Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Users Epeeflech and Wjemather

Unresolved

 – waiting for admin close Johnuniq (talk) 03:31, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Wjemather (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Epeefleche (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Those two have been debating for awhile about various issues. Epeefleche asked me to look into it. I don't know who's right or wrong (maybe they both are somewhat both), but it seems to be at an impasse. Specifically, Epeefleche has asked Wjemather not to post on his talk page; which he continues to do, and which he justifies on policy grounds. I advised Wjemather that posting on others' pages when they ask you not to is a breach of etiquette (as I myself have been told from time to time), and that he needs to seek another course of action, such as talking to his most trusted admin about the issue. I would like to hear some opinions by the folks here who are smarter than I am (which is most of you), as to what these editors need to do to resolve their disagreements. It's worth pointing out that Wjemather was issued a 2-day block in January for harassment of Epeefleche. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:26, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

• I’ve got to catch a flight and am not in much of a mood to use wiki-jargon and beat around the bush with oratory about “assume good faith” when it’s clear that WJE is just trying to harass Epeefleche. WJE thought he discovered a valid rationale to go rattle a stick on Epeefleche’s cage. I actually backed WJE on the thrust of his point (Epeefleche failed to add a proper fair-use rationale to the image of a book cover). But his second post roughly 20 hours later was clearly intended to badger. Then WJE tried to leave an alibi note on my talk page here. Greg L (talk) 16:43, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
• No editor has the right to request that other editors not place valid warnings on their talk page. Wjemather's warnings are valid, Epeefleche has not responded to them properly. I would suggest that Epeefleche simply act on the warnings and move on. As a rule of thumb, any editor that goes the "so-and-so isn't welcome on my talk page" route creates at least as much trouble simply by posting the warning as whatever problem he was reacting to.—Kww(talk) 17:17, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

^^^ReplyAerobicFox (talk) 23:37, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

• I suggest a week's block for Epeefleche; if he is not willing to make himself accountable to editors and address their concerns then he needs to ask himself if he belongs in a long collaborative project. He has made a point of not addressing the issues raised, and as such is creating an atmosphere which is not conducive to collaborative editing. Copyright notices/rationales are not pointy issues, it is important they are done right, and that is the issue of concern and it shouldn't be deflected away from that. Betty Logan (talk) 17:29, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

^Kww and Betty Logan, while it would certainly be inappropriate to ban someone from your talkpage in an attempt to avoid receiving legitimate complaints, Epeefleche requested that Wjemather leave his page over a year ago due to ongoing harassment, and not recently in response to these complaints. Even if legitimate they clearly demonstrate a lack of caring for Epeeflech's request, and at worst could be his attempt to purposely disregard his request to leave his page by finding legitimate reasons to post there.AerobicFox (talk) 23:37, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

• If an editor has asked another editor not to post on his/her talk page, then the second editor shouldn't do so. This is particularly the case when the second editor has been blocked for harassing the first. There are 1,000 admins and 10,000 other editors who can post there, I'm sure everyone can find one; for example, by posting on this board instead. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:31, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

If there's anything in Wjemather's editing history that warranted the block or the "Stay of my page" request, someone will have to point it out to me. In general, I advise that everyone ignore such requests. Requesting other editor's to refrain from talking to you is very rarely warranted, and I can't see a valid motivation in the case.—Kww(talk) 20:41, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I will point out that the user page guideline does anticipate users asking others to stay off their page. From WP:UP "If a user asks you not to edit their user pages, it is probably sensible to respect their requests (although a user cannot avoid administrator attention or appropriate project notices and communications by merely demanding their talk page is not posted to)". So you can ask people to stay off your page, but they aren't obligated to do so. That said, in my limited experience the best thing to do with those who persist in posting to your user page after you've asked them to stop is to just delete their comment. Certainly allowed and occasionally called for. Hobit (talk) 20:48, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I think I've talked past your point, sorry I misunderstood. My point is that there is nothing wrong with asking a user to stay off your page if you feel it's the best way forward... Hobit (talk) 20:50, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

You didn't miss my point: I think WP:UP provides a weak accommodation for a distastefully common practice. " ... it is probably sensible to respect their request ..." is hardly a rousing endorsement.—Kww(talk) 20:58, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Leading up to the request that Wjemather stay off of Epeefleche's talk page was a significant ammount of wikihounding on Wjemather's part. Certainly this occurs on many articles that Epeefleche had written or substantially contributed to including; Richie Scheinblum, Monte Scheinblum, and The Israel Law Review . Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 21:25, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

The fact that Wjemather was blocked for harassing Epeefleche would be one thing in Wjemather's editing history that warranted the block or the "Stay of my page" request. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:43, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

• Not in any policy or guideline or essay that I can recall, but I remember a bit of advice regarding the "necessity" of posting on anothers talkpage; if there is a legitimate issue then someone else will post the necessary advices or comments - and if you are the only person thinking that notices or comments are required on someones talkpage, then you are likely wrong. Therefore a request to not post on someones talkpage is reasonable - there are plenty of others who can raise any legitimate issue. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:02, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

• I agree; the request by Epeefleche for WJE to stay off his talk page after Epeefleche had been hounded no-end by WJE (to the point that WJE was blocked for a period of time over it), is a perfectly reasonable thing to expect; no one wants to have their own personal wiki-hounder on their tail at every turn. Moreover, the community doesn’t need more wikidrama just because an editor has a deep personal dislike for another editor and can’t leave well enough alone when the first opportunity presents itself.

  WJE knew full well his poring over Epeefleche’s activities to find a legitimate shortcoming was going to A) be pushing it, and B) probably going to be passable because Epee’s failure to include the proper fair-use rationale was indeed something that needed rectifying. So Epeefleche reminded WJE that Epee had received a belly-full of his hounding and wanted to be left alone, without his own personal inspector looking over his shoulder giving him the white-glove treatment. WJE’s response was, only 22 hours after his first notification, to weigh in again on Epee’s talk page, demanding immediate action while employing a threatening tone (This is the final warning…). That’s just baiting under a pretense.

  I think we are all reasonably experienced wikipedians that we don’t have to beat around the bush and ignore the 800-pound gorilla of human factors at play here. WJE was blocked for wikihounding Epeefleche and simply seized an opportune moment to rattle another editor’s cage and then had to go the extra mile by using a bossy and demanding tone to push buttons. Greg L (talk) 22:58, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

• Suggest WJE Block & Interaction Ban for Harrassment//Hounding/Disruption. Hounding and disruption by WJE has been a year+ problem. For 13 months, I've turned the other cheek. I limited my reaction to only warning WJE, watching as others warned (and blocked) him, and otherwise ignored him. But it seems appropriate to address the problem now. The point that BB raises above, while it falls squarely within the harassment guideline, is only the tip of the WJE harassment problem that has now come to a head, as detailed below. I request that WJE be again blocked (for harassment/hounding/disruption reasons, as he was 2 months ago), and banned from interacting with me.

January block. WJE was blocked 2 months ago for disruption on my talkpage (harassment and a personal attack, and starting an edit war), following his hounding me.

His block was affirmed 3 times. First by the blocking sysop:

"Your unblock request only makes me more convinced that this block is the only thing preventing you from carrying on whatever dispute you have with Epeefleche, much to the detriment of both of you and the project. This block has ... to do with ... your conduct on Epeefleche's talk page and the dispute which you then took to ... an article to which Epeefleche is ... far and away the primary contributor and to which you made your first edit today—to revert somebody who thinks (whether rightly or not, I don't know and I don't really care) that you're hounding them, no less! That's before we get to the matter of the edit warring or the edit summary."[1]

It was then affirmed by 2 other sysops.

Hounding. In addition to the above, sysop Beeblebrox in affirming WJE's January block advised WJE:

"It's really not a good idea to fixate on another editor and get into a prolonged conflict with them, which you clearly have done."

Editors Legitimate and Bachcell identified WJE's behavior over a year ago as hounding as well. I requested many times that WJE not hound me. Such as on February 3 and 6, 2010[2], February 28, 2010, March 20, 2010, November 7, 2010, January 17, 2011, and March 20, 2011.

An example of his hounding--Just hours after a testy exchange on another subject, WJE's next act on February 3, 2010, was to single me out and AfD an article I had just created. His AfD failed. But as I pointed out to him, that suggested an apparent effort on his part to confront or inhibit my work, with an apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance, or distress.[3] The core of wikihounding.

Yet here WJE is--after a year of warnings, and after receiving a block and admonitions from 3 sysops—doing it again. Fixating on my 6 recent "image-creation" edits.

How could WJE just "come across" my adds of 6 images? The images are not within the area of interest he professes to have--UK/golf/cricket/darts articles. Indeed, all WJE's top article edits are golf and dart related. But these edits that he is confronting me on relate to covers/logos of a US philanthropy book, and 5 local US Jewish newspapers. As has been his pattern for a year now, WJE just showed up at some obscure part of the project, moments after I edited there, at pages he had never edited, to revert me or attack my edits.

This also calls into question WJE's assertions, at his unblock request, that:

"I absolutely contest their characterization of my edits as hounding"; and

"I am not fixated on, nor am I carrying on a dispute with, Epeefleche, and I certainly have no desire to get into any conflict with them"; and

"I repeat, I do not wish to engage in any dispute or conflict with Epeefleche ... now or in the future.... I cannot be any clearer on that."[4]

Wikipedia:Harass states:

"Wiki-hounding is the singling out [an] editor ... and joining discussions on multiple pages ... they may edit ... in order to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work. This is with an apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance or distress to the other editor. Wikihounding usually involves following the target from place to place on Wikipedia."

It also indicates that consequences of harassment can include "blocks, arbitration, or being subjected to a community ban." And says: "If wikihounding persists after a warning, escalating blocks are often used, beginning with 24 hours." WJE has already received multiple warnings over the past year. And his first block (for hounding, disruption, and a personal attack) 2 months ago.

Disruption; ignoring request he not post on my talkpage. Another sysop (Sandstein) in affirming WJE's January block said to him, as to WJE's disruptive personal attack on my talkpage: "you do not convince me that you won't repeat it".

I had earlier requested that WJE not be disruptive and not post on my talkpage. Most recently, twice yesterday,[5] November 7, 2010, and January 17, 2011. I requested that WJE not revert my deletions on my own talk page on November 29, 2010. That was a violation by WJE of WP:HUSH, part of the harassment guideline. I also requested that WJE not be uncivil and not edit war with me on November 7, 2010.

In posting yet again on my talkpage, WJE ignored my clear request[6] that he not do so. To put this problem into stark relief, I am the editor whose talk page WJE leaves messages on most often. By a 2-1 margin. Wikipedia:Harass includes "repeated annoying and unwanted contact".

Substance; Non-AN/I issue. The substance of WJE's uninvited message is a non-AN/I side-issue. And what appears to be a baseless one, at that.

He is singling me out to attack my use of a book/newspaper cover "use in infobox" rationale in half a dozen images. But, that is the accepted rationale for many thousands of such images.

Furthermore, I added those images only after receiving precise advice from a senior editor (Beyond My Ken) who focuses on images, which I followed.

See BMK advice, and BMK's comments on the substance of WJE's assertions here ("technically correct, but in my opinion is being overly pedantic. ... As far as I am aware, most people understand that "for use in the infobox" means "to visually identify the subject of the article" or whatever wordage the editor used. Per WP:BURO I don't think it's absolutely necessary to change what you did (on my advice)").--Epeefleche (talk) 22:50, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

• I think an interaction ban would be the best way to go with this, and would support a temp block of Wjemather. There is no need to be dealing with any problems from an editor you have a past history of harassment with, there are plenty of other copyright violations in the world, and many other people you can contact to deal with copyright or other concerns with Epee. Not assuming good faith this seems like an attempt to look for a mistake Epee has made just so that he can have a legitimate reason to post on his talkpage, and if that is so then that would be completely inappropriate. Whether or not he deserves a block, an interaction ban should prevent any further problems between the two.AerobicFox (talk) 23:18, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support interaction ban on Wjemather regarding Epeefleche. I agree with Aerobic Fox 100%. The injured party is Epeefleche, it seems plain to me, and this is a pretty clearcut case of Wikihounding by Wjemather, who appears to be unable to get over his previous issues. Many of us have other editors who aren't our cup of tea; the answer is to walk away instead of following their edits and looking for a fight, which almost always turns into a violation of WP:BATTLE. To sum up: an interaction ban for Wjemather is called for, and if imposed and not acknowledged and full compliance not agreed to by Wjemather, a protective indef block should be imposed until compliance is agreed to. The community should not tolerate cases of this type. I would also suggest Epee make an attempt to stay clear of Wjemather as possible. Thanks to Baseball Bugs for bringing the case here, well done. Jusdafax 00:16, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support interaction ban on Wjemather regarding Epeefleche. I guess I am not as experienced an editor as I thought because, though I’ve been on Wikipedia for quite a few years, I didn’t know interaction bans were a tool that could be employed. Regardless, it’s just the right tool for this case. The interaction ban ought to 1) allow those two to be more productive for the betterment of the project, and B) create less wikidrama for the rest of the community from hereon. Greg L (talk) 00:39, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

• It seems to me Wjemather has raised legitimate points of concern, and the argument that "someone else" could do it is hardly an argument for not raising these points yourself, let alone justification for a block. The question here is whether or not the concerns raised by Wjemather were justified and have been adequately addressed. If someone has to keep confronting editors with legitimate concerns and they are not being adequately addressed then I think there is a deeper problem here. Epeefleche's name seems to pop up an awful lot on ANI, and the same pattern emerges every time: deflection by endlessly reiterating policy. This editor has lots of problems with people simply because he creates problems for these people. He creates the situations in which he is "harrassed" through this compulsion to make resolving issues editors have with his edits as difficult as they possibly can be. I think the admins not familiar with this editor should take a closer look at the discussions on his talk page and his history on ANI. Betty Logan (talk) 00:44, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Quoting you, Betty: The question here is whether or not the concerns raised by Wjemather were justified and have been adequately addressed. For any ordinary editor who notices such a thing, that would indeed be the question. But Wjemather is no ordinary editor in this case and it’s exceedingly unlikely he just accidentally *noticed* what Epeefleche was doing. So the question is whether or not Wjemather violated (again) WP:Harass. Greg L (talk) 01:47, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
• Totally avoidable. Usually, there cannot be too much calm communication. Although Mather singularly failed to identify the offending images, he flagged it as a minor, easily correctable issue, including suggestions as to how to solve the underlying issue. It was a bit nit-picking of a complaint, but not one that warranted the drama that seems to have followed. Usually, it could/would have been put to bed without much fuss with by a simple "oh, thank you. I'll fix it". However, given the raw nerves between the two, the message on Epeefleche's talk page was probably unwise however "in the right" he may have felt he was. I'm unsurprised it was taken as baiiting from the onset. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:48, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

• [redacted: just as an observation] As to the alternatives to posting to Epeefleche's talk page... in his place (and taking responsibility for my own actions), I would find it even more stressful if Mather would post to venues such as ANI, or another user's talk page instead of mine. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:01, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

• I suspect that Mather probably knew he was waving a red flag to the proverbial bull by making that post. The feud seems to have been going on long enough... I think an interaction ban between the two is probably wise precaution given the background. An interaction ban should also include banning provocation such as taking each other to WQA or ANI. However, it should not exclude seeking mediation, if necessary. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 05:35, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

• Although I agree that taking each other to such fora is provocative, I don't think we should prevent all communication about concerns. If not for Wjemather, we may not have discovered earlier copyright problems and opened the CCI in January. Complaints were made of hounding at that time, as well, but the need for the CCI (although backlogged like the rest of them) was amply demonstrated and has been sustained by a several serious issues that have been detected and cleaned since it was opened. (I'm sorry to say that the bulk of it still has not been checked.) If Contributor B is malformatting references or something like that, certainly that's not so urgent that Contributor A needs to be able to draw attention to it. If Contributor B is violating copyright or otherwise creating substantial risk, that's different. :/ I think we need to leave some venue for noting such serious issues if Contributor A notices that they are occurring...especially if he is the only one paying attention. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:31, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

• The problem I have with that is that Wjemather approached the CCI with neither evidence of Epeefleche violating copyright (He was instead querying a close paraphrase), nor did he approach with evidence that Epeefleche was persistently violating copyright(He initially only had one example) - and these should be essential requirements for anyone approaching CCI. We should not be encouraging users to take some marginal claim against another user to any noticeboard on the basis that any marginal claim may be tip of the iceberg of some potential serious claim. The user should establish the serious grounds for a claim before doing so - An interaction ban would force Wjemather to discuss these issues with other neutral users experienced in these issues first perhaps search for actual serious issues - and then either correct the issue themselves or the neutral party can raise whatever action needs to be taken. I also dislike the thought that we would encourage the deliberate wikistalking of any user on the grounds of the greater good - it smacks of police state surveillance and enforcement and certainly is not conducive to creating a working community. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 12:27, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

• Respectfully, I don't think it's very conducive to a working community either if we wind up with situations like this one, which waste community resources both in cleanup and in the fact that we have to wipe out the edits of all contributors who had no idea they were creating unusable derivative works. I'm not suggesting that it will happen here, but closing off all avenues to potential whistleblowers in any event (which is why I refer to "Contributor A" and "B", and not these contributors) seems like a poor choice. Again, if we're talking malformatted references, that's one thing. Copyright problems are something else. I'm not saying that the fora that needs to be open to him is a public one. "Some venue" can easily be the talk page of a neutral administrator or editor or, if even that is too provocative, an e-mail to a neutral administrator or editor. (Note that I'm not raising my hand for this. I've got enough to do. :/) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:33, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I just wanted to come back and make sure that I was clear here and also to reconsider my reluctance to raise my hand. I am not opposing an interaction ban; if User:Wjemather needs to stay away from User:Epeefleche, that's fine with me. My concern rests largely in the thought that such a ban imposed on any user with any other user might prevent valid problems that may constitute grave concern from being addressed, if nobody but the banned contributor is aware. I don't mean at all to suggest that I'm expecting any future issues out of User:Epeefleche. Again, I'm talking about the larger principle. Being conscious of the potential for drama and knowing that "tell somebody" doesn't help if nobody's willing to listen, I will raise my hand after all. If User:Epeefleche is comfortable with that, I'd be willing to accept private or on-Wiki communications from User:Wjemather if he feels he has discovered a serious issue that needs attention. (Frankly, I would think private e-mails would be better, to avoid any potential drama.) If I agree, I'll follow up; if I don't, I won't. I say this trusting that I wouldn't be deluged with trivial concerns; if that were to happen, it would certainly demonstrate the need for the interaction ban and I would, if I could not persuade Wjemather to my view of "serious issue", withdraw my offer. Is this an acceptable compromise? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:16, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

• Details of interaction ban. I appreciate Moon's offer. And Moon clarifying that she is not opposed to an interaction ban on WJE in this case.

I note that the proposed interaction ban on WJE has considerable support above, and that the proposed block on WJE has a measure of support as well. I accept Moonridden's thoughtful suggestion as to how how the interaction ban might applied. I'm comfortable with WJE contacting Moonridden about any legitimate serious issues that require attention. I'm also fine with that being by private email, per Moon's suggestion. That would allow Moon to address any legitimate concerns, while reducing the risk of hounding -- as I expect that at the same time, Moon could note any hounding in violation of wp:harass. I also agree with the above thoughtful suggestion that if WJE does not agree to comply fully with the interaction ban, a protective indef block be imposed until compliance is agreed to.--Epeefleche (talk) 17:54, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

• Not wishing to further any ill-feeling there may be, I do not want to get into the substance of the allegations that have been made unless absolutely necessary, but looking at through the incidents listed by Epeefleche it is needless to say that I felt that I was being harassed on many of those occasions and said as much as the time. There are others of course, but I don't think there is much to be gained by anyone in dragging it all up now. It would be better if we could all just let bygones be bygones and move on.

  Ok, let me set the record straight with regards this incident. I have many articles created by Epeefleche that contain various degrees of copyright violation on my watchlist, and have have done since the CCI case was opened. The issue with the images cropped up as one of these articles was edited, namely New Jersey Jewish News. The initial notice I left on Epeefleche's talk page regarding fair use rationale was only intended as helpful guidance to rectify a problem that is easy to fix, and hopefully ensure all future uploaded non-free images would be free from the same problem. It was non-confrontational and contained no warnings. As has been said by others, the appropriate response would have been "thanks, I'll look into it" or something along those lines. Epeefleche's actual response was, by any measure, not acceptable. In hindsight, it would have been better for me to find another avenue to resolve the problem rather than to then post a second message to reinforce the policy issues, and I understand how that message may have been misconstrued.

  Contrary to what some have said, I did not and do not see this as a minor issue. In my view, no copyright issue is a minor one. Policy is clear that fair-use rationale must be detailed and explain why an image meets the criteria, and "for use in the infobox" only explains where it is used. It does nothing to explain what purpose it serves in the article as is required by poilcy and explained in the guidelines. I was unaware that Epeefleche had been advised by another editor regarding fair-use images – I do not share their view that I was being pedantic and strongly disagree with their assertion that most people would assume what is meant so it's fine. The 5 images in question were uploaded on 19 March ([7]) and are actually logos, not book/magazine/newspaper covers, and as such probably have the wrong NFC template in any case. Perhaps MRG could give her opinion on these issues.

  It has also been said that I should have left if for someone else to discover later. The case MRG describes at CCI illustrates exactly why these things should not be left alone – the contributor concerned simply goes along they merry way doing the same thing completely unaware they are contravening policy.

  It should be noted that interaction bans are not a one way street, and any such sanction would also be a ban on Epeefleche interacting with me. I personally do not think any formal measures such as this are necessary, but would informally commit to the following. I will not post any messages on Epeefleche's talk page, unless requested to do so by Epeefleche. Conversely I have no problem anyone with Epeefleche, or his friends, posting on my talk page. Generally I would also (as I do anyway) avoid any articles or discussions in which I know Epeefleche is active – like most people I don't generally check page histories before editing, but I am aware of certain topic areas in which he is very active. However, should our paths cross I see no reason why we should not be able to communicate properly and in a constructive manner, by sticking to the subject in question without pointing fingers and dragging up past problems to use against each other. _wjemather^bigissue 22:02, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

• Ripe for Close; requesting imposition of above-described sanctions on WJE. I agree with WJE on one point. There were many more instances of him appearing at articles immediately after I just edited them. Over 13 months. Far from him areas of interest (the golf courses, cricket fields, dart halls of London). On obscure topics. Only to revert me, or challenge my edits.

Check out for example his failed AfD, made the same day I created the article Americans for Peace and Tolerance (a Boston organization) on February 3, 2010. Or his appearance at an article I created on an American blog, the very day I created it on March 18, 2010, to challenge my edits. Or his reverting me the same day I edited at Villa Park High School (a California high school) on December 23, 2010. Or his deletion of refs at an article on an American baseball player, made within hours of me adding them, on December 24, 2010.

The list goes on. I won't bore you with more, unless you want it.

I was therefore, perhaps understandably, taken aback by his blatantly telling 3 sysops 2 months ago, during his 3-times-affirmed block for hounding me, that:

"I am not fixated on, nor am I carrying on a dispute with, Epeefleche, and I certainly have no desire to get into any conflict with them ... I cannot be any clearer on that."

I was perhaps a jot less surprised when, just 2 months later, disregarding a year of requests by me and others that he stop hounding me, despite direct admonitions from 3 sysops that he do the same, and undeterred by his 2-day hounding block ... he did the same thing. He followed me to the most obscure of articles, to challenge me yet again. Warnings, admonitions, and a 2-day block apparently are not sufficient.

Given this history, formal measures are certainly required; and clearly they have to be made of sterner stuff than the last 2-day block. I therefore agree with the strong majority above that suggests that an interaction ban be imposed upon WJE. I also agree with those who say that a block is in order.

As to his hostile suggestion that interaction bans cannot be "a one-way-street" -- of course they can be. They are routinely imposed on those who violate wp:harass, as he has done. And not on those that they harass. But no worries -- if WJE hasn't noticed, I'm not seeking contact with him.

I believe that after having kept a stiff upper lip for 13 months now, I'm entitled to have the community finally take him off my back. This is precisely the sort of behavior that wp:harass was meant to prevent.--Epeefleche (talk) 06:07, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

• Epeefleche has made a very solid case, and with recent evidence of such stalking behaviour. As Wjemather has already committed to informal self-restraint, I see it as no physical hurdle to overcome – only psychological – to have it formalised. As to the question of whether the interaction ban ought to be bilateral, no evidence of provocation in the other direction has been advanced, so I'm now inclined to support a unilateral application. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:55, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
  • I have already indicated that I do not wish to get into a long time consuming trawl through past interactions, but there are several instances of Epeefleche leaping in with the sole purpose of harassing me, a couple of AfDs, an article created by Greg L and a frivolous ANI case spring to mind. As does this comment made long after the close of one of those AfDs. Indeed, other contributors have seen fit to voice their concern regarding Epeefleche's behaviour on my talk page. Among other comments are "Has this user been harassing you?" and "Epeefleche is pretty much notorious for following around anyone he has a personal beef with and intentionally taking the opposite position in discussions he's not privy to".

    Epeefleche has made several accuasations in the past such as my arguing about the spelling of Arabic, which I have certainly never done, and restoring removed comment on his talk page, which Epeefleche did not provide a diff for when questioned and I certainly do not recall ever doing on anyone's talk page. I have also been subjected to accusations of trying to suppress terrorism related articles (for some dark purpose?) and even insinuations that I am a supporter of terrorism.

    There are also instances when Epeefleche has contacted friends who have then harassed me or disrupted things by trying to railroad or sidetrack discussions with off-topic and ad-hominem remarks. The latter has evidently happened with others – "the entire noticeboard was railroaded by some weird comments by User:Greg L".

    The evidence Epeefleche presents consists mostly of him issuing warnings and his friends supporting him. That his friends have turned up again here to support him in his goals should be no surprise to anyone, and frankly their opinions cannot be given much weight. _wjemather^bigissue 08:43, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

    • • For the benefits of those who do not know who you consider Epeefleche's "friends" to be, would you care to state the names of said "friends" please, just for the record? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:16, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
    • Methinks thou doth protest too much to distract from your conduct, WJE. I’ll quote from a post on my talk page. Given the extremely tortured past history between you and Epeefleche, your hounding him again on his talk page after you had been blocked over wikihounding was the equivalent of two business partners who sued the pants off each other in court, and months later, you ran up Epeefleche’s door and rang the doorbell to point out how his fence was a foot too tall per local ordinances. It surprises no one that Epeefleche didn’t appreciate your stunt.

      As for who’s at fault for the wikidrama and time devoted by the community in trying to separate you two, we don’t see Epeefleche following you around trying to raise cain with bossy messages concluding with “Final warning”; it always seems to be the other way around. Why is that?? Have you considered just putting down your binoculars and stop looking for something to hassle Epeefleche about and flipping furiously through the code book to see if his fence is compliant with building codes? The rest of the community is perfectly capable of handling those sort of things without you on Epee’s arse creating wikidrama every time the opportunity presents itself.

      Try looking towards your own conduct that started this in the first place and stop trying to deflect blame towards “Epeefleche’s friends” after you’ve got yourself into trouble… again. Greg L (talk) 00:16, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

      
      P.S. It would defuse this whole thing if you would just pledge to go find other things to do on Wikipedia than nitpick at Epeefleche after coming off a block for hounding him. That you found a valid pretense to say “Neener-neener… you did a boo-boo” wasn’t enough for you; you had to leave messages laden with a bossy tone of someone who is admin who is going to lower the boom if you don’t get satisfaction ASAP. You wanted to rattle his cage and got what you asked for. And here you are at an ANI—something you didn’t bargain on—objecting to how you’re getting assailed when all you were doing is trying to act like Mother Teresa for the betterment of the project and all humanity. Save it. Your acting utterly baffled at how you could be so misunderstood is not convincing and does not impress. Please stop playing us for fools and just say you’ll go find something else to do and we’ll be done with this. That’s not too much to ask. Greg L (talk) 05:32, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

      • Support both of Greg L's statements here as an accurate summary of the situation. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:10, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

(*sound of crickets chirping*)

Over one month ago (February 23rd) was the last time WJE didn’t edit for a full day. It looks like WJE required a wikibreak in the middle of an ANI, which is unfortunate timing. A good alternative would be for WJE to simply pledge to stop following Epeefleche. That isn’t too much to ask and would be an uncanny way to convince the community that more trouble along these lines is not forthcoming. Greg L (talk) 20:51, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

• Time for a sysop to close. This has now been up for 5 days. Many editors have commented. More information has been shared since the string was opened, crystalizing the conversation. Of the last 7 or 8 editors who have commented over the last few days, apart from WJE himself, there has been unanimous support for an interaction ban to be applied to WJE. Sysop Moonridden has even thoughtfully suggested a way to address any legitimate concerns that WJE may have regarding ban implementation. Closure of this string by a sysop in accord with the overwhelming consensus would therefore be appreciated.--Epeefleche (talk) 20:05, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support interaction ban on Wjemather regarding Epeefleche. There is unlikely to be an emergency where Wjemather simply must be the editor to alert Epeefleche about some problem, so the solution to this time sink is simple: formally notify Wjemather that they are not to interact with Epeefleche. Johnuniq (talk) 03:31, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• To be clear, I am not on a wikibreak of any kind. I am simply busy in real life (as it says at the top of my talk page) – it is plain to see that my midweek contributions have generally consisted of one or two minor edits for some time now, and don't think anyone should would want to characterise it any differently. Perhaps they think I should drop everything in real life to deal with this? Take a week off work maybe? Whatever. I happen to be busy this weekend too, so unless there is some vandalism to revert on my watchlist, this may well be may only contribution today.

  I see no reason to expand further on what I have said already. All I will do is state that discussion does not need to be steered as appears to be happening (again) here, and that consensus is not arrived at by a single editor and their friends, however many of them answer the call. _wjemather^bigissue 10:23, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

  • Have you considered the possibility that you are employing self-serving, circular logic here? It seems that if the advise from the community amounts to rebuke of what you keep doing and the suggestion that you steer clear of wikistalking and wikibadgering, you attribute that curious phenomenon to being the product of *Epeefleche’s friends*—no mater, as you wrote—how “many of them answer the call”.

    After cranking that bit through your logic machine, out pops “No problem! All my behavior as of late has been *extra special* and was just swell.” Honestly, I think that’s just the public face you like to don whenever you are faced with rebuke. I prefer to think a lesson dawned on you here on how to avoid wikidrama in the future. At least, I hope it’s dawned on you, because the rest of the wikipedian community has to act like those guys with the big shovels and garbage cans following behind the elephants at the parade whenever you cave to temptation and then, when called to the mat, protest about how all you had been doing is washing the feet of the orphans on Wikipedia.

    Yes, you took two-straight days off from Wikipedia (during this ANI), which is something you hadn’t done in the last month that I looked at. In fact, during the last month, you only took a single day off from Wikipedia. During a single, 15-day, never-missed-a-day stretch over the last month, you made 612 edits (averaging 41 edits per day). I had to examine two, max-size, 500-edit history pages just to summarize those 15 days. Perhaps some of your patients in the cardiac ward at the hospital developed arrhythmias and your pager went off. Pardon me all over the place for failing to play “wink-wink”-coy here; I rushed to the conclusion that your two-day absence was best explained as your attempting to just lay low for this storm to blow over. Lord knows no one has tried that tactic before here…

    I move for this to be closed since it’s clear that no pledge or contrition is forthcoming here… apparently because the only people weighing in on this ANI is a small army of “Epeefleche’s friends” who apparently have no valid point to make whatsoever; no contrition this time around, anyway. Greg L (talk) 16:28, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Unanimity. With Johnuniq's comments, we now have 8 or 9 editors in a row (other than WJE) supporting an interaction ban being imposed on WJE.--Epeefleche (talk) 16:47, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support interaction ban on Wjemather regarding Epeefleche, per Johnuniq. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:36, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

This user appears to be "hounding me."

Note: It appears that User:Gharr posted a comment to this thread just as it was being archived, which resulted in the comment being inappropirately appended to another thread. I've restored the thread from the archive, as Gharr apparently doesn't think the issue is resolved, but I do so being fundamentally unaware of anything about the situation and circumstances of the complaint, just as a matter of tidying up. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:55, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

This section of my talk page describes the situation: User_talk:Gharr#3rr.

I have seen nothing but bad behaviour from aministrators (I include reviewers in that group) I'm far from impressed and I am not happy to see biographies defaced and the reviewers and administrators just ignoring it for far to long--Jacque Fresco article.

I have not contacted this user called User:Sloane and my user page explains why: User_talk:Gharr#3rr. I'm not going to pretend to be nice to a user that is obviously abusive (the defacing of Jacque Fresco article and everyone pretending everying was fine for far too told me enough about this person and the way things are adminstered here) and hounding people is also not acceptable.

(Gharr (talk) 05:53, 18 March 2011 (UTC))--I await to be banned by one of these fine abusive reviewers and adminstrators one day...

See WP:BOOMERANG; you may not have to wait all that long. Damned, Gold Hat (talk) 05:58, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Jack, the talk page was too long, could you please summarise it? Jammed, --Demiurge1000 (talk) 06:01, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Honestly, I didn't read it all. I've no idea what the anon post on the user page means, and the Venus page is passing-strange. Damned, Gold Hatthis user is a sock puppet^{off-the-reservation
sockpuppet}06:05, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

• Hey, I'm the user Gharr is talking about. First of all, I was not notified by Gharr of this, which seems blatantly against the guidelines of ANI (thanks to user:Gold Hat for informing me). Secondly, pretty much the only contact that I've had with Gharr, is me warning him of the 3rr rule [8][9], as I noticed a small edit war going on at The Venus Project page. This seems hardly like hounding a user. Methinks User:Gharr should learn assume some good faith. --Sloane (talk) 06:28, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
  • And methinks this is just another user that fails to understand the difference between "Excuse me, you're violating our policies, here's what you did wrong and how to avoid this mistake in the future" and "Good day. I am Staler Moriarty. I see you're trying to enrich Wikipedia with Truthful content, which I can't allow because I'm evil! See these vicious and spiteful warning messages, they're what expresses my personal hatred towards all your efforts and my desire to see your purely constructive work being undone byte by byte while the administrator cabal laughs at your misery." No, it's not personal, it's a matter of competence from time to time. 212.68.15.66 (talk) 09:06, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
• I'm the person Gharr was involved in an edit war with. User:Sloane is not hounding you, and the links you've provided on your talk page don't even show any evidence of that (and two of the edits don't even point to edits made by User:Sloane, that should be grounds for a ban based on false claims). It seems User:Gharr is the one here with the POV issue. Gharr's personal blog has him as an obvious fan of the Zeitgeist/Venus milieu, and he's become a watchdog of those pages, and lashes out at anyone who dares make edits he's not pleased with (see the case with Sloane for instance, or the case of myself providing a scholarly take on Millennarian movements from Cambridge press, to which Gharr deleted).--Evud (talk) 12:21, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Also see this on Gharr's talk page where he believes there is a conspiracy afoot as to people editing The Venus Project.--Evud (talk) 12:26, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Section Missing From This Article

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

---

I made a complaint: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#This_user_appears_to_be_.22hounding_me..22

And nothing has been resoved from what I can so far see on your page...the document simply goes into the archives. Perhaps this page is simply a page for my opponents to attack me...

I'm not even sure if I have the access level to see a archived page? Where is it? What happens if the issue is not resolved? Is this how you greet all new editors here?

I've tried to do what I can, now perhaps you might do your part in informing me on what is going on...

My complaints are still listed on my user page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gharr#3rr they have not gone away.

(Gharr (talk) 01:19, 20 March 2011 (UTC))

As noted in the header, any topic without comment for 48 hours is automatically archived. While in a few cases this may be premature, most of the time it means there has been sufficient comment (some times no comment may be sufficient) so it's not worth pursuing the matter further, or at least not at ANI. The archives are near the top of the page right next to the table of contents (on the right). There is also a search box clearly shown at the top of the page although because our search algorithm can sometimes be a bit slow you may not always find what you want if it's only recently been archived (it didn't work for me). If you don't find it in the searchbox or you otherwise know it's recently been archived then checking out the most recent archive or in a few case the one before will do. In this specific case the most recent archive does indeed work, it's at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive681#This user appears to be "hounding me.".

I would note there were several problems with your original post. Do remember if you want people to help you, you yourself should make an effort to ask for help in a way which doesn't cause unnecessary work for others. 1) You did not notify the person you were complaining about. The header clearly says you should. (While this was rectified by someone else, they should not have needed to do so.) There are few good reasons for not doing so, the only one I can think of of the top of my head is if you've been banned from a user's talk page by the community or have voluntarily agreed not to post there after being asked (or otherwise to resolve a dispute). But even in that case you should clearly specify you didn't follow the requirements explaining why and asking someone to do it for you. 2) Several people already mentioned this directly or indirectly and I myself encountered when I first saw your original thread a while back. No one can really tell what your complaint is because you're directing us to your very, very, very long talk page and none of us want to try and work it out. It's possible if you summarise your complaint you may get better help. But I should warn you as others have already said from what we have seen there's a strong risk this is going to WP:BOOMERANG. So I would personally just drop it taking the advice people have already given on board.

Nil Einne (talk) 02:35, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Good advice, Nil Einne. I started to try to figger the problem, full of good will, but it was just too much work and TLDR, and I couldn't work it out from the user talkpage. Sorry, Gharr, but there's competition for admin attention on this board. You need to present your complaint in a more accessible and less time-consuming way. Bishonen | talk 23:08, 20 March 2011 (UTC).

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

--(Gharr (talk) 05:05, 22 March 2011 (UTC))

Thankyou for pointing out the archives, it has been most helpful. It shows that there has been not decision made—it has been left to drift into the disposal bin that you call the archives. Obviously the work load must be way too much for you administrators.

Please let me make it easy for you, this short but sweet passage might also be too long for you to read: say it rambles on, boomerangs will return, and you did not really read it before going on to do other more important things…

My long complaint did not only include User:Sloane it also happens to include you: Gharr3rr “User:Sloane has shown no reaction to the state of Jacque Fresco talk page that bordered on slander. The time frames of this archived document shows that the awful state of this document has been allowed to remained in Wikipedia for far too long.

I'm not only looking at User:Sloane or User:OpenFuture here. I wondering why the upper levels of administration allows this sort of thing to go unchecked for so long???

--(13:26, 18 March 2011 (UTC)) “

Perhaps the overloaded in work load for administrators explains why a page that clearly is slander against Jacque Fresco (on his talk page) was left unattended for so long. I understand that document might also be too long for you—so let me clue you in: try and search the document for KKK and see if you have time to go through it all…I am not impressed by a whole lot of stuff and that includes the administration here.

As for a boomerang, I believe it’s returning towards you (your own summary of the picture that Wikipedia wants to paint for all editors—one of adversarial contests and weapons. No doubt User:Sloane is a good student of your lessons with a straight out, no warnings vague 3rr notice to me and yes he even appears unconcerned by the slander against Jacque Fresco (and yes the article was one piece when he put his 20 cents worth of comment in)).

Oh by the way, I’m sorry, did I not mention that I missed out on police training on how to track down abusive administrators and make short, accurate, and snappy reports on the evidence at hand.

From the side of the table I sit on I see abusive administrators and what I see as abusive and threatening tags sanctioned by the administrators—that you by the way. It is also my opinion, User:Sloane tagged this article on a Resource_based_economy for speedy deletion (just before he handed out a 3rr notice to me) much too quickly showing little regard for the person who made the article. --(Gharr (talk) 06:39, 21 March 2011 (UTC))

OK, so let me get this straight: Sloane's only direct interaction with you is a single 3RR warning? Stickee (talk) 09:13, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Dude, us admins are volunteers. And, since we're not really obligated to do anything, we end up having this funny tendency not to help out people that go around bashing admins. If you want help from people, I really suggest you don't refer to them as "abusive." It's not productive. Cheers. lifebaka++ 11:00, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

As I said last time, (and re: Lifebaka's point) we also don't tend to help people who can't explain what they're actually complaining about brief enough that we don't fall asleep reading it, particularly when what we do read suggests there's nothing worth reading. Also are you trying to complain to us about problems you've had with other editors or carry on a conversation with the other editors? If it's the later, take it to the other editors talk page. If it's the former, avoiding 'you' so much may help. Finally, if you have problems with abusive admins it would be helpful if you would specify who you're referring to. I appreciate you think all admins are bad for not dealing with your complaint but I presume you've problems with abusive admins goes beyond that and of the people you appear to have issues with (Sloane, Evud, OpenFuture) none of them are admins. Nor am I or Stickee or Demiurge1000 or Gold Hat or Beyond My Ken. LifeBaka appears to be the only admin here (and Bishonen who replied above). One more thing, I'm sure some here can tell you I'm a master of long posts myself. Yet even I couldn't be bothered making sense of what you were saying in your talk page. Most people are far more succinct then me. And none of us went to some special school. Take from that what you will) Nil Einne (talk) 18:23, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

so you checked the Jacque Fresco talk page for this ==> "KKK" <== and feel that the state of this slanderous page is okay. That the presence of User:Sloane(established history between me and User:Sloane) in this "Jacque Fresco "slanderous" talk page" counts for nothing (he/she shows little care about the "slanderous" state of the Jacque Fresco talk page--that much is clear):

• "A merge seems an excellent idea, although it might be best to merge Jaque Fresco and the Venus Project into Zeitgeist: The Movie which seems the only article that's properly sourced. Sloane (talk) 20:06, 6 March 2011 (UTC)."

• User:Sloane is currently engaged in extensive edits on both The_Venus_Project (See [10]) and The_Zeitgeist_Movement ([11]). Given his comment, I might wonder why he is bothering—perhaps he is putting up a good old show of wiki-love for you upper admin types?

• I'm not only looking at User:Sloane or User:OpenFuture here. I wondering why the upper levels of administration allows such slanderous talk page articles to remain for so long. From my point of view the system failed really badly.

--(Gharr (talk) 05:46, 22 March 2011 (UTC))

• Gharr makes reference to an article having been tagged for speedy deletion by Sloane. It is presumably this one, now a redirect to The Venus Project. That was speedy deleted by administrator 2over0 under CSD G12 as an unambiguous copyright infringement. That being the case, if it was Sloane who tagged it for speedy deletion, it was the proper thing to do. I hope that clears up and disposes of part of Gharr's complaint. 86.146.23.51 (talk) 00:56, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I and another user contributed to the talk page about the resource based economy and I felt the speedy deletion tag might not have given the user who created the article enough time to respond. A tag blanking <--! like this one --> the article out might have sufficed if there was also copyright issues. Such a speedy-deletion tag is aggressive in nature as was the straight out, no warnings vague 3rr notice to me that followed shortly afterwards. --(Gharr (talk) 05:46, 22 March 2011 (UTC))

The 3RR template you were given is a warning about violating the edit warring policy, and is given everyone who does so. So, do you consider yourself above this usual courtesy of being warned about policies before being blocked for violating them, or do you think that people should be warned about warnings before being warned? 212.68.15.66 (talk) 10:52, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

And might I add, in terms of rudeness, an ANI report is way worse than speedy deletion which depends on content, not the provider of the said content and the standard warning given to everyone who breaks the 3RR, not just you. 212.68.15.66 (talk) 12:02, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

For those unable to read the deleted history of the article, User:Sloane nominated it for G12 deletion as a copyvio of this page and it was deleted as such by 2over0. Reviewing the deleted content shows that it is indeed a verbatim copy of the Venus Project website with no OTRS ticket verifying any licensing agreements or releases on the talk page. --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 13:27, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I’ll Make the Decision For You (since this looks like drifting to the decision bin)

Okay, this lower section has been slightly less abusive then the first round this article was run through this section (so far), so I should be happy about that at least.

The facts are User:Sloane had history with me via the Jacque Fresco "slanderous" talk page." User:Sloane’s recent edits of The Venus Project have gone unchallenged because his/her show of power using aggressive speedy-deletion tags and straight out, no warnings vague 3rr notice to me , both of which you support from what I can see so far.

Since you (and dude) are going let this ride to the archives a decision device I like to refer to as a bin, I will make a decision here for you.

Obviously people here don’t mind talk pages that are slanderous, and encourage reviewers and administration (both admin level to me) who don’t mind using grenades when gentle words might suffice. So if you give me aggression (and I especially refer to User:Sloane) I will react in kind. Wikipedia policy might indicate I should act as a mouse and cringe, but that not going to happen, so follow through in the style of attack I expect of you and act on that decision that is impending and decide I’m the problem not User:Sloane or the administration here.

No matter what decision (or no decision) you make, I am quite sure User:Sloane will win the day with your backing, but as for Wikipedia, I got really serious doubts about it’s long term viability using what I see as the current model of operation.

New users that don't have the powers you have are not your punching bags, and you administration types better learn that.

I should also thank you--watching User:Sloane's massive edits that are mostly unopposed has been most educational. --(Gharr (talk) 03:43, 23 March 2011 (UTC))

If that's your attitude, I don't see you having long-term viability here. First, you need to be more clear what you believe is slanderous on that page (ie. link to the WP:DIFF in question, not the whole page). Second, if you're going to attack, you'll get blocked, which only means you lose. There's no vindication in that. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:09, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

But since you support people like neutral experienced (administration level) reviewers like User:Sloane who makes massive edits of Both The Venus Project and The Zeitgeist Movement and spends his/her time making inputs like this:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Zeitgeist_Movement&diff=next&oldid=420123901 --User:Sloane edit
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Zeitgeist_Movement&diff=prev&oldid=419496148 --User:Sloane edit
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Venus_Project&diff=next&oldid=420086712 --User:Sloane edit

I believe you and he/she will make for rapid rising stars in this type of gig if administration holds to your abovementioned attitude. Since I suspect other editors and even admin know exactly what I'm talking about, I will let you ponder on this: your a dinosaur, I don't think your attitude or symbolism helps one bit. I would instead think about your long term viability here instead--because if you win this, Wikipedia will suffer. People will not respect your symbolism or your message because they know there is a falseness about administration that needs only "yes" men, and ultimately such conceitedness will lead the entire organization into disaster. maybe I should call you the Titanic...bite...

--Wake up for Pete’s sake...there are problems to solve so lets solve them...sharp teeth and boomerangs are not needed; they will not make new people feel welcome. From what I have seen, you don't feel too comfortable when they return to you and "BITE." So shut me down, batten down the hatches because there is a storm of your own making coming straight at you if you continue the course!--(Gharr (talk) 01:53, 24 March 2011 (UTC))

• Seriously dude, maybe you should take a Wikipedia:Wikivacation or something cause you're getting a little hysterical.--Sloane (talk) 03:03, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
• Gharr, there is of course the possibility here that you are wrong. You have made an allegation that you are being hounded based on, it seems, a (correctly) deleted article, a (correct) message about editing warring, that contributors are editing an article/commenting on the talk page, and an allegation of 'slanderous content' that is so vague that no one can look into it. There is nothing here that is actionable. On the other hand, you have been aggressive, unpleasant, and insulting. If you don't like the Wikipedia way, you should find another hobby. 86.146.23.51 (talk) 09:52, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest

Some of us here probably don't understand what a conflict of interest means. If you don't know then take a look at Sloane's work because it is the Epiphany of examples to what happens when someone with a conflict of interest works on a article:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Zeitgeist_Movement&diff=next&oldid=420123901 --User:Sloane edit
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Zeitgeist_Movement&diff=prev&oldid=419496148 --User:Sloane edit
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Venus_Project&diff=next&oldid=420086712 --User:Sloane edit

There is certainly more then one way to be insulting and Sloane's work reveals nearly all of them including the ignoring of obvious slander in Jacque Fresco talk page. I think most of the administration here know what conflict of interest is and why Sloane edits are bound to cause problems rather then improve The Venus Project article, The Zeitgeist Movement article and the Jacque Fresco "slanderous" talk page." ---(Gharr (talk) 12:50, 24 March 2011 (UTC))

Gharr, the reason that you're not getting the resolution that you desire here is that it's exteremely difficult to interpret what your complaint is. While things may seem crystal clear to you, it looks like other editors either think some actions are totally valid (e.g. the 3rr warning) or don't seem to understand what you are trying to tell them (e.g. how the Jacque Fresco page is "slanderous" or how Sloane has a COI). For anyone examinging the issue, your diffs are definitely not self-explanatory. Perhaps you could explain how these edits by Sloane demonstrate a conflict of interest? What exactly is slanderous on the Jacque Fresco page? If anything, the vehemence that you defend all of these related pages makes it look like you may have a conflict of interest. What's definitely not helping you make your case is your hostility to everyone who tries to participate in this dispute. Communication is a two-way street: you are sending what other find to be a garbled or incomprehensible message and then getting mad when they don't understand you. I feel that you may be more successful in what you're achieving if you stop accusing others of either ignoring you or using you as a punching bag. Chillllls (talk) 15:24, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I've been reading this discussion for some time now, and I must say that Gharr has very nicely reversed my usual problem of low blood pressure. Gharr, you seem to be ignoring everything people try to tell you. We don't bite the newcomers but since you're so trigger-happy with your accusations, you be ready to face the consequences of such allegations and claims. Let me ask you: do you usually join websites just to attack their policies and ideas? Have you considered joining SourceForge just to complain about the lousiness of open source? You're basically destroying Sloane's reputation by accusing them of being hell-bent on persecuting you - or rather, trying to destroy, because your own lack of competence seems to have resulted in a pile-on against you, created by yourself. As "evidence" to support harassment from Sloane, you give these very same diffs over and over again, while none of them show any trace of what you call "slander". Now, without anything to back it up with, you're accusing Sloane of conflict of interest. Personally, I think you're the one who's got COI, as you seem to be very partisan about Sloane editing the Venus Project article, to the point you're disrupting the encyclopedia (see WP:TE and how many points match your behaviour). That's why I propose you to be topic banned indefinitely from editing content related to Venus Project - it's impossible to collaborate with people who just ignore policies because they're (supposedly) always right and thus above all rules. Zakhalesh (talk) 16:46, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I hope you are ready to face the consequences of your actions. You currently believe it’s okay to bash new people. That your little “to be topic banned indefinitely” comment will come down without any risk to your-self. You’re little trigger happy trick wont work because there is no substance or proof in the long boring paragraph above that shows you are the one who is “impossible to collaborate” with. And BOOMARANG, your fellow colleagues here know it and you have lost respect among them by trying to “harass” me and your show of very partisan support of User:Sloane. It is you who should be banned from this administration talk page permanently.

Sure, I'm always open to repeating myself because I know you won't answer any hard questions. Your answer is to blame the messenger, to say there is no history between me and User:Sloane, and to defend the status quo. So here it is again, but "You have already made your statement--you think the "Jacque Fresco "slanderous" talk page" is "A OKAY" and the rest of the administration knows your opinion now--but I will repeat the section of interest here in case some of them need a refresher. ==>

so you checked the Jacque Fresco talk page for this ==> "KKK" <== and feel that the state of this slanderous page is okay. That the presence of User:Sloane(established history between me and User:Sloane) in this "Jacque Fresco "slanderous" talk page" counts for nothing (he/she shows little care about the "slanderous" state of the Jacque Fresco talk page--that much is clear):

• "A merge seems an excellent idea, although it might be best to merge Jaque Fresco and the Venus Project into Zeitgeist: The Movie which seems the only article that's properly sourced. Sloane (talk) 20:06, 6 March 2011 (UTC)."

• User:Sloane is currently engaged in extensive edits on both The_Venus_Project (See [12]) and The_Zeitgeist_Movement ([13]). Given his comment, I might wonder why he is bothering—perhaps he is putting up a good old show of wiki-love for you upper admin types?

• I'm not only looking at User:Sloane or User:OpenFuture here. I wondering why the upper levels of administration allows such slanderous talk page articles to remain for so long. From my point of view the system failed really badly.

<== Thank you for showing that you care about Wikipedia rules and future; Or perhaps not! --(Gharr (talk) 00:00, 25 March 2011 (UTC))

Yet again, I see no "slander" (why do you keep putting quotes around it anyway?) on JF talk page, nor do I see any in the edits by Sloane. You'll have to be a bit more precise in your claims to be understood. In any case, I'm willing to accept any consequences of my edits, but I severely doubt that I'll get banned from any place on Wikipedia by questioning your self-granted right to persecute people who disagree with you, and I have to admit that I found your "boomarang"-argument rather silly. You're trying to cover behind that WP:BITE card despite you being active in Wikipedia way longer than I have been - you've been here since mid-2010, way before I started editing even as an IP! As for your behaviour: you've ignored vast amounts of advice, made false allegations about other editors disagreeing with you (implying Sloane has a COI without any actual evidence and asking me to get banned) and shown clear signs of aggressive editing. This, combined with everything in this thread makes it clear that you can't contribute neutrally about the Venus Project, but instead have created this huge Wiki-trial because people haven't accepted your POV on Venus Project (see Gharr's blog). On grounds of your hostile behaviour towards other editors and your attitude that you're always right I stick by my proposal to indefinitely ban Gharr from editing articles related to Venus Project as they have shown that they are absolutely impossible to cooperate with unless you agree with their POV. I ask any editors who agree/disagree to voice their opinions here, and might add that people have been topic banned for much less zealotry before. Zakhalesh (talk) 15:56, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

If you actually did a search for "KKK" in Jacque Fresco "slanderous" talk page article and decided that that page is acceptable--your own comment: "I see no 'slander'"--then I rest my case about you. You should not be editing articles here or threatening to ban people here. You are part of the problem and should be banned from Wikipedia. From my check you are not a reviewer or administration--yet you act like you are. I don't think you are acting responsibly and might not have the experience to enter this debate. If you had experience you would understand the Wikipedia rules about putting slanderous material in Biographies. But evidently you don't understand very much at all. All you have come here to do is to threaten me and ignore everything I say. Good luck on convincing the administrators and reviewers to ban me based on you weak arguments. Remove yourself from this talk and don't make yourself look any sillier because you do not impress anyone. I and other editors (including administration) will only feel really embarrassed by your continued arguments.--(Gharr (talk) 02:02, 26 March 2011 (UTC))

Gharr, this sort of uncivil language is not acceptable on Wikipedia. Continue it and you will be blocked. lifebaka++ 04:02, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I am no administrator and I never claimed to be one. Topic bans are decided by community consensus, not by admin's whim, and I can only propose you to be banned, not ban you myself. Yet again, you provide no reason to ban me apart from disagreeing with you - on the other hand, my "weak" arguments include your absolutely unacceptable behaviour and your total inability to cooperate, as evidenced by this entire thread (especially unfounded accusations against other editors including Sloane and yours truly), so I don't think luck has anything to do with it. And, about the "slander", no, I still don't see any, and I won't even try to look for it anymore because 1. Talk pages are not bios and 2. Slander is not going to appear if I look hard enough. I await for other editors in favour of banning you from editing Venus Project. Zakhalesh (talk) 06:39, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

To update people on the situation in what seems to be a thread that won't die, User:Gharr ([14],[15],[16]) is now engaged in an edit war with User:OpenFuture ([17], [18], [19]) at The Venus Project page. Despite User:Gharr his claim in his edit summary ("I offered to talk about this on Talk:The_Venus_Project"), he actually hasn't addressed this issue on the talk page, the only discussion is User:OpenFuture, another user and me agreeing that the original version is the best (most NPOV) version ([20]). Gharr's only contribution at the talk page on this subject is a 3rr warning directed at User:OpenFuture, who hasn't technically broken 3rr. Also, note that although User:Gharr is accusing me of hounding him, he seems to be holding some kind of weird log on his talk page about me and other users ([21], [22]) he's come into conflict with. --Sloane (talk) 03:17, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I am no administrator either. my judgement about you stands, you should be banned from this talk page User:Zakhalesh.--(Gharr (talk) 03:19, 27 March 2011 (UTC))

I call unreasoned judgement bad judgement. Why should it be me, who has not attacked other editors with false allegations, has not behaved aggressively towards people trying to advise, has not edit warred, instead of you who have done all of these things in order to advance your POV? Zakhalesh (talk) 07:57, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

User:Gharr his edit warring has now been reported. [23] --Sloane (talk) 04:17, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Gharr's reply is mostly comprised of Ad Hominem (complete with yet another "hounding" accusation!), and Gharr's been warned about attacking other editors with unfounded allegations quite a few times already. I really hope the admin browsing through the report has the stamina to read through this thread as well, as it is here that we see who's hounding who. Zakhalesh (talk) 18:57, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Fitting in

WP:BOOMERANG is vastly overused, but I'm afraid in this thread the only behavioral problem I see is on the part of User:Gharr, who does not display a temperment conducive to editing here. It's not impossible to contribute to Wikipedia with a chip on your shoulder and a pugnancious attitude – examples can be found of those who manage it, somehow – but it's certainly not the ideal way to approach a colloborative enterprise. If Gharr plans on continuing in this manner, I would suggest becoming very good at content creation, which appears to be the pathway to obtaining a license to be serially uncivil without suffering the consequences of one's words. He'd better hurry, though, because he appears to be digging a hole for himself pretty darn quickly. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:45, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Would you support topic banning Gharr from editing Venus Project? I proposed that a few posts above, but haven't got any replies apart from the angry "no you should be banned" responses from Gharr. Zakhalesh (talk) 07:59, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

No, I think it's much too soon to be talking about topic banning -- that generally happens after a much longer and persistent history of disruption, which Gharr doesn't have. At this point, if he edit-wars he should get a time out, and if he continues with his attitude adjustment problem still unresolved, a perceptive admin might want to give him a bit of a respite from editing so that he can sort out his priorities and decide if this is really something he wants to do. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:30, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, I based my proposal on a somewhat similar case a while ago which resulted in a topic ban for editor that put enormous effor into whitewashing Torsion fields and attacking editors who reverted these edits (some of this war was revdel'd but you'll find some in the page's history). However, if I recall correctly, that banned editor didn't only claim COI but also implied that the editors against his edits were a particular person and his collegues, so the outing factor could also apply. The banned editor also had a clear as vodka COI themselves, if I recall correctly, he a CEO in a company that attempted to sell some product related to torsion fields, which is a bit more severe than the followership implied by Gharr's blog. However, I still stick by my opinion that topic banning Gharr (unless he has some enlightenment on how to behave) would be appropriate, but if you feel that less significant means to prevent them from partisan editing are viable, I won't argue. Zakhalesh (talk) 09:07, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Blocked

Gharr was blocked for 24 hours because of edit warring. May this thread finally rest in peace.--Sloane (talk) 19:54, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Amen. Zakhalesh (talk) 20:00, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

User:Anber Advertising

Anber's user page contains an advertisement for his law firm. It goes against the "Promotional and advocacy material and links" section of Wikipedia:User_pages#Excessive_unrelated_content. As I expected, he completely ignored my notice on his talk page. CTJF83 11:56, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Plus, at least the first external link, if not the second CTJF83 12:07, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

It's a statement of what the business does; and we welcome declarations of possible COI &c. It's helpful to know what background editors are coming from. The brief text is a little enthusiastic but doesn't look excessively promotional to me, although it's very hard to describe any business' activities without at least one wikipedian thinking it spam. The text about university/political background seems even more positive to me - but folk don't complain about that. bobrayner (talk) 12:11, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

How much more advertising can you get then, "I can be reached, 24hrs/day at 1-888-989-3946, or from jail at 613-755-4008"? CTJF83 12:13, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I think that last is a little egregious. I've removed the contact numbers per WP:NOTDIR item 3 (also WP:NOTWEBHOST item 1 and WP:NOTADVERTISING item 5). I don't see any real problem with the rest though. EyeSerene^talk 12:21, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Ok....the link to his law firm is borderline advertising...but I was mostly concerned with the phone numbers. CTJF83 12:24, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

We traditionally allow a link or two to personal websites and the like. As long as it's not too promotional (ie it's not in a section that says "For all your legal needs visit www.suegrabbitandrun.com"), I think it's not worth bothering about. EyeSerene^talk 12:35, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. CTJF83 12:38, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Those links are still a little too ad-like for my tastes. I think they should be toned down further. It might be less of an issue for a very active editor or if the page was noindexed, but this isn't an SEO platform. I notice davidanber.com does use keyword-stuffed urls[24] and I think the high search placement of wikipedia pages (despite nofollow) creates a COI for anyone desiring web visibility. Anyway it would look less spammy if the formatting and wording was made a bit more understated. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 19:10, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

• Just to let you know I disagree that my phone numbers violates spirit or letter of wiki policy and I will be reverting back my space. Until/unless there is clear consensus to change it, or unless there is some kind of ruling, I would ask that you please not disturb my user page. Also, as a final point you guys should consider the bad faith motives of Ctjf83 in raising this. He and I have been major contributors disagreeing over a content issue (see our edit histories). It appears to be clearly bad fait to start nitpicking someone's talk page after such a contentious debate and this should reduce the weight of his contribution. Anber (talk) 21:49, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Including the IP, let me be number four in favor of removing the contact information, against your one. Is that consensus enough for you? Any ill regard Ctjf83 you think has for you, doesn't at all change the fact that this clear advertising should be removed.--Atlan (talk) 22:01, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Advertising is advertising, whether I have a dispute with the user, am good friends with them, or they are an IP or an admin. Also you don't need a consensus when you clearly violate policy, of which I linked you to 1 and EyeSerene linked you to 3. You just need to be blocked like your 2 cohorts on AVGN episodes, due to your continued disruption of Wikipedia. CTJF83 22:03, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

After that last statement, I think you should not be the one removing the information from his user page. There's no real urgency to the matter and whether we resolve it now or in a few hours doesn't matter.--Atlan (talk) 22:12, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's even close to borderline - it's advertising, plain and simple. Wikipedia does not exist for anyone's advertising benefit. The numbers should be removed. (Also, I know that the WMF is located in Florida, but if this advertising happens to contravene the rules of the Law Society of Upper Canada, is there any chance we could get in trouble? Law societies in Canada often have strict rules about where and how lawyers can advertise.) --NellieBlyMobile (talk) 22:16, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Enough consensus for you? Take a look at WP:VAND, me removing advertisement is hardly vandalism. CTJF83 22:20, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

"Contact information such as phone numbers, fax numbers and email addresses are not encyclopedic." Doc talk 22:23, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Doc9871. I believe a link to your website and saying you're a lawyer is probably as far as it should go. Adding phone numbers, what law you practice, addresses, etc, etc. is plain and simple advertising and shouldn't be around. Just my .02 Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 22:28, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

(ec)I have once again removed the contact information, citing the consensus that has developed here that it was indeed unacceptable. I hope that will be the end of it, although let's leave this thread open for Anber to respond if he so wishes.--Atlan (talk) 23:13, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

• I do not believe there is consensus. My user page is not optimized to make it an effective advertisement at all. Anybody arriving at this page likely looked for me by name and therefore the phone numbers are relevant information. Just because it is not to some people's taste doesn't mean it violates the spirit or letter of wikipedia policy. Secondly, there is a guideline, I believe that gives deference to user pages. Thirdly, this was started by Ctjf83. I have pointed out obvious bad faith in him doing this and I think this should be taken into consideration. I would like more input from the wikipedia community before my page is modified and I will ask you to respect this before arbitrarily deciding that's the decision. Anber (talk) 23:30, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

"When you wonder what should or should not be in an article, ask yourself what a reader would expect to find under the same heading in an encyclopedia." [25] Doc#1 is correct. One does not find phone numbers in an encyclopedia. — DocOfSoc • Talk • 23:44, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

EyeSerene had it right the first time: I was really just reiterating one of his main reasons listed above for deleting the numbers. There's simply no purpose to have those numbers except to advertise: why else on earth would they be there? WP:What Wikipedia is not is policy, Anber, and I for one cannot see consensus to remove the numbers changing no matter how much time passes (unless there are some changes to the policy). WP:NOTADVERTISING applies to "articles, categories, templates, talk page discussions, and user pages." So it actually does "violate the spirit or letter of wikipedia policy". With this revert you have technically violated another policy It applies to any page, including user pages. WP:UP#PROMO would mean that the second exemption of 3RR would not apply. Jus' sayin'. Doc talk 02:48, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

You are getting community input, and the stuff on your page is outside community norms as you can probably find by comparing it with contact info on other user pages. If there's a link to your own site and your site has your phone number, there's no reason to put your phone number on wikipedia. There's also no reason for your advocacy blurb; it should be enough to say something like "I work as a criminal lawyer in Ottawa, Canada, and my web site is here" with your site instead of Wikipedia's. Anyway, why do you say anyone arriving at the page likely looked for you by name? That does seem to indicate an expectation that people are going to find your Wikipedia user page with off-wiki search engines, which creates reasons to want to optimize the page. The usual reason anyone should find your Wikipedia user page is because they're editing Wikipedia and they view the page for some reason related to your editing, rather than looking for you by name. People shouldn't care about off-wiki visibility of Wikipedia user pages at all, as I see it. And, I don't understand why you're so worked up about this if there is really no COI involved. I think Doc9871's points are well taken. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 03:12, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

The repeated claims of "no consensus" are incorrect and starting to sound like WP:IDHT, and taken together with the reversions this is looking less and less like a good-faith error of judgement. Even if there wasn't a strong consensus in this thread (which there is), Wikipedia's policies are developed by consensus so the fact that there's a rule at all indicates consensus already exists. As I posted on Anber's talk page, our facilities are provided by charitable donation and maintained by volunteers; even giving the appearance of abusing these is very distasteful. Given the lack of cooperation on Anber's part I've added a noindex tag to their userpage to exclude it from appearing in search engine results; if as Anber claims the links and information are not on the page for advertising reasons, they shouldn't find this objectionable. I'd suggest that further intransigence will result in administrative sanctions on their account (frankly they're lucky not to be blocked already for edit warring). EyeSerene^talk 09:10, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Note that a similar argument concerning Anber's user page happened in 2007, which resulted in the page being deleted. So unless Anber is suffering from memory loss, he is well aware that the advertisement was unacceptable.--Atlan (talk) 10:22, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

You're referring to Dynamic Legal Solutions? I've viewed the diffs; the article was blatant advertising and had to be deleted five times and eventually salted to prevent its repeated recreation. Given that, I think I'm justified in no longer assuming good faith. I've removed the spamlinks from Anber's userpage as well. The community does give some leeway in the matter of links on a userpage, but the important thing is not to take the piss. EyeSerene^talk 10:38, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

No, I was referring to his user page, which was deleted as advertising on June 19, 2007. But yes, there's also Dynamic Legal Solutions, and finally the David Anber article, which was deleted multiple times.--Atlan (talk) 10:59, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your clarification (and sorry for my misunderstanding). Because the deletions are from a few years ago I feel they shouldn't unduly influence the current situation (many new users make mistakes), but as you note above they do serve to confirm that Anber can't plausibly claim to be unaware of consensus on using WP for self-promotion and advertising. Recreating a previously deleted userpage with similarly promotional content is also problematic. However, as far as I'm concerned as long as they don't restore the phone numbers and spam links (or anything similar) to Wikipedia there's no more admin action that needs to be taken at this time. I'd imagine they'll be cut very little slack if this becomes an issue for a third time though. EyeSerene^talk 12:38, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

• The debate from a few years ago was not a page created by me although I argued for it being kept. When the decision was not to keep it there was never a problem with me using my user page to describe who I am. I think you need to calm yourself down. Anber (talk) 20:46, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

The noindex helps a lot. Is there a way to make sure it isn't removed? 75.57.242.120 (talk) 15:36, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

• Now hold on a second, after reviewing the consensus I was prepared to accept the removal of the phone numbers but the url links are acceptable. There are other users who agreed with that as well. Please restore those. Anber (talk) 20:38, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
• Also, please unprotect my page. I am prepared to accept the remvoal of the phone numbers but I have other changes I'd like to make to my page. Anber (talk) 20:41, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
• Also, there is no reason why my page, otherwise complying with policy needs a no follow code. This is not something done to user pages in general and this is unreasonably targeting my page. Anber (talk) 20:46, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

There is no reason to unprotect the page, this isn't an isolated incident. Anber likes to complain and revert until he gets his way. He should've been blocked for 3RR. CTJF83 20:57, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

• I have never edited in bad faith and I accept the consensus over the phone numbers. I would like to make some other changes unrelated to this issue. Can an admin please assess this and unprotect my page; thanks. Anber (talk) 21:00, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

• Given that your userpage has been deleted for advertising before, I hardly think "unreasonably targeting" is a fair description. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:03, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Use Template:Edit protected to get it changed. I have lost all good faith in you after this and AVGN episodes. Users need to be held accountable for their actions and just unprotecting the page shows Anber that he doesn't have to follow policy, consensus, and can just complain til he gets his way. CTJF83 21:06, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

• Note: All pages in wikipedia already serve all external links with nofollow (this prevents the link targets from getting any page rank from the wikipedia page). You can see this with "view source" on any page. The tag added to Anber's userpage is noindex, which additionally prevents the userpage itself from being indexed. I don't see why Anber cares about this, and his complaining about it (and his concern over nofollow) diminishes his credibility that he's not trying to use Wikipedia as search magnet. FWIW, I have long supported noindexing all Wikipedia user pages (I'd actually go a lot further than that if it were up to me). Anber, if you were concerned about nofollow because you thought you were getting page rank from its absence up til now, maybe this will put your mind at ease. We've been using nofollow for years so you were already not getting that page rank. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 23:38, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Google "Anber". What pops up second on the list? I'm not surprised that it's his WP page, really. It's by design, and hasn't been buried... Doc talk 04:01, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

• Shows you know nothing about SEO. I couldn't care less if anybody arrives at my user page by Googling my name. 1) because when they do that they get my own web page first and 2) because if they google my name, they already know who I am which means I don't need to advertise myself. Sometimes the stuff people say is lacking in a bit of common sense. If I had SEO'd this page, I'd have stuffed it with keywords making it likely to be indexed by people looking for lawyers in my area (which currently it does not rank). Anber (talk) 11:47, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

• Interesting. I guess the noindex hasn't taken effect yet and google still have an old cached version of the userpage; let's see after another day or so. I hadn't googled "Anber" but I'd tried "David Anber" during the discussion and got the WP userpage on the second Google result page, but more recently (last night) got it on the first page. It and "Anber" at that time showed the WP sub-headings as separate links in the google results, which I hadn't expected, and it really increased the hit's visibility, very effective. For some reason I don't see the extra links in the google result when I try now, so I wonder what changed. It also wouldn't surprise me if the section headings have extra weight computing SimRank between Anber's user page and other pages containing the legal terms in the headings, or otherwise figure into the TSPR that purportedly affects result ordering when people do multiple searches on such terms (like when they're looking around for a lawyer). Such concerns were part of why I suggested rewriting the sentence containing Anber's homepage extlink, to replace the legal keywords in the link text (that could associate with his url for sim-ranking) with a generic word like "here". (Plus, his version just looks spammy).

  Anyway, since Anber says he doesn't care if people find his user page by searching on his name and since it looks to me like his userpage layout is gaming the system, inserting the noindex tag as an administrative remedy seems fine to me and Anber should stop complaining about it. The page sure looks to me to have numerous optimization characteristics whether by coincidence or otherwise. FWIW, there's lots of other user pages in Category:Noindexed pages as well, though most of them seem to be tagged sock accounts. If Anber still thinks noindexing his user page is inequitable treatment, I'll be happy to support any proposal he might make to noindex all user pages per NOTWEBHOST. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 21:43, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

• WP:FAKEARTICLE would seem to apply here. WP:MFD anyone? N419BH 23:58, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Anber will be pleasantly shocked I'm gonna say this...but no to MfD, as long as he doesn't have a phone number and it isn't overly promotional, there is no real problem. CTJF83 00:01, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
    • I must disagree; this page violates multiple points mentioned in WP:FAKEARTICLE, and has been on our servers since 2007. This either needs to be moved into mainspace and turned into a referenced BLP or it needs to be deleted. N419BH 00:06, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
      • What would cause him to meet GNG? It was deleted as a page once, nom it for MfD, and let the community decide CTJF83 00:10, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
• Can we bring this to a conclusion. I'll remove the numbers as originally asked, we'll leave no index tag and let's move on. I'd like to be able to edit my user page again. Anber (talk) 06:58, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

My apologies, but I'm going to be incommunicado for a few days. If any other admin wishes to close this up (and reverse any of my actions in the process) then please feel free to do so :) Consensus seems to be that the status quo (contact numbers and links removed, noindex tag added) is fine; I'd note that Anber has agreed to leave the contact numbers out. However, others may not feel this goes far enough towards an undertaking to fully comply with policy including the use of self-promotional prose, layout and links. As a final note, the page protection is set to expire tomorrow. EyeSerene^talk 08:47, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I am not an admin, but I feel EyeSerene's actions are perfect considering everything that has transpired. Anber has agreed to keep a few things off the page, and once the page protection is up and if he complies with keeping those things off his page, I see no reason why we can't continue on with our Wiki-lives. I'd really like to believe a professional business-person like David Anber is willing to keep his word and leave the objectionable material off his user page. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 22:57, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

• Agreed. In the meantime, as a courtesy, would you guys agree for me to strike my first name from several instances in this discussion. The irony is that when googled my user page will no longer show up (which, honestly, doesn't bother me all that much) but I would prefer if this thread wasn't a high ranking result (which it might be). Remember guys, my practice is how I put food on my table.Anber (talk) 05:44, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Not sure why you are mixing work and Wikipedia then....To me that shows you are using Wikipedia for advertisement. CTJF83 05:49, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Facepalm You'd have to have them rev-deleted by an admin if you really didn't want them to show up, as simply striking them won't make them go away. Doc talk 05:52, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

It's becoming more and more obvious Anber is using Wikipedia for promotional purposes, and probably needs to be blocked. Him worrying about Google linking to this as opposed to his userpage took away any last bit of good faith I gave to him CTJF83 06:20, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

• Man, you got what you wanted with the AVGN thread, you got what you wanted with my user page, I know my web stats for my website support that I never got much if any traffic inbound from Wikipedia. Why can't you just be reasonable. I'd like to purge my first name from this debate - is there really an objection to that? Anber (talk) 08:09, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

And yet you add the external spam links that were removed once again.[26] I was starting to feel sorry for you and recommend a WP:CLEANSTART, but you are just defying consensus here. Doc talk 08:19, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

How does this defy consensus - numbers were removed and the no index was kept - the overall mood of the conversation (aside from a few people) was not to remove the links 70.26.42.104 (talk) 11:54, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

"Your epidermis is showing" - the IP is visible. An admin removed the links, and not one editor disagreed with that move even after he said he'd have no problem being reversed. Consensus was thus seemingly maintained with the link-removal-addendum. And as soon as protection expired they went up straight away. To some it would seem "defiant", especially with the prior reverts and all, but apparently it's not a huge deal. Doc talk 12:16, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

This is the same routine as over 3 years ago:

Anber advertises himself; People disagree; A discussion ensues; The discussion does not go Anber's way; Anber requests his name stricken from all records.

It didn't work 3 years ago, so again it seems Anber suffers from memory loss by going through this exact same routine again. Anyway, this page is not indexed by search engines I believe, so the point is moot.--Atlan (talk) 08:59, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, I can think of one attorney I won't look up should I find myself in an Ottawa courtroom, charged with a variety of crimes. Again, that is. ;> Doc talk 09:08, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

• Anber, ANI and all similar noticeboards are noindexed and won't appear in google search results (they will still show up in wikipedia's internal search function). Also, pages in edit histories are noindexed and won't show up in either google or wikipedia search, so revdel isn't needed just to get something out of search. Redacting it by normal editing is enough, and revdel is usually only used for stuff that's really private. There are ways to search edit histories but they are cumbersome and involve special tools. I notice you had some concerns in 2007[27] about unwanted wikipedia content showing up on googling you. I'm presuming those are resolved by now, but if not, we should try to take care of them somehow. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 09:25, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Excellent points as always :> But, oh, those pesky mirror sites. It's best just to not even try it, only then to regret it later... Doc talk 09:38, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Can we just block him and get it over with? It's obvious he isn't here to be a constructive part of Wikipedia. He is here to sell himself. CTJF83 15:06, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

• Your suggestion that I be blocked is completely without merit. I have contributed constructively as a part of Wikipedia. After the previous debate several years ago, I was led to believe that I could have some flexibility with my own talk page. You have taken an absolutely toxic attitude towards me in this debate and in the previous debate and the weight of your rediculous suggestion will be treated accordingly. You just need to look to the avgn debate where, despite me coming out on the losing side, the editor who closed the debate pointed out that my contribution (the extensive summary of everyone's position) was useful to him. Let me tell you something, I got nothing out of it other than the satisfaction of contributing something to the debate on that topic. You're obviously a bitter person. I've given up on that topic and I've given in to your requests on my user page. A truly honourable person would call it a day; which comes as no surprise to me that you are not doing so, but making frivolous requests to have me blocked. Anber (talk) 20:03, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I just looked at his user page. It's not a user page, it's a resumé. Whether he gets blocked or not, an admin should wipe the contents of the user page and replace it with "This is my user page", or some such. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:55, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Lastly, I wanted to add (this will likely be my last submission on this topic), I believe that my user page currently conforms to the consensus for what is reasonable for a user page. With respect to the links, I cite the following contributors:

• It's a statement of what the business does; and we welcome declarations of possible COI &c. It's helpful to know what background editors are coming from. The brief text is a little enthusiastic but doesn't look excessively promotional to me (bobrayner)

• We traditionally allow a link or two to personal websites and the like. As long as it's not too promotional [...], I think it's not worth bothering about. EyeSerene

In response to the above, CTJF83 wrote:

• Fair enough

This whole thing was started to remove my numbers, which I have agreed to and to respond to 'advertising' concerns, my page has been no indexed, which I have agreed to. At this point, there are 4 external links to the 4 areas of my personal life which I have delved into, I am content that they stay and in light of the comments above, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't. Anber (talk) 20:11, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

So you use me both as a bashing tool and to further your agenda....CTJF83 20:38, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

And now a Canadian IP, for their first ever edit, has restored the links. Cute. Doc talk 22:48, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

74.198.164.71 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Now reverted. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:08, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Where is an admin to block Anber and protect the page...for being an ADMIN noticeboard, I'm not seeing too many of them. CTJF83 23:11, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

AIV is getting backlogged too. They must all be watching the NCAA's. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:09, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Seeing as Anber has once again restored the links, I must agree with EyeSerene, CTJF83, N419BH, and Baseball Bugs (and others) that at the very minimum the links should stay out. This is a WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT situation at this point, seriously. More severe measures might be appropriate, and I would support them as well after his going on like this. Doc talk 05:19, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

It would be helpful if we could find an admin to be more active/proactive in this discussion, again...for being an admin noticeboard, they are lacking significantly in this discussion. CTJF83 08:20, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Maybe the lot of us will get "combat promotions". Not. ;> Doc talk 08:23, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with what has already been said above. I think this page is a violation of multiple policies. Since the user keeps adding links back in that have been stated above should not be there makes this thread unresolved. The user page reads like a resume'. Reading the user page and esp. the user's talk page, I think this user has a bad case of I didn't hear that. I also find very concerning that this has been discussed in the past with the same kind of results. I think now we need to find an administrator that is active to act upon what the community is saying in this thread. If no administrator is found than I recommend to the editors here that someone should nominate his page for MFD which is probably a better solution. If the page is MFD and it ends with deletion it will make it much harder for this user to return the information that is unacceptable. I guess I am saying that an MFD is probably the best solution to this problem. Just my 2 cents, --CrohnieGal^Talk 13:43, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• When this debate started the only problem was the phone numbers. There were several people who indicated that the links were borderline but okay. The reason they were okay is because I say a few things about myself, and then put a link at the bottom to those aspects of things which I discussed. It follows an encyclopedic format, and -- assuming the rest of my page isn`t overly promotional -- it is okay.

SINCE that moment, there was a sense that my page was trying to be used promotionally for search engine optimization. As a result a noindex link was placed. This in my mind, only strengthens my argument that the page is acceptable with the links. This is conensus of a number of users (at least 3 experienced editors, an IP or 2, and myself).

SINCE then, there have been a nuber of users who have come on and said otherwise. I don`t understand how they can claim the page as it exists now is a violation, but they take that position. I do not agree that this overwhelms the old consensus, however their comments are duly noted.

IF an impartial administrator is willing to review the entire discussion and conclude that the consensus is that links must go, I will abide by that result 100% and remove the links and not appeal that decision or revert it back at any point in the future.

UNTIL this happens, I will leave my links there as this was not the purpose of this ANI thread and there is consensus from the very people who started this thread that the links were ok. Anber (talk) 18:15, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I honestly can't believe we're still discussing this. I am not an admin, but I've taken another look at Anber's page and I honestly don't see a problem with it as it is currently. I won't claim to know any of Anber's previous activities or past indescretions on Wikipedia, but I feel that makes me a lot more objective in this situation. Considering the noindex tag to keep him from using this page as free Google advertising, and the removal of his phone numbers, what's left is a bunch of information Anber plans on sharing with the rest of the wiki community as far as I can see. People can choose to visit his links or not. As I already stated, as long as the phone numbers remain removed and the page doesn't read like an advert for his law office (which it currently does not), I don't see what the problem is here any longer. Whatever he's done before, Anber has been rather conformist in what he's been asked to do thus far. I just think this discussion has gone on long enough. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 18:25, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit-warring over one's own user page typically IS a sign of trouble. There have been plenty of words here. It's time for an admin to either shut it down or shut this discussion down, or both. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:32, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Anber was blocked for a week, just as I posted the above. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:38, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm a little bummed to hear that. I felt Anber was willing to make some concessions to his page and we in turn should have made some for him as well. Oh well, c'est la vie. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 18:42, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

The page still reads like a resume. It might help if he would change those links' descriptions to something like simply, "My home page". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:52, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Block Reasoning

As people have noticed, i blocked Anber for a week for disruptive editing, and seeing the situation surrounding the block i believe that it is best if i post a rationale for doing so. First and foremost i must mention that I am not really against the links in question; If they violate a rule at all the violation is quite minor anyway, and they are not beyond what i call intolerable on a user page. The links are, however, not the block reason. The block itself is based upon the constant edit warring and insistence to retain the promotional bits - first by edit warring with eyeserene and CKatz, Which resulted in a full protection on the page, and afterwards by reinserting the links a total of three times the instant the protection got dropped.

I tried to message Anber after denying a page protection and a block request regarding Anber posted on my talk page, advising him to steer clear from any promotional bits (At least until the case was marked resolved and a final consensus was reached). Instead, the link was re-added twice which, when combined with the earlier edit warring and the in-progress ANI thread status, was beyond what i found justifiable as non disruptive.

I'd note that any admin may alter or undo the block without prior discussion if they feel it is incorrect, to harsh or otherwise no longer requires. I will not consider this to be wheel-warring, and frankly, i welcome a better solution then a plain block. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 19:46, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I have declined an unblock request with a note that I read the above discussion as representing clear consensus that Anber may not misuse his user page for advertising.  Sandstein  21:04, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

The block is ok. I left some advice about an unblock approach. I agree with those who say that CTJF83 should stop calling for remedies at this point, as it's coming across as hounding. Anything further CTJF83 brings to this should be issues we don't already know about, backed with diffs. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 06:21, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

User has put a proposed new version of userpage on his talk page, still containing a spammy reference to his legal advertising company. The guy has contributed 65 edits to mainspace,[28] none of them substantial as far as I've looked, and I'm feeling like we've spent way too much time on this already. Rather than having us engage in yet more protracted discussions/negotiations about his userpage content, I'm inclined to propose just salting his userpage and letting him decide whether he wants to edit articles or not under those conditions. He is certainly not obligated. I've tried to discuss things on his user talk; I'm open to feedback from others about whether my posts to him were reasonable. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 18:47, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Despite the user's denials, and given all the wikilawyering, it's pretty clear that his main focus here is self-promotion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:10, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• Good block. Bishonen | talk 00:40, 28 March 2011 (UTC).

I suspect Noleander of anti-Semitic editing

(I have reopened this discussion. There was no consensus to close and there are several open issues being discussed. Simply stopping the discussion helps noone.·Maunus·ƛ· 19:50, 27 March 2011 (UTC))

Further information: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive571 § user:Noleander and antisemitism-related articles

Further information: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive572 § User:Noleander

Further information: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive597 § Noleander redux

Further information: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive608 § Deleting content in Criticism of Judaism without prior discussion

Specifically, the article Jews and money. As I go through it and consider what kinds of changes might make it fully policy compliant and encyclopedic, it dissappears, like a puddle of piss on a sunny day. Every civilized human being has an intimate association with money. Specific claims about Jews and money are virtually entirely examples of anti-Semitism. Adding material from the Bible and Talmud are at best window-dressing (Would anyone even think to give to an article on property law in the United Kingdom the title "Brits and money?") and not based on any scholarship; as far as I can tell every sourced statement is something taken out of context, misinterpreted, or ad hoc. Throwing it all together in one article seems like NOR on the largest scale possible - at best. User:Noleander has written articles like this in the past that make me think that he is also at best a disruptive editor Slrubenstein | Talk 17:00, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Please consulte this earlier AN/I thread,

this earlier AN/I thread

and this earlier AN/I thread Slrubenstein | Talk 17:02, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

and this earlier AN/I thread. At this point, I think he should just be banned. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:10, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I object strongly to be called antisemitic. The article is fully sourced, and there are dozens of books on the topic listed in the References section, including three (3!) books with the exact title Jews and money, one by the director of the Anti defamation league. Please refer to the article's reference section for dozens of other books on the topic. If there are any specific issues about the content of the article, or its sourcing, please bring them up on the article's Talk page. Finally, I point out that on the article's Talk page I specifically discuss the problem with the article's title, and solicit input on other titles that may be better, including a suggestion for "Economic history of Jews". I also request that Slrubenstein be sanctioned for suggesting that I am bigoted. --Noleander (talk) 17:08, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

You need to calm down. LiteralKa (talk) 17:30, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

If that is aimed at Noleander, it hardly seems fair. He is entitled to defend himself against what is a fairly serious accusation, and appears to have done so in a moderate and reasonable fashion.--Korruski^Talk 17:42, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Not him, hence the single indent. LiteralKa (talk) 21:52, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

• The 12,595-word Jews and money article seems to be a one-stop shop for every anti-Semitic idea ever published. Some red flags at random: that the first paragraph has to list a bunch of books about Jews and economics, using them as a talisman; a big section on Jews and financial scandals, as though such things are unheard of in non-Jewish circles; Shylock, Fagin, and Ezra Pound?; headers such as "Pride in achivements [sic]," a punch in a velvet glove, is that the expression? I think the best thing is to AfD it. Noleander, looking through your contribs, there's a fair bit of Jews in Hollywood, anti-Semitic canards, violence in Judaism, and the like. I recall that you agreed on previous AN/I threads to stay away from those issues for a while—you argued that you were anti-religion in general, not anti-Semitic or anti-Judaic—but it doesn't seem to be working out. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 17:46, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
  • I agree about the article. I've never heard of this article before, and am monitoring AN/I for a separate issue, so I only just encountered this article today and I was shocked. It's the kind of thing that brings Wikipedia into disrepute. I have no opinion on the editor mentioned at top. ScottyBerg (talk) 17:55, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
    • We already have articles like Antisemitism and Antisemitic canard. I would AFD it myself right now but I'm at work and don't really want something like "Jews and money" showing up on my Internet history. Kansan (talk) 17:58, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The proper forum for discussing the article is the article's Talk page. It is a very notable topic with many sources. I work on a wide variety of articles, often relating to religion, sometimes not. I am astonished at the attempts at intimidation being exhibited here: have you or SiRubenstein even read the sources? Marx? Sombart? Foxman? Or are you simply saying that certain subjects are taboo and any editor that ventures into that realm should suffer the dreaded ban-hammer? --Noleander (talk) 17:58, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

• Since the title of the article appears to be part of the issue here, I've renamed the article to Economic history of the Jews, which is perhaps not as accurate, but perhaps will be less contentious. --Noleander (talk) 18:03, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
  • I don't think that helps one bit. ScottyBerg (talk) 18:08, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
    • I think that makes it worse, in fact. The more formal title "economic history of" seems to lend these stereotypes more credence. The fact that Abraham Foxman wrote about the subject doesn't mitigate many editors' perception of this page as a coatrack for anti-Semitic claims. Kansan (talk) 18:13, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

If you have issues with the article, bring them up on the article's Talk page. The article accurately reflects the numerous sources on the topic. Read the sources. This ANI is about my behavior (and SiRubenstein's) and whether accusations of bigotry can be thrown at editors making legitimate edits in controversial areas. --Noleander (talk) 18:14, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I notice that there is a section on "Nazi Germany" in this article. This section is two paragraphs, each consisting mainly of quotes from Mein Kampf. Since no one has opened an AfD for this article yet, I will do so now. 28bytes (talk) 18:21, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I thought I'd seen it all. AfD the entry and start a RfC/U. Something isn't right when an editor spends this kind of time working on an entry called "Jews and Money".Griswaldo (talk) 18:26, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

RfC/U? Under what grounds? Kansan (talk) 18:28, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Huh? RfC/U seems like the right place since I don't think there is an "incident" here that is clearly in violation of policy to be dealt with. Instead SLR alleges, perhaps correctly, that Noleander exhibits a pattern of anti-semitic editing. RfC/U would be the place to explore that. What would you suggest? RfC/U isn't some kind of harsh punishment, or final step. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 18:36, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh, wow. I thought you were calling for a checkuser to be run. Stupid me, you can ignore what I said. Kansan (talk) 18:42, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah ha. Yeah I meant a request for comment/user conduct. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 19:06, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Economic history of the Jews created. 28bytes (talk) 18:32, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

This edit by Noleander to User talk:Jayjg seems hard to explain. [29] Why did Noleander not request advice before making the article go live? As far as other draft articles in Noleander's user space go, there seem to be a lot of things that are similar (now almost all blanked). [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] Mathsci (talk) 19:19, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Those links you list are simply draft copies of material, in my User space. Virtually all of that material found its way into WP articles. Nothing fishy there: it is all plainly visible to the public in the histories. Don't you do rough drafts before the final copy? Of course those rough drafts are all blanked: otherwise they would appear in the Categories, and in "what links here" lists. By concocting a list like that and presenting it as something dramatic, you are misleading other editors. Once again, I object to this witch hunt. The material I added is valid, notable, and well sourced. If there is a specific edit that is objectionable, show the diffs. WP is not censored. --Noleander (talk) 19:36, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Do other wikipedia articles use Mein Kampf in this way? Mathsci (talk) 19:37, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Hitler, Mein Kampf, and the Nazis are mentioned prominently by several major sources that discuss the topic of the article. Have you read the sources? Or are you suggesting that I fabricated the references? Or do you think the Nazis are relevant to the article, but we should just leave it out of WP because it is offensive? --Noleander (talk) 19:42, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

You don't actually include any commentary from the sources: you have a long quote from Mein Kampf. By not including commentary, no proper context is provided. Mathsci (talk) 19:50, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah, so your concern is the lack of context in that section. That's a valid point. I'd be happy to work with you to improve that section, and any others that you feel need some work. We can continue this discussion on the Talk page. --Noleander (talk) 19:53, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Why not just go ahead and blank the whole Hitler section? I see that Jayjg made a report on you last month on ANI about precisely these kinds of articles. Is that why you wanted to have a detailed discussion with him about this new article? Mathsci (talk) 20:01, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Your suggestion is interesting, but the ANI is not the best forum for discussing specific improvements to the article: shall we continue this discussion at the article Talk page? --Noleander (talk) 20:06, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I have another suggestion. Why not write a concise summary in your user space of the first reference you provided in the AfD? Its title is exactly the new title you chose, but there seems to be very little common content which is a little bit odd. It looks balanced and would be a proper starting point for a serious article. Jayjg might be able to help you out. (I don't know if he's read your message yet.) Mathsci (talk) 21:24, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Apart the omission of a handful of articles on Mormonism, it's just a list (with unblanking) of what is in your user space. Nothing has been "concocted". Mathsci (talk) 19:41, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. Besides for the aforementioned article, Noleander created Allegations of Jewish control of the media, Jews and the slave trade, Judaism and war, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood, among other similar gems. We already have an essay entitled Wikipedia:Civil POV pushing and I guess now its time to author Wikipedia:Civil Antisemitism pushing. However, while the former is something lots of Wikipedia editors are unfortunately guilty of, the latter is obviously far more egregious and has no place on this encyclopedia. Perhaps the community may see it fit to topic ban Noleander from Judaism, or all religion related articles. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 19:21, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Is there a specific edit I made that is of concern? Can you cite any place where I misrepresented reliable sources? Are the above topics not notable? If the above articles are objectionable, the AfD process is available, and in fact, was followed on many of the articles, and the community decided that the articles are notable and valid. Or is this just a case of WP:I don't like it? Or is your goal to intimidate editors to prevent them from making legitimate edits on controversial topics? --Noleander (talk) 19:30, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The only person whose views on the topic of "Jews and money" you quote in the "Nazi Germany" section of the article is... Adolf Hitler. That really strike you as appropriate? It didn't occur to you to use one of the many secondary sources that have been published on antisemitism in Germany instead of just uncritically quoting from Mein Kampf as a primary source? 28bytes (talk) 19:50, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Sure, I agree that section could be improved. Those quotes are from the secondary sources (that is, I did not select the quotes: the secondary sources did), but you are right: more secondary material would be appropriate. I'd be happy to work with you on it, that's why the article has a Talk page. --Noleander (talk) 19:56, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Just because a article exists does not mean that the subject matter is true; this is a dumb canard that we've had to fight over for years at the Israeli apartheid analogy article. e.g. I fail to see what is wrong with the Allegations of Jewish control of the media, it is a well-known and oft-repeated lie that certainly deserves encyclopedic attention, doesn't it? Tarc (talk) 19:46, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

observation Noleander is an atheist whose POV is abrasive to my own "pro all sorts of conventional, alternative, and plain nutty religion" POV. He dislikes religion and has helped out on Articles like Criticism of Religion and the such. I dont think he has any agenda but that and I think there are a number of people expressing good faith concerns on the evidence provided by the OP. But he really does do work on other articles. I think he even mentioned on one talk page of being of jewish background but I cant seem to find it. The Resident Anthropologist (Talk / contribs) 20:13, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

ResidentAnthropologist, while I do not think the entry in question should be deleted, since it is clearly probably a workable and notable topic, I do think the Noleander's behavior bares scrutiny. The reason it was so shocking, I think, is that Noleander dropped a detailed, fully formed (300+ reference) entry titled "Jews and Money" onto the Wiki filled with topics that are usually related to antisemitism. This was a bad idea, particularly since Noleander has been accused of antisemitism before (see above). What was s/he thinking? Of course people don't always do things in the most agreeable manner, but I really do wonder what is Noleander's fascination with Jews? My own path crossed his recently regarding the issue of ethnic categorization. S/he is a staunch advocate of these ethnic categories and lists, and in particular those listing Jewish people. In fact during the conversation it was Noleander that brought up Jewish lists, and s/he did so again and again. Perhaps this is a very innocent interest, but I think it bares scrutiny. The entry in question needs a serious re-write IMO. On my first glance through I started to wonder if it didn't function to "make sense of" the history of European/American antisemitism and various antisemitic canards. I'm not saying this is the case, but closer scrutiny is needed here. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 20:37, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Observation what does this form of anti-Semitism have to do with religion? Plenty of atheists say anti-Semitic things. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:23, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I object in the strongest terms to any discussion of my personal faith. I am appalled at the "witch hunt" atmosphere here, when the underlying article is on a highly notable subject, that is supported by excellent sources. This ANI appears to serve no purpose other than to intimidate editors from making legitimate edits in controversial areas. --Noleander (talk) 20:45, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Noleander, anyway you cut it the way you went about this was boneheaded, and you really can't blame people for being shocked by this. Did you really think you were going to drop an entry called "Jews and Money" on the project and not see people flailing about over it? Come on. You could have saved yourself all this drama by engaging the Judaism wikiproject in advance, or specific editors. If you had, we would probably not be here right now. Now that you dropped a bomb people are going to want to scrutinize your behavior. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 20:51, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

• comment we have an article on Criminal black man stereotype, perhaps an article of Rich Jew stereotype would be better than one that seems to lend credence to the stereotype rather than challenge it. Personally I would vote delete if either of them were AfD'ed but it often seems to be difficult to get this kind of crap deleted since there is no shortage of "notable publications" about these racist stereotypes.·Maunus·ƛ· 20:30, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

• Very much in favour unless someone gives a proper reason not to be! I know several Jews and none of them matches the stereotype, but it's too prominent culturally to overlook. It's in South Park and jokes, as well as on the darker side: racial persecution. However, how much sourced material can we find? Zakhalesh (talk) 20:49, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually I think I prefer merging into Anti-semitic canard or Stereotypes of Jews.·Maunus·ƛ· 20:51, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me. Zakhalesh (talk) 20:59, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I think this is an reasonable way to deal with the article. It does not deal with Noleander's pattern of behavior. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:34, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

An RFC/U has been suggested. If you don't want to take that route you could explicitly propose a topic ban or siteban on WP:AN. 28bytes (talk) 21:43, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I explicitly proposed a ban, up top. Also, in archive 608 User:JoshuaZ proposed a topic ban. I provided the links, above, to demonstrate that Noleander has already been the object of repeated lengthy AN/I discussion. I see this as just a continuation of a long discussion over the past couple of years. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:07, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Indeed you did. Restating it with a new, explicit section header below might prevent your proposal from getting lost in the shuffle. 28bytes (talk) 22:20, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

• Frankly this is nonsense, and a very unpleasant slur on Noleander. I've looked in on Allegations of Jewish control of the media a few times in the last few months, and from what I have seen on Noleander's edits what he's motivated by is to make the world more aware of the seriousness and unpleasantness of antisemitism. Overwhelmingly the sources he seems most to rely on are Jewish sources, by the likes of Abraham Foxman, Alan Dershowitz, the Anti-Defamation League, written in the belief that this is not something that should just be allowed to continue uncommented, but should be recognised, exposed and stood up to. From what I've seen, Noleader appears to be the complete opposite of antisemitic -- he appears to be philo-semitic, and that is what motivates him. 22:38, 25 March 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jheald (talk • contribs)

Lesson learned

Judging from the "early returns" from the AfD, it seems quite likely that the article will be kept. Apparently the community wants articles like this. Live and learn, I guess. At least I know the formula now, in case I ever have the urge to rebroadcast and amplify a Jewish stereotype:

1. Come up with a plausibly notable article title, preferably one that's appeared as the title to one or more books

a. If the book(s) with that title has been written by a Jew, even better.

b. If the book(s) have been written by a Jewish activist like Abe Foxman, well, now we're really getting started! Can't possibly be antisemitic now.

2. Start a "here's what a bunch of antisemites have to say about the Jews on this topic" list — meticulously sourced, of course.

3. When editors balk at the article, point out how notable it is (see point 1) and how well-sourced it is (see point 2), and invite them to the talk page to "help" "balance" the article (in case, for some reason, they're bothered by the fact that Hitler gets so big of a platform to speak unchallenged on the topic)

4. When said editors, who are naturally revolted by such an article, express no interest in "helping" "fix" it, shrug and say it must be fine if no one has any specific complaints.

5. Pick another stereotype, go to step 1.

I'll admit, this seems to be a very successful strategy. I can't wait to see what we'll see next. Maybe Jews and big noses? Nah, not subtle enough; how about Physical characteristics of Jewish peoples? That's more like it. Might even find some books with that title! I guess I should watchlist those redlinks to see how quickly they turn blue. Only a matter of time, I suppose. 28bytes (talk) 20:46, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment: Why is it only the negative stereotypes are the ones that get articles created? How come there isn't a Black men have giant phalluses stereotype article? I find it incredibly amazing that negative stereotype articles are allowed to exist, but no one ever complains about the lack of positive stereotype articles. I find this discussion both sad and entertaining. I support anyone saying these articles should be deleted, regardless of how "sourced" it is, it's clear to me that the point of the articles are designed to stir up emotions and give creedence to stereotypes which shouldn't be the focus of an Encyclopedia. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 20:52, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

encyclopediadramatica.com/The_Great_Black_Dick_Hoax – That's a hoax, don'tcha know? /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 21:11, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I get that... my point was that fallacies are fallacies, and no matter how sourced it is or not doesn't mean we should allow stereotype-laden articles based on generalities to begin popping up on Wiki. I know nothing about the user in question or his past, and I don't care if he has an agenda or not. The article is titled and written in such a way as to spark some sort of debate which is exactly why this ANI exists in the first place. If this article is allowed to stick around, I imagine it will continuously pop up on this page as more and more people eventually move from discussion, to debate, to personal attacks, and on and on. I'm not in favor of articles that will cause admins a lot more undue and unnecessary work in "putting out fires" between editors over the subject of Jews and money. I support it's deletion and, in point of fact, support the deletion of any other articles borne out of stereotypes. Oh, and yeah, I realize you were making a joke. I did LOL at that. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 21:22, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

• Yes! Damn those people who use language skills to make themselves feel superior! Oh wait; I thought that said anti-semantics... HalfShadow 21:23, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

• we once had an article on Jews and Hollywood, which would certainly be a positive subject, considering the major role they played in the creation of the industry there, but it got afd'd , and redirected, and now consists of two sentence in American Jews. the rule seems to be that since some bigots see the whatever activities of Jews as being a negative influence, any article on Jewish relationship to whatever gets deleted. since some people perceive the influence of Jews on cinema a subversive influence, we won't have an article on it. Since some people have seen the contributions of Jews in economic history both during the middle ages and the rise of capitalism as negative or a matter for hatred or ridicule, that too shall not be a topic here. Since some people see articles of racial stereotypes as perpetuating the stereotypes, we won't have them either. The true principles are NPOV and NOT CENSORED, and negative attitudes towards Jews or any people are documented here as much as the positive ones. An encyclopedia that omits recognition of the nastier parts of the real world turns gradually into the sort of children's encyclopedias they had 50 years ago, when you never said anything that might possibly be unpleasant of anyone but Nazis and Communists. Presumably because most prior discussion of Jews, or Blacks, or whomever, was done for the purposes of degrading them, anything but fulsome praise was eliminated. DGG ( talk ) 04:06, 26 March 2011 (UTC) .
  • The rule is actually that if an article purporting to be a neutral encyclopedia article on a subject is in fact a thinly-veiled excuse to present as much negative material on that subject as possible that we need not attempt to rescue it based on some twisted notion of freedom of speech. When an editor does this over and over there would seem to be a deeper problem. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 10:03, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Propose topic ban

• Support 12-month topic ban on adding content or categories related to ethnicity, particularly anything to do with Jews. Noleander keeps saying his interest lies in opposition to religion, all religion. But he continues nevertheless to edit about ethnicity, particularly Jewishness (which needn't be related to religion). I asked him in February last year whether he'd be willing to focus on religion clearly, and to leave ethnicity alone, and he agreed. But he didn't do it, and there have been multiple complaints since then. So I think there has to be some kind of topic ban now, at minimum, or we'll be back here with the same issue in a few weeks. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 22:27, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

• [editconflict]*proposal/support Given the previous ANI attention to Noleander's editing on this topic ight I propose that imposing a topic ban on articles related to Judaism broadly construed could be a reasonable way to avoid this kind of problem in the future. I think the previous ANI threads show a very unfortunate editing pattern that we cannot allow to continue. Frankly it threatens the integrity of the encyclopedia. ·Maunus·ƛ· 22:30, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Let me copy in here the paragraph I've just added above. I've looked in on Allegations of Jewish control of the media a few times in the last few months, and from what I have seen in Noleander's edits what he appears to be motivated by is to make the world more aware of the seriousness and unpleasantness of antisemitism. Overwhelmingly the sources he seems most to rely on are Jewish sources, by the likes of Abraham Foxman, Alan Dershowitz, the Anti-Defamation League, etc, written in the belief that this is not something that should just be allowed to continue uncommented, but should be recognised, exposed and stood up to. From what I've seen, Noleader appears to be the complete opposite of antisemitic -- he appears to be philo-semitic, at least that's how it's appeared to me in the random set of edits I've seen. User:Jheald 22:38, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose While some may not like Noleander's edits, I don't see him breaking any policies whatsoever. From what I've seen, he's more than willing to discuss disagreements about content while remaining civil. There is no evidence of tendentious behavior or an inability to work with other editors. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 22:51, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
  • It gets to a core policy: this is an encyclopedia, not a forum for packaging anti-Semitic views as scholarship. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:36, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose - I understand that the areas I edit in are controversial, but so far there is no evidence of violating WP policies. Show me the diffs. So far, all I see is vague hand-waving and "I dont like it" or "the material is offensive". There are many editors that only work in one particular realm, and there is no WP policy that says "an editor cannot limit their edits to one particular topic area". The material I add to the encyclopedia is an accurate, neutral, balanced representation of what the reliable secondary sources say. If anyone can point to a specific problem with the material, I'll be the first to work with them to remedy any shortcomings. WP:Wikipedia is not censored. This ANI and ban proposal is nothing more than a witch-hunt, clearly aimed at intimidating editors and preventing them from making legitimate edits in controversial topics. --Noleander (talk) 22:57, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support Noleander Another editor says above that the immediate response to the RfD is positive - I have to wonder how many people have read the article and are familiar with the sources (and thus know how the sources are being misrepresented)? I am not impressed by the flippant "lessons" she has being drawn from this experience. This is the fifth AN/I discussion about her Noleander's behavior regarding Jews. I think we should discuss either or both. I really ask people here to read through the previous threads, linked at the top of this one, to see how much time her behavior has sucked from the community, with no real improvement in behavior. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:01, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Please don't misrepresent me. I made no comment whatsoever about "response to the RfD is positive". That was another editor. I expect editors to take more care when reading and quoting material. Please correct your comment. --Noleander (talk) 23:04, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

You are right. Apologies for my hasty mistake, which I hope I have adequately corrected. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:50, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Calling an editor an anti-semite and calling for him to be banned while he has not broken any policies is way more egregious than anything Noleander did. If the article is no good take it to AfD, if it survives than work with the editor to fix it. Oh, and just so no one thinks I'm hiding it, I do work on I-P articles. Passionless -Talk 23:10, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
• Doesn't this scream "breaching experiment" to anyone else? If an editor who hadn't previously purported to be a general critic of organised religion had devoted significant time to a half-dozen psuedodocumentarian articles on the negative impacts of Jews on civilisation he'd likely have been shooed away by now. Civility in discussion and a willingness to debate one's detractors is not, AFAIK, carte blanche to continue adding such material to Wikipedia. I'd like to see a rebuttal to that other than "FREE SPEECH Y'ALL" or "he hasn't specifically broken any rules". Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 23:21, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Maybe it was a breaching experiment the first time when he created Controversies related to prevalence of Jews in leadership roles in Hollywood. After doing that he was made aware that that wasn't considered a fruitful approach to creaing articles about sensitive topics. Rerunning the experiment at this time is just disruptive.·Maunus·ƛ· 23:38, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh my.[50] Yes, we have been through this before. And Noelander is also the main author of An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 02:06, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose - What exactly is the basis for this proposal, other than "I don't like him" ? Nothing. Tarc (talk) 23:46, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
  • The basis is, WP should not be hijacked by people who wish to package anti-Semitic views as if they were scholarship. It is not hard to do - many people publish pamphlets or books that do the same, citing real historians, even Jewish sources - but, like Noleander, only by misrepresenting sources. It is not encyclopedic. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:36, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

SiRubenstein: I object to your characterization of my edits as "misrepresenting" .. that is absolutely false. The article is an accurate representation of what scholarly secondary sources say on the topic. If there are any specific shortcomings in the article, please raise them at the Talk page, and I will happy to work with you to remedy the problem. But your repeated vague hand-waving is very deceptive, and your assertions are based on innuendo and "I don't like it". --Noleander (talk) 13:59, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support Unfortunately, given the history cited above, Noleander's posting on User talk:Jayjg [51] seems to be a not particularly well disguised example of baiting (I obviously do not mean jew-baiting). Noleander's own failure to write a neutral "Economic history of the Jews", given that a neutral source exists devoted to exactly this topic, would seem to indicate that Noleander might have his own private agenda. Since this is not the first time that Noleander has acted in this way, even fairly recently. I would not be surprised that, if the community cannot resolve matters reasonably, Noleander could find himself at the centre of an ArbCom case. Mathsci (talk) 01:28, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Comment I made a sample check to see whether a randomly chosen sentence matched material in the source and properly reflected its general context. I found that the sentence was chosen from an analysis of the writings of Werner Sombart, whom the authors labelled as antisemitic. The content reflects Sombart's views, not the authors. That is not apparent in Noleander's one sentence summary with its out-of-context quote. Mathsci (talk) 16:07, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support topic ban per SlimVirgin. Does the work of Noleander remind anyone else of User:Wassermann, who is now, and not before time, indefinitely blocked as "not here to help the project"?[52] I'm not suggesting Noleander is Wassermann's sock, as there is a two-year overlap of editing; merely that there seem to be two of them. We blocked Wassermann; I'd cheerfully support a full siteban for his spiritual brother Noleander, if I thought there was any point. I've clicked on Slrubinsteins links to earlier ANI threads on Noleander, up top of the thread; I hope everybody does. They are very interesting, especially Peter Cohen's post about Noleander's plagiarism from Stormfront (sic) and Radio Islam (sic) [53]. Noleander concedes that Radio Islam is "a rabid site", but says he plagiarised used it because he "failed to proofread" and remove the text (?), and because Radio Islam "does contain material that is often not found elsewhere." Yeah. It sure does. Even typing the names of Stormfront and Radio Islam (reliable sources?) disgusts me. The editors above who oppose on the ground that Noleander has "not broken any policies" need to get a clue about the nature of Wikipedia policy. See WP:NOTSTATUTE. Editors who bring Wikipedia into disrepute should be banned, however skilfully or "civilly" they navigate around policy. Bishonen | talk 02:17, 26 March 2011 (UTC).

break 1

• Oppose No evidence has been presented which demonstrates any contravention of policy by Noleander. In fact the only policy I see being contravened is WP:NPA. Calling someone an anti-semite on the basis that they write articles on controversial topics, rather on the basis of what they have actually written, smacks of an attempt at censorship, in addition to being uncivil - if not worse. I think we need to look at this in the broader context of articles relating to ethnicity and faith, where 'positive' articles are often defended on flimsy grounds. If we make a decision that Neolander is wrong to create a (supposedly) 'negative' article, are we going to also stop the creation of such 'positive' articles? Perhaps we should, but until we do, we cannot have double standards. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:21, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Mhm. So.. did you read my post just above? And/Or WP:NOTSTATUTE ? Bishonen | talk 02:36, 26 March 2011 (UTC).

Did I read your post? No actually, I didn't. I had an edit conflict, and added mine without looking at it. If you want a comment on it how about this: do you really think that 'guilt by association' is a valid argument here? As for (allegedly) plagiarising Stormfront, that wasn't mentioned in the complaint - and appears to already have been dealt with. No Wikipedia isn't a bureaucracy - but that doesn't mean it has to act like a Kangaroo Court either. If you have a complaint, make it in the proper way, rather than by insinuation, and with additional 'evidence' thrown in willy-nilly. Even if Neolander is in the wrong, this is no legitimate way to deal with it. We've been down this route before in recent months, with attempts to 'revise' policy to get rid of editors who don't conform to a particular POV - this is a dangerous path to tread. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:51, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

@Andy the Grump: how about that? Not much, and it doesn't seem to represent a lot of research. I'll put my thoughts on it on your talkpage, so as not to use up further ANI space. Bishonen | talk 16:39, 26 March 2011 (UTC).

The basis is, WP should not be hijacked by people who wish to package anti-Semitic views as if they were scholarship. It is not hard to do - many people publish pamphlets or books that do the same, citing real historians, even Jewish sources - but, like Noleander, only by misrepresenting sources. It is not encyclopedic. I do not care what POV Noleander has. What I do care about is when unscholarly views are represented by Wikipedia as scholarly encyclopedic views. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:36, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support topic ban per SlimVirgin and Bishonen. The similarity of this situation with Noleander to that of User:Wassermann is striking (not suggesting any WP:SOCKing). JoeSperrazza (talk) 04:11, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose' We can not judge someone;'s motives accurately; we can only judge their work. I really do agree with Tarc on this, the support for a block seems to be "some of the things he writes makes me uncomfortable." The answer is for perceived bias is for more people to work on these potentially sensitive articles. I personally do not, because I don't like being chased away for being willing to criticize , and I am not willing to parrot the conventionally pseudo-liberal over-benign POV that is predominant here DGG ( talk ) 04:38, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • I have no idea what Noleander's motives are, I only judge the work. The work doesn't make me uncomfortable, it makes me laugh, personally. But it also makes me embarassed to be associated with a websight that claims to be an encyclopedia but has articles that use the window-dressing of encyclopedia articles (like links to other articles, long list of cited sources) but which actually misrepresents views, takes statements out of context, and organizes material in order to make a rather unencyclopedic point. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:36, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Comment I agree with User:DGG despite the fact that the editor's edits do make me somewhat uncomfortable. The problem is that I do not see the evidence to ban them based on what has been presented. If there is a pattern of antisemitic, or otherwise disruptive editing from Noleander then an RFC/U is the right place to tease that out. Noleander has shown some very poor judgement here but we need evidence of more than that to topic ban someone. I encourage editors who want Noleander topic banned to take this to RFC/U. I'll be happy to add my own perspective on their editing in such a venue. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 05:43, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• I'm changing my oppose to as simple comment. Mathsci's analysis of an example from the entry shows something troubling (more troubling than the past discussions linked to above). More examples like this would be helpful, which is why I stand by the recommendation to take this to a different venue, where evidence can be systematically presented.Griswaldo (talk) 21:12, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

*Oppose. I strongly agree with what Griswaldo said. I, too, am rather uncomfortable with the edits this user has made, but the hyper-charged atmosphere of ANI, where many people comment without reading everything relevant, is not the way to deal with such a prolific editor who is not obviously vandalizing or doing anything of the like. Arbitration or, at the very least, RFc/u, would be a more proper avenue than here in this case. Kansan (talk) 06:19, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• • If we were to ake your view we might as well close shop on AN/I. In fact, if you are right that people at AN/I comment without reading everything relevant, then we simply disregard what they wrote. That is what is supposed to happen at discussions - people raise questions, issues, and respond to them. Community bans have traditionally been prefered over ArbCom bans and in some cases are more appropriate than ArbCom which has a relatively narrow mission. This is not about resolving a dispute, it is about dealing with a long-standing problem. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:55, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
    • I didn't word my comment particularly well, but the gist of my statement is that RFc/u is a better avenue in such a case as this that, with all due respect, is not particularly clear cut. Kansan (talk) 17:13, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
      • After looking at Mathsci's example of a seemingly POV misuse of a source, I cannot in good conscience retain my "support". Kansan (talk) 20:31, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose As the AfD clearly shows (as does the continued existence of Noleander's previous articles), the community does not believe that making a incredibly well referenced article on a topic is wrong. Other users keep attacking Noleander for his creation of these articles, but I notice that they do so because of the subject of the articles and completely ignore the fact that they are all referenced to highly reliable sources, often of which are entirely about the subject made. That's how articles and notability works on Wikipedia. We shouldn't be topic banning an editor who is making high quality articles for the project just because people feel the very scholarly topics are racist. If the subject is a form of statement that is incorrect, then the sources will obviously show that in the end and it doesn't change the fact that the topic itself is notable for its contentious nature. Silverseren^C 07:04, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • I have addressed this numerous times. This is not by any stretch of the imagination an incredibly well-sourced article, and I wish you would share with us your basis for claiming it is. To make such a claim you must be familiar with the sources cited, and if you were you would know that the views of the sources are regularly misrepresented, more notable sources are ignored, and information from sources is presented out of context, and incompletely, to create a skewed view. How is this a well-sourced article? Slrubenstein | Talk 11:50, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

SiRubenstein: I object to the baseless mischaracterization of my edits as "misrepresented", "ignored", and "out of context". That is absolutely wrong: the material is a very accurate representation of what scholarly secondary sources say on the topic. If there are any issues with the article, please describe them (with specificity) on the article's Talk page, and I will be happy to work with you to resolve the problems. But he repeated vague hand-waving in the absence of any specificity is disturbing. This really smells like McCarthyism ... all smoke-and-mirrors but no substance. --Noleander (talk) 13:44, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Rather than repeating generalities, it would be helpful if Slrubenstein could provide some specific examples of his claims. Say, the three worst instances of misrepresentaions etc in the article. DeCausa (talk) 14:06, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Although I do not know more about Noleander's work than what is apparent from this ANI discussion, I tend to agree with many of the editors above that this proposal is unhelpful in this form. By all means ban an editor if they try to push an antisemitic (or any other, really) point of view on Wikipedia. But I see no clear evidence here that Noleander has done that. Rather, many people seem to object that he writes articles about topics related to antisemitism. That is not problematic, as long as his contributions themselves are neutral, about notable aspects of antisemitism and otherwise policy-compliant.

  I do not exclude the possibility that they might not be. Some statements in the AfD claim that Noleander's content is "an carefully crafted antisemitic screed, disguised as well researched and footnoted neutral treatment" ([54], with some evidence). But if that is so, it merits closer examination in a RFC/U, rather than in the heat of an ANI thread. And if it is false, such allegations are themselves very problematic, and should therefore not be made unless accompanied by a thorough analysis of the evidence.  Sandstein  07:09, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support. This is not the first time the user has acted like this. At all. I don't need an RfC/U to realise that this user is pushing an antisemitic POV, trying to push as much of it into the encyclopedia as he can get away with, but no more. The evidence mentioned by Bishonen is clear enough. We are in a Biedermann und die Brandstifter scenario. Hans Adler 08:39, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Ridiculous thread prompted by over-sensitivity, with some reactions nearing hysteria. Oppose per AndyTheGrump: "No evidence has been presented which demonstrates any contravention of policy by Noleander. In fact the only policy I see being contravened is WP:NPA. Calling someone an anti-semite on the basis that they write articles on controversial topics, rather on the basis of what they have actually written, smacks of an attempt at censorship, in addition to being uncivil - if not worse. I think we need to look at this in the broader context of articles relating to ethnicity and faith, where 'positive' articles are often defended on flimsy grounds. If we make a decision that Neolander is wrong to create a (supposedly) 'negative' article, are we going to also stop the creation of such 'positive' articles? Perhaps we should, but until we do, we cannot have double standards." DeCausa (talk) 08:41, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

This is not the AfD. This is the ban discussion for an editor who has in the past plagiarised from Stormfront Radio Islam ("one of the most radical right wing antisemitic homepages on the net") and is continuing to write antisemitic articles. Whether the title is plausible for a neutral encyclopedic article is not relevant here. What counts is what he put into the article. Hans Adler 08:51, 26 March 2011 (UTC) Edited per below.

I know what this thread is. That's why I wrote what I wrote. DeCausa (talk) 08:58, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Don't you mean "That's why I wrote what AndyTheGrump wrote"? Please don't waste ANI space like that; the thread is long enough without repeating other people's posts. Bishonen | talk 15:34, 27 March 2011 (UTC).

Hans Adler: Your assertion that I visited the Stormfront website is defamatory and wrong.. I have never visited the Stormfront website. Please correct your comment. --Noleander (talk) 13:48, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Happy now? Hans Adler 13:26, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Per both AndyTheGrump & DeCausa sum up pretty my view on this subject.--Domer48_'fenian' 09:08, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment The entire article that Noleander wrote on Jews and money is the example, on top of a history of tendentious editing exemplified by four prior AN/I threads that provide more examples. Below, Soxwon provides a specific example, and user:Mathsci/example provides a great example. On the AfD page I and others provide other examples. There is hardly a lcack of evidence. There is a preponderance of evidence that noleander systematically misrepresents sources in order to present anti-Semitic canards as facts. And school-kids reading our encyclopedia because it is th largest online encyclopedia will read the article and believe they are facts. This undermines the credibility of the whole encyclopedia. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:32, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

break 2

• Meh (Change to Support) I think Sandstein is right that RFC is a better place for this type of discussion. I've looked at a handful of edits and none jump out as terrible, but examining a larger number might uncover some patterns. A look at a list of article edited shows what seems to me to be an excessively focused interest in articles related to criticism of various religions, some of which don't seem very nice. Here[55] Noleander adds some criticism of Israel with reasonable sourcing, ok. Here [56][57] Noleander removes sourced but tendentious material critical of Islam, I guess also ok. But then here[58] Noleander adds to Israel and the apartheid analogy stuff sourced to the schlocky-looking "Zionism Explained" site. This is from checking just a few edits and is not enough to infer anything from. While not calling for (or opposing) a topic ban at this point, I'd be happier if Noleander's interests seemed a bit less obsessive. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 09:19, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Changed to support based on subsequent discussion and investigation. Also have concerns about Noleander's editing in relation to Mormonism. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 20:21, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• (ec)Support. I've read the previous ANI discussions cited by the OP. Noleander has declared "My perception is that Wikipedia is censored in regards to some topics that reflect negatively on Jews, and I'm attempting to reverse that censorship."[59] When they came to List of Jewish American businesspeople it consisted of ten business leaders and it was slightly weighted towards technology. Noleander added 47 names, [60] shifting the representation to 51% media executives (including 7% pornographers), and 25% finance executives (including 9% criminals).^{[See this ANI thread]} This change reflects and reinforces the claims of Jewish control of the media and Jewish control of finance. I see it implying something about morals and criminality, too. No way does it remotely reflect the distribution of Jewish business leaders throughout the economy. I haven't read Jews and money. I got to the third section, Double standard and couldn't read on. I deleted it. It was transparently just an excuse to apply the slanted, pejorative terms "double standard" and "discriminatory" to Jewish financial practice. I wouldn't have a clue whether Judaism is being presented in an unduly flattering light here, but this editor's purported antidote is toxic. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 10:20, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
• Comment: Unabashed ignorance and cultural insensitivity are not necessarily examples of antisemtism. However, if the numerous negative claims above about Noleander have the slightest bit of truth to them, one wonders why this hasn't already gone to RfC and/or arbitration. If he has truly plagiarised from Stormfront, misrepresented sources, and committed other heinous breaches of Wikipedia policies, then dispute resolution should proceed on those grounds and deal with specific, actionable issues. Viriditas (talk) 11:26, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • The lift from Stormfront was quotes of other authors. Noleander retained Stormfront's "x said", "y claimed" etc. Seemed like a genuine oversight. The lift was from Radio Islam site.[61] Noleander retained a substantial amount of Radio Islam's commentary. "x said", "y claimed" etc. Seemed like a genuine oversight. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 11:34, 26 March 2011 (UTC) Corrected 17:23, 26 March 2011 (UTC) Corrected per SV 07:18, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I have never visited the Stormfront site, and I've never lifted any material from there. Please correct your slanderous remark. I am appalled at the misleading, deceptive comments being promulgated in this ANI thread. There are no concrete instances of behavior that are being cited. If the article has shortcomings, and I'll readily admit it does, let's go to the article's Talk page and fix it. But the baseless threats, intimidation, and innuendo being demonstrated here are out of hand. --Noleander (talk) 13:26, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support My personal views on the subject(s) are irrelevant, as should be Noleander's; we need to consider what is best for the project. There is obviously an issue in the minds of many people that Noleander's interest and manner in editing articles relating to Jews is problematic, even though this is countered by references to non violation of policy, and acknowledgement of content based concerns. What I am not seeing is any deference to the general concerns, that there is too much emphasis upon one area - a small but significant area of a subject that Noleander has proclaimed some antipathy toward. I think Noleander should be topic banned, perhaps not for a long time but a few months, to see whether they are interested in building the encyclopedia in other areas, or whether they are interested in editing area's examining the role of Jews in society only. The best possible contributor would have already recognised the qualms of the community and voluntarily moved away from the areas of concern, and a good editor will have taken on the concerns of the community and sought to have addressed them. This editor needs to be topic banned because they are intent on being permitted to edit these articles in the manner they prefer, and they need to show now that they do so in a genuine desire to improve the encyclopedia - and if that is the case then they will accept this restriction. LessHeard vanU (talk) 11:29, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

LessHeard vanU: Thanks for the cogent, polite comment. Questions for you: what specific WP policy have I violated? Can you provide a specified Edit I made that was problematic? If you cannot cite one, then don't your comments devolve into "I dont like it"? The rationale you explain above is that I have "too much emphasis upon one area". Not true: my edits are very broad ... and even if they were focused in the area of religion, your rationale would cause thousands of editors to get banned. Your argument might have some merit if I refused to engage in Talk page discussions, but the truth is that I cheerfully participate in Talk discussions, and aim for compromise at every step. Your argument might have merit if I were uncivil, but the truth is that I treat all editors with respect, and I am a big fan of the WP consensus process. --Noleander (talk) 13:35, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

As noted, there is hardly any one edit or even series of edits that cannot be described as policy compliant - even the exampled use of Mein Kampf as the sole source for one section is, properly, indicated as a content issue. If pushed, however, I would suggest that the policy your edits to articles relating to Jewish orientated subjects - in totality - is WP:DISRUPT. I think it more to the point that your actions possibly contravene the first and penultimate of the Wikipedia:Five pillars; in that the project is not a soapbox and that you should acknowledge that good faith concerns of your fellow contributors over your focus on this group of articles. The articles do not need you to edit them, and you do not need to edit the articles - but your insistence that you are allowed to do so is why I think your actions do violate WP:DISRUPT. It is, I admit, a Catch-22 situation; I feel you need to show that you are capable of being permitted to edit these articles by agreeing not to - by accepting a topic ban of a few months duration. LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:06, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• The user should take this discussion and poll as an ersatz RFCU and learn lessons from it to avoid future problems.   Will Beback  talk  13:42, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that is good advice. I can already see a couple of areas I could improve in: particularly collaborating up front with more editors before adding substantial amounts of material. I really respect Wikipedia, and its mission to help enlighten the world. I take my editing very seriously, and I will endeavor to incorporate this feedback in my future editing. --Noleander (talk) 13:51, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

It is good advice, but the problem is you've been offered it before. Look at this exchange between us on AN/I in February last year, where you agreed to focus on religion, rather than ethnicity:

Template:Quote box4

What happened to that agreement? SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 23:05, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Just a quick question. Jewish can mean a religion or an ethnicity. If Noleander is editing religion-related articles, then this means that the editor is focusing on the religious aspects, not the ethnic ones, right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Avanu (talk • contribs) 01:17, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support—I don't think that the article "Jews and money" or any other specific case is the issue here. Also, the discussion is for a topic ban, not a general ban or block. A topic ban can be applied in cases where a user is shows to consistently edit in a controversial manner on a topic, without making significant non-controversial contributions. It has been shown in this AN/I case that:
  • Noleander writes highly controversial articles about Jews but does not make any significant non-controversial contributions on the same topic;
  • Noleander has been warned about this behavior before, and even promised not to repeat it, but has repeated it now;
  • Noleander is not deterred by the massive opposition to his articles and does not see anything wrong with his behavior, despite admitting that at least his latest article has many problems.

In light of that, I don't see how a topic ban on this subject can hurt the encyclopedia. It would certainly free up the time that many editors spent commenting on this AN/I (and the relevant AfD) so that they can positive contribute to Wikipedia. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 13:53, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support Having spent far too much time looking at the diffs presented and the earlier threads, I am convinced that there is a pattern of behaviour in this topic area that is detrimental to the encyclopedia, and I assert that that is sufficient to impose a topic ban. Noleander is not unaware of the concerns that have been previously raised. There is muddled thinking in many of the opposes above that seem to be based on the premise that a particular policy has to be found to justify community action. Nothing could be farther from the truth of what should happen on a wiki. Policy documents what is done here; it does not prescribe or circumscribe what the community does. If the answer to the question, "would it improve the encyclopedia to restrict Noleander from editing ethnicity topics" is 'yes', then support is the correct option, regardless of what has been documented as past practice. --RexxS (talk) 14:46, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• There is muddled thinking in many of the opposes above that seem to be based on the premise that a particular policy has to be found to justify community action. To be fair I think many people believe that at AN/I there should be a clear policy violating "incident" that requires an immediate administrative action. Some of us think that the larger pattern of behavior is better dealt with elsewhere (dispute resolution, user conduct RfC or perhaps arbitration). In such a venue the pattern of behavior can be laid out more clearly, and the adequate solution can emerge with more forethought. You know maybe the situation is even worse than some think here but maybe its not. This requires a more deliberate forum than AN/I. In other words I don't think your characterization is all that accurate. I firmly agree with your sentiment about what is or is not required to take community action against an editor, but I simply don't agree that the type of action being proposed on the type of evidence being presented should be taken at AN/I.Griswaldo (talk) 14:59, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Your points are well-made and reasonable. Nevertheless, we only have a limited number of venues for dispute resolution. Considering that the user has been the subject of multiple earlier ANIs, and that SlimVirgin points out in the proposal that Noleander has already failed to adhere to an agreement to leave ethnicity alone, I could not agree that RfC/U is a superior venue in this case – as it lacks any sanctions to enforce its conclusions. Arbitration is for dispute resolution where the community has failed to resolve the problem itself. It may well be that the lack of deliberative structure to ANI is such a flaw that it renders it unusable for some cases, resulting in an inability of the community to resolve some issues. If that is so, then Arbitration would be appropriate at that point. In the meantime, we should be endeavouring to improve the implementation of ANI to avoid having to throw problems at ArbCom needlessly. --RexxS (talk) 16:36, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Griswaldo, the community is the highest authority at Wikipedia, and only an administrator can enforce a community ban, so AN/I is the traditional place for discussing community blocks, topic bans or general bans. I agree with you that the decision should not be made hastily and without due cause. That is why we are all involved in a serious discussion right here - and why I provided links for past discussions about the same problem, to wit, a pattern of behavior. This is the right place. If you don't think a ban is warranted, fine, you can say that anti-Semitic content is acceptable, or you can say that you do not see enough evidence to support the claim that there is a pattern of anti-Semitic editing, or you can say that the edits simply aren't anti-Semitic. But this is where we discuss these kinds of problems. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:16, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• support per Ynhockey. Noleander may be one of the smarted and subtlest POV pushers we've ever had but the pattern is definitely there. JoshuaZ (talk) 15:48, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support. I don't think I need to add anymore here. I've said everything I wanted to say. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 15:52, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose - Having looked at Noleander's work I see no policy grounds for a ban. In fact I am personally far more disturbed by the distinct scent of censorship and witch-hunt which I detect around here than their editing.Rangoon11 (talk) 16:01, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I love the term "witch-hunt" as though people are coming in here in droves to try and get Noleander topic banned for personal reasons. I've already admitted I know nothing about Noleander or his contributions. I simply read through the article and thought to myself that it was very POV'ish and felt things like this don't belong in an encyclopedia. It's like if people keep parroting that term, then it will sway some people on the fence to vote for an action of their choosing. Don't be fooled people, read the whole article for yourself and make your own decisions. Do not read opinions on this ANI with terms like "censorship", "witch-hunt", or "racism" and make your opinions thusly. I implore everyone to read the article from Noleander himself and come to your own conclusions. Don't let anyone, including myself, make up your mind for you. And please don't be fooled by people claiming this is a "witch-hunt". No one is asking for Noleander to be banned indef. or even be blocked from editing. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 16:25, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

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• Oppose Including the fact that draconian solutions do not work, some of the comments above do not appear to be quite fair - naming an article about a book after the title of a book is scarcely notable - yet it was raised here as somehow noteworthy. WP procedures about article content basically state that the discussions should be about the content and on the article talk page, and not used for any other purposes. Do I like these article? Not especially, but thatis not the point. The point here is "would this draconian solution help Wikipedia?" and the answer to that is "no." Collect (talk) 16:03, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

May I ask what you mean when you say this solution won't work? If the problem is that Noleander has a penchant for writing content of questionable merit about Jews in ways that threaten to reflect poorly on wikipedia and give extra work to the editors who have to clean up his POV mess, then how will topicbanning him from writing about Jews not solve that problem? In that way he can show his dedication to wikipedia to work on articles about other topics and we rest assured that we don't have to follow him around with the NPOV broom.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:08, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support. No matter how skillfully he does it, it is a fact that this editor's presence on this project is dominated by a single agenda: building as much material as possible to give visibility to topics which are perceived as placing a particular ethnic group in a negative light. This, in itself, should be enough to make him unwelcome here. One editor above said he saw his activities as almost the opposite ("to make the world more aware of the seriousness and unpleasantness of antisemitism"), but Noleander's own statement [62] seems to be giving the lie to this defense. And as for the alleged high quality of the articles, the passage (rightly) removed [63] is very poorly disguised tendentious writing indeed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:23, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Comment I wouldn't say this is all about Jews. Mormons get it too. Noleander's 20 most heavily edited articles are: Criticism of the Latter Day Saint movement: 432 edits, Racism in Israel: 272, Black people and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: 238, Jesus in the Talmud: 158, Criticism of the Talmud: 155, Cladistics: 148, Allegations of Jewish control of the media: 137, Criticism of religion: 109, African-American – Jewish relations: 105, Criticism of Judaism: 100, Judaism and war: 95, Judaism and slavery: 72, Christianity and violence: 55, Judaism and violence: 49, Israel and the apartheid analogy: 46, Mormonism and polygamy: 44, Still Life at the Penguin Cafe: 42, Yeshu: 40, Zionism: 37, Motives for the September 11 attacks: 36.

  RexxS and Griswoldo: the relevant principle that I think is being raised against Noleander is WP:TE, which while marked as an essay has gotten people sanctioned plenty of times. I agree with RexxS about muddled thinking, and see people get topic banned routinely at ANI if the issues are clear enough. This is not like a courtroom where the judges, lawyers, court reporters, are all drawing salaries, which makes putting up with endless process just part of the tedious nonsense that's inherent in working for a living in almost any profession. Here, per NOTBUREAUCRACY, if the appropriate outcome is clear (which in this case it might not be), we should implement it without further ado, so we can get on with other things. The era when "admin actions" are limited to pushing the sysop buttons in the mediawiki interface is long since over. De-escalation of dispute resolution from arbcom/rfc where those processes aren't necessary to resolve substantial unclarity is a good thing. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 16:17, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• It has nothing to do with bureaucracy or being like a courtroom and everything to do with the fact that some of us do not feel like the issues are "clear enough" at this time, and would like to see them presented in a much more methodical manner, and in a venue where people can have more time to consider them. I feel for the support arguments made by people who have been following Noleander's edits for some time now, and undoubtedly have a much more nuanced view of them. All I'm suggesting is that the rest of us be given a chance to understand this as well. The links provided are not enough in and of themselves if you ask me. That's all, cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 16:31, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. If the complaint against Neolander is WP:TE, then why is he/she being accused of antisemitism? That is a serious allegation, but all we seem to see for 'evidence' is vague insinuations, guilt by association, and a presumption of guilt based on his/her choice of topics - not the content, but the topic itself. If the topics are that controversial, can we see evidence that they have been recognised us such it AfDs etc, as Griswaldo asks? This is supposed to be AN/I so where are the incidents? AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:35, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Andy, I'm not sure what you're getting at. WP:TE says "Tendentious editing is a manner of editing which is partisan, biased or skewed taken as a whole." Is that not what we are talking about here, with the alleged bias being against Jews? (And maybe Mormons). 75.57.242.120 (talk) 17:05, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Andy: the articles are biased and do present antisemitic canards as fact. ·Maunus·ƛ· 17:15, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Agree with Griswaldo that this process should not be rushed. Deciding on whether WP:TE applies here will take a lot of reading. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 17:35, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I am not culpable of Wikipedia:Tendentious editing. If I were, I'd be the first to volunteer for a self-block. WP:TE involves an editor that is not logical, does not listen, does not engage on Talk pages. If you'll look at my Talk page discussions, you'll see I'm a very collaborative, compromise-oriented editor, that places a high value on policy, procedure, and sensibility. No, the only thing I'm guilty of is having the audacity to edit in controversial areas. If a particular edit I make is flawed, fine, bring it up on the Talk page, and I'll diligently work to make it right. This ANI thread is not about my material, or my behavior, it is all about intimidating editors to prevent them from editing in controversial areas. --Noleander (talk) 19:57, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. Even if somebody is an anti-semite, you can’t sanction them based on their viewpoint. You can only sanction them because their edits themselves violate policy. I think it’s problematic that there’s more discussion here about Noleander’s viewpoints and motives for editing than there is about specific examples of misbehavior—do we need a Wikipedia equivalent of the Thought Police? I’m aware of the possibility that Noleander’s edits actually do violate policy, and that he’s pushing an anti-semitic POV. However, if that’s the case, it hasn’t been demonstrated here. I agree with the other people who’ve commented that the appropriate course of action in this case is an RFC/U. --Captain Occam (talk) 17:01, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Repeated creation of biased articles is problematic editing. Nobody cares about what Noleander thinks - we care about the fact that he makes crappy, biased POV anti-semitic slanted articles based on misrepresentations of sources.·Maunus·ƛ· 17:15, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Captain Occam, if you want to oppose this on principle, fine, but please do not misrepresent the argument.l No one cares about what Noleander thinks. For all I know I have collaborated with many anti-Semites on various articles. As long as it doesn't affect their behavior, it is not my business or yours whether any editor is or is not an anti-Semite. The question is behavior. Other editors have been banned from Wikipedia - a general ban - for anti-Semitic behavior. The issue here is whether there is a pattern of anti-Semitic behavior As Maunus says, repeated creation of biased articles is a problematic editing. Presenting anti-Semitic canards as facts is anti-Semitic editing. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and this kind of behavior subverts the integrity of the encyclopedia. If we want the encyclopedia to be respected as an authoritative source of knowledge we cannot tolerate this behavior. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:23, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, I know this is what a lot of people think, and I don’t discount the possibility that it’s the case. But where are the diffs demonstrating this? In this thread people have only linked to a small sampling of his edits (about a half-dozen), and argued that this shows an overall pattern of biased editing. That simply isn’t enough to prove an allegation like this about someone with over 3,000 article edits. If it’s true that he’s pushing an anti-semitic POV, that should become evident in an RFC/U, and then someone can start another AN/I thread after the RFC if his behavior doesn’t improve. --Captain Occam (talk) 17:29, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

But when you read this ANI diff [64] from a year ago, you get a feeling of deja vu. How many previous ANI threads (with diffs) are need to establish a pattern? And what would be the purpose of an RfC/U, given what Noleander agreed to that time? [65]. --RexxS (talk) 19:39, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

In this case, I think the purpose of an RFC/U would be to thoroughly document Noleander’s pattern of POV-pushing, assuming that there is one. In this thread people have provided a few examples of him misrepresenting sources, which could have been either unintentional slip-ups or part of a deliberate effort to push an anti-semitic POV. I can understand why some people are suspecting it’s the latter, but before I can be convinced that this is what’s happening here, I’d need to see that these are part of a pattern and not just isolated incidents. That will be a lot easier to demonstrate in an RFC/U than at AN/I. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:44, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support if he can't even keep his promises, than unfortunately a stronger move is (i.e topic ban) is needed in order to solve the problems caused by this user. Wikipedia admins shouldn't deal with this every day. This is the best solution. Broccolo (talk) 17:42, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support Looking over the earliest drafts of Jews and money, there seems to be a concerted effort to cherry-pick quotes that promote negative Jewish stereotypes. For instance, in first version of the Economic history of the Jews, the entire section of Contrasted with Christianity's views of money seems to focus exclusively on making Jews appear as superficial and materialistic (not to mention the section below that which explicitly states as such). Soxwon (talk) 17:49, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

A large number of secondary sources have written on that "contrast" topic. The philosophers that make the contrast with Christianity are Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Werner Sombart, and Georg Hegel. I did not personally draw the comparisons. Certainly an editor cannot be held responsible for the attitudes of notable philosophers. If there is any "cherry picking" of material, I concur that is not acceptable, and if you can point out some specific areas, I'll be happy to work with you to rectify it. --Noleander (talk) 19:49, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

You're missing the point, your placing undue weight and pushing a medieval perception of the subject while completely ignoring that these viewpoints are obsolete in the modern age of capitalism. You wrote

Several leading thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Werner Sombart, and Georg Hegel, compared Judaism with Christianity, and concluded that Judaism was more materialistic, and less moral.

based on this

Jews were familiar with trading and exchanging, commerce, city living, property rights, ... and accumulation of funds for future investment ... These were Jewish traits before the rise of capitalism. This has led to speculation that Jews were the first capitalists." Krefetz goes on to discuss the rise of capitalism, and the role Jews played; he discusses various views presented by Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Werner Sombart".

If you can't see what's wrong with that than you have no place on wikipedia, as that is a prime example of misinterpreting a source and using original research to push a POV. Soxwon (talk) 20:37, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. I'd like to see Neolander's response to this - if what Soxwon has indicated is indeed the case, I will withdraw my opposition to the topic ban - though I'd like to make clear that I do not think this has been properly handled on AN/I, and there seems to be a lot of mudslinging going on, rather than discussion of evidence such as that presented here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:20, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
• Isn't it true though that some of these figures made anti-Semitic statements along the lines Noleander indicates? I can't view the source Noleander cites, but here is a page with quotations from Kant, Hegel and Marx (with citations given) that seem adequately summarised by what Noleander wrote. Sombart is described as an anti-Semite here. (I'm less sure about Weber.) These views may be offensive, but we cannot rewrite history. --JN466 01:50, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support per SlimVirgin, Anthonyhcole and Soxwon. -- nsaum75 ^{!Dígame¡‎} 19:43, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support, and would also Support a community ban. Any reasonable person looking at his contributions should be able to tell that he's a single purpose agenda driven editor who likes to make articles with an anti-semitic slant. Enough already. Jtrainor (talk) 19:57, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose This proposal is contrary to our well-established principle of WP:AGF. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:20, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

CommentColonel Warden's reason is no reason at all. Any community ban or topic ban calls an editor's good faith into question. By Colonel Warden's reasoning we would never impose a community general ban or topic ban on anyone. And yet we have banned editors. Ergo, there are situations where someone's good faith is called into question. I opened this thread calling Noleander's good faith into question, quite right. My evidence was an article he created - no need for edit differences, he wasn't editing an article, he was creating an article, that was anti-semitic - on top of a history of tendentious editing illustrated by four prior AN/I threads. On the AfD page people provide ample specific examples of how the article is anti-Semitic: it systematically misrepresents sourcews in order to present anti-Semitic canards as facts. user:Mathsci/example provides one excellent example examined closely. Right here, Soxwon provides another fine example. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:25, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

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• Support. Perhaps it escaped the attention of those opposing this topic ban that the entire "Nazi Germany" section of the recently created "Jews and money/Economic history of the Jews" article was sourced to Hitler, albeit via secondary sources that quoted Hitler's statements in Mein Kampf, rather than sourcing directly to Mein Kampf itself. OK, you say. Surely that's just a coincidence. Maybe Hitler was the only one with anything interesting to say on the topic. AGF and all that. Fine. Then let's look at the article's talk page, shall we? Here's what I see:

1. Noleander writes a section on Jews and war financing, claiming that Jewish bankers helped finance governments "in particular, for financing armies and wars." This is sourced to three separate page ranges in three separate books.[66]
2. An editor goes and actually looks at those sources, and finds they say nothing of the sort. [67]
3. Noleander acknowledges that the sources cited do not actually say this and offers to help look for better sources.[68]

The misrepresentation of sources and uncritical, unbalanced quoting from Mein Kampf isn't enough for you? OK, then what about the previous three AN/I threads where this exact type of tendentious editing and blatant cherry-picking of sources to advance a very specific POV was brought up? The pattern here is obvious to anyone paying attention. 28bytes (talk) 21:24, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose banning is an overreaction to an issue that is not a real problem. The AFD shows that the article is worth keeping. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:45, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Personally I do consider misrepresentation of sources a real problem. 28bytes (talk) 21:48, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Comment Should it be concerning that a good percentage of the supporting editors here are Jewish, according to their userpage? Doesn't that make them biased against Noleander? Silverseren^C 21:52, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Wow. 28bytes (talk) 21:55, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
    • Thanks for trying to make my comment seen ridiculous. I just don't think that holding up a user, saying "This is a user who primarily works on articles that are negative toward religion and specifically toward Jews", is going to get a neutral outcome, especially when it can be seen that a lot of the Oppose voters are Jewish themselves. How many of these users aren't actually focusing on contributions and problems with edits, but instead are just seeing the types of articles he works on and deciding then and there that he is wrong. Considering how much the word antisemitic is being thrown around, it seems to be that way to me. Silverseren^C 22:01, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
      • You made a pretty clear personal attack, and you ought to retract it. 28bytes (talk) 22:18, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
        • What personal attack? Raising the possibility of bias based on personal beliefs when voting on a user who opposes said beliefs is not a personal attach. Silverseren^C 00:18, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
  • ...

Whack! You've been whacked with a wet trout. Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know that you did something silly.

·Maunus·ƛ· 22:01, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• • • • If that was for me, you've got your indenting wrong. :P Silverseren^C 22:12, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
      • ROFLMFAO.... I'm not jewish... I still support a topic ban. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 22:03, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
        • So? I never said that all of the Oppose voters were Jewish, that's obviously not true. I've seen Noleander editing various religious articles before and often getting reported for it, even when his edits were perfectly fine and to the references, but he was reported because they weren't positive information. The same seems to be happening here. Now, if the discussion had revolved merely around his editing, that might be different, but discussion seems to be revolving around the fact that he makes completely valid articles that are on negative topics. And, with the work antisemitic being thrown all over the place, it makes me very uncomfortable that so many Jewish users just happen to be here (and all of them are voting Oppose, obviously). It seems very, very biased. Silverseren^C 22:12, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Let me get this right. Do you propose that we should restrict Jewish editors ability to vote on matters of anti-semitic pov-pushers, just to be sure that they get a fair trial? Or do you merely mean that you are uncomfortable editing €around Jewish editors in general?·Maunus·ƛ· 22:16, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

The real problem is that the Israeli-Palestinian topic are a is a nasty, disgusting mess of a battleground. Whenever these sorts of things come up at AN/I and other locations, we see the regular lineup of wiki-advocates come out to try to get their adversaries banned or their friends saved. So it isn't, IMO, a question of "oh, Person X a Jew he shouldn't vote here" ,but rather "oh, Person X is heavily invested in this topic area, so any vote by him should be taken with a grain of salt." Tarc (talk) 23:38, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

What makes "Jews and Money" and Israel/Palestine related topic? What makes you think that it is a valid generalization to assume that any Jew is you more invested in that topic than you are? Are you not heavily invested in the topic of Israel/Judaism yourself without being Jewish (I assume)? ·Maunus·ƛ· 00:27, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Tarc has it perfectly right. And calling Noleander a "anti-semitic pov-pusher" IS a personal attack on a specific editor. Silverseren^C 00:18, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

It is a strong claim that is backed by strong evidence.·Maunus·ƛ· 00:27, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support with reservations per Slim Virgin. I've been noticing more and more antisemitism creeping into this encyclopedia and this might be a good place to start rolling it back. 12 months seems a bit much however. A 3 or 6 month topic ban to break the habit might do the trick. I'm a WASP/agnostic by the way, but of course Jews should have a say in this Silver seren.V7-sport (talk) 22:00, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• That doesn't answer my question on whether Jewish users are voting in a biased manner based on the topics that Noleander works on and not his actual editing. Silverseren^C 22:01, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• An honest and direct answer to that is that everyone sees things from their own point of view. Hopefully people take everything here with a grain of salt because lets face it, the encyclopedia is rife with POV. Pages like "Jews and money" are really just WP:coatracks to dump that POV. Anyway, the answer to your question is "address the argument being made, not the person making the argument," Trust me, I know that can be diffacult.V7-sport (talk) 22:20, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
• Members who identify as a particular culture, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, belief (and non belief - /me waves) system, political idealogy, etc, are likely very often more nuanced toward negative depictions of that identity. I shouldn't think the Jews are any less (or more) sensitive than any other group, and that such sensitivity may lead to over reaction and possibly bias within a small faction of such a group. On the other hand, there is no basis for suggesting that WP contributors who self identify (or are identified via name choices or articles edited or whatever) as Jews are apt to act other than in accordance to their understanding of the policies, guidelines and practices, especially as some gentiles (/me waves a little less assuredly, wondering if atheists fall into that category or something else) are expressing very much the same concerns. You have been trouted, which should indicate that the question you raised has been considered inappropriate by some here, and yet you do not seem to be taking the hint. This is an unfortunate mindset also exampled by the subject of the discussion. I strongly suggest that you pronounce yourself satisfied with my and others response and concede the point. Please. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:31, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Hey, I’ve seen this meme before. Have you looked at the Encyclopedia Dramatica's article about it? I can't post a link to it because it’s blocked by Wikipedia’s spam filter, but the URL is http://encyclopediadramatica.com/The_Wikipedia_Jews

Note: please don’t take this to mean that I actually believe this. Encyclopedia Dramatica articles aren’t meant to be taken seriously anyway. However, I do find it kind of amusing that at least two of the “support” votes are coming from people on the list there. It’s like what Penny Arcade said: even a racist clock is right twice a day.

I’m Jewish (by ancestry, not religion) and I oppose a topic ban. I guess according to the ED article that makes me an Anti-Zionist Self-Hating Jew? --Captain Occam (talk) 22:34, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

The reason I raised the issue is because there is an preponderance of Jewish users who have arrived to vote on this topic ban, far more than an average cross-section of ANI watchers should have. There is also the fact that there is also accusation of antisemitism on Noleander's part being thrown around with very little actual looking at his editing and only looking at the type of articles he edits. It raises concerns for me of both bias on the part of users using such arguments and concerns about ulterior notification of this discussion. Silverseren^C 00:18, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I am not seeing many commentators here that I am not familiar with and, as my content contributions are negligible these days, I am reasonably reassured that this would be because I see them on these pages. Can you point to the accounts participating in this discussion that are new to this venue? These pages are watchlisted by very many people, but most only comment on issues in which they have a viewpoint or some knowledge to impart. I am getting rather weary of this insinuation that there is a conspiracy of like minded accounts designed to sway discussions to one agenda or another, when it is human nature that individuals congregate toward a shared interest or cultural/religious/political/whatever affiliation. Again, I would point out that the concerns expressed are not solely by those of a Jewish identity (and not all those who so identify are supporting the proposed topic ban). Further, your comments may be considered ad hominem attacks designed to divert attention from the case in hand - whether an editor is coatracking their antipathy toward a particular religious following in the editing of certain articles. Regardless of whether there is a mob out for blood (libel) or a groundswell of concerned contributors commenting, that is the issue that is being addressed. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:19, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• Comment "The reason I raised the issue is because there is an preponderance of Jewish users who have arrived to vote on this topic ban ..." Have arrived implies that before they arrived, most of the discussion was by non-Jews. Isn't the real question: why is it that Jews were not commenting before Saturday night? In any event (1) given that Noleander added the "Jews and Judaism" template to the article that prompted this thread, is it any surprise that many of the people who have read the article are Jewish? (2) how actually do you know they are Jewish? (3) why raise the question of "bias?" All you have to do is read the reasons they provide for supporting their support or opposition to the motion. This proposal will be decided on the reasons given, for and against, not the identity of the editors (which, unless someone outs themselves, we never really know). For all I know, Noleander is Jewish. I really have no idea - I can judge only her edits. I find it highly ironic that so many editors have looked at Noleander's behavior and see a bias, and now Silver seren is calling attention to the identities of editors and just based on that is claiming a bias. Silver seren, this is the precise opposite of how a Wikipedian should act. You should infer bias from how people actually behae, not from what you think is their identity. MathSci provides a great analysis of one example from Noleander's editing at the AfD page (where I have provided other examples): User:Mathsci/example; this shows how Noleander systematically misrepresents sources in order to present anti-Semitic canards as facts in articles. It is this kind of behavior that reveals the bias, not her identity. Slrubenstein | Talk 04:44, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• Comment: There are valid concerns raised above about the use and implementation of topic bans to silence critics or opposition. If someone could summarize the consensus from each previous complaint raised about this user, that might persuade others that it is necessary. Viriditas (talk) 22:23, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
• Comment: If these "valid concerns" could be supported by Diff's rather than just making unsubstantiated claims, that would also be helpful, and necessary.--Domer48_'fenian' 23:21, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• • Please read the discussion instead of making snarky comments. Virtually every support and oppose has raised concerns about this topic ban, from specifying what policy has actually been broken to questioning the validity of banning someone from a controversial topic. The burden of proof remains on those calling for a topic ban. Has that burden been met? Viriditas (talk) 23:40, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree, the burden of proof remains on those calling for a topic ban, and no I do not see that the burden has been met.--Domer48_'fenian' 23:52, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Ample amounts of evidence for systematic tendentious misrepresentation of sources have been presented. I'd say that there is currently no good reason to allow Noleander to keep editing articles on this sensitive subject.·Maunus·ƛ· 23:55, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Could you supply the Diff's please, thanks.--Domer48_'fenian' 23:57, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

[69][70][71][72][73]. ·Maunus·ƛ· 00:11, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what's keeping you from reading the above discussion, but here is what I said in a nutshell: he cherry-picked sources for the comparison to Christianity section while focusing on the medieval (read most negative) view of Jews. He then mis-represented sources in the anti-capitalist view paragraph: The information he misrepresented original version of text. Soxwon (talk) 00:07, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I think you posted the wrong URL in your second link—the second link is just Noleander adding the article to the anti-Semitism category. Assuming your quotes in the first link are accurate, though, I agree that edit is problematic, as is the one about Jews providing loans for wars when the source doesn’t say that. (I find Mathsci’s example less compelling—it’s a subtly POV edit in terms of what information it leaves out, but it’s not adding any information that’s blatantly unsupported by the source.) Both your example and the one about funding wars have been repeated a few times here and in the AFD, but I’m not aware of anyone providing any examples of him misrepresenting sources beyond these two. Can anyone provide any others? For someone with over 3,000 content edits, I think it requires more than two examples of bad edits (<0.1% of their total edits) to demonstrate a consistent pattern of behavior. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:43, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The fact that this is the fourth or fifth ANI thread about Noleander in relation to problematic editin in judaism related articles (including the fact that he has previously been made quite aware that creating an article called "Controversies related to prevalence of Jews in leadership roles in Hollywood" was not a good idea) I think there is also substantial reason to suggest that this is not a lone swallow. ·Maunus·ƛ· 00:46, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

If he’s had a habit of misrepresenting sources for a long time, someone needs to provide diffs of him having done this in the past. It isn’t enough to say that his editing was previously complained about at AN/I, because not every AN/I complaint is justified. In fact, it might indicate something significant that Noleander’s editing has been the subject of multiple past AN/I threads, yet he was never sanctioned in any of them. His editing has certainly received lots of attention, and if misrepresenting sources were a consistent problem for him, it seems like it should have been evident before now. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:15, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

As you raise the question about previous ANIs, I could suggest you read them, rather than speculate about what might have happened. As a taster, here's a flavour of what's there in just one of them:

"My perception is that Wikipedia is censored in regards to some topics that reflect negatively on Jews, and I'm attempting to reverse that censorship."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Misuse_of_antisemitic_accusations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Controversies_related_to_prevalence_of_Jews_in_leadership_roles_in_Hollywood

"His first actions were to add three new antisemitic conspiracy theories to the Antisemitic canards article, that Jews control the media, Hollywood, and global finance:[74]"

"... he then focused on adding to the List of Jewish American businesspeople any Jews who were senior members of Financial firms, media owners, or heads of Hollywood studios: [75]"

... and so on. The fact is that there's a pattern of behaviour, well-documented in the ANI discussions linked at the very start of the discussion. There's a broken agreement to step away from ethnicity. Despite all the deflection, there's a fundamental issue of what's best for the encyclopedia. Giving Noleander a break from articles on ethnicity, particularly Jewish ethnicity, would be clear step in the right direction. --RexxS (talk) 02:22, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, now we’re back to the issue of motives. It’s certainly strange for one of a person’s goals at Wikipedia to be correcting what they see as pro-Jewish bias, but you can’t sanction a person based on their motives for participating here, or the selection of articles that they choose to edit. You can only sanction a person because they have a pattern of edits that violate policy. Lots of other editors have pointed this out earlier in the thread, which is why now we’ve been discussing whether Noleander has a habit of misrepresenting sources. That would be a valid reason for a topic ban if he’s done it consistently, but the impression I’m getting is that he hasn’t, which is why this extraneous information about motives keeps getting brought up. This also seems to reinforce the suspicion that a large part of the effort to get Noleander banned isn’t really about improper sourcing, but rather about disliking his viewpoint. --Captain Occam (talk) 02:41, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Occam: Rexx is clearly not talking about motivation or viewpoints but about behavior. Noleander has stated his motivation and acted in accordance with that statement in a way that has been consistently detrimental to wikipedia's coverage of a sensistive topic. It is pretty clear cut actually.·Maunus·ƛ· 02:47, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

No, we're not back to the issue of motives, except in your own mind. No, editors don't have to violate a policy to be sanctioned - try violating WP:POINT (not a policy) and see if you avoid being sanctioned. Sanctions are designed to protect the encyclopedia, and if enough members of the community agree that a particular sanction would produce a better encyclopedia, then that is sufficient. We don't do "due process" here. And you need to understand that there is no effort here aimed at getting an editor banned – the efforts are solely aimed at preventing the continuation of a pattern of behaviour that is detrimental. Finally, your attempt to suggest that I should be smeared with the brush of "disliking his viewpoint" just won't cut it. You are required to AGF of your fellow editors, unless there is very good reason not to. --RexxS (talk) 03:22, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

As I said, I would like to see more diffs of behavior from Noleander that are clear policy violations. (Such as misrepresentation of sources beyond the two examples of that which have been provided.) It isn’t clear what the policy violation is in either of the examples that Rexxs gave. And if the material that he added to those articles didn’t violate a policy, his motives for adding it shouldn’t matter. --Captain Occam (talk) 03:02, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

And as said, you're mistaken that in asserting that violations of particular policies are the only reason why sanctions may be applied. --RexxS (talk) 03:22, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Fine, what I meant was violating a policy or guideline. WP:POINT is not a policy, but it’s a guideline.

What’s good for Wikipedia and what isn’t is measured based on the encyclopedia’s policies and guidelines. (Including behavioral guidelines like WP:3RR and WP:CIVIL, as well as content guidelines like WP:NPOV and WP:NOR.) You say in your post above that you think sanctions can be based on what’s best for the encyclopedia, rather than on policy, so apparently you think there’s some additional standard other than policies or guidelines by which what’s good for the encyclopedia should be measured. What standard is that, exactly? If it’s not included on any policy or guideline page, how are editors expected to know what it is so they can comply with it? And how does one determine whether an editor deserves to be sanctioned because of this standard that’s independent of policies or guidelines? --Captain Occam (talk) 04:05, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

No it isn't. What’s good for Wikipedia and what isn’t is measured based on the consensus that emerges in discussions by the community. The policies and guidelines merely describe the sort of conclusions that have been previously reached. They are not the Laws of Wikipedia, as you would have them be, neither are they meant to be exhaustive of every possible situation. You already know that WP:TE is an essay, but behaviour of the kind described there is commonly sanctioned. You don't believe that your own topic-ban sanction from ArbCom was based simply on WP:3RR, do you? I used to teach teenagers and they knew when they'd overstepped the mark; adults are just as capable of realising that without the need to spell out every possible offence just to please the wikilawyers. --RexxS (talk) 04:32, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

(e/c with RexxS) Captain, WP:CON is policy. Consensus that somebody's editing in a topic is detrimental to the encyclopedia can be determined through discussions just like this one. If it's detrimental, it should stop, whether through voluntary means or through a sanction that can be imposed as the outcome of such a discussion. Not that the policy-vs-guideline thing is any more than wikilawyering. People argued about it years ago, but it really sounds retro to hear it now. And once again, the basic pattern of editing being alleged is (I believe) WP:TE. Yes people do get sanctioned or banned for that. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 04:41, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The point I’m making isn’t that I think the policies and guidelines themselves are what determine what’s helpful and harmful to the project. The point is that, as Rexxs said, policies and guidelines describe the conclusions that the community has reached about this. (As do essays, to a lesser extent.) This means that when the community as whole thinks a certain type of behavior is disruptive, that preference is going to be reflected in policies and guidelines. If the view that a type of behavior is problematic is not reflected in policies and guidelines, that most likely means the community has not reached a consensus that this behavior is problematic. Therefore, when you claim that a type of behavior is harmful to the project but can’t point to any policy or guideline as justification for that claim, there’s a good chance that the wider community does not share your viewpoint about this.

I’ve been asking for more clear-cut examples of policy (or guideline) violations from Noleander. If someone can provide clear examples of him engaging in the behavior described in WP:TE, then that would also fit the bill. What I have an aversion to is when people pull up a series of edits from him and say “this is bad” or “this is racist”, while being unable to explain what’s wrong with it in any more detail than that. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:57, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Determining whether the wider community shares a viewpoint about something is why we have these discussions. We're making such a determination right now, or at least we were before Noleander got blocked. I'm not sure what happens now. And no, policies and guidelines don't cover every situation that might ever arise. It is fine to use common sense and play things by ear. If anything, we have too many policies and guidelines already, and should get rid of a lot of them, and deal with more stuff case-by-case, since we are (despite the zaniness of this particular incident) getting better at that in general. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 05:22, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Captain Occam: please read Wikipedia:Five pillars - which have been remarkably stable for six years, and are widely considered a basic point of referemce. The final pillar is "Wikipedia does not have firm rules." That is because policies and guidelines do not determine our standards, you are wrong to reduce this to specific policies; this pillar means that it is the community which is the ultimate arbiter of what is acceptable or unacceptable. The first pillar is "Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia" which is what this is all about. In an encyclopdia where any member of the community can edit, the comunity has an obligation to make sure that its standards for an encyclopedia are upheld. As I made clear at the beginning of the thread, the problem is an article on Jews and money that Noleander created. Giving edit diffs is inappropriate because the problem is not edits he made to an article, it is an article he created. The whole article is the example. You want specifics? At the AfD page I and others - lots of others but user:Mathsci/example and Soxwon there and in this thread have provided specific examples. The only issue here is Noleander's behavior - writing an anti-Semitic article is an act. A history of tendentious editing is a series of acts and more examples of acts are privided if you click on the links I directed you to at the opening of this AN/I thread. The examples I and MatchSci and others have provided demonstrate that Noleander systematically misrepresents sources with the effect of presenting anti-Semitic canards as facts, and this undermines the credibility of the encyclopedia. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:47, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support. Per SlimVirging and Slrubenstein. Much could be said, as is done above, in support of the support position, but Slim and Sl do an exemplary job explaining why this is appropriate in this case.--Epeefleche (talk) 17:11, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

break 5

• Support Reading the above I see some users oppose because he is writing on what they consider to be notable topics. While I disagree with the assessment, I think it is clear that his approach isn't working. There are plenty of other areas that he can edit in, and this clearly isn't one of them. Bishonen and FPaS some up my thoughts on this quite well also. AniMate 23:54, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support per my initial comment at the opening of the ANI.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 02:39, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support Based on previous experience with this editor. I would ask reasonable editors like AndyTheGrump to look into the history and reconsider their postion. TFD (talk) 03:54, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Err, no... I'd ask those who are making the allegations to look into the history, prepare a proper case, present it as evidence, and let us examine it. If everyone goes around looking for their own 'evidence', what exactly are we basing a decision on? All I know right now is that (a) Neolander might or might not be an anti-Semite, and (b) few contributors are interested in actually discussing this - instead, they pile in with preconceived opinions backed up with self-selected 'evidence'. If 'the history' is relevant, then it should be properly included in the evidence, not left for individuals to ferret out. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:45, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment It is funny how at Wikipedia we are supposed to work through consensus, but whenever someone does not like an emerging consensus, they try to dismiss it as "piling on" someone. We have an active discussion here, people are able to explain their opposition to the proposal freely, ditto their support. I started this thread with a title Andy described as not being neutral. Well, excuse me Andy, but, of course it is not neutral: I was proposing a community ban. Since only an administrator can enforce a community ban, AN/I is often the place where the communty discusses such proposals. This proposal for a ban is not an article and not governed by NPOV. Of course people who register support or opposition should explain their reasoning. If anyone still doubts that the issue here is one great bit of evidence: User:Mathsci/example (there is much more, at the AfD page): Noleander systematically misrepresents sources in order to present anti-Semitic canards as facts in articles. This is a long-standing pattern of behavior which demonstrates that her work on Jew-related topics is unencyclopedic and damages the integrity of the encyclopedia. I started this thread proposing that she be banned rom WP; SV narrowed the proposal to a topic ban, which is fine by me. Others have said Noleander has made other edits to the encyclopedia that are contributions. Okay. But her work on Jew-related articles is only destructive of encyclopedic quality, never constructive. That makes a topic ban very appropriate. Slrubenstein | Talk 04:44, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support. An editor who significantly misrepresents sources is worse than a vandal. Per User:Mathsci/example, this appears to be a problem. Based on the obvious POV issues with the article in question, the misrepresentation does not appear accidental. A topic ban will allow the editor to continue working in fields less likely to elicit the problematic behaviors.   Will Beback  talk  06:11, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support As mentioned, no one cares what is going on in Noleander's mind, so whether or not anti-semitism is involved is not relevant. However, when an editor focuses on topics such as "Jews and money" over an extended period, the result is not helpful to the encyclopedia. A quick look at Noleander's version of that article shows that it was highly inappropriate—we need not accept articles like "All the dirt written about X". There is plenty of evidence in the above (particulary from Mathsci) to support a topic ban. Johnuniq (talk) 06:21, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support per SlimV, Hans Adler, and Mathsci in particular. Misrepresentation of sources is a particularly insidious form of POV-pushing. -- Avi (talk) 13:01, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support - reading the above (and bellow), it is clear that there is a problem. Systematic misrepresentation of sources, coupled with cases of plagiarism of anti-Semitic websites, demonstrates that Noleander should not be editing the topic area, if not Wikipedia in general. Rami R 14:09, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. Obvious censorship. This is ultimately a content dispute. There are many editors who make one-sided and POV-pushing edits regarding ethnicity: User:V7-sport and User:Bus stop, for example. Where are the calls to ban them? I'd sooner vote to ban the initiator of this discussion for intimidation. Mindbunny (talk) 14:54, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support topic ban. Any editor who wishes to contribute to Wikipedia can choose from millions of articles to edit. If Noleander, or any other editor, feels that xe absolutely must contribute to one particular topic, that suggests that xe is more interested in promoting a POV than in improving the encyclopedia. (Topic bans should be more widely deployed IMHO). Analysis by Mathsci is also very disturbing, supporting the notion of POV-pushing by Noleander in this area. Southend sofa (talk) 17:01, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support topic ban. The evidence is overwhelming that Noleander has, for the past two years, been using Wikipedia to "document" that Jews control finance, the media and, in general, are criminals. As RexxS points out in his comment above, in Februrary 2010 I opened an AN/I thread on this disruptive editing, in which I pointed out that after Noleander's return to Wikipedia following earlier problematic editing in this area:

His first actions were to add three new antisemitic conspiracy theories to the Antisemitic canards article, that Jews control the media, Hollywood, and global finance: While this may seem innocuous enough, he then focused on adding to the List of Jewish American businesspeople any Jews who were senior members of Financial firms, media owners, or heads of Hollywood studios: an eye-winking way of saying "we don't believe this canard that a Jewish cabal controls all this stuff, it's just that there happen to be so many Jews in senior roles here". Prominent in the "Finance & Trading" section were fairly notorious Jews Ivan Boesky, Andrew Fastow, Bernie Madoff, Michael Milken and Marc Rich.

Has anything changed since then? Well, he returned to the List of Jewish American businesspeople article in July, and added four names; two founders of large financial firms, one Jew who controlled two media outlets, and one Jewish criminal.[76] In the intervening 9 months Noleander was apparently unable to discover a single Jewish American businessperson worth adding to the list. But last week he finally discovered some other Jewish American businesspeople: a Jew convicted in 2009 of 89 counts of fraud,[77] (in its own special "Kosher food" section), and two Jewish bankers.[78] Perhaps this was a bit too obvious even for him, so an hour and a half later he threw in a couple of token non-finance/non-media/non-criminals.[79] As has been pointed out already, there are hundreds, and likely thousands of Jewish American businesspeople with articles on Wikipedia, including Ben Cohen (businessman), Jerry Greenfield, Estée Lauder (person), Marc Jacobs, Donna Karan, Judith Leiber, Florence Melton, Zev Siegl etc. Even two-edit IP editors can find non- finance/media/criminal Jews,[80] but all Noleander can apparently locate are those who conform to antisemitic stereotypes. If an editor showed up here and proceeded to write only articles on things like African Americans and crime (often distorting the sources used), and added only African-Americans convicted of crimes to the List of African Americans, he would have been topic-banned long ago. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:44, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose ban for now. So far as I can see, there at the least a strong prima facie case that Noleander has been a) pushing a POV, and b) misrepresenting sources. On the first point, I sadly cannot support a ban, because there are hundreds of highly-partisan POV-pushers editing wikipedia, and I have never before seen any of them banned for their POV-pushing. If we are going to go down that route, it would be a step with big consequences for how we view NPOV, and it needs a lot more discussion.
  On the second point, that of systematically misrepresenting sources, I would in principle be ready to support a topic ban (or even a complete ban) provided that the evidence has been set out properly. ANI does not provide a good format for the detailed assessment required to do that; an RFC/U would be a much better way of setting out the evidence and assessing it calmly. I suspect that an RFC/U is likely to be very uncomfortable process for Noleander, and if the evidence for systematic misrepresentation of sources anything like as persuasive as some editors claim, then I will have no hesitation in supporting bans.
  However, a ban as a result of this discussion could be portrayed as a hasty decision made as a form of censorship, which would itself become a cause of further drama. Let's examine this properly, so that whatever decision is made is transparently fair. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:15, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

There is a fairly straight precedent for imposing topic bans (it is unclear from your statement whether you distinguish between this proposed topic band and a general community ban) on editors who consistently push POV in disruptive ways. However the argument for topic banning here is that it may be the most useful way to prevent possible pov breaches from Noleander in the future, while still allowing him to edit other areas where he has not shown himself to cause problems. A ban could in no way be construed as censorship, nobody is arguing that we cannot have articles about these topics - but we are arguing that those articles cannot be allowed to be written with the disregard for neutrality and correct representation of sources that Noleander has exhibited.·Maunus·ƛ· 21:21, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. Let those concerned about Noleander's editing raise a RfC/U, present their most compelling evidence in an organized manner, and then we'll see. The community needs a more orderly process than this to make such a decision. --JN466 01:03, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Blocked

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Mathsci documents above an example here that seems to me to be a fairly clear misrepresentation of sources/original research. In addition, Noleander's behavior on articles has been tendentious and disruptive—even if consensus is that a topic ban is unnecessary (which I don't think is the case right now), he or she needs to shape up. Even after plenty of previous discussion, I see no indication that such a thing is going to happen. Accordingly, I have blocked for a week. NW (Talk) 03:25, 27 March 2011 (UTC) What exactly is this block preventing? Now that This ANI has turned into a trial it seems wholly inappropriate to in effect silence the defendant.Griswaldo (talk) 03:37, 27 March 2011 (UTC) This is clearly not a preventative block, but a punitive one. A topic ban is not a block. I thoroughly oppose this block. Make a topic ban per the discussion above, but this punitive block is not the way to go. SilverserenC 03:39, 27 March 2011 (UTC) If Neolander is to be prevented from responding to the serious allegations made against him, this AN/I MUST BE CLOSED NOW. Any other course of action would be utterly indefensible. This stinks... AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:40, 27 March 2011 (UTC) Unblock We are discussing a topic ban, and whether AN/I is the appropriate forum for this. Both discussions would benefit from Noleander's input. Would you reconsider the block, NW? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 03:45, 27 March 2011 (UTC) What allegation was mad, that Noleander has not responded to? Can you answer this simple question? Slrubenstein | Talk 06:58, 27 March 2011 (UTC) I can't tell you what Noleander might want to address. Perhaps we could ask Noleander to refrain from editing articles while this thread is open. I've made my mind up. I'd like to see them permanently topic banned or site banned before this thread is closed, though I have serious concerns about the integrity of this AN/I process. Blocking the subject from directly participating, when they are quite capable of civil engagement, degrades the process even more, and reflects badly on the community. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 08:01, 27 March 2011 (UTC) The answer to "what is this block preventing" is quite simple: it is preventing him from further adding source misrepresentation and otherwise behaving tendentiously, as well as acting as a deterrant to any future disruptive behavior. If Noleander wants to comment, there are many ways he can do so—<noinclude> tags, asking for assistance in moving his comments over, and so on. NW (Talk) 04:05, 27 March 2011 (UTC) Bullshit. This block is preventing him defending himself in the only way that any fair 'trial' would permit. First you present the evidence, then you discuss it, and then you reach a verdict. You are assuming he is guilty, and preventing him from presenting a defence. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:10, 27 March 2011 (UTC) I think Nuclear Warfare has already explained how Noleander can still comment... —GFOLEY FOUR— 04:21, 27 March 2011 (UTC) Now that he’s been blocked for a week in response to this thread, can the thread be closed? Normally when someone is blocked in response to an AN/I thread, the thread is then closed as resolved. There appear to have been some examples of him misrepresenting sources, and a one-week block is a reasonable response to that. But isn’t reasonable to topic ban him while he’s blocked based on a discussion in which he can’t participate. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:22, 27 March 2011 (UTC) Just watchlist his talk page and copy across anything he asks. Or doesn't that count as participation? --RexxS (talk) 04:38, 27 March 2011 (UTC) That probably would be considered proxying for a blocked editor. This thread is also moving so quickly that by the time he sees a post here, replies to it, and I see his response and copy it here, whatever post he was trying to reply to will probably be completely buried under new comments. Even just trying to participate here normally, I'm getting edit conflicts for almost every post. --Captain Occam (talk) 05:01, 27 March 2011 (UTC) You're confusing it with "proxying for a banned editor" (a no-no). What I describe is SOP for blocked users. --RexxS (talk) 05:04, 27 March 2011 (UTC) Unblock - A shame when an otherwise competent admin goes off on a rather ridiculous bender and vomits his common sense out the window. All this has done is grant one side of the I-P battleground a very undeserved victory, and embolden them to harass the next editor into oblivion who dares to write an article that mentions criticism of Jews and/or Israel. Tarc (talk) 05:12, 27 March 2011 (UTC) Tarc, what dos this have to do with the I-P battleground? Why do you bring your prejudices into this discussion? The question at hand is the editing of articles that have nothing at all to do with I-P. Maybe you meant to comment on another thread here? And Andy the Grump you are being incredibly unfair to Noleander He has xpended considerable effort defending himself against my allegations. He has written extensively in his defense both here and at the AfD page. You can chose to ignore his defense if you want to. But other editors will not be as unfair as you are being. We have read his many responses to the comment made here. I do not know why you cannot take the tim to read his responses, but maybe you should take som time out to read them. Slrubenstein | Talk 06:58, 27 March 2011 (UTC) It didn't occur to me that this had anything to do with I/P, because of the seemingly equal-opportunity crappy editing directed at Mormons and so forth. Maybe there's also an I/P factor but I haven't noticed it. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 07:26, 27 March 2011 (UTC) Unblock This block is improper because the discussion above has yet to reach consensus and there is no pressing activity requiring immediate blocking. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:23, 27 March 2011 (UTC) Unblock per Colonel Warden. The discussion is continuing, and there is bo pressing reason to exclode Noleander from it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:13, 27 March 2011 (UTC) Not quite happy with the block either, because it detracts from the more fundamental discussion of a longer-term measure, more than it helps to solve any immediately pressing problem. I continue to support the long-term ban, but let's clarify the consensus for that first. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:30, 27 March 2011 (UTC) Unblock This is just crazy carry on! NW needs to be told that stupid actions like this help nothing. --Domer48'fenian' 10:47, 27 March 2011 (UTC) Unblock. The discussion was still in progress and there was no consensus for a block, and I see no pressing need for one -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:55, 27 March 2011 (UTC) Unblock Blocks are for preventative purposes, and that clearly seems not to be the case here. Noleander clearly makes some quite despicable edits (quite a few), but this block escalates matters which otherwise seemed well in hand. If Noleander were disruptive at the time of the block, then the consensus would likely favor the block, but such is not the case. My opinion on the content of the "EHJ article" is clear from my edits thereon, I trust. Collect (talk) 11:46, 27 March 2011 (UTC) Unblock per Anthonyhcole. NW writes - it is preventing him from further adding source misrepresentation and otherwise behaving tendentiously, but there is no indication that he would otherwise have been doing so. Since the AN/I started the editor has laid back. He has also not been disrupting this discussion, instead comporting himself rather civilly. NW adds - as well as acting as a deterrant to any future disruptive behavior. I'm sorry that sounds exactly like saying, "I believe punitive blocks work because they deter future bad behavior." Consider also that not a single editor was calling for a block here as far as I can tell. It appears more and more likely that Noleander will get topic banned, which IMO as I see more evidence is probably the right outcome. But that discussion does not benefit from blocking him now, nor does the block prevent any damage to the encyclopedia. Please listen to your volunteer colleagues here NW, and unblock him. Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 12:45, 27 March 2011 (UTC) Comment we could unblock, for the reasons given above, and protect the article that is being discussed for deletion. Would this be away of protecting without punishing, while we are in the middle of discussing a ban (a discussion in which Noleander, I think everyone agrees must have a means of participating)? Slrubenstein | Talk 13:15, 27 March 2011 (UTC) *unblock: I believe that a block is unhelpful in the middle of this topic ban discussion. ·Maunus·ƛ· 13:32, 27 March 2011 (UTC) Unblock. Whether he's anti-Semitic is irrelevant. This is the encyclopedia anyone can edit. Valuing free-speech means you let people with wrong views and hidden agendas edit. User:Bus stop and User:V7-sport edit, even though they have an obvious anti-Islamic prejudice. With the exception of cultural bias, prejudiced editing is supposed to be addressed by the consensus process, not blocks. If editors like these makes crappy edits, undo the edits. If they edit-war, block them for edit-warring. That is admin action based on policy re behavior, rather than dislike of the content. Note: I have no opinion on whther Noleander's edits are prejudiced. I'm just entertaining the hypothesis, and concluding it doesn't matter. Would rather block User talk:Slrubenstein for intimidation and bigotry. Mindbunny (talk) 15:11, 27 March 2011 (UTC) Unblock. Per Mindbunny and Griswaldo. If we were to start handing out blocks at AN/I for editing with bias then most of the editors on both sides of Wikipedia's I/P wars would have to go. Personally, I think that'd be a good thing, but we don't block people here becase we don't like their opinions. If someone wants to try to make the case that this editor violates NPOV more egregiously than other editors in the I/P area then an RFC/U would be the way to proceed. NW was way out of line in imposing this block for the reasons he stated, and his action was disruptive to our process here. It should not be allowed to stand.  – OhioStandard (talk) 15:46, 27 March 2011 (UTC) The block was very surprising, enough that I'd expect NW to be able to stay around and defend it if s/he expects it to stick. Without more explanation it just looks like bad judgment. I'd say unblock, but support a temporary restriction against Noleander editing article space pending outcome of ANI. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 17:32, 27 March 2011 (UTC) Unblock I cannot see how this addresses the issues discussed here, alleged bias editing and admitted but historical plagiarism - it may also be considered as tainting the discussion. I would prefer Neolander to be able to comment here or any other venue. LessHeard vanU (talk) 18:24, 27 March 2011 (UTC) Unblock Only because it is (still) incredibly aggravating to be invited to try to build consensus around something only to have an administrator sail in to decide the situation for everyone involved. V7-sport (talk) 21:11, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Unblocked, see the section underneath this one. 21:23, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

This 'AN/I' is a mess

I have watched this discussion - and taken part - with increasing disquiet. It got off to a bad start with the title "I suspect Noleander of anti-Semitic editing" - hardly a neutral header. Frankly, I consider the issue as to whether Neolander is a misunderstood campaigner for fairness and neutrality, or a raging anti-Semite, as no longer as significant as what appears to be occurring here. Rather than being presented with an 'incident', we are faced with a call for a topic ban where everyone piles in with their own 'evidence', and their own verdict. 'Facts' have been repeated even when the evidence has been shown to be suspect (at no point has it been proven that Neolander plagiarised Stormfront), and 'diffs' are scattered around willy-nilly that don't actually seem even to link to his edits. This is a total fiasco, and a breach of any concept on natural justice. I therefore propose that this 'incident' should be marked as not relevant to AN/I (because there doesn't seem to have been a specific incident reported - instead it was a 'suspicion'). It will almost certainly be necessary to discuss Neolander's contributions to the Wikipedia project at some point soon, in some appropriate place, but this isn't the way to do it. Compile the evidence, discuss its validity, and then reach a decision, rather than engaging in an unseemly exercise in mudslinging. Maybe then we can get back to producing an online encyclopaedia. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:54, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• Comment a proposal for a ban is not supposed to be neutral. And why is it a "mess" when different people share different reasons for opposing or cupporting th proposal - is this not precisely how the community discusses issues such as this? Wikipedia is a commmunity-written encyclopedia; th community makes decisions through community discussions. Now it sounds like you just want to censor people who disagree with you. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:10, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Gosh, there seems to be a bit of a pile-on here. I've taken the time to tead the article (it could be improved, for sure) and the sources (seems better sourced than many others in controversial political/religious articles), but I am having a hard time seeing any breach of policiy. Can someone in the support-ban camp provide some blue-links to specific policies so we know what the specific problem is here...and exactly what we're interpretting? The only thing that really jumps out at me is the title. Jews and money is a well recognized percepttion (mainly in jokes and stereotypes) but is well known (whether in poor taste jokes or otherwise), and the sources support it's existence. What is the problem, wiki-specificly? Quinn ^CLOUDY 02:59, 27 March 2011 (UTC) This comment moved from another thread, where it was posted. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:58, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Can someone supply some blue links to policiy about the problem here? I've read the article and the sources, and am currentlyh only uneasy about the title, whichy seems easy enough to fix. Quinn ^CLOUDY 03:04, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

EC- Sorry, was typing with my thumbs in the above. But I totally agree. Wrong venue. Relevant dicussion...but should take place elsewhere. It survived and AFD it appears, so what is the next logical step for those who disagree with the article's existence? Quinn ^CLOUDY 03:21, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Andy. I've done quite a bit of reading and have declared my position above, but this process is appalling. An RFC/U might be appropriate, with coherent arguments and accurate diffs, but this chaotic pile-on is not. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 03:35, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Andy seems to be guilty of his own charges. To discredit evidence as 'suspect', he points out that "at no point has it been proven that Neolander plagiarised Stormfront". True, but it misses the point that Neolander actually plagiarised Radio Islam http://radioislam.org/islam/english/toread/hollyjew.htm, whose article was also copied word-for-word by Stormfront http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t98084-2/. Does anyone who looks at either of those two webpages want to suggest that we take them seriously as reliable sources? Is Andy suggesting that they are reliable sources? Or is he suggesting that accusing Neolander of plagiarism from Stormfront, instead of accusing him of plagiarising from the original article that Stormfront copied, somehow invalidates the complaint - and by implication all of the documented complaints made? Isn't this the real case of asserting a 'fact' that doesn't bear close inspection? --RexxS (talk) 04:09, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

So a false assertion that Neolander plagiarised a neo-Nazi website is somehow still acceptable as evidence? I thought that the accusations were centred on misrepresentation of sources? AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:16, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes of course it is acceptable as evidence. The plagiarism is just as real and the content just as offensive whichever site he took it from. Take your pick, and try to justify either of them. You're quite right, some of the accusations were centred on misrepresentation of sources; another accusation is plagiarism. But don't blame me for your confusion; you picked the example of plagiarism and then extended it to suggest that all the evidence was suspect, not me. --RexxS (talk) 04:45, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

So something which is factually incorrect is acceptable 'evidence'? Wow... AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:49, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

In this case, absolutely! Otherwise we have this: (1) I find text that exists on two sites A and B; (2) I plagiarise it; (3) I'm accused of plagiarising from site A; (4) I defend myself by asserting that it is a false accusation because I actually plagiarised it from site B; (5) I'm off scott free, according to you, as the evidence against me is 'false'.

Now get real for a change and quit playing games. We're all aware that plagiarism took place, and your attempts to devalue that charge, because the OP couldn't tell which site had been plagiarised from, do you no credit at all. --RexxS (talk) 05:00, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

:That is perhaps the most retarded thing ever claimed at AN/I, and that is saying something given the vitriolic shit that passes trough this area. Someone he claims he plagiarized from a specific site, yet cannot back up that assertion. So the counter-response is "well, he must have plagiarized it from somewhere". Do you have any fucking clue as to how fucking ridiculous you sound right about now? Tarc (talk) 05:15, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Aww gimme a break. We know he plagiarised it from "somewhere" because he admitted it after he was caught.[81] The assertion is backed up in spades, and you're the one grasping at straws to base your ridiculous blather on. Now go and wash your mouth out with soap and water before the civility police pull you up for swearing. When you've calmed down enough to read that diff, you can always come back here and refactor your nonsense. No need for an apology. --RexxS (talk) 05:30, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Andy, I have known you to be a reasonable editor, so I beg you to take a few minutes and breath and reconsider your rash and irrational response to RexxS. Rexx is not saying that factually incorrect evidence is valid, he is saying that evidence that was originally misrepresented, when represented accurately, is still valid evidence against Noleander. Surely you can comprehend this. Surely you can comprehend that if Noleander AND Stormfront plagiarize the same source, someone might think that Noleander plagiarized Stormfront, which is a more well-known site among. And now everyone accepts that this was not the source that Noleander plagiarized. But it is still clear that he plagiarized another site. Isn't this what really matters, that he plagiarized an anti-semitic site? Please tell me why you think this is NOT acceptable evidence.

Also, I am asking you politely to change the title of this section. Such a sweeping comment that is dismissive of a thread you have regularly contributed to is not constructive. Even if you disagree with my proposal, I began this thread with a paragreaph that called for a community ban, and I gave the thread a titl that described very spcifically what I think is wrong with Noleander's edits. The first sentence of the paragraph that follows names a specific article, and I explain that antisemitic editing is a form of disruptive editing. You can disagre with everything I wrote, but I was specific, which is what makes it possible for people like you to disagree in a constructive fashion.

Opening this thread by just saying "it is a mess" is vague and makes it hard to know how to respond constructively. If you want to focus attention on a specific problem (e.g. the plagiarism charge, or what you consider inaccurate evidence) why not name the section clearly so people know what it is really about? That way it would promote constructive discussion. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:16, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I think you are missing my central point, Slrubenstein. If you have a specific issue with something Neolander wrote, you are of course entitled to raise it at AN/I if you think this appropriate. You are entitled to present evidence, and others are likewise entitled to add further relevant evidence. Where this whole thing started to go wrong was at the point where some contributors were reaching a verdict while more evidence was being presented, and before Neolander had a chance to respond. This is a mess, and it does nobody any credit to suggest otherwise. I happen to think that existing Wikipedia procedures are quite capable of dealing with obvious bigots (of whatever persuasion), and that the merely biased are best dealt with through normal discussion - though of course none of us are actually free of bias anyway. For whatever reason however, normal protocol seems to have been abandoned here, and to me at least, it just looks wrong. I honestly think the best course would be for everyone to back off, and discuss this in a calmer manner in another forum - after finding evidence that is actually relevant and verifiable. for what it's worth, I think I seen enough evidence here to suggest that Neolander should be encouraged to discuss articles with others before starting them, and maybe ought to find another religion/ethnicity to concentrate on, but this attempt to present him (her?) as one of the boys from Brazil seems rather overdone. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:52, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm confused about why the plagiarism allegation is being dismissed as though false. Noleander created an article in October 2009 called Jews and Hollywood, now deleted. [82] It contained text he had copied word for word from the Radio Islam website, which publishes anti-Semitic material. He acknowledged this on AN/I. He said: "Yes, I wrote that article, and yes, I cut-and-pasted some text from the RadioIslam web site." diff discussion

The confusion about Stormfront arose only they had apparently reproduced it too. So Radio Islam, Wikipedia, and Stormfront carried the same text. A portion of the copied text (please note the language Noleander copied: "the Jew Michael Eisner"):

Noleander

Radio Islam

Film critic and author Michael Medved wrote, in a 1996 article titled "Jews Run Hollywood - So What?" and in that article said: "It makes no sense at all to try to deny the reality of Jewish power and prominence in popular culture. Any list of the most influential production executives at each of the major movie studios will produce a heavy majority of recognizably Jewish names." The article then describes how the Jew Michael Eisner, the Head of Walt Disney studios only hires "highly paid Jewish moguls" as producers such as Jeffrey Katzenberg, Michael Ovitz, Joe Roth (former head of 20th Century Fox). Medved emphazises the point that, "The famous Disney organization, which was founded by Walt Disney, a gentile Midwesterner who allegedly harboured anti-Semitic attitudes, now features Jewish personnel in nearly all its most powerful positions." [83]

The American Moment Magazine is subtitled, "The Jewish Magazine for the '90s". Its edition of Aug. 1996 carries the startling headline "Jews Run Hollywood - So What?" The author is the Jew Michael Medved who states: "It makes no sense at all to try to deny the reality of Jewish power and prominence in popular culture. Any list of the most influential production executives at each of the major movie studios will produce a heavy majority of recognizably Jewish names." The article then describes how the Jew Michael Eisner, the Head of Walt Disney studios only hires "highly paid Jewish moguls" as producers such as Jeffrey Katzenberg, Michael Ovitz, Joe Roth (former head of 20th Century Fox). Medved emphazises the point that, "The famous Disney organization, which was founded by Walt Disney, a gentile Midwesterner who allegedly harboured anti-Semitic attitudes, now features Jewish personnel in nearly all its most powerful positions." [84]

The mistake we made was to assume good faith and accept his apologies, which wasn't sensible, because (a) the plagiarism was demonstrable; and (b) he had plagiarized from an anti-Semitic website. And the next time there was a problem indicating anti-Semitism we assumed good faith again, and he said he would focus on religion from now on, not ethnicity. But he didn't. So here we are again. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 05:53, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

A statement was made that Neolander had plagiarised Stormfront. All the evidence I've seen suggests that this is false - indeed, the evidence that this was false seems to have been available for some time. Several contributors have nevertheless chosen to repeat this allegation. If it doesn't matter which anti-Semitic website Neolander plagiarised, why do so many contributors insist on getting this wrong? As I said early on in this discussion, there seems to be a great deal of guilt by association involved here. This is hardly an appropriate way to debate the topic - either evidence is verifiable, or it is inadmissable, and being 'almost right' just isn't good enough. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:19, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

He plagiarized material from an anti-Semitic website. It makes no sense to focus on a few people getting the name of the website wrong.

We talk about wanting and needing more editors to see Wikipedia into the future. We talk about wanting more experts, more quality, more diversity. We want to be trusted at least a little by universities and schools. But here we are arguing that plagiarism is okay, and copying anti-Semitic material from websites is okay. What really matters is that you don't get the name of the website mixed up when you object. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 06:32, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

A statement was made that Neolander had plagiarised Stormfront – Not the whole story, to be precise. "I've clicked on Slrubinsteins links to earlier ANI threads on Noleander, up top of the thread; I hope everybody does. They are very interesting, especially Peter Cohen's post about Noleander's plagiarism from Stormfront (sic) and Radio Islam (sic)". That was what Bishonen posted above.

All the evidence I've seen suggests that this is false - this? which this? It's easy to answer: you want the (supposed) inaccuracy of the site to invalidate the plagiarism. No, the plagiarism isn't false.

Several contributors have nevertheless chosen to repeat this allegation - more hyperbole. Hans Adler repeated it; Anthonyhcole repeated it, but immediately struck the sentence. The only other mentions are by editors questioning or denying it. One editor does not equal several.

why do so many contributors insist on getting this wrong? - One contributor.

either evidence is verifiable, or it is inadmissable, and being 'almost right' just isn't good enough - try "either plagiarism occurred, or it didn't; and whether the original site or a mirror was used to make the identification makes not one iota of difference to that". Hint: plagiarism occurred. --RexxS (talk) 06:55, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

By Andy's reasoning, if a witness tells the police that someone robbed a bank, and gets the name of the bank wrong, then the bank robber is innocent? Hunh? Andy, what do you mean "guilt by association?" You are not making sense. No one is accusing Noleander of associating with plagiarists, he is being accused of plagiarism. The reason he is guilty of plagiarism is not because he assoiates with plagiarists, it is becuae he actually plagiarized. Are you denying that he plagiarized? Why are you saying he is innocent of plagiarism? Why is it that any tim someone provides actual evidence that he plagiarized Radio Islam, you want to change the topic? What are you trying to cover up? Slrubenstein | Talk 06:45, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The attempt appears to be to dismiss the problem on a technicality. A great way to make a living, in a courtroom. We have a quite appropriate name for that sort of thing around here. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 14:41, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it isn't plagiarism that Neolander is being accused of here, it is anti-Semitism. If people honestly can't understand why linking Neolander with Stormfront isn't "guilt by association" then I have to question their capability when it comes to assessing Neolander's behaviour. Asking people to get their facts right isn't Wikilawyering, it is common sense.

As for Slrubenstein's suggestion that I'm trying to 'cover up' something, I find the suggestion offensive. All I have asked is that a specific breach of policy be stated, evidence be properly presented, and a reasoned response by Neolander be allowed to take place before a decision is made. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:05, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The root of the accusation was that he added anti-semitic material to the page. It was doubly bad that it was plagiarised (not from Stormfront, but certainly from another antisemitic source), but bickering over the accuracy of the claim "he plagiarised from Stormfront" on the basis that it wasn't Stormfront but another antisemitic source is incredibly weak. It is hardly less damaging to Noleander that he lifted the material from Radio Islam rather than Stormfront. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 15:14, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

He’s already been blocked for a week, and I support leaving that block in place. Why don’t we wait and see whether his behavior improves after the block expires? According to his block log, the only other block he’s ever received was one in February 2010 that was undone 20 minutes later. Since this would be the first time he’s ever been given a block that wasn’t immediately lifted, we don’t know yet whether this will be enough to teach him what sort of behavior he needs to avoid here. We should wait and see whether it will be, not continue adding additional sanctions before he’s had a chance to show whether this block will motivate him to improve his behavior. --Captain Occam (talk) 06:52, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

A topic ban was proposed and discussion on that has begun. Closing the thread now, because one editor (NW) has imposed a temporary block, seems a little peremptory. 50 people are involved in this discussion. Twenty five support a topic ban. Fourteen oppose a topic ban (some for procedural reasons). Leave this discussion open for a while. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 09:07, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• The Community and AC don't have a tendency to tolerate tendentious editing - and for good reason. The Community's attitude to copyright vios and plagiarism is also unforgiving, as many know. But whether this is one of those situations or not is difficult to determine when it's near impossible to follow what's going on here (this ANI is a complete and contentious mess). The presentation of evidence and positions has been particularly poor (be it those who support the measures being proposed or those opposing them or those defending themselves for selectively refusing to answer some of the relevant questions posed). ANI isn't really designed for such matters unless they've already undergone a RfC/U or some similar step in dispute resolution.
• At some point, parties do need to be willing to cop it. If you agreed to stop focusing on one area to resolve the concern in a previous ANI, why would you continue focusing on that area now? If you haven't managed to get an outcome which brought about resolution last time you came here about a particular editor, why would you come to the same place without taking the advice which has been repeatedly given (to go down the RfC/U route)? Maybe a RfC/U isn't necessary if editor review or article RfC was tried instead, and maybe the user considered the agreement as a temporary resolution which was too informal to have any other effect (RfC/U is considered to be a bit more formal than what someone says on a user talk page and a more lengthy undertaking is needed in the drafting).
• Common sense is necessary for this project to function effectively, and that usually involves heeding good advice and being receptive to criticism when advice is not being followed. Additionally, the Community does not like buro for the sake of buro, so you should realise that there is a very specific purpose behind some of those processes if that's the advice you have been given. Despite these 2 sentences, I note that this is (at least) the second time this month that some of the same users are expecting the Community to intervene/reject a measure even though the earlier advice was not followed. I hope I have clearly communicated the points I needed to. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:14, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Ncmvocalist, I started this thread. When you write, "If you haven't managed to get an outcome which brought about resolution last time you came here about a particular editor, why would you come to the same place without taking the advice which has been repeatedly given (to go down the RfC/U route)?" I assume you are talking to me. If I am misinterpreting you, I apologize in advance. If I am interpreting the "you" correctly, I must say you seem to be either misinformed or confused. I came here only once before concerning a specific article; I was not repeatdly advised to go to RfC/U, and that matter was resolved. This is only the second time I have come to AN/I about Noleander, and this time my complaint and my request is different. This time I refer to an article and other AN/I threads, one initiated by Jayjg and one by Noleander himself, with a new complaint, that Noleander has been a disruptive editor in the form of a pattern of anti-semitic behavior, and I requested a ban. SlimVirgin proposed instead a topic ban, which is what we have been discussing ever since. AN/I is the traditional place for discussions of proposed bans and topic bans. One cannot go to RfC/U to request a ban or topic ban. In short, this is the first time I have come to AN/I to request a ban, and AN/I is the appropriate plac to discuss a topic ban. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:49, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't really talking about you alone - it was meant to be to everyone involved generally - but I'll focus on the gist of what I was trying to say rather than who specifically. Note the 572 archive you quoted at the top of the thread and read my very brief comment at 21:39, 23 October 2009 (UTC) for more clarity on my position on Noleander's editing - note also that even after saying that (which some might construe as being in support of the ban proposal/s), I still noted my dissatisfaction here because I think there is some merit in the complaints about the handling of this. What I'm largely complaining about is not whether ANI is the appropriate place to discuss a topic ban (it is, as you concluded); rather, the issue is whether this is the time at which topic bans should be discussed in relation to this dispute (and if it's not the time, should this dispute even be here). Having had another look at the other threads, it seems that at least one of those threads concluded with "please try RfC/U or some other DR as this isn't the place" while another concluded "this isn't the place". If Anthonyhcole's figures are accurate, that 26 editors agree with a topic ban does indicate there is an issue, but that 14 editors have disagreed and have asked for more evidence or RfC/U does suggest this isn't so black and white. There would be no need for a RfC/U if the presentation of evidence was effective in this ANI; in my opinion, it obviously isn't effective enough. Had this been handled differently (like trying RfC/U first before asking for bans of any sort), I think the chances for achieving resolution in a more ideal way would have increased with it (and that would have been more helpful in the long term for the project). I don't think the mess from here is going to clear out of the project anytime soon; I can see this mess continuing for some time (don't get me wrong...I'd be glad if things work out contrary to that...but I just don't see that happening after how messy this has got already). Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:35, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

There would likely be a similar breakdown in the support / opposition in an RFC/U. I've rarely seen a situation where a train-wreck ANI thread somehow became more coherent when moved to RFC/U: the usual result is simply to calcify the split in the community. IMO that's a big part of the reason why ad-hoc ban discussions have become more popular on ANI: they actually get results, whereas RFC/Us always end up back on here anyway when it comes to enforcement. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 16:45, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Given that the entire concern is quite plain - a poor presentation and collation of evidence - that's an assumption rather than a prediction. We always encourage users to have a look for themselves, but if this many editors are saying "please try RfC/U first", it does suggest that this process is not as pointless as you (or some others) believe it is. That combined with the tone of some of the comments in this thread is a worrying sign. Perhaps the only way the involved users are going to learn is if AC say "decline - you've been told repeatedly about what appropriate DR is on this en-wiki, so until you've made appropriate attempts at it via the proper channels, we're not going to step in. We'll step in if and after such attempts do not satisfactorily resolve the issues." Frankly though, I don't think it ought to be necessary for AC to say that in order for the concern to be addressed. Of course, an effective alternative to that would be to accept the case but to make findings on those users for failing to undertake appropriate DR (which in the case of a particular ex-functionary, wouldn't be a first Fof of its kind). Ncmvocalist (talk) 03:48, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

• Comment Are we sure that this editor is actually making anti-semetic edits and is not simply interested in editing articles related to that topic? My only experience with this editor that I can recall off the top of my head was at our 9/11 conspiracy theories article where they suggested an edit regarding conspiracy theories related to Israel. I worked with this editor on their proposed text and it was implemented without objection.[85] Everthing seemed fine. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:01, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Please actually read the material above, which makes his editing focus quite clear. I know its long, but it's also damning. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:48, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
• Comment That the editor is still blocked say quite alot about the Admin's here. --Domer48_'fenian' 18:03, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
  • What it says it that for once the admin corps has decided that wheel-warring over the block of a contentious editor is not worth the drama. That's a positive step for me. Noleander has been reasonable in this discussion and obviously does a great deal of off-wiki preparation for his edits (this discussion does, after all, revolve around an article which was over 100k long in its initial revision), so hopefully he's taking the time to do something productive. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 18:10, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Per Chris Cunningham - reverting an admin action without a clear consensus is not an action taken lightly, one which only should be considered when an admin is certain that there has been either a clear mistake or an abuse of the flags. Neolander has not made an unblock request, which is the other means by which a single sysop may act upon their view of the validity of the block against the request made. LessHeard vanU (talk) 18:20, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Per Chris and LHVU, it says quite positive things about the admins here. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:48, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
    • To be honest, I'm somewhat surprised about the disagreement that people raised. I expected some dissent, of course, but not as much as there was. Some editors claim that I blocked because I was trying to suppress a point of view—that's nonsense. Disruptive editing, source misrepresentation, and so on have long been sanctionable, whether by consensus or by individual administrator action. Absent evidence to the contrary, there is no reason to assume that such behavior will not continue. However, enough editors who I respect have said it would have been wiser to let the discussion unfold. I'm not so sure about that, but I shall yield to their collective opinion and unblock. NW (Talk) 20:45, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
      • Just for the record I hope you are not conflating the perspectives that blocking him has the effect of silencing him, with the idea that you were trying to accomplish that end. I argued the former but certainly not the latter, nor do I believe the latter at all.Griswaldo (talk) 20:49, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

A way to end this mess

There is a rough consensus in favor of the topic ban proposed by SV. There is a clear consensus to overturn the block. So let's do this: unblock Neolander but subject to the proposed topic ban. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 18:37, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

This seems like a reasonable conclusion to this discussion; remove the block in favor of the topic ban. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:50, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The two have nothing to do with each other. We're not negotiating a bill in Congress here. He can be sanctioned without undoing the block and the block and be undone without sanctioning him. Please don't complicate matters by trying to tie the two together.Griswaldo (talk) 19:53, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't see an intimation that the two are related. I do see an emerging consensus that while a topic ban is appropriate a general block enacted on top of that isn't, in that so many editors supporting a topic ban (which is the prevalent opinion) are fine with an unblock. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 20:02, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Huh? And I quote ... User:Brewcrewer -- "unblock Neolander but subject to the proposed topic ban." User:Jayjg -- "remove the block in favor of the topic ban." That's plain English Chris, I'm not sure how you missed it. They were both suggested conditionally. There is a growing consensus for a topic ban to the tune of 2:1 apparently ... but the discussion is still ongoing. There is not a single person who supports the block, and many who believe that until the discussion about the topic ban ends the accused ought to have the privilege to respond.Griswaldo (talk) 20:27, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not going to argue that the two comments on question were not in favour of conditional unblocks. However, insomuch as that an unblock sans drama is almost certainly predicated on such an outcome right now, I don't think it's useful devoting energy to arguing over it. We've a while yet before I would assume anyone would take further concrete adminstrative action on this matter. In the meantime, I am certain Noleander is aware that he can use his talk page for his own additions if need be. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 20:34, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I support both actions suggested by Brew. And, as they both relate to how to address the same precise matter -- the pattern of editing by the editor -- they certainly seem related to me. We have tools that can be applied as complementary measures or as alternative measures. Where the problem that they are supposed to address is the same one, forking discussion of them could only result in more confusion and even more being written that is repetitive ... surely, we have a sufficient amount of that already.--Epeefleche (talk) 20:10, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The Jewish-related ban might not be enough. I'm looking at Noleander's Mormon-related editing and it's pretty scary too. We may have to deal with that next. It looks (by edit count) that about 45% of Noleander's edits are about Jewish-related subjects while 25% are about Mormons, but in the earlier ANI it was closer to the other way. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 20:10, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

If this is the case something much broader should be proposed -- perhaps a ban from all articles related to a group identity. This is just more reason not to rush into a lynch mob style decision.Griswaldo (talk) 20:30, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Admins threatening blocks

This thread is a little out of control. Two admins have now threatened to block me, because in this thread I suggested that the initiator is prejudiced, rather than the accused. [86]. Too much bias, everywhere I look. Mindbunny (talk) 18:46, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Make that three now. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:51, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Four. Bishonen | talk 23:36, 27 March 2011 (UTC).

When I accused Noleander of anti-Semitic edits, I was commenting on what she wrote, not her beliefs, and I provided evidence (also, I opposed his being blocked). Does Mindbunny have any evidence of my bigotry? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:13, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Whether I'm right that you are biased isn't the point. Likewise, I believe that whether Noleander is prejudiced isn't relevant. The entirety of this thread consists of accusing someone of racism. I made a fairly small contribution, and admins promptly threatened me. Huh? Seems out of control. Is calling someone "anti-Semitic" supposed to be constructive criticism, while saying someone is "bigoted" is a personal attack? Sorry, I don't get it, and I don't appreciate admins with a shoot first attitude: it is arrogant and abusive. (P.S. The evidence of your bias is this thread. You want someone topic-banned for content reasons.) Mindbunny (talk) 19:28, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

In two separate edits to separate sections, you dragged in two editors who have not commented at all on this issue. That's what you were warned for. That you're now squaring up to people is not helpful. The nonsense suggestion that this thread was a result of some sort of Jewish bigotry was addressed by the large fish appended above. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 19:33, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Bunny, I never said anything about Noleander personally. For all I know I have worked with many anti-Semitic editiors. No one's beliefs are in question. Only one's behavior. Noleander wrote an anti-Semitic artricle, as has been demonstrated by many others besides me. The question is not whether Noleander can think anti-Semitic thoughts, it is whether Wikipedia will publish anti-Semitic articles. Reread what I wrote, from the start. I have never raised the question of Noleander's beliefs, only the articls he has created. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:57, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with, and think that Bunny somehow misses, the distinction made by Slr immediately above, which is made more than once above. But to the other editors -- please note ... Bunny has only 200+ edits to his name (vs. the half a million that the editors responding to him here have, in aggregate), and therefore may not at this point be fully conversant with wp guidelines that we are alluding to.--Epeefleche (talk) 20:13, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

add another 200 for user:Noloop. Ignorance of protocol is not an issue here anyway. But this can go on user talk in future, being unrelated to the main issue. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 20:24, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Wait Mindbunny is Noloop? In that case there is some relevant history here. Noloop started an RfC on Slrubenstein for calling him a "bigot." I had no idea the two were one and the same though. That makes me feel like he was being disruptive by calling SLR a "bigot," while also noting the irony here.Griswaldo (talk) 20:38, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Mindbunny's page indicated that, until Mindbunny reverted it. However, Noloop stopped editing in November and Mindbunny started in December, so it was more like a self-constructed "user rename" than socking as such. Which is why neither is blocked, I would assume. However, if they are in fact the same guy, Noloop should be indef'd and his pages should redirect to Mindbunny, so that there's no confusion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:51, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

My page indicated nothing of the sort. To my knowledge I have one page in common with nolops, which prompted an editor to accuse me of being a sockpuppet, an accusation that was dismissed. Mindbunny (talk) 02:04, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

It most certainly DID. It was posted on the 13th, and you rubbed it out on the 14th.[87] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:09, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

That is a template placed by a random editor with no special authority, and the message of the template is "An editor has expressed a concern that...." Like I said, an editor made an accusation, and the accusation was dismissed. Mindbunny (talk) 03:12, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't require any authority to place that template. And I see an admin above makes the same connection. Where was the accusation "dismissed"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:21, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Mindbunny lies. You slipped earlier today when you posted a remark to Chris and revealed your IP address here. It has you editing in Noloop's Historicity of Jesus conflict last July...as well as editing an Oregon-based article on Sept. 11 (Noloop's modus operandi). I would endorse a checkuser to find out the other accounts you are using currently. That is why you don't care if you are blocked because you would just shift over to using one of those...unless they are blocked too.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 03:35, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Noloop (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Mindbunny (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
192.220.135.34 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I'm a little surprised there was no SPI at the time... unless there was insufficient evidence. At the very least, though, Noloop should be indef'd, as he only needs one account. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:45, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

There was an SPI, which is exactly where it was dismissed. As for the rest, both of you are further disrupting a disruptive thread, making off-topic accusations that have already been laid to rest. Berean Hunter is being rude in a discussion of rudeness, and has become so psycho in this and past interactions that, ironically, I feel like creating a new account just to get away from him. Mindbunny (talk) 03:58, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

• I have amended the header since, and especially in relation to the main discussion topic; possible anti semitic bias, it has an Islamic connotation (a reward for martyrdom - as I recall). Given Epeefleche's comments regarding the possible lack of experience by the editor, I shall not be warning them re violation of WP:POINT. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:24, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• I just did a bit of research on Slrubenstein. And while I cannot say that he is prejudiced based on these cursory looks, I can say that i've found further confirmation in my scientific Wikipedia theory that there is a direct, positive correlation between time spent on Wikipedia/number of edits and the backing of the community in whatever you do. The more edits you gain while you are around (and more friends you gain, I suppose) makes it so that you are able to act with almost impunity and you will have backing even if you are completely wrong. Being an admin is just icing on that cake. Just an observation. I really should write a paper on it or an essay or something. Of course, others would probably just label it humorous. Silverseren^C 21:43, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

No, they'd delete it for vandalism :P Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 21:49, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• It's beyond irony that one of ARS's most infamous inclusionists, almost certainly drawn to this debate due to an ideological desire not to have articles deleted no matter what the content, would continue to cast aspertions as to ulterior motives behind why others support a given decision even after being rightly trouted for the allegation that opposition here was due to too many Jews having commented on it. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 22:12, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• Wow, no. You are completely and utterly wrong and getting really close to making a personal attack with that. I came to this discussion because I saw Noleander's name, since he and I (along with others) were involved in the Criticism of Judaism article a year ago against a group of Jewish users who were adamantly refusing the addition of any material to the article. This also explains my above comment in the topic proposal, because I have already seen said bias firsthand (also that discussion a year ago was likely the beginning of a campaign against Noleander by other users). Silverseren^C 22:43, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

You crossed the line beyond personal attacks the first time you stereotyped your opponents as recalcitrant jews fighting with a single hive mind to oppress free speech. That you do it again now is truly worrysome. I urge you to consider retracting both of your insinuations or expect a wikiquette alert to be filed.·Maunus·ƛ· 00:27, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

• Please accept my apologies for having suggested that you came to this debate due to your inclusionist sensibilities rather than because you felt that a Jewish cabal of experienced editors was ganging up on Noleander. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 22:47, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• Wow, you are really rude. :/ Silverseren^C 22:53, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• What's far more "rude" is characterizing people who disagree with you as "a group of Jewish users who were adamantly refusing the addition of any material to the article". The latter part of the sentence is simply untrue. As for your characterizing them as "a group of Jewish users", it is both unsourced, and, frankly, bigoted. Given these kinds of statements, which you persistently make, I'm completely unsurprised to see you supporting Noleander and his articles. You need to stop basing your arguments and statements here on your perception of the ethnicity or religion of other editors. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:46, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Agreed. I have no way of reading someones mind, but for me statements like those set off alarm bells that let me stop them before I actually voice them. That someone doesn't recoil from blanket statements about ethnicities, especially negative blanket statements, is interesting. -- ۩ Mask 00:38, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

• No, it is specifically true. Every single person on the opposing side in that argument was Jewish, thus it is literally true to call them Jewish users. Their userpages said so and they were arguing against the inclusion of any material that was criticism unless it was by a Jewish author (which...doesn't even make any sense in terms of criticism). Eventually, most of us gave up on trying to argue, since it was getting nowhere. I believe Noleander kept arguing since then, which clearly didn't help him in the books of said users. The rooted stance of the opposing users also explains why the Criticism of Judaism article is so much worse than other comparable Criticism of religion articles. There is a specific reason why I attempt to stay away from articles where I would have a personal interest in them having a POV (such as political articles, articles about social issues, articles related to homosexuality, ect.). I wish other users did the same, but more often than not, users go directly to articles where they have a biased opinion and it's this that causes such conflict on Wikipedia. I have no personal interest in Judaism, either for or against, but I am against other biased users trying to control such an article. Silverseren^C 00:37, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

• No, it's specifically untrue. Not all the editors opposing you there "refused the addition of any material to the article", nor did all of them identify on their userpages as Jewish. These are statements that are lacking veracity. They are false statements. Also, why would you assume that "Jewish editors" would be "biased" and trying to "control" information on a topic, and what will convince you to stop dividing the world into "Jewish" and "most of us"? Because that's what antisemites do. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:18, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

• Apparently, since i've been reported to WQA, i'm not allowed to continue this conversation. But let me just clarify that it has nothing to do with me dividing the world. If this was a discussion about any other criticism of religion or even criticism of atheism, and the side that was trying to not allow information into an article was made up of people who were affiliated with what was being criticized, I would be calling bias. I feel the same about any criticism article. If we have an article about criticism of a company and a group of users were removing information from the article and they all stated on their userpages that they liked said company, I would also be calling bias. So this has nothing to do with Judaism or Jewish people beyond that's what the article subject happens to currently be. Anyways, I guess i'll stop here. Silverseren^C 01:25, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

• Someone has been kind enough to save you from yourself. Rather than protesting, you should thank them. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:32, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

• See, that is both insulting and rude and completely ignoring what I said above. Silverseren^C 01:35, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

It does not make sense for you to accuse other's of being rude at this point.·Maunus·ƛ· 01:42, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

It makes as much sense as any of the other accusations here. The number of admins antagonistically accusing others of antagonism and rudely accusing others of rudeness would be appalling if it weren't so drearily predictable. I'm still waiting for an explanation of how dozens of editors can make accusations of anti-Semitism, but a mention of anti-Islamic bias is denounced as a personal attack and threatened with a block by four different admins. Certainly, it will succeed in the goal of teaching the assumption of good faith. Mindbunny (talk) 01:48, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

• Is there any way we could, you know, mash this topic down some? It's huge. I tried earlier, but seem to have used the wrong format. I don't want to close it, just make it less...gigantic. HalfShadow 23:42, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, moving it by copypaste to a page of its own, with a conspicuous link on ANI, is one method for slimming down ANI that is sometimes used for very long threads. It's problematic in some ways (for instance, such a page won't have a useful history), but it's better than collapsing, and it does allow the discussion to rage on. Bishonen | talk 00:29, 28 March 2011 (UTC).

Can Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) address his concerns about personal attacks without making personal attacks? Can we get an explanation of these threats to block editors for alleging an anti-Islamic or pro-Judaic bias, in a thread full of allegations of anti-Semitic bias? Why one is a "personal attack" and the other is not? Can Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) get his facts straight, and note that V7-Sport is involved in this thread, as are several editors with a history of ANIs and blocks for ethnicity-based warring? Can somebody explain why Noleander has not once been blocked for edit-warring over any of these issues, and yet the normal consensus process is considered failed in handling his edits? Can a single admin in this thread on prejudice and threats avoid prejudice and threats? Mindbunny (talk) 01:30, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

It's the difference between "substantiated" and "unsubstantiated" allegations. The former is a constructive mechanism, part of problem resolution, and is considered proper behaviour by the community. The latter is an unconstructive attack on editors in good standing, is disruptive, and is not tolerated by the community to the extent that sanctions are not unusual. Hint: your allegations fall into the latter category. --RexxS (talk) 02:19, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

What are you talking about, other than your POV that allegations of anti-Semitism are "substantiated" and those regarding anti-Islamic sentiment are "unsubstantiated"? In fact, several editors voting here have ethnicity-based warring in their histories. It's a non-issue. The question is whether you get blocked merely for being biased, regardless of whether you've even violated the consensus process. Mindbunny (talk) 03:12, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

NPOV in this discussion

I have seen this topic progress from the initial accusation and didn't give it much attention until today. I'm actually kind of shocked by the kinds of comments I have seen. I thought Wikipedia was better than this. In so many of the comments, it didn't seem to matter whether we were following Wikipedia guidelines, or whether we were following a neutral Point of View. It only seemed to matter what the material *might* be perceived as. Our guidelines don't ask us to censor Wikipedia if we don't like how something might be perceived.

Its sad, but there is an almost perceptible fear in the comments above that we *might* be treading somewhere we ought not to be treading. But this online encyclopedia covers thousands of topics; we're obviously going to make some people unhappy. So the thing that bothers me is why are so many editors willing to attack another editor who has a distinct viewpoint and material to bring to the party? If you don't agree with him, make the article better, delete it, merge it, redirect it, rename it, incubate it, etc.

It is obvious among most of the editors regarding the article "Jews and Money" that the article isn't ready for prime time. Even the supposedly anti-semitic editor Noleander said the same thing. That's why Wikipedia has the incubator. But rather than focus on the tools that Wikipedia has to improve and fix such articles, we focus on the editor, the person, who we disagree with because they *might* be saying things that are taboo. I live in the United States. We have the First Amendment. We've seen it interpreted lots of ways over 200 years, where (recently) it goes as far as protecting those reprehensible people who scream "God hates fags". I don't know where all my fellow editors are from and what sort of laws or ideals they hold, but in my nation, its held to be ok to be on that edge, in order for us to protect everyone's rights.

But back to the topic at hand. The discussion should be about what Noleander has done, and from what this editor can tell, Noleander has been willing and cooperative, while other editors seem to think that biased characterizations are enough to get someone in trouble.

I guess the best question going forward might be "who defines the middle ground in 'neutral point of view' anyway?" Hopefully, people will work on examining their biases and as such, improve the encyclopedia. -- Avanu (talk) 01:45, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Well said, Avanu. Clear, concise, and to the point... AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:57, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I am not as impressed. Contrary to what Avanu suggests, the above discussion contains ample evidence for systematic misconduct regarding Noleander's article writing and that is the basis for the argument, not censorship or opression of free speech (and even so wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a soapbox from where to exercise one's first amendment rights).·Maunus·ƛ· 01:59, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

My preference would be for an orderly RfC/U, where those editors concerned about Noleander's editing present their evidence, Noleander receives an opportunity to present a rebuttal, and then let the community decide. Please let's end this unseemly thread and move to an RfC/U. --JN466 02:07, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with both of you. There is ample evidence and it is appropriate to open an RFC. -- ۩ Mask 02:37, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Ditto. Ncmvocalist (talk) 03:57, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Roman Catholic IP edits

Resolved

 – Blocked for a week. Repeat offender, unthinking POV-pushing creating multiple issues. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:11, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

71.50.28.249 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has repeatedly changed the term "Roman Catholic" to "Catholic" on various articles without consensus. Other users have tried to discuss with this user but they insist that Roman Catholic church procedure trumps Wikipedia policy: [88] This has even gone to the extent of editing other user's comments to remove the word "Roman": [89]. On the user's talk page, there is also something that appears to possibly be a personal attack calling a user an "apostate", but as it seems to have been a copy-paste from somewhere I can't find the specific diff from which it probably originated. Kansan (talk) 17:18, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh, that was definitely a personal attack, and I've warned the editor. He's got a bad habit of changing RC->C regardless of location in the article -- he's broken wikilinks and categories with his changes, as well as book titles. Might be worth keeping an eye on his contribs until he gets the clue... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:05, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Since I guess you could say I'm involved by opening this, I'm going to steer away from even the appearance of edit warring, but might the next best thing at this point be to look at his edits today and restore "Roman" where appropriate? Kansan (talk) 18:08, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

No -- we should only reverse them when there's a reasonable possibility of confusion, as with Apostolic Catholic Church last week. Otherwise, Edit Warring Is Bad. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:34, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

As a self identified member of the community I will concur that "Catholic" and "Roman Catholic" are used interchangeably, except in company of people who may be Eastern Orthodox (as the wiki is) in which case the more specific term is used. IP editor claims both religious training and subject matter expertise, yet demonstrated behavior very counter to the principles espoused by their claimed profession. I would recommend the IP be reminded to not make changes against consensus and to move the user along the disruptive/tendentious editing scale (up to and including semi protection and IP blocking) Hasteur (talk) 18:15, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

You mean "Eastern Greek Catholic", right? Because the major problem here is that in many situations he's removing "Roman" in places where we are trying to differentiate between Latin and Greek rites (as in diocese names). This has absolutely nothing to do with Orthodox Christianity - Eastern Catholics are absolutely not Orthodox. This is much, much touchier and prone to misinterpretation than US editors may realize - the idea that Eastern Catholics aren't really Catholic, which is what this wholesale change could imply, has triggered wars. Can we please stop this editor? --NellieBlyMobile (talk) 00:02, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Re: "I will concur that "Catholic" and "Roman Catholic" are used interchangeably" - in some circles, yes, but there are more circles than just Eastern Orthodox Christianity in which they're not. My local C of E (Anglican) church, for example, bills itself as part of the "Holy Catholic Church", but is neither RC nor Eastern Orthodox. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:34, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

What Boing said. The word "catholic", whether capitalized or not, simply means "universal". Take a look at the Apostles' Creed, which multiple mainstream denominations subscribe to. Despite their respective liturgies' recitation that adherents believe in "the holy catholic church" or "the Holy Catholic Church", you won't find many Methodists or Presbyterians who take the Pope of Rome as their spiritual leader, I believe. And while the Oxford English Dictionary does acknowledge the informal use of "Catholic" to mean "Roman Catholic", its first definition of the phrase "Catholic Church" is "the Church universal, the whole body of Christians".

So, yes, someone needs to block this IP if he changes "Roman Catholic" to just "Catholic" again.  – OhioStandard (talk) 03:16, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

There's two issues here. Firstly, the IP editor's intrasingence. It is unacceptable for him to display such a dismissive attitude to Wikipedia's policy of consensus. Especially when he introduces factual errors into article related to the church he claims to be clergy in, as shown by his quasi-signatures on his talk page.

The second is more general. The term "Roman Catholic" is not always appropriate for all things related to the institution headed by the pope. "Roman Catholic" is the common name for the institutions and members of the Latin Church only, and does not properly apply to Eastern Catholics, who are members of the other 21 sui juris churches in communion with the pope. It's a complex issue, as Eastern Catholics aren't members of the "Roman Catholic Church", that is the Latin Church, but are part of the "Catholic Church" as defined as those in communion with the pope. So sometimes removing the "Roman" is correct when referring to all Catholics, eastern and western.

However, the IP hasn't shown that is his concern at all. Indeed he seems dismissive of those concerns, showing a lack of understanding of these matters that is simply incorrect, and un unwillingness to listen at all. oknazevad (talk) 04:53, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• One should also note that if left as just "Catholic", it could cause even more continued confusion as "Catholic" doesn't mean just the Catholic Church, but can mean the entire Christian Church, as noted fourth paragraph of Catholic. So, this definitely needs to be reverted else we will have a ton of people thinking we are meaning the entire Christian Church and not just the Catholic Church. - Neutralhomer • Talk • Coor. Online Amb'dor • 05:04, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

  The fact that he is even editing other users' talk page comments shows the disregard he has for accuracy in this regard. Kansan (talk) 05:52, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Please note that this editor is a repeat offender – you can see a list of the IPs he's edited under here – who has been told repeatedly that his edits are disruptive, and has been blocked for it under most of those IP addresses. His edits should, in my opinion, be reverted on sight, since it's been a long time since he conrtibuted anythying useful to the project. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:38, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I've blocked for a week. If it were a userid I would have blocked indefinitely, but there's no point here, he'll just find a new IP, as evidenced by his history. Since this is effectively an editor evading many blocks, I would recommend just reverting all edits on sight. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:11, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

User:GoetheFromm reported by User:Biosketch

Incidents of WP:HOUND:

• 1st diff: [90]
• 2nd diff: [91]
• 3rd diff: [92]
• 4th diff: [93]

User:GoetheFromm and I were engaged in a dispute at Miral, subsequent to which the user reverted my edit at Hind Husseini here, without addressing the reasons I articulated in the Discussion page for the edit. Then User:GoetheFromm partially reverted my edit at Mayors for Peace here, again with no accompanying explanation in the Discussion page. Then User:GoetheFromm made a minor edit at Nahum Barnea here, and then reverted an edit by another user at Victoria Affair here. It should be noted that User:GoetheFromm had never edited those pages before and I suspect his sole reason for doing so was to aggravate an already tense situation and provoke me into edit warring.—Biosketch (talk) 19:14, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Can someone please look into and address Biosketch's behavior!

Starting yesterday, I have had interactions and accusations with Biosketch that have increasingly become more uncivil and false.

First, Biosketch disagrees with edits on the Miral page, a genre (the Israeli-Palestinian confllict) that I have no vested interested in, other than to insure the inclusion of useful information on the film Miral. i brought up my edits to the Miral talk page and followed protocol on the edits.

He then reports me (without informing me) to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warringWikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring, with accusations that I violated 3RR. This doesn't fly on the page and it is ruled as a non-vio.

In his reports at the Edit Warring notice boards, he directly refers to me as "borderline paranoid frame of mind" accusing me of "suspicion and uncooperativeness" stating that I am "harrassing" other users (User:Plot Spoiler at Victoria Affair) and that I am stalking BioSketch "purely for spite." Other terms such as "aggressive, uncivil, unjustly suspecting, stubborn, disruptive, and obsessive" have been used openly by BioSketch. Despite my numerous warnings on that page that his language and tone is a violation of wiki standards, he remains unapologetic and in fact seems to be amping up his rhetoric. I brought up his behavior at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts#Uncivility_by_user_Biosketch.3F and the investigation is pending.

BioSketch has has been warned about his uncivil behavior. See here: User_talk:Biosketch#March_2011 GoetheFromm (talk) 20:53, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I also addressed his accusations that my edits to other pages were not explained, providing the original explanation that I had given and an updated explanation.

Now, Biosketch has brought me up on this page, citing WP:HOUND, in what I believe is a retaliatory action that has no merit. If you look at the edits brought up by Biosketch that purportedly indicate hounding, one will see that my edits were constructive and well within boundary. It has been my experience, as well as other users i am sure, to bounce off of other users' contributions and make edits. A great many users and admins have done so with my contributions.

Interestingly, user Biosketch and Plot Spoiler seems to equate their edits as if they were one person. They also curiously have similar edits on the same pages. In addition, both users have a history of edit warring and warnings in the past, indicating a past inability to work with those they perceive as interfering.

I believe that all of my points can be corroborated based on what I mentioned and what has been bought up by BioSketch. Thanks for your help, GoetheFromm (talk) 22:10, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

In as much as any of the above is even true, it does not alter the fact that edits were made by the user in rapid succession at FOUR articles to which I had recently contributed and with which the user had never expressed the slightest interest as an editor. Given the context of the four edits, i.e. the editing dispute at Miral that preceded them, the pattern is consistent with the the formal definition of Wikihounding as articulated at WP:HOUND: "the singling out of one or more editors, and joining discussions on multiple pages or topics they may edit or multiple debates where they contribute, in order to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work. This is with an apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance or distress to the other editor. Wikihounding usually involves following the target from place to place on Wikipedia."—Biosketch (talk) 18:42, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

BioSketch, you've already been warned just a day ago on your talkpage about WP:CIVIL with regards to the manner that you've handled issues.User_talk:Biosketch#March_2011 I'll reiterate that I believe that you are misusing this noticeboard and misrepresenting trying to create controversy. Please see comments directly above that address your allegations. GoetheFromm (talk) 13:09, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Referring conduct perceived as being inappropriate to AN/I is not uncivil. That is what the noticeboard is for. I would appreciate if you allowed the Admins to calmly examine the case and determine for themselves whether the diffs cited constitute WP:HOUND.—Biosketch (talk) 13:59, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

@BioSketch: The admins will certainly calmly examine the case, that is irrespective of either you or me. Your uncivil behavior towards me, however, has been really a downer in editing and I really don't appreciate it. GoetheFromm (talk) 20:53, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

PROD abuse

Is there any way we can tighten the PROD procedures? They are becoming a back door way to avoid the scrutiny supplied by an AFD. A PROD was designed to remove rubbish, but as more people have discovered the process, it is becoming a way to avoid the scrutiny of an AFD to delete what you do not like. Please look at Ruggles Prize PRODed by User:RGTraynor. I only noticed it because I had scrolled way down my list that it had become a red link. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 04:30, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

First article I ever wrote got PROD'ed and deleted while I was away from Wikipedia. Pretty irritating. Then again, it's easy enough to get a PROD'ed article restored. Why do you think this particular PROD was abusive? 28bytes (talk) 04:41, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm rather curious myself. For one thing, perhaps you're unfamiliar with WP:PROD. There is nothing in the policy mentioning, or discussing, "rubbish." The lead text is "Proposed deletion is the way to suggest that an article is uncontroversially a deletion candidate, but that it does not meet the more stringent criteria for speedy deletion." To imply that no user can file a PROD except out of malice and/or sloth is a poor way to uphold AGF. For my part, I presume that people filing PRODs do so on articles the deletion of which they genuinely do believe would prove uncontroversial, and that they apply this to articles they find fail of notability or sourcing in one fashion or another. I'm sure you would yourself prefer to be treated as if you didn't have ulterior motives or hidden agendas in your own edits.

For another, were you more familiar with PROD, instead of running to the admin who deleted the expired PROD and get him to reverse it, you would have done so through WP:UND, the proper avenue for attempting to reverse a deleted PROD.

Finally, if your purpose is to tighten up the PROD procedures, what are you doing here on the admin noticeboard? WP:PROD has a talk page, and that is the proper venue to discuss changes to the policy. Wouldn't you think?  RGTraynor  05:22, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:DEL#Proposed_deletion "If you disagree: Any editor who disagrees with a proposed deletion can simply remove the tag. Even after the page is deleted, any editor can have the page restored by any administrator simply by asking." So going to the deleting admin is totally appropriate. Monty₈₄₅ 05:30, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Uh, I find PROD a great process because it doesn't allow deleting rubbish in the case that any single Wikipedia user disagrees. No bureucracy, no extra rules - just "I think this should be deleted because..." and "Well I think that's a lousy reason to delete this." It's like AfD where a single keep !vote is enough to keep the article - until AfD that is. Zakhalesh (talk) 07:34, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Screaming abuse when it's used exactly the way it's supposed to be is odd. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 09:03, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. PROD doesn't mean avoiding scrutiny, it's a softer version of DB that anyone can contest if they disagree. Zakhalesh (talk) 12:10, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• If anything, the Prod process needs to be tightened in the opposite direction of what Norton suggests. Tags shouldn't be removed willy-nilly without a valid reason or doing anything to address the reason it was prodded in the first place. Tarc (talk) 17:53, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
  • I agree. PRODs are mostly used in good faith to maintain the encyclopedia; messing with or obstructing that process for no good reason should be discouraged. Reyk _YO! 20:45, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
    • Never mind that Norton gave no reason for removing the PROD other than he thinks it should be at AfD instead, which strikes me as rather pointy. Certainly, if it has indeed been on his watchlist, he has made no improvements, nor attempted to provide reliable sources discussing it in the "significant detail" required, nor made any stab at defending the subject's notability.  RGTraynor  02:07, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
      • Not surprised. Prod removals should need a reason, because this nonsense is allowed otherwise. Shadowjams (talk) 08:54, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
        • I'm a bit divided on this one. People who contest PROD don't always provide rationale for that, and it angers me a bit when they don't. However, one of the reasons I love PROD is that it has no special criteria to observe, and if we restrict contesting to those who can provide reason for removing the PROD, then there must be acceptable reasons and bad reasons. And if the line between these two must be drawn, guidelines are needed and someone neutral is needed to make the decision on whether the reason was bad enough to warrant restoration of the PROD. And if all this is implemented, PROD is no longer the nimble process for no-frills deletion, but just AfD where things are done differently. PROD is good the way it is. If the contester can't reason for keeping the article, well, that's only their loss when it goes to AfD. Zakhalesh (talk) 10:31, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
• And ... there's the AfD Norton fought to see filed. I'm positively eager to see upon what grounds he defends the article's notability.  RGTraynor  11:54, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
• What I never understood is why some editors act so put out and bewildered when their PRODs are removed by an article's creator or primary editor. I mean DUH, if someone came to me and told me that he was going to take away something that I worked hard on and/or cared about unless I tell them not to then dammit I'm going to tell them not to. Why is this so hard for people to understand? This is why if I see an article that I think needs deleted, I'll go straight to AFD if it has recent edit activity. PROD is for articles that nobody gives a damn about. (though that in itself is not a deletion rationale) --Ron Ritzman (talk) 12:29, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

  What I never understand is why certain notorious contributors to WP's eternal notability war keep heading back to the boomerang shop for more ammunition. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 16:34, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• Norton caused this to be undeleted, for some unknown reason, and then came here with claims of abuse of the PROD. If you're going to do this, why not express the reason at the AfD page. This sounds more like a way to be anti-PROD than anything else. That said, the PROD process does seem to as if it could be improved, and the Admin who undeleted this article had several suggestions to make it better User_talk:SchuminWeb#Ruggles_Prize. But asking for a reversal of PROD without any reason sounds as bad as the condemnation of PROD itself. (filed under Automated-Time-Wasters) -- Avanu (talk) 20:51, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment

I would like the documentation on prods made a bit clearer. I tagged a couple of articles for a prod, waited a week to see if they were deleted, then came here, perhaps impatiently, to "demand" their deletion... I thought I was doing the right thing but clearly wasn't.... could someone look into stopping people like me in the future :D

Oh, and while I'm at it, the process for nominating an article for AFD atm is ridiculously laborious, and also mistake prone for the careless (read the edit summaries of my recent contributions - I copied and pasted without realising I needed to edit the darn things till it was too late, and you can't edit an edit summary! (maybe we should make it so you can edit an edit summary, although this maybe leads to infinite recursion...)). I appreciate it couldn't be built into mediawiki easily so... how about having a bot to do it? You could go to a specific page monitored by the bot, type the article and the reason for deletion, and the bot would do the rest. Should be a piece of piss for any decent progammer! Egg Centric 21:30, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

One word - Twinkle. It does AfD simply by menu - just click, type your reason, and it does it all for you :-) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 21:41, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

DOH! And I already have Twinkle as well, just didn't know about the functionality! Cheers Bud :) Egg Centric 21:44, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

PROD duration?

While I, as I said in my previous comments, like PROD and find it very useful, I've seen quite a lot of articles getting deleted within hours of getting PRODded. Not only cases that are eligible for speedy or have been previously deleted via XfD, but other articles as well. A common scenario seems to be not notable article that is outside the scope of CSD A7. I'm a bit confused on this one - should A7 be expanded to cover a wider range of topics so they get speedied instead of prematurely deleted after PRODding or the "grace period" before PROD deletion reduced, or should we retain the current time period and not let admins rush in before it has passed? Zakhalesh (talk) 18:43, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

If there are specific areas where CSD should be expanded then so be it, but PROD is specifically designed for areas where a) the subjetc matter isn't obviously a speedy candidate and b) nobody cares enough that it can go seven days without anyone arguing against deletion. Admins shouldn't be violating that at will, just as inclusionists should not be hovering over category: proposed deletion. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 18:58, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I too agree that policy shouldn't be violated, but on the other hand, policies change. I still think a few hours grace period is way too short, but that some hopeless articles just amange to get through speedy too easily. Events, for example. There cwas an article about some scavenger hunt held by citizens of a county. I couldn't find any hits on Google, sources listed by the creator were two specific citizens, the tone was off, but still, it couldn't be deleted by A7 because it doesn't cover events. Another case today was an article about a book that got "speedy prodded" possibly by error - the deletion was accompanied by the reasons of lacking notability (even though books aren't eligible under A7) and previous AfD that was actually speedy closed because the author deleted the article. I didn't contact the admins behind these because I wanted them gone as well, but I would still like some way to prevent actual PROD abuse, or a policy change that increases scope of A7 and other criteria. Zakhalesh (talk) 19:43, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion is there so that we don't need to carry complete no-brainers (pure vandalism, serious attacks, articles with utterly no context with which to evaluate them) around for that whole time; things which don't fit that category but which are still useless will be easily picked up by PROD. So long as we don't have editors reflexively removing PRODs from article they wouldn't otherwise be interested in for ideological reasons, PROD works fine in removing inappropriate content which is not total garbage. As I say, I'm more than happy for discussion over whether we can wipe out more rubbish through CSD if we can agree on extensions to the existing criteria. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 19:58, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

95.8.144.160/85.107.240.253/88.253.113.96

IP user, which I believe is using these three IPs, is keep editing the Mongol Empire page even though adds no new reference. I keep reverting it back to the correct, like other users but the IP continues to change size of the Empire from 33,000,000 km2 to 34,000,000 km2, even though the reference has not been updated. --SuperDan89 (talk) 11:00, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Page protected. Elockid ^(Talk) 16:43, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! --SuperDan89 (talk) 15:41, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

User:Mokele

Mokele has blatantly violated Wikipedia's rules against canvasing during an AfD discussion about the Herping article thereby thoroughly contaminating the process [94] He's also been rude, but I'd rather fellow admins focus on the canvassing problem and the result disruption of the AfD process. Rklawton (talk) 23:32, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, and I participated in the discussion, but I think this is clearly a bit rude, but not a violation of rules against canvassing. Mokele only posted to a WikiProject, and looking at Wikipedia:Canvassing#Appropriate notification this looks fine. —innotata 23:52, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

How is notifying the project overseeing the page any sort of violation? As for my behavior, let's talk about the behavior of tagging a page for deletion on the flimsiest of grounds, never so much as asking on the talk page about the issues, never stopping consider that your premature deletion notice might be wrong before proceeding to yet another level of deletion procedures, and ignoring the advice of experts on the topic (namely myself). Mokele (talk) 00:01, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Notifying a relevant project about a deletion nomination is fine. However such notifications are expected to be neutrally worded, which this obviously was not. I don't see any need for any administrative action, just consider yourself informed as of now to be sure to provide a neutrally worded notice in such situations in the future. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:22, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Mokele, you don't even have your Ph.D. yet and you think of yourself as an expert? Wikpedia has a long standing policy against allowing experts to publish original research. Articles require verifiable, reliable secondary sources - the article you are defending has none - and had been tagged as such for two years. Rklawton (talk) 01:11, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

His baiting continues.[95] Rklawton (talk) 01:43, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Non admin/non PHD holder here. So don't take the bait? Anyway, the canvassing has already been addressed. Just go through the process in good faith...or take it to the WP:NORN board if you think it's an issue. In my experience, admins don't normally get involved in pissing matches. David Able (talk) 01:50, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

You know, I had a whole long reply posted, but frankly, screw it. It's pretty goddamn clear nobody cares about information, just rules. Mokele (talk) 02:06, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think so. I don't see where rules have gone before information you wanted to add. If you ask me, you should just avoid continuing your dispute; personally, I can't see why you could be concerned about the article now. —innotata 02:11, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

(wrote this before above comments) I don't know if anything should be done about this, and I'm not entirely neutral and uninvolved, but this is a rather nasty dispute between both of the two editors. I would think Rklawton shouldn't have brought this to ANI without mentioning what he's been doing. In last these comments, Mokele probably doesn't need to be told that Wikipedia doesn't allow OR, and Mokele's qualifications are likely irrelevant here. —innotata 02:07, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Nevertheless, the actual complaint here is justified. Unless somebody is going to claim that

“ The article herping has been nominated for deletion here Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Herping, for extremely poor and primarily bureaucratic reasons. Given that is a Mid-Importance article representing an extremely widespread practice, I think we need to all show up on that page and prevent the deletion. It's been neglected, but that doesn't mean it needs to get the axe. ”

is an acceptable format for notifying a WikiProject? --RexxS (talk) 02:55, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

It's not neutral. "I think we need to all show up on that page and prevent the deletion" makes that clear. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 05:03, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Nevertheless, we're basically done here: Mokele has learned a little more about process, Innotata has learned what does and does not count as neutral wording on a notification, and there are new eyes on the topic. If it survives its AfD it'll be due to the work done to improve it rather than because the AfD gives a misleading impression of consensus. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 16:32, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Goodness, I knew this wasn't neutral; it just looks like it's a dispute and not just on Mokele's part. I was going to comment on the neutrality of the phrasing at AAR, but I was mostly thinking of the AfD; that this was indeed of obvious notability, which should probably be the main factor in the AfD. —innotata 17:31, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

An incident for resolution

I am involved in an incident I would like to have answered without ambiguity. This edit served destructive to my comprise upon seeing it. I can demonstrate that it was an unprovoked response, and that it had potential to negatively impact my good character, although not based on fact. My first attempt, and preferred venue, was to discuss on the users talk page to hopefully reach clarity. I did post this message in hopes of a reply. I also posted this comment to mark my objection.

During the interim I discussed some things with a user I have great respect for their opinion. Their good counsel, along with points I enunciated, well summarize the motivation for my bringing this matter here. Considering this discussion can give proper insight to context. When Townlake did reply, the answer left no regards to consider. Unless the lack of regard should be sufficient in itself. So I bring the question here, where I trust the best answer can be known. Should a Wikipedia user be subjected to such an assault that encroaches on liable. And should a statement with such potential be retracted? I answer no and yes respectively. My76Strat (talk) 02:50, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

There seems to be no attack in that edit, but a comment on a debate about process in which your RfA was first brought up by others and the user was noting he thought it was a poor choice for reasons he stated. It was civil and germane to a policy discussion. His 'noted' response to your comment is likewise civil. What I do see is your statement "Should a Wikipedia user be subjected to such an assault that encroaches on liable", which seems borderline WP:NLT territory. -- ۩ Mask 04:54, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think "Strat was as pugnacious as it gets at RFA" is very appropriate. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 05:05, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

But pugnacious is not an insult, its a commonly used descriptive. Just this week the Financial Times and the Guardian have both used it in news, not opinion coverage. It describes a fighter, feisty, not willing to back down. These are things some are proud of, others dislike, and nobody claims is abusive. -- ۩ Mask 05:15, 27 March 2011 (UTC)c

Just realized 'appropriate' could have a second meaning, so if i addressed the wrong one I'll point out that a long discussion of fixing RfA was set off with Strat's RfA as an example of one that should have passed. If the user disagrees with that central premise I'd expect him to address it in a way thats not a personal attack by still explains why they think this is incorrect. The user described, in neutral terms, what he had issues with in that regard. And then moved on. -- ۩ Mask 05:29, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)(edit conflict)(edit conflict)My76Strat, in regards to your "encroaches on liable" statement above, please choose your words carefully, especially when dealing with issues such as these. I'm sickened to see all of the jabs taken at your writing, which I find a refreshing divergence from the usual writing styles I see here. I find it to make prolific use of metaphors, which many don't feel like decoding or simply don't make the same connection as you. That being said, the first diff you link, [96], can be interpreted in two ways. AKMask provides one view directly above. However, upon my first reading it, I found it to be insensitive and therefore having the potential to be found offensive. Saying "Jimbo sacrificed a little credibility" by using your RfA as an example for how the process was broken shows that Townlake didn't take your well-being into consideration in that edit. He goes on to state reasons for why he thinks it was justifiable that your RfA did not pass (stating his opinion on your handling of the RfA which in turn led him to interpret your character in that event not fit for adminship) and uses that reasoning to prove his first point on why Jimbo picking your RfA as evidence for the process being broken was not a good choice. However, in the process, he said you were "as pugnacious as it gets" as well as "obvious temperament" which demonstrates gross insensitivity. Whatever opinions one may hold on a matter, statements like those are not going to cut it.

Because we are restrained (I could go further and say "cursed") to communicating in text, many if not all of our intended feelings are often lost in the stages of typing and saving an edit, which is then read and interpreted at face value by the reader. The same can be said to Townlake's second, curt response, "Noted". This was also a poor decision on Townlake's part, which was insensitive at the least and intentionally hurtful at the most. He could have diffused the situation by (sensitively) explaining the edit in question, thereby allaying any fears My76Strat may have had about his intentions when he posted the comment on Jimbo's talk page. Instead, he left much to be desired. I echo RexxS's response to the conversation on his talk page linked above.

I have tried to explain this unambiguously while not elaborating in excessive length; if you would like further clarification, please ask. In conclusion, I urge you, My76Strat, to not take every potentially negative comment personally. It wears you out and doesn't help you in real life, which is more important than the wild place that is the internet. However, this isn't the first time I've seen comments from Townlake that have been insensitive in nature. I urge you, Townlake, to consider others' feelings (yep, we're [well, most of us at least] human editors that have feelings—yes, feeelings!) when posting comments on others. It's basic etiquette that can be easily forgotten and ignored and must be adhered to particularly closely on the internet where text allows for broader interpretation. Airplaneman ✈ 05:39, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

My76Strat, please clarify: What admin action are you requesting?

Alternatively: If - upon reconsideration, and particularly re. the notice at the top here, "Are you in the right place?" - if you decide another venue is more appropriate, please state that here. Best,  Chzz  ►  11:09, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Stopping by to note I'm aware of this thread. I've stricken the comment, and I see no benefit to discussing this "incident" further. If y'all feel like punishing me, I guess go for it. Townlake (talk) 13:44, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I am not interested in seeing anyone punished. I would have preferred to resolve this matter on the talk page where I did make an attempt. And perhaps a lessor venue such as RfC could have been better. My only interest is to mark the effects as they occurred to me. And I think it is well worth noting that my RfA was never mentioned as an example until Townlake made the comparison. Otherwise it was merely focusing on a comment Jimbo had made "RfA is a horrible and broken process" which happened to be posted to my talk page. Never was there a foundation that my RfA was to serve as an example for any purpose. Until Townlake chose to advise against the dangers of lost credibility for the slightest alignment with my name. And to then present as fact, "Strat was" instead of "to me Strat was" as well as the fights I was said to pick. I just felt it was an offensive that professional conduct would not warrant. And I did notice the comment was stricken within short order of filing this ANI which almost gave me cause to withdraw it all together. The reason I decided to allow it to go forward, to hear these good replies based on policy and reasoned empathy, is because the retraction itself states a desire to avoid drama without giving indication as to proper conduct, and correcting an error. I am otherwise fully satisfied with the manner which this ANI has addressed the incident, and in full agreement that its purpose can be said to have been served. And I thank, wholeheartedly, those who have given of their time to provide valuable insight with their comments. I am very appreciative. My76Strat (talk) 19:48, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

To further clarify, I had overlooked the link to resolve issues of civility which indicate WP:WQA as a better venue. And I did intend with choosing "encroaching" to avoid any appearance of of a threat. To the extent my actions are not congruent with my intentions, I apologize. My76Strat (talk) 23:16, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Please excuse that I wish to clarify this additional item. The result of my RfA was never an issue! There exists no platform, explicit or inferred, that it should have passed! The only issue raised is whether or not failing to achieve the criteria for success at RfA has any benefit by diminishing the value of the "person" who had tried. These are the very points being discussed under the thread. How could that context be sufficient to invite such a comment as Townlake was moved to append? And how could, not drawing a clear answer be looked upon as an option? These are the feelings which motivated me to ask for this single incident to be answered. Thanks for also considering these. My76Strat (talk) 23:58, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The result of my RfA was never an issue! This is simply factually incorrect. The first post in the section contains, in prominence, a link to Jimbo commenting about your RfA, speaking about why the result is a problem and what RfA is now. -- ۩ Mask 00:08, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

The prominent result, was a misconception that my value as a contributor was diminished. Not that the RfA had reached the "wrong result". The wrongs that intend to be considered are those which relate to humiliating a candidate for having tried. There simply is no reflection that I should have emerged as SYSOP. Only repeated sentiment that the destructive tendencies had no place. I suggest further that the comment from Townlake is an extension of punitive intent related solely to an attempt at RfA, I had endeavored.

When considering the negative innuendo that might contribute to the loss of an otherwise good contributor, is it impossible not to see that, exactly, this kind of conduct can contribute. Furthermore it is not unreasonable to expect the participants at RfA should be held exemplary in all regards. I approached the RfA as an encounter with an element functioning as cadre to the institutional purpose, which was to identify the kinds of people who could best serve the position being considered. I expected to return to a position of respect with regard to all manners of forward conduct, without accusations based upon RfA interactions. I have in fact interacted with administrators who gave stern admonition for conduct which constituted failure during the RfA. The subsequent interactions outside RfA reinforced however that I was valued at the contributor level.

And then the Townlake comment brings the question to full fruition. Even to the point that I should extend this effort hoping you might see fit to agree. This is exactly the conduct which should curtail if the desire to reduce the exodus associated with RfA is to anticipate success. To the extent I should be admonished further, please advise, because I must also endeavor to correct my own deficiencies, which first must become known. A final thought in this regard is that I miss the opinion of Townlake here, which is the unknown, I most wish I could have known. To the secondary concerns, I am keen, and compelled, but not unambiguously clear, as I would otherwise liked to have been. My76Strat (talk) 02:02, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Sexual abuse allegation?

Resolved

 – via oversight  Chzz  ►  18:50, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I just erased this edit. I suppose I'll also email to the foundation emergency address too, but I think the edit's visibility should be changed as well. —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 05:52, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the report, we're on it. Oversight may be a good option here. Thanks for the report. Christine, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 06:11, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I've deleted the revision visibility.   Will Beback  talk  06:15, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

As for Oversight, you can report that at WP:RFO, check for the email link at the top. - Neutralhomer • Talk • Coor. Online Amb'dor • 06:18, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Neutralhomer. I'll do that. —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 06:27, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

All addressed, thanks. Risker (talk) 07:22, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

User:Idh0854

The user repeatedly removed references from Gimbap. [97], [98], [99], [100], [101], [102], [103], [104], [105], [106], [107], and [108]. I checked the sources. Even a Korean source says it's originated in Japan, which is one of the sources the user removed and other sources support the Japanese origin. Well, the Google translation is terrible. Putting it properly, it says "Gimchobapeseo is derived from Japanese food norimaki and it is assumed that in our country the food started to be eaten a lot in the modern age." I asked the user to provide RS that the current references are not correct. But the user did not provide any source. See Talk:Gimbap#The origin of Gimbap and the user's talk is not polite enough, other user tried to talk with sources though. The user removed the warning I posted. Now the user reverted his/her edit three times. As far as I know, not a single editor is able to find any historical records of gimbap before the annexation by Japan. This is not a content dispute but it is clearly the blind removal of RS by a point of view pusher and disruptive. Please block the user. Oda Mari (talk) 08:02, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me, sir. I'm having a big problem with this request. One, you are relevant person about dispute of the document. Two, I am rollback last version about warrior edit, after that conduct a discussion. And I keep the 3RR. But user:Acuwer not keep 3RR. Also, you supported him, saying that he was right. Therefore this request is no "neutral point of view". Thank you. --Idh0854 (talk) 12:48, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Look at the this edit. I am finding internet source, because the user want to it. I will write about source in the talk document, soon. :( --Idh0854 (talk) 13:10, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Persistent POV removal/edit warring by User:Sloopydrew

Sloopydrew (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This user has repeatedly removed a section of criticism from The Shock Doctrine because he doesn't agree with it: [109], [110] and [111]. This is probably also him: [112].

He has ignored multiple notices: [113], [114] and in addition to this he is rude: [115] (These personal remarks was done by him any interactions between us had taken place, and hence can not be prompted by any behavior from my side).

As he ignores policy and notices and continues with the blatant POV removals in an edit warring fashion, some sort of administrator intervention here is needed, in my opinion. --OpenFuture (talk) 08:10, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Both Sloopydrew and OpenFuture were edit warring here; they both seem to have broached 3RR on first impression, though I am not going back to the page history again again to count it and justify blocking either or both at the moment.

I have full protected the page for 3 days to let this settle out without further disruption. Both parties are cautioned to talk first, find consensus, and not repeat this behavior.

Any admin who wishes to sanction either individually, or do something else with protection, can do so without any objections on my part. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 09:01, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I have not broached 3RR, I have attempted to talk, this has been ignored (until after I created the ANI). I don't object to the protection, it's good, but I have already done exactly what you now ask of me that I should do, so I fail to see how I should be cautioned in any way. --OpenFuture (talk) 09:13, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Neither of you has breached 3RR because the reverts were not within a 24 hour period. However, you were certainly both edit warring. Fainites ^barleyscribs 18:00, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I did not make more than three reverts in *total* and that was over 30 hours between the first and the last. I'm aware of Wikipedia rules and do my utmost to follow them, and I believe I have done nothing wrong here, and that includes edit-warring. I also play it safe, and make sure that I don't just follow the rules by the book by try to bend then by wiki-lawyering or anything, but follow both the book and the spirit of the rules. I reverted what was blatant POV removal of criticism. He, to his own admission, removed it because he doesn't agree with it. I explained what was wrong with his removal in the edit description. Second and third revert I tried to engage in discussion, this was ignored. After Sloopydrew made his fourth revert, I took it here, and the only response I've gotten from him was that he repeated is original insults (pre-intercation) where he claimed I should not edit the article.

Please explain to me might I did wrong in this process. Explain to me how any of this is edit warring. Also advice on how to handle non-responsive editors that doesn't engage in consensus building. Georgewilliamherbert gave some recommendations on what to do, things I had already done *before* he recommended them above. You now say that I made more than three reverts, which I did not, and you claim I engaged in edit warring, which I don't believe I did. Please advice on how to handle these situations. --OpenFuture (talk) 18:17, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Lighten up! How is this rude? Note also it is immediately below your post which says a claim by Klein is "bullshit". Moriori (talk) 22:02, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Add London cuts protest to ITN template (with the code that needs changing :))

Resolved

 – Posted by HJ Mitchell (talk · contribs). Strange Passerby (talk • contribs • Editor review) 09:38, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

If someone could add it to the ITN template that would be great. The story was marked as being ready nearly 8 hours ago, and there appears to be good consensus to post

The code that needs adding to the template is as follows:

{{*mp|March 26}} 250 thousand people '''[[2011 anti-cuts protest in London|protest]]''' against [[United_Kingdom_coalition_government_(2010–present)#Public_spending_cuts|government spending cuts]] in London — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eraserhead1 (talk • contribs) 09:15, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Before any admin posts, please review the link above to determine if the blurb given here is adequate or if an alternative blurb which I've suggested there would be better, to avoid leading with a number. Strange Passerby (talk • contribs • Editor review) 09:20, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I was just about to update my listing here with your blurb :p. To add that you'd use the text below:

{{*mp|March 26}} A '''[[2011 anti-cuts protest in London|protest]]''' against [[United_Kingdom_coalition_government_(2010–present)#Public_spending_cuts|government spending cuts]] in London draws 250,000 people, making it the largest protest in Britain since [[protests against the Iraq War]].. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 09:24, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Unfair tagging in Mdvanii article

A person named Legalpower continually tags the Mdvanii article with a COI tag because one of the contributors made the mistake of using a name related to the subject by newbie error last year. He explained clearly with many senior wiki editors that it was because he had written for info to the source for copyright and for additional source info to use in citations.He also wrote to a source related to the source for info. He changed his name and the article despite this error is fine and has a grade B level with the LGBT studies on wikiprojects. The article has anumber of contributors and is very well documented. He claims to have checked sources but he has not done so correctly. Citation ten for example is in French and is for the INPI and you have to enter the inforamtion carefully to get the desired information, which he did not do. Other citations are just not uup on the net but checkable in the library of congress and other sources which require more difficult checking. I and others apparently have all checked these sources and they all check out. I have read the books mentioned as well. I think this person Legalpower has a hidden agenda and i want the article protected from him and other which do not justify themselves or use the error of the one person who worked on the artiocle last year. The article is completely correct.ALphaWord (talk) 14:34, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Tags are not supposed to be assumed to be badges of shame. Dispute tags such as {{COI}} are supposed to be left in place while discussion takes place on talk; readers are supposed to evaluate what the talk page says if they have any doubts as to the veracity of the allegations. If nobody else agrees with Legalpower's position, the tag will be removed as stale in due course. No adminstrative action is required here. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 16:24, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, a bit was; OP blocked for abusing multiple accounts. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 16:58, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Request for admin attention re: proposed deletion of multiple electronics components articles

A slightly unusual request here since there is no allegation of misconduct, I just feel this issue would benefit from some administrative coordination.

Over the last couple of days multiple articles on individual electronic components have been proposed for deletion. I do not propose to debate the merits of those proposals here since obviously consensus needs to be established. However the method in which these proposals have been made - a separate proposal for each request - has fragmented discussion over many individual pages, making it difficult for contributors to see the issue in its entirety and even more difficult to ascertain what the true consensus is. Attempts within the community to focus debate in to a single place have failed since there have been competing proposals advanced as to what is the appropriate place to centralise discussion around. As such I feel admin action is warranted to close down these discussions in favour of a single unified forum for discussion before things get too out of control.

The fragmented nature of the discussion makes it difficult to ensure that I have even found everything myself yet, but it includes among others: [116] [117] [118] [119] [120] [121] [122] [123] [124] [125] [126] [127] [128] Crispmuncher (talk) 15:09, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I think Crispmuncher is right, opening all those separate AfD's about old transistors and diodes is pretty disruptive and it's better that there be a centralized discussion about what to do with the articles. The AFD nominator seems to be on some crusade to get rid of the articles too, which isn't good (crusades are rarely good). IMHO the info in the articles is obviously encyclopedic and should be kept, but the usefulness of having separate articles per device isn't so clear. One obvious outcome is a big merge. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 19:13, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

From user contribs, it looks like Wtshymanski (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is rather aggressively removing uncontentious and reasonable-looking info from the encyclopedia that he says is unverifiable, in addition to making these afd's. The first example I looked at[129] was wrong: Free Radio Berkeley is perhaps the most famous pirate station in the US. We have an article about its founder, Stephen Dunifer. Could someone speak to Wtshymanski about WP:PRESERVE? 75.57.242.120 (talk) 20:50, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Gullah Gullah Island episode list addition

I have an episode recorded: Miss Ella Mae Breadsticks. This aired 12/25/1994 and is not on the episode list. I cannot edit the episode list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 3polarbearz (talk • contribs) 15:42, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I could find no protection on the page so I've responded on the user's talk. Tiderolls 15:57, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Closing ANI

This ANI (posting personal information about another editor) needs the attention of an admin. Consensus is that edits which violate BLP policy should be redacted, and it needs admin attention to follow through and close. Onthegogo (talk) 16:12, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

No action is required. An anon porports to be Ralph Scurfield. IntrigueBlue repeats that the anon purports to be Ralph Scurfield. It isn't OUTING and the potential damage BLP-wise is negligible. I'd advise dropping it. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 16:19, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Consensus suggests otherwise. Even the BLP violator seems to accept that the BLP/outing edits should be redacted. Onthegogo (talk) 16:44, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The archives are dark to google, and are for a reason. The information was posted where it was relevant to the discussion. The IP made the claim, the user reported they made the claim in a discussion of the IP's actions. This is not outing by any stretch. -- ۩ Mask 16:55, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, it is not an outing, it is a BLP concern, and therefore the policy of WP:BLP must be strictly adhered to. Policy says that "Editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page”, including talk pages. To suggest the a potentially harmful edit, which purports to repeat an anon's claim (which may very likely be a false claim) as being acceptable because an admin has the opinion that “potential damage BLP-wise is negligible” is contrary to the policy of WP:BLP which says that the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment. Potential harm currently exists as the edits remain in the edit history. No harm can be done by redacting those potentially harmful edits, so why is there any resistance to this action which has already achieved consensus in the previous ANI discussion? Onthegogo (talk) 17:08, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The diffs provided contain three instances of IntrigueBlue simply repeating what the IP porported without passing comment on it, and only one which made for a slightly stronger assertion. The likelihood that these diffs could be damaging to the subject is negligible. I am rather more concerned as to why you are so insistent on action being taken here, as the only reason this is a matter of public attention at the moment is that you've dragged it back up again. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 17:17, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

My interest is because I have become involved in the BLP discussion, yet failed to see the appropriate action taken following the discussion. BLP violations are wrong and they must be taken seriously by administrators. The consensus has been reached and he violator has acquiesced. There is no further reason to disagree on the admin action that needs to be taken. Onthegogo (talk) 17:38, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

You seem to be of the opinion that because an archived discussion leans one way that the decision has been set in stone. I'm an administrator interested in tying up loose ends, so I looked at the discussion and saw a pretty weak argument which petered out without fuss when the "violator" took on board the concerns raised about his actions. As such, I concluded that this is no longer an issue. Feel free to go on with your life as normal, ideally with less demands that the admin corps sees things your way in future. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 17:59, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Your opinion is noted. I am interested to know if the majority of the "admin corps", which you refer to, agree that this example of a BLP violation is a case where it is proper to ignore WP:BLP policy. Onthegogo (talk) 20:04, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I think what you are being told is that this isn't a BLP violation. Restating than an IP claimed to be someone is not in anyway detrimental to the living person. Thus it is not a BLP violation. -DJSasso (talk) 20:09, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

There's no BLP issue. The editor who quotes the IP even hedges it by saying that he "claims" to be, and uses the term "if". Is this type of BLP-focus normal activity for the editor "Onthegogo", or is this a unique situation? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:30, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Onthegogo, this is the third time you have brought this up in the last couple of weeks. The answer has been the same each time - it is not outing to report that the IP claims to be Joe Bloe. If you bring it up again, there is the possibility that you might be blocked for disruptive behaviour. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:09, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• I saw the title of this thread pop up on my watchlist, and my heart was filled with hope. But alas, it didn't mean what I thought it meant. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:10, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Ole was driving from Minneapolis to Duluth. He saw a sign near an exit, which read "Duluth Left". So he turned around and drove home. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:02, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Admin User:ErrantX noted here that this is a BLP issue, so forgive me if I am confused that now I am being told that it is not a BLP issue.

Hypothetical: Just to clarify Wikipedia policy on this issue, please advise me on the following hypothetical situation:

If User:Xyz has claimed on their user page to be “Joe Blow”; and if User:Xyz is making regular edits to Acme Association (a notable organization with a Wikipedia article); and if Joe Blow is the name of the leader of Acme Association – then in that situation it would be acceptable and proper to report on the Talk:Acme Association page that User:Xyz has claimed to be Joe Blow and is therefore potentially making COI edits. Is that a correct understanding of the policy? Or would that be a BLP or Outing violation? Onthegogo (talk) 02:14, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

If xyz claims to be joe blow, then it's not "outing" if someone quotes him. If xyz is telling the truth about being joe blow, then it could be COI. If xyz is lying about being joe blow, then xyz may be committing a BLP violation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:22, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Disruption at Kansas State University

24.143.39.73 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Looking for some assistance regarding the Kansas State University article. A bout a year ago, User:Spacini changed the name of the school in the lead from "Kansas State University" to "Kansas State University of Agriculture and Applied Science". A debate ensued and eventually went to mediation. Spacini opted to not participate in the discussion and the mediation resulted in the article retaining its original name. In retrospect, I believe Spacini moved along, but, when I got involved, I believed an IP was Spacini (violation of WP:GOODFAITH on my part?), but in any case, while I may be in error, more than one IP editor has gotten involved and their actions are WAY over the line with regards to civility.

No. Just one. Me, myself, and I. (this comment interjected by User:24.143.39.73)

So, there are two issues in regards to this article. The first is the gross incivility involved. While I believe this is normally warranting a block (and warnings have been issued), this person seems to be hopping between IPs. The next best option I see is to protect/semi-protect the page until civility issues can be resolved. I personally don't care which version of the page is kept, but the incivility needs to stop; users attempting to abide by the mediation do not need to be told to "f*** off", "Get f***ed", "you anti-intellectual f***s. I leave s*** alone for weeks, hoping someone will have the gumption to f***ing research f***ing facts", etc.

Man, it's deserved. Do you have any comprehension of what you're doing to the totality of human understanding? I doubt it. (this comment interjected by User:24.143.39.73)

The second issue is the content and which version of the name should be kept. While the IP involved has cited Kansas state law for the extended name, I cannot verify any of their claims without links (and they have been requested). Those on the other side of the aisle point to many reliable sources while are readily verifiable online. Given this information, I believe the body of available evidence leads to keeping the article in its current state.

Really? How lazy are you? Pull up google and type in the statute. That ain't difficult. Or is it? Are you a simpleton? (this comment interjected by User:24.143.39.73) ((I am restoring several comments by the IP in the hope that admins will be motivated to deal with it, says Sharktopus)) Sharktopus^talk 00:53, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Look forward to your assistance. — BQZip01 — ^talk 17:40, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Relevant previous discussion occureed at WP:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2010-02-01/Kansas_State_University. I think the policy WP:COMMONNAME covers this: "The term most typically used in reliable sources is preferred to technically correct but rarer forms, whether the official name, the scientific name, the birth name, the original name or the trademarked name." Sharktopus^talk 17:47, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, but that only covers part of the issue. The first half is the over-the-top incivility. How best to address that? An IP block seems useless. — BQZip01 — ^talk 19:12, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I was in recent changes, saw the edit summary [130], put in some effort, and added to the talk page, with what I think is the appropiate reference, and gave suggested a compromise [131]; it was blanked, and while it may have been collateral damage as discussed with the previous mediator, whom I gave a heads up to the flare up [132], I've reqested feedback from BQZip01 and heard....nothing. If I can put it back, I'd like know; if it's uncivil, since the blanking was labeled such, I'd like to know that, too. I still think it was probably collateral damage, but being ignored makes that seem less likely as time goes by. Dru of Id (talk) 19:35, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

For fuck's sake. The appeal to the most commonly recognizable form is valid for redirects. Beyond that, ... fuck this. I'm going to "vandalize" this site from here on out by removing incorrect information and inserting correct information. To start, I'm going to keep correcting the misinformation perpetuated by some very stupid individuals. I'm certain to be banned for it. (this comment interjected by User:24.143.39.73)

Why are you cussing like that? It's not the end of the world whether an article gets one name or another, is it? Relax and just have fun with editing or take a break if you can't. -- Avanu (talk) 00:58, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

For someone from a University, you'd think they'd be capable of making their point without resorting to profanity. I weep for the American education system. HalfShadow 01:00, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, "actively aiding the dumbing-down of humanity". Ironic, ain't it? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:04, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I can't wait until he does his thesis; it'll probably consist of him shouting "Fuck!" for twenty minutes... HalfShadow 01:56, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

That would be poorly received in Kansas. They'd probably give him an F. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:04, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

IP based in Lawrence, and it could be he's just annoyed because University of Kansas was knocked out of the NCAA tournament. It seems unlikely he's a sock of Spacini. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:01, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

The edits themselves happened before the game, but not the profanity spree here. Interesting... Kansan (talk) 02:10, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

User:Igny and "Occupation of the Baltic states"

Could an admin please look over the recent activity of Igny (talk · contribs)? He seems to me to be more of a disruptive influence then a constructive one at the somewhat contentious and long-winded discussions occurring at Talk:Occupation of the Baltic states. Maybe if someone could talk him down, that discussion could stand a chance of reaching some sort of conclusion.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:18, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I did[133]. Although, frankly speaking, I see no disruption here.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:54, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Possible sockpuppet

Keeps adding probably non-sensical names to New York dialect such as JFK (famous for his Boston accent) and Ottawa born-raised Paul Anka. I've reverted twice, and he or his sock have almost instantly reverted. He's ignored my note on his Talk page. He's also been warned repeatedly before for other acts of vandalism. Bellagio99 (talk) 19:21, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Can you give a list of user names that you find problematic? For the record, these are the ones I have found:

• Target Jackson (talk⁺ · contribs · deleted contribs · tag · block user · block log · CheckUser)
• 71.225.11.126 (talk⁺ · contribs · deleted contribs · tag · block user · block log · CheckUser)

Cheers, —mc10 (t/c) 20:00, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

This is me, Target Jackson. To clear up any confusion, I have had some trouble logging in, thus you will sometimes see my IP address and other times my username. I would be glad to resolve any editing disputes civilly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.225.11.126 (talk) 22:52, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Commercial/sales links used as footnotes

Hop (film)#Refereences is a lengthy list that contains a large number of links to Amazon, Wal-Mart and other commercial sites that confirm the existence of certain products but are also sales pages where one can buy those products.

I understand that under WP:ELNO, we cannot point External links to pages that primarily exist to sell a product. However, I've been told by a colleague editor (not involved with the Hop page in any way) that he reads WP:EL to say that since that page only refers to ELs, that commercial sales links are perfectly usable as footnote references. It seems anti-intuitive to me that links not allowed as "further reading" ELs would be allowed for the more stringent References. It also seems as if it would open the door to abuse to have the fifth-most-visited Internet site readily available to point to one's sales page.

Is there any consensus on commercial/sales sites being used for References? Thanks for any information. --Tenebrae (talk) 22:51, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

If the sales links in queston come from the retailers responsible for the sales (as they do here) then they're primary sources and ideally should be replaced. Nevertheless, they're reliable enough (assuming the retailer is assumed to be, as Amazon is), and so are fine on a temporary basis. Facts worth noting are worth secondary sources, though. This probably belongs on WP:RSN rather than ANI as not admin action is required. Best following up there. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 22:55, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Glitch?

I just made an edit here [134] but my edit is not showing in the revision history. Is this some sort of glitch? Pass a Method talk 23:11, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

It's showing up now. There may have been a server lag while they installed the new security certificate. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 23:14, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Hey dont worry, i can finally see my edit in the history. That took around 8 minutes to show up. Weird. Pass a Method talk 23:15, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I was wondering why my browser suddenly asked for a security certificate exception thing earlier. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 23:52, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Attack

Resolved

 – Blocked indefinitely by Materialscientist (talk · contribs). Darth Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 02:45, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

• Jobe457 (talk · contribs) has come back from a 2 year retirement to attack me repeatedly on both his talk page and mine. I think this recent spate comes from my repeated removal of unsourced information he was adding to Music City Mall, but that was back in October 2008. It's odd that he waited until now to attack me, but this is clearly unacceptable. Can someone block him for continuing to attack after a level 4 warning? Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Otters want attention)} 00:26, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
• Also, there're these two from 2006 and a third from 2008, all three of which are ad hominem attacks at the same editor. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Otters want attention)} 00:32, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Jobe be gawn, bye-bye. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:50, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Disruptive new account

Resolved

 – Blocked indefinitely by Iridescent (talk · contribs). Goodvac (talk) 01:42, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

This account, User:Deathblazer, (likely a puppet) started today and has done a number of vandalism only posts, including vandalizing my talk page and blatant personal attacks: [135], [136], [137], [138], [139], [140], [141]. User notified here: [142] Niteshift36 (talk) 01:11, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

• Warning him doesn't seem likely to have much effect: [143]. Niteshift36 (talk) 01:18, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

User: Demiurge1000

User: Demiurge1000 is a repeated Wikiharasser. Please feel free to read his talk page and read about him. Many have accused him of it. Read his talk page and now hes harassing using a talk page with other users. Pls assist. --Billybruns (talk) 02:58, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Please provide perhaps 3 diffs that show specific instances of this behavior. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:02, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm just guessing here, but I'd say this probably stems from Demiurge's completely understandable SPI report [144] here, and the return of lots of SPA and promotional users to the 5W Public Relations article. Dayewalker (talk) 03:16, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Billybruns. Perhaps you are not aware that you are required to notify any users that you mention on this board. I have taken care of it for you. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 03:31, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Original poster is a confirmed sock. Other accusers mentioned above were in fact this user. The Interior (Talk) 03:37, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't the Billybruns account need blocking for block evasion since its a CU confirmed sock? Qwyrxian (talk) 03:43, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

And the sockmaster is indef blocked. They should all be blocked for evasion, correct? Dayewalker (talk) 03:45, 28 March 2011 (UTC)