Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

Welcome – post issues of interest to administrators.

For urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems, use Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. If you are new, try the Wikipedia:Teahouse instead. Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead use Wikipedia:Requests for oversight. For administrative backlogs add {{Admin backlog}} to the backlogged page; post here only if urgent. Do not post requests for page protection, deletion requests, or block requests here. When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page. Pinging is not enough. You may use {{subst:AN-notice}} ~~~~ to do so. Sections inactive for over three days are archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.(archives, search) Start a new discussion

The admin recall process is dead

This section has been moved to: Wikipedia talk:Administrators open to recall#The admin recall process is dead (WP:AN)

Points system for admin recall

This discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:Administrators open to recall#Points system for admin recall (WP:AN)

So, did we figure out what to do about Calton?

Did we agree to anything here: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive164#Calton_.28again.29 or are we going to? It sounded like we were headed towards some kind of serious sanction against Calton, but we never finalized the decision that I could tell. Leaving this hanging will just make the problem worse.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 15:05, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

What "worse" would that be, Deputy Doug? What "problem" are you claiming? Missing some opportunity to throw your weight around? Not being able to punish someone who didn't stand up and salute you and other self-assuming authority figures just because you demand it? Or maybe it's that by-God some spam pages might be deleted and spammers blocked without being coddled.

So be specific: what ACTUAL "worse problem" are you talking about? Hint: not saluting when someone cries "RESPECT MAH AUTHORITAH!" is not an actual problem, no matter how you spin it. --Calton | Talk 15:21, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

That response alone illustrates the problem with how you interact with other editors, Calton. It's already been established that Calton will be blocked for retagging denied speedies, and I'd support a civility restriction. - auburnpilot talk 15:26, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I asked for a substantive reply, not vague handwaving, nose-sniffing, and authoritative threats. Try again. --Calton | Talk 15:33, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

What "worse" would that be, Deputy Doug? Hrm, the constant edit warring with other editors because you think that your judgment is the only one that matters? –xeno (talk) 15:47, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I just blocked for two weeks for incivility. Tan ǀ 39 16:19, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

His comments were apparently a somewhat slow response to my removing his rollbacker privilege. I had given them to him early this year based on his experience but cautioned him about my concerns that I'd seen complaints of possible edit warring. I don't know that he ever used the privilege but I was away for a while and when I came back I noted the 0RR restriction - noted in the recently archived thread I referenced above. I told him that I was revoking his rollbacker simply because it was inconsistent with a 0RR restriction and not because of any misconduct. Everything is on his talk page, and there's plenty there if anyone is interested.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 18:24, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

• So, my understanding is that Calton's formal restrictions are as follows:

1. 0RR restriction previously imposed (anyone got a link for that?)

2. Indefinite prohibition on edits to any user pages except his own other than reasonable CSD and MFD nominations. Per the above referenced AN thread, archived yesterday.

3. A two week block for incivility per Tan above.

4. We were discussing whether there should be some sort of civility restriction particularly with respect to user talk pages and/or unreasonable tagging of user or usertalk pages with G11.

We need to give him notice of his editing restrictions so we ought to decide what we're going to do here and I'd like some confirmation of the above restrictions.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 18:24, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

• You could always try treating him as an adult, that might help. There is absolutely nothing wrong with tagging a user page as WP:CSD#G11 if it is an advertisement, WP:NOT includes "Wikipedia is not a free web host". Obviously a link or two to people's own projects is not advertising, but several user pages are blatant advertisements either created in userspace or moved there from mainspace. And now I suggest you go and talk to user:Geogre about the utter irredeemable stupidity of issuing two-week retaliatory blocks for "incivility" which is, in fact, merely a spirited defence against what looks suspiciously like pushing a grudge. And I mean that, talk to Geogre and if after a considered exchange of views (i.e. where you listen to him) you still feel that blocking Calton would achieve anything other than drama and making us all look like idiots, feel free to sugfgest it again. Guy (Help!) 19:35, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

• The problem lies in that he will "spiritly defend" any of his actions, through edit warring or incivility. I don't doubt that he does identify pages that do need to go - but when someone disagrees with his assessment it would be best if he just walked on. I don't see how Doug could be pushing a grudge, because he's the uninvolved admin who granted him rollback a while back. –xeno (talk) 20:42, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

• • Guy, if you really believe that it would be possible to have a "considered exchange of views" with Calton over issues such as this, you have a very poor sense of pattern recognition. Giving Calton an umpteenth chance and leaving him unblocked is the thing that causes drama and makes us look like idiots. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 20:54, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

• I said Geogre not Calton. Guy (Help!) 21:07, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

• Not that this is going to make much of a difference, but I feel compelled to add my two cents... I haven't had a run in with Calton in over a year, but that run-in, or more correctly his behaviour during that time, is scorched into my memory. Very rarely have I encountered such an abrasive Wikipedian, who enjoyed baiting his "opponents" and in fact blatantly stated that he was doing just that. I obviously have no comment on his recent actions, but perhaps it should be kept in mind that this sort of behaviour has been going on for at least a year (and in terms of full disclosure, I was probably no angel myself, but Calton's uncivil behaviour was honestly quite unlike the vast majority of Wikipedian's I have dealt with). PageantUpdater talk • contribs 02:04, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

• Hear, hear! Grandmasterka 02:19, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Unblock Calton, please

Calton has made exactly three edits today: [1], [2], [3]. For this he was blocked for two weeks for incivility. Sorry, but I don't think that s even remotely proportionate to the offence, if offence it was (which I'd dispute). There's clearly some bad blood here, the best thing would have been for Doug not to even start this conversation, since Calton had not even edited since 17 August, we have a whole host of dispute resolution processes, but here we have blocked someone who's been with the project for over three years, has thousands of edits, and whose only offence appears, at least to some interpretations, to be a refusal to be sufficiently deferential to an admin. Surely we have some real problems to fix here rather than spanking Calton? Guy (Help!) 21:17, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Guy, sorry to say this, but I don't think you're a very good judge of civility, given your previous use of profanity and blatantly sexist slurs. Kelly ^hi! 21:19, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Sexist? When? Guy (Help!) 21:24, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I just remember evidence of you using the terms "twat" or "cunt" towards other editors. Which was it (or was it both)? Do you really want me to go find the diffs? Kelly ^hi! 21:33, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, it took about 30 seconds of searching. "Cunt"[4] and "Twat".[5] Also "Fuck off".[6] Need more? Kelly ^hi! 21:37, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

That is not sexist, it is British English invective. And given that the user in question had just taunted me about the then very recent death of my sister, I think that it was if not appropriate then certainly wholly understandable. Do you have any idea just how vile that particular user's behaviour was? To taunt someone who had recently watched a sibling die in agony is not exactly pleasant, as the subsequent arbitration noted. Guy (Help!) 21:42, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

The British English thing won't cut it (I've lived there and know perfectly well that you don't call people "cunt" in normal discourse), neither will the "victim card". You've explained one instance that I can sympathize with. How about the others? Is it normal in Britain to tell people to fuck off? (Clue - it's not.) Would you like me to bring some more diffs here? There are dozens, if not hundreds, in your RfC and Arbitration cases. You are no judge of civility, Guy, It's best that you go write some article, if you know how, and leave the judging of civility to civil people. With respect - Kelly ^hi! 21:49, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Kelly, that particular user was one of the most vile trolls I have ever come across, and I think most of those who remember him would concur with that judgement. See Bainer's evidence in arbitration. I said nothing to him that I would not have said to his face, always assuming I didn't deck him instead. That does not mean I am proud of it, but neither does it make it "sexist". I will put my hands up to being extremely rude on occasion, though not I think recently, but I do not believe I am prone to gender bias. Guy (Help!) 21:54, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't buy the whole "not sexist" thing. In African-American culture, it's acceptable to use the term "nigger" to one's peers. A white editor here is not free to call a black editor a "nigger" just because it may be acceptable somewhere. Similarly, just because you may call your friends "cunt" or "twat" does not mean you should feel free to offend women here by throwing those terms around - they are among the most offensive terms you can use in the presence of a woman, and sensible people are perfectly aware of this - even in Britain. That you feel undeterred by this tells me that you are not a very good judge of civility (and possibly reactionary in regards to women's rights, though that is really irrelevant). Kelly ^hi! 22:01, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

You have my full permission to consider me sexist, just be aware that I dispute that label and would challenge you to find any credible evidence for it outside of my occasionally ill-judged choice of cuss-words. I'll not link the words in question, but would point out that we discuss them in some detail and don't make any assertion in those articles that their use is considered evidence of sexism. Guy (Help!) 22:06, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I have, to my knowledge, never been involved with Calton or Doug. I have no grudge, and no prior history with this editor. There was no "bad blood" and the block wasn't simply for his three edits today. A "spanking" would have been the usual 24 hour wristslap (aka "cooldown block"). This one was for two weeks because I will not tolerate his behavior here, and if it occurs again after the block expires, the next block will be for a lot longer. Tan ǀ 39 21:25, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

We don't do punishment blocks, we do blocks for prevention. What problem are you preventing by blocking Calton for two weeks? I'm not looking for a fight here, but I think this was not a good idea. And I'd like an answer from Alison to the question above as well, please. Guy (Help!) 21:27, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Guy, which question would that be, please? Looks like I'm joining the party late here .... - Alison ^❤ 09:38, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I am preventing him from being incivil to editors on Wikipedia. I'm also done arguing with you; your attitude/record predicts your responses. Tan ǀ 39 21:29, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, you know, if the editor with whom he is in apparent dispute had not started this thread then I don't believe he'd have said a thing. Doesn't that inform the issue in any way? Did anyone try discussing this with Calton and trying to broker peace or calm him down or get him to disengage or drop it? And since my attitude/record predicts my response, perhaps you could tell me what my next response will be. Guy (Help!) 21:33, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Doug is not engaged in a dispute with Calton. All of this could have been completely avoided by Calton agreeing not to edit war (and trying not to be so "spiritful" in defense of his actions). –xeno (talk) 21:52, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

A two week block on the basis of those three edits would have been excissive. A 2 week block on the basis of the recent attitude displayed is reasonable. Viridae^Talk 21:55, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

• I agree that the block is reasonable in light of the pattern of behaviour displayed over a sustained period of time. The responses he made in the section above were just the straw that broke the [whatever]'s back. naerii 22:01, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

/me wanders off to document the all-new WP:BADATTITUDE policy which allows for two-week blocks for surliness. Guy (Help!) 22:00, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

• • Er, have to agree with JzG. The comments seem mildly heated, arguably uncivil but not blockworthy. And a two-week block? C'mon. JoshuaZ (talk) 22:10, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

JzG, don't waste your time; we already have that policy. It's called WP:CIVIL. Calton has been an uncivil editor for a very long time. He's received plenty of warning and has been the subject of many AN/ANI discussions. The block duration may be a bit long (no real opinion on that) but the block itself was warranted. - auburnpilot talk 22:14, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

• Based on the recent edits and the block history, I am fine with a block that escalates from the past level but 2 weeks is too long - one week at most seems like a fair length. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:23, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

• I'd just like to be clear here, I am not saying that he is a saint or that he did nothing wrong, only that the remedy is disproportionate and - more importantly - very unlikely to produce the desired result (unless, I guess, the desired result is to hound him out). I think the problem here for me is that we don't seem to have learned anything from Giano. I really do not think that civility blocks have any positive effect on long-standing contributors with attitude issues. I'm not saying the issues don't need to be fixed somehow, just that this does not seem to be, from past experience, an effective way of going about it. What Calton needs may be a "critical friend" he can trust, or some firm advice from an arbiotrator in private or something, but right now the comments and the block seem calculated to wound his pride, and since it's his pride which seems to be the cause of the problem I don't see how further wounding it is going to help. Sorry, I'm not saying this especially well as it;s much more nuanced than that, and I'm really not having a go at anyone, I just think that we need to find a better (read: effective) way of dealing wiht this kind of thing. Geogre says it far better than I do, which is why I urge people to read his talk page, comments and archives. The Geogre is wise in the ways of human nature. Guy (Help!) 22:36, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Support unblocking. Too much emphasis is placed on 'civility', a highly subjective and over used excuse for blocking. --Duk 22:30, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Block shortened

As said above, there was no call for a two-week block; I shortened it to 72 hours. If consensus develops here to unblock earlier than that, that's fine with me too, but I felt action was necessary on the block length. Chick Bowen 00:51, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Did you look over the previous incidents involving Calton before you made this decision? Did you consult the blocking admin? Is it really worth wheel-warring to defend Calton? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 00:56, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Let me be clear--I am not defending Calton; I think his comments today were designed to inflame the situation, and that's unacceptable. My shortening the block does not in the least undo it--it merely puts it into the realm supported by the block reason given by the original blocker. To call this wheel-warring is to misunderstand what wheel-warring is. Chick Bowen 01:00, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Wow. I have a strong urge to be uncivil myself here. That block change was way, way out of line, Chick. Tan ǀ 39 01:23, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Good change, blocks are not punishment. -- Ned Scott 04:13, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

A two-week block is more appropriate given Calton's long-term pattern of behavior, but maybe three days will have an effect on him. When the block expires, let's have a clear consensus that future incivility will result in progressively longer blocks. And please, let's not reduce the length of the current block any further. Everyking (talk) 04:54, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

• Obviously I support this, but it is not going to fix anything without some work in the background. We need to find someone who Calton trusts and is prepared to work with, who can help Calton to curb his aggression. I would really like to hear from anyone who thinks they could fulfil that role. Guy (Help!) 08:00, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Two weeks was quite disproportionate. 72 hours seems like a reasonable warning shot. Nandesuka (talk) 11:25, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Do you think he considers himself warned? Right now he's arguing for an even shorter block because admins are "overweening" and "stupid" and because he "did nothing wrong". [7] rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 06:05, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I was going to suggest "shorten to 72 hours" until I saw it had already been done. Blocks are necessary but overly excessive ones do not help the encyclopaedia. Orderinchaos 06:47, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

A little background

It was commented above that I never should have started this thread. I just want to make sure everyone is clear that all I intended was to ask whether we had actually come to any conclusion in the previous thread that archived yesterday. I had made the last comment there in which were discussing significant sanctions and then no one responded so the discussion passed into the black hole that is the AN archive. I am not totally uninvolved in that my name does show up several times on Calton's talk page and in the discussion earlier this year about his use of {{temporary userpage}}, which was solved by other means (deleting the template among other things). --Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 01:37, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

• If you have a philosophical dispute over whether spam is userspace is speedily deletable as spam under WP:CSD#G11 then I would suggest taking it to WT:CSD, but it has always been my understanding that blatant advertising meant just that: blatant advertising, wherever it appears. Maybe the consensus view these days is that the community wants to spend five days discussing the deletion of pages where Wikipedia is being used for free webhosting to promote commercial entities, that is quite possible, but I'd say that trying to fix it by stopping one person from so tagging userpages is not the best way of dealing with it. Some examples would be good as part of that debate, most of the G11 tagged userpages I've seen have been ones where I completely agree that it's an advert and needs gone, but of course I am a heartless deletionist and my dislike of spammers is well known. There are certainly other issues, but I don't see how they can easily be rolled into one with this specific point, which is a matter for legitimate disagreement between good-faith users. So: separate it out and see what people think? If you like we could use User:SpeakerBoxLLC (edit | [[Talk:User:SpeakerBoxLLC|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) as a case study. Calton is not involved there at all. Guy (Help!) 10:54, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
  • This is not about CSD G11, I am not aware of any issues with Calton misusing CSD G11, if you have read the earlier thread, the consensus seemed to be drifting towards allowing Calton to use CSD rather than simply a community limited ban against any userpage editing (aside from his own). He had been most recently blanking pages. Please read the earlier thread. It's on the most recent archive and it's linked above. If it hadn't archived, my position would be a little clearer maybe. Thanks.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 13:08, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
  • The link again was Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive164#Calton_.28again.29 and the mention was of any CSD, the example used there was U2, not G11. The issue is that Calton has shown historically that he just finds another way to do what he wants. After {{temporary userpage}} was eliminated he used the cat, then he was told not to use the cat, I think that was after another AN, and he eventually went away for a while and then came back using PROD, at some point that I wasn't even watching, he got a 0RR restriction, and he most recently has been blanking userpages that he personally believes are either advertising or worse "non-existent" (his shorthand for gone and not coming back) only sometimes they do come back. Read the prior thread and you'll see what I'm talking about. Ryan actually started this thread and I've only revived it since we never settled on the final sanctions (but seemed to settle that there would be sanctions) So I felt we needed to resolve it.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 13:17, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, that's clearer to me now thanks, I can perhaps try to have a discussion offline about this as I think that particular problem is fixable. Guy (Help!) 14:22, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

So the question remains

Have we settled on what we're going to do? Guy wants to try to address the issue offline, but we seemed to have an agreement at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive164#Calton_.28again.29 to sanction Calton in the ways I've noted above. Additionally, we noted an earlier 0RR sanction but there is no mention of it on his talk page. Do we have a link to the earlier discussion that contained this sanction? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug (talk • contribs) 13:01, August 25, 2008 (UTC)

The 0RR restriction was never actually decided on because he simply stopped editing during the AN discussion. Someone needs to determine if there was consensus for 0RR and then formally inform him of it. –xeno (talk) 17:54, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

This is something he has had a tendency to do in each of the prior discussions.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 22:13, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't a party to the 0RR discussion, so I'm not sure what led to it. Can anyone help?--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 22:14, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I was pretty clear at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive164#Calton_.28again.29 that we were at least prohibiting any edits to userpages (other than his own), with the exception of nominations for CSD or MFD. In other words, no more page blanking. The discussion there certainly seemed to suggest an earlier 0RR had been agreed upon.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 22:19, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

But that would stop him from tagging blatant spam in user space. I still think that dialogue is likely to be more effective than symptom-fixing. Guy (Help!) 23:11, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think anyone wants to stop the good spamfighting work he does, just the edit warring when someone comes along and decides that a particular bit isn't delete-worthy. –xeno (talk) 01:28, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Wow! I feel like I'm in a completely different forum. In the prior discussion one of the big issues, probably the biggest, was his incessant blanking of userpages with an edit summary of "nonexistent user".--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 02:32, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can see, shouldn't the outcome be :

1. No edits to other users' userpages other than to tag them for CSD or MfD - this allows him to carry on with his G11 work, but stops the "blanking non-user's page" he's engaged in in the past.
2. If CSD is declined, either by another editor removing the tag or an admin declining speedy, his only recourse is to tag it for MfD - retagging it for CSD would be expressly prohibited (although this wouldn't apply if the tag is removed by the user whose userpage it is).
3. If a report to UAA is declined he can discuss it with the declining admin (subject to the below), to outline his reasons, but relisting it at UAA is expressly prohibited.
4. In any discussions with any user he disagrees with, no matter how much he may feel that his intelligence is being insulted, he adheres strictly to WP:CIVIL and acknowledges that there are mechanisms to find a resolution to the dispute (ie. if there's a disputed CSD tag, MfD will resolve whether the page stays or goes) that don't have to involve hectoring and wiki-lawyering with everyone who disagrees with him.

And...forgive me if I'm wrong...but aren't those basically the rules that apply to everyone anyway? _Gb^T/c 07:27, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

You need to stop making sense right this very minute Gb. You're ruining the drama. I still have half a bowl of popcorn. Keeper ǀ 76 16:52, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Salt? Or sweet? _Gb^T/c 20:24, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Popcorn was never meant to be anything other than salty. Anything else is just unnatural. Keeper ǀ 76 20:32, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Support community ban of Calton. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 17:39, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Supporting a community ban without a community ban actually being proposed is prima facie evidence of...oh, forget it. _Gb^T/c 07:48, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually I believe a limited community ban was proposed. That's why I restarted the thread, because we never finished the discussion, at least I didn't think we did.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 22:49, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I was being semi-facetious...Kurt didn't make it clear that he was supporting a limited community ban. Anyway, without wishing to repeat myself, 1 - 4 above are the conclusions that I drew out of the previous discussions...

Oh, sorry, I guess I wasn't paying attention. It didn't register that you'd just written that. I agree that those are it and I guess the only thing different from other editors is that these things are expressly stated for Calton and therefore likely won't receive 4 levels of warning before any block, right? Is there something we need to do to notify Calton of this? Lack of notice was mentioned above as a problem with the prior 0RR. Also, is Calton subject to 0RR or not?--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 15:10, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, he is subject to 0RR in respect of tagging pages for spam - that's what 2. above is designed to capture - if it's declined he cannot reinsert the tag. As for notification, well, it's pretty unlikely that he's not reading this thread, but once it disappears off to archive someone can post a link to its (unmoving) archived position on his talk page. _Gb^T/c 17:18, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Right, I just thought the earlier 0RR was across the board. There was question as to whether he'd ever been notified of the 0RR. Above Xenocidic says that we never decided whether there was consensus in that earlier discussion and Calton wasn't formally notified he just stopped editing. So, the question is whether Calton is subject to a general 0RR restriction. It would be helpful if we had a link to the earlier discussion where the 0RR was discussed.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 19:34, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Nice to see you hand a loaded gun to every spammer and crackpot I ever cross paths with for -- what, exactly? Oh yeah, for being right and not bowing to "I am the Law!" as if it were an actual argument for anything. --Calton | Talk 18:48, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Response

So much distortions and occasional falsehoods to respond to, it's hard to know where to start. First, let me start with my original unblock message, since Xenocidic couldn't be bothered to actually read it before his knee-jerk upholding of the block:

Exactly as I expected: not for vandalism; not for damaging the encyclopedia; not for disruption; not for impairing in any way the actual work of building and/or improving the encyclopedia; not for attempting to hijack the encyclopedia to promote myself, fringe views, businesses, or a opinions; not for promulgating hate; not even, as the boilerplate text above says falsely in this case, making unconstructive contributions. Nope, as punishment -- not as a preventative measure -- for insufficiently sucking up to the wounded pride of the self-assuming authority figures. For not accepting "Because I'm the boss" as an actual rationale for administrator behavior nor thinking that wielding admin buttons in service of petty vendettas is woth overlooking, and for daring to say that vague handwaving and authoritarian threats are not ACTUAL ways of co-operative editing: actual recourse to actual arguments, actual policy, and actual common sense -- as opposed to to those who've mistaken Wikipedia for social-networking site with themselves as leaders wielding power in some virtual club.

As I've said over and over again, though everyone appears to keep ignoring it, I respond to actual arguments, not "I AM THE LAW."

Meanwhile, as for the comments above, let me pick out a few of the real gems:

Sorry; I read as far as 'stupid' and then stopped reading; you'll have better luck if you can manage a request that doesn't include insults

I'd say that actually reading the unblock reason is what a resonsible admin is supposed to do, especially if it's short, but maybe that's just me.

...leaving him unblocked is the thing that causes drama and makes us look like idiots.

Any appearence of idiocy is certainly not of my making. Am I also responsible for cancer, unemployment, and coreopsis?

Very rarely have I encountered such an abrasive Wikipedian, who enjoyed baiting his "opponents" and in fact blatantly stated that he was doing just that.

Mind-reading followed by borderline libel by someone with her own problems, angry that my nomination a year ago of a slew of non-notable biography pages were blown out of the water at AFD. She's certainly not one to talk about being "abrasive".

Hrm, the constant edit warring with other editors because you think that your judgment is the only one that matters?

I asked for actual examples and/or actionable items, and most every word in that statement is, as the saying goes, Not Even Wrong. I mean "Constant"? Hyperbole much?

Certainly a bad-faith mind-reading at worst and pure projection at best. Other than the fact I don't buy "Because I said so" as an actual argument -- choosing, instead, to rely upon actual policy, actual guidelines, actual practice, and actual common sense -- I'm waiting for an actual explanation.

Right now he's arguing for an even shorter block because admins are "overweening" and "stupid" and because he "did nothing wrong".

See, this is why I have such contempt for some admins, when they tell such blatant falsehoods. Distorting words to change their meaning (Hint 1: what does the adjective "stupid" apply to? Use ordinary rules of English syntax. Hint 2: What does the adjective "some" apply to, versus the claimed "all" of you charge?) and poison the well: classy.

The issue is that Calton has shown historically that he just finds another way to do what he wants.

Oh, that's hilarious coming from Doug, who's decided to do an end-run at Wikipedia_talk:Proposed_deletion to get around some very Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox policies because he apparently attributes magic powers to the "User" prefix that circumvent general policy and ordinary common sense. And while he's rewriting policy by the back-door, perhaps he should have consulted with those others, like Template:Spamsearch and others who don't think Wikipedia is free webhost for those who might-maybe-someday-sorta return despite all common sense and evidence to the contrary. Hint: [a page] of those oh-so-valuable editors who left now-deleted MySpace-like pages on Wikipedia before buggering off. What percentage have returned or have contributed further to Wikipedia. Go ahead, click around randomly on the "Contributions" links: how many have even ONE edit to their credit?

Doug is not engaged in a dispute with Calton.

Blatantly and obviously untrue. Or do you have some alternate theory as to what's at issue for Doug? See directly above for a small hint.

I don't think anyone wants to stop the good spamfighting work he does...

Doug seems to, as well as Ned Scott, who seems to believe that every time any page, anywhere, gets deleted on Wikipedia, God kills a kitten.

...just the edit warring when someone comes along and decides that a particular bit isn't delete-worthy.

Speaking of hyperbole. Nice use of "when", implying regular occurrence. Hint: I just checked and Kate's tool says I have nearly 26,000 deleted edits -- and that's not from bad articles I created which have been nuked, it's from tagging and bagging bad pages -- so how much edit-warring, exactly, as a percentage of that do you think has happened? If you've been told once, you've been told a million times, don't exaggerate.

But enough for now. If you think I'm being contemptuous, I'm getting a hell of a lot of raw material to work with here. --Calton | Talk 18:48, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

So, just to clarify, Calton, next time someone removes a tag that you've placed (not counting the creator of the page, they're not allowed to remove tags from their own pages) or declines a report you've made, are you willing to move on? If so, I think we can all live happily ever after. –xeno (talk) 17:12, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Calton, it's good to see that you decided not to be argumentative anymore. Kudos. Keeper ǀ 76 17:17, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

And I think it's pretty clear that you are not to blank userpages, since that's what caused this whole fuss. CSD, MfD, civilly discuss with the user, or forget it.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 19:58, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Calton, I'm a bit confused at your comment about me. While it is true that I fear kittens being killed because of some random connection to an on-wiki action... what do you expect to gain from insulting someone who supported your block being shortened? -- Ned Scott 02:39, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

P.S. on the community culture

Xenocidic was the wrong admin to review the unblock request. How could you not know that, Xeno? On a minor note, Everyking ought to have acknowledged above that he and Calton are ancient, entrenched enemies. Everyking, for the record, I think Calton used to treat you badly when you were the underdog. But you ought nevertheless to have mentioned the old bad blood between you. Your comment obviously flowed out of it. (OMG AGF!) These things may well not have affected the outcome, but you've made yourselves look bad, guys. One of the things that says the most about our community culture is the way we treat blocked users: carefully or carelessly. Oh, and I agree Doug should never have started this thread. OK, everybody sufficiently mad at me now? Between WP:AN and WP:AE, I'm getting amazingly popular. Bishonen | talk 20:15, 30 August 2008 (UTC).

User:Sceptre - Abuse of rollback

Earlier this month I removed Sceptre (talk · contribs) rollback rights for misusing them in a content dispute. He asked for them back early a few days ago and I consented to their return. Today I see this bad faith revert [8] pop up in my watch list. Lo and behold, he is reverting a complaint about the misuse of rollback.

So I investigated, based on this history of [9] Scetpre is again using Rollback to fight in content disputes (managing to hit 3RR in this case). I am requesting an uninvolved admin remove rollback rights again, for a significantly longer period of time than my prior 30 day removal. MBisanz ^talk 12:38, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Agree it doesn't look good. Consensus to remove then? I haven't participated much in the rollbacker issue..I wouldn't do it myself as we are often on opposite sides in a few debates so that may cloud my impartiality in cases of borderline judgment. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:54, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Huggle doesn't use rollback. And the Schmucky revert is because I see him to be a common troll. Besides, rollback can be used for, and I quote, "to undo edits that are blatantly nonproductive, such as vandalism. This includes edits that are obscenities, gibberish, extremely poorly worded content, smart-aleck editorial comments, and other useless remarks that have nothing to do with the subject. Banned users may also be rollbacked on sight as their edits are prima facie nonproductive.", emphasis mine. No intervention is needed. Sceptre ^(talk) 13:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Sceptre, Huggle will not work without Rollback as you, yourself say at your request for rollback. Also, I would say this reversion was outside the permissible items that can be rollbacked. MBisanz ^talk 13:09, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't use rollback when reverting, IIRC; rollback is more of a barrier to restrict just anyone from using it. Besides, I think that falls within the parameters that rollback may be used for (see my quote, I think terms such as "sadly" and "embarrassing" (and maybe even the "Supremes" cleanup), do fall into poorly worded content, and editorial comment, both of which are permissible to rollback), but where the line is drawn is a matter of opinion. Sceptre ^(talk) 13:19, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Read Wikipedia:ROLLBACK#When_not_to_use_Rollback. Those reverts would of been better done using the Undo edit. Also, those edits I would not class as vandalism, but purely original research which need sources. D.M.N. (talk) 13:34, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I read the diff, and found no doubt that it shouldn't be used. That's what I'm contesting; the use of editorial comment and poorly worded content makes rollback explicitly allowed. Sceptre ^(talk) 13:37, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Using rollback on your own talk page is permissible for any reason, so far as I am aware. Are you saying it is not, for some reason? (Note: This has no bearing on the content dispute use of rollback.) KillerChihuahua^?!? 13:17, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

No, it's not. Using rollback and its automatically-generated edit summary says, "The edit that I'm undoing here is so obviously inappropiate as to be (at best) little better than vandalism, and it can be removed without further comment or explanation." The use of rollback on a good-faith talk page edit is considered breathtakingly rude. (Note that I have no comment on the current dispute.) If you don't want someone to comment on your talk page, or you want them to drop an issue, leave them a polite note to that effect, and remove the thread from your talk page with a regular, polite edit summary. Exceptions would be socks evading blocks, vandalism, massive text dumps or copy/pastes of articles, particularly nasty personal attacks, etc. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:48, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I think rollback is permitted on one's own talk page, per the rollback rules "Using rollback on one's own talk page to remove non-vandalism comments from other users is not considered misuse.". MBisanz ^talk 13:50, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

What I do sometimes is use the rollback tool but use a rollback summary script to set a different summary. You can install this by copying the line importScript('User:Mr.Z-man/rollbackSummary.js'); into your monobook.js. Orderinchaos 08:25, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Read link 88 to the article history, not link 87 to his talk page, it was the talk page revert that drew my interest. Also, this reversion is interesting, as it reinserts an advert section to an Article for Creation and this reversion in which the IP asks Sceptre to discuss at the talk page, yet Sceptre still reverts. MBisanz ^talk 13:22, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Easily explained, both of them: AFC is often vandalised with people removing proposed additions all the time - RBI, especially for new accounts; and the Castlevania revert was done because of a kilobyte of text with no edit summary, and the IP kept going back and changing, without a meaningful edit summary. Sceptre ^(talk) 13:29, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

What part of the edit sum (see talk page and provide a better argument) is not meaningful? And just because a page is often vandalized, is not a good reason to go and use tools to reinsert an advert. MBisanz ^talk 13:32, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

That was part of the fourth revert. If he gave a meaningful summary on the first, I would not have reverted. Sceptre ^(talk) 13:39, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

So the fact it took an IP a couple tries to learn something means we disregard him and just revert? Where is the good faith there. MBisanz ^talk 13:40, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Where is the good faith to assume that an experienced user knows what he is doing? Sceptre ^(talk) 13:42, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I have to agree, that content dispute is not a an appropriate use of rollback and neither was it appropriate to give the IP warnings for it. This combined with talk of previous abuse would make it seem like rollback, unfortunately, should be removed. GDonato (talk) 13:21, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I fail to see how [10] is not a content dispute over what the artist's genre should be labeled or how Scetpre is not the one vandalizing in this edit. MBisanz ^talk 13:25, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Please re-read my comment or ask me to clarify it :) GDonato (talk) 13:40, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Revert-on-sight applies to genre changing without reason, and the Suite Life revert was because the IP was adding unsourced content to an episode page, again revert-on sight. Sceptre ^(talk) 13:31, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Seeing as neither was a BLP, could you please elaborate on why this was so vital as to require a rollback? MBisanz ^talk 13:32, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I just re-read the Rollback rules, please show me in them the special exemption for music genres and episode content. MBisanz ^talk 13:34, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Because, 99%, they are totally non-constructive. Are you seriously splitting hairs, especially seeing as how the Suite Life IP went on to actually vandalise the article? Sceptre ^(talk) 13:37, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Seeing as you just got rollback returned, I will split hairs, good edits should not be reverted and you should know that. MBisanz ^talk 13:38, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

They weren't good edits. I edit music and television articles regularly; I know what edits are non-productive. Adding summaries to unaired episodes, without sources, is non-productive, and actually necessitated a request for mediation when our rules were more lenient. Sceptre ^(talk) 13:41, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

So... you're admitting this was a dispute over your interpretation of our content rules, odd. MBisanz ^talk 13:42, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it wasn't an RFM; the RFM was over disambiguation. Nevertheless, the 2005 discussion still stands as proof of non-productivity. And while it is based on my interpretation, it's a well-founded (and well-supported) interpretation built through experience. Sceptre ^(talk) 13:46, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Sceptre, could you comment on this use of rollback? Was this a mistake, or in your opinion was this justified? PhilKnight (talk) 13:47, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes: it was an IP removing content without an edit summary. If it was say, a few hundred bytes, I would've thought about it, but this was removing a kilobyte. I looked at the edit, and thought that he was removing the plot section entirely without reason, which falls into nonconstructive anyway. The user hadn't edited, so a level 1 warning would've helped them along the right lines. I kept reverting because he kept including reverting to his version, without a legible summary until the fourth (which, by then, I go into auto-rollback). Sceptre ^(talk) 13:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If you're saying it was an acceptable use of rollback, then I disagree. Don't get me wrong, there have been instances where I've misjudged content removal, and either assumed bad faith of an editor, or assumed good faith of a vandal. However, my concern is that you don't seem to be using rollback purely for simple vandalism, and instead are using to revert editors who are perhaps being overly bold. PhilKnight (talk) 14:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I also think this is very inappropriate. D.M.N. (talk) 13:52, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

What about "see talk and have a better argument" is not legible? I'm assuming, since its text and English, you could read it? Avruch ^T 14:09, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Where is this notion that rollback must only be used for vandalism coming from? RBK says any non-productive edit, and has done for months. Avruch, re-read my post; I said "without an legible summary until the fourth". Sceptre ^(talk) 14:13, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand, where does it say that rollback can be used for what amounts edit warring? RxS (talk) 15:10, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Previously, it was an unwritten rule. I do it anyway in one situation only: if they've previously been involved in harassing me (from not getting the point on Wikipedia, to "better people have left because it made them unwell" harassment), with no sign of remorse. Sceptre ^(talk) 13:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Rollbacking your user talk is fine, but iirc, we blocked an individual for a message similar to that. MBisanz ^talk 14:03, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Sceptre, Please don't call me names in this discussion. My only involvement was to ask you to not to leave template warning messages in an edit conflict. I don't want to be dragged into it, and don't deserve to be insulted as part of it. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

• I was asked to comment here. Looking over the above, it's clear that Sceptre believes the edits made to be unconstructive. I took a look at them and tend to agree. However, the fact that someone thought it was a useful edit, and was willing to make it several times with this belief, means we should do what we can to nurture this person into understanding what is constructive, rather than simply reverting them because they aren't yet aware of how things work around here. I think Sceptre should slow down just a bit and try to use a custom edit summary wherever possible. If he pledges to do so, I would support his regaining rollback. —Giggy 02:36, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

  The reason that I use the standard Huggle summary because I didn't know how to add a custom summary... I don't think speed's an issue, though; I can review diffs and calculate their net worth accurately very fast. Sceptre ^(talk) 02:54, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Removed

Having been the one to return rollback a few days ago, I have now removed the tool on the grounds that there are various examples listed by editors above indicating that the basic tenant of WP:ROLLBACK, to revert only blatant vandalism has not been followed. Just as it is no big deal to have rollback, so it is no big deal to remove it. Since I am presently not very active on-wiki, any administrator may, of course, override this with good cause. Regards Fritzpoll (talk) 14:02, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

What version of ROLLBACK are you reading? It's much more permissive than what you say it is: it allows people to revert anything non-productive. Please re-instate it, because I do feel that my edits genuinely fit to the current version of rollback (even if rollback was used, which I don't think it was). Sceptre ^(talk) 14:05, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Your feeling seems to be running counter to at least 3-4 other users at the moment, I am not sure it should be the overriding piece of judgment. MBisanz ^talk 14:09, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

The current version says only be used to undo edits that are blatantly nonproductive, such as vandalism. This includes edits that are obscenities, gibberish, extremely poorly worded content, smart-aleck editorial comments, and other useless remarks that have nothing to do with the subject. That doesn't include edits that are in good faith, but perhaps overly bold. PhilKnight (talk) 14:12, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I believe that the edits fall under that wording. And I did believe the Super Castlevania edit was vandalism; see above. Sceptre ^(talk) 14:17, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

In which case removing rollback was the correct decision. PhilKnight (talk) 14:29, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Why? Because I'm more lenient on considering edits rollbackable than you are? I believe that the edits I did revert were rollbackable; there was no doubt in my mind that the edits should be reverted using rollback. Sceptre ^(talk) 14:34, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I hope I'm not the only one to have noticed that the first link provided by MBisanz (the rollback on Sceptre's talkpage) used Twinkle, not Huggle or the rollback right as described above. Avruch ^T 14:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Correct, it was twinkle, and that is what drew my attention to Sceptre's edits, where I discovered the misuse of rollback. MBisanz ^talk 14:09, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, gotcha. Thanks. Avruch ^T 14:10, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment to Sceptre That so many people are disputing that the edits were obvious vandalism, rather begs the question on whether your interpretation of obvious vandalism is such as to allow you continued use of Rollback. LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:33, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

How many times must I say this? RBK has not restricted use to blatant vandalism for months. Sceptre ^(talk) 14:35, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

But you labeled them as vandalism. Good faith edits are never vandalism. RxS (talk) 14:47, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

"‎(Reverted edits by 165.139.21.151 to last version by Radeon24 (HG))" doesn't mean "165.139.21.151 has vandalised", it means, "I have reviewed 165's edit and do not believe it to be an overall productive edit to Wikipedia. Sceptre ^(talk) 14:50, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

No but this [11] does. The recent edit you made to Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever constitutes vandalism, and has been reverted. It wasn't vandalism and if you were going to use rollback on a non-vandalism edit you need to explain why it was rolled back. RxS (talk) 14:56, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you keep on saying it until such time as you want it back; arguing semantics gives the community no basis to agree that you will use it "uncontroversially" (if that is a better phrase). LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:56, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Re LHVU: Use isn't nearly controversial enough to warrant removal if people get rid of the incorrect assumption that rollback must only be used for vandalism. Sceptre ^(talk) 15:08, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Re Rx: If I revert someone for the first time, they get {{uw-vandalism1}} (which is a redirect from {{uw-huggle1}}. It explains that an edit was unconstructive, and offers pointers on how to; namely, adding an edit summary and reading the introduction to editing again. If the IP doesn't do what is politely requested of him, or even read the notice, it becomes a bit of an uphill struggle to assume good faith. As an aside, the user has been previously warned against adding inappropriate content (i.e. spam) to similar articles before. Sceptre ^(talk) 15:08, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

It wasn't vandalism though. It was original research, hence they should of got the {{uw-nor1}} tag. D.M.N. (talk) 15:12, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Right, what are you doing laying a vandalism template on someone who didn't vandalize? Unconstructive edits do not automatically amount to vandalism. And in this case they weren't. RxS (talk) 15:16, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

So, you're saying I'm calling it vandalism because the template is called vandalism1? It's only called that to complete the set. It doesn't imply that edits are vandalism at all. Sceptre ^(talk) 15:27, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

No because the text identifies the edit as vandalism. See my example above. This [12] and this The recent edit you made to Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever constitutes vandalism, and has been reverted. It's a huge pet peeve of mine, think of how it looks to a new user. They don't have a super clear idea of how things work here, they make a good faith edit and get called a vandal. We have to bend over backwards to avoid that. You could have gotten the point across without calling somone a vandal. RxS (talk) 15:36, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to quote KillerChihuahua here: AGF is not a suicide pact. If an editor doesn't listen, there's no point assuming good faith. Though I think the second level should be a bit more lenient. And before anyone calls hypocrisy, I do listen; after my recent removal from not reading RBK properly, I went back and I read it. Just because I have a more liberal interpretation of the rollback guidelines than some people does not mean I misused it. Sceptre ^(talk) 15:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

The first two times you had rollback removed, weren't they for reasons of non-vandalism use? What happened to I'm already limiting the use of rollback and labelling edits as vandalism, deferring iffy cases to over editors [sic]? [13] --Kbdank71 15:48, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Emphasis on iffy. If I doubt that an edit should be rolled back, I skip it. Sceptre ^(talk) 15:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Rollback

Posting here for more eyes. I've proposed a change to wording of WP:ROLLBACK. Seraphim♥Whipp 15:02, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Good wording. Suitable number verbs. bishzilla _ROARR!! 20:31, 30 August 2008 (UTC).

User signature

Resolved

 – Blocked, unblocked, signature shortened, inappropriate pages deleted. _Gb^T/c 10:55, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I did not see a RFC appropriate to discuss a users signature. So here it is. I am looking for a little guidance on User:Andy Bjornovich. You can see his signature on my talk page. I do not see a strict guideline in the WP:Sig page other then over 255 char is truncated by the system. If this is the wrong place for this please point me in the right direction. Thanks all. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 18:37, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

It looks a little excessive to me but I'm biased against fancy and extra long signatures. You can list it on Wikipedia talk:Username policy or Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User names. Exploding Boy (talk) 18:54, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

That's way too long, to the point that it's disruptive. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User names isn't the right place, as it's not the username that's excessive, just the signature. Have you tried simply asking him to tone it down? –Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 19:00, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I did notify them. You can see their response on my talk page. He deletes everything from his talk page. Essentially he said I was the only person to complain about it. I think his account is 8 days old. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 19:04, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this is a new editor. On the other hand, he looks like a good faith contributor so far, and he says he isn't deleting things from his Talk page but archiving them to sub-pages. I've sent a polite note with my opinion of the sig. Let's see what happens. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 20:45, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree it's excessive; but probably just asking nicely from more than one person would do the trick. — Coren ^(talk) 00:39, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm no expert on foreign languages, but it appears that his "signature" is his full name, if that's the case, the sig looks to be okay. His userpage, however, is a different story. Big time WP:NOT goin' on there! KoshVorlon > rm -r WP:F.U.R 12:15, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

...and restored. I'm trying to talk to him about the sig issue, so someone else should drop a follow-up to KoshVorlon's friendly message about userpage content. — Satori Son 12:58, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

No luck. In fact, his response here seems simply WP:POINTy to me. Thoughts from other admins on next steps, if any? — Satori Son 14:00, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Account created 8/19 [14] yet seems to be navigating very well. Placed protection templates on his own user page [15]. Does not even act interested in what others are trying to tell him. Shuts them down quickly. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 16:11, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

If nothing else it seems to violate WP:SIG#Length, which states that "long signatures give undue prominence to a given user's contribution." Unfortunately, there's little in the policy that actually prevents this. Also, that the software will automatically truncate both plain and raw signatures to 255 characters suggests that this is the maximum allowable number of characters, and indeed, the user seems to be aware of this. You could try asking for comments on the WP:SIG talk page, but it seems that RFC might be the only other recourse. Just as a side note, the user's behaviour seems rather uncivil. He's a tough call; mostly edits his own pages, although has made some apparently constructive edits elsewhere. Interestingly, also appears interested in becoming an admin. Exploding Boy (talk) 16:26, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

His response on my Talk page is not encouraging... not least because it's shorter than his sig. RfC? SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 16:40, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Might need some additional eyeballs on his page. I have reverted his family tree a total of three times and will not revert further, his response was to revert back and respond with rather pointy messages as well. I have also reverted his protection template as it's deceptive. If you think I'm barking up the wrong tree - let me know and I'll stop.

KoshVorlon > rm -r WP:F.U.R 16:47, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the family tree and posted a message to his talk page explaining why. _Gb^T/c 17:14, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

And he deleted it saying you are a vandal. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 17:22, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I noticed. I've been called worse... _Gb^T/c 17:23, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Well that did not work User:Andy Bjornovich/Family tree. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 18:45, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Some of his other subpages are... interesting as well. Exploding Boy (talk) 18:50, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Can I assure you all I am not going to shorten it. If anyone can, do they mind actually semi-protecting and move-protecting my userpage. Andrzejestrować Zajaczajkowski Plecaxpiwórserafinowiczaświadzenie Poświadczyxwiadectwo-Bjornovich (talk) (contributions) 19:16, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Your incivility surrounding the clearly problematic issue of your excessively long signature aside, it has already been explained to you that such protection applies only if the page is being vandalised, which it isn't. Exploding Boy (talk) 19:21, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposed block

I'll be the first to say it: a short block is in order. This "new" user is continuing to make uncivil and disruptive edits. Numerous editors and admins have left them extremely polite messages asking them to please comply with our community guidelines. In return, there has been defiant and antagonistic conduct, including name calling, edit warring, creating inappropriate pages, and selectively deleting ongoing conversations. I will not block without support from others here, but I don't think a separate RfC is required to effectively deal with this. We should have very little tolerance for this kind of behavior. — Satori Son 19:31, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

• Support- His actions and responses show he is not willing to work within the community guidelines or even engage in dialog. His comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rhíannon Thomas shows his willingness to defy consensus. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 19:56, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
• SUPPORT - I'm involved, of course, however, I support blocking. He is showing incivlity, edit warring, and if I'm not mistaken, he's now socking this ip address. It's sole edit is to his page! I think a nice cup of tea is in order for him.

KoshVorlon > rm -r WP:F.U.R 19:54, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

• Support Sig is not negotiable and this user must understand that. MBisanz ^talk 19:56, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Oppose with a reasonable approach progress has been made over the family tree issue. He's refrained from describing good faith edits as "vandalism" for at least ten contributions. Blocking won't serve any particular purpose, as it would seem to be primarily punitive in nature. Let me continue talking to him to try and work things out. _Gb^T/c 20:09, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Without supporting or opposing, I disagree that a block would be punitive. If an editor refuses to change a signature that multiple editors have described as disruptive, then a block is very much preventative. As soon as the disruptive signature is changed, the editor would be unblocked. Quite some time ago (likely over a year ago), I blocked an editor who refused to remove images from his signature, despite multiple editors asking him to do so. The second he removed the images, another admin unblocked. - auburnpilot talk 20:15, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

• Support. Incivility and tendentious edits continue, as does inappropriate use of subpages. User is a curious combination of brand new and very familiar with the workings of Wikipedia. On the other hand, I would also support postponing the block to give Gb a chance to work with him. If the user demonstrates that he can remain civil; edit something other than his own user pages; and abide by our policies and consensus, a block may not be needed. If he continues as he's currently behaving though, he clearly needs a block. Exploding Boy (talk) 20:21, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. If Gb succeeds in convincing them to change their signature, request deletion of the inappropriate user pages, and commit to adopting a collaborative and civil attitude toward contributing here, that would help alleviate some of the serious concerns I have with this user. But if the behavior continues, a block would clearly be preventative in nature. — Satori Son 20:41, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Blocked

I've actually went ahead and blocked. Looking into the contributions of that user showed little but willful disruption and agressivity, and dismissive comments to attempts to guide them. With luck, Gb could be able to coax better behavior and unblock, but in the meantime I see no reason to let this continue. — Coren ^(talk) 21:00, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

You'll get no argument from me, obviously. I was willing to wait, but was not hopeful much would come of doing so. I will also note that discussions on the user's talk page are not affected by the block, and unblocking can occur if significant progress is shown. Indefinite is not permanent. Thanks to Coren for acting decisively. — Satori Son 21:29, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

• Endorse block. I've also AFD'ed one of his contributions that was earlier PROD'ed: Erick Rowsell. seicer | talk | contribs 01:59, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, nice to see that the above completely ignores the facts that (i) they hadn't edited for an hour and a half, (ii) their recent edits had shown a movement towards "behaving properly", and (iii) not forty minutes before the block was imposed I'd left them a polite message about their userpages for which an answer was still awaited.

I was slowly coaxing better behaviour. The block and the (totally unnecessary) 3RR report have, I suspect, made that now nigh-on impossible. _Gb^T/c 07:58, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

(sigh) Scratch that, then. Pass me my hat, a plate, and a knife and fork. _Gb^T/c 08:10, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Nice job. Looks like my diet includes a little headwear as well. Sincere thanks for your efforts, and let's hope they are reformed for good! — Satori Son 12:13, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeay Gb. Epic win! — Coren ^(talk) 12:45, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Celebrations may have been premature. Recent edits are less than promising, to say the least. — Satori Son 19:11, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Some problematic edits continue. In particular, please see the following edits from today: [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]. I've left a warning on his talk page, but propose he be re-blocked following his next disruptive edit. Exploding Boy (talk) 19:13, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Frankly this does not bode well. His "sense of humor" seems to be constructed in such a way as to attract negative admin attention; I'm definitely blocking indef if he disrupts again. — Coren ^(talk) 01:11, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

He's just this side of being blocked right now. This edit is fairly rude, but the user he directed it to has given him a warning. At this point, any further incivility and I think I'm going to block him. Exploding Boy (talk) 00:59, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Templated FUR review

This recent TfD discussion has established that the boilerplate {{Historic fur}} fair-use rationale template has been frequently misused and that images tagged with it require a systematic review and cleanup process. In order to implement the recommendations from that TfD, I have replaced the template with a warning message to be transcluded on the affected image pages in its stead. I believe the wording of that message sums up the results of the discussion fairly and delineates a fair process for review.

Unfortunately the admin who closed the TfD has just gone on wiki-vacations; therefore instead of consulting with him I'm bringing this here for notification and review.

A list of images affected is here. Any help at reviewing these will be greatly appreciated. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:50, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I've posted a reply at User talk:Future Perfect at Sunrise/Historic fur list. Carcharoth (talk) 11:27, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

User:3ICE

Just came across his list of tutorials on google, and prefer not to be the one contacting the user as I'm retired and inactive. Hope they didn't changed WP:MYSPACE. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 21:40, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I left a note. justinfr (talk/contribs) 22:19, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I note that the editor hasn't edited since 17 August, and on 6 Aguust before that... if the pages sit without response, would an MfD be in order? I'm happy to give as long as desired for the user to respond, but... UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence

I would be more likely to {{prod}} them instead of going straight to MfD. They shouldn't be controversial deletions. ~ BigrTex 06:26, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think prods are allowed for userpages. Stifle (talk) 12:24, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

He said had created them mainly to test his wikimarkup skills [22] and would delete them as soon as he had a chance to move them to his personal website. I'll check in a few days but I think it's resolved. justinfr (talk/contribs) 12:39, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

User:Milosppf

Resolved

 – Communication with the editor achieved. — Coren ^(talk) 15:02, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Milosppf (talk · contribs) has been getting warnings since February about uploading copyrighted images without proper rationales, and yet, he/she continues to do so. Corvus cornix_talk 22:36, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

From a review of the editors contribs, they edit almost exclusively in Serbian popular/rock music areas. It is possible that their level of English is not sufficient to understand either the policies nor the notices they recieve, so I suggest some good faith toward attempting to achieve an understanding with this editor. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:49, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

The lack of acknowledgment or apparent understanding is troublesome. I have blocked them until they acknowledge the problem and assert they will stop posting problematic contents. I understand language might be a barrier, but that simply makes stopping the problem until communication can be attained more important, IMO. — Coren ^(talk) 22:52, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

unblocked, per his request. I hope he has understood the lesson. -- lucasbfr ^talk 14:53, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Request for closures at featured sound candidacies

Resolved

 – East hath committed it. — Coren ^(talk) 12:49, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, featured sounds. Happy news: a neglected corner of the site has become active and productive. Now all it needs is more help closing candidacies. So if you're looking for a pleasant admin task and enjoy music, here's the opportunity.

Background reading:

• Wikipedia:Featured sound criteria
• Wikipedia:FSC#Older_nominations

Candidacies due for closure:

• Wikipedia:Featured sound candidates/Vivaldi's The Four Seasons
• Wikipedia:Featured sound candidates/Balkandji - Diavolska shterka
• Wikipedia:Featured sound candidates/Schubert - Impromptu B-flat

All this absolutely needs is someone to close the discussions as "promoted" or "not promoted"--we have gnomes who'll take care of the rest. All the best, Durova^Charge! 06:41, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Just one request, though: Don't move them to the archive until everything else in the promotion instructions have been done. As Durova says, we can do everything else, but anything archived is presumed to have everything done already =) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 06:56, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist

Hello, there are a few requests here that could do with some eyes. The last admin to take a look was Guy, about a week ago. If a few others could deal with the four new sections made since then it would be appreciated. Cheers —Giggy 06:55, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• This is because you want your ED links enabled? Sorry, but I fail to see how that particular site can be considered a reliable source even about itself. Multiple statements sourced from the site is asking for bias and WP:NPOV failure. If, as it is asserted, the site has been the subject of multiple non-trivial accounts in reliable independent sources, then those same sources should be used to write the article. If it turns out that the sources are simply "X happened on ED" then a merge or delete is in order as they are trivial passing mentions. Guy (Help!) 09:42, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• Can you at least look at the article before making a declaration like that? Protonk (talk) 20:03, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• I did. The claim they make is not supported by the content or history of the site. Find a reliable independent source, perhaps? One problem is that the people who run and edit the site are unable to tell the difference between satire and libel. Uncyclopaedia is a satrical encyclopaedia, ED is a web forum for sophomoric nonsense. Guy (Help!) 21:09, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• I don't see an exception to WP:SPS that excludes ED from that policy. I also see that WP:BADSITES has largely been rejected by the community. As such, I can't really see a reason why we wouldn't treat ED like any other organization, company or website out there and allow non-conteroversial claims about their own goals to be sourced to the site. I understand that the site is disruptive, sophomoric, hateful, etc, but our judgment of it shouldn't be made in the spam whitelist. If the community wants to judge that linking to ED is bad then we should ask the community as a whole. Protonk (talk) 21:48, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Template:Rfcu box and noindex?

Resolved

 – {{NOINDEX}} has been added to Template:Rfcu box by Rootology. Anthøny ✉ 20:50, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Would it be a good idea for this one template at Template:Rfcu box to be non-indexed with {{NOINDX}}? There are an awful lot of false positives (and hits) mixed into the 1560+ pages that contain it. rootology (C)(T) 08:18, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I've no problems with that. It's not something that should be indexable via Google (whyyy??) and there have been quite a number of RL names appearing in there, betimes - Alison ^❤ 08:25, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• Agree. There's no need to rub people's noses in it. And now we can NOINDEX User:Jon Awbrey as well, which can only be good. Guy (Help!) 21:13, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Epistemic Theory of Miracles

Could someone in charge with half a brain get this idiot off my back please. Peter Damian (talk) 11:56, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I am the "idiot" in question and have been trying to nominate that article for deletion. However, the reporter has violated 3RR in removing the AFD tag 4 times and I have reported him for same. I am not taking any further action regarding that page or user today. Stifle (talk) 12:23, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

You are an idiot for nominating an article on that subject, with an 'in use' tag, for deletion. Go back to garage bands. Peter Damian (talk) 12:50, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• Stifle, you gave an established editor 15 minutes before placing a PROD tag? Somewhat hasty I would have thought and not conducive to an environment of collaborative editing. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:26, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• And I closed the AfD. Don't nominate articles for deletion minutes after they are created; it screams of bad faith. In addition, your rationale -- albeit consisting of only a few words, was weak at best. seicer | talk | contribs 12:54, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. Thank you. Sorry for getting angry, but article creation is stressful in itself and v stressful to see that 'deletion' tag. Simple rule: if the 'in use' tag put on, leave for an hour or two. I can't write an article of that size and complexity in less. The admin in question should have been struck off for his abusive and unhelpful behaviour. Peter Damian (talk) 12:56, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• And can someone get the fool to put back Adrastus of Cyzicus, and Dion of Naples in the state I left them. The fact a historical figure has only one reference IS AN IMPORTANT FACT IN ITSELF. Now the links are red, editors will try and locate the subjects. I have already established that Varro was the only person to reference them, please replace these, Stifle. Peter Damian (talk)

The article Dion of Naples was a circular redirect to itself, which is why it was deleted. It had no content. Canterbury Tail talk 13:03, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

The reason for the accidental circular redirect was it was the second time I had done it hence made that mistake. It is extremely stressful working in these conditions, trying to contribute scholarly content, with this abuse and bullying going on. Peter Damian (talk) 16:04, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• Please don't resort to using personal attacks, especially towards other administrators. If you wish to have your pages restored, please take it to deletion review. seicer | talk | contribs 13:02, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• That was a rather unreasonable assumption, action and accusation by you, Seicer. I would take it to DRV, but I'd rather not generate even more drama. Stifle (talk) 13:07, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• No, it's not. Piling on his talk page with a succession of notices and PROD's and comments about his article being non-notable, etc. in a matter of minutes is not constructive. seicer | talk | contribs 14:00, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• May I suggest that Peter Damian uses his userspace to work on articles? {{in use}} is for use when someone is, for example, doing a copyedit through an entire article and wants to avoid edit conflicts. Articles in the mainspace should meet some minimum requirements. Stifle (talk) 13:10, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
• I have to head away, but if Peter Damian wants to DRV Adrastus of Cyzicus he's welcome. I didn't delete Dion of Naples. Stifle (talk) 13:13, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
  • • The tag, Peter, you have in mind is "underconstruction", which I think should allow a grace period of 7 days or so when used in good faith--though it does not specify any particular time. As for the articles, if you think you can make it more than one sentence just write it again. Frankly, I can see why someone might reasonably speedy an article saying only "Adrastus of Cyzicus and Dion of Naples are mathematicians mentioned in the book De gente populi Romani but of whom nothing else is known." At least say how they are mentioned and in what context. DGG (talk) 13:39, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• Somewhat open to gaming, though. The suggestion of some userspace workup is a decent one (I have some under construction in my userspace). Still and all, this does appear to have been quite unnecessarily bad-tempered. Most admins will cheerfully userfy deleted content if asked nicely by someone who is obviously a good-faith contributor. Speedy nuking is really a way of dealing with the three Vs - vandalism, vituperation and vanity - so it would be fair to expect a more measured approach to a historical subject where it is not an obvious case of novel synthesis or reposting. I don't see that here. The amount of cruft in the more scholarly corners of Wikipedia is strictly limited by comparison with, say, footballers who once ran on in a single second-division match. One final thought: the article Peter asked to be userfied is at User:Peter Damian/Adrastus of Cyzicus; even allowing for systemic bias, "Adrastus of Cyzicus and Dion of Naples are mathematicians mentioned in the book De gente populi Romani but of whom nothing else is known" - the entire content of the article - looks very much like it fails any rational test of notability. If we know nothing about them other than their names and that they were once mentioned in a book then, and the cited source says just that, I would suggest they are probably not going to get much of an article out of it. Guy (Help!) 13:59, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• • • Comment Let me try to explain again why a short article on a person mentioned in classical literature is important. We only have a limited amount of information - primary sources in the form of old manuscripts, many of them copies of the original primary sources - on classical times. Sometimes it is useful to know that a person was only mentioned once. Why? If a Wikipedia editor comes across a red link, he or she will try and find information about that person. They will eventually find, as I did, that they were only mentioned by Varro. Perhaps they will leave it. But it might occur to them that other editors will then do the same. Perhaps as a politeness and a help to the project, they will create a short article about this dead-end, as a help to others. This is what I did. Second reason: it took me some time to find out (in an obscure book on Augustine) that there are no other references to these guys. Once I put this in the encyclopedia, it is easily accessed in Google, and then you go to Wikipedia and you find the obscure book on Augustine has been referenced. That is an aid to scholarship on the Internet, and a useful thing. Does everyone now follow that reasoning? Peter Damian (talk) 16:02, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• This is why we have lists and redirects. You really really don't want to open the Pandora's box of allowing an article on every single individual who was once mentioned in a book but of whom "nothing else is known". I must have deleted thousands of them. Guy (Help!) 20:26, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• Guy, the definitive, all-encompassing paper reference for classical studies is Pauly's Realencyclopädie, a wall of books in over 100 tomes. Its policy is to list biographical data of 'every single individual mentioned in the original sources, no matter how notable the person was or how much is known of him. This is for very much the reasons that Peter gives. This project aims to be more encompassing than Pauly-Wissowa. Please restore. 74.67.113.167 (talk) 21:09, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

• I would like to request another uninvolved admin to go over Peter Damian's contributions today to consider whether he should be blocked for personal attacks and incivility, despite the numerous warnings he has received from me and others. There is a limit to how much I am willing to accept. Stifle (talk) 16:28, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
  • I would like to request this Martian to stop putting that hand sign on my talk page. Likewise, there is a limit on how much I am willing to accept. Peter Damian (talk) 17:29, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Peter Damian blocked for 31 hs

Enough. I've blocked Peter Damian for 31 hours to stop this now. Stifle: please step away and don't look back. — Coren ^(talk) 17:53, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok... let's see.

1. Peter Damian tries to create articles on encyclopedic topics most of us wouldn't be able to write about.
2. Our administrators, instead of helping him in any way possible, thanking him for his contributions to the project and encouraging him to continue this work, try to delete the articles within hours minutes of being created.
3. Peter Damian gets angry about it, as would I, and insults our administrators, as most likely would I.
4. Peter Damian is blocked for "incivility", content-creation be damned.

Did I get this right ? Is it really so ?
Why shouldn't I unblock Peter Damian right now, begging him to forgive our collective stupidity ? And at the same time, why shouldn't I block Stifle right now for disruptive behaviour (i.e. hampering the work of a knowledgeable article writer improving the encyclopedia with new articles on topics few of us could write about). - Ev (talk) 23:04, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Correction: hours → minutes, made by Ev at 23:49, 31 August 2008 (UTC) after the conversation below.

11:22, 30 August 2008 (UTC): "Epistemic theory of miracles" created by Peter Damian with {{In use}}.

11:37, 30 August 2008 (UTC): {{dated prod}} added by Stifle. "Notability and verifiability in question."

11:41, 30 August 2008 (UTC): Nominated for deletion by Stifle with the rationale "Unreferenced and questionable notability."

11:31, 30 August 2008 (UTC): "Adrastus of Cyzicus" created by Peter Damian.

11:35, 30 August 2008 (UTC): deleted by Stifle. (A7): Doesn't indicate importance or significance of a real person.

11:41, 30 August 2008 (UTC): re-created by Peter Damian.

12:45, 30 August 2008 (UTC): deleted by Stifle. (A7): Doesn't indicate importance or significance of a real person.

End of timeline added as correction after the conversation below. - Ev (talk) 23:49, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I get a very strong feeling I should agree with these points. I’m curious as to why I should not actually, please tell. --Van helsing (talk) 23:43, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I have the greatest sympathy for peter in his response to what does appear to be harassment, but even or shall i say especially the most learned and philosophic should avoid insulting those who are less so. We will get an increase in the number of academic content creators here when the people who are here now react temperately. The objection would have been the much more effective without the insult. I suggest howevr that a shorter block would be effective enough to put a quick end to the exchange, and propose to shorten it to 12 hours. DGG (talk) 23:54, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

DGG, I do give great importance to civility. But, is it really that important to be polite at all times, in all circumstances, even in the face of such behaviour as Peter Damian had to endure ? Shouldn't we put more value in the contributions of encyclopedic content than in a few less-than-polite comments ?
I think that Peter Damian was civil enough given how he was being treated. It was not him the one disrupting the process of creating valuable encyclopedic content. He merely reacted in the most human of manners to appalling behaviour.
We will get an increase in the number of academic content creators here when they are not forced to react gracefully to such treatment, but allowed to react as a normal human being would... and when they are supported by us administrators instead of blocked for calling "idiot" someone who clearly deserved it.
There is much greater incivility in deleting someone's work and templating him for not being happy about it, than in calling someone an "idiot" for doing all that.
He should be unblocked right now. - Regards, Ev (talk) 00:22, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I tend not to regard a single burst of incivility as a blockable offense. The fact that Peter came back over and over and over was a problem. The short block was meant strictly to stop the escalation, and I was quite prepared to unblock him the second he agreed to stop (the AfD, after all, was quickly speedy kept).

Frankly, Peter comes off a little strong as I-Am-An-Academic-Damn-It-I-Know-Better-Go-Away. His dismissive attitude ("go back to garage bands") and his aggressive stand certainly do not show the maturity and demeanor I expect from a fellow academic. Actually, I kinda left academia because of some of those attitudes but that's besides the point now. Also, the cries of "Pull the Funding! Pull the Funding!" that resulted make taking his original attitude in stride all the much harder. Nevertheless, I stand by my original rationale and am still willing to unblock with as little of a "Oops, blew up. Sorry. Won't do it again." Or Peter can simply wait out a day for the dust to fall and resume where he left off. — Coren ^(talk) 00:43, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I've taken a moment to reiterate that blocks are not set in stone to Peter on his talk page since he had blanked the original discussion. — Coren ^(talk) 00:52, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

< - - - - reset tabs
Glad you're still with as, Coren. Yes, he was upset, and quite rightfully so. But wouldn't it have been better to simply ask him to calm down (with normal words, not templates and citing wikiprocesses)... and wait a few minutes -or a couple of hours- for the matter to be sorted out to something as close to his satisfacion as possible ? To offer him help to solve his problem... to work towards keeping a valuable content contributor happy... to make his work creating articles as easy as possible :-)
I see nothing of that sort in his talk page or anywhere else for that matter. Just warning after warning, and people explaining the mechanical inevitability of the deletion process. And then the block, which is inevitably percieved as something rude.

Maybe it's just me, but I do think that especially in the case of good article writers we should go the extra mile. We should try our best to make their Wikipedia experience as easy and frictionless as possible. — Of course Peter Damian could have reacted better, but he was reacting to appalling behaviour towards him. The way to stop him from complaining was to solve his problem, to remove what's bothering him... or at least promise to solve it in the next couple of hours. - Not to apparently punish him (for a block, although preventive in theory, will be percieve as unjust punishment by him, especially after being the victim of all that).

I feel that this is a block for complaining too much -and rather impolitely- for being very badly treated himself. I feel that we're blocking the victim for complaining too much. - Removing the block now could help to keep a good article writer with us... help to mend relations, and perhaps he may continue to improve our encyclopedia with his valuable work.

After all, it goes both ways: it would be good for him to say "sorry" and "not do it again", but we have to do our part too, apologizing to him for not helping him as much as we should in his work for the encyclopedia, and trying "not to do it again" ourselves. - Regards, Ev (talk) 01:28, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I don't particularly share that sentiment about extra miles; in my opinion much strife is caused by our collective willingness to overlook bad behavior because of good contribution to mainspace. No matter how valuable an editor is, this is a collaborative endeavor which, well, requires collaboration. Having someone contribute valuable contents is, of course, highly desirable; but it must not come at the cost of destroying the work environment.

Regardless, given the poor reception he seems to have gotten I suppose a flared temper can be forgotten. I'll unblock. — Coren ^(talk) 01:40, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate it very much, Coren. I fully understand -and to a certain extent share- your point about the requisits for collaboration. I should have added a looooong qualification about which cases I think merit going that extra mile (like this one :-). It was for brevity only that I left it as a blanket statement. - Again, thank you for unblocking :-) Regards, Ev (talk) 01:49, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

COMMENT

At Wikipedia, To be accused of "incivility" is akin to 16th century heresy. For political reasons, it is open to biased interpretation, it can be wilfully encouraged and will ultimately be used again you.

It is the problem with the Epistemic theory of miracles that I am concerned about (the other two were merely an aggravation).

The full story. I start this as a NEW article. Check the contribution history here.

I start the article at 11:22. This is on the theory of miracles proposed by St Augustine, later modified by Spinoza, later by Huxley and others and is quite important in the discussion of what distinguishes the natural from the supernatural. The first thing I slap on is an 'in use' tag. I then get to work and as you can see I can work quite fast on an article, by 11:37 it is looking like this. Then at 11:37 the appropriately-named User:Stifle slaps on a 'notability and verifiability' tag here. I.e. exactly 15 minutes after the article is started, he tries to delete it, without so much as discussion or warning. Several things anger me about this. First, it is rude and impertinent to do this while I am actually working on the article (I was looking for appropriate references at the time as it happened). Second, the piece was already referenced to a discussion by Augustine from a piece that is electronically on the net. Stifle could quickly have checked this, had he bothered (or he could have asked me). So I simply removed the template and moved on. I can't work on an article with that thing hanging there. Then Stifle kept replacing the tag, with increasingly rude messages and STOP signs on my talk page. The rest was simply escalation of the same problem.

I remained relatively polite - see here for the first half hour of this nonsense, then I lost it.

So, I'm not coming back without a full apology from Stifle. And I am NOT going to apologise. Slapping a 'removal' ban on an important article merely 15 MINUTES into its creation is unreasonable and rude, and community acceptance of this practice implies a widespread dysfuncion of the project. As said on my talk page, I am carefully preparing a file of many similar incidents to this, where academic editors have been hounded off the project. There have been many more disgraceful incidents than this. It should be on the desk of the Sloan Foundation in a month or two. Enough. Peter Damian (talk) 08:27, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

• Just in case some clarification will help, the first tag Stifle added was a prod. In a sense, prods are warnings of an intent to delete, but they give you some time to fix the article. The second tag Stifle added (three minutes later) was an AFD. Removing an AFD tag is a different issue, as it only serves to tell editors that the discussion is underway elsewhere. Thus it shouldn't have been removed. That aside, I agree that not only was Stifle mistaken, as the article was clearly notable to anyone with knowledge of the topic, but that the tagging was far too hasty. I think Ev summarized it pretty well: 15 minutes from creation to prod, and 3 minutes from prod to AfD. And no attempt to discuss anything with the editor during that time. - Bilby (talk) 09:26, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

• Sure. But the sheer volume of junk that gets created can swamp the good-faith efforts to create valid articles. A small amount of civil discourse (on both sides) would have fixed this. I believe it is fixed now, sp perhaps we should simply encourage both parties to live and learn at this point. Guy (Help!) 12:56, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

An apology is all I want. I will apologise back, for sake of the good faith thing. Peter Damian (talk) 13:14, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

An observation I have is that someone with more patience and less temper than Peter Damian would probably not have blown up here, yes. However, unless someone's crazy or faking, it takes two to escalate a situation like this; Stifle was equally as stubborn and unwilling to compromise as Peter Damian, although less angry it seems. Stifle, just because the rules say you can do something doesn't mean you should. You didn't need to escalate this either.

Also, even if this had happened to a better tempered individual, harm to the encyclopedia is done. Biting well-meaning article contributors is counter-productive, EVEN IF the article really shouldn't exist. A lot of new editors would simply shrink back, run away and never contribute again when subjected to the steamroller of the Wikipedia Deletion Process.

IMO, the attitude of "We don't have the time to be nice to people" that seems to so easily set into the minds of those who patrol new pages, vandalism, etc etc. is highly counterproductive and highly damaging to the project. Furthermore, I often find, taking on this mindset is an early symptom of Defender Of The Wiki Syndrome, which has claimed many and caused a lot of collateral damage on the way. Down that road leads burnout, bitterness, and alienation from the project. Don't do it. You are not essential. Wikipedia will survive quite well without you; it's much bigger than any of us. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 10:50, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes well thank you for sort of acknowledging a bad thing has happened here. But perhaps I am missing something, I asked for an apology, that means saying sorry, the sort of thing Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman eventually gets when the rude SNOBBY ladies wouldn't help her in the boutique. I'm not seeing that right now. Peter Damian (talk) 12:01, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Peter, have you tried running this past the "honest mistake" filter? Stifle is only human, and most humans will be more inclined to be helpful if you approach them with at least the appearance of assuming good faith. You will always catch more flies with honey than with vinegar on Wikipedia, just as anywhere else. Guy (Help!) 12:54, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Well if it was an honest mistake, he can say 'sorry, it was an honest mistake'. Not difficult. Peter Damian (talk) 13:12, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

So you are going to sit here insisting on an apology? That's lame. No actual damage is done here, the article has not been deleted. I don't think insisting on ritual humiliation is going to help any. Guy (Help!)

He just has to say 'sorry it was a honest mistake'. Peter Damian (talk) 19:52, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Frankly I'm wondering how, exactly the presence of a prod or AfD tag on an article, taking all of one line at the very top, makes one "unable to work while it's hanging there". You overreacted, Peter, and badly. Both the original proposed deletion and the following AfD were processes that gave several days to finish, tweak and defend the articles. Both would have concluded that the article belonged and would have not affected the article beyond bringing a couple of extra pairs of eyes on it.

Our "cult of civility" is nothing more than an attempt to prevent what happened next: frustrated, you started throwing insults around (and no, the behavior of others cannot and does not justify or excuse that behavior). Could Stifle have handled this better? Yes. Perhaps you should take some time away from complaining on WR to acknowledge here that you behaved improperly. — Coren ^(talk) 14:57, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Please don't be ridiculous. It's a threat, hanging over your own work, like a sword of Damocles. For your information, it looks like this. Your attitude, combined with some of the other people here (though many have been supportive) simply reinforces my feeling that I have no place here. All I am asking for is an apology. Peter Damian (talk) 15:04, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

And yes, as you say, it is YOUR cult of civility. Read Giano's article. Peter Damian (talk) 15:08, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I cannot see how placing an AFD tag on an article that looks like this [23], without bothering to perform any basic checking can be anything other than trolling or monumantal ignorance. Whether the former or the latter should such an editor be running around loose on Wikipedia. Giano (talk) 15:17, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] And as far as acknowledging or admitting things goes, just think for a while and perhaps you can acknowledge that there is a serious problem regarding how content contributors (or should I say 'discontented contributors' are being treated here). It is an utter disgrace. Peter Damian (talk) 15:15, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

No. In isn't. It's not an utter disgrace. It's an AfD tag. nothing more nothing less. The article was nominated, and, since it was so self-evidently notable, speedily kept. The tag wouldn't have been slapped on there by someone who knew about the content, but shit happens. Stifle messed up on NPP and tagged your page by accident. HOWEVER--this thread, littered as it is with accusations and hysteria, should stand as a sign that the blame is not all on his head. 24 hours ago it would have been reasonable to ask for an apology. Now, with all of the vitriol tossed out in this thread, it is wholly unreasonable to demand an apology as you have been. I see a bunch of people trying to help you by bending over backwards to assume that Stifle's actions were so coarse as to merit the response from you that they did. I'm unwilling to strain myself to see his actions as "trolling" (although I'll accept ignorance). that's all. Protonk (talk) 15:50, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

It is of course highly unreasonable to expect an apology now I have complained about it in a thread such as this. Of course. And where is FT2 in our time of need, to sort out these things? Peter Damian (talk) 16:24, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

book burning break

Apologies to Mr Godwin

.

You aren't "expecting an apology". that is a passive state. You are demanding an apology, repeatedly. That's different. and the wailing and gnashing of teeth about how wikipedia policies regarding civility are akin to accusations of heresy doesn't help. Nor does adorning your talk page with a painting insinuating that RPP's are book burners. Your page got nominated for deletion by someone who didn't know any better. You edit warred over the tag and they fell down on the job by not assuming good faith and trying to help you understand the situation (or trying to understand it themselves). After that point, an apology might have been forthcoming. But now it seems pretty unlikely to me. My suggestion is that you put this behind you and try not to make it into a bigger deal than it really is. Protonk (talk) 16:34, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

'Your talk page got nominated for deletion by someone who didn't know any better'. And the people who burned the books didn't know any better. And I have put it behind me. Note my mainspace contributions have fallen to zero. I am not putting my copious document to the Sloan Foundation behind me, however. They do need to understand how this place is currently run by book burners and hooligans, and is not the sort of place they should be writing large cheques to. Peter Damian (talk) 16:42, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

See now, that's not cool. But you do what you've got to do. Protonk (talk) 16:44, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

'Not cool' with a link. Oh right, it's a personal attack now. Right. Peter Damian (talk) 16:48, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure people don't appreciate being called book burners and hooligans. No one is burning books here. No one is suppressing information. One of your pages got nominated for deletion and it got kept. The significance of this event is basically nil. My suggestion is that you let this go and not try to make it into something it's not. Also, that image doesn't really do anyone any good, can you remove it (mostly because it is messing up the comment threading)? Protonk (talk) 17:00, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Your summary is that one of my pages got nominated for deletion and it got kept? Peter Damian (talk) 18:05, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes. In regard to the content (the book burning business), that is what it boils down to when it is all said and done. The other stuff was and remains avoidable personal drama. There is no need to make this into something it isn't. There is no need to blow this out of proportion. Stifle was wrong for nominating the article and for continuing down the course he did without talking to you. YOU were wrong for removing the AfD tag and for going on a tear about "this idiot" at AN. As this discussion continues the original event (the page itself) becomes less and less prominent, but the original impetus was a common event. Again, stop this book burning nonsense. Leave your desires to write to Wikipedia's donors off-wiki. Stop conflating your behavior with a content dispute. If you really are "retired", then just leave. If you aren't, I'll be the first to welcome you back and thank you for your mainspace contributions. However, this thread doesn't add anything to the encyclopedia. Protonk (talk) 18:25, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Well then you agree it was not a very good summary. Peter Damian (talk) 18:27, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Of course not. If I did, I would not have started my response with "yes". As regards the "book burning" allegations you are throwing around, my summary was spot on. I will repeat my admonition. Do not deliberately conflate content disputes (about which there are many good faith disagreements) with your actions in response to that content dispute. The article's place in wikipedia doesn't impact your behavior and shouldn't have anything to do with people responding properly to your uncivil action. The content dispute is solved. the page is clearly notable, no AfD is forthcoming and it was incorrect of stifle to tag the article for AfD. The conduct problem remains. You clearly don't think it is a problem to call other editors idiots, refer to their conduct as "bullshit", refer to admins in general as "hooligans and bookburners" and call this place a "craphole". This despite the fact that your issues are being entertained on a high traffic noticeboard and that several editors and admins in good standing have come to your aid or offered neutral advice on the subject. Please just let this go. It is a REALLY vanishingly minor problem and you are ballooning it into something it's not. Protonk (talk) 18:50, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Do not admonish me. I will not let this go. You are just escalating this and making it worse. Just get him to apologise. Peter Damian (talk) 19:50, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Apologies are highly over-rated. You should know better than to ask for one, or expect one. Deletionism annoys me too, but I try not to dwell on it. Just move on, please. — CharlotteWebb 16:00, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

And I know better than to contribute to this craphole again. Thanks for confirming my opinion of the lunacy of this place. Btw 'move on' is an English expression used by the police a lot. Considered highly offensive in England, at least. Peter Damian (talk) 16:22, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

In some ways, as with almost any org I've ever seen, Wikipedia will spew forth what seems to be (and may indeed be) the daft side of our clever species, or worse. As can happen in daily life, civility is often the only thread by which this wiki hangs. We're all volunteers here and putting up with the messiness of open editing can be nettlesome, as almost any admin will tell you. Never mind when feelings get stirred up it's so easy to mistake the hoped-for meaning behind some bare shred of text. Almost any metaphor, from book-burning to the lighthouse at Alexandria guiding seekers to its fabled library, will canny fit what happens here. Dealing with it is both an outlook and a skill and we each have our own weaknesses and strengths in doing so. Meanwhile civility is one of the resins which hold these many and sundry volunteers together. Gwen Gale (talk) 17:12, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

• As usual here is everybody shouting and screaming at the wrong person. Where is Stifle who caused this mess? Probably off doing damage elsewhere. That he needs to be de-sysoped is beyond doubt. His actions were wilful trolling and baiting. Even when not doing this, his admin actions are ludicrous as this sad incident here proves [24]. Instead of shouting at the aggrieved why not remedy the source, send Stifle off for a course or retraining - or is this just another case of birds of a feather. Giano (talk) 18:10, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

If you thought I was "shouting at the aggrieved" you were very much mistaken. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:27, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Where is Stifle? Hopefully somewhere else in Wikipedia, not being incivil, not adding to drama, and not making mistakes. I think we should all make an effort on all three counts. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 19:34, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes right, he can do what he likes and get away with it. I can't, right? You treat editors like SHIT. Peter Damian (talk) 19:48, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

We've been over this so many times, and it's always lots of heat for very little result. Instead of arguing with Peter (who is indeed overreacting somewhat, but is obviously a good editor that we want to keep), we should be telling the new page patrollers to think about what they're doing - if a mechanical process was all that's needed, we would have a bot do it. In this case, a bit of investigation of the page's history and the author's contrib page would have made it obvious that this was a constructive contributor writing an article. The "treatment" was completely uncalled for. Zocky | picture popups 19:43, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

You might get them to apologise for their apalling rude behaviour. I'm not overreacting. I've been editing here since June 2003, more than most of you lot. I have never been subjected to anything quite so bad as this. The fact that most of you are apparently condoning this or calling it harmless just compounds the offence. Peter Damian (talk) 19:46, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

You indeed are over-reacting. It's not like your family's honour was publicly slandered. A random person on the internet, whom you don't know in real life, was unnecessarily nasty to you for a while. While that's unfortunate, it did not leave any long-lasting consequences on your work. If you ask me, an apology would still be in order, but apologies are given, not taken. Your insistent demands to get one are making you look unnecessarily emotional and as a result, your relevant complaints are open to being treated as whining.

I would suggest that you think for a bit and try to get some perspective - yes, there are some admins who consistently behave badly, and there are a lot of admins who occasionally behave badly. Every so often, you might run into one that treats you worse than you deserve, but I'm guessing that you're not participating in Wikipedia to win admin approval. Zocky | picture popups 20:04, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

• If we need more books to burn, may I suggest starting with these? Thanks! Badger Drink (talk) 19:50, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Invoking right to vanish

I asked Coren to do this, but if he does not, can someone have the decency to do it for him. That is my right. Thanks. Peter Damian (talk) 21:42, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Wow, that's a hard one. I haven't read the discussion throughly but isn't a better idea to take a week or two of Wikibreak and let the negative spirits go away? Usually it helps... It would be a pitty to lose a great editor. --Tone 21:46, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to see you leave, Peter Damian. I do understand your decision however. I just answered your message at my talk page; I hope you see it. I wish you better luck in what you do next :-) Best regards, Ev (talk) 23:53, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I see no reason to deny him RTV if he invokes it. The userspace of both of his accounts has been deleted. —kurykh 22:19, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

All of the above could and should have been avoided - Stifle knew exactly what he was doing. Such hehaviour should have brought down the wroth of his fellow admins upon him. Instead, there was a half hearted "well perhaps he made a mistake" and "I don't think he meant any harm" and to Peter Diamian "It matter's not, it's only your work - get over it." As a consequence Stifle is still able to troll and make absurd blocks as he sees fit - a good editor has left - and the rest of the admin community shrug their shoulders with indifference because none of them can see or care about the progressive damage their lazy attituted and reactions cause to the project. Giano (talk) 11:06, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Tweak to AOR

I had an idea - does Wikipedia_talk:Administrators_open_to_recall#Proposal_for_changes_to_AOR make the whole AOR process fairer and address both ways it can be rorted then folks? Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:05, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

this is hardly a "tweak" -- you are proposing compulsory recall for all admins. Was that intended as ironic? (I'm not judging the merits)DGG (talk) 13:43, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I guess it was a bit of an understatement, but I figured it was a balance - compulsory participation but vetting of recalls by bureaucrats. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:55, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

The proposal is to make recall mandatory for admins. Just thought I'd make that crystal clear for anybody reading this. - Rjd0060 (talk) 14:05, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I think that there should be an admin recall to all current admins. This has been discussed before, I don't remember a consensus. I think that every admin should have to go through recall at this point as we have many admins, and we can cut back by eliminating the admins that don't need to have the extra tools, or should have them taken away, if you know what I'm saying. -- iMatthew _T.C. 14:15, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

How many times does this need to be addressed? There is no consensus for this. Corvus cornix_talk 18:21, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Um... are you sure you've thought that through? Stifle (talk) 20:42, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, I raised the idea above because of issues with the AOR WRT Elonka and mindful of how it can be gamed in either direction. My proposal was pretty well nixed by everyone (which is fine). I thought about it some more and it really depends on how folks feel the current system is doing. Pretty clear the majority are against AOR, and I too cannot see its value and how it does anything not already covered by RfC, AN/I or arbcom, so it really depends on whether arbcom feel overworked, and my impression from discussion in the proposal to enlarge or devolve arbcom was that jpgordon indicated this was not the case. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:19, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Sarah Palin‎

Request put in to WP:RFPP about 1/2 hour ago, but IP's are going crazy - can someone semi-protect? Thanks, D.M.N. (talk) 14:09, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Done. 48 hours from now should cover the weekend for most of the planet. LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:19, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Seems like it's been protected for a week. Even better I guess. D.M.N. (talk) 16:38, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Aram-Naharaim

Please check the history of this article Aram-Naharaim, I think this is a very clear vandalism.« PuTTY^SchOOL 18:14, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Could you please be more specific about what's the vandalism? I only see 4 edits in the last two weeks, and most of us aren't experts in Hebrew Bible scholarship. justinfr (talk/contribs) 18:35, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Please start from this edit and continue, I’m not familiar with the subject, but I see no reason for deleting all listed references, also the 3RR of user User:Kuratowski's Ghost« PuTTY^SchOOL 18:44, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

What 3RR? Do you know what "3RR" means? The version he reverted to is more stable, the other one is a total mess, so I rv'd your apparently uninformed rv of him. No WP:3RR at all. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 18:47, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

You took the words out of my mouth. The other version, introduced here seems to be a mess of WP:NOR and Bible verses. justinfr (talk/contribs) 18:54, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

"more stable"!!!!! The version I’m referring to was stable for 18 days, any you stable version remained stable for only 11 min then reverted with this comment (Undid revision 213306804 by The TriZ (talk) dont remove things without discussing), anyway but what about deleting the references?« PuTTY^SchOOL 18:59, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I will reply on your talkpage, since this isn't the appropriate place to resolve it Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 19:03, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

as I said before I’m not familiar with the subject, I was only tracing meaningless changes with some articles so I bring it hear« PuTTY^SchOOL 19:08, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Typical Rktect (talk · contribs) OR. Corvus cornix_talk 19:58, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Is This what you mean??« PuTTY^SchOOL 20:27, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• I’m not familiar with the subject« PuTTY^SchOOL 20:52, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Deleteing talk page comments

There was a bunch of controversial edit's referencing the activist blog Daily Kos made to Sarah Palin article. I made a mention of this and my entire post was deleted - I was referring to a question about information that someone removed. I know general talk is not allowed but I need a second opinion regarding the deletion of my talk page post. Here is the edit he deleted. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Sarah_Palin&oldid=235231715 --Papajohnin (talk) 19:25, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

The post was specifically directed toward article content. The user was told about this notice on WP:AN through his talk page to give a chance to defend his actions--Papajohnin (talk) 19:25, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

UPDATE: I have found out that the activist blog Daily Kos website is hotlinking to the Sarah Palin article. Which would explain the previous 2 post up why a request was put in to semi-protect the article. Seems like one user had a wiki account tho. $\sim$  ℗ papajohnin ^(talk)(?)  23:46, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Daily Kos is a well-respected political blog with Democratic Party leanings. "Activist" seems to be a loaded term, unless you consider the Democratic and Republican Parties as "activist" organizations. Corvus cornix_talk 20:01, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I believe this is the link you wanted. You do use some loaded language, and calling people on Daily Kos "kids" isn't going to win you any points, neither is repeatedly referring to the blog as "activist". Corvus cornix_talk 20:03, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Your obviously missing the point. This was to address the reason why the article had to get semi-protected(thankfully it has been) and one users concerns over another user(not me) removing a speculative statement from Daily Kos in the article - and shortly thereafter having my reason deleted by a proponent of the blog entries addition to the article. I'll rehash that again: Not the content of the of the blog entry, but the deletion of my rationale for removal of the blog entry. Does that make any sense? =P

Activism is not a "loaded" word, nor is it perjorative, nor was it used as an ad hominem. As you can see from the wiki article I just linked for you. Even the wiki article that you wikilinked for me (Daily Kos) refers to them as netroots activist. I can't possibly imagine someone who is interested a political subject taking offense to being labeled an Activist but If I offended anyone by calling them an Activist I'm truly sorry as it was obviously not my intention to insult. If the page having been locked is any relevance to you I'm sure you would agree with my statement about the said behavior as being considered childish. Hence my reference to them being like "Kids". I don't think I was out of line but maybe you are right, I shouldn't have resulted to calling them "Kos Kids" I just get agitated when people use Wikipedia to peddle propaganda.

Now since you brought up the content I think I should address your statements. The Daily Kos is an extremely slanted political blog with their own version of Wikipedia that they admit is biased. In their forums there are a group of members who take it upon themselves to bring that said information to Wikipedia. In most academic circles it would be considered an outright travesty to do this. I won't address your statement about Daily Kos being considered highly respected as that is one highly debatable position your pushing because I could say the same for any relatively sized Conservative blog and it would be just as valid - but of coarse using either of them for a reference in an encyclopedia for anything other than critical commentary remains against policy. and from what I understand(elaborate if I misread you) your saying that because a blog has a large member base, that it somehow nullifies the fact that the information is biased and should therefore be allowed to Wikipedia? No matter what the source - posting link's and referencing wildly speculative information is considered bad etiquette under any circumstances. $\sim$  ℗ papajohnin ^(talk)(?)  23:18, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

It's too bad you couldn't have been this eloquent in the talk page comment that I removed. That comment reads like a rant with no particular point. If you had said, "Daily Kos is encouraging people to insert unsourced material into the article," I would have left it alone. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 02:01, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Me too - I used a generalized personal attack but you could have atleast left something in the edit box as to why you removed it other than 'editorilzation' - which would be valid if it was on an article but not a talk page. Or leave me something other than what you left me on my talk page. Very well, I will delete my message and start a new section about abuse of that article from and a warning about unsourced speculation on the talk page. Admin's please consider this resolved. $\sim$  ℗ papajohnin ^(talk)(?)  03:33, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

"extremely slanted" is your personal opinion. It has nothing to do with the reliability of the Daily Kos as a source. Corvus cornix_talk 06:56, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

DYK

Resolved

...is two hours overdue - Can an admin more experienced than me take a look at it (since time is of the essence, I don't fancy learning on the job). WilliamH (talk) 19:47, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm on it. —Wknight94 (talk) 20:02, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Nice one. This can be marked as resolved. WilliamH (talk) 20:29, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Royce Mathew

Hello! I had recently asked about "Royce Mathew" on this page:

[25]

I would have left it as was were it not for the fact that he has written personal attacks once again in the last 24 hours, which is why I am bringing him up once more: [26]; [27]; [28]. In addition, he has vandalised/flagged one of my own personal pages as not "neutral" - it was a test page for an entry on a Featured Article log...: [29]. His previous account, User:Disneysuit has been previously indefitnitely blocked due to going against WP:COI, WP:NLT, WP:VAN, WP:ATP, WP:NEU and WP:NPA, having given out repeated advertisements for his case against Disney and continued personal attacks against those who tried to calmly resolve the issue with him (and giving out legal threats against us]]. He has openly stated that my judgement is impaired and that I probably "collect Walt Disney merchandise, sell it" and/or am otherwise affiliated with Walt Disney. On the contrary, I am not, in fact, I am on my way to graduating from college and am no where ready to receive such a job. I am very shocked and hurt to see such immature behaviour from an adult and want to know how this will be stopped. The previous discussion on him, in which he was indefinitely blocked, can be viewed here: [30].

Thank you for your time. BlackPearl14^{Pirate Lord-ess of the Caribbean} 20:31, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Blocked and warned. Any further incidents of this nature should be reported to WP:AIV, noting that they are ip/socks of an indef blocked editor with previous sanctions, for faster responses. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:07, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much for this. I don't think I'd've been able to go further with all the attacks! For how long approx. will he be blocked? BlackPearl14^{Pirate Lord-ess of the Caribbean} 21:13, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

According the block log, 31 hours. Cheers. lifebaka++ 00:17, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Possible re-incarnation of Sceptre

Just come across this vandalism to Kmweber (talk · contribs)'s userpage. Looking at the account contributions, the strikes me out immediately as Sceptre (talk · contribs) (due to his past with Kmweber) under a new account. Although it's blocked indefinitely, this may need further looking into. Kmweber's page history recently shows that the Sceptre IP is the only person that has vandalised it. This also makes me think that it is Sceptre under the Petulant little shit (talk · contribs) name. Although Sceptre has "declared" he is retired, it may be worth checking this out, even though the "Petulant little shit" account is blocked indef. Thoughts? D.M.N. (talk) 21:11, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Most likely an imposter. Majorly ^talk 21:22, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Given that both Petulant little shit's and Sceptre's IPs have triggered autoblocks in the same 10 minute period, they probably are not on the same IP, and not the same person. MBisanz ^talk 21:28, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

OK. Just double-checking in case Sceptre had created a new account. D.M.N. (talk) 21:31, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I was asked in IRC to check... It is  Unlikely these are related. ++Lar: t/c 21:40, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• Yeah, not unless he grew wings and flew 3000 miles since his last edit. Thatcher 21:46, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Its not like Sceptre is the only person who dislikes Kmweber... Mr.Z-man 22:11, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

One of the internet connections I use living in California routine resolves to New Jersey when using geolocating packages. So anything is possible. That said, I have no reason to believe Sceptre is active in this case. Dragons flight (talk) 01:26, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Good chance that 78.105.113.152, vandalizing Weber before Petulant_little_shit, is banned User:Fredrick day, even though that isn't his primary IP range (87.112-87.115); he uses neighborhood wireless routers, and other means of alternate access, and this could be in his neighborhood. He's currently vandalizing from the 87.112-87.115 range; vandalizing Kmweber has been common for him, and, as I recall, Fredrick day has had an interest in Dr. Who, hence the IP's edit to The Trial of a Time Lord. --Abd (talk) 02:37, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Killer Kowalski's death

Legendary wrestler Walter "Killer" Kowalski has died earlier today. I'm having a hard time finding references and sources. Can someone help me? Noble12345 (talk) 21:14, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

There's sources of his death on the page. Am I missing soemthing? D.M.N. (talk) 21:17, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Not sure this is the best place for your question but have you tried Google News? I found this just now... All the best. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:18, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

User:Nathan Jay Williams

Okay, I asked what to do with a situation where User:Nathan Williams redirected his user page and talk page to User:Nathan Jay Williams. Whoever responded told me to ask them what they wanted (name change, or whatever). Now, it has been 8 days since I asked and he hasn't responded. SO, I believe his pages should at least be moved back to their proper places. Thanks. Cavenba (talk • contribs) 01:36, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I have moved the user page back, and merged the histories of the 2 talk pages at the correct location. Kevin (talk) 07:58, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Question Mark (?) and the Mysterians

Not of earth-shattering importance, probably, but it comes up as a redirect page, so it should probably be tagged for {{WikiProject Redirect}}. I tried, & couldn't, thanks to a blacklist.... TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 08:26, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Bongwarrior screwed up again

Resolved

 – Article resorted minus vandalised revision --Chris 11:14, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Can someone try their luck at restoring Newcastle Grammar School please? I mistakenly thought it was a new article and deleted it as nonsense, but it was just a vandalized version that I saw (sorry, tired eyes). I'm getting a "database query syntax error" when I try to restore. Thanks. --Bongwarrior (talk) 09:44, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Can't seem to do it either, I'll bug a dev --Chris 09:49, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

That message has been coming up for a few actions today, I think it is a server capacity problem as I was able to restore the last edit only (and delete it again) but it fails when I try to restore the entire article. LessHeard vanU (talk) 10:20, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Tim has fixed it --Chris 11:14, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Range Blocks and Col. Damage

Earlier after dealing a ticket I cited on AN/I a range block of 90.200.0.0/16. Now I understand short term (2 weeks or less) range blocks to deter vandals and the such. However, after having the availability of a list of active range blocks (such is available via the logs, this information is publically available) I have a couple of concerns with long term range blocks:

I would present the following to a candid community, in that;

• Large range blocks with long expiry would deny editors the chance to edit anon, as is our goal to permit.
• Revert, block, ignore works just as well as large range blocks, but without the denial of editing.
• The range blocks are geographically biased (unintentionally) and could threaten geographical representation.

Could we review our range blocks and consider altering them, or unblocking them? Also what are the thoughts of putting some guidelines into our blocking policy? Very best, NonvocalScream (talk) 13:48, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I have proposed a solution of allowing individual articles to be protected against ranges instead of just semi/full/none. With that in place, we could have protected a handful of articles against 4.129.64.0/21 and 4.154.0.0/21, instead of blocking those two ranges for months. It would greatly reduce collateral damage if we were able to do that. Others have proposed similar solutions which differed in details, but most of them would be better than what we have to work with today. I think the current state of affairs is about the best we can do with the tools at hand.Kww (talk) 13:58, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Except that then, the 4.129.64.0/21 vandal can go on vandalizing other pages. I believe that the current system of page semi-protection + IP range protection probably can't reasonably be improved to prevent vandals from attacking specific articles. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 15:15, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Many of these long-term range blocks are designed to prevent socking. The 4.12.64.0/21 block is against Soccermeko, who obsessively edits articles about Kiki Shearer and Nicole Wray. Block the articles dealing with them against his IP ranges, and the problem goes away. I'm aware of similar ranges that are for similar socks: a seeming compulsion to edit a group of articles. No reason to block everyone in their dial-up pool from editing any articles if all you really need to protect is five or six articles.Kww (talk) 01:07, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Then someone creates a new article about the subject, and he vandalizes that. Alternatively, he defines "articles about Kiki Shearer and Nicole Wray" more broadly than you, and you don't block him from his pages. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:33, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Image whitelist request

Would someone like to volunteer to whitelist Image:Anus of a model by David Shankbone.jpg,Image:Anus 2.jpg, and (for good measure) Image:Anus m.jpg for use in the article Human anus? Recently the human-related content was moved from the old location Anus to the new one. Thanks, siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 13:52, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

This does need to be done. Any takers? All you need to do is adjust the corresponding entries at MediaWiki:Bad_image_list. It will only take a minute or two. Thanks, siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 17:15, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

✓ Done – iridescent 17:36, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Closing AFD's about foreign topics

I just happened to stumble across Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bambina (Idoli song). It received only !two votes, both were generic ("fails WP:MUSIC") as was the nomination. Wizardman closed is as delete and deleted the article. I realize that this was well within the mainstream, so this isn't a comment on Wizardman.

The problem here is that this is one of the more important singles by one of the most important ex-Yugoslav bands, released at a time when releasing a single was not easy, and not just any band got to do it. The single's notability in its context far surpasses that of tens of thousands of singles from English-speaking countries that we would not delete. Of course, it's hard to expect !voters and closing admins who are not at least from the general area to know this (though reading Idoli might have helped).

I would therefore suggest that in cases like this, when (a) the article is about a verifiably existing thing/person/phenomenon, (b) the thing/person/phenomenon is from a small country/culture and is therefore not likely to be known/understood in depth by the average editor, and (c) there is no explicit reasoning on why the particular topic is non-notable (as opposed to generic !votes), it would be more appropriate to at least re-list, if not outright keep, the article. Zocky | picture popups 14:04, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

While it is true foreign articles should not be treated as "less" than those from the English-speaking, Western world, they should also not be treated as "more". Significant coverage from independent and reliable sources is still a requirement, citing and using such coverage is still the most bulletproof way to prevent deletion. Any admin can look at "Could anyone find sufficient reliable sourcing for this subject or not?" Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 14:13, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

This article was one in a series, and is now the only red link among the singles in the discography section at Idoli. We now have the ridiculous situation where we have the B-side of this single as an article, but not the A-side. It would have been appropriate either to delete or merge the whole series, or to keep them all. Yet neither the nominator, nor the !voters, nor the closing admin noticed this.

The default at AFD is to keep the articles, and this case is a good illustration why. The fact that it's about a foreign topic just increases the likelyhood that an article will be deleted in error. If an article is missing appropriate sources, but nobody has made an argument that the particular topic does not need an article, the appropriate action is to tag the article as missing sources, not to delete it. Zocky | picture popups 14:29, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Two people are hardly a quorum. In this case my advice is to undelete it, add sources, and move on. Also you can keep a closer eye on AFD. Preventing errors is not interpreted as hostilely as correcting them. Regards. — CharlotteWebb 15:29, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment Charlotte. BTW, I know you don't mean it in a bad way, but "move on" sounds condescending even to me, let alone a random newby/excitable person we often see around here. It's what police say when they want to get rid of annoying onlookers, and what Tony Blair had the habit of saying all the time. None of those gives me pleasant associations ;) Zocky | picture popups 20:26, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Autoblocks

I asked this on WP:VPT with no success so I'll try again here. Would it be possible to make a replacement for the old, non-working autoblock finder or is this something which can't be done? Any volunteers? ;) Thanks, GDonato (talk) 14:26, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Dutch administrators, bureaucrats and editors handling of D.A. Borgdorff = User:86.83.155.44

• Because of no solution but "Catch 22", I'd repeat fyi attention from AN/I 464:

OK, this is a multi wiki case, and I am getting increasingly annoyed about it. The current part is here, I'll leave the other wikis to themselves (but mention them here to show similarities).

User:86.83.155.44 is an IP mainly/only used by (according to the signing etc.) D.A. Borgdorff. DAB came into problems on the Dutch wikipedia for some conflict of interest edits (don't know the case extensively, I am not a regular on nl.wikipedia, though I am Dutch), and apparently there have been some cases about that. I do see that the user indeed has that tendency of linking to own work/books, but if the reference is OK, and the editor is not only adding that, then it merits discussion, not plain blanking of such edits. I'd like to note at this point that conflict of interest edits here are discouraged, but not forbidden. Still, a couple of editors, as far as I can see all originating from the Dutch wikipedia (there are a few edits from 'locals', but not many), have followed this IP around many wikipedia, erasing his contributions (which are quite often indeed involving himself)

I have blocked and unblocked user:86.83.155.44 twice, in both cases assuming good faith on the user, hoping that he would improve his edits (and I think he is, he seems to stay away from the conflicts that resulted in the blocks). I did however quite strongly warn, also after the unblocks.

For as far as I can see, the involved Dutch editors are:

• User:MoiraMoira (admin, bureaucrat on nl)
• User:Erik Baas (editor on nl)
• User:Robotje (admin on nl)
• User:Wammes Waggel (editor on nl)

(there may be more)

I have now given user talk:MoiraMoira a {{uw-vandalism4im}} (yes, I know about not templating regulars), for twice reverting user:86.83.155.44 on user talk:86.83.155.44:

• diff - summary: "please do not remove text of some one else on this talk page" - note that all what was removed was in own comments, and the rest was moved.
• user:86.83.155.44 reverted the edit, and starts discussing on user talk:MoiraMoira.
• diff - redoing revert of the edits; summary: "please do respect other people's contributions on this talk page and be so polite to answer questions asked before deleting them which is rather unpolite" - similar as above, nothing was deleted from others, only moved, and deletions only in own comments.

Other interesting diffs:

• diff - Erik Baas removing a non existing redlink in comments made by user:86.83.155.44 (reverted by me, Erik Baas warned about this)
• diff (to Tram) and diff (to List of town tramway systems), both without explanation. The removed reference on Tram were there for over 10 months, and 400 edits, and does seem to assert the statement (I have now converted into a more conventional reference). 86.83.155.44 reverted the removal, and was then re-reverted by Erik Baas (both 2 times). Information does not have to stay because it is there for a long time, but this unexplained blanking of a probably good reference is strange.

On many other wikis the user is blocked for various times. I saw this yesterday on it.wikipedia, where this user is blocked for a year after a handful of edits to his talkpage (last revert, diff by MoiraMoira: "Linkspam removed again - user does not contribute to wikipedia, only misuses talkpages for nonsense everywhere" and only to his talkpage since the last block finished!). Note, the 'linkspam' are links to some images in the top of his user talk page. I don't know about the Italian rules, but this seems quite strange to me (example contribution, so the user does contribute). Also, linkspam for me is something that is mainly visible in mainspace, or linked to that, and may be a very promoting userpage, but a talkpage which has a sentence (which may be for own convenience or whatever reason) does not need, IMHO, such drastic action. And I can't see that the self-promotion is quite obvious, but I am not happy that Dutch editors, administrators and bureaucrats are doing this, in this way, here.

If looking around on other wikis, the same Dutch users are involved in many of 'discussion' and blocks. To me this seems harassing/stalking, but I'd like some other comments before I go on. Maybe I am missing something crucial here. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:56, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I removed references he included to his book in five other articles 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 in July (together with Tram, this makes at least six articles where he included this reference, which seems a bit much for a local, self-published book (published by a club of tram enthusiasts that is). Afterwards, an edit war occurred between the IP doctor and a few Dutch editors (I was not involved in the edit war or the following blocking). I have today removed the reference to his own work again from Tram (while doing some other much needed cleanup on this poor article), together with the example that was referenced by this book. It added no value to the article at all.

As for the rest of this case: yes, Borgdorff is stalked by Dutch editors, which is bad. But on the other hand, Borgdorff has been IMO a nuisance on many Wikipedias, being mainly a dual purpose account, adding references to his own work and to a fringe scientist, while otherwise mainly being busy making tons of extremely small edits to his signature. It would be better for the English Wikipedia if both sides (Borgdorff and the listed Dutch editors) took there efforts elsewhere. Spamming Wikipedia articles with your own work is a bad idea, and following editors around to other Wikipedia versions isn't much better. Fram (talk) 15:23, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The behavior of the tram editor is so blatant, and the spam has continued for such a long time, that a 3-month block for 86.83.155.44 (talk · contribs) would be well-justified. (Beetstra's previous talk with this editor seems to have made no impression at all). If this were a registered account and not an IP I think an indef block would be correct. EdJohnston (talk) 15:33, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I am (not hard) disputing that it does not add .. there now is not a reference for the '150 trams', which is in the book .. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:26, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I have put back the reference that was removed again, by another Dutch user. The book nicely illustrates the fact that trams continue to thrive in the Netherlands, while diminishing elsewhere. Guido den Broeder (talk, visit) 21:30, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, does it? It is not only about the GTL8 vehicle, , but suddenly it is about trams in Belgium and the Netherlands in general? And Dirk, there was no longer a reference for the "150 trams" needed, since the whole sentence was removed as excessive detail (we are talking about the general article about trams in the world, with the history and so on: why was this example of one type in one city so important?[31]). This reference was inserted as self promotion and reinserted as a friendly gesture, not because it is in anyway needed in the article. And Guido, I'm Belgian, not DutchFram (talk) 07:17, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

In so far that the remit of en-WP admins is only to the English language Wikipedia, what is it that you are requesting here? From what I can see, there needs only for some advice to those that are removing ip account talkpage comments by that editor from "their" talkpage that this is not permitted on en-WP unless the content violates en-WP policy. You can do this yourself (although you may wish to link to this discussion when you do). Only if this advice is ignored is there a need for admins to be involved. I would further comment that there is nothing that any editor can do here regarding actions on another Wiki, at least not as an en-WP account. LessHeard vanU (talk) 15:35, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Since my name suddenly appears here and my actions are judged and condemned by one of you guys I hope you will take the time to read this conversation here on my talk page archive which might give you more insight in the matter. I wish you all good luck in dealing with this troublesome Dutch person. Be assured I'll leave it up to you all to act wisely especially after what happened today on my talk page. Kind regards and good luck with wikipedia-en since this contribution is my final one here. MoiraMoira (talk) 15:59, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

On my talk page Beetstra wrote about dAb's self references "so there is apparently not much personal gain in that than a 'whoohoo, my name is in Wikipedia'. " If that's true, to me that doesn't mean it is OK to make those edits wiki-wide on a massive scale. Most of the self references dAb makes in the Wikipedia's I can only logically explain with a 'whoohoo, my name is in Wikipedia' attitude of the person who puts the self reference there. Mentioning a French book by Vallée in combination with dAb's translation into the Dutch language in an article doesn't make sense to me in a non-Dutch Wikipedia. If the Dutch translation is also not available to the public like in any library (on the Dutch Wikipedia dAb confessed no library he knows of has his translation) or from a book shop because that translation was only printed in about 30 copies in a proof-run in 1973, then mentioning it in the Dutch Wikipedia wouldn't even make sense. Especially since the French book is not even on topic in the article where he mentioned the book. Frequently re-inserting those self references, often while engaging in editwars, spread over some 15 language versions of Wikipedia with also local wikipedians reverting his self references that usually only stops after either his account is blocked or the article is semi-protected proofs to me he is extremely eager to have that self reference in those articles. He doesn't do that to help the readers of say the Japanese or the Bulgarian article because the book cannot be accessed by those readers and those readers are extremely unlikely to be able to understand a text in Dutch about a difficult scientific subject. That free translation cannot serve as a reference in the articles because it is a translation so nothing new will be in the book that's not in the French original and by the way, he always 'forgot' to mention the translation was into Dutch and not in the local language of the Wikipedia he added the self reference. He cannot do it to be able to sell more of those books so what other explanation can be thought of then a 'whoohoo, my name is in Wikipedia' attitude? Fram wrote above that he made self references in 6 articles, well so far I have even found 8 articles on the English Wikipedia (and maybe there are even more) in which he added those self references. I don't see why Dutch users who notice dAb is active with massive self reference spamming on so many language versions of Wikipedia cannot revert that on other Wikipedia's than the Dutch Wikipedia. In the past when I found spamming links in the Dutch Wikipedia and noticed they also occurred in other Wikipedia's, I also often removed those links in other Wikipedia's. If dAb wants to abuse all those language versions of Wikipedia for self promotion, why should I refrain from reverting those edits elsewhere? Especially if he refuses to answer questions on the talk pages of those Wikipedia's why the references were relevant. After months I still wait for his answer on e.g. the Japanese and Spanish Wikipedia. So yes, I could have asked him similar questions on talk pages on the English Wikipedia before removing his self references, but I guess he wouldn't have answered here either. - Robotje (talk) 16:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Re EdJohnston, I think I did make an impression, he has not performed similar edits since my second unblock (he even undid some things on his talkpage after I mentioned something about it on my talkpage). And the self promotion is there, yes, but it was introduced with information, WP:COI does not forbid such edits! We can question if the reference does add or is correct, or if there are better ones, but it does not have to be just removed because he added it (we've been through enough of such cases on WT:WPSPAM, user adding their own external links which were deemed helpful, and hence should not be removed).

Therefor, I feel that I was doing quite well trying to get the edits in line, and he did not do it after the second block. But the edits on his talkpage by the Dutch editors (with twice, IMHO, a false edit summary) does CERTAINLY not help the situation, it only aggravates it further. Therefor, I feel that edits like performed by user:Robotje, user:Erik Baas, user:MoiraMoira (in that way) did not have to be performed, leave the user, and indeed react when the situation gets back to mainspace. There is now for as far as I can see no reason to block him here, he is not performing any questionable edits in a content namespace. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:21, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I am entirely in agreement with Dirk Beetstra. This is a stalking mob, although I'm inclined to make an exception for Wammes Waggel whose edits seem sincere and not coordinated with those of the others. There are two things I believe should be taken into account here. First, 86.83.155.44 is someone fairly unfamiliar with internet customs who was unaware of relevant guidelines. He is a good-faith user, a gentleman, with some interesting information to share, but not sure of where to add it. All he needed was some friendly advice and guidance, of which these Dutch users offered none. He has shown willingness to learn and stayed remarkably polite during all the harassment. Second, users Robotje and MoiraMoira have a different opinion about self-references. They, and some other Dutch users with them, believe - as they have openly stated many times - that self-referencing is by definition self-promotion, that this is about the gravest possible offense on Wikipedia, and that anyone who stoops so low is giving a free pass to get hunted down and chased off the planet. Since earlier this year, they have expanded their terrain to harass such users not only on nl:Wikipedia, where they are part of the ruling incrowd and have absolute power, but also on other Wikipedia projects. Robotje has even gone so far as to falsely accuse 86.83.155.44 of copyright violation on es:Wikipedia, and repeatedly deleted 86.83.155.44's citation of the text on Dutch national monument, which belongs to the public domain. MoiraMoira repeatedly brings up her status as a nl:admin to give undue weight to her side of the argument. Together with Erik Baas, who is not part of the nl:incrowd but is played as a puppet, they have violated WP:3RR and similar rules many times, disregarding all warnings. Guido den Broeder (talk, visit) 18:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello Guido, in the text above you make several statements about me that are nonsense and/or very incomplete statements as you did multiple times in the past. For example, can you provide me with links where I was violating WP:3RR and similar rules?

A few months age you wrote here my comment was false and for the same edit you gave me a warning on my talk page. I asked you there to specify what was false. You never even attempted to prove anything was false but about a week later you wrote on my talk page immediately under my question "Your edits appeared to constitute vandalism and have been reverted." Well, you did revert it a recent edit of mine, and you even reverted it 4 times within a few hours timespan since I was not the only wikipedian who removed your self reference in an article and as a result you were blocked (see [32]). An independent admin who looked at your unblock request wrote "The edits you were reverting were not vandalism. Period." [33] So you had better given yourself a warning.

Guido himself explained to dAb about the self references on the Spanish Wikipedia:

"A translation of a reference can only be relevant if it helps the reader. So, a translation of a French text into Dutch would typically only be of interest on nl:Wikipedia, but not on es:Wikipedia, while a translation of a Chinese text into English could be worth mentioning here." [34]

So, Guido agrees making a self reference about a translation in Dutch on the Spanish Wikipedia doesn't help the readers. Why then do you think did dAb re-inserted so many times that self reference on the Spanish and so many other non-Dutch Wikipedia's; some kind of self promotion seems to be the first answer that comes up. I never wrote a self reference is automatically self promotion; but in this case it is pretty obvious. You also wrote about me and others in the above edit ".. as they have openly stated many times - that self-referencing is by definition self-promotion ..". Please give me a few links or even one link where I openly stated what you claim I have stated.

Besides, once again I ask you, please specify what was false, and please don't forget to also provide me with links where I was violating WP:3RR and similar rules. - Robotje (talk) 19:15, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay, a comment from the victim (dAb): that's me. Though very ample explanation in Dutch and English too, about contents etc. of said books, mr. Robotje, being no expert, is neither able to read nor understand the European and probably World première of this LRV series, researched from the late sixties as power electronics to the present state of the art. The same could be remarked of said reference to the works of the Hon. Prof. R.L. Vallée ing.ESE. I'm respecting the rather negative comments of Fram and EdJohnston either, though not being known as experts too, (unlike e.g. user:Slambo c.s.) from which I'm not being impressed at all, 'cause they are rather off the hooks with their more too personal views, and I don't like being talked over not scientifically enough. So: let it be ... remarkable too. Regards D.A. Borgdorff, retired Rail- and Tramway PE 86.83.155.44 (talk) 21:35, 12 August 2008 (UTC) → PS: for instance on mentioned Japanese and Spanish wikipedias, the answers were given some times ago ... FYI ... one could research it even out.

Well, let's start by looking at the Japanese Wikipedia. On March 4, 2008 I asked dAb 3 specific questions on this talk page about the relevance of that French book and his Dutch translation in relation to the Japanese article. The only reply I got from him on that Wikipedia was on March 10 when he wrote: "Dear Robotje, for the moment because of illness i'll have no problems with it anymore everymore nomore or more whatevermore. Though High Esteem Yours Faithfully &c. - D.A. borgdorff (with small B) by: 86.83.155.44 2008年3月10日 (月) 15:53 (UTC)" [35] So dAb never gave the answers on the Japanese Wikipedia. On this Spanish talk page I asked him twice "Well, then first explain why you so often mentioned your translation into the Dutch language with your name as translator on the Spanish article if your translation itself is not even publicly accessible in The Netherlands." and the reply from dAb in connection with my questions was: ".. This discussion has no fundamental scientific interactions anymore, and lacks judgement on peer review. The discussion partners have no qualification in the Quantumfield Theories at all. Regards: COITI D.A. Borgdorff .." [36] So also that question was never answered too. On the Spanish talk page dAb's attitude was a kind of out of all the people in this discussion I'm the expert so I don't need to explain why mentioning my translation in Dutch of a French book on non-Dutch Wikipedia's is relevant; not even if the book is not publicly accessible. That same attitude is also very noticeable in the reply above. You don't need to be a rocket scientist or an expert in the topic of an article to understand that mentioning a Dutch translation of a French book that cannot be seen in any library in the world is not relevant in any Wikipedia especially not the non-Dutch Wikipedia's. - Robotje (talk) 05:05, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

AFAIK, he did not add the translation after this was explained to him. Anyway, this is in no way an excuse for your behaviour, which is the topic of this discussion. Guido den Broeder (talk, visit) 06:44, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

By the way, Robotje, please stop vandalizing articles about Dutch people that happen to be Wikipedians as you did on es:Wikipedia.[37] Guido den Broeder (talk, visit) 07:20, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello Guido. Regarding dAb stopping making references to his translation, as I explained above, on March 4 I already asked him on the Japanese Wikipedia several questions like why should the existence of a Dutch translation be relevant to the readers of a Japanese article. His reply didn't contain any any answer. I can easily find 50+ edits and maybe even 100+ edits where he wiki-wide re-inserted references to that translation in non-Dutch Wikipedia's after he refused to answer that question. Also on the Spanish Wikipedia he refused to answer similar questions about a self reference his was constantly re-inserting until the Spanish article was protected. On most of the Wikipedia's where he tried to get that self reference in an article that article is (semi-)protected and/or he is blocked. That effectively stopped him from trying again.

About the supposed vandalism. The article about Tjako was 'deleted' (only local admins could see it) on zea-wiki by a local admin on July 21 and restored yesterday as can be seen here in the logbook. So when I removed that interwiki on the es-wiki the article on the zea-wiki was not already removed. This is just another case where Guido blames others for vandalism although there is no vandalism at all. Oh, and by the way, I posted some requests for you earlier today on this page. For example you wrote " .. [Robotje and others] have openly stated many times - that self-referencing is by definition self-promotion ..". I'm still waiting for link because I'm sure I never stated something like that. - Robotje (talk) 09:31, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, your friend Troefkaart removed the article.[38] He is another Dutch user belonging to the same group. A very suspicious one-two. Guido den Broeder (talk, visit) 10:16, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I was mentioned above, so I'll mention here that I've added a note with diffs to the article's talk page on my own minimal involvement in this dispute. I have not read the reference so I cannot make any statements as to its relevance to the article content. Slambo (Speak) 10:55, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I thought to stating it very clear: I don't like to be threatened anymore by anyone, not even by somebody like Fram, Robotje, Johnston or whoever may appear to further harassing me with ridicule questions inquisitioning me too. I already was complaining about this treatments to the board of WMF, and I will persist to formalize if hunting as haunting, or inquisitions persists as well. It's a shame to blame my name as e.g. in Italia, Japan, Germany, Russia, Turkey, Greece, Spain, Sweden ... and elsewhere on other Wikipedias to persecution and prosecution people like me. I'm only a innocent sheep, not like those hunters from the more lower-lands. - I'll mostly remain with utmost regards being faithfully yours: D.A. Borgdorff or dAb = 86.83.155.44 (talk) 10:06, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

@ the Dutch editors here (first part bit more specific in answer to some comments from User:Robotje). You state above that you clean cross-wiki when editors are spamming/pushing cross wiki. I know that, I see that around the wikis that I am active on (in my xwiki work and functions), I do encourage that, and I am happy that you help with that. I included your edits above because you did it here IMHO without too much research (though the case was obvious, but it was depriving a sentence from its reference (though unclear it was the reference for the sentence), you could have removed the whole sentence, and said in the edit summary that you did). And it was the first edit that started another edit war with the user. In this case I am inclined to be on the side of DAB, and I explained that (there were 400 edits to the page, and it stood over 10 months without discussion, at least discussion or explanation was at hand there).

The removal resulted in another edit war with DAB, who is there also to blame, and he was blocked for those actions, and I believe that I have given him some strong warnings about that (and seen his edits afterwards, I believe he understands). He should not revert that himself but he should bring it to appropriate venues to discuss (and it is for me not an argument that he does not do that on other wikis either, he should here, and if DAB here fails to do so, then that at least deserves a (final) warning, and maybe blocking, as DAB now should understand that he should stay away from any form of self promotional editing, if the data is appropriate, then others should decide, he can start those discussions). It is this edit warring that gets him blocked on other wikis as well (though lately ..).

But then these three edits:

• diff by Erik Baas
• diff - by MoiraMoira
• diff - by MoiraMoira

(and there are very similar things on other wikis, which tainted my feelings about this, but if I only look at these three edits:) These three edits are highly inappropriate, and are IMHO talk page vandalism (editing others peoples comments), and do not serve any function but to aggravate/harrass the user in question, the edits by DAB were reverted, but no message that the edit was reverted was left on the talkpage (e.g. that it is frowned upon that you delete comments from others; still it gives the orange banner), and as such resulted in an edit war on the talkpage. Especially from an admin/arbitrator on the Dutch wikipedia I expect a higher level of concerning the edits of other people (and looking at it more thoroughly what actually was reverted!), the two edit summaries there are untrue, and the user already asked not to do that after the first one. I am sorry, but I'm not willing to withdraw that {{uw-vandalism4im}} for that, and I find it also troubling that MoiraMoira, as an arbitrator, decides to leave in stead of discussing ... they thinks not too good about me (if they insist that I had to be friendlier to him/her, if I see the edits of DAB here, then here no good faith and friendlyness were applied to DAB either, what happens on other wikis does not concern us here), but this does not make me happy either.

You (the Dutch editors involved) did indeed not have to bring your cross-wiki cleaning to the higher boards here, though I would have appreciated that you did after the editor persisted, instead of edit warring, and starting more edit warring. That edit warring resulted in a block for DAB, because he was alone in doing so. But I hope that the group of Dutch editors realise that were removing were, as a group, also edit warring at that point, exceeding as a group 3RR. I do find that not acceptable here. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:11, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I am Dutch (that is I have the passsport numbered NF4636861, given to Hendrik Barend Gerhard Warmelink, all my ancestors were "Dutch", at least as far back as there was something like the Netherlands, the kingdom of Holland or the Batavian Republic, the "liberation" by "allied" forces destroyed earlier records), but I strongly oppose to be captured by the the phrase "Dutch editors" if that phrase is used to describe the vandals who control nl.wikipedia.org. D.A. Borgdorff happens to defend some controversial views (which I don't share, BTW), but opposing those views should be done by giving sources (or, lacking that, somewhat coherent arguments stating why the opposition should give sources for alleged "common knowledge"). Slander (D.A. Borgdorff is not anonymous), vandalism (reverting edits which remove spelling errors) and "flashy badges" are not coherent arguments. Erik Warmelink (talk) 21:21, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

And, it isn't only "flashy" badges: http://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Speciaal:Logboeken&type=block&page=Gebruiker%3AErikWarmelink. Erik Warmelink (talk) 01:17, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

• More comments are welcome, for since a month I'm not really able to further significantly contribute anymore without my rehabilitation, solving the -- imho -- wrongly executed deleting by mr. Fram. Most Obligated, I am faithfully Yours D.A. Borgdorff or dAb by 86.83.155.44 (talk) 15:46, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

The hunt has started again, now into the direction of deleting the article of mr. Tjako van Schie: Dutch pianist, composer and professor at AHK: conservatory of Amsterdam, by user:MoiraMoira mentioned, and newly user:Jorrit-H, who absurdly placed the WP:AfD-template, .. wherein the still famous pianist is falsly accused too, in the same way as was done to me: D.A. Borgdorff 86.83.155.44 (talk) 19:35, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Sarah Palin

I tried to fix a broken reference on this article, but some admin has protected both the article and its talk page. Protect the article, fine, but preventing logged out users from even commenting on the talk page is pathetic. Please fix reference 57. It currently reads "Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named HiredHelp". 72.147.76.31 (talk) 15:59, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Sarah_Palin#Very_brief_Sprotection and look at the talk history. There are a frightening number of IP BLP vios going nuts there, so a decision was made to protect the page. rootology (C)(T) 16:15, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Three cheers for censorship! If you're going to prevent the vast majority of editors of this project from editing both the article and its talk page, the least you can do is create a talk page where logged out users can comment. 72.147.76.31 (talk) 16:18, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

This is an unusual situation. The talk page was being hammered with IP libel spam. If you're just logged out, can't you just log in? Wellspring (talk) 16:26, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

No wai, The Man will get his credit card number and put a microchip in his brain if he does!!!11one JuJube (talk) 19:58, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Have no fear, the very defenders of free speech have made their feelings quite clear on my talkpage and userpage. I have given their rights due consideration. LessHeard vanU (talk) 16:59, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Sarah_Palin#Blocks. User:John Reaves is threatening to block people who remove the pregnancy information. This should be resolved now. Corvus cornix_talk 21:52, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Don't put words in my mouth please. The blocks threat was in regard to the removing of one non-contentious section that beginning to be disruptive. John Reaves 21:59, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

True or false?

[39]

It's not listed on the list of sensitive IP addresses. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 21:18, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

False (it's Qatar & Singapore that have the "single IP address" issue). – iridescent 21:22, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

There is another IP address that is all of the UAE. Maybe this is a new one now? --mboverload@ 21:24, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

The UAE doesn't have a huge amount of IP addresses, but it definitely doesn't have just one. (I seem to recall 768 /24s being quoted somewhere, but I can't find it now). Black Kite 00:15, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Lilplayboii

Is this kind of stuff allowed? Cheers, sicaruma (talk) 21:50, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd say yes, since it's not actually advertising anything (the bluelinks are all false-positives, and the company info is for Hot Topic), provided at some point they move on to real articles. It's no more disruptive than (for example) this. – iridescent 22:09, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to remove the category, though.--MrFish^{Go Fish} 22:29, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Question

At Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion/2008 August 30, I listed Image:Imslayout.PNG for deletion. It was recommended by somebody, but it's not deleted. Can somebody delete this thing? Noble12345 (talk) 22:01, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Unless it meets one of the criteria for speedy deletion, or doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of surviving, these discussions are designed to get broad consensus over a period of at least 5 days. Since you only listed the image a day or two ago (and listed it twice, I might add, for the benefit of the closing admin) and I don't see it falling into either of those categories, it's still got some time to go. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 23:26, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

NawlinWiki (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) may be temporarily inactive

Hi. I noticed that this admin, who is from New Orleans, stopped editing at 12:15 UTC Saturday; this coincides approximately with the announcement of mandatory evacuation of New Orleans; this is just to notify editors that the admin might not respond to queries at the current time. This is admin-related and should probably be left on AN for informational purposes; this is not a general public service announcement regarding Hurricane Gustav. Although likely currently temporarily inactive, I don't think this warrants a list onto inactive admins list unless you feel otherwise because this is most probably only for the time being. Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 22:30, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:AIV

The AIV Helper Bots are not working properly. I submitted two IPs, and both were supposedly blocked by User:Spellcast. However, Spellcast didn't block (checked contribs), nor is there a block template on the pages. Also saw this happened to another report filed by another user. I suggest the bots be shut down. It is multiple bots, 3,5 and 7.--LAAFan 02:13, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure? You re-reported 76.116.153.29 at 02:06UTC and the block log shows the block at 01:53UTC. Kevin (talk) 02:38, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

That's weird. When I checked Spellcast's contributions, it said there were no edits on September 1st.--LAAFan 03:06, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Checked again, and I still don't see it. Is that an error on my account, or a system error?--LAAFan 03:07, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

"01:53, 1 September 2008 Spellcast (Talk | contribs) blocked "76.116.153.29 (Talk)" (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 31 hours ‎ (Vandalism)" - Fine for me! 86.29.236.115 (talk) 03:26, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

When an admin blocks someone, the block doesn't show up in the admin's contributions list. A block shows up in a user's logs. Try looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&user=Spellcast. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 05:11, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Possible spam site masquerading as us?

What on earth is www.wikipedka.org? Doesn't seem to be anything to do with us, except that it's a virtual copy of the entire database from (I think) December 28, 2007. Ideas? Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 02:44, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

That is a outdated doppelgänger, it may be used as some sort of experiment, or maybe even as a way to scam e-mail and passwords out of some users. But I don't think there's anything we can do, our content is "free". - Caribbean~H.Q. 04:35, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

It is not true that there is nothing we can do. Please see Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks and Wikipedia:GFDL Compliance. Thanks. Chick Bowen 05:03, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Ahem, "Wikipedia's license, the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) requires that any derivative of works from Wikipedia must be released under that same license" so there is nothing we can do as long as they copy the GDFL disclaimer, which they do. - Caribbean~H.Q. 05:46, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

warning template for Hurricane Gustav

During Hurricane Katrina, Wikipedia had this warning template on the top of the page

ATTENTION: Residents of areas affected by Hurricane Katrina are advised to seek advice and information from local authorities through television and radio. Information on Wikipedia may not be current or applicable to your area. Do not decide whether to leave your house, shelter, or vehicle based on Wikipedia information.

I placed one on the page for Hurricane Gustav but someone removed it. I think it should be there and want an admin's opinion on the issue. It may be against the rules but I think the rules should be allowed to be bent in an emergency situation. The page on Katrina had the warning up for days with no objections. One can see so in the edit history--Ted-m (talk) 03:22, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't the place for medical advice, and I think in the same vein we shouldn't serve as a PSA system. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 03:23, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I agree. But that's the whole point of the template. So what's the objection?Basil "Basil" Fawlty (talk) 03:27, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Then how come it was allowed during Katrina?--Ted-m (talk) 03:25, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Cause we made a mistake in allowing it. We have this... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer NonvocalScream (talk) 03:26, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

And this... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Risk_disclaimer NonvocalScream (talk) 03:27, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I think it should be up there. Privatemusings (talk) 03:27, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

(copied from User_talk:CrazyC83, who just reverted my re-addition of the box....)

On principle? How about the one that your opinion isn't the only one that matters Lar? I especially like your comment on my talk page. - auburnpilot talk 05:20, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I won't revert you, Crazy.. but I do think that it's worth having that box up there for a while. I certainly wouldn't worry about the Manual of Style in this context, because I think it's appropriate to bend the rules a little once in a while for strong reasons.... and our article is the second result in Google, so could well get quite a lot of traffic. Follow your conscience... :-) Privatemusings (talk) 03:34, 1 September 2008 (UTC)this has been mentioned on WP:AN too, so I'll copy this note across there as well....

:o) I think it should not be up there.  :) :) Speaking of which, we have an applicable content guideline... over here! :) NonvocalScream (talk) 03:37, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Um, no. I see it now:

ATTENTION: "Those contemplating Liposuction are advised to seek advice and information from true medical professionals through their websites and in-person visists. Information on Wikipedia may not be current or applicable to your procedure. Do not decide whether or not to get liposuction or other cosmetic surgeries based on Wikipedia Information".

Yeah, let's not. - auburnpilot talk 03:37, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

um.. Auburn... you're comparing a liposuction disclaimer with a note about a very dangerous Hurricane. I see a difference. Privatemusings (talk) 03:41, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

PrivateMusens, you are ignoring the content guideline I cited above. NonvocalScream (talk) 03:52, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Lipo is a very dangerous elective surgery (1 death per 5000?). [40][41] In all seriousness, it was just an example of what some may see as equally valid, but most will see as showing how equally unnecessary such warnings are. - auburnpilot talk 03:51, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree; part of the point of removing these things is that even at the most narrow scope there's a lot of articles that can be argued to be life or death.--Prosfilaes (talk) 10:43, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Or worse:

ATTENTION: "Those considering a conversion to Catholicism are advised to seek advice and information from a trusted spiritual adviser. Information on Wikipedia may not be current or applicable to your personal circumstances. Do not decide whether or not to change your religion based on Wikipedia Information".

-- Mr.Z-man 03:47, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec) How about a reminder of/reference to the disclaimers added to {{HurricaneWarning}}? WODUP 03:49, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

That still seems pretty ridiculous, I am sure that those affected are very aware of the storms in this date and age. - Caribbean~H.Q. 03:50, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Well I'll be... the risk disclaimer is already linked from {{HurricaneWarning}}. WODUP 04:23, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

And another...

ATTENTION: "Those considering a smoking cessation are advised to seek advice and information from a licensed practioner. Statistics on Wikipedia may not be current. Do not decide whether or not to change your smoking habits based on Wikipedia Information".

NonvocalScream (talk) 03:55, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Not weighing in on the opinion at hand, but I think the main concern is that a Goggle search string for "Hurricane Gustav" shows it's Wikipedia page as the 3rd result. It seems that users are just concerned that someone may stumble upon the article and may take the information as fact, which could be true or false. I have a feeling that the concerned users are just wanting to make sure that the poor souls who are having to leave their homes, their jobs, their lives, and who could possibly get injured or killed understand that we are not a reporting service and that our content should not be mistaken for advice. This is an extraordinary case that is not easily comparable to other issues, beliefs, or surgeries. I respectfully ask that editors stop making parody templates of the above template and please be respectful so as to not mock the original poster of the template. Obviously s/he had the best of intentions and the joking and comedy over a very serious matter is of very poor taste. Can we please get to the issue at hand and seriously discuss whether the template should be placed or not? Thank you. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 03:58, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Nobody is making light of "the poor souls who are having to leave their homes...". The template should not exist, and we've shown why through the use of examples. - auburnpilot talk 04:01, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

It is not parody. It is contrast and comparison. Additionally, I don't think anyone will decide evacuation on this article, the PSA/EAS is the responsibility of local city/state and federal authority. We are building an encyclopedia, let us not lose sight of that. NonvocalScream (talk) 04:02, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

In any case, why add it it now? Gustav already hit Cuba quite hard and no one seemed to care. Because its entering the United States? What about WP:UNDUE? Its clear that all the commotion its because of the actual state that its going to hit, because I don't see such a haste when they go over Florida. Some users are being influenced by memories of Hurricane Katrina's destructive pass. Sorry it that seems harsh, but I call a spade a spade. - Caribbean~H.Q. 04:05, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

(ecX3) Guys! All I am asking is that you just talk about it without being dicks and take the request made by the original poster as a serious request. Just be respectful of the situation. All I am asking is for comments like Caribbean's, which address the issue at hand without mocking the template. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 04:08, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't be a fucking douchebag. - auburnpilot talk 04:12, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Thiz iz seriouz buzinnezz. NonvocalScream (talk) 04:13, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

(e/c)And why only hurricanes? Do we do this for other events? Floods, tornadoes, blizzards, forest fires, riots, wars, chemical spills? At what point is a disaster significant enough to merit a warning? Mr.Z-man 04:14, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Off topic: Am I the only one irritated by edit conflicts? The software really should resolve this automagically. :) NonvocalScream (talk) 04:15, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec)In any case, I personally do not believe the template should belong. I understand the reasons for adding it, but making this a special case just doesn't make sense to me. I have a feeling that the template would just be an eye-sore, and it could be argued that this is just systematic bias. Why don't we add templates like this to every big event? I think that the encyclopedia is fine with just reporting the information in an encyclopedic manner, and we should just let our disclaimers do the disclaiming. And yes I am hating the conflicts (especially the one I just had with your comment ;) « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 04:17, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Why not use one of our other "current" templates, that already warn of such things? -- Ned Scott 04:17, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Because we have content guidelines that should generally be used. NonvocalScream (talk) 04:19, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be confused. The current templates are article issue templates, not disclaimer templates. -- Ned Scott 04:20, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh no, I am very clear. I am very clear that the pink boxes in this section of AN are in fact... disclaimers. Even if in the loosest form, they intend to warn and caveat. Don't call me confused please. NonvocalScream (talk) 04:27, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Just to be crystal clear, I think Ned is referring to the {{current}} templates. - auburnpilot talk 04:36, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Oops. NonvocalScream (talk) 04:37, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

ATTENTION: Editors of articles such as Hurricane Gustav are advised to seek advice and information from ArbCom before placing a template such as this. Information in Wikipedia: space may not be current or applicable to your ArbCom's current mood. Do not decide whether to place a template on the article based on Wikipedia policies.

--NE2 04:34, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

ATTENTION: There are hundreds of stupid arguments on AIV, and this is one of them.

Word. --mboverload@ 04:42, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

LOL. Particularly when this was the shape of {{HurricaneWarning}}, a template that survived TFD several times, until September 2007. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 04:44, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Since we're churning out silly disclaimer templates, how about one for Wikipedia:

ATTENTION: Those considering using Wikipedia are advised to seek advice and information from a trusted reliable source. Information on Wikipedia may not be current or applicable to your personal circumstances. Do not decide whether or not to use Wikipedia based on Wikipedia information.

It just had to be said. MER-C 10:27, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

prelude to edit war

You lot are debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, and thus miss the actual point. The style guide matters not, the general principle against disclaimers matters not. They're good ideas, but blanket prohibitions are bad. This is a situation where we may well be getting a large influx of readers who have no idea what WP really is about, and haven't the time or energy to go to the bottom of a page, and then realise they should read a general disclaimer to see if maybe there is something there they ought to read. IAR and add the damn warning template, and stop standing on formality about whether it's in accordance with general principles about not having disclaimers. Wikipedia does not exist in a vacuum. ++Lar: t/c 05:09, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

What he said. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:11, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

IAR only works when it improves the pedia. I would posit that it does not, so IAR is not applicable. NonvocalScream (talk) 05:15, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:IAR: "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." So, how does this help improve or maintain Wikipedia? It doesn't. We don't add such templates to articles, and this doesn't deserve an exception. - auburnpilot talk 05:15, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't be ridiculous. Don't stand on rules. And don't revert me for the sake of some principle. ++Lar: t/c 05:17, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

echo Lar. Privatemusings (talk) 05:18, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't particularly like the idea of it being there, either, but I think this is one of the cases where we can and should ignore the rules. People have the capacity for incredible stupidity. While I'm generally against the idea of keeping this like this around, not everyone is intelligent enough to realize that at any given point in time, Wikipedia could be hosting information that could result in some bad things if people were dumb enough to use it as a guide for emergency procedures, and that's really not something I want to think about. Remember that Wikipedia does exist in the real world. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 05:20, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I would posit that it does improve the pedia, by sending away the users who really need the info to the proper place, hence making us be a more reliable source of info. That said, please don't edit war over this. This is an extremely unstable article, and hence protections are inappropriate here; I'll be handing out blocks instead of simply elevating the protection level of the page. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:22, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

echo Lar. WP:IAR. Do what you feel is right. --Duk 05:27, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, Lar makes an excellent point above. Putting that up there, is simply the right thing to do. SQL^{Query me!} 07:15, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Just so we note, this box violates some of our principles, UNDUE and NPOV. Also, the guideline is a good guideline, this is not what we do (PSA/EAS). NonvocalScream (talk) 05:21, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

A guiding principle is "do no harm" and people relying on this article for decisions on evacuation can clearly lead to real harm. The disclaimer should be on the page. Apparently it is presently unprotected so that IP editors and newbies can have their way with it. An Ip editor changed the windspeed in the info box from the correct 115 mph to 390 mph, and it stayed that way for 26 minutes until I restored the correct information. The disclaimer should remain on the article. It is about a pending natural disaster affecting millions of people and tens of billions of dollars property damage, and if a vandal can introduce incorrect information, or if stale or incorrect information is in the article, it could lead people to take actions affecting their safety adversely. And the article should once again be semiprotected, because sufficient established and registered users are working on it that newbies and IP editors are not needed to keep it up to date while the storm is a few hours from landfall. Let the IPs back in when it is a historical matter in a day or so. Edison2 (talk) 05:25, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I have repeatedly stated on that talk page that protection would be extremely inappropriate in this case, but like I said above, I agree with the inclusion of the box. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:26, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Well I semi'ed it but feel free to undo that, I won't consider that any sort of wheeling. ++Lar: t/c 05:27, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

We have principles, we strive to be an accurate academic institution. This type of thing should no go into our articles, for neutrality, and other reasons as echoed by me above. Incidentally, why are anons not permitted to edit that article? Please undo the prot. NonvocalScream (talk) 05:29, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Question, how does this violate undue or npov? I don't see it but I might be missing something ;) RxS (talk) 05:38, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

As above. NonvocalScream (talk) 05:45, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

As I said, the only reason that all this argument is going on its because Gustav will hit New Orleans, which received a lot of destruction with Katrina. The decision to add it is directly influenced by the psychological effect of the horrible events seen three years ago. If that wasn't the case a template would have been added when it passed over Cuba, which by the way has also been heavily affected by tropical cyclones in the last years. - Caribbean~H.Q. 05:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you're right. And perhaps it should have been added earlier. Better late than never. (and I'll say that I don't necessarily have a lot of confidence in the governments of the area and their ability to have learned from Katrina, but I digress). ++Lar: t/c 06:06, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

So we if we didn't do something in the past (rightly or wrongly), we can't do it going forward? I know that's not what you're saying but that's the practical effect. Shouldn't we decide if something's a good idea and then work out the application afterwards? Anyway, it seems like a good application of IAR, and it's been worked out so it's all good. RxS (talk) 06:11, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

It's a good principle. But sometimes exceptions are needed. This is one of those times. The harm to the encyclopedia from having this disclaimer for a day or 3 is slight. The harm if someone got hurt and it got into the media is immense. No brainer. All principles have exceptions. That's the real world. Deal. ++Lar: t/c 05:31, 1 September 2008 (UTC) It's a good principle. But sometimes exceptions are needed. This is one of those times. The harm to the encyclopedia from having this disclaimer for a day or 3 is slight. The harm if someone got hurt and it got into the media is immense. No brainer. All principles have exceptions. That's the real world. Deal. ++Lar: t/c 05:31, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll compromise here. Lets make sure the template goes away after the disaster subsides. NonvocalScream (talk) 05:32, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Back when it used to be a proper template, that was always the case. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:33, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

NVS, 4 days from now (or whatever the right time is, it should be short, I agree) I'll baleet it out of there myself... This is a temporary thing only. ++Lar: t/c 05:37, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

The other option would be not to pretend to be posting "Current storm information" as if Wiki was providing the latest and greatest. Maybe Wiki shouldn't be a newspaper or public notice system? --Pat (talk) 05:45, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Which is not going to happen unless you intend to kill WP:WPTC and break my third law. Wikipedia has been lauded previously over our hurricane coverage, and even cited in government tropical cyclone coverage, so I don't think we're interested in changing that any time soon. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:48, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I myself find it interesting that there has only been interest in putting up this template as the storm hits the United States. I guess the human beings in Cuba, Haiti, Dominican, etc. just aren't as important? Perhaps the current hurricane template should have a link to the risk disclaimer, but putting up this red template only when a disaster happens to the USA looks very unpretty. —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 06:13, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, there is the perhaps relevant fact that Cuba, the Dominican Republic etc. are Spanish -speaking countries, Haiti is French-speaking, and we are the English Wikipedia. Ed Fitzgerald "unreachable by rational discourse"^{(t / c)} 06:52, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

There's no ulterior motives here. We used to have it last year; only this year it got edited/redirected to the bland current version (which was being used, by the way), {{current tropical cyclone}} due to the ambox change. As people remembered Katrina, they remembered how the red box, and asked for it back. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 06:16, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps {{current tropical cyclone}} should itself have a link to the risk disclaimer- maybe even highlighted in red. That way anybody in the path of a storm would be warned not to use Wikipedia for life-safety decisions and we wouldn't be in the position of having to judge when the people affected are "important" enough to warrant a red warning banner.—Elipongo (Talk contribs) 06:31, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

That box does include such a link, but we Americans are now in danger so it much be enormous and clearly visible. - auburnpilot talk 06:37, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

So... by that interpretation you're saying that we Americans are too dumb to heed the regular disclaimer used for the rest of the world? —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 06:43, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Not to be making light of things, but speaking as an American myself, I'd say better safe than sorry to your question. That can be read many ways, I know. rootology (C)(T) 06:46, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I do feel it's important for people to be reminded not to base life-safety decisions on our data, however things should be the same if the disaster hits Mexico or New Zealand as if it hits the United States. This red banner is a bad idea, the proper course is to make the standard current disaster template a bit clearer about our standard disclaimers. —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 06:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Actual disaster warning box

<-- Whats the actual "live disaster" template? I didn't know we had one? rootology (C)(T) 06:57, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

{{Current disaster}}—Elipongo (Talk contribs) 07:01, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Heck, this is all silly then. Just to mock it up quick I flipped that to be the speedy type graphically instead of the notice type, and changed the image, to make this:

visible on this diff

Isn't that better? rootology (C)(T) 07:09, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Much better, thank you. Anyone object to its use on the article now? —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 07:14, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

ATTENTION: Editors considering sticking beans up their nose are advised to seek advice and information from medical professionals and/or horticulturalists prior to attempting to do so. Information on Wikipedia may not be applicable to your nostrils or the type of beans you may have in your pantry. Do not decide whether or not to shove foodstuffs in your bodily orifices based on Wikipedia information.

Had to be said... caknuck _° is geared up for football season 08:20, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Now you tell me... Kevin (talk) 08:37, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Um... you may wish to link pantry, unless you enjoy resolving pulse (legume)/lingerie issues (I know I do!) LessHeard vanU (talk) 10:11, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Repeated removal of a fact tag

If I put a citation needed tag on an article, and another user repeatedly removes it without providing a reliable source, is that acceptable? Corvus cornix_talk 06:03, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

There's nothing inherently wrong with removing the fact tag, it's the edit warring and lack of good communication that brings trouble. Calvin 1998 ^(t-c) 06:10, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, if you've problem with an editor, the best thing would be to talk with her. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 09:03, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Star Wars Kid real name controversy again

Despite preexisting consensus that WP:BLP1E and human dignity argued that we leave the real name of the Star Wars Kid off the article, admin User:Seraphimblade has pushed the talk page for that article into a new, local consensus to put it in (see Talk:Star Wars kid#Request for comment on real name. I believe that this is subverting the standing wider consensus to exclude the name, and we need more admin eyes on it... Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 09:13, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Making block of 58.161.0.188 anon-only

A request was made by a user to edit (while logged in) via 58.161.0.188. A check of the block log showed a year long block from May, as a "vandalism-only account". The blocking admin, EncMstr, isn't a checkuser. I would like to make the block be anon-only. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:15, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Request made where, by whom? Nothing visible on that talk page... They need to make a IP block excemption request / unblock per Wikipedia:IPBLOCKEXEMPT, from their registered account... Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 09:39, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Request made by Rob Lindsey on his talk page. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:42, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. Luna Santin has asked the blocking admin, User:EncMstr, to review and consider changing to AO. If EncMstr doesn't respond in a reasonable amount of time, re-flag it here in this section and someone can take a bold action (I would turn it AO, account creation blocked personally - we do that usually with schools, which is what Rob says the IP is at...). Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 09:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for page protection

It appears the bot hasn't archived the resolved requests for twelve hours - should it be done manually seeing as the bot hasn't done it? The requests page is getting extremely large. D.M.N. (talk) 10:41, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Lunamusik

Is this allowed? It's essentially a copy of the text from the now deleted article Luna musik. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 10:59, 1 September 2008 (UTC)