Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

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    Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

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    India v. South Asia

    The following editors have, IMO, gamed the system to have their way when the broader Wikipedia community opposed a move request, something which all of them had supported.

    Neutral and uninvolved administrators are requested to evaluate the situation, rectify it (by deleting List of South Asian inventions and discoveries and restoring List of Indian inventions and discoveries to a state where content was not removed due to "duplication") and take appropriate action against the editors per WP:GAME and WP:FAITACCOMPLI.

    Timeline

    Zuggernaut (talk) 00:50, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    For my part, I was fooled by the proposed move template, which states: "The discussion may be closed after 7 days of being opened, if consensus has been reached." Seven days had elapsed, and consensus seemed to have been reached on a proposal almost everyone agreed on before the first of the "new" oppose !votes Zuggernaut links to arrived. RegentsPark pointed out that Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closing instructions actually has a little more to say, which I acknowledged here. I still don't think that implementing a solution which at that time almost anybody but Zuggernaut agreed on counts as gaming the system. Huon (talk) 01:56, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Ditto. I too was under the impression that a valid consensus had been reached on the talkpage (Not counting a couple of !votes, it was 8-2 or something like that at the time). Moreover, Zuggernaut's revert undid several valid, unrelated intervening edits, which I found inappropriate. Combined with the absence of any talkpage posting by this editor, but instead canvassing [1] [2], and spurious accusations of "gaming the system", I deemed his revert disruptive and undid it. In general, it is my impression Zuggernaut has been disruptive in this discussion, as he has canvassed [3] in non-neutral fashion (note the wording), launched into personal attacks against others [4] [5], and largely been absent from the discussion only to return a week later to claim "consensus" (and then more canvassing). Athenean (talk) 02:18, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Oppose and support positions were running neck and neck right from the start and at almost no stage of the move proposal was there any consensus. So even before the new votes arrived it was clear that the move was doomed. As for Athenean and you not understanding the text in the move template ("The discussion may be closed after 7 days...) and pursuing another 'solution' with an identical title could have be viewed as a problem of competence if [you were newbies but given that both of you have thousands of edits on Wikipedia over the years, it is a clear case of gaming the system. You should be topic banned from editing articles on Indian history. I see that revert/edit warring has been a pattern with Athenean as is reflected by his block logs. More recently this person received an interaction ban as a part of Wikipedia:ARBMAC enforcement. A topic ban on Athenean will help us all keep the focus on improving articles in the limited time we have. Zuggernaut (talk) 03:02, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, if anyone needs to be topic banned for the sake of progress, it is you, for canvassing, assumptions of bad faith, major incivility and general disruption on this topic (and now mudslinging by bringing up something completely unrelated to this topic). Talk about gaming the system. Athenean (talk) 03:36, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Don't be under the impression that you will get away by obfuscating the situation. Let's wait until what other admins have to say and if either of us are not satisfied with the outcome of ANI, we can start take it through WP:DRR where Fowler is headed anyway and you can come along as well. Zuggernaut (talk) 04:04, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    (unindent) Zuggernaut, was not a part of the regular discussion on the Talk:List of Indian inventions and discoveries page. He has an old gripe with me from the Talk:India page and was there in the "inventions and discoveries" discussion for only one purpose, and that was to oppose me. Unfortunately for him, he managed to confess said purpose in one of the rare posts he made on that page. Said he, crossing in the process the line between reality and fantasy several times:

    "It has nothing to do with your opposition to the project proposal and more to do with your patronizing and arrogant attitude which you have repeatedly displayed on Talk:India. In addition, I will scrutinize each and every proposal coming from you on my watchlist for your strong and demonstrated anti-India, pro-British bias. Your edits throughout Wikipedia demonstrate this bias and have included separating out Indians and British by ethnicity when the situation is ugly so you can put the blame on those of Indian ethnicity ..."

    This means, of course, that if I support/oppose something, Zuggernaut will naturally oppose/support it, on the logic that I am demonstrating my anti-India and pro-British bias. What "India vs. South Asia" has to do with it, beats me. If anything, "South Asia" is more American and international usage, Britain (still fondly remembering its Indian empire in the haze of an after dinner pipe and port) would likely go for "Indian." As for the real discussion that began on March 1, there were some regular discussants; these were: Gunpowder Ma, Athenean, Huon, SSeagal, Mdw0, Wikireader41, SpacemanSpiff, Mar4d. In this discussion, Zuggernaut made two appearances, both on March 1 (his first ones); once in a humorous vein and the other to (predictably) protest my tagging the article. He then disappeared for three weeks, while the regular discussants labored through all the permutations and combinations of words in the various proposed names. They considered stopping the "List of Indian inventions ..." at 1947, they considered Gunpowder Ma's proposal to create a new "List of inventions and discoveries in the Indus Valley Civilization," ... Predictably, Zuggernaut was absent from all those discussions. However, when I finally proposed a page move, Zuggernaut was the first one to register an "oppose," confessing, in the process, the real reason (quoted above) for his appearance.

    He then canvassed. At first, in this somewhat provocatively worded post on the "Noticeboard of India related topics" in the hopes that putatively "Indian" editors there would naturally oppose a page move in which their beloved "India" was being deleted. When the editors there didn't bite, he appeared in this discussion, accompanied by music from the Twilight Zone, on the Talk:India page. His fellow conspiracy theorist there has meanwhile added an oppose vote as well, having been no part of the "India vs. South Asia" discussion.

    Now for the page move and the votes. First, the page has not been moved. My proposal was not implemented. What has been implemented is Gunpowder Ma's proposal. That proposal had 8 support votes—not just the six who supported my proposal, but also Shovon76 (who merely commented on my proposal) and AshwiniKalantri (who opposed my proposal). In other words, we reasoned that the vote count among the regular discussants one week later for Gunpowder Ma's proposal, which did not involve any explicit page move, was 8 to 2 not including Zuggernaut's drive-by vote.

    Sadly, for Wikpedia there is now a type of editor, of which Zuggernaut is a good example, who spends his energies not in adding content (Zuggernaut has added precious little (read zero) to the "List of Indian invention and discoveries" page), or for that matter to the India page, but in holding forth every now and then on the deep ideological biases involved in the work of those who actually do add content, and in leaving no stone unturned in their path to help them trip. As the New York Times reported last year, a large proportion of Wikipedia editors left in 2010. I'm afraid that trend is only going to continue if Wikipedia doesn't stop a handful of disruptive editors from heeding the clarion call of their conspiracy theories. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 07:28, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Per Fowler&fowler. Zuggernaut was mostly absent from and participated little in the discussion, realized too late that a consensus had crystallized and is now trying to undo community consensus via the noticeboard. I don't see any bad faith on the part of the users listed above, all has been only done after lengthy discussions taking over two weeks. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:22, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sigh. Another tedious encounter with our modern-day Indian wiki-nationalists. Zuggernaut has arguably merited a page-ban for stalking Fowler - which is, self-admittedly, his entire reason for being there - and CarTick apparently lacks the ability to follow a coherent argument. Someone really needs to sort this out and deal with the issues of consensus-stacking, canvassing, harassment and disruption. Moreschi (talk) 18:07, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is not Zuggernaut's first attempt at canvassing and will not be his last (there are at least two ANIs where this has been discussed), he has consistently used provocative language and posts to canvass his positions on WT:INB. The only reason he canvassed me (per Athenean's statement above) this time is because I had a mild disagreement with Fowler on this particular issue. I'm not entirely convinced that a name change is in order at the present time, although I can appreciate the arguments in favor. It's not a page ban that's needed but a topic ban that's required here. See the history on Talk:India where his proposal was rejected in September, then he comes back a few months later adding the same POV stuff in claiming that there was consensus in September, then in the face of complete opposition starts an RFC and keeps arguing the same points again and again. —SpacemanSpiff 18:34, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I haven't commented on the move discussion (and would oppose it actually), but this Zuggernaut Vs Fowler thing is getting a little bit out of hand. Though Fowler doesn't help things with his sharp remarks and pithy edit summaries, Zuggernaut's behaviour is getting tiresome - he has a pretty strong POV on this issue. He has even suggested that projects to distribute wikipedia articles offline in india, go through the contribution history of articles to check for "known editors who have a known POV issue". Read the whole thing - he is actually suggesting a "pre approved editor list" for india related wikipedia articles that are selected for distribution. It gives me the creeps. Apparently, if you are non-Indian and you dont agree with him, you dont count; and if you are an Indian and you dont agree with him you are a "Brown Sahib". --Sodabottle (talk) 18:53, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Perhaps it is time for a topic ban on zuggernaut. I have opposed the move proposal but it is impossible to have a reasonable discussion on the merits of a proposal or on alternative titles when persistent POV pushers with an agenda are around. The persistent resurrection of topics that don't get consensus (see the Talk:India history pointed out by SpacemanSpiff above), the references to brown sabibs noted by Sodabottle (not, I am sorry to say, for the first time[6]), the long list of acronyms in the complaint above, these are all examples of an editor with a single minded agenda to insert his own POV into wikipedia. I suggest a topic ban on all articles related to Indian history. --rgpk (comment) 23:09, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    let us not forget the English nationalist POV pushed by Fowler. His edits across wikipedia promoting British East India Company, attempts to forecefully define Indian history to have started from English intervention and his recent attempts to separate Indian history from South asian history thus resorting to history revisionism requires a topic ban for Fowler as well. his relentless English nationalistic POV brings out the worst among other contributing editors. --CarTick (talk) 23:15, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I have not seen anything by Fowler&fowler during the move discussion that I recognized as pro-English POV pushing. Could you please provide relevant diffs if you argue for a topic ban? Huon (talk) 23:58, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    because he didnt do that. what he did in that move discussion was history revisionism. i am sure you didnt notice that! will provide evidences when topic ban is seriously considered. dont want to waste my time for nothing. --CarTick (talk) 00:05, 30 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Could you expand on your view that Fowler&fowler has an "English POV"? Because I don't know what this means in this context and I haven't seen any of it yet. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:05, 30 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Zuggernaut does have a very strong POV on issues regarding India and the British. If you look at Talk:British Empire, about two thirds of archive 12 and most of archive 13 are filled with threads started by him or exacerbated by him trying to add information about famines in India and how they were completely the fault of the British. Back then he was also canvassing and forum shopping to try and get his way (at one point contacting the Ireland noticeboards to try and get them to comment on whether information about famines should be in the article). His POV is very clear when he makes comments such as "I'm sure, free and democratic nations such as India would have industrialized or even surpassed Europe in the industrialization" as a reason for including economic information about India in the British Empire article (seen in this thread). Notably when discussing this article he had another editor pegged as a British POV warrior, similar to fowler now. Zuggernaut has twice before used AN/I to try and censure other editors (search for "Zuggernaut" here and here, both of which were remarkable flops. The current disruption has been caused because he found this inventions article and objected to the move to South Asia, which is fair enough. However, he provided no solutions to the issue at hand, and it trying to maintain that the article List of Indian inventions and discoveries should include inventions from all over the Indian subcontinent/South Asia/India before 1947, and for all inventions from the Republic of India as well, going as far as to ask for sources calling ancient inventions Pakistani. I dislike the idea of a topic ban, as the user does make good contributions to some India articles; however there does seem to be some sort of need for it as the same behavioural patterns have continued until now. Perhaps just one relating to Indian/British history, under the discretion of an administrator or something similar. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 04:03, 30 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • This remarkable bit of logic just appeared, "reliable sources consider IVC a part of India and per WP:Commonname, India equates to the Republic of India." I leave it up to others to make sense of this. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 04:09, 30 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • If others want to take the time to discuss this, I support a topic ban of Zuggernaut as there is plenty of reason to believe the nationalistic POV pushing will never end voluntarily. One clear example was a suggestion here (permalink) that text be added to Famine in India to say that due to his racist views, Winston Churchill had deliberately ignored pleas for emergency food aid and had left the population to starve. Despite the fact that the "refusal" was in 1943 at the height of World War II, Zuggernaut did not want to consider the possibility that the failure to ship food might have been influenced by the war—further than that, Z did not even want the war mentioned, saying "World War II is more or less European history and I think its a distraction in this discussion" (diff). Johnuniq (talk) 05:04, 30 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    That might sound displeasing to Churchill's supporters. but he seems within bounds to suggest that sentnence as i hope he had reliable references to back up his claim. however, the decision to include or exclude the sentence should depend on several other factors, WP:Due being one important. it is a content dispute and he clearly has a pro-Indian POV. what about other editors with pro-English and anti-Indian POVs? --CarTick (talk) 05:12, 30 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • So, is a topic ban being planned for Zuggernaut (talk · contribs) and, if so, how will it proceed? Will RegentsPark and Morsechi (and SpacemanSpiff?), being admins, take the initiative, or will they invite some other admin? Please let us participants here know what is being planned. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:35, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Proposed restrictions

    The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
    Closed as consensus for imposing all four points. There is consensus in general to impose the restrictions with only limited opposition. Point #3 has slightly less support, but enough that I am happy to impose it. The comments below suggesting mentorship are also good, and I will include this in my notification to Zuggernaut --Errant (chat!) 08:50, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Zuggernaut (talk · contribs) is indefinitely:

    1. topic banned from Indian history, broadly construed. He is not permitted to edit or discuss these topics anywhere on Wikipedia.
    2. banned from interacting with or commenting about Fowler&fowler (talk · contribs), directly or indirectly, anywhere on Wikipedia. This means Zuggernaut is not to discuss, either explicitly nor by allusion, the actions, behaviours, editing, or existence of this user.
    3. subject to an editing restriction (probation). Should he make any edits, comments, or actions which are judged by an uninvolved administrator to be disruptive, he may be banned from any affected pages or set of pages. The ban will take effect after it has been logged here and the administrator has posted a notice on his user talk page. If he is specifically not banned from using affected talk pages, this must be specified in the notice and log.
    4. banned from List of Indian inventions and discoveries and List of South Asian inventions and discoveries due to inappropriate canvassing in relation to these 4 pages. Note to closing admin: this last measure is to be logged as an enforcement action of the probation listed at 3.
    • Proposed. Interaction ban warranted after [7] & [8]. Enforcement of probation warranted after canvassing (note the wording for the lack of neutrality). The repeated POV-pushing warrants the topic ban and need for supervised editing - see other diffs in the above discussion. Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:54, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support I suspect we may need more evidence presented in order to gain a consensus on this broad proposal, but my observations over the last few months have convinced me that some form of topic ban would be the only way to provide a stable editing environment. My above comment with timestamp "05:04, 30 March 2011" has one example of unhelpful POV pushing. Johnuniq (talk) 10:12, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose that he has pro-Indian POV (which i dont deny) can not be a reason for such broader bans. everyone comes with a bias. that he has no blocks logged indicates he has worked within the boundaries of wikipedia policies and guidelines. looks like an effort to get rid of a serious opposition to pro-English and anti-Indian POV pushers. --CarTick (talk) 12:23, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Are you suggesting that Ncmvocalist is not acting in good faith? Syrthiss (talk) 12:31, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • nope, i am not. please dont put words in my mouth. i just disagree with him. most of the ban proposers had fought with Zuggernaut in pro-English and anti-Indian camps in various talk pages and i dont expect them to be objective. so, i would say Ncmvocalist is one of the uninvolved here. we should consider where the opposition comes from. i dont want to accuse everyone of holding a grudge against Z. some are sincerely worried about the way Fowler vs Zuggernaut rivalry is playing out in various talk pages. i have my own reservations about Z but i dont think we have sufficient background for topic ban yet. --CarTick (talk) 12:51, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • i have such a bad memory. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/YellowMonkey, Ncmvocalist and many others including myself were defending YellowMonkey. ncmvocalist was quite vocal in his defense. the RFC was filed by User:Yogesh Khandke over a block. Zuggernaut was there opposing YellowMonkey. therefore it is wrong to say Zuggernaut and Ncmvocalist have never interacted. just clarifying. --CarTick (talk) 23:50, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
            • It appears that you have no idea what the meaning of uninvolved is. Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:50, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • My preference was to avoid losing the user's contributions from all areas of the project when the problems seem to be when he is editing in relation to these topics. But to take an example; arbitration examines the conduct of all involved parties, and as you are one of them in this case, your own conduct could be the subject of a finding of fact. Is it necessary to get to that point before the problem can be addressed through a binding voluntary agreement? If we want to think about blocks, to take you as an example again, your edit-warring in the mainspace ([9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]) was worthy of a block...but do you really want blocks to be used? These two ways of dealing with the issues are a last resort, and the restrictions I've proposed are to avoid the need for that in the future, particularly if in the case of the Zuggernaut, he can conduct himself more appropriately and provide useful contributions in other topics. Incidentally, having a POV is not the problem; what is a problem is when it is pushed in a way which is disruptive and inappropriate; the canvassing, the comments I linked to above which were directed to Fowler, and what Johnuniq has shared earlier, are just a few examples of that. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:17, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Neutral: This seems too harsh. The civility restriction I can agree with, and while we're at it we might consider a WP:1RR restriction to head off edit warring. However, I've seen his most recent interaction with me (on a naming proposal to end the debate that seemingly started all this) to be civil and in compliance with relevant policy. Obviously the consensus hasn't been judged yet, and I'd be curious to see what his attitude will be when/if the consensus is judged to be against his point of view on the matter. N419BH 14:40, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • I did consider 1RR, but I think it simply slows the edit-warring down to a point of exhausting everyone involved rather than resolving the underlying concern. That (to me anyway) seems pointless and will just exhaust precious time unnecessarily when it could be spent addressing the content issues. I'm not going to waste time trying to prevent the inevitable (I've been here far too long to try to meddle with what is destined to happen, be it an arbitration case, or more frequent usage of the blocking tool to prevent the problems). But at least after reading this discussion, nobody in the future can complain that there was a shortage of practical good faith proposals at the time (which is now). Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:17, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Move to Support in light of Zuggernaut's response, which clearly indicates a total lack of understanding of the issues at hand and is full of wikilawyering. Enough. N419BH 03:48, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Limited Support: As I said above, Zuggernaut has done good work (a few GA's etc.) in some areas, and I don't wish to see him shut out of areas of editing unnecessarily. The topic ban range under 1 sounds feasible, although perhaps could be trimmed down to just British history, unless similar problems exist for other time scales. As for 2, I'm not sure if this will help. Fowler's not the only editor Zug's had these issues with, and frankly I don't think Fowler gives a damn (he can correct me if I'm wrong). In addition, Fowler works on many Indian related articles, so this may push Zuggernaut out of non-history areas as well. I'm not sure what 3 will work, although if it's creating a place where administrators can look over complaints that sounds good. As for 4, that seems to depend on 3. In the end, what I really wish for Zuggernaut to understand is that just because information he wants to place about how India's economy was destroyed, or how Churchill was racist, or how famines were caused by the British, was not added to the article due to other editors does not mean that the article is controlled by a British cabal, or that the editors involved are pro-English and anti-Indian. He should make sure he's not out on a mission to right great wrongs and fix the systematic bias of the wiki, and needs to understand that opposition to his pro-India edits does not mean a systematic bias is being enforced. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:54, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Changed to support. As seen in his response below, Zuggernaut just doesn't understand what it wrong, and refuses to acknowledge he's violated guidelines on editing. His claim he doesn't know if he has violated canvass is (per his want to call things a spade) complete bullshit. A previous time he was accused of canvassing, he asked about it here, and was told that it was indeed canvassing. After that he made a request (section below that) to change the guideline to allow people to ask others to vote with them. He has even edited the actual guideline. Another user additionally noted in the discussion that he was forum shopping, which he has also done at the systematic bias page, and arguably has done with this and previous AN/I's. In summary, he has broken editing guidelines, and he knows it. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 09:29, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • From my brief time spent looking at this problem and being involved at the list page, I'll support 2 (very strongly, as he's openly admitted wikistalking), 3 (clearly necessary), and 4. 1 is probably a little OTT for now, and can easily be implemented under 3 later if necessary. Best, Moreschi (talk) 15:26, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support 1, 3 and 4 per my reasons above. --rgpk (comment) 16:20, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support 2, 3, and 4, particularly 2 due to odious wikistalking. Athenean (talk) 22:56, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support 1 and 3 without reservations. At this point this is a necessary measure, given the past behavior on various topics (Famine in India, India, British Empire etc etc). 4 is just a subset of 1, so I'm not sure it needs to be called out, but it has my support nevertheless. As far as 2 goes, I think it's necessary in principle, but the behavior is not restricted to F&f, so something broader would be preferred in terms of addressing the issue of wikistalking and not just interaction with one editor. That said, there's also the problem of one-way interaction bans (although there's no reason to make this a two-way ban currently) being that there's always the possibility of the perception of the banned party not being able to respond etc. —SpacemanSpiff 02:30, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support 1 2 and 3. (4 comes under 1) We all come here with our biases, but most of us learn to suppress the worst of them and work within the limitations wikipedia imposes on us. In the past, i had hoped Zuggernaut would change his ways and use his obvious talent to do some good work; But his disruptive behaviour far outweighs the article work he has done. I dont believe any editor who advocates censorship based on nationality, wikistalks, throws out insults like "brown sahib", "acting white" would be a net positive to India related articles.--Sodabottle (talk) 04:36, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment Since I am mentioned by name in the proposal, I won't express an opinion on Zuggernaut. I will say that Zuggernaut was not the only one accusing people of anti-India and pro-British bias; CarTick, too, on the Talk:India page was accusing me, and Chipmunkdavis as well, of such bias, repeatedly accusing me of having "sneaked in" the reference to the British East India Company in the lead, and making me out to be a 21st century lobbyist for the East India Company on Wikipedia. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:06, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support: For an amazing disregard for the dignity of other editors. For a shameless modus operandi of canvassing, race- and nationality-baiting, and bulldozing through painstakingly built consensus. For a lack of demonstrated self-improvement and compromise, revealing an incorrigible POV crusader attitude. Quigley (talk) 20:49, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support; Nationalist pov-pushing is incredibly destructive (it either wears down the productive editors, or it consumes all their time). bobrayner (talk) 23:27, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose The editor in question has not a single block, so their editing has been well within the confines of existing policies and guidelines. A case of canvassing (perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn't) is not reason enough for what is essentially an "India" topic ban -- EVERYTHING relating to India is part of its history!!! Mentoring may be a better option, instead of drastic measures such as being proposed here. What is it with a community which would rather ban editors - because that is the easy way out! --Russavia I'm chanting as we speak 15:15, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support Z has a series of POV positions, if he looses them in one article he tries again elsewhere. Time for him to take a break. I would support a tighter restriction namely Indian History issues where the British Empire is involved as that is his strong PoV issue (much as I dislike the Empire we need to be neutral). Also he shows no sign of understanding the issue which means he really needs a mentor regardless of what sanction if any is agreed. --Snowded TALK 19:49, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose The proposed bans are against natural justice as there has not been a single block in past. Also the proposed bans are disproportionate to the crimes allegedly committed by the editor. A formal warning should suffice to start with. Shyamsunder (talk) 20:36, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose per Russavia & Shyamsunder. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tentontunic (talkcontribs) 12:49, 7 April 2011
    • Support 1, 2, and 3. 4 is merely a explicit example of 1, and does not need to be formally defined. What we have here is a POV pusher who has engaged in canvassing- the evidence clearly shows this. Our system of blocks does not readily adapt itself to such behaviour, as specific examples are usually not worth a block in and of themselves, or are uncovered too late for a block to be anything other than punitive. Also, it is unstated that violations may be met by a block by an uninvolved administrator, but if the closing admin's decision is to enact these restrictions, it should be explicitly stated. Courcelles 14:49, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Indeed, it might be appropriate to state it explicitly due to the circumstances which led to this (this step is being tried prior to blocks/ban from editing the entire site; almost the last resort). I usually loathe spelling it out though because anything which hasn't been stated ought to be covered by policy, and it can mean less scope for frivolous wikilawyering (eg; "enforcement by reversion is not permitted because the restriction only mentions enforcement by blocking"). Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:47, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support 1 though I do not like "broadly construed" at any time, and would prefer to have it "narrow;y contrued". I also would append that "ban" does not include userpages created in anticipation of dispute resolution or arbitration proceeding, or to participation in mediations and arbitration proceedings not started by himself. 2. marginally, but an interaction ban should address both users directly - the same interaction logically should apply to each, with the same restrictions relating to the ban. Oppose 3 as being a draconian remedy, and one which get others who have tangled with him in the past to carp on every edit in hopes they can run to a friendly admin. Also oppose 4, as 1 and 2 addresses the concerns fairly well -- this becomes redundant. Collect (talk) 16:51, 7 April 2011 (UTC).[reply]
    • Oppose per Russavia & Shyamsunder. mentoring maybe a better solution. He is a productive editor who needs to be given a chance to improve while working on areas of his interest.--Wikireader41 (talk) 00:57, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Responses

    Three policy violations have been cited for the ban. I will address each of them below.

    1. POV pushing - As a part of my editing philosophy, I follow the essay on POV pushing, which says:

    The term POV-pushing is primarily used in regard to the presentation of a particular POV in an article and generally does not apply to talk page discussions. Editing a POV in an article that corresponds with one's own personal beliefs is not necessarily POV-pushing.

    Since I have never knowingly violated 3RR and since I've now been sticking to 1RR as an editing philosophy, it is, by definition, impossible for me to push my POV in to articles. I would like to point out that all of the diffs and references made to my violation of this policy by those who want me banned are from talk pages.

    2. Wikistalking - I had been thinking of setting up a new project about special India issues for several months. A diff from February shows this. Since I spend only a limited amount of time on Wikipedia per day, I never got around to doing this until March 4. In preparation of the creation of such a project proposal, I was searching Wikipedia for India-related articles that would come under this project. One such article amongst several others that I was able to locate was the List of Indian inventions and discoveries.

    3. Canvassing - Per my colloquial usage of English, I am pretty sure that my notification on the India noticeboard is not "non-neutral" but I now see how other speakers of English variants might see it as non-neutral. I'm sorry about that.

    Here's my general editing philosophy on Wikipedia:

    A friendly note to closing admin - here's what the banning policy says:

    If an editor has proven to be repeatedly disruptive in one or more areas of Wikipedia, the community may engage in a discussion to site ban, topic ban, or place an interaction ban or editing restriction via a consensus of editors who are not involved in the underlying dispute.

    Pretty much everyone here who has participated in the ban discussion has been involved with the underlying dispute. Exceptions are Moreschi and N419BH. Zuggernaut (talk) 03:56, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Frankly Zuggernaut, I'm not sure you understand the meaning of uninvolved anymore than you understand the meaning of tendentious POV pushing (the page you're looking at is an essay and what you've cherry picked out of that part of the essay is not widely held by the community). Good intentions don't justify disruption, and similarly, the worst kind of disruption occurs on talk pages. These proposals are giving you an opportunity to demonstrate that you can contribute usefully in other areas without engaging in problematic conduct; perhaps this issue won't exist in areas you don't feel so strongly about, and perhaps in the future you can resist your temptation to push POV so strongly to the point of testing and exhausting the patience of so many of your peers. In any event, whether you voluntarily accept the restrictions as binding, or whether they need to be imposed on you involuntarily, is another question altogether. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:03, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    How about a response to the actual issue, such as the Churchill dispute that I mentioned above? Do you believe that it would be reasonable to state that a significant cause of a famine was Churchill's racism which led to him to deliberately ignore pleas for emergency food aid, without any mention of the fact that Churchill was fully occupied as one of the "big three" leaders fighting World War II, and might have had a number of issues competing for his attention? Johnuniq (talk) 03:23, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    In the editor's defence, people should read things such as this, for example. There are clearly reliable sources out there which put forward the view that Churchill was racist in regards to Indians. Or this which states: "Few statesmen of the 20th century have reputations as outsize as Winston Churchill's. And yet his assiduously self-promoted image as what the author Harold Evans called "the British Lionheart on the ramparts of civilization" rests primarily on his World War II rhetoric, rather than his actions as the head of a government that ruled the biggest empire the world has ever known. Madhusree Mukerjee's new book, Churchill's Secret War, reveals a side of Churchill largely ignored in the West and considerably tarnishes his heroic sheen." If the points raised in this and other reliable sources are accurate, then yes, this is a POV that is valid for inclusion in articles relating to the famine and Churchill himself. For the POV that you are asking about, you would of course need reliable sources to back up your assertions as to the reason for famine, etc. This clearly looks to me to be a case of an editor presenting information into articles that others don't want to see, and this as an attempt to censure said editor for wanting to do so. --Russavia I'm chanting as we speak 15:11, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think anyone is denying he was racist. The problem is Zuggernaut wanted to insert information in the article along the lines of "These Indians died because Winston Churchill was racist and withheld food from them", when in fact he no doubt had bigger things on his mind at the time, which Zuggernaut thought was tangential (as has been pointed out above). Besides, it's not based on this one incident, and the current report was caused by his complaint about a completely different article. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 17:21, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Russavia: Mukherjee's book has been roundly criticized, both in the New York Times review by Joe Lelyveld and by Amartya Sen himself (quoted in the review). Churchill might or might not have been a racist, but his decision not to send emergency food rations to Bengal has other explanations. As Lelyveld says in his review (see full quotes in the Talk:India archives), Churchill's main scientific adviser, Lord Cherwell, was an astute man and had in fact anticipated many of the principles enunciated by Sen five decades later. Cherwell, was of the view that there was enough food, but it was being held back by unscrupulous hoarders (both among the farmers and the grain merchants) and profiteers, that it would be more effective policy (bringing speedier relief) to go publicly after the hoarders and profiteers than to divert rations from elsewhere (already strained by the demands of a global war). In other words, Churchill's culpability is by no means a historical fact. In spite of this, Zuggernaut wanted to insert two loaded sentences about it in the very distilled history section of the India page, which earlier didn't have anything about the Bengal famine or any other famine, or World Wars, I or II. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:18, 3 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    yes, Zuggernaut is here because he opposed moving List of Indian inventions and discoveries to List of South Asian inventions and discoveries. for reasons and motives i will never understand, User:Fowler&fowler suddenly decided a few weeks ago that Indian history is too confusing for him. what next Fowler? moving all the content from History of India to History of South Asia?. Zuggernaut, rightfully opposed that. i dont think it is a mistake in Z's part at all. He is one of the over 10 oppose votes. there are roughly equal number (may be more) of "oppose" and "support" votes. this is just to make the point, he is not in the minority.
    now, talk about canvassing. I dont think User:Moreschi is here as an uninvolved editor. Here is the message] Fowler left in his talk page in the middle of a previous dispute in Talk:India page. From the message, one could reasonably conclude that they have a good wiki-relationship. Moreschi was just waiting for an opportunity and this ANI provided him the cover. he did this edit without even participating in the conversation. anyone who has the time to read the discussion page (at and until the time he made that edit or until now) can conclude that there is no consensus to remove any content from the article. Yes, Fowler was not explicit as Zuggernaut has been. --CarTick (talk) 19:40, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    CarTick: First, Zuggernaut is not here because he cast an oppose vote in the India vs. South Asia page move. Many editors opposed that move, include a handful that are now supporting Zuggernaut's topic ban. Zuggernaut is here because he chose to open an ANI thread in order to after some people (including me). Unfortunately, the plan backfired, because after months of opening similar ANI threads, Zuggernaut's pattern of editing on Indian history topics is becoming manifest. It is that pattern of editing that is being castigated here. Second, it's not a good idea, CarTick, to make up outlandish conspiracy theories and then treat them as fact. I merely welcomed Moreschi, who I had heard had left Wikipedia, back to active editing. I have always liked his firm opposition to all forms of nationalistic POV-pushing on Wikipedia. Please don't make wild connections in order to bolster you flimsy argument. If I had in fact intended to leave a coded message for Moreschi to intervene in the Talk:India dispute (whatever it was), I obviously didn't succeed, since Moreschi didn't intervene on the Talk:India page, but somewhere else, a few weeks later. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:22, 3 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    CarTick, Zuggernaut is here because one of his traditional moves - complain about bias to ANI - has backfired. I supported the ban topic because i am tired of being accused of being a "brown sahib" if i oppose him and getting sick of attempts at censorship by nationalism. I have supported and opposed Zuggernaut's proposals in equal measure before. Fowler's attempt to change "India" to "South Asia" is nothing new. SBC-YPR made a [[Talk:History_of_India/Archive_4#Requested_move|proposal] to move "History of India" to "History of Indian Subcontinent" in 2009, for precisely the same reasons. I count atleast two other oppose voters - regents and spiff - in the inventions move discussion here. This should indicate even those people who sometimes support Zuggernaut's proposals are fed up with his actions--Sodabottle (talk) 06:06, 3 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I have found Zuggernaut disagreeable in many occasions and I expect to disagree with him in the future. However, there really is no case for topic ban yet. here is why.

    1. This ANI, as other would have us believe, does not appear to be frivolous. User:Athenean, User:Huon, User:S Seagal, User:Fowler&fowler, User:Mar4d, User:Gun Powder Ma, User:AshwiniKalantri and User:Shovon76 supported User:Gun Powder Ma's proposal. User:Zuggernaut, User:Wikireader41, User:Mdw0, User:Ohms law and User:Andrewa opposed it. 8 support votes and 5 oppose votes at the time the content was moced. 5th oppose vote by Andrewa was at 18:25, 27 March 2011. The content from the article was removed at 20:08, 27 March 2011. Gun Powder had created the South Asian List before the last two oppose votes. 1) there was no overwhelming consensus to remove content 2) it is conflict of interest to judge and execute the consensus by one of the highly involved editor, GunPowder. Z filed this report at 00:50, 29 March 2011. i am willing to buy the argument that the last two oppose votes happened late and it could be that GunPowder didnt notice it. now, i will let other uninvolved editors decide whether this is a frivolous thread. while everyone is upset about the frivolousness, nobody seems to care about the conflict of interest.
    2. That Mukerjee's book got bad review at NYTimes review can not be an argument for exclusion. the book has made news across the world. one possible way to deal with this issue could have been to add both Mukerjee's book and also add the NY times book review and let the readers decide instead of censoring it. regardless of the merit of the case, the point is, in both cases, Churchil's racism and Indian list as extensivley discussed in this thread, Z had references that supported his POV and is not entirely wrong. I dont see any difference between the passionate defense of Churchill by some of the editors here and Z's passionate involvement in Indian history articles. POV is a POV.
    3. Thanks for pointing out the History of India to History of Indian subcontinent move by another user. i would like to note here that Fowler wants India to be changed to South Asia (not Indian subcontinent) per the discussion page.
    4. Calling users "Brown Sahib" or "acting white" is reprehensible. he could be warned in his talk page and if continued, even blocked to convey the message. now, Zuggernaut was not the only one acting uncivil. please see the discussion pages Fowler has participated. he was reprimanded by User:Shovon76 here.

    In summary, when claims of POV pushing, frivolous ANI threads, uncivil comments and canvassing accusations are weighed in sum, there is really not sufficient background for topic ban yet. He was not even blocked once for either uncivility, edit warring or canvassing. i would recommend a formal warning, followed by a few blocks (if he repeats) before we even consider topic ban. as it stands, topic ban is too premature, early and exceedingly excessive. --CarTick (talk) 15:15, 3 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Reply to CarTick Shovon76, The issue is not whether Mukerjee's book is a reliable source according to Wikipedia's definition. Pretty much any trade paperback popular history or newspaper review meets Wikipedia's definition. However, sources in Featured Article have to be held to a higher standard. WP:RS say, "When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources." A featured article, moreover, is required to report the consensus among scholarly sources, and in the absence of such consensus to report the controversy. Among the manifold scholarly sources on the Bengal famine of 1943, what is the consensus (if any) about the causes of the famine and where is Churchill's culpability in all of it? Mukerjee's book is not a scholarly book, it is a popular (trade) history. Even if it were a scholarly work, it is too recent to be a part of the scholarly debate. (Mukherjee has written no journal articles on this topic.) Besides, there is no record of Zuggernaut adding these details, indeed any details about the Bengal famine, to the History of India page. Since "History of India" is written in summary style, the causes of the Bengal famine (in contrast to a mention), might be WP:UNDUE in the first place, especially since many much worse famines are not mentioned. How then does Churchill's culpability belong to History of India's own summary, which—double distilled—forms the India page history section? If this is not WP:Main article fixation playing itself out in relentless POV-pushing, I don't what is. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:34, 3 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    PS to CarTick Shovon76. As for the "reprimand" diff you provided, perhaps you should have also provided diffs for my reply and your more balanced response to the reply. The problem here is not one of incivility, but of something much more insidious and hard to deal with: relentless POV pushing, especially nationalistic. As someone said upstairs, it wears down other editors and even if it doesn't, it takes up all their time. There are sources out there these days for the wildest of assertions, and POV-pushers are good at cherry-picking one source, e.g. Mukherjee, and attempting to make it worthy of mention in a page in which both the topic and the decades of scholarly research in it have thus far gone unmentioned. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:53, 3 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I would like to remind Shovon76 that he also thought that we could start splitting the article here. I fail to see how he can now turn around and accuse others of acting prematurely or even of gaming the system for doing what he too advised without becoming a hypocrite. Huon (talk) 23:01, 3 April 2011 (UTC) While these diffs are correct and address Shovon's talk page behaviour (maybe he too should have been named by Zuggernaut as another of those accused of gaming the system?), the comment I was responding to wasn't actually by Shovon. My mistake, sorry. Huon (talk) 09:15, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment: Huon, please refer to the talk page of the concerned article. My opinion as well as talk page behaviour does not reveal double standards or hypocrisy. At one of time I had an opinion when a certain amount of information were presented before me. As newer data came to my attention, I am entitled to change my opinion. After all, that's how the decision making process generally takes place. It does not matter whether I have supported or opposed the move. The point is that even before there was any consensus on the page move, Huon Mar4d created an article with South Asia in the title and started moving content from the List of Indian inventions and discoveries, which can be interpreted as presenting before other editors a fait accompli. Shovon (talk) 14:45, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Shovon, first of all, I didn't create the article; I didn't even edit the South Asian list. Secondly, of course you are entitled to change your opinion, so are we all. But that's not all you did, and it's certainly not what I critizise you for.
    Fowler&fowler advocated splitting the list on March 27, 1:49 (UTC). You advocated splitting the list later, on March 27, 8:34 (UTC). Both of you did not just support the move, but argued that we could begin implementing it right away. There were no !votes in between, and Fowler&fowler made no relevant edits to either the article or its talk page between your edit and the opening of this thread. Yet Fowler&fowler was accused of gaming the system and creating a fait accompli, and you weren't. And then you said that the accusation of acting in bad faith is not baseless. Basically, you are saying: "Those who agreed with me before I changed my mind acted in bad faith." That's what I call hypocritical. Huon (talk) 23:00, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Reply to Huon: Yes, I had supported the move and also suggested that it can be implemented right away. But, I do believe that Wikipedia does not work on my suggestions alone. There are set of rules that bind the editors. Instead of following the rules to the letter and spirit, can you justify the page creation by giving the reason, "Because Shovon suggested this"? My contention was not against the page move/creation, but how and when the page was created and as such I do not find anything hypocritical in the concerned page. Thanks. Shovon (talk) 09:10, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Requesting closure

    • This was archived prematurely so I've restored it so it can be closed properly. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:32, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Additionally, can someone step in and close the Talk:List of Indian inventions and discoveries#Requested move? No doubt it's no consensus. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:24, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Timestamp so this will not be archived. Cunard (talk) 22:41, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Vote count (Just keeping tabs): As of 16:20:30 7 April 2011, a full one week after the restrictions were proposed by Ncmvocalist, there are 13 supports (Ncmvocalist, Johnuniq, NH419BH, Chipmunkdavis, Moreschi, rgpk, Athenean, SpacemanSpiff, Sodabottle, Quigley, bobrayner, Snowded, Courecelles) including the proposer's implicit support, and 4 opposes (CarTick, Russavia, ShyamSunder, Tentontunic) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:22, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    User:Promethean attacking science fiction conventions en masse

    Resolved
     – Many of the AfDs have been closed and the others are proceeding, Promethean has apologised for incivility. If anyone (Raul) has wider issues, speaking to Promethean individually or an RfC/U might be your best bet. Fences&Windows 22:22, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    User:Promethean, who apparently knows nothing about science fiction conventions or science fiction fandom, has done a bulk set of AfD nominations for various conventions, including some of the oldest (Icon (Iowa science fiction convention), Marcon) and most distinctive (Readercon) on the planet; as well as an AfD nomination for List of science fiction conventions, one of the most carefully maintained lists I know of. It is increasingly hard to assume good faith here, as he seems to be trying to make a WP:POINT about these articles, some of which could certainly use improvement and more external sourcing. Each convention discussion has understandably started drawing input from people familiar with that convention, and the accusations of COI, sockpuppeting and meatpuppeting are flying. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:23, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I dunno. I like sci-fi as much as the next guy, but sometimes our favorite things just aren't attention-worthy enough to the outside world. In those 3 articles linked above, I see coverage that is purely local. Tarc (talk) 13:31, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Looking at the examples above, I see no need on the face of it for admin action. Some prompt article rescue would appear to be called for, though. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:47, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Tarc, you need to get out more ;) Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:02, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Those 3 conventions are all well known. I bet there is coverage in Locus (magazine) of all of them. The nominations sound pointy, sort of like that guy who was nominating articles about transistors recently (I'm not into the inclusionist/deletionist thing, but I generally believe uncontentious reference info about non-self-promoting topics is fine to leave alone). That said, if there are a lot of such convention articles it might be ok to merge some clusters of them. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 15:26, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Pointy or no, there's nothing here worth administrative attention. Let's close this. Editors need to work this one out; if there is insufficient referencing in these articles, well, the answer is left as an exercise for the student.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:41, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Delete it! Tarc (talk) 15:43, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    That's one idea, Tarc. Does the rest of the class have any other ideas?--Wehwalt (talk) 15:44, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Wehwalt: We're doomed if people can't figure out that you're screaming at them to just add some sources. Sheesh. --joe deckertalk to me 15:51, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm more concerned about the attacks on editors opposing him that Promethian is coming out with. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:50, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]


    • Just from a cursory search about these conventions, i'm finding it quite clear that the nominator, Promethean, is failing WP:BEFORE pretty badly and, thus, his actions could be seen as being pointy. The rapid nature at which he is AfDing these articles show that he isn't even following WP:BEFORE even in a cursory sense, since there isn't enough time between nominations for him to have made even a quick look for sources. SilverserenC 17:35, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I honestly don't think Promethean is out of line, although I can certainly see where the "pointy" argument would come up. It appears to me — someone who casually likes science fiction, but not avidly — that we have a situation where some sci-fi related events, such as cons, may not meet general notability standards, but still exist because of a different, unwritten level of notability applied to the genre. This may be because of systemic bias, which is unavoidable to some extent. But it does beg the question: Do we need to establish specific notability policies for cons? Is a one-off event at the local Sheraton's meeting room, which draws 300 or 400 attendees, notable enough? And what of similar fan events in other genres? Something that needs to be addressed, IMHO. Cheers! - Realkyhick (Talk to me) 19:04, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • My deep reserves of good faith are quite strained when Promethean argues "I also wish to point out you'll be using the same inclusionist shitter arguement that you normally do" (here, for example) nearly a dozen times. - Dravecky (talk) 21:05, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    To be honest, my comment probably wasn't tactful, was somewhat uncivil but I feel it falls short of a personal attack. It is an unfortunate that you do tend to see people who tend to vote keep (inclusionist) or delete (deletionist) without due regard for what they are expressing their opinion on and I refer to those as shitter arguements because they are the best way to screw up the otherwise working system and in this instance Dravecky arguing that limited coverage in a single local newspaper (who would report even on something as un-notable as a kid's face painting event) automatically qualifies MystiCon as 'Notable' is smacking of a typical inclusionist argument. Moving onto the mass AFD'ing, you might call it WP:POINTY or you could call it well intentioned but misinformed (Which it was, but I'm only the person who did it so I must be biased), it is ever so apparent that I am not someone who gets off to science fiction on any level, Among other things the MystiCon thread raised that there were a sizable number of articles which probably should go as well. So starting of with the list which honestly seems nothing but a mere promotional page with the number of external links and dates on it I started cherry picking random articles which imho failed to establish (by themselves) why on earth where they were notable. Other than checking out the refs on the article I did not follow WP:BEFORE and would duly note that not doing so is neither a blockable or warnable offence and was done more so out of naiveness than an attempt to disrupt. All in all the spectacle has done nothing but raised attention of the subject of science fiction conventions if nothing else and I’m sure that this will result in the references and cleanup fairy visiting quite a few pages in the list. Also, the thread title couldn't be any more dramatic if you tried, this isn't an "attack" on science fiction and en masse is somewhat inflating.   «l| Promethean ™|l»  (talk) 22:52, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    How about apologising? Make any further personal attacks like you did (yes, they were personal attacks) or continue with gross incivility and you'll deserve to be blocked. Fences&Windows 23:30, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I have emailed Dravecky personally.   «l| Promethean ™|l»  (talk) 00:51, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I strongly prefer all of my Wikipedia-related communication to take place on Wikipedia. I did take it as an uncivil personal attack, and one not well-grounded in the facts. (Before this deluge of AfDs, I was involved in precisely two active AfD discussions: this one where I attempted an article rescue and !voted a policy-based "keep" and this one where I've !voted and argued "delete" for similar reasons.) I prefer no drama and my boss calls me "the calm one" but this ongoing incident is seriously damaging my calm. - Dravecky (talk) 11:35, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Everyone here should be aware that Promethean has a long history of incivility and personal attacks, including against me. Raul654 (talk) 00:45, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Is this pot calling the kettle black Raul? I see two effective blocks for incivilty in 2008, three years ago, where I got into two heated debates that probably shouldnt have happened in the first place. One was defending a user who was blocked for socking and later cleared. The latter was accumulated from various incidents. Meanwhile at the same time you were running around abusing checkuser (A Checkuser confirmed you checkusered me while while we were in a personal dispute for no reason at all and found nothing) and trying to get back at me by blocking my rename request out of spite. (which WJBScribe overruled you on, which I will never forget).   «l| Promethean ™|l»  (talk) 00:51, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I checkusered you after this edit in which you stated your intention to evade a community block by using sockpuppets. As for your rename request, I opposed it because I said you were troll with a history of incivility who was using the rename request in order dodge your own well-earned bad reputation. Lo and behold, you have gone ahead and proven me right. Raul654 (talk) 01:04, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Note - Promethean was reported for incivility three days ago at Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts#User:Promethean. That discussion is still ongoing. Raul654 (talk) 01:08, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    That's not an admission of sockpuppeting, thats a suggestion of starting over, on a new account, without all the drama and something I was well within my right to do and something recommended to me by an Admin at the time due to the fact that I kept getting stuck in a rutt. At the time a community block was not even on the cards so I wasn't trying to evade that. As for the rename it was from prom3th3an to promethean, I doubt that would have caused much confussion as talk pages and block logs follow users so your reasons for blocking it are flawed. A checkuser obviously felt it wrong enough to encourage me to report you to the Ombudsmen and at the time I did just that, but all this is hear say right, how else did I know you checkuser'd me when this is the first time you admitted doing it and WJBScribe told you to review how you acted on my request so not many people agree with anything you did regarding myself. Much like your presence here is fairly transparent. In any case I have sent both users concerned an apology per Fences and windows's question here and his warning on my page.   «l| Promethean ™|l»  (talk) 01:18, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, I appreciate it. Just remember to watch out for unhelpful comments when things are getting heated. Fences&Windows 18:39, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    At the time you made that edit, there was an on-going discussion about community banning you which numerous people supported. Four days after you made that edit, you were again reported at AN for misbehavior and again a community ban was suggested. So your claim that a community ban "was not even on the cards" is a flat-out lie from someone with a history of trying to bury evidence of his past misbehavior. And your first claim - that your claims about creating a new account was to avoid drama is plainly contradicted by the fact that (a) you cannot edit without causing drama (then or now, three years later) and (b) it was just-as-likely-as-not that you were about to be community banned.
    Also, for anyone else here who is watching, earlier today Promethean tried closing Wikiquette alert cited above. (See what I said earlier about "trying to bury evidence of his past misbehavior") He doesn't seem to grasp that users are not permitted to close reports of their own misbehavior. Raul654 (talk) 18:18, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    And finally, it's worth noting that Spartaz's 2008 comment about Promethean - that he makes almost no useful edits - is still true. Pretty much the entirety of his activity on Wikipedia consists of voting in AFDs and being [redacted] to other people. Raul654 (talk) 18:28, 7 April 2011 (UTC) Please don't attack people. Fences&Windows 22:22, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Raul, if you feel the need to personally attack me on ANI, I feel it would be best if you disengaged from consequent discussions because it would be ever so apparent that your presense is personal. With that being said I am well within my right to close my own alert, that is the way the system works over at WQA, It's not a report, its A) Flagging to me that ive been uncivil, B) Giving me an oppurtunity to discuss it with the person who filed the complaint. Ebe has already told me the discussion is over[15] from his side and now it has come to a close from my side as well hence it is resolved.   «l| Promethean ™|l»  (talk) 01:37, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]


    Anyone want to close Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Readercon as a snow keep after keeps leading 14-0 vs delete? Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:08, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Seems to be an acceptable NAC scenario. I've closed it. --Dylan620 (tc) 01:17, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    comment Not that I checked out those particular articles, and I do admit that I lean toward the inclusionary side of things here at WP, as well as being a sci-fi fan; but, (1) I would think that these conventions can be pretty large, (2) Just because NY didn't cover one in LA doesn't mean it's not worth keeping, and (3) did anyone try to talk to the user and explain what we do here? OK, maybe one of the poorest sentence structures I've seen in a while there, but hopefully I got my point across. As far as NPA, well, that's a pretty big no-no here. If it's just a civility issue - those kind of things can get pretty dicey at times depending on the who and where of it all. Maybe the old trout would just be in order? — Ched :  ?  23:39, 6 April 2011 (UTC) This looks like a job for a quick topic ban. Easiest way to deal with this issue. Jtrainor (talk) 22:23, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    User:Darwinek continues to move articles without discussion and in violation of WP:RETAIN and WP:POINT

    Previous AN/I discussion on this subject

    User:Darwinek continues to move articles without discussion and in violation of WP:RETAIN and WP:POINT, and without proving sources to justify the need move articles. His edit summery of “to correct name” [16][17][18][19] is subjective and violates WP:NPOV. This issue has previously been discussed here and he has been warned here. By continuing to make these unilateral moves Darwinek has demonstrated by his that he is unwilling to open discussions to seek consensus for moves on an article-by-article bases, and it is time to take admin action to stop his disruptive editing. Dolovis (talk) 16:07, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    See WP:DIACRITICS. Fainites barleyscribs 16:46, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    "His edit summery of “to correct name” [82][83][84][85] is subjective and violates WP:NPOV." No it doesn't, edit summaries are not subject to NPOV. --Golbez (talk) 20:05, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    See no issue here, user was WP:BOLD as he is allowed to be, its not up to him to start a discussion on every article, its up to you to start a discussion if you object to his move on each article. ie WP:BRD. Retain is about varieties of english which isn't applicable here. And I see no point violations as he isn't doing anything to purposefully disrupt the wiki. As for discussions on the matter, there have been some in the past. Although he wasn't part of them the ice hockey wikiproject (which I mention because those are the articles you used as examples) came to the conclusion that European ice hockey bio articles get them if the players name includes them. So he isn't editing against consensus, but rather with it. I also note that he did attempt to discuss with you on your talk page about the moves on March the 8th and you did not respond. -DJSasso (talk) 16:52, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Darwinek posted his message on my talk page only after I posted on my talk page that I was taking a wikibreak.[20]. Dolovis (talk) 18:43, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    It would make life easier if a discussion could be held on any necessary changes (or nor as the case may be) to WP:DIACRITICS. I'm surprised this wasn't opened up last time given the opposing views. Fainites barleyscribs 17:15, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    My guess is that one wasn't because its a perennial argument that never gets fully settled because it seems to be a roughly split 50/50 down the middle on if they should be used or not which is why WP:DIACRITICS says there is no preference. And I would bet another reason would be due to the warning in that page to "Beware of over-dramatising these issues". I think this is again a case of over dramatising it when it could have been discussed on their talk pages as was attempted by Darwinek on the 8th of March. -DJSasso (talk) 17:25, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Until the issue is clearly settled to give consensus to mass moves, Darwinek should follow the policy of WP:RETAIN which states that the variety chosen by the first major contributor should be adopted. Darwinek has supplied no sources to verify the common use of diacritics in the names of there people, and his edit comments that it is the “correct name” is clearly WP:POV. None of the sources included in these articles support the renaming of these articles. Djsasso's says that WP:BOLD applies, but that policy contemplates the Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, which is something that Darwinek has neglected to follow. I am not able to revert these moves because I am not an admin, and (unlike Darwinek) I am not able to move these articles back over a redirect to continue the BRD cycle. Dolovis (talk) 17:49, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Not sure how you see that he isn't following the BRD cycle. He was bold, its up to you to revert, then you discuss. Since you have not reverted then he is following the cycle. And as pointed out he tried to discuss with you and you did not reply which indicates he is able to continue doing the moves since you did not discuss. As you were told in the last discussion, any editor can move an article over a redirect (unless its been edited by another user which is rarely the case). It does not take an admin to do so. It is in fact what you should be doing if you object. -DJSasso (talk) 18:01, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I would revert if I could, but I do not have the needed admin powers to revert the move of an article over the redirect. Would an admin please move the above linked articles back to their originals names so that I may pursue this matter on an article-by-article bases through WP:BRD as instructed by DJSasso. Thank you. Dolovis (talk) 18:36, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    As mentioned previously, you don't need admin powers to move an article over a redirect, or even to revert these moves. See Wikipedia:Moving a page#Undoing a move explains how. Ravendrop 18:44, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Maybe I am missing something, but it does not seem possible for me to revert Darwinek edits without admin help. Even the informational link provide by Ravendrop states "If page A has subsequently been edited, or the move software is behaving weirdly, only an admin can sort things out", please I am requesting admin help. Dolovis (talk) 18:57, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    What that means is that if I moved location A to location B. And then a 2nd editor came and edited the redirect that was left at location A, for example change the page that it was redirecting too. Then it takes an admin to fix it. But if all that happened was page A moved to page B then you just have to pick move and type in the old name and hit submit and it will move over top of the redirect. -DJSasso (talk) 19:03, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I just checked with the first move you cited, and you should be able to revert it without any problem as the original name (what is no the redirect) has not been edited. To do this go to Special:Log/move and search either by the user name or the name that the article was originally at, and then hit the revert button at the end of the line. Enter your reasoning for reverting and confirm. I'd do it for you, but since I'm neutral about the issue at the moment, and you're the main opponent of it, I feel its better for you to revert it yourself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ravendrop (talkcontribs)
    That would also work. Either way is good. -DJSasso (talk) 19:11, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I have now figured out how to revert the moves, and have invoked WP:BRD on some of the moved articles. Pursuant to BRD, I will now wait to see if Darwinek wishes to open discussions on the affected articles talk pages to determine if renaming is appropriate on an article-by-article basis. Thank you for your assistance. Dolovis (talk) 19:55, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Why exactly would you want to do that? As explained above, diacritics are commonly used throughout the Wikipedia.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:24, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Seeing that you did do it in fact, looking at your mass reverts [21], this kind of action just looks like looking for trouble. Especially since most people above, and most people at thew previous AN/I discussion have pointed out to you that the moves were correct, according to WP guidelines and that you should probably leave it well enough alone, and FIRST start a discussion rather than engaging in mass reverts of another user.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:27, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    You are correct that the mass changes are a problem, but not the mass reverts of Dolovis. The mass moves made by Darwinek without discussion or consensus, that is where the problem lies. Dolovis is merely restoring the status quo ante so that discussion can take place, per the BRD cycle. As an admin, Darwinek should know better, especially since this exactl same issue was brought to AN/I within the last few months. Deliberately doing the same thing that was objected to previously, again without a consensus to do so, is disruptive, and absolutely terrible behavior for an admin, whose job is to reduce disruption, not create it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:56, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    As pointed out above, he wasn't really doing something against consensus, as consensus at the hockey project (and he was moving hockey articles at least thats what I see from the examples) is that bios of hockey players whose name contains diacritics have them added. So he was moving them to be inline with the hockey projects standard. Personally I don't think they should have been reverted but its Dolovis's right to do the reverts. I like most others in both discussions think he should have left it well enough alone. -DJSasso (talk) 21:38, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Per WP:RETAIN, these sorts of moves should not be undertaken without some sort of prior discussion. Even if it is in line with the hockey Wikiproject, they are only a Wikiproject and not in charge of articles about hockey players. If Darwinek or the hockey wikiproject wished to undertake these changes, then he or they should have opened a centralized discussion on the matter in one of the main Wikipedia discussion boards and obtained consensus for such a change. Thus, Dolovis is perfectly correct in reverting them and invoking both WP:RETAIN and the necessity of WP:BRD. SilverserenC 22:25, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    So as part of the BRD cycle I undo Dolovis mass reverts (because I think they are wrong headed) that should be within purview of the BRD cycle as well, right?Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:33, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, WP:RETAIN explicitly states: "When an article has evolved sufficiently for it to be clear which variety of English it employs" - this isn't the case for the vast majority of the articles here, at least I haven't found one yet where it would be applicable. For Monkey Sake! Most of these articles are barely a month old or so and nothing more than one sentence stubs. Clearly they have not "evolved sufficiently". They're still in the primodial Wiki ooze more or less. Hence WP:RETAIN just doesn't apply here, and I would really really appreciate it if people actually bothered to read policy/guideline pages rather than just quoting them like some fighters in an old kung fu movie ("WP:Drunken fists!" "WP:RETAIN!" "WP:Flying mongoose!" "WP:DIACRITICS!" "WP:Shadowless Fist of Death!").Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:41, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    You know perfectly well the rules regarding this area and also the fact that reverting a revert is not a part of the WP:BRD process, but instead part of a very different process. Considering the past clashes between the pro and anti diacritic sides on Wikipedia and across multiple ANI discussions and policy pages, an admin should know better than to unilaterally move articles and change them to diacritics when it is an obviously controversial action to do so. SilverserenC 23:06, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    So you're dropping the WP:RETAIN defense (which is in the title of this thread) and changing the topic of conversation? Ok, fine, then the edit-warring, to the extent it's even there, appears to be due to Dolovis being too emotionally involved in removing diacritics at all cost from these articles, bringing up his complaints in pointless AN/I threads which waste everyone's time, stubbornly and repeatedly quoting the same inapplicable policies even after it has been pointed out to him/her that they're inapplicable, and insisting on reverting these moves even after lots of folks have told him to leave it well enough alone.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:00, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Man, those would be great links for Wikipedia essays! Anyone else think so? I got dibs on writing the first draft of Wikipedia: Shadowless Fist of Death! -- llywrch (talk) 19:41, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:RETAIN doesn't apply here for a few reasons, one its about english variants, diacritics or no diacritics are not a english variant. Secondly the articles haven't evolved enough for it to apply even if it was an english variant. They are one sentence stubs. Thirdly, no a wikiproject does not own the articles, but they do create standards for articles under their purview, that is sort of the point of a wikiproject. Local consensus can overrule a guideline, in this case since the guideline says there is no preference for or against a wikiproject can certainly come to a consensus to use or not to use them on articles in their scope. However, I was merely pointing out his moves were not out of consensus as there clearly was a consensus within editors of those types of articles. -DJSasso (talk) 23:04, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    And clearly these moves are not agreed upon, since there are multiple users objecting to the moves. As I said, if a user wishes to move multiple articles in relation to WP:DIACRITICS, considering the past controversies in this area, they should re-obtain consensus to make such actions beforehand and not unilaterally do so by themselves. SilverserenC 23:06, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Darwinek indeed shouldn't have moved those article titles, expecially with the 'annoying' accompanying edit summaries. It was agreed (I thought), that the pro-dios & anti-dios sides wouldn't claim their versions were correct. GoodDay (talk) 22:47, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    This is all kinds of ridiculous. Darwinek made a bold move, Dolovis reverted. Why the hell is everyone still arguing? Everyone just needs to drop the posturing and, oh, I don't know? Discuss? If they are all hockey bios, then I encourage either of the involved editors to open a discussion at WT:HOCKEY and help achieve consensus on how we wish to treat these articles. Resolute 02:14, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    No argument with that idea. GoodDay (talk) 02:35, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    If there is an ongoing mass-move of hundreds of articles without prior consensus, IMO, it should be blocked without ado per WP:MEATBOT if the moves don't stop and stay stopped as soon as someone asks. (It does sound like this one has stopped, for now). BOLD doesn't apply to operations like that. BOLD is for single edits, more or less. Boldly make your one edit, then wait for other users' responses and discuss and reach agreement accordingly before doing your next edit. 100's of repetitive edits without consensus: treat it like an unapproved bot whether or not an actual bot was involved, and block. See also "fait accompli" as referenced in many arb decisions. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 07:34, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    What we need is a clearly written policy at least at the level of the WikiProject. Policy that would reflect common sense and general use of diacritics throughout the EN Wiki. Moving back/deliberately creating articles without diacritics is a great step back in what the Wikipedians achieved here since 2004. I propose we create a discussion elsewhere, where we could express our opinions and/or vote to finally settle this and avoid cowardly ANI reports like this. Regards. - Darwinek (talk) 16:16, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I suggest you stop using loaded words like "cowardly", especially since it was your action without discussion or consensus, which you knew from the last time it happened was going to be objected to, which provoked the report. Your suggestion for a Wiki-wide (not Project-level) discussion is a good one, but it's a step you should have taken instead of just picking up where you left off after the last AN/I. Your notion of "progress" may or may not be shared by a consensus of editors, that's to be found out, so stop behaving as if you have the green light to make these changes, because you do not. Again, as an admin, these are things that a rank-and-file editor should never have to explain to you. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:02, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Just wait for the wiki-wide discussion. Similar one was there in May 2008, it concerned only WikiProject Tennis but it "legalized" already normal convention of using diacritics. Discussion, again started by anti-diacritics revisionists and purists, can be found here. Mass-scale voting, AFAIR, was organized at WP:RM during one of the mass moves requests. The result was to keep diacritics (except special cases) and the WikiProject Tennis is peacefully operating since then. Still it seems the community needs to discuss it again, so let's do it. - Darwinek (talk) 09:28, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:HOCKEY is the best place. GoodDay (talk) 16:28, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    If I am reading Darwinek's comment properly, I think he intends this to be a discussion with wikiwide impact rather than just hockey bios. If that is the case, a centralized RFC would probably be best. Resolute 17:04, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Okie Dokie. GoodDay (talk) 17:33, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not long since we had a big thread (was it here or on AN?) on the subject of diacritics, foreign-language names &c. That thread didn't really settle the broader issue, and certainly didn't result in policy change. I expect there'll be another skirmish soon enough, and another, following some dispute on a different article. We have to acknowledge that some groups of editors will prefer names which are "accurate" from their own perspective - and these perspectives may differ. WikiProjects often have their own guidelines favouring names which work from that project's perspective, so a wikiproject on a latin-alphabet-but-not-anglophone country will probably be more sympathetic to diacritics.
    Is it worth starting a bigger discussion so the community can try to narrow the policy gap a little? Or has that been tried before? bobrayner (talk) 14:23, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Question regarding overtly racist editor and recidivist sockpuppeteer

    User:Giornorosso was blocked on 13 March 2011 following this discussion on ANI. After that block, the user went on to create sockpuppets Beholdernig (talk · contribs), Killtheniggur (talk · contribs), Lootsucker (talk · contribs), and Howardnug (talk · contribs), all of which were blocked on 27 March. Although I pointed out the likely connection of 90.177.208.162 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) in a follow-up discussion on ANI, it remained unblocked. When I asked User:Tiptoety, the checkuser who had handled the sockpuppetry case, why it was not blocked, they blocked it for a week. Tiptoety left on a wikibreak when I asked them to explain why it wasn't indef blocked.

    The week-long block on the IP has now expired. New user Holy0cow (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has appeared right on schedule to continue editing the same articles and with the same agenda as Giornorosso. I cannot understand why the IP was not indef blocked in the first place, or why Tiptoety would feel that a week-long block was appropriate, but I am not privy to the checkuser information. As far as I can tell, this is a racist POV-pusher and persistent sockpuppeteer using a static DSL IP - why is it not blocked? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:54, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Admins can't assume an IP is static, end-of, especially since in many cases a router reset will change an IP. Thus, IPs are rarely, if ever, indef'd. —Jeremy v^_^v Components:V S M 17:57, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    It doesn't happen all that often, but IPs are sometimes indef blocked, or blocked for very long periods. Year-long blocks are not uncommon for school IPs, for example. Looking over the contributions from the IP shows that the same user has had it since March 2010. How much collateral damage is likely from blocking this single IP from the Czech Republic, even if it turns out to be dynamic? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:10, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Many users change IP when they get blocked so the fact they've had it for a while may not say much... Nil Einne (talk) 18:38, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Note that it appears that this user had had the same IP for over a year now and did not appear to change it when their main account was blocked. None of this answers the question why was the IP not blocked at that time? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:45, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    If the IP was being used by a registered user, then I presume it would have been caught in an autoblock when the user was blocked, wouldn't it? -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:10, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I will leave it for others with access to the checkuser data to comment. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 20:36, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    All above-reported accounts are  Confirmed as Giornorosso (talk · contribs), and they have already been blocked. –MuZemike 21:03, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Dominic, a checkuser, has blocked the IP for 3 months. NW (Talk) 21:12, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    85.160.221.224 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) now blocked for 24 hours, because I don't know that there's any value to blocking longer than that. If checkuser or somebody more familiar with the region feel a longer block is necessary, no objections from me. Same if 24 hours proves too long. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:19, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    In this removed posting to ANI from 85.160.221.224 (currently blocked), the user says "I think that it is clear that Delicous Carbuncle tried to have me blocked completely from the very beginnning, and he tries to permanently blcok one of my IP adresses". So, given this and the "checkuser" block of the IP in question, there should be no question that this IP was being used by User:Giornorosso. It comes back to the same question, why was this IP not blocked previously and why, when I asked about it, was it only blocked for a week? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:23, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    That is a good question. But can we be sure the guy has a static IP? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:57, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I would disagree. The later is a silly question. Obviously we can't be sure it's static. As I pointed out above, the fact it had been used for a long time was largely irrelevant. We realisticly had no way of knowing of they would change IP the moment their IP was blocked. There was obviously little reason for them to change IP when their IP wasn't blocked no matter what else was blocked (clearly if their IP was autoblocked too it would be different but no one with access to checkuser has suggested any of this was poorly handled). Blocking for a short time to test was obviously therefore appropriate, as many including me have hinted at. Escalating that block if they come back afterwards is obviously also appropriate and the normal way to deal with it. Making a big fuss over something that could have been handled simply by asking for a longer block once it became clear they were coming back with the same IP after being blocked well you can guess what I'm going to say... Nil Einne (talk) 19:13, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not a silly question. I've had the same IP for about 3 years now. However, I haven't made any effort to get it changed. But you've given further information, which is good. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:19, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    No it is a silly question to ask why someone wasn't blocked for longer when the reason was given multiple times by multiple people before you asked and where if you were confused, you could easily have asked for clarification on the parts that were confusing you. Also I gave no further info in my post above that couldn't be gleaned from the existing discussion. It's already been explained several times in this thread before my post that changing IP is sometimes easy, often simply a router reset. An uptime for a router of 1 year is not really that unlikely if you have a decent router, a decent household power supply and a decent ISP and no changes that require resetting. Therefore anyone who knows how, and we have seen many times on wikipedia, many do know how, can change their IP on demand. Not really mentioned above but in other cases an IP may be a bit sticky and if you reconnect within a certain number of hours you get the same IP. In this case, it's even more likely that a person may have an IP for a long time since even short resets, short power failures, moving the router location, even changing router can all be undertaken without losing IP but anyone who knows how and is able to put up with no internet for however long is required can change their IP. (Some ISPs assign IPs semi-staticly meaning even days later you will get the same IP (but it's not truly static as the ISP doesn't in any way guarantee you will keep the IP and can change it at any time at their discretion). In that case you may be able to request it to be change, but can't usually do it yourself and if you do request they will likely ask why and 'I got blocked from wikipedia and want to come back' isn't usually going to cut it. There are of course a large variety of other policies.) As I've already said, they key parts, i.e. that it can be trivial to change an IP and the longetivity is irrelevant was mentioned several times above before DC asked again. If for some reason there was any confusion, the polite thing to do would have been to seek clarification rather then continuing to suggest the situation was poorly handled. BTW, one of the reasons we don't like to spell things out in such detail is because while many know, many don't so per WP:BEANS it's best not to, but sometimes I guess we have no choice... Nil Einne (talk) 19:39, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Nil Einne, while it is certainly possible that the IP is not static, your supposition that it could be a dynamically-assigned (or even semi-static) IP seems far less likely than it simply being a static IP. Again, I am unable to assess the collateral damage of a long term block on a single DSL IP from the Czech Republic, but I would guess that it would be negligible. Regardless, you are missing the point entirely - the IP was not blocked when the user was originally blocked, nor was it blocked when I specifically pointed it out in a follow up ANI discussion (that resulted in another Czech editor being temporarily blocked as a sockpuppet), nor was it blocked following the sockpuppetry investigation. My question is why wasn't it blocked? Here we have an overtly and self-identified racist editor creating sockpuppets with offensive names like User:Killtheniggur and their IP is not blocked for any length of time until I ask about it? We block IPs for innocuous vandalism all the time, but for some reason this particular one doesn't get blocked? There is something not quite right about this whole episode. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 20:27, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure. It's always a dilemma where the persistent, recurrent sockmasters are concerned. It's a consequence of wikipedia's refusal to require registration. Meanwhile, anything you didn't want stated openly could have been stated in an e-mail to the OP here. One thing that can be bothersome is the fact there don't always seem to be enough admins around to handle problems quickly. Like with the Sundae situation, where an RFPP was placed and it was like 3 hours before someone did something about it, hence inadvertently making a legitimate user feel like they had been labeled a vandal. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:31, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Despite what negative things (per wikipedia standards) this editor has done, the responses to his repeal appear well beyond the pale by one of wikipedia's administrators. If not, I'd like to see what wikipedia standard applies to the ongoing conversation. My guess is none. Thegreatdr (talk) 00:43, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • I see the responses as being reasonable. Meanwhile, I like where the blockee says he was "forced" to create socks. What a crock. No one "forced" him to do anything. He chose to do it. It relates to his glaring character flaw of racism, in the sense of blaming others for his own problems. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:56, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think what Thegreatdr is not understanding is that this guy has had a history of being blocked, and blocked, and blocked, and blocked, and had sockpuppet after sockpuppet put down. It has to be very tiresome to deal with people who are this determined to create havoc on Wikipedia and even the admins at times will be less cordial or less polite than they would normally be after dealing with the same person for so long. This racist is desperate for attention and he's getting it here through his continued use of sockpuppetry. At some point, I imagine it becomes ridiculously tiring to try and talk sense into someone who has none and refuses to listen to any. Dachknanddarice (TC) 01:02, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thegreatdr, what specifically is beyond the pale? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 01:07, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I believe User:Thegreatdr believes that I acted inappropriately in telling the user that racists are, inherently, not welcome at Wikipedia, and in advising him that his racism would doubtless have other lasting consequences in his life, much more serious than merely being blocked from a web site. He seems to have forgotten to notify me of this discussion, as is customary, but fortunately, I noticed it. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 01:16, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes. It is one thing to advise someone what they have done to violate wikipedia standards, but it is quite another to start attacking them personally. What happened to assuming good faith and being polite/showing editors a little respect? I know this user has done some non-trivial things on here to enforce a certain POV, but in some cases, he apparently had references. The conversation about his repeal got quickly sidetracked into how certain countries do/do not have free speech, which is peripheral, and not entirely relevant to the block levied, and how he should be ashamed at his POV. If there is an element of burnout in dealing problematic editors, take a time out or some time off. Don't get personal. Isn't throwing attitude at editors (in at least one case by an admin) part of what got the global warming folks in hot water last year? I apologize to Fisherqueen for not throwing the notice on their page, but I did post it on the problem editor's page, which I knew they were watching. This is the second time I've reported the actions of an admin onto this page before, despite five years on here, and wasn't completely versed in the process. My interest on here is improving the met project per wikipedia's article progression (which despite his other issues, he was trying to improve), not in becoming an admin. As part of a couple minority groups, I'm sensitive to these kind of overt attacks on others, even if I don't subscribe to his viewpoint. People do deserve some respect, regardless, and these kind of attacks could turn other editors off to wikipedia. Thegreatdr (talk) 01:59, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Have you looked into the history of the editor in question? It's appalling. The guy has no value whatsoever to wikipedia. He's forfeited any expectation of "good faith". And if the admin's blunt and truthful statements discourage other racists from editing, all the better. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:06, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Sometimes calling a racist a racist is needed and appropriate. We shouldnt sugarcoat something if it is true. I dont want to be throwing around "Jimbo said" or anything like it's gospel but if I recall correctly Jimbo did once say that those that have an unhealthy obsession with adding only negative POV about race/religion/etc should in fact be blocked/banned. I think we have to draw the line on our Wikipedia version of "free speech" or "freedom to edit" one's choice of topics at the point where it is really an unhealthy obsession with just spreading hate and getting it into Wikipedia.Camelbinky (talk) 02:21, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Since Thegreatdr is directing people to a discussion in which Giornorosso repeats their earlier claim that I "hate" them because of their beliefs, I would like to say that I have no ill feelings toward Giornorosso, although I do find their beliefs objectionable. If Giornorosso were able to edit neutrally, they would not be blocked now. Anyone who holds extreme views is unlikely to do well here since they will eventually come up against issues of neutrality and undue weight. In this particular case, any presumption of good faith is now dispelled. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 03:14, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Exactly. I have strong opinions about numerous social and political topics. I defy anyone to determine what any one of them is by looking at my edits. We don't extend the assumption of good faith to persons who are overtly acting in bad faith. That's just nonsense. Overt racism is not welcome here, just as it is no longer welcome among polite company in the vast majority of the civilized world. Society is much less tolerant of racism than in it used to be and Wikipedia is not an exception to that. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:43, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    We should not be tolerating anyone who is explicitly and/or obviously racist, hetero-/homosupremacist, an extreme polemic, etc. In all the cases I've seen of such people editing, they've wound up unable to check their beliefs at the door and call others out on the rug for opposing their views. Their weltanshauung does not permit anyone but themselves and others like them to be right or pure, and so they generally have a major issue with a project like this. —Jeremy v^_^v Components:V S M 04:33, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I am still looking for a plausible reason why the IP used by an overtly racist editor and sockpuppeteer was not blocked, even after a checkuser was involved in the sockpuppetry investigation. Considering that Tiptoety has been active on de.wiki since they had someone declare them on "wikibreak" here, it is unlikely that they will be gone forever and I will again ask for an explanation when they return. In the meantime, if anyone familiar with checkuser and blocking IPs has an explanation, I would be glad to hear it. (To forestall another suggestion that IPs are not blocked for long periods or that it may not be a static IP, see for example this one year block of an IP by Tiptoety just days ago.) Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:38, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Edit wars

    I just came across this editor, apparently in an edit war on Bee Movie with an apparently dynamic IP. I gave him a warning but he blanked it and said "I know", then started dicking around when I asked what he was doing and offered to help. Checking his contributions, it looks like he's been in edit wars all over the place - his history seems to be almost entirely reverting stuff.

    The latest wars have been with the above IP addresses, which are presumably the same person. I've no idea who's right here, but as Fjp1995 flipped me off when I asked him to explain (and carried on warring), I've indef blocked him, and I've blocked the latest IP for 24 hours - both for edit-warring. I really don't know what's been happening here other than edit-warring, or who's right - it's late here and I need some sleep. I'll notify Fjp1995 and the newest IP.

    Can anyone work out what this is about and whether anything needs to be done? (Feel free to change my blocks without needing to check with me) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:57, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Just been created and commented on Fjp1995's Talk page - presumably a sock -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:59, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I first noticed this guy on March 20 when I followed up on one of his early AIV reports and mistakenly blocked an IP who was making good edits. Discussion between me and seaphoto is at User talk:Diannaa/Archive 8#65.8.221.157. Since then, Fjp1995 has been filing many AIV reports on what appear to be content disputes. I have not been investigating them as my pop-cutlure knowledge is insufficient to know which edits are any good. --Diannaa (Talk) 21:18, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I have the same problem, that I don't know anything about these topics, so I can't decide who's right - is there a Project anywhere that might help, do you know? (I can't think of any obvious ones) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:21, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    As I'm a bit baffled by what's going on, I've had another try to talk to him, at User talk:Fjp1995#Your editing -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:53, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the user might be very young. --Diannaa (Talk) 18:09, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, judging by the answers I think you're right. I'm tempted to ask him to slow down, stress the need to talk, offer help when he needs it, and unblock - what do you think? -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:14, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, thinking again, I don't think I really want to offer to help too much, because I know nothing of pop culture TV and care even less - and I don't way to get dragged in to "Is SuperPingoBoy 11 or 12 years old?" arguments. So maybe just a friendly warning that he'll be watched. What do you think? -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:25, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    One thing is to remind him of the verifiability requirement: if he's going to say that SuperPingoBoy is 11, he needs to have a reliable source that says he's 11. (Unfortunately, a lot of young editors seem not to realize that neither the SuperPingoBoy Wikia site nor its fan forums are reliable. But I digress.) That's why the standard second chance says to show both what changes you'd make to an article and what reliable sources exist to back it up.
    I think unblocking would be in order. I also think that a one-revert-rule (or even 0RR, though that's a bit harsh) would be a reasonable condition for the unblock: if he's going to revert an edit, he must discuss the matter on the talk page (and not escalate straight to AIV). —C.Fred (talk) 19:35, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, that sounds great - I'll go with that (will do it after I've had lunch) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:45, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think the problem has been solved. Since unblocking, Fjp1995's 2nd and 3rd edits (actually reverts) seem to be troublesome. This revert removes a table of Aron Warner's filmography that seems to be accurate according to IMDB (not an RS, I know, but in this case...). This is a table that he has removed 6 times from the article since April 6th 3rd. While it's not verified by a RS within the article, I'm troubled by this odd obsession of removing some random producer's film credits. This revert consists of changing the initials of the name of a storyboarder for the television show Phineas and Ferb from a "J.G." to "L.G." Elsewhere in the article, the storyboarder is referred to as "J.G." or "Joe." This appears to be a nonsense revert. He has not discussed either reverts on the article talkpage or with the contributor he reverted. Chillllls (talk) 19:11, 7 April 2011 (UTC)corrected date Chillllls (talk) 19:15, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Dianaa has had a word with him, and I've reverted his new edits and given him one last warning - if he does it again, he's blocked again. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:42, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    User:Byzantinus and COI

    Byzantinus (talk · contribs) is an editor whose sole contribution is the addition of the same publication by a certain Konstantinos D.S. Paidas on Byzantine "mirrors for princes" in several Byzantine-related articles. Wareh (talk · contribs) and I have reverted his first additions and tried to explain WP:COI to him and to engage him in a discussion, but he refuses to communicate. Instead, he returns every few days, re-adding the publication. In the latest round, in an effort to bypass Wareh's and my concerns, he tried to insert the publication as a cited source, cf [22] or [23]. While this is an improvement, the last diff shows clearly that the intent remains purely and simply the promotion of this particular publication, and the COI concerns have still not been addressed. After consulting with Wareh, I ask for administrator action in the form of a concrete warning and, if that fails, blocks. Constantine 00:14, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Hmm, it's a bit of a pity. The guy does seem to be a genuine published academic on Byzantine matters (assuming that he is in fact K.P.), so it would be nice if we could retain him as a knowledgeable contributor, if only he could be made to show a bit of a wider range of editing interests. Fut.Perf. 06:22, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree. If he is indeed this scholar, he'd be valuable. Pity that most of them I've come across only come here to add their own publications. Constantine 11:30, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    An expert contributor on Byzantine history would be worth their weight in gold, if they could actually make a transition to broader contributions. bobrayner (talk) 11:42, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I've tried to reach out on their talkpage, although I'm no byzantinologist; they've had some (deserved) criticism, maybe it's time to switch from bad cop to good cop. bobrayner (talk) 11:56, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Good effort. I sincerely hope he responds. Constantine 12:40, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    You can see from my comments on his talk page that I'd like the COI issue addressed, but that I've also laid out clearly for him how his own works can become cited while sticking to the established Wikipedia policies. Unfortunately, while his editing clearly shows that he has seen our talk-page comments, he has not responded. The presumption that he is Konstantinos D.S. Paidas is natural, since his account currently has the single purpose of promoting and including this writer's work. I feel that all his edits mentioning that writer should be reverted until he takes notice of the repeated COI objections and follows the appropriate procedure (bringing up the proposed edit on the talk page, leaving it to neutral editors to make the edits based on good reasons -- which of course he is most welcome to help us appreciate).

    Of course, I equally feel he should receive all possible encouragement to use his scholarly knowledge to edit where there is no self-promotion issue, and I'm glad this has reached a wider audience who may help with diplomacy towards that end.

    Unfortunately, I want to end by saying I'd like some feedback here about what should be done if it remains a single-purpose apparent-COI self-promotion account. A block perhaps to get his attention? I'd prefer words to blocks, but that's hoping for something we haven't been able to get after repeated efforts so far. Wareh (talk) 16:53, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    • COI is a problem when it harms content - for instance, affecting neutrality. I'm not convinced that trying to cite an extra source in history articles is very high on the "harm" scale, even if the source is only partially relevant.
    • Although likely, it is not guaranteed that somebody citing one source repeatedly is the writer of that source. It might just be a third party who really loves that source sometimes when I find an interesting source I'll use it in a few articles before moving on.
    • If the problems continue, then sure, technical countermeasures can be appropriate - but I think a potentially valuable new contributor should get one extra chance compared to the average kid who's been caught pasting "Joe is cool" 6-7 times into an article about their school. bobrayner (talk) 19:46, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    ComtesseDeMingrelie, edit-warring, and BRD

    Resolved
     – Blocked as a sock of Polgraf. Elockid (Talk) 03:23, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    ComtesseDeMingrelie (talk · contribs) is edit warring to make his change while ignoring any process of discussion. The issue first arose on Asia, where they added a footnote to Georgia, which is a list of oragnisations that have Georgia listed under a European category followed by a list under an Asian category. Now, that is all well and good, but while reverted twice by another user, who even included WP:BRD in edit summaries, they still reverted it in. It was after this point that I became involved, and entered discussion at Talk:Asia#Georgia as a transcontinental country (a discussion started by the user who first reverted). Even after discussion was ongoing, when another outside user reverted to the version before the edit warring and noted WP:BRD again, ComtesseDeMingerlie again reverted this. After this I redid the footnotes on the page, trying to form the compromise, and the Asia page was fully locked due to the edit war. Note I did not ask this in any way, and had no idea it was going to happen, but then ComtesseDeMingrelie noted suspicion on the talkpage that the page had been frozen at my version (while saying I had a zealous and narrow minded point of view), after which the blocking administrator posted an explanation on the talkpage explaining how he had protected the wrong version, and offering to revert back to the previous before-edit war version. While all this was going on ComtesseDeMingrelie decided to add the footnote to Western Asia (which they had never edited before), which I reverted, as well as making other changes qualifying the UN's inclusion of Georgia in Asia. I got into a bit of an edit war here admittedly, but the point is the user never once went to discussion (and, coincidentally, never added the footnote to Eastern Europe). I raised it on their talkpage, to which they responded that I was using discussion to try and push a POV, indicating that they did not wish to discuss at all. They then posted a message on my page, more explicitly stating they did not want to edit, as well as stating I was trying to get pages locked into my preference, even though the wrong version was explained to them by the administrator locking the Asia page.

    In summary, the user absolutely point blank refuses to discuss the edits, despite being reverted by multiple people, while insisting I am only using the edits to push my own POV in my zealous narrow minded point of view. Could someone please explain to this user that they need to discuss their edits if reverted, and what a POV is. Thank you, Chipmunkdavis (talk) 08:23, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    The user has also made similar edits to Middle East[24] and Geography of Georgia (country)[25], in the second one even removing Asian templates from the page. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 09:04, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I am not sure how much of a problem this is. These disputes about border countries have been a periodic problem on Europe. At the same time as the recent edits by CdM, there have been related edits by unrelated IPs, probably a single IP-hopping account. These have affected the principal map of Europe, The clickable country titles on that map were colour-coded two or more years ago to indicate the status of (a) the five countries that spanned Europe and Asia (the continguous transcontinental countries) and (b) three countries geographically outside Europe, but considered to be in Europe for historical and cultural reasons. The IP-hopper has elsewhere edited to remove Georgia from lists of countries in Asia and to state that Georgia is European. Unforunately the status of Georgia is ambiguous and has always been so. The IP-hopper, seemingly disrupting wikipedia to make a WP:POINT, has at the same time been changing the labelling of the template {{Europe and Sea}} to indicate that Metropolitan France, the Netherlands and Portugal might span more than one continent. It is true that Italy and Greece have islands geographically in Africa and Asia repectively; that the United Kingdom has overseas territories in North and South America (particularly the Carribean); that France outre-mer has island territories geographically outside Europe but counted among the French départements; and similarly for the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal. But these vestiges of colonialism are unrelated to the ambiguities in the borders of Europe, which is the problem that the labelling of the map addresses. To prevent further attacks on the template, the map has been transferred wholly into the article Europe, as was originally the case prior to the creation of the template. The article is permanently semiprotected whereas the semiprotection of the template, although requested, has not happened yet. The three IPs are 141.161.133.117 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), 141.161.40.101 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), 141.161.133.153 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), editing from Georgetown University in Washington DC. The first IP was already blocked on 3 April for problematic edits also concerned with the status of Georgia. Mathsci (talk) 09:07, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Looking back at the situation at Asia, it seems that ComtesseDeMingrelie was perhaps the front runner in participating in the edit war. I also do note that ComtesseDeMingrelie was recently blocked for edit warring. At first, Mathsci and ComtesseDeMingrelie had a dispute which spanned a couple of days. This resulted in them having a compromise. Another dispute soon followed revolving the same issue. Amakuru tried to remedy this situation by reverting to the pre-edit war version. However, ComtesseDeMingrelie disagreed again and reverted back to what he/she calls the consensus version. To me at least, there was no consensus reached based on the discussion.
    I also checked a possibility of rangeblock on the IPs above and it seems we'll have a bit of collateral and there's quite a number of related pages being edited. Elockid (Alternate) (Talk) 12:44, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    The main point is to have a stable situation. This a recurrent problem, which was more or less solved on Europe by including a detailed and sourced historical account of the borders and possibly over-detailed footnotes. Since I only watched Asia when a user started adding the words "eurocentric" to the lede of both articles, I have no idea of the history on Asia. I was happy with the version prior to the edits and the compromise. Thanks for looking at the IPs. Mathsci (talk) 12:55, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    The main point I think is that in these areas we can not afford leniency with editors who don't respect our policies about editwarring, sources and dispute resolution. From what I have seen of Comtesse, she does not.·Maunus·ƛ· 12:59, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, this kind of post is not very encouraging.[26] Mathsci (talk) 13:14, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Funny how everyone accuses me of not discussing changes when I wrote paragraph and paragraphs on Asia page during my exchange with Mathsci. Chipmunk did not show up until we laready placed the footnotes in the article. Moreover, the user who blocked the page did not block it on pre-edit war page, he blocked it on the version created by Chipmunkdavis. He is the one who continuously reverted what I believed was a consensus on Asia page and he himself received a notice from Mathsci regarding this - I did not start the edit war and I will not be singled out. Chipmuunk may cite as many rules and regulations as he likes, for him it breaks down to only one thing - ensuring that nothing against his views is included in the article. As you may see, the pages in dispute are quite one-sided as they are.--ComtesseDeMingrélie 15:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, nothing I don't like is added to the article, explaining why I compromised on adding footnotes. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:45, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    And BTW, user Maunus has long tolerated and encouraged separatist propaganda on Georgia-related articles and I refuse to deal with him in any way possible as I put in question his intentions. Not letting him have his way on the aforementioned articles is the reason why he is here in the first place, taking so much time to spread lies. If there is anyone who has been "lenient" with editors like you, Maunus, it is me, and that is only because I am powerless against technocrats who wield certain powers that I do not have. If you had the audacity of denying me my identity and spreading lies that Mingrelians are not Georgian, in conjunction with other lunatics on the page, you have probably nothing else left to surprise me with. This all breaks down to marginalizing Georgia in every way possible, and not rules and regulations and endless discussion, which is what they all hide behind once all is set in place as they like.--ComtesseDeMingrélie 15:51, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    These statements by CdM are not helpful at all and misrepresent Maunus completely. Is WP:DIGWUREN relevant here? Mathsci (talk) 18:08, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    @ComtesseDeMingrelie: You disagreed over the pre-edit war version as well. As I stated previously, another user reverted to the pre-edit war version which you reverted. It's hard to tell what will make you happy since you disagreed both Chipmunkdavis's version and the pre-edit war version but now you want it at the pre-edit war version. I can and will revert to the pre-edit war version. However, I need an agreement with the warring parties for me to do so. Pages that are fully protected have to remain in the last version. The only non-discussion changes an admin can make are undoing obvious vandalism, copyright or libel. Elockid (Talk) 19:51, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    You cannot understand what I agree with? Then I'm afraid you have not read the discussion I had with Mathsci on Asia page. What I agree with was agreed upon there, and also existed on Europe page with no problems, until, of course, Chimpunkdavis popped out of the blue and made a big deal out of nothiing. If not him, I am confident that no one would make such a big noise about any of the footnotes, not just the one made by Mathsci. He is the one who caused the initial disruption and now pretends to be editing in good faith, when all he is trying to do is to use endless discussions as a means of effectively preventing any substantial changes to the one-sidedness of the article, which he seems to agree with.--ComtesseDeMingrélie 20:17, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    What exactly is "one-sided" about the Asia article? One of the points discussed on the talk page was that the article Europe was twice the length of the article Asia. In particular it has a more elaborate system of notes. Chipmunkdavis was starting to emulate that structure of notes on Asia as a part of a general cleanup, just before the page was locked. Mathsci (talk) 20:31, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Asia page is one sided because it is based entirely on the UN Statistics Department classification, including the regional divisions on the main list, as well as all of the maps that are present.My note that the UN assignment was for "statistical convenience" was removed on every page by chimpunkdavis, which shows that he is against changing the one-sideness even though the UN Statistics Department itself says that their classification is not what it is taken to be on this page. I wonder how long they will keep suppressing this truth.--ComtesseDeMingrélie 21:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Actions speak louder than words and it gives a different impression of what you are saying. The fact that you reverted an editor who reverted to the pre-edit war version shows that you were not in support of having the pre-edit war version. Now the page is protected you want the article to be reverted to a one of the versions that you were not in support of? Based on that revert, the impression that I got was that even I had reverted the article to the pre-edit war version, you still would have been unhappy. The only way that would have made you happy is if I reverted to your version which is not allowed under policy. Furthermore, consensus is not final and can change anytime. See WP:Consensus can change. The discussion between you and Mathsci is not binding at all. Elockid (Talk) 22:49, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Elockid is right here. Certainly I did a double check on CdM's editing history once I saw what Maunus had written and what CdM had then written about Maunus. Also it's clear that Chipmunkdavis is quite keen on improving Asia and that is a very good thing. I'm not taking sides here and consensus is not formed by alliances. Mathsci (talk) 23:01, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Just noting here that, unlike what the Comtesse is saying, I have not reverted the addition of the note to every page, whether I want to or not. For example, I have not reverted on Middle East. I have also not reverted on Geography of Georgia (country), to which it was inserted into with no edit summary and along with a variety of POV changes including removing the Asian Templates. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 06:04, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm a non-adminstrator, a very basic editor, never on this page before! But the personal attacks, blind reverting, nationalist POV, and other most unpleasant "contributions" from Comtesse have been as disturbing to me as any that I've seen over the years. Some of his "contributions" such as "you other two clowns", "you organized group of thugs" (directed at other editors!)' "you Armeanians (SIC) hold almost all distinctions that can possibly exist in the world but this is not the page for you to brandish them..." "cesessionist propaganda " and his "End of story" and "I'll never change my mind" attitude has been most unhelpful. Just a outside view, for what it's worth. (And if a character reference is in order for Chipmunkdavis, I've noticed his expert yet calm, patient work for a long time.) DLinth (talk) 21:54, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    ComtesseDeMingrelie is blocked as a sockpuppet of Polgraf (talk · contribs). Please see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Izzedine for additional information. Elockid (Talk) 03:23, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Yobot block

    Yobot made an error which was reverted. The error was reported to the bots talk page. Subsequently the bot repeated the error. I then blocked the bot for edit warring. User:Magioladitis then unblocked the bot, apparently without fixing the problem. Are bots allowed to edit war? Are bot owners allowed to unblock their own bots? SpinningSpark 23:40, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Some notes. I usually load every list of pages twice. Everybody who follows Yobot's edits knows that I report and try to fix every bug. Since the task was over the block was unjustified. We also have a {{nobots}} to prevent a page by being edit by a bot. Moreover, Spinningspark is an involved editor. They shouldn't block. Additionally, 2 edits don't define an edit war. And this isn't all. Checking Spinningspark's log you'll find that they blocked for vandalism without giving final warning. You can see the back use of the block tool on Yobot's block log when they used "account creation blocked", fixed after 4 minutes and didn't leave a message on my talk page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Check Special:Contributions/12.40.65.2 fo instance. The editor wasn't active at the moment of the block and didn't get a final warning. -- Magioladitis (talk)
    • For clarity, how is Spark involved? And what does blocking vandals without final warning have to do with this? (I don't think you're going to find many admins jumping to undo a block of an IP with a few prior vandal warnings, but no "final" warning.) Anyway, while stating "edit warring" as a block reason isn't very good here, an automatic bot can be blocked for a repeated malfunction. The main questions, I would think, are whether these were malfunctions, whether it was going to be fixed, and whether a block was the appropriate way to handle the situation. Gimmetoo (talk) 00:04, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    To answer your questions:
    • I find it inappropriate the person who reverted the edit twice and works on the page to block. If this was an actual edit war it would be completely inappropriate to block the other party of the edit war or protect the page in your own version. Check Wikipedia:WRONGVERSION.
    • Preventing a bot from editing because of a rare bug occuring in a single page by blocking it is also inappropriate. Thye are ways to do it.
    • The bug is rare. I'll report it to AWB's talk page but the best solution until is fixed is to use {{nobots}} with |deny=AWB since the problem isn't only restricted to Yobot.
    • With my examples I saw that Spinningspark is not familiar with the policy nor the tools and they are misusing them at the moment. IF they have made a block request for the above block, it would have been rejected. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:14, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Bots that are broken are routinely blocked; the standards are not as high as with blocking actual editors. Yobot's user page directly says, "Administrators: if this bot continues causing harm after receiving a message, please block it". Since the bot made the same broken edit after receiving a message about it, blocking it is a reasonable response. Editing the bot's user page is supposed to stop the bot, so it's not clear why the edit would have happened a second time anyway.

    I know I have pointed out to Magioladitis before the need for the Yobot not to re-do edits that are reverted; the bot can easily keep a list of pages it has edited and avoid editing them a second time. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:51, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I really don't see how Spinningspark is involved here, but by definition a user is involved in any situation that involves that user's bot. Carl is spot on with the blocking bit: we assume good faith with humans and with bot owners, but we can't assume good faith with the bots themselves, so it's always safer to block a bot temporarily until the owner can solve the problems. Nyttend (talk) 02:22, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • That unblock was highly inappropriate, basically akin to an admin unblocking themselves. Even if the block was placed in error, which I do not believe it was, we can't have admins undoing a block on one of their own accounts. WP:WHEEL is first-day reading material for administrators, I suggest a refresher course is in order. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:50, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • The unblock wasn't inappropriate if the bot wasn't going to make that edit again. The unblock reason on the other hand... Prodego talk 03:58, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Boy, the unblock reason was very sketchy if you ask me. And unblocking your own bot 7 minutes after it was blocked is really inappropriate if there wasn't any conversation about the mistakes it was making (which there didn't appear to be). An edit warring bot to boot. And the "involved editor" bit....that's a odd interpretation of that concept. Hopefully there won't be a re-occurrence of this. RxS (talk) 05:38, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • The both of you(nevermind, Bot operator) should have gone about it better (repeated errors->block->friendly heads up->confirmed fix->unblock). Fixed bot? Hopefully this is stale now but the lack of discussion really makes this a shame that should not be repeated. NOBOT does not need to be used. Your bot should function properly. You guys both should have discussed it better to lift the block since it looks like everything was going to be fine. Cptnono (talk) 06:03, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Ummm... how many times has this bot been blocked? And who keeps unblocking it, usually minutes later? Involved indeed... Doc talk 06:30, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    If the block was right, we have to block all AWB bots until all bugs in AWB's bug page are fixed. This is nonsense. We have {{nobots}} for a reason. And I don't understand why Carl overcomes some facts: That the block reason was wrong, the blocking admin didn't contact me after the block and has a history of tools misuse. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:52, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    The bot's been blocked seven times. Except for three of them (two unblocked by the blocking admins and one unblocked by you several hours later) the average time of your unblocking your own bot is seven minutes. To call a blocking admin involved in light of this is... unfortunate. Doc talk 06:56, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Involved to the article and I mean in the context of "Edit war" in which they blocked Yobot. I get as you agree it was not an edit war and the blocking reason was invalid. Take note that the first block was 100% wrong and they had to rethink about it. Block/stop a bot makes a sense if the bot makes a series of bad edits. Going back to the example of the anonymous IP you'll see that Spinningspark can't exactly understand when exactly an editor (or bot) is active or not. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:03, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Check this too: Special:Contributions/216.70.249.102. 1 year block to a school IP without schoolblock by the same administrator. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:10, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    When you raise the specter of "involved", you must know very well that most think of "In general, editors should not act as administrators in cases in which they have been involved." You have been very involved in unblocking your own bot in five out of seven cases. You shouldn't unblock it the next time it screws up: hopefully that won't happen again, right? The world won't end if another admin looks at the circumstances before you unblock it... Doc talk 07:12, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Then we go back to the main question: Do you agree with the block and/or the block reason? I don't like the expression "screws up" so please rephrase. I have no objections to leave my bot blocked if it's malfunctioning or the community disagrees with its/my edits. The blocking reason was invalid and the block unreasonable. Feel free to reblock if you don't think so. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:35, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • comment Without researching and digging into history, I'm just curious. (and note: I have a great deal of respect for both editors/admin.) Couldn't you guys have just talked this out a bit on your talk pages without escalating into noticeboard drama thread? Not enough research to comment on who was right or wrong, but to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure what's expected here. If a bot is making bad edits, it should be blocked. If it's been fixed, it should be unblocked. Seems pretty easy to me. — Ched :  ?  07:39, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    To me, this entire episode would be avoided if the admin who unblocked had communicated to the other admin about their reasons *before* unblocking. Two minutes dropping a comment onto their talk page and this wouldn't be an issue at all. To me, that is the ENTIRE issue now. It doesn't matter whether the bot messes up, malfunctions, or screws up. Communication is important, and that is where the actual malfunction is. Next time, drop a note to the person who makes the block before you undo their action 7 minutes later. That's the long and short of this, and I hope this message sinks in. -- Avanu (talk) 07:47, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    OK. I'll do next time. The bot didn't fix the issue and I don't it's gonna do on the next few weeks. Bot has more than 10 known bugs as all AWB bots and the AWB software itself. Just think what is the best way to handle these cases because bugs will keep coming. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:54, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't see any acceptance by Magioladitis that bots should not re-do reverted edits which is the issue for me. This is a simple principle; bots don't take precedence over humans. Apparently, this has come up before according to Carl's post above. On why it was brought here, as far as I was concerned, the matter was ended after the first case when I reported the mistake to Yobot's talk page. I only blocked after I got no response there and Yobot made the edit again. If Magioladitis had responded to that with "sorry for the problem, but I'm working on it" or somesuch, again that would have been the end of it. His response was nothing of the kind, after self-unblocking and being asked on my talk page if he had fixed it or I should go to ANI, his reply was "Please report to ANI. Thanks". So now we are here, does Magioladitis accept that bots should not re-do reverted edits? SpinningSpark 15:39, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    That's not really the point though, is it? If he agrees to communicate with the blocking admin before unblocking his bot, then whatever the issue, it will get discussed first. The errors you point out above seem rather minimal, and while I don't support introducing errors into Wikipedia, the only real problem here is that the bot was unblocked without any communication between the blocker and the blockee. Bots probably end up having issues occasionally. So that isn't unexpected. But what is expected, and what Magioladitis had agreed to do now and in the future is to discuss unblocks. -- Avanu (talk) 15:55, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    My answer wasn't a result of impoliteness but I am rather busy in real life and with other stuff in Wikipedia. I always try to fix stuff. Since I didn't mark the report as "resolved" this means I leave it open to fix. Check my talk page and you ll fix all (or 99%) of the reports. I don't accept the block reason since I don't think the bot participated in any edit war and the problem could have been solved otherwise. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:24, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Problem fixed [27]. There were unbalanced brackets. Drama is over. Thanks and sorry for wasting your time. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:28, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Music reviews added against consensus

    Siberiankiss1989 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been adding now over a hundred reviews to a music site, DEAD PRESS. When looking into it last month, it was deemed to be non-RS and to have malware associated with its links (see RSN discussion here:[28]) I removed the links, and left a message with the user. The user replied by email, where he said the malware alerts were false, but did not discuss the reliability issue. I had assumed this was over, but it seems they have been back at it, adding dozens more links to the site. I think this user's edits need some admin scrutiny, The Interior (Talk) 01:10, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I've made a comment on the user's talk page, letting her know that she has now run afoul of WP:SPAM. I'm certain that, now that she understands the rules, she'll stop, but if there's any further problem, I'd be happy to block her. I've added her talk page to my watchlist, but feel free to shoot me a message on my talk page or request help here if the problem resumes. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 01:24, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    thnaks, I'll check up on them after a bit. The Interior (Talk) 02:39, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Spam blacklist anyone? There's a link right now in List of albums released in 2011. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 07:07, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Not an incident. Moving back to AN. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:12, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    PR Firm Editing?

    I've just tagged the Hawaii Convention Center article with a {{News release}} tag, and upon some digging, I noticed that most of the edits were done by User:JenTLC. Her edits are strictly to the article in question, the 3RR violations are over a month old at the latest (so no use even reporting it to 3RR or edit warring due to age, seeing they only cover recent 3RR violations), she's been dinged with numerous Non-free Image deletion warnings, and I don't know if I should tag the article with {{db-spam}} seeing the article is a mess. Any advice on how to handle it?--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 09:19, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I've edited it, but did you notice the spelling Hawai'i? I've seen this elsewhere, not sure why editors change it to this, some sort of nationalist thing I presume. Dougweller (talk) 10:30, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    It's "Hawaii" in Hawaiian. --Errant (chat!) 10:38, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, the glottal stop is part of the spelling. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:46, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    (ec)I've often seen spellings Hawai'i, Kaua'i, Moloka'i, etc., for the Hawaiian islands. It's apparently to give a visual cue that the trailing "i" is to be pronounced separately. As in "mo-lo-ka-ee", not "mo-lo-kye". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:49, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    See here. The article started as cut-and-paste copyvio. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 11:31, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Good catch. I trimmed it all up and rev-deleted the edits with the copyvio material. --Errant (chat!) 12:33, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I just deleted File:HawaiiConventionCenterMeetingRoom.jpg, another of her uploads...claimed it was cc/gfdl-self, but it's on the organization's own website. I'd say she works for them or an associated PR firm. DMacks (talk) 18:25, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Follow-revert behaviour.

    Resolved
     – PLAX... err, WP:BOOMERANG applied. Jclemens (talk) 21:57, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I would like someone to help me and User:Dreadstar to avoid a conflict. The user has followed all of my recent contributions (what, it itself, I don't think is a problem) and revert each on of them.

    The last time I acessed Wikipedia, I've worked on:

    Also, in the artitcle about the writer Bill Kennedy, I mistakenly remove a whole paragraph (that I believed was) tagged as uncited, when the tag only referred to the last sentence. Dreadstar reverted not only my mistake, but also the removal of a bad external link I have done.

    These blank reverts of virtually everything I tough is getting on my nerves. If we go further in the past, we will find more situations where it happened.

    Dreadstar seems like a good editor, but with not much patience. I wish I could have more of his trust. --Damiens.rf 16:06, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Where did you notify him of taking him to ANI? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:27, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks Bugs, he subtly notified me on my talk page.. :) Dreadstar 16:33, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Tagging every single uncited sentence in an article with {{fact}}, as you did with Simon Peyton Jones, is never a good idea, Damiens. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:32, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    And with Chilling Effects, you stuck a {{who}} in the middle of a sentence that had cites at the end that answered the question. Again, not cool. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Damiens has a long history of disruptive, drive-by tag-bombing on a very large number of articles, espeically problematic on WP:BLP's like this, where I first noticed this behavior. I've been trying to help him gain a greater understanding of the problems here,[29][30] and have added many sources to the articles he's done this to. Dreadstar 16:32, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Damiens, you tag bombed Simon Peyton Jones asking for cites when they were already there, so far as I'm concerned Dreadstar was right. On Shakeel, yes, there was a source to tripod, I doubt it's reliable, so yeah, asking for valid sources is ok. On Chilling Effects you tag bombed that one too and asked for references that were already there. Someone needs to stop, but I don't think it's Dreadstar. KoshVorlon' Naluboutes Aeria Gloris 16:41, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    And I just blocked him for edit warring "porn star" into the lede of Kira Reed with the edit summary "I hope this is not someone trying to force me on 3RR", without providing any citation to establish that the term actually applied.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:44, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    That's rather ironic,[31] given his fact-tag blitz. Unless there's some hidden fact not stated in the article, Kira Reed does not qualify as a "porn star". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:49, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Admin with protected talkpage

    The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
    and... this is why the page is protected :) --Errant (chat!) 18:58, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Please see here for the discussion I had with Gwen Gale (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) about why she has a semi-protected talkpage without an alternative avenue for IPs to leave messasges, as stipulated by WP:UPPROT. She refused to account for this, and refused to do anything about it, and I think this to be inappropriate. ╟─TreasuryTagFirst Secretary of State─╢ 16:44, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    It's not "stipulated by WP:UPPROT"; there's a difference between "should" and "must", and that wording was carefully chosen. Nothing to see here. – iridescent 16:50, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict) TreasuryTag, with respect, you seem to spend a fair amount of your wikitime raising minor matters and non-issues on ANI. It strikes me that it might be better if you did something else. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:52, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Are IP's allowed to use e-mail? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:55, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Nope. Favonian (talk) 16:57, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    They are allowed to, but they can't Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 16:58, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    You lost me at the bakery. OK, so if they have a legit need to communicate with an admin, what should they do? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:00, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    If you're using the indefinite article, then the vast majority of admins do not have semiprotected talk pages. If you mean the specific admin in question, then I suppose the answer right now is "not a lot". I don't think that's a particularly satisfying answer, but if it was specifically decided to allow for this then I suppose it's not a matter for ANI. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 17:39, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    (ec) Obviously I can't speak for Gwen and I don't know why her page is set up the way it is, but I can say I too have had mine semiprotected for a long while, and refuse to create another subpage. After the amount of harassment I've gone through, with vandalism of each and every page I let sit unprotected, it would defeat the purpose of the protection if I offered the harassers another alternative venue. Fut.Perf. 16:55, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh, but there's a solution: Create such a page, and then take it off your watch-list. Then they can rant and rave all day long, and you need not be bothered by it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:00, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Yea, but that's like the old Usenet alt.flame newsgroup. Trolls don't want a place to just troll, they want to do it where they're not supposed to. I had my pages protected for a short bit recently due to some persistent d-baggery, and I really don't begrudge admins leaving theirs on for good. All you have to do is become autoconfirmed anyways to post on a semi page, so if someone's legitimately here to edit, they will meet that low threshold in short order. Tarc (talk) 17:07, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    So long as Gwen takes no admin actions against editors she refuses to receive communications from, there should be no problem. However, if she does take any such action, or make any comment about any such editor where here status as an admin is relevant, then she really should make an unprotected page available for them. DuncanHill (talk) 17:22, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I am the reason Gwen Gale's page is set up like that. I will be glad to discuss it with anyone, but am always blocked. <redacted> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.64.14.103 (talk) 17:26, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    So my signature and e-mail address have already been blocked, there is some kind of flag on my IP, and nobody will address me here. After I just confessed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.64.14.103 (talk) 18:10, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    By socking yet again, you are ruining the reputation of Illinois, if such a thing is possible. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:39, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I am not socking, I am posting from my dining room on my computer thru my IP. For a pithy remark, you assume bad faith, rather than actually listening. Illinois is right, I will post my address if someone will come to listen. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.64.14.103 (talk) 18:49, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    You were blocked a month ago for... guess what... block evasion. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:54, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
    • For anyone genuinely interested in how an ip can contact an admin with a semi protected talkpage (and no specific alterntive) the answer is; ...ask some other admin (or editor, in fact) to convey a message. LessHeard vanU (talk) 19:10, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I will note that the defense to the sock accusation was "but I'm at my dining room table". That is just too awesome to pass unremarked on. Tarc (talk) 00:53, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Users in the range 220.255.2.XXX

    Edits such as [32] [33], [34] and others, from this range of IP addresses at Hard disk misunderstand or misrepresent MOS:NUMBERS; continuing removal of the IEC binary prefixes in a table that is intended to illustrate the difference between binary and decimal prefixes. The user(s) have had the issue explained several times. Doesn't seem to be an English comprehension issue. Odd IP-hopping behavior, with 5 or 6 addresses used in 30 minutes and different addresses in consecutive responses. Can't drop template on all of the Singapore ISP IP pages, but the subject appears to be aware of the problem he's causing. --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:13, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    As this is a content dispute, I have protected the page for a day. Favonian (talk) 19:35, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    IP user

    Resolved
     – Blocked 1 month Jclemens (talk) 21:52, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    174.54.34.187 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) Just Today Harassment, and soap boxing. The IP seems pretty stable for over a month now been pretty disruptive and thus needs a vacation. The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 19:52, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I smell socks, just can't figure out where they are coming from. Wildthing61476 (talk) 19:55, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    My thought as well The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 19:57, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Several users smell pretty socky at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Race and crime (3rd nomination). The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 19:59, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Unblock request - RolandR

    I have blocked RolandR. He has requested unblock, so I'm posting the request on ANI, because it will get a quicker audience here. The relevant thread is here: User talk:RolandR#Your 3RR report. I request review from any admin who is impartial with respect to Israel-Palestine issues and who is familiar with unblock request or is willing to spend the time looking at it. Thanks. Magog the Ogre (talk) 21:48, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Non-admin Comment I noticed you elected to claim the WP:ARBPIA reason for block. Even if you grant 100% rights to allow annother admin to overturn your block you should be aware that there is currently a discussion at ArbCom about overturning (explicitly or in substance) any action taken by annother administrator pursuant to the terms of an active arbitration remedy, and explicitly noted as being taken to enforce said remedy. Your communication with the user, the blocking notice, and the block log notice seem to lead to the point that you are using an arbitration remedy for this situation. Hasteur (talk) 00:40, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I am. And I also stated quite clearly that I am OK with another admin undoing my block. I don't think anyone would be upset if I reversed my own block, correct? Well, in this case, I will state that any other admin undoing this block is tantamount to me undoing the block on RonaldR. Magog the Ogre (talk) 01:29, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    This is why I don't make non-trivial edits to articles under 1RR. It's just poison for collaborative constructive editing - and blocking from a single removal of a citation template from the lead (allegedly because already cited in body, though I can't identify the citation) is as good an example as any. It's a shackle around every ankle because you don't know who the criminals are. Rd232 talk 02:57, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    • I looked fairly quickly at the history and I tentatively agree with the block. I didn't find RolandR's unblock request all that compelling so I declined it until he can demonstrate understanding and undertake not to editwar in future. --John (talk) 03:19, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    The 1RR restriction has been quite successful in reducing edit warring in the I-P conflict topic area though. It's unfortunate that Wikipedia still lacks the means to reliably identify and exclude sockpuppets from the topic area. Like many "new" accounts in the topic area, AFolkSingersBeard does not look like a new editor. Sean.hoyland - talk 03:30, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    The behavior of AFolkSingersBeard is so blatant that he seems unlikely to have a long career, whether or not he is a sock. He has already been notified of the I/P discretionary sanctions. EdJohnston (talk) 04:34, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    A page 'violating' election law? Legal threat?

    The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
    No action required. This is playing itself out at AfD.·Maunus·ƛ· 02:49, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Premiership of Stephen Harper where a group of 5 articles have been nominated for Afd. Editor there insists that the pages "...constitute illegal advertising..." "...may also be of concern to the Chief Electoral Officer..." and are in "...contravention of election laws...". I believe this is bollocks and thought I would post here to alert an administrator, given these may amount to legal threats. Outback the koala (talk) 02:24, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Legal threat? I observed that the retention of highly questionable SPAM/POV/UNDUE articles on a given party/leader in the context of an election campaign is in contravention of Canadian election-advertising/spending laws and falls in the same category as COPYVIO, BLP and other legal liabilities which Wikipedia must observe. To me your launching of this ANI is just a way to silence my objection to the existence of these articles, which you claim can be merged with other articles - but have made no attempt to do so, nor to fix their overtly POV/SPAM intent/nature. You are being disingenuous in the extreme in calling my pointing out Canadian election laws as a "legal threat", and to me it seems that this is a case of "kill the messenger".Skookum1 (talk) 02:44, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    WTF? Someone closed this topic - I am in no way trying to silence you. I am simply looking for further guidence. If the law has been violated we should contact the authorities and the Wikipedia foundation. I am not personnally attacking you in any way. Outback the koala (talk) 02:53, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    The WMF follows US law. It can hardly follow simultaneously the separate law of every jurisdiction about which an article is written. If something might possibly violate Canadian law then those subject to Canadian jurisdiction should be cautious, but it's their look-out , as with everything else they do in life. Anyone who wishes to complain about this should complain to the foundation, from whom they will do doubt get a polite letter explaining this at greater length. What NLT means is that, if anyone intends to take legal action about an article or article, they should not simultaneously comment on the articles or edit them. DGG ( talk ) 03:01, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    OK. Thanks DGG. So I would be free to contact my local police or ministry offical on my own time, but it's not really the place for the foundation. Is this correct? Outback the koala (talk) 03:06, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Let's look at it this way. We've got graphic portrayals of Muhammad in some of our articles. These images clearly violate the law of several different countries - but not U.S. law, so the images remain. However, if the poor slob who uploaded one of those images happens to live in one of those countries, and if he's found out, then he might find himself prosecuted by his country. That's his problem. Likewise, unless the U.S. has some sort of treaty with Canada regarding its election laws, it's simply not a U.S. (or a Wikipedia) problem. Rklawton (talk) 03:16, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Well, then again, the US has strict laws (not often enforced) against US companies interfering in political/governmental processes in other countries....and being liable for any such activity.Skookum1 (talk) 03:18, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    What you're effectively saying is that if a Canadian party/candidate takes out advertising on TV stations and newspapers reaching Canadian markets (which is often the case - in 90% of cities in fact), then that's OK? That those companies can't be charged with violating Canadian election laws by Canadian authorities, only the parties/candidates in question can be? I think you'd find out you're very wrong about that....Skookum1 (talk) 03:24, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Canada can do what it wants to its own companies, but I don't know if Canada could do anything to a US company that did the same (unless that company did business in Canada). Monty845 03:48, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Advertising in Canada, cross-border, is indeed doing business in Canada.....and that's why Canadian election ads aren't tolerated on Seattle, Detroit etc TV stations...somewhere in the Free Trade Agreement, also, there are items about expressly this kind of responsibility.....Skookum1 (talk) 03:51, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Before continuing in this thread, please find proof that websites based in Florida are required to abstain from this type of content. Nyttend (talk) 04:02, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    First of all, the content in question has to be obviously advertising of some kind for the rules to come into effect even within Canada. An article on the premiership of the Prime Minister which anyone can edit and which nobody paid for and which could allege the most arrant nonsense is not obviously advertising, and is in fact the kind of third-party "let's see what crap Leader X has trotted out this week" stuff that's produced by every TV station, radio station, and newspaper from the Globe and Mail all the way up to the mighty Inuvik Drum. There are no rules about reporting, only about promoting. This is reporting. (Also, the rules regarding advertising on Seattle, Spokane, Fargo, etc. TV stations are enforced by the locally owned cable companies which block the ads out. --NellieBly (talk) 04:32, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Tholzel blocked indefinitely

    Please see User talk:Tholzel#Blocked indefinitely and see if I have been too harsh. It's my feeling after reviewing all of this account's 2011 edits that they are definitely not here to improve the encyclopedia, but to advocate for a particular minority view regarding race and certain aspects of the history of WW2. If there is a consensus to unblock (and so far they have not asked for such), I would unblock or be fine with someone else doing so. --John (talk) 03:32, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Well done. IMHO this sort of thing ought to happen more often. It's awfully tiresome to editors who frequent articles related to Holocaust denial to have to put up with this sort of thing and tends to drive good editors off the project. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 03:40, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I am not impartial as I have been in protracted annoying arguments with that user, but I do approve.·Maunus·ƛ· 03:42, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I have previously blocked this user and I endorse John's block. See my recommendation for an indef block if/when problems continue in this previous ANI discussion. Toddst1 (talk) 04:07, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with the block. This editor obviously could not follow NPOV and has been unable to work with other editors constructively. TFD (talk) 04:26, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Winkleross merge

    I am not sure where else to get help. There has been a discussion on whether to merge Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss pages. The discussion has gone on for half a year. It doesn't seem like anybody on either side of the issue, (merging or not merging) cares enough to close the discussion. Being a partisan on the issue, I personally don't feel qualified to determinate the results of the discussion. I don't know if we can start merging it, or if we should just close the discussion. It would be good for a neutral party to make that determination. Thanks Oldag07 (talk) 04:31, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    The Facebook stuff has everyone distracted. These guys are Olympic athletes, right? So they're individually notable as Olympic athletes. --NellieBly (talk) 04:34, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I forgot to link the talk page. Talk:Cameron Winklevoss. Note that the discussion spans several sections. I am not posting here is not so much to discuss wither or not the pages should be merged. I am asking this because I am not sure how to end the discussion being made about the merge. I have no clue what consensus has determined, and don't feel qualified to end the discussion. Oldag07 (talk) 04:47, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Gharr

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

    First, a bit of history: A few weeks ago, Gharr concluded that nominating an article for speedy deletion and giving the 3RR warning for edit warring constitutes "hounding" and started an ANI thread about it. The thread quickly devolved into boomerang warfare as Gharr's accusations were rejected by everyone else, with several users trying to kindly explain that Gharr was the one who was wrong and that copyvio articles (if I recall correctly it was copyvio) are always deleted and 3RR warnings are always given to people who breach/are about to breach 3RR. I stepped in quite late, because I wasn't involved in the original discussion but grew weary of Gharr's unfounded accusations directed mainly at User:Sloane and User:OpenFuture. Soon afterwards, Gharr was blocked for 24 hours for edit warring, and soon after that, for 48 hours because of civility issues.

    After a few days off, Gharr's back, and still attacking other editors on User talk:Gharr. I and several other users have tried to reason with them several times, but it appears that Gharr simply removes all messages without reading or replying. At their current state, they're absolutely impossible to communicate or cooperate with.

    Sample edits by Gharr to demonstrate their conduct:

    • [35] The Venus Project, Gharr doesn't justify this change in the edit summary, instead resulting to threats.
    • [36] Talk:The Venus Project, Gharr's intention is quite clear - instead of justifying their edits, they attack another editor with 3RR breach accusation (which turned out to be incorrect).
    • [37] Lifebaka wrote a long and understanding reply to Gharr, which was deleted by Gharr who immediately continued their behaviour...
    • [38] Gharr's first action after the block already shows they didn't get it.
    • [39] Gharr removes most of the nicer stuff on their user talk page and create a new section highlighting the perceived unfairness of their blocks.
    • [40] The major problem with these edits is that they highlight that Gharr, despite several people telling them (at least 4 by my count), think they weren't edit warring because they didn't breach the WP:3RR.

    I don't believe Gharr's going to listen to anyone anymore (please try to reason with them if you want to) and even less I believe they're going to have a spontaneus enlightenment about collaboration. For this disruption to end, I think Gharr should be indefinitely blocked - not infinitely, but until they remove the false accusations from their user page, start listening to people instead of treating advise as attacks and confirm that they won't attack other editors again. If someone can get these assurations from Gharr without blocking, so much the better. Zakhalesh (talk) 04:54, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    The following people were notified of this thread: Gharr (the subject) and Sloane, OpenFuture and Lifebaka as all three were active in the previous thread and will most likely want to comment on the case. Zakhalesh (talk) 05:07, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Gharr hasn't made any edits outside of his talk page in a week. So it's currently a non-issue, and he isn't disrupting anything at the moment. --OpenFuture (talk) 06:05, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    The repeated edit warring, BLP violations and slander being committed by User:Warriorboy85

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