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User InfoCheck Violating 3 Revert Rule

Esteemed collegues:

If you examine:

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

You will see that InfoCheck has repeatedly, much more often than thrice, inserted a link in the "See Also" section, despite the consense to leave this link off of the Gothic Chess page. This user is insisting that a chess variant that he devised is very similar to the game of Gothic Chess which has been in existance for seven years. He is therefore requesting links back to his personal home pages, his personal PDF files, and his personal analysis, none of which has undergone the peer review process common in academic circles. Gothic Chess has been so scrutinized, and has been published, in both hardback textbooks and other periodicals dealing with Artificial Intelligence. References of these published works are provided on the Gothic Chess page.

The user InfoCheck repeatedly imposes his own links, vioating neutral point of view, and violating the 3 revert rule as previously mentioned. Judge not only the history of posts, judge the two games for yourself:

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j
8											8
7											7
6											6
5											5
4											4
3											3
2											2
1											1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j

The game of Gothic Chess of which a great deal of material has been published.

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j
8											8
7											7
6											6
5											5
4											4
3											3
2											2
1											1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j

The game of Optimized Chess which has no followers aside from its creator.

It is obvious that:

1. Only the kings are in the same place, on the f1/f8 squares. This is the only similarity between the two games.

2. The Queen in "optimized chess" starts on the wrong color (White Queens are always on light squares, Black Queen are always on dark squares.)

3. The Knights and Rooks in "optimized chess" have exchanged places, not even on the same relative squares as regular 8x8 chess.

4. The Bishops in "optimized chess" can't reach the "long diagonals" (a1-h8 via being placed on b2, or j1-c8 via being placed on i2.) Placing Bishops on long diagonals is a very common motiff that chess players strive to do fairly often, and Gothic Chess players enjoy it as well.

5. The Bishop on the Queen's side in "optimized chess" is on the color opposite of what it should be.

6. The Bishop on the Kings side in "optimized chess" is on the color opposite of what it should be.

With so many obvious differences, myself and several others feel this user InfoCheck is doing nothing constructive. He is just trying to publicize a game of no interest at the expense of detracting from the Gothic Chess article.

I recommend him for banning for the 24 hour period for all of the aforementioned reasons.

ChessHistorian 04:33, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

"You and several others" refers to a gang of Gothic Chess fans, about three editors here. At least equally many neutral editors are for the inclusion of the Optimized Chess link. You yourself have been violating the three revert rule at least equally much as InfoCheck. You even just deleted InfoCheck's arguments for inclusion from the talk page (accidentally, I'm sure), without an explanation. Luckily I have just restored them. —ZeroOne (talk / @) 05:45, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

You're calling the inventor of the game a fan? You're calling only one of four people in the world who won a game against the inventor (who has over a 96% win ratio) a fan? You're calling me, a reporter for two city newspapers a fan? It would be more correct to say that 2 biased, anti-Gothic Chess people, with no interest in the game, no talent for playing the game, are just trying to detract from it by playing the role of spoilers. Well, guess what? We're sick of your illogical remarks. We're sick of you sub-standard, low-achievers claiming superiority over a published artificial intelliegence researcher who has several college degrees. You can't just insert meaningless links to a well constructed page and say they belong there. That other variant is complete crap. You were asked to find ONE PHOTOGRAPH of anybody playing that game, and you couldn't do it. So drop it. Go somewhere else. You're not wanted on the Gothic Chess page. You're not needed. You're statements are biased, inaccurate, and ludicrous. But we gave you your voice, however wrong it is, you have said what you needed to say, and the the people have spoken. They said get your links off of that page. So do it.

ChessHistorian 06:41, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

We have a noticeboard for violations of the three revert rule right here. We also have article talk pages for content discussions. This is not the place for either, and I also strongly encourage both of you to review the guidelines on civil discussion and personal attacks. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 06:45, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

User:InfoCheck is not requesting links to "his personal home pages, his personal PDF files", but to the Wikipedia article on Optimized Chess. If you think that such article should not exist on Wikipedia, the proper course of action is to take the article to WP:AFD. Well, you in fact did that already. I will now go there and vote keep because of my loss of WP:AGF. -- Petri Krohn 22:58, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

"Protected Gothic chess: Enough edit-warring. Discuss things on the talkpage, wait for this to expire, or visit WP:RFPP [edit=sysop:move=sysop] (expires 06:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC))" Please note that The Wrong Version of this article has been protected. Please do not request unprotection on my talkpage. ~Kylu (u|t) 06:52, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I can't tell if chesshistorian is claiming to be the inventor of gothic chess or not, but that rant above with all the NPA and CIV vios seems to also be admission of a CoI. Anyone else reading it that way, or is it just late and I'm tired? ThuranX 09:08, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

ChessHistorian is not the inventor of Gothic Chess, User:GothicChessInventor is. (PS. I decrypted the bunch of acronyms that you just threw in by adding links to them, hope you don't mind. :) —ZeroOne (talk / @) 16:09, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind. Thanks for the clarification. ThuranX 17:07, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

---

I am the inventor of Gothic Chess. I got a call at about 4 AM from a Gothic Chess player from Australia letting me know what was going on at the Gothic Chess page regarding these edit wars. While I did appreciate his diligence, this is not how I would like to be informed when the Gothic Chess page is being vandalized by other variant authors. ChessHistorian is a newspaper reporter from the Baltimore Sun who interviewed me a few weeks ago when the game of checkers was announced as being solved. If you perform this google search you can find him:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=%22Ed+Trice%22+%22Baltimore+Sun%22&btnG=Search

Anyway, it looks to me like the correct version of the page is protected now. Thank you for this.

If I may shed some light on this from my own observations: Gothic Chess is a very popular chess variant that tens of thousands of people play. Other variants are virtually unknown. Sometimes a person that creates a new chess variant tries to force a "piggy back" association with another variant as a means to try and "trick" people into thinking it is played much more widely than it really is. This is clearly the case here. InfoCheck is the one who is trying to mislead Wikipedia readers with his announcement of an implicit strategic alignment between my game and his.

Objectively speaking, and as cited above, of the 10 pieces in the back row of each games' setup, only the Kings are in the same location.

The games are completely different. There is no reason to have his variant mentioned on the Gothic Chess page.

Furthermore, whereas I have gone through the recalcitrant process of obtaining a patent on my game (due to its uniqueness and the potential desire for many other chess manufactures to try and get a hold of it) and had several scientific periodicals print my published analysis of artifical intelligence papers that I had written on this (and other) subjects, the person known as InfoCheck has merely created a PDF file that he has on his website, and he continues to claim that his information is more accurate, "better", more realistic, etc., than my own. When I offered to submit his paper for him to the artificial researchers I know that would review it, he then reverts his claims, and stop spewing forth his ill-found rhetoric.

So we have a clear case of InfoCheck just looking for a soapbox on which to stand and say a great deal of things that are untrue, unproven, and just plain unfactual.

He is using Wikipedia as a means to broadcast this misinformation, the highest form of treason.

The administrators have the power to positively impact the material presented herein. I have a great deal of respect for your constant vigilence in countering page vandalism. I urge you to support ChessHistorian and understand some of his retaliatory remarks are just a function of his own weariness in dealing with InfoCheck. We have people on three continents agreeing that the material submitted by InfoCheck just does not belong. We also have people who are jealous of the popularity of Gothic Chess and try to do anything to detract from it. I do not understand these people. Just by reading their comments on the History page, you can see they are nothing more than unsupported conjecture that has no basis. As one of the Gothic Chess supporters summarized:

You can call a cat a fish, but it will not swim.

That is their case in microcosm: They furnish false statements without any backup. It is as if they are trying to tell Wikipedia Administrators that cats have gills and live in the water.

In closing, InfoCheck violated several Wikipedia policies, and should be dealt with accordingly. The people whose comments on the History page are nothing more than ignoratio elenchi will be easy for the administrators to find. I know you will do the right thing and take the appropriate actions.

I thank you for your time.

Inventor of Gothic Chess, Ed Trice

GothicChessInventor 16:29, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarifications. (by the way, I didn't do anything to protect the page, as yout talk page note seems to suggest.) Now that we've got someone claiming to be the inventor, who claims to have a clear view of the situation, I guess the only thing left to do is validate his identity to support his claims, then edit the page accordingly? thoughts? Have I oversimplified? (standard IANaAdmin). ThuranX 17:07, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

It is my position that I was baited into violating the 3-revert rule by a small gang of editors on the Gothic Chess page who were repeatedly throwing-out Optimized Chess which is indisputably a related Capablanca chess variant. These few people are zealots (not merely players) who are extremely prejudicial and unfair to other chess variants. It is significant that in tandem with this malicious action against me, a malicious attempt to have Optimized Chess, despite its established significance, thrown-out of Wikipedia is also underway.

All of these acts are financially-motivated to prevent a free game of excellent quality Optimized Chess from being available to people on Wikipedia who casually look at a commercial product Gothic Chess. This agenda violates the charter of Wikipedia to the extreme. To be sure, you are being lied to on a large scale in every paragraph by the opposition on this issue. You must spend some time and effort to discern exactly how and when.

The bizarre edit history and talk page entries at Gothic Chess and Ed Trice as well as Optimized Chess and Embassy Chess say much more than I can concisely about what honest editors go thru daily in fighting-off the actions of dishonest editors. This is where to begin to investigate in order to discover the truth.

Frankly, I am unconcerned about being blocked for a time if Wikipedia administrators are locked-in by the rules regardless of the circumstances. I did what I had to under difficult, stressful, unjust conditions. However, I am certain that I am normally a responsible, conscientious editor who acts constructively and should not be blocked. My edit history proves that.

--InfoCheck

ThuranX (and other Wikipedians and Wikipedia admins), please do not make up your mind on this issue based on what is said on this page only. Fully read Talk:Gothic chess starting from, say, the Number of example games section. Then see how User:Oli Filth was attacked using a mediation request which was correctly denied by the medcab people and then rightly deemed as ridiculous and pointless by a neutral third party, User:Boricuaeddie. I know all that is a lot of reading but I find it necessary to understand the extent this edit war has gone to. —ZeroOne (talk / @) 17:41, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Whoa, whoa. Please check your facts before making claims such as this. Firstly, I did not deny that request; the people at WP:MEDCAB did. Secondly, I did not attack Oli Filth. In fact, I agreed with him. Thirdly, it was ridiculous. The first party wanted to "ban" the other from editing the article; that's ridiculous. Therefore, creating a request for mediation because of this is pointless. Please assume good faith, man. --Boricuaeddie 21:32, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see we have some misunderstandings here. I admit I thought you denied the request, sorry for that. I did not say you attacked Oli Filth (and of course everyone knows you didn't), I just said he was attacked. I'm with you here, I think your judgement that the case was ridiculous is completely right. I also agreed with Oli Filth, I only used your comment to bring up the other point of view to this whole mishmash of an edit war. See, I said that the case was judged as ridiculous by a neutral third party. My point is that if a neutral party judges it as ridiculous, it must be ridiculous. If one of the involved parties would've judged it ridiculous, there would obviously be a conflict of interests and it wouldn't mean much. I've now reworded the message above to avoid any further misunderstandings. —ZeroOne (talk / @) 22:50, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. --Boricuaeddie 23:20, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

---

InfoCheck clouds the issue. The point is, that the chess variant does not belong on the Gothic Chess page. Of the 20 pieces that are not pawns, only 2 are configured identically. The claims being made that is is a "indisputably a related Capablanca chess variant" are absurd. With only a 10% correlation of the pieces matching where they are placed, how can it possibly be related? Despite several authors asking this same question, no satisfactory answer was ever given. There is a reason for this: The games are not related at all.

We have asked the "supporters" of this extremely unusal variant to show us one picture of someone playing the game. None have been provided.

That speaks to the issue. Over 50,000 Gothic Chess sets have been sold since the year 2000. There are thousands of archived games on the GothicChess.com website (for example here: http://www.gothicchesslive.com/all-players-games.php ). There is a free program for downloading at http://www.GothicChess.com/vortex.zip that destroys every other program and player on the planet.

There are photos such as this one:

http://www.gothicchess.com/images/GCACheck.gif

..showing someone being paid $5000 back in the year 2000 for winning a big tournament that was played at the Marshall Chess Club in New York. There are boards and pieces for sale on the website. The inventor went to Iceland to meet Bobby Fischer shown here: http://www.gothicchess.com/iceland_news.html

In short: Gothic Chess is not just an enterprise, it is a thriving one.

If the game that InfoCheck claims is better than Gothic Chess, how come he can't show one picture of one person playing the game? And, if his game is so much better, why wouldn't the "lowly" Gothic Chess people actively seek to have their game linked to his?

It is plain to see that the reverse is being sought. InfoCheck is desparately trying to attach his game to Gothic Chess and thereby "prove" something. I have no idea what that is. All I know is, that game he is trying to promote is worthless, nobody plays it, there is no dedicated website for it, there are no example games of it, there is just one PDF file where he claims it is the best thing out there.

You have to call it like you see it. That other variant has no followers. Even the game's creator has no photograph of him playing it since he can't get one other person to play it with him!

Compare that to Gothic Chess where they raised $15,000,000 last summer had the interest of Anatoly Karpov and Bobby Fischer to play a match.

I ask you: How can anyone be fooled by the nonsense of InfoCheck ??

ChessHistorian 06:42, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

---

ChessHistorian- If you successfully raised $15 million US, then why was the tournament that would have immortalized Gothic Chess cancelled?

Wikipedia administrator(s)- Can you imagine what it is like to deal with this caliber of nonsense upon several Wikipedia pages nonstop?

--InfoCheck

I can answer this question. First off, ChessHistorian is just a newspaper reporter. He had nothing to do with raising any money for the match. He knew nothing about Ed Trice until the game of checker was solved. Secondly, Anatoly Karpov signed the agreement to play as shown here http://www.gothicchess.com/images/Karpov_Signature.jpg so the match was underway. Thirdly, if you read their blog at http://gothicchess.blogspot.com/ you will have all of your questions answered in time. It was a very long process to get this match put together, over two years. The short answer why it came undone: Fischer wouldn't sign anything, typical Bobby. That's all. Trice and Fischer have had contact since the match fell apart. He was there to wish Fischer a happy 64th birhday for example.

GothicEnthusiast 16:27, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

GothicEnthusiast- While The Gothic Chess Federation was trying to make this event materialize, I read information provided by Ed Trice that Susan Polgar was lined-up as an alternate in case either Karpov or Fischer backed-out. So, what happened?

--InfoCheck

You read only what you want to read, that's the problem. Susan Polgar was not the replacement if Fischer did not sign the contract. If Fischer did not sign the contract, there was no match. Susan Polgar was the replacement if Fischer signed the contract, the match was in place, and Fischer never showed up.

GothicEnthusiast 05:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

---

ChessHistorian, the relationship has been explained to you a few times, the latest time probably being shown in this diff. Of course, you later deleted the explanation, which could be why you have the mental image that no one has explained it to you. —ZeroOne (talk / @) 08:19, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

This situation is a mess. There's definitely a highly involved, tighly agreeing group working the gothic chess pages. I'm concerned by things like [[1]] this, where the owner/creator/promoter advocates letting him have more control of the images released about his own prouct. The talk page at gothic chess reads to me as thick with CoI, and not particularly willing to listen to new ideas from outside their group. Are these two ugly cousins closely related enough to be on each other's pages? Sure looks like it to me. SHould they be on each other's pages? either all of the Capablanca chess variants can cross-link freely as appropriate by article, or none of them should, instead referring readers to a list of Capablanca Chess variants. As it is unneccesarily cumbersome to avoid referencing other variants, I'd say let them be discussed freely. That a group works together to block edits ot the page by spreading their reverts around isn't ethical, it's an end run around the 3RR. When the talk page is likewise a bullying ground for a few closely aligned thinkers, it's even tougher. I don't think the 3RR Violation is blockable at this point (preventative, not punative; and editor in discussion regarding issue), I think the editor in violation should've brought the whole mess to one of WIkipedia's resources for assistance before. Probably not AN or AN/I, but maybe help desk or village pump. It's tough to hlp edit when you're hitting serious, and CoI-based, resistance. ThuranX 15:45, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

ThuranX I looked at [[2]] and I just don't understand the concern. What was so morally indefensible about that discussion? It's just people chatting about an image of a board. And what is "thick with Col"?? I don't understand this terminology.

By the way, many of the people you say are "unwilling to listen" are more than willing to listen. But there is nothing of substance being offered, and the people to whom this is demonstrated do not furnish backup for the things they're trying to add to the page. For example, that one nuisance who insists on claiming his chess variant belongs there.

Why does it belong?

He claims it is similar to Gothic Chess. He, the person who made it, the person was has a POV.

The following people did not merely say "it should not belong", they offered reasons:

ChessHistorian a reporter for the Baltimore Sun

Andreas Kaufmann a highly skilled variant player from Germany who is 1 of only 4 people to have defeated the game's inventor

GothicEnthusiast myself, a strong Gothic Chess player as you can see from here http://www.gothicchesslive.com/one-players-games.php?id=174 I am just one rung below Bobby Fischer on the site, which you can see sorted by rating here: http://www.gothicchesslive.com/players-games.php

GothicChessInventor who published several important papers in artifical intelligence, helped solve the game of checkers (see http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~chinook/thankyou/ ), who invented the game of Gothic Chess, and who understands the game and those that are similar to it more than anybody in the world.

Please note:

All of us agree that Embassy Chess belongs on there, as does Capablanca Random Chess. All of us agree that the other variant DOES NOT belong there, for the numerous reasons cited here and on the Talk page of Gothic Chess.

That other variant is a Capablanca Random Chess variant. It has no bearing, similarity, or likeness to Gothic Chess.

All of the other ranting and raving is moot. It's not the same. It doesn't belong.

Where does it belong? On the Capablanca Random Chess page. It is a CRC variant by the author's own admissions.

Let it stay there, where it belongs.

GothicEnthusiast 16:17, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Let's not. The inventor of the game is advocating that HE be in control of the images used in the article. HE regularly monitors and edits the product for his own page. HE states that HE will take the pictures to be used, and so on. This is a CoI, a Conflict of Interest, in which a person with significant financial and commercial interest in the article is shaping the way it is written, to the level where other people's contributions are being critiqued one by one and reviewed like this is an advertisement. Finally, as described above, There is the Set of Chess. there is subset, chess variants, subset Capablanca Variants, subset Gothic, Subsets Embassy and capablanca Random. As Capablanca random is a subset of Gothic as you describe, and Optimized is a subset of Capablance random, then the subset of optimized Chess is also a subset of gothic. don't see why it wouldn't belong. ThuranX 03:10, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Ed Trice is not saying any of those things that you mentioned. You are obviously misreading the thread. He asked people which images they liked. In effect, he called for a vote. When there was an agreement, he said he would put the image up on Wikipedia. Have you ever communicated directly with him? I have. He said he only looks at the page when he gets calls from concerned people or if he is "emailed to death" (his words) by Gothic Chess players who see something awry. Your hierarchy of sets and subsets seems off. It should be something like this

Chess

All Chess Variants

Capablanca Chess Inspired Variants (This is Gothic Chess, Capablanca Random Chess, and others)

At which point we have other branches at this level, and also below the level

Chess

All Chess Variants

Gothic Chess

Embassy Chess (Embassy was invented as a means to circumvent the Gothic Chess patent only, so it "springs from" Gothic, even though, otherwise, it would be at the same level if it was invented stand alone)

Another path would be

Chess

All Chess Variants

Capablanca Random Chess

Optimized Chess (this descends from CRC and neither Gothic nor Embassy, because Gothic pre-existed Embassy, Optimized Chess is very different from both Gothic and Embassy, and Optimized Chess came after CRC, and one can only say that Optimized Chess looks like an ordinary, random, CRC creation.)

For the above reasons, from a historical perspective (of which I am very aware) the sets you mention are not 100% reflecting the accuracy of the variants' respective chronologies.

ChessHistorian 03:38, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't addressing the subsets in terms of chronolgies, but nice attempt to recast my commentary. have to be bluntly honest here. This tactic which I've noted in the talk page there, and the AN/I here is to come back with a variant move on any ideas proposed. I address admissions of how the games evolved relative to each other, you reply that my list doesn't go chronologically, which I never implied it had. Not really an endearing behavior, but I've noticed this sort of You're talking about A, so I'll put you on the defensive by interpreting and responding to B.

To all interested parties, a related AfD is found here, regarding the Optimized Chess article, and in the discussions, the future of many, if not all of these minutely differentiated variations on the theme. ThuranX 05:16, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

ThuranX how is it that this statement:

Finally, it is so well designed, it is one of only two Capablanca chess variants that has been awarded with a fault-free rating via the select CRC analysis tool.

Has you completely fooled? The guy who invented the CRC analysis tool nominated his own game for the "fault free" award. Optimized Chess has been nominated for deletion. Nobody plays the game. Not even the guy who invented it. as stated repeatedly, there is not one photograph of one person playing one game of it.

ChessHistorian 16:59, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

You know, this condescending 'oh, look at this buffoon who's trying to get involved, yet cannot possibly be smart enough to paly OUR chess much less see that we are clearly so right nad the other so clearly wrong' attitude is getting insulting. I'm reading quite clearly. You don't like him or his game. I get it. IDONTLIKEIT is NOT a valid reason for much of anything here on Wikipedia. He plays his own game, I've yet to hear or see proof he doesn't, so don't use hyperbole. Second, there's no photo of Bigfoot, yet wikipedia has an article. So, we don't have a picture to go with the article isn't a reason. Ultimately, this comes down to ' I made my game, and Iwill protect my right to advertise it on wikipedia', 'We support his right to protect his advertisement on wikipedia', and 'we all don't want that guy diluting our profit margin by adding HIS info on HIS game to our advertisement on wikipedia.'. I'm really tired of this. It's quite apparent that Ed Trice is protecting his product's article on Wikipedia, to maximize his profit. that's a Conflict of Interest. It's apparent that the chess reporter for the Baltimore Sun is going to stick up for his reporting and subject of his article in a way that's frankly bizarre, and should probably be brought to the attention of his editors. That may well be another COI. So two guys with COI problems against a guy who's also talkin about HIS game. I'm done trying to sort this mess of COI out, let an admin block all of you. ThuranX 19:22, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

ThuranX your reaction is that of someone who lost a debate by a huge margin, then you just attempt a smear campaign. You overlooked something huge. The guy who nominated his own game with 0 followers for the "fault-free" award that he created is enough to embarrass anyone. Trust me, I know why you are ashamed of yourself for supporting the wrong side of the debate. Perception of condescension when there is none is a sign of an insecure person. The people who are posting remarks about the legitmacy of Gothic Chess are giants in the field of artificial intelligence, successful business owners, strong chess players, and computer science wizards. There is only 1 person backing the absurd variant trying to get his little link on the Gothic Chess page, and that is the person who invented it. There are no reasons to have that ridiculous game on the Gothic Chess page. The game isn't even played by anyone, including that game's inventor! You would think if he game is "so worthy" he could at least show someone playing it. Just one person.

The fact that nobody plays Optimized Chess is proof that is was just designed on paper. That game does not exist in the real world.

Look, we're all for it having its own little page somewhere. That's fine. Just don't say it belongs on the Gothic Chess page when that is just an absurd point of view.

I am also surprised that so many of these Wikipedia editors have such thin skins. Someone refutes your arguments, and refutes them thoroughly, and you go sulk, or try and rally support in numbers to oppose the people who are in the know about something. So what if you never wrote a computer program. So what if you never met former World Chess Champions or played games of your own variant with them and are photographed with them and had a multi-million dollar match arranged. When these topics arise, just respectfully acknowledge that maybe the posters who are supplying material to Wikipedia might know a little bit more than you on the subject.

If Wikipedia editing becomes a clique that is politically motivated to retaliate because someone who is more knowledgeable in some area rebukes someone within your circle of friends, it won't last. OK, people should use more moderate tones when offering feedback, but you more experienced writers should no better than to just gang up on these "know-it-alls".

Gothic Chess's page does not suffer from any Conflict of Interest posts. It suffers from detractors posting baiting attacks waiting for the supports to retaliate, then the baiters say "Look what they said, look what they said."

Special interest in the Senate is what killed Rome. Rome was big. Wikipedia is big. How widespread is the special interest? Time will tell.

GothicEnthusiast 05:41, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Excuse you. Your condescending attitude continues to pervade this discussion. All the 'evidence' above is YOUR assertion, based wholely, as far as I can tell, on two things. You don't like him and his version of your game, and he lcks a picture of the game being played in some tournament. That's hardly enough to validate your position. Your citations of the credentials of experts on OTHER variations and so on is not relevant to disproving the validity of this topic. Finally, all of that noise about how stupid I am to get fooled is insulting and hardly relevant to this discussion. Please focus on a clear explanation of why the game is not notable and so on, one NOT basede on arguments from authority, or arguments from special knowledge. If you can't, don't reply. I don't need to be called an idiot again. ThuranX 01:33, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

People, people, please calm down. I forgot,(intro.) Hello, I'm a recent user starting on Wikipedia a few months ago. If you want my opinion both sides brings up valid points, yet needs to moderate their language. I was wondering if the Optimized Chess has any non Orignial Research information about how it relates to Gothic Chess. However, there is a Conflict of Interest with the patent holder advocating a support of their own article. Also, is any of the participants adminstrators? If this comment is incorrectly places let me know on my talkpage first and then feel fre to remove it as I am still learning more about this wonderful website. Cheers. Janus8463 05:20, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, isn't the main point of the issue about User InfoCheck Violating 3 Revert Rule because I think this is an arguement that requires dispute resolution about chess variations amongst yourself, third parties, or even sysops. Just trying to point out the statement at the top of this article. Cheers again.Janus8463 05:27, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Spies appear to be editing on Wikipedia

Yesterday, I alerted AN/I of a BBC News article reporting that Wikipedia has determined that the Democratic Party in the United States has been attacking its opponents on Wikipedia. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6947532.stm The CIA also has done the same thing.

Almost immediately, the AN/I warning was removed. I also placed a warning on 4 controversial articles (2 about Democratic Party members and 2 on Republican Party members). All except 1 was immediately removed. This suggests that there may be spies working for 3 of the 4 politicians.

One of the articles that have potential spies working for it is Barack Obama (warning was immediately removed from that talk page.) Ophrahwasontv was writing in that article.

It seems that spies have fooled an administrator into blocking an editor who was proven not to be a sock. See RFCU clearing Ophrahwasontv.

See [6] where it says Unlikely for Oprahwasontv Collaborating with spies, even if by mistake, is bad for wikipedia. Remember, wikipedia determined that there are spies working against us according to the news article. I am shocked by the spies on Wikipedia. Orginally, I thought that there would be little controversy about the article since Wikipedia, itself, determined that there is spying.

Ophrah should be unblocked as she was blocked because of spies campaigning against her. More importantly, any content dispute should be examined for content, not number of editors editing because that is subject to manipulation by spies.

I don't care about Ophrah so much but people who reported to AN/I (causing her block) fail the duck test. They (the spies who attacked Ophrah) appear like socks and they were NOT cleared by the checkuser. The article they edit contentiously had my Wikipedia warning and the warning was removed within seconds.

The duck test is "If you complain about the spies being socks" then you must be a sock (because once a sock did make such complaint). With that flawed duck test, the spies are invincible (everyone who complains about the spies will be blocked indefinitely).

I am not so concerned about Barack Obama or Ophrah. I am concerned about the spy issue on Wikipedia. Since Hillary Clinton's article talk page still has my warning, I don't think she has active spies on her article.Warningwarningwarning 23:32, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

If you feel that there are editors pushing a POV for or against certain politicians, it would be best to name them and provide edit diffs. Otherwise we can't really do anything about it. --Hemlock Martinis 23:36, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

This little tool, http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/, will identify IP edits on wikipedia coming from a specific organization. seems to be down quite a bit (sever load) and slow, however its amazing what it uncovers. Happy hunting--Hu12 23:42, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

This user has been indefinitely blocked for disruption. They were blocked earlier for similar behavior on politician's WP articles, promised the blocking admin they would positively contribute, and then re-started this all as soon as the shortened 24 hr block expired.

I have indef blocked on the grounds that this is disruption and a single-purpose account. Georgewilliamherbert 23:45, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Warningwarningwarning (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has just given himself away as being another sock of banned user Dereks1x. Oprahwasontv (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) was just blocked as another one of his 30 socks. See this and above here. I would suggest that bhwin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) also be blocked as per this: not as a sock of myself, Bobblehead, Jersyko et al, but as another SPA sock of Dereks1x, established, again, in a lame attempt to legitimize the bogus RFCU on us. Tvoz |talk 23:52, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

"Spies" editing Wikipedia? That's a fresh new twist on the cabal conspiracy theories... Grandmasterka 00:25, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually no it's not. I heard on the radio just the other day about how government officials in the US have been tampering with the Iranian pages... Timeshift 00:30, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and you don't have to just hear it on the radio, it is on the wikiscanner website, so you can see for yourself once it is back up. Not to say that the edits are bad, particularly from the CIA. Although it is a tad distressing this is how they are passing time. =) daveh4h 01:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

This is not about whether there is factual evidence of those edits by the CIA, other agencies, companies, etc... That's now widely known, and has been for some days now. There was no emergency or emergent situation that justified trying to plaster large sections of the encyclopedia with warnings like this. Georgewilliamherbert 01:05, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

If it weren't for the sockpuppet relation, I would say that indefinitely blocking this guy is a bit out of line. It is not unreasonable to imagine someone, not familiar with Wikipedia, hearing about this and trying to start discussion about it. I recall not too long ago a teacher being blocked because they posted a survey (about Wikipedia editing) to some user talk pages, without even getting a warning before the block. We shouldn't forget that many people will not know how we normally do things, and we shouldn't be quick to block like this. -- Ned Scott 00:39, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

In this case, the deciding factor for me was that they promised to change behavior to get the first block length reduced, and then immediately turned around and started the behavior once the block expired.

I am much more tolerant of troublesome editors who just don't get it than I am of ones who appear to intentionally decieve admins. There are many explanations for not getting it; there's only one for such deception: it's an account for which WP:AGF has been shown to be a mistake.

Anything is possible, and if this turns out somehow bizarrely to have been a misjudgement on my part then so be it, it can be reversed. But this person had several chances and has done pretty much the clearly worst thing they could after each one, short of outright baldly attacking other editors here.

If you want to give them another chance, I won't stop you, but I suspect you'll be dissapointed. Georgewilliamherbert 00:46, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, a good point. Given that he said he would change his behavior, it would be at that point that we know he was aware of how we do things. -- Ned Scott 01:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

You can submit your findings here as well. By the way, your thread title is misleading. I don't think a NYT editor can be described as a spy when editing wikipedia from h/er office. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 10:30, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

A quick aside about the CIA editing wikipedia

Although cyberspace has no national boundaries, Wikipedia's servers are based in Florida, USA, and the domain name ".org" is a US registration. If my reading of Tom Clancy novels - and other sources of folklore - are correct isn't the CIA prohibited from operating within US territory? I don't suppose it matters much to the Foundation, but it may have implications for the Agency. LessHeard vanU 13:03, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

AFAIK (and I too am a fan of Clancy) they can't carry out illegal actions on US soil, or operations such as surveillance or wiretaps. I don't see that this would stop them editing Wikipedia, which anyone is entitled to do. However, I'm not an expert. Walton^One 13:28, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

According to a CIA spokesperson, "the US Intelligence agency is editing Wikipedia pages in order to save Americans lives". Of course they are entitled to edit but i just find their reasons odd. Editors here are not entitled to defend anyone's interests. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 14:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, if they put outside interests ahead of Wikipedia's interests, that's a conflict. There's nothing special about the CIA as far as we are concerned. I'm not aware of any law that says website operators must allow the CIA to review and modify content as they see fit. Somehow I don't think many Congress people will vote for CIA censorship of websites, given that we have the First Amendment and the Constitution. - Jehochman ^Talk 14:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes WP:COI but sneaky vandalism as well at Ahmadinejad's article. ;) -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 14:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I can imagine a number of BLP violations that could put lives at risk. THF 14:50, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

(Reply to Jehochman) So you're saying that our internal policy of neutrality is more important than saving lives? For the record, I'm not American, and I certainly don't endorse routine censorship of websites. However, it's established that the intelligence and security services of the free, Western world have a right and a duty to do what is necessary to protect citizens' lives. Wikipedia's policies are important to us, but they are not the most important thing in the world. Morally, we should not be fighting against the intelligence services (whether American, British or otherwise) who are daily risking their lives to protect citizens. The situation would be totally different if a dictatorship such as North Korea or Iran, or a terrorist group, was editing Wikipedia to advance their agenda - they should be stopped. But not the people whose mission is to defend the free world. My moral commitment to freedom and protection of lives trumps my commitment to Wikipedia policies any day, and I hope others feel the same. Walton^One 14:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree w/ you about it is important to know what comes first (saving lives) but i believe your analysis is totally biased. What about CIA covert operations all over the world? (i.e Project FUBELT and tens of others) Saving lives? What about lies and misleading info about Iraq WMD? How many people died because of that war? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

As an aside to an aside, I don't think OhmyNews is a terribly reliable source of information. The article FayssalF references above has several highly questionable, unsourced claims. I could be wrong, but until I see something more trustworthy, I sort of doubt that's a direct quote by a "CIA spokesperson". And did Wikipeida really "hire" Virgil Griffith? --barneca (talk) 15:05, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

It is on the BBC link above. And did Wikipeida really "hire" Virgil Griffith? Is this a conspiracy theory? So Wikipedia may only have recruited Virgil to trap the CIA. What about SONY, The Vatican, Al Jazeera, etc... editting? Is this a joke? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:16, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

No, not a joke. The OhmyNews link you provided says, specifically, that Wikipedia "hired" Virgil Griffith. I don't think that is true. I use that as evidence that this particular source is questionable. The BBC article does not quote the CIA spokesperson as saying "the US Intelligence agency is editing Wikipedia pages in order to save Americans lives". That appears to be a paraphrase made up by the OhmyNews reporter. --barneca (talk) 15:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe but that's irrelevant as Walton was implying that CIA people are editing to save people's lives. How? He was also implying that CIA can edit but not the Iranian govt! This is insane. The important thing here are wikipedia policies and not charity. We are not a law enforcement body. If CIA has to edit here then it should abide by Wikipedia rules. If you think otherwise than CIA editing Wikipedia would not have appeared in most mainstream media around the world. And please tell me how come CIA editing would save lives? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:32, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I think you think I have some agenda here. All I was pointing out is that I don't think a CIA spokesperson actually said the CIA is "editing Wikipedia pages in order to save Americans lives", and that the whole OhmyNews article should be taken with a giant grain of salt. Anything else you read into my comment is either confusing me with Walton, putting words in my mouth, or I suppose possibly my lack of clarity. That's why I called it an aside to an aside. I'll leave you and Walton to continue your discussion, and move on to other things. --barneca (talk) 15:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The news story may well be junk. As pointed out above, it's on a single website and isn't corroborated by published sources. And I, too, doubt the accuracy of the statement they ascribe to an unnamed "CIA spokesperson". In response to FayssalF's earlier comments, yes, my analysis is slightly biased. 99.9% of the time, I, like other Wikipedians, abide by WP:NPOV and Wikipedia's other core content policies while editing Wikipedia. However, Wikipedia is in the real world, and there are fundamental values which, for me, supersede Wikipedia's internal policies. This is not intended as a partisan rant; I don't endorse all the actions of the CIA, and, as I said, I'm not even American. But we have to trust the people whose job it is to defend freedom and democracy, even if they (like everyone else) sometimes make mistakes, or take morally questionable actions for the greater good. Walton^One 15:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Why? --John 15:31, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Which part of my statement does your query refer to? Walton^One 15:33, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Why? But we have to trust the people whose job it is to defend freedom and democracy. Do you have to trust people who lied about WMD? It was the CIA who were responsible of a death of almost a million people in this shitty war. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:35, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

(reset indent) Sorry I wasn't clear. Why do you believe we "have to trust" an intelligence agency, who, for all they may well be trying to "defend freedom and democracy", will also by definition be working according to their own priorities, one of which is probably not to improve this on-line encyclopedia? --John 15:38, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Given that the CIA's covert operations are not public knowledge, any alleged revelation of any alleged CIA operations are not possible to verify according to Wikipedia standards, and are thus inherently ineligible for inclusion in Wikipedia. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 15:37, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Just because a government agancy uses "saving lives" as an excuse doesn't mean its true. I am sure people at the agency see their core goal as saving american lives so they could say that everything they do is to save lives. We could also probably save lives by rewriting history and writing out all the reasons for strife. We should not blindly trust "the people whose job it is to defend freedom," or we lose the freedom we are trying to protect. I am sure the KGB and the North Korean intelligence services also claim[ed] to be saving lives and protecting freedom. If the CIA wants to edit wikipedia articles let them follow the same rules that we all follow. -- Diletante 15:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

To answer various points. In response to John, yes, of course the CIA and other government agencies are working according to their own priorities, and not to improve the encyclopedia. However, what I was saying is that the priorities of security and intelligence agencies - saving lives and protecting freedom - are more important than improving Wikipedia. Don't get me wrong. I value Wikipedia, I think it's a great project, and I've dedicated hours of my life to it. But we should remember that there are things in the real world which are more important than the accuracy and completeness of our encyclopedia; security and freedom are among them. As to Baseball Bugs' point, no one is aiming to reveal alleged CIA operations or include them in Wikipedia; that's not what this discussion is about. Walton^One 15:43, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, heavens. I am no fan of the new CIA, the political one, the one happy to undo the reforms of 1974, or any intelligence agency, but CIA editors are just editors. <shrug> It's possible that some wild-eyed editor writes, into an article, "Currently in a bunker at coordinates X by Y" and CIA editors know that that's actually a real position of troops, but the edit would be part of our usual process. If, on the other hand, they try to get Dick Cheney's house erased from photos on Wikipedia, that's another matter. They're just regular users, with regular rights, albeit with possibly specialized knowledge. Geogre 15:46, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with most of that, but not all. If the CIA, MI6, or another relevant agency privately contacted Wikipedia admins or the Foundation and asked to have a piece of sourced information removed from Wikipedia on the grounds of national security, then I hope we would do it. As a loyal British citizen, I can assure you that if MI5 or MI6 contacted me and asked me to make certain edits to Wikipedia, or use my administrative tools for a certain purpose, on the grounds of national security, then I would do as they requested. (Not that this would ever be likely - they'd more likely contact the Foundation directly.) Walton^One 15:50, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

And if there was an indication that you had done the latter, I would ask that you be desysopped. Hornplease 20:20, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

To put it another way, if a reliable, published source has some information about CIA operations, then it is eligible for inclusion. And if it's already published, then the "saving lives" argument goes down the drain. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 15:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

No, that's not at all what I was saying. I was saying that if, in theory, the CIA were to ask us to remove something that was cited to a reliable published source (whether about CIA operations or any other topic) on the grounds of national security, then we should do so. Bear in mind that even if something has already been published, putting it on Wikipedia (a high traffic site) is likely to significantly increase its exposure. If the CIA, MI6, or another relevant agency asks us to change Wikipedia in the interests of national security, we shouldn't ask why, or quibble. We should do it straight away. Walton^One 16:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

That's the odd point Walton. In Wikipedia policies and guidelines, it is not mentioned that you have to accept requests from CIA agents AND NOT from the Thai or Zambia's intelligence. It is about common sense and not about which agency contacted you. Would you deny Pakistani or Iranian intelligence services requests in case they'd contact you? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 16:02, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Woah, did something change while I was sleeping? We are still a free country, right? --Kbdank71 16:12, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree completely, If the CIA asks the foundation to do something we SHOULD quibble AND ask why. We should not do it straight away without talking to a lawyer and recieving a court-order. THat is what freedom is, bowing to the whims of three letter agencies destroys our freedom. In the US our FIRST right ennumarated is freedom of speech and the press. -- Diletante 16:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Since when is there any evidence that anyone who is actually from the CIA has asked Wikipedia to do anything? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 16:17, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I have just been asked by my CIA handler to archive this hypothetical discussion begun by a disruptive sockpuppet so that we can all get back to work saving lives building the encyclopedia. MastCell ^Talk 16:32, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes please because someone has just used this thread at wired.com in the form of a complaint! They even know who is an admin and who is not! -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 16:39, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Forsooth! Ods bodkins! Sufferin' succotash! Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 16:58, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

(unindent)...Er, folks, it was just a lighthearted comment. As far as I am aware the FBI acts within US territory interest and the CIA outside - but a lot of Wikipedia is physically within the USA.

For one, I would be delighted if either or both agencies (and those of other Nations) were to openly contribute to WP - intelligence gathering is a lot more to do with sifting and analysing information from various legitimate sources than the cloak and dagger stuff; access to that kind of database would be incredible - but I am not so happy if some of the bastions of democracy (y'know - the goodies who would never lie or do anything bad, and are answerable to their mistakes) were to introduce bias into the encyclopedia. It is difficult enough trying to convince individuals that their beliefs or opinions are not legitimate grounds to alter pieces, I don't even want to try picking through the edits of professional purveyors of half truths.

As for the argument that defending democracy legitimises the use of non democratic methods is akin to the old joke of fucking for virginity. They are supposed to be working for us, not the other way round. LessHeard vanU 19:25, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

My comments here seem to have sparked a lot of controversy, so I'll clarify. All I was saying was that both individual Wikipedians, and Wikipedia as an organisation, have a duty to aid the lawful authorities of their respective countries. I stated earlier that if MI5 or the UK government were to ask me to perform certain edits or sysop actions to Wikipedia in the interests of national security, then I would do so; it's extremely unlikely that this would ever happen, however. I was just trying to make the point that my loyalty as a British citizen outweighs my loyalty to Wikipedia. Likewise, the Wikimedia Foundation is an American institution, and has a moral obligation to aid the authorities of the United States, if asked to do so on the grounds of national security. If the CIA or FBI were to ask the Foundation to make certain edits - including oversight removal of information - then the Foundation should just do it. They shouldn't quibble, ask questions, or throw the matter open to debate. There are values more important than Wikipedia's internal policies and guidelines, and loyalty to our respective countries is one of them. Walton^One 11:07, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry if my comments have affected you Walton or been misinterpreted but Wikipedia is no battleground. We have editors from all over the world here and if everyone would execute the orders or at least requests of their respective intelligence agencies then it would be a total mess especially that not all agencies are working together (well at least and according to notable media venues most intelligences have worked in harmony against the widespread terrorist activities around the world). CIA and the Syrian intelligence (just to name one and not tens) have been working together in good and bad stuff. Please also have a look at this [Image:ExtRenditionMap.gif]. True or not true is not our problem as long as it is well sourced.

Please bear in mind that Wikipedia main activity is to document sourced events. It means information which was already been appearing at the news or at least somewhere where public has already been informed. In case there is something unsourced (most probably it would be controversial or maybe dangerous to human lives) then be assured that ANYONE can delete such garbage as we have policies giving us that right. So a scenario where an intelligence service would contact you is nonsense. In extreme cases, those people know whom to contact and surely would not contact you.

Again, everyone is allowed to edit unless WP:COI is affected or vandalism involved. In other words, Wikipedia already does its job which you think you could have done it in case someone contacts you. The problem is if those agencies come here to delete references to things they don't want people to read about, in most cases not involving people lives but any those organizations' reputation (i.e. "Black sites"). In that case, i assure you that Wikipedia comes first and not people lives as no people life would be in danger if someone removes something about "Black sites". Cheers. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:08, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:COI is a guideline. --Tbeatty 14:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe you failed to get my point. As i said, if people's live are in danger than, they would know whom to contact and surely would not contact you or me. If there's no people's life in danger than they would have to pay attention to WP:COI. What about Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation editing the same articles the CIA would edit and they'd get into an edit war? Who would try to mediate or block one or both of them if they persist w/o "trying to discuss"? You? Or would you edit war yourselves?. - FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 20:52, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It would appear that Conflict of Interest is more and more acceptable in the encyclopedia. And not just for US interests (though they compromise the integrity of the project too). PalestineRemembered 14:53, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Conflict of interest always has been, and always will be, impossible to prevent. There is no way to police who makes every edit and people with a direct interest in things often know/care the most about it. That's why we have a guideline rather than a policy about COIs. We discourage users from editing in areas where they have a conflict, but do not prevent it. We have neutrality and sourcing policies precisely to deal with COIs and other biases. Thus, COI is no more or less 'acceptable' than it has ever been... it exists. And we deal with it in the same way we always have.

As to the whole 'CIA/MI5 over-ride' discussion... anything which can be properly sourced is widely available already. If Wikipedia is giving something vastly wider coverage than it had previously then it doesn't belong in Wikipedia to begin with. So, if Wikipedia reported Geraldo's infamous 'troop movements moment' that isn't putting anyone at risk because the info was already widely distributed... if a soldier in the field posted the same thing such that it was available on Wikipedia and nowhere else it couldn't be sourced and should be removed. Ditto Wikipedia reporting on 'Valerie Plame' vs a NOC outed only on an obscure website and not picked up by the mainstream media. Wikipedia collects and retains information about things which have already been found notable by the rest of the world. Any information which is 'secret' doesn't belong here. Anything else which we might be asked to remove would be more on the order of altering the historical record to hide facts that are otherwise commonly available... and thus I'd be very much against it. --CBD 12:52, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

BetacommandBot and commons

Ive started a bot to move images to commons please see User:Betacommand/Commons β^_command 13:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

If that bot moves any of the free images I uploaded, I will block it. I don't want them on Commons, where I can't keep an eye on them and have them on my watchlist. Are you going to bother to ask users first if they want their images moved, or do you know best? Neil ム 16:55, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

wtf? read the wording of the GFDL. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 17:07, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

He said he'd block, not sue for copyright infringement. There are a lot of things that are legal to do in the US that will still get you blocked on WP. --W.marsh 18:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

One do not make threats about blocking the bot. Two if they are free images they should be on commons. Three please see WP:OWN. Four if you want to civilly discuss this then please do but threats are not a good thing. β^_command 17:04, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I hurt the bot's feelings. Why should they be on Commons? Please point me in the direction of the relevant policy that says this is the case. This is civil - please ask users before moving their images, as a courtesy, if nothing else. I would imagine many many users would not be happy, particularly if they hold the same opinion of Commons I do. Neil ム 17:10, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

What have you got against commons? Theresa Knott | The otter sank 17:12, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

(ec - note I was refactoring my response and got conflicted). I don't like Commons because it takes away local control, and allows people to merrily upload pictures of their meat and two veg and vandalise Wikipedia with them. I also don't like it because I wouldn't be able to watchlist my images. Neil ム 17:17, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Commons has a watchlist feature just like en Wikipedia. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 17:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

But I don't want to have two jump between two accounts. Sigh. Neil ム 17:22, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok please see WP:OWN as soon as you uploaded those images under a free license they no longer belong to you. so if wikipedians think they should be on commons then that is where they will go. as for not being able to watch images, do you have e-mail? commons e-mails you when pages on your watchlist change β^_command 17:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

No problem, I will delete them and reupload them under a suitable tag. Is there a tag I can apply to ensure they don't move to Commons? Neil ム 17:22, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

why not just use the commons e-mail tool? β^_command 17:29, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Why should I have to? Neil ム 17:37, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I think maybe you're missing the point that they're not your images. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 17:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Neil, only if they are fair use. Otherwise, free images can (and preferably will) go to Commons. And once they are uploaded, they not yours. Majorly (talk) 17:30, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

This isn't true. You own images you license under GFDL, you just have to let other people use them. But you still own them. Quite frankly, Neil is also well within his administrative priviledge to block Betacommandbot for disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point. Moving images to commons is disruptive. WilyD 19:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think suggesting I would block the bot was one thing I should not have done. Neil ム 20:07, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

It makes perfect sense that they would be added to Commons, what doesn't make sense is that they would then be deleted from the English Wikipedia, an act which helps Commons not at all and only makes our life more difficult. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem is with Commons rather than the bot which is unhelpful but legit

I share Neil's sentiment but I must add Neil has no means on doing anything to have it his way. By uploading the images to Wikipedia under Commons-compatible license he has no way of preventing them being uploaded to commons. That said, this brings us back to the most serious problem of commons, its being subject to flukes. Suppose the editor uploads a free image to WP. Then, someone moves it to commons. Soon enough the WP copy gets deleted. Then, after the new attack of Commons' wannabe copyright lawyers (wanna a couple of names? can give you ten!) the image gets deleted from commons because the commons' view on a particular copyright rule changes again. Wikipedia image is gone by now. Result: article looses an image.

How can it happen? Many scenarios. Only user-created images uploaded under GFDL or cc-by-sa are reasonably safe forever. PD? No. Rules change. One day commons may move to allowing only world-wide PD images. Are you sure there is no country where the life of copyright is 300 years since the death of the author? Or that there cannot be in 5 years? Copyright laws do change retroactively sometimes.

Next: suppose the PD image is sourced to a web-site. In three years the site goes down. Some freak from the "copyright patrol" (wanna name? I can give you ten!) tags it as "source invalid", in ten days image is gone. Image's author who would have a better chance noticing the event on-wiki has no idea with what is going on on commons. Result is the same. Article looses image.

The problem is not the bot. The problem is with Commons. Neil, I share your sentiment. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do. You can beg Betacommand and his friends to not move your image but this would be asking for a favor and I doubt it would work. --Irpen 17:30, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Neil, while you may hold the copyright on the images, they have been licensed in such a way that we can copy them any way we want. What is more, Wikipedia has never made any sort of promise to you that it will host your images. If you want them to stay on Wikipedia, you best bet is to ask nicely, because you are not in a position to demand. Blocking the bot for such an action would be a highly inappropriate use of your admin tools. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 17:33, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Massive edit conflict ... what they all said, with a few additions, the most important one being about the ability to restore deleted images. If the Commons policy is in some way different from the EN policy, we admins can restore an EN deleted image, drop us a note. Or, well, I hate to even mention this, but if someone deletes an image for ... other inappropriate reasons ..., we can restore it as well. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 17:35, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

He's already deleting them. I am disappointed that an Admin would be this unaware of the terms of the GFDL, and would take such action. Of course, any particularly good photos can be undeleted, since the GFDL license can't be revoked. Thatcher131 17:36, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Does GFDL require that attribution must remain? Neil ム 17:36, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Thatcher131 17:38, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Then please explain where my attribution has gone from [3] and [4]. Then tell me again why Commons respects GFDL. Neil ム 17:40, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Well that image wasnt copied from wikipedia, if you want I can show you a few examples of my move to commons. I copy the upload history, page history, and the page text. making the transwiki'ing of images 100% GDFL compliant and covering all the bases and ensuring all users get credit for their work. β^_command 17:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

That sounds great, Bc. Please do point to an example. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 20:15, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Neil, I suspect the problem was that you didn't explicitly give attribution in the image text, you just put GFDL-self, and assumed the self-part would be obvious. Betacommand, can you make sure the bot notes any GFDL attribution when moving an image to Commons? This includes giving the user name of the uploader when using GFDL-self. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 17:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Apparently commons user c:User:Billy1125 uploaded them without properly attributing them. You could ask on commons for them to be deleted or you could provide the proper information. Although I have not examined BCBot's code (and wouldn't know what to look for if I did) I suspect that the Bot will properly attribute all images, since failing to do so would raise yet another shitstorm. Allowing your images to be moved by the bot (or moving them yourself) would be the best way to guarantee proper attribution. Thatcher131 17:49, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

see my comment above. β^_command 17:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Massive edit conflict. Thatcher, You are right about the "yes" above but not fully right that GFDL cannot be revoked. Technically it can be revoked but it won't affect the derivative work where the image is already used or prevent taking a copy from the source where the originally GFDL image is copied. But one can prevent the image from being copied from the original place he uploaded it to by revoking GFDL. This is a technicality that affects little though. However, this has little to do with the problem of commons that make editors resent having their images move there. But, again, there is nothing one can do. True enough. --Irpen 17:43, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Neil (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) appears to be using his admin-bit to delete his GFDL images in protest under the "user request" CSD criteria. This seems disruptive, petty, and poor conduct to boot. It's terribly disappointing, and sets a poor precedent. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 17:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

If I were an admin, I would gladly follow his example. It's for nothing that I uploaded some of the images to Wikipedia rather than to Commons. Take Prokudin-Gorsky images, dating from before 1915. Some of them were modernized and colored by myself, and I could reasonably expect that my name as the uploader will be shown. Not at all. These pictures have long ago been moved to Commons and now may be seen on websites all over the world, without proper attribution of the original uploader or person responsible for their restoration. Can anybody name the person responsible for the restoration of Image:Sochi edited.jpg? Only I can. --Ghirla^-трёп- 13:08, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

He stopped at 13:31, August 17, 2007 Neil (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Image:Lincolnblack.jpg". Thank goodness. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 18:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I have restored the few of them that were used in articles and not yet "commonized". The rest are only used in Neil's gallery and in one talk archive. Миша13 18:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

He just deleted another: "11:13, 17 August 2007 Neil (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Image:Dryskislope1.jpg" (GFDL revoked. See my talk page.)" Petty. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 18:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

You are entitled to your opinion, Chairboy, but name-calling is not helpful. I have used my revoked any GFDL licensing associated with those images, until I can find a satisfactory license. Please see the note on my talk page regarding this. Neil ム 18:17, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not calling you a name, I'm ascribing the motivation of "pettiness" to your actions. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 18:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it is a good time to start doing something about the commons' problems as outlined above? We should at least try. --Irpen 17:55, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

C'mon, you know that AN/I has no dominion over commons. The question is whether Betacommand's bot obeys all requirements (attribution, etc.) - it does. Some users may be concerned over images deleted at commons, but it's easy enough to keep track of all transwikied files, the bot could even be modified to include a "Images transferred by such-and-such" cat in the process. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 18:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Personally, my higher priority than moving images is checking that things other people copied to commons was done properly. Just yesterday I found one of my photos had been copied there almost a year ago without attribution by someone who obviously didn't know it was necessary. In that time no one had figured out that a whole set of photos had been improperly copied from en.wiki to the very same image names. How hard would that be to check? — Laura Scudder ☎ 14:35, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Improper speedy deletions of the images should be reverted. The images should only be deleted if they've gone through a deletion review process. Neil, just because you uploaded the images doesn't mean you can delete them whenever you want to. Corvus cornix 18:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Would those images not be eligible for a speedy G7 deletion? Or does that not apply to images (and if so, why not? WP:SPEEDY says that "General [speedy deletion]criteria...apply to all namespaces."). --ElKevbo 18:35, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

As Neil has resumed his image deletion spree, now claiming to have revoked the GFDL from his images, and seems to have no intention of stopping, I have blocked him for 24 hours. I regret that this is necessary, but he is using his admin tools to disrupt the project on a potentially massive scale. --Krimpet 18:28, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Blocking an admin doesn't prevent him or her from using admin tools. Mike R 18:33, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a bit much for even a mop wielding mouse without a law degree. User talk:Mikegodwin#Time for the WP's official copyright lawyer to weigh in. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 18:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Both Neils' deletions and blocking him are wrong solutions of a serious problem whose real solution is long overdue. --Irpen 18:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Blocking Neil is absurd and it's only going to make this conflict worse. If he isn't unblocked very soon, I'm going to review his unblock request. Sarah 18:41, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Krimpet unblocked Neil after off-line discussion in which Neil agreed to stop deleting and talk it out. Mike Godwin hasn't yet weighed in, but I suspect will probably be the definitive voice here. More news available at a very reasonable price ...  :-) --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 19:18, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict w/above)I apologize if my block was on the hasty side =/ -- I only resorted to a block as I was concerned that he intended to continue deleting images. After discussing it with him in private, he has promised to me that he will pursue his concerns in the proper forums, and I have unblocked him. --Krimpet 19:20, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, commons is a problem but this is even a bigger problem that plagues the Wikipedia. Please never ever "block on the hasty side"!. --Irpen 19:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

• One potential problem with commons that I haven't seen raised is the reason why commons was created: to a be a common repository of images that could be used across a range of projects. In other words, all the different language Wikipedias, and other projects as well, I believe, can use the same image that is on Commons. This is a feature, and often a desirable one. The "usage" tool on Commons exists to allow people to track how their images (where 'their' refers to them as the photographer) are being used. However, there will always be people who don't want to do things this way, and would prefer to limit their images to just one location. I wonder if there is a way to have a licence that does this: "free, but only use here"? Or is that against everything that the free content movement stands for? One of my free pictures was picked up and used in the French Wikipedia, which I was very pleased about, but I'm less certain what my reaction would be if I saw a picture I took being used in an article that was written in a language I didn't understand ((eg. Japanese). I would want to be sure they were not misusing the picture, but maybe this points at the real problem. A photographer releasing free pictures must, at some point, trust the re-users of the content to use the free pictures responsibly. Carcharoth 19:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is free! You need to understand what this means. Anyone can reuse your photo for any reason they like provided the follow the GFDL. There is nothing to stop somone bypassing commons and copying and pasting your image to another language wikipedia. There is nothing to stop soming copying and pasting your image to another internet site, even one you heartily disaprove of. If you licence under a free licence users are free to do whatever they want with the image as long as they follow the licence instructions. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 20:01, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Krimpet... I agree with Irpen, please think and discuss before you block. Now you seem to be apologizing to WP:ANI for a hasty block — what's that about? How about a word of regret to Neil, in his actual block log? You do realize it was previously squeaky clean, but will now forever more be displaying your claim that he used admin tools disruptively ? Followed only by your rather ungracious unblock message? Think about it. Please. Bishonen | talk 19:55, 17 August 2007 (UTC).

Bish, Krimpet has apologised and I have accepted. I don't think it's productive going after her at this juncture. Neil ム 20:06, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see widespread condemnation of his actions. As entertaining as jumping up and down on him after he's unblocked might seem, he performed a block he felt was correct, and unblocked it when Neil agreed to stop his spree and help work out a solution to this mess. If you still have a problem w/ Krimpet, do something about it other than sniping at an 'easy target'. While you're at it, do you disagree with the assertion that Neil was disrupting the project to make a point? 1. This conversation is evidence enough that he caused disruption, and 2. He's doing this to make a point about Commons, which he has a self-described irrational dislike of. Before you try and start a pile-up, consider the context please. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 20:02, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I won't comment other than to point out deleting 4 images is not a spree in any sense of the word. Neil ム 20:04, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Let's not jump up and down on either Krimpet, or Neil, they've made peace. We can talk about the issues, try to reach agreement ourselves, wait for Mike Godwin to be the Voice From On High, or both, but recriminations can only make things worse, not better. Let's aim for better. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 20:07, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm w/ AnonEMouse on this. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 20:18, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Blocking was a bad move. Images can be undeleted after discussion, there was no emergency here. Neil, as far as I can tell the problem with your images on commons is that a user uploaded images he did not own and used a false license. It's not as though this problem is unique to commons. There as here, no one knows about the problem until they are informed. I have a commons user ID and would be happy to fix the info if you wish. Or you could ask a commons admin to delete them and then transwiki them properly. In fact, the best way to preserve your attribution would be to let BCBot do your images. Thatcher131 20:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

• Could someone please explain, or point to an explanation, of the problems with Commons. I agree with some of the descriptions of these problems, and have stated some above. I'd like to also respond to two points above:
  • (a) Theresa Knott said: "Wikipedia is free!" Yes, I know that. But images are different from text. Text can be mercilessly edited. Images can be edited too, but there are restrictions on that. This might boil down to creative control. Many photographers contributing free content have no problem with their pictures being redistributed, but do have problems with their pictures being altered: (a) cropping; (b) cleaning; (c) colour levels; (d) other photoshopping stuff. Ditto for inappropriate use (eg. misleading captions), and failure to credit the photographer. Could someone explain to me which CC licence (the 'some rights reserved' stuff) is best for addressing these concerns, as opposed to the GFDL (was that license ever even intended to be used for photographs?).
  • (b) Christopher Parham said: "It makes perfect sense that they would be added to Commons, what doesn't make sense is that they would then be deleted from the English Wikipedia, an act which helps Commons not at all and only makes our life more difficult." - could he or someone explain this in more detail? Or point somewhere where this is clearly explained?
• Thanks. Carcharoth 20:33, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
  • • What gives you the idea that images are different than text? Images can be mercilessly edited according to both the GFDL and the CC by SA. The fact that we choose not to on the whole doesn't mean the licence stops us. If photographers have a problem with their images being photoshopped then they must not upload them to wikipedia. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 20:59, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem is the loss of control in moveing an image to commons and deleteing it from en. Commons is a seperate project with different priorities and lower levels of anti-vandle skills.Geni 20:41, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

When an image is deleted from here, editors can no longer include it on their English Wikipedia watchlist and administrators can no longer protect it. Changes to the image obviously affect our product but aren't in our recent changes list, aren't in our administrative logs. If we find recent changes, watchlists, protection, etc. to be useful features, why are we systematically destroying them in regard to free images? Deleting the image also introduces confusion about what is the proper place to discuss the image with regard to its inclusion in this encyclopedia: at the commons talk page or at the talk page of the deleted image page here? Commons isn't helped in any way by deleting the image from Wikipedia, so the effort we put into deleting images that have been moved to Commons is pretty counterproductive. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

You cannot "revoke" GFDL. From the license itself "Such a notice grants a world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration, to use that work under the conditions stated herein". "unlimited in duration". Thats the whole point of GFDL, and it is why people on Wikipedia do not get to control their contributions. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 21:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

That would be true if GFDL were a contract; it is a licence, and can be revoked as long as the contributor remains the sole contributor. Neil ム 21:13, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Extreamly doubtful. Once you have released something under the GFDL people can continue to use it under the GFDL as long as they can get of hold of a copy.Geni 21:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

There no such concept as a "contributor" in GFDL. When you upload an image you own as GFDL, you're giving the Wikimedia Foundation a irrevocable license to use the image for any purpose. And very time someone's browser downloads this image, this person gets a irrevocable license to use the image for any purpose. That said, if you delete this image from Wikipedia, I can, for instance, re-upload it under a different name, as long as I credit you as the author and tag it as gfdl. --Abu badali ^(talk) 21:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Now you're all talking about the trees instead of the forest, but let me just point out something really obvious. I write, "Flannery O'Connor's stories always have a theological content, and she said that her sole theme was grace." Now, it gets edited. Fine. It turns into, "Flannery O'Connor ate boogers and liked a girl called grace." That's no longer my contribution. I.e. no one would credit the last statement to me. No one would say that it was my contribution. In fact, it's so obvious as to hardly need saying. However what is going on with the editing of a photograph is that the edits make it no longer the same photograph. I.e. it is no longer "My pet bird" but "Editor Bobo's picture of a bird." Because photographs are single objects rather than documents, because they "mean" all at once rather than in sequence, there is no way to change it "a little" and have it be "mostly the same." The moment you edit it, it's not the same thing at all. Therefore, any edit of a photograph is, in a sense, a brand new photograph that requires separate licensure. The original contributor basically allowed others to use the photograph, including using it as the basis of a new artwork created by editing, but the edited object is not the original. I would be miffed if someone said, "Geogre said Flannery O'Connor was a lesbian," and I'd be miffed if the photo of my pet bird suddenly had a pirate under its claws. It isn't that people can't edit -- the license allows that -- but then the result of any editing is no longer covered by the original donation/license. Geogre 21:45, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I believe you're more or less mistaken. I can only change your Flannery O'Connor's statements in my Flannery O'Connor statement because you licensed your Flannery O'Connor under GFDL. My newly created Flannery O'Connor is a derivative work from your original work, and we are co-authors. And per GFDL, I have the obligation to credit you and me, and the obligation to license my derived Flannery O'Connor's statement under GFDL (the viral copyleft thing). If I fail to credit you or to license the derivative work as GFDL, I'm violating your copyrights.

This is in no way different with images. When I draw a pirate on your bird's picture, I'm using my gfdl-granted right to create a derivative work. Again, we (you and me) are the authors of the derivative work. If I refuse to license this derivative work as GFDL, I'm also refusing my GFDL-granted right to use the image. --Abu badali ^(talk) 22:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

There are other laws which would see people get into a lot of trouble for inappropriately photoshopping GFDL pictures, such as those of a living person. That and basic ethics. This is why I, on principle, don't upload pictures of people under the GFDL. A more restrictive licence, yes, but not one that allows alteration of the original image. The equivalent here is changing a picture of Flannery O'Connor to "show" that Flannery O'Connor "is a lesbian". By the way, thanks to Geogre for using this example: Flannery O'Connor is a nice story, if a somewhat sad one. Anyway, the point is that images are different from text. Collaborative editing on a piece of text is very different to collaborative editing on an image. Try it some time. Carcharoth 22:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Which is why GFDL is not a very good license for pictures. See also the "moral rights" story in the Signpost this week, regarding the CC 3.0 license: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-08-13/CC 3.0. Carcharoth 22:57, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Do you understand that Wikipedia's policies does not allow you to upload images of living people under any license that would prevent modification? --Abu badali ^(talk) 23:02, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes I do understand that. When I said "I, on principle, don't upload pictures of [living] people under the GFDL.", that translates to "I, on principle, don't upload pictures of [living] people". You seemed to have interpreted it the other way, as meaning "I upload them under a different license", which is not what I meant. Another way to put this is: I'm not going to take a picture of someone and then say to them "is it OK if I upload this picture to the internet under a license that allows anyone to do what they want with it?" I wouldn't give someone permission to upload a GFDL picture of myself, so I don't presume to ask other people that question. It's an ethical stance, based partly on personality rights: "the right of every individual to control the commercial use of his or her name, image, likeness, or some other identifying aspect of identity". Essentially, there are other ways to bar commercial use of content, over and above the GFDL. Essentially, the GFDL does not operate in a vacuum. You have to consider other laws. If modication of a GFDL image leads to fraud, defamation, libel or slander, then the copyright status of the image becomes irrelevant. Do you understand that? Carcharoth 23:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

• And from that Signpost story: "Moral rights, as defined by most legal systems, include the right to "the integrity of the work", barring the work from alteration, distortion or mutilation." - that is the sort of clause I would be happy with. If someone can confirm to me that this new CC 3.0 license is better in that respect than the GFDL, I will upload any future pictures I take to Commons and allow free distribution, but not "alteration, distortion or mutilation". Or am I misunderstanding all this (quite possibly!). Any advice would be appreciated (and sorry for posting this here - where would be a better place to continue the discussion?). Carcharoth 23:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
  • On reflection, I think my position is better stated as "you are welcome to take a copy of the picture and modify it, but please remove me from the list of authors, I only want to be associated with the picture I took, not the modifed form you produce". But then that runs into the situations of people only cleaning or slightly cropping an image - I'd still want to be credited as the major author of the photograph. It is more the, "I'm going to take a copy of your picture, run it through a shredder, invert the colours, throw a can of paint over it, doodle on it, and then call it art" cases, that would lead me to say "well, I'd prefer it if you don't associate me with that". Does that make any sense? Carcharoth 23:40, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I think Christopher Parham's point above was a good one: deleting images that have been copied to Commons causes more problems than it solves, particularly with images whose copyright has expired. Since the English Wikipedia requires only that these images be public domain in the United States, while Commons requires that they also be public domain in the source country, the transwikiing process is full of traps for the unwary. Many images tagged {{PD-US}}, and at least some that are tagged {{PD-Art}} and {{PD-art-life-70}}, do not meet Commons's licensing requirements and are likely to be deleted there when someone finally notices them, but many people who transwiki images are unaware of this.

If we stopped deleting images after they have been transwikied, then Commons could make its own decisions about them without their being lost from Wikipedia articles. —Celithemis 00:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

• I don't know why anyone hasn't pointed this out, but a huge problem with moving images to Commons with a bot is that all the time people upload images under "GFDL" or "PD" that aren't, and are found on Google Image Search or the like. These usually get deleted after a time, but odds are the bot will just mindlessly copy them over, aggravating the Commons folk and vastly increasing the damage. —Dark•Shikari^[T] 04:00, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
  • to address Dark Shikari's issues I will not automatically transwiki images to commons just because {{commons ok}} is on the image. I only allow certain users to tag images to be transwikied users who use the commons ok and are not approved just get ignored. Users who tag images to be moved to commons are noted on the commons image when its moved. If I get a complaint from commons I will remove said user from the list and ask questions later. β^_command 05:01, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
• Not a lawyer, but I think that people are getting hung up on the difference between licensing an image and hosting an image. I think that it's GFDL for good once it's been released as such, but that doesn't mean that we have some moral obligation to keep the image here for people to see and copy. The free/unfree status of the image is not dependant upon its presence in any particular location, so it'd be just as free after it was deleted here as it was before - it'd just be less easily accessable. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 15:17, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

"No Commons" template

I feel that Commons has thoroughly discredited itself on many levels, so that many wikipedians are reluctant to have anything to do with it. Is it possible for them to upload their images under GFDL, specifying that they prohibit the image from being used on one particular website (and that particular website will be Commons)? If this solution is legally possible, I will create Template:GFDL noCommons and reupload some of my pictures under this license. Your opinions are welcome. --Ghirla^-трёп- 13:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Ghirla, such a template is not legally possible, and is ludicrous besides. By releasing your image under the GFDL, you are giving blanket permission for it to be used by anyone who abides by the terms of the license agreement, which Commons most certainly does. This is a necessary requirement for something to be free. If a work cannot be freely redistributed it isn't free at all, and we wouldn't accept it on the site. We do not allow users to upload their images with restrictive requirements. No "by permission only" and certainly no restrictions on where the image can be used. --Cyde Weys 14:38, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, if you want that level of control over your intellectual property, then don't set it free with a free license. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 14:41, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I do not think this could be legally possible. GFDL and such restriction seems to be incompatible. Perhaps the only way to avoid an image to be transferred to Commons would be to tag it with a licence that is compatible here on Wikipedia but not compatible on Commons. But an important point is that this argument is made of two rather separate points. One is that an image is copied to Commons and the other is that is delete from Wikipedia. Since the main part of the problem is the second one (since a person who has upload an image here under GFDL was ok that the image was copied anywhere and in modified version too, I can no see that the main problem could be the copy to Commons). So preventing the copy to Commons would not solve the actually problem, but it would just a way to stop this procedure. By the way even preventing a new image to be copied to Commons, would not prevent that an old image could be copied to Commons (and this even if the image was delete).

One more point that I would like to note is that if an image is delete and that is not what the community wants, the image should be restored. Now here there is the difference that it is automatically believed that an image once upload to Commons could be (safely) delete from wikipedia and does not to be restore on wikipedia. Now the short way to solve out the problem that an image is delete is to undelete it, and add a note of the reason of that, putting a note that the image is not delete again for it have been uploaded to Commons. But on the other hands it should be investigated the reason why an image should be delete (for instance having it on more than one place use disk space - i am actually not sure on this), and it would be a good idea to discuss the problem arose with this discussion among the involved communities (including not only the English Wikipedia and Commons, but possibly other projects too and surely involving developers - since the reasons for commons to exists are first of all of technical reason).

All of this actually rise me one more question. Would be interesting a feature that allow to include on a page a specific version of an image? This would avoid the problem that a page is vandalized by change an image that it include. (a similar result would be get by forbidding to uplad an image with the same name, but this is a way that I like less). -- AnyFile 14:39, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

There is no license a Wikipedian is allowed to upload under that is incompatible with Commons. You must choose a free license when uploading an image, either (certain) Creative Commons, GFDL, public domain, or something like it. We do not allow users to upload their own work under more restrictive fair use clauses. --Cyde Weys 14:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Please see WP:AN#Crafting a response to attempted GFDL revocations; it is very relevant to this discussion. --Cyde Weys 15:18, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to second the position that you may not license an image to be used on Wikipedia under conditions that do not allow it to be copied to Commons. There are legitimate issues on Commons with miscopying information when things get moved, deletion policy, and such, which should be corrected or otherwise dealt with—but not by using a restrictive license as a tool to exclude content from it. (I don't think there's anything wrong with keeping a local copy of images that get copied to Commons, if people feel strongly about it.) Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 16:40, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

CSD I8 is not sacrosanct. It can be rewritten or removed, if that's what the collective wisdom suggests. Angus McLellan (Talk) 17:05, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

If there is a real risk of an image we would consider acceptable being deleted on commons or replaced with a significantly different image, then I8 should be modified. I8 assumes that the existence of a commons image makes it pointless to have a local copy. A different risk of deletion or change at commons invalidates that assumption. I say this as a matter of logic, while holding no opinion on the actual risk level. GRBerry 03:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It is pehaps worth noting at this point that CSD I8 says that images may not be deleted under it if the image description page contains an objection to moving them to Commons. So, while you may not actually stop anyone from copying your free image to Commons — provided they do so according to the license you've chosen, in particular preserving attribution where required — simply writing "I do not want this image to be moved to Commons." on the image description page is enough to prevent it from being deleted from Wikipedia. (And yes, there probably should be a template to that effect, if there isn't already.) Personally, I think doing so is silly and counterproductive, but if you want redundant copies of your images to be kept on enwiki, you can have it that way. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 13:53, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

The project has NEVER been wikipedia only. If you don't want your image to be copied to any website in the world then don't release it under a free license. We don't want non free material. Secretlondon 14:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm slightly amazed that someone can get to be an administrator and yet still not understand free content.. Secretlondon 14:09, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Preventing a move to Commons is legally impossible, obviously. But how about we change WP:CSD#I8 to say "The image cannot be deleted if the original uploader objects for any reason"? --- RockMFR 19:45, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

• Frankly, no. That only encourages WP:OWNership and petty WP:POINT responses like the above by Neil. I echo Secretlondon's amazement, and believe Neil should have his adminship revoked. >Radiant< 12:06, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

  As per my message on your talk page, Radiant, either file an RFC or stop making such comments. I am not asking for the image to be Wikipedia only - I have no objection whatsoever to it being copied to Commons or anywhere else. All am I asking is that a local copy be retained. I am not sure how that should lead to my adminship being revoked. Neil ム 17:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

  How is this statement supportable, in light of your attempt to rescind the GFDL licensing of your images? You were clearly disrupting the project to make a point about Commons. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 18:37, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Willful WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA violations by User:Jeeny after warning

User has been persistently using Talk:White people has a personal forum and making personal attacks.

• 17:41, 17 August 2007 "Don't play stupid" - on its own not a big deal, but followed up with more
• 18:19, 17 August 2007 Abusive, not civil
• 19:20, 17 August 2007 Explicitly refuses civility, "sneaky doublespeak", "bullshit" etc.
• 20:43, 17 August 2007 Suggests calling other user "hitler"
• Warned: 20:43, 17 August 2007 Warned on her talk page
• 20:48, 17 August 2007 Removes warning, "You flake" etc. in edit summary
• 20:52, 17 August 2007 "ugly person" in edit summary

The refusal to stop once warned and repeated subsequent violations of WP:CIVIL after being warned indicate to me that this is willful rather than a mistake or passing indiscretion. If it were just one or two instances it would not be much of a problem but it seems to becoming a matter of habit and warnings are only inviting more of the same. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 04:22, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

A few days ago, Jeeny announced her retirement and I definitely detected a collective sigh of relief from other editors. However, only two days later she is back hurling abuse and slander. Perhaps a long block may enable her to mature a bit and gain some perspective. Along with Muntuwandi, they are making certain articles hostile and extremely difficult to edit and improve. --देसीफ्राल 04:34, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Blocked for 48 hours. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 04:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

There is more to this situation than meets the eye - I shall endeavor to provide appropriate context. From what little I've noted, I remember Fourdee expressing great enthusiasm towards the linked article that offended her [5], mentioning that he was "shocked" that "someone could not only not get what the woman is saying, but be so offended by it they had to go hide." He said this right after Muntuwandi mentions that Jeeny was upset by the article and left Wikipedia.

Fourdee has revealed what appears to be a pro-Nazi POV behind his edits & suggestions (suggesting using a picture of Hitler,supported a troll who wanted to add a Nazi soldier as a photo,wants to add the "Nazi POV" & calls description of the Holocaust as mass murder "POV-pushing", to provide a few quick examples).

It is clear that Jeeny is very offended by Nazism, yet Fourdee had the nerve to give her a farewell that, all things considered, amounts to trolling ("Tschüss," with a less-than-sincere-sounding note). I certainly didn't miss this interpretation, and neither did Jeeny [6].

What we have seen here is that Fourdee's more subtle trolling has succeeded in provoking Jeeny into a fit of incivility. That Fourdee is not blocked as well really sends the wrong message, as it rewards quiet instigation of disruption and harassment of sensitive users, perhaps to eliminate/block those who oppose an extremist agenda. I hope that the situation will be appropriately reconsidered by uninvolved readers of this post, and I invite further discussion.

With much concern, The Behnam 05:22, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Users who are overly sensitive should probably stay away from such controversial articles, as when emotions are running high, scientific thought and civility often come second. Fourdee did not support the Nazi SS soldier being kept in the article, but its retention on wikipedia, as it appears to be a colorised version of another photo. --देसीफ्राल 05:29, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

1) someone else offending you is not an excuse for repeated and deliberate incivil comments 2) it's not a case of one or two responses in the heat of a discussion but a pattern of intentional abuse even after being warned 3) if someone places a civility warning on my talk page or someplace I have been editting, I will try to remedy it. I have no such warnings from the comments you cite as somehow incivil. 4) theres a difference between being deliberately abusive and saying things that offend someone else, although I will readily agree we should avoid being insensitive because it diminishes the "friendliness" of wikipedia if not the civility. Perhaps we need a new guideline WP:FRIENDLY, if it doesn't exist already, which encourages people to not only be civil, but be friendly. I welcome the creation of it. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 05:33, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

In no way do I suggest that Jeeny should be unblocked. She thought that those who offended her into leaving were "reveling" in her retirement, so she returned and quite angrily attacked a number of people. I, however, have noticed the way that some, such as Fourdee, had provoked her (intentionally). I'm quite worried that blocking Jeeny alone is rewarding subtle trolling by allowing it to achieve its objective. @Phral, perhaps the SS image wasn't the best example - I'm on dialup and its difficult to sort through the diffs. The Behnam 05:41, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

None of those examples look unreasonable to me. People have opinions and in fact most or all of those edits you cited are intended to say just that - "hey, people have other opinions". At any rate Jeeny even resorted to attacking the administrator who blocked her:

"And you, Mr.Z-man, how old are you? And what experience in this world do you have, and what is your education level? Another thing wrong with Wikipedia. A bunch of teenage administrators who do not do their research and have no life experience and little education."

It seems clear to me this user is unable to behave remotely civily in a situation where there are differing points of view. This is not fitting with the diversity of experience and point-of-view that wikipedia brings together. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 05:54, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I see you have focused only upon the part of her angry post [7] that attacks Mr. Z-man, ignoring the rest that basically confirms what I have said about this situation. I suppose you have done this because you want to discourage Mr. Z-man from reconsidering the situation and properly extending the block to you as well? Again, I'm not asking for Jeeny to be unblocked. And please, don't try to present your view that calling the Holocaust 'mass murder' is "POV-pushing" as 'just another opinion'. The Behnam 06:04, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The only part that's relevant is that she can't stop herself from blatant incivility. And please, I'll present whatever points of view I like. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 06:20, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Just don't expect a pro-Nazi view to be respected and treated as equal to any other opinion. As for her incivility, nobody disputes that she has been uncivil. What is outstanding is that you have seen no consequence for your trolling against her. Blocking Jeeny alone rewards your bad behavior. The Behnam 06:33, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Allegedly having pro-Nazi (or not-extremely-anti-Nazi or whatever) views is not trolling, either by the traditional definition or WP:TROLL. I spend a lot of time trying to improve wikipedia and that is my intent, and a great deal of my time is spent improving non-controversial articles. Being greatly concerned that systemic bias is overly influencing the presentation of some controversial articles is not "trolling" and in fact that is, I assume, why all these editors are interested. Causing other editors grief is not why I am here. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 06:46, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I didn't cite those views as your actual trolling against Jeeny - it is simply important to note your pro-Nazi tendencies in order to fully understand your trolling (the subtle Tchuss, for example). Anyway, I've got to go now, but hopefully some uninvolved people will take a good look at this, rather than you and I debating endlessly over misreadings of my statements. The Behnam 07:03, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Hey, fourdee, I will look at this. If I determine you did something wrong, I will write a warning for you. I hang out on #wikipedia at times, so I will tell other people about this. WhisperToMe 16:03, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Cartel of User:देसीफ्राल and User:Fourdee and User:The Behnam and User:KarenAER

These users have formed a cartel of editors and are using the strength of numbers to steam roll over other editors. They have caused a hostile environment on the white people article. These editors seem to be in agreement on so many points that there is almost no individuality in their edits. This has created a polarized atmosphere. The assumption of good faith has been lost and they are blindly reverting edits from me and others regardless of their merit. They have been wikistalking me on several articles, which they normally wouldn't edit if I had not edited them. They have accused me of sockpuppetry for which I had absolutely nothing to do with. see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Muntuwandi and User_talk:Deskana#Request User_talk:The_Behnam#Muntuwandi and rfc muntuwandi] and User_talk:KarenAER#User:Muntuwandi and User_talk:Fourdee#User:Muntuwandi. Many of their accounts are new accounts. Myself I have been editing since June 2005, that is over two years, so I get offended when people accuse me of being Sock without good reason.

If there is any administrator who has some free time, to have a look at the article and bring some objectivity so that we can return to consensus building. I would be grateful. Muntuwandi 06:09, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

See also incident report

Muntuwandi 06:31, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

A cartel? No. A selection of editors working in consensus, to improve articles, who have realised that Muntuwandi is trolling to satisfy an Afrocentric agenda? Yes. --देसीफ्राल 06:29, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Personally I have been editing these articles for quite some time, and have gone out of my way to work with Muntuwandi on revising[8] his edits so they can be successfully included in the article and make the cited points he has been trying to raise. Can you please cite the policies you feel have been violated by which editors in which edits? I think you'll note that Behnam is distinctly not fulfilling his part of the cartel in the above section on this noticeboard. Also a number of other editors (User:Dark Tea, User:Kevin Murray, etc.) have objected to your behavior on these articles, and other administrators (User:Luna Santin) have warned you [9] about your behavior, and you have already been blocked for edit warring recently. These are all people who do not always agree with each other. And if they do agree, that is part of how wikipedia works.

This is not the place to introduce concerns over content disputes, this is for acute cases of policy violation not covered by other boards, so you should try to identify which policies you feel are being violated. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 06:33, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

What you have to say is irrelevant because the stance of the four of you is already known. I am requesting independent outsiders to review the situation. Let us not clog up the space and leave it to a good faith volunteer. Muntuwandi 06:36, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

<classified cartel communication>

Excellent. Our planned fake argument in the above section will trick others into not believing Muntuwandi's bold attempt to expose our cartel. Soon Afrocentrism will lose its cherished place on Wikipedia, and our cartel's ideology (whatever it may be) will rule in its place...

</classified cartel communication> The Behnam 06:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

^^ Best post I've read in ages! --देसीफ्राल 06:57, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

• I've worked with user Muntuwandi (MW) on several projects. I find him to be a great researcher, but a bit defensive about critisism. From my experinece I don't see cabal among these four editors,as they frequently are in opposition among themselves. MW frequently represents a polar position so it is likely that he would frequently be opposed by a wide range of editors. That's not to disparage his effort, because he keeps us all thinking and talking. Cheers! --Kevin Murray 21:00, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem is all about OR - Muntuwandi takes material out of sources not generally concerned with said material and introduces it into articles, such as an offhand statement about religion in Before the Dawn, which is primarily concerned with history via genetics (which came up in an earlier ANI report I filed here). It's not really an appropriate use of sources, and it ends up looking like finding sources to make material stick to make a point, especially when the citations are incomplete (usually URL links only, no author, no page). There is definitely a process and methodology problem here, and it shouldn't be such an issue unless there is wilful disregard involved - how can one be an excellent researcher and yet a lousy citer? It's the same skillset. MSJapan 02:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

He doesnt cite properly because he uses Wikipedia as a political propaganda tool. See his political soapboxing here [10]. An example to this would be this edit: [11]

What Muntuwandi says: "As human evolution progressed, dark skinned hominids may have been sexually attractive."

What the source says: "The intense selective pressure that drove the version to become universal in Europeans may have included sexual selection. "In Africa people are much darker than they need to be for UV protection, so to me that screams sexual selection," Dr. Shriver said. Black skin, in other words, may have been favored by men and women in sexual partners, just as pale skin may have been preferred in sexual partners among Europeans and Asians. " [12] KarenAER 02:35, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

User:The Behnam is not part of the "cartel". Sheesh. - Jeeny ^Talk 20:16, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Brainchannels

Brainchannels (talk · contribs) is uploading photoshopped images of Kristy McNichol, claiming to be the copyright holder, with no explanation as to how they are the owner. I listed them on Possibly unfree images, and Brainchannels responded - [13]. Is this a legal threat? Even if not, could someone explain to this user just how they are not the legal owner of the images, and to stop uploading them and abusing those of us who are attempting to clean up after them? Corvus cornix 19:16, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a legal threat to me, he's she's told Corvus to get an attorney and that he will be "reported" should he continue to assert himself. He She might be placated if someone were to explain that Corvus is simply enforcing our image use policies (which are more restrictive than fair use copyright law) rather than enforcing Fair Use law itself. And that any website is well within its rights to restrict the scope of Fair Use --but looking at all he she has posted I doubt it would help. If he she won't retract his her comments and instead argue from an Image Use policy standpoint, he she should be blocked. R. Baley 21:15, 18 August 2007 (UTC)(strikthru&edit 23:04, 18 August 2007 (UTC))

This user has done little but cause trouble with WP:BLP, WP:NPA and now WP:NLT, I'm very tempted to recommend that this user is blocked unless there is some explanation for their actions. GDonato (talk) 21:18, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

As he continued to edit his threats (fixing spelling, adding words) after the warning, I am also in support of a block (and am considering doing it myself). Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 21:46, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

He She received a warning and then copy-edited his threats? He She should be blocked immediately. R. Baley 22:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC) (strikethru&edit 23:04, 18 August 2007 (UTC))

People should also check out his edits to Paul Davidson, which I had to remove due to BLP concerns. We don't need editors like this? Legal threats? block him. --Fredrick day 22:10, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

First, I am a woman. It shouldn't be such a big deal to upload photos of Kristy McNichol under the Fair Use Act, or those I can prove I own. There are no photos under her article page and that's a shame. I have provided substantial responses on the deletion page where the photos abide. I feel that the conduct of Corvus is overstepping and he did not refer to any links where I might review the policy of "derivative" works. Others cite sources to their actions on this deletion page. Since I have never experienced my photos being removed like this before, I found this process to be rather inhuman, rude, with a total disrgard for my time and efforts to improve an article on Kristy McNichol as if I had criminal intent. I take offense to that and it is clear to me that you guys want and enjoy trouble that you cause with these actions that are politically based.

Wikipedia has no way to prove permission for copyright works such that a person owns. People who want to upload photos seem to need to have a special relationship with a Wikipedia editor to do so. If my filling out the initial form wasn't enough for Wikipedia that it has now sent its clean-up crew around to remove my photos, I simply see no point in contributing to your encyclopedia any further.

First, I have witnessed Wikipedia allowing unsubstantiated, unverified information remain up about Paul Davidson, unchallenged for months. Somehow, Davidson has a special connection on this Wikipedia site as noted above with one of his "bros" coming to his rescue while threatening to remove me as a member. Clearly politics are in play here. You want the lies about Davidson to remain while disallowing legal photos of Kristy McNichol? That really says it all.

I'm sorry, I just don't have the time or energy to deal with guys like you. You are really totally impossible fellows, rude, in my face. I am just someone who wanted to put up a nice photo I did artwork on of Kristy McNichol and it's a huge, huge ordeal on Wikipedia to do so, though it has no formal means of proving copyright holdings.

Thus, I will have to deduce that Wikiipedia is being run by a lot of egocentric men who want too much control and are rather reckless in believing Wikipedia is a nation unto itself that doesn't fall under U.S. Constiutional law. Quite sad, people died for our freedom in America, and Wikipedia and others like it, seek to create a little nation unto itself in its own little bubble world.

Suggestion: Perhaps if there as a more "helpful" approach instead of a hardlined one, that isn't really based on the law, it would bring better results for you all. However, I tend to think treating people this way makes you feel manly and powerful about yourselves that you enjoy annoying people in such a way. It is really quite nasty how you treat people who attempt to improve Wikipedia, the way you get in their face on-line as if you're big bad men with the power, and threaten anyone who stands up to you with the laws of the U.S. Constitution and various statutes you seem to want to ignore because fascism seems to work better for you.

Wikipedia is not a nation unto itself and operates due to the U.S. Constitution it falls under. One day I believe Judges will be brought cases about how these sites are run in opposition to the laws of the United States Constitution and various statutes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brainchannels (talk • contribs)

Please actually read the Constitution before contemptuously throwing it in our faces. We are not "Congress," and therefore do not operate within its restrictions as set out in the Bill of Rights. Your ludicrous tirade is groundless. —Kurykh 22:46, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

There's a certain amount of irony here, though... Wikipedia fights to keep from violating the law (by forbidding copyrighted images) and in the process... gets accused of violating the law. I kind of enjoy this - amateur legal scholars amuse me.  :-) - Philippe | Talk 22:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

All we have to do is abide by the fair use laws, there is nothing stopping us from having policies that are more restrictive, we just can't have less. We could make a rule that all fair use images accepted must be exactly 471x312 pixels. It would be silly and arbitrary, but perfectly legal. If by Constitution, you are referring to the First Amendment, you should realize where that applies. Wikipedia could be compared to a self-publishing company. Its free and we accept a lot, but we do reserve the right to determine what we will and will not accept. You have about as much freedom of speech here (and whether pictures are speech is debatable) as you have in just about any privately owned public area (like a shopping mall); as much as the local rules allow. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 23:12, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I have to inquire about "us" here. Who is us, and are you a family? Are you employees of Wikipedia? I had no idea there were a bunch of people who believe they have special rights that override the laws of the United States that they can do whatever darn well they please here that apparently is the case. I also don't understand wby the initial complainant can't address his own dispute in which he did not "cite" any policy link related to his derivative work.

I'm sorry I just see through all of this for what it is. You are like a gang on Westside Story, or any other similar type of male bonding click. You are not operating within the laws of the United States while overriding Fair Use Act Statutes, and people's rights in the process. You are in fact, playing politics and making people work too hard to put up photos they have a right to up. You enjoy making people struggle and suffer in their efforts and then you enjoy burning them.

I just wanted to upload a few Kristy McNichol photos, didn't realize I had to move the universe to get a few up on Wikipedia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Brainchannels (talk • contribs) 23:38:14, August 18, 2007 (UTC).

clique LessHeard vanU 23:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

"us" would generaly be the wikipedia regulars. No one claims that wikipedia has the right to overule the laws of the united states. Wikipedia is in effect private property. Your rights are somewhat limited. At the present time the en wikipedia community takes the view that it should be posible to get a picture of any given living person that is entirely under a free license. Uploading images that fufill this critia is fairly easy. Uploading images that don't meet this criteria is somewhat harder.Geni 23:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Brainchannels, my sincerest apologies that you've had to go through so much to upload your images. If you are indeed the copyright holder of the images, please email [email protected]. The people who have access to that email address know U.S. copyright law well enough that they'll be able to confirm that you are the copyright holder and that it is not an illegally made derivative work. It sometimes takes several days to respond, so the images may be deleted, but if they do confirm through the OTRS system that you are the copyright holder of the images, then the copyright status of the images should be uncontested. 17Drew 00:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Suggesting a different (boilerplate) approach for potential "non-free" images

Problem: A cursory review of Brainchannels' replies and actions suggests (to me anyway) that they are more vituperative (especially the "Constitutional analysis") than substantive.

There is, however, one (very small) aspect of her replies that actually may have some substantive merit.

When a Wikipedia contributor asserts conclusions with legally operative language (such as, "this is a derivative work under copyright law", or "you do not have the rights to release this image") a reasonable person might indeed interpret that as a statement of legal advice, and therefore: 1) inconsistent with Wikipedia:Legal disclaimer; 2) a potential UPL violation; and 3) outside standards of professional conduct (if the contributor indeed happens to be a lawyer).

These are potentially legitimate concerns, regardless of whether the WP contributor is, in fact, a lawyer, and regardless of whether the stated conclusion is "correct". For various reasons I will not enumerate here, it is indeed a good idea to avoid giving opinions that may "smell like" legal analysis.

Suggestion: Fortunately, mitigating these concerns is a simple matter, because it is enough to assert that all content within Wikipedia is expected to be GFDL-compatible, and Wikipedia simply does not have the resources to deliberate over content that (in the judgment of its contributors) represents too much of a "close call".

For example:

   One or more Wikipedia users have deemed this image inappropriate for 
   Wikipedia, because its compatibility with Wikipedia policy or the GFDL is 
   either too ambiguous or too difficult to determine without expert review.

This approach is much more desirable, because it clearly relies on the terms and conditions of Wikipedia itself, and makes no pretense of offering a legally-consistent analysis. Plus, it specifies that it is not WP's job to interpret Intellectual Property law, even if WP were authorized and capable of doing so. It might also help to take a lot of steam (i.e., Constitutional tangents) out of these kinds of debates and confrontations ... just something for folks to consider. dr.ef.tymac 23:39, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Not everyone who deals with copyright issues is an admin. Another problem is the statment is often going to be blatantly false in that either the image could be compatable and fails other standards or the person is quite able to determine the copyright issues. In addition there are various terms of the GFDL Wikipedia does not allow to be used. I would tend to argue that your version is not an improvement on the current aproach.Geni 23:58, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I think dr.ef.tymac's suggestion is a wise idea, but I also believe we need to have better clarification of the “usability” of derivative images, especially Photoshopped versions. Does the contributor have to own the original photos, too? How much editing of the image is needed before it constitutes an “original work”? A quick look at what information is readily available on the subject reveals that it’s not easy to find any. Askari Mark (Talk) 00:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Update: (Note, I changed the sample text after a comment by a contributor to this thread, to make clear it is not just admin action at issue, other tweaks were made as well, the sample text itself was actually not my intended emphasis, but rather a general change in approach). dr.ef.tymac 00:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Why even mention administrator? Why not just "A Wikipedia editor has expressed a concern that this image is inappropriate...". It seems silly to cloak this in authority by gravely mentioning "administrators" and "deemed this image inappropriate"; Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy and admins have no special powers in expressing a concern. --Haemo 00:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

"Does the contributor have to own the original photos, too?" if the work is a deriv either yes or the image has to be PD or under a free licsense. "How much editing of the image is needed before it constitutes an “original work”?" That one is a question for the courts. Wikipedia generaly takes the position that any non incidental inclusion of copywriten material is less than ideal.Geni 00:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Follow-up to Geni: The sample text was not offered as a "first draft" but rather a proposal for an alternate approach. I am aware that it's not only admins. It was the alternate approach I was emphasizing, not the specifics of the text itself (that was just to get my basic point across).

When you say that some contributors are capable of rendering a "correct" determination on the copyright issues, I don't particularly disagree with you. The point is, WP contributors should not be expected to offer anything resembling a "legal analysis" regardless of whether it happens to be "correct"; most importantly because there is no need to, especially in "close calls" or instances where all the relevant facts are simply not known.

Even if the admin/contributor happens to be a lawyer, potential UPL and malpractice liability would provide enough incentive to him or her not to give any written determinations beyond "This is just too much trouble for WP to handle, if you want specific reasons why, go seek counsel." If the contributor is *not* a lawyer, then all the more reason to remind WP contributors not to provide "analysis" and "conclusions". Stick to boilerplate.

There are pages and pages of questions that would need to be answered before someone could conclusively state in all instances "you have no rights to release this image". User:Askari Mark mentions just a handful right above. To see these kinds of statements in a review of potentially non-free content by a WP contributor, to me is a red flag that a change in methods may be warranted.

Please note, I'm not faulting anyone here, just stating that Brainchannels' remarks, (although unfairly confrontational and a bit too accusatory for my liking), do have a kernel of substance that may point to a larger issue. dr.ef.tymac 00:42, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Distinguishing "proper analysis" from "communication to potential uploaders"

The thing to remeber is that wikipedia has developed a shot cut around a lot of these issues and various methods of the review. In the case in question the uploader admits they are calling on fair use rather than de minimis which means that the argument just boils down to replaceability. Argueing something is overcomplex therefor cannot be used is a dangerious road to go down given the complexity of various public domain and freedom of panorama laws which we rely on.Geni 01:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem is, I am not proposing that we argue issues are "overcomplex" ... in fact, quite the contrary, I am proposing it be made clear that conclusive review regarding the validity of legal claims is beyond the responsibility and scope of Wikipedia. Far from being a "dangerous road to go down" ... it is quite a sensible road, especially considering the express limitations provided by Wikipedia:Legal_disclaimer, and the implicit limitations imposed by UPL and other professional safeguards.

Your reply to me helps illustrate my point: How many WP contributors who involve themselves in these kinds of matters would have given the same "analysis" you've just provided? Assuming your analysis is "correct", how many WP contributors would be expected to properly interpret:

• fair use rather than de minimis
• the argument just boils down to replaceability
• the complexity of various public domain and freedom of panorama laws we rely on

Indeed, how many WP contributors can be expected to understand what all of those actually mean (let alone whether they are correctly applied)? Even if it is necessary to engage in this kind of analysis, that does not imply that it is necessary to communicate this kind of analysis to potential uploaders of content.

My basic point is this: WP should not stick its neck out any more than is necessary. There is a big difference between telling a potential uploader:

* 1) "you do not have redistribution rights for this image"; and

* 2) "you have not adequately demonstrated that this image is consistent with WP terms of use"

Statements like 1 clearly seem outside the appropriate bounds, and subject WP to the kinds of "legal one-upmanship" demonstrated in this thread. In contrast, statement 2) simply indicates that the uploader has not met the burden established by Wikipedia (thereby obviating unfounded "Constitutional" and legal "debates" entirely). If the potential uploader wishes to contest the rationale, they can do it independently, and stick their *own* neck out by requesting a review. dr.ef.tymac 09:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Overcomplex is still a bad approach. Generaly we try to create a simplfied ruleset inside the bounds of copyright law. Generaly the reasons we give should be better than complexity this is where our tags such as template:nsd template:nrd template:untagged and template:rfu come from. However in this case was somewhat outside what those tags can deal with since we have someone who knows enough copyright law to make a mess of things.

"WP contributors would be expected to properly interpret:"

fair use rather than de minimis

almost none that would be a somewhat non standard formulation

the argument just boils down to replaceability

Given the prevalance of RFU probably anyone who deals with image copyright.

the complexity of various public domain and freedom of panorama laws we rely on

depends how you define properly interpret.

Your average wikipedian doesn't need to know. It's only when you run into people like Brainchannels that you bother going to that depeth. Normal anaylis would be that fair use is involved it is replaceable therefor delete.

Saying "you have not adequately demonstrated that this image is consistent with WP terms of use" would not have prevented the arguments brought here in any way shape or form. They've been used before they will be used again no word combination you can use can prevent that. Can you really explain why the image isn't consistant with wikipedia's terms of use without resorting to legal terms?Geni 18:29, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I made a statement below in the section "BrainChannels Retracts Legal Threat". I have stated the reason why I initially made a legal threat towards Corvus and why I retracted it. I value my Wikipedia membership and do not wish to jepordize participation in making Wikipedia a better on-line encyclopedia which I feel I can. --Brainchannels 16:32, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

BrainChannels Retraction of Legal Threat

I am hereby retracting a legal threat related to my accusation of Corvus because I did not understand how Wikipedia operates and myself felt threatened by the legal language used to accuse me of uploading images unlawfully. I felt defensive and under attack due to the accusation I was doing something wrong, which I have never, ever been accused of in all my web design career, including at [www.BrainChannels.com] of doing. I have scanned and uploaded hundreds, most likely thousands of images in the past decade and no one has ever accused me of copyright infringement. I have always gotten permission to use images from the photographer and publisher or used images based on Fair Use. In this case, I've noted someone has a Julia Roberts newspaper/magazine scanned image uploaded to represent her article page and it was allowed under the Fair Use Act. I feel it would be far more helpful of editors to not treat contributors like criminals with legal accusations of unlawful copyright infringement, but rather suggest the appropriate category be entered for uploading images, such that someone used for the Julia Roberts photo. --Brainchannels 16:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I think that is an excellent apology and explanation. I hope you now fully understand why Wikipedia is so keen to protect itself against charges of copyright violation. If, following your recent experiences, you can suggest ways of making the advising of editors of potential violations less bitey I am sure it will be well received. LessHeard vanU 21:04, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

False sockpuppety accusation and other PAs allowed to pass

I'm curious as to why this disgraceful;, false accusation of sockpuppetry by Paradisal (talk · contribs) was allowed to pass with no sanction. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 19:29, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Poluphloisboisterous Homer of old/Threw all his augments into the sea/Though he had often been courteously told/Perfect imperfects begin with an E/But the poet replied with a dignified air/What the digamma does anyone care? Moreschi ^Talk 19:53, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Is there a chance you could wait until Andy's buried before dancing on his grave? --Mark H Wilkinson ^{(t, c)} 06:49, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm only giving attention to what others have noted before with valid basis. See an earlier comment from User:Fireplace. --Para 20:36, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The fact that you were repeating a baseless lie makes it no less baseless, and no less of a lie. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 23:23, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I've been baselessly accussed of being a sockpuppet numerous times. The best thing to just do is ignore it. --Haemo 01:06, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

With respect; no that is not the "best" thing to do; particularly given Para's ongoing ad hominem campaign against me; about which other editors have already warned him, more than once. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 09:33, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Pigsonthewing, this is exactly why you're getting banned for another year. Don't you have more important things to worry about than this pointless wrangling on ANI? Please get a sense of proportion. Moreschi ^Talk 10:04, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

That's true - if I'm banned, it'll be because of lies about me. It's not surprising that you're unconcerned by such dishonesty and ad hominem abuse, given that much of it is your own. My name remains, Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 10:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Alright, now I see what the arbitration committee meant by "contempt" on your behalf, Pigsonthewing. Your conduct here is a perfect specimen of why you keep getting sanctioned - is that so hard to realise? I even devoted a whole section in my evidence to this. Moreschi ^Talk 11:05, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

QED. My name remains Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 12:04, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

User creating low quality articles

This is a bit of an odd one. User:Kglman6 is not disruptive as such but is creating a series of (I'm afraid there is no other way to put this) low-quality articles about celebrity deathmatch which are full of typos and in no way meet the WP:MOS, the most recent is The Laser Pointer. Leaving aside the fact that I'm not sure any of those articles should exist (which is a content issue not for here), I'd argue that his actions are distruptive because he's generating an awful of clean-up work. I have left two messages on his page asking him to read the MOS - I have not had a reply. I'm a bit stumped what to do next - leave the same message over and over? --Fredrick day 22:19, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Spanking as a pour spoiler myself. I'd say leaf it bee. _{miss stakes in tent eey oh nail four who more}

If he were editing old articles and reducing the quality that would be one thing, but if he is creating low quality articles than that is certainly better than having no article at all. Add cleanup tags and let people help by cleaning them up a bit. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 22:29, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree but still he has to be informed. He has just got 0 talk space edits (out of hundred). Informed now. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 22:37, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Writing articles that need more work is not disruptive, it's how Wikipedia works. He should certainly be educated in how to write better articles, but that's all. --Tango 23:58, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

From the looks of it, all of the episode articles he created need to be redirected to List of Celebrity Deathmatch episodes since there's nothing by secondary sources covering them. Anyone up for the task? 17Drew 07:05, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

This was going to be my suggestion about what to do, but I was afraid someone would tell me to be bold and step into the hornet's nest myself. I second this, though — but I know how contentious these can be, and it's too late in the evening for me to commit to such a large project. --Haemo 07:07, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I've done it. --Fredrick day 12:32, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Kungfoofighting1

Before you point me to WP:RFCU, the main page says disruptive article editing compliants about possible sockpuppets go here.

A few days User:Burntsauce was edit warring over content claiming a false WP:BLP violation on the article Terry Gerin. Burntsauce went inactive for 3 days and hasn't been active until now when this new user Kungfoofighting1 appears. This editors first edit was Undid revision 151277579 by The Hybrid (talk) violation of Wikipedia policy back to Burntsauce's revision, 3 days ago. He was then reverted twice by different bots for vandalism, but reported them as false positives.

This editor is claiming the same false BLP claims and on the talk page Burntsauce seemingly reappeared out of nowhere to congratulate him on it while making personal attacks [14] Someone should block the obvious sockpuppet. — Moe ε 22:57, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

This guy has removed several talk page comments and warnings - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Moe_Epsilon&diff=152143165&oldid=152142535 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Terry_Gerin&diff=152129026&oldid=151922795

And he just removed another warnings: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Moe_Epsilon&curid=6634905&diff=152147784&oldid=152147510—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kungfoofighting1 (talk • contribs) 00:57:02, August 19, 2007 (UTC).

WP:Talk#Others' comments, bullet #8 states that you are allowed to remove other's comments from your own talk page. Be careful about enforcing policies when you haven't read over them. The Hybrid 01:01, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Warnings are not allowed to be removed are they?

Here is what i wrote on the Terry Gerin talk page, it summarizes my points well: No, saying that he shoved a woman's head into a toilet, or that his family was poor, or that he had a public alteraction with his wife that resulted in the termination of his job could be considered nothing short of libelous, and without sources, will stay out of the article. Sorry but speculating about a person's marriage and family situation is not acceptable. The other information I removed, such as redundant information regarding Last Man Standing matches, gossip sites sources (wrestlingexposed.com), and superfluous info (so much that there is too much to name, but one example is that he ran to the ring like a rhino...first of all that's unsourced, second of all its not important, third of all if it was important, its in the wrong section). I am improving the article, not hurting it. I have given you more than enough examples. Please add sources, then we wont have any problem.Plus well have a better article. I didn't remove anything that was vital to the article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kungfoofighting1 (talk • contribs) 01:02:13, August 19, 2007 (UTC).

Yes, you are allowed to remove warnings, actually. The Hybrid 01:06, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

You are perfectly correct about the removal of warnings which I was not aware was allowed. Thank you. Kungfoofighting1 01:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kungfoofighting1 (talk • contribs) 01:07:56, August 19, 2007 (UTC).

I have removed accusations of fighting with his wife and shoving women's heads into the toilet and family problems and other stuff. These things do not need warnings to be taken out.

Kungfoofighting1 01:22, 19 August 2007 (UTC) In addition to readding contervoersial infromation, the yare also removing my additioons of information to the article. This is unacceptable.

Kungfoofighting1 01:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok guys. I see more problems w/ WP:BLP than w/ WP:SOCK. I'll tell you why:

• At "Heatwave", Rhino attacked the couple before his match and attempted to force Lori's head into a toilet. ← No source at all.
• where it seemed that Rhino was on his way to victory when James Storm hit Rhino with a beer bottle. After the match was over Storm and Jackie Moore attacked Rhino and poured beer (which was the cause for the match) into his mouth and left him bleeding in the ring. ← No source at all.

And indeed you are removing comments (concerns) re libel from talk pages Moe? I am surprised to see two established users dealing this way at Wikipedia! Honestly. Please note that if WP:BLP is really being respected you'd be having no sockpuppeter around. That's the truth. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 01:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC) I'm not that Saucer guy, that accusation is preposterius!!

Kungfoofighting1 01:37, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of why, if there is a sockpuppeteer around, and I'm not saying that there is, I would think that the admins would deal with it. Whether or not you approve of my actions or Moe's actions, the point is there is a user committing 3RR violations by making edits that mirror the edits of a very controversial user. Said controversial user has mysteriously gone missing since this new user's appearance, except to give this user a welcome and pat on them back for their actions. Rather than blame a group of people who respectfully disagree with your interpretation of the policies, you should be dealing with the blatant policy violations like admins are supposed to. We know that this user has violated WP:3RR, and there is strong evidence to suggest that this user may be a sockpuppet. Now that this has come to the noticeboards, it is someone's responsibility to deal with it, or at least try to. The Hybrid 08:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok. This is the solution. I've sprotected the article to sort out any possible sockpuppetry. Now please discuss your versions both of you. I'll keep an eye. Cheers. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 20:35, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, The Hybrid 01:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

real-life identity outted

An editor has intentially added a link to the talk page of the Stephen Barrett article that has outed another editors's real-life identity. The link on the talk goes to a website that clearly identifies the "real name" of another editor. The edits need to be deleted from the history to protect the identity of the editor whos real name has been revealed. Here is the contributions of the editor who added the link to the talk page in an unsigned retro-style edit by editing another person's comments.  Mr.Guru  talk  23:19, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

My bad. My intention was not to out the editor, but merely to show relevant support to a point which that editor was making. If the link hasn't been removed yet, I will certainly remove it now. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 23:30, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

This editor has outed the editor before. This is his second time he has done this after he was aware he should not do this. Thanks.  Mr.Guru  talk  23:34, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I have outted him before? Really? I don't remember doing so. There was a time I did refer to him by name, but that was when he was doing so. Then, at some point, he decided to go private, and I believe I have done my best to respect that. Again, this time it was entirely unintentional. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 23:37, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Levine2112 has now added more and very specific information to the talk page that when googled can easily reveal to the same website which has identifies the person by their "real name." Levine2112 has added "key words" from the website which can lead to the website when the key words are searched.  Mr.Guru  talk  23:45, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Update: After editor was warned, he then went to the talk page and outed more personal and specific information about another editor again. The personal information can be googled that can find the same website. This time it is not a link but key identifiying information. The new edit should also be deleted from the history. Thanks.  Mr.Guru  talk  00:06, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

(EC) Outside party: Seems/appears/smells like some socks of this case are engaging in POV, BLP violations. My suggestion is for a SSP case or a checkuser case to be filed. As it stands since the page is under conflict, the page needs to be fully protected. Miranda 00:12, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I think that would be most helpful. I suspect sock-puppetry as well. P.S. I did the Google keywords search which QuackGuru describes above and I returned no results. I think this is a case of vendetta; QuackGuru is clearly "out to get me". -- Levine2112 ^discuss 00:15, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It does need to be noted that Levine has received numerous warning(s) for such activity and has been engaged in what appears to be a consistent trolling behavior at Stephen Barrett. His contribs point to the behavior of a SPA and the number of different editors reverting his edits and dropping warnings on his talkpage is now becoming rampant. Anybody would think that the cabal is starting to notice him, or just the Community... Any advice on how to encourage Levine2112 to cease his endless trolling, personal attacks and to encourage him to edit in articles other than Stephen Barrett would be greatly appreciated. Shot info 05:47, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Re: Shot_info's allegations, I would think what would be noticed by admins is the outrageous pov protective behavior by "followers" of the subject of the article where their long running activism and battles off-site, which in a number of cases have professional interests too, has been carried on here at WP. QuackGuru has been the most disruptive and contentious of editors for the past several months with multitudinous deletes of well established, prior consensus material for very poor policy cites to try to avoid consensus based change. Here and here, he even draws the ire of highly experienced admins and this RfC. Others [15][16] and even his natural allies find it wears thin[17]. Among many.--I'clast 14:10, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Here is an update. Yesterday Levine2112 had revealed an editor's real name. After he was told to stop, he then went to the talk page and put personal identifying information of the editor he outed. Today Levine2112 is calling the editor bias.[18] Is this disruptive or is this normal Wikipedia behaviour. Thanks for the administrative oversight.  Mr.Guru  talk  18:02, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

After Levine2112 was warned, he deleted the warning with an edit summary, stating: misplaced warning, expressly permitted removals per WP:NPA. In another warning about his behaviour, he deleted it with an edit summary: removing personal attacks by a troll. Clearly, Levine2112 does not think he has done anything wrong. What do administrators think about this and his ongoing activities. Thanks.  Mr.Guru  talk  18:20, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Levine is continuing with the personal attacks at Stephen Barrett and has reverted the removals of his demands (my diff removing info is here [19]). I assume that per WP:NPA these sorts of shenanigans are unacceptable to Wikipedia, nevertheless input from this forum would be appriciated. Shot info 22:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

We are experiencing a breakdown in communications as WP:RS, WP:V sources about criticism of SB are suffering severe systematic and publication bias problems here at the Stephen Barrett article. No amount denial, voting, ganging up, deletion and rewriting Talk histories changes such fundamental violations. Complaints and analysis about this problem aren't personal attacks or trolling. I have re-edited out the byplay from both sides exactly where the discussion went off-topic over the edit summary, to try to further improve Shot_info's effort. I suggest that we leave this AN/I at that, restart Talk edits from how it's edited now[20]. In advance, thank you all for your careful review and consideration.--I'clast 00:38, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I'clast is part of the problem with his forgiveness of Levine2112's use of personal attacks and demands for personal information, and attempts to divert third party analysis by making one editor's behavioural problems the Communities instead with "systematic and publication bias problems", "denial, voting, ganging up, deletion and rewriting". When there are editors that attract this sort of Community attention, there is really only one path to tread, and that's to here unfortunately. No doubt this appears to the "ganging up", but as WP:CABAL suggests "When you start accusing everyone of being in on a conspiracy, you shouldn't be surprised if they decide to confirm your paranoia by banding together against you."

To reiterate, it would help the situation if some third party advice could be provided to help a minority of disruptive editors improve their behaviour. Shot info 01:16, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I post to Dr. Barrett's article, mostly on the talk page. I leave the article when things get out of control and lurk though this time I was away for awhile. Now things are so out of control without any civility going on. The article as it stands in it's protected position came with a lot input from regular editors and even editors and administrators who stopped in to help the article with the WP:BLP and WP:Weight problems just to name a few policies. Since this, a few of the above editors have actively been uncivil and down right rude. Levine, as noted by the difs above, is attacking everyone it seems that doesn't agree with him and then calling them a troll and deleting their responses, again as shown by the above editors. I'clast seems to be the 'protector' here for Levine's incivility and reinserts what the majority of editors have already agreed should not be on the talk page or in the article. The outing of an editor like was done here should not be allowed or over looked. I hope a stop to this poor behavior by all editors can occur and that a more friendly and civil behavior will happen. As for Levine, I am sorry to say this, but his contribution appears to only be on the Barrett pages for the most part. He has been friendly until other editors get exhausted with him continuing to ask the same questions over and over again in a flood of words that takes over the talk page and pretty much drowns out anyone else’s comments. He seems to be very angry right now with quite a few editors and thus the attacks with calling them trolls and having serious COI issues. [21] I really appreciate you listening to me. --CrohnieGal^Talk 14:51, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I hope that if any admin is actually reading this, they see through all this drivel. Yes, I accidentally linked to an external page on Talk:Stephen Barrett which "outted" another editor. When it was pointed out to me, I summarily removed the link (something which the original poster to this AN/I should have done once he/she spotted the issue). There are only a handful of regular editors on the Talk page, and I assure you that they all know the the real life identity of the editor whom I supposedly "outted" as this editor had been very open with who he is up until recently. Yes, I removed some comments on the talk page. But please review them; they are all personal attacks on me lodged by the very editors posting here. So per WP:NPA, I felt I was in my right to remove the unhelpful comments from the talk page. This is methodology which I learned from Shot info, in fact. He is constantly removing comments from the talk page which he deems inflamatory. (I think we got a major case of WP:POT here.) Anyhow, my plan is to ignore these editors from now on when they try to bait me into their war (and then they rush to AN/I to post my response to their baiting!) So, if they want to carry on with the on-topic policy discussion which I am trying to carry out on Talk:Stephen Barrett, I welcome their contribution. What I don't want is more of their baiting and refusal to accept and continuation to misuse content policies such as WP:RS, WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:BLP. Oh, and by the way, though my recent editing activity has certainly been focused around Stephen Barrett, I encourage anyone to check my complete history and see that I have been contributing to a wide range of articles for several years now. I hope that any admin bothering to read this abuse of AN/I will see through the lies of a gang of editors who have been out to get me for quite some time now merely because of my steadfast desire to write a policy-driven article which is a useful resource rather than a promotional fluff piece. I thank you and as a reminder, I plan on ignoring the baiting, attacks and scoundrel-like tactics of this group of editors from now on. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 17:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Levine2112, by his own admission has outted an editor. That was his second offense. After his second offense, he posted personal identifying information of the editor he outted on the talk page. Shot info deleted the personal information Levine2112 wrote and now Levine2112 is not happy about it. Removing comments from the talk page is perfectly acceptable becuase it is personal information. In essence, Levine2112 has outted a Wikipedian for the third time.  Mr.Guru  talk  17:51, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I have only done it once, and it was unintentional, caused no harm and I removed the offended link promptly. If you feel I have done it more than once, please supply the diffs right here,right now. Otherwise, please stop this ridiculously unjustified campaign of lies against me. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 17:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Levine2112 has outted the same person three times after he knew he should stop. I will not take the advise of Levine2112. It is very bad advise. I will not post the differences here because that would be a violation of Wikipedia policy.  Mr.Guru  talk  18:03, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

So you are saying that I outed this editor before, but you are unwilling to back up this charge. It is because the diffs don't exist and that your charge is bogus. Excuse my bluntness here, but "put up or shut up." Please. Pretty please. With sugar on top. Until then, please stop this obvious campaign of lies and let's get back to discussing content policy in a constructive way and leave the personal attacks behind you. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 18:27, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I can e-mail the evidence to an administrator. This was not the first time. I have the evidence Levine2112 has outted the same editor before.  Mr.Guru  talk  18:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Please do. And please email you evidence to me as well. I'll be waiting. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 18:36, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Levine2112 acts like the innocent one. I beg to differ. Levine2112 has more behaviour issues. For example, here. I hope this will be looked into. Thanks.  Mr.Guru  talk  18:21, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I will wait if a trusted administrator is interested in me supplying the evidence. I have reported the outting of a person's real name to an administrator earlier this year anyhow. Levine2112 is a repeat offender.  Mr.Guru  talk  18:48, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

• It should probably be noted that everyone who has commented on this thread (excluding Miranda (talk · contribs) has been involved in a fairly long running edit war over the Stephen Barrett, Chiropractic, and Barrett v. Rosenthal articles (et. al.). This would probably benefit from some comment by someone who doesn't have a strong POV to push here.--Isotope23 ^talk 18:55, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

slight refactor of my comment--Isotope23 ^talk 19:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 19:26, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by someone who doesn't have a strong POV to push here, but who wasted a half hour of his life looking at Talk:Stephen Barrett: Childishness all around. The last few days on Talk:Stephen Barrett (I didn't have the stomach to look at anything older) are troubling, and all contributers to that page come away looking bad. Wholesale deletion of other editors' comments in the name of NPA has become the norm on both sides. Personal attacks have become the norm on both sides. If I were God Emperor of Wikipedia (and therefore didn't have to follow blocking policy), there would be 5-6 blocked accounts, based on WP:GROWUP. Since I'm not, all I can suggest is: draw a line under what has happened so far, and threaten both sides with blocks if any incivility, personal attacks, or editing other users' comments happens again. Then, go to WP:DR, where this belongs.

As to the original accusation of outing an editor, the lack of a diff makes it tricky, but I finally found it. If Levine2112 can show (preferably by email, to an admin, to reduce further damage) where the editor he identified has recently self-identified himself, then chalk it up to an innocent mistake. If not, block for 3 days. --barneca (talk) 19:49, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I would be happy to provide an admin with whatever you need. Are you an admin? Can I email you on this? If you did find an original place where I outted this editor, please email it to me because I am unaware of it. The only one I know of was indirectly through a link to an outside source which reveals the editor's name. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 20:22, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Odd vandalism

It appears that Xia999 (talk · contribs) (accompanied by his almost-certain puppet Yuan666 (talk · contribs)) has taken to repeatedly pasting his long, verbose rant on my userpage [22] [23] [24], despite my requests that he stops. This would appear to be in "retaliation" of my having marked the copyvio of his original post for deletion. — Coren ^(talk) 03:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

As an aside, is "A case involving human life is to be treated with the utmost care. Our country is ruled by law, why they can be so arrogant?" a record for long article names that aren't simply meaningless repetition of words or characters?  :-) — Coren ^(talk) 03:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

There was a redirect for "Clerks: TAS" which was 255 characters. --Haemo 03:16, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

That's quite the doozey; I'd say it's pretty pointy disruption there, though --Haemo 03:16, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I've blocked both accounts. I could semiprotect your talk page for a week to stop the disruption, but that seems a bit OTT at the moment. Let me know if he comes back. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 06:58, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Repeated blanking of cited content

Watchdogb (talk · contribs) blanked entire sections of text from the Velupillai Prabhakaran article, citing a number of reasons, mainly that the content was uncited.[25] I added citations for the uncited statements, an then added them back. Yet Watchdogb continued to carry out blanket reversions of the page. I pointed out if he has any problems with the text in the article, either add {{fact}} tags or move the disputed content to the talk page,[26] yet he continued to carry out blanket reversions of the article, even though most of the text is already cited.

Another reason for his blanking parts of the text was that "the LTTE has nothing to do with Prabhakaran",[27] even though Prabhakaran is the iron fisted ruler of the LTTE.

Skcsknathan001 (talk · contribs) an apparent SPA which has only edited the Prabhakaran article, then joined in the reverting, and tried to change the name "Prabhakaran" to "Pirabhakaran" throughout the article. Prabhakaran is by far the most frequently used form of his name international media and documents, and when I pointed out WP:NAME dictates that the most common name be used in articles, he replied

"This is BIOGRAPHY, not an article."[28]

Frankly, I can't argue with users who say the article is POV and think reverting the entire article to "their" version is necessary because

regarding the sentence "He has banned other religions,"

"The word "other" has to be removed, as he banned all religion."

regarding the sentence "some of his interviews point to his ideologies and also perspectives"

""some of his interviews..." under the section Personal should be re-worded as "most of his interviews. There are not many interviews, if any, that he did not speak about "his ideologies and also perspectives on various issues pertaining to Eelam and the struggle for independence".".

so I would appreciate outside input regarding the article.--snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 03:45, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Please try the various avenues open for dispute resolution, such as a request for comment. Raymond Arritt 03:47, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not talking about DR. I talking about repeated blanking of cited content from an article. Is it that hard to get an admin to go over an article and express a few opinions?--snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 04:00, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, both of you are known edit warriors. I know he removed sourced edits. All he says that it is not needed to state that LTTE is a TERRORIST ORG TWICE. On another paragraph you had The LTTE is currently branded a terrorist organisation by the USA, the EU and many Asian countries. Well haven't you mentioned that before? Indeed, are you editing LTTE article itself to get into that much details? No. He indeed left the important edits in place → [LTTE] is proscribed as a terrorist organization in 32 countries. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 04:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Given the fact that you yourself have been involved in related disputes Fayssal, I'd be surprised if you consider yourself neutral in this regard. Also the fact that you justified this blanket reversion [29] as " All he says that it is not needed to state that LTTE is a TERRORIST ORG TWICE." pretty much proves that. The question related to the LTTE was whether blanking content about their various atrocities was appropriate, not whether it should be mentioned that they are a banned terrorist organization. You also completely bypassed the fact that Watchdogb was blanking cited content about Prabhakaran himself.

Like I said, any input from a neutral editor will be certainly appreciated, although it increasingly seems as if no one really cares about such articles. --snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 05:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Snowolf, you leave out parts where you violate WP:BLP and put that article into liability. For example you claim that Prabakaran studied up to grade 5 and linked it to a website that says he studied to Ordinary Level (which in terms of Grade I think is 12 and most certainly not 5). This is either twisting a citation or lying about it. You seem interested in writing about LTTE's atrocities on the Prabakaran article and only give citations that say "LTTE has committed..." and in fact nowhere in the given citations does it say that Prabakaran did these atrocities. Note that WP:BLP says that it is better to delete material that is not cited than to leave a fact tag there. I believe it says Remove uncited material immediately. Another note is that you give one person's criticism a lot of room in the article. For example you wrote about 2 paragraphs addressing the view of a person who was a militant leader under Prabakaran's control (who is an enemy of Prabakaran now). WP:BLP clearly says that views of a small minority (in this case one person) should not even belong in the article. Watchdogb 19:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Razoroo

This user has violated the 3 revert rule on the article Assassin's Creed by adding in his own assumptions regarding the game, even though in the talk page, the community has repeatedly disagreed with him. Not to mention, after he stated that he would no longer make the edits, he continued to make the same edit. (The edit was in regard to the religion of the main character of the game) 162.83.255.39 06:32, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, he has not violated the three revert rule. If and when he does, the report should be filed at WP:AN/3RR. Someguy1221 06:49, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Perverted Justice

I've just gone through Perverted-Justice and removed all outbound links to their site because they are redirecting all our traffic to page set up for the "Wikipedia Visitor" which discusses Wikipedia as a "Corporate sex offender" and our alleged protection of pedophiles, "Literally, anyone that points out the large-scale pedophile campaign to subvert Wikipedia is an enemy to Wikipedia itself, according to them. Due to that, we've set up this redirect to properly inform Wikipedia readers regarding this important issue. With Wikipedia continuing to try to get their project used in classrooms across the world, it's important to note the danger inherent in the public accepting the project as being factual considering their acceptance of even extremist special interests such as pedophile activists as legitimate editors of their "encyclopedia." " The page also has links, similar to those some might remember User:XavierVE posted before he was indefinitely blocked a few days ago, to a "Wikipedia Campaign" page which contains a list of Wikipedia editors alleged to pedophiles. Related AN/I discussion here. Sarah 07:17, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes should be delinked completely as an attack site and any related accounts blocked as necessary. Theres no place for ideological witchhunts on wikipedia, for any purpose. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 07:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

What about all theese links from other wikipedia pages? Do they all need to go too? Theresa Knott | The otter sank 08:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe the policy is to remove absolutely all links to pages that attack wikipedia editors, and block people who re-introduce them. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 08:49, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

PJ itself doesn't host the content which complicates matters.Geni 12:33, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how that matters. Furthermore, wouldn't it be prudent to go ahead and add this to the blacklist (for now)? --ElKevbo 15:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

That... is exactly what they accuse us of doing. Is there some reason why we're trying to hide criticism from a legitimate and active organisation? Would it not be better to counter it? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 15:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

...in fact, now I've read their post, to try and claim Peej is an attack site is utterly unjustified. Their reasons for listing us as Corporate Sex Offender is "Wikipedia accepts pedophiles as editors with a "don't ask, don't tell" policy.". But we do. Pedophiles who do not self-identify as pedophiles are not blocked, but allowed to edit. Why are we trying to hide this fact and label the site that respectfully and politely points that out as some kind of vicious attack site? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 15:36, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how you can say it isn't an attack site. The page refers users to a site where wiki editors are labelled pedophiles. The basis for these allegations are little more than hearsay. The founder of that site was blocked from editing here because of such frivolous personal attacks. He's just taken those attacks elsewhere. That he's decided to manipulate the encyclopedia in this manner to further this personal crusae should not be tolerated. Vagr4nt 20:02, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Dev. How do you think PJ is going to take this? Do you think they'll understand what an "attack site" is? Or do you think that will just support their case that Wikipedia is "supporting" pedophiles? Didn't ArbCom want to be informed by email about pedo related stuff?

I really don't see that this as an attack site. I think if outbound links to the PJ main site redirect to the "Hello Wikipedia Visitor!" page, that would be ok, the only issue is they are complicating outbound links where they are used as a reference. Maybe this can be explained to them. If the outside world hears the Wikipedia has labeled PJ an attack site, some eyebrows are going to be raised. Just a note. daveh4h 15:35, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I agree with your statement that it's "[not] an attack site" but if all of our links to the site are being redirected then our links to the site are pretty useless for nearly every purpose. From a purely practical point of view, until those links are allowed to link to...whatever they're supposed to link to, our links to that website need to be edited or removed as they're simply not serving their intended function. --ElKevbo 15:39, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

That is so completely not the point. If their redirection is making it difficult to use it as a source, we should be contacting Peej to ask if they will either take their redirect down or provide an option to go on to the page linked to in the first place. I fail to see how that in any way warrants blacklisting Peej altogether. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 15:43, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

If you (or anyone else) can resolve the matter then that would obviously be the way to go. It would certainly be easier than us doing anything (removing links, hiding them, etc.).

Further, I don't necessarily support blacklisting this website. I merely offered that it would be prudent if the decision were made to block the site then adding it to the blacklist would seem to be the easiest way to do it. --ElKevbo 15:48, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

By the way, if ArbCom asked to be notified of events like this, has anyone done so? --ElKevbo 16:15, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

The whole idiotic "no links to attack sites" policy amounts to a witchhunt in its own regard; see my essay on the subject. Nevertheless, the site's redirecting of inbound links from Wikipedia to a different page is grounds for temporary delinking until they change this behavior. *Dan T.* 15:49, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, it's useless like this, and given my experience with XavierVE, I doubt it'll ever be useful. Prohibitions against linking to attack sites are stupid, prohibitions against linking to attack pages make much more sense. As long as they're forcing us to do the latter, we might as well drop all the links. WilyD 15:54, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I will contact Peej to ask if they will either take down this redirect or allow people to go on to the original link. In return, could I please ask that this absurd delinking stop until I get a reply. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 15:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I am not experiencing this redirecting. Powers ^T 15:57, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I am. Are you sure that you're using a link from Wikipedia? I just made one of the links in their main article active (in a preview; edit was not saved) and it does get redirected. --ElKevbo 16:06, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I am experiencing it too. I have emailed their admin address and will report back regarding what they do. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 16:10, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe your browser is configured not to send referrer strings when you follow links? *Dan T.* 16:27, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

As one of the blockers of XavierVE, I have to say, removing all these links is a mistake. PJ serves a useful purpose and that is not as an attack site. You'll note that it does not specifically target Wikipedia. It's a broad, partisan site that does publish some negative information, but it is not an attack site, and definitely not one that is designed against wikipedia. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 16:37, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

If they're all redirected then most of the links do not serve their intended purpose. I think one could make an argument that links intended just to link to the website without linking a specific document on the website (i.e. the PJ official website in the article's "External links" section) be preserved. But other links that are used as references for specific documents no longer link to those documents and need to be dealt with as we deal with other "dead" links. --ElKevbo 16:48, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

For those who dont know Xavier got blocked indefinitely a few days ago. This isnt the first time this has happened, very reminiscent of when Daniel Brandt, who was also indefinitely blocked at the time, did the same thing (witht he same BADSITES controversy Dan refers to. I agree with Dev on this one. I think the links should be restored but with the nowiki command so they have to be pasted in to one's webbrowser, which is what happened in the Brandt situation, SqueakBox 19:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

First off, of course it's an "attack site", by any reasonable definition of "attack site". I don't think they'd deny that they're interested in attacking, exposing, shaming, and ultimately destroying pedophiles; that's rather the whole point! But if they're attacking Wikipedia as a "corporate sex offender" for not participating in their crusade, then they've strayed beyond that ambit: instead of targeting pedophiles they're now targeting anyone who is insufficiently zealous in rooting out pedophiles. Wikipedia has no obligation to indulge that sort of "if you're not with us, you're with the terrorists pedophiles" attitude.

Second, if they're redirecting links from Wikipedia to a page full of attacks on Wikipedia, then those links are not useful references. If you intend to make links to various pages on their site, but in fact those links get redirected to a page full of libel about Wikipedia editors, then there is no point in having those links -- they're actually a net negative for Wikipedia readers. --FOo 20:05, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I broke all the links used as references, so now they have to be entered directly into a browser and no longer redirect. Problem solved as far as I can see. Arkalochori 20:45, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I just got a reply from Peej:

We could do that, but Wikipedia policies state that any redirection is

cause for delisting. Plus, the other point of contention, we're not going to stop linking the Wikipedia Campaign article on our CSO Wiki. Which ironically is linked from other places in Wikipedia without a massive firestorm of anger being raised (see, Pedophile Article Watch talk page).

We're quite pleased with the links being removed from Wikipedia. This will do two things, one, it will reduce the google relevancy of the Wikipedia article about us, an article rife with error and editors whose sole purpose is to try to use Wikipedia to attack us. Secondly, having the article without links to our organization but links to other organizations that attack us will make the average person, unaware of the problems of Wikipedia, wonder why the hell the article has such a overt bias.

Lastly, the idea that websites cannot "respond" to a Wikipedia article by redirecting is quite curious. The policy itself is nonsensical. It is Wikipedia saying that their editors, no matter who they are, can write whatever they wish about a subject and that subject has no right of response. 'Tis an unjust, silly policy and one we have no interest in

cooperating with.

So, ignoring the aggressiveness of the email, I have to ask: our policy on redirection says WHAT?! Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 20:58, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

They're clearly trying to provoke Wikipedia into showing bias against them, so that they can in turn use this against Wikipedia. Aggressive enforcement of the pseudo-policy against linking to "attack sites" plays right into the hands of people like that; all they have to do is make their own site into an "attack site" in the eyes of the BADSITES warriors to get Wikipedia to be heavyhanded in censoring it, which can be a public-relations coup for them if their aim is to show that Wikipedia is a nest of censors who can't stand criticism. *Dan T.* 21:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

We completely are if we block all of Peej because they don't like our policy on pedophiles. It's not like they're being abusive. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 21:15, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, this is a situation where WIkipedia is damned if we do, and damned if we don't. If we remove the links, which PJ admits are only designed to insult and denigrate all of Wikipedia as a group of pedos, or pedo-lovers, PJ says 'they won't link to us 'cause we tell teh troof.', and if we DO link to them, then we're 'all STUPID kiddie-touchers who can't even prevent PJ from bringing teh ebil into da lite'. Either way, Wikipedia is going to look bad.

I'd also be willing to wager that XavierVE is monitoring this very thread, and enjoying our frustrations. This is also clearly him 'punishing' Wikipedia for banning him for his libelous behaviors and attacks on our editors. I am concerned he may go even fruther with this 'revenge' theme, and go after additional editors whove offended him in the past.

Given that we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't, I'd say that the above mentioned cut n paste situation is probably dishonest, and we should instead put a template at the top stating 'Some source links in this article may cause your browser to go elsewhere, as a result of deliberate hostilities against Wikipedia by PJ.com'. readers can figure out for themselves taht PJ isn't interested in promoting balacned and well cited coverage, and will (hopefully) understand that instead, PJ is agenda warrioring the situation, which would make them look childish. Go for a solution as radically transparent as possible, one that makes it clear that PJ won't allow readers to read about PJ if they come from Wikipedia. Let the readers figure it out. ThuranX 21:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

While our policies on pedophiles is significantly better than it was at the beginning of Martch (which PJ acknowledges while lauding the actions of Jimbo and Fred Bauder) it still, IMO, has a long way to go. Perhaps instead of trying to label PJ as a BADSITE we should look at our current pedophiel policy and certain things are going on re that on wikipedia (such as the locking down of the terrible POV pro-pedophilia activism and our tolerancce of editors who dont identify as pedophiles on wikipedia but do do so off wikipedia in a way that makes it obvious it is the same person). I put the PJ criticism, obviously with a ref, inott he criticism of wikipedia article a couple of months back and it was certainly still there before this lastest event came up. Thanks for giving us Peej's email, certainly confirms to me that we should not have an article about tis founder and be extra careful re BLP in the PJ article itself, SqueakBox 21:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, this is almost certainly the case, and I suspect they'll just keep escalating the provocation until we're forced to do something. I've dug through XavierVE's history a lot since I was the one who deleted his User talk after he was banned to purge all the problems (which it was rife with) and it's very clear he came here with the purpose of getting himself banned to show that Wikipedia is a safe haven for pedophiles. I'm sure he'll just keep provoking us, and I'm sure the only thing we can do that makes sense and will be effective is ignore it. As long as we can't link to his website correctly, I see no point in trying and failing. WilyD 21:45, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, with all the rhetoric going back and forth, I'm going to ask: Are they making unfounded accusations against specific editors? If so, we need to get rid of links to it posthaste, as we should most certainly not be linking to sites which call a specific editor a pedophile or anything else. On the other hand, it appears to me that they are criticizing Wikipedia in general. While they may do so in harsh tones, I see no reason not to link to such a site. Even the New York Times has criticized Wikipedia as a whole at various times, shall we ban all links to them? Refuse to link to Slashdot, as posts there are often critical of Wikipedia? There is nothing to be gained by simply refusing to acknowledge criticism of the project in general. If it is well-founded, we should take it to heart; if unfounded, we should simply ignore it. Attempting to suppress it lends it credence, is that what we really want to do here? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:22, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Acusations against individual editors are on their corporatesexoffenders site rather than their PJ one although the page you are redirected to links to the corporatesexoffenders site.Geni 21:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly how "doesn't appreciate it when you run around calling random people pedophiles" translated to "supports pedophiles," and yes, the timing of this with Xavier's blocking makes this all seem rather petty; those are factors to consider in terms of our overall approach, here, but we shouldn't be writing articles in terms of who we are or aren't on good terms with (see NPOV, after all), and I'd prefer we didn't let ourselves get sucked into an adverserial whirlwind for no particular reason. My greater concern is that, with the links redirected, they're no longer going where they're intended to go. The nowiki solution appears to fix that well enough, for the time being. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:34, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

What a pointless thing to do. Wikipedia, as an entity, is now a "passive" sex-offender? Ten thousands people are being slandered because we refuse to acquiesce to his point of view in our articles and policies? Wonderful. Yeah, whatever. Personal feelings aside, he has rendered it impossible to link to his website.... however, you can still us his website as a source if you don't actually link the address. ELs are never required to cite a source... even if it's an online source. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 21:59, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It's not reasonable for anyone to expect to draft Wikipedia into their campaign, no matter how right and good that campaign may be. Wikipedia cannot be anti-pedophile any more than Wikipedia can be anti-Mafia. Indeed, we can probably talk about this problem more sanely if we use the Mafia as metaphor:

We report truthfully on notable and newsworthy crimes committed by the Mafia, but the project itself doesn't take a stand that the Mafia is evil. We certainly don't take the direction of Mafia-related articles from the FBI, the Carabinieri, or anti-Mafia crusaders.

Even if almost all Wikipedia editors hate the Mafia and regard it as an incarnation of evil itself, Wikipedia as a project is limited to reporting the facts. It is utterly wrong for an anti-Mafia project to demand of Wikipedia that we bar mafiosi from contributing. It is simply libel to accuse Wikipedia of being mafioso simply because we won't adopt anti-Mafia policies. --FOo 03:35, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

There are many efficient ways to deal with the possible problems of "pro-pedophile" edits and listing Wikipedia as a corporate sex offender is not one of them. Recently, I speedy closed the AfD of NAMBLA and was accused of siding with the pedophiles and of making Wikipedia a sex offender. In my mind, this is a clear sign that the push to expunge perceived pedophile POV from Wikipedia has taken a definite turn towards witch hunting. In fact, I would not be surprised if the mere expression of my sentiment gets me a few "who's side are you on?" questions. Let's make things clear: no we don't ask if editors are pedophiles and it would be rather silly of us to ask since anyone with an agenda can easily lie. That's not how we do things: we watch articles, we edit them, we block people who try to push a point of view with utter disregard for consensus. It's a lot more time consuming but it's also a lot more effective in the long run. We don't delete articles because we find their subject objectionable, we make sure they stick to the facts. PJ thinks we should do things differently and I'm sure they'll be welcomed at Conservapedia but this is how we've worked and it's working pretty good overall.

Of course, as a practical matter, the links should be removed or nowikied. But I suggest it's also worth revisiting their relevance on a case by case basis in any case. The website of PJ is most certainly not a reliable source or one with the required level of objectivity and attention to details like, say, truth. I just don't understand why they would even be mentioned on the Criticism of Wikipedia article. Let's face it, this is a marginal organisation with very questionable methods: if the New York Times or even The Christian Post starts labeling Wikipedia as a corporate sex offender then it'll make sense to include this but PJ? Give me a break... Whatever happened to due weight?

Yeah, I'm sure PJ will get a kick out of posing as the victim of censorship. But I don't see any sensible argument for why we should care. Pascal.Tesson 04:11, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with most of what you said, but I do feel obligated to point out that if Peej's methods were "questionable" they a) wouldn't have Information Sharing Agreements with 2/3rds of the law enforcement departments in the US and b) would not have successfully had 221 pedophiles convicted representing an 100% success rate. Given how useless my local Child Protection agency is in comparison to that, I find it very unfair that you would attempt to call them marginable. Certainly if I were a pedophile I would have stopped hanging out in US regional chatrooms by now. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 08:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I also disagree strongly with the removal of the P-J link from Criticism of Wikipedia. Such censorship (that's what it is, folks) just makes us look like we have something to hide, which is of course the (intended?) effect of the counterproductive BADSITES policy. But even if the link goes, I really can't understand removing all traces of P-J's criticism from the article. This absolutely makes us look like we're hiding something. It's not for us to decide if an organization like P-J is so "marginal" that we shouldn't even allow a reference to them in Criticism of Wikipedia. As Dev920 points out, there is at least a strong case that the organization isn't "marginal" in any objective sense of the word. I am restoring P-J's comments on Wikipedia to Criticism of Wikipedia, though I won't restore the link, pending a community decision. Casey Abell 13:01, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Replace "pedophile" with "communist" or "atheist" or "fascist" or "darwinist" or anything else. Attacking editors is grounds for delinking the site from wikipedia. People who re-introduce the material that is offensive to SlimVirgin and CBerlet get banned immediately, I don't see why this should be different.

It doesn't matter whether it's true or false. It doesn't matter whether a wikipedia editor is a convicted criminal, a pedophile, a war criminal, an Israeli spy, a CIA agent, a space alien - none of that matters, only the person's behavior on here, and trying to expose some kind of potentially damaging personal information about an editor is not acceptable. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 12:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

It should be noted that P-J's comment now restored to Criticism of Wikipedia is a general criticism of the project. The comment doesn't even mention any specific editors, much less attack them. If we're going to start censoring such general criticism of Wikipedia based on the asinine BADSITES policy, we deserve all the bad press we can eat. Casey Abell 13:09, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Harassment#Off-wiki_harassment Harassment of other Wikipedians through the use of external links is considered equivalent to the posting of personal attacks on Wikipedia...off-wiki harassment can be grounds for blocking, and in extreme cases, banning. see also WP:NPA#Off-wiki_personal_attacks. We need no longer believe that these individuals on-wiki actions in adding these sites was in good faith. Blacklisting is also a viable choice.--Hu12 13:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

This is America, a relatively free country, and neither wikipedia nor any other organization or individual is under any obligation to make public statements about any public issue. The allegation that wikipedia is "protecting" pedophiles (or rapists or bank robbers or whatever), presumably by not asking them "are you now or have you ever been a pedophile (or rapist or bank robber or whatever)?" is your basic McCarthyism. I'm reminded of the story of a film director being grilled by the HUAC. A committee member asks him if he's ever made a pro-Communist film. "No!" Then another committe member, with raised eyebrow, asks if he's ever made an "anti-Communist" film. There's no winning that kind of game. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 13:26, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind repeating myself. I am not restoring the link to the P-J redirect page, even though I disagree with its removal. I'll let community consensus decide that issue, though the redirect page contains no mentions of specific WP editors, much less attacks on them. But, yes, this is America, and P-J has every right to criticize Wikipedia in general for what they see as failings of the project. Eliminating all mention of that criticism from articles such as Criticism of Wikipedia just makes Wikipedia look bad and P-J look...well, not exactly good but certainly the more innocent party. Is this what P-J's critics want? Casey Abell 14:17, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

No, it does not make Wikipedia look bad: it makes it look consistent with its content policies. That section of criticism of Wikipedia focuses on Wikipedia's presumed problem with "contributors with idiosyncratic beliefs". Ironically enough, the notion that Wikipedia is a corporate sex offender is precisely an "idiosyncratic belief" and one that should be given due weight. PJ is of course free to think this but it's important to stress that this accusation is not taken seriously by anyone of note and in particular is not taken seriously by law enforcement. I just don't see how this can be treated any differently than a rant on some mildly successful blog. Undoubtedly, PJ will have a field day with the removal and will pose as the victim but we have to stand up to the bully and recognize PJ for what it is: a small extremist organization with dubious methods. Yes, we tend to be more sympathetic to it because we perceive it as having ultimately worthwhile goals but this is beyond the point. They are unquestionably efficient and the parallel with McCarthyism is very good. Even participating in this thread is risky: if you bad mouth PJ you'll become a suspect, a censor, someone who for whatever motive is trying to protect pedophiles (and hey, what motive could that be? wink wink nudge nudge). You'll get accusations like the ones here thrown at you, you may end up on PJ's suspect list like User:Tony Sandel which most likely means you get a flood of abuse on your talk page from anons wound up by PJ's attack page. Let's return to sanity: there's no good reason to link to the PJ website from anywhere but the Perverted Justice article. Pascal.Tesson 16:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Why are you determined to badmouth Peej? I just wrote you a post above countering your accusation that they use dodgey methods and your response is to claim that they are small (which at 45,000 members and 221 pedophiles locked up, multiple websites and well into the Charitabke foundation process they emphatically are not), extremist (they want pedophiles locked up and children to be able to surf safely online - if that is an extremist goal you'd better lock up most of the Western world), and use dubious methods (221 pedophiles locked away, acres of press coverage, agreements with almost every law enforcement organisation in the entire United States, you'd think someone would have shut them down by now if their methods were dubious. Instead they get ask to work with departments to do mass stings. That's a ridiculous claim.). Every point I just made is readily available on the Peej website, and on the media coverage of Peej. So why do you insist they're an enemy? :::Peej's beef with us is that we don't hunt down and ban pedophiles - which we don't. I fail to see what is slanderous about that. If they want to label us a Corporate Sex Offender on their website, let them, meh. It's Wikipedia's role to allow everyone to edit as they wish, not put them through some kind of inquisition to discover the "right sort" of people. It's the duty of Wikipedians as individuals to report suspected criminals to their appropriate authorities, as we do stalkers and people who make detah threats. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 18:52, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Unless there is real evidence that wikipedia is actively nurturing criminals, then links to pages making such a complaint amount to nothing more than slander. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 16:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I like how the specter of McCarthyism is being invoked to justify censorship. All sorts of what I consider unfair criticisms of Wikipedia are linked from Criticism of Wikipedia. I don't rip those links out of the article because I think they're nothing more than slander. The article exists to record and discuss, well, criticism of Wikipedia. The fact that some editors dislike a certain source of criticism is no excuse for eliminating any mention of the source from the article. The link in the article mentioned no names and made no accusations against individuals. I won't restore the link because there appears to be (wrongly, IMO) no consensus to do so. But the attempt to eliminate any mention of P-J's criticism is pure censorship and I will oppose it. Casey Abell 18:48, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

You are however failing to address the issue of due weight. When did PJ become an organization that carried any sort of weight regarding "corporate sex offender" accusations? As far as I can tell these accusations have gotten zero echo in mainstream press and I don't see why it should be brought up here. In fact, in the blogosphere, they have often been met with a chuckle [30] [31].

To answer Dev920, I love how you've subtly started asking "why are you determined to badmouth PJ?", thus continuing the kind of pressure tactics that are a growing concerns with some members of WP:PAW. Like I said, PJ is not an extremist organization for opposing pedophiles. It is an extremist organization for insisting that the best way to deal with pedophiles on the Internet is to expose them by any means and post personal contact information about them on the Internet so that they can be harassed. Anyone who stands in their way is quickly labeled as a pedophile or a passive supporter of pedophiles and they routinely divulge personal information about these people, again with little or no care that their accusations are well founded. There has been extensive discussion in mainstream press about concerns with these methods. PJ does get quite a bit of support but again it is marginal. The "45000 members" figure comes, I believe, from the Rolling Stone article and corresponds to the number of users registered on the PJ forum. This is not an unusual figure even for extremely fringe websites. And the idea that they are an important organization because they have a lot of websites is, well, rather unconvincing. Pascal.Tesson 20:12, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Igor "the Otter" and Holocaust denial

This is a follow-up to my earlier suggestion to block a disruptive user Igor "the Otter" (talk · contribs) instead of locking a target of his activism, Holocaust denial. A few days ago Richardshusr "hesitated to block Igor because he had not been warned", but I noticed a lot of warnings from a number of editors and admins, e.g. Jpgordon, ConfuciusOrnis, Richardshusr, Humus sapiens and plenty more. Despite these warnings, this user keeps disrupting Holocaust denial - for months now - by promoting inflammatory fringe theories and inundating talk pages such as Talk:Holocaust denial with WP:UNCIVIL comments. After he found himself against consensus, he turned to canvassing for allies [32], [33], [34] and to spreading his activism into related articles Final Solution, Adolf Eichmann and Institute for Historical Review. Per WP:NOT#ANARCHY: "Wikipedia is free and open, but restricts both freedom and openness where they interfere with creating an encyclopedia." Since warnings did not make any impression, I think it is time to give him at least a short block. FYI, I am giving him 48 hours. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 08:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

• Fully endorse. I would have done it, if I had not been a party to the content conflict. He is entirely unproductive and a waste of time. --Stephan Schulz 08:29, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Absolutely. The only thing I have seen him do on the project is try to legitimize holocaust denial. Tom Harrison ^Talk 11:55, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• I'm fine with it too. Like Stephan, part of my hesitation was that I was editing in the Holocaust denial article myself so I was on the brink of asking for another admin to look in on the situation to avoid a COI problem. --Richard 13:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Good idea. The project suffers when skewed minority POVs are pushed. ThuranX 14:45, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Endorse. Tendentious edit warrior, and undoubtedly Wikipedia will be better off without him. Do you need an outside admin to make the block? It sounds like there would be no objection to you doing so. MastCell ^Talk 17:07, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Relentless Stalking

Hi, I have a persistent stalker (Talk). He made a religious duty out of stalking me and spamming every article I edit, ranging from (Ancient history, Politics and Culture). Although, his wikipedia career was mainly dedicated to Assyria -which I never edited!.

• All I know that he is a self-identified Assyrian and a hardline Assyrianist who had long edit wars with the: Arameans, Syriacs and somehow decided that he is an expert on Ancient Arabia! in the process inventing a new term (Arabic people).

• His last vandalizing stunt was jumping into the Brigitte Gabriel article, restoring a (NPOV) just because I removed it! (I watched the article for a month and I asked her personally to fix the part about her life so I can remove the NPOV). It was fixed 2 weeks ago and I removed the last non verified quotation myself before removing the (NPOV). Talk probably never heard of the Congress for truth or Brigitte Gabriel yet he decided, that its his vandalizing duty to spam the article.

• He was blocked 3 days ago for spamming an article that had 24 references including the Britannica and 5 recognized historians, so I decided to stop editing that article because it brought edit wars. Ironically, instead of focusing on his articles and appreciating my maturity, he began stalking me into articles that he never heard of before!

• 3RR doesn't apply to him he broke it in talk pages, articles on a daily basis. And all he contributes to Wikipedia is extreme Vandalism and few emotional Nationalistic "Assyrianist" edits.

• He accuses everyone who doesn't agree with him of being; an Arabist! or Islamist....sigh. Although I am a Christian Arab and an active member of the American Congress for Truth!American Congress for Truth, nevertheless you will never find one edit of mine that shows any extremism or hate towards any person, all I do is go by facts and if I ignored any topics is just because of Elias spamming and childish behavior.

• Please review our history to see who he made himself an important part of my Wiki career!--Skatewalk 20:06, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

• Below is Elias admiting to stalking me! claiming that I am not here to present facts! please look at the references in any article I edit!
• copied from [35]
• Now please explain to me what does he have to do with this article?--Skatewalk 04:38, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
• :Yes, I'll admit, I am stalking every single edit you're making, because, you are not here to present facts, considering the home made websites you've used on Arab articles. As for that article, you can't just remove an NPOV tag. It's put there for a reason, and should not be removed without consensus on the talk page. Hope that helps. — EliasAlucard|Talk 17:57 18 Aug, 2007 (UTC)
  • This Arab shouldn't be taken seriously. One of my favourite articles of his: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ancient_Arabia&oldid=151495802 Check out the hilarious sources he's using. Oh what the heck, I'll list them right here: http://www.theakkadians.com/origin http://thearabhistory.com/chaldeans He has been running around on every Wikipedians' talk pages, complaining. I even reported him for sockpuppets: Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Skatewalk. Should be investigated more thoroughly, he's probably using proxies. This user has an Arabist agenda, trying to turn ancient, non-Arabic peoples, into Arabs, based on a few home made websites. It's historical revisionism all over him. — EliasAlucard|Talk 11:41 19 Aug, 2007 (UTC)

Let me just say here, as a white North European old fart, that

"This Arab shouldn't be taken seriously..."

is an entirely inappropriate comment and, if an indication of your attitude toward the editor based entirely upon their culture, one that will likely get you into some trouble. I would like to see an apology for the language used. LessHeard vanU 10:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

May I add that racism isn't tolerated in the slightest on Wikipedia. --DarkFalls ^talk 10:29, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

First of all, he is an Arab (he has acknowledged this). There was nothing "racist" about me implying this, since I am an Assyrian, and let's just say we are closely related to Arabs. Hence, you can't call that remark, "racist". Second of all, have you even looked at his edits and what he's up to? He's not here to write encyclopaedic content, because he's using Arab-revisionist sites. If you start by looking at his edits, where he's ascribing an Arab identity on Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and just about every other ancient ethnic group of peoples in Mesopotamian history. Of course, anyone who knows anything about this kind of topic, realises, that this user, shouldn't be taken seriously since he's out to make everyone in ancient history into Arabs, yet we know that Arabs came in late antiquity. There's no personal attack in saying that such a vandal user shouldn't be taken seriously. — EliasAlucard|Talk 12:52 19 Aug, 2007 (UTC)

Referring to anyone by their ethnicity is not civil. Civility is a core concept on Wikipedia. Restrict your comments to the content, and not the editor. LessHeard vanU 11:05, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Well then, you should give him a warning as well, since the first thing he did was to refer to me by my ethnicity. Of course, the admins here are one sided. — EliasAlucard|Talk 13:12 19 Aug, 2007 (UTC)

If you want to make a report, please cite diffs. You're just making generalised and racist complaints and then sitting back and making sarcastic comments when busy admins don't sort through thousands of diffs trying to understand what you are talking about and instead comment on the behaviour you exhibit on this board. Sarah 11:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I've already filed a sockpuppet report: Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Skatewalk. Again, there was nothing racist with that comment, except of course, "racist" only for one sided admins. He called me Assyrian at the very beginning of his report. Why are you not giving him warnings and attacking me ferociously like that? He's trying to play the victim here, yet he's the one vandalising every Arab related article with his obsession in turning ancient peoples into Arabs. — EliasAlucard|Talk 13:23 19 Aug, 2007 (UTC)

Let's just say that Elias was simply responding in kind after Skatewalk made this comment: "All I know that he is a self-identified Assyrian and a hardline Assyrianist". In other words, both users are accusing each other of being ethnic chauvinists and distorting information they add to Wikipedia accordingly. So if there's any "racism", then they're both guilty. But it's whether or not they have distorted information in the encyclopaedia that should concern us here. --Folantin 11:40, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Right. And that's just it, whereas I use academic sources on Assyrian related articles (and I usually don't edit Arab related articles), Skatewalk is using homemade websites on Arab related articles. I mean, come on, seriously, have you ever heard of an academic scholar refer to ancient Mesopotamia as Arabic in nature? I rest my case. Here are some of the flawless articles Skatewalk has worked on, ascribing an Arab identity on Semitic peoples: Ancient Arabs, Ancient Arabia, Ancient Semites. You think it's a coincidence that they're all redirects by now? It's only a matter of time before he labels Jews as "Arabs" simply because they're Semitic peoples. Don't fool yourselves, we're dealing with an Arab nationalist revisionist troll. Oh I'm sorry, that's so racist of me to say. — EliasAlucard|Talk 13:49 19 Aug, 2007 (UTC)

Skatewalk did not imply that they were being stalked because EliasAlucard is an Assyrian, but that EliasAlucard has an pro Assyrian pov (including self identifying as same) leading them to review and revert Skatewalks edits. Skatewalk contends that this practice has spread to articles that are unrelated to Arab/Assyrian/etc. culture. Elias responded by commenting, "This Arab shouldn't be taken seriously." which seems to infer that it is their culture which devalues their opinion. Now, I concede that that may not have been EliasAlucard intent but instead of apologising for the misunderstanding or even trying to explain EliasAlucard just became very defensive and attempt to justify the comment. It didn't strike me as understanding the need to be polite when referring to other editors.

Lastly, there is no provision in WP:CIVIL for tit for tat namecalling. It shouldn't be done, period. If another editor took Skatewalk's comments as being a personal attack then they should discuss it with them. I didn't, but I felt that EliasAlucards was and thus warned them and discussed it on their talkpage. EliasAlucard has responded by saying they will be more careful in future, which is very satisfactory as this was what I wished for in the first instance. LessHeard vanU 21:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Please tell me that the allegation of stalking is going to be looked at, there certainly does seem to be a pattern here on a quick review. Whether either the reporter or the alleged stalker are "racist", stalking and harassment should be taken seriously. Victims can be jerks, but still victims; and stalking is disruptive to the encyclopedia. I hope admins will review the allegation of stalking. Risker 11:59, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, since I suspect Skatewalk of being a sockpuppet (with good reason, and I've reported him), and since he's been doing some outright ridiculous edits on some articles like the ones I mentioned above, I have been checking up what he's been up to. It's not like I follow every single edit he makes with intimate details, but I'm keeping an eye on him, because I don't want more revisionist articles, of Akkadian empire being Arabic in nature and ridiculous crap like that. And don't bother those "racist" remarks made on my character. It's just politically correct Wikipedians. Case in point: I'm not stalking this guy, I am keeping an eye on him, because I don't want him to add home made websites as references, and use it with the same authority as if they were scholarly sources. You should commend me for cleaning up Wikipedia articles from trolls instead of giving me warnings. But I guess showing some gratitude is a rarity on Wikipedia. — EliasAlucard|Talk 14:11 19 Aug, 2007 (UTC)

Skatewalk's sources are definitely 'interesting', and I doubt many would pass WP:RS/WP:ATT. His edits sure look like their intent is to group anyone anywhere in 'Ancient Arabia' as an Ancient Arab. Some of his sources don't even state what he's citing them for, I noted one source in that diff references above specifically called them Semetic People, but NOT arabic people. The article reads a lot like OR, where he's finding any citation for a people living anywhere in those lands. I further find it interesting that he's asserted that Lebanon counts, since the Lebanese don't self-identify as arabic, at least not the ones I've met, and I've met a dozen or so in life, adn they're all vehement in their attitude that the Lebanese aren't arabic. I've also met Arabic peopel who concur. that's OR in terms of article writiing, but a good indicator that something's going on. EliasAlucardprobably should've sough intervention instead of following him around, but Skatewalk's edits should be questioned as not meeting WP:RS, and possibly being WP:SYNTH violations. ThuranX 14:36, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

That would be close to my reading of Skatewalk's contributions to "ancient Arabia" articles, especially the failure to meet WP:RS. --Folantin 15:05, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget original research. — EliasAlucard|Talk 19:04 19 Aug, 2007 (UTC)

Amir Taheri

Amir Taheri was semi-protected on August 5 (BLP-concerns). Nyisnotbad reverted fifteen times during the following week (removing the protection template from now on, too), was blocked for two days on August 13 (his sockpuppet Unclezeb was blocked indefinetely), and resumed reverting on August 16. Has been on this (more or less single-purpose) mission since February (making use of IPs mainly; see BLP/Noticeboard). -- Ankimai 10:01, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I have reblocked for a short period, with a request that they use the proper procedures for content dispute in future. LessHeard vanU 11:01, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

User: EliasAlucard

I would like to report Elias for mocking religions and attacking on users, he uses an un polite form of language and are easy heard that he is anti-Arab, here is some points what he is doing on Wikipedia

• He suddenly placed a tag on my user page with a suspection of a user called Nochi. Which also are an Assyrian. As i looked deeper on this user, he was blocked not long ago for engaging in a edit war with Elias something about Arameaens. they also have discussed about woman breasts, make statements as they are proud to be Assyrians because of Assyrian woman got large breasts, This is insane.
• He is acting like Admin. Undo every edit he don't agree with, without any sources or discussion. He always claims sources by people while he don't give any.
• He have been mocking alot of people/religion/ethnic and has been reported before
• I tried to communicate with him by adding stuff he are saying as Arabs killing Assyrians in streets are nonsense and I am an Arab which do not hate Assyrian. He just rudely attached by sending youtube videos on Assyrian churches being bomb, now how can he write peacefully with people if he have such hate?.
• He is trolling. label every single Lebanese Christians in Sweden as Assyrians?

I would like immedtly action and seriously thought about this. BTW look at his userpage, it is very obvious that he is a Nationalist Assyrian Troll — Balu2000 12:17, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, this also needs to be dealt with. User:Nochi, a vandal troll, was banned recently for breaking the three revert rule around 50 times or something, in one day. I suspect User:Balu2000 to be Nochi under another nick name. Here's Nochi's joke of an article, at Aramaean people: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aramaean_people&oldid=149981548 We Assyrians, speak Aramaic today, and some of us, insist on being the descendants of the ancient Aramaeans because of this. We don't have to get into details about this, but let's just say, that article is a joke. Now, User:Balu2000, is at his old User:Nochi behaviour again. For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Assyrian_people&diff=next&oldid=152224764 Adding more unsourced crap about Assyrians being 18 million. The reason why I suspect Balu of being Nochi, is because of his old user page: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Balu2000&oldid=151643427 That WikiFairy template was used by Nochi, and they've both presented themselves as with the same background: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Nochi&oldid=150261044 He's Nochi alright, that's for sure. — EliasAlucard|Talk 14:32 19 Aug, 2007 (UTC)
  • Oh and by the way, he has threatened me with death threats on my talk page.[36] That should be taken very seriously. — EliasAlucard|Talk 14:35 19 Aug, 2007 (UTC)
    • After multiple edit conflicts: Balu2000 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) blocked indef for the death threat. As for the rest of this conflict, content disputes do not belong here, and in the event that Balu2000 is unblocked, sockpuppet reports can be filed at WP:SSP. Sandstein 12:41, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Thanks, keep up the good work :) — EliasAlucard|Talk 14:48 19 Aug, 2007 (UTC)
        • Please do not gloat at others. Blocking Balu2000 does not mean that I endorse any of your conduct. – A review of my block by other admins is, of course, appreciated. Sandstein 12:58, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
          • Look, we had a discussion on my talk page, it was a political discussion, I was criticizing the situation of Assyrians in Iraq and how they are being murdered by just about everyone, and he wished death upon me. Then the rest of the discussion got a little bit out of hand. Anyway, no big deal. — EliasAlucard|Talk 15:06 19 Aug, 2007 (UTC)
            • I'm in agreement with Sandstein. You're involved in two concurrent AN/I threads, Elias. That you're coming into conflict with others like that, and your attitude in this one, and your lack of patience and finding a better resolution in the other (you should've gone to DR sooner), suggests maybe you should voluntarily take the rest of the day off, go to a movie or something, and relax your wikiediting fingers for a day, or two. ThuranX 15:02, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
              • Yeah, ThuranX, you're right. I do need a break from Wikipedia. I recently began editing again, perhaps it has become a little too much. One thing though, regardless of my attitude, I am here to improve Wikipedia, and I do take it seriously. I never enact in vandalism, citing wrong numbers, trying to give disingenuous information, etc. It's just that these trolls, are annoying me with their edits. Anyway, I'll be doing something else for a while. — EliasAlucard|Talk 18:59 19 Aug, 2007 (UTC)
                • To be clear, I never stopped AGF with you, I'm just suggesting before yiou get yourself into trouble, relax. And congrats, enjoy a day or two off. ThuranX 21:03, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
                  • AGF? — EliasAlucard|Talk 00:28 20 Aug, 2007 (UTC)

I strongly support the indef block of Balu. Elias, i've already talked to you about your incivility here and explained to you gently why i don't like what you say. Your response was that i got offended so easily. What about now? As per this report you should have been blocked as well for a week or two. You got enough blocks on 2007. I'd not block you though you merit it as i am not permitted because of [COI] eventhough i never edited any article you have edited except that we've met 2 or 3 times around. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 21:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

• There's no need to block me. I've been here on Wikipedia about three years now. I believe I am valuable contributor. Though I understand it's not popular to voice your opinion here on Wikipedia, since Wikipedians don't support Free Speech, and since I am a vocal supporter of free speech, and I believe in the saying Free Speech – use it or loose it, I tend to get myself in trouble on Wikipedia. Not that I'm out of line otherwise. Yeah, I've been blocked for revert warring with trolls like Skatewalk. That's about it though. Other than that, I've created hundreds of notable articles (and a few have been deleted), and I usually take my time to improve Wikipedia. Either way, I've decided to take a break, because I have some other stuff to focus on, more important stuff. I'll get back to editing seriously in 6 months or so from now, and I'll change my attitude until then. So there's no need to block me. — EliasAlucard|Talk 00:28 20 Aug, 2007 (UTC)

About 3 years only? Ok. Do you think that is a cool justification? Don't you know that a few valuable editors have been banned because of their questionable actions? Yes, please take a break if you think you need it. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 23:59, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Free speech implying that X better than Y? Cool, but do you think you are comparing temperatures degrees? If you'd have said the same to a Martian it would have been described as "Anti-Martians". Yes, of course, you are free to spe(a)ech. But please don't mix up Free Speech w/ Couscous. Please never use [Xree Xpeech] as an excuse only when you see it fit. I'd never call anyone an asshole because i'd never be sure. A final word, how do you define FREE SPEECH and where do you or experts believe FS is limited? If FS got no limits than why Balu was blocked? FS got its FUCKING limits. You gave yourselves too many excuses (3 years editing and Xree Xpeech). Again, have some cool holidays. Thanks. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 00:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

You're absolutely wrong. Freedom of speech, has no limits. That is why it's called freedom of speech; you can say exactly whatever you want. Death threats, is of course, something else. He's free to threaten me to death, of course. But precautions should be taken, if necessary. That is why I didn't care about reporting him for it at first, because I believe in free speech. But since he tried to break my balls by reporting me here to you admins, I had to defend myself. Anyway, take care until later. — EliasAlucard|Talk 03:20 20 Aug, 2007 (UTC)

Have a nice break. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 01:27, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Scientifically proven you are a HYPOCRITE. Ask civil people and they would tell you. Have a nice break. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 01:29, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

One last word. Anyone who supports freedom of speech and says free speech has its limits, is a hypocrite. — EliasAlucard|Talk 04:28 20 Aug, 2007 (UTC)

EliasAlucard, free speech also includes the someone's right not to say what they don't wish to say: in this case, the Wikimedia foundation's right not to publish content it finds incompatable with our mission. Your right to free speech doesn't take away anyone's right to blank inflammatory and irrelevant comments with the same buttons you use to create them, and it doesn't take away administrators' rights to block you. What your right to free speech does give you is the right to tell everyone off-wiki what a fascistic place this is. You can criticize it on your website, write an article about it, denounce it on television, etc. If you think your rights have been infringed, you can even explore legal action (just don't threaten it on-wiki.) None of us here can take that away from you. As long as you're here, see WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not an anarchy: "Wikipedia is free and open, but restricts both freedom and openness where they interfere with creating an encyclopedia. Accordingly, Wikipedia is not a forum for unregulated free speech." That's core policy.Proabivouac 03:49, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Freedom of speech has no limits? I guess the US Supreme Court is wrong. Please take your "freedom of speeech" complaints elsewhere. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 04:32, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

(Undent) Lucky for SWATjester there were enough cases to make that fit. Elias, YOu keep editing despite your stated intent above to go away for a couple days. don't try to get the last word, it'll just get you upset and wound up, nad want to reply more. Walk away. Take a day. relax. Wikipedia will still be here, your articles will be here, but this thread will be archived and you can move on. ThuranX 19:00, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Phral inappropriately using vandalism templates in a content dispute

User:Phral has placed this template on my user page after I reverted [37][38] two of his deletions [39] [40] of the same material at the White people page. User purports that these deletions are consensus; reading of the (overlong) talk page shows there is no consensus, just a POV-push from a group of editors. At best, this is calling vandalism what is merely a dispute content, and at worst this is an abuse of the warning templates. Would an admin please look into this? Thanks! The same user has already used the same tactics on User:Jeeny and User:Muntuwandi related to the same content dispute on the same page, so this isn't like it's the first time he's crossed the line.--Ramdrake 12:55, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Please provide links to when I did that. --Phral 12:58, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

There is consensus not to have those pictures in the article, and they are currently up for deletion. Ramdrake is simply trying to prevent them from becoming orphaned, which would result in their definite deletion --Phral 13:02, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, this section [41] shows there are many people who think these images are appropriate, so the claim of consensus doesn't hold.--Ramdrake 13:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

And I note that user:Jeeny is currently blocked for Personal Attacks and Civility issues. --Phral 13:05, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

And I further note that user:Muntuwandi is currently blocked for 3RR --Phral 13:06, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

All indicative of a content dispute, not willful vandalism.--Ramdrake 13:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary, my dear Watson. See [42] --Phral 13:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Those edits of Jeeny made when she was new were counted as vandalism, but she admits now she didn't understand how Wikipedia worked back then, and they were done on other articles. You are bringing up unrelated issues to try to muddy the situation.--Ramdrake 13:17, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe it was you who brought up the two blocked editors to try and further your argument. Am I not allowed a right of reply to your arguments? Late here, I'll contribute again in a few hours --Phral 13:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

My point was, and remains, that these edits were made in good faith, albeit in a hot content dispute, and cannot be considered vandalism, as per WP:VAND: Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Apparent bad-faith edits that do not make their bad-faith nature inarguably explicit are not considered vandalism at Wikipedia. Hope this clarifies the situation for you.--Ramdrake 13:29, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Here's my opinion: The reverts that Ramdrake carried out were not acts of vandalism and this entire situation is a content dispute involving the text and images on White people. Phral did used a UW template for the wrong purposes.
My proposal: I would suggest that the involved editors seek a form of dispute resolution (i.e. WP:RfM) and settle this without further distruption to the Community. nat^tang 13:32, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I anticipate that this won't be a problem for much longer because the primary editor (User:Muntuwandi) responsible for inserting the nonsense off-topic images at the top of the article keeps doing the same sort of things all over wikipedia and keeps getting blocked for it. He is in conflict with nearly every editor and administrator he runs into because his habit is to repeatedly add poorly sourced POV-laden nonsense in every article he edits and revert-war to keep it in. So properly interpreted in that context, Ramdrake is just aiding the vandal. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 13:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. Fourdee has been going around reporting people for vandalism, to get the others blocked with whom he disagreed. But, now Fourdee is blocked. Neither Ramdrake, I, nor Muntuwandi are vandals, per se. It's an unfair use of the term, to get the other editors blocked when they do not agree with another. - Jeeny ^Talk 20:13, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to respond by posting the "vandalism warning warning" template, {{vww}}, on Phral if he does it again. It's the only template I ever made, and I'm sort of waiting for somebody else to produce a "vandalism warning warning warning"... OK, it's self-referential/meta/silly, but I'm proud of it, too. Bishonen | talk 20:26, 20 August 2007 (UTC).

Help please

Hi, I asked for help with helpme and was advised to come here. User:Feline1 has made a comment on the talk page of User:Mongvras which appears to be defamatory (accusing Mongvras of fire-bombing hotles, on a day when at least 1 person was killed in a hotle fire in Cornwall, which is where Mongvras comes from). Mongvras has become very upset by this, and Feline1 (who has a history of disruptive/downright rude edits & being blocked for them) has responded in a way which seems almost calculated to wind Mongvras up more, I'm worried that the situation will deteriorate further, and would appreciate some cool heads take a look and help calm it down. Thanks. DuncanHill 13:45, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

What is a hotle? Diffs would be appreciated. Sandstein 14:16, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I think, from reading the user talk page that he mentioned, I believe that he meant to say hotel. nat^tang 14:20, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Hôtel is indeed what was intended. DuncanHill 14:26, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

This [43] is where the fire-bombing "joke" made its appearence, the situation continues from there onwards, though it's worth looking at what went before to get background. DuncanHill 14:29, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's a giant violation of WP:NPA. I'd support a block there. ThuranX 14:48, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I have blocked for one week given the users failure to withdraw the comment when concerns were raised and after looking at their block log. Comments? Spartaz ^Humbug! 14:53, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I hope that everyone involved can cool down a bit now, Feline1 obviously has a lot to contribute in some areas, and I know I'm not perfect and get grumpy or snidey sometimes, but it did really seem over the top of him. Thanks again :) DuncanHill 14:57, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It looks like this was an extremely lousy attempt at sarcasm by the blocked editor:

“ "stop firebombing hotels" is a sardonic metaphor for "stop getting so ridiculously over-emotional about editing wikipedia articles". It was good advice and still stands. Continually abusing other editors and making wild accusations will only make things worse. ”

My guess is that said editor was oblivious to this fact, and was asking to be throttled. Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that a block should never be used to make editors "cool down" (See WP:CDB for context.) --Aarktica 15:06, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree - cool down blocks are ineffective. This is not a cool down block but a response to an egregious personal attack that the editor tried to laugh off when it was pointed out to them exactly how offensive they had been. Spartaz ^Humbug! 18:37, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Incivility and POV-pushing

User:Guivon seems to be POV-pushing by deleting references and external links he disagrees with (instead of for valid reasons according to Wikipedia guidelines), has made unjustified comments about other editors on talk pages, and has deleted every single message posted on his talk page (regardless of the legitimacy of those messages). Also, this individual's editing pattern and word usage is quite similar to that of the permanently-banned accounts User:NovaNova and User:GiorgioOrsini. If need be, I will make a a separate IP check request, but if an administrator here look into that, it would be much appreciated.Spylab 14:12, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

For the first two accusations, specific diffs, please. It's not immediately obvious that this is not a run-of-the-mill content dispute that can't be resolved by WP:DR. For the sock allegation, please see WP:SSP and the warnings there. Finally, it's polite to notify another editor if you're opening up a conversation about him on AN/I. THF 14:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

(On the other hand, this tag removal is unusual for a brand-new editor.) THF 14:36, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It is pointless to leave any message on that individual's talk page, since he deletes every single post. I will go ahead with the IP check request, because the more edits/comments I read, the more it seems likely that this individual is the same banned editor(s) mentioned above. And as you mentioned, it is strange that he would delete that protection template, especially since the account that the template was meant to protect the article from is a sock puppet of one (or both) of the banned accounts mentioned above. Here are links to some examples of the innappropriate edits and comments:

• [44] - deleting link for no apparent valid reason other than opinion
• [45] - earlier example of same unjustified edit
• [46] - first example of that same edit
• [47] - incivility on talk page
• [48] - unjustified personal attack on talk page (accusing another editor of defamation)
• [49] - comment on talk page showing that the individual considers the validity of sources based on the ethnicity of the author
• [50] - deleted legitimate comment on his talk page
• [51] - uncivil comment on another editor's talk page
• [52] - deleted welcome template on his talk page
• [53] - uncivil comment on talk page

Spylab 15:03, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

User may be removing notices, but it is likely that he is looking at them first, so a warning is not pointless . DGG (talk) 18:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

This seems like a run-of-the-mill content dispute, other than the 8/14 declaration of nonsense, for which the editor was warned, and has since been more civil. Some of the edits you protest appear to be perfectly legitimate edits. For example, the editor's argument is not that validity should be determined by source of ethnicity, but that one ethnicity's POV is being underreported in an article about a subject of ethnic contention. There is perhaps confusion because of the imperfect English on both sides of the edit conflict (the accusation of "defamation" can in no way be considered a legal threat). One may delete comments from one's talk page. Please assume good faith and use DR procedures; if you have strong sock evidence, please report it as appropriate. THF 19:17, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Repeated WP:ATTACK and WP:SOAP from 71.224.*.*

I see six very similar incidents from the following three IP address (all of which map to *.hsd1.pa.comcast.net):

71.224.192.194
71.224.232.97
71.224.232.127

This edit is an example of WP:SOAP; this edit is an example of WP:ATTACK (in this case antisemitism).

I assume there is no point in adding warnings to the talk page of a dynamic IP address, so I've blocked the article from anonymous edits. Was that the right thing to do? Or should I have requested 'semi-protect' for the article? I also looked into blocking 1.224.0.0/16, but I see that only SysOps can do that...

Chewyrunt 15:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

First, please do warn anonymous editors. Second, only admins can protect or semi-protect articles. Simply adding a protection template does not protect an article. If the anonymous editors persist in obvious vandalism after multiple warnings, go ahead and report them. If it would be better to have the article semi-protected, request that here. --ElKevbo 15:23, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the protection template mistake - getting up to speed as fast as I can, and trying to be careful, but obviously still have a lot to learn. So do you recommend I place a warning on the talk page associated with every dynamic IP addresses seen from this user? Or just the last one he/she was assigned? --Chewyrunt 15:34, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd just hit the most recent one if it's totally obvious that it's the same editor. If these accounts behave like a sockpuppet then they can be treated as such. But if there is any doubt, assume good faith and warn each IP address as if they are separate editors (because they very well could be!). --ElKevbo 15:42, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I added a mild warning here. If the problems continue I'll give some thought to which of WP:AIV or WP:RFP is more appropriate (guidance appreciated). --Chewyrunt 16:51, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

(guidance..) take it to AIV. they amy suggest a Checkuser to see if there's ageographic commonality as grounds for action, and they can also refer you to RFP if they deem that a better solution. Since you're still learning, it'll be a good experience. Both are good plaes to go with this sort of thing, better than here, and bot hwill guide you in where to take the problem further. ThuranX 02:36, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Disruptive editing and personal attacks by User:Jetwave Dave

Jetwave Dave has repeatedly removed an AfD tag at Pribor-3B Assault Rifle: diff of most recent removal. Upon my warning that I would report him here if he continued removing the tag, he vandalized my userpage, and replied with this incivil comment. Please deal with this disruptive and incivil editor. Thanks. Parsecboy 15:26, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Jetwave Dave has vandalized my page twice more: 1, 2, as well as continued to remove the AfD tag. Parsecboy 15:52, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Jetwave has also vandalized my talk page. Please take action against this increasingly incivil editor. Parsecboy 15:59, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

User has continued to vandalize my user and talk pages. Parsecboy 16:12, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

• I second this request. Jetwave has disrupted an AFD, and now he has overstepped the line with obscenities. Leibniz 16:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Not blocked yet? Weird. Blocked indefinitely, vandalism account. Bishonen | talk 17:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC).

Thanks a lot. Parsecboy 17:57, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Jetwave is currently avoiding the indef block with 168.103.148.163 (talk · contribs). User has repeatedly vandalized my user page, as well as other main page articles. Parsecboy 18:29, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Jetwave has also used 67.40.182.125 (talk · contribs) to circumvent the block. Parsecboy 18:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Multiple waves of Jetwave Dave-related IP trolling blocked. Appropriate pages protected. —Kurykh 19:04, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Sri Lankan Civil War

Added the Image of Anton Balasingham for Sri Lankan Civil War as there was no any photo to represent LTTE, the major rebel group against the Sri Lankan government in the civil war. Help the photo from removal.Kulaman 15:47, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

systematic removal of unwanted facts

Checkuser request: User:Dmol

• Galileo CRS
• 8 aug [[54]]. removing location of company headquarters.
• 14 aug [[55]], removing company ownership from article (It is currently owned by Travelport).

• Amadeus IT Group.

Removal location information: *[[56]] Computer reservations system removing critical notes: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Computer_reservations_system&diff=152253163&oldid=152251111. Mion 16:03, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Bluemiracle and his IP sockpuppets

After making a list of IP addresses with similiar Digimon-related unsourced edits (here, it looks like I've finally found a named account who's using these: User:Bluemiracle. This user is characteristic of edits to Sora Takenouchi, Matt Ishida, and now Mimi Tachikawa. Other edits (such as to José Moreira) also back up this conclusion. JPG-GR 16:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Adolfus

I've given User:Adolfus the benefit of the doubt, but I'm thinking that s/he might be a sockpuppet of a banned troll. This user previously registered as User:Adolphus Hitlerius, which was obviously blocked, and then responded (through this new account) to my unblock decline with an apparently strong knowledge of Wikipedia policy. I might just be paranoid here, but the user's first edits were installing Twinkle, going on new page patrol, etc. Very odd for an apparent new user. I might be missing something obvious here, or ultimately making something out of nothing, but others' insights would help here. --Kinu ^t/_c 16:15, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Of course I'm a sock of a banned troll. But of who? That's the mystery. You'll probably never know it. Checkuser isn't going to prove anything. WP:RBI. Adolfus 16:23, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I see the bait was taken. Blocked indefinitely. --Kinu ^t/_c 16:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Pope Peter Seabrook evading blocks

User Pope Peter Seabrook was banned by User:ChrisO. A look at the history of Chris's talk page since [57] shows that a sock is being used. I think Chris is offline which is why i bring it here. (i found it through recent changes)

• User:Pope David Jordan
• User:Pope Tony Hutchings
• User:Pope Richard Leach
• User:Jobsworth Terry

Could something be done about it? Thanks Woodym555 21:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

They might be socks of Pope Benjamin Lister (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), given the obvious correlation of username and similar harassment of ChrisO. —Kurykh 21:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Woody. See Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Pope Benjamin Lister‎. The loser responsible appears to have registered a large number of sock accounts, possibly using a bot. -- ChrisO 21:49, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not that interested in ChrisO. I have bigger fish to fry. Do you wish to call it a truce? 81.132.215.158 23:33, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Vandals aren't welcome around here. If you want to start contributing productively, then do so; but if you're going to keep vandalising, you won't be given any quarter. -- ChrisO 23:36, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Vandal move, Talk:History of the telephone to Phone Sex 2

A vandal by the name of User:Larry4444 seems to have moved the talk page of Talk:History of the telephone to Phone Sex 2. I would have requested a move but that process would be to slow. Plus it seems to be an obvious bit of vandalism Rgoodermote 21:57, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Done. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:02, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Another vandal done, when will they learn Rgoodermote 22:04, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Old AFD nomination

Can someone close Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people believed to have been affected by bipolar disorder (2nd nomination). It probably wasn't included in the log and is still open since 24 July. I can't really close it myself since I already stated I prefer deletion. Garion96 (talk) 22:04, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Done. Navou ^banter 22:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Still prefer this being deleted, but thanks. :) Garion96 (talk) 22:22, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Uploading deleted images

mathewignash (talk · contribs) continues to have difficulty with fair-use images. He's uploaded in good faith over the last couple of year dozens of images from Transformers box packaging, most of which have been deleted per a pair of discussions (those two images were the only ones on which there was discussion; the others were CSDed after receiving refuted fair-use tags).

Since those deletions, however, he has re-uploaded several images. The first was Image:Starscream-boxart.jpg, which was CSDed as a repost. I asked him to stop posting boxart images in general and specifically mentioned the deleted image reposting. More recently, however, he uploaded Image:Megatron-toy.jpg, which is a repost of Image:Megatron-boxart.jpg. He also did not cite the fansite source for this image or the other boxart image he uploaded. Both of these images went up after I again reminded him that the boxart images did not meet Wikipedia's fair-use policy.

This is not mathewignash's first difficulty with copyright and fair-use issues, and I thought I'd toss a heads-up here. --EEMeltonIV 22:06, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Block of User:Zasdcxz

Could anyone review block of this user, please? He was blocked indefinitely by User:Ryulong for allegedly "POV forking" [58]. Looking at the edit history of Zasdcxz, I could find only a few questionable edits of article Alexander Litvinenko poisoning, which he tried to explain [59]. It is noteworthy that User:Ryulong has a "vandal got hold of an admin account" notice in his block log [60]. This looks like a wrong block of Zasdcxz to me. Thank you. Biophys 22:14, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Why "is [it] noteworthy that User:Ryulong has a "vandal got hold of an admin account" notice in his block log"? That happened a while ago, when some admin accounts were hijacked, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-05-14/Compromised accounts. That's got nothing to do with this. Melsaran (talk) 22:32, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd say: give him another chance, see how it goes, you can always reblock. Melsaran (talk) 22:42, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I just think Biophys is suggesting perhaps the account was compromised again, though if the account had gone rogue I believe more than one block would have been evident. David Fuchs ^(talk) 23:40, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I was not clear enough. Could you please unblock user Zasdcxz and give him another chance? I did not mean to tell anything suggestive or bad about Ryulong. Biophys 23:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, don't worry, you were clear enough. I've unblocked him for now, but if he does anything outta line again we would be obliged to send him to the cooler. David Fuchs ^(talk) 23:51, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Request to block:User:172.163.201.179

I realise that I am anonymous as well, but this user, by history appears to solely be interested in defacing canadian articles, particularly defaming Carolyn Parrish. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 205.145.64.64 (talk) 22:32:30, August 19, 2007 (UTC)

WP:AIV for vandalism reports, but NB the anon vandalized this page as well. THF 22:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Behavior of 172.163.201.179 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) is similar to the already-blocked 172.164.88.96 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). A larger block may be needed. THF 22:44, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Is there some sort of AOL block we can use on this range? This editor has been vandalising Canadian articles consistently for over six months. Individual blocks are completely ineffective. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Pizza1512 disrupting Wikipedia

The above mentioned user is causing significant disruption to Wikipedia, specifically WP:OX. Very briefly this user is recreating the many userbox templates available for denoting a wikipedians who are alumni of various Oxford Colleges. These recreated templates are of poor quality; non-free images, bad spelling & grammar etc and they are recreated in the main template namespace against WP:UM. The user then replaces all occurrences of the original templates with the new ones and has the original templates deleted. Further the user has already attempted to subvert the speedy delete process by removing the delete tag from one of the new templates Template:User Aularian and continuing to edit the template despite being warned by two editors about his actions. I have attempted to undo as much damage as possible and asked for the undeletion of the two userbox templates already deleted but I can see no signs of this user stopping.

The Wadham template was rescued by User:Bencherlite before the category was speedily deleted but Pembroke and Oriel were not so lucky and were speedy-deleted out of process - they had not been empty for four days.

Pizza1512 has previously been warned about fair-use images in userboxes, incidentally.Aula^TPN 23:01, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Pizza1512 has also editing other people's user pages to give them a userbox, to replace their previous userbox with a Pizza1512 version, or to add them to a Wikipedian category – all without any sign that they had asked for this. Bencherlite^Talk 23:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I have undone all of this. I have restored all the templates which were not deleted and added the categories back. I have also restored all the user pages. Finally, I have added speedy delete tags to all of Pizza's new templates Template:User Ox Catz, Template:User Wadhamian, Template:User Ox Pembrokian, Template:User Mertonian, Template:User Balliolian, Template:User Aularian and Template:User Orielense. Aula^TPN 23:26, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I undeleted the two userboxes before I saw this. I agree with the above comments about disruption.--Bduke 23:25, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Continued incivility during an ongoing dispute

Chrisjnelson (talk · contribs) continues to behave with extreme examples of incivility. His latest takes place at his RFC page here. He has been warned numerous times and has in fact been civil to multiple editors. This is on display here. Please put this to an end. Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  23:06, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree that the continued incivility could be reason for a block; I'm going to warn him. David Fuchs ^(talk) 23:34, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

• With all due respect, he has been warned at least 5 times, why does nobody take this up to the next level? Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  23:51, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

What is it you are looking for? Navou ^banter 23:53, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Because you are engaged in a content dispute with the editor, I feel I should take your recommendation with a pinch of salt. David Fuchs ^(talk) 00:13, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

These are all lies. I'm only about the content here. Jmfangio has done so many things wrong it's insane. It's personal with him. I do not deserve any warnings at this time - he does.►Chris Nelson 00:11, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

And so might I suggest dispute resolution? Also, blocking someone who is the focus of an RfC is prolly not a great plan. David Fuchs ^(talk) 00:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

The only issue here is his existence. He causes so many problems it's unreal, and it's no coincidence he's the common denominator. It's personal with him and he opposed every edit or suggestion I make because it's mine. He cites policies that he knows nothing of, he doesn't take responsibility for his actions and he makes false accusations all the time. NO one would have any problems with one another if he did not exist.►Chris Nelson 00:17, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

If what you say is true, then edits like this are counterproductive. WP:COOL, or it's difficult for outside parties unfamiliar with the situation to come to the correct conclusions. THF 00:53, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Please Juan, never come here before making a visit to Chris's talk page unless it is a death threat. To Chris. It is counterproductive and hope i won't happen again. If communication fails try the dispute resolution process as mentioned by David. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 01:21, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

FayssalF- going to his talk page is no longer advisable. He has been informed so many times and anything coming from me is not going to help the situation. I don't expect everyone to be up on the situation, but the amount of time i'm having to put into the Dispute Resolution process is ridiculous when the other editors (Chris and Ksy92003) have no intention of settling. The guy has made blatant WP:OWN, and people have seen that. To summarize: He makes really offensive comments ([61]).

And he gets warned many many times for his behavior. Look at how many this is in just a few short days. [62], [63], [64], [65], [66] Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  02:06, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Enough already. This thing is in request for arbitration; let it run its course there. Raymond Arritt 02:16, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

68.252.227.154 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

Resolved

68.252.227.154 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) continues to add uncited statements about sexuality into Ty Pennington (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) GreenJoe 01:32, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

This one's handled. WP:AIV was a good place to report it, thanks. - Philippe | Talk 01:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

User: Masterypro is intentionally vandalyzing Chevron corp pages

Resolved

User is adding the words Bio Diesel an inordinate number of times and intentionally changing appropriate postings to replace words with Bio Diesel or some other similar vandalism. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.40.89.249 (talk) 03:27, August 20, 2007 (UTC)

This is trivial enough for WP:AIV. I have made a report there. Someguy1221 03:51, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

User indef blocked by Academic Challenger. - Philippe | Talk 04:08, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Parsifal (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Resolved

Parsifal (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) despite discussions at talk:Electronica behaves in violation of WP:OWN, as he did at Space music. This time he doesnt want to admit that a reference posted Electronica is faked, please see here and here --Doktor Who 04:05, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Uhm... I am not sure it IS faked. I looked up the ISBN and got:

Music and Technoculture (Music/Culture)

Release: 2003-09

Publisher: Tandem Library

Format: Hardcover

ISBN: 0613912500 EAN: 9780613912501

List Price: $39.60

- Philippe | Talk 04:10, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

• Ditto. That reference looks accurate; see here. --Haemo 04:11, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorr, I checked, it doesnt show me. :[ Thats a conspiracy, I guess.....Doktor Who 04:15, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

• I'm going to close this as resolved. The reference appears legitimate. - Philippe | Talk 04:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment from uninvolved editor: I have also read similar books and materials as the one listed, so while I can't specifically vouch for that particular reference, I can vouch for the presence of similar materials. Also, I left a warning for Doktor Who on Talk:Electronica letting him know that, regardless of content issues, his behavior stepped significantly over the line with respect to WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL, and advised him that he should cool down and come back when he's ready to address the content issues. (I've been edit-conflicted twice, so I apologize for editing an already-closed notice.) — KieferSkunk (talk) — 04:20, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

You are not an uninvolved editor, since you are very close to Parsifal. Anw, I'll never believe anymore in anything related to music that I read on this site, it's time for a long, indefinite wikibreak.Doktor Who 04:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

You're certainly welcome to take a break. We are not trying to drive you off of Wikipedia. As for me, I am not "very close" to Parsifal - I am perhaps the closest thing there is on WP to a friend of his, but that is merely because we've crossed paths on Wikiquette Alerts. I happened to have been watching his Talk page when I noticed your initial threat to report him here, so I treated it just like I would a Wikiquette Alert. That is where our "closeness" ends. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 04:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Threat of physical violence from User:Doktor Who

In a brief followup to the Admin notice immediately above this one, User:Doktor Who just leveled a threat of physical violence against the rest of the editorship that he's apparently at odds with. relevant diff. I have tried to reason with him (see the discussions on my talk page and Talk:Electronica), but it appears that all he wants to do is attack other editors at this point, and stir up quite a bit of drama in the process. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 05:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Wrong, None could take seriously my sentence. The point is that I'm sure that there is some smart socketmaster using somethiung more sophisticated than Tor or similar proxies, agaoin, you cant fool me. I have no evidence, but Im not stupid.--Doktor Who 05:49, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Listen Dok, when you say you will beat someone if you ever meet them in real life, that is a physical threat, and a great way to get blocked indefinitely from this site. In fact, I would like to hear the other admins opinions on if at least a temporary block is needed in response to this. I don't think you were serious, but that is a physical threat. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 06:52, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

In space, no one can hear you scream. Online, no one can tell when you're kidding. Threats of violence are totally inappropriate on Wikipedia. You've said repeatedly that you're leaving Wikipedia for a WikiBreak — perhaps that would be a good idea until you can calm down and be civil to other users? --Haemo 07:06, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

He only threatened to "kbeat" someone. Maybe "kbeat" means a more positive thing in a language we all don't speak. Jmm6f488 07:13, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

KieferSkunk is likely a sockpuppet of George Cruickshank, also known as Gene_poole , same harrasment toward me, same wording, same self addressing as "we can't tolerate you" or smg.--Doktor Who 07:28, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Additional information:

User:Doktor Who's two comments above are representative examples of his immediate accusations of sockpuppetry whenever more than one editor does not agree with him.

• Doktor Who (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• likely short-term sockpuppet: Shadowshadows (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

I doubt he actually intended physical violence, but he did write it so it's hard to ignore. Also, K is not next to B on the keyboard, so that's a disturbing typo. Whatever he meant, he's very angry. His comments are often disruptive and angry and this one went a bit further than usual. User:Doktor Who regularly makes sockpuppet accusations and expresses hatred and fears that he is being trolled or attacked.

He often demands that articles be changed or deleted, and I have not seen him do a productive edit, only reverting and complaining. When he demands references, he's said things like he "knows people" who "know the real information", but when asked, he has not provided any references that I've ever seen.

I want to be fair, so I'll say maybe he does productively edit on other articles, and only that I have not seen it.

Sometimes his comments are lucid and almost friendly, but mostly aggressive and sometimes I don't understand what he's saying.

The WP:AN/I report filed by User:Doktor Who about me a couple hours ago, just above this one, was in bad faith and a waste of time for this noticeboard.

Here are a couple emotional posts from him on my talk page: [67] and [68], with sockpuppet accusations and other strange claims that I don't understand. (his GC-GP abbreviation refers to his complaint about George Cruickshank/Gene_poole that he mentioned above).

He was away for a few months. I was wondering during that time if he would return and what would happen. Now we know. --Parsifal _Hello 07:58, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I didnt provide any reference because it was Saturday morning here when you challenged me to provide, where do you live, in a magic Castle, princess? I know the sockpuppets you have here, but I'm not so stupid to post them here.

I made lots of constructive edits as anyone can realize, outside the field of the articles related to your usual edits. You were user gardener of geda before, and likely you are very familiar with gene_poole and kaiferklunk even in your daily life. Of course I will not post further personal details, do not worry, I am not a fool, i am fully aware of the policies. Please Iask you to cease to edit articles according to your WP:OWN schemes and needs. You are not the person that will kick me off from here.--Doktor Who 09:34, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Nobody has accused you of not making constructive edits, DW. If your only purpose here on WP was to disrupt and attack, you likely would have been blocked a long time ago. But right now, you do seem to be causing more trouble than you're helping, and accusing everyone of being a sockpuppet of one another isn't going to get you very far. You should consider the possibility that more than one person thinks and types the same way.

Admins, how long do we need to put up with this? — KieferSkunk (talk) — 16:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I would support a block in this instance, but will not do it myself: I'm involved, in that I intervened last evening in the matter involving Doktor Who. As such, I would prefer that a block come from someone else, so that he can't misunderstand it as a "vendetta" or anything equally creative. However, I endorse [User:Until(1 == 2)]'s proposed block, above. - Philippe | Talk 17:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm uninvolved, and would support a block of at least a week or two for this. (I'm trying not to let myself be influenced by the way his username reflects poorly on my favourite television programme, either.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I have not vandalized anything, you can't block me. The pattern of my edits show that I am still a valid contributor. Doktor Who 17:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism isn't the only thing you can get blocked for. See WP:BLOCK#Disruption; the failure to remain civil and respect consensus in this case looks like disruptive editing to me. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:23, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and blocked him for 48 hours for disruotion and threats of violence. If there is 1 thing I wont stand for, it is a threat that you would beat somebody. There is NO reason that a conversation on wiki should EVER be associated with beating people. I think this is a serious statement as to this editors character, problem solving abilities and may entertain a longer block if the community would agree to it. Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 17:26, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Good call, I was about to do the same. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 17:29, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Good move, Chris. As I said, I'd support a block of at least a week or two in this case. Between the threat of physical violence and the disruption, 48 hours probably isn't enough. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

And now Doktor Who is unblocked. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 18:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I again went out on a limb and did that too. He appears sincere in the apology and hope it will overturn a new leaf. It was his first block so i will give him another chance and try not to use the block as a punishment that he is (at least appears to be) sorry for, and quite possibly a mis-understanding. Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 18:52, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

WikiScanner trolling

User:Bmedley Sutler is on a WikiScanner hunt. Is this appropriate?. He's been warned before. If it were someone else, I'd simply revert it as trolling and leave a warning but I am somewhat involved with this editor. --Tbeatty 06:49, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

What is the problem? It is a NPOV question. His edits cause a concern. There is no NPA. Why are you 'Wikistalking' me? To the administrators. Look at the certain small group of RW editors and how many of the edits and complaints on this board and other administrator boards are from them. This can be seen by some as an organized campaign of harassment and intimidation. ΞBMEDLEYΔSUTLERΞ 06:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

It's not a relevant question and it's a chilling form of intimidation of editors. --Tbeatty 07:08, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes your 'Wikistalking' and complaints about so many editors may be considered by some as a "chilling form of intimidation of editors". Please stop 'Wikistalking' my edits. Thank you. ΞBMEDLEYΔSUTLERΞ 07:17, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't complain about editors, jsut their actions that violate policy. You can end this particular one by reverting your post. "Outing" editors is not acceptable behaviour. You may also want to familiarise yourself with Wikipedia:Wikistalking#Wikistalking prior to accusing editors of it. --Tbeatty 07:23, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I trust we have no policy against asking people questions about themselves. I am unable to believe that these attacks against Bmedley are being made in good faith and not in retribution for his bringing Crockspot's vile statements to light during his recent RfA. ←Ben^B4 07:57, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

We have policies against trolling. That question is trolling. This incident report is not an 'attack.' The question should simply be reverted. We do not support attempts to 'out' editors. It's a pretty fundamental policy. --Tbeatty 08:00, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Tbeatty, you have a whole page of links trying to out people, proxies and all the 'RFCU's are 'outings' trying to claim that honest editors are someone else! You shouldn't talk I think. Would it be better if I asked for an RFCU of Hypno against USGOV IP's? Is that what you want? ΞBMEDLEYΔSUTLERΞ 08:07, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Trolling per WP:TROLL is defined as disrupting usability, which the question does not. Per WP:COI editors are encouraged to declare conflicts and asking editors about their conflicts is absolutely common. ←Ben^B4 08:17, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

So, my 0.02$ — there's nothing super-duper obviously inappropriate, but it's definitely not in the best of taste here. Asking questions, apparently out of the blue, about "are you an employee of this agency" is not very nice, since it implies that the questioner has some reason to believe they are — and thus, have been violating a laundry list of policies. If you have some real evidence, it would be best to discuss it with the user when asking the question — at least then there's something to discuss. Ensuring conflicts of interest are minimized is a laudable goal, but this is pushing it unless there is some evidence that no one is presenting that would lead a reasonable person to believe such a question would result in an answer other than "No". --Haemo 08:27, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

It's along the lines of "are you gay?" "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the communist party.", "Are you a jew?, "Did you stop Beating your wife?", "have you given money to political parties? Which ones?". This Wikiscanner mccarthyism needs to stop. IF there is a violation of policy, we have dispute resolution processes. But implying wrongdoing through use of "innocent" questions is not acceptable. --Tbeatty 08:37, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

HOW DARE YOU! Someone with your Blacklist shouldn't be so free with the charges! TB's blacklist How DARE you link to the Holocaust when writing about me! I will go to sleep now, but if that is there when I wake up, comparing me to a Nazi, and the killing of Six Million Jews, (and Gays and Gypsies and many others too) I will make an OFFICIAL complaint. HOW DARE YOU! Stop harrassing me Tbeatty! ΞBMEDLEYΔSUTLERΞ 09:16, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

No one is harassing you. No one cares what religion you are, what country you live in or who you work for. Contrast that with your questions. For my "blacklist" see Wikipedia:No_open_proxies and you will understand it. --Tbeatty 09:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with Bmedley Sutler question as long as it's used in a targeted fashion (something in the edits has to prompt the question) and done politely. I don't see how he implied "wrongdoing" with a simple polite question. Bmedley Sutler, in future, you might also want to use it in conjunction with {{ConflictOfInterest}}, so that the person you are asking can read about COI and understand the context in which you ask it. Anyway I'm sure all the people following you around wiki will keep you straight. --Fredrick day 10:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Partially in Bmedley's defence, Tbeatty has posted a diff that doesn't tell the whole story (Bmedley's second edit to Hypo's talk page, made immediately after the first, expands on his question ([69]), and does provide context. That being said, Bmedley, digging up people's identities is not acceptable. If a user wishes their personal background to be revealed, they will reveal it. If they do not, then they will not reveal it. Chasing after them and trying to find out undisclosed information that relates to their real life identity is a violation of privacy, and does smack of McCarthyism. It would be better to phrase it "I have a concern that there may be a conflict of interest in some of your editing. Is that the case?" Leave it up to the user to reveal as little or as much as they wish; if they choose not to reveal anything, then please assume good faith - we all have the right to keep personal information to ourselves on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Harassment#Posting_of_personal_information.

Tbeatty shouldn't have made any kind of Holocaust connection though, which was inappropriate at best, and an apology for that would not go amiss. Neil ム 11:05, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

While really Bmedley shouldn't be asking people's real-world occupations, that give in no way acceptability to Tbeatty calling him a disruptive troll. Honestly, give it a rest- you're worse than Raul and UBeR here. If you have a dispute with another editor, solve it, don't come to admins and try and get each other blocked. David Fuchs ^(talk) 11:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Where did I call him a disruptive troll? --Tbeatty 19:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I think Bmedley needs to calm down. The holocaust was a bad choice of an example, but it was used to show what he's doing, which is basically, disguising an accusation or implying something bad in the form of a question. It can be easily be taken the wrong way, intimidating most people who read it, and giving the impression of bad faith. I'm not taking sides, instead I'm suggesting you both back off from the accusations and be more careful in your wording in future. - Zero1328 _Talk? 11:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that efforts to uncover 'aspects' of other user's RW identities are in poor taste at best and violating our privacy policies at worst... but the fact is that they are becoming quite commonplace. We currently have an ArbCom case over an extensive digging expedition of the same sort - right down to what neighborhood in Brooklyn a user lives in. My understanding of the practice was that any such information which is 'dug up' and might be relevant to COI, sockpuppetry, or whatever should be mailed to the RFCU's or Arbcom privately... rather than being the subject of public interrogation and discourse. On the other hand we publicly 'out' editors from the government, companies, et cetera all the time. Basically, we seem to treat it as 'ok' to violate the privacy of someone who is breaking some Wikipedia policy/guideline related to identity... but that inherently allows the same treatment of users who are merely suspected of such. Yet some digging expeditions of the same sort (revealing location where users live or work) have been treated as the worst sort of villainy and resulted in lengthy/permanent bans. We should be more consistent on this. Either we protect the privacy of all our users or we don't. --CBD 11:43, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Entirely - I still don't see how asking someone if they work for organisation X because they only edit articles related to organisation X is outting them - it seems an entirely sensible way of etablishing if someone has a COI and pointing them in the direction of the relevent guidance. If he was saying "I accuse you of being Joe Blow of organisation X" then people might have a point. Anyway as CBDunkerson says, what is mentioned here is common everyday practice on wikipedia. --Fredrick day 12:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Speaking soley about using wikiscanner to search for identities, I too believe it to be unacceptable. It is an uncalled-for invasion of privacy, it implies the assumption of bad faith, and it is extremely rude. Other personal attacks against these various editors notwithstanding, I am firmly in the belief that wikiscanner dredging is a form of harrassment, and should be stopped. Real CoI violations can be handled on a case-by-case basis, based on the edit, the editors, and the article. But Bmedly Sutler, and others engaging in this activity, need to stop. -- Avi 11:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

These kinds of comments from the editor are nothing new, see this, and this. He has been warned several times for making these kinds of accusations and comments. - Crockspot 12:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

user:Sundarbot

user:SundarBot is adding transwiki links in various languages. It just zapped an edit I made to a page a few minutes before the bot ran: Diff at [70]. I left messages on the bot talk page and the talk page of user:Sundar but the latter seems to be on a wikibreak so could some admin block the bot until the problem can be sorted out? PaddyLeahy 09:12, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

It's being operated by one of two other users (is that appropriate?). It also seems to be changing the order of the interwikis, placing French, German, and Japanese at the bottom rather than having them in the correct order. violet/riga (t) 09:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Sundar is around and has stopped the bot. PaddyLeahy 09:53, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Justice Forever (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) sockpuppets

After noticing suspicious requests on WP:RFPP, I investigated a little and just blocked:

• GreekHonorous (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) indefinitely
• 83.66.22.10 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) for a week

as obvious sockpuppets of the indefinitely blocked Justice Forever (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) (who had another obvious sockpuppet, TimDuncanSupportsTRNC (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)). Since it's almost the start of the work week in the Eastern time zone, and I won't be able to edit or check up as much while at work, others might want to keep an eye out. By the way, if anyone thinks that the IP block should be longer, go ahead and extend it if you want. — TKD::Talk 10:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikistalking by Cyrus XIII

I am being wiki-stalked, and I really don't know what to do.

In January of 2007 Cyrus XII blanked a page that had come through consensous of 2 years to state that "Visual Kei" was a genre. [71] I made a statement objecting [[72]. He then went through my recent contributions to edited any page I worked on recently including [[73]], [[74]]. He then followed the edits I did in January and February, to the point I was scared to edit any page, because he would come and blank it. I finally came back in July, and he has started stalking me again.

After I argued about blanking out the The Pillows page (you can see the arguments there) I left a small resource on Antic Cafe [[75]] and left a request on the talk page for some cleanup. He then immediately did this edit: [[76]] which removed perfectly valid sources, and had his friend repeat the exact words I put on the talk page onto my user page in order to intimidate me.[[77]]

Today I've done a lot of editing, and once again, he is making meaninless edits [[78]] (he just blanked all the resources I put - all were completely valid magazine resources!) and he attacked this page that I created as well [[79]].

I am simply tired of him stalking and harrassing me. These are not edits that benefit wikipedia in any way. As you can see on my user page, I am adding content to wikipedia using sources. He constantly pushes the 3RR rule, pushes revert wars, etc. I don't mind pages being changed over time by different users, but one user should not control every page I edit. I have tried resoning with him, but he only fights. Denaar 12:53, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Further proof he is stalking me - he is only making these edits to intimidate me. [[80]][[81]] I didn't use the best examples originally, but it was the same behavior - going through anything I had did that day just to change it somehow. Denaar 13:09, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Given that most of my editing on Wikipedia concerns Japanese music, it should come as no surprise that I have previously worked on (and subsequently watchlisted) quite a few articles in that field. Regrettably, most of them are still in a generally poor state in terms of verifiability and formatting, a situation I have been trying to rectify for well over a year now, which should become evident from the diffs Denaar provided. I won't counter these accusations of stalking (and apparently canvassing) with a list of problematic contributions on part of Denaar, as I have pointed them out to her/him earlier and if I considered them too much of an issue, I would file an RfC. I will merely state that a bit of tension between editors with similar fields of interest, yet different approaches is to be expected. - Cyrus XIII 13:32, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

You only do your "strict editing" to pages of users who have had conflict with you, you do not do it systematically or randomly. Denaar 14:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I have been watching the pages on Japanse music for well over a year now, and from a neutral perspective, I would say that Cyrus's edits have been for more legitimate than you seem to express. Much of the information you've added has been sourced by unofficial sites, or has been irrelevant to the article. The point about me being sent to "intimidate" you is quite a mistake. I was only agreeing with you that something should be done about the member profile section of the An Cafe page. Cyrus later deleted the section altogether, which I wholeheartedly agree with, seeing as they do not pertain to An Cafe as a band.

No stalking has occurred here. I have watched Cyrus's edits, and the majority of them are very obvioulsy systematic. They take place on recently edited Japanese music pages, and you just happened to make non-standard edits to a certain page too much at once, and Cyrus happens to be the first person to take notice (possibly because of the time-zone differential). You should be a bit more careful in your accusations, as many of the issues Cyrus has with your edits can clearly be found in Wikipedia's basic policies. --Jacob 16:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Note that the above user is a close friend of Cyrus's (check out thier banter on their talk pages) [[82]] - and is one of the people he recruited to attack me as stated above. They are currently trying to provoke me into a fight. Removing sourced material is not a "style" contradiction. Denaar 17:10, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

From what I can see, Cyrus is just removing trivial material (e.g. lists of the band's blood type, shoe size and perfume?), helping the articles by trimming things down and making it seem less like a blog for the band and fix templates and references... hardy a bad thing. On top of that, I don't see any evidence of trying to contact the editor and discussing these things before coming here... you should try that next time instead of making claims of wikistalking. Sasquatch t|c 17:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Expert attention needed on Ebionites featured article

I tagged the Ebionites article with "expert-verify" and "misleading" tags. A lot of editorial syntheses are being added to the article by a disruptive editor, which are being put into the mouths of verifiable sources. Many sources are added as references which only peripherally mention what is being claimed. The behavior was initially reported to admins Jayjg and Metamagician3000 with corroboration by two other editors working on the article. User_talk:Jayjg#We_could_use_some_help I will contact some academics I know in the field that support Wikipedia and see if I can get some grad students to help out. Ovadyah 13:26, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

This post today to the article talk page by Keith Akers reinforces my point. Keith is a scholar who contributed a lot of early material to the article. dif —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ovadyah (talk • contribs) 16:11, August 20, 2007 (UTC).

Based on the oncerns mentioned above, on the articles talk page, and on the talk pages of various contributors, I have nominated the article for a featured article review. The discussion can be reached here: Wikipedia:Featured article review/Ebionites. -- Avi 18:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Sinatra

Resolved

The German professor Joachim Grzega, active on Wikipedia as user Sinatra, has got a bit over 200 edits. The majority of these consist of linking to himself and/or inserting links to his own research and papers he has written. Not many are vandalism, but I still find it very problematic. Academics contributing to Wikipedia by writing about their own field are a huge asset, but academics doing little by promoting themselves is something I’m more dubious about. Most of these contributions by Sinatra are exactly of this kind, I only give a few examples here [83], [84], [85] , [86], [87], [88], [89], [90], [91], [92] The following is particularly nasty, and a clear case of vandalism. Grzega deletes well respected sources like The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language and replaces them with research done by himeself and his colleagues [93]. In some cases his articles are relevant to the subject [94], but I’m still uneasy about the author himself inserting them. I write and publish academic articles myself, and I would never link to them on Wikipedia. If every academic did, the situation would become absurd. It can be noted that some of Grzega's colleagues display the same behaviour. Professor Jean-Pol Martin, known here as Jeanpol and a colleague of Grzega, has written both the article about himself [95] and about Grzega [96] as well as some links to himself [97] alternatively deleting points about himself [98]. I'm a bit uneasy about all this. JdeJ 13:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

First, let me react to the accusation of vandalizing the References section in the article semantic change. Let me state the following: I have not just quoted myself, but several other authors who have carried out research on this matter. I can offer to add a positive review on my book quoted. As to Crystal, I have not deleted his encyclopedias because I think they are bad, but they are not really exhaustive (Crystal himself says that his list shows only “some” types of semantic change and he doesn't say who these types go back to!) or up to current research on many historical topics (the newer editions lack many of the recent developments). Actually, the vandalism has now been done by JdeJ himself: he has deleted respected and current sources that are specifically on the topic of semantic change; the revert means that the current knowledge and the wide-spread terminology has now been replaced by a basically out-dated terminology in a very general encyclopedia. Second—and more important--, I don't get quite see why experts on a specific field (who are experts not because they've read a lot about this field, but because they have worked in this field themselves) should not write on topics and therefore add links also to their own work. Jean-Pol Martin has written a few things on this in the German wikipedia here, among other things on the destruction of expert articles by laypersons. I am certainly not going to insist on my contributions. I offer my knowledge and expertise and I can give arguments regarding the content; however, I am not going to enter a discussion on judging a contribution on who made the contribution. In my view, collective construction of knowledge shall be predominantly content-oriented, not author-oriented. - Sinatra 14:26, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

The place for this discussion is WP:COI/N. Sinatra, please do not make controversial edits that can be perceived as being on your own behalf without talk-page consensus. See generally WP:SCOIC. THF 14:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, that's no problem. I can have contributions including my own research discussed on the talk page first. -Sinatra 14:44, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

AlexanderPar

user:AlexanderPar is involved in this arbcom [99] After a break he returned back and aggresively rv'ing without discussion to meatpuppet user:Hajji Piruz edits : see his contribs [100] - 6 pages he edited - no comments left and all rv's for Hajji Piruz. He was once blocked for such kind of activity and repeating it again.--Dacy69 15:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Controversial POV edits by User:Pgsylv

Since August 7, User:Pgsylv has made numerous edits [101], [102], [103], [104], (and so on) on Quebec in order write in the introduction that: "Quebec is a nation". This statement is the subject of a complex debate that has been underway for several years. His only reference is an essay from Gérard Bouchard, a well-known scholar who also is sovereignist. The user is engaged in POV pushing.

That being said, "Quebec is a nation" does not have it place in the introduction given the undue weight policy.Also, Quebec is a Canadian province and it is not because many have expressed their views that it should be a nation that this statement should consitute the introduction of the article. You may also see the talk page for further comments. Thank you for taking action. Tomj 19:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Fixed some formatting stuff for you. Hope that's okay. --Masamage ♫ 19:15, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I was to quick. Tomj 19:17, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Copyright Violation

History of DC Comics Timeline (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) was a fairly blatant copyright violation of this website. This was brought to my attention through OTRS. Just leaving a note here so others can keep an eye on it. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 19:45, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Extended image syntax

User:MCBC.jack has repeatedly edited this page, apparently to advertise his/her company. I reverted it 4 times - I believe that is acceptable as it appears to clearly be vandalism. However, if this is not the case then let me know (even if action has to be taken against me) and deal with the article as necessary. Eran of Arcadia 20:20, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Cody Coker

I've CSD'd this user's self-page (see current incarnation: Cody Coker) at least twice today, and he's removed the CSD notices several times until it gets deleted. After that, the user and several IPs vandalized my user page, and are now vandalising all the pages I've created (and possibly more, he works quickly). I'm skipping over AIV to come straight here, requesting a block of the user and all the IPs. GlassCobra 20:20, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

CodyCoker (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
68.196.247.92 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
74.170.166.169 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
68.196.247.92 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

Looks like the IPs have all been banned. Not sure if any action will be required after all, I'll keep an eye on Coker. GlassCobra 20:24, 20 August 2007 (UTC)