Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Resuming AuthorityTam ANI

Please see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive746#AuthorityTam Nobody Ent 12:26, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

As anticipated, AuthorityTam waited for the dust to settle on this ANI, and has now resumed similar conduct.[1] (The addition in the section "RfC: Reinstatement in lead section" dishonestly quotes me; my response is here.) Now that he has resumed editing, AuthorityTam should provide a more appropriate response regarding his conduct, and the previous suggested courses of action should be further considered.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:01, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

This has shown a clear and on-going pattern of disruptive behaviour in editing, especially in regards to several editors (Jeffro and BlackCab). As I predicted in the last, interminably long, but never-solved ANI incident, that the same case would be brought back again and again, once a month, until some sanctions are imposed. I have been involved in neither dispute, except for the ANI recaps. I therefore propose a one week block from editing Wikipedia for AuthorityTam, or a topic ban of a minimum 30 days' length from all articles even tangentially related to the Jehovah Witness religion for the same. Each incident in itself may not warrant a block, but, pursuant to "civil POV pushing" (an essay somewhere on here), all the shit together more than justifies one, as it establishes a pattern which the editor does knot seem to acknowledge is disruptive (that it is, is evidenced by being dragged to ANI ad nauseam). (Edit: this fits the very definition of a "preventative block", as it seems that this behaviour continues like the Energizer Bunny.) St John Chrysostom ^Δόξα_{τω ^Θεώ} 10:34, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but can not see the deal here. It is making a big case out of something that isn't. He quoted Jeffro, and wanted to use Jeffro's statement as a reason for editing the article. It could be stoped by reverting the edit, and make a ordinary discussion in the talk page, not reopening this case. I suggest to at least shut down this case until it really is needed to reopen it. I am sure it will be more discussions regarded and including AutTam, but as I've stated before, the article need opinionholders challenging some of the existing one at the talk page, as it appears very few of the contributers can keep a completely neutral tone when it comes to the topic (even though, some of the users at least try). Grrahnbahr (talk) 11:49, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. There was no consensus on the last ANI and little contribution from the community at large -- just lots of squabbling amongst three editors (all of whom could improve the collegiality and civility of their interaction style). Block all 3, ban all 3, or block or ban none. Refer to WP:DR. Nobody Ent 12:31, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I have previously tried simply reverting his irrelevant tendentious comments about other editors (namely, me) from user Talk. He restores them, and then complains even more. This behaviour was also mentioned at the previous ANI.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:37, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Jeez, this is no closer to a resolution than when it started. I understand everyone has the right of reply, but you guys are just going in circles here, and making it extremely difficult for anyone outside the dispute to determine exactly what the "problem" is and what you want done about it. The admin action needed here at this point is for someone uninvolved to step in, hat most of the above, and try to keep the discussion focused. Or, even better, just close it as I don't see where any action is likely to be taken at this point. Everyone just try to play nicely together, m'kay? Quinn ^✹SUNSHINE 12:41, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Aaaaand about 90% of the circular discussion has been archived, so thanks to whoever did that. Quinn ^✹SUNSHINE 14:20, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

[non admin yawn] Again? - I don't watch the page, or any of those pages, but it has spilled over into non-JW topic areas before. As the last time it seems that the two anti-JW/ex-JW editors are as bad or worse than the one apparently pro-JW editor, as illustrated by the disproportionate amount of noise from the two anti-JW/ex-JW editors on the last attempt to get the pro-JW editor banned at ANI. This latest one simply has the pro-JW editor noting they tried to get him banned at ANI, and the anti-JW saying "Another lie" (¿En serio? Is that a WP:BOOMERANG I see?) If it's anything admin action shouldn't be one sided, it should be for all 3, e.g. JW-topic blocks for 1 month and warmly invite contributions to the wealth of non-JW articles on WP needing attention... In ictu oculi (talk) 14:24, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not an "anti-JW" editor. I'm a "non-JW" editor; I don't consider their beliefs any more irrational than the beliefs of other religions. Aside from that, he did lie. When I said that no one had tried to have him banned, that was in fact the case. 3 days later, I did conditionally agree with a suggestion by another editor that if AuthorityTam is unable to modify his behaviour, a topic ban may be in order. AuthorityTam selectively quoted part of that statement, ignoring the order of events, to make it appear that I was 'trying to have him banned' and that I had previously lied about it.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:37, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

With all the bad blood swirling around between a small group of editors, I don't see any hope for a resolution/reconciliation in that regard. The ultimate goal is the overall improvement of the JW articles, not the appeasement of certain editor's hurt egos. So I think the unfortunate result is that if you all want to continue editing the JW articles, then you're going to have to deal with each other, like it or not...or everyone is going to be looking at a topic ban in the future. Perhaps being able to provide evidence from this point forward that you did not further personalize the dispute may prevent that from happening if/when this is brought up at ANI again. Quinn ^✹SUNSHINE 14:39, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Within half an hour of AuthorityTam resuming editing (after an absence that coincided with the ANI while closer attention might be paid to his editing behaviour), he returned to the same petty retributive (and dishonest) behaviour as before. He's clearly not interested in 'playing nicely', and he simply ignored input from other editors at the previous ANI who confirmed that his behaviour is inappropriate.

It is not the case that only three editors complained in the previous ANI. Several editors agreed there are problems with AuthorityTam's behaviour, and an independent editor made several suggestions.

It is not the case that it is not clear what the problem is or what action should be taken. I stated fairly clearly that AuthorityTam should cease commenting about other editors at article Talk pages. Other editors suggested that a topic ban may be in order, and I agree that may be suitable if he is otherwise unable to acknowledge his inappropriate behaviour and cease it.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:37, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

[Jeffro77 notified me]As I have mentioned previously I couldn't still find what is so wrong with AuthorityTam's editing, other than shouting and crying for crucify him. In fact when I compared some edit history of all these three involved editors, ironically I found that AuthorityTam never used any of those type of harsh/debasing words that the other two editors used. So it seems to me that the main problem here is a long time discomfort towards AuthorityTam by the other two editors, because he have won/Wikipedia have won many of the debates involving the other two editors in those related talk pages. Also whenever these other editors express their discomfort in talk pages, AuthorityTam gives evidence of their own same mistake by posting back talk pages and then goes own silent. This may screw up the other two editors but in fact it gives the point that the accusing editors should try to improve first before accusing other. As some other editor suggested we need to shut down this case until it really is needed to reopen it.--Fazilfazil (talk) 14:58, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

First off, I'd be interested to see the diffs of the supposedly "harsh/debasing words" Fazilfazil (a pro-JW editor defending another pro-JW editor) is accusing me of. There is no particular 'discomfort' about AuthorityTam 'winning debates' about article content; no track record is kept of how many 'debates' AuthorityTam has 'won', but even if his views are accepted more frequently than those of others (though I'm not aware that's the case), it has nothing to do with the complaints raised here. I have stated quite clearly that I object to AuthorityTam's frequent irrelevant pointy comments at article Talk pages about editors he believes to be former members of JWs (this factor of bias is in fact the determining criteria for AuthorityTam's expressions of contempt). (Even at the previous ANI AuthorityTam again presented his specious 'evidence' [a claim based on an ambiguous edit from 7 years ago] that I'm a former member though he's been explicitly told I have no status with the organisation.) It is not the case that AuthorityTam merely defends himself at Talk rather than starting problems, such as he did with his oblique disingenuous claim that BlackCab's removal of content that violated WP:FORUM was in some way 'interesting'.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:07, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't want to waste the time with digging out those words, I have posted some in the previous discussion. First of all although you frequently claim that you are not a former JWs, your style of editing appears to be those typical among self-claiming former Witnesses. Not only me, many other editors have expressed this implication. For one reason, it is very difficult for a common person to understand the deep teachings of JWs unless he have studied the basic Bible teachings with them. So my intuition is that you mostly use Watchtower library (for others sake: which contains all JWs publications in digital format) and come up either as a support to user:BlackCab's interpretations or being silent when he have an irrelevant point. It is not typical among an atheist to be only attacking on a particular religion. Since you and BlackCab are the frequent opposers towards AuthorityTam (in many cases I can see his arguments finally proves to be correct) it is of no wonder that he show other editors about former witness bias. Another thing is sometime you take silly things and explicitly claim that other editor lied (I believe even once towards me though I ignored it) but they might was never intended a lie. I don't want to involve in this discussion much since I feel its a waste of time and irritating. I would advice you to calm down and raise this issue if AuthorityTam showed obvious incivility towards you with a specific clear evidence. --Fazilfazil (talk) 12:50, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

As I have stated previously, I have relatives in the religion and am closely familiar with it. However, I do not owe any editor any such explanation. The claim that I simply try to support BlackCab is ridiculous because I've edited Wikipedia for several years longer than him. I have already provided evidence of AuthorityTam's improper behaviour.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:12, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Aside from Fazilfazil reply, who seems also quite frustrated, I would like to encourage both of you to assume good faith WP:AGF. I expressed my viewpoint of the situation on AuthorityTam' Talk page. User_talk:AuthorityTam#You.27re_maybe_not_aware_of..._.2B. However, Jeffro77 immediately started to reply on my personal message to AT, which I felt unwelcome. AuthorityTam do not answer so far on my post, although I assume that he perhaps read it. Originally, I wanted only notice him about some pages and summarize my viewpoint on the subject. But when Jeffro77 arrived, I tried to serve there as mediator and suggested solution. Jeffro77 felt the situation otherwise. --FaktneviM (talk) 15:29, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

WP:AGF doesn't apply when the editor has all but proclaimed that they are working in bad faith with a certain section of the Wikipedia community. Although, as I point out, my own interactions with AT have been nothing but cordial (in fact, receiving support from him) because I (1) don't work often in the area, and (2) haven't proposed anything that pissed him off or that got me on his "shit list", so to speak, based on the previous AN/I, he won't respond until this AN/I is over and has blown over, and he'll be back up to antagonizing Jeff and BlackCab (aka LtSally!) and this case will be back to AN/I (as, during the last AN/I, he ceased editing according to the same pattern). I have a spidey-sense that this will eventually be attempted to be escalated to arbitration. Fazil: stop the WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour. This is not about winning debates or scoring points or editors' possible former religious affiliations or "WP:TRUTH", it is about building an encyclopedia. I find it incredibly hard to WP:AGF when faced with a series of posts that so clearly demonstrate the battleground mentality.St John Chrysostom ^Δόξα_{τω ^Θεώ} 18:12, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

JohnChrysostom: I don't know AuthorityTam much as we met rarely. In most situations I felt it similar like you. His conduct is focused on content and he is cordial. I do not expect it, but if he would like to persistently continue with this non-responding and later attacking style, some temporary restriction of editing 'Talk pages' could be reasonable. But this resumed ANI is not the case. Single edit is not adequate for any action. Thus the ANI should be terminate. // Fazilfazil: I would like to see more co-operation within JWs articles. Hence continuous speculations if User:Jeffro77 is apostasy or not are not useful at all. He specifically wrote here “I never formally identified as a JW”, which I believe to be the exceptional truth. This express is common for those who leaved from the congregation during Bible Study with Witnesses or meanwhile in state of being Unbaptised publisher. That is similar if he raised in JW family and not identified himself with it. In every case that is not important. Some editors may decide practice shunning on Jeffro and BlackCab (like AuthorityTam' 3rd person comments), but generally "division" of editors to pro-JW group and ex-JW or anti-JW group (such division of editors is invention by the two mentioned above and cause unpleasant contact amongst articles' editors). Hence I suppose that another talking on this matter is not useful. Here is the irony that BlackCab since his start on Wikipedia openly said so and never hide it. I respect him more for that. I also believe that both of them are sincere with their motives on editing Wikipedia. It is said that BlackCab at least tried to solve common issues which I raised, while Jeffro often simply dismiss all as irrelevant. However, despite of that, it is unlikely that they edit this topic if they want to be evil only. So some mutual agreement is hardly to do, but it is 'must have'. --FaktneviM (talk) 19:12, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

You claim that AuthorityTam's "conduct is focused on content and he is cordial." If that were the case, this ANI or the last one would not have been raised. Specific statements made by AuthorityTam at article Talk about other editors have already been cited at this and the last ANI, and it is that behaviour that I explicitly requested that he cease.

I have never summarily dismissed any specific editor's comments as irrelevant merely on the basis of who made them. Where there is any ambiguity, I have always provided a reason why something is irrelevant.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:12, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

* Comment {Jeffro77 notified me} After reviewing the edit in question, I cannot for the life of me figure out what is so appalling in the edit that it brings us here to yet another ANI. My only conclusion is that this must be some feeble attempt at character assassination or some ill advised smear campaign. Unless I am looking at the wrong edit, I find nothing offensive in AT's edit at all and do in fact find this ANI to be the more offensive occurrence. Here is the edit I think is being addressed, please let me know if I have the wrong one: :::"The article currently states, "Regular personal Bible reading is frequently recommended; Witnesses are strongly discouraged from formulating doctrines and "private ideas" reached through Bible research independent of Watch Tower Society publications, and are cautioned against reading other religious literature." None of the cited references explicitly supports the claim that JWs are "cautioned against reading other religious literature", rather, the references show a "caution" against reading "books like this one" and "religious literature that promotes lies". I've edited the sentence to: "Regular personal Bible reading is frequently recommended; Witnesses are strongly discouraged from formulating doctrines and "private ideas" reached through Bible research independent of Watch Tower Society publications.". --AuthorityTam (talk)3:33 am, 29 April 2012, last Sunday (3 days ago) (UTC−4)" I am completely at a loss for finding anything offensive in that edit, so, exactly why are we here if not just for the purpose of stirring the pot? Willietell (talk) 04:06, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• Comment Having found the edit in question, I see only an editor defending himself against an accusation of being a liar. Perhaps if the editor who raised the ANI doesn't wish for such evidence to be presented, them he should AGF and cease calling other editors dishonest, thus eliminating the need for a response that he may find offensive. In short, Play Nice, because your own offensive words(calling other editors a liar) may come back to haunt you when they present evidence to the contrary. Willietell (talk) 04:30, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

He was not 'defending himself against an accusation of being a liar'; the misleading selective quote itself constituted a lie, with no regard to the actual order of events or my actual conditional statement. I see no reason why I should put up with that, particularly when the statement was appended to 'discussion' that had ostensibly ended weeks ago. The underlying pattern of behaviour—that AuthorityTam uses any opportunity he can to attempt to discredit editors he believes to be former JWs—has not ceased. This matter will be considered unresolved until that occurs. As noted by JohnChrysostom above, AuthorityTam's response so far has simply been to 'lay low' during and shortly after the ANI process, and then return to the previous behaviour; he did this at the last ANI, and also did the same thing a couple of years ago when an admin instructed him to strike false statements about me at several AfDs (which he failed to do).--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:12, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Summary: Obviously, as User:Quinn1 post here, “this is no closer to a resolution than when it started.” and “but you guys are just going in circles here”. Is there anyone, (nonJWtopics' editor preferred), who can propose better solution than Quinn1 wrote here, simply “Everyone just try to play nicely together, m'kay?” [2] If AuthorityTam and all others involved in JWtopics will trying to assume good faith and not focus on persons, but on content, there will be fewer ANIs needed in future. Perhaps none. --FaktneviM (talk) 07:23, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. If AuthorityTam ceases the behaviour, the matter will not need to return to ANI. What about the suggestions already made by User:JohnChrysostom (a "nonJWtopics' editor")?--Jeffro77 (talk) 07:48, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

User:JohnChrysostom is hardly an uninvolved and unbiased editor here, certainly he has contributed in discussions which have involved all three editors as well as myself. I think that the editors involved need to make a more determined effort to work for the betterment of the article instead of seemingly trying to "pick" at one another and "goad" one another into an uncivil response. But that is just a personal observation, and I may be misinterpreting their intent. I will attempt to AGF. Willietell (talk) 04:05, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

He's only really been 'involved' to the extent that he's provided comment on the behaviour he's observed. It's unclear why you imagine JohnChrysostom to be 'biased', or what specific bias you imagine him to hold. He's not a JW, if that's what you mean, but then a JW wouldn't be unbiased either. He identifies on Wikipedia as a Christian, eliminating any supposed 'atheist' bias; I've seen no indication that he's a former JW, or that he has had any particular involvement with JWs. It seems that your definition of 'unbiased' is 'agrees with you'.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:35, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Harassment by User:Andy Dingley

Please may some attention be given to persistent harassment received from this user

Initial trouble in Wikimedia Commons where Andy Dingley kept reverting my edits instantly using Twinkle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Eddaido#WP:3RR

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Eddaido#Attacks_on_other_editors_in_edit_summaries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Andy_Dingley/Archive_2012_March#re_Samblob

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bentley_8_Litre&diff=next&oldid=484140874

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Eddaido#Repeated_attacks_on_other_editors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiquette_assistance/archive117#General_hostility_from_User:Eddaido.2C_with_edit-warring_and_attacks

This is done in the hope it will lead to a full review of the circumstances. Thanks, Eddaido (talk) 00:00, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• I'm still looking at the information you have provided, but for the sake of clarity, what is the result you are seeking here? Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 00:25, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for looking at this —just an end to their behaviours. Eddaido (talk) 09:11, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• Ahem. How is it, Eddaido, that you are not yet blocked for acting like a total jerk? Hounding other editors, being uncivil in edit summaries, removing others' talk page comments? Drmies (talk) 01:40, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• Heh, I'm trying to understand how any of the diffs Eddaido posted above support his contention or help him at all. Indeed, no doubt Drmies found support for his criticism of Eddaido from Eddaido's diffs. That's worse than WP:BOOMERANG - more like a dog (pun intended) chasing his own tail while looking in the mirror.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:56, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• You missed a few

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Norah,_Lady_Docker&action=history

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Mini_%28marque%29&diff=prev&oldid=483972348

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/3RRArchive179#User:Eddaido_reported_by_User:Andy_Dingley_.28Result:_declined.29

Andy Dingley (talk) 09:08, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• Drmies has a very valid point and echos my initial concerns. Andy has taken you to a couple of different venues where no action was taken. 3RR I understand why, Wikiquette, I don't. His threshold may be a bit too low, but his concerns are well founded. Eddaido, words mean things, and you seem to have a lack of concern about how your words affect others. Either you lack an understanding of, or willingness to comply with our standards of civility. This is why I asked for clarity, to see how delusional you were in this situation. Fortunately, your answer fills me with hope since you weren't asking for his head on a platter. The problem here is your behavior, not Andy's. It is simply unacceptable to talk down to people and rudely reply to them in this manner. More importantly, you seem like an intelligent person, so surely you know that it isn't effective to persuade others to see your point of view. If you need help to communicate better, ask for help. If you don't immediately change the way you communicate your differences, however, I don't see good things happening to you here. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 13:00, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your attention and your time. I am going to be more direct, this may take me some hours. Thanks, Eddaido (talk) 01:55, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Over the past six months I have discovered Andy Dingley is very jealous of his accuracy (who isn't?) and doesn't care to recognize his mistakes, very sensitive on that. I fell foul of SamBlob more recently and discovered he was not amenable to rational discussion on talk pages so I stopped responding and watched him devoting himself to setting to work to tackle my edits and I let him run. When he tackled Bentley 8-litre I felt it was time to make the point that he is short on knowledge and equally short of sources. So I rejoiced in correcting his, no doubt good faith, bad edits to Bentley 8-litre and when I had made my points I put in my edit summary the description 'the dogging editor' using upper-case and starred it in case there should be the very smallest chance of it being overlooked - though it was apparently - by him and I saw this as a clear admission of guilt. Am I wrong? Thereafter I again let him run, all through the articles I had recently edited. I made occasional reverts in case he thought I was not looking. I too am mystified that Andy Dingley could do no more than his warnings (ignored) and finally a complaint on Etiquette. But you see there is a particular synchronicity between editors. SamBlob even sailed into the 16th and 18th centuries just for me.

So my complaint is long-running Wikihounding and contentious edits and notes of citations required made by SamBlob supported by Andy Dingley. Should I quote the diffs for the long blocks of SamBlob's edits concerned - their enthusiasm corresponds neatly with Andy Dingley's pronouncements etc.

Eddaido (talk) 07:30, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

No need to quote the long list of diffs on my account, but thanks for offering. You now say "..I felt it was time to make the point.." which reminded me of this excellent behavioral guideline called Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. You might not be doing it on purpose, but you come across as very rude in many of your edit summaries, which is at the root of the concern here. English is a funny language, and things don't always come across the same in print as they would by hearing it. This is why I am assuming good faith from you, and above I said "If you need help to communicate better, ask for help.", because I don't think you realize how rude some of your comments sound. I was being sincere and saying you might need some assistance so you don't accidentally go around pissing people off. It was meant as a friendly, helpful suggestion. If the rude summaries were to disappear, I'm pretty sure Andy would as well. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 19:48, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I watch with much interest. Eddaido (talk) 23:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I have a thick skin, I don't care too much about rude edit summaries - although I do object to being termed "dishonest". I'm much more concerned about the problem that "a little knowledge is dangerous". I've seen some good editing from Eddaido, such as Weymann Fabric Bodies, but I've also seen uncited falsehoods, such as the edit-warring at Commons over a claim that the Jowett Bradford van was made by a different "Bradford" company from Jowett and also the nonsense rewrite of pre-selector gearbox. It's fortunate that this editor has some clue about what they're writing, because they're one of the least co-operative, rude & hostile editors on WP, if they're ever challenged over content. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:06, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I've asked Pesky to offer an opinion. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 23:34, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• dogging present participle of dog (Verb)

Verb:

Follow (someone or their movements) closely and persistently: "photographers dog her every step".

(of a problem) Cause continual trouble for: "the committee has been dogged by controversy".

• jerk

noun:

A contemptibly obnoxious person

One of these words is used by the Queen of England in public address. Penyulap ☏ 00:57, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I asked Pesky to come, but Penyulap stopped by and did much the same as I would expect from her, and I thank them. Andy, you might notice I referred to your threshold as a bit low. I think part of the problem, as has been pointed out by others, is the different uses of English ie: "proper" vs. "USA" flavors. Eddaido seems to be an intelligent guy and acting in good faith, even if you two disagree on some facts. But I don't think he is intentionally being as rude as I first did, and think part of the issue is simply expressing himself in English differently than your or I would. I deal with Europeans in business regularly and see lots of this, where things get lost in the translation, even from British English to American English. I think it might be helpful if Andy pulled back here and set his threshold higher, and maybe just leave a personalized note instead of a template when you think he is rude. Or ask me if you don't feel comfortable, I understand and I don't mind helping. I don't think Andy did anything wrong here, but he (and some of the rest of us) may have taken the comments as more offensive than Eddaido intended. For example, "dogging" doesn't mean the same thing to me, from the southern USA, that it means to the Queen of England. Eddaido, I think that working on expressing yourself in a more neutral way would be helpful, so your comments don't come across as aggressive. Pesky is a great help in these matters if you just ask her. I think this is just frustration built up between the two, caused in part by a communications gap, confusing both sides of the dispute. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 03:11, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Hey guys; I'll take a proper look through all the history as soon as I can, but doing the background research here will take me a while if I'm to do it properly (and, for the record, I can't stand it when people chip in here without having done their homework first!) So, all I will say for the present is that both Andy and Eddaido are welcome to come and hang out at my talk page, chill out, chat, have a laugh at some of the funny stuff, and get to know me and my stalkers a bit. I have a varied and interesting bunch of TPSers, many of whom are truly brilliant at coming up with an obvious idea which has failed to occur to the rest of us! A fair few are autism-spectrum (I'm a high-functioning autistic myself, and I've also taught a lot of A-spectrum people). This means I have a talk page where we often think outside the usual boxes. Simple rules for my talk: no battles! All weapons have to be left outside the door; think of it as a kind of time-out space, a sanctuary where the wounded can go lick their wounds and feel safe(ish) for a while. We do our best to help everyone, wherever possible. And, as a fair few of us are also at the mature end of the spectrum (over 40, over 50, some over 60, etc.) we're generally kinda mellow, with a lot of real-life experience. And we care about people, as people, not just as editors. We're aware that editors have feelings, and can be hurt. So ... everyone welcome who wants to find solutions and can fit in and relax. Hugz to all involved, here. Things are probably not quite as bad as you think; there will be a constructive way forward. Pesky (talk) 04:37, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Gotta add here, "dogging" can mean far more things than many people realise! For example, I'm fairly sure that Teh Queen didn't mean it in this sense ... [Pesky falls offf chair laughing, again ...] Language is a very strange thing. In print, it's even more strange. We so often misunderstand each other. Pesky (talk) 04:42, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

User:Viriditas and User:Anupam

Hello, I am writing here to inform the reviewing administrator of a threat made against me here by Viriditas (talk · contribs). This individual has followed me to several articles in the last few months where he has not been an editor, including Big Bang, as well as recently Effects of cannabis. In addition, this individual has unfairly placed warnings on my talk page, stating that I have "plagiarised" material (Exhibit One, Exhibit Two), despite the fact that I always provide a source for my additions. User:Viriditas has been warned by other editors that his accusations are incorrect, but he still persists. In addition, the individual in question stated that I improperly used the rollback feature, despite the fact that I reverted my use of rollback because I accidentally clicked the rollback button and could not stop the rollback in time (I was informed that rollback is to be only used for vandalism on 22 April). I understand that User:Viriditas might be a valuable contributor to the encyclopedia, but I think it is in the best interest of both of us that an interaction ban be set between us. I have tried several times to discuss issues with this user nicely but he is always hostile to me in his comments and replies. Thank you for taking the time to read this message and consider my request. Best wishes, Anupam^Talk 04:15, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid that none of that is true, Anupam. I have not followed you anywhere; if anything, your recent edits to the cannabis topic was a form of baiting on your part, as I was active on the talk page right before you showed up to disrupt the article with the same plagiarism you were previously warned about in regards to the Big Bang related set of articles. In other words, you were hounding and baiting me with more of the same policy violating edits, and I think you deserve a long block for it. Viriditas (talk) 04:24, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• Comment This appears to be an attempt by Anupam to "head 'em off at the pass", as Viriditas notified Anupam that he would be filing an ANI report less than half an hour prior to Anupam's report: [3] aprock (talk) 04:30, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Anupam mentions in his comment to which Viriditas replies that he was planning on seeking an interaction ban and I'm guessing that he just wanted to deal with the situation and so decided to escalate. I don't think he is the type of editor who thinks in terms of "heading them off at the pass." I've disagreed with Anupam a lot, actually I can't think of a time where I agreed, but one thing I can say about him is that he has always maintained civility and acted in good faith. I would be surprised if it was different here. Not commenting on the case in general, just wanted to throw this in. SÆdon^talk 04:38, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Anupam pulled the exact same stunt against me: I notify: 06:28, 27 September 2011, he preemptively files 07:12, 27 September 2011. Given his history of disruptive editing, there is little reason to assume good faith here. aprock (talk) 05:04, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

A review of Viriditas' edits shows that he has indeed been following Anupam around for months. And V has been warned. Does it rise to a level of WP:HOUND? Before Viriditas can be blocked, there would have to be a showing that Anupam's enjoyment of editing has been adversely affected. While it is obvious that V is following Anupam, Anupam has not shown "distress." If Anupam has evidence that he has been distressed, then V should be blocked. In the meantime we should move to put in place a I-ban.– Lionel ^(talk) 05:25, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

"A review of Viriditas' edits shows that he has indeed been following Anupam around for months."'

• Hardly : Viriditas↔Anupam. 

"And V has been warned."

• By? Diff?

"Does it rise to a level of WP:HOUND? ... While it is obvious that V is following Anupam, Anupam has not shown "distress." If Anupam has evidence that he has been distressed, then V should be blocked."

• Try reading this part of WP:HOUND again "The important component of wikihounding is disruption to another user's own enjoyment of editing, or to the project generally, for no overriding reason." (i.e. just to be a dick.)

With all due respect Counselor, this sounds a lot like you jumping to Anupam's defense with little or no supporting policy or evidence (and not for the first time Anupam↔Lionelt). —ArtifexMayhem (talk) 07:26, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't know how Anupam has managed to escape being blocked with their combative style of editing and their filing ANI grievances that never come to anything. Drmies (talk) 05:30, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

(I wanted to post this on Anupam's page rather than here, but he removed the thread there). I can't speak to the mutual charges of hounding (in particular, I've been unable to figure out what incident "I commented on the talk page and then you showed up to edit" was meant to refer to). About the plagiarism issue: first, I must note that in the cited instance of Gandalf61's objections against Viriditas' earlier warnings [4] I'm with Viriditas. Plagiarism applies not just to the appropriation of ideas and thoughts, but also to the appropriation of their expression. When somebody literally copies a substantial piece of text and then adds a footnote to the source, the footnote alone only tells the reader that the facts are taken from that source, but not that the literal expression is taken from it too. Thus, the use of the literal expression remains unattributed and hence may constitute plagiarism. Applying this to the "cannabis" edits at question here [5], we have a borderline case: taking over a literal passage without marking it as a quotation, adding a footnote, and then repeating the original literal text as an explicit quote inside the footnote, may be seen as narrowly escaping the plagiarism charge. It is, however, very poor academic writing. What's so difficult about writing a proper paraphrase instead? Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:49, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

What is difficult about it, is that Anupam refuses to do it. He is a serial plagiarizer. Simply look at his most recent contributions to Conservapedia.[6] They are all copy and paste jobs taken directly from books, without any quotations or attributions.Here is a recent edit where he plagiarized p. 70 in Kinnear 2011. He continues to do this on Wikipedia after being asked to stop. I don't see this as "borderline", it is his primary editing style and he refuses to stop. How many contributions has he made to Wikipedia that consist of nothing but copy and paste jobs without quotes or attribution? Yes, he adds citations, but the content is not his own nor clearly marked as that of another author. Viriditas (talk) 10:08, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

There was a previous incident with Anupam in mid-February, which led to the proposal of a topic ban at WP:AN (for Anupam and Lionelt, commenting above). That report does not seem to have been archived properly, so here is a historic link.[7] Mathsci (talk) 06:17, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

How has anupam avoided a block for their long-term civil pov-pushing? (And apparent sockpuppetry last year) bobrayner (talk) 08:23, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

User:Bobrayner, you have accused me of sockpuppetry two times for two different users (one being an SPA, and another being an administrator) and yet, despite me and administrator User:Master of Puppets encouraging you to pursue WP:SPI, you have never done so. I would highly appreciate if you could please stop making baseless accusations when you have not even pursued the proper venue for your claims. Once again, please do not try to frame me; if you have legitimate concerns, pursue them at the proper department. I will provide you with a quote that might help you understand why I feel so hurt when you speak this way of me: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” ~Warren Buffet I hope you understand my concerns. Thanks for your understanding. With regards, Anupam^Talk 09:07, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Could we please deal with your accusations against me, first? You say I followed you to several articles, most recently effects of cannabis. Do you have any evidence? Viriditas (talk) 09:17, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, viriditas, for distracting from the current problem. I agree that it should be dealt with. However, pre-emptive attack is nothing new here.

In response to anupam: I posted a very large collection of deeply suspicious diffs surrounding the Militant Atheism article. They were removed repeatedly. Other dissent with anupam's position was also shut down (although thankfully the community has now prevailed and the awful pov-pushing content has been removed). At that time, I was quite convinced that if I raised an SPI, that too would be shut down promptly; and I was very stressed due to the pov-pushing and the messages I was getting, so I didn't push the point any further. Would you like me to present the evidence again here? it seems like an appropriate venue. I'd be happy to offer a big stack of diffs for which sockpuppetry is the only sane explanation. Of course, if you could offer some alternative explanation, that would be welcome too. Calling them baseless accusations is just another lie; just another pre-emptive attack against somebody who has evidence of long-term problematic editing. bobrayner (talk) 09:31, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Bob, have you looked closely at the diffs to see if the content was copied directly from cited sources without quotes or attribution? Viriditas (talk) 10:10, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree; there does seem to be very liberal copying of text. (Sorry for the derail; my main concern was about pov-pushing, and sock-puppetry and canvassing to further that pov-pushing rather than the plagiarism per se) bobrayner (talk) 11:59, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Another issue: even after the problem was pointed out to him earlier in March,[8] Anupam is continuing to import non-neutral, polemical Conservapedia content into Wikipedia in extremely sneaky ways. For example, on April 11, Anupam copied content from Conservapedia's Atheism and health article and added it to Wikipedia's article on Religion.[9] This content was plagiarized from the Mayo Clinic without any inline quotes or attribution. On the same day, he again copied content from Conservapedia's Atheism and health article, but this time rewrote it, and added it to the Wikipedia article on Suicide.[10] Along with the previously mentioned problems with copying and pasting unquoted and unattributed material, the problem of Anupam continuing to add Conservapedia content to Wikipedia has not yet been addressed. The pattern that I've observed over several months appears to be obvious. When Anupam copies over Conservapedia content to a single article on Wikipedia, it generally gets deleted and his edits are reverted. However, he has discovered a way around this problem. Instead of copying over the entire article, what he has been doing instead is copying over small sentences and paragraphs, and then distributing (merging) Conservapedia's content to multiple articles so as not to draw any attention. In this way, the content which would otherwise not be appropriate for Wikipedia on a single article or topic is preserved by placing it in many different articles and topics in smaller chunks so as not to attract attention, and amounts to a sneaky method of proselytizing. This is what he did when he added off-topic material about "atheism and the suppression of science" from Conservapedia to Wikipedia. It was deleted, but Anupam salvaged it when nobody was looking by adding it in small chunks to religious interpretations of the Big Bang theory. Viriditas (talk) 11:18, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• More recent plagiarism in creation and evolution in public education in the United States.[11] Anupam writes: "Two other states, Louisiana and Mississippi, have adopted legislation allowing teachers and students to discuss scientific evidence critical of Darwin’s theory." The source (Discovery Institute) writes: "Two other states, Louisiana and Mississippi, have adopted legislation protecting the academic freedom of teachers and students to discuss scientific evidence critical of Darwin’s theory."[12] Viriditas (talk) 11:32, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

There's compelling evidence in this thread that Anupam has problems with plagiarism/copyright violation and if this doesn't stop immediately he should be blocked. Because of his plagiarism, and because of the POV-pushing that Viriditas documents above, I find the charges of stalking unpersuasive—Anupam clearly needs to be monitored, and any problematic edits he made need to be ameliorated or eliminated. So if Viriditas has been checking regularly on Anupam's edits, that's a good thing. --Akhilleus (talk) 16:06, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

My impression is that Anupam is either unaware of or unwilling to respect the differences in goals and standards between Wikipedia and Conservapedia. Much of his editing gives the impression of searching for increasingly roundabout ways to import Conservapedia content onto Wikipedia.

His use of sources also seems ideologically driven in the extreme; the content about suicide and atheism is a classic illustration. The cited source states that "atheist" countries are "the healthiest and wealthiest nations on Earth", and that a country's level of atheism is correlated with higher development, lower infant mortality, less poverty, fewer homicides, and greater gender equality. The only metric by which atheist countries fare worse than "religious" countries is suicide rate. The authors conclude:

In sum, with the exception of suicide, countries marked by high levels of organic atheism are among the most societally healthy on Earth, while societies characterized by nonexistent rates of organic atheism are among the most unhealthy.

How does Anupam use that source? By going to suicide and prominently linking it to atheism. Note that while the source clearly correlates atheism with societal health, Anupam cherry-picks the one isolated factoid which correlates atheism with societal dysfunction and presents it in isolation. Note the cherry-picked quote in the footnote.

That's textbook: he's mining these sources to advance his personal viewpoint, rather than respecting the actual content and context of the source and presenting it appropriately. For another example of questionable use of sources, see this thread, where I presented my concerns in table form. Because Anupam is unfailingly civil, I doubt that his ideologically driven editing or questionable use of sources will ever result in sanctions. Certainly his civility has so far trumped all content-related concerns, as is typically the case here, but still. MastCell ^Talk 16:44, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• We need much better tools to combat this exact kind of intellectually dishonest but civil pov pushing.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:50, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I understand quite well the difference between the standards in Conservapedia and Wikipedia, the former favouring a conservative point of view in its articles, and the latter favouring a neutral point of view. The sources I place in articles are academic sources and I always provide the original quotation upon which I base my writing. If one looks at the talk page on the Religion article, one can note that there are comments stating that the article seems to focus on the criticism of religion; adding a statement on the positive health benefits of religion, supported by a reference from the Mayo Clinic, is not POV pushing, it is adding valuable information to the article. Contrary to what User:Viriditas stated, I did attribute the quotation and even placed the quote parameter around the information I added (verify). Similarly, with the study on atheism, the source is from the The Cambridge Companion to Atheism and it states:

Concerning suicide rates, religious nations fare better than secular nations. According to the World Health Organization's report on international male suicide rates, of the top ten nations with the highest male suicide rates, all but one (Sri Lanka) are strongly irreligious nations with high levels of atheism. Of the top remaining nine nations leading the world in male suicide rates, all are former Soviet/Communist nations, such as Belarus, Ukraine, and latvia. Of the bottom ten nations with the lowest male suicide rates, all are highly religious nations with statistically insignificant levels of organic atheism.

This is the information that I inserted in the article? I am not sure why that is POV pushing? User:MastCell, I understand that there were other conclusions about atheism in that reference but why are they relevant to an article on Suicide? I would appreciate if you pleased assumed good faith here. Thanks, Anupam^Talk 17:39, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Administrator User:Akhilleus, thank your for your comments here. I see that you have written that you do see problems with plagiarism in my work at Wikipedia. I want to take the time to humbly apologize before you and others here, including User:Viriditas, for doing so. I stand corrected and am sorry for my actions. This was never my intention, as I only desired to make a summary of the references I used, in order to meet WP:V. I never realized that my work constituted plagiarism. I firmly commit to using my quotation parameters and paraphrasing the content more than I have before. In light of these events, I will be taking a break from Wikipedia for a while. I hope you all have a nice day. With regards, Anupam^Talk 17:39, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

In this edit Anupam clearly demonstrates an inability to see how his editing of the Suicide article represents cherry picking. While Anupam claims to understand that Wikipedia is meant to be a neutral source of information, his inability to recognize his own POV pushing is very problematic. While he may be editing in good faith in an attempt to edit neutrally, this clearly demonstrates that he is not capable of doing such. Given that he cannot even recognize his disruptive editing, apologies are not going to solve the problem. Given how long this disruptive editing has been going on, with no improvement despite dozens of apologies, I think it's time to reflect on this editors role in the project. aprock (talk) 18:05, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, the apology is very polite, but fails to address the important issue of biased editing. Given that this user has been here since 2006 and has a history of problematic editing (as has been shown in this thread), I'm not optimistic that he's going to alter his ways now. Perhaps we should discuss a topic ban. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:04, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I do not understand. Every one of my edits uses a reliable source and contains verifiable information. If there is ever a content dispute, I discuss the issue on the talk page and open up an RfC to gain input from the community. I always accept the decision of the community no matter what. I was very sincere in my apology and I do not think this will be necessary. It would be very devastating to me to be banned from articles of my interest, especially when I have been polite and willing to discuss my contributions. I would appreciate if you could please reconsider your comment. I would highly appreciate it. With regards, Anupam^Talk 19:20, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Using a reliable source is not enough when you use it to say the opposite of what is clearly the authors intention when read in context. Selectively quoting information in the way you have done is intellectually dishonest whether or not it is done on purpose. You must understand that if you wish to edit neutrally. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:16, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oh, boy. Having read through this thread and gone over all the diffs I see we have a real problem here. The plagiarism is obviously a major issue, but now that we know about it we can simply enforce Anupam's future avoidance of plagiarism with escalating blocks. The wider issue is the civil POV-pushing. I guess we could consider a topic-ban, but the major problem I see with this is selecting a topic. Religion? Science? Topics that would conventionally be of interest to someone who edits Conservapedia? I guess the latter, but good luck defining it. We could community ban, and I wouldn't be unhappy with such at outcome at all, but it seems a shade harsh right now and I don't think it would get consensus anyway ATM.

• Perhaps some kind of probation and custom-tailored editing restriction? I guess we could form some kind of collective mentorship agreement, whereby a group of sysops get together to monitor Anupam, have the authority to impose blocks/bans/further restrictions on him, and who he can come to for advice? I guess the question with this is whether we'll get enough out of it to be worth the time.

• The other problem is we're not quite sure whether or not he has been socking and generally editing in bad faith. If he has been then we should probably default to community ban right now. Perhaps bobrayner could post the diffs and we can have a look and try to put the pieces of the puzzle together, or send them off for checkuser. Best, Moreschi (talk) 21:06, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

User:Moreschi, I would be happy to have a group of administrators monitor me and let me know if I have problems with my edits. Once again, any time there has ever been a dispute, I take the time to discuss it with others, and start and RfC to gain wider input. I always accept community consensus on the issue. I would be glad to work with a group of sysops on articles. I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 21:52, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• From recent experience on Atheism it is apparent he is a (mostly) civil POV pusher. He tried to insert a cherry picked single analysis (it wasn't actually a study) which suited his POV to try and offset a meta-analysis of no less than 43 studies, 39 of which favoured the opposite conclusion (on religion and intelligence correlations). (There are many more in the literature too) Promptly another editor reverted the addition, asking him to take it to the talk page. Anupam reverted this editor twice: [13] even though being asked to specifically gain consensus. Then user User:Justice007 jumped in to Anupam's rescue with two more reverts with the comment of "What is than WP:NPOV ??." [14] [15]. (I note that Justice007 made no constructive comments beyond being borderline incoherent: [16][17]). Even though it was obvious that a single study had no due weight beside a meta-analysis. Anupam tried to justify including an uncited paper by citing, amongst others, the daily mail and "Christian Post", I think it's clear to any wikipedia editor that these won't help give it due weight. Anupam also hid the daily mail behind a link naming it as "The Telegraph": [18]. Here is the discussion: Talk:Atheism#Study. After only 8 and a half hours after his first comment he started an RfC (aren't RfC's meant to be discussed before being started?); this seems extremely premature to me in any discussion. During the RfC Anupam appeared to have decided that a particular adminstrator would close the RfC although it seems he was not aware of this promise: User_talk:Kuru#RfC_at_Atheism. Anupam also appears to not have grasped basic guidelines and policies, when i quoted WP:N verbatim [19], he replied with "I respect your opinion, but disagree with it" [20]. I find it very hard to believe that an editor with 15 thousand edits confuses notability with due weight. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:16, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I have created numerous articles here on Wikipedia and have helped many editors out, in addition to improving the quality of several articles here. I do not appreciate the misrepresentation of my desire to discuss with other editors and conduct an RfC to gain input from the community. For example, stating that I intentionally labelled a Daily Mail article as an article from The Telegraph, despite the fact that I thanked User:IRWolfie for pointing out the error, is wrong and a clear attempt to defame me. I have been polite and respectful to everyone and am hurt by the lack of compassion and understanding here. If you or any of the others start a process to "topic ban" me, I would rather quit editing Wikipedia and retire instead. So please let me know if you follow through and I will be gone. Thanks, Anupam^Talk 00:42, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this is why I said you were a civil POV pusher (the mostly was for the edit warring). Your thanks is fully consistent with being a civil POV pusher. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:12, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I was just about to suggest moving toward starting up a topic ban discussion on AN. There seems to be some consensus that your editing has been disruptive and tendentious, both from this discussion and earlier ones. I have to concur, but think that it is no longer productive to discuss the matter here on ANI instead of discussing an actual topic ban on AN. In fact, the only thing holding me back is that there is no clear picture of what your topic ban should entail. I'm thinking an indefinite ban on all topics related to religion/atheism and controversial social and political issues, very broadly construed? Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 02:43, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, I don't think we can take Anupam's apology at face value. e.g. in the Kashmir article he had copy-pasted whole scale from sources and was informed of this issue on July 7 2011 when the content was removed (July 7). He did not respond to the warning, instead, he goes in adds it back to the article after a month (Aug 7). After a month, quite obviously copyvio cleaners aren't watching the article as they deal with way too many, so this one has now stood within the article until now. This is highly irresponsible behavior from someone and these sugar laced apologies do not justify it. —SpacemanSpiff 04:17, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Bhai Sahib, the reason I restored the content was because I did not copy directly from the references. I attempted to put it into my own words so I was surprised when it was removed, which is why I restored it when I saw that it was gone. I do not remember even seeing the warning in the first place (my talk page has 384 threads on it). I am sincere when I tell you that I did not mean to do anything wrong. I think the problem here is that I need to do a much better job of putting things into my own words and I am willing to work on this. I guess that the information I added to the Kashmir article should have been put into my own words better, even though I did try to paraphrase the content. Instead of topic banning me, I would commit to working with a group of administrators who could monitor my edits and correct me when I am wrong. I would really appreciate a another chance User:SpacemanSpiff. I left a comment below that you might be interested in reading. Thanks for taking the time to read this comment. With regards, Anupam^Talk 23:44, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• • Threats to quit aren't constructive either, and more importantly aren't binding. If a topic ban is to be initiated then that should happen regardless of whether Anupam sticks a {{retired}} up this week or not. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 07:34, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Lengthy collection of old diffs, just for background information about an earlier period of problematic editing

As requested by Moreschi. I compiled this list after other people raised concerns about sockpuppetry/meatpuppetry. This is a complete biography of turnsalso's life as an SPA on Militant Atheism. There are other SPAs; we may discuss those later, if you wish. 21:00, 27 June Turnsalso account is created at a time when anupam really needs support; somebody else has proposed splitting up anupam's essay. 21:37, 27 June Turnsalso turns their userpage link from red to blue. 22:05, 27 June Turnsalso !votes "Keep; oppose split", just as Anupam had. It's their first ever talkspace edit, but nonetheless Turnsalso has a precocious understanding of wikipedia markup and policy. and does so in an edit only 5 minutes from an anupam edit. I wish I'd known how to do piped links to policy pages the first time I used a talkpage! 22:14, 27 June After that single edit, Anupam swiftly finds the new user and turns their red talkpage link blue, though they have not extedned that courtesy to any other users in the last year. In only an hour, Turnsalso has got bluelinks and looks like a bona fide editor! (When I was a newbie, it took far longer) The proposal was subsequently closed as "no consensus" by Fountainviewkid, whose pov-pushing on christian subjects earned a barnstar from lionel but warnings and blocks from the rest of the community. 01:35, 6 July Turnsalso starts their second talkpage session: Opposing reforms suggested by Dannyno / Liberal Classic. Anupam, coincidentally, holds the same opinion. This new editor confidently cites lots of policies - the same ones used by Anupam. It's not obvious because they don't edit in the same places, but anupam edits and turnsalso edits are typically about 2 minutes apart in this editing session. 03:22, 13 July Anupam adds the Burkeman ref. JimWae makes some changes. 08:07, 13 July Apparently dissatisfied with JimWae's changes, Anupam adds the Burkeman ref back in a second time. (There are now two refs in close proximity using the same long quote) 08:29, 13 July Anupam reverts the distinctive double Burkeman ref back into the article. 18:07, 13 July Turnsalso makes their first edit to the article itself; there have been a number of different changes in the meantime, but Turnsalso surprisingly reaches back into the article history to perform exactly the same revert that anupam did. 18:49, 13 July Turnsalso returns to the talkpage making a similar argument to Anupam. One minute after that, Anupam edits the article, then a few minutes later Anupam adds a comment below Turnsalso. 19:40, 13 July Anupam makes a controversial revert; adding swathes of disputed text back into the article - and removing an NPOV tag amid a controversy over NPOV. 20:03, 13 July Anupam repeats this controversial revert. 20:16, 13 July Anupam repeats this controversial revert again, and is now on the 3RR threshold. 18:21, 14 July Anupam creates a separate section demanding that Man jess revert certain other edits. 18:29, 14 July Anupam's habit of reverting is causing some strife on the talkpage. With perfect timing, Turnsalso is here to help, saying that they will "revert until the issue is settled". 18:32 14 July Turnsalso comes to the rescue again! Their second edit to the article is a revert to anupam's preferred version - despite the fact that there have been several intervening edits. 18:36, 14 July Turnsalso now goes to the new separate section created by anupam, and seconds their proposal that man jess revert, a mere 15 minutes after it was made. Others are not so keen to support. Turnsalso's edit timestamps continue to coincide closely with anupam's timestamps. 14:14, 15 July Another editor raises concerns about sockpuppetry. 17:47, 15 July For turnsalso, reverting man jess' edits is more important than dealing with sockpuppetry concerns. 18:01, 15 July Turnsalso opposes reforms proposed by Peter S Strempel. 20:19, 15 July Turnsalso turns up to support Anupam on the Man Jess thing. Apologises for being late to arrive - less than an hour after anupam's comment (though anupam has been editing elsewhere in that interval). 03:25, 20 July Turnsalso is back on the talkpage, supporting anupam. There's a slightly larger gap here, with an hour and a half between anupam's and turnsalso's edits, which is very high by their standards but would be rather low if you'd compared two random unrelated editors. Abhishikt and peaceloveharmony propose a new lede without all the usual stuff that anupam wants. Needless to say, anupam opposes. Turnsalso dutifully opposes a little later. 20:49, 26 July: Anupam makes an alternate proposal for the lede which is basically the same thing that anupam has kept in their lede all along. Just to make the votes clear, they add an extra support of their own beneath it. Unfortunately, the votes don't go how anupam would like; [21] 15 minutes after the fourth oppose, turnsalso arrives to support anupam. 23:43, 18 August Turnsalso's directly support's anupam's quest to add in multiple refs, as though many trivial mentions make a grand concept. Just as with anupam, WP:V is used repeatedly; who cares about NPOV or synth? Anupam cites a contrived "consensus" and, supposedly, administrative support for keeping anupam's preferred wording All those people who disagree should keep quiet because anupam has The Consensus. A few minutes later, turnsalso arrives to provide unflinching support for the "consensus". As usual, anupam's and turnsalso's editing sessions overlap, and edits are separated by a few minutes. IRWolfie points out an obvious synth problem. An uninvolved editor agrees. Anupam defends their preferred wording. 16 minutes later, Turnsalso is there to support anupam. 19:33, 25 August After JimWae makes a series of suggestions, turnsalso disagrees with each point in turn, apart from a trivial little concession on the name of the Cultural Revolution. Anupam then arrives, disagreeing with each of jimWae's points, apart from a trivial little concession on the name of the Cultural Revolution. Anupam makes another proposal for the lede, and again adds their own support vote. When support from others starts to waver, Turnsalso is on hand to help! Only half an hour after the first oppose, turnsalso supports. 21:04 25 August Caught out, turnsalso concedes that there might actually be different flavours of militant atheism which do different things, but insists that they're conceptually related; anupam would be proud. 23:27, 12 September Turnsalso defends anupam's article against yet another person's concerns of pov-pushing and synth. Also refers to administrative declarations on content (but only when they favour the status quo; other admins in the discussion are not mentioned), which is a rather quirky interpretation of policy shared only by anupam. 16:06, 16 September Two minutes after anupam's last edit, turnsalso supports anupam against concerns raised by JimWae. 18:01, 17 September Turnsalso's third edit to the article; removing an unsourced word. 02:25, 20 September 190.92.44.9 makes exactly the same revert that Anupam has made. The revert is repeated at 02:47 and 02:53. This IP address has never edited any other article but nonetheless helps anupam escape the clutches of 3RR. 05:46, 20 September: 190.53.90.122 makes exactly the same revert. Again, this IP has never edited any other article. Anupam is very lucky that anonymous editors have appeared from thin air to pretend anupam's preferred version of the article against the hordes of dissenters. Anupam repeatedly praises these editwarring IPs as two additional voices in anupam's support - always pretending that they are completely new people, rather than an existing editor who's logged out to avoid 3RR. 16:31, 20 September turnsalso supports Anupam's (and the IP address') reverts, for the same reason. 16:59, 20 September bobrayner creates a new section raising concerns about sockpuppetry. 40 minutes after turnsalso's last edit in their support, anupam appears to acknowledge the section about sockpuppetry, but then removes the heading, and bizarrely refactors other people's comments to bury the concerns in the middle of a busy thread on a different subject (although anupam's edit summary acknowledges it's a different subject) where the concerns would get much less attention. Needless to say, nobody else replies to this after it's been buried. 18:51, 20 September Turnsalso offers a "compromise" which is actually in line with anupam's previous position. Turnsalso's editing session coincides with that of anupam, who made an edit 1 minute earlier. 19:04, 20 September Anupam graciously accepts the compromise offered by turnsalso; it's only 5 minutes since turnsalso's last edit. 20:06, 21 September Turnsalso opposes the latest proposal, 18 minutes after anupam's lengthy opposition. As usual, editing sessions overlap. There are a handful other relevant diffs which I omitted for lack of time. For instance, the edits where turnsalso went to the talkpage of anupam's preferred administrator, to ask for their intervention, although turnsalso had never interacted with that admin before. To conclude: When anupam approached 3RR on the article, somebody else was always there to help - either turnsalso or a mysterious IP address steps in to make exactly the same revert. When anupam was in trouble on the talkpage, Turnsalso suddenly appeared to provide support votes when they're most needed. The editing times show a series of remarkable coincidences. Immediately after I raised concerns about sockpuppetry, Turnsalso stopped editing. The account has been abandoned; but it wasn't the first SPA which only edited in support of Anupam, and I doubt it'll be the last.

I shouldn't have to dig this up again, but claims that anupam made in this thread are totally incompatible with the available evidence. bobrayner (talk) 09:10, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Bob, in your opinion, does this look like the work of a fanatical hobbyist with too much time on his hands, or a paid editor working on behalf of a special interest group? I ask, because when one talks about job losses and unemployment, the word "devastating" is used quite a bit. Up above, Anupum said, "It would be very devastating to me to be banned from articles of my interest..." I found that wording very unusual, as in normal discourse, the use of that word is associated with the loss of one's paid profession.[22] I also find much of Anupam's so-called civility to be more artificial than natural in tone. Viriditas (talk) 09:29, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't like to guess whether this kind of editing is driven by personal interest or pay. That's a whole new can of worms and - though I respect you as an editor - I think it could distract from the main problem; bad editing is bad editing, regardless of what motivates it. Civility of long-term problematic editors could be viewed simply as an evolutionary artefact; if an editor pov-pushes and is rude/abrasive, they are strongly selected against in our current ecosystem, whilst somebody who pov-pushes and says "please" and "thankyou" is much more likely to survive each AN/I thread unscathed. bobrayner (talk) 09:38, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, let's not go down this road. Viriditas' speculation about things being "devastating" is less than convincing. Viriditas, please don't sideline the discussion with that. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:42, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Agree, I think speculating on whether or not an editor is paid is pointless. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• That's a lot of coincidences. Well, I've been through the diffs Bob posted and I'm fairly well convinced that Turnalso is a sock/meatpuppet of Anupam, but what do others think on this one? Bob, you mentioned other SPA accounts - would you mind listing them here? Don't bother doing diff-by-diff analysis for these if you have better things to be doing, we can probably work through them ourselves. Moreschi (talk) 10:33, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

In my experience, Anupum has definitely been prone to plagiarism and at the very least of inadequate or misleading sourcing. I've pulled him up on it several times in the last couple of years (eg https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Talk:Militant_atheism/Archive_3#Quoted_material_not_in_quote_marks), so his claim here that he "didn't realise" is not credible. I can't speak to the other allegations. --143.52.87.123 (talk) 10:54, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: I have participated in some RfCs initiated by Anupam, and as far as I saw, he behaved the way he claims, contributing in a civil manner to discussions, and not contesting their outcome. There were obviously disagreements during these discussions, but this happens in most disputes requiring a RfC. While I do not deny that Anupam has done some obvious mistakes previously, I nonetheless think there has been too much bad faith assumed about his actions, and a permanent topic ban looks far too harsh in my opinion, especially for someone who contributed on many articles, as well as writting new ones. I think Moreschi's suggestion, to have Anupam monitored by a group of administrators, could be a more constructive solution. Cody7777777 (talk) 16:03, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Cody7777777, did somebody tell you to come here? Were you emailed or was there a message on another site somewhere? After all the concerns about canvassing, I'm surprised to see an editor come to this thread to defend anupam despite being semi-retired, with no talkpage notification, and having edited eight articles in the last six months. bobrayner (talk) 18:41, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I have reached this discussion through Wikipedia_talk:Christianity_noticeboard#User_attrition (that page is on my watchlist), which led me to User_talk:Anupam#Notice (where I saw the link to this discussion). Since I have observed Anupam's behaviour durging these RfCs, I thought could comment here about them. I do not see anything wrong with that. And to be honest, I I would also have been curious to know how some other users (who support Anupam's banning) have reached this discussion. Cody7777777 (talk) 19:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I've been involved with Anumpam on a number of articles over the past year, and this sort of behavior comes up every time. He clearly has an ideological goal to motivate his editing here, and it is clearly disparate to the aims of wikipedia. He plagiarizes. He exhibits disruptive IDHT behavior. He cherry picks sources, claims sources say things they don't, and uses sources to support controversial statements which are entirely irrelevant. He lies about previous editors actions, consensus, article content, and sourcing in the presumed hope that editors unfamiliar with the history will take his word. Most infuriatingly, however, every time he gets stuck in a rut, there is a sudden influx of editors who rush in to support him. It's funny, because I was planning to mention Cody777, only to find he'd commented just before I hit edit. Check his contrib history - at least half of his edits in the past year have been to articles involving Anupam. All of them have been articles he wasn't involved with previously (Big Bang, Atheism, Militant Atheism, MOP's talk, here). Anupam has a posse of editors, like Cody, Lionel and Turnsalso, who pop in to support him in contentious issues, which includes disruptive POV pushing his conservative, religious agenda. There's 5 to 7 others, who I won't name.

A few of his group are great contributers elsewhere, which makes sock-puppetry unlikely. We could file an SPI, but I also don't think Anupam is careless enough to have used multiple accounts from one IP. I think this is a case of meatpuppetry; users are being recruited either through email, personal contact, or a private forum. This behavior is disruptive for numerous reasons, including the often unmentioned issue of editor retention. Anupam has driven me away from numerous areas of the project very directly, and decreased my editing and motiviation to continue editing anywhere. I'm sure I'm not alone. Allowing this behavior to continue drives away productive, actually collaborative editors. That he says "Hope that helps", apologizes without understanding the issues or changing his behavior, threatens to retire to avoid sanctions, or what-have-you, should in no way be taken into account when determining if sanctions should be imposed. I'd like to see this handled, finally... after all the ANI threads, drama and disruption, we need to deal with this and move on. Can someone post a formal request for sanctions (whatever those may be) here or at AN? Thanks.   — Jess· Δ♥ 17:08, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I do not want to assume any bad faith, but in my opinion this is beginning to look like some sort of witch hunt. Regardless, what you want to believe I have seen his RfCs at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Religion_and_philosophy.

Regarding the "Militant Atheism" article, I had actually edited on that article's talk page as early as february 2010, before Anupam even started to edit on it.

Most of my interaction with Anupam began during the 2011 "Militant Atheism" debates, where we shared similar views (but as I already said, I was interested in that article from an earlier date). Regarding, the other two RfCs about Big Bang, and Atheism, I do not deny that I might had also been influenced by the fact that there were some people involved (on both sides) who also participated the previous "Militant Atheism" debates, but I have not entered those debates just to add more !votes, most the time I tried to search for sources related to these respective topics, to help their improvement. For example, you can check my comments from the Big Bang RfCs[23][24]. But regarding the RfC on "Atheism", I admit I was unable to do any serious contribution, despite my initial hopes.Cody7777777 (talk) 19:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

A couple of Anupam's disputes in the last ~6 months include Militant atheism, Big Bang, Atheism, Christmas Eve, MoP's talk, his previous ANI case, and this ANI. Both you and Lionelt were involved in all of them. In 6 of those 7 cases, you arrived at the discussion after Anupam was 'in trouble' without any previous involvement, ever. Five of those seven appear in your last ~25 edits, the remaining 2 in your last 50. The idea that you and Lionelt and all the others just happened across all of them on your own is kind of silly. The two of you are not the only ones magically appearing, either, or even the best examples in some cases. I don't think your editing rises to the level of disruption on its own, which is why you're not the subject of this thread. However, Anupam's magical "vote for me" and "save me from 3rr" posse is at issue here, and you are unfortunately involved in that crowd. That behavior, along with the plagiarizing, POV pushing, misrepresentations, etc, all needs to stop.   — Jess· Δ♥ 20:08, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I would like to point out to the administrators that many of the individuals here who wish to censure me participated in this RfC and took a position different than myself in the content dispute. There was a legitimate position who voted to keep the article intact, which is being underrepresented here. I would kindly ask the administrators to please look at this RfC and realize that some of the individuals at this ANI thread have taken a position in a content dispute, in which I took the opposite position. Yes, I did not use any sockpuppets and I have yet to see an actual checkuser performed to verify that I am not any of the SPAs (which participated in both sides of the content dispute). For example, Jkhwiki (talk · contribs), Obhave (talk · contribs), Runirokk (talk · contribs), Devilishlyhandsome (talk · contribs), et. al are single purpose accounts who took the same position as Dominus Vobisdu (talk · contribs), Mann jess (talk · contribs), and ArtifexMayhem (talk · contribs). At the same time, there were SPAs that voted to keep the article, including Jacob800 (talk · contribs), Turnsalso (talk · contribs), Troisprenoms (talk · contribs), Jwaxman1 (talk · contribs), etc. User:Mann jess is quick to say that User:Cody7777777 appeared at the Big Bang RfC, which was listed at WP:XNB and the Religion and Philosophy RfC list, but denies the fact that his compatriots here, User:IRWolfie-, User:Dominus Vobisdu, User:ArtifexMayhem, along with himself (User:Mann jess) all magically showed up at the article, picking the exact same Draft, and yet, are the same users who are working together to censure me. Individuals, such as User:Dominus Vobisdu hope to remove me from editing articles so that they can censor information in articles to fit their interpretation, such as this recent edit. Once again, please consider this before making any decisions. It is very unfair that one group of editors target me and try to ban me for holding different views than them. Thanks for taking the time to read this message. With regards, Anupam^Talk 18:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Big Bang is an article that I've edited previously; it's been on my watchlist for a long time. AFAIK, the same is true for all the other editors you listed beside my name. It is not true of Cody or others who magically show up in all your disputes, just when you need help. Here's a great example; I came here only after being notified. Lionelt and Cody, on the other hand, seem to just have noticed the discussion, even with Cody being semi-retired. That happened on Militant atheism too. It also happened on Atheism. It also happened in your previous ANIs. Attacking my character on the basis that we've been in previous disputes is ridiculous, considering I'm commenting on your behavior in those disputes.   — Jess· Δ♥ 19:20, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

BTW, Obhave is not an SPA. See Special:Contributions/Obhave. You also missed quite a few SPAs magically showing up to vote keep on the other end. Trying to equate the two is grossly misrepresenting facts, yet again...   — Jess· Δ♥ 19:33, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

How on earth is it a mystery that I turned up at the RFC on the Big Bang theory? I had it in my watchlist from the previous RFC and you posted it at the wikiproject physics talk page Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Physics#Big_Bang_RfC_.28Part_II.29 which I look at, I even commented on your post at wikiproject physics for the first RfC Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Physics/Archive_February_2012#Big_Bang. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:34, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Thankyou for remaining superficially civil. However, you have repeatedly lied, misrepresented sources, plagiarised, ballot-stuffed, and generally cheated - whatever it takes to push your message. You have got away with it for a long time but that kind of editing has no place on en.wikipedia. This crusade is a net negative to the encyclopædia. Essays like Militant Atheism may be welcome on conservapedia, but not here, because en.wikipedia requires truthfulness and neutrality. Some good editors have been driven away; others have wasted many hours trying to mitigate the pov-pushing. Since you have repeatedly failed to acknowledge or fix the problem - and instead have the chutzpah to pretend that there's a conspiracy against you - I think it's time to propose a topic ban. The last time this was tried, the thread was shut down 2 hours later; I hope that won't happen again. bobrayner (talk) 18:53, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I remain civil because I prefer to engage in friendly dialogue with others, discussing content rather than attacking individuals. If I wanted to prove a point with the Militant atheism article, then why would I write an entire section criticising the term in that article. I have repeatedly explained that every source in that article was from an academic book or journal, thus fulfilling WP:NPOV. There is a reason that I placed every single quote from the original book or journal in the quote parameter of the references - to demonstrate that these are not my words, but the words of the authors who wrote them. An administrator on Conservapedia interpreted my edits similarly to the way you do, but did you see my response to him? It is evident that I am not the one here who is pushing a message. Thanks, Anupam^Talk 19:46, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Can you explain why you added back plagiarized/copyvio text after being told not to both on your talk and in edit summaries? And of course, you didn't respond to the warning either. This canvassing and plagiarism (I'm not commenting on the POV bit as I haven't spent any time at all on those articles) been going on for far too long, that I'm sure the topic ban below is too narrow to be of any use. —SpacemanSpiff 20:00, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Allow me to add that I find Anupam's approach to dispute resolution to be problematic as well. In this edit: [25] Anupam demonstrates that he's also willing to plagiarize wikipedia itself, inserting articles wholesale into Conservapedia with no attribution. Compare versions: Wikipedia, Conservapedia. When community consensus leads to an article being deleted, the appropriate response is not to export the disputed content, unattributed, to another site. aprock (talk) 20:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Topic ban proposal

As a result of the long-term pov-pushing problem - including plagiarism, misuse of sources, deception, sockpuppetry, and so on - I propose that anupam is topic-banned from editing on atheism or religion, broadly construed. Alas, this seems to be the best solution to a long-term problem, because other attempts to help anupam edit honestly have failed.

I demand that the unproven accusation of sockpuppetry and "and so on" be removed. This constitutes a personal attack. – Lionel ^(talk) 03:12, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Bobrayner: maybe you should work on controlling your own edit warring tendencies before accusing others [26].– Lionel ^(talk) 05:42, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Lionelt, the report you linked to resulted in page protection, not sanctions. Below, you've indicated repeatedly that Anupam has not edit warred because he hasn't been blocked. Are you being genuine here, or are you just trying to start fights so as to derail the thread? You can't claim Anupam hasn't edit warred on some bogus criteria you made up, but then ignore that criteria to claim other editors have. Read the diffs in that report if you're going to cite it; 3 of the 5 reverts came from another editor, not Bobrayner. Anupam's history of edit warring, on the other hand, is abundantly clear; frankly, it's a wonder he hasn't been blocked.   — Jess· Δ♥ 06:48, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps Lionel was unaware that that 3RR noticeboard report was a pre-emptive measure filed by an edit warrior who was a few reverts ahead of me, after I'd given them a talkpage warning. An edit-warrior who was stripping well-sourced content out of an article because only a subset of the sources fitted their POV. Such tactics will surely be familiar to any editor close to anupam. How was this thread started? (Also, even if the tu quoque were accurate, it would still be a fallacy). As for the sockpuppetry, the diffs speak for themselves. bobrayner (talk) 07:11, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Does anybody have any thoughts on this? Is it harmless editing or further evidence of a crusade? Make up your own mind. bobrayner (talk) 08:19, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. bobrayner (talk) 18:58, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Proposed Extension: I propose that controversial social and political issues be added to the topic ban. The ban as proposed is too narrow, and Anupam has been disruptive in basically all areas that would interest a Conservapedia editor. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 19:28, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support with extension above. It's pretty clear that Anupam will always be a disruptive editor in the areas included, and that POV pushing, misrepresenting sources, ignoring consensus, filibustering, and meatpuppertry are fundamental elements of his editing repertoir, which is clearly calculated to consume the time of editors who disagree with him. His apologies and promises to improve can't be taken seriously because of his persistent dishonesty. Actually, I'd have nothing at all against a community ban. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 19:28, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose: Anupam is an valuable contributor with a clean, unblemished, block-free record. The plagiarism issues need to be dealt with: but not with this Draconian response. The best method for dealing with this is specialized mentoring tailored for this issue, and escalating blocks. Plain and simple.

The gallery of users who have lined up here to crucify Anupam for the most part are those who were on the losing end of a content dispute. ANI is not a place for settling old scores. We all have a POV and we don't topic ban people who don't share our POV. Anupam wins content debates the old fashioned way: with sound and polite reasoning, and when all else fails RFC. This is nothing more than a crucifiction: an attempt to censor an editor who has successfully been neutralizing the rampant pro-atheist POV. I pray that the community will not allow this group to drive away another veteran editor.– Lionel ^(talk) 20:08, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

From my experience recent experience on Atheism Anupam tries to win content debates with some light edit warring and then a talk page discussion trying to push obviously undue material that suits his POV by starting frivolous RfC's at the drop of a hat (as you say, he's been an editor for 7 years, kind of hard to believe he doesn't know the policies and guidelines). Also, how could a 7 year veteran be still plagarising? (and no, I wasn't on the "losing end" of the debate). You refer to "rampant pro-atheist POV" and "anti-Christian vandals". You claim Anupam is editing Atheistic articles from a christian perspective. Editors should not be editing atheist articles from a "christian perspective" as you put it, they should be trying to be neutral [27]. If an editor said there were going to edit Catholic sex abuse cases from an "Islamic perspective", I'd clearly be worried about their bias as well. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:20, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Edit warring????? He has a clean block record. WTF are you talking about? These are exactly the kind of attacks that are representative of this entire farce masquerading as a Topic Ban Discussion. – Lionel ^(talk) 03:20, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Lionelt, honesty is not optional, it is required. Anupum has received numerous warnings from admins. For example, he was warned by EdJohnston in March 2010.[28] He was warned about his edit warring in September 2011 by admin Wifone[29] and admitted to edit warring in November 2011 in another incident where he was warned yet again by admin Wifione.[30] Additionally, he's been constantly warned by the user community, for example by Griswwaldo and Tryptofish in March 2011,[31] and by multiple users over many years.[32][33][34][35] So for you to question this, Lionelt, is indicative of a larger problem. Just because someone is civil doesn't allow them to flagrantly violate every major policy and guideline. Viriditas (talk) 05:53, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Let me repeat: Anupam has never been blocked in 7 years. The incidents you cite, one of which was not EW but tendentious editing, for the most part were not egregious, were resolved to the satisfaction of the involved admin, and in totality do not justify besmirching this editor's reputation with the label "edit warrior." – Lionel ^(talk) 06:22, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Nice Chewbacca defense. You deny he's been warned by multiple admins and editors about his persistent edit warring because...he's never been blocked? Viriditas (talk) 09:57, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Crucifixion's a doddle. —ArtifexMayhem (talk) 23:19, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

If you're opposing on the grounds that a block is more appropriate, then we can do a block. A lot of editors have said they support an outright block, rather than second chance with a TB. If, on the other hand, you're opposing because Anupam has "been neutralizing the rampant pro-atheist POV", then I think that speaks for itself.   — Jess· Δ♥ 01:32, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Dear User:Mann jess, I would be open to a temporary block, much more than an indefinite topic ban. That being said, if it is the community's desire (right now there are also several votes opposing a ban), I will follow through with a topic ban, but I would like for the topic ban to list a specific time period (e.g. six months, one year, two years, etc.). I look forward to your response. With regards, Anupam^Talk 02:14, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

@IRWolfie, by "Christian perspective" I was referring to the Wikipedia precept that "Everybody has a point of view" WP:NOVFAQ. Sometimes when an editor is very closely aligned with the subject in which they edit they develop tunnel vision. In these cases it is helpful for an "outsider"--as it were--to help make the content neutral. I.e. a fresh set of eyes. – Lionel ^(talk) 03:48, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

@Anupam, indefinite does not mean infinite. An indefinite topic ban could be lifted at any time that the community felt you had demonstrated a willingness and ability to edit productively in these areas. Considering the level of disruption here (enough to potentially warrant being indefinitely community banned), I don't think putting a timer on a a topic ban is a good idea. Editors with such a timer often just "wait it out", without learning to edit productively. You're welcome to propose a definite topic ban, but I have my doubts the community would support it at this time. Thanks.   — Jess· Δ♥ 04:27, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I do not think that would help. How can I "learn to edit productively," as you state, without gaining experience on those articles that you deem that I edit problematically? I am confident that if this proposal (which is not neutrally worded at all) passes (which it might or might not), many of the editors who voted here will be unwilling to let me edit in this topic. For this reason, I think this proposal should specify a time, even if it is one or two years. With regards, Anupam^Talk 04:36, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes.... if the topic ban proposal passes, you will not be allowed to edit in the topic. That's the point of a topic ban. If you demonstrate you can edit productively in other areas, you may appeal the topic ban after some time has passed.   — Jess· Δ♥ 04:45, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't follow where that quote is from, it's not in WP:NPOVFAQ. What I do see is a section on Dealing with biased contributors. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:17, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose ban. I have already expressed most of my reasons in this comment. Since he is an editor who also has done many useful contributions (including new articles), I don't think it is fair to assume he cannot become a better editor, despite his previous mistakes. And the claim that his civility is superficial looks more like a bad faith assumption in my opinion. As I said before, I also think Moreschi's previous suggestion, to have Anupam monitored by a group of administrators, is a more constructive solution, since Wikipedia should not throw away editors with good potential. But if there is a ban, it should at least be temporary. Cody7777777 (talk) 20:43, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

So you are okay with topic ban? -Abhishikt (talk) 01:25, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support topic ban on religion, atheism, and politics related articles, broadly construed, per discussion and evidence presented above. There is more than enough evidence for his civil POV pushing, plagiarism, misuse of sources and deception. I'm not sure there is enough evidence for sockpuppetry, but there are strong indications. If anyone is still unsure about his true intentions, please take a look at his conservapedia talk page.--В и к и T 20:52, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, please do. You can see my response right there. Thanks, Anupam^Talk 00:05, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support Editor has a clear POV as evidenced the continued plagiarism and misuse of sources. MarnetteD | Talk 20:58, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
• Reluctantly support Anupam has always been one of the most polite people I've encountered on wiki. Many people here seem to believe it's a ruse for civil POV pushing. I don't agree, I would rather AGF on his end, especially since I've seen what bad faith religious POV pushing looks like. I don't need to say any names, most of the editors commenting above could probably pick someone from memory and they'd be a good enough example. With that said, a lot of the above commentary and diffs do illustrate what I would consider to be problematic, and so I have to support a topic ban for the good of the encyclopedia. No prejudice to a removal of the topic ban if Anupam can demonstrate at some point in the future that he understands the concerns expressed by other editors (especially the idea that almost nothing on Conservapedia is worthy of being part of WP, and that WP serves an entirely different purpose), but I think a 3-6 month break in the meantime will be necessary. SÆdon^talk 21:15, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Dear User:Saedon, the problem is that this topic ban thread does not specify a time frame. If it is the community's desire, I will follow through with a topic ban, but it should specify a time period, three to six months, one year, two years, etc. I look forward to your response. With regards, Anupam^Talk 02:10, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support with extension - I don't really think this guys is fooling anyone any more. I also would have nothing against a community ban. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 21:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - as per Cody777777's comments - and as per the users article creation list - the user has a large percentage of wiki beneficial contributions - a less extreme restriction is far preferable - Youreallycan 21:32, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
  • YRC; I respect your opposition; you're haven't been mired in most of the previous disputes on these topics so nobody could accuse you of being partisan. However, if I remember correctly, you've made great efforts on BLP and this is close to your heart; how would you feel if problematic editing touched on BLPs too? For instance, going to the Breivik article and adding "Breivik quoted liberals like Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins" as part of a crusade to prove that Atheists are Bad People. Personally, I think there have been enough second chances; the BLP violations should be stopped. bobrayner (talk) 08:42, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support On the topic of Atheism related articles broadly construed. Anupam is clearly unable to leave his own bias at the door and try and edit the articles from a neutral point of view and has been involved in POV pushing etc on these articles. That he edits these articles from a "christian perspective" as Lionelt put it, is worrying. I don't edit christianity articles from an an atheistic perspective; nor should any editor. I would suggest a temporary block as well to stop the "never been blocked" mantra which keeps appearing at these ANI discussions. Outside of this, I am unsure how serial plagerism (even after warnings) can be dealt with. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:58, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

The partisan aspect of all the main contributors in this area is tangible , not just this user but all of them - removing one user from the topic area when all of the players are equally partisan is detrimental to the neutral position. Youreallycan 22:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't being partisan when I encountered Anupam on Atheism, Editors should have a reasonable expectation that other editors won't POV push, "I'm not the only one breaking the rules" isn't a valid defense. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:17, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

There is a strong COI amongst many of the contributors there - basically all the interested users are conflicted - they are all biased - restricting a single one is a biased partisan desire - Youreallycan 22:22, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

If you believe other editors have broken the rules bring that up in a separate ANI filing, other than that it's mere speculation. Other editors breaking rules or not has never been a defense before and it should not be now for your friend Anupam from what I've seen (it just results in both parties being reprimanded). IRWolfie- (talk) 22:48, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support -- enough already, it's perfectly obvious that if this isn't done the disruption will continue unabated. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 22:05, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support per IRWolfie. Editors should edit from a neutral point of view, not with a bias to balance some other percieved bias. --Saddhiyama (talk) 22:07, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support with a BLP example: In this addition, sourced to a partisan opinion piece in a partisan tabloid, Anupam links Richard Dawkins to Anders Behring Breivik and the Unabomber, and doesn't miss the opportunity to call Dawkins a "militant atheist". In reality, Breivik wrote about Dawkins unfavorably. Prolog (talk) 22:25, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support Continued and unrepentant plagiarism and edit warring is not excused by hollow apologies. Given that this problematic behavior extends outside the proposed topic area this will give Anupam a good chance to turn over a new leaf and edit collaboratively with the community in areas where he has in the past been disruptive. aprock (talk) 22:44, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Edit warring???? I demand that you strike. He's been here 7 years and never been blocked. – Lionel ^(talk) 03:26, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

So if an editor isn't blocked, that means he isn't edit warring? That's a strange definition. Editors are typically only blocked for 3rr, which Anupam is very careful to avoid. He edit wars constantly, however. There are at least a few examples in this thread alone.   — Jess· Δ♥ 06:32, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support with extension, but prefer community ban. My overwhelming preference, of course, is that Anupam understands that the community finds his behavior unacceptable, and begins editing productively across the site. However, I don't have any confidence that will ever happen. His repeated misrepresentation of sources, article history and other editors in an attempt to manipulate consensus is unacceptable on any article. In previous ANI cases, I wanted lighter sanctions imposed, but I have since lost faith that they will be sufficient. I don't put any trust in the content he contributes to the site due to his extended history of sneaky pov pushing and meatpuppetry to influence consensus, and it's unfair to expect multiple other productive editors to scrutinize his every edit while we give him yet another trial run. That said, a topic ban is better than nothing, and maybe it'll turn out that I'm wrong. Very unfortunately, I doubt it.   — Jess· Δ♥ 22:52, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose I understand with clarity that I have broken the plagiarism policy at Wikipedia. For me, the problem should be to avoid close paraphrasing, even if I provide a reference. User:Moreschi suggested the alternative of working with a group of administrators to monitor my work. Most of individuals who wish to ban me are the same individuals who participated in this RfC and differed from mine and many others' view there. As such, this is a content dispute and I feel I should not be blocked for holding different views than these editors. I have created countless articles (e.g. Works of Piety, Qaisar Bagh) and have contributed to many more since 2006, never having been blocked. In addition, I am the editor for Ichthus. Moreover, I have helped several new editors out with editing the encyclopedia. Whenever there are content disputes, I take the time to discuss the issue, and start an RfC to gain input from the community if the dispute is unresolved. I always accept the decisions of the RfCs as well. I know that many users here do appreciate my work and I would miss editing my favorite topics, as well as the friends that I have made here too. I recognize the close paraphrasing/plagiarism issue now and hope that I can improve in this area by working with administrators, rather than being topic banned. I also sincerely apologize for these actions and to the editors that have been hurt by my actions. I hope that the community will have compassion on me and will give me the opportunity to improve. Thanks for taking the time to read this post. With regards, Anupam^Talk 23:31, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

It's clearly not a content dispute as the numerous diffs have shown throughout this discussion. I did not comment on the Militant Atheism RfC, nor have multiple other editors in this discussion. This is again more deflection from your own editing pattern. What Prolog showed is pretty damning. Seems like he didn't comment on that RfC either. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

@Anupam, If plagiarism was the only disruptive conduct, this might suffice. But the problem extends well beyond simple plagiarism. Your failure to acknowledge your other disruptive behavior (ignoring multiple notices and warnings, edit warring, POV pushing, canvasing, misrepresenting sources, etc) only points to further disruptive editing down the road. Your claim that you "accept the decisions of the RfCs" is contradicted by the fact that when the Militant Atheism RfC went against you, you immediately exported the content to Conservapedia: http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Militant_atheism&diff=922868&oldid=909277. Adhering to the letter of the RfC while simultaneously contravening the spirit of the RfC is exactly the sort of disruptive editing that needs to end. aprock (talk) 23:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Calling an veteran editor with a clean block record an edit warrior is false, and a personal attack. – Lionel ^(talk) 03:26, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

@Anupam, it is, indeed, unfortunate that you will be unable to edit your preferred topic. However, understand that there are two options on the table right now: a community ban or a topic ban. If the community decides that a topic ban is preferable, that says we want you to stay and continue editing, and that if the problems outlined here are addressed, then maybe (at some point in the distant future) you can get the topic ban lifted and continue editing these articles again. Continuing to apologize for only one aspect of the thread won't help matters; we need to see your behavior improve, which is an opportunity you would be afforded with a topic ban. I have my doubts that will happen, but I'm hopeful that I am wrong. Please accept that the community views this behavior as disruptive, and stop recruiting editors off-site to post in your discussions, double-check that sources say what you're claiming before adding them, stop cherry-picking from the literature to support an ideological agenda, stop close paraphrasing, and try to hear what other editors are saying, and accept those contrary opinions without trying to force an RfC, votestack and manipulate consensus. If you can do that, we want you here. If you can't, then that's not behavior we can accept. Being honest about your intentions and clearly indicating what communication/canvassing is going on off-site (as well as putting an end to it) would go a long way. Short of that, it's hard to see these issues clearing up on their own.   — Jess· Δ♥ 00:05, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Dear User:Mann jess, I am not guilty for half of those accusations that you list. I always try to discuss things with others and do indeed accept the community outcomes of RfCs. If the community does feel a topic ban is necessary (although I believe that any problems can be easily remedied by working with an administrator), I would appreciate a specified time: one year, two years, five years? However, proposing an indefinite topic ban is not helpful. Thanks for taking the time to read this. With regards, Anupam^Talk 00:08, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm saddened that you again claim to "accept the community outcomes of RfCs" in a thread where it was clearly illustrated that you don't. It's difficult to imagine a positive outcome when this level of denial is demonstrated. aprock (talk) 00:18, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I do indeed accept the community outcome for all RfCs. Take the most recent one for example, here. Did I ever try to push the information back into the article or did I leave it as is? This is representative of my behavior at Wikipedia - to discuss disputes and gain input from the community if there are disagreements. To ban me for this is what is really sad. Have a nice day, Anupam^Talk 00:28, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

This RfC is representive of your behaviour? So I summarise then that you typically edit war before making RFCs without discussing them first, and then refuse to close the RfC when consensus is very clear, and then make an invention that a particular administrator will close the RfC. This is your standard practice? IRWolfie- (talk) 00:36, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

@Anupam, the funny thing is, even if you were only guilty of "half" of it, as you claim, that would still rise to the level of a community ban, IMO. That said, strong evidence has been presented in this thread of each one of the things I asked you to stop doing. Your big apology above resonated with me, which is why I reached out and suggested you stay on the site and work within the confines of the TB. That you've switched back to denying everything and accusing everyone of wanting to censor dissenting opinions (below) quashes any sense of sympathy I had. We're right back where we started: You're being disruptive, lots of editors have warned you about it every way they know how, and you still won't accept there's anything wrong. This indicates you'll continue your problematic behavior, and we can't have that. These responses of yours are why I supported a community ban, and until you're able to hear criticism and edit collaboratively, that's IMO the only solution that will actually work.   — Jess· Δ♥ 01:27, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• Strong Support for ban for Atheism, religion or controversial topics. Reasons: Anupam has shown issues of WP:POV, WP:OWN multiple times in many atheism/religion/science related articles like Atheism, Militant Atheism, Big Bang, Creation–evolution controversy‎, Existence of God‎, etc. He often refuses to get to the point during discussion - an example of it. We should not forget that the fact that he is a regular Conservapedia editor. When Militant Atheism article got removed, he moved the entire article as it is to Conservapedia and it was made article of the month there. This shows how biased his POV is for atheism/religion/science related articles.

His recent 3RR incident, where I mentioned that his POV pushing takes lot of effort from other editors, resulting in wastage of hundreds of hours of WP community.

Anupam complained about unfair warnings to him, but he himself give me such recently. Unralated dubious thing: Anupam deleting notice from his talk page diff. here -Abhishikt (talk) 00:06, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I would just like to comment on User:Abhishikt's recent participation in an RfC. He states: "The discussion in above section is pretty clear that this is WP:UNDUE and cherry picking of sentences to push POV for showing that religious people are not stupid/less educated." He also, like most of the editors here wishing to ban me, held the position opposite mine in this content dispute. Once again, editors here simply wish to ban me because I held a different position than them in a content dispute. One can imagine that this kind of POV will be normative if I am banned, as the individuals opposing me and several others in this RfC wish. Thanks, Anupam^Talk 00:20, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Why don't you give the context of the RfC? Above comment was for opposing the including of sentence - "However, a 2011 scholarly study published in the Review of Religious Research demonstrated that education is not correlated with disbelief in God". That reminds me: Anupam pushes hard for his POV even against the already formed consensus. This RfC is good example of that. -Abhishikt (talk) 01:05, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

There is no policy violation in holding a view contrary to yours. Did I try to reinstate the academic journal after the RfC was closed, or while it was running? I did not, but instead, discussed the situation and accepted the outcome of the RfC. No editor should be banned for this. I hope this helps. Thanks for your understanding, Anupam^Talk 01:11, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Are you still saying that you are correct and the result of RfC (closed as per WP:SNOW) was wrong? The RfC created by you was entirely unnecessary as there were consensus in above section. This is just a very small example for wastage of valuable wiki community's efforts. -Abhishikt (talk) 01:42, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose This sounds like an attempt to censor an opposing view. Fasttimes68 (talk) 00:28, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Dear User:Fasttimes68, thank you for your kind comments. This is exactly what is taking place. Most of the editors wishing to ban me are the same individuals who participated in this RfC/content dispute, despite the fact that I accepted the outcome of the RfC. I always discuss content disputes with others and if RfCs are held, I accept the outcome. I feel hurt that some individuals want to ban me simply for holding a viewpoint different to theirs. Thanks again for your participation. With regards, Anupam^Talk 00:35, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel that way, Fasttimes68. Personally, I edit in controversial areas so there's a very long list of editors that I disagree with on some point of content (if you think atheism is partisan, try editing Balkan geography or alt-med or diacritics). We usually get along fine, though; discuss, bring better sources, negotiate, compromise. I have not proposed topic bans for these hundreds of editors; I don't bring them to AN/I at all. I'm proposing a topic ban for the one editor who has consistently distorted, plagiarised, cheated, and lied - whatever it takes to push their POV, with contempt for the community, and burning out other editors. bobrayner (talk) 07:21, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support community ban, but would accept a topic ban as described as a bare minimum. In addition to the inexcusable plagiarisim (and editor of his tenure should no better), the wp:battlefield and viewpoint expressed above ("editors here simply wish to ban me because I held a different position than them in a content dispute" - I'm uninvolved, thank you) indicate that the principles behind Wiki are not accepted and that future conflicts are inevitable. Regarding the idea espoused that his other contributions require opposition to the proposal, I add that should he only be topic banned, there's plenty of other topics within WP awaiting the editors contributions. Respectfully, JoeSperrazza (talk) 00:31, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Strong oppose* IRWolfie-,first of all thanks for letting me know on my talk page about this discussion.Actually I am travelling and not able to log in regularly to edit wikipedia's articles.You mentioned my name in the discussion,that is not problem for me.But problem is that how much eager are the one chain of editors to be blocked an editor. Anupam is not only valuable but also a good editor to patrol monopolies and WP:Own,I do realy not see the grounds to be blocked from editing or editing religious articles.I would like to show a mirror that makes me surprised This,and on talk page of Atheism, where Tiderolls noticed, That. After Dominus Vobisdu, you immeddiately placed edit warring tag,here, it was not legitimate reason to notice me after two reverts. I consider it is WP:Hound and WP:Own. Any Consensus as the policy I have to accept,but I realy will not it recognised as a real concept of the wikipolicies on the demand of one chain of editors. There should not be applied "blocked" rule, untill fair and unrelated editors consensus is there,I think. I have not much time to discuss it in detail,sorry.(It was my comment but using now for vote. God bless you all. Cheers.Justice007 (talk) 02:46, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Oppose - Anupam makes valuable contributions to Wikipedia, and I think it is pretty clear even in this discussion that he is very civil. I have had problems with editors in the past, but never with Anupam. I can't even say I ever had an ideological dispute with him. (BTW, I am atheist). AFAIK, Anupam has contributed to Wikipedia for years on a wide variety of topics. Unfortunately, I have seen a similarly valuable and dedicated editor be banned altogether from Wikipedia before, even as vandals get off scot-free. I don't want to have to see that again. I am sure that Anupam has good intentions here. I don't really understand why some users seem to have a problem with him, or why they feel so sure that they should not continue to assume good faith as (if I remember correctly) Wikipedia absolutely requires. Frankly, I think trying to topic-ban an editor like Anupam is a waste of time. In the amount of time it takes to argue for such a ban, you could instead fight vandals or actually try to improve the encyclopedia's content. --Kuaichik (talk) 03:57, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Have you seen the diffs above? Whether or not an editor has "good intentions", if they systematically distort articles then their continued editing is a net negative. I don't care whether the deception, cheating, and plagiarism is motivated by good intent or bad; even if it's bookended by words like "please" and "thankyou", it's still deception, cheating, and plagiarism. That's why other editors have a problem with anupam's edits. bobrayner (talk) 07:07, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support I have been following Atheism for a long period and have noticed Anupam's methodology, which has been accurately summarized above. Some people are not able to be neutral about some topics, and a formal parting would be best. Johnuniq (talk) 07:25, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support Conduct problems on these issues are recurrent on wikipedia and this suggestion seems the sensible way forward. Mathsci (talk) 08:03, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support with additional conditions for copyvios After looking through the contribution history it is clear that this topic ban is required, albeit a very lenient approach. I'd like to add that any copyvio/close paraphrase/plagiarism that follows should be dealt with by escalating blocks, the third or fourth of which ought to be indefinite. It is also disingenuous to claim that Anupam is not disruptive because he's civil, we're here to build an encyclopaedia not have a jolly good conversation over tea and crumpets, the disruption is in the quality of content and passive aggressive behavior. The canvassing concerns are even visible on this topic ban proposal. —SpacemanSpiff 08:15, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support, clearly a pattern of persistent tendentious and problematic editing. Whether or not it regularly crosses the line into plagiarism or not, it is still piss-poor writing. We can do without editors who have both obvious ideological agendas and such a poor grasp of academic writing, messing up our most intellectually high-profile and most sensitive articles, such as Religion or Atheism, in this way. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:33, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support topic ban as second preference, also support community ban as first preference. The longer this thread goes on the longer I get the feeling that there is some serious meatpuppetry going on here. This entire scenario is setting my spidey-sense tingling. It reminds me far too much of the Polish-Russian ethnic warfare of 2007-2010 that culminated in the Eastern European mailing list case, and also of the Hindutva brigades of Rama's Arrow and other cases. The effortless coordination of bona fide accounts and SPAs is really suspicious, and absolutely typical of what we have come to expect in these kinds of cases. I really, really think this seemingly Conservapedia-based editing is being coordinated through some kind of off-site forum or mailing list. I could of course be wrong, and accounts like Turnalso (talk · contribs) may be simple sockpuppets, either of Anupam or somebody else, but that doesn't change the overall picture here that much. Either way, I think I've seen enough that the presumptions of good faith I would usually extend are rapidly disappearing. I think it's time to purge this hornet's nest with fire. Moreschi (talk) 10:54, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Alternate proposal

Jess rightly pointed out that there are only 2 options on the table. The main issue here is plagiarism. The POV objections are in fact content issues and the complainants for the most part are the very editors who disagree with Anupam.

Therefore I propose that:

1. Anupam must acknowledge that plagiarism damages the encyclopedia
2. A special mentor be assigned to review his editing
3. Anupam shall review every edit going back 1 year and correct any plagiarism and close paraphrasing and give a full report to the special-mentor
4. Anupam will be placed on discretionary sanctions for 6 months where any admin may issue escalating blocks without warning in cases of plagiarism. – Lionel ^(talk) 03:05, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

2 options pointed out by Jess were - a community ban or a topic ban. As per that, I suppose you should change this proposal to community ban. -Abhishikt (talk) 03:55, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support Addresses the real problem: plagiarism. Sidesteps the political vendetta. Overall, fair, and balanced. – Lionel ^(talk) 03:05, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support I understand with clarity that I have broken the plagiarism policy at Wikipedia. For me, the problem should be to avoid close paraphrasing, even if I provide a reference. In line with the above proposal, User:Moreschi suggested the alternative of working with a group of administrators to monitor my work. Most of individuals who voted above in support of a topic ban me are the same individuals who participated in this RfC and differed from mine and many others' view there. As such, this is a content dispute and I feel I should not be blocked for holding different views than these editors. I have created countless articles (e.g. Works of Piety, Qaisar Bagh) and have contributed to many more since 2006, never having been blocked. In addition, I am the editor for the newspaper of WikiProject Christianity, Ichthus. Moreover, I have helped several new editors out with editing the encyclopedia. Whenever there are content disputes, I take the time to discuss the issue, and start an RfC to gain input from the community if the dispute is unresolved. I always accept the decisions of the RfCs as well. I know that many users here do appreciate my work and I would miss editing my favorite topics, as well as the friends that I have made here too. I recognize the close paraphrasing/plagiarism issue now and hope that I can improve in this area by working with administrators. I also would look forward to being assigned a mentor to review my edits. I also sincerely apologize for these actions and to the editors that have been hurt by my actions. I hope that the community will have compassion on me and will give me the opportunity to improve. Thanks for taking the time to read this post. With regards, Anupam^Talk 03:16, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. The plagiarism is one of the the main issues, along with POV pushing, edit warring, cherry picking... This proposal fails to address issues other than plagiarism. I've never seen that a user whose topic ban is debated, comes to ANI and actually votes to oppose his own topic ban. This "vote" is just another proof of manipulative tactics he uses to obstruct consensus and impose its views. This is hilarious.

But, I'm willing to support both, topic ban and this proposal.--В и к и T 03:56, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose; plagiarism is not the main problem. Plagiarism certainly is a Bad Thing, but it's just one of the tools used in anupam's crusade. The crusade as a whole should be stopped, rather than just blocking off one of the tools used and turning a blind eye to the rest. Did lionel look at the diffs before making this proposal? A topic ban would stop the plagiarism and all the other bad stuff too. bobrayner (talk) 07:51, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
  • It's unfortunate that anupam still claims "I always accept the decisions of the RfCs as well" when there is clear evidence of the opposite; and that anupam's comments here fail to address the main problem whilst pretending it's a mere content dispute. Nobody's proposing a topic ban for having a different POV; the topic ban is to stop deception, plagiarism, distortion, sockpuppetry, and so on. Would anupam like some more diffs? I realise the previous set of diffs was written off as a personal attack, but I think that evidence should always be given a second chance. bobrayner (talk) 08:56, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Honeypot

Out of interest, is there an easily enumerable list of editors who have an identifiable record of rote defense (particularly out of the blue) for Anupam? Given the abundance of evidence presented it stands to reason that the admin corps should be watching the lot of them for future incidents even after Anupam's well-deserved topic ban. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 20:54, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Is this not a recurrent problem with certain wikiprojects, which has been discussed on several occasions? Mathsci (talk) 08:08, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Toilet bowl

I would also like to see a list of anti-Anupam editors who follow him around, get their asses beat at RFCs, and then run to ANI to get him censured. For all the accusations against editors who support Anupam, the editors who regularly criticize him have appeared here in record speed.

This effort to try to chill OPPOSE votes in this discussion by threatening enhanced scrutiny and review of contribution history, and challenging editors who support Anupam and calling them meatpuppets is a violation of AGF and is despicable. – Lionel ^(talk) 22:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

There's something that amuses me a little bit about "is a violation of AGF" followed immediately by "is despicable." Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:16, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

"for every 1 pro-Anupam editor, there are 2 anti-Anupam editors following him around trying to destroy him" is not a violation of AGF? You are assuming that everyone supporting the topic ban are "following him around trying to destroy him". As far as I am aware I have had no previous interaction with Anupam. --Saddhiyama (talk) 22:19, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Also, "Toilet bowl" as a header? Really? Perhaps you should back off for a moment before commenting further on this case. --Saddhiyama (talk) 22:21, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

@Kevin: as a card-carrying member of the Department of Fun it is my job to be amusing.

@Saddhiyama: in the edit sum I did not suggest that "everyone" supporting topic ban is trying to destroy him. "Back off"? Not when I'm on a roll... Not when I have so much to say and unlimited diskspace in which to say it... – Lionel ^(talk) 22:58, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Since you are on a roll; How about addressing some of the pretty damning diffs shown of Anupam's behaviour. None of your comments in this ANI threads have addressed that. How about clarify how editing "atheistic articles from a Christian perspective" is a positive thing? Edit: I see Lionel is otherwise occupied on the liberal bias which is Global warming [36] IRWolfie- (talk) 23:06, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

You know, IRWolfie, if you think my purpose here is to answer to your beck and call you are sadly mistaken. I edit what and where I want to edit. I check my watchlist when I damn well feel like checking my watchlist. And if I don't jump high enough or fast enough for you, well aint that a shame. When you start signing my paycheck, then you can write BS like the above. Until then, get off my back. – Lionel ^(talk) 04:02, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for assuming good faith, lionel! It would be nice if we could move away from tribal allegiances and actually make decisions based on evidence. I have no intention to destroy an editor with an opposing POV (I disagree with lots of other editors in lots of other areas); I merely wish to stop the pov-pushing crusade of deception, plagiarism, and cheating. Rather than making this a partisan thing, perhaps we could discuss the problematic diffs? It would be good to look at the evidence. What do you think? bobrayner (talk) 07:32, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Blanket removals of refs as "Not RS per RSN" (Moved from WP:RS/N)

I raised this yesterday as I see it as a broad issue for WP:RS cleanup and certainly not an issue with any particular editor. However it was closed there as an "Editor conduct issue" and a move to WP:ANI suggested.

User:Fladrif and blanket removal as "Not RS per RSN"

Fladrif (talk · contribs) is blanket removing sources from a large range of articles. thepeerage.com is one, spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk another.

Without any personal comment on Fladrif, I have a basic distrust of any crusade edits like this. Human editors are needed to be editors, exercising some sort of executive judgement. This blanket removal is the sort of change that could be carried out by a very small Perl script. If it's really required, then it's required - but that's only in the very worst cases, such as outright spam. In particular, this run of edits (based on the unrelated dimension of a host site) inevitably crosses many disciplines of content knowledge. Personally I just edit the stuff that I know about and I stay the hell away from anything else. Problems arise otherwise.

There is no attempt here to find other sourcing for a statement. As the end result of these is to turn a statement with a less than perfect source to one with no source at all, I'm finding it hard to see an overall benefit.

I also find this absolutely strict imposal of "Not RS per RSN, therefore immediate removal of the ref" to be simplistic.

One risk is that content that is entirely uncontroversial finds itself dereferenced (when in fact there are many, many sources for the same information) and then that information is in turn removed. Given the interminable WP problem of editors looking for adminishtrivia that can be done, rather than things that ought to be done, the likelihood is that we eventually lose content and articles for no good reason.

Is this an appropriate blanket edit to be performing? What are the set of sites that should be purged absolutely like this? Is that list visible and appropriate? Is this the best, or even an acceptable, editing action to be taking in this volume? Andy Dingley (talk) 15:23, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

There have been extensive and definitive discussions about these sources. They are self-published sources written by amateurs who are not established experts, and have never been published by reputable, third party publications within the scope of the relevant subject matter. The clear and unequivocal consensus is that they are not reliable sources and should not be used as references; at most they can be listed as External Links. After that process is completed, one can hardly be heard to object to the removal of references to such sources; those that are interested in the subject matter will indeed need to find sources that do qualify as reliable sources lest, at some point in time, the material be deleted for lack of verifiable support. There are literally tens of thousands of articles on Wikipedia, most of them written several years ago when it was not nearly as vigilant about sourcing, that rely heavily, if not exclusively, on online, self-published amateur websites specifically determined at WP:RSN not to be proper sources that are more convenient than actually going to a library for sources that actually qualify as reliable sources. If there are such sources, then find them and insert them as appropriate. Asserting that WP:RS and WP:V should be ignored in the meanwhile to permit sourcing to such sites notwithstanding determination at WP:RSN that they cannot be used as sources simply because "a poor source is better than no source" doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Otherwise these policies are meaningless. Fladrif (talk) 15:46, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

100% agree that thepeerage.com is not a WP:RS and agree with actions to remove the cites to thepeerage.com from articles, especially from WP:BLP articles. There have indeed been several discussions about amateur self-published sites like thepeerage.com, please look at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_114#thepeerage.com and Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_103#Self-published_royalty_websites. These web sites do not meet WP:RS, plain and simple. These sites may be helpful in doing research, because they sometimes site a genuine WP:RS reliable source for their information, but then the Wikipedia article should cite the WP:RS and not thepeerage.com or other amateur sites like it. Zad68 (talk) 16:01, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

No-one is asserting that WP:RS or WP:V should be ignored (nice use of the straw man argument there, and I see that you've already snagged one).

However your actions here, particularly that of removing sources rather than improving them, are contra to WP:IMPERFECT and WP:PRESERVE. It would be better to replace these sources with better ones. It would be better to work so that others might do this, perhaps by tagging the references as unreliable and in need of improvement. Simply removing them blindly is more harmful to the overall encyclopedia than I believe is necessary. In particular (and this happens with every crusade like this) it overwhelms the editor subject or project groups that might work to improve these articles by the sheer rate at which they're removed. It's the wiki equivalent of seagull management - an editor that flies across a series of articles, breaks one aspect of them (if nothing else, it opens them to summary deletion for being unreferenced) and there is no intention of that editor ever fixing the real problem. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:03, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

No content was removed, so there is no violation, in either letter or spirit to the subsections of WP:Editing policy cited, and a certain delicious irony to citing an unsourced article in support of this untenable position. Fladrif (talk) 16:12, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Remember: information not attributed to a reliable source shouldn't be here in the first place. When Fladrif removes a citation to one of these pages, he's not diminishing the quality of the page, as an unreliable source isn't any better than no source at all. Nyttend (talk) 13:07, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

"information not attributed to a reliable source shouldn't be here in the first place."

Then if that's the strict interpretation, then the information should be removed too. Even if this blanks the article, even if causes prompt deletion of the article. We only rarely do this much, even for BLPs.

I'm not claiming that unsourced information should survive or that un-RS should be used to support it. However how do we get from where we are, to where we ought to be? I don't believe this route of expeditiously removing sources is an appropriate or the most effective way of achieving this. A smart editor would first try to find a way to manage this process so that the best result was achieved. A wiki editor instead favours finding something simple that can be done, doing lots of it, then hiding behind WP:ALLCAPS to justify what they've already done. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:22, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

If our overriding aim, second only to immortality, is to have no information on Wikipedia that is not attributed to a reliable source, then, as we remove references to unreliable sources, we must at the same time remove any information that by our action becomes totally unsourced. Otherwise -- is Nyttend denying this? mistakenly, I think -- we are lowering the quality of Wikipedia and making our aim unachievable. We will, at the end of the process, have a slightly smaller encyclopedia and we will know even less than before about the source and reliability of the information we haven't yet deleted.

If, of course, we have some other aims as well, we might consider how those other aims are best served before cutting down this forest. I think I'm just saying in another way what Andy has said. Andrew Dalby 14:04, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

We have two goals here:

The important one is to have RS sourcing on articles.

The secondary one is to remove non-RS sourcing from articles.

It is a mistake to mis-prioritise these, such that removing that non-RS takes over and we're left with nothing instead. My big problem with this bulk removal is that it does the second, but absolutely nothing to either attempt the first, or to encourage others to work on it. Tag these non-RS refs as "unreliable, please improve" by all means - but simply removing them and then halting the process does absolutely nothing to improve our overall situation, re the first and more important goal. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:49, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Rather than considering one of your goals primary and one secondary, I consider them to exist concurrently, and I think an argument could be made that unreliable sourcing is worse than no sourcing at all and should be considered a higher priority...editors are less likely to look for RS for something that appears to already be properly sourced, and not all editors may realize when a source is not reliable. In any case, how is progress being halted? Nothing is stopping any editor who is so inclined from providing proper sourcing. Granted the information might be removed for lacking sourcing in the future, but I think most editors would be more inclined to tag it than delete it. Speaking of which, have you asked Fladrif whether they would be willing to tag the information when they remove unreliable sources? Doniago (talk) 16:39, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

It's not "most editors" that are the problem, but a handful of the "most active editors". Normal editors, those interested in contributing content, just can't keep up. It's always quicker to delete than to add, so eventually WP reaches a dynamic equilibrium - take a look at Land speed record for possibly the worst example. Changing the ratios might push this equilibrium a bit higher, but to be honest my enthusiasm for playing Maxwell's daemon to the regular bunch of teenage admin wannabees is limited. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:51, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

There's a facility here, that "all information must be sourced". WP:V's lead states this: It must be possible to attribute all information in Wikipedia to reliable, published sources that are appropriate for the content in question. However, in practice it is only necessary to provide inline citations for quotations and for any information that has been challenged or that is likely to be challenged.. Thus, if the information is non-contentious (read: obvious) but sourced to non-RS sources, the removal of the non-RS citation should not affect the retention of the information.

That said, I'm not seeing an ANI issue here. --MASEM (t) 14:24, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

We're missing something bigger. The implied policy used to justify the removal behavior does not exist. WP:ver, even strictly read and rigorously implemented is a sourcing requirement for material. There is no prohibition against the presence of references that do not meet wp:rs criteria, just a statement that they do not count towards the material meeting the verifiability requirement. North8000 (talk) 14:26, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

The notion that it is perfectly acceptable to populate an article with sources definitively determined at WP:RSN to violate the requirements of WP:RS is a non-starter. Such sources should be removed, and that is the routine outcome of most RSN discussions. In BLP's non-RS sources and SPS are mandated to be removed immediately and summarily per WP:BLPREMOVE. The unfortunate circumstance that some sources that should never have been permitted in the first place have been cited hundreds, or thousands of times (over 10,000 times in the case of findagrave.com - the worst example I have found so far), does not change the requirements of WP:RS and WP:V or excuse the use of such sources in violation of those policies.Fladrif (talk) 14:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

No-one is "populating an article" with dubious sources. The situation is that we already have such sources, and we ought to decide what the best way is to improve this situation. Nor are these BLPs. Over-hasty removal does not appear to be the best way to proceed. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:26, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't see anything "over-hasty" or improper about removing unreliable sources. I do it all the time if the source is, say, IMDb or a wiki. If you have a problem with removing them, do you have ideas for an alternate approach? Doniago (talk) 16:34, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

As with many other "rules" in Wikipedia, the majority of sources in Wikipedia do not comply with a strict interpretation of Wp:RS. That is how Wikipedia works. When someone goes on a unlaterial harsh "enforcement" binge based on a rigorous interpretation of a rule, they are going contrary to that and being destructive. North8000 (talk) 16:49, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

My understanding is that the sources were previously established to be unreliable, and Fladrif consequently removed the source but left the information intact. I don't see how removing an unreliable source, whether on an indivdual basis or in bulk, qualifies as a 'harsh "enforcement" binge' or "destructive". I'd regard the matter differently if the information itself was being removed, and ideally it would be nice if Fladrif tagged the information, but I don't really understand your apparent view that Fladrif's behavior is disruptive. Doniago (talk) 17:02, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Genealogical editors have had quite some time to correct their referencing in relation to this matter. The suggestion that outstanding flaws in verification should be let stand after considerable time is an invitation to the creation of walled gardens. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:17, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

North8000 this, "There is no prohibition against the presence of references that do not meet wp:rs criteria" is a truly astounding comment. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:17, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

If you undertake a structural/logical analysis of what I said (including policies/guidelines) IMHO you will see that it is not only not an astounding comment, but a correct one. A note on the distinction is failure to understand that "not rigorously meeting wp:rs criteria" covers a full range form slightly-suboptimal sources to unreliable sources. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 23:41, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

nobody's brought it up yet, might I suggest removing the unreliable source and tagging the information for needing a citation if an editor is unwilling or unable to provide a citation themselves? Doniago (talk) 14:31, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Who's "the editor" here? This blanket removal doesn't really have an editor, it's just mindless 'bot work, albeit being carried out by a human. That was my first comment - real "editing" involves a human editor prepared to make decisions and choices, including the addition of new sources. None of that is going on here. Nor is this process even moving articles towards the worklists of other editors so that they can fix them instead (although I recognise that I don't have worklists on WP anyway, nor can I hire & fire editors). Andy Dingley (talk) 14:52, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

If Fladrif is the one removing the unreliable sources, then my approach would have been to gently ask that Fladrif place CN tags in place of the removed refs (while recognizing that Fladrif is not required to do so). Regardless of best or nicest practice, no editor is under any obligation to do research for sources, and IMO while it's reasonable to ask that an editor look for sources...frankly, there aren't many editors here who I would trust to phrase the request in a non-confrontational manner. In short, if you want information included in an article, you should be willing to assume the responsibility for finding sourcing and not get wound up over why another editor has not already done so. Cheers. Doniago (talk) 15:26, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

More informative edit summaries would help. Editor obviously has not considered WP:FIES in their mass removal of allegedly deprecated sources. Leaky Caldron 16:50, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I find these sort of edits confrontational, destructive and not particularly helpful. To most editors, I suspect the edit summary "Not RS per RSN" is completely meaningless; I for one detest the use of jargon and feel that editors should take steps to ensure that, even in an edit summary, expressions such as “RS” and “RSN” are wikilinked to the appropriate policy and/or discussion about the reliability of the disputed source.

Fladrif appears to be on a mission to rid Wikipedia of all references to sites such as "thepeerage.com". Once he's achieved his aim, what is to stop an editor when creating a new article to make use of this site as a source? Unless a source has been specifically blacklisted, editors are free to make use of them – is Fladrif going to immediately jump on them to remove the reference? Most of the information on "thepeerage.com" relates to family relationships; I cannot see that Wikipedia is improved by having this information, which is generally uncontentious, left unreferenced rather than referenced to a possibly unreliable source. Rather than replace such references with the {{cn}} tag, could not the {{self-published source}} tag be used instead? This would draw the reader's attention to the possibility that the source may not be reliable and "invite” the reader to use his own judgement. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 17:11, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

In addition, by continuing on this track while the manner and style of their edits is being discussed, the editor is in clear breach of an arbcom ruling summarised in WP:FAIT. "Editors who are collectively or individually making large numbers of similar edits, and are apprised that those edits are controversial or disputed, are expected to attempt to resolve the dispute through discussion. It is inappropriate to use repetition or volume in order to present opponents with a fait accompli or to exhaust their ability to contest the change. This applies to many editors making a few edits each, as well as a few editors making many edits." Leaky Caldron 17:57, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

The notification of which has been removed without response by the user on their talk page. Leaky Caldron 18:02, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Which undoubtedly means that they've read it and will consider it carefully. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:46, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Undoubtedly they do not believe that it applies to them since they have continued with "not RS per RSN" since removing the TP message. Would be polite to acknowledge it though. Leaky Caldron 21:09, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

The remover is implying that there is some basis in policy or guidelines that dictates that sources not meeting wp:rs criteria should be removed. But IMHO such DOES NOT EXIST! It certainly is not in wp:ver or wp:nor. Can anybody point to where such a policy exists? North8000 (talk) 20:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• Note, I have issued a 'cease and desist' order [37], because he does need to stop while the discussion is ongoing. There is no policy requiring the removal of these suboptimal sources if the information itself is not being challenged, equally I can see arguments to replace them with citation needed templates to encourage someone to find a better source. Either way, if Fladrif persists, a block may follow, as it is simply discourteous to plough on regardless rather than wait for consensus. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:28, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

No, we are not talking about "suboptimal sources". We are talking about sources that fail the bright-line test for meeting the bare minimum to qualify as a reliable source. These are sources that have been extensively discussed at RSN and definitive consensus reached that they do not qualify as sources to be used as references in Wikipedia articles. This is nothing like the best evidence rule; these self-published, amateur websites simply do not qualify as sources. Anyone who gets their panties in a twist over the removal of sources definitively determined to be unreliable has no understanding of what the underlying policies mean. "A crappy source is better than no source" may have been standard operating procedure for Wikipedia 5 or 6 years ago, but it won't fly now. I see not a single argument rooted in policy that would support retaining these sources as references in any article; what I see is a lot of "I don't like it". Tough. Deal with it. These sources may be convenient, and busy little beavers may have cited them thousands of times rather than going to a brick-and-mortar library to look for real sources, but they cannot be used here and must be removed. Period. Fladrif (talk) 00:49, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

"thepeerage" hasn't been considered "sub-optimal" Elen. It has been pilloried. There is no capacity for thepeerage to reliably present any geneaological information. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:02, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Why is Fladrif not blocked? This seems to me to be an example of drive-by vandalism, the removal of footnotes on topics about which the editor clearly has no clue. Here's one example of the stupidity: [38] Tell me how leaving information and removing the footnote on an erroneous pretext of unreliability improves the encyclopedia? Carrite (talk) 04:22, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Let's add Combat Mentality and refusal to edit cooperatively to the charges here: "what I see is a lot of "I don't like it". Tough. Deal with it. These sources may be convenient, and busy little beavers may have cited them thousands of times rather than going to a brick-and-mortar library to look for real sources, but they cannot be used here and must be removed. Period." Perusing the edit history of this self-proclaimed savior of Wikipedia, I see evidence of massive and chronic vandalism under the guise of "requiring" so-called "reliable sources." Pure drive-by footnote removal, not the least effort to ascertain whether the information is correct, not the least effort to remove erroneous information (only footnotes), not the least effort to engage other editors on talk pages. Massive vandalism. Carrite (talk) 04:44, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Because that source is completely and utterly unreliable for labour history, and whomever added it conducted vandalism against V. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:46, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

This is a patently incorrect statement. My experience viewing — and very, very infrequently using — spartacus.schoolnet material is that it is generally accurate no matter what a small clique of non-experts at the so-called "Reliable Sources" noticeboard may have decided on a Thursday afternoon. Links for that debate, please, let's see precisely who made that determination... Moreover, what we have here is not the removal of challenged less-than-fully-reliable information in a debate over facts in play. There is no dispute of the facts, they were actually RETAINED in the aftermath of the drive-by vandalism — what we have here is the wanton elimination of the footnotes providing for readers the source of that retained information. There is no guideline or policy which calls for the removal of footnotes in this manner. There is no serious effort being made to take articles from a lesser to a higher state, from a lesser to a higher level of sourcing — merely the systemic and massive removal of useful attribution information from a very great number of articles on some sort of twisted bureaucratic IDONTLIKEIT rationale. This should be an immediately blockable occurrence if it happens in the future and I insist that this investigation rule on this question before this thread is closed. Carrite (talk) 13:54, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. Wikipedia Policy is absolutely clear:

"All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable published source using an inline citation" WP:CHALLENGE.

"The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. You may remove any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source. Whether and how quickly removal should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step.[2] Editors might object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references. It has always been good practice to try to find and cite supporting sources yourself. Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article if it might damage the reputation of living people; you should also be aware of how the BLP policy applies to groups.[3]

--------

[2] It may be that the article contains so few citations that it is impractical to add specific citation needed tags, in which case consider tagging a section with {{unreferencedsection}}, or the article with {{refimprove}} or {{unreferenced}}.

[3] Wales, Jimmy. "Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information", WikiEN-l, May 16, 2006: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative "I heard it somewhere" pseudo information is to be tagged with a "needs a cite" tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons." WP:UNSOURCED

Clearly, policy permits and encourages the removal of any material lacking inline citation to a RS, and actually requires it in the case of BLP's. It would have been perfectly proper to delete not only the references to sources definitively found not to be reliable, but the underlying text as well under clear policy. I considered that, but stopped short precisely to give editors who are interested in the subject matter the time and opportunity to add reliable sources where they exist. In many cases, that is precisely what has happened. Editors have gone back, found better sources, and added them - accomplishing precisely what Wikipedia policy intends.

It is seriously wrong-headed to consider any of this improper, out of bounds or, to crank up the hyperbole to 11, vandalism. If an editor came to RSN and asked "Is X a reliable source for Y text", and the answer comes back "No", the editor cannot then go to the article and add Y text anyway, using X as a source. It is a fundamental violation of policy to do so. That violation is not mitigated by adding Y text, using X as a source, and tagging the reference with a or or similar tag. A bad source is not better than no source, and tagging it as a bad source makes it no better. The fact that some editors added bad sources repeatedly (in some instances, quite literally spamming Wikipedia presumably to drive up traffic to their web sites, and in other cases out of ignorance of policy or in others laziness because it was just easier than finding actual reliable sources) should not be regarded as a fait accompli that cannot or should not be undone. If it shouldn't have been there in the first place, removing it is not the problem.

Now, once we set aside the "a bad source is better than no source" nonsense for what it is - nonsense directly at odds with policy - and ignoring the "I just don't like it" fits of apoplexy, we are left with two principal substantive objections.

• One seems to be that some editors don't like my edit summaries. Too cryptic apparently. Ellen's ham-fisted threat focused not on the edits, but on the edit summaries. Go figure. So how about this instead: This source has been specifically discussed at WP:RSN and is not a WP:RS See talk Then, on the talk page, I will post the following: (Insert name of source)) has been specifically discussed at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard (Insert link to specific RSN discussions) and determined that it is not a Reliable Source. Links to this source are being removed at this time, but not the underlying text. Better references need to be found and supplied to support the underlying text. Unreferenced text may be removed if it remains unsourced.
• The second seems to be that some editors would like a tag on the article page to alert innocent bystanders to the fact that text is no longer referenced. The policy cited above suggests that as an option, but does not require it. Would it make you happy if I added a tag in place of the removed reference on top of the edit summary and talk page notice? That is clearly overkill, but overkill has never deterred anybody around here as near as I can discern.Fladrif (talk) 14:35, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

You are not "removing unsourced material" or removing inaccurate sourced material — you're not removing anything at all except for the footnotes indicating where the information that remains originally came from. If you are seriously editing a piece and have contradictory information from a higher source than the lower source previously showing THEN the policy comes into play in which you are free to remove the bad, lesser (information+footnote) and replace it with better (information+footnote). I repeat once again that the practical description of hundreds and hundreds of repetitions of the removal of sourcing information is nothing more than drive-by vandalism. Carrite (talk) 02:23, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Why is not being used? As it stands the content in front of the deprecated source now sits there in articles with no attribution at all. There is nothing to alert editors in the future that the source has been removed - the current edit summary will soon be out of sight. I do not necessarily oppose the removal. I think that the method and the editor's approach is pretty hostile considering we attempt to assume good faith in our dealings here. Leaky Caldron 09:23, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Because it isn't a source it is cited to Blind raving Joe from the Street corner. This is like putting after citations to the alt. hierarchy of usenet. Fifelfoo (talk) 13:52, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Nonsense. Spartacus.schoolnet is good-to-excellent in factual accuracy. The only raving is this comment. Carrite (talk) 13:55, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Spartacus Schoolnet is a self-published source by an amateur historian who is not recognized as an expert in the field, and who has never been published by an independent, reputable third party publisher. It fails the bright-line test of WP:RS and WP:SPS no matter how accurate you or any other Wikipedia editor may consider it to be. It has been discussed repeatedly at WP:RSN and each discussion has come to the identical conclusion. It cannot be used as a reference for a Wikipedia article, though it may be listed in "External Links". Fladrif (talk) 14:43, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Fladrif, what you are missing is that WP:V is about the level of challenge to the content, not about the quality of the source. WP:RS is not a policy - it is a set of guidelines about sources for when information is challenged. I could source "Julius Caesar was a Roman dude" to the Ladybird book of Children's History without any problem. Where the information is uncontentious, there is no mileage in removing a poor source - although encouraging editors to find a better source is always good. Where the information is challenged, and the source is poor, the whole lot needs removing or sourcing better. Can I source "the Earth goes round the sun" to spartacus.schoolnet - yes, because nobody but flat-earthers are going to challenge it. Can I source "Margaret Thatcher contemplated interning striking miners" to the same source - no, and if that's the only source, the content needs to come out as well. Just deleting the source is a wholly pointless exercise without examining the content it was sourcing. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:58, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Ellen, what you are missing is that, insofar as I know, none of the removed citations fall in the category of supporting a statement in the "every schoolboy knows" category. Moreover, what "every schoolboy knows" is invariably mistaken. The notion that for an "uncontroversial" claim it is perfectly OK to cite any source whatsoever without regard to reliability, provenance, policy or guideline is utterly preposterous. Fladrif (talk) 15:21, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

You've missed my point entirely. If the information is controversial then it is not sufficient to remove the source, you have to remove the claim. If you are happy to leave the information, there is no value in removing the source. Going around removing the source without even looking at what it is sourcing is a complete waste of time. Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:29, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

It's my time to waste, but more to the point what is your basis for concluding that I am not bothering to look at what is being sourced? You're simply wrong about that. Are you saying that if I also remove the associated text, that would be preferable? And, have you bothered to look at my proposals above in an effort to resolve this? Would they not solve the alleged issues here?Fladrif (talk) 15:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

My basis for concluding that you are not bothering to look at what is being sourced is that in reviewing your past year of edits, there are none discussing the content sourced from either spartacus or thepeerage. No edits to talk pages saying "The article says X but that isn't true because Y". No edits alerting relevant WikiProjects saying "This content is all wrong because you sourced it from here." It seems to me that there are two possible conclusions to draw: 1) you've been going around removing sources on the basis of reliable sourcing rules without reference to the content they support or 2) you've found a number of errors in content sourced to these websites, but are incapable of communicating any of this information to fellow editors. (Your occasional edits that refer to actual content, e.g., on transcendental meditation, don't pertain to the sources in question; you seem to have spent most of your time in mechanical application of sourcing rules.) I suggest you consider adopting the solution devised for the Rayment-sourced material, mentioned in my comment below. Choess (talk) 17:13, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I looked at the following list of edits:

15:23, 1 May 2012 : Andy opened a RS/N discussion about the issue, diff

15:25, 1 May 2012‎ : Andy notified Fladrif about the RS/N on Fladrif's Talk page, diff

15:46, 1 May 2012 : Fladrif responded at the RS/N discussion diff

Fladrif continued with his article edits, see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Fladrif&offset=&limit=500&target=Fladrif

10:57, 2 May 2012‎ : Andy opened AN/I case, diff

14:58, 2 May 2012 : Almost 4 hours later, Fladrif responded at the AN/I case, diff

Fladrif continued with his article edits

17:58, 2 May 2012 : Leaky Caldron notified Fladrif on his Talk page about concerns regarding WP:FAIT, diff

17:59, 2 May 2012 : Fladrif reverted the Talk page edit without comment diff

Fladrif continued with his article edits

22:25, 2 May 2012 : Elen gave Fladrif a stern warning to stop on his Talk page, diff

Fladrif stopped

My observations-- First, what the issue is not:

1. Most editors agree (I'm pretty sure) that the sources Fladrif has been removing indeed do not rise to the level of WP:RS. Most editors are not arguing that Fladrif is removing sourcing that passes WP:RS.
2. Fladrif is not committing vandalism, and I wish people would stop throwing around that word so casually. An accusasion of "vandalism" is a statement about an editor's intent. Fladrif is not intentionally trying to worsen Wikipedia. He is editing in good faith.

What the issue is:

1. Fladrif is engaging in disruptive editing. In particular, he was not engaging in consensus building, and was rejecting or ignoring community input during the period where he continued to remove cites from articles despite opposition from other editors, especially after the RS/N and AN/I cases opened. It took a sharply-worded notice from Elen to get him to stop.
2. Fladrif largely avoids communicating with his fellow editors at all. Most often when there is communication directed to him through edits to his Talk page, he simply reverts the edit without comment.
3. When Fladrif does communicate, in recent interactions with other editors, he exhibits a very combative tone. In particular:

• Anyone who gets their panties in a twist over the removal of sources definitively determined to be unreliable has no understanding of what the underlying policies mean. "A crappy source is better than no source" may have been standard operating procedure for Wikipedia 5 or 6 years ago, but it won't fly now. I see not a single argument rooted in policy that would support retaining these sources as references in any article; what I see is a lot of "I don't like it". Tough. Deal with it. These sources may be convenient, and busy little beavers may have cited them thousands of times rather than going to a brick-and-mortar library to look for real sources, but they cannot be used here and must be removed. Period. diff
• This edit to Elen's talk page in response to the events listed above.
• I took a look at Fladrif's earlier communications with other editors, and it appears to me that his tone has gotten more combative in recent communication than it used to be.
• Fladrif demonstrated extremely unwise judgement with this edit to the User page of an editor with Admin, Checkuser and Oversight

I am not an admin, but I think the following actions should happen:

1. Fladrif should get a warning about disruptive editing.
2. Fladrif should be encouraged to break his current habit of avoiding communication and consensus-building with other editors, and to start using a more collegial tone
3. Fladrif shoud consider taking a Wiki-break. It's clear he's frustrated at having to repeat himself so often about Wikipedia's policies regarding sourcing quality.

Zad68 (talk) 14:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm still reluctant to even call this "disruptive editing", merely that we ought to be able to find a better way to manage a bulk task. Bulk tasks on WP are hard to do neatly and without causing collateral damage. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Andy, I thought for a good long while and spent time reviewing the edit history and the Wikipedia definition of "disruptive editing" before coming to my determination, and I didn't make it lightly. There are two concerns here, 1) What the consensus is on the strategy going forward regarding mass removals of cites that don't pass WP:RS, and 2) Fladrif's interaction with other editors who were trying to get him to stop and discuss this. This is AN/I and it deals with editor behavior, and 2) is all I am really addressing here because it's AN/I. I'm not talking about 1) here. I'm actually undecided on that issue, I'm still mulling it over and reading responses. Regarding 2), Elen has been editing this thread since I posted my thing and hasn't found the need to engage on it, so maybe 2) isn't important to deal with right now because Fladrif has stopped his edits. Zad68 (talk) 15:56, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Zad68 sums it up rather nicely. Thepeerage.com is a tertiary source complied by an amateur. It is extensively referenced to the secondary sources used. Some of those are reliable (e.g., The Complete Peerage and Burke's Peerage), others are not at all reliable (personal correspondence). The reason thepeerage.com is used so extensively is that the reliable sources are expensive reference materials which are not necessarily widely distributed, even in libraries.

A similar problem cropped up recently, with the use of Leigh Rayment's site, which is arguably somewhat more reliable but to which many of the same issues apply. (Leigh is also self-published, but his website has been used as a reference by the official project to digitize Hansard.) When that issue was raised at the relevant WikiProject, the solution reached was to tag the template for sourcing to Rayment's site with and . These are gradually being replaced by references to the Complete Baronetage and the History of Parliament Online, although the latter doesn't yet cover all of Rayment's site.

Tagging references to thepeerage.com in a similar fashion seems to me to be a reasonable way to address these sourcing concerns. Removing the references entirely makes it harder to find the reliable secondary sources that should be used, so it seems to me that Fladrif's current actions are, in fact, making it more difficult to achieve his ostensible goal of getting reliable sources into these articles. Furthermore, as I asked a number of years ago when the print references aforementioned were questioned as reliable sources, where are the errors? WP:CHALLENGE applies to the material, not to the source itself, and I haven't seen any challenge to the material or any likely challenge that isn't purely vexatious. The entire exercise appears to me to be disruptive editing to prove a WP:POINT about applying rules, rather than a constructive attempt to remove false or misleading information. Choess (talk) 16:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Here is an example of the process I proposed above to follow. [39][40]. I believe that it satisfies every plausible objection to what I was doing before. Fladrif (talk) 20:00, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Except that it looks bl*#dy awful with all those tags everywhere. Why not leave the original references intact with the tag added within the <ref></ref> so that users can see what the disputed source is? The Fladrif version would make Wikipedia a laughing stock. -- 92.26.173.5 (talk) 04:39, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Would it be possible to drop the thepeerage.com link into the "External links" section? I don't mind if you strip out and tag the inline citations, but the links usually go to a specific page and anchor on thepeerage.com, which has the biographical information on that person and lists the sources used by the website's author to compile it. It's the loss of that information that most bothers me. If the link's in place, someone can come along, click the link, see what source thepeerage.com used, and verify it and add it to the article if it was a reliable source. If the links get stripped completely, you have to root around searching thepeerage.com for the individual to find what reliable source might cover them. If you're concerned that formatting the link as a reference constitutes sort of a backhanded endorsement of thepeerage.com as a "reliable source", I can sympathize with that, but the link has useful information that I don't want to lose. (Think of it as sort of a Pointer to a reliable source, even if it isn't an RS itself.) Choess (talk) 22:48, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

@Fladrif - that's an improvement, but I still see no reason why we can't tag and leave the non-RS in place if non-contentious, until we replace that particular citation with something better. These sources are not so bad that they demonstrate any clear bias, it's merely that we have low confidence in them. These are not the same thing, nor a problem of comparable seriousness. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:14, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Because they are not sources. We refimprove an object where it has sources that are unacceptable for the topic, but reliable for the purposes of wikipedia. For example, if our article on WWII was written out of non-scholarly trade histories exclusively published in the United States in the last 20 years, that'd be a "ref improve" issue. If our article on WWII was written entirely out of unedited blogs, it would be a matter of deleting those sources (and in this instance, to my mind, their supported claims given that interpretive nature of claims in history). Choess is right about making the external links point at the right page within the externally hosted content. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:10, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

implies that there is an existing source that needs to be replaced. If, as has been done, the deprecated sources have been removed the appropriate tag is . It would be preferable in the majority of cases that the existing unsatisfactory source is reinstated and tagged with . This reduces the risk of someone coming along later and inadvertently re-adding the deprecated source (not everyone reads the article history and TPs). I see no reason for swathes of uncontroversial material to be removed wholesale and I am certain that such action on a large scale will lead to all manner of issues here and elsewhere. I do not believe that is what Fladrif intended. Leaky Caldron 09:44, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Choess has it right: these links should be presented as External links, not as references. Kanguole 10:18, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

You people better watch this like hawks

Tea Party provacateurs have filed and linked this AFD off of Drudge Report. Lots of people are coming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Forward_%28Obama-Biden_Campaign_Slogan%29 Herp Derp (talk) 16:14, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Fully protected for a period of 3 days, after which the page will be automatically unprotected. Reaper Eternal (talk) 17:31, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

You mean "fully protected," so only administrators can !vote? It looks more like it's "semi-protected." And the semi-protection is currently set to expire 18:34, 9 May 2012 (UTC), not in three days. Edison (talk) 19:13, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Two separate protections - the AFD is semi-protected for 7 days. The article itself is Full protected for three, since many of the shenanigans from the AFD were spilling over (or vice versa). UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 19:31, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• Not the nicest of ways to speak to fellow editors. You people better watch this like hawks. MrLittleIrish ^(talk) © 12:05, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Meh. The title reference was neutral enough. The "provacateurs"[sic] might not have been, but seems to be in context when you consider the political leanings of the source of the links. It was a good call to bring it here as well. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 15:46, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
    • I much prefer Antics, myself. But that's just me. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 18:24, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
      • I can't see anything at all wrong with "You people better watch this like hawks." Seriously, nothing. And yes, what Dennis said – very good call to bring it here. Good on ya, Derpy! Well done :D Pesky (talk) 06:26, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Drive-by shootings about Li Xiannian all over WP

Between February and March 2012, User Koroknait (talk · contribs), a confirmed sock of another user, came and laid droppings about Li Xiannian on all related articles, including Deng Xiaoping, Chinese economic reform (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chinese_economic_reform&diff=prev&oldid=480654971), Cultural Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cultural_Revolution&diff=prev&oldid=480992671), Chen Yun (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chen_Yun&diff=prev&oldid=479302596), President of the PRC (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=President_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China&diff=prev&oldid=479496599), etc. I've been identifying these edits for a while now and it is hard to scrub all of them. It seems like the user is merely trying to up the "link count" to Li Xiannian from a series of articles. Anyway, none of this is helpful or constructive. Is there a way that all of the user's edits can be reverted? Colipon+(Talk) 16:55, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure I got most of it already back when the accounts weren't blocked.--Atlan (talk) 18:37, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

evidently not... see President of the People's Republic of China. I can't even undo the edits... Colipon+(Talk) 18:52, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I clearly missed that one. I have reverted their edits. Let me know if you find more.--Atlan (talk) 10:44, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

User:Hasteur and User:Mtking versus User:Agent00f

Need IP blocked for repeated vandalism

96.250.41.58 is a vandalism only account. Appears to be same person as 96.250.18.251 who was blocked about a week ago for vandalizing the same article (George Harrison). A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:38, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

 Done - I blocked them 31h for edit warring. My first block, actually. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 17:57, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Congratulations. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I have previously unblocked one person after a discussion with the blocking admin, so my net score is still 0 ;) If this warring happens again, we might consider semi-protection on that page since it seems to be IPs causing all the fuss. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 18:07, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if semi-protection is necessary. I think it's just one person who's vandalizing the article. Both IPs trace back to the same ISP (Verizon Online LLC, Ashburn, VA, USA).96.250.41.58=96.250.18.251 A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:17, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

That is why I didn't enact it. If they come back later today with a shiny new IP, it may be warranted. I'm not sure how fast those IPs cycle. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 18:50, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• Should have been filed at WP:AVI really... MrLittleIrish ^(talk) © 12:06, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
  • This is true, but it was obvious enough that I went and took care of it rather than be a slave to formality. But yes, normally that is where we want to take them and I likely should have indicated as much, even as I took care of the issue. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 13:38, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Copyright and lists

I'm starting this discussion here since Wikipedia:Media copyright questions seems to only deal with images.

A series of articles was created over the past several months, listing the Time 100 for each year:

• 2012 Time 100
• 2011 Time 100
• 2010 Time 100
• 2009 Time 100
• 2008 Time 100
• 2007 Time 100
• 2006 Time 100
• 2005 Time 100

My question really revolves around whether or not these articles should exist. Any material copied directly from another copyrighted source is obviously usually a copyright violation; however, we run into a grey area with lists. Wikipedia:Copyright in lists (an essay, not a guideline) says there's some ambiguity: A list that is compiled by factual criteria would be okay to copy verbatum, but a list that is based on subjective criteria is not okay. In this case, I think the lists are subjective enough that we can't copy them, and so I would have to think having these individual articles would then be useless.

My instinct is to redirect all of these to Time 100, but I wanted wider input first. Ready? Break! -RunningOnBrains^(talk) 22:55, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Agree with the above - these articles are mostly copyright violation. I do not feel that copying a list is all that different from copying some prose. The list includes the same set of names in the same order as the page published by Times. It may pe possible to rescure the articles by relying on reliable secondary coverage of the Time 100 lists. --Salimfadhley (talk) 23:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Good question. In the past at AfDs I have seen arguments both ways regarding copyright status of lists. I've seen lists deleted as copyright violations and lists kept on the premises that the list isn't original enough to be a copyright violation. I'd like to see this clarified somehow. ThemFromSpace 23:06, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't Feist v. Rural make this material uncopyrightable? --Stefan2 (talk) 23:09, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Themfromspace - that's the point of Moonriddengirl's essay, Wikipedia:Copyright in lists, to try to clarify the situation but at the end of the day it's always going to be a judgement call. Stefan2 - I suggest you read that essay but in short WMF counsel advice is that Feist v. Rural does not always apply and it comes down the amount of creativity that went into the list. Telephone numbers are not creative so are not copyrighted per Feist v. Rural, however a list like this likely contains significant creative input as to who makes the top 100 and in what order and so is likely to be copyrighted. Dpmuk (talk) 23:14, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

We have had a reasonable discussion on this in the past with input from the Foundation legal counsel. Lists like these Time lists that are generated by creative process do qualify for copyright (eg, Feist v Rural can't apply here), and wholesale inclusion in WP is a copyvio. This doesn't mean we can't have articles on the lists if the lists are notable, or discuss an individual entry's position on the list, or even repeat a few entries if they are discussed in sources. But they are copyrightable.

There is one set of exceptions, that being the AFI lists which we have ORTS approval to include wholesale. This discussion is summarized by the last point of "Unacceptable uses / Test" at WP:NFC.

That said, as to merging the various years of TIme lists into article, it depends whether it's simply the fact that Time does top 100 lists each year (supporting the full merge) or if each year's list is of interest. If after the wholesale list inclusion is removed there's not much else, then merging might be right. But that specific decision is not appropriate for here. --MASEM (t) 23:16, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I have notice that some of the lists have been pruned to 10 or 25 members. I don't know what logic was used for which members, but I do understand now that these lists are copyvios. I do believe that there is annual media publicity surrounding each list. It is possible that each list could sustain an article, but I have not looked into this. I have since created lists where only 10 of the 100 listings are included on wikiipedia. I have no real argument for keeping the entire lists and am surprised it has taken this long for someone to come down on them. Do what you must. P.S., I don't think ANI is the right place for this decision to be made although there is consensus that seems to be heading toward a policy consistent resolution. I think there are COPYVIO boards for this type of discussion.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 23:43, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Let's step back and think about it. Facts aren't copyrightable; only creative expressions are, whether fictional creations or methods of expressing facts. It is a fact that Time put Jeremy Lin at the top of its list of 100 most influential people (or whatever this list is), a fact that they put Novak Djokovic at fourteenth, a fact that they put U Thein Sein at sixty-seventh, etc. Does copyright prevent me from saying whom they announced for those three spots and for the other ninety-seven? No! From that point, listing them by the order of their influence (or whatever else it is) is a thoroughly unoriginal format and not copyrightable. I'm not going to comment on whether this is appropriate content for a page according to our content policies, but it's not inappropriate from a copyright standpoint. Nyttend (talk) 00:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

After stepping back and thinking about it per your behest, it seems that it is not a fact that person A is more influential than person B. That is the opinion of Time, and somebody expended creative effort to arrive at that ordering. When Stephen King writes a book, he generates a series of 140000 words according to an ordering that he invented, and while it can be shown as a fact that those words are indeed in that order, nobody is disputing that copying that would be a copyvio. But I do prefer to let the pros handle this kind of thing, as it appears has already happened above. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 00:50, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't seem to be the advice that we've received in the past from WMF counsel e.g. Talk:List of highest-grossing Bollywood films. Hopefully Moonriddengirl will come in with a better history, and better links, of the advice we've received from counsel as I was only just getting started in copyright work when the copyright in lists issue started. However I'm confident that counsel said lists such as this could be copyrighted. Whether we agree with them or not I don't see how we can go against their advice. Dpmuk (talk) 01:07, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi. It's a bit late for me, but I wanted to stop by quickly. :) As I mention in my essay (other people have contributed, too; I'm calling it "my" essay to avoid it seeming like I'm claiming some other authority here, when I certainly am a major contributor there), to quote again from William F. Patry, copyright governs "compilations of things expressed as a value judgment"[42] - whether or not a person is influential is a value judgment. We could as easily argue that it is a fact that prices listed in a wholesale coin price guide are listed at that price, but in CDN Inc. v. Kapes the court determined that the list in question was copyrightable because the creators followed a process that used "their judgment to distill and extrapolate from factual data" and that "This process imbues the prices listed with sufficient creativity and originality to make them copyrightable." I can't imagine that the process Time uses to compile its list of most influential is less creative than that. I can try to give more background and explanation in the morning, but I did just want to drop this for now. I think this kind of content is clearly creative. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:42, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

In addition to the copyright concerns, my thoughts are that the Time list itself should be considered WP:PRIMARY. We should be basing our edits on secondary sources. The Time list itself should not be a reference used to support the content in whole or in part. We should find reliable secondary sources to support statements about who is on the list and where they appear.WTucker (talk) 03:01, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Well, i've alphabetized 2012 Time 100. I don't know if that helps with any copyright issues or not. I'm also a quarter of the way through having every name on the list referenced with a secondary source. This can be done for all the other lists too, if someone takes the initiative. Silverseren^C 06:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I'm afraid that won't help; at best, it would create a derivative work. :/ Similar to your point below, we can't keep them just because we want to share the information - we can't supersede the value of the original. Creative lists are copyrighted. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 10:13, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Copyright questions aside, what value do we and our readers gain by having these articles? If they are articles about the lists - their creation, reception, influence, etc. - then they seem to be valuable and interesting. If, however, they're just copies of the lists then they don't seem very valuable at all. ElKevbo (talk) 07:58, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I think they should definitely be expanded to include information beyond just the bare lists. There's more than enough sources available to do so. Though the lists themselves are also important for the mere fact that not everyone on them has a Wikipedia article. Therefore, listing them and having a reference attached that explains them is also very useful and important. Silverseren^C 08:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

..."the lists themselves are also important for the mere fact that not everyone on them has a Wikipedia article". That's an intriguing definition of "important". To the point at hand, the lists themselves are only notable for the impact they have on the American chattering classes: there is little chance of there being reliable critical commentary of the lists themselves as most people understand that they are simply compiled to generate revenue for Time in the form of purchases by members of said chattering class. I don't even want to look, but could someone more willing to wade into the swamp which is arguing with people over notability of nonsense like this please verify whether we have an article for every FHM World's Hottest Women top 100 yet or not? Arguably more widely-read than Time's, and with far less in the way of agenda. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:10, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• I've blanked most of them; the only one that I didn't blank is the one that was limited to 25, but even that is by no means safe based on the feedback we received from one of the WMF's attorneys.
  
  People occasionally refer to me as an expert on copyright; I refer to myself as experienced. Some of my experience predates Wikipedia and some does not; copyright in lists is something that I never really worked with before coming here, and my familiarity with the issues grew based on the advice of other editors, the advice of Mike Godwin and other counsel with the Foundation and with my own reading.
  
  Feist v. Rural is a landmark case here, but I wonder if some people are confused about what Feist affirmed. The judgment is here. The courts did affirm that non-creative lists are not copyrightable and also helped more firmly establish that the US does not protect sweat of the brow, but it didn't say that creative lists are uncopyrightable, and it emphasized that "the requisite level of creativity is extremely low; even a slight amount will suffice. The vast majority of works make the grade quite easily, as they possess some creative spark, 'no matter how crude, humble or obvious' it might be". Explaining why the telephone directory in question is copyrightable, the court elaborated that "Rural may have been the first to discover and report the names, towns, and telephone numbers of its subscribers, but this data does not "`ow[e] its origin'" to Rural. Burrow-Giles, 111 U.S., at 58 . Rather, these bits of information are uncopyrightable facts; they existed before Rural reported them, and would have continued to exist if Rural had never published a telephone directory."
  
  In the case of a creative list, we are not dealing with uncopyrightable fact; this list did not exist before Time reported it and would never have existed had Time not reported it. It is not a list of fact, but of opinion, which clears the threshold of originality. I don't believe that the originality question is even borderline here.
  
  There's a whole lot more reading, including some case law, some additional attorney opinion and some community opinions that dissent and support, at Wikipedia talk:Copyright in lists. There is also further reading in the archives of the copyright policy talk page and the copyright problems talk page. The community has been dealing with this since at least 2003. I don't want to overwhelm ANI, though, so I'm not going to draw in more just yet. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 10:44, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

  And I've blanked the one remaining as I don't see how even a top 25 is compatible with advice we received with respect to List of highest-grossing Bollywood films. Dpmuk (talk) 14:28, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• So what can we do to make them usable? Would putting them into prose do it and organizing them in groups, like entertainers, political heads, ect? Silverseren^C 18:03, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
  • You can't duplicate the list in full in prose (eg even if mixed up/regrouped who was on there, in some different order). You can highlight that the list contains notable people from all walks of life, perhaps if others have noted specific people at specific positions, to highlight those specific individuals. Otherwise, from it seems to me, the idea of "The Time 100" listings are a notable concept, but not the individual callouts per year. --MASEM (t) 18:07, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
    • Well, i've done 27 so far (maybe 29). Of those, I think I couldn't find a proper descriptive source for 3, in that they were only mentioned in the source. For the rest, the sources discussed them a significant amount. So I would end up highlighting most of the list in prose. If that's okay, then i'll do that. Silverseren^C 18:15, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
      • How about (and I apologise if this seems like an outlandish concept, given your editing history) you drop it and find something which isn't either exactly on or significantly below the established threshold for inclusion to work on? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 20:46, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
        • I completely disagree that it is below the established inclusion threshold. It has received well over 1000 news articles discussing it and all the parts of it. Silverseren^C 20:48, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy

I would like to request the IP ban of 70.24.25.103 - who is associated with the film Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy. Warnings have been issued on the user's talk page, and IP traces to the location of the user "RobHeydon", who is directly involved with the film. Negative reviews of the film have been edited and replaced with positives. IMDB rating was falsified from 5.0 to 9.0. Rotten Tomatoes negative reviews were removed. And any critical review that the user doesn't agree with is changed. This is conflict of interest. With that said, after sufficient warnings, I would like to have the IP banned and "RobHeydon" should not be able to make adjustments to his own film's Wikipedia page, to avoid neutral point of view.Marty2Hotty (talk) 23:32, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I notified IP 70.24.25.103 for you [43]. Cheers, JoeSperrazza (talk) 23:34, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

- Thank you. Does this prevent the IP from editing? Thanks again. - Marty2Hotty (talk) 00:12, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

No, it just lets him know about this discussion so he can come comment if he wants. Equazcion ^(talk) 00:14, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

- Thanks. Not sure he knows. He's still adding information that is not sourced. Marty2Hotty (talk) 01:15, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi, I just noticed this ANI in passing. FYI, IMDB ratings should not appear in articles anyway; IMDB is over-run by trolls voting, not to mention it's not a reliable source or a critics' rating. I've removed the sentence. Softlavender (talk) 01:21, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

- Thanks. But IMDb does have "weighted average" ratings that tries to filter out the trolls. The trolls tried to bump up the rating to 9.0 ("median") but IMDb has filters and tries to show the "variable average" rating. Thanks for clarifying on IMDb's removal. He will try and alter the negative critiques. I think there's too much conflict of interest, but we'll see. Marty2Hotty (talk) 01:31, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

IMDB cannot filter out the trolls. The weighted average is just that -- a weighted average. An IMDB rating should never ever appear in a Wiki article. As to the editor in question, he appears very very problematical, and has vandalized the article (and even its Talk page) repeatedly even after his previous block for doing so. I'd say another block is in order, and possibly an auto-protect for the article. Softlavender (talk) 01:50, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

- IMDb rating information duly noted. https://resume.imdb.com/help/show_leaf?votes Is an interesting page I read a few days ago about how IMDb filters out the ratings. The user noted a link to the "median" rating which was a 9.0, which IMDb filtered out and used their filters to have the best rating they can. But I can understand the exclusion of IMDb on Wikipedia articles. As for the editor, I agree. I think he shouldn't be able to edit that article due to conflict of interest. Thanks for everyone's assistance. Marty2Hotty (talk) 02:24, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

IMDB is usually regarded as a reasonable source for basic info such as cast-and-crew, year of release, etc. Not so for opinions and trivia. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:35, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

The IP seems to be heeding the warnings and has stopped editing. Perhaps this could be closed? JoeSperrazza (talk) 00:40, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

User:Yeumuvayeuem only contribs are VANDALISM please Block

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

---

Yeumuvayeuem only Contributions are Vandalism, Please block Newmanoconnor (talk) 03:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Migrating this report to WP:AIV. —C.Fred (talk) 03:42, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

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

Real Madrid/Barcelona

User:Suitcivil133 is constintly deleting real madrid information, I was reported and banned from wikipedia because I "vandalized" the FC Barcelona article when I removed information, this user deletes anything that shines on Real Madrid or has a negative impact on Barcelona, its not fair to see that if he or she is getting away with it, there was a picture of a 8-0 defeat on the page and Suitcivil133 removed it, today he removed a sentence that said "Real Madrid made history" and gave no reason for it, to me that is considerd vandalism, if I was banned for that why isnt he or she? 71.139.163.192 (talk) 04:37, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

They removed a claim that had been tagged with {{cn}} since January; the onus is not on them to provide references. You, however, left a talk page section titled "you a bitch" on their talk page, were promptly blocked for a week, upon your block expiring you followed up with this upstanding character assessment on their talk page. How you evaded being blocked for that PA I don't know. You need to log into your account and post either an {{unblock}} or {{adminhelp}} request on your talk page before someone blocks your IP account for trolling/harassing Suitcivil133 again. Also, you failed to notify Suitcivil133 of this frivolous complaint; I will do so for you. --64.85.221.47 (talk) 09:42, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

You are lying again. I removed it because there was no reference and because it was wrong. Also extremely subjective as the rest of that particular section. Moroever you are saying that I remove RM information? That is also not truth. In fact I am a regular contributor and often update the "Real Madrid record and statistics" thread and Spanish football records. But I am not surprised that this banned sock poppet has a problem with me because he was banned and I found him to be sock puppet vandalizing several pages and writting untrue claims. Moreoever he is the same person who threatened me with death without any reason on my talk page. I pity this person.--Suitcivil133 (talk) 11:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• IP blocked for a month this time. New sock User talk:MadridFG7 blocked indeff. Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:46, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

User:Iamseba

Iamseba (talk · contribs) seems to creating duplicate pages about schools with various capitalizations, such as St lawrence higher secondary school Madathattuvilai and St Lawrence Higher Secondary School Madathattuvilai, and them immediately thereafter tagging them with {{db-g7}} or redirecting them, sometimes both in the same edit. In any case, the articles seem to be of pretty shoddy quality and could probably use a lot of cleanup. Canuck^{89 »–—►(click here!)◄–—«} 09:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Cameroonian IP editor adding hoax again...

• Military of Cameroon (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Patrolling Admins, please take a look at the aforementioned article page and apply semi-protection (indef if possible!) as this IP hopping editor from Cameroon keeps returning to insert artificially inflated figures and hoax content. Note that this patent nonsense has gone on for quite some time now and frankly, any Admin's close monitoring of the situation is very much welcomed. Thank you~! --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 11:46, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I semi'd for another month. Request should really go to WP:RFPP next time.--v/r - TP 13:18, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
    • Thanks, although this is just the tip of the iceberg as the IP has been adding false information on many other military related articles in the past few months.--McSly (talk) 13:32, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Simulated child porn, etc etc

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

---

Now that hopefully I have all of your attention from the section title, here's the diff, this is the user, and the image is on Commons. I have no idea what the relevant Wikipedia policy is regarding this, so I'll leave it to you guys. brb doing a Gutmann pass on my hard drive because of internet browser image cache, since I live in a dystopian country where loli is illegal, punishable by 10 years prison. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 13:35, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Commons uploader is probably same chap but not that user account - commons uploader is Sbardnafulator). Commons won't delete the file unless it's a copyvio - which of course it is. the game doesn't include images like these. I've blocked the wikipedia useraccount as vandalism only (anyone got a better category). Anyone got any brain bleach? --Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:54, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I doubt the image is under a free license, or that it is the uploader's own work as the file description claims. I can't verify my doubts though. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 13:57, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

If the image is a copyvio, it will appear elsewhere on the internet. I'm too paranoid to do a Tineye or Google reverse image search for obvious reasons. Is anyone from Russia or some other Eastern European country willing to try it out? -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 14:03, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm on a college campus, so I'm certainly not going to look at the image or search for copyvios online (nor would I in any event—I have no desire to see CP!); but assuming it is as bad as you say, it should be oversighted or server-level erased because that is illegal in the state of Florida. Reaper Eternal (talk) 14:07, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

The image is a 2D lolicon image of Cirno with a undeniably child body and... uhhh... underdeveloped vaginal opening being displayed towards the viewer. Cirno is a character from the game, however the game is non-pornographic and the image is definitely a fan artwork. I think if 2D simulated child porn is illegal in Florida, then the image in question certainly would be illegal. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 14:13, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

All other issues aside, unless the videogame is PD or compatibly licensed, it's a derivative work. There's a reason why Commons doesn't have pictures of Bart Simpson You can't draw your own fan art of visual, copyrighted characters. Flagged accordingly for admin attention on Commons. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:15, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks MRG. I have oversighted on wikipedia - reasonably certain it's illegal in Florida. Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:17, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

NB - have corrected myself further up. For some reason I typed 'isn't' a copyvio instead of 'is'. Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:19, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Also, file blacklisted (pending deletion on commons). Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 14:27, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

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

Political shenigans

re:"How is this an issue that requires administrator attention?" Perhaps it is a heads-up of subtle vandalism which often occurs during peak political seasons; as a suggestion to place an article on a watchlist should the need to take administrative action arise. Be that blocking in case of 3RR, or protection of the said article. Of course I can't speak for Drmies, but just to note that I've added the article to my watchlist. Thanks for the tip Drmies. Feel free to drop any further issues at my talk page should it become unacceptable to place further notices on the admin. related boards. And TY to SW for the table fix. — Ched :  ?  15:19, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Ched. I actually just posted a similar message on SW's talk page (thanking him twice--he's not a peon anymore an admin now, so we have to treat him nicely). I did indeed plow through pages of history to see if it was a result of vandalism but found nothing. Note the talk page: there are suspicions of POV editing (quickly endangering the GA status), which will be very common this year, I'm afraid. We should have a user category like Category:Republican Wikipedians who are really neutral--read my lips, so we know who is trustworthy. What surprises me is a. how few politicians (and their tools) have discovered Wikipedia and b. how clumsy the ones operate that have discovered it. My fellow-check-to-Montessori-writing representative Joe Hubbard fit in the first, and one of his fans in the second category. The existence of Justin Bieber on Twitter is an easy way for us to double the number of articles on living, active politicians, by the way--and to double the POV and vandalism stuff. Drmies (talk) 15:55, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Merge discussion

Someone please have a look at Talk:Industrial_violence#Merger_proposal. It is over one year, and still not closed. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 15:27, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Done. Rlendog (talk) 15:35, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

There are 15,074 articles with open merge proposals, some open for more than three years. Very very few need an administrator to close the move discussion. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:43, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Wow! It shows poor administration in Wikipedia. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 15:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure, does an administrator have to do merge's or can any user complete a merge? MrLittleIrish ^(talk) © 15:56, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Depends on the type of merge; if it's a simple content merge, anyone can redirect the article to be merged and add whatever is supposed to be in the main article without assistance. If it requires a history merge, only admins can do that, and it's one of our more difficult tasks (I've been meaning to learn how to do it, because relatively few admins are willing to; one wrong move and you can create a horrible mess that takes a long time to fix). The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:20, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

(ec with Blade) No, anyone can close almost all merges. Controversial merge discussions, like other content controversies, need an uninvolved Wikipedian of some experience, good standing, and dermal fortitude to close (Help:Merging suggests, but does not require, that this be an administrator). Administrators are needed only for hist-merges, which are very rarely necessary. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:23, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Interested users should check out WP:WikiProject Merge. While most mergers can be performed by anyone, there are a few tricky steps where mini-mentoring may be helpful. Flatscan (talk) 04:17, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

User:Chipmunkdavis

I have ended up in a conflict with Chipmunkdavis (talk · contribs) about the vandalisme tagging of Seyitahmetmrk (talk · contribs). I have tagged two of the edits of Seyitahmetmrk as vandalism, and later reported him as vandalism-only account. Mr. Chipmunkdavis disagreed with that and requested the blocking admin Terriersfan to unblock him. So far, so good. It should have ended there. Unfortunately, after that mr. Chipmunkdavis demanded an explanation. By now it feels like he is trying to discredited and taint me, combined with some low level personal attacks. I repeatedly ([44], [45]) asked mr. Chipmunkdavis to stop harassing (conform Wikipedia:Harassment, particlular Usually (but not always) the purpose is to make the target feel threatened or intimidated, and the outcome may be to make editing Wikipedia unpleasant for the target, to undermine them, to frighten them, or to discourage them from editing entirely.) me, so I could go on with nicer things. His answer on my request Please stop harassing me, NOW. made his intentions loud and clear: I'm not, I simply want to know if you can back up the warnings you gave with any sort of policy or guideline. Can you?.

The full story can be read on:

1. User talk:Seyitahmetmrk, including two removals of the warning templates
2. User talk:TerriersFan#User:Seyitahmetmrk
3. User talk:Night of the Big Wind#User:Seyitahmetmrk

Due to his wish to go on with this, I request help. Night of the Big Wind _talk 16:51, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

This is not harassment, I see no personal attacks (low-level or otherwise), and an ANI report is premature and seems a bit silly. If you don't want to talk to CMD anymore, stop responding to him. Or say "I don't want to talk about this anymore". If you try to end it by saying "stop harassing me", it's unreasonable to expect him not to protest that he isn't harassing you. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Why is providing a new source that shows the city as 150% bigger years ago vandalism? Inaccurate? Maybe. Vandalism? Absolutely not. And you got a guy blocked for it. Of course he is going to be peeved. Apologize and maybe you both can move on. Quit trying to get folks blocked again by running here to ANI.--v/r - TP 17:30, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

The edits seem to have resulted from an error in confusing Samsun, the city, with Samsun Province: the figures for the province were used in error for the city. Although an error, it was not vandalism. Mathsci (talk) 07:58, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Explanation and inquires by Chipmunkdavis

Well, since this is already here, I'd appreciate input into what should('ve) be(en) done in this situation. The course of events is like so:

• The new User:Seyitahmetmrk makes these edits from 20:48-21:04, the first is to change a map of Cyprus to show the area of Northern Cyprus which is not under government control as a separate shade of green, the second two change the population data of the city of Samsun in Turkey (info given for context, not content discussion here). These are the only edits the user has made.
• Night of the Big Wind reverted all three (in reverse order to the original edits, if that matters) using the Twinkle vandalism tool at around 22:07.
• Night of the Big Wind subsequently gives two warnings to Seyitahmetmrk, uw-vandalism1 and uw-vandalism2 (although when discussing with the user I referred to the first one as a test edit warning as I didn't realise before now that the hidden text showed what the warning is).
• At 22:18 I reverted Night of the Big Wind's reversion on Cyprus, saying in the edit summary that "That wasn't vandalism". At the same time, I asked on his talkpage why he considered the edits vandalism.
• Night of the Big Wind reverted my reversion on Cyprus at 22:34, saying "I consider gross POV and breaking consensus to add a POV a form of vandalism", and replied to much the same note on their talkpage, while noting that they knew the figures came from "an older census".
• At 23:37, Night of the Big Wind reported Seyitahmetmrk to WP:AIV. I didn't know this until later (which you can see on TerriersFan's talkpage), and at about the same time posted on Night of the Big Wind's talkpage noting that the edits were not vandalism, per WP:VANDALISM.
• TerriersFan blocked Seyitahmetmrk at 1:16 in response to the AIV report.
• I asked about the block on TerriersFan's talkpage, visible at User talk:TerriersFan#User:Seyitahmetmrk, showing that the edit wasn't vandalism. To this explanation, TerriersFan responded that "As you are aware changes must be reliably sourced; if the user for whom you are making representations agrees to reliably source his future changes then I should be happy to unblock him." After I commented that this was not a basis for a block, TerriersFan unblocked Seyitametmrk at 10:21.
• I thanked TerriersFan on the talkpage, and noted that since the vandalism warnings on Seyitahmetmrk's talkpage were clearly unwarranted, I would remove them, to which TerriersFan replied this was "a decent solution and we can move on."
• Night of the Big Wind however reinstated the warnings, posting on TerriersFan's talkpage that "We will see. But this looks more on a protecting a friend. And in the mean time mr CMD is personally attacking and discrediting me, here and on the talkpage of Seyitahmetmrk." The subsequent conversation was moved to my talkpage, but more relevant was that Night of the Big Wind didn't provide a policy or guideline based reason for the warnings, readding them again, and, well, raising this AN/I.

There are a couple of things about this incident which seem off to me. The first is obviously that a new user's first edits were reverted under the pretext that they were vandalism when they weren't, and that this user then became blocked for these edits. Another concern was that the blocking admin seemed to think that because the edits were unsourced the block should remain, which is a highly dubious assertion, although they did subsequently unblock. In regards to the actual dispute, I'd like to know if the warnings on Seyitahmetmrk's talkpage should stay or be removed, considering they were very incorrectly applied. If so, can someone remove them? Since this is here, I'd also like to know if there's a better way to handle these situations in the future (was I wrong to remove the warnings after discussing with the warning editor? Where should I have continued this had this AN/I not occured? Anything else?). Thanks, (sorry if the above diff list is a bit TL:DR), CMD (talk) 00:51, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Misrepresentation of source and original research at Conversion between Julian and Gregorian calendars

Insertion of original research by User:128.63.16.82, for example, this edit. As explained at length on the article talk page in the Need to review these conversions? section, the insertion is contrary to the contents of the cited source and, when the directions provided in the article for using the table are followed, give wrong answers. I will provide a link to an image of this obscure source, in compliance with the crown copyright of the source, shortly. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:45, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Having read the Crown copyright article, it is my understanding that the Crown copyright on the source for the article in question expired in 2011, therefore I have reproduced the page in question here. This image downloads slowly. After further researching the Commons copyright policy, I have uploaded the page to Commons. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:46, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Community sanctions enforcement request: Delicious carbuncle

(Note: this was originally filed at WP:AE but I've moved it here at the request of User:Lothar von Richthofen, as a more appropriate forum.)

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Prioryman (talk)

User against whom enforcement is requested

Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Editing restrictions#Placed by the Wikipedia community

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

• 00:04, 2 May 2012‎

This edit on a user talk page repeats exactly the same subject matter as the topic of the discussion on the Administrators' Noticeboard that led to the interaction ban between DC and myself. To summarise: DC has taken it upon himself to act as a self-appointed vigilante "policing" my edits. He has stalked me on and off-wiki for nearly two years, even going so far as to create a "monitoring" thread about me on Wikipedia Review. This has led to repeated clashes on-wiki. An interaction ban was proposed by User:28bytes and enacted by User:ErrantX to enforce a complete disengagement between us. Under the terms of the ban, we are prohibited from "discussing each other, or interacting" at any venue. A narrow exemption is given for appealing the ban on the user talk page of ErrantX or to the Arbcom: "Please do not comment on, or otherwise interact with him, at any venue. If you want to appeal the ban for any reason please do so on my talk page (which will be excluded from the ban), or to Arbcom." [46]

DC has blatantly flouted the IBAN by continuing his vigilante behaviour on a matter which is not remotely related to an appeal of the ban. This is especially egregious as (1) he has previously been blocked for breaching the ban [47] and (2) as noted here, "editors topic-banned under ARBCC or banned from interacting with me ... aren't allowed to comment on this request here or on any other page on Wikipedia", which arbitrator User:SirFozzie has endorsed and asked to be enforced. [48] After DC's previous block, User:Future Perfect at Sunrise told him: "I would want to come away from this with one unmistakable clarification: if ErrantX spoke of his page being "exempt" from the interaction ban, that does not mean his page is a place on which you are simply free to continue your fights. The consensus on AN was for a full interaction ban, not an interaction ban with loopholes." DC responded that he "never had any other understanding". [49]

It's obvious from this incident that despite what he told Future Perfect, DC has not ceased stalking my edits and taking it upon himself to act as a self-appointed vigilante. This is precisely the type of behaviour that necessitated the IBAN in the first place and is an absolutely unambiguous violation of a clearly worded interaction ban. With two violations in only six weeks, it's clear that he has no intention of stopping this obsessive behaviour and the only thing that is going to put an end to this once and for all is a substantial block for him. Total disengagement has to mean just that, otherwise this IBAN is meaningless. The admin who imposed the ban, ErrantX, has said that if another admin "want[s] to impost a block on DC for violating the IBAN that is fine by me."[50]

For the record, I have abided by my side of the ban and have refrained from interacting with DC, or commenting on or off-wiki on him or his interactions with others. I've said repeatedly that I want nothing to do with him and I've stood by that intention. This intervention by DC has come out of the blue with no provocation of any kind on my part. I'm deeply frustrated that despite my restraint and avoidance of trouble, this nonsense is still continuing despite the interaction ban which was supposed to end it. Please resolve this once and for all. Prioryman (talk) 18:01, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Moreschi, how have I violated the interaction ban? Are you seriously suggesting that it's a violation of the interaction ban to ask for the interaction ban to be enforced? How am I supposed to deal with violations of the ban, then? I'd like to remind you that I am the victim of a violation here, not the perpetrator of one. I've been keeping my head down and out of trouble, and have done nothing to provoke DC into going after me yet again. I am not the one causing the problem. Prioryman (talk) 18:33, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you are [the victim] which is what makes this rather tricky to handle. Had you not considered using email to request that ErrantX or someone else deal with DC's post, rather than creating more drama on-wiki? But I can see how you might not think of that. Hmm. Technically I think you're both in breach of your ban, but blocking people on technical grounds seems rather off. Moreschi (talk) 18:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately when I raised it with ErrantX he declined to enforce his own interaction ban - his words: "I've had my fill of "OMG DRAMAZ" (one reason I mostly ignored DC's comment) for the month, so I'll let some other admin inherit this headache." [51] This leaves me with no recourse whatsoever other than to ask "some other admin" to deal with it, which is what I'm doing here. I don't know who specifically to ask. I want nothing to do with DC and only want this person to leave me alone as he is supposed to be doing. I want to disengage from DC but he isn't disengaging from me despite the IBAN. Can someone please get this sorted out? Prioryman (talk) 18:41, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

• Imposition of the interaction ban.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

• 19:02, 3 May 2012‎

Huh. Well, my initial reaction is to block Delicious Carbuncle (96h) for violating his interaction ban, and then block Prioryman (96h) for also violating the interaction ban. Having done my homework on this, however, I see there is a significantly controversial back-story here, so I'll wait for others to weigh in and see what they think. Moreschi (talk) 18:29, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

To clarify, the block of DC would be per Prioryman's reasoning, since the post on ErrantX's talkpage is clearly not appealing or discussing the interaction ban and surely constitutes more stalking and harassment in violation of the terms of the ban. Blocking Prioryman would be because DR processes were specifically included in the terms of the interaction ban, and the correct course of action, if he wanted anything done about DC's post, would be to email ErrantX or an uninvolved sysop, rather than create more on-wiki drama here, at AE, ErrantX's talk, and Future Perfect's talk. But my reasoning on blocking Prioryman might be off, so feedback would be appreciated. This is a tricky one to handle. Moreschi (talk) 18:34, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm now significantly less inclined to block Prioryman, as we don't usually do purely procedural blocks when there was no intent to violate the ban. Moreschi (talk) 18:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

If AE requests are prohibited by the ban, that's quite unfair; either user could do something to the other, have the other report it as a violation, and succeed in getting the other one blocked for reporting it some way or another. It's only fair to permit either user to report alleged violations at AE. Nyttend (talk) 19:12, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I believe it would not be absurd if one of the goals of the ban is that neither party should be allowed to bring reports against the other, regardless of the actions of the other. Basically a "even if you see him torching a barn, you cannot call the police because we don't trust you not to abuse the police phone number" situation. MBisanz ^talk 19:17, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

You're half-right. One of the goals of the ban is to prevent either party bringing reports against the other (in fact, that was at my own insistence). However, where your analogy falls down is that this is not a "torching [someone else']s barn" situation but a "punching me in the face" situation. I'm not raising this thread because DC has done something against someone else, I'm raising it because he's done something against me, in open contravention of the ban. Conversely DC is in the kind of situation you envisage, because his intervention on ErrantX's talk page was yet another attempt to get me sanctioned for what he sees, wrongly, as a violation of my existing sanctions. That has nothing to do with administration of the interaction ban. Prioryman (talk) 19:22, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

By the way, the edit for which DC reported me to ErrantX is this one, where I reverted a vandal who had changed the title of Battlefield Earth (film) - a featured article that I co-wrote - to "Battlefield Fuckstick". I hardly need to point out how petty and vindictive it is to try to get me sanctioned for that. Prioryman (talk) 19:24, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Moreschi, please go with your gut -- block both. 96hours, 96 days, whatever it takes. Nobody Ent 19:28, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Fair, I was not involved with the initial ban, so I don't have the full context, but the idea that two people don't get along to the point they can't even be trusted to call the cops when one is beating the other is not totally lacking in logic. Possibly common sense, but not logic. I would defer to Moreschi's proposed course. MBisanz ^talk 19:30, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

How would blocking the victim of an interaction ban violation possibly be fair? I've been targeted for two years by this individual. He's been given an interaction ban with me which was supposed to have stopped it. He's continued despite the ban. How is that in any way my fault? Prioryman (talk) 19:32, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that it's a two-way topic ban, not a one-way ban towards him. That is a presumption that both parties are at fault and neither is the victim. MBisanz ^talk 19:37, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's a two-way ban, which I fully supported in the earlier AN discussion. I specifically called for a total disengagement, each of us ceasing to have any involvement with the other. That's not a dispensation of "fault" - I simply don't want to have anything to do with him. I've abided by my side of the interaction ban. He's violated it twice in six weeks and has already been blocked 48 hours for his previous violation. Draw your own conclusions. Prioryman (talk) 19:46, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• sigh* I'd hoped that this would not spin up again after I managed to drag these two users kicking and screaming apart before. Long story short; they simply cannot cope with each other. DC managed to keep away from Prioryman for some weeks; but then just posted to my user talk raising not only a valid matter I had neglected but, as prioryman mentions, another matter which indicates he is still sniffing around Prioryman. My inclination in such cases is usually to revert and leave it at that for the first few times - and hope that by keeping the matter de-escalated things will continue to stay nice and relaxed. However Prioryman has, yet again, risen to the bait and dragged this across various noticeboards (there was no initial request to me to take extra action). As I said to him earlier; a key part of the interaction ban is being able to ignore the other person, something he has failed to do.

The point of the IBAN was to stop the disruption across the project space that they caused by their clashing; as Prioryman has demonstrated, this has not worked.

Both these users need their heads banging together and to be set down in their respective corners. What to do? I'd be inclined to follow Moreschi's gut reaction - a longer block for DC for flagrant violation of the IBAN and its intention. And a block for Prioryman (24h?). With the hope that this impresses on them one last time that the community is fed up of their bickering match.

In terms of the restriction on noticeboards, that was finicky because pretty much both of them complained about the other misusing DR processes. Basically it was a pain in the neck. --Errant ^(chat!) 19:39, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Because you (Prioryman) lack the self discipline to simply ignore it. No one (well, at least not me) is interested in refereeing the interminable squabble. The wise course would have been to simply ignore it until someone else figured out DC was violating the ban. Why do you care whats going on ErrantX's talk page, anyway? Nobody Ent 19:42, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I care because I've been targeted by DC for two years and I want it to stop. Prioryman (talk) 19:49, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely no to a block on me - again, I am the victim here. I did not ask for DC to intervene. I have not had anything to do with him since the IBAN. I've followed my side of it. I'm sure you're fed up with the drama, but it is not my fault that DC has gone after me again. If you had enforced your own interaction ban, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. Instead you invited DC to email you privately to report issues about me unrelated to the ban! How can that possibly be compatible with DC being instructed by you and the community to disengage from me? As I've said repeatedly, I want nothing to do with this individual and you seem to be blaming me for asking for his disengagement to actually be enforced. That is grossly unfair. Prioryman (talk) 19:46, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I have the impression that an interaction ban was not a good solution to this sort of a problem. If someone is stalking and harrassing, then this is a rather one sided problem. If to keep the peace both sides agree to an interaction ban instead of fighting out a lengthy dispute resolution process here (e.g. an ArbCom case), then that is in the Wiki-sprit of dropping the stick and moving on. But the problem then arises later, if this interaction ban is interpreted in general terms outside of the original context in which it was implemented. I have experienced this sort of a problem myself a long time ago here in relation to the issues regarding Brews Ohare's ArbCom sanctions.

I think that one should not impose interactions bans at all, and instead appeal to the fact that people here should behave as grown up adults. If people stalk and harrass, then that in itself is grounds for Adminstrative action. So, you can file reports at AE, but if you file misleading reports, then you'll lose te right to post there. An interaction ban is more suitable for a Kindergarten like setting, there putting fighting toddlers apart for a while can work. Count Iblis (talk) 19:46, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Alright. I've given DC this very sternly worded warning telling him that future violations of the ban will be regarded as stalking and get him a very lengthy block. Prioryman is asked to report future suspected violations, should he so feel the need, privately via email to myself or another uninvolved adminstrator, rather than creating a massive thread on the drama-boards to the exasperation of all. Nobody gets blocked, largely thanks to a somewhat surprising outburst of charity and goodwill on my part, which will doubtless come as a surprise to everyone. Now, can I tag this as resolved? Moreschi (talk) 19:50, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Thank you, that is acceptable. I hope there won't be any further problems. The matter's resolved as far as I'm concerned. Prioryman (talk) 19:53, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

What a load of absolute bullshit. I asked, more than once, for an interaction ban because of the persistent attacks from Prioryman, many of them containing demonstrably false statements. Perversely, the ban was only enacted when I asked on ANI for Prioryman's many sanctions to be fully and properly recorded. As usual, Prioryman's aim here is entirely self-serving. Moreschi describes him as a "victim". A victim of what? Of having the community hold him to the sanctions imposed on him? Of being asked to account for his edits which violate those sanctions?

I do not understand why anyone would object to having Prioryman's sanctions fully and properly recorded. When I asked for this in the original ANI thread, Prioryman refused to enumerate the sanctions of which he was aware. This is hardly a show of good faith. ErrantX undertook to follow up on this issue, so I asked him about on his user page, which was explicitly exempt from the ban, when it was brought to my attention that Prioryman was petitioning for one of his sanctions to be lifted. A sanction that is not recorded on WP:RESTRICT, incidentally.

Contrary to what Prioryman states, I did not ask for him to be "sanctioned" for this edit which is in violation of teh sanctions given to ChrisO/Prioryman in WP:ARBSCI. I asked that he be reminded of those editing restrictions. It may be instructive to point out that he has since made a further five edits ([52], [53], [54], [55], & [56]) in violation of the same restrictions.

Prioryman has a long and spotty history with violating or skirting editing restrictions. The problem here is not that I am monitoring his contributions for violations, but the violations themselves. ArbCom has tended to turn a wilfully blind eye to Prioryman's tendency for lying, sockpuppetry, and conflict because he is a fairly prolific creator of high-quality content. While I appreciate his positive contributions, his negative actions are harmful to the project and should not be excused. This type of bad behaviour is akin to a high-performing manager who sexually harasses their employees. Most companies have realized that this is not a good trade-off. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

So in that one post here you not only managed to violate your interaction ban but also compare Prioryman to a sexual harasser. Well done. That has got you blocked for the next 75 days for violating your ban after being warned (and per your talkpage knowing full well that you were doing this and you would get blocked as a result) and for flagrant contempt of the restrictions you are under. I'm sorry, but it is very explicitly not your problem to deal with Prioryman's edits. That is our job. The community has decided that your attempts to monitor his contributions are disruptive and that you two need to be kept away from each other, and if you can't be bothered to abide by this, the next block will be for even longer. Moreschi (talk) 22:26, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

That is totally undue - 75 days - clearly this dispute is a two way street - do you think such attack administration is beneficial to lowering disruption - well anyone can edit wikipedia and they will -even if you attack or not - they will come back and attack harder - this sort of disruptive administration will be the death of en wikipedia - Youreallycan 22:31, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Wow, terrible block. I...wow. Arkon (talk) 22:32, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Am I alone in thinking it's ridiculous in the first place that ANI posts regarding enforcement of the interaction ban are being construed as violation of the interaction ban? Equazcion ^(talk) 22:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I just hope a clear minded admin steps in at this point. Arkon (talk) 22:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

For the record, I'm not just referring to DC's block, but Prioryman being accused of ban violation when he first brought this here. I can't remember this ever being standard in dealing with topic bans. I think this discussion should reset, exclude pointing at posts in the section as evidence of violation, and just focus on the reported events so we can actually deal with what transpired. Equazcion ^(talk) 22:45, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I think Prioryman is completely in the right to make a report about the violation. He followed the rules in the first place by contacting Errant, as he was supposed to, but Errant didn't want to do anything. And it wasn't that he saw anything unactionable, he just didn't want to be involved. So Prioryman took the logical next step and filed an AE report. I don't see an issue from him here. If DC violated the ban, then he was right to report it, since Prioryman is the one being harassed. Silverseren^C 22:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Look, the accusation of an interaction ban violation from Prioryman was due to DC posting on Errants page, which as you said, was as he was suppose to do. Then he went forum shopping, doing the exact same thing he was complaining about DC doing. DC comes here and responds in kind, and bam, block. Crazy. Arkon (talk) 22:50, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I have to correct you about being "supposed to" post on ErrantX's user talk page. The ban permits both parties to use ErrantX's page to raise issues concerning the interaction ban and only that subject. ErrantX did not enact the interaction ban in order to confine the dispute to his talk page - the ban is there to stop the dispute. Prioryman (talk) 22:59, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I was responding to Silver seren's opinion that it was the right thing to do. Do you have a diff for the 'only that subject' part? I couldn't dig it out from the links on the iban logging. Honestly, Errant is as much to blame for all this as anyone. He took ownership of the issue when it was first raised, then ran away when the inevitable happened. Bleh. Arkon (talk) 23:02, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Please see [57] for ErrantX's post imposing the interaction ban. It requires total disengagement in all venues but allows appeals against the ban on ErrantX's talk page or to Arbcom. The terms of the ban were reiterated by Future Perfect here. Prioryman (talk) 23:13, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Arkon (talk) 23:17, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Forum shopping is when someone disagrees with you and you go somewhere else to try again. ErrantX didn't disagree, he just didn't want to deal with it. A new forum was the appropriate move. Equazcion ^(talk) 22:54, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Non-action would seem to imply disagreement, or at the least, non-agreement. However, putting that aside, it doesn't change how bad this block is. Even his reasoning in the post above is incorrect on the facts, "the community" never decided anything about this iBAN. Arkon (talk) 22:57, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• I have left fairly extensive rationale for this block at DC's talk. It is more complicated than it appears and requires that you read through the archived discussions that lead to the original interaction ban that ErrantX imposed, which I strongly recommend that people do before commenting. These two are not supposed to fighting at ANI, nor reporting each other here, nor discussing each other anywhere, which is why 1) DC's post at ErrantX's talk was harassment, in violation of his ban and 2) arguably so was Prioryman bringing it to ANI/AE instead of reporting the original harassment through email, say. This is arguable, and you could argue that it's fine for him (Prioryman) to do so, but please bear in mind that the original intention of the ban was to stop them fighting in these forums.

• At any rate, after I have warned both, rather than blocked, DC then goes and posts here in loud, angry fashion, which is exactly what he is specifically banned from doing. Unsurprisingly, he gets blocked. I am extremely sceptical that this was a surprise to him. At any rate, if someone wants to amend the block length (to anywhere from 48 hours up), then please do so, but please do not unblock without talking it over with me first unless some vast and extremely overwhelming community consensus appears. I will be asleep for the next 8 hours or so, but back online then to talk it through some more if required. Moreschi (talk) 23:08, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• DC coming here to defend his actions following an accusation of ban violation was fine. His tone in doing so shouldn't factor in. A topic ban shouldn't preclude reporting violations of it, and if that's the case, it needs to be expressed explicitly in the ban terms that an admin's talk page or email are the only acceptable venues for reporting violations. If that's the not the case, the posting to ANI from either party regarding possible violation should not be used as evidence of violation themselves. Equazcion ^(talk) 23:12, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• (EC) *:Diffs for the assertions in the first part please? (Not meaning for that to be jerky, but I seriously can't find the exact wording implemented). Secondly, I don't understand why you would think DC should be unable to respond to this request. Unless I missed something, that was his first and only post to this section. This whole thing was the biggest baiting I've seen in a while, don't act surprised that someone rises to it. Arkon (talk) 23:15, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• I have read through this entire thread, and frankly, I feel like I am a kindergarten teacher trying to control a bunch of 3-year-olds. This is ridiculous. DC's initial complaint on Errant's talk page is about reverting obvious vandalism. This is childish. Prioryman's response to this is equally childish. Ignoring it would have been the right thing to do. Given the interaction ban, I would be in favor of a short block for Prioryman (perhaps 24-72 hours). I am also in favor of a much longer block for DC, but 75 days is cruel and unusual punishment. I am going to reduce that to 10 days, which will be by far the longest block on his block log at this point. I'm not going to block Prioryman myself, but I think that it would be plausible if someone else decided to. ‑Scottywong| confabulate _ 23:22, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
  • On the matter of Prioryman's edits to Battlefield Earth (film): these are covered by his ARBSCI sanctions, which are:
  • 17) ChrisO (talk • contribs • blocks • protections • deletions • page moves • rights) has proposed a binding voluntary restriction[161] that within the Scientology topic (i) he limits his edits to directly improving articles to meet GA and FA criteria, using reliable sources; (ii) he makes no edits of whatever nature to biographies of living people; and (iii) he refrains from sysop action of whatever nature. ChrisO is instructed to abide by these restrictions.
  • ChrisO (Prioryman) was the editor who originally took that article to FA status. Under the terms of his sanction, he is entitled to make edits for the purpose of "directly improving articles to meet GA and FA criteria, using reliable sources". This is reasonably interpreted to mean that he is allowed to maintain his FAs in the topic area, and is allowed to revert vandalism thereto. By my reading, his recent half a dozen edits to that article did not violate his Scientology topic ban. --JN466 23:52, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

(Moved from DC's talk SÆdon^talk): This is a ridiculous block that has little relevance to the issue at hand and will not stand. If Moreschi wants to play tough guy and refuses to unblock, I'm sure someone else will do so eventually. The community is not well served by admins who are more interested in reducing the "drama" than solving the problem. Prioryman's tiresome bleating seems to have distracted people from the central point that he agreed to abide by editing restrictions in order to be allowed to continue editing. He has repeatedly violated those restrictions and will continue to do so. This very thread is a violation of one of those restrictions. If the community was not serious about the sanctions, they should be withdrawn. If they are serious about them, they should ensure that they are properly recorded and that they are enforced. Framing this as a dispute between editors is really just ignoring what is at the root of the issue. Shooting the messenger will not solve the problem. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 23:21, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Evaluating the block

This block by User:Moreschi is appalling. First of all, the interaction ban was voluntary. Secondly, ErrantX clearly stated that his talk page was exempt from it ("my talk page (which will be excluded from the ban)"). Thirdly, ErrantX promised he would make sure Prioryman's sanctions were correctly logged, which he failed to do, and DC was reminding him of. Fourthly, Prioryman is misrepresenting SirFozzie when he describes the interaction ban above as "one arbitrator User:SirFozzie has endorsed and asked to be enforced. [58]". SirFozzie stated that "folks under sanction in this area are banned from commenting on this request." This refers to folks under ARBCC sanctions; besides, DC did not comment on that request or at RFAR, but on ErrantX's talk page about ErrantX's admitted tardiness in doing what he had promised to do (and which was part of the interaction ban deal). Fifth, Prioryman has broken the voluntary interaction ban by posting here and at AE. Sixth, 75 days is completely, utterly, absurdly over the top even if there were grounds for a block. Seventh, looking at DC's talk page, it seems rather clearly the result of a rush of blood on Moreschi's part. Please!

• Unblock Delicious carbuncle, trout Moreschi. Not his finest hour. --JN466 23:27, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Lessen to 48 hours, same for Prioryman They both screwed up, 48 hours for the first screwup seems ok to me. Arkon (talk) 23:33, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
• Comment: Block reduced to 10 days. I'd support a 48 hour block for Prioryman, but I'm hesitant to make that particular decision without further discussion. ‑Scottywong| communicate _ 23:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Once again, I am the victim here. I am being stalked and harassed. I thought after the interaction ban was imposed that I would not have to put up with DC again. Instead, just a few hours ago, he posted that he was "reviewing [Prioryman's] contributions for violations of his many sanctions" [sic] [59]. That is blatant wikistalking, and is exactly what he was forbidden to do. ErrantX declined to act on this violation and said to take it to another admin. Timotheus Canens and Cailil on AE advised that it was the wrong forum [60] [61], and Lothar von Richthofen advised that it be taken to AN/I instead [62]. That is exactly what I have done. Why should I be sanctioned for following the advice of others and asking, once and for all, for this harassment and stalking to be stopped? What was the point of the interaction ban in the first place if it's not going to stop this individual's constant attempts to get at me? I am not the one continuing this dispute! Prioryman (talk) 23:31, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
  • DC violated the topic ban, and that gives Prioryman the right to report it. Seems like common sense to me. Though going forward, if reporting violations is limited to email or talk pages, the ban restrictions should be amended to include that. Equazcion ^(talk) 23:42, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
  • DC posted on ErrantX's talk page, which was agreed to be out of scope of the interaction ban. I don't think his posting there victimised you; you could have completely ignored it, or put your side in an e-mail to ErrantX, or indeed on ErrantX's talk page. No? --JN466 23:46, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Thought experiment for Prioryman: what do you think would have happened if you had completely ignored DC's comment on Errant's talk page (about your edit to revert obvious vandalism)? Consider that it seemed likely that every other admin would have ignored his comment as well. ‑Scottywong| chatter _ 23:49, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I already answered that question elsewhere but I'll spell it out for you. DC has expressed his explicit intention to continue stalking my edits. Two days after he posted on ErrantX's talk page, DC posted here that he was "reviewing [Prioryman's] contributions for violations". The obvious implication is that DC is compiling some kind of dossier or case against me, either to post to ErrantX's talk page or on the "monitoring" thread that he is maintaining about me on Wikipedia Review. The interaction ban was supposed to prevent any interactions, and this specific type of interaction - his attempts to "police" my edits - is the exact reason why the interaction ban was imposed in the first place. (Read the original AN discussion linked at the top of this thread.) I've had no choice but to report this violation here because DC has made it clear that he intends further violations. Frankly I would have dropped the matter if DC hadn't been so explicit about his intentions to continue harassing me in violation of the interaction ban. Prioryman (talk) 00:02, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Unblock in exchange for DC agreeing to stick to the original agreement, i.e. no comments on Prioryman except about modifications of the interaction ban and that only on ErrantX's page, and reports of violations of the interaction ban only via email. This would mean that DC agrees that he is not supposed to report (perceived) violations of Prioryman's ArbCom restrictions, as these do not involve this interaction ban. Count Iblis (talk) 23:45, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I think at this point ErrantX should be removed from the process. This incident has demonstrated his unwillingness to enforce it. Arkon (talk) 23:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Undo block or block both DC and Prioryman DC deserved a right to respond to the ANI post to defend himself. He was blocked for making one post. As you can see above, Prioryman continues to post in this thread. Why was DC blocked and not Prioryman? There hasn't been equal treatment here. I would say either lift DC's block, or block the both of them for engaging in identical behavior. Cla68 (talk) 00:38, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• I was asked direct questions by Arkon, JN466 and Scottywong, which I've answered to the best of my ability. It's late now, and I'm tired, so I don't propose to contribute further to this discussion tonight. Prioryman (talk) 00:48, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• This is somewhat related...Prioryman, you have banned me from your talk page several times, yet you have appeared in almost every single administrative forum or noticeboard discussion to oppose me over the last six months or so which I initiated or was the primary player. If you don't want to interact with me, then why do you follow me around Wikipedia trying to give me a hard time? Do you think your behavior towards me is related to the way you are dealing with this issue with DC? Cla68 (talk) 01:09, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• That's I guess the paradox of this sort of a situation and why I think formal interaction bans or informal ones are not a good thing. You have (in general) two people who don't get along, precisely because they do adversly interact with each other, and then you want to do someting about the negative interactions by making an agreement to not to interact with each other. But the underlying problems are then not resolved, the negative interactions are just a symptom of these problems plus the inability to self-moderate when talking to each other. So, perhaps better to impose a "forced interaction restriction" where two such people are only allowed to collaborate with each other on a few articles for a while :) Count Iblis (talk) 01:53, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• That's a compelling view. IMO, what is happening here is that DC is trying to resolve what he feels are some leftover baggage from Prioryman's previous account(s). Prioryman takes exception to DC's efforts. If WP's administration (represented in this case, I guess, by ErrantX) would give a definitive answer to DC's question, that might help things. DC didn't interact with Prioryman in this instance, he asked ErrantX to follow-up on his earlier request. Prioryman took exception to DC's question even though it was not in a forum in which Prioryman was participating and escalated the drama. The underlying problem remains...does DC have a legitimate grievance with how Prioryman's prior record of sanctions is being handled and is WP's administration addressing it? If not, should they? If not, then DC needs to be told so and the decision needs to be recorded somewhere. Cla68 (talk) 02:23, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• If there's a legitimate issue regarding Prioryman's sanctions, any one of the 47,363,014 editors who are not subject to an interact ban with him can follow up on it. That's the whole point. 28bytes (talk) 02:42, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support block Per my reasoning on DC's talk. SÆdon^talk 09:15, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
• Endorse block of DC. The difference between the two is this: Prioryman's actions in all of this were narrowly focussed on the perceived need to enforce the interaction ban, triggered by its previous violation by DC. DC's response above in this thread, in contrast, was not focussed on solving this present issue (e.g. defending himself etc), but on re-hashing the old dispute, i.e. repeating exactly the kind of behaviour that the interaction ban was meant to stop. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:41, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

  Which block are you endorsing? The 75 or the now reduced to 10? Arkon (talk) 05:45, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

  Well, 75 was maybe a bit on the long side, but the next time something like this happens, a block of that length might well be on the table again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:48, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Some chronology

I may be in the minority here, but I think Moreschi was perfectly correct to block DC after all this. Here's what I see:

1. Prioryman going about his business, not bothering anyone.
2. DC posts to ErrantX's talk page to start yet another thread about Prioryman.
3. A bunch of pointless drama ensues.

If DC stopped posting about Prioryman, we wouldn't have to go through this garbage constantly. DC just needs to leave Prioryman alone, and if he's not willing to do that, a block is perfectly appropriate. Just take a look at his response to being blocked. Not even the slightest hint of recognition that he needs to leave Prioryman alone, just a bunch of WP:NOTTHEM nonsense about how awful Prioryman is, how "Moreschi wants to play tough guy", etc., etc. This is not a good thing. If DC is willing to acknowledge that he should not be starting threads about Prioryman, and commit to not doing it anymore, anywhere, I would support an immediate unblock. But he needs to get it first.

Quite obviously what got this particular episode started was DC posting about something Prioryman did that had nothing to do with DC, and DC was rightfully blocked for it. If Prioryman had started a thread about DC doing something that had nothing to do with Prioryman, then he should have been blocked too. But blocking Prioryman for requesting the interaction ban be enforced is a completely asinine idea: enforcing the interaction ban is the only way to get these two to shut up about each other. Just letting them test the edges on ErrantX's talk page or wherever leads to more threads like this. Whoever starts it gets blocked, period. DC started it, Moreschi blocked him, and if DC has a "light bulb" moment and gets why he was blocked, we can unblock him and hope we never have to see one of these idiotic threads again. 28bytes (talk) 02:32, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

That's it exactly. Perfect explanation. Silverseren^C 03:31, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

28bytes, DC said to Errant that Prioryman's various sanctions are still not correctly or fully logged. Now, if that is so, don't you agree it should be fixed? It was part of the deal last time round. [63]. Yet it still hasn't been done. I can't agree that DC pointing that out, when everybody had forgotten – again – is entirely useless.

We must also note in the timeline that

• Prioryman e-mailed Moreschi today before Moreschi blocked DC [64].
• Prioryman posted to your talk page too and e-mailed you today [65][66] before you made your comments here, no doubt based on your involvement in the March interaction ban discussion.
• Prioryman posted to Future Perfect at Sunrise's talk page [67].
• Prioryman posted to SirFozzie's talk page several times [68][69].
• Prioryman asked to speak to Carcharoth on IRC [70].

People tend to be wary when they see one party in a dispute contacting multiple admins, and then see some of these admins who have had personal contact with just one of the parties intervening decisively.

I also see Prioryman commenting in AfDs, since the interaction ban, shortly after DC has already commented, and in the opposite way: see [71], [72] (the latter being an AfD that DC raised, and where Prioryman then was one of the first to vote keep).

All in all, I do not see Prioryman stepping away. Evidence suggests that he is following DC's contributions, and sought to fully capitalise on DC's post – made on a talk page that was explicitly exempt from the interaction ban – by contacting half a dozen administrators, and himself violating the interaction ban to start noticeboard threads. Prioryman's aggression is on a completely different scale to DC's here, and very specifically focused on getting sanctions. I see no admin contacts initiated by Delicious carbuncle in his or her edit history. Again, in disputes like this, it's the editor who gives the appearance of canvassing admins that makes me more uneasy. We've seen this before, especially at AE, and it should not be allowed to work: justice should not just be done, it should be seen to be done.

And lastly, I repeat that -- apparently -- we still do not have Prioryman's sanctions from his previous accounts properly logged. Perhaps we could keep in mind that we should achieve certainty on this point here, and perhaps Prioryman would be so good as to assist this time. JN466 04:03, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Two things: if there is unfinished business regarding Prioryman's sanctions, why can't you or Cla68 work with ArbCom or whomever to get it sorted? Either it's important, in which case WP:SOFIXIT, or it isn't. Am I correct that nobody – including you, Cla68 and ErrantX – have done anything about it since the last time DC brought it up? I have no idea if it's important or not, but the idea that it's only important when DC's bringing attention to it seems a little strange.

Secondly, Prioryman seemed perfectly fine with the resolution to this being a note from Moreschi to DC to knock it off. If DC had just acknowledged the warning instead of launching an AN/I tirade and posting yet another edit summary taunting Prioryman by linking to an old account of his (the exact same thing he got blocked for doing last time), we'd all have moved onto other things by now.

My preferred solution to this is that DC gets why this is not the kind of thing you do when you're under an interaction ban with someone, agrees to drop the stick, gets unblocked and we put this whole mess behind us. And then you, Cla68 and anyone else who's not interaction-banned with Prioryman can sort out the sanctions business. 28bytes (talk) 04:37, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. I just spent half an hour and have located a list of prior sanctions the arbitrators compiled here. If that's complete (and I have no reason to think it wasn't), then WP:RESTRICT should be up to date now, and we should be able to put this one to rest. Cheers. JN466 04:52, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

28bytes, you don't see anything wrong with Prioryman messaging all those admins? Cla68 (talk) 04:57, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

@JN: thanks for sorting that out. Always nice when we can put things to rest. @Cla68: presumably he wanted to draw sympathetic eyes to the situation, kind of like you did by starting a Wikipediocracy thread about it. Probably a little canvass-y of both of you, to be honest, but I'm not too inclined to get worked up about it. 28bytes (talk) 05:08, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

My intention with the Wikipediocracy thread was to put public pressure on Prioryman to stop being so obsessive about things, i.e. to correct his behavior. And that's the same thing I'm trying to do here. I don't post to Wikipediacracy with the intention of canvassing for support, because I know by experience that equal, if not more, numbers of observers of that forum are likely to go against whatever is being advocated there. That's why it isn't canvassing to post there, because everyone can see it. Prioryman didn't post in a publicly viewable forum, he emailed or messaged several admins. You don't see a problem with that? DC was blocked for making a single comment on an ANI thread. Prioryman emails several admins trying to get them on his side. Who has the higher moral ground here? Cla68 (talk) 05:20, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

You're a mod there, I presume you discuss editors and events here in private forums there, no? 28bytes (talk) 05:39, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Getting off track here.... Arkon (talk) 05:45, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Comment from ErrantX

Unfortunately I seem to have dropped the administrative ball on this. Apologies; yesterday was a awkward day for me. To give some background on this IBAN...

A little while ago trouble erupted at AN between these two editors - and after investigation it became clear that they simply could not leave each other alone. DC felt it was his role to police Prioryman's work and Prioryman couldn't seem to resist rising to DC's bait. After a fairly stressful effort I got fed up to the extent that I stopped trying to be accommodating to both of their demands and pushed an IBAN (partially at their request).

The whole point, I should add, was simply to get them to disengage and go their seperate ways. I'm a big believer in the idea that avoiding drama is generally the best way to go.

Following that IBAN, DC made this edit. Rather than re-escalate the drama I let it slide as a final shot fired in the war. Another admin disagreed (which is fine) and blocked DC. But fortunately the IBAN seemed to stick and the situation de-escalated. And just to put the record straight; the wording of the IBAN might have been a little lax, for which I apologise, but for the purposes of clarity I intended my talk page only to be used to discuss removing the IBAN or to raise violations.

Fast forward 6 weeks and DC opened a new thread on my talk page. In part following up on my undertaking to review Prioryman's sanctions (to those who mention this above; it was my understanding privacy concerns exist, so I asked Arbcom, privately, to look into resolving the matter). And in another part showing he had not stopped keeping an eye on Prioryman. I immediately removed the post to discourage drama and thought about it a little - my preference was simply to ignore the matter on the basis of a "first strike" (or whatever). Ideally Prioryman would have ignored the matter and that would be that.

But he couldn't; and what makes me feel he is uninterested in actually resolving this issue is that instead of asking me to take more pro-active action he sent me this and took the matter straight to Arbitration Enforcement (big escalation). Even at that stage I hoped it would de-escalate, but once this hit AN/I and Prioryman contacted a bunch of admins (I'm not sure to what purpose) things are clearly out of hand. The AFD links posted by someone else above are also compelling; if Prioryman is this concerned about being under DC's scrutiny I'd expect to see him take more care to avoid pages where DC is active.

What is unfortunate is this comment on 3rd May in which DC clearly misunderstands the point of the IBAN - which is to keep these two editors away from each other. I really had a {{facepalm}} moment reading that.

I'm not sure where to go from here; I'd be more compelled to agree with a block reduction for DC if he would undertake just to leave Prioryman alone, to ignore him and so forth. His recent postings seem entirely contrary to that. Equally it needs to be pressed on Prioryman that a critical aspect of resolving this is to ignore comments by DC about his editing - at least until such a point as they become widespread. I reiterate that had Prioryman undertaken to ignore DC's May 1 comment none of this would have happened and presumably both editors would have been happily having a stress free week.

I want to make one other comment which is that I'm in an awkward position here - I implemented the IBAN, but I don't want to be the sole arbitrator of it - I am lenient by nature and anyway one admin holding the keys to an administrative matter is bad practice. (it should be pointed out I also have recently interacted with DC on an unrelated matter, which clouds the issue further). The community needs to adopt this IBAN, or whatever other sanction, and deal firmly with these two. --Errant ^(chat!) 06:05, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

It turns out that the admin who previously blocked DC, after what you called a parting shot above, was Future Perfect at Sunrise. (The block was made more than 12 hours after the edit in question, and was later undone by another admin.) User:Future Perfect at Sunrise is of course also in the list above, among the admins Prioryman contacted today, but he is also in the old arbitration case which I cited above, which includes a specific arbitration finding that Future Perfect at Sunrise had advance knowledge of Prioryman's actions (which led to his desysopping in that case). --JN466 06:35, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I have not had any private communication with Prioryman for years, and dragging up that old Arbcom case is pretty far-fetched (there wasn't even any wrongdoing implied in that finding). In this case, his message on my talk page was nothing more than the mandatory notification which he was obliged to give for mentioning me on ANI. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:26, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Analysis

Chronology: Ban enacted, excludes ErrantX talk page. DC posts on ErrantX talk page, is acknowledge/removed. About a day later, Prioryman starts this thread, violates ban. DC replies, also violates ban, is blocked (fine block). Comment: neither editor seems to notice the beam in their own eyes as they're so focused on the mote in the others. Proposal; new, improved ban. Either editor mentions the other anywhere on Wikipedia (publicly or via email) for any reason, block for escalating periods of time. Nobody Ent 10:07, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

We need a tweak indeed, but a slightly different one. Truth is that an interaction ban is unworkable if there isn't some opportunity for one party to complain if the other party breaks it. However, we need to channel such complaints in a better way. We know that ErrantX originally intended the exemption of his own talkpage to serve as such a venue. However, he is now saying that he wishes to be no longer alone responsible for administering the situation (quite reasonable), and we have seen that DC has twice misused this venue for something it was not intended for, i.e. for resuming and re-hashing the original dispute. So, my proposal is: replace ErrantX's original wording of the exemption "If you want to appeal the ban for any reason please do so on my talk page (which will be excluded from the ban)" with something along the lines of: "Appeals of this sanction, or complaints about breaches of it by the other party, may be directed to WP:AN. In any such appeal or report, and in any follow-up discussion, the parties must restrict themselves to brief, matter-of-fact statements focussed exclusively on the resolution of the present situation, but remain otherwise bound to the original prohibition of referring to earlier perceived wrongdoings or otherwise rehashing their previous disagreements." Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:19, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I would be happy with that wording, but suggest amending the last line to add the following wording (highlighted in bold), to prevent new topics of contention being raised: "... but remain otherwise bound to the original prohibition of referring to earlier perceived wrongdoings, rehashing their previous disagreements or bringing new complaints about matters unrelated to the operation of the interaction ban." Prioryman (talk) 10:49, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Continuing GFDL violations by User:Christos200

The single MO of Christos200 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been to copy large amounts of text from one article and paste it on another without attribution according to GFDL and without discussion. He has been warned multiple times and the last time when he was warned on 9 April by user:Dougweller he promised to stop. To no avail however because he started anew on 28 April and continues today. Example of recent typical large-scale GFDL-violating edit on 28 April, when he dumped 44kB of data on History of the Hellenic Republic without any attribution. Admin assistance is requested to put an end to this continuing disruption. Thank you. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 19:38, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Any idea where the content came from that he pasted into History of the Hellenic Republic? ‑Scottywong| squeal _ 23:53, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes. I Googled a random text string from the text dump and it showed as a copy from the Greek War of Independence. And guess what, from the Google search I found that he also dumped the same text, but in an 83 kB version in the First Hellenic Republic which he also edit-warred to include. To give you an idea of the relative size of the text dump with respect to the original article size, the original article size was 5,948 bytes and after the dump it increased to 88,979 bytes. In this edit he actually dumped the text from multiple articles as described in the edit summary of this editor. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 00:25, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

These large pastes look disruptive, even if one ignores the WP:Copying within Wikipedia issues. Flatscan (talk) 04:17, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Court Moor School

Would an administrator please revert the two last edits to Court Moor School and make them inaccessible to public viewing on grounds that an unsubstantiated allegation is made about an identifiable person. Since the editor concerend is identifiable only via an IP address that is registered to a large telco, no notification has been sent out. Martinvl (talk) 19:54, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Done. Acroterion (talk) 20:10, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Martinvl (talk) 20:20, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Question from a new admin who doesn't want to drag this to another page: In a situation like this, should we template the IPs talk page with a warning? I'm guessing not, just as here, but feedback would be helpful as I haven't done many redactions before. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 22:22, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

No, it's just a kid messing with his friends, probably from a shared school IP. Better to just quietly squelch it. Acroterion (talk) 00:12, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. That was my gut instinct, but I wanted to verify it. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 01:47, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

GoodDay block extension

GoodDay (talk · contribs) is under Steve Zhang's mentorship and under some sort of mutual editing restriction with Djsasso. Apparently he felt Djsasso violated it and announced his intention on Steve's page to re-engage in the dispute with Djsasso by edit warring. See User_talk:Steven_Zhang#Breach_of_promise. I blocked him for 60 hours for his disruptive editing, as he described on Steve's page. See User_talk:GoodDay#Blocked. He has now declared that he will engage in the same disruptive editing when the block expires. My initial reaction is to extend the block to an indefinite block pending his agreement to not engage in the same disruptive editing. But, since I did issue the 60 hour block, I thought it best to bring the matter here before enacting it. MBisanz ^talk 20:00, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Seems a bit severe - well very severe actually - He feels hard done to and he is only venting - and not even noisily - Youreallycan 20:05, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't care about the venting; that's understandable when blocked. I do have a problem with the declared intent to do the same thing that got him blocked when his block expires. Blocks are to prevent the continued improper editing. MBisanz ^talk 20:07, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Yea well - wanting to indef him for that comment is totally excessive imo - Youreallycan 20:18, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I realize some could see it that way, which is why I came here before doing it. MBisanz ^talk 20:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support Threatening to engage in more disruption is in itself disruptive --Guerillero | My Talk 20:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I haven't edit-warred with Djsasso. I didn't reverse the page move he recently made nor did I revert edits he made at the articles I was recently blocked for. In the past, I've always kept diacritics hidden on North American hockey articles, while Djsasso kept diacritics shown on Non-North American hockey articles. He doesn't revert me & I don't revert him. Our major spats have (in the past) occured on talkpages, not on the articles themselves. We've only ever edit-warred on one article. I believe the Adminstrator blocked me before looking. GoodDay (talk) 20:08, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Before we run off to the races (as we have 60 days to review this) can we hear from the mentor as to what went wrong? Hasteur (talk) 20:23, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Could someone explain to me how Djsasso's edits here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and then here, and then even FURTHER and ESPECIALLY here, here, and here were not a violation of the interaction ban entered into User_talk:Djsasso/Archive_9#Notice_of_discussion_at_the_Administrators.27_Noticeboard ("...off each other's talk page. Participate in discussions elsewhere out of coincidence, but don't interact with each other if possible. Sounds reasonable? Steven Zhang Join the DR army! 21:25, 10 January 2012 (UTC); Yup fine by me. -DJSasso (talk) 21:26, 10 January 2012 (UTC)"

I get that DJSasso is an admin, and thus obviously has done no wrong, but come on, that's above and beyond baiting and wikihounding. Hipocrite (talk) 20:26, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

We did not enter into an interaction ban. We both just agreed to not interact, in no way would I have agreed to an actual ban. We also made it clear that we both could take part in discussions the other editor was involved in. As for the last two if I am being accused of something I do have the right to respond. Not to mention he voted in those move discussions after reading that I had posted a message to the move requester. In other words he was following my edits. -DJSasso (talk) 20:29, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

It appears to me that you entered into a ban. You certainly aren't voting directly below him time after time after time after time after time after time after time after time after time "out of coincidence." You are obviously wikistalking and taunting him. Hipocrite (talk) 20:31, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

No actually I wasn't. I made a comment to the requester about the ridiculousness of creating the RMs and then I went to vote in them. In the period between messaging the nom and me voting he voted. Clearly that is him wikistalking my edits otherwise he wouldn't have even noticed those discussions or for that matter the move I made. -DJSasso (talk) 20:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

This is a testable hypothesis. You say that your votes were due to IIO's nominations. Could you explain exactly why and how you found out about Talk:Jóhanna_Sigurðardóttir#Requested_move, because it does show you following GoodDay around but is an RM created by Dr. D.E. Mophon, who is not In ictu oculi. This does not fit with your statement. How awkward. Hipocrite (talk) 20:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Very simply, by following the request for moves listings. I !vote in many if not most moves that involve diacritics. -DJSasso (talk) 21:22, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Personally, I'd oppose increasing the block just now. Until and unless GoodDay acts on his words, this is just venting. If, when his block expires he starts again, then block again. That said, I believe that, out of fairness, the community should also examine Djsasso's edits — though I must admit I have not investigated them yet... Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 20:32, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I have now looked a little bit more into the situation and think that you, Djsasso, are not entirely clean here. You gave the impression of having followed GoodDay to a couple of discussions, which is not in keeping with the Participate in discussions elsewhere out of coincidence part of your agreement and your posts on his talk page were rather inappropriate, in particular your revert of GoodDay's removal of one of your posts. I'm not really sure you technically agreed to an interaction ban, but you certainly appear to have violated an agreement with GoodDay. Not blockable behaviour I'd say, but certainly objectionable. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 21:03, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

The problem here is that GoodDay has taken something he has routinely done in the past - hide diacritics on North American based hockey articles as part of maintaining a consensus compromise within the hockey project to try and avoid diacritical battles - and turned it into a case of "he did that, so I am going to respond by doing this". GoodDay's edits were not disruptive on their own and if he ahd just quietly made them, nobody would have even questioned them. However, GoodDay has instead made this into a battle, where he feels the need to fire a return salvo for some reason. Both uses have consistently been interested in the usage of diacritics on Wikipedia, though with differing opinions. That isn't a problem on its own, and there wouldnt be a problem here if GoodDay were to simply continue doing what he is doing, but without making it so personal. Resolute 20:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

If what GD was doing was not itself wrong, but the actual problem was that his edit summaries were too strident, then I question the initial imposition of the block, certainly oppose stretching it at all (let alone indefinitely), and suggest lifting the block with a caution to adjust his tone. -Rrius (talk) 20:46, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

It was a case of attitude defining action. See User talk:Steven Zhang#Breach of promise. He took an action of this that has historically been benign, and turned it on its head with a battleground mentality. Reading that, I can see why Steven asked for the block, especially given this has come within days of another block GoodDay just came off of. I would like to add, however, that I don't support an extension of GoodDay's block, unless he continues to push this as a battleground to fight on. There is room for both he and DJSasso to participate in the same diacritics discussions, and there is no issue (from my POV) on what each is doing independently related to diacritics. I have no issue with GoodDay continuing to mask visible diacritics on NA-based hockey articles, exactly as he has done in the past, and there are plenty of gnomish tasks for which GD can do that would benefit both the hockey project and Wikipedia overall. There's no reason for anyone to push this dispute farther than it has already gone. Resolute 20:57, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Resolute is correct here. GoodDay is not blocked for hiding diacritics on articles. He's blocked because the only reason he has started doing this is that someone else is doing the opposite. Two wrongs don't make a right. There's obviously no agreement among editors on whether to use diacritics or not, so I suggest an RFC on the issue. For the time being, I think the status quo on articles relating to diacritics should stay in place. If they have diacritics at the moment, leave them in. If they don't, leave them out. Let an RFC sort out the matter. But if GoodDay intends to remove diacritics either way, once his block expires, then I am very concerned. Steven Zhang ^Talk 22:31, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I should probably point out I'm generally (though of course not entirely) pro-diacritics, but I would like to see ALL diacritics-related RMs, either way, to cease until we come to an agreement on how to update the guidelines. And editors who keep nominating them informed, and blocked if they keep refusing to be patient, because it IS getting disruptive now. - filelakeshoe 22:57, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm considered "anti-diacritics" (though that is not how I would phrase my position), but I could not agree more with your comment, Filelakeshoe. It's getting even more disruptive than last year. Jenks24 (talk) 06:13, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• Here are comments copied from GoodDay's talk page, as discussed there:

I haven't edit-warred with Djsasso. I didn't reverse the page move he recently made nor did I revert edits he made at the articles I was recently blocked for. In the past, I've always kept diacritics hidden on North American hockey articles, while Djsasso kept diacritics shown on Non-North American hockey articles. He doesn't revert me & I don't revert him. Our major spats have (in the past) occured on talkpages, not on the articles themselves. We've only ever edit-warred on one article. I believe the Adminstrator blocked me before looking. GoodDay (talk) 20:08, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

WP:HOCKEY, agrees with deleting/hiding diacritics on North American-based hockey articles. Therefore, my edits weren't disruptive & my promise to re-continue executing WP:HOCKEY's views on diacritics usage on those (North American) articles, is acceptable. GoodDay (talk) 20:22, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I promise to continue maintaining the North American based hockey articles (i.e. keeping diacritics hidden) in a gnome fashion. Resolute is correct about 'one' thing - I should've (as before) hid the dios without mentioning it. GoodDay (talk) 20:43, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Why is this not sufficient? GD is promising to return to the status quo ante, i.e., enforcing the current WikiProject guideline in a gnomish fashion rather than out of retaliation. He's acknowledged what his attitude was wrong and has had plenty of time to cool down, so why not lift the block and let everyone move on with their lives? Blocks aren't meant to be punitive, but since this one has already served its purpose, it is in danger of becoming so. -Rrius (talk) 02:21, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

More from GoodDay's talkpage:

BTW: I apologies to Steven, for showing up at his talkpage in a 'red faced' mood. I should've merely asked Steven to review Djsasso's page moves, to see if they breached the mutual agreement. GoodDay (talk) 21:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

nothing to see here, move on --Guerillero | My Talk 00:46, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Restoring my comment which was abusively called vandalism but is in fact WP:NOTVANDALISM. 140.247.141.165 (talk) 22:48, 3 May 2012 (UTC) LOL! PwilliamQ99 (talk) 22:53, 3 May 2012 (UTC) Editing another's comments is highly WP:DISRUPTIVE. Please refrain from this type of behavior, PwilliamQ99. Thank you. 140.247.141.165 (talk) 22:54, 3 May 2012 (UTC) Double LOL! PwilliamQ99 (talk) 22:55, 3 May 2012 (UTC) Will you agree to cease editing another's comments or shall I open an administrative thread about your disruption? 140.247.141.165 (talk) 22:57, 3 May 2012 (UTC) Not if you get blocked. PwilliamQ99 (talk) 22:58, 3 May 2012 (UTC) So you are indicating that you will continue to edit another's comments? 140.247.141.165 (talk) 23:01, 3 May 2012 (UTC) Editing and removing one's comments are two completely different things. Steven Zhang Talk 23:04, 3 May 2012 (UTC) Neither of which is appropriate. 140.247.141.165 (talk) 23:34, 3 May 2012 (UTC) Pwilliam's userpage is against policy. Please attend to this. 140.247.141.165 (talk) 23:42, 3 May 2012 (UTC) Actually it isn't the policy says "User talk pages" not "User pages". -DJSasso (talk) 23:50, 3 May 2012 (UTC) Although it still fails WP:R#DELETE on at least two points, so I have blanked it again. This is regardless of the fact the redirect is both cross-namespace and utterly useless. Black Kite (talk) 00:45, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Athletics vandalism

We have an ongoing problems with Athletics articles getting vandalized by IPs. They are going into historical records and changing values--the times and performances of documented events. We keep having to revert them. One of those vandals is active at this moment. IP. 89.241.210.64 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) I am currently reverting their damage. Requesting a block on the IP. Trackinfo (talk) 20:13, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I have added the template that allows us to check your request more easily. Please note that you have not warned the IP nor advised him of this thread both of which you need to do. MarnetteD | Talk 20:17, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm on Huggle now and I'm seeing this too, lots of small unsourced changes to things like height and weight. Not ridiculous, like changing 6'4" to 6'2" and the such, all from IP editors and without edit summary or source. Zad68 (talk) 20:29, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Should have taken this to AIV in the first instance really, and you should have given warnings before reporting also. MrLittleIrish ^(talk) © 08:38, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

User: Rancidoro

Keeps promoting himself both on the English and the Italian Wikipedia: [[73]] [[74]] [[75]] [[76]] [[77]] Agroscena (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:51, 3 May 2012 (UTC).

Buonasera, Agroscena. I don't think there are any reasons to block Rancidoro from editing the English Wikipedia, considering he hasn't edited since December 2011. Should he start promoting himself again, then a block could be appropriate, but right now it would just be punitive. Thanks for raising this issue here, however. Cheers. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 21:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Buonasera anche a lei. I thought it could be useful to warn about him, since he has been very active on the Italian Wikipedia in the last two or three days. I suppose that he will be active again quite soon here too (I've blocked him for one day on the Italian Wikipedia... the next 24 hours might be critical here). User talk:Agroscena 21:34, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Longterm (self?) promotion

An editor has, for many months, been adding references to Thais Sher to at least eight different Wikipedia articles. Examples include [78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85]. The editor was blocked (see User talk:88.108.208.179), but simply returned with another IP. The editor has claimed at various times to be Sher, or to be acting under her direction. I'm tempted to simply semi-protect the pages, but thought I would come here for possible alternative suggestions first. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:21, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Indefinite semi-protection seems the most effective approach. Cheers, JoeSperrazza (talk) 00:33, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

You could try a range block; the IPs are all in a tight little range of 88.108.208.0/21. -- Dianna (talk) 05:54, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Drboisclair (talk · contribs)

Somebody explain to the user that one cannot !vote twice. thanks. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 03:14, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I never intended to vote twice on this page: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Forward (generic name of socialist publications). Choyoo twice removed my one vote. I think that this editor needs to be reminded of WP:CIVIL and other policies against removing other editor's edits. Thank you.-Drboisclair (talk) 03:21, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

One !vote? How many do you count? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 03:23, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I voted once, and you deleted it. Twice. -Drboisclair (talk) 03:28, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I was moving my vote to the bottom of the page since I place it there by accident. I removed it from where I originally put it, and I put it at the bottom of the page. You are unjust and unfair in your accusations.-Drboisclair (talk) 03:30, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Maybe that's what you meant to do, but you didn't. When it's pointed out to you, the thing to do is to say "oops, my bad, thanks for pointing that out." Instead, you post some rant-snippet about censorship on my page, and then restore your second !vote. And now you lie about it. Be that as it may, your second !vote's been removed again. Don't restore it. Case closed. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 03:34, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I also wish to commend User:Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 for his assistance in making sure that Wikipedia policy is properly followed. I thank the two editors.-Drboisclair (talk) 03:44, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I've pointed out to Drboisclair where his first vote is, as he apparently had trouble finding it. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 03:38, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

The matter has been resolved. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 03:40, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Comparison_of_free_web_hosting_services

Resolved

 – editor not a good fit for WP, appears to have left Nobody Ent

On Comparison_of_free_web_hosting_services (history), I may be in an edit war with Thingstofollow (talk · contribs), who seems to be trying to add content to the page but is breaking the table in the process, I would appreciate if someone else could assist in resolving this. (The editor in question just left a message on my talk [86] and I have left messages on their talk as well.) OSborn ^arf_contribs. 03:33, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I think it's important that we don't bite this new user. Other than the format breakage (anyone can make those), I see pretty constructive edits. That said, though, this seems to belong in the user's sandbox instead of the main article. I've left a note on the user's talk page.--Jasper Deng (talk) 03:42, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

In view of this, I'm going to turn this over to another user, since I can't seem to be able to approach the user without biting him.--Jasper Deng (talk) 04:09, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Given the comments on his talk page, it looks like he's quit. MrLittleIrish ^(talk) © 08:30, 4 May 2012 (UTC)