Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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User:LibStar

Moved to Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion#User:LibStar Ikip (talk)

(Archiving comment, debate has stopped August 20. Fram (talk) 06:44, 28 August 2009 (UTC))

Legal threats by Milomedes

In Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Jack Merridew/Blood and Roses, Milomedes (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) made the following legal threat in an apparent attempt to intimidate editors who were claiming that User:Jack Merridew/Blood and Roses may constitute a copyright violation:

DGG (04:11) provided evidence that there is not a copyright violation risk, using the US 4-pt test. Independently, you have placed yourself in the position of being legally required to provide evidence that there is a risk of copyright violation.

Why? Because your claiming of "risk" (along with four previous posters who similarly claimed "probably" (00:15), "possibly" (12:41), or without condition (23:06), (12:19)), alleges that Jack Merridew's uniquely link-transformed Atwood quote is not a fair use. If the quote is not a fair use, then you and the other four posters also allege that Jack Merridew has committed an illegal copyright-violation tort. If you (or the others) can cite reasonably believable evidence of not-fair-use – no problem. But, if you (or the others) cannot cite believable evidence that Jack Merridew is a civil law violator, then that is a libelous (written) defamation. Technically, evidence of truth is a defense to a claim of defamation.

If you can't supply believable evidence, I suggest that you strike your claim. If not striking as a matter of silver rule courtesy that you wouldn't want someone else to do the same thing to you, consider that in theory, all five of you could be pseudonym-outed and face a jury in a Florida civil courtroom. [1]

In defense of his statement, Milomedes offered only the following wikilawyering explanation:

If you actually read WP:NLT you'll see that it applies to people who consider themselves to be a victim. It also reads, "A polite report of a legal problem such as defamation or copyright infringement is not a threat..." " I'm simply warning you of your theoretical legal problem that has nothing to do with me. See shooting the messenger fallacy.

"In violation of our policy on copyrighted material" it is then." Firming your position, but still no evidence?? Considering your attitude, note also this sentence: "Wikipedia's policy on defamation is to immediately delete libelous material when it has been identified." Milo 10:36, 22 August 2009 (UTC) [2]

As language such as "consider that in theory, all five of you could be pseudonym-outed and face a jury in a Florida civil courtroom."[3] is neither "polite" nor necessary for the purpose of reporting "a legal problem", and is indeed designed to create the fear of a lawsuit that Wikipedia:No legal threats is designed to prevent, I ask that Milomedes be blocked indefinitely, per the provision of the policy which states that "Users who make legal threats will typically be blocked from editing indefinitely while legal threats are outstanding." Thank you. Erik9 (talk) 02:07, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I just did a cursory glance over the MfD and it doesn't look pretty, but one thing that stood out to me especially was the incivility and the sarcasm that was starting to occur, and as such some civility warnings/blocks may be in order, I have to go for now and don't have the time to read all of the discussion to verify the legal threat so I'll leave blocks/warnings for civility and legal threats to another admin :(. Best, Mifter (talk) 02:38, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Everything looks ok to me, no violations of any kind by me anyway. A very interesting debate. Erik9 even took his case to Meta where he didn't succeed, so this is just one more forum stop. Milo 03:09, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, you're the one whose edits are under question. Whether they appear alright to you or not is irrelevant. Not the fact of the matter is, on wikipedia, you are not allowed to threaten people the way you clearly did there. It is a clear violation, and you should be blocked until such threats are retracted.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 03:18, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any threat. Since when can't warnings be given? Please cite the line of WP:NLT that you claim I'm in violation of. Milo 03:55, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Statements such as "consider that in theory, all five of you could be pseudonym-outed and face a jury in a Florida civil courtroom."[4] can hardly be considered "warnings" of genuine legal problems. Furthermore, as you know, Wikipedia:No legal threats has no line numbers, and doesn't define exactly what constitutes a "legal threat", lest the definition be wikilawyered. Using graphic language to inform me of the fact that Jack Merridew may obtain my real identity, and file a defamation lawsuit against me serves no legitimate purpose, and appears to have been done for the express purpose of intimidation. Erik9 (talk) 04:08, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

"It is important to refrain from making comments that others may reasonably understand as legal threats, even if the comments are not intended in that fashion. For example, if you repeatedly assert that another editor's comments are 'defamatory' or 'libelous', that editor might interpret this as a threat to sue for defamation, even if this is not intended." MastCell ^Talk 04:03, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll be glad to discuss the context of this passage with someone else, but since we have a personal conflict, please move on. Milo 04:40, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

There's no need to discuss anything with me. I quoted a line of policy, without comment. Your response is interesting. MastCell ^Talk 04:46, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok; and, it's just a matter of neutral jury selection. Milo 05:35, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

It IS a legal threat, and Milo-whatever should either retract it immediately or be blocked for it. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 04:07, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi, BB. I enjoyed our last discussion, so we get along fine. So, you've decided that I'm guilty without hearing the argument? Milo 04:40, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm going by your own words. It doesn't look like an "I'm trying to help you" kind of message - it looks like a "cease and desist order" - which you have no business doing. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 04:48, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

To put it another way, if you had said something like that to me, I wouldn't have bothered filing an ANI report, I would have merely told you to stick it where the moon don't shine. Ya follow? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 04:50, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

BB, your reputation as the second-toughest judge at ANI suggests that I'm not going to be able to persuade you that what I did is within the WP:NLT rules, no matter what points I cite. You don't like what you see, and I guess that's enough for you.

But from my point of view, I'm a rule follower, so I read the rules. If they say I can do something, or don't say I can't do it, plus applying the rule principle as best I understand it, then I proceed.

I don't know how else one can do anything actively worthwhile, such as debating a critical Wikimedia Foundation Mission resolution, during a remarkable two-week MfD like this one, without following rules in light of principle. That's always been my understanding of the written Wikipedia method. Milo 05:35, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

• I'd say this is far past warning, which would have sounded more like "Hey guys, might want to be careful that this isn't being defamatory". Also, the tone/context does seem to indicate that its being used not to help the editors mentioned, but to intimidate them into backing down from their position. This needs to be retracted and I'd think anything further in this vein would result in blocking. Shell ^babelfish 04:12, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Are you willing to discuss my reasoning, or have you made up your mind? Milo 04:40, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Whatever your reasoning, this goes too far. Please try taking this feedback on board and ensuring that any future attempts to warn people about legal issues don't cross the line. Shell ^babelfish 04:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

• • indeed. → ROUX ₪ 04:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

We also have a personal conflict, so please move on. Milo 04:40, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

As a general question, why are we discussing this here? It certainly appears that Milomedes has made a comment intended to intimidate, and consensus here appears to be that it violates WP:NLT. If this is the case, he should be blocked, and this discussion should take place on his talk page where he can clearly retract his statement. As this is going here, we're allowing him to come to ANI, wikilawyer about his conduct, and then dictate which editors he will allow to discuss this with him. That doesn't seem like the best way to handle a violation of a policy. Dayewalker (talk) 05:01, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

 Done. Indef blocked for making legal threats. If he should make a full retraction in an unblock request, any admin may unblock him without consulting me first. --Jayron32 05:46, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I see a clear legal threat here. Unnecessarily heated rhetoric and unclear responses when asked? Yes. And that needs addressing. Shell Kinney has it just right: Please try taking this feedback on board and ensuring that any future attempts to warn people about legal issues don't cross the line... But if Milo makes a statement that he did not intend to intimidate and did not intend to suggest that he was contemplating any legal action, that would sort the matter out as far as I was concerned. ++Lar: t/c 16:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

In this dif: [5] he states "If you can't supply believable evidence, I suggest that you strike your claim. If not striking as a matter of silver rule courtesy that you wouldn't want someone else to do the same thing to you, consider that in theory, all five of you could be pseudonym-outed and face a jury in a Florida civil courtroom." Threatening to out users in front of a courtroom is probably as clear a legal threat. Couching such threats with meaningless qualifiers such as "could be" or "in theory" does not make it any less of an attempt to use the threat of legal action to intimidate. --Jayron32 16:32, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I read the diff, yes, but thanks for reminding me. My interpretation of it differs from yours. It's excessively heated, filled with hyperbolic rhetoric, unhelpful and ought not to have been said by Milo. But I differ in interpreting it as a clear legal threat. I hope that clarifies my position. ++Lar: t/c 16:46, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

That understandable, as you strongly opposed my position in the MFD in which the legal threat occurred [6]. Please disclose such conflicts of interest when commenting in future AN/I discussions, so that you aren't incorrectly regarded as an uninvolved administrator. Erik9 (talk) 17:13, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm no less uninvolved than you. My support or opposition of a position in the MfD has no bearing on my ability to evaluate whether something is a legal threat or not. Does the fact that I characterized the DrV as legitimate and needing to be run to conclusion (supporting you) similarly disqualify me from having opinions? Or do you only raise CoI when convenient? I am surprised that you continue to use this tactic of casting aspersions on others. You really ought to know better. It's getting quite tiresome, and I had hoped that after this apology to me you had turned over a new leaf. Please review WP:AGF again ( since the last review you were encouraged to make didn't seem to do the trick).

To reiterate the substantive matter, I find Milo's contributions to that MfD to be quite unhelpful and distractive in general (they did not really advance the debate), and that specific comment as particularly so, but I didn't find it as a threat. YMMV. By the way, yours weren't so great either. And neither were mine. ++Lar: t/c 17:31, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

If you characterize endorsing the MFD closure that I'm seeking to overturn [7] as supporting me, then you have a curious definition of the term. My statement that you're involved in the MFD is purely descriptive: as an involved administrator, you would be prohibited from blocking or unblocking Milomedes yourself. Therefore, your comments should not be construed as contributing towards the consensus of uninvolved administrators who can take action with regard to this report. I'm certainly NOT accusing you of attempting to downplay an explicit, graphically worded legal threat just because it was made against someone who you opposed in a content dispute. To summarize the issue on commons: after I filed a MFD against his user subpage, Jack Merridew responded by accusing me of being a "hypocrite" who "quite possibly" had child pornography on his userpage [8]. To Jack's dismay I'm sure, the image was ultimately validated as being of an adult, freely licensed,[9] and not considered to be pornographic by commons editors.[10] While I did overreact to the accusations, my response was understandable given the circumstances. To construe an apology as an admission of wrongdoing is profoundly ungracious, though perhaps no more so than your initial "acceptance".[11] Erik9 (talk) 17:50, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

My support of your position was in this phrasing, repeated in its entireity: "I agree with Eric about the mechanics of the process here... this DRV is appropriate and should be run to its conclusion. Taking this matter back to MfD, absent time passing or some policy change/clarification, would not likely result in a different outcome and would be pointless"... Drew was seeking to stop the DRV you started and I opposed that. Perhaps you missed it? We can disagree about what the outcome should be while agreeing the DRV is legit. That's what I was referring to. I am afraid that your summary of what transpired on Commons fails to include a large number of salient points which weaken your position. I support or oppose things based on the facts, which is why when you are correct about things, you'll get my support, as you have done many times already, whether you realise, acknowledge, or thank me for it or not. But, regrettably the converse doesn't seem to be the case. I think the ungracious one here is you, you seem to overreact, cast aspersions on motives, and generally assume bad faith of me when it's unwarranted. That was what I had hoped you were going to stop doing when you apologised. However, none of that is particularly relevant to this question of legal threats. Milo's blocked. He should stay blocked until and unless he clarifies what he meant, and it is clear to the satisfaction of the community that no threat is intended. That I don't myself see it as a threat doesn't mean it doesn't need clarifying. ++Lar: t/c 18:51, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Your comments at the deletion review overall did not support my position. If I had noted that you were an involved editor in the MFD with regard to your concurrence with taking the matter to DRV at all, then I would also have to note your involvement in response to your endorsement of the MFD closure. Of course, I did neither. If my comment "That understandable, as you strongly opposed my position in the MFD in which the legal threat occurred" is to be construed as "overreact[ing], cast[ing] aspersions on motives, and generally assum[ing] bad faith", then you are in essence disputing the entire basis for administrators to recuse themselves from acting upon matters in which they are involved: administrators aren't considered to be able to fairly and impartially decide the correct administrative action when they are involved. If you wish to hold yourself out as some exception to the principle which justifies the "Conflict of interest, non-neutrality, or content dispute" section of Wikipedia:Administrators#Misuse_of_administrative_tools, then I respectfully disagree. Erik9 (talk) 19:11, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

"Your comments at the deletion review overall did not support my position" -- didn't say they did, please review what I did say. I gave an example of support which you disregarded in your haste to try to discredit my statements. Look, this is a side issue but by your theory of when to apply involvement, you're not qualified to comment on this either and shouldn't have raised this matter here. Horsefeathers. Neither of us are exceptions to any principles, I just think you are misapplying them. And casting aspersions while doing so. The main issue here is whether Milo should remain blocked pending a clarification and or recanting, and we're in agreement on that, aren't we? ++Lar: t/c 19:19, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I did not claim that involved administrators are unqualified to comment, but only that, since they are forbidden to take administrative action, their involved status should be clearly disclosed[12], so that they are not incorrectly regarded as uninvolved administrators contributing towards the consensus of administrators permitted to act. This principle is not contravened by my placement of a report here, or the manner in which written: since I am not an administrator, I could not reasonably be construed as an uninvolved administrator. Erik9 (talk) 19:40, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't see it as a "threat" per se. He's not implying that he will sue. It could be as interpreted as a threat though, so it definitely merits a warning. I wouldn't block over just that statement though. Evil saltine (talk) 17:20, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

You're right: "He's not implying that he will sue": he's implying that Jack Merridew will sue, and using graphic language to describe the contemplated legal proceedings. Legal threats are not acceptable simply because they are delivered on behalf of third parties. Erik9 (talk)

I understand; we block for perceived legal threats as well as actual threats. Evil saltine (talk) 17:37, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Look at it this way; if you are in an altercation with another person, and he says to you "I hope nothing happens to you in your sleep tonight", apropos of nothing, how should you take that? He statement was clearly meant to intimidate people who took up an opposing viewpoint from him by introducing the threat legal proceedings for those that opposed him. Carefully couching the language to avoid the first-person pronoun does not make it less of a threat. --Jayron32 17:59, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

This is a gray area... not everyone sees it the same way. However, that a number of people see it that way suggests it needs clarifying to remove ambiguity, and if Milo won't respond satisfactorily, he should remain blocked. ++Lar: t/c 18:51, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I think this is in the gray area too, I would have more firmly warned at this point but don't contest the block's legitimacy. It's a legitimately preventive block - we have an apparent or credibly possible threat, we need to prevent harm to the community from legal issues being used as a hammer. Hopefully Milo will clarify and/or retract and someone can unblock. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 05:54, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:No legal threats was written, as I understand it, specifically so that users could not use the treat of legal action to coerce and intimidate others -- this strikes me as a transparently obvious attempt to do so. There is no requirement that the words "I'm going to sue you" be used. Milomedes is not a newcomer by any stretch of the imagination, and is surely well aware of the community's history of swift, strong response even to a hint of a legal threat. They could just as easily have used less charged language, and chose not to. They could just as easily have redacted their threat, and chose not to. I for one consider both choices significant. – Luna Santin (talk) 08:45, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm with luna. This is an obvious threat. I don't see where folks above are finding gray. Protonk (talk) 18:25, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

It's always easy to see things as black or white. Life usually isn't that way though. But this is a moot point. There are enough people who think it's a policy violation, or could be construed as one, that it needs clarifying. Milo has had some time now to clarify, but hasn't (yet? if ever?). Absent some change in that, there's probably not much more to discuss... he'll rightly stay blocked until he recants the threat. ++Lar: t/c 20:32, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not imposing some manichean split here. "If you can't supply believable evidence, I suggest that you strike your claim. If not striking as a matter of silver rule courtesy that you wouldn't want someone else to do the same thing to you, consider that in theory, all five of you could be pseudonym-outed and face a jury in a Florida civil courtroom" Is a legal threat. Just like if I said, "Lar, if you don't retract your claim about seeing things in black and white, someone might come to your house and beat your face in" it would be a clear threat of physical violence and we would be right in repudiating me, despite the fact that it is couched in the hypothetical. No one would come along and say "well, maybe he was just stating that coincidences happen in the universe" or "maybe he was looking out for your best interests". No. It would be a hideous threat and I would be well in the wrong in making it. Likewise, someone saying on wikipedia "you need to take my side in a discussion or you could find yourself in a civil suit" is an obvious threat. I'm not taking the easy road or avoiding introspection by saying so and I'm a little insulted that you would intimate as such (And further intimate that it is a good block only by the dint of consensus here). Protonk (talk) 21:01, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

A threat is a statement that conveys a (possibly conditional) intent to inflict some form of punishment. If someone states: "What you are doing is against the law and creates a legal liability", such a statement can only be construed as a threat if the person uttering this warning is in a position to initiate legal action. If I give you as my opinion that your publications constitute defamation of Glenn Beck (say), or that they infringe upon his copyright, and that you might be sued for that, it is not a threat (unless I'm Glenn Beck), because only the person defamed or whose copyright was infringed upon can sue. In such a case it is totally misplaced to invoke WP:NLT over such a statement.  --Lambiam 15:01, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

No, it is not misplaced. Bringing up legal issues in this way is a form of intimidation. That's why it's forbidden and it's why the user must be blocked until he recants that intimidation. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 15:08, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Reply to Lambiam: Here's the deal, WP:NLT is about not bringing up legal consequences in attempting to intimidate other editors to do what you want. Read his text again: "If not striking as a matter of silver rule courtesy that you wouldn't want someone else to do the same thing to you, consider that in theory, all five of you could be pseudonym-outed and face a jury in a Florida civil courtroom." (bolding mine). He demands others do what he wants (to strike something he wants them to strike) and then states that they could be outed in a court of law if they do not comply. It does not become any more cut-and-dry than that for a legal threat. --Jayron32 15:15, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

And so, if I know you are planning to set fire to your neighbour's home and I were to say: "If you do that and someone perishes in the flames, you may be charged with murder", I would, in your opinion, be uttering a legal threat. Curious, but INA(wiki)L.  --Lambiam 16:07, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Uh, no, that's not the same thing at all. Red herring analogy? Tan | 39 16:12, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps a straw man. What if, instead, you know that Jay is likely to comment in a discussion on Wikipedia -- I assure you, that's quite different from burning down someone's home -- and you intimate that Jay's very likely to have terrible things happen to him, if he disagrees with you? What if you go into significant detail about those terrible things, far more than is necessary for a simple notice? Would it be safe to say that you've gone above and beyond merely "informing", and are in fact attempting to intimidate another user? What if, when confronted about this, you do nothing to ameliorate the attempted intimidation? Nothing about the posting suggests that it was a "friendly" notice, as far as I can see. – Luna Santin (talk) 17:45, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Instead of using terms like "red herring" and "strawman", please answer to the point itself. In the example above, is the statement "you may be charged with murder" a threat? If not, would it become a threat if I go into significant detail about the terrible things that may ensue, far more than is necessary for a simple notice? I don't think so. And did Milo really go significantly beyond a notice that some users' conduct might, in theory, make them liable to legal action, and did he go into significant detail about terrible things? I don't see that he did. Since when is the difference between a warning and a threat the amount of terrible detail? Conveying the intent to inflict punishment is an essential element of a threat; if whoever issues a warning is obviously not a position to inflict such punishment (and also does not attempt to suggest they are), it is not a threat.  --Lambiam 18:28, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that's true. Death threats can be quite intimidating for some people, even when issued by complete strangers over the internet who, one can typically assume, have no way of carrying out those threats. Looking at historic application of WP:NLT, there is no requirement the threatening individual be in a position to sue -- the core element of a threat here is not intent to "punish", but intimidation. Chilling effects must be taken seriously. – Luna Santin (talk) 18:39, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

We have to use terms like "straw man" and "red herring" because, well, that's what your analogy is. There is no use in answering it as it has no bearing at all on the situation at hand. Tan | 39 18:57, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

(exdent) How do I go about checking the "historic application" of WP:NLT? In all places where the text of WP:NLT gives an example, or becomes otherwise more concrete, it is quite clear that the assumption is that the users who may be blocked under this policy are users who themselves threaten to sue:

"If you must take legal action, we cannot prevent you from doing so"; "If you are the owner of copyrighted material ..."; "If you believe that you are the subject of a libelous statement on Wikipedia ..."; "For example, if you repeatedly assert that another editor's comments are “defamatory“ or “libelous“, that editor might interpret this as a threat to sue for defamation, even if this is not intended. To avoid this frequent misunderstanding, use less charged wording (such as “That statement about me is not true and I hope it will be corrected for the following reasons...”) to avoid the perception that you are threatening legal action for defamation."; "While you may sue in a court of law, ..."; "Attempting to resolve disputes using the dispute resolution procedures will often lead to a solution without resorting to the law. If the dispute resolution procedures do not resolve your problem, and you then choose to take legal action, you do so in the knowledge that you took all reasonable steps to resolve the situation amicably."

(Emphasis mine). This is a very consistent pattern throughout the text of this policy; it is all about users who say: "don't do that or I'll sue", and there can be no doubt that this does not cover the case where in no way does the user actually threaten to sue.  --Lambiam 19:11, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Cloaking it in passive voice as the editor did ("such-and-such could happen") does not diminish the threat or intimidation factor. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 20:16, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Do I understand correctly that you are saying that Milo obliquely, between the lines, in a cloaked way, without saying it in so many words, by implication, threatened to sue other users?  --Lambiam 21:06, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Do I understand you are implying that wasn't a threat? Do I understand that you believe telling someone something bad might happen to them if they don't back down isn't a threat?— Dædαlus ^Contribs 21:31, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

To answer your question: it depends on how it was phrased and the context, but telling a child something bad might happen to them if they don't back down from their plan to put their hand on the burning stove isn't a threat, in my opinion. Also Milo's statement was not a threat, in my opinion, and definitely not a "legal threat" as described in WP:NLT. I'm still waiting for Baseball Bugs' answer to my question, but I wouldn't mind hearing from you as well: Is it your opinion that Milo (possibly very obliquely) threatened to sue other users?  --Lambiam 22:10, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

IF he didn't mean it, he could have easily retracted it. What he did was an attempt at intimidation, pure and simple, and our policy is quite clear that such attempts of intimidation through legal means are not allowed. As I said earlier, he could have easily retracted it, but here we are, several days after the block, and he has yet to do anything in response. Why do you suppose that is?— Dædαlus ^Contribs 22:19, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec)That's the way it looks to me. Regardless, he intended to intimidate, which is what the NLT rule is about, as it goes on at some length to explain. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 22:23, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I note that neither of you has answered my simple question.  --Lambiam 06:27, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Mostly because your circular logic, horrible analogies, and refusal to be reasonable has probably caused everyone here to throw their hands in the air and turn their attention to more useful endeavors. Tan | 39 06:32, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

You are saying: We don't like your arguments, and therefore we do not need to address them. An editor has been indefinitely blocked by what I see as an unjustified stretching of policy. This is a serious matter. I am attempting as well as I can to explain the situation, but no one addresses my objections; all I see is doing away with them by calling them a "red herring", "straw man", "circular logic", and even "refusal to be reasonable", which I find deeply insulting.  --Lambiam 13:31, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't necessarily disagree that this is what NLT is all about, but there should be some recognition that here on WP we're careful with copyright and BLPs at least in part because failing to adhere to WP policies on those topics can cause legal consequences. After all, legal considerations are implicit in many of the guidelines here, and issues arising from those guidelines should be resolved with some recognition of those legal considerations. Without referring in any way to the specific editor and circumstances here, it should be noted that not every comment that acknowledges the legal implications underlying BLP should be interpreted as indicating an intent to intimidate. Steveozone (talk) 02:09, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

(OD)If I may, I don't think Milo was threatening that he would sue. I don't even see that as a possibility. However, it seems very clear that he intended his words to intimidate, to threaten people who disagreed with him with the possibility they could be served with legal action. To me, the primary purpose of NLT is not to prevent lawsuits. The chance of a lawsuit being filed because of something on wikipedia is very slim, and should be handled by Godwin anyway. NLT is there to protect people, especially new editors, from being bullied and intimidated by the threat of legal action.

As I stated above when this all started days ago, I really don't understand the point in all of this. When the discussion started Milo came here, refused to directly address the questions, began to wikilawyer about NLT, then started telling us which editors he'd be willing to discuss this matter with and which he would ignore. Since the block, he hasn't returned to discuss the matter at all when a simple good faith discussion of what happened would more than likely get him reinstated. This all seems like a waste of time. Dayewalker (talk) 06:48, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Milo was essentially saying: "what you guys are doing is not only immoral but also illegal". I have reviewed all cases I could find of users who were indef-blocked because of legal threats. In all cases except this one, the user was, or suggested to speak for, the "injured party" and stated or implied that they might institute legal action, which is what is blockable by the WP:NLT policy. Just stating that some action is illegal and that a user might run afoul of the law, also when the aim of the statement is to make that user refrain from the action, is a normal thing to do,[13][14][15] and has never been considered a blockable offense. Milo was not wikilawyering; he was merely explaining the policy, just like I have tried to do – thus far in vain. If, as he explained (and I agree with him), he did not issue a legal threat, he can obviously not retract it. Milo could modify his statement to say: "Knowingly publishing false statements about people that are damaging to their reputation is a right protected by the First Amendment and may win you the Presidential Medal of Freedom", but then he would be lying.  --Lambiam 13:23, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

You guys all realize this all goes away when Milo makes an unambiguous statement that he will not take any legal action, right? We can debate this all day, but it is Milo that made the initial statements, so it is Milo that needs to tell us what he really meant. If he has not intention of taking any legal action, he is free to state that, and as soon as he does he will be unblocked. --Jayron32 13:30, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

It is completely obvious that Milo never had the intention of taking any legal action, and his statement could not reasonably be understood as a threat that he might take legal action, but hey, we all make dumb mistakes every now and then. But, when asked for clarification, Milo clearly stated: "I'm simply warning you of your theoretical legal problem that has nothing to do with me. See shooting the messenger fallacy." Accusing him of wikilawyering and continuing to label his comment as a legal threat, instead of simply accepting his explanation, is a totally unwarranted and indefensible assumption of bad faith.  --Lambiam 13:54, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the post Milo was replying to:

The content is non-free. While the fair use laws and policies which allow that in some cases, I see no need to consider that unless using it benefits Wikipedia. Since the text is used to decorate a user talkpage, I cannot see what we lose by simply cutting it off. It's not as if the talkpage is degraded by losing the text. Using a risk-benefit analysis I see a risk that the content is in violation of our policies on copyrighted material, and no counteracting benefit to suggest that we should examine the legal aspects more closely.

Milo's reply to that post:

...your claiming of "risk" (along with four previous posters who similarly claimed "probably" (00:15), "possibly" (12:41), or without condition (23:06), (12:19)), alleges that Jack Merridew's uniquely link-transformed Atwood quote may not be (or is not) a fair use. If the quote is not a fair use, then you and the other four posters also allege that Jack Merridew has committed an illegal copyright-violation tort. If you (or the others) can cite reasonably believable evidence of not-fair-use – no problem. But, if you (or the others) cannot cite believable evidence that Jack Merridew is a civil law violator, then that is a libelous (written) defamation.

If you can't supply believable evidence, I suggest that you strike your claim. If not striking as a matter of silver rule courtesy that you wouldn't want someone else to do the same thing to you, consider that in theory, all five of you could be pseudonym-outed and face a jury in a Florida civil courtroom.

So, User A comments on a deletion discussion mentioning their belief that Wikipedia policy may have been violated, and User B replies with a wall of legalese, says User A has now accused someone of violating civil law, accuses five users of defamation, and instructs all of those users to immediately strike their comments, lest they be sued. Is this reasonable, on User B's part? Is it appropriate, in a deletion debate, to repeatedly remind all users disagreeing with you that they're in legal distress? If we -- purely hypothetically -- apply Milo's apparent logic to this discussion, it would follow that you, Lambiam, have supported Milo's claims and effectively accused these users of defamation; would it be appropriate for me to repeatedly remind you of hypothetical liability in that scenario? To insist that you and anyone who agrees with you strike your comments and stop posting against my position, to avoid such liability? If I were to do so, would I be acting in good faith and for your sake? You've repeatedly made comparisons to arson, murder, and so forth; do any of your scenarios involve the dastardly crime of commenting in Wikipedia process discussions? – Luna Santin (talk) 17:41, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

The example involving arson aimed at eliciting a response that could clarify how others in this thread understood the term "legal threat", which is an issue that is at the heart of my argument; it could have been any illegal action, but I picked one of which I expected everyone would agree it was illegal, so that there would be no secondary discussion whether the hypothetical action was actually illegal. Every example differs in at least some respects from what it may be applied to – otherwise is not an example but the same thing – and a favourite diversional tactic in argumentation is to attack an example by pointing out there are differences, so that it is not the same thing and can therefore be ignored. In the three links to diffs I give above in my reply to Dayewalker the scenario involves in all cases nothing more dramatic than posting material to Wikipedia. I can't follow how application of Milo's apparent logic to my contributions here is supposed to lead to the conclusion that I supported his claims, but that is besides the point. If, using whatever arguments, you made statements to the effect that I am effectively committing defamation of some other persons (who have nothing to do with you) and thereby make myself liable to legal action by said persons, I might shrug it off or if I feel harassed and simple conflict resolution fails, I might start an RFC or file a more formal complaint. What I would not do is label your statements as a legal threat and claim your actions constitute a blockable offence per WP:NLT. That is a dangerous widening of what that policy is meant to cover.  --Lambiam 05:03, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

So, in short, you believe that threatening users with legal action is an appropriate debate tactic? – Luna Santin (talk) 07:36, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

If you consider the three diff links above to be "threatening users with legal action", then, yes, at least under certain circumstances, it may be an appropriate thing to do – because I think that in all three cases the editors acted appropriately. This does, by the way, not follow in any way from what I wrote before; it is an entirely new piece of information about what I think or believe. Here is another "horrible analogy". Suppose somebody breaks a vase in a porcelain shop, whereupon they are arrested and convicted of battery. Now someone else says: "Wait a minute, that's not battery!" Does that now imply that the last person considers breaking earthenware an appropriate thing to do? No, it does not – maybe they will consider it appropriate under some circumstances and inappropriate under other circumstances. The only thing it implies is that the person objecting believes it does not fit the requirements for being labelled "battery".

Now what do you think? Did Lucky 6.9, Can't sleep, clown will eat me and Scott Mac (Doc) issue legal threats, and would an admin blocking them have acted in accordance with WP:NLT?  --Lambiam 10:03, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

This discussion is going nowhere: it's obvious that there is very substantial administrative support for the position that Milomedes' comments constituted a legal threat and that an indefinite block was warranted; far fewer administrators do not construe the comments as a legal threat, and oppose the block. Therefore, unblocking Milomedes based on the discussion here, without any retraction of the comments in question, would be inappropriate. If you disagree with the indefinite blocking of this user, you are welcome to appeal the matter to the Arbitration Committee. Erik9 (talk) 16:50, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

My point was more that your argument seems to hinge on the perception that Milo's expression of legal risk was a legitimate notice, rather than an attempt to stifle discussion; because of that, it seems reasonable to assume you consider his concerns valid, or at least genuinely intended. Now, of the three diffs you've linked, this one is from 2004 and does seem at first glance to express a legitimate concern; this one from 2006 was made using a standardized template ({{defwarn}}); and this one from 2008 doesn't seem to be targeted at any specific editor; in the case of Milo's post, the legal concern expressed strikes me as entirely spurious, it was not made using a standard template, and it was targeted at very specific editors (who, oddly enough, were guilty merely of disagreeing with Milo in a deletion debate). Above, you seemed to claim ignorance of our community's past handling of legal threats, and now you've suddenly pulled three diffs spanning the past five years of editing history out of the nether -- I must admit I'm a bit baffled. I'm getting tired of running in circles about arson, murder, and now porcelain shops. If there's nothing substantive to be added, here, I think consensus is pretty clear for the time being. If Milo returns and clarifies his position satisfactorily, I imagine the chances of his being unblocked are quite good; if he continues to play mum, I guess we'll see where that goes. – Luna Santin (talk) 07:58, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

ThuranX

I was told on WP:WQA to bring this here if it continued. Thuran X has been uncivil and downright impossible to work with on the Glenn Beck talkpage and doesn't seem to be able to WP:AGF at all. This behavior has also taken place at the Carly Fiorina page, as was brought up at WQA. In the initial WQA report I included the following examples: [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], Carly Fiorina talkpage,Carly Fiorina the last of which earned him a warning. His reply to the warning: shows that he learned nothing, and has been supported by his edits to the Glenn Beck page after the WQA was put up (he was notified on his talkpage of it being there): [21] [22] [23] (With reply: [24]), [25], [26], [27]. Finally one editor snapped, and ThuranX continues to accuse everyone of having an agenda. I ask that something be done so that civil editing can be resumed. Soxwon (talk) 22:29, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Minor, but there also appears to be a clear-cut instance of WP:CANVASS: [28]. Soxwon (talk) 22:35, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm leaving the canvassing thing to the side because I see that as minor and not relevant to the main point. I've been monitoring the Glenn Beck page for a little while now, and did recently have to warn ThuranX about civility (it's not the first time I've done that unfortunately). Obviously his block log points to an ongoing problem there (I have blocked him, recently, for a 3RR violation but not for incivility), and I believe there was a recent ANI thread about this very issue though I'd have to check. ThuranX arrived at the Glenn Beck article angry about the content, which I think was understandable since there were/are serious problems, but his editing style has not done him any favors there, and indeed has proven a significant hindrance to collaborative editing.

From what I've seen, ThuranX is a conscientious editor who has made a lot of good contributions to the project. But he (I believe "he" is correct) is also often a bit of a bull in a china shop, and tends to inflame situations unnecessarily.

History has shown that we simply do not deal with these situations, and I think we can all think of any number of examples where a good contributor is disruptively uncivil, repeatedly so, and we simply cannot come up with a good way to handle it. I don't think ThuranX will appreciate this thread or care much what is said here, but I'm wondering if there are suggestions (assuming others agree in seeing this as a long term problem) for how to proceed. A user-conduct RFC would be a logical step at some point, but I'm not sure we're there yet. If Thuran would simply agree to chill out/tone it down there would not be a problem, but I don't think it's likely that will happen given past interactions I've had with him. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 23:18, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

In the general sense of what do we do with good contributors who are too abrasive, we do the same thing we would do with a so-so contributor who is too abrasive. There is no provision in any of the policies that say "If you contribute X good edits, you get a free pass on Y civility or personal attack violations". Editors who feel that way absolutely boggle me. a single incident of incivility might be enough to drive 1 or more contributors from the project. This concept of "net benefit" is also ridiculous. Because the moment they make another editor unhappy with editing here, I don't care how many good contributions they've made, they are not a "net benefit". This is a huge problem on wikipedia. I've seen editors complain about this before, and I've seen news stories and other social media stories pick up on this as well and the complaints it generates there. There is a general perception that some editors are protected no matter what they do, and it has a grain of truth. Think about some of the wheel wars and drama we've had over certain users. In pretty much all of those cases they were in clear violation of policies, yet they were coddled, snuggled and given cookies by some editors for months or years before they were finally (if ever) cut off. Yet another user doing 1/10th of what they did was indef, the key was thrown away, and unblock requests or appeals were quickly shot down and everyone carried on with their day. Wikipedia is a big project and if people can't work with the project and discuss things civilly then the community needs to do something about that. There are lots of existing editors and new editors everyday to do the job. The project doesn't live and die on a single editor but it does live and die on how the community feels.--Crossmr (talk) 01:44, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's time for an RfC so much as it is for an indef block, or maybe a six month timeout contigent on this user firmly agreeing to mend his ways. His block log shows many instacnes of incivility but, as far as I know, he has apologized for few -- if any -- of them. That other users annoy him is reason enough to write (as a mild example) "Drop dead and keep the fuck away from me, you smug jerk." [29] Alternatively, as ThuranX has been complained about again and again and again and nothing is ever really done, perhaps it could be made clear that he has special dispensation to act as he does without consequence. IronDuke 02:06, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Maybe we should start WP:Protectedusers so people can refer to it before they file a complaint to see if there is any point? It might cut the drama down significantly. It would also be a handy one stop for news organizations. In all seriousness, if short blocks don't do the trick, do we have an admin who can make the hard block and take the next appropriate step?--Crossmr (talk) 02:16, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure ThuranX falls under the "protected" editor category. He's been blocked eight times by my count and unblocked twice, with neither of those being drama-inducing "wheel war" blocks from what I can gather. Editors who are "protected" generally get away with incivility without being blocked, or if they are blocked someone swoops in and unblocks. I don't think that's really the case with ThuranX, and I'm not sure he has any particular protectors. The fact that he is not an admin removes one possible layer of protection, since administrators are (regardless of protestations to the contrary) far more protected from blocks or other sanctions then are non-admin editors.

I don't think general comments about "protected editors" are particularly helpful to this thread. I fully agree, and said above, that we have a problem dealing with veteran editors who also have issues with civility and the like. The problem stems largely from the fact that people disagree about how to proceed in those kind of situations. I'm afraid I can't do anything about that. I have no idea if someone has brought ThuranX to ANI before and said generally, "what do we do about this behavior?," rather than specifically complaining about one incident. If a previous general complaint did not result in any sort of attempted solution, perhaps it will be different this time, but that would require us to discuss the specific issue before us. IronDuke puts forward the possibility of an indef or otherwise lengthy block, and that would be one option. If others have specific suggestions that would be great, but if there are general complaints about our ability to deal with long-term editors who don't abide by certain guidelines then I'm not sure this is the place for that. For example complaining about the "net benefit" argument does little good when no one here has invoked it, implicitly much less explicitly. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:43, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, there are many previous AN/I threads regarding this user (with whom, I should say, I have interacted negatively in the past). A sampling of the complaints: [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37], [38]... There's more, I think, but, well, nuff said. IronDuke 04:11, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that's very helpful, and obviously the notion of giving ThuranX a long term block or starting an RFC or ArbCom case has been broached before. I'd like to hear from other (particularly uninvolved) editors and admins on this, and also of course from ThuranX, as to what can be done about this long-term problem. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 04:34, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I have just read through the August part of the Glen Beck Talk Page--I try not to get involved in these topics, but I couldn't escape knowing. It seems clear that Thuranox , while trying [to bring some degree of NPOV to a previously biased article, has gotten overinvolved. I'm not sure I blame him--the POV pushing done by most notably BigTimepeace Bytebear is some of the most outrageously biased article editing I've seen here. I think we can deal appropriately with this issue by banning BTP Bytebear from this article & talk p. and all other articles and talk pages related to GB) indefinitely --or, if indef is out of fashion, 6 months, I generally think than an angry response to provocation is as wrong as the provocation, but in this case, the provocation is so great that I think I'd be prepared to say that any reasonable person might have gotten upset in dealing with it. But the language Thuranox used was out of control, and I don't know any way of impressing this upon him that would be effective. If BTP Bytebear is gone from the article, that'll certainly help things. There will still be some fighting there, and if Thuranox continues editing there, he'll have to do it with more restraint. If not ,we should take the preventative action of having him stay away from the articles also. DGG ( talk ) 06:38, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

← That's a pretty strong accusation DGG. — Ched :  ?  06:48, 27 August 2009 (UTC) Apologies for the interruption. Upon clarification I strike my comment. — Ched :  ?  15:01, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I have a feeling, indeed I very much hope, that DGG (whom I quite respect) is confusing me with another editor whose handle also begins with a "B," namely User:Bytebear. ThuranX and that editor have gone toe to toe at the Beck article, and Bytebear's editing has indeed been very problematic, as I have pointed out on the article talk page and on that editor's user talk page (I also blocked them for edit warring). I have only been acting in an "adminly" (as opposed to editorial) fashion at Glenn Beck (trying to put a stop to the edit warring and calm the waters a bit), and while I have the article watchlisted and have made a number of edits there in the past I have not edited the article since March. So I think this is just a case of mistaken identity and if so then no worries at all, but I would hope DGG could clarify that, because I certainly don't think "outrageously biased article editing" remotely applies to anything I've done over there.

Operating on the assumption that DGG meant to refer to Bytebear (right-DGG) , I would also be willing to consider some sort of topic ban. Indeed I was working on a formal proposal along those lines a week or so ago (gathering a bunch of diffs to show what I took to be a seriously problematic pattern) but decided to shelve it to see if Bytebear's editing improved. If we are having a conversation about a possible topic ban I can present the diffs I put together (no one else should bother gathering them, what I put together is pretty comprehensive), though personally I'd like to see if progress can be made on the article talk page first.

I don't think Bytebear's problematic editing means ThuranX gets a free pass, and as mentioned that editor's civility is a longer term issue, though a recent comment by Thuran is, to me at least, encouraging. If we our going to talk about Bytebear (or about me!) we might want to start a subthread just so this doesn't turn into a complete muddle, as Old Stephen would say. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:00, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

sorry, I did indeed mean Bytebear. I apologize for the confusion. DGG ( talk ) 08:21, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

To BTP, since we've out dented already, Actually I got that impression from the mention of how many times its been brought up at AN/I and nothing really being done. This is the second thread on this page dealing with a long-term editor who has civility issues that no one seems to want to do anything about. See the bungie section up above as another example. While no one has wheel-warred over him, no one has rushed to deal with him because he's a veteran. DGG suggests excusing it because there was apparent POV pushing, but I still fail to see that exception in the policy. When we get into that thinking, where do we draw the line? This user was really really really annoying so it was okay for me to chew him out. How many "really"s makes it okay?Do we need 3? how about 2? what if its only 1? We get down to a subjective interpretation of how annoying some user was and who thinks the other user was justified in snapping. Sorry no. This is exactly the kind of behaviour that poisons this community. It will always be the people with the buddies who gets the pass because the other guy was more annoying. Subjective application of these policies doesn't help a single person on wikipedia. There is a reason those kinds of exceptions aren't in the policy. I don't care if the other party is talking about what he did with your dead relative's corpse last night, its the internet. Report them and move on. If someone is supposedly POV pushing, start DR, get third opinion, report it to the relevant projects, and move on. There are millions of articles out there. Conduct the debate civilly, though passionately if you want, or don't be involved in it.--Crossmr (talk) 07:16, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

normally I'd agree with you, Crossmr, and very strongly. I think this case is an exception. the initial state of that article was so much of a panegyric that the subject would have been unrecognizable. Bytebear wasn't the only person getting it that way, but he as a major and continuing and very persistent influence. A number of people tried, and I think it actually took Thuranx's intervention to get things going sensibly. Strong medicine, in this case needed. Maybe a little too strong, but the only other way of handing it would have been to topicban Bytebear at an earlier state--and we didn't do it. I think that ThuranX should take great care he doesn't do this again, when they probably will not be so well deserved. DGG ( talk ) 08:21, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but a majority of the comments have been directed at myself and Morphh who have tried to be cooperative and act for the good of the article. There's also the matter of his comments at Carly Fiorina as well, which seem totally unjustified. If Bytebear was the problem, he certainly missed the target. Soxwon (talk) 08:26, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately I can't see that at all. There still aren't any exceptions, regardless of what he thought he was trying to accomplish. The ends doesn't justify the means when it comes to civility. In addition his comments at Carly Fiorina completely invalidate that argument. If this was a one time issue with no priors and no other issues on other articles, you _might_ (in the smallest sense of the word) have a case. But this is clearly not a problem restricted to this article in this case.--Crossmr (talk) 12:05, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm embarrassed to say that I'm the editor that snapped (not my proudest moment, but I did redact the profanity and clarify it). I've been personally labeled by ThuranX as "disingenuous", a "fanboy", "whitewasher", "pov pusher", "pretender", bad faith editor, and essentially Bytebear's meatpuppet. I don't think I've deserved any of the labels, but that's beside the point to this discussion. The uncivil behavior was unacceptable and created a hostile environment. I don't agree with DGG that he really helped this article move along, in fact, I think his discussions have been disruptive and created more conflicts and issues than needed to move the article forward. I got there a couple weeks before ThuranX, who arrived on August 15th[39] and at that point we were already moving toward some good progress in including the criticism.[40][41][42] I think it was primarily the work of civil editors working together that moved things along. I think these changes would have happened with or without ThuranX, and likely faster without. I'm conflicted as I would like his perspective and opinion, but we can't get there if he's always leveling attacks and avoiding the policy discussion. Morphh ^(talk) 16:11, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

• Give ThuranX and Bytebear ultimatums: Any further incivility (broadly construed -- in fact, so broadly that it would be safer not to comment on editors at all, just on edits, and comment carefully on them) or edit warring at Glenn Beck/ Talk:Glenn Beck will result in both a one-week block and a six-month topic ban on the article. If BigTimePeace wants some kind of different solution, it would probably be a good idea to give it to him. If Bytebear is POV-pushing, too bad for Wikipedia, because AN/I has no tools to address that, but sanctions on incivility and edit warring can be ratcheted up. This is a "solution" in that it makes the admin's job easier, but it is no solution for the article or the editors: they are allowed to game the system by baiting the other side into edit warring or an incivility violation. The editor who blows his top first loses the game. It's a sport, not a solution. There is no solution, and I started a section below to start groping for an answer. But in the meantime, without a solution, let's make BigTimePeace's job easier: Give 'em ultimatums. -- Noroton (talk) 16:39, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, since you're considering equal punishment, I don't know that I've seen Bytebear be uncivil or issue a personal attack (could be wrong). He's just been very strict with policy interpretation, so it makes adding content more difficult. ThuranX calls it the Civil POV Push. On the opposite end, ThuranX has been very loose with policy. So aside from politics, you can see where we get the huge clash between these two editors. I don't know what the best course of action would be, but I thought I would clarify what I'm seeing. Morphh ^(talk) 17:27, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi all. I really didn't intend to cause such a stir. I have apparently been to strict with my interpretation of WP:BPL relying on the exception for 3RR on such articles, thinking my reverts were in compliance with the rules applied. Rather than applying the rules to facts, I applied them to POV. The edit war in question was an issue of WP:SYNTH where two facts were presented side by side and a direct conclusion was heavily implied. I reverted in the hopes that someone would reapply the information more fairly avoiding POV, but it didn't happen, so I continued to revert assuming the 3RR did not apply under the rules of BLP, and eventually modified the text to a more fair version, which was promptly reverted. I think I have edited in good faith, if not misguided. Since my ban, which I take full responsibility, I have been discussing the issue at length trying to gain a more complete understanding of how BLP applies in this case. I still disagree with some of the assessments by Bigtimepeace, but I am willing to discuss them. ThuranX on the other hand dismisses every suggestion and comment I make with accusations of conspiracy and protectionism, even when other editors agree with me. I think my points are valid, and I admit to having strong convictions about them, but I don't think I have demonstrated a inability to discuss and work with other editors, other than the unfortunate butting heads with ThuranX. Bytebear (talk) 17:33, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

For the record, ThuranX is by no means the only person who takes Bytebear's editing behavior to be protectionism. Sometimes this seems to take the form of a WP:TAGTEAM with other like-minded users who, like Bytebear, have received warnings and bans related to Glenn Beck and/or other US Politics topics. This obviously does not excuse any of ThuranX's behavior, but it is certainly a frustrating experience trying to improve this article. There is a larger problem here. MichaelLNorth (talk) 21:10, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Going back to the original post in this thread: As the admin. who issued the "warning" to ThuranX I suppose I should say something here. Yes, I saw his reply. No, I didn't feel a need to respond and inflame the issue. I know the rules fairly well thank you, and I suspect that ThuranX does too. American political articles are going to elicit emotions here, everyone has their own POV. I suggest that all parties simply stick to the facts, the reliable sources, and address the topics and not the editors. All ya'all just need to cool it. — Ched :  ?  17:43, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

• I haven't seen any provide any diffs of Bytebear being uncivil. If they have been, someone should provide those diffs, if they haven't, then why put this odd restriction on them? Thuranx's behaviour extends beyond this article.--Crossmr (talk) 00:29, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Wider picture: a new set of rules is needed for this widespread problem

I've said this before and I'll risk sounding a bit like a broken record and say it again: Wikipedia has a problem with its Wild West atmosphere on articles with controversial content (mostly politics, nationalism, probably religion, I think). We treat them like we treat any article in terms of what guidelines and policies editors are supposed to follow, but our rules are inadequate. POV pushers are attracted to these articles and inevitably offend editors who also have strong views on a subject, and there are plenty of these editors when a subject is very controversial out there in the world beyond Wikipedia. There simply aren't enough BigTimePeaces to try to keep the peace, or enough admins like DGG to even recognize that there may be more than one problem. As a result, Wikipedia articles on controversial subjects are, frankly, a disgrace. And that's after many editors have wasted their time on them and many admins have wasted their time dealing with the problems.

We'd lose a lot of good editors if we ban all of the ones who have a difficult time with civility, but who mostly keep it to a minimum. It's extremely hard to identify a POV-pushing editor unless you are also well-acquainted with the issue, and it takes not just you but a consensus to do it. That's hardly ever gonna happen. Article probations are complicated to set up, involve too much work to maintain and can be gamed by POV pushers.

What needs to be done is to have some kind of different set of policies and guidelines for editing on articles & talk pages where we find we have excessive fighting and a lack of constructive consensus-building. The rules should involve how editors treat each other and how consensus is formed, they should encourage calm, rational, cordial discussion and encourage more editors to participate (overwhelming POV pushers with reasonable editors from the broader community who are interested in thoughtful participation that actually improves an article in an NPOV way -- this is not really too much to ask: it's what we're asking now), and the rules should be very easy and clear for any admin to enforce or editor to understand (unlike the rat's nest of an explanation we have for WP:CONSENSUS and related pages and WP:CIVIL and related pages).

AN/I threads are fingers in a very leaky dyke. Instead of this problem coming back to AN/I over and over, with different editors at different articles, the dyke needs to be fixed. -- Noroton (talk) 15:52, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

You raise good points here, but I worry it's impractical. And you'd get a lot of pushback from editors about two sets of rules, how we determine which article goes in what cat, etc. I also think we lose more editors due to the toxically uncivil environment that prevails here than the few who would storm off in a huff after being told no, they really can't tell other editors to "fuck off." I'd also note the editor in question has made no move at all to suggest that there's any kind of problem with his approach, and it bothers me when people take a sort of "Hey, let's move on" attitude as if the person in question had actually said he was sorry and promised to be better in the future. IronDuke 19:00, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

AN/I already decides on article probation, as does Arbcom, so we could let them decide whether to put a contentious article into this probation-like status. You'll get no more pushback than we get now, another avenue would be to let a consensus of editors decide at an RfC. All three avenues should be available, just as we would do now for article probation. You don't set up the new rules for any particular article until we see problems with the article and get complaints. This isn't a plan or even a proposal, of course, just an idea of the type of thing that might be done. The real point is that some different kind of set of rules is needed. I would think admins would be happier with an easier system. IronDuke, if you scroll up to my proposal for this particular case, you'll see that I'm not excusing any conduct. POV pushing does not excuse incivility, but solving the incivility problem does nothing to solve the POV problem (by removing editors you may make the POV problem worse). I think the real trick is to channel discussions into calm, reflective, civil exchanges that won't be distracted by comments on editors and where editors will decide on content and decide what to say based on what they really think a neutral article would look like. That's the hardest environment for a POV pusher to succeed, for edit warring to succeed and for incivility to seem right. It's the kind of atmosphere that happens in civil, even cordial discussions, but even in hot, contentious discussions when there is some force or authority, understood by all and seen as fair. You get that kind of atmosphere when you have rules and enforce them consistently, Wikipedia doesn't do that and doesn't get that atmosphere. Editors know that POV pushing and edit warring can succeed, and incivility may or may not result in sanctions. If we can attract more editors to take part in civil, focused discussions, POV pushing will be much harder, and we're more likely to get better articles. -- Noroton (talk) 01:02, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Noroton, we have loads of guidelines on how to behave, and an escalation policy. The lack of structure on this particular page makes this problem a recurring one. I am not thrilled about the layout of RfC but it is a logical next step. One can also make a community proposal here, or refer to the arbitration committee. We did have a good run of getting through cases in a timely manner for part of the year, and hope to be timely later on :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:17, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

And what we don't have is effective enforcement. Who the hell wants to spend a month (or two, or more) in front of Arbcom until all else has failed, unless the editor is already stark, raving mad and the case is no longer about saving the article but has instead turned into a feud in which the goal really is to get the other side punished? By the time something gets to Arbcom, Wikipedia has already failed, often in numerous ways. The articles are what this website is supposed to be about, and they need much more than some Arbcom judging. AN/I is inconsistent. RfC is an enormous investment in time and effort. None of these avenues provide editors clear, consistently enforced regulations for conduct in contentious-article discussions, nor do they encourage good conduct -- they just discourage bad conduct in the sanctioned editors you're watching. Really, Casliber, this system sucks. An analogy: At a busy downtown intersection the authorities have set up four stop signs. But the intersection is so busy, and enforcement is so light and inconsistent, that plenty of people ignore the signs, plenty of accidents result and good drivers come to understand that using the intersection is dangerous or maybe a waste of time, so they use other intersections. Drivers seldom call the cops, sometimes even after an accident, because they see little good coming from that. Should the judges say "we have loads of stop signs telling drivers what to do, and laws in place to sanction traffic violators. We did have a good run of getting through cases in a timely manner ..." I have a personal metric (I think it's an easy example to understand): On Wikipedia, Bill Ayers can't be even said to have been called a terrorist -- the thing he's famous for -- despite his being called a terrorist by every reliable source in creation (New York Times, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, dozens of scholarly and other sources, in fact, just about every source, regardless of political outlook and going back decades -- I've got the proof). The only time "terrorist" or "terrorism" appears in the Ayers article is when we quote him denying it. And it's not as if we didn't have an RfC, an AN/I report and have it brought up in front of ArbCom. I should not have had to go through Wikipedia's clunky dispute resolution system to enforce a 2/3 consensus. Nor is it my fault that after months of effort, followed by weeks of anguish, I gave up. It's only one among many, many POV problems where Wikipedia has failed. We don't need any more guidelines in how to behave, and it's not just a problem of whether authorities will enforce -- it's a system that runs off the rails because it doesn't now have the means to encourage good discussions and effectively, quickly discourage bad behavior on discussions that are inevitably contentious: something like a closing admin, perhaps a better definition of consensus (and possibly a lower bar for consensus), an easier way to canvass more editors, stronger incentives to propose compromises. That's a pretty long list of changes, but they're essentially based on what we already do and tweaking it. Just don't tell me we don't have a problem when we have articles looking like Bill Ayers does, even after the contentious discussion and 2/3 majority. This is just one failure of the system, which has resulted in widespread POV-related failures. -- Noroton (talk) 01:02, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

You're right, we don't have effective enforcement. Far too often are veteran editors allowed to insult people willy nilly because they think they're "right". They have a group of friends who will back/unblock them if anyone questions them, or have found the admins to be indifferent to their antics. We really need a page which describes how many edits it takes to trade in for a pass on the various policies.--Crossmr (talk) 04:28, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Civility applies to all articles. There are many editors who can edit controversial articles without becoming uncivil. If an editor can't do that, then they should go do something else. If they persist in putting themselves in situations where they become uncivil, then they damage the project. Uncivil editors push away other editors and at times cause some editors to leave the project. I don't care what they think justifies the behaviour, nothing does. We don't need another set of guidelines. Use dispute resolution, get third opinions, ask for a wider consensus. if you can't do that, go to other articles. If you still can't calm down on other articles, go do something else entirely.--Crossmr (talk) 00:29, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Some article topics will be more contentious than others. This often results in lousy, biased articles on Wikipedia. In fact, bad discussions go hand in hand with biased articles, which should not be the case when numerous editors have been involved in editing and discussing an article. Civility enforcement does not always apply to each article. There are not many editors who can edit controversial articles without becoming uncivil if they are constantly confronted with POV pushers. You want the most committed editors, the ones who have a passion for explaining a topic in an intelligent, neutral way, to be productive, but they are precisely the editors who will be most driven away by POV pushers or who will turn to bad behavior because they are the ones who care the most about a particular topic -- along with the POV pushers. Drive away the good, passionate editors and you're left with the passionate POV pushers. It happens a lot. It happens because Wikipedia's set of rules and enforcement of them encourage it. It's systemic. You should not be complacent about it because it hurts the encyclopedia enormously. (I know, this is really not the place for this thread. I need a blog.) -- Noroton (talk) 01:17, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be some confusion here, perhaps this clip from scrubs can clear it up [43]. Civility not only applies to every article but it applies to every single page on wikipedia. Why is it that passionate POV pushers can be civil and passionate "good" editors cannot? If POV pushers are being uncivil, deal with them equally. If they're not being uncivil, why can they argue their side without that? There are many people who are good editors who can argue their point without resorting to personal attacks and incivility. There is nothing wrong with passion. There is a problem when passion degenerates into personal attacks and insults. If "good" editors can't explain their side of the debate without using insults, they have a problem. that isn't systemic. They need to walk away and form a larger consensus and deal with it appropriate. Incivility is never acceptable just because you think you're right. Right is very subjective and we don't apply rules like civility subjectively.--Crossmr (talk) 04:26, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Having a civility policy on a Wikipedia page doesn't work by itself. And it isn't just a problem of inconsistent enforcement (although admins have found by experience that the policy can't be enforced with absolute consistency -- an unwritten policy that Wikipedians can only know through familiarity). For you to say that we should simply deal with POV pushers the way we would with anyone else is fine by itself, but you've ignored the fact that POV pushing is one of the prime instigators of incivility. It also happens to be the prime instigator of biased articles. Much of this is concentrated on contentious articles (often on very prominent subjects), which also happen to generate a large number of complaints at AN/I and ArbCom, although the problem goes far beyond administrator/Arbcom workload. With our current set of policies, contentious articles generate a huge amount of problems and at the same time the huge amount of time and effort that goes into them generates incredibly little good content. The waste is simply enormous. So is the stress.

In the real world beyond Wikipedia, there is a reason why some people have had a longstanding ban on conversation about sex, politics and religion in dinnertable talk they want to keep polite. There is a reason why certain spots on the Internet are notorious for their toxic manners, and a reason why we have Internet-era words like "flame wars" and "trolls". The reason is that when you combine a lack of clear rules and inconsistent enforcement even of them with contentious topics, you get nastiness and a breakdown in necessary consensus building. It is simply not true that we have an unlimited supply of editors for any topic who are capable of long-term civility in the face of constant POV pushing. (And don't forget that even editors who can remain civil are put under quite a bit of strain by having to put up with POV pushing.) The good editors not only find that their facts and reasoning falls on deaf ears among POV pushing editors who are simply determined to bias an article, but they find that Wikipedia puts up roadblocks to dealing with POV pushing: WP:CANVASS makes it difficult to recruit non-POV pushers to discussions; discussions can go on forever and be difficult to read for newcomers; there is no clear, bright line showing editors when consensus has been reached (or exactly what the consensus is) or where civility is breached or where edit warring begins and ends or where discussions should end -- this informality is fine for noncontentious articles (it usually works best), but it is toxic for contentious articles. Think about it: a casual lack of rules is never the case outside Wikipedia when there is no hierarchy of people (who have the power to enforce ad-hoc order) and where the goal is to get something done regarding a contentious issue. Instead, we appoint chairmen, secretaries, etc., and adopt Roberts Rules of Order (not that I'm proposing any of this). At Wikipedia, enforcement of what few rules we have is often left up to the editors on the page who are already debating the substance, so one editor's citing of a policy like WP:CIV or WP:BLP isn't trusted by the editors he is arguing with (and it's often a strained application of those policies anyway). We have a few areas of Wikipedia where discussions are more structured: deletion discussions (XfD), ArbCom cases, Requests for Adminship and elections. They all have their creaky faults, but they all work better than our more contentious articles. Something similar should be set up for articles identified as so contentious that normal talk-page regulations and other policies aren't enough to keep them orderly and productive. This would improve the articles, make editing an happier experience (or at least avoid some of our sadder experiences) and, overall, be easier on admins. This discussion has gotten too long for AN/I, and I think I'm straining the good will of people who come to this page for its main purpose, so this will be may last comment. At some point I suppose I should come up with a proposal, or at least an essay, or maybe find another place to discuss this. -- Noroton (talk) 13:29, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

POV pushing is one of the prime instigators of incivility Here is your problem. You are responsible for your behaviour. Not POV pushers. You control how you react to them. If you feel so out of control that you cannot control what words you type on a screen, then wikipedia isn't for you. The rules are very clear. Discuss the content, not the editors. Don't resort to personal attacks and insults in an attempt to make your point. There are plenty of steps to DR, and none of those are disallowed by CANVASS. You can use third opinion, posting on relevant projects also shouldn't be an issue for CANVASS. Posting on individual talk pages, coming to AN/I for content disputes, going to the village pump, help desk, other article talk pages, etc. may be. The problem here is that you seem to find fault with the POV for making you or anyone else uncivil. They don't make you do anything.--Crossmr (talk) 14:48, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

You are responsible for your behaviour. Not POV pushers. You control how you react to them. That's not what we're disagreeing about. Obviously, many people are baited and many take the bait. POV pushing acts like baiting to anyone who cares about an article. I've said repeatedly, including repeatedly here, that it isn't an excuse for somebody else being uncivil. When the same problem crops up again and again, it's time for Wikipedians to look into the causes and try to do something about it. Your position is simply to let certain editors get into tangles that could be avoided. But of course, reducing the temptation to incivility is not the only reason to try to make Wikipedia more difficult for POV pushers to influence. There is that other concern we have, the actual articles. I've explained all that, and you've ignored all that while personalizing the discussion, and even described my position as the exact opposite of my position, even after I've pointed out the difference, so it's time to stop replying to you. -- Noroton (talk) 00:28, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

My solution is to let them seek DR. If there is a problem with the DR process deal with that appropriately. A problem with DR doesn't excuse civility. Whether POV pushing is the cause, a cause, or some cause all boils down to the same thing, it isn't a cause at all. The only cause of incivility is the user failing to control themselves. In a brand new user we issue warnings and work with them. An editor who has never before been warned for a problem also gets a warning. like baiting to anyone who cares about an article it comes down 100% to personal responsibility. If someone is baiting you, don't take the bait. If you agree there isn't an excuse for incivility then there is no reason for Thuranx to get a pass on this. This is a long term problem he should be well aware of the issues he's had in the past and stayed out of those situations.--Crossmr (talk) 00:40, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Crossmr - POV is not the cause. Everyone is POV pushing somehow whether they realize it or not - in the above for example you certainly have stated your POV about Bill Ayers and that you are sorry that consensus didn't allow it to be represented in the article. No one can say - my POV is the neutral point of view and you people are all biased. That is why we have policies to determine as objectively as possible how to weigh viewpoints in articles. However one can argue in favour of a point of view without being incivil, and that is what we all have the responsibility of doing. PArt of being civil is standing back when one sees that the majority does not agree with one's arguments, and to recognize when better arguments are being made. I don't mind people with agendas as long as they engage in civil discussion, try to reach a compromise and do not stubbornly stick with one particular way that they want things to be.·Maunus·ƛ· 15:00, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

POV pushing is not the cause, but it is a cause. Isn't there a definition of POV pusher somewhere on Wikipedia? Maybe in an essay? You're confusing having a POV with pushing one. Of course I have a POV, but what we're supposed to want in articles is an accurate reflection of what the reliable sources say on a subject. That's the difference. Is my estimation of that affected by my own POV? Sure, but it has a limited effect, especially since I try to keep the two things separate in my mind. It isn't that difficult to deal with an editor with a different POV and also different idea of what a neutral article would be. For one thing, both of us will want just about the same thing, usually. We can also direct the discussion toward the facts (that is: What do the best sources and the "consensus" among the reliable sources say?). Discussions about facts can generally reach a consensus. After a while of assuming good faith, you know whether or not the other party is looking for a neutral article or pushing a POV. If the other party is a POV pusher, that should offend the rest of us. And that's a temptation to incivility, and it's more of a temptation when the good editors often don't have effective means to counteract that POV pushing. What matters in the Bill Ayers article is what the sources say, not what I personally think. It's a good example because it's very clear, it seems to me, whether or not the WP article reflects what the reliable sources say. (Having a goal different from pushing one's own POV allows an edditor to add positive information about a subject the editor generally has negative feeligns about. I've been able to do that with Bill Ayers, his wife and Obama in Wikipedia articles -- I want that information in the articles if it helps the readers understand the subjects better.) -- Noroton (talk) 00:28, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

I think Noroton & Crossmr both have parts of the answer. First, there are people who can't be reasoned with effectively: although they may come across as polite & willing to work towards a consensus, they still are pushing for content which does not accurately reflect the subject in a manner which is useful to the average reader. (One case I recently encountered was an anon IP who objected to my adding some text to the article on Ethiopian Christanity which incidentally mentioned local pagan influences -- although various pagan [or non-Christian] influences have been identified & are commonly accepted in almost every branch of Christianity, & the material in question was taken form the Library of Congress website. His POV was that Ethiopian Christianity had no paganism in it, QED. The conflict was resolved simply by outlasting him -- not an optimal solution.) Sometimes article parole is the right answer.

Then there is the problem of dealing with POV-pushers for too long a time; Nietzsche's words about "beware fighting monsters, for you may become on" is appropos here: deal with too many people who are clearly editting in bad faith, & you start to assume everyone is -- or are naive to the fact many are. WikiBurnout then affects for the person, which can be uglier in some cases than others -- but is almost never pretty. This is not a healthy solution in the long run.

On the other hand, I don't think the problem is so much civility, but respect: it is not that hard to learn how to be disrespectful without be incivil, so only the newbies & the careless get caught up in civility problems. And many volunteers here are not confident enough about being "real" Wikipedians to no never see sarcasm or condescension where none is meant. And we can respect other Wikipedians without agreeing with them, or even liking them: part of the secret is to disagree with an attempt at politeness, not being by being snide (even though that can be a lot more enjoyable & fun to read). Yet to talk about civility, assuming good faith, & respect, one has to acknowledge that there are some who do not deserve it.

(Crap. I tried to explain this as a polar situation, with Noroton's & Crossmr's statements as the two opposing points, but I fear I am rambling here. I only hope something of my intent came across. I'm not going to post here until I've had a couple of nights where I average much more than 5 hours of sleep.) -- llywrch (talk) 18:11, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sure people who argue with people they don't like for too long will sometimes end up being uncivil. However annoying they are, that still is no pass on civility. No one made them do that. It should be clear to many people fairly early if one side is going to compromise or not. If not the good editor needs to step back and engage DR and other editors. If someone is trying to push a non-legitimate POV giving the discussion a larger audience should solve that problem. We may understand why the user became uncivil in that situation. If it is the first or second time, a strong warning may be warranted, but if the user has a history of getting in debates and becoming uncivil then they no longer get a pass. I would never call for a block on the first civil offense, but if its a 3 year old problem with many warnings, a reasonable editor should have realized he has trouble in certain situations and stay out of them before he gets too hot under the collar to apparently control himself. The editor is responsible for his or her actions. We may understand them in the situation of a new editor who is learning or an editor who has never made that kind of mistake before, and offer guidance, but when faced with a long term problem, we can't chalk it up to inexperience at dealing with those situations.--Crossmr (talk) 00:32, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Good points. -- Noroton (talk) 00:28, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

USER:BLUEMARINE, aka Matt Sanchez

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

---

Someone can go on and block me for reporting this but since no one has seen it or done anything about it, contrary to all the claims during my topic ban circus that someone else would handle any violations by this user, I'm reporting it here.

Per Wikipedia:Editing restrictions#Placed by the Wikipedia community, User:Bluemarine is in violation of his topic ban for recent edits to Talk:Matt Sanchez. Here and here. Per that topic ban, Bluemarine's community ban is modified to a ban from the Matt Sanchez and Scott Thomas Beauchamp controversy article pages. He can't claim ignorance this time as it was fully explained to him on August 3rd here.

Kudos to whomever gets the honor of blocking me for making this report. See you when I see you. -     allstar▼echo     22:48, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Article pages. Not talk pages. This is exactly what we ask article subkects to do. Stop this wikihounding and honor your topic ban. --M^ask? 22:55, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

It says pages, plural.. that means all pages related to the article. That's obvious. -     allstar▼echo     23:14, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

It is indeed plural. The matt sanchez article, and the beauchamp controversy article add up to two article pages. When we mean talk pages we say talk pages, not article pages. --M^ask? 23:23, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

As I read the full discussion, he is allowed to edit the talk page of Matt Sanchez but is prohibited from other LGBT articles and talk pages. However, there seems to be no clear statement of the conditions posted to his own talk page, which is an oversight. I am prepared to impose the ban as previously discussed

“ Bluemarine's community ban is modified to a ban from the Matt Sanchez and Scott Thomas Beauchamp controversy article pages. He is prohibited from editing LGBT article topics and related talk pages, broadly construed. Bluemarine is encouraged to edit subjects that are not controversial or of personal and emotional investment so as to avoid dispute and confrontations and to gain experience editing Wikipedia collaboratively. As the community is extending good faith, please return it by limiting yourself to the one account and remember that personal attacks will not be tolerated. If Bluemarine violates the terms of this restriction he may be reblocked for an appropriate increment of time at the discretion of an administrator. ”

with the clarification that it does not apply to Talk:Matt Sanchez. Should an extension of the topic ban be needed, we can always discuss it later. Thatcher 23:25, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually if I remember correctly, it was if no one reports the issue (something Matt Sanchez did) then ASE would be allowed to do so after a set amount of time. I think the set amount of time has passed and this is a good ANI report. Let's not turn this into something about ASE and stick with the subject at hand. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 23:27, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not talking about ASE. There are two factors here, 1) if you read the whole discussion, it seems that it was intended that Bluemarine be allowed to edit talk:Matt Sanchez but was banned from other LGBT talk pages. 2) he was never formally notified of the terms of the ban on his talk page, so even if he is banned from Talk:Matt Sanchez, he can't be blocked for it now. Thatcher 23:30, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

He was notified August 3rd here on his talk page. And when that discussion was had, it was with the understanding not to touch the article or its talk page and if he had any issues with the article, to raise them on his own talk page but not to touch the article or article talk page. Now others want to interpret it differently. -     allstar▼echo     23:35, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I note a conflict between noting the ban regarding the specific article pages, and the terminology of "LGBT.. talkpages, broadly construed", as regards Sanchez and the understanding that this talkpage editing is permissible; The Sanchez talkpage has a LGBT portal box on it, and I would then consider it falls under "broadly construed". If this were an exception, I should think it needed placing prominently in the wording rather than being something tagged in a (subsequent) discussion. If "uninvolved admins" are to be expected to act upon ArbCom wordings then I would strongly suggest that the relevant findings and directions are placed only in the released wording - I am not going to be happy that I was expected to review an entire discussion rather than the notice in acting upon a ArbCom decree. How can sysops be uninvolved if they are going to have to read case histories rather than AE wordings - and how quickly will they be able to act. LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:59, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Just as a note this is being discussed on the Functionaries-en mailing list (and was started before ASE raised it but he wouldn't have known that...) ++Lar: t/c 23:38, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Could be because of my discussing it with User:Keegan yesterday? As much more time had passed, I figured it was dead, so I brought it here. -     allstar▼echo     23:43, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it could. You asked for a review as this is a long running and complicated issue for Wikipedia functionaries. Unfortunately, you did not give us time to adequately review what the implications related to ArbCom decisions were and how should be handled. This could have been much more quiet and less intrusive for you. Keegan (talk) 22:30, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

• Why are we dealing with this Bluemarine/Matt Sanchez character anyway? He is allowed to run roughshot around Wikipedia, violate the rules, is under restriction from editing certain pages (which he doesn't follow, obviously), is creating disruption...why don't we just outright block him indef and move on. I recommend at full block for User:Bluemarine. Enough is enough, time to move on. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 23:41, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

• He's under an edit restriction - and though there's disagreement, there are long time experienced admins / former arbs / etc who are indicating that they read the restriction as not covering what he just did. I am not sure, personally, having looked stuff over once. Whatever is finalized (yes/no on article talk page) needs to be reinforced to him and logged on the editing restriction as an amendment. If whatever it was confuses Lar and Thatcher, then we should probably give Matt some benefit of the doubt.

If the community felt that he was beyond hope they would have indef'ed him rather than the edit restriction, last time. There was no support for that, at the time, and given widespread confusion now I don't see blaming him for it now and responding more harshly as reasonable. People can exhaust the community patience, but this was not blatantly pushing that. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:56, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

• Yeah, we can't blame him for doing bad things, it must be someone elses fault. When are we going to stop covering our eyes and blinding disregarding people's actions. An edit restriction means something. Bluemarine clearly and blantantly violated it and he is still allowed to edit....but we blocked the reporting editor. What sense does that make? I think a couple people need to hand in their adminships and find something else to do. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 00:01, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I see Matt Sanchez and Scott Thomas Beauchamp controversy article pages and I see LGBT article topics and related talk pages. And this is in a discussion of a proposed ban. Allstarecho proposed topic ban from the Matt Sanchez biography and its talk page but ChildofMidnight took out the reference to the talk pages and Allstarecho said Looks fine to me. Other than Allstarecho, I don;t see a strong feeling in the prior discussion for a ban from the Matt Sanchez talk page. If the community wishes to clarify that, do it now. Thatcher 00:03, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Past experience has demonstrated that Allstarecho's assertions with regard to Bluemarine and potential violations of editing restrictions should be read with a skeptical eye. For example, Allstarecho misidentified a sock of Eleemosynary as Bluemarine in an SPI filing. Anyone with experience in the dispute would recognize that those two users have the opposite POV. Durova³⁰⁶ 00:09, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with the edits that ASE pointed out. Thatcher 00:37, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

A*'s edit restriction

Allstarecho - this was a self-acknowledged violation of the topic ban imposed on you earlier, for which you were just blocked for 24 hrs a couple of days ago.

Even assuming good faith that you noticed a violation which needed attention, I believe that you taking this to ANI as opposed to asking an uninvolved administrator in private was a knowing and reckless violation of your topic ban.

You and Bluemarine need to stay apart, period. If you cannot do so, and stay so, for real seriously, you need to stop editing here. If we have to enforce that with a long block or indef, that may happen. Please step back and stay there. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:44, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

replying to myself - While I was posting this and mulling it over, Viridae blocked A* for 31 hrs. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:47, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

• Nice. We have turned another thread about another user doing something bad into a thread about the reporting user. So, what are we going to do with Bluemarine...or did you all forget about that? - NeutralHomer • Talk • 23:57, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Clarify whether the community supports the topic ban covering his article's talk page or not; if yes, then amend the topic ban on the editing restrictions page and notify him of that.

I can see that your patience is exhausted at this point. Either you represent the community writ large and community user ban will fly, or not. That many experienced admins seem to be wanting to clarify not club to me indicates that a community ban won't fly right now - however, I could be wrong. If you feel like proposing one start another subsection and propose one. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:09, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

The last to hear

(after ec's) Since no other mentor has stepped forward yet through this long drawn-out mess, it would have been nice to have gotten a heads up about the talk of the day. Was being a good Wikipedian and building content editing a photograph of a president shaking the hand of a baseball player. How can quiet intervention make this situation better rather than worse?

Offering one solution: in future Allstarecho is welcome to abide by the terms of his ban and email me. He is welcome to cc any willing administrator to ensure proper handling of his complaints. Durova³⁰⁶ 00:05, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest NOT encouraging that. The topic ban is an effort to get him to disengage from BM, having the ability to to stalk his edits (and he pretty clearly does that) and then get satisfaction by email an admin is not to be encouraged. Better off that minor violations from BM slip by unnoticed, than to encourage the sort of behaviour the topic ban is supposed to stop. If there is a major violation of BM's part it will be noticed. Viridae^Talk 00:13, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

So, you are saying that if ASE sees Bluemarine doing something bad and no one notices (and that happens with other users too) then he can't report it even by email? I am going to request you check your pillow for your brain, I don't think you woke up with it in your head this morning. Come on. We can't have Bluemarine running roughshot around his edit restriction and blocking the reporting user. Makes no sense. If ASE can report what he sees by email, I see no harm. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 00:17, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec, to Viridae)If you say so. At the time when Allstarecho's restriction was imposed one of the principal concerns was how it might restrict him from filing legitimate reports. Most of his reports during the past half year have been either baseless or misleading (by omitting relevant information or providing information out of context). So the question is what to do. I strongly encourage any administrator or functionary who receives a complaint to consult me, due to the strange and quite serious turns this particular BLP issue has taken (including impersonation, hacking, and spoofing). Durova³⁰⁶ 00:22, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry Durova, I wasn't sure about your current feelings on mentorship. Thatcher 00:37, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you; understandable. Durova³⁰⁶ 01:33, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Durova - you have set yourself up as one of Bluemarine's main enablers - why on earth would ASE want to have any more contact with you than he absolutely has to? DuncanHill (talk) 14:56, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

People who mistake "mentor" for "enabler" are among the reasons it is becoming harder to find Wikipedians who are willing to mentor. This hard work exposes the volunteer to gratuitous insults which sometimes come from Wikipedians of experience and standing who ought to know better. Durova³⁰⁶ 22:50, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Enough is enough

Allstarecho isn't getting it. He violates his ban again in the edit summary here.[44] In addition he responds to the offer with two personal attacks against me: both name calling and an unsubstantiated allegation that I am a habitual liar.[45] This adds up to a total of four times in less than a month that Allstarecho has violated his restriction. The first time was a blatant BLP violation at RFAR,[46] for which he received a warning.[47] During the original restriction discussion Allstarecho repeatedly and vehemently declared his intention to ignore the sanction,[48][49][50][51][52] finally calling it "horseshit".[53] His actions now demonstrate that these weren't just heated words; he was perfectly serious.

For nearly two years I have undertaken the thankless task of attempting to normalize what is arguably Wikipedia's nastiest long term BLP problem. Every time an evenhanded assessment favored Allstarecho's POV he accepted the advantage, but when things haven't gone his way he has been quick with insults and allegations of bias. The latter has been difficult to endure, because for religious reasons I would no sooner discriminate against Allstarecho for being gay than against Matt Sanchez for being Puerto Rican. Most of this summer I have sought to pass the mentorship to other hands; Allstarecho's persistent interference has brought endless delays. My last effort at extending an olive branch was the restoration of Noel Coward's portrait shortly before his featured biography ran on the main page. It was intended as a good faith example of how many LGBT topics are far more important than Matt Sanchez. Now there are three novice image editors who need coaching; please give us breathing space from this nuisance so we can return to content work. Durova³⁰⁶ 01:29, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Just a note, when ASE made this comment, he was already blocked. I think the issue of Bluemarine needs to be addressed. No Bluemarine, no problem with ASE. It actually works itself out. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 01:43, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

BM isn't ASE's only problem. He was very closed to being indeffed recently. Viridae^Talk 01:44, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Bluemarine hasn't violated his editing restriction since his return, and he hasn't sought contact with Allstarecho. It makes no sense to sanction somebody based upon a frivolous report. Allstarecho was causing the same problems before Bluemarine's ban expired, so even if one's sense of wikipolitics could stomach that proposal it would make no sense. Durova³⁰⁶ 01:47, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

(EC)You do realize we are making this whole thread about ASE when it is about Bluemarine. We need to get back on subject and stop blocking others for other people's behavior. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 01:48, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Il ne viole pas son interdiction. Er hat nicht gegen seinen Bann. No se violen sus prohibición. I thought perhaps you might get it if it were presented in a different language? Viridae^Talk 01:51, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, don't speak the funny different languages. Let's stick with English, since this is English Wikipedia. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 01:54, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

私は日本語で話している！これはすごい！ハーフ影の 02:27, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

The original complaint has been investigated; it appears everyone other than Neutralhomer agreed it was baseless. The filing editor violated a restriction, and since getting blocked for it has repeated the violation with multiple personal attacks. Please address this problem so it wastes no more of my time; three people are waiting for assistance with image restoration coaching and no one else can help them. Durova³⁰⁶ 01:58, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

AllStarEcho restricted

Let's make it very simple then. AllStarEcho is not to mention, in any way, shape or form, User:Bluemarine, Matt Sanchez, or User:Durova. AT ALL. If he does, the next block will be 1 week. After that, 1 month. Then indef. Too much drama and noise created by ASE. He's as much (if not more) of the problem in this situation as User:Bluemarine. SirFozzie (talk) 01:59, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Feel like putting that (and this) under a new subheading? I support that proposal. Viridae^Talk 02:08, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Sim-Salabim!. Your command is my wish.. or something like that. SirFozzie (talk) 02:20, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Seems sensible to me as well. IronDuke 02:23, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Support as well. Exponentially growing drama helps no one, and Bluemarine has shown a willingness to accept and work within his sanction, ASE has shown nothing but derision and contempt with his while openly flaunting it. --M^ask? 02:25, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I support that proposal. It seems like the best way to deal with the situation. hmwitht 02:28, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

• Support and I'd just go straight to indefinite. He's shown more than enough contempt for what the community asks of him. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:11, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• I support this proposal, but for one teeny concern: this is exactly the restriction ASE was already under, but with Durova added. So um... what is the point here, exactly? Is this yet another of Wikipedia's Double Secret Probation arrangements? And the next time he violates it we'll impose... the same restriction all over again? → ROUX ₪ 03:15, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• Support. This disruptive obsession has gone on long enough.   Will Beback  talk  03:50, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• Comment - Why would he be banned from speaking to Durova? - NeutralHomer • Talk • 03:58, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Because he has made personal attacks against Durova, amongst other things, calling her a habitual liar? (see Durova's post above) SirFozzie (talk) 04:35, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

    I'm also confused about this. Without supporting or opposing, I think this restriction should be kept specific to BM, and not throw in Durova just because he made a few comments about her in the foregoing. –xeno^talk 12:59, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

    I've been the target of many more personal attacks from Allstarecho than Durova (just check his talk page history and edit summaries for examples), but I'm not clamouring to be added to this. Let's keep it to the main issue which is Matt Sanchez. Either extend Allstarecho's current block for the personal attacks on Durova or wait until they happen again and deal with like any other personal attack. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:55, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

• Support. The entire situation is ridiculous and has eaten up seemingly endless hours of time, a fact of which I am aware even though I have largely ignored the matter. It needs to be clear that the 1 week, 1 month, indef block sequence is essentially automatic and not up for debate at a later time. There have been plenty of chances already, and it should be incredibly easy for ASE to hold to this restriction if he puts his mind to it. It's also a net positive for everyone concerned and for the project. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 04:03, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• Support We've been here before, done this before .. it's getting old. — Ched :  ?  06:43, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• Support per Ched.--^{The Legendary}_{Sky Attacker} 06:49, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• Support after coming at this cold and reviewing the history - how it got this far is beyond me. Those blocks should not be upto debate and I would support 1 week, 1 month, please leave as proposed above. --Cameron Scott (talk) 09:03, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• Comment - would anyone object to wording SirFozzie's proposal in the following way? "Allstarecho (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) shall not directly or indirectly, interact with, or comment about Bluemarine (talk · contribs), Durova (talk · contribs) or Matt Sanchez, at any time, anywhere on Wikipedia. If Allstarecho violates this sanction, he will be banned from Wikipedia for 2 weeks for the first incident, 1 month for the second incident, and 1 year for the third incident." I propose this because (1) this is easier for logging at WP:Editing restrictions, (2) 1 week is too lenient given the history here, and (3) I don't think think it is good to have to have another discussion regarding a community ban (if it comes to that - which I hope it won't). If the blocks are to be lifted or changed in duration, it needs to be by community consensus or appeal to the community. Thoughts? Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:23, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • That formula is more precise and more practical. I endorse it.   Will Beback  talk  09:50, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I'm neutral regarding the use of this wording or SirFozzie's, but this sounds very practical. hmwitht 12:59, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose this very strongly. Bluemarine is an outspoken homophobe, and ASE is an out gay editor. Some editors, Durova in particular, have clearly committed themselves to enabling Bluemarine's continued presence and disruption of Wikipedia, and in doing this they have chosen to pick on ASE (I'm not saying he is blameless, so let's not have any more of the lies from editors saying that I am blindly defending him or am unfamiliar with his history). Bluemartine is playiong you all for a bunch of fools. DuncanHill (talk) 15:00, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I'll agree with you on that point and I don't understand the point of allowing Bluemarine around. However, we don't say "you have free reign if the person you are attacking deserves it." -- Ricky81682 (talk) 15:04, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• Support Ncmvocalist's proposal. Mostly because of its wording and slight tweaking, it's essentially a better proposal than above.--^{The Legendary}_{Sky Attacker} 18:48, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• Vehemently oppose. Besides the addition of Durova, which has no bearing on AE's problems and is not germane to this discussion, BlueMarine/Matt Sanchez is being allowed to do whatever he damn well pleases and nobody is discussing his behavior but AE. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 18:57, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• Support: I once gave praise for ASE's edits, but that was many moons ago and I have felt he has worn out his welcome. seicer | talk | contribs 19:01, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• Support this expanded and more clear topic ban, as well as today's block for violating the prior (and clear enough) ban. Nathan ^T 20:28, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• Support, ASE needs to disengage permanently. --Andy Walsh (talk) 20:51, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• Late support. I forgot I hadn't expressed that. Viridae^Talk 21:54, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Restriction Posted

I have notified Allstarecho of his restriction from this discussion. [54]. SirFozzie (talk) 21:44, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

And the response, was, well, I think we all saw it coming. [55]. Do we consider this to be a violation of his restriction, or consider it venting while blocked, and wait till the block expires and see how it turns out? I don't think it'll make much of a difference, myself... SirFozzie (talk) 00:36, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

He didn't specifically name any of the forbidden names. Grumping that we're all evil gorillas is venting while blocked. That's about the limit of how far he can go without being in trouble again, but I don't see any good would come of further followup just for that. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:49, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Cool. I saw it as following up on his accusations on Durova, but, I'm willing to let it slide. :) SirFozzie (talk) 01:53, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Bluemarine

I have restated and clarified the scope of the topic ban. The restriction can be extended to the talk page of Matt Sanchez if necessary, but hopefully it never will be. Thatcher 02:49, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I support extending it to the talk page and also support the new clarified scope of the topic ban. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 03:30, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Thatcher has not made a proposal to it to the talk page. Durova³⁰⁶ 03:41, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

He said it "can be extended...if necessary", I support that. I also support the clarified scope, so I put it all in one sentence. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 03:52, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Thatcher also hopes that it never will be. If there were a basis for doing so I would raise no complaint, but consensus agrees he has abided by his current restriction. Durova³⁰⁶ 03:57, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Y'know, while we're chewing this particular bone... Durova, it might behoove you to step back from ASE. Your statements on the subject are growing increasingly... forceful. → ROUX ₪ 04:00, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Let's just say tired. This thread keeps interrupting this restoration, which is done now (easier than expected) but turns out to have been from the New York University campus in the Bronx (not Greenwich Village), which got converted into Bronx Community College). A bit discombobulating. Durova³⁰⁶ 04:07, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

• I would like to make a note here, that I realize I am in the losing end of this whole discussion. I am trying, my best at this point, to defend my friend ASE. I don't think this "don't edit here or here or here" is the way to go. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 04:10, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I understand and even in a way consider it laudable, Neutralhomer.. unfortunately, we've been here too many times, and his crusade against User:Bluemarine has generated enough drama and bad feelings for a month of sundays. He's seemingly expanded his targets to those who mentor or support Bluemarine. We're all united, we don't want to ban anyone, he doesn't want to be banned, therefore, it's time to see if he can live with being on WP but not commenting on or about Bluemarine or Durova. It's really simple, either he can or he can't. SirFozzie (talk) 04:46, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
    • I know and I understand, I wish it wouldn't have to come to this, but to be honest, I don't see any other way. :( - NeutralHomer • Talk • 04:50, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
      • Hopefully I'm not butting in here unwelcomed, but feel that I have to say that I think SirFozzie is right. I've run across ASE a few times on Baseball related topic pages, and I've always respected him and his contributions, but all of this is getting... well, would describing it as WP:LAME fit at all? It's not just ASE, of course, since it takes two, but... there seems to be a building feeling of "let's just eject the distracting troublemakers", if you see what I'm saying.
        — Ω (talk) 04:54, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Right university; wrong campus. This used to be New York University, now part of Bronx Community College.

• • • • • Nothing against ASE on a personal level. He's done good work with Mississippi and most LGBT-related topics. Please understand; this type of thread becomes a distraction. Wanted to do an NYU-related restoration tonight and forgot to check whether the image was from the campus that's no longer part of the university. Got pulled away too many times; didn't double check. Now starting over with a portrait of one of the old NYU chancellors. Will gladly initiate a motion to lift restrictions if ASE settles down. Durova³⁰⁶ 05:03, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

• Could someone please explain to me how wikipedia benefits from the extraordinary tolerance extended to the self-promoting bigot going by the username of Bluemarine? He is only here to polish the article about him and attack gay editors. I would particulalrly like to know what Durova's motivations are. DuncanHill (talk) 14:51, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Hear, hear. Why is he being tolerated? Are we afraid he'll go running to the national media to complain about how Wikipedia is picking on him? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 19:02, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Why is he being tolerated? Because he hasn't violated the sanctions on him that was put there by ArbCom/community, unlike others. And regarding Duncan's insinuation about "Durova's motivations", how about this.. She worked hard to mentor users who can be of benefit to Wikipiedia (ScienceApologist, amongst others) without having them edit in areas that led to problematic behavior. Instead of being thanked for the work she's done, instead she apparently has to put up with blatant attacks on her character and her good name. It's no surprise to me she's decided to stop mentoring folks.. after all, no one will call you a habitual liar or cast aspersions on her person for restoring a jpg file. SirFozzie (talk) 20:23, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
      • Thank you, SirFozzie. It's good to know that AGF hasn't withered entirely. Nearly two years ago there was a content an RfC about the Matt Sanchez biography. Supposed the input might do some good, especially since the underlying dispute regards a topic that few of the site's predominantly male heterosexual editors would want to address. Mostly since then it's been a matter of follow-through. Things were already bitter: one editor had been community sitebanned. Other sanctions have followed including sitebans on both sides. I supported Matt's siteban when it was proposed in 2008; afterward mentored him at Commons where he made encyclopedic contributions. As stated above, this has been one of the site's nastiest BLP disputes. Half a year ago I announced a decision to stop accepting new mentorships due to the increasing politicization of mentorship by non-mentoring parties. Afterward I became the target of severe offsite harassment in retaliation for assisting SA with the optics article improvement drive. The individual who harassed me was someone I had never interacted with before who held a grudge against ScienceApologist. At that point I wrote to the Arbitration Committee announcing the intention to retire from mentorship and graduate/hand off all five mentorees. Bluemarine is the only one remaining. Under these unstable and difficult circumstances it has been hard to find a replacement (offers are welcomed). Durova³⁰⁶ 20:43, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

New Proposal

I personally don't think anyone will support it, but I feel, as ASE's friend, it is worth a shot. I tried to incorporate some of what is being discussed above into this along with my own ideas. Please excuse the length of this post.

• ASE is banned from posting on the Matt Sanchez article and talk pages and User:Bluemarine user and talk pages. ASE is banned from discussing Matt Sanchez or Bluemarine anywhere on Wikipedia with the exception of the below.

• If he sees a violation of policy, vandalism, etc. by Bluemarine and after 12 hours has elapsed (giving time for other users and admins to report themselves), then (and only then) would ASE be allowed to report it to ANI or AN.

• One instance of a violation of the "No Report for 12 Hours" rule and the rule is rescended.

• ASE may email an admin of his choice before the 12 hours is up and let them know what he sees and allow that admin to look into it and if they see fit to take it to ANI or AN. It would be recommended that ASE go this route before taking it to ANI himself.

• ASE would have no contact with Durova since he appears to have a conflict with her, with personal attacks being flung around. If contact were needed, a neutral party could pass the messages along or take care of the issue themselves.

• If any violation of the terms were to take place, ASE would be blocked for 72 hours, then 1 week, then 1 month, then 6 months, then indef...in that order of progression.

I feel this is the best that allows ASE some freedom, but also reels him in and keeps the BM/ASE "feud" to a minimum. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 09:55, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

• I personally believe that Allstar shouldn't even be monitoring the article now. He should knock it off his watchlist and never look back - leave it to others that aren't emotionally involved. If he does this, he'll never have a reason to make AN/I reports so I don't support this. He seriously needs to move on to another part of the wiki and remove himself from this area completely. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 10:16, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • That is a good idea, but sadly we can't control what is on user's watchlists, else I would add that to the list above. Good idea though. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 10:30, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
    • The point I was trying to make is that Allstar needs to recognise that he's not needed (and frankly not wanted) in this area anymore. We shouldn't be going out of our way to allow him to still edit there or even make reports - there's plenty of other people and his obsession with Matt is slightly unhealthy. He's been told what his restrictions are (no mention of Matt on the site) - if he doesn't like it then he can go somewhere else. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 10:53, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
      • I understand what you are trying to say. Kinda part of the reason I don't think this proposal will do well is I am giving ASE that freedom to report BM to ANI (after 12 hours or before to an admin via email). I guess I am just trying to help a friend keep as much freedom as he can get. Like I said, that is part of the reason I don't feel this proposal will do well, but I do understand what you are saying. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 10:59, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
        • Also, your proposal does not prohibit ASE from commenting on or to BM anywhere else on the wiki apart from the pages you have mentioned. This is essential - he shouldn't be commenting at all, anywhere, ever again. Black Kite 11:19, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
          • I knew I forgot something. I really tried to add everything that is already out there. I will add that to it. Sorry. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 11:33, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

This is where wikipedia often goes wrong - we aren't here to help users modify their behaviour, we don't provide a social working service. If people can stop themselves in engaging in certain behaviour after being told by the community to stop, then that is their problem not ours. The message here has been fairly consistent, he leaves the editor alone, he leaves the area alone. The easiest way to do that would be unwatchlist the stuff - if he's unable to do that or refrain from holding his tongue, that's his problem not ours and should be managed as such. --Cameron Scott (talk) 11:16, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

• "We can always see what who he writes in the email archives setup" huh? If this says what I think it is saying (that we can review email sent via Special:Emailuser), it's plain wrong. –xeno^talk 13:04, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • It does say "A private log of this action will be retained for the purpose of preventing abuse, and can be viewed by certain privileged users", but it also says that "This log does not identify the recipient, title, or contents of the e-mail", so I guess that is out. I was trying to cover all the bases, but I guess I didn't read things very well. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 13:07, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Yes, and that is only used in extreme and severe cases of abuse. –xeno^talk 13:08, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
      • Yeah, my goof :S I removed the section in question cause I was obviously wrong about it. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 13:10, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
        • No worries. As per my comments above, I don't think ASE has had a history of issues with Durova, and the present issues appear to only be because of her mentorship of BM. Without supporting or opposing this new proposal, I think the explicit Durova mention should be removed. The other restrictions wrt to BM would cover him commenting on anything related to Durova's mentoring of the same. –xeno^talk 13:20, 27 August 2009 (UTC) Amended per [56]. –xeno^talk 02:23, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
• This is too complicated and unnecessary. It's pretty clear what everyone is asking ASE to do and what we need to remember is that this isn't a negotiation with him. Following Cameron Scott, we aren't here to help people develop themselves emotionally: if ASE simply refuses to follow what is asked of him (or offer a reasonable alternative that is agreed upon), then screw him and we move on. If he wants to follow the guy around and comment on him all day, he'll be blocked and he can continue to rant on his own space. There are plenty of jerks and jackasses in our midst and we cannot follow a policy of "I know you told me not to interact with them but they deserve it." That are a million quieter ways of doing this and ASE knows it. He's just putting himself out there so he can play martyr. To me, this is no worse that numerous editors' logic of "I know you all told me not to do these things but it's SO crucial that I tell everyone that it doesn't matter." -- Ricky81682 (talk) 15:11, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose - ASE was restricted, he knew he could contact any admin privately, instead he decided to ignore the restriction (as he had previously announced he would) and play the martyr (as usual). Frankly I don't understand why we are wasting our time. The endless copyvios (and lies about them), the bullshit about the glory hole photo, the bullshit about the cross-namespace vanity shortcuts, the Bluemarine stuff--which he was just blocked for a couple days ago, and now again... why are we wasting our time with him? He's not here in any capacity that includes behaving in a reasonable manner or fessing up once caught; the repeated martyr complex and the--I'll be charitable--disingenuous claims of innocence are ridiculous enough. → ROUX ₪ 16:20, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

• To be quite frank, I really don't care who is "gay", "straight", "conservative", "liberal" ... whatever. Guidelines were put in place in an attempt to limit the disruption here. ASE willfully chose to test those guidelines. ASE does some damn fine work here, but the emotional outbursts, and refusal to accept the community's will simply has to stop. I think it's time for ASE to sit down for a bit and consider his approach here. No "kick-him-to-the-curb" thing, just a time-out for reflection. This project is an encyclopedic effort ... not an emotional discharge station. ASE ... THINK before you hit that "Save page" button. Stick to the facts, the references, and the topic at hand. The community is not a foolish one, and it is quite capable of dealing with the inevitable errors that happen here. Take a break, admit when you're wrong, and come back with a dedicated NPOV purpose. — Ched :  ?  17:32, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Bluemarine must be laughing. He has a tame editor prepared to edit the Matt Sanchez article for him and he has prominent defenders and enablers to ensure that legitimate concerns about his behaviour can be dismissed solely on the grounds of the person reporting them. The community is not a foolish one? Pull the other one. DuncanHill (talk) 17:41, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Duncan, given that there is consensus that Bluemarine did nothing wrong here while ASE did, your hyperbole is even more off the mark than usual. → ROUX ₪ 18:47, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe that Bluemarine's behaviour was in clear breach of at least the spirit of the restriction, but as was to be expected, discussion of Bluemarine was rapidly, deliberately and misleadingly turned into a chance to beat ASE with a stick. Your opinion is just as valued as usual. DuncanHill (talk) 18:56, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Woah. I see no such consensus, since it's clear the he did violate his restrictions, but is allowed to get away with it over and over again. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 19:05, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

It's fairly clear in reading this discussion that the consensus is that he did not violate his restriction. He was not prohibited from commenting on the talk page of Matt Sanchez, only from mainspace editing on that article. --Vassyana (talk) 19:10, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I think we already have a clear restriction and ASE was told clearly how to report infractions by BM off-wiki when he lodged the declined RFAR. That ASE chose to ignore that instruction and put their opinion over that of BMs appointed mentor is frankly, well, stupid because ASE must have known it would get them blocked. 31 hours is pretty generous for a block if you want my opinion, I would have gone for a minimum of 72 hours given the recent block and the deliberate nature of the infraction... The enxt one will be much longer I'm sure. I'm tired of the disruption and ASE needs to stand back now and stop precipitating drama. Spartaz ^Humbug! 18:40, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Who is Bluemarine's mentor? I thought Durova had resigned. ASE did report by email and had no response, and there is no facility for ASE to get community feedback on such matters without getting a further block. The problem isn't ASE, the problem is Bluemarine and ASE. Attempts to fix things by picking on one editor are bound to fail, and to fail in a way that leaves the situation worse than it had been before. DuncanHill (talk) 18:49, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Isn't it BlueMarine's behavior which precipitates the drama? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 19:05, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) (ec) To DuncanHill: Bluemarine did nothing wrong in this instance or recently and did not violate his restrictions. On the counterpoint, ASE has crossed far over the line here and recently. This is clearly supported by the general consensus here and there is no evidence that Bluemarine is gaming the system. That is not a defense of Bluemarine's views, purported or actual. We're not here to debate who has the more palatable views. This is simply a matter of basic conduct expectations. Muddying the waters with personal accusations, debates about the desirability of certain views, and so on is simply disruptive. On a related point specific to you, many of your comments in this discussion have been not only counterproductive, but in explicit violation of two core common sense policies (no attacks and "BLP"). If you continue to violate either or both of these principles, you will be sanctioned to curb the disruption. --Vassyana (talk) 19:04, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Woah, woah, woah. Wait. You are threatening people for daring to disagree with your opinion? May I suggest a similar threat to Vassyana, that any such action result in Vassyana being "sanctioned"? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 19:19, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't really know what our standards of behavior are any more. It seems that unless you tell another editor, "fuck you and the horse you rode in on and if you don't shut the fuck up I'll rape your sister" then you are pretty much free to say anything. DuncanHill's recent comments ("Bluemarine is an outspoken homophobe", "self-promoting bigot", "enablers") are far outside the bounds of what I would consider decent conversation. Editors ought to treat each other with respect and decency, and find civil ways to express disagreements. Imagine if we were professional encyclopedia editors sitting around a common conference table in a real office. Would people dare say some of the nasty things they write if they knew they might run into their target in the parking lot or at the market? The only thing wrong with blocking DuncanHill for being rude and making personal attacks it that Wikipedia's standards are so far out of whack that a block would be considered too controversial. Bluemarine will be dealt with if he continues to act out. Name-calling is for children. Thatcher 19:34, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Your conjunction of "fuck you and the horse you rode in on and if you don't shut the fuck up I'll rape your sister" and "outspoken homophobe" reveals much about your confused state of mind, as you say. And in reply to your question "Would people dare say some of the nasty things they write if they knew they might run into their target in the parking lot or at the market", the answer is an unequivocal "Yes, of course. To do otherwise would be cowardly." --Malleus Fatuorum 19:41, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Whatever. I am saddened and somewhat depressed that calling another editor an outspoken homophobe and a bigot is taken as a sign of courage. Although, since Bluemarine's last block was for calling Allstarecho a "pervert" and an "idiot", wasn't he being courageous too? Thatcher 19:55, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

It saddens me to see that "signs of courage" are met with threats of sanctions. Calling someone what they have demonstrated themselves to be would only considered a "personal attack" here in the wikiwonderland of fluffy fantasy. --Malleus Fatuorum 20:02, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

No. Bluemarine is a homophobe, or at the very least a very confused person given to homophobic utterances. That is a label that he has brought upon himself by his own actions and comments; courage doesn't enter into it, since it is likely he sees nothing wrong with disparaging somebodies orientation. Calling someone a pervert because their sexuality is not one the same as the majority, even though in these enlightened times it is legal and nominally tolerated, is a scandalous breach of NPA and civility which seems to have been pushed to one side. I consider that calling Bluemarine a homophobe is simply attaching an appropriate label that the editor has deserved by his comments - calling AllStarEcho a "pervert" for his orientation/lifestyle choice is a violation of policy. Very different things. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:09, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

(To Thatcher, after ec) If you can't see the difference between calling a gay man a "pervert", and calling someone who has made many public homophobic comments "an outspoken homophobe", I feel truly sorry for you. DuncanHill (talk) 20:12, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

• Someone close these threads. Calling people names is inappropriate and unhelpful to this discussion. The comments Bluemarine made some time ago were wrong, but have not been repeated recently and there was no violation of his editing restrictions in this instance. His restrictions and Allstar's have been clarified. Let's get back to POV pushing editing articles. ChildofMidnight (talk) 20:37, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Some time ago = this month. DuncanHill (talk) 20:56, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• The Matt Sanchez biography has been abused as part of a wide-ranging campaign of Internet harassment. An individual runs a spoof site that purports to be Matt's personal website and also maintains a noticeboard for the purpose of making Matt's life difficult. Matt has been impersonated at various websites including Wikipedia, and there have been times when those impersonations have been cited at Matt's Wikipedia biography as if they were self-published sources. During the Bluemarine arbitration case Matt's personal computer was hacked and his bank account was emptied. Other offsite harassment has followed which remains very serious and ongoing. None of this exonerates Matt's past conduct; he was banned with good reason. When people attempt to reform they get another chance after a while. Matt speaks four languages fluently, travels to Europe and Asia regularly, and has an Ivy League education. I have encouraged him to rise above the provocations and earn respect within the Wikipedia community. This should not prevent him from seeking assistance to correct the real problems at his biography; experienced Wikipedians are welcome to help achieve the appropriate balance there. Durova³⁰⁶ 22:09, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• I think we're all done here. Ncmvocalist (talk) 02:51, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Not done

Actually, no, we aren't all done here. It's great to have a lynching party when the person being lynched is blocked and can't participate in the discussion, to defend one's self or defend the lies that have been stated in this thread...

• Fact: I did report the topic ban violation to an uninvolved administrator off-wiki. Ask User:Keegan. As nothing appeared to have been done a day later, I then reported it here at ANI.
• Most Important Fact: The topic ban was violated.. it said he was banned from the article pages.. plural. Aside from that, the ban also says he's banned from LGBT related articles and talk pages "broadly construed", which the related article is - LGBT categories, LGBT project tag.. but no one cared to look at the facts, they just wanted more blood from me.
• Fact: Aside from me calling Durova a liar yesterday, her and I have never had a fight or any other bad blood. It was stupid and jackassery to add her to my topic ban. While it may seem like a personal attack calling someone a liar.. when they are lieing, that's what you call them, period. I called her a liar because of this comment she made in this very thread. She conveniently left out the fact that another user tagged the IP as a sock of Bluemarine. All I did was file the SPI case to make sure.. to prove it's him, or clear him of socking allegations. I'll provide diffs as proof upon request. But of course, as I said, Durova leaves out this fact, knowing full well while I'm blocked, I can't prove her wrong in this ANI thread. Reminds me of when she blocked User:!! - screaming that user was a sock but no proof. Well, now the proof is present for what really happened with that SPI case I filed and for her lieing. If she feels that's a personal attack, then please accept my apologies here and now but I stand by it.
• Fact: It would have been much more simpler and we all got on with our lives if people had said "OK, we recognize you reported this privately to an admin. Nothing was done in a day. Now you've reported it here at ANI. No, we don't think that's a violation of Bluemarine's topic ban, thanks for reporting it. Now move along"? But naw, that wouldn't be the way things are done on Wikipedia. Instead, we have a lynch mob circus who instead of dealing with the message, want to shoot the messenger.

Well, I've said all I'm going to say on the matter. If you feel this is another violation of my own topic ban, then by all means, please see who can cross the finish line first to block me.. frankly I don't give a shit. Sorry to come off like this but if you wanna treat me like a thug, I'll act like one. -     allstar▼echo     07:36, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if everyone feels good about themselves now. You all have placed more unneeded restrictions on a user, you all have allowed another to run rampant unchecked, you essentially have acted like bullies on a freakin' power trip. When you start putting unrealistic restrictions on a person, you are taking this WEBSITE waaaay too seriously and need to take a nice long wikibreak and come back with fresh eyes. This is sad...very sad. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 10:58, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

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

Bluemarine, Possible Violation of Restrictions

With regards to this striking edit of another users text, I believe this is in clear violation of his "prohibited from editing LGBT article topics and related talk pages, broadly construed" rule. Since the the subject of the post is LGBT related, that would be a violation in my eyes. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 11:26, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Since his talkpage makes it clear that he *can* edit the talk page of the article on him, I guess you need to head back to the ranch and ask the voice what to do next. --Cameron Scott (talk) 11:33, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh nice, a schizophrenia joke. So, he is allowed to strike other users comments? When did that become allowed? - NeutralHomer • Talk • 11:36, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I was not suggesting the voice was in your head. I mean.. come on.. AGF does not require us to be stupid. --Cameron Scott (talk) 11:39, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

You are over-reacting and acting as a bad-faith drama-queen because your friend was restricted on the voice of community consensus and blocked for violating prior restrictions. seicer | talk | contribs 11:44, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Exactly who are you refering to? If it is me, I just report 'em like I see 'em. You want to let Bluemarine run rampant around Wikipedia, you be the hypocrite. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 11:47, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Seicer made a homophobic personal attack - proving I think a point I have tried to make before. DuncanHill (talk) 11:48, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

What? where? --Cameron Scott (talk) 11:50, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Pretty obvious - "bad faith drama-queen" combined with the unnecessary emphasis on "friend". DuncanHill (talk) 11:53, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Everyone, please assume good faith, tone it down and don't escalate this so that another case is needed amongst yourselves. DuncanHill, I didn't read it as a personal attack - I think you're adding meaning where there was none. Ncmvocalist (talk) 12:03, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Cameron, pull your head of your...and look at the big picture instead of going after me. BLuemarine struck comments made by another user, even if he didn't violate his restrictions, that is still silencing a desenting voice and should be addressed. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 11:52, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

It appears that ChildOfMidnight has advised him of this and the edit has been reverted [57]. I'm not sure what you're after - would you like an uninvolved admin to give him a formal note about it on his talk page so that it doesn't happen again? Ncmvocalist (talk) 12:10, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Maybe one of those harshly-worded letters from the United Nations? DuncanHill, can you please provide citations where my comments were homophobic, and where I have made them in the last few years that I've been here? You are the first to call me out for that! Here are two definitions for your reference. If you can retract your bovine comment... This in no way offends steers, bulls and calfs. They are very delicious. Kthxbye. seicer | talk | contribs 12:12, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Just that he (Bluemarine) knows he is not allowed to strike others comments he doesn't like. If no one sees a restriction violation, then a formal note on the striking is fine with me. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 12:14, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I'll write a note. Ncmvocalist (talk) 12:29, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I would particularly like to draw editors' attention to the comment by Bluemarine "The comment directly above this one are from a very strange detractor of mine at cplsanchez.info--a fetish fan site authored by a somewhat disturbed individual who has an unrequited attraction to me", and remind them of Bluemarine's previous history of personal attacks based on the sexuality (stated or assumed) of other contributors. I am sorry that Cameron Scott feels that this sort of language is acceptable.DuncanHill (talk) 11:35, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

The attack on the IP is most definitely not in order... MLauba (talk) 11:40, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

ASE's first substantial edit after his block ended was to yet againbring up the blue marine nonsense, and edit Durova's comment, both of which are violations of his topic ban, and kicked this thread back up after the whole situation had died down. Why do we need to keep adding drama to this situation? Let it die people. He got testy with an IP, but it wasn't anything beyond the pale. Leave him a note if you have a problem and things might get done. It certainly worked when I did. Running to tell and jump on anything are unproductive. Drama is considered harmful. --M^ask? 12:11, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• In my opinion that wasn't a violation of the ban, but he should be instructed not to repeat it. NetralHomer please be aware that repeating the behaviour that got ASE the topic ban will likely get you the same. The point of it was to stem the flow of "teh drama" surrounding BM ASE and now apparently you, you would do well to disengage from the situation as well. Viridae^Talk 12:38, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I wanted everyone's opinion on the situation, I got that....but I also get threatened for a topic ban. I say go for it. You want to topic ban me, by all means. Totally unnecessary, dude. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 12:40, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Should BM's community sanction be amended to include "you will not be blocked for personal attacks on IP editors"? As that now appears to be the case. DuncanHill (talk) 12:42, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
      • I think BM's community sanction should be recended all together as it is not being enforced. No admin is enforcing the restrictions, so why have it. BM will be the new Betacommand. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 12:48, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Un-archiving because this segment was not resolved. The people who watch this situation should be aware that Matt was referring to Pwok, who has been sitebanned for two years and apparently continues to evade that ban in attempts to degrade Matt and occasionally to impersonate him. There actually is an impersonation site dedicated to Matt Sanchez under the domain cplsanchez.info. It appears to be operated by this banned user Pwok, who for over two years has demonstrated a hostile and persistent interest in Matt's former pornography career which would be difficult to describe without the word obsessive. In short, what Matt was attempting to do was the policy-compliant act of striking an edit by a banned user. His accompanying words were not well chosen--he didn't consult me about it--and the circumstances are so unusual that a plain description can be mistaken for attack or hyperbole. Situations like this are why mentorship exists. To both Matt and the other editors who involve themselves in this matter: please make use of it. Durova³⁰⁶ 23:32, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Allstarecho in obvious and unambiguous violation of editing restriction

Enough drama on this. ASE has already been warned, several admins reviewed the edit cited and declined to block. Take it to your talk pages if you want to bicker and argue amongst yourselves. –xenotalk 14:24, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
As AKMask pointed out above, Allstarecho has violated the terms of his editing restriction. I know, I was as surprised as anyone. Can someone thick-skinned please issue the block? Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:03, 28 August 2009 (UTC) He's already been sternly warned by an admin - can you just for one day stop your despicable behaviour? DuncanHill (talk) 14:10, 28 August 2009 (UTC) Um, this might not be the place to discuss it, but what part of my behaviour is "despicable"? Far too much time and energy is being taken up by this drama (on all sides). There were several long discussions about this. I didn't happen to agree with the addition of Durova to the restriction, but it was enacted, so it should be enforced. Allstarecho knew what he was doing when he decided to violate it. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:22, 28 August 2009 (UTC) If the goal is to reduce drama, follow up on all the bluster and noise of recent days by actually enforcing the terms of the editing restriction. Otherwise, it just sets up the next round of accusations, evasions, and arguments. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:32, 28 August 2009 (UTC) Xeno, who first deleted the entire thread and now seems satisfied to simply move my comments into the collapsed section so they won't be seen, moved my last comment about reducing drama with the edit summary "moving hab lower. replying in edit summary only: i believe the reasoning was to give ASE a little break to allow him to settle into the new , more stringent , editing restriction, which will likely be strictly enforced". I'm adding it here so that it will be visible as part of the thread. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 15:32, 28 August 2009 (UTC) You don't find it ironic that you're pleading for a drama reduction by insisting on re-doing dramatic messages here? You're being dramatic about dramatic removal of your previous dramatic postings about AllStarEcho's dramatic postings. You're going to collapse in on yourself and become a dramatic black hole soon. Wknight94 talk 15:36, 28 August 2009 (UTC) It's always a danger. I don't intend to add anything else here, but since the thread has been started and Xeno offered a rationale of why there was no block, it seemed like it should be here. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 15:41, 28 August 2009 (UTC) Forgive me for commenting on the apparent tail end of this, but what Wknight94 just said is both well said and very amusing at the same time. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 15:44, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Sweetfornow copyvios, no communication

*see previous AN/I thread here Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive558#Sweetfornow.C2.A0.28talk.C2.A0.C2.B7_contribs.29_new_account.2C_edit_warring.2C_no_communication.2C_copyvios.2C_many_issues

Sweetfornow (talk · contribs) I reported this user before, because of an IP editing a similar page I suspected sock-puppetry. It was determined that sweetfornow wasn't related to the IP, however the user still engaged in numerous problem edits 99% of which ended up reverted. The account didn't edit for a few days and I just thought to check. First edit back, was reinserting a copyvio [58], and most recently here [59]. The user has a serious problem with copy and pasting and their only response is to blank warnings.--Crossmr (talk) 12:28, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

• Er … what? The edit to Paris Hilton that you point to is nothing but the insertion of two paragraph breaks that turns one paragraph into three. There's no change to the prose at all. Where is the copyright violation? Uncle G (talk) 13:48, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Oops, a bad google search mislead me. Normally it seems these days that google filters wiki mirrors when you search for text, but for some reason it didn't this time and I saw a facebook and a couple paris hilton domains in the search results and thought it was a copy and paste off a press release or something. I misread the breaking up of the paragraphs. I thought the second paragraph was a new insert, but their first edit back was still a reversion of a removed copyvio and still no communication over it.--Crossmr (talk) 14:05, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia mirrors come up all of the time on Google Web for me. You're right about the other edit being word-for-word identical with the source cited. I've looked over the other edits made since the 23rd and nothing leaps out at me. You've reverted the copyright violation, and there don't appear to be others. Is there any other problem that you have seen? If not, there seems to be no basis for any action. Uncle G (talk) 19:40, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
      • Really? Lately when I've done searches for text, google has been collapsing all mirrors into a single result. Only when I click "see similar" on the wikipedia entry does it then turn around and list tons of mirrors. The editor has also been using bad sources (imdb repeated times) or otherwise inserting bad info into some articles. This edit to Lindsay lohan [60] inserts info known to be bad several weeks ago[61], and info that is even corrected on IMDB[62] which the user seems to often be using for source. Both before and after the break they've tried to change info in one article with bad sources [63], [64], reverted both times, but at no point has this user ever acknowledged the warnings, or said anything to defend themselves. Given that the bad edits are still going on as of a couple days ago, I see that to be a significant issue with a new account.--Crossmr (talk) 00:46, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
        • Yes, really. I put "user crossmr" into Google Web, and the first Wikipedia mirror of your user page is result #17. Other mirrors are listed as results #46 and #49. That was from just a quick skim of the first five pages of results. Uncle G (talk) 02:09, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
          • Interesting, I'm not sure why some of my previous searches have resulted in google collapsing all the mirrors to a single result (obviously not this time). In the meantime we still have a user who has under 100 edits, has engaged in an edit war, inserted multiple copyvios, BLP issues, restores a fact tag from months before their account was created, blanks warnings, and refuses to respond to any concerns about their editing.--Crossmr (talk) 07:39, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Sbakuria

Further information: [[:Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Claim of libel at Alexander Mashkevitch|Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard § Claim of libel at Alexander Mashkevitch]]

Background of problems with this user: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Sbakuria and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive558#User:Sbakuria(talk) and Alexander Mashkevitch. One version of Alexander Mashkevitch(Talk) was deleted for copyvio, so a lot of the history of this dispute has been lost. Requests for user to discuss before making significant edits (content and reference removal, poor formatting) continue to be ignored, user has also resumed behaviour after temporary blocks from editing.

I'm wondering if a ban and/or some kind of page protection (in case Sbakuria resorts to using IPs) would be appropriate.

Involved Parties - User:Sbakuria(talk), User:Bricklayer (talk), User:PhilKnight(talk) and myself. Rtdixon86 (talk) 15:53, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

• Ok, this is ridiculous. This user was blocked twice revert-warring in support of copyright violations, continues to revert war, and has had an RFC against him/her and still has effectively never responded to any message. I'm in favor of a long temporary block (say 1 week) to make the point that this user needs to start talking to people. Not to mention this user is probably editing an article on a family member. Mangojuice^talk 16:16, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• It gets worse. The account has uploaded several images with the claim that they are xyr own work. But xe has declared at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files/2009 July 10 that the images are the work of someone else.

  However, the charges of continued prose copyright violation, along the lines of the now-deleted edits, are not borne out by the recent edits. As can be seen from this diff, the edits are simple, and somewhat inept, content blanking. The repeated edit summary is that this content is "libellous". The charge of non-communication is also not borne out. This account has communicated with PhilKnight on xyr talk page, here, stating again xyr assertion that xe is removing libellous material.

  I recommend taking the libel charge seriously and checking the content for neutrality and verifiability. I have taken the administrative action, based upon the fact that several prior "Dr. Mashkevitch with …" image uploads by this account have been deleted as improperly licenced and having insufficient/misleading authorship information, with no attempt by the uploader to remedy this continued problem despite requests on xyr talk page, of speedily deleting all of the suspect "Dr. Mashkevitch with …" images, on the grounds that it wasn't true before, several of the images are just re-uploads, this person's track record with copyright is clearly not a good one, and xe has even acknowledged the improper authorship statement in one case.

  By the way, given the account name, given that this account created Tsotne Bakuria, and given the "I made this." at File:Tsotne 3.JPG, File:Tsotne Two.JPG, and File:Tsotne One.JPG, there's a far more likely and straightforward possibility than that this person is a relative of M. Mashkevitch.

  I repeat, for emphasis, that the libel charge on the living person biography should be dealt with seriously, and not casually dismissed just because this is an edit warrior who violates copyright. Uncle G (talk) 03:39, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks, yes, of course we should take the libel issue seriously too. I think there might be some real cause for concern: I left a comment on the talk page about the material Sbakuria was removing. I'd appreciate someone else taking a look and seeing what they think of my comments, soon, so that if a change is necessary it can be made quickly. Mangojuice^talk 14:00, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I understand the claims made in the article are a problem, but its difficult to check the claims made and decide which sources are reliable and which aren't if Sbakuria won't communicate. Are there any guides for checking reliability of sources? Rtdixon86 (talk) 14:42, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Tendentious discussion at Talk:Speed of light

A bunch of us are (at the least, I am) getting rather annoyed by one editor who makes a series of bizarre claims such as that the speed of light is not defined as 299 792 458 m/s, that the speed of light ceased to be meaningful after the 1983 definition of the BIPM as being exactly 299 792 458 m/s, that the speed of light defined by the BIPM is not the "actual" speed of light but rather some "unrelated" conversion factor between lenghts and time, and so on. For scale, the long talk page you'll see is the result of 9 days of these discussion, which are now simply repetitions of old ones (which are now archived, even if they are 2-3 weeks old at best). This is related, although different, to the recent topic ban of User:David Tombe. Looking for advice (wheter admin action is necessary, I'll leave up to the admins to decide). Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 16:11, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes things around here travel at the Speed of Smell. Anyway, WP:Consensus is key - and article content disputes are rarely actionable 'round here. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 10:50, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Having encountered him on these pages a few days ago, you certainly have my sympathy. Jehochman told him that he was from that Talk page back on 19 August, so if he continued to edit it after that date he should be sanctioned per WP:ARBPS -- unless a later discussion on that page reversed Jehochman's ruling. (I stopped following the matter a couple of days ago, so I don't know what the situation is with him currently -- beyond the fact he is contributing under borrowed time.) -- llywrch (talk) 19:01, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I think the complaint concerns Brews ohare (talk · contribs), who seems to be continuing User:David_Tombe's fringe arguments and has made close to a 1000 edits on the talk page over the last 45 days. Abecedare (talk) 03:31, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

She wields a lasergun

Resolved

 – Used indef'd for legal threats, inappropriate edit summaries, etc. –xeno^talk 16:54, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

She wields a lasergun (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I gave this user a {{uw-npa4im}} after seeing these edit summaries [65][66]. In what was probably not my best judgement, I replied. Now apparently, if I reply again, I will be reported to the police. I know that I'm just being trolled at this point, but would an admin mind stepping in and putting an end to this? Thanks. Apparition^{11 Complaints}/Mistakes 16:48, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

• This repellent edit summary is more than enough for an indef, imho. → ROUX ₪ 16:52, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Zeno's on it like white on rice. Tan | 39 16:53, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for the quick responses! Apparition^{11 Complaints}/Mistakes 16:56, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

It's a shame, in one respect. The actual edits in those diffs were some worthwhile copyediting, correcting punctuation and grammar that was rather bad. But the edit summaries and the talk page response were unacceptable. Uncle G (talk) 19:48, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

If you think they'd respond to mentoring and are willing to put some effort in... Indef is not permanent... Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 03:27, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Mcalison

• Mcalison (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Hello, I was going through new page patrol and noticed this user, tagged one of there artices for deletion as WP:CSD#A3, but after looking at there contribs most of them seemed to only be adding an external link to random articles. Not sure this is spamming, could someone look into this. Feinoha ^{Talk, My master} 23:03, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

• I had a look at the 4 most recent diff's and they looked ok to me, relevant and not under WP:ELNO, the links weren't added with any promotional intent from what I saw. Jeffrey Mall (talk • contribs) - 00:24, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
  • User notified about this thread, this is mandatory. Exxolon (talk) 00:28, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

In this case, as in most cases - spam is defined not so much by the content of the site... as by the behavior of the individuals adding the links. In addition, typically all sites that are owned by a single company or individual, its about generating traffic and increasing exposure. The big picture shows someone who is using Wikipedia to promote their own interests. from, Special:Contributions/Mcalison

• 23:03, 27 August 2009 (hist) (diff) m Karmapa ‎ (→External links) (top)
• 22:59, 27 August 2009 (hist) (diff) m Warlpiri ‎ (→External links) (top)
• 22:58, 27 August 2009 (hist) (diff) m Warlpiri ‎ (→External links)
• 22:50, 27 August 2009 (hist) (diff) m Prison Dharma Network ‎ (→External links) (top)
• 22:42, 27 August 2009 (hist) (diff) m Thomas Keating ‎ (→External links) (top)
• 22:39, 27 August 2009 (hist) (diff) m Duane Elgin ‎ (→External links) (top)
• 22:32, 27 August 2009 (hist) (diff) m Indigenous peoples in Ecuador ‎ (→External Links) (top)
• 22:30, 27 August 2009 (hist) (diff) m Indigenous peoples in Ecuador ‎ (→References)
• 22:21, 27 August 2009 (hist) (diff) m Dean Radin ‎ (→External links) (top)
• 22:18, 27 August 2009 (hist) (diff) m Dean Radin ‎ (→External links) (Tag: repeated addition of external links by non-autoconfirmed user)
• 22:13, 27 August 2009 (hist) (diff) m Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa ‎ (→External links) (top)
• 22:12, 27 August 2009 (hist) (diff) m Cliff Curtis ‎ (→External links) (top)
• 22:06, 27 August 2009 (hist) (diff) m Kagyu ‎ (→Drukpa Kagyu) (top)
• 21:55, 27 August 2009 (hist) (diff) m Bob Randall ‎ (→External links) (top)
• 21:51, 27 August 2009 (hist) (diff) m Ngarrindjeri ‎ (→External links) (top)
• 21:50, 27 August 2009 (hist) (diff) Ngarrindjeri ‎ (→External links)
• 21:50, 27 August 2009 (hist) (diff) m Ngarrindjeri ‎ (→External links)
• 21:47, 27 August 2009 (hist) (diff) Wananga ‎ (→External Links) (top)
• 21:47, 27 August 2009 (hist) (diff) m Wananga ‎ (→External Links)
• 21:46, 27 August 2009 (hist) (diff) m Wananga ‎ (Added External Link)
• 23:34, 26 August 2009 (hist) (diff) m Angel Kyodo Williams ‎ (Added External Link) (top)
• 23:32, 26 August 2009 (hist) (diff) m Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cuenca ‎ (Added External Link) (top)

Asside from the obvious SPAM and WP:NOT#REPOSITORY, one needs to consider a Wikipedia pillar...neutrality, adding the same domain over and over is contradictory to this. The account appears, based on their edit history, to exist for the sole or primary purpose of promoting this one website in apparent violation of Conflict of interest and anti-spam guidelines. Yes, the internet is full of good material, but Wikipedia is not a directory to that content.--Hu12 (talk) 16:32, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Mcalison's only activity on Wikipedia is the addition of these links. I would support undoing all their edits up to this point. We should listen carefully to any response they may give to this complaint, but their record so far is not promising. Video interviews may conceivably have value, but mass addition of such links is hard to accept. Seventh Generation Fund and Freddy Ehlers, now deleted as A3, seem to have been created only so that they could be a receptacle for the added link to the respective interview. We depend upon our editors having good judgment and we don't want them to be entirely devoted to promoting some external activity, like the site that hosts these interviews. No objection if this editor wants to add some relevant content to the respective articles that could be sourced to the interview of the subject. If some random editor who was trying to improve article content had come across one of these interviews and felt it belonged as a link, that would be different. EdJohnston (talk) 18:14, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree, I've reverted this users edits. Additionaly it would seem those two article above were in fact only created for, and only contained a "link" to globalonenessproject.org. I've also found a more IP's;

• globalonenessproject.org: Linksearch en - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • MER-C Cross-wiki • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced • COIBot-Local - COIBot-XWiki - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.org • Live link: http://www.globalonenessproject.org
  24.5.87.191 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
  173.11.72.161 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
  

Also although it may not be related, when you link to the root domain (globalonenessproject.org) it closes the browser. weird...--Hu12 (talk) 20:18, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Responsibility to report?

I just reverted this and I'm wondering what to do next. Wondering: Is abuse happening, or is this just a perfectly happy kid/family that wants to state their opinion? I was going to send a welcome note and/or a note to seek police/school assistance, but IP appears to be an Alabama ISP and could be a shared home PC (would be bad if the wrong person received the talk notice). Any thoughts?  7  01:04, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• Although yeah that could be a child in trouble, it could also just be a random 13 year old who has an opinion about the subject of Child Abuse worthy of only a level 1 vandalism warning, there isn't really evidence of anything happening, it might not even be a child who made the edit! Jeffrey Mall (talk • contribs) - 01:11, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Agreed, could be completely innocuous. However, at this point I'd rather not warn them for the edit which might draw attention to it from the wrong person. Unless someone else disagrees I'll just watch this IPs contribs for a few days and make sure nothing else pops up. On this topic though, are there any WP specific guidelines for how to handle these types of issues (where there might need to be some official notification made to authorities) for my future reference?  7  01:38, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Start with Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm and read the links elsewhere and the associated talk page discussions, for starters. Uncle G (talk) 01:59, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
      • Thanks Uncle G.  7  02:12, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

In my experience, a common form of edit is to click an edit link and add a self-evident statement to an article; my guess is that it's done by a child wanting to leave their mark on an article. I don't see this edit as being any different from adding "Catapults were used to throw rocks" to Catapult, or "The Spruce Goose was a big airplane" to Spruce Goose (both of which I've seen). --Carnildo (talk) 23:47, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Una Smith

Resolved

This user continues to make disruptive edits despite being warned by multiple users not to.[67][68]. She is changing links from Durham, England to Durham, England, using the redirect for no reason. The discussion at Talk:Durham#Requested move hasn't even finished yet, and it doesn't look like consensus to move Durham to Durham, England is going to come along any time soon. I'm calling for a short block of this user, as they refuse to stop their disruptive edits. Jeni ^(talk) 01:05, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd suggest a 48 hour block to any admin who reviews this situation.--^{The Legendary}_{Sky Attacker} 01:13, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this is a problem, and has the net effect of edit-warring. I'm in a generous mood, so I left a warning on her talk page- if she makes another similar edit, though, I think the next admin to look should go ahead and block her. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 01:21, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

The list of people who have tried, and failed, to work constructively with Una is long. This by far isn't the first time she's been involved in disruptive movement related discussions. Usually folk just keep their fingers crossed she finds another subject area to grace with her attentions before she wreaks too much havoc in theirs. ++Lar: t/c 02:17, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Blocked for 31h. Next? Black Kite 02:38, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Is this something, well, I really don't know how to put it

Resolved

This has a strange feeling to it, just checking.User:Shazoo1Abce2|Aww nuts!Wribbit!(Sign here) 04:12, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• I'll not act unilaterally here, but I was about 1 second from deleting the userpage per WP:SOAPBOX and WP:USERPAGE as a clearly inappropriate use of the userspace. Any other suggestions? I'm off to bed, but if any other admin wants to delete, that would get my full support. --Jayron32 04:27, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I've tagged the userpage as an attack page. The last four sentences of the soapboaxing indicate that the user is attempting to defame the U.S. Marines. Cunard (talk) 04:36, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
• I acted unilaterally, and used my ordinary editing tool. I also used it on the account's talk page. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 04:38, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so that was something. I was just making sure, didn't want to start something nasty...Abce2|Aww nuts!Wribbit!(Sign here) 04:39, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Also, is anyone else getting edit change lag?Abce2|Aww nuts!Wribbit!(Sign here) 04:42, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

BlackpoolKickboxer2008 in a deletion discussion

In a MfD discussion about BlackpoolKickboxer2008's sandboxes he expressed his will to have them kept by removing mfd notices from them and telling that he will keep recreating the pages, with sockpuppets if his current account gets blocked. In my opinion such behavior is way over the line, and especially since it seems that he really means it, something should be done to prevent it. Kotiwalo (talk) 05:19, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure on a technical level much can be done. He doesn't really edit the actual encyclopedia that much, so it's not like we'll miss him for his nonsense and if yes, he creates a ton of socks who just create sandbox pages, the only thing I can think of is a Wikipedia:Edit filter to alter us of his nonsense. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:29, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think he will sock-recreate the pages for long if the pages are deleted and the socks blocked quickly. What's the point of publishing scoreboards if they'll stay online for only brief periods? Kotiwalo (talk) 06:55, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

ALSO: 2 IP accounts that voted on this AfD had also contributed to BlackpoolKickboxer2008's sandboxes. Notice that the AfD is related to WP:BIGBRO, which BlackpoolKickboxer2008 is a member of and continually contributes to. Dale 09:55, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Up with this we shall not put. Sandboxes deleted, BlackpoolKickboxer2008 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) blocked until they rescind the threats to edit disruptively and sock. Threatening to disrupt Wikipedia in order to disrupt a discussion is not on. Any admin can unblock as soon as BK2008 agrees; review is welcome. ➲ REDVERS ^{The internet is for porn} 10:27, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Kotiwalo (talk) 10:35, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

That was going to end well "don't bother deleting them because I'll just sock to recreate them".. --Cameron Scott (talk) 10:40, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that should probably be added in Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions. Kotiwalo (talk) 11:13, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

User:CaliforniaAliBaba

Resolved

 – Socks gonna get such a washing... HalfShadow 18:03, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

This user has a history of deleting articles that are South Korea unfriendly or North Korea friendly in content. He has, again, deleted any mention of political refugees from South Korea in the articles Koreans in the United Kingdom, Koreans in Germany and Koreans in France, and called for the article Dong Tsoe to be deleted. (In spite of all those having references.) This user CaliforniaAliBaba is biased for South Korea and against North Korea. Administrators please look into his case and don't allow his continual politically biased editing of articles relating to Korea. Wikipedia should be neutral on North-South Korea and not pick and show South Korea friendly ones. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Retrogean (talk • contribs) 14:39, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I can't imagine any situation that would result in favorable commentary and article for North Korea. seicer | talk | contribs 14:42, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I suspect Retrogean is another sock of User:Yoland83.--Atlan (talk) 14:51, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I listed him at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Yoland83. I have been reverting all edits by these users due to the massive WP:BLP issues involved --- they have been running all over the internet, not just on Wikipedia, spreading rumours about this guy Dong Hyun Choi (aka Dong Tsoe). I can't tell whether it's just the usual kind of astro-turfing campaign to raise awareness about a non-notable issue, or whether there's something more sinister going on like an attempt to perpetrate a hoax or defame the guy by implying he's a North Korean spy. cab (talk) 17:47, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Literaturegeek

Resolved

 – Neurofish indef block as sockpuppet of Mwalla Toddst1 (talk) 18:28, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

This user placed a template on my talk page that does not apply to me. I view this as an unpovoked attack. I do not know this user nor has he ever contacted me directly. I would like this user to be blocked from editing my user page. Neurofish (talk) 18:00, 28 August 2009 (UTC)Neurofish

It is funny a brand new member knows all about administration noticeboard and the wiki projects. Some admmins will here will recall another episode where I accused a sock puppet of mwalla, a permanently banned user they created an admin noticeboard notification. Please see this page, User_talk:Tiptoety#Mwalla_is_back_on_3_socks_in_as_many_days and also this page.Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Mwalla/Archive--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 18:18, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

How would you know what other editors know? I guess you are the judge. Neurofish (talk) 18:23, 28 August 2009 (UTC)Neurofish

I know what quacks. Toddst1 (talk) 18:28, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• Well. That was quick and painless. (For us, anyway) So, the first thing sockpuppets do now is commit suicide? I think I like it. It's pointless, but I like it. HalfShadow 18:31, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Not sure if it is resolved

Unresolved

Thanks Toddstq for blocking. There are two other accounts. User:Abcdohrayme and User:Punctuallylate If you review the ip address blocks Tiptoey only blocked them for 3 months so mwalla is now back mass producing sockpuppets again now that the 3 month ip block has expired. See bottom of Mwalla sock investigation archive. Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Mwalla/Archive Toddstq, did you just block the username or the ip addresses as well? It might be worth reinstating blocks on the ip addresses in the Mwalla archive. But will leave the decision up to you. Thanks. :-)--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 18:47, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I would feel a little more comfortable if somebody would run a CU on the Neurofish account. I usually turn out to be wrong about these things, but there are enough differences from the usual behavior that this doesn't quite quack for me. Looie496 (talk) 19:02, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

A checkuser would be great Looie, I have requested one on WP:SPI. Maybe Looie it is this edit, where one sockpuppet reverted another sockpuppet,[69], this was done only after I had added templates to all 3 accounts accusing them of being sockpuppets, so they were just trying to divert suspicion in my view.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 19:07, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

An SPI has been filed by myself here.Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Mwalla--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 19:26, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Disruption, incivility on Haplogroup R1a (Y-DNA) by tendentious editor

User:Cosmos416 has been highly disruptive in this article lately by making tendentious edits, edit warring when other undo them, and showing extreme bad faith and incivility. Examples:

Tendentious editing: He is particularly focused on promoting the POV that R1a originated in South Asia, rather than elsewhere, and labels everything agains this POV as "bias": [70] [71] [72] [73] [74] [75]. He is particularly insistent on placing "south Asia" subsections on top of every section, claiming it is "alphabetical" when it is anything but.

Edit warring: Got into a major edit war with User:Jamesdean3295 on August 26 [76] [77] [78] [79] [80], and has broken 3RR today: [81] [82] [83] [84] [85] [86].

Extreme incivility: Virtually every single one of his edit summaries is a personal attack against some editor, getting more and more shrill lately. Displays extreme bad faith, accuses users of being sockpuppets or being "connected". Rarely participates in talkpage discussions, and when he does, it consists of statements like this: [87] [88] [89] [90] [91].

This behavior is extremely disruptive and has got to stop. --Athenean (talk) 18:25, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Just wanted to point out, while he has certainly been edit-warring he hasn't broken 3RR. Per WP:3RR, "A series of consecutive saved revert edits by one user with no intervening edits by another user counts as one revert." I see a total of 3 reverts in 24 hours: this on the 27th, this today, and this just after. Another revert and he can be reported to WP:AN3 but he's not there yet. -- Atama頭 19:35, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, he has not actually edited since a recent series of warnings left at his talk page (warnings left 18:12 and 18:17, last edits at 17:20). I don't think a block would be appropriate UNTIL he edits again. However, the very next personal attack, or the very next time he attempts to edit war at the article in question, he should be blocked for either. This has gone on long enough, and I think we can call this his VERY last chance. Also, since no one else did, I notified him of this thread. --Jayron32 19:36, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I would also like to comment here. Cosmos words that he left on my talk page were also very uncivil. Please make note of these for the case. Thanks.Geog1 (talk) 21:23, 28 August 2009 (UTC)Geog1

User:NikFreak

Resolved

 – Talk page history merged. --Gigs (talk) 19:35, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

User:NikFreak seems to be attempting to purge the history of his talk page by moving it to Junk:3862340023750. I know we used to allow good faith requests for deletion of a user's own talk page, but I'm hesitant to tag the "Junk" page for CSD given that he seems to want to suppress the history of being warned for incivility. I'm not sure what needs to be done about this. Gigs (talk) 19:24, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I've done a history merge to put it back in. He's welcome to remove the warnings, but the page history should remain where it is. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 19:30, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Good deal, thanks. Gigs (talk) 19:32, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Ka of Catherine de Burgh

Resolved

 – Re-resolved: Giano creates joke accounts that are all obviously run by him. There is nothing wrong with this. --Jayron32 19:50, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Clearly a sock of someone, or someone returning, but who is this? Prodego ^talk 19:33, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Isn't that Giano? –xeno^talk 19:34, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Such a well-disguised alternative account may be difficult to identify *grin* Black Kite 19:37, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Nothing to see. Move along. --Jayron32 19:39, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

In that case, shouldn't this be marked somewhere? Prodego ^talk 19:41, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Pretty much declares it as Giano on the user page. This is freaking hilarious. -- Atama頭 19:42, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

It says Lady Catherine was the muse and great great grand aunt of Giano. It's in character, but it's identified.--Cube lurker (talk) 19:44, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Would spoil the joke to make it any more obvious... –xeno^talk 19:45, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we have any requirement for people to declare their alternate accounts as long as they do not violate the sock puppetry policy. Chillum 19:46, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Well apparently the wit of that is above me. I need something a bit more obvious to identify alternate accounts, personally. Otherwise they just end up looking like sockpuppets to me. Also: what joke? As for declaring, I would like to know who feels they need to judge my impertinence and manners, rather than hiding behind some account I do not know who is. Prodego ^talk 19:48, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Seriously, do we really want to drag out another Giano debate over another one of his obvious joke accounts? No one is going to block him or this account, it's CLEARLY one of his cadre of similar accounts (there are dozens). No one has done anything wrong. I am re-resolving this before it gets out of hand. --Jayron32 19:50, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Prodego registered on 23 September 2005, goddam n00b that he is. MickMacNee (talk) 23:04, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• If you're not born on Wikipedia, you're not a native. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:36, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• Giano most certainly does not boast dozens of "similar accounts." There is, or was, User:Catherine de Burgh, and that's pretty much it, as far as I can recollect. After her Ladyship's untimely demise, she has been editing as User:Ka of Catherine de Burgh (very reasonably so IMO, see wikipedia's article Ka), while usually signing as "Lady Catherine de Burgh (the late)". Giano has never been partial to alternative accounts, and if the thing sounds a bit complicated, that is simply caused by Lady Catherine's unhappy departure for greener pastures. In other words, unless I've accidentally mislaid some sock, Giano has one alternative account. Bishonen | talk 23:46, 28 August 2009 (UTC).

Deletion of non-notable album cover

Resolved

 – image at center of problem deleted. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:29, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

In early May of this year, an AfD was closed on an article about an album titled "Blood of Angels". See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Blood of Angels. The album did not meet notability requirements. Some more background on this is available at User talk:Ebonyskye/Archive3.

Subsequent to the AfD deletion of the album's article, the cover art of the album (File:Blood-of-Angels.jpg) was added to the album's artist [92], along with information regarding the album. A few days ago, the image came up for deletion at Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2009_August_25#File:Blood-of-Angels.jpg. This is how it came to my attention.

Throughout the project, we do not include album covers on their artist's page. They are permitted on article about the albums in particular, but unless there is substantial notability of, say, the cover design related to the artist we don't see album covers on artists page. They are routinely removed for failing WP:NFCC.

In this particular case, we're being asked to host an album cover for an album that was deemed, via the AfD, to be non-notable. I fail to see a reason why we should retain a non-free cover of a non-notable album any more than we retain articles of non-notable bands. I've directed User:Ebonyskye to take the issue up at WP:DRV, but he is reverting to push the image back into the article [93].

Related to this, User:Ebonyskye has thrice put album infobox template onto the article after it was removed by others [94][95][96].

Please note that back in 2007, Ebonyskye was topic banned from Nox Arcana and related articles (and Michelle Belanger is related; in fact the album in question was performed with Nox Arcana. The topic ban was later lifted. However, I see signs of the behavior resurfacing, along with a sense that WP:OWN is being violated.

The FfD on this image is devolving into wikilawyering, over something that we handle on a routine basis without ever touching FfD; non-notable album, we remove its cover. This is pretty simple. An administrator to step in would be useful. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 20:19, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Just noting, but as the article was merged I've moved the history back to Blood of Angels and left it under the redirect, so everything's hunky-dory copyright wise. Hammersoft, I suggest an RFC about the user's behavior, if necessary, and to just let the FfD run its course. While there may be some disruption there, it doesn't look like consensus is actually moving for it, and the usual outcome is going to happen anyways. Cheers. lifebaka++ 21:35, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

The FFD is moot anyway. Even if it results in a Keep, the image still needs to be removed from Michelle Belanger as failing WP:NFCC, and it will then be orphaned and, as a non-free file, speedy deletable anyway. Black Kite 21:58, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• If the FfD results in the image being kept, and it's removed from the article, an edit war will result to push the image back on. It won't be speedy deleted. That's why I'm asking for action now, to avoid the unfolding drama and take an action that is already blatantly obvious as to what to do. We just have one editor standing in the way, an editor previously sanctioned for this behavior on tightly related articles. --Hammersoft (talk) 22:14, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

You're asking on AN/I for an early / speedy close of an FFD as delete? Is there any reason to think FFD process won't work as intended? A decision to delete makes the issue moot. A decision to keep is an endorsement that the image belongs, no? Results you don't agree with are not necessarily a process problem. Wikidemon (talk) 22:28, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• I'm asking for deletion of an image that should never have been listed at FfD in the first place. We routinely delete images of non-notable album covers. If we instead took all of these to FfD, we'd be overrun by them. The album was already decided to be non-notable by the AfD that deleted it. There's no reason to keep around an image of a non-notable album. --Hammersoft (talk) 22:48, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• Please keep Note that I am not banned [97] from the topic that Hammersoft claims. The ban was something in effect for another user. I got involved on the topic months later, but when a checkuser came back negative, the ban was lifted. User:SilkTork [98] originally suggested the album be merged with the author page and suggested I find more news, which I did. I was only following instructions. I added a lot of sources, and it was approved. The question here is not an orphaned file nor an issue of notability. The album is part of a larger discography for Nox Arcana, and the band has already been deemed notable (charted on Billboard, and have been covered in major media such as The Plain Dealer and Fangoria and other newspapers and magazines worldwide), likewise so has the vocalist - and per WP:Music#Albums if the musician or ensemble that recorded an album is considered notable, then officially released albums may have sufficient notability to have individual articles on Wikipedia is permitted to have an album page. If you'd permit for the album page to be reinstated, I think this would alleviate all problems, and I would be happy to add the new citations that were gathered since. Please note that the original vote to Afd the album was populated by sockpuppets User:MarkChase, so although it was deleted the vote was stacked. I believe the deletion to have been wrong in the first place. Ebonyskye (talk) 23:11, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• I note again that your pleading in the wrong place. Please go to WP:DRV. Until the AfD is overturned, the presumption is the album is non-notable, as that is why the album article was deleted. If you are successful at WP:DRV, then the album can appear on the article. This isn't hard. The album cover has now been deleted, and the FfD closed. if you want the album cover to appear on Wikipedia, then your first step is that way. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:25, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Help please

A thread archived before these three articles were moved, I moved all the other ones I was able. If someone would be so kind to migrate them to more MOS compliant titles I would appreciate it. -- Banjeboi 20:28, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

• Otto Bauer (pornography) - should disambiguate to pornographic actor ‎
• Mark Davis (pornography) - should disambiguate to actor (could add pornographic although that's not needed right now)
• Michael Brandon (pornography) - should disambiguate to pornographic actor

Just for some background context, could you please link to the discussion involving these pages? –Juliancolton | ^Talk 21:25, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, here is the original thread. -- Banjeboi 00:38, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Help please

Resolved

 – — Jake Wartenberg 03:13, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

It's come to my attention that I quite badly fudged up a pagemove at Ophelia (see Talk:Ophelia (character) for move request), so some help would be appreciated. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 02:05, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

I am confused... what did you mess up? Just the talk page needs to be moved now... –túrian^patois 02:16, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Apparently he histmerged the disambig... he should have moved Ophelia to Ophelia (disambiguation) before moving Ophelia (character) to Ophelia... Until It Sleeps ^{Wake me}   02:18, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Apparently Ophelia was to be moved to Ophelia (disambiguation), and then Ophelia (character) to Ophelia. However, it seems I accidentally skipped step 1, and so now the dab and the main article are somehow histmerged... I think... –Juliancolton | ^Talk 02:19, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

It's being fixed. No one panic!  ;) Wknight94 ^talk 02:25, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Still seems broken to me..... ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 02:33, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Just redirect all of them to Hamlet and call it a night.  :) -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 02:37, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Redir here, surely? → ROUX ₪ 03:10, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, this was a mess...

To recap:

1. Ophelia (character) was moved over Ophelia
2. The deleted history of Ophelia was restored, accidentally history merging the 2 together.
3. I manually un-history-merged 92 of the 97 revisions of the old disambiguation page, and moved them to Ophelia (disambiguation)

   In the process of doing so, I found some old history that was at that title, but had been redirected to Ophelia. I moved this history to Ophelia (disambiguation) (old) - someone still needs to figure out where this goes, maybe just deleted, or history merged with the current disambig page.

4. The revisions of the main article are restored, with 5 old (pre-April 2007) revisions of the disambiguation page mixed in.

Mr.Z-man 02:56, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Treatment of an IP

There's no proof that 24.18.136.188 (talk · contribs) is a sock of anyone yet this user's comments are being removed with the rationale that it's a banned user. Someone have proof for this? Not just "I believe it is.." and not "I know it is.." Proof people. If not, the user's comments at whatever articles they have been removed from, need to be restored and I would suggest an SPI case be opened instead of the bad manners that's been shown. The user's page isn't even tagged as a sock. -     allstar▼echo     04:23, 29 August 2009 (UTC)