 40%, an unprecedented reduction, in 18 consecutive edits including this:

cur | prev) 03:12, 27 May 2011 Mjpresson (talk | contribs) (9,838 bytes) (Inappropriate catsUndid revision 431098491 by Tokerdesigner (talk)) (undo)

Revision as of 03:11, 27 May 2011 (edit)Mjpresson (talk | contribs)(→Preparation and methods of use: STOP ADDING HOW TO multiple warnings in past)

Revision as of 23:47, 26 May 2011 (edit) (undo)Tokerdesigner (talk | contribs) (move hash oil foto)

Revision as of 00:29, 26 May 2011 (edit) (undo)Mjpresson (talk | contribs) (→Tobacco: article isn't about tobacco, reference removed as was not allowable as ref)

Note that on 26 May Mjpresson deleted a paragraph covering the practice of mixing cannabis with tobacco, including a reference to the Australian Department of Health warning against that practice. What's "not allowable" about that ref? (In the interest of Safety First, and in the service of readers, including youngsters, who want to know about issues of safety regarding hashish use, Tokerdesigner then restored the ref, see above.) Mjpresson, why did you delete that ADoH warning?

As if in answer to Mjpresson's May 26 deletion of the Australian DoH warning that mixing cannabis with tobacco "can lead to unintended nicotine addiction", the World Health Organization issued this May 30 warning:

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2011/wntd_20110530/en/index.html

"... This year, the tobacco epidemic will kill nearly 6 million people, including some 600 000 nonsmokers who will die from exposure to tobacco smoke. By 2030, it could kill 8 million."

Let's do some math: assuming 1% of the nicotine addictions over the past half century resulted at least in part from youngsters exploring hashish having received advice to roll it in a joint together with tobacco (I think the figure is higher), that would account for 60,000 of the 6 million yearly premature deaths (with huge medical expenses in the later stages of illness). (Comparison: Ratko Mladić is in court over a one-time execution of 8300 at Srebrenica. Will the Wikipedia editors of today someday be compared with UN Peacekeepers who stood by at Srebrenica "for policy reasons" while Mladić's troops killed the 8300?)

I cited, above, two further edits: (a) one in which Mjpresson deleted what he/she refers to as "How-to"-- i.e. safety instructions" which could, if observed by readers, lead to avoiding the "other" How-to (cannabis and tobacco together in a joint, "which can lead to unintended nicotine addiction"), and (b) one in which Mjpresson deletes a "See also" link (which Mj believed to be a "cat"-- category?) to the one-hitter article which describes what are seen as possible alternatives' to rolling cannabis and tobacco together in a joint.

Without waiting for voting to close in this proceeding, Mjpresson then went to One hitter (smoking) and deleted over half the article, particularly pictures and information which could instruct readers in how to avoid rolling tobacco and cannabis together in a joint. Mjpresson further deleted a picture of a bottle of dokha, a sifted tobacco product used in a midwakh, as "non-contextual", even though the picture served a useful purpose in the {One-hitter (smoking) article by showing how herb (any species!) should be sifted before use in a narrow one-hitter. This seems to indicate an intention to deny readers information which promotes health and safety (but admittedly interferes with recruiting them into nicotine addiction).Tokerdesigner (talk) 23:44, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

• Support A week block for not heeding the communities warnings since 2008 to use reliable sources for verifiability seems fair to me.--v/r - TP 00:01, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Note: Tokerdesigner has disrupted this conversation above with his own "oppose" (can he do that?) and a huge amount of lengthy copy/paste inserted. Can this be removed from the conversation? Mjpresson (talk) 19:15, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, it might be hatted. But we can take it as read that people can "oppose" their own block or ban, and give a reason why - otherwise WP:ANI would be more like a kangaroo court. In this particular case the reason seems to be rather tangential, and Tokerdesigner is just digging themselves deeper into a hole with the genoicide comparisons, but hey... bobrayner (talk) 13:20, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Not only can someone oppose, it's unusual for them not to, unless they can't for some reason (they are away from Wikipedia or are blocked, etc.). -- Atama頭 16:21, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I have removed my previous note from here (after justified criticism, below, and because no longer timely. Readers can search it down in "History".) I have added further defense argumentation at the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cannabis Discussion page, at Talk:Cannabis smoking and at [6], the latter also now referenced, below, by Mjpresson. At all three of those venues, if editors will read the entire text, they can observe illuminating one-on-one debate between User:Mjpresson and User:Tokerdesigner, including references to edits Mjpresson has made in the last three days to numerous articles, perhaps in expectation that Tokerdesigner will be banned and other editors intimidated. (See Mjpresson:Contributions page.)

Option to change vote

Anyone who has already voted (above) can still-- as of this moment-- change their vote. After reading the further debate installments referenced above, they may feel they understand the issues better. The issues are complex-- if they weren't, humanity would have solved the 6,000,000-a-year cigarette mortality problem by now, by understanding the differences (a) between cannabis and tobacco and (b)between commercially advertised overdose cigarette/"joint" "smoking" and a vaporizer or one-hitter-- so regrettably editors have a burden of duty to inform themselves more comprehensively than usual when deciding on this demand from Mjpresson to ban the "anti-policy wank" Tokerdesigner.Tokerdesigner (talk) 00:58, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Note the above entry Liebrewery (brewing lies incognito). This is typical of the unintelligible entries we see on a daily basis. I don't understand what it means. Mjpresson (talk) 05:20, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I think it means "library". Perhaps that's where most of his internet access is. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 05:37, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh. Because he also stated "I'm ghosthosting on various IP's to avoid getting caught by Big 2Wackgo". I don't know what that means, either. Mjpresson (talk) 05:45, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Maybe that's code for Big Tobacco? They could be out to get him. -- Atama頭 07:33, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Whether or not it's an actual conspiracy theory rather than a bizarre conversational gambit, it's definitely wasting other editor's time, goodwill, and attention. bobrayner (talk) 13:16, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Also, Tokerdesigner's self referencing is preposterous. See my reversion of one here [7]. I don't know if the community has noticed this. I have reverted many of these by him.Mjpresson (talk) 23:47, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

That "self referencing" was produced by some formatting machine later, I didn't put the name "Tokerdesigner" in there.

To address this issue now: on the archived section of Talk:One-hitter (smoking) you can find a list of the wikiHow and Wikiversity articles Tokerdesigner referenced, in order to comply with WP:NOTHOWTO which includes an overt directive that readers seeking how-to information be encouraged to seek it at wikiHow.com among other places. Referring to those articles kept that how-to information-- how to make one-hitters, etc. in true Wikipedia "do it yourself" spirit instead of buying them from high-price WP:SPAM headshops-- out of Wikipedia pages without denying readers access to it.

(Those wikiHow articles contain typewriter-generated diagrams similar to ones which Mjpresson has recently deleted from WP talk pages where they were posted in hopes other editors would decide to use the JPG technology to enter them as thumbnail illustrations. Since when is it considered civil to delete talk page postings?)Tokerdesigner (talk) 01:28, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

And now this [8] unsigned note making false allegations on others' talk pages. Mjpresson (talk) 22:39, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Now I'm a a stooge of the world's leading genocide-for-profit conspiracy?:[9].Mjpresson (talk) 22:50, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I would like this to be addressed, please read his entire note if you have all day.[10].Mjpresson (talk) 22:54, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Tokerdesigner says this of me on the talk page: "Using Wikipedia to promote the interests of the cigarette industry (through his advocacy in 44 detailed articles about the chain-smoking movie-maker José Mojica Marins whose main character Ze do Caixão (in English "Coffin Joe"-- sound like Joe Camel?) commits serial murders for sex and personal vindication). I personally couldn't smoke enough tobacco to stay awake sitting through 88 hours of those horror flicks. To reference another BRIC country: a 2004-05 study showed 89% of all movies made in India contained depictions of "tobacco use" (almost always cigarettes)."[11] [sic]Mjpresson (talk) 23:13, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

• Support the proposed 1 week ban (or longer). Tokerdesigner's crusade (and inability to AGF) is detrimental to the project and to other editors. bobrayner (talk) 08:10, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Concerning assumption of good faith: anyone with time to read the entire debate will find statements of mine showing that I assume good faith from Mjpresson, despite disagreements which stem from a perception that he/she has been pursuing a "policy" of removing from cannabis-related articles information which might promise to obstruct an "industry" agenda to exploit the interest in cannabis to recruit youngsters into nicotine addiction-- see the latest 30 Contributions by Mjpresson to various articles since Mj opened these proceedings. Bobrayner has the option, though it be onerous, to search further into the matter and even change his/her vote. This includes additions and revisions of my argument (above) since yesterday; I will continue as time and logistics permit to improve the links involved to make referencing them easier.Tokerdesigner (talk) 00:24, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

"agenda to exploit the interest in cannabis to recruit youngsters into nicotine addiction"? You've proven my point about AGF. Please stop digging. bobrayner (talk) 08:30, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

But, bobrayner, why would Mjpresson delete the Australian Department of Health warning against mixing cannabis with tobacco (May 26, referenced above)?Tokerdesigner (talk) 21:29, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I believe that Wikipedia:THERAPY can be applied here[12],[13], [14],[15],[16],[17] in addition to the WP:V and WP:CIVIL issues. Please know that I do not intend any personal attack by raising this.Mjpresson (talk) 19:29, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I do not mean any personal attack, either, by mentioning here that Mjpression has (a) referred to Tokerdesigner as a single-purpose editor and (b) contributed 257 edits (I counted them) to the WP biographical article on the chain-smoking film-maker José Mojica Marins.Tokerdesigner (talk) 21:29, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Unresolved

Should I just continue to add these until the problem is addressed? [18] Mjpresson (talk) 20:55, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

My energy and wiki-goodwill are being drained by this user ranting about me site-wide. Are the admins aware that this issue remains unresolved after 11 days?? Mjpresson (talk) 21:04, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

And the relentless "one-hitter" obsession [19]. Mjpresson (talk) 21:16, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

• ...to hell with a one-week ban, this is out of control. Support full siteban of Tokerdesigner, and also a polite suggestion that he find a more reputable dealer for whatever he's smoking, because good GOD is he getting some bad stuff. rdfox 76 (talk) 03:11, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

I mentioned before this should be a permanent ban discussion for relentless WP:CIVIL, WP:V, and WP:THERAPY. I certainly support that.Mjpresson (talk) 03:25, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Comment Not to mention violations of WP:CANVASS. --Blackmane (talk) 10:00, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

What's going to happen here

This isn't getting any traction because it's difficult to tell exactly what's going on, why it's disruptive and what policy would suggest is the correct outcome. From a quick read of the history, however, the following would seem to be true:

1. Tokerdesigner's edits are mainly in the area of cannabis smoking.
2. He's strongly in favour of promoting methods of cannabis smoking which don't involve tobacco, to the extent where he's convinced himself that those who disagree with his edits are working (directly or indirectly) for the tobacco industry.
3. He's edit warring on articles under the category of cannabis smoking to promote his POV.

Never mind talk of "one-week bans". Those supporting such things don't appear to understand the difference between a block and a ban, nor for what reason we block editors (specifically, that blocks are not punitive). Appropriate methods of resolution are things like:

1. Taking specific instances of edit warring past 3RR to WP:ANEW
2. Seeking a third opinion on specific content disputes
3. A request for comment on user conduct if the above fails to satisfactorily resolve the problem
4. Further remedies depending on the outcome of the RFC/U

None of the above is likely to happen while the likes of Mjpresson are edit warring right back, or wasting time proposing bogus sanctions at ANI. Put simply, y'all need to take this content dispute from the top rather than simply trying to un-person Tokerdesigner. For what it's worth Tokerdesigner's POV pushing here seems incredibly obvious, but our dispute resolution process is designed to amicably resolve such things while hopefully steering people into more productive editing: kicking people off the project is supposed to be a last resort.

Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 13:01, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I seriously propose that Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) did not read all the diffs provided. A serious issue has been blown off. There were 5 supports for the block and one protest by the blockee. I am not edit warring. He is just causing us more work and allowing an abusive editor to be disruptive sitewide. Seriously Cunningham I propose did not read the diffs provided and has made a capricious error of judgement. Mjpresson (talk) 13:42, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Unresolved:[20],[21], [22],[23],[24],[25], [26], and 5 supports to block contested only by blockee. Mjpresson (talk) 13:47, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I had initially titled this section "too long, didn't read" before posting it. The reason it has been "blown off" is because a huge list of diffs with no succinct summary of the supposed wrongdoings is unlikely to get any attention at ANI at all, and the "proposed solution" is bogus. It is irrelevant whether people have supported it or not as we're not going to enact punitive blocks based merely on the number of people shouting for them. Lastly, you're not doing yourself any favours by attacking the only admin who has bothered taking the time to respond. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 13:59, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm only concerned about article quality and stopping the ranting about me sitewide. It's all in the diffs. Not concerned with doing myself "favour"s as you put it. That sounds a little threatening. You simply made a decision without reading provided diffs. Mjpresson (talk) 14:10, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

"I had initially titled this section "too long, didn't read" before posting it.". An admin is attempting to reslove an issue without reading provided evidence and diffs. Mjpresson (talk) 14:15, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

You can't just throw a mess of diffs at ANI and expect a result. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 15:33, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Addendum: That post of mine was a bit curt, so I'll elaborate. What we have is a terrible mess of diffs, accusations and discussion that makes it incredibly difficult to figure out what the actual problem is. I'd suggest you write a succinct (500-1000 words) description of the history of the problem, with diffs provided at each juncture to help us understand what's going on. This may be better as an RfC, than an ANI report. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 15:39, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I'll note that most of the "tl;dr" stuff is from the wall-of-text postings by TokerDesigner that almost feel like they were intended to disrupt and break up the discussion. Has anyone *other* than TokerDesigner objected to the topic/siteban proposals? rdfox 76 (talk) 00:55, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Rdfox, you are correct. There were 5 supports for a block and one object from Tokerdesigner. He has managed to copy and paste and mess up this thread until it's unreadable for the purpose of disrupting the proceeding. Tokerdesigner has trumped and played the administrators and has succeeded. Mjpresson (talk) 01:04, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I am perfectly capable of skipping Tokerdesigner's walls of text. What I am not capable of doing is finding a solid, policy-based proposed solution from other parties. A site ban is absolutely not happening based on the say-so of half a dozen involved editors, as you've already been told, so complaining about not getting one enacted is not productive. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 06:53, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

• I'm a bit late to the party, been very busy in RL lately, but I thought I would just chime in and add that my experience with Tokerdesigner is that he is a shameless promoter of his own shall we say "unique" ideas on the "proper" methods of smoking pot and in my experience has been unwilling to accept many of Wikipedia's most basic policies because he believes his crusade to get people to smoke pot differently overrules those concerns. Haven't read this entire massively long thread, just re-iterating what my prior experience with this user has been for the record. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:44, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

• There was a pretty solid consensus to block Tokerdesigner for one week, and while the justification for the block is all over the place, really it all comes down one way or another to soapboxing about their personally-preferred method of smoking cannabis. The disruption includes personal attacks and edit wars. I've therefore blocked Tokerdesigner for a period of one week. If this behavior persists, escalating blocks would be sure to follow as is the norm in such cases. -- Atama頭 19:52, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Ummm, he hasn't edited anything except his own userspace (with one exception, and that's hardly egrecious) in five days now. A week's block here is little but punitive, and sends out the wrong signal as regards future dispute resolution (i.e. just go and browbeat folk on ANI until you get what you're demanding). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 20:45, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I based my block on a few things (which didn't include Mjpresson's browbeating, that actually put me off taking action). First, SmartSE's analysis above is concerning. Secondly, the support for a one week block expressed by multiple people here. Third, the fact that even in this discussion Tokerdesigner took the time to soapbox about the evils of tobacco. And finally, they were back to edit-warring as recently as yesterday. (Mjpresson is guilty of the same thing, though, I'd like to point out.) As always my actions are up for review and criticism. -- Atama頭 23:02, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

By the way, I'm aware that Chester Markel is a sockpuppet and their contributions to the discussion didn't hold weight with me (just in case someone brings that up). -- Atama頭 23:06, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Note: Please know that I didn't initiate this block request. I started this thread as strictly a complaint. I've never asked anyone to be blocked. Now I see that the user who initiated this block is a sock who is banned? As much as I think Tokerdesigner needs a block, I'm not comfortable with the fact that this block was started by a sock puppet and I gave support. I don't want to do things that way.Mjpresson (talk) 00:56, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Nevertheless, what's done is done. I'd have been happier for Tokerdesigner to simply be given a final warning, but obviously his actions have been predominantly disruptive up until now. If it happens again then just bring it up here with as short a summary as you can, ideally with diffs and accompanying explanations which point it out, and sans the unnecessary "proposals" and blocks will be escalated until Tokerdesigner gets the point. For now we can probably close this. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 09:12, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Page Protection Violation on Teo Ser Luck by User/EditorElle _{vécut heureuse}

Toddst1 (talk) had originally page protected Teo Ser Luck due to Edit warring / Content dispute from June 5 2012 to June 12 2012 [27] due to edit warring between Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} and 218.186.16.10. Editor had already been warned previously about 3RR on the same article [28] and then a second time warned more explicitly against repeating this [29] that the page was being protected in lieu of a ban. However, Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} was still able to edit the page and revert it to the version she preferred on June 8 [30], 4 dys before the page protection expired. Is some loophole being exploited or does the editor have some higher editor/administrative rights to the article? Even if the 2nd scenario was true the editor should keep out of the article during the page protection period as one of the warring parties. Zhanzhao (talk) 21:45, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I notified User:La goutte de pluie - diff - Thats pretty blatant, warring party as an admin editing through the protection. Perhaps he didn't notice it was protected? In the edit he made through the protection he also added this youtube video which is pretty clearly a copyright violation and it should be removed. Off2riorob (talk) 22:25, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

The article should be deprotected, in that case. I asked the other party to repeatedly use discussion avenues to discuss the issues; the said party hasn't replied on the noticeboards (ANI / BLP / TSL talk page) on the issue itself; indeed, the discussion on ANI expired without a single rebuttal to my claim of the source being an RS. As I stated before the discussion expired, it's not my tendency to edit war; however when an anonymous editor with a known conflict of interest, who jumps several ISPs and occasionally posts from Ministry IP addresses, repeatedly removes criticism and does not give any further explanation when asked, I am extremely suspicious. Silence when I ask for a reply seems to say this anonymous editor isn't really here to build an encyclopedia or build consensus -- whereas I am. I would readily re-comment out (or remove entirely) the disputed section on my own accord if the editor actually discussed the merits of the source. I also said to the protecting admin that reversion within 72 hours if there was no reply seemed reasonable, if only to motivate the disputing party to more discussion. The party has the strange habit of not participating in discussion when his/her aim is achieved and only coming back to discussion under reversion. As I said, I don't really have a "preferred version" -- I simply do not want government-linked editors being allowed to remove whatever criticisms of the government they want with impunity to community rules. Government-linked editors (as I readily proved in an archived ANI discussion) have been removing other criticisms without explanation in other articles, have been behaving rather maliciously on the internet against the opposition overall, as well as writing heavily promotional articles about their government ministries and programmes. Allowing reversion without discussion, seems to me to reward such anti-encyclopedic/anti-consensus behaviour. You will note that the Singapore government ranks #151 for press freedom. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 22:59, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

From page protection policy: "On pages that are experiencing edit warring, temporary full protection can force the parties to discuss their edits on the talk page, where they can reach consensus." i.e. the goal of page protection is to promote discussion. However when protection encourages silence rather than discussion, then perhaps protection should not be used. No one replied to me on recommendations of suitable courses of action when I asked for advice on BLP or ANI; it is my deepest desire to avoid COI as much possible; however when the protecting admin did not reply (he is semi-retired) and when the other party remained silent for 72-96 hours, it was my desire to restore the source (of which I am fairly sure is a reliable source, given that Yahoo News! Singapore is a professional news service; SingaporeScene as I wrote would be counted as having the same editorial control as Yahoo News! Singapore per WP:BLP and WP:RS). Had the editor ever addressed WP:RS claims -- ever -- I would have readily reverted myself, to promote discussion. This is my deepest desire -- what I do not want however, are COI parties, especially those employed by a government with low press freedom -- to be allowed to remove criticisms without discussion. Thus after a notable absence of discussion, I saw it fit to reinstate the deleted criticism, in hope that the editor would come back and use the talk pages so I could gain greater insight into his claims. That editor has not. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 23:18, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

They are listed as blog authors, not journalists. You just want to keep harping about it so you can keep your trivia piece of news, instead of keeping it factual. You even reverted the office posts I added in, which you don't even care about updating. And then you proceeded on to harp on and on about government conspiracies taking over the Wiki world. I think you are the problem, dude. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.186.16.226 (talk) 12:59, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

So your did it deliberately, edited through another administrators full protection - placed there because of an edit war you were involved in - I realize you are a returning user after a lengthy time but surely you understand WP:INVOLVED and you know where WP:RFPP - is to request article unprotection? Off2riorob (talk) 23:33, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Unrelated trolling from now-community banned IP
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Off2riorob- Despite your phrasing of that comment as a question, it's clearly a veiled accusation. If you're going to accuse other editors of not understanding policy, or having forgotten it, you should do so forthrightly. 24.177.120.138 (talk) 00:43, 12 June 2011 (UTC) I thought I was quite clear, my comment above "Thats pretty blatant, warring party as an admin editing through the protection" - as I was yesterday about your contributions here. Off2riorob (talk) 01:47, 12 June 2011 (UTC) Will you lay off the ad-hominem attacks, please? That quote is nowhere in your comment above; had it been, I wouldn't have commented. You asked a question-- "surely you understand WP:INVOLVED and you know where WP:RFRP - is to request article unprotection?"-- and that's a loaded question. 24.177.120.138 (talk) 02:02, 12 June 2011 (UTC) Bolded both comments above for you to see clearly. Can you see them now? So what if its loaded its supposed to be. If you begin to edit constructively and stop disrupting everywhere you go (and I hope you do) all issues with your contributions will cease. Off2riorob (talk) 02:15, 12 June 2011 (UTC) Thank you for the clarification. I'm sure you're aware that that's not the comment I'm referencing when I describe your question as loaded. I'm happy to leave this where it is, but I would ask that you please stop trying to turn everything around on me in the future. 24.177.120.138 (talk) 02:28, 12 June 2011 (UTC) Well, I suggest you keep out of my way then - disrupt at distant locations, the far corners of the wiki are available for you, this thread is nothing to do with you, you should keep your battling disruptive nose out of issues that have nothing to do with you.Off2riorob (talk) 02:39, 12 June 2011 (UTC) Yeah, okay, whatever. This issue has as much to do with me as it does with you, and you don't own ANI, nor are you empowered to banish me to "the far corners of the wiki." 24.177.120.138 (talk) 02:48, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

• I'm sorry, but La goutte de pluie does not seriously believe she can justify all her actions based on Singapore's media freedom ranking, can she? Perhaps the next step should be an RFC on her admin actions. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 02:58, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
  • That is part of it, but I am trying to ensure the spirit of the project. Many government-linked editors do not care for the community or for encyclopedia-building -- they only wish to use Wikipedia to make their superiors look good, as can be told by the way they callously avoid discussion.

La goutte de pluie, I do not appreciate that you go around smearing and insinuating that I'm part of government board or of a certain Ministry doing damage control. If you even know how Starhub IP addresses work, which apparently you don't, you would have known IPs don't get issued the same all the time. In fact, I am having problems doing edits as I'm blocked from editing whenever I'm on a certain IP address. I have tried appealing but for some reason, it brought me to another IP address's talk page. You have been going around challenging me, making claims I remain silent even though I have told you so. Like I said earlier, if you cannot stay civil, don't edit. Clearly you don't know where to draw the line between factual info vs whitewashing. I worry for future Singaporeans who have to read up the nonsense edits you have been writing just to deface people's wiki pages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.186.16.226 (talk) 12:43, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

And you, Mr Anon, need to lay off the attacks. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 13:19, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Some of the Ministry IPs in question are 160.96.200.34, 160.96.200.35, 160.96.200.36, 160.96.200.37, which are shared IPs, but sometimes have the editing patterns of the above editor and seem to engage in potential COI editing and participating in the edit wars of the above editor. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yingluck_Shinawatra&diff=prev&oldid=430947999. This anonymous editor (while using Special:Contributions/160.96.200.26) kept on using officious government language which I took out specifically to avoid a promotional tone and any copyright issues; these anonymous editors have a tendency to make Wikipedia pages on Singaporean policies, programmes and politicians look like another copy of Singapore government web pages, down to the way sections are titled. Note that this editor, while editing under a Ministry IP, would remove free images from articles and replace them with copyright violations such as File:VivianBalakrishnan42.jpg, perhaps to comply with some sort of online policy of making their politicians look as sharp and officious as possible. Reversion to this copyrighted image, and removal of the free image, happened repeatedly on Vivian Balakrishnan. Interestingly, this very image was uploaded onto commons as a super high-resolution image several megabytes in size and uploaded with a free license with the claim that the uploader was the copyright holder; this copy does not exist elsewhere online, further confirming suspected links that this editor (or his allies) has with the Singaporean government -- otherwise, why would that editor be in possession of such a humongously large image? There are many, many other telling clues that I have noticed over the past months that support the suspicion of conflict-of-interest editing. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 14:19, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Also, StarHub never changes addresses that frequently; that is, StarHub addresses are metastable -- it usually takes several weeks between IP changes. Such quickly changing addresses either suggests that someone, perhaps someone with influence, has asked to give you highly dynamic IP addresses from StarHub, or that you can request new addresses at a whim, or that you edit using open proxies. In fact, one of your IPs -- a StarHub IP -- was detected as an open proxy -- which is highly suspicious. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 14:19, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

The anonymous editor above now desires to provoke edit wars with me again, without discussion, and calling good faith edits "vandalism". [31] The reversions the editor just did includes my edits which tried to avoid language the government used in their web pages (for copyright/npov issues), as well as removal of perfectly good citations from government-linked newspapers. Note that in a history now at Vivian Balakrishnan/deleted revisions (checking admins can look), this same editor (under several IPs) would have simply removed the entire elections section outright. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 14:27, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Didn't a user named User:Dave1185 explain how Starhub IP works? Or are you acting dumb about it? What's with bringing up the IP addresses 160.96.200.xx ? And I caught you rephrasing Vivian Balakrishnan page again. Couldn't keep yourself neutral as usual I guess. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.186.16.226 (talk) 14:34, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

A reversion this editor carried out is found at [32]. I have partially rephrased part of this edit because of a potential copyright violation from the official PAP website. Perhaps the editor thinks that copying from government websites is OK and not a copyright violation, because his/her employer, is that of the government. Dave1185 explained that "Starhub ip addresses are rarely dynamic in nature" [33], but perhaps you are a rare StarHub "customer" indeed! Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 14:58, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

You seem to have missed out Dave's point of how it is not impossible to happen due to how close HDB flats are. Aren't you a Singnet user? Are you working for the government then? Dave and others in the other discussion told you that government IPs come from Singnet. Did you purposely miss out that part? So how am I, a starhub user even related to ur stupid theory that I'm doing my 'job' ? Your warped logic disgusts the hell out of me because you are stooping so low to accuse me of all sorts of nonsense, while trying to be this saint doing a holy job of 'cleaning' people's pages. I think you are trying too hard to discredit Vivian Balakrishnan by changing all the words from "his contributions" to "contributions of men under him". Personal agenda? You should just be banned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.186.16.226 (talk) 15:22, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, 218.186.16.226 has now managed to talk himself into a range block, related to an issue farther down this page. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:56, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Can I speak? In case you are not aware, La goutte de pluie complained about me again here after i reverted his edits (I had to copy back from Zhanzhao's version since La goutte de pluie weren't undo-able)here, here, most importantly here about Vivian Balakrishnan, making claims I was responsible that all the edits reverted and that I was trying to keep copyrighted source. How was his/her edits making it less different from the copyrighted source? A change of words from "he" to "his subordinates"? I've been told if it's copyrighted material,you can't just tweak a few words. So why am I getting blame for this? Please enlighten me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.186.16.247 (talk) 22:26, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Edit warring and Administrator privilege issue

Going back to the edit warring issue: When I protected that page, I was unaware that one of the warriors was an admin. I seriously considered blocking La goutte de pluie (talk · contribs) at that time and in retrospect, I am sorry I didn't. Protection or not, had this edit been brought to my attention, I would have likely (and correctly) blocked La goutte de pluie. That the edit warrior is an admin makes this worse and that it was done through page protection compounds the issue. This should have been dealt with one one of the noticeboards rather than unilaterally by La goutte de pluie. Toddst1 (talk) 21:55, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

One way would be to simply topic-block registered users/editors who are obviously involved in the edit war which would keep them as well as the anonymous IPs out, but it was really unexpected that an admin would bet so involved in the first place (then again look at hot topic issues like Meredith Kercher....). But the block is due to expire soon so the current block will soon be a moot point. I have already commented on the nature of the admin's edit on the article's talk page so there are more opposing voices to what the editor considers a credible addition to the aeticle so his arguement of no discussion is moot as well (though that means I am potentially identifying myself as an involved party but so be it). Plus she has been informed of the proper procedure of how to request edits on a page protected page (based on her edits its unlikely she did not know the page was not protected). What we need to see is what happens after this block expires. Zhanzhao (talk) 23:02, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Obviously, as Todd and Rob and others note here, an abusive act by the user/admin La goutte de pluie - who is "open to recall". Perhaps that should be seriously considered. Meanwhile, I have taken the liberty of reverting to where it was when Todd semi-protected it, as the matter is in dispute and the added material was questionable, at the very least. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:10, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I wholly agree, there has been a spate of similarly very concerning actions regarding the Singaporean elections recently by this admin. This cannot continue, government "whitewashing" or otherwise. StrPby (talk) 00:17, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I have asked the admin about his/her recall criteria. We will see what he or she says. In the mean time, I have extended full protection. Toddst1 (talk) 01:05, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

If this issue were over the Santorum page or any other high visibility article we'd probably have emergency ArbCom desysoppings by now... Let's see if recall pans out. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 12:01, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I first met the user when I opened an AFD after some request somewhere (at BLPN if I remember) and La goutte de pluie commented strong keep (he said americans did not understand the candidate) and said if no more reason was presented he was inclined to 'speedy close' the AFD.diff - this set of my spidey senses in regards to WP:CLUE - The user was warned not to do it by user:Ohiostandard - "Doing so would be an extremely bad idea: It would be a blatant abuse of administrator privileges (not "rights", please note) that would certainly generate a huge amount of drama and would almost certainly result in negative consequences for yourself, as well. You cannot use admin privileges to win a dispute in which you are involved, and even the threat to do so seriously damages the faith the community must have in those we allow the extra bit if our governance model here is to function. Please think more carefully before you make any such threat in the future. I also find it strange that the user seems to be moving his talk page to his archives which I have never seem before, it may be ok to do that but it breaks the talkpage history and as you see here his talkpage history goes back to May 4th only. Can I do that and then do a user request to delete my archives and rtherby delete my edit history? Anyways, then its been prety much downhill all the way with our mmetings - The user was then edit warring with me against MOS style replacing flags in the infobox of an article this came to ANI here Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive691#IP_range_making_nationalist_edits - again he was reverting without WP:CLUE. This incident and his statement that he did it to get the IP to discuss is reflective of the general situation with this returning contributor - I asked him right at the start to take it easy and get a feel for how things work round here these days but he does not appear to have listened. He has shown a lot of partisan contributions to the issue he returned to edit , the recent Singapore elections and when challenged goes off on a commentary that it is the lack of freedom and such similar in Singapore and government editors that he is working to resist ... basically he is well involved in this issue and clearly should not be using the tools at all in that area, never mind editing through another admins full protection when he was one of the warring parties that caused the article to be protected in the first place. I also support recall of his tools. His original RFA contains some interesting comments~,Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Natalinasmpf I extremely doubt he would pass now and its unlikely that he would be a shoe in to get the numbers up for users in that locality/timezone.Off2riorob (talk) 15:33, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

La goutte de pluie has not replied. I think it's time for an WP:RFC/U but unfortunately I don't have time this week to kick one off. Toddst1 (talk) 15:43, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Note, btw, that moving the talkpage to archive it is documented at Help:Archiving a talk page#Move procedure, with sigificantly fewer downsides than the cut-and-paste method that most of us seem to use. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:52, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that's the real issue here. Edit warring through page protection is. Toddst1 (talk) 17:03, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I had never seen that before. Thanks for the detail and for replying to my query Sarek. Off2riorob (talk) 09:52, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) excuse me but actually, how did La goutte de pluie actually get the sysop bit, searched the local and global log. ~~EBE123~~ ^talk_Contribs 18:28, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

She was renamed -- see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Natalinasmpf. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 19:00, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

So is nothing going to be done about it just because La goutte de pluie is keeping quiet? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.186.16.241 (talk) 11:04, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Anon, I would strongly suggest that you stop IP hopping and stop hounding La goutte de pluie. Action will be taken in time to come, but it will be progressive. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 11:36, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Does it seem strange to anyone that the user in question was nominated for adminship by someone who ended up being community banned for abusive sockpuppetry and sneaky vandalism? (edit) Actually, the RfA appears to have been votestacked by multiple accounts that were later community banned or else turned out to be socks of previously banned users. One was User:172 (a sock of User:Cognition), another was User:Freestylefrappe. User:Jossi was also blocked for sockpuppetry. User:Izehar was a purpose-made votestacking puppet. Something isn't right. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 16:52, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Hold on, Izehar signed off as that humourously. I appreciate constructive criticisms, but I cannot tolerate completely unfounded slander. Please check your facts? Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 20:13, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that seemed strange to me when I saw that. When I first encountered this returning admin we had a dispute and this account came from out of nowhere to defend the admins position and attack me via a worthless wiquette report User:Ougro contribution history - I stated then that account was a sock or a meatpuppet. Off2riorob (talk) 17:04, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

This all makes La goutte de pluie look very suspect. The sheer number of banned users and socks involved in the RfA is very suspicious. As for the account that attacked you, obviously someone's sock. Is it recent enough for a checkuser? - Burpelson AFB ✈ 17:15, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Last edit from May fourth. I was directed to go to SPI but I would have been fishing so I put it down to experience, although I thought there was some connection to User:La goutte de pluie as the attack stopped I let it go. Off2riorob (talk) 17:39, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I've sent to SPI [34]. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 18:05, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I haven't had time to draft a recall procedure, or even follow up on sources I have shortlisted on various talk pages. Give me a few days. I'm a university student doing biochem research, and I am in fact in lab right now. Btw, it's my personal belief that the SPI request is spurious, but I will assume good faith about it. I was actually rather annoyed by Ougro's admin shopping -- I don't bear grudges, it offended me that Ougro thought that by merely disagreeing with Off2riorob that he could recruit me to his "request". I only offered my opinion very reluctantly. I am sorry that Off2riorob thinks that I have some vendetta against him. I don't. He is a valuable contributor and discusser, if I wish he would be a little more amicable sometimes. Karmafist, 172 and Freestylefrappe were all prominent community members. Such was the community back in 2006 -- many people have now left because of disagreements with the direction of the project of course. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 19:47, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Should we start another RfA because of excessive socks, suspicion? In general, misuse of RfA. ~~EBE123~~ ^talk_Contribs 19:52, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand this prejudice against old contributors. I was about to voluntarily draft a recall page, where I can also explain my actions, which has been difficult because I am acting on outside information. I do not wish to hold any tools against consensus (which I have always stroven to uphold), but if spurious accusations are being made like I am using an offical talk archive method (officially endorsed! -- and the copy and paste method should not be used at all) as though I am purposely trying to conceal messages or that I made all these socks for my RFA, when those were perfectly good contributors (RFA was very well-policed even in 2006), then I am not so sure. User:Izehar was an administrator for goodness sake. His user page history --a very rich one -- lists 260 deleted edits alone, and his contribution history is very rich.

With all due respect, I am not sure I can respect recall requests from users who make such misinformed accusations without investigation first. Accusation without proper investigation is in fact, the basis of my old disagreement with Off2riorob and some other afd nominators. I have disagreements with the "hyperdeletionist" culture -- that is, with nominators who will tag an article for deletion without so much as a google check, and seem offended when I question their assumptions. The most recent article I saved was Geiser Manufacturing, a historically notable firm that was tagged for speedy deletion. I believe in careful, conscientious editing, not knee-jerk button pressing responses. Perhaps if that CSD page (as I found it) had been found by another admin it would have been deleted rather than salvaged.

I am sorry for editing through protection. Normally content dispute page protection -- especially without prior history -- lasts 24 to 72 hours, not 1 week, so after 72 hours without discussion -- as I told Todd -- I saw continued reversion as acceptable, especially because I had it on good suspicion that the IP-jumping editor had a conflict of interest. And I edited well over 4 days later, respecting the page protection (that I had no idea lasted 1 week. isn't this against policy?). I am also not sure I can call it a content dispute if the anonymous user refused to use the talk pages despite repeated entreaties. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 20:09, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Ebe, are you serious right now? "Misuse of RFA"? If nothing else, let the SPI determine if there's actually a socking problem, and in the meantime, assume good faith. Obviously over the last six years there are going to be people who are now known as socks, people who blew a gasket and left, or people who decided to retire. Dragging Elle's name through the mud with absolutely no evidence (socks !voting in her six-year-old RfA isn't even circumstantial evidence) is insulting and degrading to a long-term productive contributor. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:49, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

As I was the one who highlighted the "edit through protection" issue I would like to clarify why I raised it all the way here. As mentioned by other editors/admins above and in her talk pages, Elle's edit behaviour had been noted by some to have been questionable, especially where it concerns Singapore politics. While Elle has made many useful contributions in other areas, she seems to lose her objectivity in the problem area I mentioned. Accusing editors who make edits that are less than critical of the government as party representatives is not very nice either. There will always be people who wiki during company hours and ride on the company's free wifi to do so (I speak this with great experience:P) which could explain some of the close IP ranges identified; some may be doing so to clear misconceptions or to balance anti-government sentiment views. Another questionable behaviour is over-reliance on sources which are known to be less than reliable/neutral such as Temasek Review Emeritus for which I (and other editors) have repeatedly cautioned her that the source was a blog/SPS, not a news site, and which has been described by other non local media as leaning towards the opposition.

In any case, this report is not the first time that Elle received feedback that her edits on political articles have been less than neutral; there are more instances of this on her page and even a June 2 entry that specifically questioned [[35]] her involvement as an admin in an edit war, but it was apparently ignored, and escalated to the incident that led to this report. My greatest worry is that while it has not happened here yet, I would not like to see a situation where an administrator is able to protect a page from other editors just to protect his/her own version of the article in a moment of edit passion. I am not suggesting that she stop editing political articles, just that she takes care to ensure greater objectivity when doing so, or at least with the same level of care she has taken with other non-political articles she has contributed to. Zhanzhao (talk) 22:49, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I do not support any consideration of a new RfA because some of the prior supports may have turned out to be socks. The numerical results were not a close call, and it could set a precedent we may regret. I have no problem with an SPI investigation if warranted, I'm simply disagreeing that identification of sock support six years after getting the bit is good reason for a new RfA.--SPhilbrickT 20:02, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree, but the call for a new RFA, at least by recall motion, is because of the admin's actions, and hopefully not related to her original RFA. It would be ridiculous to think we'd make everyone who Freestylefrappe or Karmafist supported have to run a re-RFA. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 01:40, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

• Future timestamp to prevent premature archiving before this issue is settled. StrPby (talk) 00:00, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

New concern about La goutte de pluie has been raised on my talk page by the anonymous editor, saying that earlier in the edit war before page protection, LGDP might have logged out and reverted the anon as an IP. I'll quote in full the concern below.

During the "edit war" with User:La goutte de pluie, I noticed another anonymous IP popping up to help La goutte de pluie to revert back to his edit. Also under the Talk Page, it was the same person who added the questionable content about MCYS. If you asked me, I think that guy is also La goutte de pluie and I'm saying that because during several exchanges with him, that's exactly the same things he said to me over and over again.

Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 01:51, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Is anyone investigating the issue with the IP? - Burpelson AFB ✈ 16:57, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Editor has explained that this was due to her editing on her Iphone and forgetting to log on[36], so I think we can ignore this. Also that she had been busy for the past few days hence her recent silence on the matter [37]. But now that she is actively editing again lets hope she can clarify her stand on this. Zhanzhao (talk) 22:20, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I only recently edited because of egregrious copyright violations by editors on Vivian Balakrishnan. I have since rangeblocked the offending IPs from the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore for constantly copying and pasting content from government websites and repeatedly ignorning warnings. My intention is to file an RFA on the matter, particularly because I have my own concerns about COI editing, as well as what I perceive to be an overdependence on bots to fight vandalism and anonymous removal of sourced content, which is widespread not only for Singaporean politics but goes as far as home owner associations editing Wikipedia to remove criticisms about them. Our system seems very good at detecting simple cases of COI editing as well as businesses who create pages about themselves, but not particularly more elaborate cases especially concerning the non-western world. Singapore's case is unique (and to a lesser extent, India and Malaysia) because it falls outside the western world but uses English in everyday life; hence certain entities have a strong incentive to improve their English-language public relations.

I do not know why I am the only administrator to notice such egregious incidents as wholesale copying and pasting being inserted from copyrighted websites; it is for this reason that I have been acting unilaterally and then seeking consensus. I previously sought requests for advice on this board twice on how to deal with this problem, including continued conflict of interest editing, and when I received no response for several days -- except for an editor who recommended that I block them all, I went ahead with my proposed remedies -- and I didn't block anyone at that time. The impression then I got is that a) I was still alone in noticing the problem b) I would have to take care of it myself. I do not know why this concern is raised against me when it could have been raised much earlier; why did people ignore my previous requests for help and advice?

As a young administrator in 2006, I issued my willingness to be recalled based on the idea that the recallers would be (like editors generally were in 2006) informed, rational Wikipedians who would approach issues rationally in the Jeffersonian spirit. I cannot respect recall requests from people who make such accusations that I used sockpuppets in my own RFA, or from people that cannot be bothered or informed enough to even look at the rich user contributions of retired admin User:Izehar before calling that user a single purpose account, or from editors who are willing to block someone for reverting an egregriously explicit copyright violation on the grounds of "edit warring". Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 22:36, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Just want to point out that the "copyright" content which you are talking about are actually content from government websites, which are essentially public domain for all intent and purposes. I.e. see [38] where "Subject matter of copyright: United States Government works, provides that "Copyright protection is not available for any work of the United States Government," defined in Title 17 USC §101, as "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties." for something similar. So "copyright". You are free to copyWRITE the language if you think it is POV though to make it neutral (though that may introduce further subjectivity) or keep the same tone to avoid intruducing subjectivity. Your edits included additions like [[39]], "Government officials are eager to point out that all Singaporeans should hold this obviously highly talented minister in the most greatest esteem" which should be avoided.

What concerned me about your reply is your claim above that you had apparently rangeblocked on an article which you have COI issues with. This should NOT have been allowed considering the concerns raised here about possible abuse of administrative rights, and you should have instead raised your concerns to other uninvolved admins to action on it rather than doing so yourself.

PS Although I am not familiar with it, but there a free Internet service called Wireless@SG in Singapore locally, could this have caused some of this similar IPs to keep surfacing?

(Update: Apparently Singapore also allows that under Fair Use [40]) Zhanzhao (talk) 23:51, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Breaking my wikibreak here, but worth doing so to point out that only US Govt works are PD. SG govt sites are copyrighted. StrPby (talk) 02:07, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

But they have a fair use exception [41]. Toddst1 (talk) 02:18, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

As pointed out, my worry is that copyediting to prevent copyvio is one way by which subjective bias to the article could be introduced [[42]]. In which case it may be safer to stick to the government site content which when viewed objectively seems to be just a choronological list of the subject's portfolio. Zhanzhao (talk) 02:45, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Consensus (by accepting the anonymous editors' edits) seemed to say that content should generally promote Balakrishnan wherever possible and avoid all criticism; it was not a POV edit in so far it supported consensus, and I was only trying to be reconciliatory. Zhanzhao, I mean this in the most respectful way possible -- but I don't think your interpretation of copyright law really flies. The assumption that all government works are public domain (this doesn't even apply for U.S. state governments' works!) or that wholesale copying is allowed under fair use (when fair use is justified for things like critical commentary and so forth) worries me somewhat! Wikipedia's burden of proof in order to use fair use is very strict. In any case, copyright violations cannot be tolerated. It is not at all safe to stick with a copyright violation revision! This is in fact, even an exception to WP:3RR. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 04:11, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, Singapore's copyright laws do provide for some exceptions under its fair use clause. And as I also mentioned above, my worry is that you have snuck in some NPOV wording like [[43]] which I feel is the more worrying issue here. Zhanzhao (talk) 05:11, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Just a note here on copyright: Singapore's approach to fair dealing is not the issue here, as the Wikimedia Foundation is based in and governed by the laws of the United States (see WP:PD). Usage on Wikipedia must accord with "fair use" as defined by the United States (which may be more or less liberal than Singapore's; I haven't evaluated). If content is being used under "fair use", it needs to follow the policy and guideline at WP:NFC, which allows brief, clearly marked quotations, used transformatively. That's got nothing to do with the other issues in this thread, but I want to be sure we're all on the same page with this one. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:11, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I am all for summarizing that section, I am just SERIOUSLY adverse to Elle being the person to edit it down. As mention, she had been cautioned a few times on her own page that she had apparent COI issues with articles concerning Singapore politics especially where it concerns members of the ruling party. And this reason she gave for knowingly adding a NPOV statement into the main text of an article "That statement was to invite discussion, especially since no one appeared to be paying attention to the copyvio issue." is unbecoming of an administrator. Zhanzhao (talk) 14:16, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Debresser nominates Palestinian rabbis for category for deletion

Debresser has nominated a category for deletion again before the rfc has reached a satisfactory conclusion. I will not let him entice me into an edit war again, resulting in getting me sanctioned. Chesdovi (talk) 10:20, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Can you point to the RfC? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:24, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

The discussion was closed on June 4 by User:RFC bot in this edit. In addition, the category has been empty for over a month.

User:Chesdovi's revert of my speedy delete nomination was out of procedure in any case, since the way to contest speedy deletion nominations is to press a button and write on the talkpage, not to remove the template. The problem here seems to be that Chesdovi refuses to accept that a vast majority of editors disagrees with his point of view, rather than that there is still active discussion. Debresser (talk) 10:33, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Comment from uninvolved editor It appears the following occured.

1. Chesdovi and Debresser had a dispute over the appropriateness of adding articles to Category:16th-century Palestinian rabbis compared to making specific century subcategories for Category:Rabbis in Ottoman and British Palestine (the issue being whether it is appropriate to call medevial Jews rabbis living in the Palestine territory of the Ottoman Empire as "Palestinian").
2. This led to Debresser removing the category from articles.
3. Supreme Deliciousness tried to deal with the dispute between the two of them, and started an RfC at the category's talk page on May 5th (I invite any reviewing editor/admin to read the talk page to see how that turned out).
4. Three or four other editors (besides Chesdovi and Debresser) got involved, all who sided with the view that the category was inappropriate. (The main policy-based argument that the reliable secondary sources need to call these people "Palestinian" to allow their articles to be categorized as such, with a sprinkling of arguments on the same line as WP:UNDUE.)
5. The RfC eventually turned into Chesdovi showing evidence of some Jews calling themselves Palestinian prior to formation of the State of Israel, and Debresser pointing out reasons why those exaples were wrong or not helpful, and that the majority of reliable sources do not use that term.
6. The last comments during the RfC were on May 24th (ignoring comments made by a sock).
7. The RfC bot removed the RfC tag on June 4th.
8. On June 16th and 17th, Chesdovi and Debresser had another debate over new sources provided by Chesdovi.
9. On June 17th, Debresser tagged the category for speedy deletion because it had been empty for weeks.
10. Chesdovi removed the tag (incorrectly, as he was the article's creator).
11. Debresser restored the tag.

Now that the chronology is set out, here are my comments. The RfC was requested, and editors responded to. By the time the RfC closed, most of the editors supported a policy-based argument that there should be a requirement that reliable secondary sources have referred to these type of individuals as "Palestinian" before their articles could be categorized as such. (I would also point out that WP:UNDUE applies here as well.) That appears to be the current consensus, notwithstanding Chesdovi's disagreement. Debresser and Chesdovi can keep arguing back and forth indefinitely. However, the RfC closed, a consensus was determined, the category has been empty since the RfC closed on June 4th, and therefore it is correct that the category should be deleted. Singularity42 (talk) 13:38, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I dispute the conclusion Singularity42 has reached.

Biosketch: "I have to concede that Chesdovi builds a more compelling case per Wikipedia's guidelines."

Redaktor: "I don't understand the objection to the word Palestine in this context. The region has been known by that name for close on two thousand years."

Dfass was opposed but did not respond to my last reply and had previously stated: "Perhaps we just have different perceptions of how this term would actually be interpreted by readers."

Jztinfinity seems to be neutral.

Supreme Deliciousness insists individual sourcing.

Debresser and IZAk oppose.

There was no concensus anywhere that agreed only to add sourced "palestinians". Neither was there consensus opposing the designation altogether. If Debresser thinks "there is still active discussion" why did he nominate the category for deletion? Chesdovi (talk) 14:41, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Have I got this right? The editor who nominated it for deletion emptied the category and used the emptiness as an argument in favour of deletion? Don't we rather frown on that sort of thing? DuncanHill (talk) 14:38, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely. It was outrageous! Chesdovi (talk) 14:41, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

If you use it as a sneaky end-run around a consensus that you didn't like, fair enough. However, if there's a consensus that pages which formerly belonged in the category should be removed from it, and that results in the category being depopulated, and that sticks, then it makes sense to remove the category. The questions here seem to be:

1. Was there a general consensus that the category should contain only those rabbis designated as Palstinian by reliable sources?
2. Did editors act properly in regards to editing the articles formerly under the category in question during and after the RfC?

If the answer to both is "yes" then there's nothing wrong with an involved editor having been responsible for the second category deletion attempt. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 15:03, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

(Reply to DuncanHill). No, I think you're mixing up the chronology a bit (although it appeared a bit confusing to me as well until I shifted through the history of both the category page and the talk page). My read is that there are two seperate parts to the history:

1. Pre-RfC: Debresser empties the category, other editors tag for speedy deletion, speedy deletion put on hold due to RfC about whether category is appropriate or not.
2. Post-RfC: RfC ends in a concensus that the category (which has happened to remain empty during the RfC) is inappropriate (at least, that is my read on it - Chesdovi thinks I've read the discussion incorrectly), and after a couple weeks of no discussion, Debresser restores the speedy tag.

I don't think what Debresser did is incorrect, provided the RfC consensus is that the category is inapproriate. Singularity42 (talk) 15:12, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

There was a bit of back 'n forth at the beggining of this, but as far as I cn remember Debresser de-categories 150 pages and then went ahead and nominated the cat for deletion. See history here. Also Pallomine was a sock who "appeared" to save Debresser the trouble of nominating the other cats for deletion. The problem is that the discussion died down without a clear conclusuion. There was not enough outside input. The reason why the cats remained empty during the rfc is that Debresser would not allow them to remain! Chesdovi (talk) 15:44, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

As I see it, Chesdovi created these categories of his own initiative. He was reverted. He insisted. Consensus was established. Time passed. Now we clean up. Chesdovi obviously is not happy about all of this, but that is the way of things. Debresser (talk) 19:59, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Debresser has acted as the sole protagonist campaigning against my changes. He was so sure that the whole community were aginst them aswell. Yet when it came to it, only IZAK provided him with any substantial backup. No one seems that interested, even after notices were left at umpteen pages to try and garner input. So we are left with Debresser pushing for his view of not accomodating my category names. Chesdovi (talk) 20:43, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I don't see what the big fuss is here. Regarding Category:16th-century Palestinian rabbis, if there are 16th century-era rabbis who are themselves also Palestinians, then the category can be used. I mean, we have Category:People from Nizhnekamsk which at first glance doesn't seem like an important category until you see there are 225,000 people living there. If it wasn't a very active RfC, then we don't really have a good opinion either way and we can't judge properly based on that RfC. Is having one dissenter (not saying that's the case here, just in general) agreeing with the nominator enough to pass the RfC if no one else supports? I mean, using my own example, no one's given an opinion on my AfD in over a week, it's just getting relisted even though it clearly fails notability policy but as soon as one person agrees, it gets closed - or disagrees, it gets closed and kept. Funny how we work around here! CycloneGU (talk) 01:02, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

The big fuss is that editors are suggesting that there was an RfC which said that we shouldn't describe 16th century-era rabbis who happened to live in what is currently Palestine "Palestinians" unless reliable sources do. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 06:12, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I emphatically object to the manner in which I have been quoted above. It's true that at that Category Discussion page I said Chesdovi (talk · contribs) built the more compelling argument. But it was more the product of WP:TOWEL than of a truly cogent position on User:Chesdovi's part. A more recent comment of mine (though admittedly perhaps ill-formulated) leaves no room for doubt that I oppose Chesdovi's campaign to turn everything Jewish in historic Israel into "Palestinian." This is a serious issue, and it isn't being dealt with in a duly serious manner.

CycloneGU (talk · contribs), the big fuss is that the word Palestinian has clear connotations today that are being overlooked by Chesdovi. To call 16th-century rabbis "Palestinian" is to impose an ethnic identity on them that's completely foreign to how anyone at the time would have referred to them. Ultimately, that is the problem here. The adjective Palestinian is not normally construed as meaning "in Palestine" but rather as "of Palestinian ethnicity" or "relating to the Palestinian people." There was no Palestinian people five hundred years ago, and Jewish rabbis in Palestine certainly did not share the same ethnos as the Arabs in Palestine. Ultimately, yes, Chesdovi has been able to summon an impressive volume of documents indicating that the word Palestine has been applied to Jews in Palestine from hundreds of years ago. But he's ignoring the ambiguity of the word and being selective about which definition he would like to embrace, when simply saying "16th century rabbis of Palestine" or "16th century Land-of-Israel rabbis" would avoid the ambiguity of calling these Jewish rabbis/synagogues etc. "Palestinian."—Biosketch (talk) 08:12, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to Bio for explaining his position. There is more at play than meets the eye here. It is quite clear that the term Palestinian can and is used to describe people "from/of Palestine", just as we have French Tosafists, or German rabbis. Are those tosafists ethnically French, or rabbis ethnic Germans? Unlikly, but we refer to them as German and French becasue they lived there, an by calling them French we understand that they came from France. By calling rabbis Palestinian, all we are doing is highlighting the fact that they came from Palestine. I have yet to truly undersatnd the great problem here. There may have been no Palestinian people as such 500n years ago, but there was a region called by that name. That's why this category is so vital here. Chesdovi (talk) 11:07, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

There is a region called "Rome" as well, but its precise geographic boundaries, political influence, and ethnic makeup has varied somewhat over the years. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 11:24, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Your point being what? Not to have Category:Roman people by century? Chesdovi (talk) 12:32, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

That Category:Roman people by century is populated by articles on people who are uncontroversially "Roman". Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 06:47, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

So are you saying the use of Palestinian is a problem here because it is "controversial" - read "unacceptale for right-wing zionists who baulk at the "P" word? Chesdovi (talk) 11:40, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

That is precisely why we don't do it. Labels can harm people. We should be careful where we use them. This applies to Israel/Palestine as much as (if not more than) it applies to other particularly troublesome labels on Wikipedia, most notably Ireland or pretty much the whole of the Balkans. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 11:46, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean exactly, but we do have Category:Ancient Irish people which no doubt includes people from Northern Ireland too. And is this really about “harming” people? This is not a BLP issue. The only harm here is that Wikipedia is being be censored to pander to people’s personal POV. We cannot help it if Ameer Makhoul lives in in Israel. He is categorised as an Israeli Arab whether he likes it or not. If these rabbis lived in Palestine, they are Palestinian. Chesdovi (talk) 16:57, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Just want to make sure we're not getting off-topic here into a content dispute; ANI isn't to re-hash the RfC. I think the following questions need to be answered here:

1. Did the RfC establish a consensus about whether the category is or isn't appropriate, or is more input required before a consensus is established?
2. Was Debresser right with the most recent tagging of the category for speedy deletion?

As already indicated above, my answers are (without repeating my reasons) 1) Yes, there was a consensus from the RfC, even if there were only approximately five editors who participated (although Chesdovi disagreed with the results), and 2) Debresser was correct in the most recent tagging of the category for speedy deletion as a result of the RfC. Singularity42 (talk) 11:41, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

In any case it is clear to all that there is no consensus to create and populate the categories Chesdovi is pushing. The discussion has ended June 4, and the categories have been empty even longer. I propose an uninvolved admin close this discussion and delete the categories. Debresser (talk) 11:45, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Why should the opinion of one user, Debresser, override mine? For a month the categories were untouched, until Debresser noted them and acted without consesus to immediately revert 150 pages and nominate for them for deletion. Dbresser also objected to Category:Medieval Jews in Palestine, claiming there was no such place ever called Palestine! There is simply not enough serious objection by enough people not to have these categories. (We must remeber that MailkShabbaz also took a neutral postion, although he did not comment at the rfc). It is clear that the reason given about confusion over "ethnicity", while understandable, is unfounded as backed up by a plethora of RS, and that initially Debresser called the category "antisemitic"! As I said, there is more to than meets the eye here. Chesdovi (talk) 12:32, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

There was never a problem with Category:Palestinian Christian monks. How strange. Chesdovi (talk) 17:47, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh, we'll get to that :) Joke... Debresser (talk) 21:24, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I get that you're joking (really, I do), but I must also point out Category:Palestinian Jews. =P CycloneGU (talk) 00:28, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Take a look at that category. It contains only those people who either identify as Palestinian or who lived in what was uncontroversially Palestine. The argument being made here is applying those criteria to Category:Palestinian rabbis depopulates it. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 06:47, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean? Chesdovi (talk) 17:01, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Rfc query

There was no one who "closed" the disscusion. Is this required? Who decided that the category does not have a place on wikipedia? Chesdovi (talk) 15:13, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

This category was deleted because it was empty. There is no bar to recreating it if it becomes not-empty in the future. Just remember that any article you include in the category, must have a source that calls them a "Palestinian rabbi". I suspect that my be hard, which is why all of the members were removed in the first place. -- Selket ^Talk 18:48, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

There are severe problems with the name "Palestinian rabbis" even if a source were to be found that uses such a term. That seems to be the consensus of the deletion discussion, and this has been mentioned above. Debresser (talk) 05:12, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Selket, many indeed are sourced, but need they be? We have countless other "xxxian" rabbi categories, they aren't sourced. Even so, Debresser still has a problem with it. But then again, Debresser may be bothered by the ever so slight misunderstanding which may occur. He nominated Category:Talmud rabbis of the Land of Israel to be renamed to "in the Land of Israel".... His proposal was defeated. Let's not bother ourselves here either with these pernickety views, worrying people may mistake residency with ethnicity. And if they do, so what? We can't plan for each and every circumstance. Chesdovi (talk) 15:08, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Ask for block

Chesdovi has begun again, adding this category to articles. I ask he be blocked immediately for making his controversial edits, and pushing his non-consensus points of view. You may see Category_talk:16th-century_Palestinian_rabbis#Chesdov.27s_conclusion where he himself shows that there is no consensus for what he is now doing. Please notice that he has been repeatedly blocked in the past for these same things. Debresser (talk) 22:38, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

If anyone can follow the timeline of Debresser's arrogant enforcements, they will conclude Debresser is not playing by the rules by any means. See Below where I have asked he be stopped before naymore damage is doen, (like the deletion of the category page, only to be undelted after much annoyance while this thing gets sorted out.) Chesdovi (talk) 22:48, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Chesdovi is walking the edges. He has added a notice to many article, that he intends to restore the term "Palestinian rabbi", and has added a link to Palestine to the names of many cities in articles about rabbi's. The first certainly would be against consensus. The second is walking the edges, since "Palestine" was not the official name of the region during the time-period involved (see Ottoman Palestine). I think a block would show Chesdovi clearly, that this type of walking the edges, when discussion is still going on, including on WP:ANI, is not appreciated. Debresser (talk) 12:37, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

"discussion is still going on". Give me a break Dbrsr. Who do you think you're fooling. Chesdovi (talk) 12:50, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

User:Dolovis and mass creation of BLPs

About a month ago, Dolovis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was warned about the non-usefulness and BLP implications of creating hundreds of one-line stubs for (often marginally notable) living ice hockey players. As a result, the user lost his autopatrolled rights and some of the articles were deleted and later restored. In the past few weeks, Dolovis has created a few hundred more in the same copy-paste style (such as Petr Mocek and Marek Drtina). The created articles are still nearly identical, make no attempt to summarize the subject's career and have the same database website as the only source. Several users have raised the same concerns again on Dolovis's talk page, and on Talk:HC Litvínov.

It must also be mentioned that the stubs have one more thing in common; they are titled without the appropriate accent marks, which is not the usual practice with personal names that have not been anglicized (and is even against a consensus established at the WikiProject Ice Hockey). The creations follow an RFC and several move requests such as this (disclosure: I have opposed many of them) that Dolovis created earlier, expressing his/her disagreement with the use of diacritics. The user has also reverted others' page moves of his stubs citing WP:BRD. However, Dolovis states that the "creation of articles for Czech Extraliga players has nothing to do with the dios discussion."

Whether this is a case of living people being caught in a POINTy campaign or not, the matter needs to be resolved as Dolovis has still not addressed the BLP concerns and continues the creations, requesting that AFDs be created. This is not feasible due to the sheer volume of articles and because this is not a question of notability but of repeated poor-quality work on living people, so I'm bringing this here to get opinions from uninvolved editors. If there is agreement that these type of creations need to stop, some kind of topic ban may be necessary. I'd add that even the existing articles for European ice hockey people of no recent international interest don't seem to be very well watched, so I don't see how the mass creation of new sub-par stubs would improve the encyclopedia. The article on Pentti Matikainen remained vandalized for two and a half years until a Finnish newspaper ridiculed it: "Wikipedia shoves Pentti Matikainen". Prolog (talk) 14:20, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I doubt it's POINTy: the user simply disagrees that these stubs are useless, and of course that isn't helped by the likes of DGG encouraging him. Nevertheless, there's a difference between "useless" and "disruptive". If these articles are getting vandalised due to lack of attention, the real root cause would seem to be that the notability threshold for hockey biographies has been set too low to be be able to practically enforce BLP. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 14:40, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I have also advised him to complete at least some of the stubbs. We need articles on people who are certainly notable started. We also need them finished. When there is something controversial, there might well be an objection to stubbs. But for these there isn't , so calling them a BLP problem. And ues, he should use diacritics. But Wikipedia is known for the people willing to fix typographic errors of this sort. I'll take another look at the actual articles tonight. If they are getting substantially vandalised, which can happen with sports figures, that might indeed be a problem. DGG ( talk ) 14:53, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I doubt that they will be vandalised. They are too obscure. Most of these guys have never played outside of the Czech Republic, and this is an English language encyclopaedia. Except for the very small number of bilingual users that we, no-one will have heard of these guys, and certainly won't go looking for their articles to vandalise. — Fly by Night (talk) 15:22, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Howdy Dolovis. The tough thing about these mass article creations, is that they're being mass moved (via WP:HOCKEY's dios compromise) to diacritics titles now. GoodDay (talk) 14:56, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

The creation of articles for Czech Extraliga players has nothing to do with the dios discussion, and the introduction of that red-herring into the discussion is regretful. The players' articles have been created because they are notable and worthy of a Wikipedia article. End of story. Dolovis (talk) 16:15, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

• The subjects of these article pass WP:NHOCKEY by the skin of their teeth. Dolovis hides behind wp:nhockey saying that the subjects are notable. However, wp:nhockey says that the subjects are "presumably notable", i.e. not certain but likely. Most of the subjects fail the other criteria spectacularly: all pass criterion 1, but almost all fail 2 through 7. Some of the subjects are truly notable, e.g. Michal Travnicek. But Dolovis didn't take any time to mention his AHL career, his international career, his three year suspension; that was done by a user that came across the merger discussion. Instead, Dolovis prefers to create a steady stream of poorly sourced, single sentence, cut-and-paste BLPs. Granted, some of these articles could become decent BLPs, but Dolovis point-blank refuses to expand them, while the vast majority will never be improvable. H's created an article on almost every player that played in the Czech league this year. Dolovis is more interested with this "articles created" count than he is with quality. I personally pleaded with him twice to expand these BLPs but he didn't. Even after the merger discussion was opened, and Dolovis had seen that three or four editors had raised concern, he carried on churning out this stub-spam. The hockey notability criteria needs to be rewritten. I'll ask a rhetorical question: How can someone that played a single match in Kazakhstan's top league be worthy of an article when some that has played 99 games in the AHL isn't? — Fly by Night (talk) 15:14, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

If people want to change NHOCKEY, or other notability guideline, that's always a possible approach if there's consensus. I have no opinion on that sport specifically, but I've seen enough problematic athlete articles at PROD patrol that I tend to think that notability for athletes might be a little too broad. And there have been discussions at AfD where it has been accepted that for some very small countries the presumed equality of all countries does not apply (I think they were with respect to football.) DGG ( talk ) 02:59, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Some background:

• Dolovis had previously been creating hockey player articles, but not at the same rate, and many of them did not have diacritics in their names which he could have stripped.
• On 17 May, Dolovis started a huge discussion at WT:ENGLISH#Use of diacritics in biographical article titles. The user got little support for the contention that we should strip all diacritics from titles, but the support that he did get was very vociferous and unrelenting – leading to a contentious situation.
• On 19 May, Dolovis notified more than 100 editors personally of that discussion. [44]
• Around that time, Dolovis was already moving articles from diacritics to non-diacritics versions.
• Around 2 June, Dolovis was engaged in a number of requested moves between diacritics and non-diacritics versions. Some of them had (or still have) no consensus, in some the diacritics version won.
• Oddly enough, on 5 June, Dolovis created a player article with Å in the title (but others with o or a instead of ö or ä). [45]
• On 6 June, Dolovis (who had twice been blocked for socking) creates an SPI case against two users who disagree with him about diacritics.
• Around 9 June his article creation activity increased (more than 20 articles, some Scandinavian ones correctly with diacritics, some Slavic ones without, and a number of articles where the question doesn't arise). 10 June: >30 articles. 11 June: 28 articles. 12 June: 14 articles.
• On 13 June he created only few new articles but reverted numerous "controversial" page moves back to non-diacritic versions.
• 14-17 June: roughly 30 articles created per day.

Apart from the mass creation of BLP stubs of little value, there is a general pattern here of trying to fight our current practice of using diacritics in titles (where appropriate) by fighting over individual articles. While there are only few users who feel strongly that diacritics should be removed, this is not the only user following this strategy, see e.g. Talk:Julia Görges.

The disconnect between our naming convention (WP:ENGLISH#Modified letters doesn't give very clear guidance either way) and our daily practice (diacritics are used unless there is clear evidence that the bearer has dropped them, as happens frequently when people move to the US) has led to an unstable situation that may soon erupt similar to the hyphen/n-dash thing. Hans Adler 15:59, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

It's funny that you mention the sock puppet issue. I remember a while ago that I brought the case of one of Wikipedia's top 10 most active users to this page. He was making one sentence articles about obscure places in Russia. All using article creation tools. After some theatrical performances a check-user stopped by to say that s/he'd blocked the user as a confirmed sock. — Fly by Night (talk) 21:07, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Reply Comment: The sock puppet allegation raised by Hans Adler was demonstrated to be a false positive, and that is why all of the blocked accounts (the alleged master and puppets) were all unblocked. Dolovis (talk) 02:26, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I see. [46] It's unfortunate that this was not logged in the SPI somehow. I should have checked the details before accusing you in this way. While there can never be certainty, your explanations sounded sufficiently convincing that I guess I would have unblocked you as well. I am striking my erroneous comment. Sorry for the mistake. Hans Adler 06:28, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

• Response by Dolovis: The players' articles have been created because they are notable and worthy of a Wikipedia article. As the encyclopedia is a continuing project relying on the principle of communal sourcing, to start articles and hope others will finish them is acceptable procedure, and to demand that an editor who creates valid stub articles to change the way they work may be construed as a Wikipedia:No-edit order. Please know that hockey players who have played in the Czech Extraliga meet the first criteria of WP:NHOCKEY and are therefore presumed notable for inclusion as a Wikipedia article. The ice hockey project has delivered a clear consensus stating that playing just a single game in the Czech Extraliga is enough to satisfy the inclusion criteria, and yes, I fully expect that all of the articles are likely to be expanded. These ice hockey players are all notable professional athlete's who are playing at an elite level in a premier league. Any editor who feels otherwise has the right to follow the deletion process and nominate that article for deletion. It is also disturbing that in this instance new articles have been challenged very early (such as User:Fly by Night tagging articles for merge just 3 minutes from the article's creation[47]) before any editor could reasonably have had a chance to expand the stub articles. It would be very regrettable if the personal view of a few editors—totally unsupported by policy or consensus—that stubs are unhealthy, were permitted to affect Wikipedia. Dolovis (talk) 16:11, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

• As I told you at talk:HC Litvínov. I tagged some articles so quickly because I'd seen all of the articles you had created the night before, e.g. Lukas Rindos on the New Pages list. I had been monitoring your stub-spam and edit history for the best part of a day. It was only when you started a new flurry that I decided to act. That's why some were tagged 3 minutes after creation, some 30 minutes after creation, and other 23 hours after creation. My edit history and your edit history tell the full story; so it's pointless cherry-picking examples. The merger guidelines say that "If a page is very short and is unlikely to be expanded within a reasonable amount of time, it often makes sense to merge it with a page on a broader topic." Looking back at Dolovis's other creations, say for example Philip Kemi or Ziga Pance, we see that other than some BLPPROD's and general housekeeping (renaming, adding categories, page moves) the articles haven't been touched for more than six weeks. The same is true for almost all of his other stubs: they haven't been expended. As such it is unlikely that many of his stubs will be expanded within a reasonable amount of time; unless he does it himself which he refuses to do.— Fly by Night (talk) 16:45, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

It was for the mass creation of these marginally notable players that I removed this user's WP:AUTPAT rights a while ago. I believed these needed to go through the usual WP:NPP process and had some concerns in general about this user's mass creation and contention over diacritical marks. Toddst1 (talk) 18:26, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

It appears to me that Toddst1 has demonstrated a COI against me ever since I posted this message to his talk page. It was only after that posting that Toddst1 removed the auto-patrolled rights. Dolovis (talk) 01:29, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

So what do we do? Dolovis seems to be a loan voice. Seven or eight editors disagree with what he's doing, but he doesn't listen. Most of those seem to be admins too. It's clear that he has no interest in improving anything other than his "articles created" count. I suggested putting these players into Squad articles, and then branching out with solo articles if and when a subject becomes more noteworthy and interesting. All of the same information would be there for a user, the only problem is that his "article creation" count would suffer. I put it to him that that depends on which is most important (creation count or usefulness to users) and he didn't reply. Looking at the bigger picture, it seems that he wants to get as many articles as he can without accents so that that implies a consensus. So it's much worse than creating stub-spam with little regard for quality; it seems he's trying to push his agenda by building up a majority of articles without accents. — Fly by Night (talk) 20:59, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that anything needs to be done. From what I can see, Dolovis has created reliably sourced articles - albeit stubs - about many notable living people. There's nothing wrong with that. And if this is all a game to get as many articles as he can without accents so that that implies a consensus, I doubt he will be successful. Especially since all one would have to do is look at the history to see that all the articles without accents were created by him. And since anyone can just add the accents if they want and know how. Rlendog (talk) 21:11, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Proposal

I propose a sanction such that Dolovis (talk · contribs) be placed on a new article parole where any new article relating to Hockey must have at least 3 WP:RS used as properly cited footnotes. Toddst1 (talk) 21:31, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Then we'd get three different links to stat pages. Personally, I'd like to see him add just one non-trivial source in addition to the stat page. It isn't that hard to turn a microstub into a regular one with a few sentences. You know, something that actually benefits the reader. Resolute 21:58, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

• All of his articles rely on Criterion 1 of WP:NHOCKEY, which is a very poor criterion. I would ask for the subjects to meet at least two criteria from WP:NHOCKEY, and have a paragraph each explaining how, why, and where. Or that the articles be worthwhile BLP's in their own right. If we just ask for one reliable, non-stat-page source then he'd probably quote some small town Czech newspaper: ex-plumber signs for local hockey team. In the mean time, we need to reform WP:NHOCKEY; like I said earlier, one game playing in a Kazakhstan league gets you an article, while 99 AHL games doesn't; even though most AHL players would be consistent MVP's, and hall-of-famers in the Kazakhstan league. But to be honest, I don't think anything will achieve what we really want. We want interesting, accurate, complete articles written for the good of the readership and for the good of Wikipedia'a reputation. I don't think we will ever get that from Dolovis. His repeated efforts to ignore, side-step, and wikilawyer his way out of fulfilling requests and heeding criticism have proven that beyond reasonable doubt. — Fly by Night (talk) 23:38, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

• Requiring a player to meet multiple criteria under WP:NHOCKEY doesn't make sense, especially if the player meets #1, the primary one, of playing in a premier professional league. A star player in the Extraliga may not have played enough minor league games to meet the minor league criteria, or be a first round draft pick in a North American league, or have played in an amateur league in a country without a professional league, since the Czech Republic has one, nor be in a Hall of Fame, because he is active. WP:NHOCKEY is actually very sensible, and there is good reason why players who meet even one of the criteria are presumed to be notable. Rlendog (talk) 20:20, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

• No. If what he's doing is wrong, then it's just as wrong whether he does it once or a hundred times, and so the relevant policies ought to be updated to reflect that. Singling out one editor is not an effective solution. --causa sui (talk) 00:03, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

  Speaking of policy, how does WP:BLPPROD fit into this? Can't you just BLPPROD all the articles and handle it that way? --causa sui (talk) 00:38, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

• No because a {{BLPPROD}} is for "any biography of a living person (BLP) which lacks at least one source." Dolovis always links to the same statistics site which gives the team's statistics for the season. So a BLPPROD is not applicable. — Fly by Night (talk) 00:44, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

• Maybe this is an indication that BLPPROD in its current form is inadequate, and the bar should be raised? In any case, I stand by my original point. If existing means of handling this are inadequate, then we need to give ourselves the tools to handle this generally, not single out one editor like we're playing whack-a-mole. --causa sui (talk) 04:55, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

• BLPPROD is a bright line, much like 3RR. It is perfectly possible to find exceptions to the spirit of BLP which "pass" BLPPRODUC just as it is possible to see clear edit warring which doesn't quite get to 3RR. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 08:56, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

• No. Wiki-policy states that Any registered editor may start a stub article. Contributors are Wikipedia's most valuable resource, and creating valid articles that can be expanded is an encouraged activity. The articles that I have created all conform to notability policy, verifiability policy, BLP policy, and stub policy. Editors cannot and should not be expected to create finished articles on the first draft. Many of the articles that I have created have been quickly and significantly expanded by both myself and others. Why should any one editor, who is editing within established policy, be singled out for sanctions? If there is to be any proposal for sanctions it should be a Wiki-wide policy that all editors must abide to. If there is a new consensus saying that BLP articles now need three sources, so be it; but to force one editor to edit to a higher standard than other editors is not fair or reasonable. Fly by Night's real concern seems to be with WP:NHOCKEY, and if he feels that Czech Extraliga hockey players should are not notable then he should raise that issue with the ice hockey project. Dolovis (talk) 02:10, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Please, don't put words in my mouth. My main concern is your mass produced stub-spam, and the way you wikilawyer, and hide behind wp:nhockey. If you refuse to stop then a change to wp:nhockey is the next best thing. — Fly by Night (talk) 14:09, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
• No We already have a policy on how many reliable sources are required to create a valid BLP stub: one., not three. A suggestion that more might be needed is a proposal to change BLPPROD, not to mention WP:V. Does anyone really want to re-open BLPPROD? All good faith editors are equal, and the degree of evidence that lets you or me create an article lets anyone else do it also. DGG ( talk ) 02:51, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
  • That's not quite right. Editors who are acting in good faith are sanctioned all the time, as one's good faith does not have to be questioned for one's actions to be found to be unproductive. That we encourage everyone to create articles does not preclude our finding consensus that a given editor's actions are unproductive, and taking one single, short, statistical reference (a team sheet stat) and using it to create twenty BLPs is precisely the sort of thing that we could consider to be unproductive. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 08:54, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
    • DGG, this thread isn't about BLPPROD. BLPPROD was suggested as a solution, but wasn't applicable. We're trying to find a way to stop Dolovis writing mass produced, poorly sourced, one sentence, BLP stubs that he refuses to update. Please take a look at Toddst1's proposal at the top. That was the real point of this thread, although we seem to have lost our way down side roads. — Fly by Night (talk) 13:56, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
• Agree to Toddst1's proposal; although it needs to be made water tight. Also propose review of WP:NHOCKEY so it can't be used to justify such junk. — Fly by Night (talk) 14:44, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a policy specifically for hockey? ROFLMAO :) Count Iblis (talk) 14:58, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Whilst Dolovis creating microstubs does not appear to be against policy, he should be encouraged to try and create as complete an article as he can, even at the expense of slowing down the rate of creation. If the sources are available, it is quite possible to create an article that is near GA class from the start. Mjroots (talk) 16:09, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

• No Every person is expected to bring a different set of skills to Wikipedia. Per Wikipedia:Editing policy, pretty much the whole thing, Dolovis has done less than nothing wrong here. He's added valuable content to Wikipedia. We should be thanking him for the time and effort he has put it to expanding the encyclopedia in appropriate ways, not looking to sanction him! --Jayron32 18:09, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
  • I take you haven't looked at his 100+ stubs then?
    • I have looked at some, and I don't see anything wrong with the subjects of the articles. The number of stubs is not terribly concerning to me. That he leaves it to others to expand them is also not a concern, Wikipedia:Editing policy specifically encourages people to leave for other jobs they are not good at themselves. --Jayron32 20:00, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
      • So you will have seen that there are dozens of BLP stubs that have not been touched for six weeks. You will also see that the WP:MERGE criteria says that short articles that won't be expanded in a reasonable amount of time should be merged into a broader topic. The fact that almost none of these stubs ever get expanded means that down the line they should be merged. Given Dolovis's track record, these articles should not be made, because they will inevitably be due for merger. These players should be included into Squad Articles where the single sentence articles are condensed into something more interesting and valuable. Please take some time to do your research. Don't just look at a few. Look at his edit history over the last two months. All of the admin, and non-admin, objection hasn't appeared from no where. I raised concerns and many users came out to confess their problems. Once again, please do your research; then you'll see. Please don't skim read, do no research, and then just argue to save face. — Fly by Night (talk) 22:43, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

  I don't see the problem. If you think that many closely related articles should be merged into a larger article, whether or not the articles are new, there's nothing stopping you from doing that is there? Why do you see a need to stop someone else from editing as they want to edit? Is there any actual BLP related issues involved here, or is there just some nebulous fear that there might be some issue eventually?
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:58, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

• I TRIED! I tagged 16 of them for merger and Dolovis objected. I asked him to expanded them, and he refused. Some other users arrived to voice their concern about his editing patterns, and then we all came here. Please read the whole discussion. This is becoming a farce. You're the second decent editor in a few hours that's made a comment that shows they haven't been following this discussion. Don't get me wrong, I know you're acting in good faith; it's just the thread's too long. No-one's bothering to read it all but they're still adding their (uninformed) opinion. Basically Dolovis was creating 20-30 one sentence, single source, BLPs, that scrape through WP:NHOCKEY by the skin of their teeth, each day. I suggested a merger per WP:MERGE -- please read rationale 3 -- (he has stubs from six weeks ago that haven't been touched, so it's reasonable to assume that none of the 100 new ones will). But he objected to the merge. He was asked to expand them and he refused. There's also an on-going problem about accents in people's names. It's possible that he is pumping out all of these BLPs, without accents, to push his point which goes against the consensus on the hockey project. So we're trying to find a way to get him to write decently sourced, worth while, informative BLPs that don't go against well established consensus. But whatever we do he hides behind the presumed notability of crietrion 1 of WP:NHOCKEY (even though they all fail the other criteria) and wikilawyers like hell.— Fly by Night (talk) 01:42, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
• It's not "hiding" behind criterion 1 of WP:NHOCKEY. He is creating articles, albeit stubs, that can be reliably sourced to show that they meet Hockey's primary notability criterion. The accent issue is another matter, but anyone can add the accents, and anyone can expand the articles. Rlendog (talk) 21:00, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
• WP:MERGE says "If a page is very short and is unlikely to be expanded within a reasonable amount of time, it often makes sense to merge it with a page on a broader topic." Not that the page "should" be merged, only that it "often makes sense." In these cases, it probably doesn't make sense. Rlendog (talk) 20:12, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

• Right, just like WP:NHOCKEY does not say that people that pass criterion 1 are notable, but that they are presumed notable. — Fly by Night (talk) 21:55, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. I really don't care about a user creating accurate stubs about subjects who appear to meet the notability guidelines, especially when all the substantive content of those stubs appears to be adequately sourced. We have truckloads of BLPs with grossly inadequate sourcing, and a Wikiproject with active members devoted to papering over sourcing problems by adding a trivial source or two to unsourced BLPs and moving on. We have hundreds of porn BLPs laced with kayfabe. Speaking of which, we have hundreds and hundreds of BLPs on performers in the wrestling industry which hopelessly conflate the performers and the fictional characters they portray in scripted entertainments, which we don't even acknowledge to be scripted entertainments. Then there are all the Bollywood/South Asian cinema related articles whos contributors don't seem to have read BLP, NPOV, RS, and V. As far as priorities go, dealing with the "problem" of accurate stubs about people who meet notability guidelines should be right down there with en-dashes versus hyphens. Humbug. Humbug, I say. Grumpy Old Man Wolfowitz (talk) 02:52, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose - If the players Dolovis is creating articles for meet even on criterion of WP:NHOCKEY, they are presumed notable and Dolovis is doing nothing wrong by creating these stubs. There will certainly be multiple reliable sources (at least in the form of stat sites) to back them up. Rlendog (talk) 20:24, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Related to this issue is that ‎Toddst1 has unilaterally revoked my Autopatrolled rights. While it does not make any difference to me, I do believe revoking my Autopatrolled rights has provided no benefit to Wikipedia, and just serves to needlessly increase the workload of new page patrollers. Dolovis (talk) 02:38, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

It does allow new page patrollers however to catch the articles you put sources on that don't actually source what have stated they source which has happened on a number of occasions. It also allows them to catch the ones you weren't even sourcing at all which you were doing for a considerable amount of time. Your revoked autopatrolled does you no harm and helps make sure your articles are of a decent standard. -DJSasso (talk) 14:52, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Reply to Djsasso: Rubbish. I have never created a BLP stub without a source. Show us the articles you are referring to, and if not, then stop making stuff up. It's true the autopatroll does me no harm, it just needlessly increases the workload of the parollers. Dolovis (talk) 02:56, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

It wouldn't be that had to do at all. There were numerous ones that linked to pages that didn't exist, ones that linked to team rosters that players never played for. I fixed a number of them and you have been going through many of them stating things like fixing reference djsasso removed. So just look through your history. That will give you a few hundred that didn't have any. -DJSasso (talk) 14:42, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't support the proposed sanction from Toddst1, but I do support revoking Autopatrolled. I'd suggest that we consider that as the solution to concerns about the prolific article stub creation, and consider it a fair compromise. -- Atama頭 16:32, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

He could have at least gotten an uninvolved party to make the change. That's rather poor behavior for an admin, to be revoking someones user rights while in the middle of a dispute with them.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:02, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

It's fair to say that Toddst1 was involved, but that user access level can be granted or revoked at the discretion of any administrator so I don't think it's worth more than a trout. There seems ample justification for revoking it, it just would have been better if someone else had done it. -- Atama頭 19:31, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Right, exactly.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 20:11, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Several admins have voiced concern about the articles that Dolovis creates. Maybe the clicking of the button to remove autopatrolled rights was (necessarily) done by one user; there are many admins that agree with the decision and would have done exactly the same thing themselves. I think Dolovis has totally misunderstood the tone of this discussion. It seems that very few people want to impose restrictions on his editing and page creating, but that is a very different thing to them approving the mass manufacture of low quality BLP subs. The only way to describe his request for a return of autopatrolled rights is a bare faced cheek. Although there is no consensus to sanction Dolovis, there is a clear consensus that his actions fall short of what is expected and hoped for. Hopefully Dolovis will re-read what has been said and learn from that, and carry it forward with him in the future. — Fly by Night (talk) 22:06, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I tend to disagree with your conclusions, for what (little) that's worth. Bringing up BLP as a boogie-boo is disingenuous, at best. Regardless, this little section has nothing to do with the issue that started this (User:Dolovis' article creation), it's about Wikipedia:Administrators#Involved admins.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 23:11, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

It seems you haven't followed the whole thread then. The admins were lining up to voice the discontent. It's not about Wikipedia:Administrators#Involved admins at all. The last three or four posts have been about that. This discussion has been open for almost a week. Granted, it's a very long discussion; but I recommend you read it all, and not just this subsection. — Fly by Night (talk) 03:29, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Dolovis, you have created BLPs without at least clearly marking your source (Evan Rankin). Your current fight against the personal names of Czechs and Slovaks has led to another problem: You are creating duplicate articles, and sometimes you are the creator of both. Your latest creation is Jiri Dolezal, but an article for the person already existed at Jiří Doležal. Others include Lukas Krenzelok (already at Lukáš Krenželok, fixed by Darwinek) and Tomas Rachunek (already at Tomáš Rachůnek, fixed now by me). Prolog (talk) 14:40, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

This thread has become off-topic, but in reply to Prolog I will repeat what I said to Djsasso; I have never created a BLP stub without a source. And contrary to the POV of the pro-Dios crowd, I have no fight against the personal names of Czechs and Slovaks. I create articles pursuant to WP:Article titles, and fault for creating the duplicate articles must lie with the editor who created the earlier article using non-English letters in the title, contrary to WP:Commonname and WP:EN, and then failed to provided even a redirect using English letters - thereby rendering those articles invisible to this English editor. Dolovis (talk) 19:03, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

The editor not creating the appropriate redirects in two of those three cases was you. And now that you are omitting diacritical marks in your titles, you are not creating redirects from the subjects' proper names (which are equally important). Before the unavoidable moves per standard practice, you need to create the redirects to get rid of misleading redlinks, even if it means (gasp!) finding out the actual names of the people you create articles about. Prolog (talk) 21:10, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Moving articles

He still is moving articles without requested move vote and without consensus (in a discution he has started). --86.61.34.51 (talk) 07:51, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, there was a consensus, I'd say. And it was certainly against his view. No such user (talk) 10:37, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Back to his old tricks again

• Even after all of the criticism and concern that was raised, Dolovis has ignored everything that was said and has gone back to his old tricks again. Yet another one line, one reference, joke of a BLP. I don't think that his contempt for the community's wishes and the values of this project could be any clearer if he had tried. (Yes, the article has bee touched up slightly, but only after Dolovis wandered off and left it in the pathetic state I just linked to.) I hope all those people that !voted against sanctions, clearly without reading the whole discussion and without doing their research, are pleased with themselves. — Fly by Night (talk) 03:04, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Large number of synagogue article deletion proposals

Related to the (now closed) discussion immediately above this, there has been a recent rash of synagogue deletion proposals, including a dozen or more today alone by Basket of Puppies (talk · contribs). The latter, as has been pointed out on Basket of Puppies Talk: page, is problematic, particularly as there are a very small number of editors actually editing in this topic area, so the time and resources available to them for improving the articles is limited. I recognize that not all synagogues are notable; while I've written articles on many, I've also initiated deletion processes on over a dozen, but certainly not all in one day, or even one week. Also, Basket of Puppies has stated that he is an "ordained rabbi and ritually observant Jew", and I note that he has nominated only Reform and Conservative synagogue articles for deletion. A large number of selective deletion attempts is troubling. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:05, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it's unfortunate that a lot of potentially valid articles are being nominated for deletion (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Beth Israel Congregation (Beaufort, South Carolina) in particular) but I don't think there's any capacity for administrative intervention here. ╟─TreasuryTag►Acting Returning Officer─╢ 19:06, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I looked at them, they look at least facially valid and I actually supported one. These need to be decided at the various AfD pages.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:15, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

BoP obviously thinks that the articles should go, hence why he PRODded them. If anyone is unsure/opposes, then contest and take to AfD, as suggested above. However, I would argue against the temptation to bundle, for obvious reasons. GiantSnowman 19:17, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

• Although to be fair to Jayjg, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cuban Hebrew Congregation was desperately sloppy at best. ╟─TreasuryTag►Regional Counting Officer─╢ 19:46, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

  Part of the solution is in the editors' own hands. The better an article that is written to start with, the easier it is to demonstrate notability and less likely it is to get PRODded or AfD'd. All editors should be encouraged to have a personal sandbox to work articles up in. Mjroots (talk) 19:47, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

  I do agree, but in his nomination statement, BoP said, "Non-notable religious organization." But by literally putting those three words – Cuban Hebrew Congregation – into either Google News or Google Books, he would have come up with hundreds of sources clearly demonstrating notability. So one must conclude that either (a) he did not bother to do even this most basic research before listing the page for deletion, or (b) he did this and went ahead with the deletion request despite knowing that it was unfounded. Neither scenario is impressive, although I do hope (a) was the case. ╟─TreasuryTag►Syndic General─╢ 19:50, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

  Then the authors of the articles should have absolutely no problem bullet proofing them against AfD.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:53, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

  As I said, I absolutely agree. But that still doesn't excuse the making of such an obviously sloppy deletion request. On such a basis, it would be legitimate for the Crown Prosecution Service to put anyone on trial for any crime at random, because if the person was innocent then they'd have no trouble proving that. There's no point creating needless work for other people. ╟─TreasuryTag►District Collector─╢ 19:55, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

  Or, BoP might have looked at the actual results of the GNews search, noticed how many of them were the "Religion Notes" section of the Miami Herald or coverage like "A $2400 watch and $240 were stolen from a purse while the owner attended a wedding ceremony at the Cuban Hebrew Congregation", and decided they weren't suitable for establishing notability. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:57, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

  So I wonder how it is that I was able to find sources establishing notability with a quick search when he wasn't? ╟─TreasuryTag►estoppel─╢ 21:38, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Ah... remember the last time someone went on a streak of Prodding/AfDing articles? If editors want the article to be kept, improve the article and make impassioned defenses of the article. Sometimes you discover a single finger of ice sticking out of the water only to discover a huge iceburg underneath. I'm just as guilty when I went on a streak of prodding a series of football(soccer) BLPs that were either unreferenced or were so marginally referenced that they did not stand up to the specialty notability guideline. Hasteur (talk) 20:04, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Yep, and I CSDed/PRODded about two-dozen non-notable Serbian football clubs just this morning, after uncovering such an iceberg. GiantSnowman 20:06, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

The hot air expended at BoP could have been more usefully directed to power the expansion of several of the articles that deserve it. The same could be said for the time of those complaining about him.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:09, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

The rate at which they are nominated for deletion is problematic. Thoughtfulness is supposed to go into nominating an article for deletion. The community functions at an optimal pace, or at least within an optimal range of paces. No one is asking Basket of Puppies to go too slow. But what several editors are saying is that he is going too fast. Thoughtfulness is a good ingredient all around. Others are not able to respond to nominations for deletion that are coming on too rapidly. There are considerations that have to be weighed. Sometimes it is not clear whether an article should be deleted or not.

I lean toward keeping most of these articles. That is the way I feel about most schools or yeshivahs too. I have trouble accepting the argument that an institution of learning or worship involving a community is non-notable. The nature of an institution of learning or worship, in my opinion, confers notability—at least in most instances. Bus stop (talk) 20:14, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Whatever the merits of individual AFDs might be, the large number of poorly justified speedy nominations, which I contested quite a few of, wasn't appropriate. I also was troubled by the apparent selectivity of the proposals, but wasn't familiar enough with the general subject area to form a solid opinion. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 20:30, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I think what is more of an issue for ANI to be discussing is whether the idea that BoP is nominating articles for deletion in a POV fashion (nominating only Reform and Conservative synagogues) holds any water. If it is such a pov action, then we have a problem. Silverseren^C 20:42, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. Whether they are liberal, conservative, or in-between—the bigger problem is the rate at which they are being nominated. Bus stop (talk) 20:55, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it is can be much more time consuming to research and source articles when many are nominated. Bummer too when off-wiki sources are needed. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:57, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

• If the AfDs in question generally result in deletion, I'm not troubled by the fact that the editor(s) singled out for deletion Jewish houses of worship. If, on the other hand, the AfDs in question do not result in deletion, IMHO we certainly have a problem. Can someone perhaps list them here, so we all can take a look? Thanks.--Epeefleche (talk) 21:06, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

• Can we wait for BOP's response before jumping to conclusions please? GiantSnowman 21:13, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

• Of course. But that's no reason to prevent an editor from listing the AfDs in question, so we can all take a look at them. As we await BOP's response.--Epeefleche (talk) 21:18, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

• <ec>In general I'd suggest it is best for the encyclopedia to not have large nominations of articles in the same area come quickly. We want people to have a chance to find sources and ideally source the articles. If only a handful of editors are working in that area each topic won't get the look it deserves. I'd rather we delete only those where reasonable effort couldn't save them. I think it's reasonable to ask the nom to limit themselves to having no more than 5 or so active nominations of these articles at any given time. Hobit (talk) 21:15, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the total number is, but perhaps an agreement could be reached at AfD to delay the closing of some of these nominations so people who work in that area aren't overwhelmed?--Wehwalt (talk) 21:21, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

• • Undeletion is trivial. Notable pages will be restored in due time. Throttling good-faith AfDs is pointless. As for Silver Seren's suggestion that there could be something POV about nominating only one particular group's synagogues for deletion, that's neither here nor there. A long time ago I nominated a long run of Transformers-related cruft for deletion and it turned out that practically all of them were Decepticons. It doesn't mean I should have been stopped from trying to give Wikipedia a pro-Autobots bias. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 21:25, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

The few times that I have tried to source synagogues and yeshivas I have found it hard to do. These can be very important institutions and yet have very few sources, available online at least. I feel that it is unrealistic to expect notability to be as easily established for religious institutions as for public and secular institutions. Bus stop (talk) 21:31, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Offline sources are more than fine, and AfDs run for at least 7 days, so that's plenty of time to show notability, should it continue that far. GiantSnowman 21:49, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

One example that went past my watchlist was Temple Beth-El (Riverside, California) (Google-cached version here). I tried to find reliable sources that do more than mention the synagogue in passing but I failed. The best I could do was a Western states Jewish historical quarterly article from 1979 by Samuel Reznick titled "Early Jews of Riverside" in which he says that, of 450 Jewish families in the area, 250 were affiliated with Temple Beth-El, "the only Jewish congregation in the city." However, the article was not so much about the synagogue as it was about Jewish people. I agree with Bus stop that it can be very difficult to source articles about synagogues, and my position is that if no sources can be found, the article deserves deletion. Note that I did not try to stop the above article from being deleted. Binksternet (talk) 21:59, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Were most of these articles originated by the same person? I should also note that unsourced articles about religious institutions are a bad thing, they may impute to the organizations positions which they do not take, for example.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:02, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure that these places are important to those that attend them, but I'm not sure that makes them notable in their own right. I photograph a lot of churches in the UK and France, mostly the fixtures, fittings, and architectural details. Nearby to them are village halls which probably have more attendances than the 11th or 12th century church, but one is highly unlikely to write an article about the village hall. Perhaps I'm wrong but isn't it the communities that belong to these institutions that are important, not the institutions themselves. John lilburne (talk) 22:12, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

in response to GiantSnowman I have to say that offline sourcing is also likely to be more difficult for synagogues and yeshivas than for secular institutions. I should not have singled out "online" sources as I did above. I actually have never tried to source these religious institutions offline. I am merely reasoning that a great deal of coverage in print is unlikely to be found for even prominent synagogues and yeshivas used by very large numbers of people.

Unlike Binksternet I reach the opposite conclusion. In my opinion, the fact of the existence of a substantial community institution in and of itself tends to confer notability on it. I think this applies to secular as well as religious institutions. These are extremely culturally significant no mater how one construes the word "cultural".

I think Wehwalt is raising a "content" issue. Incorrect information in an article would be clearly a problem—not necessarily requiring deletion. Furthermore Wehwalt expresses concern that our article "may impute to the organizations positions which they do not take". These are religious institutions, and they are all Jewish religious institutions. As such any variance in positions taken are likely to be relatively minor. But any information in an article must be sourced; incorrect information is unacceptable.

I don't think John lilburne's comparison is apt. He refers to "11th or 12th century" Churches while under discussion here are mostly contemporary and functioning synagogues. Yeshivas would certainly be functioning. Bus stop (talk) 23:05, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Nevertheless, a functional synagogue which no independent party has ever bothered writing about in any analytical or at least non-trivial manner is very much the proverbial tree falling in the forest. I'm sure our mothers all think we're very important people, and the Chatanooga 75th Scouts group are all very proud of it too, but if nobody else cares then these things are no more befitting an encylopdia than lists of local telephone numbers. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 23:13, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Chris Cunningham—There are different standards of notability for different entities. I have tried to source yeshivas in Israel some time ago because they were nominated for deletion. A large structure existed. It was staffed by numerous instructors. There was a sizable student body. But information on it was scarce—online anyway. I doubt that much more was available offline. My argument is that institutions do not all need extensive sourcing. Notability is almost conferred on them by their existence. It takes a lot of money to build an institution. A lot of people have to participate in an institution to ensure its continued existence. This is evidence of its notability. Bus stop (talk) 23:30, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

That's certainly a valid position to hold, but it is contradicted by WP:N/WP:GROUP, which is the current consensus minimum-notability standard. You are proposing lowering the bar for religious organizations...take that up with the notability-guideline talk-pages and see if you can get consensus to change the guideline. In the mean time, we're stuck using the guidelines we have, which obviously results in deleting pages that don't meet the current minimum guideline standards. If the standards change to become more inclusive, trivial to retrieve the deleted pages at that time. Changing the standards is not a topic for this noticeboard. Alternately, you might be proposing to change the deletion process to be based on future possible changes to standards. I doubt that's going to get much traction, but you're free to argue it in general (it is something with administrative implications, but belongs on the main afd talkpage not here) or as your keep !vote on individual afd pages. DMacks (talk) 23:56, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I was juxtaposing the church with the community. I'd be hard pressed to find independent justification for the local village hall which will be of a early to mid 20th century build, or the local Catholic churches which may be mid 19th century (though some of those might be notable wrt the architect), or the non-conformist and the Methodist chapels. A few miles from me is an 11th century church in a tiny village, and although it is reputed to be the oldest in the county it is very low key, not even a grade I listing. My blog page for it gets more hits than any other, and from all over the world. It seems that surrounding that place is a very active and thriving community, but you'd search high and low to find any RS for it. It just isn't encyclopaedic. John lilburne (talk) 00:11, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Growing number of AfDs and Speedies

It is becoming increasingly difficult to take the nominator seriously because he has made no effort to engage editors at WP:TALKJUDAISM who would have the potential interest in working with him to resolve his concerns. Never in the history of synagogue articles on WP have so many articles about Jewish synagogues been nominated for deletion within days starting from here to those he has attacked so far: [48], [49], [50], [51], [52], [53], [54], [55], plus requesting speedy deletion of many others: [56], [57], [58], [59], [60], [61], [62], [63], [64], [65], [66], [67], [68], [69], [70] (and more such efforts) within so short a span of time by one user, i.e. Basket of Puppies (talk · contribs). How much longer will this go on and be tolerated? This type of gung-ho come-what-may rigid "enforcement" deletionism automatically undermines WP:CONSENSUS-building and is bound to lead to future WP:EDITWARRING as more editors with a genuine interest in this topic feel violated and outraged as it undermines WP:AGF when such a wave of actions are conducted giving expert editors limited ability to improve the articles. IZAK (talk) 23:42, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

There is an obvious way both to frustrate the nominator and improve the project, and it's been discussed at some length above. Source the articles and make it clear that they are notable. Win-win.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:59, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I fail to understand how this is an issue for AN/I. All the nominations appear to be in good faith, as the state of the articles when nominated were poor, and notability was not presented clearly in any of them. I see that most are being kept rightly after a search for sources but some are not so clear cut. Isn't the proper response here to source the articles properly instead of moaning about the nominator? Either way, I fail to understand how this pertains to AN/I. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 00:24, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

It takes a certain number of minutes per article to evaluate and possibly source. Multiply that by the number of articles nominated and consider the scarcity of editors reviewing the nominations and the flaw becomes obvious. The same process at a slower pace might not be objectionable. Bus stop (talk) 00:34, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

You have not addressed my question. How is that a problem relevant for AN/I? Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 00:47, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I'd hope to see consensous that mass AfDs in a given area are a bad idea and have an admin attempt to throttle this. One could imagine nominating ever single article for deletion that has fewer than two sources. That would be disruptive. Where is the line for mass AfDs being more harmful than helpful? How relevant is it that the user seems to be ignoring WP:BEFORE? Consensus thus far seems to be that these aren't significant enough problems to require the throttling. But asking for help here isn't unreasonable--it's likely we are going to be deleting articles on notable places just because no one has time to source them before the deadline of 7 days... Hobit (talk) 04:38, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Plus one pony. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 08:53, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I was really hoping for a donkey. Hobit (talk) 11:42, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

You assume that the sequence of events was "check article, start AFD, check article, start AFD" and so forth. Far simpler to check articles at leisure, make a list, check it twice, and nominate seriatim. By the way, do we have to keep referring to these as "Jewish synagogues"? Are there any other kinds of synagogue?--Wehwalt (talk) 00:40, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Without going into specifics (not my subject), I'd suggest that if articles are being created at a rate greater than they can be evaluated and sourced at, there is also a problem - arguably a more significant one. As has already been pointed out, a deleted article can be recreated, when sourcing is found - while a flood of unsourced articles of questionable notability is not really in anyone's interest. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:44, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Of course I agree with this 100%. That's why it is so infuriating to see people wasting their time complaining rather than simply doing the work to source the articles properly.Griswaldo (talk) 00:47, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't think any editor has alleged that "articles are being created at a rate greater than they can be evaluated and sourced at".[71] Bus stop (talk) 00:58, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I have a strong hunch that the nominator was inspired to visit and evaluate articles about synagogues after seeing AfD "keep" arguments (example here) along the lines of "Keep as there are at least 130 Reform Judaism synagogues like this in Category:Reform synagogues in the United States." It is easy to see why the WP:OTHERCRAP argument would cause people to go see what the rest of the "othercrap" looks like -- and seek to get rid of poor content that is creating a bad example for the creators of new pages. Concerted campaigns against "othercrap" can be stressful for the people who are generating that content that gets targeted, but it sometimes takes a campaign to get the attention of the users who are propagating the stuff. --Orlady (talk) 01:01, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

• Getting back to what I think is the crux of the problem, it does appear that at least some of the nominations in this slew (I still have yet to see what all of them are) are nominations that the community has 100% rejected.

See, for example: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cuban Hebrew Congregation (all 8 editors disagreeing with Basket), and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Temple Emanu-El (Miami Beach, Florida) (all 9 editors disagreeing with Basket). Quite oddly, editor ConcernedVancouverite has at precisely the same time been AFDing the same type of synagogue articles, at times with the same unanimous negative feedback, as in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Temple Beth Sholom (Cherry Hill, New Jersey) (2nd nomination) (all 7 editors disagreeing with nom). It does appear that something is amiss here.--Epeefleche (talk) 03:17, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

• Apologies as I'm in a rush - job interview - but is anyone please able to check to see if BoP has continued with his nominations after this ANI was raised? Thanks, GiantSnowman 07:31, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

  No, this ANI was posted about 20 minutes after he stopped editing (presumably for the night in whatever timezone). He's not returned since. ╟─TreasuryTag►international waters─╢ 07:37, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

  OK, many thanks. GiantSnowman 11:52, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Reply to everything above So I called it an early evening last night and this morning I arrive to the above. I'll be brief as possible. I only nominated congregations that I thought clearly were non-notable and unencyclopedic. I looked through every article in the Reform and Conservative categories and read them all before nominating anything. The super-vast-majority of the articles were clearly notable and the articles established just that through the use of reliable sources and verification. I realize that I am human and have likely nominated one or two articles in each category that would easily pass an AfD. Please understand that I am acting entirely without prejudice to any of the denominations or congregations and am acting entirely in good faith. In regards to the accusations above I can only say that they are without merit whatsoever. I feel that this ANI thread is entirely unnecessary and is the expression of some who feel I should either consult with them before taking any action on Judaism related articles (in clear violation of WP:OWN) or others who feel that I am nominating in a hurried and reckless manner. The former holds water and the latter holds none. I sincerely hope this ANI thread is quickly archived/collapsed/hatted so that editing can resume, articles that might survive the AfD process be improved and those that are not/cannot be deleted. Basket of Puppies 13:03, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I see some are responding. I reviewed two, concluded both should not be speedied, but the tag was gone by the time I was ready to edit.--SPhilbrickT 14:48, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Judaism ? Count Iblis (talk) 14:51, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Right, but there is still no prohibition on editors nominating articles for deletion (even multiple articles) before running it by random Wikiprojects (which, it should be remembered, are strictly informal workgroups that don't have any actual juristiction on the area of their chosen subject matter). The onus is on WikiProjects to watch articles and improve them, and not on individual editors to "consult" with them before making edits in good faith. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 15:11, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the issue is solved yet. Basket of Puppies returned to Wikipedia, responded here, and immediately attempted to speedy 2 synagogue articles (Congregation Shomrei Emunah, Lincoln Park Jewish Center), and AfD a third (Shaarei Tefillah). Looking at the articles, it appears that these proposals are still being made without sufficient care or forethought. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:00, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I am giving a great deal of forethought and care as to the articles that I nominate for deletion. The two that you listed for CSD are examples of articles that do not assert notability, are bare bones are entirely unnotable. Please tell me what is notable about this article at the time that I nominated it for speedy deletion? It was one line long with no references whatsoever. Shomrei Emunah was slightly longer than LPJC but still made no claims of notability, had no references and did not pass the notability threshold in the slightest. Shaarei Tefillah, the congregation that I began an AfD on, is the poster child for WP:NOTINHERITED. The article even says that the only reason why it's on Wikipedia is because of the notable people who go there, which should probably be used as an example article for WP:NOTINHERITED. So, as you can see, I have given an entirely appropriate amount of forethought and careful consideration as to the articles that I am nominating for deletion. The accusations that I am failing to do so should immediately cease as they are entirely baseless. Will you agree with this, Jayjg? Basket of Puppies 05:23, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi Basket: By your own standards and methods would you say that these articles you have created (I found them posted on your user page and no doubt there are others that you created have these technical failings) should they not be AfDd because they look very weak to me and much less notable than many of the synagogues you are AfDing: You created (all stubs, but not marked as such):

1. Yeshivat Ohr David [72], what's notable about it, with only one citation from an affiliated organization's website, and it's only an 8 line stub, not grown or improved since 2009?
2. Academy for Jewish Religion (New York) [73], three-liner with one link to an article, not grown or improved since 2009.
3. Academy for Jewish Religion (California) [74] a three liner with two weak links, since 2009.
4. Yitzchak Rabin Hillel Center for Jewish Life [75] a three liner not with real secondary sources since 2009. Someone was polite enough to ask you for more citations using a {{Notability}} template which you have not done for the synagogue articles.

Personally I would never charge at these articles and try to mass delete them, rather I would call on you to improve them if I came across them, especially if I saw that you were still an active editor. Please try to understand me, I do not have any personal complaints against you but as a fellow editor I am pointing out that you cannot have two standards, one for topics that you seem to like and do not wish to delete and one for topics that you created and just let them exist because no one is bothering them. This is simply not consistent. Thanks, IZAK (talk) 11:41, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

IZAK and violation of WP:BATTLEGROUND

IZAK (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been commenting and converting every single of the above listed AfDs into a battleground by copying the same exact (or extremely similar) statement onto every single AfD. This statement does not address the merits of the AfD in question but rather is a charge against me. Examples of this battleground statement: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 (this is an incompletely list, but you get the idea). In these notes IZAK turns the AfD from a discussion as to the merits of the article into a rant against myself, including accusations of violating WP:EDITWARRING (I have not), WP:AGF violation (I have no idea how), WP:CONSENSUS violation (which is the point of an AfD- to determine consensus for the inclusion or deletion of an article). Additionally, IZAK has made "notes" in every single AfD by placing "notes" to alert everyone to this ANI thread 1 2 3. The inclusion of such "notes" and the long rant against myself in every AfD is a textbook example of a WP:BATTLEGROUND violation. While myself and other editors (whom I may disagree with) are discussing the issues in a civil manner, IZAK is turning the AfDs into a battle field in clear violation of policy. Basket of Puppies 05:45, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

While that behaviour isn't really acceptable, I suppose you can take comfort from the realisation that there's nothing quite as likely to make a reasonable editor's (or closing admin's) eyes roll in an AfD than a copy-pasted, personal attack laden rant about deletionists. I know fish on a Friday is more of a Catholic thing, but obviously IZAK 's done himself no favours here. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 07:36, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm reminded of IZAK's pointy creation of the now deleted Economic history of the Muslims and Economic history of the Christians during the Noleander saga. The entire time IZAK maintained that it was not a WP:POINT violation, and that despite completely opposing Noleander's "Economic history of the Jews" his entries were justifiable. So there is a history of this kind of reactive disruption from IZAK. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 13:13, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

There's nothing new here in that regard: I was just pointing out that the actions in question weren't likely to cause that much trouble when it came to the outcome of the AfDs. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 14:33, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Response by IZAK

Hi. 1 At no point whatsoever was any "personal attack" leveled by me at Basket of Puppies. He misconstrues my citing of WP policies within AfDs as being "personal" against him. And while he may disagree or think I am "wrong" but he has no "right" to spin the story and allege falsely that I have "attacked" him "personally" which I have not done and reject 100%. 2 BoP is in effect saying here that "he" is the "sole" interpreter of WP policies and if any user contradicts him then they are somehow guilty of "personal attacks" which is just absurd and false and a flawed lack of logic and playing with words (this is just a debate BoP it's not personal!) 3 Furthermore, it is very curious and dare I say self-contradictory that while User Basket of Puppies (talk · contribs) pastes the exact same claims of "non notability" while nominating at least seven eight articles about synagogues for deletion and similarly uses one argument to apply for the speedy deletion of at least another fifteen seventeen synagogue articles (to date), see #Growing number of AfDs and Speedies, that he should then claim that I have the "temerity" to reply to his mass copy-and-paste deletionism with a counter-response that fits all of his AfDs and Speedies, and simply notes that and that there is also a wider debate going on right here at ANI above. 4 Another very odd thing is that Basket of Puppies was approached by a number of other concerned editors on his talk page to cool it, but instead he either totally ignored or rebuffed them refusing to engaged them in reasonable discussions per WP:CONSENSUS, WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF, see:

1. User talk:Basket of Puppies#Synagogue articles request by User JoshuaZ (talk · contribs)
2. User talk:Basket of Puppies#Notice notice by User Jayjg (talk · contribs)
3. User talk:Basket of Puppies#Article deletion rate by User Hobit (talk · contribs)

5 Not to mention the very detailed and still-ongoing responses and objections of many other users to BoP's spurt of anxiety-inducing deletionism to most Judaic editors. 6 The point is that every editor cares not just about specific articles that may sometimes be weak, but also about that field in general and when incisions via AfDs and rash Speedies are made that feel painful and hurt, that in turn will elicit a response. No use complaining that other users take a topic they care about too seriously rather than engage them in constructive debate on your or their or a WP project talk pages as BoP has so far refused to do. He states openly declares when approached that he only wishes to "discuss" things in the framework of an AfD he initiates which means the dice is loaded his way. 7 Mass AfDs and Speedies of very sensitive topics will automatically cause reactions which BoP must surely have known before he went down this path, which is also exactly what many other editors feel, not just with the nomination of the synagogue articles for deletion but the way it was done, without starting a real discussion anywhere to induce goodwill, which would have been the right thing for BoP to do before. 8 BoP must surely have known that his own actions would be the real cause of WP:NOTBATTLEGROUND which he ignited and not me. 9 Because it should be obvious that Jews are sensitive to synagogues being erased be it digitally or in real life and BoP needs to be aware that this is sensitive stuff that must be done carefully. 10 Had he nominated one or two articles and started genuine discussions somewhere then everyone could live with it and come aboard, but when he compares getting rid of these articles to "cleaning up" as if he were disposing of bird poop it is a bit too much. At any rate if anything his "complaint" here is his red herring to take attention away from the complaints he is facing and the pot calling the kettle black. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 08:21, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

This is a point I have also noticed in other, similar discussions you had: "Because it should be obvious that Jews are sensitive to synagogues being erased be it digitally or in real life and BoP needs to be aware that this is sensitive stuff that must be done carefully." No, this should not be obvious, and this is not "sensitive stuff that should be done careful": this should not be treated any more or less careful than any other article, and is not any more or less sensitive. If you have more problems with synagogues or other Jewish-related articles being nominated for deletion or otherwise discussed, then it should be you who needs to take a step back and withdraw from these discussions. If you can't approach such discussions and deletions neutrally, as if they were any other subject, then you get into WP:COI, WP:NPOV and WP:OWN territory. Please leave discussions to people without such prejudices who will look at the cases rationally instead of emotionally. Fram (talk) 08:49, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and please don't change your post after people have already replied, even when your addition to point 7 of "of very sensitive topics" only emphasises my point. That an article on a synagogue is nominated for deletion shouldn't be any more sensitive to you or anyone else than that an article about a church, football club, band, writer, ... is nominated for deletion. Fram (talk) 09:01, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Fram: I was typing and did not know about your editing my post, I don't run the system or the Internet. To get to the point. I am not disagreeing with you. There is no "emotionalism" but any well-educated person who is familiar with the topic of Jewish history will understand that this is by its very nature a sensitive topic. (I do not wish to bring up the topic of Kristallnacht because it may seem too harsh but this is the RECENT history of the Jewish people that almost all educated and sensitive people know about --or at least should know about-- and its implications, and that is why it IS a sensitive topic by its very nature, nothing to do with "emotionalism" but everything to do with facts and raw history). What if an editor not well-known with Christian or Muslim editing suddenly nominated 7 Church or Mosque articles and nominated 15 other Church or Mosque articles for Speedy Deletion without either any willingness to engage in discussions and complained that his actions were "reasonable" (most of the articles are going to be saved by the way, so the flow of the argument is not with BoP at this time which is maybe why he resorts to creating a discussion about me instead of holding real discussions not just with me but with the many others who want to engage him but he refuses and rebuffs them) -- there would definitely be a strong response from Christian and Islam savvy editors that something is remiss and there needs to be a slow down. No-one becomes WP's "authority" on synagogue articles and Judaism simply because they find technical faults with articles and rush to delete them. There are better and more harmonious and congenial ways to do things. Note, a house of worship is not like a nightclub or hamburger joint, this is a reality that any editing rules cannot erase. WP articles strive to reflect the world as it is and not as it is spun or un-spun by editors with no track record or evident history editing in an area they wish to radically change. Thanks, IZAK (talk)

Did you just compare the nomination for deletion of a series of Wikipedia articles to the anti-Jewish pogroms of the Nazis? because it seems like you just compared the nomination for deletion of a series of Wikipedia articles to the anti-Jewish pogroms of the Nazis. I needn't have to point out that the nomination for deletion of a series of Wikipedia articles is not, in any way, comparable to the anti-Jewish pogroms of the Nazis. If you believe that the nomination for deletion of a series of Wikipedia articles is comparable to the anti-Jewish pogroms of the Nazis, that would strongly indicate that your temperament is not suitable for a career in Wikipedia editing. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 09:27, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Nope Chris, don't put words in my mouth. I was very reluctantly (read my words again please) citing a strong example from recent history why this is an objectively sensitive topic, and why any editor should proceed with caution. Anything relating to religion (and politics) is sensitive by its very nature and can be volatile. It is not like writing about the stock market or sports teams. Houses of worship are symbols of a religion, so why the surprise that almost all the Judaic editors are as concerned as I am and as you and any well-educated and well-informed user should be. Otherwise they need to take a few steps back and not ignite these types of situations. As I said, had BoP shown a good track record in editing Judaic articles and built up a good rapport per WP:CONSENSUS with editors in this field, everyone can live with AfDs as I and others have nominated many in the past. But rash actions will automatically cause a furor which has nothing to do with me as such and no amount of changing the topic will stop what BoP has begun. IZAK (talk) 09:42, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

"As I said, had BoP shown a good track record in editing Judaic articles and built up a good rapport per WP:CONSENSUS with editors in this filed,": yep, pure WP:OWN. "Houses of worship are symbols of a religion, so why the surprise that almost all the Judaic editors are as concerned as I am and as you any well-educated and well-informed user should be. " Thanks for the back-handed personal attack against anyone not agreeing with you, but you are wrong anyway. Wikipedia doesn't care if something is a symbol of a religion (no matter which religion), just like it doesn't care whether someone is a hero or a criminal, or whether some topic is morally good or morally corrupt. We care about whether the topic is notable (as described in WP:N, WP:ORG and the like) and whether the article is written in a WP:NPOV manner from WP:V/WP:RS sources. If someone honsetly believes that a subject fails our policies and guidelines, then he is free to pursue a number of procedures, including speedy, prod and AfD. At no time should that editor take into consideration whether the subject is sensitive to some editors or whether some project (or members of that project) feel protective of the article. The subject of the article should not be treated in an insulting or belittling fashion in e.g. the deletion statement, and care should be taken to indicate that the reason for the deletion nomination is that the subject doesn't meet our policies and guidelines, and not for some ulterior motives, but there it ends. The opposite is also true: the only arguments in deletion discussions that will be taken into account by the closing admin are those based on policies and guidelines, not those based on some emotional reason or some version of WP:OWN. You are free to express such reasons, but you shouldn't be surprised if they are discounted when closing the discussion, and that you ay be asked to withdraw from such discussions (or to post them on the talk page ofthem) if that is all you have to offer there. Fram (talk) 09:57, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Fram: 1 My objections in the AfDs were all based on policies. 2 The discussions here are about how articles are created prior to being deleted, so please do not take words out of context. 3 It is easy to destroy but much harder to build. That is why the advice of WP:DONOTDEMOLISH is good. Articles do not come out of the womb "perfect" they take work. 4 And that is why there are stubs and all sorts of "under construction" and "request for citation" templates that were not used in this series of AfDs. 5 The way "work" is done on WP, even AfD work, is to show good faith efforts by seeking WP:CONSENSUS to improve the content which was not done in this case. 6 Sure, one can be brutal and blunt and just shoot down half of WP's articles because the articles are not plu-perfect yet, but that is not the way editors in the trenches work and which was not done in this case. 7 By calling for more cooperation from BoP when he has shown none is not a "violation" of OWN or anything else, it is a common sense and reasonable attitude of working editors improving a field. 8 I am NOT known for WP:EDITWARRING in article creation and writing, and NEVER have been, I avoid it like the plague, so you have no argument against me. But I do try to take the long term view and see what can be salvaged when rash AFDs come up and when I am in agreement with lots of other editors in any case. That is not a crime either. 9 Mass deletions are not advisable no matter what you say, especially because they will inevitably cause friction that WP does not need. 10 It is easy to sit back and view the world as a string of WP policies, with everything being "the same", but that is not the way the real world works and it defies reality testing which come first, otherwise nothing would make sense, but it is much harder to look at articles as having the potential to improve and asking editors who care to participate in that growth without antagonizing them. Thanks, IZAK (talk) 11:13, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

IZAK, if you can't be honest it is no use discussing things with you anymore. "The discussions here are about how articles are created prior to being deleted, so please do not take words out of context."? No, the discussion here is very clearly about the deletion of articles. But please do indicate how I have taken any words out of context, and how that context would change the interpretation I gave to them. "It is easy to destroy but much harder to build." Really? I am spending hours for the moment on correcting, including deleting, a large number of articles created in the space of minutes. Deletion is not easier or harder than construction on Wikipedia. And in some cases, mass deletions are the only thing that is truly workable, considering the sheer amount of articles that in some cases warrant deletion. Whether that is the case here is a different discussion, but incorrect generalisations are not helpful. Further: Why do you bring up editwarring when I haven't used that as an argument against you? Strawman? Your point 10 is the only one that adresses my reply, but I can't find the point you are making. Do you mean that you need to do some reality testing, to realise that the deletion of an article on a synagogue has no impact on that synagogue in the real world? Fram (talk) 12:13, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

So, what is the response of the community to IZAK's WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior? He doesn't seem to acknowledge it is a problem. Basket of Puppies 19:01, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

IZAK, I never accused you of violating WP:NPA. You did, however, violate WP:BATTLEGROUND by posting long rants about my nominations for deletion in every AfD that I began. You didn't comment on the merits of the AfD but rather on my habits, deletion nominations and threw around essays, guidelines and policies. You clearly violated WP:BATTLEGROUND and need to agree that AfDs are not the appropriate venue for venting your frustrations at how and what an editor nominated for deletion. OK? Basket of Puppies 12:52, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Does this sound familiar?

Oppose Several of the articles I have nominated have already been deleted demonstrating that I am not a loose cannon and do understand deletion policy. I am human and realize that I might accidently nominate something for deletion that might notable. For that I am sincerely sorry. I believe that this proposed topic ban is an inappropriate reaction to differences of opinion and ask that it be speedily closed. Basket of Puppies 13:28, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Now...wouldn't that be an example of a non-apology apology? The term you threw at me the other day? Tinton5 (talk) 21:22, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

"I might accidently nominate something for deletion that might notable. For that I am sincerely sorry" sounds very much like a proper apology to me. Go get some fresh air. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 22:49, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Tinton, WP:Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass. Basket of Puppies 22:53, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Proposed topic ban for Basket of Puppies

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

I have proposed a topic-ban for Basket of Puppies (talk · contribs) at WP:AN#Proposed topic ban for Basket of Puppies. Please leave your comments there. ╟─TreasuryTag►District Collector─╢ 13:19, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

On what grounds? I can see a great deal of evidence of assumptions of bad faith here, but no real evidence that he has done anything other than what he states he did - go through a list of articles about a common topic, and propose the ones he saw as not meeting Wikipedia notability requirements for deletion. This discussion has been singularly notable in itself - for the way that everyone seems to be more concerned with looking for evidence of ulterior motives than with the actual events. How about everyone stepping back a bit, and considering things from a broader perspective, rather than engaging in this unseemly reenactment of Cultural Revolution show trials as reinterpreted by Mel Brooks? AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:32, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

On the contrary, other than noting BoP's false accusation of harassment, I explicitly stated, "As I suspected, it's not intentional disruption but a misunderstanding." I then went on to explain that it's an issue of WP:CIR, of which bad faith is no part. ╟─TreasuryTag►most serene─╢ 13:33, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that BoP's accusation of harassment was incorrect and likely posted in haste. I respectfully disagree with your good faith proposal of a topic ban. I accept BoP's explanation of his actions, and agree with other's assessments that (aside from a possible error or two), they were also done in good faith. JoeSperrazza (talk) 13:54, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

TreasuryTag, how can an action properly carried out be a competence issue? The articles in question didn't, in his opinion, meet Wikipedia notability requirements, so he proposed them for deletion. If being wrong about the outcome of an AfD is an indication of lack of competence, then we have serious problems. As for the suggestions that he should have looked for evidence for notability before proposing deletion, that is getting it entirely backwards - articles with no evidence of subject notability shouldn't be written in the first place, and expecting others to 'fix' them is more of a competence issue. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:00, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the accusation of harassment against JonathanZ was inappropriate and I offer my public apologies to JonathanZ. To revisit the issue for a brief moment when coming across an article like this would the possibility of deletion not come across your mind? (It is one line long, no assertion of notability and zero references.) Basket of Puppies 14:01, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Totally unjustified, no basis. There may be better ways for BoP to go about things, but such sanctions are way over the top. Chesdovi (talk) 14:10, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Please note that, per convention, proposals for bans take place on AN rather than ANI, and TT is simply providing a courtesy link to that discussion. !voting should occur there, not here.--SPhilbrickT 15:17, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

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

Outside canvassing for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thomas James Ball

Resolved

 – AFD closed as delete. m.o.p 20:56, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Apparantly I am a "feminist from Canada", (news to me) trying to get this page deleted. Anyway, there's been a lot of blogs calling on people to save this Wikipedia page, and the result is that the deletion page, the talk page for the deletion page, and the article's talk page has seen a deluge of SPAs. Wouldn't mind an eye or two to make sure the situation doesn't sprial out of control. Singularity42 (talk) 16:52, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with being a feminist. Being Canadian on the other hand... GiantSnowman 16:55, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Fun fact: Being Canadian automatically make you non-notable. Larry V (talk | email) 18:59, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Also, curling. Larry V (talk | email) 19:00, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm a self-hating Canadian; does that therefore make me notable? GiantSnowman 19:39, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Oy vey, we might have to ask Jimbo about that one. Larry V (talk | email) 19:45, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I love this: "The very fact that someone put it up, someone wants it gone, and that we're now discussing if it should be deleted proves that it is notable." There you are then. Proposing it for deletion as non-notable makes it notable. Paul B (talk) 17:02, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that so far is the best line from the discussion, eh? (I have to rely on some of my Canadian heritage :) ). Singularity42 (talk) 17:05, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

In case anyone is interested, the arguments so far in favour of keep are:

1. The fact that we are even having this discussion means it is notable.
2. By asserting that there is a conspiracy by mainstream media to not cover this person, the lack of coverage should not justify deletion.
3. The nominator is part of the conspiracy.
4. His death is important to a group's political beliefs.
5. His death has been covered by lots of blogs and forums.
6. Any politically-motivated suicide is inherently notable.
7. If Wikipedia has an article on [insert random topic here - i.e. Half-Life 2, a murderer, etc.], then surely there should be an article about this person.

I have given up trying to explain why these arguments are not in accordance with policy. Singularity42 (talk) 17:12, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

This is one of those really strange situations which make me wish for a policy on "Biographies of Deceased People - Single Event", similar to what WP:BLP1E covers. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 19:12, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

There is WP:BIO1E which applies to dead as well as living persons. JohnCD (talk) 19:15, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

That works. See something new every day... --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 19:16, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

If our definition of "notable" doesn't give any weight at all to large numbers of people caring a very great deal about the topic, we need to look in the mirror and give ourselves a metaphorical slap in the face, because we have entered the world of newspeak. Thparkth (talk) 19:59, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

If I cajole all my family and friends to petition for an article about me, do I then become eligible? GiantSnowman 20:03, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

(ec) No, but if there was an article about you that was verifiable and at least marginally notable, and if hundreds of people with no personal connection to you descended on the AfD to argue passionately about how important you are, then yes, that should be given some weight, no matter how weak their arguments in policy terms. Notability is ultimately about determining whether sufficient unconnected people care about a topic so that it is useful to have the article and practical to maintain it. All of our notability policies are essentially imperfect proxies used to answer this question as best we can. If enough of those unconnected people actually start showing up in person, it is no longer necessary to use the proxies. Thparkth (talk) 20:14, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Are they unconnected though? How can you tell they haven't all come from a father's rights forum, for example? GiantSnowman 20:19, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm not inclined to disregard their opinions if they have. Having a common interest doesn't make people connected. If they all personally knew each other, or were close relatives, that might be a different matter... Thparkth (talk) 20:26, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Even with 'call to arms' like this one? Singularity42 (talk) 20:28, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

This is specifically why the {{not a ballot}} template is used in AfDs. The fact that people were canvassed to post in the AfD doesn't add notability to the article, it just means that people were connected enough to come here and post. That link that Singularity just posted is a pretty damning case of canvassing (not to mention personal attacks on Wikipedia editors) if I've seen one. Wildthing61476 (talk) 20:35, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

(ec) To me, it seems like the issue is that there aren't "large numbers of people caring a very great deal about the topic", but rather only a small number of highly vocal ones. Peacock (talk) 20:04, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

On a planet of 7.1 billion people, the fact that a handful of fanatics can be summoned to defend a single article proves nothing, zero, nada, bupkes, not a darned thing except that people have strong feelings about lots of stuff, whether it be this guy's death or the place of rutabagas in making pastys. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:32, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

To paraphrase an old saying, it sounds like he burned the right guy. Do we have a special category for looneys that kill themselves in order to attract attention? Budd Dwyer comes to mind here. Of course, he was already notable. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:55, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Do we have a special category for editors inclined to present their snide commentary on everything that happens at ANI? If you must do it, at least have the decency to restrict it to folk who are capable of answering back. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 11:13, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I've closed this AfD as delete - a bit earlier than usual, yes, but I've provided reasoning here. I'm also Canadian, though - does that make me biased? m.o.p 20:56, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

RevDel requested at Penny Lancaster

IP using edit summary to post unsupported accusations against the article subject. Zero credibility, zero encyclopedic value, but will remain visible in article history unless suppressed. Thank you. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 17:29, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't see it. The IP is accusing her of lying about her height? I'm not sure that falls under the purview of RevDel. TNXMan 17:37, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

We have an anon accusing an article subject of dishonesty, without a shred of evidence either that the statement is false or that the disputed claim can be attributed to the subject. That would ordinarily be removed without discussion from just about any place it was posted on-wiki, and RevDel is the only way to remove it from an edit summary. It falls under both CFRD 2 and 3. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 17:57, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

*shrugs* OK. I disagree, but I'm curious to hear other's opinions. TNXMan 18:00, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't see it either. Of course, is her height/weight properly sourced anyway? If it's from her personal website, it might not necessarily be a "lie", but it's certainly not really a third party source...I agree that the IP's isn't sourced either. Nothing to RevDel IMHO (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 18:04, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

The edit summary does say she was lying, insofar as it literally says "she is lying", but I'm hard-pressed to read it as a serious accusation. Maybe if the IP had claimed that Ms. Lancaster was lying about never having kicked a puppy, or something. Larry V (talk | email) 18:49, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I dropped a note at 174.108.82.56's talk page because… well, why not. Larry V (talk | email) 18:57, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

• I've deleted the edit summary. We do not want editors making such accusations about article subjects. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz was quite right to suggest it and I fail to see what there is to ruminate over, Tnxman307. Fences&Windows 20:53, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Sorry, I just saw the bit at WP:REVDEL that said "Grossly insulting, degrading, or offensive material". I didn't think calling someone a liar qualified as "grossly insulting". TNXMan 22:07, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
    • Especially over something as trivial as one's height. Larry V (talk | email) 02:33, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
      • Indeed. Not that much harm was done here, but if that's the threshold that we're using revdel for an BLPs we're going to need an admin cloning machine. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 07:40, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
        • While it's not something I would have bothered to ask for myself I feel the revdel was appropriate. As others have said it's not so much that the material desperately needed revdel just that it's the kind of thing for which removal from an article talk page or some other page on wikipedia was appropriate but this is not possible for an edit summary Nil Einne (talk) 18:22, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• Not that it is of any importance, but the only of the sources given that is accessible to me and mentions her height gives her an inch less than what is claimed in the infobox. I do not believe this matter to be important enough for even a {{fact}} tag, though. —Kusma (t·c) 07:57, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

User:Jamesington

• Jamesington (talk · contribs · count)

Thought I'd ask for another opinion here; I'm very close to blocking this user myself, but not sure if WP:INVOLVED would apply. See this edit, and note the edit warring on the Cat article. User has been notified. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 21:31, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Looks like he's hitting, or close to hitting, 3RR. Maybe this should go up on WP:EWN? --causa sui (talk) 21:45, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Had violated it on the 20th, but I figured that might be a stale report (though user continued edit-warring with 4 other users without crossing 3RR threshold in the following days). OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 21:52, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

There's no question the editor Jamesington is edit-warring, but so are the others. It's a freakin' free image, fer cryin' out loud. The deletionists have gone berserk in this cat-fight. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:04, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

The issue is it doesn't add anything, and overloads the section with images. If every addition of a photo to Cat or Dog was kept, the articles would be 80% image, 20% content. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 22:11, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

There are several images that "add nothing" to the cat article. This, for example, which alleges that a cat is watching birds. It's basically a cat sitting there, and it could be watching anything. Then there's the one about a sleeping cat, under "cat behavior" - as if other animals don't sleep. Maybe you don't remember the yawning cat that was used in MTM Productions. A cat yawning is at least as much "anything" as a cat staring off into space - or sleeping. Then there's the fact you've got two white cats in the article. You're playing favorites, for no apparent reason. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:18, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Why does every freaking thing have to boil down to "-ists" of some sort? Can't we for once look at the dispute at hand without having to resort to attacks? –MuZemike 22:20, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

The original post isn't about the content dispute, and I'm not discussing that further here; besides the 1-against-4 edit-warring, the user has repeatedly modified other user's comments in an insulting fashion. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 22:21, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

There being other basically worthless images in the article isn't a defense for the behavior. Edit warring over both the inclusion of the image and changing other user's comments to introduce blatant personal attacks certainly isn't excused by it. --Onorem♠Dil 22:26, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Changing other editors' comments is obviously against the rules. However, continually edit-warring to remove one particular image, when there are other similarly "useless" images, comes out looking like a personal vendetta against that one user, rather than a simple content dispute. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:30, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

There's no reason to think people continually removing an image a single user just added to an article which already has too many images have a personal vendetta against that user. Just because an article already has junk doesn't mean it's okay to add more junk or that removing that recently added junk is wrong. Nil Einne (talk) 17:34, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Given that there is virtually no talk page discussion on this, I have full-protected Cat for 3 days. –MuZemike 22:28, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Well done. This is a content dispute - those involved are advised to follow dispute resolution. --causa sui (talk) 22:55, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Dear Wikipedians. (Ohnoitsjamie . in particular) Yes, I was adding neat photos of cats. But I do however feel that the removal of the cat in the depth of field wiki is nothing but a personal attack, as it is relevant to the article. Even though you argue that the other pictures highlight depth of field already. But in response to that I would also say that all the other images on cat highlight cats... and every single other wiki with more than one picture. So please stop warring against me, I thought this was something anyone could edit? Not just to be judged and patronised for making contributions. I also made a parody of the message posted to my page, as it is my page, and I feel that as such I can do what I like with it. Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamesington (talk • contribs) 22:36, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Editing someone else's post, even on your talk page, is never acceptable. If you want to make fun of it, post your version after theirs. The way you did it made your version look like it was written by Tbhotch. Even on your talk page, you must follow the Wikipedia rules - see WP:USERTALK. Ravensfire (talk) 23:51, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Jamesington, would you please explain how removing an image is a personal attack? I've never seen that argument before and interested in the explanation.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 01:15, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

If I were in his shoes, I would take it personally too, given the catty remarks by the opponents, especially Tbhotch:[76] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:28, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Some comments (since I was away doing other RL stuff in the meantime):

• Wikipedia is a wiki, which does mean virtually anyone can edit. However, it is inevitable that two or more people are going to disagree on something on a certain article. As a result, an edit war may result, especially if tensions are high. Hence, "anyone can edit" is a double-edged sword in this regard. There are going to be conflicts in such an open environment.
• Given the context of this situation, removing an image is not a personal attack (there may be other situations which it may be considered, such as in the more contentious areas of WP such as Libya, the Balkans, etc.; however, this is still far few in between). Please stop treating it as such.
• Nobody owns articles on Wikipedia (including user pages), and consequently, if one feels that much offended as to having such an edit reverted, then there are going to be problems.
• The above being said, it's certainly possible that I may have erred on the full-protection (and that I should have blocked instead). However, I wanted to give a chance for the users involved to see if some progress can occur without blocks. Given the one comment by the complainant above, I admit that I am skeptical of that.

–MuZemike 07:00, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

This has apparently spilled over to Depth of field as well. Somebody please give me one reason why I should not block everybody here involved. –MuZemike 07:05, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Personally I prefer that blocks be a last resort. I applaud your efforts here Muz. — Ched :  ?  07:17, 24 June 2011 (UTC) (out of sequence post)... FWIW, I had missed the "Depth of field" issue. — Ched :  ?  09:20, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

In that particular case, the photo appears to be redundant, as shallow depth of field has already been illustrated. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:43, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• Blocked for twelve hours. Slap on the wrist for disruptive editing. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 07:20, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Great. Now, how about breaking through the block and deleting the other "useless" pictures in that article? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:43, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
    • So not getting involved in that content dispute. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 07:53, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
      • The deletionists demand free content. They get free content. And they still look for ways to kill it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:39, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
        • Why does every freaking thing have to boil down to "-ists" of some sort? Can't we for once look at the dispute at hand without having to resort to attacks? (Yes, I have copypasted the exact same comment I made above.) –MuZemike 13:29, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
          • Calling a spade a spade. And it also looks as if the editor in question was singled out, which is every bit as insidious as deletionism. Tbhotch, in particular, orders the user (with no authority to do so) not to upload pictures of his cats, despite the fact that most of the pictures in that article were personal snapshots of their cats. He goes on to refer to a "stupid" picture. A personal attack. If they weren't singling out the editor, they were certainly doing a good imitation of it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:34, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
            • "Comment on content, not contributors". The content was at issue. Besides, Commons is always open and additions should be discussed at the talk page (if contested) ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 15:53, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
            • As I've now mentioned above, there's absolutely no reason to delve into conspiracy theories about singling anyone out. It's perfectly normal when someone adds more junk to an article that is already full of junk someone else will remove/revert said recently added junk but can't be bothered removing the existing junk at that time. This is perfectly justified per policy and there is no requirement that a user has to clear out any existing junk before reverting any recently added junk. Just allowing more junk into an article because it is already full of junk is an inherently bad idea and it's likely one of the reasons it got so full of junk is people were initially to willing to let non-useful content be added. I haven't checked the discussion but even if things got a little heated it doesn't indicate there was any singling out. People do get frustrated when someone keeps adding junk against multiple other editors despite multiple requests not to and modifies their comments to boot. Perhaps part of the problem was the way the other editors handled it caused ill feeling from the beginning which is unfortunate but I can understand frustration if you're dealing with an article which people keep adding unwanted pictures of their own pets. Note that although most of the pictures in the article may be of the uploader's cats, the issue of dispute here is adding them to the article. And I think it's perfectly resonable that people defer to the opinions of others on whether their images belong in an article which sometimes may including asking in the talk page rather then adding them yourself, even more so if the images are of something they feel strongly about like their pets (or penis where I believe they often have similar issues). In other words WP:COI does come in to it. Of course if you do actually have some evidence anyone was singled out, you're welcome to provide it but from what you've said so far, it seems you think if someone happens to notice a recent addition is unhelpful or wanted but fails to remove other existing problems in an article they're somehow singling the editor out which as I've said is just silly. Nil Einne (talk) 17:50, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

To Basebull bugs: I've never "ordered" anyone to not upload images, never. People has free will, who am I to told people to do not upload pictures of their cats? No one. On the other hand, I told him to not add images of his pet on this kind of articles. This is promotion and Wikipedia is not a collector of images. Also, there is a note about the main image: "There has been extensive discussion about the choice of image in this infobox. Before replacing this image with something else, consider if it actually improves on the ENCYCLOPEDIC CRITERIA which led to this choice. See Talk:Cat and Talk:Cat/Lead photo and if in doubt, DISCUSS IT FIRST!", due many people had been uploading their own cat images. Bugs I am asking you this once: stop comentin on me'. Just because I lost my Miss Congeniality Award on a section above, you don't have the right of treat me like a vandal, nor defame me putting words I've never said. ۞ Tbhotch^™ & (ↄ), My comment was grammatically incorrect? Correct it! → Click here for terms and conditions 17:54, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

"Do not add your cats"[77] sure sounds to me like an order, not a request. Now, if you want to do something actually useful with that page, as opposed to what you've done so far, then you should lop off about half the images, as the page takes quite awhile to load - with or without the "stupid" picture that you and your deletionist pals singled out. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:35, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

And again I see no one ordering other people to not upload pictures. ۞ Tbhotch^™ & (ↄ), My comment was grammatically incorrect? Correct it! → Click here for terms and conditions 19:17, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Now you're splitting cat hairs. In any case, you issued an order that you had no right to issue. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:30, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Personal attack.... I felt I was being attacked as I had posted two images, one to cat, and the other to depth of field. After one mod removing the image from cat, they then proceeded to follow me to depth of field and remove that too, I can understand the cat article to an extent but I think the depth of field is a perfectly resonable image to use. I resent being followed around, and then just because someone with more power doesn't like it, decides to get me blocked for 12 hours. I class that as an attack. Thank you.Jamesington (talk) 20:03, 24 June 2011 (UTC) Jamesington

The only issue with the depth-of-field picture is that it had already been illustrated, so it didn't add any new information. However, the other editor calling the other picture "stupid" was a personal attack, whether he sees it that way or not. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:31, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I think that the current picture (the one of a child) does not illustrate well enough. It is also is badly lit. As i have previously mentioned, my picture shows other objects that are still recognisable as points of reference. I think the picture should be in there. That other picture hurts my eyes, it also looks like it has been edited, and a blurring tool has been clicked once over the back many times. Can things not be replaced here? Jamesington (talk) 21:08, 24 June 2011 (UTC) jamesington

I don’t see a problem with replacing an image in Depth of field (we have some that need replacing or removal), but is it asking too much to request that a brief case be made for doing so rather than edit warring? I agree that some of the edit summaries for the reverts were a bit cryptic (and perhaps confrontational), but some of your summaries were no different. Again, I would suggest raising the issue on Talk:Depth of field. JeffConrad (talk) 00:38, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Depth of field is now full-protected for 3 days. However, I think I should be kicking myself right now for not blocking instead, but seeing that Jamesington already got a block, if I block everyone except him, then that would not be fair. –MuZemike 21:48, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

You could give the edit warriors that same 12 hours apiece. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:58, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Problem is that I would have to block Jamesington a second time, which I don't think it's fair for him, having coming off a block already. –MuZemike 22:53, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

No, he already got blocked for the edit war. You could block the Gang of 4 for that same edit war, where they were fighting against a free image and taking shots at its uploader. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:07, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

(Moved from my talk page, User talk:MuZemike I appreciate your effort to avoid an edit war, but is it really necessary to protect the page because of one disruptive editor? I think a glance at User:Jamesington’s Talk page and edit comments makes pretty clear where the problem lies—this editor insists on making non-consensus edits but refuses to discuss them. I inadvertently contributed to the appearance of an edit war by reverting MarnetteD without checking the edit history carefully enough; some of the edit messages could have been better, but at least the reverts (save the one I botched) of the image replacement were good-faith attempts to protect the article, and most asked Jamesington to discuss the issue. It’s tough to deal with an editor who refuses to discuss a dispute. JeffConrad (talk) 23:00, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Especially given the hypocrisy of the Gang of 4, who targeted that one image while doing nothing about equally useless images that still weigh down the article. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:09, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Hate to play Devil's Advocate, but what is this, Communist China? The Great Wikipedian Cultural Revolution? –MuZemike 23:12, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd just like to know why they targeted that one image. It's not the greatest image, but it's not the worst either, and there are several on that slugglishly-loading page that are just as "useless" and need to be removed. Oh, but the page is protected, gee, I forgot. And what are the odds anyone will bother deleting the other junk images on that page once the protected expires? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:30, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

In Depth of field, the principal contributors agreed long ago that we had far too many images, and even deleted some images that we had. This article still seems to attract too many images, especially soft-focus, and if we just kept them all we’d have nothing but an image gallery (and not necessarily a good one). I concede that we may have gotten a bit lax on weeding out (I agree about the image of the child, and perhaps a few others as well), but sometimes playing cop gets frustrating. In my opinion, the current cat image is superior, mainly because of the lighting; accordingly, the case for replacing it should be made. I think the sluggish load is due as much to the article’s length as to the number of images, and yes, I agree that some trimming is in order. But the caustic comments here are not helpful. JeffConrad (talk) 23:46, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

It's the cat article that's the problem. The mass of images is causing the page to load like a snail stuck in traffic. And deleting one image did not fix that. Delete about half of them, and it might help. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:58, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

You could always try getting that ball rolling on the article talk page. If you can peel yourself away from ANI for thirty seconds, that is. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 23:35, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

You're funny. Anyway, I've done as you suggested. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:21, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Hey fellow members of the Gang of 4; who is our next target for persecution? It needs to be really arbitrary, and reek of deletionism. Hit me up on the #CABAL channel. Jeesh. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 23:52, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure there are thousands of other free photos you could attack. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:59, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

The cat talk page is accumulating suggestions on improvements. There's no harm leaving the protection in place until it expires on Sunday. By then there should be pretty good consensus. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:55, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Disruptive editing by Debresser

#Debresser nominates Palestinian rabbis for category for deletion is up the way, guys. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 07:42, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
User:Debresser has reverted a number of my changes, changes I made after a couple of users noted that the Category:16th-century Palestinian rabbis had been empty, which reulted in it being deleted and a big nusience having to get the page undelted. Debresser needs to be stopped once and for all. I will not be dragged into and edit war and get blocked like a month ago. Debresser needs to learn that he can not force constantly his view on others. Chesdovi (talk) 22:40, 23 June 2011 (UTC) Debresser (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Chesdovi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) For reference. --causa sui (talk) 22:47, 23 June 2011 (UTC) Please see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Ask_for_block and the discussion preceding it above. For the real references. :) Debresser (talk) 22:53, 23 June 2011 (UTC) I have had enough of Debresser's arrogant behaviour. How much more must I suffer? 150 pages de-categorised in one fell swoop, without any discussion, then back and forth with nominating the category for deletion. Now reverting after I populate the category to save it from being deleted again. I cannot take this much longer. Chesdovi (talk) 22:57, 23 June 2011 (UTC) Are you now throwing a tantrum after another bout of your disruptive pushing of non-consensus edits is reverted? I propose this discussion be merged with the discussion above. If that is allowable on WP:ANI discussions. Debresser (talk) 23:10, 23 June 2011 (UTC) You have acted wrongly right from the start. Who do you think you are to go and revert all those pages without consulting a soul. How dare you. Do you not understand that you got the page deleted before there was a conclusion to the matter. But hey, you wouldn't care about that would you. You even wanted to close the rfc after a few days. How can anyone take you seriously. I readded with citation as suggested by Skelet and others. But you, you again, go on the rampage to force yourself upon others. Do you know where this type of smug behaviour leads...? Chesdovi (talk) 23:16, 23 June 2011 (UTC) I really have no idea what you are talking about. But I find it odd that you who created this category and added 150 articles to it, without any prior discussion, should be offended by the fact that you were reverted without discussion as well. It sounds rather like "poetic justice". Not to mention WP:BRD Just in case anybody should wonder, the revert I reverted you today was because the discussion has shown very clearly that your edits are highly controversial and definitely against the opinion of a majority of editors. Oh, btw, the "few days" you mention, were actually two whole weeks. Debresser (talk) 00:35, 24 June 2011 (UTC) "But I find it odd that you who created this category and added 150 articles to it, without any prior discussion" & "the revert I reverted you today was because the discussion has shown very clearly that your edits are highly controversial." Who said then following: "Even if you thought when creating them that they were not controversial, but by now you must have noticed that they are controversial"? Debresser of course. So he concurs that the initial creation was not deemed by me controversial, so why the need for prior discussion? Chesdovi (talk) 10:12, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Help needed in 'hijacked' page

After nearly two months of conflict with User:Wee Curry Monster I'm forced to come here because of a particular incident.

After successful intervention of User:Dave1185, the article Luis Vernet remained in a consensus status [78] [79]. You can see that version here.

Some days ago I felt that the article's introduction was incomplete, because as you can see it only stated that Luis Vernet was a hamburg-born merchant (not a valid reason to be in Wikipedia). So I translated with the help of a friend the German version, in the hope of getting a NPOV text: [80].

After a series of reverts, [81][82] Wee Curry Monster proposes a new introduction [83] which I reject for being too long and a bit inadequate, [84] and so I create a new section in the talk page [85]. My opinion about the text may be wrong, but instead of working in the talk page, that introduction was imposed with the argument that it is the original one (I am accused of removing text [86][87]), or that "my edits are still there" [88], or that I'm plainly and obviously wrong [89]. I tried to revert to last consensus status[90] and said so in the talk page,[91] but I was ignored.

Basically, I'm being forced to accept those new modifications. If I start reverting, I know I'll be accused of edit warring (he has already put a template in my talk page,[92] with accusations of socket puppetry), so I prefer to take a break and seek for help here. -- Langus (talk) 04:38, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

This is a plain ol' content dispute and there doesn't appear to be anything in the way of edit warring which would require immediate administrative action. If you can't work it out on talk, try WP:3O and WP:RFC. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 07:48, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

For info, it was I who moved a substantial amount of material from de.wiki not Langus, the current lede is lifted directly from material there. Secondly the lede as edited by Langus was distinctly POV as it only presented one of several comments in the German language version. My rewrite introduced all. And I did delineate why his edit failed NPOV in Talk:Luis Vernet, in reply he alleges my rewrite is POV but does not substantiate why. I'm also in the middle of an expansion of the article, he is not forced to accept those changes but unfounded accusations of POV are not helpful. Nor is obstructing improvement of articles by using WP:NOCONSENSUS to try and simply block improvements.

I believe there is more going on here than a simple content dispute. Please, I would positively welcome admin overview on the matter. Wee Curry Monster talk 09:43, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Take this to WP:DRN. Larry V (talk | email) 12:22, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Ok, thank you both. I think I'll try one more time before that. -- Langus (talk) 19:52, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

A user that never listens: User:Misconceptions2

I have been trying to explain to this user, many times in articles and on his talkpage, certain policies and ways to contribute together. All I get back is accusations on my talkpage, like this and this, and on articles too, like this and this. He's followed me wherever I get into a discussion to ask for advice or opinion, and throws in the same-old accusations (commenting on me instead of my edits).

We've been accused of edit-warring before, so I've learned to add tags when he continue to re-insert the same disputed material and ignore the talkpage; however, he keeps removing the tags, too (with no discussion).

Last incidence
Another user removed my tags here, while we were still in a discussion and a "third opinion" called the sources unreliable too. Afterwards, User:Misconceptions2 removed the tags again two times: here and here. I know I've been simi-harsh sometimes, but that's always after repeating the same thing again and again. I'm working on correcting that, btw. I've told him that a third opinion was involved on the article, here, but he kept removing the same tag with more accusations in the summary.

I'd love to get an opinion of how to deal with User:Misconceptions2, as it's misleading to keep an unsourced/unreliable content without even a tag. ~ AdvertAdam ^talk 07:35, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Sounds ripe for WP:DRN. --causa sui (talk) 20:25, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Sigh...all the admin notices you opened (and i opened) have worked like a Boomerang against you, like here, everyone should see a different side of the story--Misconceptions2 (talk) 22:10, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

user:CowlishawDavid‎ needs blocking

The user is repeatedly spamming the Reactionless drive article with unverifiable OR garbage, and is even signing in the article space and referencing his own unpublished work. I did wonder if he was a troll, he seems to just be a crank; or he may be someone doing a joe-job on the real Cowlishaw David.

The user's account shows no other positive contributions, and he was recently blocked for 3RR for this, but he immediately carried on revert warring upon return, and I would suggest a month long holiday, or at least a couple of weeks to protect the article.

Special:Contributions/CowlishawDavid

. -Rememberway (talk) 10:24, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

How about copy-editing his addition to a state where it's keepable? Psychoceramicists are always persistent, so you either have to embrace them or block them - there's no hoping they'll just go away.

From a brief look at it, it's reasonable for scope and we're actually quite lacking in some areas here, particularly the Sandy Kidd drive. This stuff is fringey as hell, but that doesn't mean that it didn't happen and that it didn't get coverage by sources. Kidd was very widely covered in the UK during the 1990s, at least one Sunday newspaper (Sunday Observer?) and of course Eric Laithwaite jumped on the hovering bandwagon too. I'm not sure if Laithwaite is WP:RS on gyroscopes though? Andy Dingley (talk) 10:38, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

If you can find references then by all means add what you like to the article. Given that CowlishawDavid's contributions to date have all been perfectly stereotypically ravings, however, I would imagine that his next edits to articlespace will probably be his last. William M. Connolley has presented a final warning. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 11:08, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I love his last comment on his talk page: "Bring it on! Those that hold sway in the public, and insist on putting forward false concepts, will soon be brought down! Truth is physical, repeatable, and verifiable! I hold myself, AND my adherants to the same standard. The "original research" includes the repeated experiments by over 20 others, that reported to me, results (both positive, and negative). I understand that I need to overcome the fantasy of former understandings, and need to verify my claims that deviate from the norm. Stay tuned (but don't close your mind to possible new realities)." (shouting his). A bit of COI there also. Dougweller (talk) 12:02, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

As the "technology" he is writing about is his own work, I'd say there's more than a "bit" of COI going on. Larry V (talk | email) 13:11, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

We can just block him now, he's already been blocked for 3RR and then started right back up again. -Rememberway (talk) 12:40, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

And no, I don't think, Laithwaite is generally considered a reliable source on gyroscopes and inertial thrusters ;-) For example IRC the royal society refused to publish his lecture material on that. He's was very good at linear motors though, but none of them moved reactionlessly. -Rememberway (talk) 12:40, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Well. I've edited the section on Mr. Cowlishaw's work to something that might be acceptable, it needs more sources to ANYTHING that is other than Mr. Cowlishaw's own words. I'm not a fan of blocking, but as the user has appearantly been at this for upwards of 20 years, he's not going to easily give in to haveing only reliable sources on his fringe idea. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 18:37, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for sending me notice to this discussion. Inertial Propulsion is clearly a volitile subject. When I talked with Bob Dean at the First International Anti-Gravity conference in Reno years back, he related that his father's (Norman L. Dean) prototype had been confiscated after his untimely death, and after years of litigation to get it returned, it had been altered to no longer produce thrust. I understand "put up or shut up", and I will refrain from altering the current dogma until after I get my latest, high thrust prototype built and tested. Given the "lore" surrounding this field of endeavor, ironically, my success may mean you will never have to deal with me saying anything on this subject ever again! CowlishawDavid (talk) 20:19, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually, no, "Inertial Propulsion" isn't a "volatile subject" on Wikipedia. It is merely one of many subjects where a proponent of a fringe theory insists that he/she has made some astonishing new insight, which mysteriously (usually due to a complex conspiracy run by persons unnamed) the 'establishment' refuses to recognise. We spend more time on keeping this sort of nonsense off Wikipedia than would seem plausible to the unenlightened outsider. We could of course open the floodgates and let it all in, but I doubt that this would do much for the very small minority of fringe theorists who have even an inkling of a useful idea - indeed, I suspect that an article would rapidly appear claiming that you stole your 'thruster' design from extraterrestrials held captive in Area 51, and/or that it was first described in the Book of Ezekiel. Since we don't wish to drown in a sea of unverifiable speculation, we confine articles to subjects that 'the establishment' choses to acknowledge the existance of. Other websites can however be found which operate on different principles, and I'm sure you will be welcome there. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:41, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you AndyTheGrump! I don't hide behind a flase front or an obscure username! I am who I am, and you could drive up into my driveway and talk with me (but I might have a gun in your face, if you presented in such a negative, or challenging visiage).

My additions to the networked base of intellectualy observed reality is, and has been, open sourced. Challenges to reality, are opened by anyone living (or historical).

All I ask, is that reasonable people, use reason, in exploring the evidence.

Again, I will refrain from modifying the definition of "Inertial_propulsion" until I can achieve a clearly working prototype (a WOW, IN YOUR FACE) construction.

It takes time to turn a flat earth into one that is round! :) CowlishawDavid (talk) 07:14, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Why is it OK to "emptily" accuse good faith AfD's as, quote, pointy, unquote(????!!???)

I say people should put up or, um, shut up, since accusations of WP:POINT--such as the characterization of my having filed the Camel toe AfD as somehow an illicit campaign--ought to be brought to the appropriate forum and sorted out, to avoid such accusations from being bandied about in such a way as only to stifle the debate that was started. Any reading at all of best wp:EDITing practices on Wikipedia state that to debate various interpretations of the guidelines offered in good faith help the project by establishing current editing consensus. Further, it's a violation of Assuming Good Faith and a host of other basic principles to clog up content disputations with commentary about other editors. That is all. (arrgggh)--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 15:07, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

This is ANI not the random rambling sounding off board. What sort of admin intervention are you asking for? Nil Einne (talk) 16:34, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Heh. Seriously: It would be easier for me or others to help you if you could provide more useful information, context, links and/or diffs about your request. Please see the guide to requesting assistance for advice how you could improve your request to increase the likelihood that it is answered to your satisfaction.  Sandstein  18:50, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

It's to do with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Camel toe (2nd nomination). I don't think any administrative action is required here. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 20:28, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

See User talk:Andrewa#A little synopsis for my take on this. Andrewa (talk) 22:24, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

That's a decent synopsis. Coming here after forumshopping to Jimbo and having brought it up on ANI already seems like a Plaxico style move; like when being accused of sockpuppetry or of not assuming good faith, claiming repeated behavior isn't pointy generally proves pointiness. tedder (talk) 00:26, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

It is those who insist on personal attacks that are engaged in wp:Tendentious editing. For example, the assertion has been falsely made that a pointer about a content discussion currently underway on Jimbo Wales's talkpage is wp:FORUMSHOPPING, despite what this guideline REALLY says: "You can...draw attention to the issue on noticeboards or other talk pages if you are careful to add links to keep all the ongoing discussions together...." What produces such dis- ...or at least mis-information as to claim exactly the opposite, I wonder? As wp:CANVASSING specifically notes, editors are ENCOURAGED to post such notices (quoting wp:CANVASSING#Appropriate notification here) "On the talk pages of concerned editors. Examples include editors who have participated in previous discussions on the same topic (or closely related topics), who are known for expertise in the field, or who have asked to be kept informed."

What kind of ominous, "repeated behavior" of mine does e/g user:Tedder reference, exactly? Repeated editing of Wikipedia? Indeed, this "argument" provides a precise example of the "attack" solipsisms I refer to in this report. What are the guidelines are alleged that I violated and precisely how have I done so? Is that too much to ask?--since Wp:POINT says nothing about discussing a content issue on a user's talkpage, such as at that of user:Jimbo Wales's, nor does it say anything whatsoever about an editor's bringing up what s/he perceives as personal attacks in two closely filed threads at wp:ANI.

The only consistent thread of thought whatsoever to these claims is one of ad hoc disparagement of me, personally--with the seeming circular reasoning of "User:Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden is up to no good therefore this user's discussing an issue with Jimbo is no good, this user's discussion of other editors' chips-on-their-shoulders is no good, etc." I see an analogy with what I read within the biograrphy Henry Darger: In the Realms of the Unreal today; one episode in the book that stands out, for me, is how, at the turn of the 20th Century, the young (and likely Asperger's syndrome suffering) Barger was was falsely pigeonholed as not sane by examining physicians due to Barger's compulsive "self-abuse" (masterbation), all according to the diagnostic cul de sac: One's "self-abuse" must be due to one's mental illness; and what proves one has a mental illness is one's "self-abuse." Likewise, the aphorism "Claiming repeated behavior isn't pointy generally proves pointiness" seems philosophically suspect to me: more akin a Medieval regimen for discerning an alleged practitioner of witchcraft than a concise distillation of actual Wikipedia policies.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 05:21, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

OR/vandalism by multiple IP's

Hello,

Some IP's are editing Ottoman Algeria related articles by Nationalistic/OR editing, by replacing all the information related to the Ottoman vilayet of Algiers with OR information stating that it was an independent kingdom : [93][94][95].

Even, one of these IP's (probably used by the same person) blanked my request on the OR board [96]

Can an admin make an "autoconfirmed" protection on these articles or intervene by any way?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Omar-Toons (talk) 15:09, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Not an admin or an Algeria expert, but want to concur that, at first glance, there seems to be some rather shady and extremely comprehensive Algeria-related work being done by these IPs. The Russo-Turkish War of 1792 involved "The Ottoman Empire and Algeria"??? Bit of a long walk, there. MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:27, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

At the very least, there's a serious dose of edit warring going on, based on the article histories. Might be a good idea to semi the articles in question for a short time so they can be reviewed and reverted (if necessary). --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 15:39, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Given that that same IP just blanked this section, imho someone should probably drop the hammer on him anyway, it's one thing to replace and edit war, but it's entirely another to blank legitimate complaints about someone and wipe out legit contributions from multiple editors at the same time. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | Say Shalom! 17:06, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I've blocked the IP 48 hours, but if someone wants to check the edits, etcetera, go ahead.. (Since I'm mostly inactive, if pages need to be semi'd it's probably a better idea to ask here then at my talk page, but if you don't mind waiting...) SirFozzie (talk) 17:08, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

The IP is on an Algerian ISP and geolocates to Algiers. The problem is they're on a /8 range which doesn't seem to be subnetted. This is likely to need either a series of semi-protections on articles or a prolonged game of Whac-a-Mole™, whether anyone likes it or not...I can't see an admin willingly rangeblocking the whole ISP because of a half-handful of nationalistic miscreants. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 17:11, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I've only limited knowledge of the history of the Ottoman Empire, but I can tell that many of his edits are a perfect example of that most horrific practice of historical revisionism. As the OP said, he's basically trying to get rid of the idea that Algeria was not under Ottoman domination around the time of the Barbary Wars. I don't mind alternative hypotheses (within reason), but outright fabrication of history is just wrong. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | Say Shalom! 17:13, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

His main account, according to Fr.Wiki : [97]

Omar-Toons (talk) 19:01, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Information: A sock puppetry case was reported on Fr.Wiki, maybe this can help.

Omar-Toons (talk) 00:41, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

It would seem to pass the duck test if I understand that right. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | Say Shalom! 05:38, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Backlog at AIV

Resolved

 – Down to just a single unactioned report at time of writing. --Taelus (talk) 16:07, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks guys. GiantSnowman 15:39, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Siksok

User:Siksok abused 3RR in the article Turkey. Actually these edit must be regarded as vandalism. He/she tried to remove sourced information repeatedly. Judging by his/her user name Siksok, I cannot think that his/her edits are normal.

1 2 3 4 5

Possibly this edit was done by his/her sock puppet or meat puppet. Takabeg (talk) 15:52, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

After a quick glance, I'd agree User:Siksok is editing in a rather aggressive and tendentious manner. He/she could probably be blocked for several reasons. I'd agree that Soufle is a possible sock. NickCT (talk) 17:25, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Block review

I am requesting a block review of Nightscream (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) since they have not been given a chance to do so. Along with the concerns expressed on the Nightscream's talk page I would make the following points.

1. This seems to be purely a punitive block which is not supposed to occur here. I can find nothing in the 30+ edits that came after the edit summary in question that contained anything that breached WP:CIVILITY so the block is not preventing anything.
2. There are no warnings on Nightscream's about the situation and the responses to Nightscream's legitimate question asking to be pointed to where the discussion requesting the block occurred have been unsatisfactory.
3. The edit summary is intemperate but this language is used all to often with no blocks or quickly overturned ones
4. Nightscream has not been blocked for over four years and even then it was not for this offense so the duration is absurd.

If it determined that everything here is appropriate then so be it but I did feel that it deserved wider attention than it was getting at the moment. MarnetteD | Talk 17:33, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

The blocking admin and Nightscream have been notified of this thread though the latter cannot reply here. MarnetteD | Talk 17:41, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• Re (2): There was a warning given on Nightscream's talk page regarding civility. It was that very warning he was removing, with the edit summary he used, which resulted in the block. Re (3); Am I to understand that since incivility and personal attacks are rampant on the project as offenses people don't get blocked for, that incivility and personal attacks are therefore ok? --Hammersoft (talk) 17:49, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Pt 1 My apologies for missing the removal of the warning that portion of my post is now struck. As to point two unless the consequences for incivility are the same for all then yes, sadly, it would pretty much seem to be ok. But that is an entirely different discussion. MarnetteD | Talk 17:54, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for the striking. As to the latter, so WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA should not be enforced then? Nightscream, as a recently as last month, cautioned someone that calling them a "Troll" is not acceptable. It would seem Nightscream feels these policies need to be enforced. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:04, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Addendum: in February of 2009, Nightscream felt it appropriate to block someone in part for civility violations for calling someone else's work "sloppy". See this, finishing with the block for reason of these two edits [98][99]. That's sufficient to block someone, but saying "Removing pointless and non-construtive bullshit whining from lying hypocrite editor" isn't? --Hammersoft (talk) 18:09, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• Endorse block about time CIVIL and NPA where enforced equally. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 17:55, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Silly edit summary. Harsh block. Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message} 17:57, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose block: Stupid action by Nightscream for sure, but a simple WP:Trout would have sufficed. Blocking is only punitive here and definitely harsh. Recommend unblocking. Beyond that, I think this matter should have been brought to ANI per WP:NOTNAS instead of unilateral action by Ironholds. Toddst1 (talk) 18:07, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

  Comments like Removing pointless and non-construtive bullshit whining from lying hypocrite editor go far far beyond stupid. It is crystal clear textbook NPA from an administrator. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 18:12, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, but nothing has been accomplished by blocking. If you want to talk about de-sysop because of bad judgment, that's a different story. Toddst1 (talk) 18:16, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

So ignore the problem, go to arbcom get laughed at for not enough evidence, and then rinse and repeat? Better solution treat all editors equally and any user who makes these types of crude and insulting comments should be blocked. If a persistent issue developed then ArbCom would be warranted. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 18:20, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

@Toddst1; I don't think anyone has ever lost their adminship over a period in which they descended into incivility. Long term? Maybe. This case wouldn't ever pass muster for a desysop request, and in any case has nothing to do with Nightscream's use of administrator tools. Requesting a desysop would be a pointless exercise, guaranteed to get nowhere, but certainly produce an awful lot of writing. The point here is an editor grossly violating WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA, an editor who has cautioned others for the very same thing before, and even blocked people for the very same thing before. Do WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA have a place here or not? --Hammersoft (talk) 18:23, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• Endorse, provided the block is shortened to 24. He flew off the handle and deserved some time, but 48 hours is getting close to rubbing it in his face. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 18:08, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse per listed edit summary and the personal attacks in this diff.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:14, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• Good block, Endorse - this is not the way to address other editors (note, this involves three individual attacks on 2 people: "I made the edit summary that I thought was appropriate, as I'm quite tired of obnoxious deletionists like Triangle who make false accusations and no attempt to communicate with others, as well as persistent liars like yourself who think repeatedly putting words in other people's mouths constitutes "discussion"."/"Removing idiotic message by newbie editor who thinks he's the class hall monitor."/"Removing pointless and non-construtive bullshit whining from lying hypocrite editor not interested in actually communicating or discussing accepted practices on Wikipedia."). Way over the edge. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:16, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse and support duration given the additional civility issues noted above. Ioeth (talk contribs twinkle friendly) 18:25, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Overturn - If for no other reason than to discourage off-wiki solicitation for people to be blocked. Tarc (talk) 18:29, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Did I miss that part? Ioeth (talk contribs twinkle friendly) 18:31, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

See below or NightScream's talk page Nil Einne (talk) 18:48, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• comment. Sorry for only commenting now; I'm at work. I did try explaining the source of the block to him - a conversation thread running "how did you find out about this" "it came up on IRC" "I've been to WP:IRC and can't see it" left me rather confused as to what on earth he meant. I did try my best to explain, but then got dragged off doing my actual job. 48 hours would be severe if he was a new user making a simple mistake. He was not. He is an administrator, and part of being able to enforce the rules means both understanding them and applying them. I have no sympathy for anyone who, tasked with actively prohibiting personal attacks, goes off and makes one of his own. I do not care that nightscream hasn't been blocked in ages. I do not care that it is not standard for comments like that to result in blocks - the former is irrelevant and the latter is a sign of underenforcement more than anything else. Nightscream is an administrator, and if he cannot follow the rules he should either suck it up or hand back the tools. There was no "off-wiki solicitation"; it was brought up, by an uninvolved editor, and several administrators agreed he needed to be rapped on the knuckles. If someone trusted to enforce the rules can't even follow them and is slapped as a result, it is not my competence which should be in question. Ironholds (talk) 18:32, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• (Non admin) Endorse block, not enough experience to comment on timing an admin should be aware of the rules on civility and NPA and should also be aware of the potential for a block if they breach them. Nevertheless he/she was warned and then proceeded to show they didn't care in doing the same thing while removing the warning. This would be funny except that the sort of thing happens all to often that it's not really funny any more. Coming from admin it's unacceptable behaviour. No comment on the process that was followed but I sense some wikilawyering there. User is of course free to appeal to JW as they've indicated they may do but I can't see that ending well. Nil Einne (talk) 18:44, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Entirely correct block, even though it has every chance of being overturned on a whim by a friend of the blocked editor any second now.  Sandstein  18:48, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

comment Thanks to all for their responses. I am satisfied with the scrutiny and opinions given. I still wish that these blocks were applied equally to all who violate the civility guidelines but I know that will never happen. I do have one question for Ironholds, I looked at WP:IRC before posting here and could find no mention of Nightscream on either the main or the talk page. Indeed the most recent item on the talk page is from April so it would be nice to have a link whatever "IRC" conversation caused you to look into this. MarnetteD | Talk 18:53, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

comment okay there still seems to be confusion on this point. What happened is someone on Internet Relay Chat (I'm guessing the Freenode server and one of the wikipedia channels) mentioned the issue and Ironholds noticed the discussion and then after looking in to the situation decided a block was needed. Internet Relay Chat is sort of like group instant messaging where anyone can take part (this is a real simplication). Nothing to do with the WP:IRC or IRC pages. As others have said, think of it like someone mentioning the issue by email or phone call or during a face to face meeting or whatever. Nil Einne (talk) 19:02, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• (Non-admin) Observation: Correct me if I'm wrong, but this comes down to "Are admins held to a different standard than editors at large?" If admins are held to a higher standard, then by all means keep the block for the length. If admins are held to a lower standard (because they know what's best for the community and have the community's trust), then by all means reverse the block and make the blocking admin apologize. However, if they're no different than any other editor, then treat a incivility just like any other (Warn, Warn, Warn, Warn,..., RFC/U, ArbCom). I'd much rather see the NPA and Civil standards enfored more rigorously, but we can't take a snap break to a new level of enforcement. Hasteur (talk) 18:56, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Note that by unnecessarily labeling your observation as "Non-admin" you are explicitly supporting the idea that admins and regular editors are sufficiently different to be treated differently. ElKevbo (talk) 19:16, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Some are more equal than others :) --Hammersoft (talk) 19:17, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I mark it as such, because this is the Administrators' noticeboard, ergo I'm not the primary consumer/audience.

• Endorse It's two freaking days, he can read a book while he cools off. It's well known that we hold certain people to higher standards than others, and when it comes to admins, I'm okay with that. Cliche as it is, he should bloody know better. Sven Manguard Wha? 19:06, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

  I'm new to the non-article space side of things, but what does the length of the block have to do with it's appropriateness or lack thereof? To be clear, I don't think that an angry edit summary merits a block, but my question is how does the length of the block serve to bolster your endorsement of it? LHM 19:34, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• comment - if he makes a decent unblock request I support time served. This non free picture issue is creating a lot of disruption at multiple locations - delta is always in the fray... An experienced user under pressure can be pushed over the edge by a template that could have better been said in a polite comment. Edit summary comment was not civil but we can all get a bit upset occasionally without the need for a two day book reading punishment. Off2riorob (talk) 19:28, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• The civility warning I placed on his talk page was NOT a template. You can view my warning if you like to confirm. It was the edit summary he made removing that non-template warning which precipitated the block. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:45, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• This was the templated warning I was referring to , from User:Delta - diff - Off2riorob (talk) 22:18, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• Strong meh Don't like IRC blocks, but I don't like the snarky edit summary either. Request an unblock and maybe we can go for time served? --John (talk) 19:52, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• If he apologizes or indicates that he'll keep WP:COOL in the future, the block should be removed. --causa sui (talk) 20:15, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

  Speaking in abstract, and NOT about Nightscream; getting anyone to apologize about indiscretions committed on Wikipedia is effectively impossible. The effort taken to try to make that happen itself often generates a considerable amount of heat. Speaking in reference to Nightscream, assurances that the incivility/personal attack behavior pattern will halt should be plenty enough to remove the block. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:26, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

  Not to derail the thread, but IME it's often difficult to get apologies from naughty editors because the people asking for the apologies are often doing so rudely and aggressively themselves. --causa sui (talk) 20:37, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• Endorse the block, would also endorse an unblock if he put together an unblock request and made assurances the behavior would not continue. -- ۩ Mask 20:33, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Endorse: if a normal editor said this, he'd be blocked.There should be no admin immunity from the rules. Sceptre ^(talk) 02:33, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
• (Non admin) Strongly oppose block. Our blocking policy clearly states that "blocks should not be punitive", and should not be used "as punishment against users". The purpose of blocks is clearly stated to be to prevent more damage/disruption to Wikipedia or to deter the continuation of a disruptive pattern. Nightscream is not a vandal, he is not a disruptive user by character, and this was a serious step out of character for him. He does not have a history of disruptive behavior. He is not likely to repeat his mistakes again- sometimes in the head of the moment people say things that they don't mean. As far as personal attacks go, WP:NPA states that "personal attacks based on race, religion, nationality, or sexual identity of an editor" are grounds for a block "until the remarks are retracted". The user has not only retracted his remarks and apologized, but the incivility was not based on any of those traits. This block was improper to begin with, as it was extreme action for the level of the crime, and it went against the very purpose of blocks. Blocks are preventive, not punitive. This isn't like the law, where if you commit a crime there's a penalty you have to face. This is Wikipedia, where our main goal should be improving Wikipedia. Blocks exist to serve this purpose, but this punitive block only hurts the project as a whole. --Slon02 (talk) 03:54, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

• That I think would be drawing a line that we shouldn't block someone if they don't attack a person based on their race, religion, nationality, or sexual identity, but do base their egregious personal attack on some other aspect of the person. I would think many people would find being called a lying hypocrite to be considerably more offensive than being called gay. --Hammersoft (talk) 04:14, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

• I wouldn't say that calling someone gay is meant by "Extreme personal attacks, or personal attacks based on race, religion, nationality or sexual identity". Actively bashing a person on the grounds of one of those is a different story. However, just calling some a lying hypocrite is not something I would describe as an "extreme" personal attack under any conditions. Wikipedia's policy on personal attacks is clear in regards to blocking- immediate blocks are only to be used in extraordinary circumstances, "such as physical threats, legal threats, or blatantly racist or misogynistic insults". To quote some more policy- "Blocking for personal attacks should only be done for prevention, not punishment. A block may be warranted if it seems likely that the user will continue using personal attacks." The user has apologized and retracted his remarks, so even under the most severe personal attacks he would be unblocked according to policy. The user is not disruptive in nature, and that is clear, and that makes the block punitive. --Slon02 (talk) 04:23, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

• I'm not attempting to state whether the block is punitive or preventative at this time. My point was that attempting to define what is and is not a severe insult is highly subjective, and if you tightly define what is a severe insult, anyone could easily game that system and spew a long series of insults without being 'severe' in doing so, and not therefore being subjected to a block. --Hammersoft (talk) 04:28, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

• Endorse block, AND endorse dropping it now, time served, since Nightscream apologized to the community. For the record, Hammersoft and Nightscream can both call me gay. Or straight! Drmies (talk) 04:21, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

• :) --Hammersoft (talk) 04:25, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Rovas Script

Not sure what's going on here, but Rovasscript (talk · contribs) and Rovosaman (talk · contribs) are rapidly making changes in articles adding stuff about Rovosaman, including piping, etc. Dougweller (talk) 17:47, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

No problem, scientific materials are added and reorganized, there are lack of information on Wiki: feel free to specify any mistake or error. Many thanks Rovosaman (talk) 17:57, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Kvvvvxvvvvv/Relpmek/Szs567

Copying over from edit warring noticeboard, where I was told to bring the issue here:

Page: Speculation about Mona Lisa
User being reported: User:Kvvvvxvvvvv

Previous version reverted to: [100]

• 1st revert: [101]
• 2nd revert: [102]
• 3rd revert: [103]
• 4th revert: [104]
• 5th revert: [105]
• 6th revert: [106]
• 7th revert: [107]
• 8th revert: [108]
• 9th revert: [109]
• 10th revert: [110]

..etc

Diff of edit warring / 3RR warning: [111]

Diff of attempt to resolve dispute on article talk page: [112]

Comments:

This is an ongoing dispute regarding the so-called "Roni Kempler theory" introduced to the page by user Relpmek (Kempler spelled backwards) earlier in the year (see talk on article page). It now appears the above user (whose page has been marked sock account by another editor) is attempting to insert the same theory despite well-worn explanations by several editors, including myself, on the WP policy against original research. It seems we have all attempted various means to diplomatically resolve the dispute, but the user, under his various names (Szs567 is likely another via [113][114][115]), simply will not listen.--Chimino (talk) 02:04, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

IP claims of vandalism

Some IP user reverted me at 3 different articles. While the first rv seemed okay, this and that were marked RVV. I wonder if someone was stalking me.

Anyway, is it okay to undo both, or would that be edit warring? --Uncle Ed (talk) 02:10, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I might argue that the IP's version is the better version. Neither version is "vandalism", though. Better to follow the Bold Revert Discuss principle, and take it to the talk page. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:50, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, one of them certainly wasn't, and "RVV" is simply not an acceptable edit summary. Bugs, you're giving the IP a little too much credit--I don't see any talk page action happening. I left them a note on their talk page; as far as I'm concerned, further designation of Ed's edits as vandalism can be called a personal attack. Drmies (talk) 04:08, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Ed's question was basically whether to start a revert war, and the answer is NO. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:37, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

A user insulted me

Try the user's talk page or WP:WQA. This page should not be the first port of call for every complaint. NW (Talk) 04:27, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I believe this user insulted me in this edit summary. RevanFan (talk) 04:11, 25 June 2011 (UTC) You wouldn't win that claim in a court of law. Literally, ignorant meens that someone simply doesn't know something. Unfortunately, the word also has a colloquial, pejorative meaning equivalent to not very smart, or stupid. The writer of that Edit summary simply has to plea that his meaning was the former one. I suspect the traditional literal meaning would win every time in a legal battle. HiLo48 (talk) 04:18, 25 June 2011 (UTC) I know that, but this isn't court. And, I was right in that matter anyway. He played in Croatia, yes, but he is not from Croatia. He was not born there, and you use the location of birth in those templates. At least you did last year and earlier this year. Anyway, I would like to hear his explanation as well, because Wikipedia is supposed to be a friendly place. RevanFan (talk) 04:30, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I just received a legal threat over a deletion - a pointless one, but a legal threat nonetheless

Some people.

So I sat down to check my Email, and I received this in my inbox, sent through the contact form on Schumin Web:

“ userid: schuminweb

name: Ron Knight, President of Knight Mediacom

Email: [redacted, but appeared to be an official address from the company]

Message: Mr. Schumin;

You have under your actions, pretenses and non-authority, with lack of education and understanding on the history of our firm, deleted the Wikipedia page for Knight Mediacom International, which you state has no other Wikipedia references, nor credible references to exist. If you have done your homework, you will have found countless references to Knight Mediacom International by both ISBN and UPC code, as the only authorized video distribution company to have distributed the works of CCTV and seven leading motion picture studios in China, as well as the USA, Belgium and Brazil, all within the United States, all of which titles may be found on Amazon and countless other film and motion pictures based resource and reference sites.

Further, other Wikipedia links were in fact linked to Facets Multimedia, FAO Schwarz, Archie Comics, Universal Studios and other major media firms in the United States.

While reviewing your credentials, which appear collegiate at best and Wiki web based only, I would suggest that the next party can just as easily, with no further credentials, decide to delete you and your respective history and page on Wikipedia, solely for you as just a Web blog, it makes you of no importance nor credential should someone in turn just choose to delete you. You may well be a college student, but you have no professional track record nor any link to be "cleaning up" as a "credible clean up source" for a public Wiki space, and certainly you possess no credible certificate of noteworthiness of linked commercial industry nor brands.

Last, as you have deleted a trail from our time and investment in positioning actions on the web as a basis for stating a protection of trademarked intellectual properties and copyrights, which could be cause for a justified pursuit in the Courts against you, as a principal action to be construed as a case of action in law, this action should we choose can cause you great time, trouble and costs for your rather non well researched decision on such action.

Clearly your action to delete a company file is troublesome, and may well be so for you.

This note is made to be civil. You should return to Wikipedia and Undelete the Page for Knight Mediacom International, with explanation that you had failed to do complete research on all historic links, ties and other references, less aside from a court case filing, you may not wish to find someone simply coming along to delete You and your web based positions.

You have deleted our Intellectual Property as positions using Wiki references as the tool in our pursuits of trademark and copyrights filings and published position protections, and we maintain full rights on these claims of loss and damages. We trust you will take soonest action to return to Wikipedia and Repost to remove the Delete of Knight Mediacom International, with all its linked references within 10 days of receipt of this email notification.

Do what's right. Awaiting your soonest action and reply.

Respectfully,

Ron Knight President Knight Mediacom International

C.c. Charles Grimes, Counsel at Law, Grimes & Battersby
C.c. Peter Eichler, Counsel at Law, Jennings & Strauss, Attorneys at Law
C.c. Paul Mirowski, Counsel at Mirowski Law, LLC

”

I'm not responding to this person. I have better things to do than waste my time talking to him.

About the Wikipedia content, I did a little research. The article in question is/was Knight Mediacom International, which was started by Ronknight (talk · contribs · block user). So on its face, the owner of this account would appear to be the same person who Emailed me through my site. So obviously, legal threat notwithstanding, we have a conflict of interest here as well (same user also created an article about himself, also deleted). The article in question was deleted under PROD back on April 16. Now normally, a challenge to a PROD deletion would result in a restoration of the page. I have not done that, and think it would likely be a waste of everyone's time to put this through an AFD.

So there you have it, legal threat and all. I am taking no action of any sort regarding the article or the user. SchuminWeb (Talk) 05:54, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

(ec)So you are not taking action of any sort. But you are giving it publicity with your post. What did I miss here? Moriori (talk) 06:16, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

You should let Ronknight (talk · contribs) know about this thread. And if/when that editor looks in, they may want to look over the Wikipediapolicies regarding conflict of interest, biographies of living people, notability, sourcing, advertising or self promotion, and legal threats. - J Greb (talk) 06:11, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

He's not responding/ taking action. Remember? Moriori (talk) 06:16, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I was also going to add copyright violations since it looks like the deleted articles were lifted from else where, but (shrug) c'est la vie.

And I can understand why SchuminWeb would be posting this here... the other editor appears to be applying pressure, threat of legal action, to get him to tuck tail and reverse himself. A "head's up" covers this post at the very least.

- J Greb (talk) 06:24, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

You're not supposed to post e-mail contents here without the permission of all concerned. However, the comment "You have deleted our Intellectual Property" is curious, as the only thing you could have deleted here is the wikipedia article, which is definitely NOT some external company's "intellectual property". He also mentions "our time and investment", which suggests maybe they paid someone to write the wikipedia article. (Either that, or they copied it verbatim from their own website, as Greb suggests.) It's possible the guy was sincere in making this totally misguided complaint, which is funny considering he challenged others education levels here. Indef him and tell him what the score is. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:28, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

They do not own the article in any sense, per our licensing agreement. If they wish to post said information onto Wikipedia, then they irrevocably release said information under our free content licenses; they cannot continue to claim copyright on it, and claiming that they can is tantamount to challenging our free content licenses and hence is also a legal threat. –MuZemike 06:43, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

This is a clear and unambiguous legal threat, and as such, I have issued an indefinite block. –MuZemike 06:38, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)x4. I have reviewed the deleted material. The page which read like a press release or a B2B web site entry was deleted perfectly in accordance with Wikipedia procedure and policy. Furthermore it was both tagged and deleted by admins. Although we have some recommendations here that editors should look for sources before tagging articles, WP:BURDEN is a firm and clear policy - no sources, no article - and the creator was given 7 days to provide them. No one has a legal 'right' to have a page on Wikipedia, whether referenced or not. Suggest blocking the creator for several issues including COI and making legal threats. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:39, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Obviously a good block. Is there evidence of copyright violation as suggested by Greb? Can the editor's own website be found, in order to show that copyright violation? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:43, 25 June 2011 (UTC)