Wikipedia:Wikiquette assistance

Welcome to wikiquette assistance
Wikiquette assistance is a forum where editors who feel they are being treated uncivilly can request assistance. The goal here is to help all parties in a situation come to a mutually agreeable solution. It is designed to function via persuasion, reason, and community support, rather than threats or blocks. Your first resort should be a polite attempt to discuss the problem with the other editor(s). No binding decisions are issued here. If you seek blocks or bans, see WP:ANI instead. Sections older than 5 days archived by MiszaBot II. (For help, see Wikipedia:Purge) Please notify any users involved in a dispute. You may use {{subst:WQA-notice}} to do so.
Search the Wikiquette archives Additional notes: Before posting, see that you've made every attempt to follow the advice at Guide to avoiding disputes. Consider the helpful advice here and see the dispute resolution process. Include diffs that show the situation. See the Simplest diff guide for help. The conduct of all parties will be taken into account. Assistance may involve suggestions for altering your own behavior to avoid conflict. Volunteers are welcome. See the volunteer instructions.
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Active discussions

Break of AGF and NPA by User:Bzuk

• Bzuk (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Republic P-47 Thunderbolt (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

After I removed a non-sensical sentence from Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, I was accused of vandalism and threatened by User:Bzuk. I subsequently started a dicussion on the talk page; User:Bzuk added nothing to the question, but adds further insults threats.

Please advise: Is User:Bzuk justified in accusing me of vandalism and making threats without even taking part in the discussion? --91.10.41.53 (talk) 16:49, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

It was inappropriate on the part of both Bzuk and yourself to edit war over the disputed sentence. There is no "right side" in an edit war, but you should have discussed a solution to the dispute rather than repeatedly removing the sentence. Bzuk warning you for vandalism was inappropriate, IMO. I saw absolutely nothing to suggest that you were acting in bad faith at all, much less committing vandalism. Also, when 91 started a discussion on the talk page, Bzuk's comments were hostile and inflammatory, including threats of a block. In addition, this comment removal by Bzuk was not appropriate, per WP:TPO, as the removed comment was not a personal attack. All this being said, 91, your part was arguably just as problematic. You edit warred, and you left several unconstructive and inflammatory comments to the same discussion.

In sum, you both acted inappropriately. If you can acknowledge this, preferably redact your uncivil comments or at least resolve to work civilly from now on, I see no reason why you can't work this content dispute out to a satisfactory solution for all parties. Swarm ^{u | t} 20:45, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

This is a very convoluted and complex back-and-forth that recently took place. Refer to my edit history for the time sequence. Here is the pertinent sequence of events, with my comments:

1. User: 91.10.41.53 makes a derogatory comment regarding another user. as it is on my "watchlist", I note there is conflict ensuing)
2. seeing no talk discussion, the original version of the article is restored
3. caution given on user's talk page
4. User reacts with comment, stop templating me, indicative of some knowledge of wiki process/protocol
5. Next edit has the edit comment given: revert back to earlier version of the article, take any issues to talk first, eliminate NPOV)
6. two edits in succession, bring back all the original edits with comments (First of all, stop the piggy-backing)((Sorry, it's just rubbish, see discussion.) Polite and responding to initial call to talk
7. Original version of article restored, note that talk page discussion now started
8. My Comment: Perhaps hasty but a further caution elevated to level 4 placed on user talk page, and "There is no catering to the drive-by editing faction and the type of edit comments and examples of disruptive edits that were recently made, will lead to the inevitable blocking of this IP."
9. Response: I assume if you would have to anything about the issue, you would have, so this is a clear personal attack
10. Repeat of accusation that there is a personal attack made. Response: This continuing disruptive behaviour is now being referred to admins. Stop it now.
11. Comment made on Admin's page
12. Comment aadded on talk page "Thank you for clarifying that Bzuk edited in a non-sensical paragraph!" Comment stricken with repsonse:" knock off the personal comments", comment again later re-added with comment: ‎ (Stop faking my comments! (Or if you want to "warring", remove all but the last of your comments and apologize.)
13. Talk page suggestion given, looks okay, made slight copy edit, but already being added to article with small errors in links and comment "remove disruptive edit by User:Bzuk."
14. My revision added to article to add a note to readers about change of manufacturer, edit slightly refined into a second sentence with another "it" given, however, not interested in any more changes, I leave the edit as is
15. 3R warning given to both parties, I explain my position once and leave it

On my part, I can appreciate the IP's frustration with my efforts to use a BRD approach and jumped to the conclusion that he was inflaming the situation, but did not understand the need for trying to denigrate any editors in the process. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 21:32, 7 August 2011 (UTC). See: lame effort at reconciliation FWiW Bzuk (talk) 21:48, 7 August 2011 (UTC).

Concur with Swarm. With regards to redaction, it's better to strike them out rather than just remove them. Given Bzuk's good faith response, I don't think any additional action is required on their part. Gerardw (talk) 22:56, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Yep, thank you for your very reasonable response, Bzuk. Swarm ^{u | t} 05:09, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Charges of "spamming" and unspecified "policy violations"

• Camelbinky (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Gyrobo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York (edit | project page | history | links | watch | logs), User talk:DanielPenfield (edit | user page | history | links | watch | logs)
• On Thursday, August 4, I made a series of strawman additions to all of the Upstate New York county articles (for example: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], etc.). These consisted of a "Budget" section with a bulleted list for outlays, another for receipts, and a fully-cited statement of the county-specific sales tax. Note that it is easy to verify that precedents exist for this type of section in articles about government entities: United States federal budget, California#State finances, Government of Texas#State Budget, Government of Florida#Budget, Illinois#Taxes, Contra Costa County, California#County budget problems, New Jersey#Fiscal policy, Economy of Virginia#Taxation.
• On Saturday, August 6, Special:Contributions/Camelbinky reverted, without explanation, and contrary to WP:REVEXP, a subset of these articles (to wit: [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17])
• I subsequently restored most, but apparently not all of the original changes (to wit: [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27])
• Special:Contributions/Camelbinky then left an insulting message in this edit, claiming that "County budget sections are violations of policy" without citing any policy whatsoever and then leveling the charge of "spamming these sections onto articles" and concluding that "You were reverted for a reason, putting them back was not a good idea without discussing" while conveniently overlooking the fact that he or she did not have the courtesy to provide a reason for the original revert. (Note that WP:REVEXP accurately states that "A reversion is a complete rejection of the work of another editor and if the reversion is not adequately supported then the reverted editor may find it difficult to assume good faith.")
• Special:Contributions/Camelbinky subsequently publicized the accusations that "Our NY county articles are being spammed with unencyclopedic section headers" and that "I have tried reverting those counties [...] but have been reverted by same spammer" in this edit.
• Special:Contributions/Gyrobo then reverted all of what I restored for a second time (e.g., [28]) and reverted the untouched remaining original edits for good measure (e.g., [29]), again using the "undo" feature rather than providing "a valid and informative explanation" in the edit summaries and added the charge that the additions "provide nothing useful" to the WikiProject New York talk page).
• Outraged at the accusation of "spamming" "unencyclopedic" content that "provide[s] nothing useful", I left a phrase-by-phrase rebuttal of these false, and, quite frankly, malicious charges in these fully-cited edits.
• Special:Contributions/Gyrobo subsequently left a condescending follow-up seemingly demanding "justification" for adding a budget section to county articles at all: "Instead of creating a large table refuting how Camelbinky came across to you, it would be more productive to discuss why the data you've copied and pasted into each article should remain there." in this edit. He also repeated the charge of WP:UNENCYCLOPEDIC and made outlandish claims of "put the onus on other editors to thoroughly research county government operations" and "there's no guarantee that someone who actually did that would end up organizing the data that way" which run completely contrary to WP:IMPERFECT and WP:Wikipedia is a work in progress.
• Special:Contributions/Gyrobo then left what appeared to be a magnanimous appeal to WP:Here to build an encyclopedia in this edit and a "generous" offer to let the changes stand. (Note that as of this writing, nobody has restored the changes.) On second glance, it appears to me to be a whitewash that is also intended to further discredit me by:

1. Characterizing the additions as "controversial changes" and as something "the rest of us really don't understand".
2. Characterizing my phrase-by-phrase rebuttal as "Questioning the intentions of other editors, and throwing random policies, guidelines and essays into a discussion, without really relating them to the topic at hand"

• Finally, I wrote a rebuttal to the "demand for justification" and filed this WP:WQA.

To make it clear: I am no longer interested in whether my additions are retained or not. However, I believe I am well within my rights to insist that Special:Contributions/Camelbinky and Special:Contributions/Gyrobo publicly retract the following accusations:

• That my additions were "violations of policy" and "unencyclopedic" and that I was "spamming these sections onto articles" as claimed in User_talk:DanielPenfield#County budget sections are violations of policy
• That I "thr[ew] random policies, guidelines and essays into a discussion, without really relating them to the topic at hand" as claimed about my phrase-by-phrase rebuttal in User_talk:DanielPenfield#Reminder
• That "Our NY county articles are being spammed with unencyclopedic section headers", "I [...] have been reverted by same spammer", "information DanielPenfield keeps adding to these articles provides nothing useful", and "additions you've been adding to county articles have no encyclopedic value" in Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_New_York#Unencyclopedic budget section headings

I would also like to see Special:Contributions/Camelbinky and Special:Contributions/Gyrobo publicly state that they will permanently abandon the use of the specious WP:UNENCYCLOPEDIC and WP:USELESS claims (in any form, including "provides nothing useful") as "justification" for deleting content from Wikipedia.

-- DanielPenfield (talk) 22:08, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

You really can't use this board to force an apology from anyone. Trust me, I've tried. If you want Camelbinky and Gyrobo to apologize you should discuss your edits with them and explain calmly why you think they are beneficial.

To be honest, I can see the rationale to revert these edits; they mostly just add empty framework without any real material. The referenced material on the taxes is good, but the framework on the rest of the budget is lacking in any detail. This technically isn't spamming, but when you do this across a wide range of pages within a short period of time it can be seen as disruptive. If you want to create sections on municipality budgets you should be prepared to write something in them. ThemFromSpace 22:33, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I really don't have anything to add to this, other than to recap it from my perspective. DanielPenfield, by his own admission, added empty "strawman" section headers to roughly fifty articles. Camelbinky reverted some of these, but DanielPenfield reverted those reversions, all without explanation. Camelbinky then left DanielPenfield a message explaining his reasoning for the initial reversions, and began a discussion on WPNY. I agreed with Camelbinky's assessment of DanielPenfield's additions as nonconstructive, and then used rollback on all instances of them. WP:ROLLBACK allows widespread reversions in situations like these, because the discussion leading to it was centralized. Rather than engage Camelbinky and myself over the merits of his edits, DanielPenfield immediately Wikilawyered, made what could be considered personal attacks on Camelbinky, and accused me of edit warring. When I asked DanielPenfield to calmly discuss his additions, he responded by filing this. I did not accuse anybody of anything, and I stand by what I did say. My opinion is that from the outset of this discussion, DanielPenfield has been combative and difficult to form consensus with. --Gyrobo (talk) 22:48, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• In response to User:Themfromspace: The problem with Wikipedia is that everybody "skims" what I write and responds with these nonsequiturs. I am looking for a retraction of the malicious and libelous accusations from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject New York#Unencyclopedic budget section headings, User_talk:DanielPenfield#County budget sections are violations of policy, and User_talk:DanielPenfield#Reminder, nothing more, nothing less. Also, your definition of "disruptive" does not appear to match Wikipedia:Disruptive editing. And it looks to me like you are imposing a higher standard than WP:IMPERFECT and WP:Wikipedia is a work in progress require and your higher standard is in direct conflict with WP:PRESERVE which states "As long as any of the facts or ideas added to the article would belong in a "finished" article, they should be retained.". -- DanielPenfield (talk) 23:03, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Strawman implies intentionality making articles weaker -- that's not how things are done on Wikipedia. There are templates for things like references needed, and you can always make suggestions on the talk page, but putting non-constructive text on an article isn't good. Note that WP:REVEXP is a non-binding essay, not a policy. It would have been nicer if Camelbinky had left a single explanation somewhere when he did the multiple reverts, but other than that, it's have to find much wrong with his behavior. Nothing about Gyrobo's actions seems improper to me. Gerardw (talk) 23:10, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• Again, looks nobody wants to read what I wrote all that closely or click through the links to verify that the claim of "spamming" and WP:UNENCYCLOPEDIC is false (not to mention that WP:UNENCYCLOPEDIC and WP:USELESS are specious arguments). BTW, Straw man proposal clearly states "A "straw-man proposal" [...] is a brainstormed simple proposal intended to generate discussion of its disadvantages and to provoke the generation of new and better proposals. -- DanielPenfield (talk) 23:24, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Per your own statement regarding what a straw-man proposal is, you should have made a proposal. Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) would be more appropriate than just going through and adding the empty section headers to every article. Perhaps in such a discussion others would have been able to point out to you the drawbacks and help you flesh out your proposal to where it would not have met with opposition.Camelbinky (talk) 00:09, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• In this edit and this edit you accuse me of WP:SPAMing and unspecified "policy violations". Are you or are you not going to retract this malicious and libelous allegation? -- DanielPenfield (talk) 00:35, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• In regard to "libelous", please see WP:No legal threats#Perceived legal threats. Dial it down, please. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:06, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

(←) There were a few instances where Camelbinky's behavior was inappropriate throughout this ordeal. If you're going to mass revert someone with no edit summary, you need to start a discussion somewhere. Daniel was initially reverted without any explanation whatsoever. Camelbinky's later comment on Daniel's talk page was unhelpful, particularly, "spamming", which is an inflammatory bad faith accusation. Also, their comment, "You were reverted for a reason, putting them back was not a good idea", was not appropriate, remembering that no reason whatsoever was given, and they did not provide a link to the discussion. I don't see any major problems with Gyrobo's conduct. Content-wise, I'm more inclined to agree with Gyrobo and Camelbinky, and per WP:SILENT and WP:BRD they are 100% justified in reverting those actions. However, Daniel's contributing, and discussing, in good faith, and has provided detailed and intricate arguments, and the other two users would do well to extend the same courtesy. Regards, Swarm ^{u | t} 03:07, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

First off, my behavior was not inappropriate. I am under no obligation to provide an edit summary, those are completely voluntary at my discretion to provide or not. When there are multiple issues with the person's additions and they look and feel like obvious problem to the average user (which they appear to have consensus that they were not appropriate additions) and I have to revert on multiple pages then I do not see a reason to explain. Second, using the word "spamming", I'm sorry I dont see any other word for what was put on all those pages, perhaps I will invest in a thesaurus. As you point out BRD I'd like to point out the purpose of BRD, be BOLD, which Daniel did, Revert which I did, then instead of discussing Daniel reverted my revert, I am the one that started the discussion which should have been the onus of Daniel. Which he should have done before doing any edits in the first place anyway, these were edits the Community should have discussed first. When I said "Our NY county articles" I was including the ENTIRE community, including Daniel. No ownership. Detailed and intricate arguments? Of what? Of how I'm a dick? I'm willing to stipulate for the record that I'm a dick, but that's not a matter for this board actually, despite the name of this noticeboard. Gyrobo and I are the only two who put forth why, according to policy, the additions should not stand. All Daniel did was provide snippets of policy out of context to show why I'm a dick.Camelbinky (talk) 00:55, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

WP policy is to leave edit summaries, per WP:EDIT. Gerardw (talk) 01:50, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Does not say it is mandatory and I'm willing to put it forth at the Village pump to see if the Community feels that is how it should be applied, because it is not applied as mandatory and it does not matter the literal wording of a policy. Policy is simply the best consensus written version that could be made of what the community has done in the past; to put it succinctly "policy is descriptive, not proscriptive". I dont have to leave edit summaries, and if someone wants to slap my wrist for not leaving them go ahead and try. Ridiculous this discussion is about leaving an edit summary about a revert on an edit we all have agreed should not have been made. And when you do a copy and paste edit on around 50 articles, each edit which should not have been done, that is called spamming. If there's a better word, please enlighten me. However, this is ridiculous. Nothing was done wrong. I explained myself in a discussion at the NY wikiproject, I did the step in BRD that Daniel refused to do. This discussion is useless and as far as I'm concerned done with. I wont be watching because nothing will happen.Camelbinky (talk) 02:49, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Andy Dingley

Andy Dingley (talk · contribs) has, in the past dozen hours or so:

• Called my edit removing a link that fails numerous guidelines "unconstructive."
• Called me a single purpose account, even though I've worked on various articles since 2006.
• Claims he discovered this particular talk page though means other than following me on my contributions page, but he came into the middle of a conversation I was that he had no previous involvement in only to counter me.

In addition, Andy Dingley gloated to another user about their past block, accused him of following WP:COPYVIO only "to spite the project," and called him silly.

• Reported me for "edit warring" for reverting twice (which was just as much as he reverted).
• Continually dismisses my edits as robot like, and continually suggests or implies I should be replaced with a robot script (1, 2, 3, 4), not in a helpful manner but a dismissive one. I have shown an example on his talk page of where I left a link a bot would have removed, and provided justification for including the link.
• Claims that some bookspam I'm removing is a cited source when it is not (1, 2) (the bookspam in question may be seen in the first link).

I have brought up him calling me a SPA multiple times, and he has not apologized, but continued to call me bot-like. I have pointed out repeatedly that the book in question was not being cited, and another editor has explained that the link for the book is spam. I have explained to him in the edit warring noticeboard that I've only reverted twice (just as much as him).

This user has shown no/little respect for other users, and is contrary to the point of illogic and obstruction of the site's goals. Ian.thomson (talk) 02:43, 11 August 2011 (UTC)