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Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Death of Baby P

GranvilleHouston (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is persistently adding the surname of this child, unsourced or poorly-sourced and apparently against consensus. He appears to be on some kind of crusade to have this name included. Since I have expressed an opinion on content, I bring this here for fresh minds to tackle this issue. Rodhullandemu 15:23, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

We all know his name anyway since it's all over the Internet, he deserves the dignity of at least being accorded a proper name. This is not a UK-based site so there is no reason at all not to name him. (GranvilleHouston (talk) 15:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC))

• I've no objection in theory, though I think the addition is unnecessary and tacky. A decent reference would be essential - I've just reverted the addition of a reference from a site that proclaims "The Daily Squib is a curious satirical publication and should therefore be taken fu**ing seriously ;)" - to be fair that's at the bottom of the page, so it's maybe not as obvious as, say, The Onion, that it's satire... Incidentally, I'm UK-based and I guess I don't fall into the "we all know..." category since I tend to get my news from TV, radio, and those newspapers I can buy at my local Co-op ;-) Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 15:34, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

• We do have precedent for names of minors unreleased because they are minors: Nevada-tan. The argument in the RfD was that, often, (fairly) reputable news sources will respect the legal system and not disclose names, which leaves the ones that do to be unreliable and unusable. Sceptre ^(talk) 15:48, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

• Some comments:
  1. The people best placed to judge the wisdom of publishing the name are the UK courts; whilst they may be slow, they are not capricious and if they believe that publishing the name is not appropriate then I see no reason why we should doubt their judgment, even if non-UK editors have no legal obligation to follow it.
  2. Contrary to some of the vile nonsense on the talk page, BLP applies to everyone equally - guilty, innocent and victim alike.
  3. I am inclined to indefinitely block rather than debate with editors who advocate for the murder of the guilty and then pursue a campaign to include court suppressed names in the article. CIreland (talk) 15:51, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Point of order: while BLP applies to everyone equally in theory, you'll get more praise for vigorously applying BLP on a barely-known person than a really famous person. Sceptre ^(talk) 16:11, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

The courts are a load of rubbish from Europe anyway and executing child murderers is not murder. There are NO reasons at all not to name the murdered child and the murderers, it must be done at once. (GranvilleHouston (talk) 15:55, 24 June 2009 (UTC))

Blocked for 72 hours for disruptive, tendentious editing. Tan | 39 15:56, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

• The child has siblings, and there are apparently other pending court cases against the parents, these two factors resulting in a UK order to suppress the name. Oversight has been dealing with this repeatedly; I originally questioned the rationale for this (as Wikipedia is not UK based) but the other factors are sufficient to convince me to at least leave the decision in the hands of other smart people. The general consensus on oversight-L is that it is acceptable to suppress this information, at least for now. Thatcher 16:21, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of that- thanks. Perhaps I should send recent diffs to be oversighted, or is this already in hand? Rodhullandemu 16:29, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

• I've been at this article for a while now, and since it seems to have spilled over here, I have a few remarks.
  1. Despite GranvilleHouston's pugnacious attitude, he raises several valid points. We do have a policy that Wikipedia is not censored, which has been blithely ignored in this matter. By no precedent which any have raised has WP:BLP extended to the censorship of the names of adult criminal suspects, much less convicted perpetrators.
  2. I previously agreed not to strongly contest this matter while jury proceedings were ongoing. That is, to the best of my knowledge, no longer the case.
  3. Peter does have siblings (one of whom is a rape victim), which is the current sole remaining WP:BLP rationale for restricting his last name. However, this argument is being made in a vacumn. It seems unimaginable to me that, after a case of this degree of publicity and magnitude, that the siblings' name would not be changed. Furthermore, the last name at issue here is a common one, and its power of identification without a first name is insignificant. Without putting out forbidden information, let's just say that it's more common than Thatcher and less common than Sheridan.
  4. Wikipedia should not, indeed cannot if it is to remain true to its mission, get into the business of deferring, sight unseen, to the logic of courts which do not have authority over it. I trust the current business in Iran, and frequent cases in China, provide ample reason why. We can only reason on the information given to us, which is thus far grossly lacking in details about practices, and seems to reflect a "censor in deference to the courts" attitude. Ray^Talk 16:33, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
• I'd agree, based on CIreland and Sceptre's points, that the name shouldn't be disclosed at the moment. I think that GranvilleHouston's last point undermined his credibility quite nicely (The courts are a load of rubbish from Europe? What tosh. We don't have a single European court in the English legal system). I appreciate Ray's argument, however, and I'd be quite happy to support inclusion if a reliable source can be found. Ironholds (talk) 16:37, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Reliable sources are the key. I recall a case awhile back, where a couple of paroled murderers had somehow swung a deal to allow them to "restart their lives", and there was a brouhaha about wikipedia carrying their names. However, reliable sources had the names, so the BLP argument failed. Similarly here - if reliable sources have the info, and if those sources have not been enjoined from publishing that info, then there is no reason wikipedia can't publish also. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 16:45, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
    • Reliable sources aren't the problem here. [1], [2], [3], [4] (not English), [5] have all been posted to the talk page in the past. Ray^Talk 16:55, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
      • Like I said, if the courts have enjoined the media from publishing the names, then in theory the media don't have the right to publish the names. So how are they getting away with it? Or did the court issue an order that it had no right to issue, and is thus leaving such publication unchallenged? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 17:06, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
        • Also, presumably the BLP issue is about identifying the parents, right? BLP obviously would not apply to the dead, unless it would compromise BLP rules for the living. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 17:08, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
          • No, the BLP "issue" is about identifying Peter's unnamed sister. Custom and common sense is that convicted criminals do not enjoy the right not to be named. Ray^Talk 17:31, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
            • Convicted criminals do enjoy the same protections under our BLP policy as everyone else, Ray, no matter how terrible their crimes. CIreland (talk) 17:36, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
              • Yes. They have the same rights, including the inalienable and mandatory exercise of the right to be named if they commit a serious crime that is relevant and encyclopedic to report :) Ray^Talk 17:48, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
            • (ec)The court placed an order that the mother's and her boyfriend's name not be disclosed; this isn't for the sake of them, but because the mother has other minor children, and the court felt they would be harmed by the inevitable exposure. The court didn't make a similar order against the third adult involved in the case, because he wasn't a member of the family (and, their reasoning went, this wouldn't lead to the children being identified). This Newsweek story goes in to more detail, and it answers Bugs' question - those that have published are risking prosecution, but many internet sources have, so they're going on the theory that there's so many that they won't. 87.115.17.119 (talk) 17:43, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

We should make these decisions based on our own policies. Who cares what the UK courts think? Their opinion is irrelevant here. -Chunky Rice (talk) 17:46, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Our own policies include taking into account the opinions of those more fully acquainted with the facts and with greater experience of dealing with such issues. For example, the UK courts. CIreland (talk) 17:57, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

But the issue here isn't a legal one (something the courts would be experienced in) but an encyclopedic one. Unless you want to call up David Eady the opinion of the courts is irrelevant. Ironholds (talk) 18:20, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

In contrast to the case of the two paroled murderers that I was talking about earlier, this involves protecting the innocent. Sounds to me like wikipedia should not be in position of putting the kids at risk, if in fact that is a legitimate concern. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:32, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

What policy says that? As far as I know, the policy here is that legal issues are the domain of the Foundation and unless Mike Godwin tells us to do something, we should simply continue to follow our own guidelines without trying to worry about the opinions of various courts around the world. -Chunky Rice (talk) 20:52, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I think, legal issues aside, the question is do we really want to come over as a bunch of insensitive pricks over the death of a child? Does the name's inclusion, right now this instant, add anything to the value of the article that we can't possibly live without? It strikes me that, just because we can do something under cover of our policies, it doesn't mean we should. EyeSerene^talk 18:32, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

This. //roux   18:58, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Naming the dead child, by itself, has nothing to do with BLP, as the child is dead. The parents do not warrant censorship either. But the innocent children do, if in fact they could be at risk. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:51, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, though I was trying to avoid the 'c' word ;) I think this is one of those situations where common-sense can usefully be applied for now, until the whole issue becomes moot when (presumably) the other children are resettled under new names and the reporting restrictions lifted. EyeSerene^talk 19:06, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If it didn't matter, the courts would permit the release of the name. While the court's decision may be predicated on matters unrelated to our own WP:BLP's concerns which may moreover have been made moot by the apparent non-mainstream release of such information, that doesn't mean we should necessarily go against such a media blackout.

Furthermore, WP:DEADLINE people; there isn't one. This is a common problem with articles on developing events, and while it's made all the more controversial by the distasteful nature of those events, I don't see any compelling reason to treat it any differently than another article on a current event. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 19:12, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm of this opinion that this falls under the "do no harm" principle and "presumption in favour of privacy" principle. When we are talking about minors we MUST be extremely cautious and prudent. Better to omit information than potentially cause harm. Exxolon (talk) 19:39, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I second Chunky Rice's " Who cares what the UK courts think? Their opinion is irrelevant here." As internet nerds, we're surely better placed than anyone to make such judgements. I propose we form a Council of Brights, chosen from those wikipedians whose World of Warcraft characters have the highest INT scores, and have them decide such matters. I'd trust their judgement over any mere court. 87.115.17.119 (talk) 19:00, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

• I wonder if I call Granville a little shit if I will be capriciously blocked for 3 hours without attempt at discussion? Just wondering, mind you. Not actually doing so. KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:39, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
  • That's not relevant to this discussion. And yes, if you do call an editor that expect to be blocked. We don't tolerate personal attacks. Exxolon (talk)
    • Clearly, you are clueless as to the incident to which I refer, as well as to the point which I am making. This comment was not intended for you, I assure you. KillerChihuahua^?!? 20:18, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
      • If you'd done a little more research, you'd know I'm fully aware of the incident you're referring to for a very good reason. Let me reiterate - the rights or wrongs of that incident are irrelevant to this discussion and debate should probably be continued elsewhere, however using that kind of language about other editors is clearly a blockable violation of WP:NPA - this is a serious project demanding a certain minimum standard of behaviour which that kind of act falls well short of. If we're not sanctioning editors who use that kind of language we definitely should be. Calling me 'clueless' isn't particularly civil either and in posting to this public noticeboard you're inviting a reponse from any editor, not just the one(s) you were attempting to get a reaction from. Exxolon (talk) 20:27, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
        • Then I stand corrected - you are aware, therefore being deliberately obtuse rather than innocently clueless. Thank you for clarifying your position. I am done. KillerChihuahua^?!? 20:36, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
          • 'Obtuse' now - again not very civil. Exxolon (talk) 21:06, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

• • • • • • • KillerChihuahua, Exxolon, this thread has gone from a silly joke to a disruptive squabble, that has no bearing on any actual issue for administrators. Please both immediately WP:DISENGAGE from this daft pissing contest; it's conduct unbecoming of you both. 87.115.17.119 (talk) 21:22, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I was already done, see the "I am done" in the message above? Feel free to chastise others who have already ceased behaviors which bother you, though, if it makes you feel better. KillerChihuahua^?!? 21:38, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

87.115.17.11 you are correct - I'm moving ongoing issues to KillerChihuahua's talkpage and will try and resolve them there instead. Exxolon (talk) 22:19, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

As one of the oversighters involved in this, I have been waiting for some current reliable source to stick their neck out and include the name. We should not be the first. Barely a day goes by without new news articles going to print, and yet news sources across the globe are choosing to not include the names. We should follow their lead. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 22:54, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Whereas the order issued by the UK courts applies only to UK newspapers, and not UK websites, and many of the UK newspaper website items cited above predate that order, the bottom line, as as I see it, is that when WP:BLP issues arise, it is our duty to minimise harm, not only to those mentioned within our pages, but also to those who might be identifiable through what is published here. That's an issue of our responsibility as opposed to reporting what we might; the truth might well be a virtuous motive, but we are not investigative journalists, nor are we scandal-mongers, especially in the context of editors whose only apparent motivation in this context is bloodthirsty and ill-considered revenge. The two-year old girl who was raped deserves better than that reaction. Rodhullandemu 00:12, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

If it lacks WP:RS on a BLP, that is one thing. If a reasonably-sized consensus supports suppression of the info per WP:BLP, that's another thing (though I would consider such a decision to be incompatible with the text of WP:CENSOR. But, not to put too fine a point on it, I'll eat my damned hat before I see EnWiki supporting automatic knee-jerk obedience to the laws of any foreign country, including Britain, based solely upon somebody's unofficial Euro-centric "interpretation". For the hundreth time: Wikipedia exists in the US and has a full-time lawyer whose job description is to "supervise [Wikipedia's] legal policy". If some questionable issue arises with the British legal system, its his job to determine whether or not we are obligated to make any changes. That's why he gets paid. For the record, he has previously stated many times that we don't answer to them. CIreland: your statement that "The people best placed to judge the wisdom of publishing the name are the UK courts" shows a fundamental disconnect with WP:CENSOR and a (thankfully rare) misconception as to what Wikipedia is not. You argue about second guessing the UK courts; how about not second-guessing the Project's lawyer, first? Or would you rather simply fire him and make all our legal decisions based on whatever Euro-centric viewpoint you come up with? Bullzeye ^contribs 03:18, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

That kiss-up-to-authority-they-know-what's-best viewpoint was also attempted with the murder case I was talking about earlier, and was defeated. That vaguely fascistic mindset is scary, frankly. In this case, supposedly there are kids to protect, so BLP actually does come into play, assuming that the kids could be harmed if their parents' names were publicized. This is a little different from O.J. Simpson, a very-public figure whose kids were already well-known, so there was no protecting them this way. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 03:25, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

While "think of the children" helps in this case, BLP also protects adults, including criminals, and the main reason why BLP comes into play is that no reliable source has yet knowingly printed the names after the court order. If the news had died down, it would be appropriate for us to make our own decisions in this matter, however every day new articles go to print ... without the names. This is a conscious choice by reliable sources to not include the names, so I view naming them on Wikipedia as ignoring the decision by reliable sources to not name the people. Once the papers start breaking the court ruling, we can follow their lead because we can reference them. Or if a reliable source reports that the court restrictions have been lifted, then we know - otherwise we are just guessing. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:12, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

What is "scary, frankly", Baseball Bugs is that when weighing the opinion of people who work daily with such issues and who are in full possession of the facts against the opinion of a bunch of amateurs (myself obviously included) with limited access to any details, you would defer to the latter. You may choose to describe giving more weight to the opinions of those with obvious expertise as "fascistic"; I, however, would prefer the adjective "adult" to describe the recognition of our own limitations.

Bullzeye, I don't understand what you mean by "Euro-centric viewpoint" - the issue is about knowledge and expertise, how is location relevant? And whilst the foundation lawyer may be well placed to determine what we can (legally) do, he has, so far as I am aware, no special qualifications that to advise on what we ought to do; just because we could, it does not mean that we should. If WP:CENSOR starts being used to justify "whatever we can get away with" then either it or WP:BLP has to go. CIreland (talk) 11:58, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that a UK court has more "knowledge and expertise" with our BLP policy that we do? I find that hard to believe. -Chunky Rice (talk) 16:40, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Excellent point. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:31, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the "Euro-centric" view, but what I'm seeing in some editors here is the same as with the previous case, that we the citizens should kiss up to authority. Maybe that's how they are used to doing things in mainland Europe, but not so much here in the USA. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:35, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

CIreland: To answer your question re: "Euro-centric", I would be less offended by this nonsense if it wasn't such a prevalent manner of thinking amongst certain members of our European editor set. Unfortunately, there has been repeated issues with UK editors attempting to boldly enforce their personal lay interpretations of UK censorship law on the US based English Wikipedia without any prompting from Mike Godwin. The Roger Took case and the Virgin Killer fiasco both featured heavy lobbying from European editors who felt ("as a courtesy") we should simply knuckle under any time the UK decides they want to censor EnWP. If a US judge cut an order demanding censorship of a UK-based Internet publication, he would immediately (and rightly) be given a tall middle finger from the other side of the pond. I am baffled why anyone would think EnWP should voluntarily act otherwise. Pretty sure there's a reason why US citizens aren't legally obligated to bow to the Queen. Bullzeye ^contribs 18:48, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

The present article is almost unreadable because of the avoidance of names. The first thing we're supposed to do is be an encyclopedia & convey information, not confusion. There can be no further harm done to the child, and the other parties are convicted felons. I can so no rational basis for not simply using them. Am I saying the UK attitude is irrational--yes, I certainly am. I would feel very differently if the child had survived. We apparently need a policy specifically about our willingness to follow the UK rules on publication of names, and I have no doubt what will be the view of almost everyone at WP, except perhaps a few people who have unfortunately grown accustomed to censorship. DGG (talk) 01:26, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not just UK citizens. As I said earlier in the thread, we did the same for Nevada-tan, the reasoning being that most, if not all, reliable sources will do the ethical thing and respect the legal system by not disclosing the name. And our rules for biographies, whether alive or dead, say that we have an ethical consideration above and beyond reliable sourcing. Hell, it's the decent thing to do. That said, the only source given in this thread that actually gives the infant's name as "Peter Surname" is, AFAIK, the Evening Standard, which was published a year before the court order came into effect. I think that we should take the ethical considerations into account and wait until the court order is lifted, and also warn UK editors that mentioning the name may make them liable for contempt of court. Sceptre ^(talk) 17:38, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Misuse of admin powers

User: Enigmaman has been abusing his position as an admin. On this page: :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_in_metal I have been formatting in what I feel is a better manner. If he, or any other user, direkgrees then they are quite welcome to discuss it with me, but no attempt to do so has been made.

Instead, he and Wiki Libs have been consistently reverting me, giving no explanation as to why. I'm not removing any sources or inserting any new information: I'm literally just formatting. Then, just now, Enigmaman reverts again and locks the page for A WEEK.

This is yet another example of wikipedia admins abusing their positions. Yeah, yeah, I can hear it already: "But you were edit warring, he did the right thing." Wrong. Page locking is not there so an admin can selfishly and arrogantly lock a page in a format they like best. If either of them feels there is a problem, they can contact me, or use the talk page, or just put something in their edit summaries. Instead, they've simply been undoing over and again, giving no explanation for their actions, while I have repeatedly said why I am doing what I am doing.

This is misuse of the locking function. I know of course that nothing will be done about it, because on wikipedia nothing ever is. Admins abuse their powers every day, and nothing is ever done about it. But hey, you never know, there's always the chance a random sensible person like myself will see this and take some hope from it. 86.129.199.181 (talk) 20:05, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

WP:BRD

You have to discuss if people don't like your "bright idea" – edit-warring will lead to page protection, and is not allowed. OK? ╟─TreasuryTag►consulate─╢ 20:07, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Unless the IPs' edits are actually vandalism or there's something else I'm missing, I think this is a kind of sketchy use of WP:SEMI as Wiki libs is definitely autoconfirmed. It would also seem there are a lot of article being affected by this user, and it seems definitely related to Talk:1960s in heavy metal music#Semi again. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 20:13, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

looking into this some, I have a few comments: 1) The IP has a dynamic IP and at least one of which was contacted and warned. 2) The IP's edits are on numerous pages and they are all being reverted. I don't necessarily think the IP is wrong in his edits, but would encourage the IP to discuss them. It is clear from the number of pages/editors involved that the IP's change does not (yet) have broader community support on making these changes. Is a week reasonable? I personally wouldn't have protected for that long, but I do think this edit should be discussed as it is obviously not shared by others.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 20:21, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Answering your query Balloonman... the main page the IP is warring over (the 1960s page) was already protected before for a week by Sir Scarian.. and then again for a month by WilliamConnelly. The IP sock continued his war (even declaring on the talk page a few days before the prot ran out that he intended to continue his war) so the page should have been protected for an even longer period. Through his edit war he has continued to ignore the fact the the page history and the talk page discussion all show a clear consensus to keep the content which he keeps blanking. Hope that helps. The Real Libs-speak politely 20:51, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I've never touched any of these articles before, so I semiprotected the rest of the 70s for a week as well. If an agreement is reached, either unprotect or let me know so I can.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:29, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

If I'm reading this right, Enigmaman reverted to his preferred version in a content dispute, and then used semi protection to lock out IPs (one person in particular) from the edit war. So, basically he violated the protect policy twice: protecting his preferred version, and using semi to block out IPs when autoconfirmed editors are also warring. ÷seresin 20:40, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Looks that way to me. Tan | 39 20:51, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

See my comment above that should clear your mud. The Real Libs-speak politely 20:53, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

It's fun that your signature says "speak politely", and you are anything but. Please let this discussion/investigation continue without your sarcasm, snark, or pithy comments. Tan | 39 20:57, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

My comment is not snarky, sarcastic or pithy. Previous comments showed that a few users were unfamiliar with the situation and I left a helpful comment to help them out. They were meant to be 100% helpful to everyone who is commenting based on this little puddle IP here and not knowing the whole sh-bang. I could have put a happy smiley at the end of my sentence if that would've helped. The Real Libs-speak politely 21:08, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I must have misinterpreted your intent on that comment. I apologize, and withdraw the admonishment. Sorry about that. Tan | 39 21:11, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

It's never a good idea to pithy-offy the people who might just help you... (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 20:59, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment - protection may have been technically the correct action (possibly) but to avoid any appearance of impropiety should've been brought to the attention of an uninvolved admin to administer. Exxolon (talk) 20:54, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually E_man was an uninvolved admin. He only stepped in to assist in an obvious/ongoing IP war when it was brought to his attention. Looking at the page edit history it looks, at first, like a back-n-forth between 2 IP users. In fact it is an ongoing battle between 1 solo IP sock and a whole series of IPs that originate from numerous locales (if my geolocate is working correctly) The Real Libs-speak politely 21:03, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the problem is that he didn't step in to block edit-warring users or fully protect an edit-war-torn page; he reverted the IP and then semi-protected the page. As the IP edits were not blatant vandalism, I really can't see how this admin action was justified. Tan | 39 21:04, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

When a user has been blocked from editing and chooses to use an IP sock to evade his block in order to continue editing... I don't see where his actions were questionable at all. The IPs edits weren't vandalism... they were a single user using a series of IP socks to revert an article(s) away from an established consensus because they disagree with the consensus themselves. And, as mentioned, evading a block to do so. The Real Libs-speak politely 21:11, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Concur with Wiki libs - had the IP not been dynamic, it might have been arguable that the best solution would have been to block the IP for edit warring. As that is not feasible, semi-protecting the page is justifiable. Those arguing for misuse of admin functions are, pardon me, behaving like process supercedes everything - rules-wankers, as it were. Suggest they take a step back and try to view the Big Picture. Puppy has spoken; puppy is done. KillerChihuahua^?!? 21:43, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

"rules-wankers"???? - is this really an appropiate way to describe editors? Exxolon (talk) 21:52, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Please review the situation before you call us "rules-wankers". The IP address was formatting. He was being reverted, either without explanation, or as Wikilibs said in an edit summary, "removal of cited material". I could be wrong, but I do not see any removal of cited material. The IP may not have gone about this the right way, but 3RR was not broken, and he was reverted with either disingenuous edit summaries or no explanation at all. This really is a matter of "I like this way more than your way", and semi-protection of the page as a way of stopping it was not warranted. None of the editors attempted to discuss this. Enigmaman, as much as I like him, stepped into an edit war between an established user and an IP account. The fact that the IP was dynamic is irrelevant. Siding with the account on the edit war, and then protecting his preferred version, was very poor form indeed. I am removing the resolved tag that that was capriciously put on here. KillerChihuahua, you apparently did not review this situation - at all. Try to view the big picture? Try to understand what's going on first. Tan | 39 22:08, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Tan. You don't revert and protect an article because you don't like the formatting. Clearly a bad move. Law _{type! snype?} 22:22, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I counted the albums on that page a couple of different ways -- Wiki libs' version had 11 albums, the IP's version had 10.-- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 00:34, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Update: I admit perhaps I was a bit over-enthusiastic with reverts. But Wiki Libs and Enigmaman are just as guilty of it as I, and at least I am making an -attempt- at explanation. Oh, and in response to the "dynamic IP" issue, there's nothing I can do about that: My IP seems to change all the time, it's not being done out of malice or ill-will. It just happens.

Thank you to those who have actually shocked me by being rational. Oh, and yes my version has 10 albums: you'll notice this is because I'm removing one album that doesn't appear to have any source. So I'm still not removing any cited content. As I say, it's just formatting, and if anyone disagrees with that I'm perfectly happy to discuss it.

Oh, and Enigmaman has now done the same over at the 1960s in heavy metal music page. That one is slightly different because it's not formatting but it -still- doesn't involve removal of any sourced content. What I'm removing there is unsourced content, and I have explained several times on the talk page how this is in keeping with wikipedia's rules. Thus far the only responses I've received boil down to "We, a couple of anonymous people on the internet, think it's good this way. So there." I have asked time and time again that they simply provide sources, and in the past day or two with every revert I've used an edit summary asking that they look at the talk page. These have received no response whatsoever, and once again Enigmaman has locked the page simply to prevent me from doing anything.

This is not what the protection system is there for. It is there to keep a page stable while things are discussed and sorted out. But given the lack of any attempt at discussion, it would appear Enigmaman is just using it to force the page how he wants it. That's not on. 83.218.158.202 (talk) 07:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Admitting that you were overzealous in your reverts is a nice step. But claiming that I was just as guilty??? I really do not see where you are getting that. Prior to your edit war yesterday which went against consensus (where I reverted you twice) I had not viewed the page until back on June 18. And prior to that I had not made an edit to the page unless you go way back into April. So please stay focused on what events actually transpired and don't try and create some sort of false editing history. The Real Libs-speak politely 15:51, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• Generally speaking, I do not like to see semi-protection used to lock out IP editors in a content dispute, nor do I think an admin should impose semi-protection after reverting good faith edits. If there is ever any question whether an admin is involved, they ought use WP:RFPP. –xeno^talk 14:04, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with xeno. Semi-protection should not be used to end a content dispute between registered and IP editors. Policy doesn't exactly make this clear, but does say that it should only be used to resolve a content dispute if all parties are non-autoconfirmed. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 14:15, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

A lot of the edit-warring was actually between our genre troll and various other IPs. Wiki Libs was just one of the editors he edit-warred with. I can provide links to other articles, if you'd like. Enigma^msg 17:32, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I see a bit of a bandwagon developing here without a key piece of information. Wikilibs makes a comment above that this is a "blocked editor", and a section on Enigmaman's talk page seems to indicate that this is a long-term problem with an editor who has been blocked multiple times for similar edits. If this is true, I've seen several admins semi-protect articles from an IP-hopping long-term problem editor, and reverting their edits if they really are against consensus before protection is SOP. If it isn't true, then someone is being maligned unfairly and we have a problem.

Could someone who's been involved provide links to previous blocks on the IP addresses of this editor? Assuming for the moment that Enigmaman isn't power-tripping right out of the gate, it's quite possible this is a case of him knowing more than we do. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

That's why I spoke generally; I am working with only bits and pieces of information. –xeno^talk 14:53, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Here's another bit/piece of information: This thread] from a few days ago seems to be related. The IP isn't changing from 86.56.100.100 to 86.56.100.101 to 86.56.100.102, so it's too hard for my little brain to figure out whether this is all the same person. I've asked Enigmaman to come to this thread and provide some background, it appears he assumed yesterday it would be more obvious to everyone than it actually is. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

If this helps here is William M. Connolley's block on the same IP sock albeit for edit warring on a different page then the most recent ones (the edit history of the IP shows a habit of edit warring across several pages). The previously mentioned J.Delanoy sock block. The user switched to a different IP and went back to edit warring while still within the block time frame set by J.Delanoy. This sock cat including an 86.X IP may also be related link. The Real Libs-speak politely 15:39, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this is an editor who has been socking for months. His claim of "unintentionally" switching IPs is not so believable when you see his last IP was just used by him a few days previously. Note above that Sarek did the same thing as I did. He reverted and then semi-protected. The editor in question is a classic genre troll and has been abusively socking and edit-warring for months over a slew of articles. My error was in reverting before semi-protecting, I suppose (I only did this on one of the articles I semi'd). I could have left that to someone else, but again, I wasn't the only admin to do that. Unless a checkuser is approached about a rangeblock, semi-protecting is the only thing we can do. This is not a new problem. Wiki Libs knows more about this than I do, but this has been going on for quite a while, and I'm disappointed in the rush to judgment without having all the facts. As Floquenbeam pointed out above, the editor in question just started a similar AN/I thread alleging abuse by J.delanoy two days ago. He has a habit of doing this whenever admin action is taken against him. I think you'll find a bunch more if you look back in the archives. Enigma^msg 17:29, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

To add on top of that, there is not much use of placing warning templates or blocks on IP. All he needs to do is unplug the modem, replug it and get a fresh IP. Oh, did I mention that he won't even able to find out what messages was left on his old IP's talk page because his IP has shifted? Sometimes you have to be a bit imaginative when dealing with vandalism from dynamic IPs, as blocking it has little to no effect. And we don't want to induce collateral damage by rangeblock. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 17:18, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

This users changing IPs are not random. If you follow the pages he tends to edit the most you will see that he is able to get back to IPs that he has used previously. Likely just moving around inside of a school or workplace. He does not have an endless list of IPs. I have noticed at least 5 that he seems to be able to use over and over. Even the IPs he posted with on this talk page are IPs that he has had access to in previous months of trolling. The Real Libs-speak politely 17:36, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

FYI on cleanup of a block-evading serial deprodding sock

We've been having problems with banned sockpuppeting User:Azviz (probably more correctly referred to as User:Esasus as that's an earlier account) coming back with more socks to deprod whole long lists of articles without any real rationale and otherwise disrupting the deletion process. Today I've been going through and reverting the invalid deprods his latest sockpuppets added. My method was to see if there had been any edits post the deprod. If so, if it was minor (adding a tag which logically supported the prod, such as singlesource, notability, etc.) I just added to the article with the restored prod. If it was anything beyond minor I either left it or nominated for AFD (or participated in the AFD, as most had progressed to that point, generally with unanimous votes to delete). Note that with restored prods I tried to calculate how much time was left on the prod at the time it was inappropriately deprodded and then changed the start date of the prod to take that into account (so if it was inappropriately deprodded yesterday it had a day or deprodding where nobody could have been aware of the prod notice, so I added a day to the start date of the prod to get the full run). This took me several hours to go through and cleanup, and I'm sure I didn't get all of them. This is mainly a heads up so if any admins see articles like this that they know what happened. DreamGuy (talk) 20:36, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

One of the socks created the following articles:

• Seniehun (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Bahal, Kenya (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Bahal, Iran (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Bahal, India (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Bahal, Cambodia (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Should these be deleted per WP:BAN or should be IAR on this? MuZemike 22:30, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

• WP:BAN is not a suicide pact. If those places exist (which it appears they do, and settlements are inherently notable) then there is no reason to delete them. Black Kite 22:34, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Oh, I forgot. Per this. MuZemike 02:34, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Three Seven A buttload more IPs have come out of the blue to revert DreamGuy's un-deprodding. Have reported all three to SPI again as they are all Albertan. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Azviz again. MuZemike 02:49, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• FWIW, the editor who created the Bahals above was not confirmed in the sockpuppet investigation, merely as a possible sock, which someone took as a confirmation apparently and indef'd the editor. Since that editor has not requested an unblock, it wouldn't be appropriate to discuss whether or not that was correct, but since we cannot be sure that WP:CSD#G5 even applies, who gets the last laugh were we to delete them? Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:49, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

No, that's not accurate. The part you are referring to said only that checkuser evidence could not confirm, and that "Behavioral and stylistic evidence could be helpful in confirming or denying any relationship between these accounts." The rest of the evidence was looked at and confirmed, hence the block. DreamGuy (talk) 23:48, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

You are correct, the editor who created the Bahals above was not confirmed in the checkuser case. Any way, deletion of these serves no purpose. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:27, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Disruptive editing by User:ChildofMidnight

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Show's over, folks. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 20:03, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

---

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

This user apparently has no experience in editing articles on French culture or mathematics. Recently he seems to have followed me two new articles I have created in a manner that I can only describe as WP:TROLLing and WP:BAITing. I created the quite complicated and carefully sourced article Château of Vauvenargues. I have consulted with the main person responsible for the recent documentation of this chateau, where Picasso and his wife Jacqueline are buried, now quite exceptionally available for view. This has been accompanied by special documentation, available locally here in Aix-en-Provence. CoM attempted to "correct" the lede, when it was still a stub, before the main article was written. He introduced faulty and highly incorrect content, in a highly disruptive way. In particular he quite incorrectly described the small village with its adjacent medieval castle as a "fortified town". Now I have started writing a slightly tricky article in mathematics, on the Butcher group, where I think it can be said without much doubt that ChildofMidnight's has no expertise at all. This again is a tough article to write and is very technical, between pure pure mathematics, theoretical physics and computer science (numerical analysis). Yet CoM is making a pain of himself. His edits/remarks on the article and its talk page are clueless. Writing this kind of article takes some intellectual effort. CoM cannot have chosen these articles at random: he is making a deliberate to attempt to cause disruption, to follow me around and to upset me. He doesn't have seem to have the slightest clue about this article, still in the course of creation. Unlike him, I am expert in this area and personally know the two main recent contributors to this subject, Alain Connes and Dirk Kreimer. If his aim is to be an anti-intellectual thorn in the flesh of expert contributors, he is certainly excelling. His edits amount to WP:BAITing and gaming the system. I am about to create a new article on the last series of paintings "The four seasons" (1660-1664) by Nicolas Poussin. I don't want to see this troublesome editor wikihounding me there as well. There's something very wrong with this disruptive behaviour. I think some kind of block is probably in order at this stage. Mathsci (talk) 21:03, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I asked CoM if he would agree to refrain from editing articles that other users are actively editing, as a matter of courtesy and good form if nothing else. --Laser brain (talk) 21:21, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I am expert in this area, why does that concern me? Anyways, --Tom (talk) 21:24, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia's culturally ingrained, stupid and self-defeating knee-jerk antipathy towards experts, I'm guessing. //roux   23:05, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Self proclaimed experts that is, which I am sure you are one :) --Tom (talk) 23:47, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

No. //roux   23:50, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I hate to go immediately for the jugular, but how much more disruption are we going to take from CoM before we say "no more" and issue, even if for 24 hours, a block? - NeutralHomer • Talk • 21:28, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

And a 24 hour block would be preventative not punative for exactly what reasons NeutralHomer? CoM has not even had a chance to reply to this thread yet, acknowledge any errors or agree any action. Hold up on the hammer please. Pedro :  Chat  21:32, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

CoM has only edited Château of Vauvenargues twice, neither of which I see any problems with. The OP is the only other editor of the page, so if anyone one else had edited this page and anything else he edited, would that editor also be guilty of wikihounding? It isn't disruptive, his edit summaries aren't aggresive and regardless of his past behavior, nothing about these edits demand admin attention. Livewireo (talk) 21:33, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Mathsci, can you provide some diffs? If ChildofMidnight is disrupting articles, appropriate action is needed. AdjustShift (talk) 21:34, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Pedro, I have no banhammer, just making an observation. But I think for disruptive editing, of which has garnered several ANI and AN posts, I think that some form of block may be necessary. If not now than soon. Again, just an observation. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 21:36, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

The best low-drama solution would be for CoM to agree not to edit either of these articles - or any other articles in the process of being written by MathSci. That would be an excellent demonstration that there's no wikihounding, baiting or whatever going on, and we wouldn't have to argue about it here. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 21:35, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

This looks more like it belongs at Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts. A simple dispute between two editors. (Off2riorob (talk) 21:37, 24 June 2009 (UTC))

MathSci has posted here, so let's resolve the issue here. AdjustShift (talk) 21:40, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Rather Mathsci's bad faith behavior and threats

Mathsci (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

• (ex 6) Question - I've been editing some French subjects and chateau/castle/fortress articles in the past, so am I allowed to comment on Mathsci's absurd allegation and threats to CoM? When Mathsci appeared to complain threaten CoM, I checked on the edits made by CoM but I see no "alleged disruption" from two articles. I only saw that bad faith and threats from the complainer instead.--Caspian blue 21:39, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I've asked CoM not to edit articles being actively worked on, and I've asked Mathsci to use polite and calm rhetoric. As far as I'm concerned, this can die here if both parties agree. --Laser brain (talk) 21:43, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

• This comment from the complainer is looking for a punishment...I think some kind of block is probably in order at this stage.(Off2riorob (talk) 21:46, 24 June 2009 (UTC))

• I'm aware of that. I don't think a block is in order based on the information presented. --Laser brain (talk) 21:49, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I find it astonishing that Mathsci would come here with a petty dispute over the meaning of the word Bastide. Mathsci used the word in its rarer meaning of Bastide (Provençal manor) and COM read it in its more usual meaning of Bastide and used that meaning, incorrectly as it happened. A modicum of good faith and a brief discussion at the article talk page would have sorted it out without all this drama. As for the movement of one sentence in the Butcher group article, that's just a petty squabble. Mathsci is disturbingly keen to run to AN/I to assert his ownership of articles. That rubric If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed for profit by others, do not submit it. applies to Mathsci too. A.K.Nole (talk) 21:51, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

• At Off2riorob, well, I think if a block should be issued at this time, that has to got to the complainer Mathsci for his intimidation/ incivility and gaming the system and wasting everyone's time. See the below how Mathsci threatened CoM. That is quite disturbing.

you have appeared almost immediately to make not very intelligent changes to the stubbed version[6]
This is a formal warning that if you continue following me around like this, you are likely to be blocked.
Your editing behaviour has been analysed by ArbCom who found it problematic. You now appear to be gaming the system.[7]
Since you seem to have no expertise in mathematics, one more edit to the article will presumably result in a block of a week or more for you, considering your past history.[8]
ou have no idea what the article is going to contain and are purposely being disruptive, like an annoying little child.
You will be reported at WP:ANI if you continue to wikihound a senior mathematics editor and presumably can expect a block.
I have no idea what is going through your head,
Antagonizing editors seems to be a particular specialty of yours. In this particular subject area your edits seem completely clueless.

I want to say "look who's talking? --Caspian blue 21:54, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

User Mathsci would benefit from having this over eager request for the blocking of another editor for this simple dispute explained to him. (Off2riorob (talk) 21:57, 24 June 2009 (UTC))

• BTW, what about this edit on Butcher group and this edit on the talk page of Butcher group? C of M doesn't know much about mathematics, so why is he making such edits? Butcher group is a complex mathematical article, and only someone who has mathematics expertise should edit the article. AdjustShift (talk) 22:04, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Any content issues with that article would best be taken to WT:WPM, where there should be plenty of editors competent to do something about it. I agree that CoM doesn't seem to be the right person to work on it. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:08, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
    • Is Mathsci is a native English speaker? I have an impression that he is not. Whenever I'm expanding a newly created article, editors appears to fix my grammar, and I usually appreciate it. I do not understand the wrath of Mathsci on the petty issue.Caspian blue 22:39, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

The idea that only certain folks should edit any article is, er, bullshit, excuse my french. --Tom (talk) 22:47, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, no - that's why we have topic bans. Some editors are incapable of editing in certain topic areas without being disruptive (that's not a comment on this particular case, just a general point). Black Kite 23:00, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I was referring to the idea above that only "experts" should edit certain articles, not talking about disruptive editors, ect. Anyways, --Tom (talk) 23:49, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I think a topic ban of Mathsci is premature at this point. But obviously his behavior was abyssmal and needs to improve. ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:17, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I think am apology by Mathsci to CoM would be in order. His original poast here at ANI describes CoM as some sort of idiot knuckle dragger who doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. Incivility at the least.--Jojhutton (talk) 23:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I would assume he knows nothing about Hopf algebras of rooted trees, that's all. No need to edit to edit an article on it therefore. However, this is the second time CoM has behaved this way. From his editing record, he is not a recent changes patroller. He has made tendentious edits on uncontroversial articles, where he seems to have little or no idea about the content. Mathsci (talk) 03:12, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

His patrol log says he does patrol new pages. I just don't see his edits in regards to these two articles as being tendentious; he was working on grammar and style, especially in the mathematical one. OK, he make an error with the bastide - WP:AGF. Mathsci, you don't get to have a monopoly on articles you create. LadyofShalott 03:36, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

CoM's most frequent edits are to Bacon mania and Burnt Hair Records and show a pattern of interest in pop culture.[9] Mathsci's edits are dominated by articles on mathematics.[10] To me, it seems more than likely that the intent of the edits to Butcher group was to provoke Mathsci. Walter Siegmund (talk) 03:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

[11] William M. Connolley (talk) 23:38, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

William M. Connolley blocked CoM

William M. Connolley first pushed the wrong button of indef.block to CoM instead of his intended 24 hours block and left no apologizing comment on the log while he fixing his mistake.--Caspian blue 23:52, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Good block. Could have been worse, though. CoM could have been blocked for this comment with "Seig Hiel" in it. Completely unnecessary. Good block all around. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 23:59, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

BAD block - Unless there are more diffs, both CoM and Mathsci needed minor civility / NPA warnings, none of what I see diff'ed or see in edit histories reaches blockable. Clearly warnable, but not to the level of justifying or requiring a block. The "Sig Heil" was obvious intentional sarcasm, a terribly bad joke but not blockable. Wm- I request and recommend an unblock. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:09, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with GWH. Both parties were at fault here, but neither horribly so. LadyofShalott 00:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Of course bad block. Even WMC is currently not sober? Oh....no...NeutralHomer please do not mislead CoM's joke toward me and Pedro's conversation on German language. I hope Gwen clear this up.--Caspian blue 00:43, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Whatever happened to Fluffy. At the scenes leading up to the wedding, Fluffy seems to be developing well as a character. There is a scene where chaos developes when Tiger is introduced, and then poof she is gone. I never saw as much as a reference to the cat after that. Is there anyone that knows what happened? Not sure if some tragedy struck off set and she had to be written out of the script or what. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.4.80.53 (talk • contribs)

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 00:53, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Well I think we could reduce his block..or just give him another chance. He's not going to break the wiki is he. In fact I will find some cites to say he is innocent of all charges.(Off2riorob (talk) 01:00, 25 June 2009 (UTC))

I think one needs to take a look at the rantings of CoM on Mathsci to see he doesn't need to be unblocked. If anything, he needs to cool down and this block should do just that because I think and this might not be AGF, if CoM were unblocked, he would cause more problems and get himself indef blocked. He needs to cool down and sleep on it. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 01:03, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

So you're now advocating a cool down block? --Malleus Fatuorum 01:06, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Did you read his talk page? - NeutralHomer • Talk • 01:07, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

What has his talk page got to do with anything? Isn't that a place where a little bit of letting off steam is permitted, even by the civility police? --Malleus Fatuorum 02:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

As Foghorn Leghorn once said "Go away Kid, ya bother me". - NeutralHomer • Talk • 02:13, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

As I often say, "Who the Hell cares what idiots think?" --Malleus Fatuorum 02:25, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

LOL....you're funny :) - NeutralHomer • Talk • 02:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I hope that CoM is spending his time brushing up on Hopf algebras. Mathsci (talk) 03:54, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• Support the block of this persistently uncivil and nonconstructive editor. seicer | talk | contribs 02:06, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose blocks, Support all unblocks, Support discussion to resolve the situation of content dispute. — Ched :  ?  02:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment What content? Mathsci (talk) 02:21, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• Unblock, as I see no preventative purpose for this block, and according to the "rules" we don't punish people with blocks. Like CoM or not -- and apparently several in these threads and sub-threads do not -- I fail to see what this block is preventing. Unitanode 02:24, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
• Obvious unblock. While that comment was incivil, it certainly didn't warrant a block. Mostly, I agree with GWH above. —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 03:38, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
• Support as uncivil behaviour has gone on long enough and it is time to acknowledge it and respond to it. Longer blocks should be applied if further incivility persists from anyone involved. I don't see why people rush to defend editors who have made comments like this, its not like CoM is blocked indefinitly. Established editors still have to obey our civility policy. ThemFromSpace 03:54, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
• Comment. I see C of M as a problematic editor in general, but I don't think I would have blocked in this situation. However it was not an awful block, maybe just not the best idea. There is a real track-record here in terms of some troubling behavior by C of M—including lashing out at other editors—and there have been warnings proffered for that (including by me, though it had more to do with assumptions of bad faith than blatant incivility). Perhaps the best thing at this point is for WMC to unblock, and there is discussion about that on his talk page, though presumably he's sleeping at the moment. However if there's a strong consensus to unblock here I think it would be fine for another admin to go ahead and do that. A few more comments here will probably show us where we stand. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 04:05, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• Addendum. And followup to the above, it's worth looking at a back-and-forth between C of M and User:Georgewilliamherbert on the former editor's talk page (see the following four diffs for the relevant exchange [12] [13] [14] [15]). GWH seems clearly to be trying to help out and calm the situation while saying he disagrees with the block (and some of C of M's behavior), and C of M really unloads on him. Now I know some anger and incivility after a block is to be expected and generally excused, but this stuff is really over the top. A bad block is not an excuse to bandy about phrases like "these assholes" "stay off my fucking page" "fuck off" "baiting by this Frenchman" (!!!) "This block stinks horribly and anyone who defends it or tries to suggest that I've caused it...is either misguided or a moron" and "Mathsci behaved like a jerk" (the last repeating the original infraction). A similar thing happened after the last block, and quite frankly often when ChildofMidnight's editing is criticized—i.e. a series of attacks against other editors (see also this earlier ANI thread for a recent example). It's a long term problem beyond this specific situation and I think it's important to point out that context. Even with that talk page outburst though, I'm still perfectly okay with an unblock if that's the consensus, since I don't think the original block was really necessary. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 04:49, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• Unblock. CoM may have been uncivil but he was considerably provoked by Mathsci. If CoM is to be blocked, then for balance Mathsci should have been blocked. But aside from that, these two are the sort of established content editors that contribute huge value to Wikipedia, and administrators should not be so casually applying blocks, just because they get silly from time to time. CoM may have lost his temper, but the situation he is in is not really just. --Geronimo20 (talk) 05:05, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
• Self-fulfilling block - Yea, despite my previous run-ins with this user, the initial block may have been a bit much. But CoM went into full-blown WP:DICK mode defending himself, so in the end it winds up working out ok. Unblock the original and reblock for the tirade on his talk page if you wanna be technical here. Tarc (talk) 05:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Usual policy is to cut some slack to the blockee, to let him rant and rave for awhile. However, that's usually on an indef block. This one is only 24 hours. So rather than formally requesting an unblock, he's apparently going to continue hurling insults ("circus clowns" and such) for the remaining 2/3 of his block time. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 07:24, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
• Comment It's only for 24 hours, and it's 1/4 over already. Defending incivility by saying others are doing it, does not cut the mustard. But the civility of other editors in the dispute should be reviewed also. Too much incivility is being tolerated on Wikipedia. I was once blocked 5 days for calling other editors idiots. I've seen much worse here in recent times which gets no block at all. Hard to figure. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 06:05, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
  • also, CoM has yet to formally contest the block, i.e. he has not filed an unblock request. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 06:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
• Comment'. The root of this incident appears to be Mathsci's onwership issues over articles. He clearly does not know what a 'stub' is (it is not a small article written by one person that is then going to be added to 50 times a day over the next 5 days by that same person). If Mathsci cannot handle people editing articles he is developing, he needs to learn how to use sandboxes and properly draft articles, and only release them when he considers them complete, both in grammar and technical content. He also quite outrageously claims that, because CoM is not a maths expert, he is not permitted to edit the article in question. Others have also quite bizarrely supported this position, without anyone pointing out that the edits made CoM were grammatical. Has anyone actully looked at the diffs? I'm no math's genius, but even I know that a detailed knowledge of numerical analysis is not required to be able to spot a run-on sentence. I won't comment on the stalking allegations, as I have no knowledge of any prior interactions between the two users, but if these two incidents are the extent of it (and the French article dispute is again a nothingness on its own, again aggravated by Mathsci's ownership issues and article development methods), Mathsci is utterly in the wrong, and needs to be told as much. MickMacNee (talk) 14:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
  • For the record, I've taken issue with this on WMC's talk page aswell[16]. We simply do not need admins on the project who are only willing to monitor for and comment on/block incivility. MickMacNee (talk) 15:12, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Addendum: WMC had nothing to say about my comment bar questioning my probably rather sweeping statement of his interests as an admin. I tried to discuss options for refactoring on his page, as quite clearly I only made that statement in relation to what I have seen in this complaint pending evidence to the contrary, but he's just messing me around over there [17][18], so I'm withdrawing from discussing it further on his page. MickMacNee (talk) 17:40, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
    • Just for the record, MicMavNee, I have now finished the first version of the main article, with all the content I wished to have in the article from my sources. The claim of ownership is hard to understand, especially when an {{inuse-section}} template is present during the period of creation. As is normal other mathematical editors have also been helping in a positive way. In particular User:Michael Hardy added an extremely useful wikilink in the lede (related to his own RL work) which has been spelt out in the main article. User:R.e.b., far more expert than me in this particular area, also did some very helpful fine tuning. Please could you tone down your remarks? What is happening at the moment is that the article is being edited in the normal way for a mathematics article, something with which you might not necessarily be familiar. Mathsci (talk) 15:51, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
      • (e/c with DG below)I wasn't aware there was an official Mathematics way of developing articles. Unless or until you recognise you have absolutely no legitimate basis to prevent or exclude grammatical edits or 'non-expert' editors from articles you have posted and are still developing, I see no reason to tone down my comments. These are the least problematic of your issues, your general tone in this complaint, and the allegations of stalking, and the use of incivility to counter incivilty, all simply seemingly as a result of another editor making minor changes to articles you are working on, are far more serious. MickMacNee (talk) 16:06, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
        • Please tone down your rhetoric and get back to editing this encyclopedia. Mathsci (talk) 16:12, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
          • I'll edit as a I please thanks. I often edit articles way outside any of my usual on Wiki topic areas, and as such I may indeed not be knowledgable of any unofficial but de-facto specific ways of working understood between regular editors. Based on this ANI complaint and its outcome though, even though I actualy have some Maths background such as rudimentary Runge Kutta etc, I would definitely be wary of going anywhere near any article you were personally involved in, either to edit technical details or make simple grammar edits. Whether you recognise this as an issue or not, it is not rhetoric. MickMacNee (talk) 16:37, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
            • Yawn. Mathsci (talk) 16:50, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
              • Noted. MickMacNee (talk) 17:01, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Honestly! Enough of this silliness. It's bad enough that Mathsci didn't read what others have written here. Now you aren't reading, either. Both Rjanag and Ched Davis have quite clearly observed that the edits were copyedits and that this very much is a content dispute, over copyedits no less. They beat me to saying that exact thing. I didn't add it, because when I came to save the edit I edit-conflicted with the discussion closure, but I repeat to you a small part of what I would have said to Mathsci, because it applies to you too: Stop! Read! Think! You're going off the deep end.

    I also had a few points to make about Mathsci's apparent poor regard for other editors, from my viewpoint as one who is also an expert and a content writer and an administrator, whose "brilliant prose" has also been mercilessly copyedited by others within the past day. I've withheld them after that edit conflict, in the hopes that the simple passage of time solves matters here. Uncle G (talk) 16:02, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

    • Mathsci says that The claim of ownership is hard to understand, especially when an {{inuse-section}} template is present during the period of creation. This tends to imply, but does not explicitly state, that CoM ignored the templated request. In fact the article history shows clearly that Mathsci added the template in question to the article shortly after CoM's first edit, and to a different section [19]. Mathsci's assertion is thus somewhat disingenuous. Perhaps the sentence preceding that quoted will help him understand that "claim of ownership": I have now finished the first version of the main article, with all the content I wished to have in the article. A bolder assertion of ownership would be hard to find. In fact, of the Examples of Ownership at WP:OWN, I find that Mathsci has clearly demonstrated Actions 1 and 3, and Comments 1, 2 and 3. 17:37, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Forgot to sign in. A.K.Nole (talk) 18:35, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
• Unblock, and block Mathsci and WMC instead This is obviously a block with no merit. We don't block people for copyedits. Jtrainor (talk) 18:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
• Better Idea - How about we don't block anyone and we put the stick down and stop the WikiDrama? Because, honestly, is this going anywhere? - NeutralHomer • Talk • 19:38, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
• Comment With CoM effectively in self-destruct mode, they should be blocked to prevent disruption elsewhere on Wikipedia. Any question of whether the original block was appropriate is now moot. Considering that the block was controversial, CoM should be allowed extra leeway as regards "blowing off steam" on their talk page. I think that about covers it. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 19:45, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
  • It does...archive away. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 19:51, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
• Comment - trout slaps all around. I believe this is just a pathetic little content dispute which has erupted because an over-sensitive editor felt under attack by someone making good faith edits to his article not once, but twice. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:43, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

An Admin admitting to drinking at work

There are many other ways to be unsober than drinking, none of which are against Wikipedia policy. Discuss the block on its merits. –xenotalk 00:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
User:William M. Connolley admits to using his mop whilst drinking.."I should slow down, and possibly only edit when sober"... This is no attitude to block another editor. (Off2riorob (talk) 00:24, 25 June 2009 (UTC)) I don't think he means he was literally sauced, but it is written somewhere that you have to be sober to edit Wikipedia? I think it would be wise to be sober, but not necessary. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 00:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC) This admin, in my interactions with him, does a very good job, so if you wouldn't mind, Offriorob, finding out what brand he drinks, I intend to send a barrel or two to other admins. (Thanks, Abe).--Wehwalt (talk) 00:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC Irish name..Irish drink//I am drinking fermented fruit juice apple, pear and grapes of course...this is the diff between drink and drunk..(Off2riorob (talk) 00:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)) I am drinking high caffeinated soda. Does that mean I am wacked out on caffeine and my edits should be thrown out while I am drinking it? I doubt it. Unless we have proof that WMC is drunk or drinking, we shouldn't pass judgement. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 00:35, 25 June 2009 (UTC) (ec) I agree that it was a poor decision to use the tools while "under the influence". LadyofShalott 00:30, 25 June 2009 (UTC) A block which is already well disputed should not be done by an admin who admits to drinking.. Sorry.. it is not funny.. the editor should be unblocked. (Off2riorob (talk) 00:38, 25 June 2009 (UTC)) Can you, right now, prove that WMC is loaded? I can say I am high off my ass...I'm not. People can say that are loaded and not be loaded. To some, it is a figure of speech. Unless you can prove WMC was drinking, you can not pass judgement. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 00:41, 25 June 2009 (UTC) <edit conflict> Yes. Could we not have acusations of impaired administrator actions and racial / national stereotypes about alcohol use here? Even though I disagree with the block, this line of reasoning is absurd and inappropriate. Please drop it. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:41, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Or, just possibly, this was an off-the-cuff, self-deprecating remark made by an individual who happens to have a sense of humour. Doesn't anyone have anything useful to do? (Please, please, please tell me that Wikipedia:Prohibition is a still redlink....) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 00:39, 25 June 2009 (UTC) I tend to agree with you Ten, it was a figure of speech by someone who hit a button too quickly, made a joke, moved on. No more, no less. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 00:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Off2riorob, the mention you made on Connolley's talk page was the correct action to take. I don't think it needs to be brought to ANI unless it becomes a recurring matter. Kingturtle (talk) 00:41, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Is that what this is supposed to be..a joke? (Off2riorob (talk) 00:44, 25 June 2009 (UTC)) Is the guy still blocked? (Off2riorob (talk) 00:45, 25 June 2009 (UTC)) Would you like it if you got arrested by a drunk policeman? no you wouldn't ...(Off2riorob (talk) 00:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)) I think if we responded to everybody who drinks while working on WP, we would have a much much smaller user community. I routinely drink while working on WP... this is a hobby, I'm at home, and guess what I can. If there is a pattern of bad decisions, incivility, etc, you can bring those up... but I don't think it is a major problem. It might not have been the best wisdom to admit it, but many adults drink and can handle it.---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 00:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Mathematical trolling

No admin action needed here. LadyofShalott 03:04, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
As far as Butcher group is concerned, this is the only conclusion that can be drawn from the recent editing behaviour of User:ChildofMidnight. I believe it is known by quite a few administrators and arbitrators that I am an expert editor in mathematics, particularly in this particular subject area. That might be painful for young wikipedians to read, but it is alas true. CoM seems to have regressed into very negative editing patterns since the recent ArbCom decision. On the other hand, as I've written before, he is sadly lacking intellectually in the subject area in which he has probably unwisely chosen to edit. That seems to have been his major error. Mathsci (talk) 01:16, 25 June 2009 (UTC) CoM is currently under a 24 hr block for being uncivil to you, so this is perhaps not the best time to be raising such a minor issue. Looie496 (talk) 01:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC) I think Mathsci really needs a "cool-down" break to prevent from making further dramas. You've kept referring to the Obama Arbitration that has nothing to do with CoM's two edits to Butcher group in order to make WP:POINT and show WP:OWNERSHIP. I remember that you defended for your editing buddy on his arbitration who has been much harshly restricted by the committee. Here are his edits to Butcher group. 1) CoM (tweaks) 2) Mathsci rv senseless edit to stub 3) CoM tagging for cleanup. long run-on sentences. poor wording and grammar. needs work. Now, please tell me where is "Mathematical trolling" that you're persistently arguing? --Caspian blue 01:34, 25 June 2009 (UTC) (ec) I haven't really edited this page much lately, unlike others, so I'm not particularly receptive to calls for a cool down period. Personally, I'm not quite sure why I should devote any more of my time to adding extra content to Butcher group, which is at the moment is HOPELESSLY INCOMPLETE because I haven't finished writing it yet. (There is no question of ownership here. Some of this material has been absent from wikipedia for a few years, even if it has been referred to.) But of course I will, because I've already prepared the material quite carefully, even if it was quite tricky. I have no idea why editors like User:Caspian blue are suggesting topic bans from mathematics. In promoting CoM, they seem to have a somewhat upside down view of both wikipedia and the real academic world. If editors think the content of the article is inappropriate for wikipedia, they can of course put the article up for deletion instead of soapboxing. The problem is with CoM, not with an expert editor in mathematics like me. From his edits, he seems to be clueless mathematically at this particular level; that is why his edits seem to be trolling. Mathsci (talk) 01:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Some editors are referring to this as a content dispute. Perhaps as a reality check for these editors, they should spend a few minutes examining the mathematical content of the references. They should quietly ponder whether, in spite of no past interest in mathematics or quantum field theory. CoM has suddenly developed a new and surprising expertise in this quite hard subject. Mathsci (talk) 02:29, 25 June 2009 (UTC) MathSci, CoM has not claimed any expertise in the subject. He has repeatedly said he came upon it while doing new page patrolling. As he made exactly two edits to the page and is currently under a block, I do not think there is any point in continuing this. Please drop it now. LadyofShalott 02:34, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Yep. I have no comment on the bigger dispute here and on the rest of the editing, but CoM's two edits to Butler group were clearly simple copyedits, no substantive changes, and in fact I think they were an improvement. In any case, this non-issue is not worth arguing over, it's nothing more than a distraction. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 02:43, 25 June 2009 (UTC) (ec) MathSci, as you asked directly under my post above about "content dispute", I will offer my viewpoints. First, I greatly appreciate that you are willing to contribute such expertise to our site. I would also mention that while we appreciate such efforts, we are an encyclopedic effort - as such, the general "lead" of an article should address the "lay person" when possible. I believe that CoMs edits were an attempt to do just that. The clarification that you can offer is greatly appreciated, but I believe that those items are best expressed in bulk of the article. I see no diffs that CoM contributed as a breech of good faith, and it appears to me that you've become overly defensive of your area of expertise. I'd ask that we de-escalate the situation, and work on improvements to article space. If you wish to work unencumbered on mathematical articles, perhaps sandboxing something in your user space would resolve some of the tensions. Once something is in article space, it becomes the property of all, and "ownership becomes unacceptable. I agree, there have been things typed that perhaps should not have been, but it appears that this has happened on both sides. Please help us de-escalate the situation. — Ched :  ?  02:53, 25 June 2009 (UTC) (ec) @LoS. No this is the second time he has done this. The first time he did this with Chateau of Vauvenargues. I'm sorry, although you may be a huge fan of his, he is a troublemaker. His edits to the talk page of Butcher group had nothing to do with mathematics or content. Your claim that he was new page patrolling alas does not match in any way his editing record. I've had a quite a long experience editing namespace articles with serious content and this was not patrolling. I have never seen anybody edit advanced graduate-level mathematics articles unless they have some prior expertise. CoM seems to be an editor with rather serious problems, that's all. I'm not asking for anything more to be done about this at the moment. It's 5 in the morning here in France, so I hope you'll excuse me. Bonne nuit. [[User:Mathsci|Mathssi] (talk) 02:55, 25 June 2009 (UTC) @Ched Davis. There are clear tags on the article indicating that it's still being written. C'mon, Ched Davis, that is not ownership. It simply means that it takes me some time to write hard articles. I didn't start editing here yesterday. Mathsci (talk) 03:07, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Personal attack

What personal attack?

Resolved  – Personal attacks people find funny are OK on Wikipedia ...is that a personal attack, too??? Sheesh. Drop the self-righteousness. Keeper | 76 06:26, 25 June 2009 (UTC) William M. Connolley (talk · contribs) blocked ChildofMidnight (talk · contribs) per User talk:ChildofMidnight#Incivility: blocked. Weighing into the discussion about the block on that talk page, Malleus Fatuorum (talk · contribs) left a comment on that talk page calling William M. Connolley a "drunk". I asked Malleus Fatuorum to refactor or redact the personal attack and was met with strong defensiveness and rudeness. An admin should deal with this attack as, as of this posting, it's still present. - ALLST✰R▼echo wuz here 05:21, 25 June 2009 (UTC) meh... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 05:26, 25 June 2009 (UTC) mountain =/= molehill. This is silly. This does not need to be blown out of proportion. Move along, Allstar, my advice. IMHO, this isn't anything worth boo-hooing. Keeper | 76 05:29, 25 June 2009 (UTC) I agree. We've fully milked the drama out of this incident. –Juliancolton | Talk 05:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Since when did personal attacks become silly? - ALLST✰R▼echo wuz here 05:32, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Gawd. I didn't say personal attacks were silly. I said that you thinking that that was a personal attack was silly. There's a difference. I wonder, is this a personal attack in your mind? Perhaps a break. Go to bed. Keeper | 76 05:35, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Referring to another user as a "drunk" is not a "personal attack in my mind", it's a personal attack posted to a user talk page on Wikipedia. It should be removed immediately. - ALLST✰R▼echo wuz here 05:37, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Connolley says he is not sober and someone calls him drunk? Where's the attack? It's more like restating something. Law type! snype? 05:39, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Enough stirring the pot please. Kthxbai. –Juliancolton | Talk 05:40, 25 June 2009 (UTC) long before this. (Or that.) ThuranX (talk) 05:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC) I'm just appalled at the nonchalant attitude towards an obvious personal attack. Since people are fine with it, I'll just bookmark this thread for future reference when and if I ever get called out for attacking someone. - ALLST✰R▼echo wuz here 05:54, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Wikipedia is not exactly at an all-time high for enforcing civility. I was once blocked for 5 days for calling people idiots. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 06:01, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Allstarecho has not told the whole truth. Malleus comment was a response at User talk:ChildofMidnight to an indef block by William M. Connolley, who later said, "I should slow down, and possibly only edit when sober. Thanks for pointing that out; I've corrected it. Indef was just a touch harsh". The additional information raises the following issues: Why was Allstarecho making threats about a conversation on another User's Talk page and in which Allstarecho was not involved? I was under the impression that comment on User Talk pages was less constrained by WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA than comments on "public" Talk pages (articles, projects, WP policies, noticeboards, etc.). William M. Connolley's conduct was very far short of what should be expected of an admin, especially where a block is concerned. IMO this incident shows he is unfit to be an admin. Allstarecho raised this ANI after I had drawn attention to the backstory - which is also published at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Disruptive_editing_by_User:ChildofMidnight. I think Allstarecho should explain why he pursued Malleus when Malleus' comment was brief and, as far as the evidence indicates, accurate. --Philcha (talk) 06:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Maybe others should have been blocked in addition to CoM? Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 07:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC) And now I'm a liar for not rehashing the history of CoM's block? Love how you, Philcha, have turned this around on me. The fact is, I noticed via my watchlist that CoM had been blocked. I went to CoM's talk page to see what it was all about. I noticed the personal attack by Malleus. As a courtesy, I went to Malleus' talk page and politely asked the user to refactor or redact the attack lest I bring it up for discussion elsewhere - a courtesy in so much as asking the user directly and first. The user responded defensively and rudely. End of history. And to clarify to Philcha, a user's talk page does not lax personal attack rules. No matter how much you want to spin it - and you did a good job of it here and here - referring to another user as a "drunk" is a personal attack. - ALLST✰R▼echo wuz here 07:32, 25 June 2009 (UTC) It's interesting how often Connolley's name shows up in complaints here. Now someone is calling for him to be de-sysopped. Ironically, Connolley himself called for Docu to be de-sysopped. Over allegedly bad blocks? No, over his refusal to kiss up on the signature guideline. [20] Maybe it would be best for all concerned to back off the de-sysop bandwagon. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 07:38, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

ChildofMidnight again

no lengthening of block. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:26, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. Resolved  – no lengthening of block. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:26, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Based on this new edit, I think his block for incivility should be extended before it expires. - ALLST✰R▼echo wuz here 17:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Hm.. Allstarecho again...--Caspian blue 17:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC) And that's supposed to mean what? Just because of who I am, I'm not allowed to comment? - ALLST✰R▼echo wuz here 17:51, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Second the suggestion, but I've had run-ins with CoM before, so I'd rather someone uninvolved make the call.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:53, 25 June 2009 (UTC) First, Caspian, just because ASE brings something to this board doesn't mean you have to post about it with snide little comments. Second, I have to agree with ASE. CoM is going off on a tagent about something that doesn't even involve him and the incivility in his statement (the one linked by ASE) is horrible. An extended block for that statement and the unloading by CoM on Georgewilliamherbert last night should be necessary. Incivility is NOT and never is necessary. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 17:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Read my comment below Xeno.--Caspian blue 18:03, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Could you guys stop edit warring over the location of this section? It's hard to hit a moving target. I believe it belongs here, under its parent. –xenotalk 17:58, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Indeed, Allstarcho, you're making another new tread to attract more admin's eye just after your failed attempt to Mall. That is what I meant for mentioning "again". The issue is ongoing, so your "new thread" belongs here. Besides, think about your recent block. Don't you rash out various insults toward admins and editors who advised you? You've also been there, but why are you making more dramas?--Caspian blue 18:02, 25 June 2009 (UTC) "assholes" and "monkeys" are all I see there (and not specifically directed), that would warrant a WQA at most - doubt it would result in a block for incivility. Wasn't the original block contentious itself? So you want to extend a contentious block with an extension that will be equally or even more contentious? –xenotalk 17:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC) (ec)It was only contentious because he was the only one blocked. Technically, the block was good but the other editor he was having issues with should have been blocked too - for the same reason, incivility. That said, the latest rant calling other editors "assholes" and "monkeys" only shows he doesn't care about being civil. - ALLST✰R▼echo wuz here 18:04, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Really? I've taken worse than that and didn't come to AN/I over it. Maybe a little backbone is in order. Seriously though, is this really that big of a breach of civility? Soxwon (talk) 18:01, 25 June 2009 (UTC) That diff should go to WP:WQA at most. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:04, 25 June 2009 (UTC) WQA is a waste of time, in my opinion. The only thing that WQA does is essentially slap you on the wrist and tell you "now, don't do that again". For incivility and mark my words, there will be MUCH more once CoM is unblocked, needs a stern answer, not a slap on the wrist. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 18:08, 25 June 2009 (UTC) The block of CoM was a cool down block which didn't. Yes, he was over-reacting to reverts of his copyedits, and he has certainly not been helping his case since, as I have told him on his talk page. The solution is not more over-reaction or extending the cool down block. Please, everyone, just stop poking at this editor. There's been far too much drama already. Jonathunder (talk) 18:07, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Then a strong consensus here would be the only way to lengthen the block, short of CoM aiming a stinging, straightfoward PA at a named editor. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:10, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Support stinging, straightforward personal attack at a named editor. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:16, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Comment I redacted some words that possibly sounds uncivil to some editors, and CoM agreed on it. So I hope the matter that Allstarcho has raised can be tied down. Yes, everyone should stop poking on CoM.--Caspian blue 18:15, 25 June 2009 (UTC) (ec) I'm presumably one of the "assholes" and/or "monkeys" to whom he refers (C of M does not care for me in the slightest because I've warned that editor about editing behavior on the Obama articles in the past), but I don't think this warrants a block. The initial block was at best questionable and that fact should be taken into consideration. C of M has responded to it quite poorly, but that editor has in the past felt Grundle2600 has gotten a raw deal (I utterly disagree with that, for what it's worth) so the most recent comment is not all that surprising. I think it would be best to let this go, though it would be terrific if ChildofMidnight would let off on attacking other editors with whom he or she disagrees. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 18:16, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Can we all just drop the stick already, please? There's no point in continuing this drama. –Juliancolton | Talk 18:21, 25 June 2009 (UTC) We should let the fire die, not dump more gasoline on it. A block extension won't serve any useful purpose.--Cube lurker (talk) 18:25, 25 June 2009 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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

User:Joseph_A._Spadaro

• Joseph A. Spadaro (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I've blocked User:Joseph_A._Spadaro based on this edit and this reply to my BLP warning, in addition to some other minor BLP content issues discussed on Talk:Murder of Robert Eric Wone. Aside from the user's bad attitude, he clearly doesn't believe he's done anything wrong by accusing three living people of homicide. He's probably not going to respond favorably to anything I say from this point forward, so... would anyone be willing to be a mentor/coach for him, assuming he's going to agree to our BLP policies? Jclemens (talk) 21:50, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

• Endorse block. Bearian (talk) 21:56, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
• Jclemens, you are heavily involved in this article (having edited it dozens of times in recent months) and heavily involved in a content dispute with User:Joseph_A._Spadaro on the article's talk page. You are not an uninvolved administrator. It would have been much better had you reported the matter on WP:BLP/N and let one of the 1660 other Wikipedia administrators address the matter. 87.115.17.119 (talk) 23:04, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
  • If you'll look at the article's recent history, you'll find that 1) I haven't been editing the article actively in a while, and 2) the BLP issue was the only "content dispute" at issue in the time. I'm the one who posted here for full transparency, knowing full well both that someone would have this sort of comment, and that WP:BLP supported the objective reasonableness of my actions. Jclemens (talk) 00:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
• Comment - The edit cited above as evidence is on an Article talk page; I regard it as not fully justifying a block. Article talk pages are not biographies, the BLP policy pertains to biographies, articles on Wikipedia. The editor may state his opinion on a talk page, even without sources to back it up, so long as he doesn't post it to the article or represent it as a WP endorsed point of view, and he's not posting outright libelious content (without violating BLP), although it should not be encouraged unless the discussion is relevant to developing the article: I didn't notice any glaring issue in that particular entry into the discussion. --Mysidia (talk) 23:14, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Wrong. BLP applies across the entire project. //roux   23:34, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
    • While it does indeed, it is worth noting that discussions must include content at times which is then later determined to not be admissible in the article proper - in the very discussions which occur to make that determination. Just worth keeping in mind... In this instance, "involvement" has zero bearing on enforcing BLP. That's just a strawman argument. KillerChihuahua^?!? 23:37, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
    • WP:BLP Is very clear, it heavily restricts the content of biographies, not discussions about biographies, there are very limited ways in which it applies to talk pages, mentioned in WP:BLP#Non-article_space. There are different, specific rules mentioned about discussions of biographies on Talk Pages; only information that is poorly sourced and not related to making article content choices, or that is particularly dangerous. If the rules were the same for talk pages, the policy would not list different rules. --Mysidia (talk) 00:46, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
    • I think the concept of using BLP to censor talk pages is very harmful, and I think this block in particular is just awful, there is simply nothing blockable here. Looie496 (talk) 00:51, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
      • BLP is about times when people's right to be not defamed outweighs our default freedom to say whatever we think about a subject on a talk page. In this particular case, three men who are preparing to go on trial for obstruciton of justice and conspiracy were accused of sexual assault and manslaughter (negligent homicide) by this editor on the talk page of the article on the murder. If there's any time when people's right to not be accused of a crime on Wikipedia should be most heightened, it is when they have been indicted, but not yet tried, for such a crime. Failure to do so makes a mockery of "innocent until proven guilty". Based on what I know of the case, a conviction wouldn't surprise me, but it's no Wikipedian's place to state an unconvicted living subject's guilt as fact. Jclemens (talk) 01:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
        • The phrase used in the diff: "My understanding is that ..." does not sound like "stated as a fact". People do have a right not to be accused of a crime maliciously or negligently; however, if an indictment has been made with certain charges and evidence, a reasonable person may be of the opinion, "understanding", or personal belief that indictment and claims by the prosecution and other sources are accurate, without any malice or negligence involved.. The mere expression of honest opinion is not defamation under those circumstances. Though it would be inappropriate on an article page, unless a number of reliable sources expressed the same opinion, in which case, all notable opinions should be given fair treatment, as per WP:NPOV, (not just opinions that presume innocence as a foregone conclusion). But the "accusation" on the talk page, from what I can see, appears a mild expression of opinion at worst... --Mysidia (talk) 06:05, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I took the liberty of posting a notice at WP:BLPN (diff). If this is indeed a violation of BLP, shouldn't the relevant comments be removed or permanently deleted per Wikipedia:BLP#Non-article_space? I think this would be more urgent than blocking the editor. ---Sluzzelin talk 06:48, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

That article has been a BLP nightmare for months now. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 07:25, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

It has? I've been watching it pretty closely and we've gone to lengths to include the roomates names minimally. Could you explain how - besides Joseph_A._Spadaro's additions - the article violates BLP in any way? We should fix it if it does. -- Banjeboi 11:29, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Benjiboi. After the AfD, a good amount of scrutiny was focused, things were hashed out into a compromise format, and the minimal RS updates were added to the article were handled carefully within BLP. It CAN be handled in a BLP-appropriate manner. The recent excursions have been the work of the blocked editor in question. Jclemens (talk) 15:57, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Do NOT support block I see no BLP violation in what he was saying. He was discussing the article in the article talk page. I looked at his post and his reply to you. His reply to you was angry, and yes, a bit incivil, but I see no BLP. Lift the block _{Naluboutes, Nalubotes} ^{Aeria gloris, Aeria gloris} 13:23, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Note that another editor has since redacted the controversial comments throughout the discussion. You'll have to go back into the history to see them. Jclemens (talk) 18:08, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Topic ban from Murder of Robert Eric Wone

Note: boldy moving this from article space to admin board

I'm proposing that Joseph A. Spadaro be topic banned from editing this article directly, based on his BLP violations to date and his refusal to acknowledge them as at odds with BLP policy. This is a separate matter from the fact that I've just blocked him for the same issue. Fact is, the article had survived a contentious AfD and been scrupulously kept clean of BLP issues since that time. I contend that his recent participation in this article has been a disruptive and negative influence. Jclemens (talk) 21:31, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

• Support as nominator. Jclemens (talk) 21:31, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
• Support. Not sure if this is the best way to do this but yes, I'm afraid. BLP is among the most serious issues we face and accusing others of COI and generalized snarkiness don't seem to help. WP:AN or BLP noticeboard may get more eyes. -- Banjeboi 01:39, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
  • A good suggestion. There's a separate AN/I thread on my block of him. It'll point anyone who cares to read it to this page. Jclemens (talk) 02:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
    • Moved to admin board. I'm afraid this editor seems really interested in arguing and accusing. That this is coupled with an open murder investiagtion and they seem eager to apply blame on Wikipedia in violation of numerous policies suggests we should nip this as unneeded drama. Both Jclemens and I have been watching the article and up unti lthis recent flurry it has been a rather decent and NPOV article. Even where we've disagreed we've tried to find teh answers based in traditional consensus and sussing out policy issues. -- Banjeboi 11:29, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment - it appears unwarranted and hasty. Is there an example of the user introducing content into the article in violation of WP:BLP after being asked to stop, or the user reverting a removal or change of content that was performed for compliance with policy? --Mysidia (talk) 12:26, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
  • They seemed to be introducing new BLP violations on the talkpage coupled with bad faith galore. I think a topic-ban of a few months may help here. -- Banjeboi 02:06, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• Do Not Support The block is bad , no BLP in the first place. He was disussing the article on the article's talk page._{Naluboutes, Nalubotes} ^{Aeria gloris, Aeria gloris} 13:23, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
  • The comments they made that violated BLP have been removed from the talkpage. -- Banjeboi 02:06, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose topic ban based on this evidence. It might or might not be warranted, but this is not sufficient evidence. The BLP issue on the talk page (which I redacted) appears to have been good faith, so I place no weight on that. What policy violations (diffs?) merit a topic ban? Rd232/Disembrangler (talk) 13:39, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
  • We'll have to agree to disagree. Jclemens and I don't agree on a few points on the article but we've refrained from accusing each other of COI and other allegations. Perhaps we should wait until they strike again but I'd rather just let Jclemens keep improving the article with any new sources brought forth. -- Banjeboi 02:06, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• Strong oppose, from what I've seen here (I haven't read the entire talk page just yet), a topic ban is unwarranted. He was discussing the article, and though it wasn't the most knowledgeable way to act towards a warning from an administrator, the topic ban is overkill. Blurpeace (talk) 14:12, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• He's only got about 5 hours left on the block now. It didn't cool down his rants against "censorship" here (his term for removal of right-wing POV-pushing), but the lengthy topic ban should do so. Let him rant and rave all he wants, as long as he doesn't infect the articles any further. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:43, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• Which block are you looking at? The user in question is indef blocked. --Stephen 00:29, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• Oops, never mind. I was in the wrong section. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 12:10, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

User mass creating unreferenced BLP stubs

Hovhannesk has created many unreferenced BLP stubs in the past day or two. Jared555 (talk) 02:52, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

This is probably an instance in which Special:Nuke shall be used.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 03:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Except that, per WP:ATHLETE, these may all end up being notable. I have no idea if they were or not; but let's also consider WP:BITE and try to work with this guy rather than fighting him. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:06, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

 Done User asked to review WP:BLP and WP:NOTE. It is prefereable to work on one at a time, bringing acceptable sources. When it comes to living people, we need to be extra careful. I'd be happy to undelete them a few at a time for them to be worked upon. -- Avi (talk) 04:09, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Umm, the community have rejected many times over the expansion of speedy deletion to include unsourced BLPs that otherwise survive CSD. If the articles were not otherwise speediable—it is not implausible, I guess, that one might read A1 and A3 as extending to these mini-stubs [the issue of one-sentence-plus-infobox "articles", the creation of which, especially for sportspersons, settlements, and chemicals, is not uncommon, presents itself from time to time at DRV and WT:CSD, but a firm consensus has never been borne out], and I examined only a few of the assertions of notability, so that I can't have a strong position on the applicability of A7—deletion was inappropriate as explicitly disfavored by policy. 69.210.129.68 (talk) 19:40, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you that we would be wrong to delete them. However, the mass creation of articles by way of infoboxes alone or otherwise with minimal content has caused great problems before because of the difficult of review them (need in mention (bilateral relations) and we should very strongly advise users that this is not a good way to work, at least without getting prior support from a WikiProject or the like. DGG (talk) 01:14, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

IP removal of images

68.43.19.251 (talk · contribs) seems to be on a quiet nudity image removal stroll through Wikipedia.

1. Today - [21] at Fluffer
2. June 19 - [22] at Nudity
3. June 5 - [23] at Erotica
4. May 6 - [24] at Pubic hair
5. February 25 - [25] at Body shape

Based on those diffs and this one, it would appear the user has some sort of aversion to penises.

The user also seems to have had the same IP address since June 27, 2008 based on the many edits to airport articles way back then and a recent such airport article edit on June 8, 2009. I mention this to say it doesn't appear a long term block would affect another user who happens upon this IP address. - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here} 05:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I like that edit summary, "unnecessary pornography". Let that be a lesson. Wikipedia should restrict itself to only necessary pornography. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 06:37, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Isn't all pornography, necessary? Even as a gay man, I can see the necessity for even straight porn - the admins need something to keep them occupied around here. :P - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here} 06:41, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Depends on the definition of "necessary". The kind that a Ted Bundy might like, for example, is probably not "necessary" except maybe for helping to get a conviction. On the other hand, some of the nudism photos suggest the reason we invented clothing. I must admit to liking the PETA illustration, though. Of course, I've always been partial to bunnies. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 06:52, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

The one IP address only edits sporadically and has stopped (maybe coincidentally) after you warned him. There are other censoring editors, but maybe they're not related. However, you might need to start keeping track to see if a pattern emerges. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 06:54, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok this is clearly resolved, but I want to ask one q - does anyone else think it odd that Michaelangelo's David was removed? I have to agree with Allstarecho, it has to be the pensises, however, if that is the case, then his/her lack of concern about the Voyager image indicates his little loop is not clearly a penis at all. This could add fuel to the longstanding debate about that image on Human. *sigh* KillerChihuahua^?!? 12:16, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Some past editors here have called themselves "masculists", whatever that might be. The one attacking these images must then be an "e-masculist". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 23:40, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I find this puzzling. What is the purpose of this discussion? No one has come out and said it outright, but the lurking implication is that user:68.43.19.251 did something wrong. What, precisely? Which Wikipedia policy prohibits removal of arguably pornographic images by a user? Or mandates that an article have images, let alone pornographic ones? Was there a wikiquette violation--and if so, what was it? With all due respect, so far as I can see, all that is going on here is a fit of whtaI can only call "inverse prissiness"--an affected improperness, social incorrectness, an aversion to modesty--on the part of user:Allstarecho. - Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 21:58, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that readers could understand the concept of Nudity without the thirteen images used there? Or that Pubic hair does not need all ten images? Or that Fluffer could be understood without an image? Or that this image seems curiously over-used, appearing in Erotica, Pubic hair, nudity and sexuality, and Nude photography? You must be the same kind of prudish homophobe as the IP editor! Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Never-ending disruption by Grundle2600

Resolved

 – User topic-banned by the community from editing articles related to U.S. politics and politicians for 3 months, as determined by Thatcher (talk · contribs) below.  Sandstein  15:52, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• Grundle2600 (talk · contribs)

Not only do we have to put up with endless disruptive article creations and subsequent AfDs (all closed as delete);

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gerald Walpin firing
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barack Obama fly swatting incident
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michelle Obama's arms
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michelle Obama's influence on style and fashion
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Teleprompter usage by Barack Obama

but this user has also developed a disruptive tendency to recreate deleted articles and material in his userspace. While this is of course permitted, and encouraged, to work poor articles back into quality ones, such is not the case here. These have been closed invariably as coatrack attack articles, one today was a snow. Grundle has already had one such subpage deleted;

• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Grundle2600/My own personal article about Barack Obama

and now has created more out today's round of deletions at User:Grundle2600/Humor. I reject the "This page contains material which is kept because it is considered humorous" tag on the sub-subpages, as through XfDs, article edits, and an ArbCom, WP:AGF is out the window. These are being preserved for no other reason than to thimb one's nose at broad, definitive community consensus.

Admin intervention requested on the grounds that this is growing wearisome to deal with, to send these frequent pointless pages to XfDs every week. And lest Grundle tries to play the "OMG vendetta!" card, note that (as far as I recall), I have only initiated one of these deletion discussions, the Gerald Walpin one.

I'm going to bed so I cannot provide further feedback, if necessary, til tomorrow. Tarc (talk) 05:34, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

He's already been admonished in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Obama articles, but I guess he's trying to work around that and still engage in anti-Obama POV-pushing. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 05:52, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Hm, very weird sequence of articles. The RfAr indicates that this user does seem to have a problem with this topic area. How about a community sanction restricting him from creating pages (in article-, user- or other space) related to Barack Obama, until such time as there is community consensus to remove this restriction?  Sandstein  05:56, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

In essence, the RfAr apparently did not "go far enough" with that user, or perhaps did not anticipate this activity, otherwise a topic ban rather than a mere admonition might have been issued. The case is officially closed, but can the members of that committee be contacted to see if this violates either the letter or the spirit of their decisions? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 06:14, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it's well past Sandstein's proposed remedy at this point, unfortunately. My inclination, as an admin who has watched the Obama articles for a couple of months, is to implement a topic ban per the terms of the Obama article probation. I have warned this editor about their behavior many times, as have others, and there's no sign of it stopping (it goes well beyond the created articles described above). Quite frankly had there not been a recent ArbCom case about the Obama articles running at the time, I likely would have topic banned this editor several weeks ago (they were not a focus of the case, and I had planned to present some evidence of their problematic behavior toward the end of the case but did not get around to it before it closed, which was my fault).

I'll throw together some diffs here now to justify this proposed topic ban, and if a couple of other admins agree and their are no significant objections I'd like to ban this editor from all Obama related articles for 6 months (I'm willing to be the one to formally implement it). I do think it's come to that point - unfortunately, this comes after a lot of back and forth with this editor - but I'll await some feedback here and gather some info and diffs in the meantime since I'm being a bit vague at the moment. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 06:24, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

That editor seems to be in the same category as the others who have been topic banned (or, in more extreme cases, banished altogether) whose sole purpose in being here is to try to criticize Obama for everything they can earthly imagine. An article about Obama swatting a fly? What's next, an article about Obama wearing a mis-matched necktie? These guys have been POV-pushers from the get-go, and they need to be reined in. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 06:34, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

A look at Grundle2600s extensive deleted contributions would appear to justify a topic ban that is wider than just Obama. Category:Obama nominees who didn't pay their taxes would appear to justify a topic ban on its own, but there was also The Truth (painting), and away from Obama, more disruptively the recreations of deleted articles such as Al Gore III and Carmen L. Robinson (he recreated the latter one three times). Oh, and Category:Fake hate crimes and Category:Corporate welfare recipients. This coupled with the Obama stuff means that he's merely wasting everyone's time - indeed, I had to delete seven redirects to the fly-swatting incident. Creating nonsense articles in userspace is not disruptive - creating them in articlespace is. I'd agree with a topic ban here, and I'd also suggest that if any more articles are created in the meantime, a passing admin merely speedies them under IAR to prevent any more disruption. Black Kite 06:52, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

The key issue is whether he edits other topics (as CoM does) or if he's a Johnny-one-note (as Axmann8 was). If it's the former, he could be topic banned and could still happily (?) go edit something else of interest. If it's the latter, a total ban is probably called for. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 06:57, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, he does have other areas; my point is that an Obama topic ban would, I suspect, lead to more of the above on non-Obama political topics. Black Kite 07:26, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Support topic ban on Barack Obama all US politics topics related issues. Toddst1 (talk) 07:25, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

As suggested above, it needs to be on all politics-related articles in order to be truly effective. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 07:40, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Support a topic ban on all US politics topics. This is just the kind of editor we don't need here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:52, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Unless he could demonstrate some fair-and-balanced reporting. Like maybe he could write about that South Carolina Governor who headed for the Appalachian Trail, took a wrong turn, and ended up in Buenos Aires. I don't know if that story is as important as swatting flies or using a teleprompter, but it might be a nice change of pace. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 07:58, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Honestly Bugs, why do you leave these type of comments on ANI and elsewhere? They never help, and I think you know that. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:07, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of what you think is "helpful", I've been told that I'm usually right. A good editor should be able to work on articles objectively, without trying to push a viewpoint. I thought Sarah Palin was a ditz, but at the same time I helped defend her article from left-wing POV-pushers. Someone who comes here with an agenda, like these guys under discussion, have not yet learned what the purpose of wikipedia is. Sometimes they never do, and they have to be sent packing, or at least kept away from topics they shouldn't be editing. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 08:18, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I think we agree on the specific remedy in this case, so that's obviously not my point. My point is that bringing in Mark Sanford (you'll notice that, appropos your comment, I've been working on that thing a little bit) does nothing to help matters. It's not a question of being right or wrong, it's just that it has absolutely nothing to do with what we're talking about, and is clearly just a jokey comment on your part that won't advance the current conversation since it's an in-joke about contemporary American politics. I'm a fan of jokey comments (and my talk page is always open to you for them, in all seriousness!), but in my view this is not the right forum for that kind of thing. Sorry if the preceding comment came off as harsh, but I see a lot of these comments from you and I just don't think they're helpful. I'll leave it at that. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:34, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Given that the editor in question apparently likes to skewer any kind of political hypocrisy, I'm guessing he could easily find some scathing comments about Sanford as well as that western Senator who found himself in a similar situation recently, although the latter did not fly to South America as far as we know. It occurs to me that maybe a topic ban is not quite the right answer. It might be instead that he needs to be eddycated about what constitutes appropriate content. As an example, Dan Quayle and his "potatoe" story was widely covered by the media (ad nauseum, frankly) and could be fair game for inclusion in Quayle's article. Going searching for amusing stories from a few obscure sources is likely not appropriate. The story about the fly, while basically a stupid story, did get national coverage - for like one day. So it would be hard to prove that that story belongs either. But if it's a story with legs, that could be different. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 08:51, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I proposed a 6 month topic ban above, and two other admins (Toddst1 and Black Kite) seem down with that, though there's the possibility being floated of a general "political articles" topic ban which I think would probably extend beyond the remit of Obama article probation but is something we could decide here in a more generalized "community" sense.

I said I'd provide some evidence for a topic ban and thus do so directly below, though this is far from exhaustive and just cobbled together in the last hour or so. Final comment at the end of this, and apologies for not being a genius at formatting stuff.

Conversation threads:

Some of these are extended conversations, but they give a sense of some of the issues

• 1 (my first direct contact with the editor, couple of lengthy notes from me there)
• 2 (warning again about a problematic edit)
• 3 (re: the creation of a jokey, and now deleted, redirect)
• 4 (recent article talk page section, indicative of general complaints against other editors as being biased, and reference to "the editors who keep erasing my entries," as though any information that is added with a source should be kept (see also this along those lines)
• 5 (an entire article talk page archive, but trolling through some of the sections gives a sense that Grundle repeatedly tries to add problematic - generally non-NPOV - material about Barack Obama)

Problematic edits:

Just a few examples:

• [26]
• [27] admin only, but Grundle is removing (per my request, and I'll give him credit for that) content from his "own personal article about Barack Obama" page (now deleted, see below) which said "Obama is a strong supporter of legal marriage for Homo sapiens. In fact, Obama has never tried to hide from the public the fact that he himself is currently involved in a Homo sapiens marriage."
• [28]
• [29] (complete non-understanding of NPOV, this idea has been expressed repeatedly by Grundle and many editors have tried to explain why it's not accurate, to no avail - again see this recent edit)
• User:Grundle2600/My own personal article about Barack Obama (ultimately deleted, but nothing more than a wildly POV page against Obama - I originally defended Grundle's right to have this page on the good-faith assumption that he would work on content to bring into articles, but it did not go anywhere and the MfD consensus was to delete)

I'd like to give Grundle a chance to weigh in here before imposing a topic ban, and I don't think it hurts to wait awhile to wait for that. If such a topic ban happens only on Obama-related articles, I'm quite willing to be the admin who imposes it per the Obama article probation (which gives admins a bit more power to do that kind of thing) and be the one accountable for that decision. If it's a general ban on political articles it probably needs to be a "community topic ban" which requires a higher level of consensus. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:07, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• And who can forget moving Levi Johnston to Impregnation of Sarah Palin's daughter, which I indef-blocked him for? (He was unblocked after a discussion on AN/I.) Grundle doesn't seem to have an off button for political issues (no matter which party is in question); I'd strongly support a topic ban on all politics articles, broadly construed. Horologium (talk) 08:30, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
  • That distinguishes him from some of the others and certainly suggests a broader-based topic ban could be in order. I say "could be" in order, because I wonder if he could also be drawn into some dialogue on why this kind of editing is not appropriate for wikipedia. It's the kind of funny stuff I get e-mails about, but it doesn't belong in articles unless it's widely covered in the media (I'm thinking of Jimmy Carter and his "killer rabbit" incident as a possible example). Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 08:43, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• That was an egregious page move (I'd forgotten about it) and I remember thinking that your block was rather valid Horologium (though it was only for 24 hours, not indef, apparently). I'm seeing a pretty strong consensus so far to topic ban Grundle2600 from political articles, and barring objection I think we should implement that in a community sense. But I also still think Grundle deserves a chance to reply here and propose alternatives. It's the dead of night in most of America (as a grad student my hours are all over the place, but rest assured I still have no business being awake!), so let's give that editor a chance to respond. It might not change the consensus to topic ban, but Grundle2600 has made a lot of article contributions and as such I do think allowing for some reply here before taking action is only fair. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:55, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

If you look at Talk:Presidency of Barack Obama, you will see that I have been discussing my ideas for edits before putting them in the article. Don't I get any credit for doing that?

If you look at User_talk:Grundle2600#Wow, you will see that I was praised by another editor for nominating one of my own Obama related articles for speedy deletion, because I realized it was not noteworthy. Since the article has since been deleted, you may have to ask User:The Magnificent Clean-keeper to verify this. User:The Magnificent Clean-keeper gave me credit for that, because he/she wants to help me to be a better editor.

The reason I put stuff in my own userspace as humor is because I have decided to stop creating such "silly" articles in the mainspace, because a consensus of editors had repeatedly decided to delete them. Category:Wikipedia humor contains hundreds of other articles, so I figured it was better for me to do that, than to keep wasting editors' time by having deletion discussions in the mainspace. I thought that was a good move on my part.

The reason that I created Michelle Obama's influence on style and fashion is because during Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michelle Obama's arms, several people specifically suggested that the material be placed into a new article that covered the broader subject of her influence on fashion and style. So now some of you want to punish me for following the suggestion of many other editors? That seems quite odd.

If you look at my userpage, you will see that I have created dozens of articles that were never considered controversial. But I guess that doesn't matter to some of you people.

The reason that I created User:Grundle2600/My own personal article about Barack Obama was to compile sourced examples of things that I wanted to work on and make better to eventually add them to the mainspace. For some reason, when Obama campaigned to let states make their own decisions on medical marijuana, I was allowed to add it to his political positions article, but then when it was later reported that his administration was still conducting DEA raids against medical marijuana, I was not allowed to add that, because people said it was POV and unbalanced. Likewise, I wasn't allowed to add examples of Obama's environmental hypocrisy to any article, such as when he said people shouldn't drive SUVs, but then he rode in one himself, and when he said you shouldn't keep the thermostat too high, but then he kept the White House thermostat very high. When a politician says that he supports one side on a political position, but then he goes and supports the exact opposite side, why should the article only mention his words, but not his actions? Isn't that unbalanced?

I see that Gerald Walpin firing, which I created, has been deleted. However, many of the people who favored the deletion also favored merging the material into Gerald Walpin. But what none of those people have been willing to admit, despite the fact that I mentioned it in the discussion multiple times, is that I am also the person who created Gerald Walpin, and I did so as a redirect to Gerald Walpin firing. The reason that I created the original article as Gerald Walpin firing instead of as Gerald Walpin is because I was following Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#People_notable_only_for_one_event, which says that in cases like this, the article should be about the event, not the person. And now you people want to punish me for following the rules? That seems odd.

You people keep talking about the Obama related articles that I created that got deleted. But why don't you also talk about Air Force One photo op incident, which was nominated for deletion, and the consensus was keep?

If you ban me from all political topics, you will be doing a great disservice to wikipedia. For example, before I ever made any edits to the Americorps article, 100% of the sources cited in the article were from the Americorps website itself. It was nothing but a giant advertisement. I was the first person to introduce third party sources to that article.

I admit, in fact I am proud of the fact, that I like to Wikipedia:Be bold in my edits. If it wasn't for people like me, wikipedia would be a lot more boring.

Grundle2600 (talk) 10:17, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

"If it wasn't for people like me, wikipedia would be a lot more boring." - and probably less disrupted too. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 10:44, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Grundle, I do very much appreciate what you are saying in your comment above, even if I largely disagree with it. Just a question - how would you feel about a six-month topic ban on Obama related articles, broadly defined (same as ChildofMidnight and Scjessey received in the recent ArbCom case) as opposed to a ban on all political articles? Would that be okay with you? --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 10:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

No, it wouldn't be OK with me, because as I just said, I have been suggesting changes on the talk page of Obama related articles before making them. That's exactly what the administrators told me to do. Why should I be punished for doing exactly what the administrators told me to do? Grundle2600 (talk) 10:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

You shouldn't be punished for that, nor have you in fact been "doing exactly what the administrators told me to do," nor is that an accurate framing of the issue at hand. I was trying to seek out some compromise with you and that doesn't seem to be something you're interested in at the moment. I'll be offline for a few hours now, but at this point I still endorse a topic ban on politics related articles for Grundle2600. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 11:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Here are some of the political articles that I have created, which have not been deleted. Some of them are Obama related. Why should I be banned from creating articles such as these?

Air Force One photo op incident

Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act

Indiana State Police Pension Trust v. Chrysler

Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2009

Ricci v. DeStefano

Students for Concealed Carry on Campus

Wikipedia is better off for me having created those articles.

Grundle2600 (talk) 11:23, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed that you've often added significant content to Wikipedia, but a number of editors (and admins with their goddamn fancy-pants) are above calling for you to be temporarily banned from political or Obama-related articles. There seems to be consensus for that and you really need to acknowledge/consider it. Do you have an alternative proposal that also addresses those concerns about your editing? I think this is the point which you need to take on board and/or think about right now. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 11:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I have already stopped creating "silly" articles in the mainspace, and started discussing my proposed reversions on the talk page of Obama related articles before making those changes. Grundle2600 (talk) 11:36, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

My moving Levi Johnston to Impregnation of Sarah Palin's daughter was based on the rule Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#People_notable_only_for_one_event. Grundle2600 (talk) 11:36, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• ...and as you can see, we have a whole bunch of articles that begin with "Impregnation of..." Maybe you merge the guy's article into one about Sarah Palin's daughter. Is he really only notable for a 37 second single event? Or, is he notable for that 37 second event because it involved the v-p candidate's daughter, and the related months of backlash that has even extended to David Letterman? (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 11:44, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Then perhaps Levi Johnston should be moved to Backlash against the impregnation of Sarah Palin's daughter? Grundle2600 (talk) 11:50, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
    • Support topic ban. Viriditas (talk) 12:13, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
    • I really hope that that was just a bit of sarcasm, and not an actual suggestion.
      • It's a suggestion that I now realize I could never get consensus for. Grundle2600 (talk) 12:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
    • Even the list of your current articles has issues; 2 are stubs of bills in committee, unlikely to survive if the legislation fails to pass, and could probably be prodded now until/unless they do pass, while Indiana vs. Chrysler is rife with POV issues. 2-3 passable articles doesn't outweigh 1-2 dozen other cases of extremely disruptive material. I was for just an Obama-topic ban, but I'd completely forgotten about the Al Gore III, Levi, etc...stuff, so maybe it should be politics in general. We have been coming to the same problems in the same set of articles for several months now. Tarc (talk) 12:17, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
      • Indiana v. Chrysler is accurate and factual. It's not my fault that Chrysler doesn't have a legal argument to back up its side. No one had any problem with Al Gore III until I after added well sourced information about how he never had to spend one day in jail, despite being arresed for marijuana possesion on two different occasions, for having five different prescriptuon drugs without having prescriptions for any of them, and for driving over 100 mph. Even though his father, former Vice President Al Gore, is a huge supporter of the "war on drugs," the former Vice President helped his son to avoid spending any time in jail. That was very notable. In fact, I'd say that this hypocrisy is the one thing that Al Gore III has gotten the most media coverage for, and thus, is most notable for. But someone didn't want the readers to see it, so the article was deleted. Grundle2600 (talk) 12:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
• Support topic ban on all political-related articles. This has gone on long enough. seicer | talk | contribs 12:51, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
• Unfortunately the article probation on Obama-related articles is a community probation rather than Arbcom, so we must apparently have a long community discussion. Support a topic ban, either on Obama-related articles, or on all articles related to US political people (BLPs), or all US politics, or even all politics anywhere (given the edit warring at Hugo Chavez. Said topic ban to last 3 months; if and when the review of the Obama article probation is complete, the topic ban may be re-evaluated. Suggest for the time being that the ban be applied to all US-related political articles, with the understanding that it can be extended if he continues to edit war on other articles. Thatcher 13:07, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
• Before even looking at the articles, Grundle's answers here had me pretty convinced that they have no business editing in political areas; I certainly hope this approach doesn't extend to other BLPs. Chalk me up in the support column for all (or all US if that's preferable) articles dealing with political topics. Shell ^babelfish 13:10, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
• The fact that you are still thinking like this — with suggestions like Backlash against the impregnation of Sarah Palin's daughter and conflations of "newsworthy" with "notable" — is part of what, as an external observer, appears to be the problem here. If you want to write news reports of incidents and events in the political sphere, then come to Wikinews.

  You'll be challenged on newsworthiness (by people who know a thing or two about it, moreover) so you'll get a harsh reception for silly stuff on non-events if you continue with silly stuff on non-events. But if you take things seriously (as, for example, I did with Six-year-olds trigger emergency response with toy nuclear reactor in Germany — something that in no way warrants an article of its own on Wikipedia) and understand that the NPOV (which Wikinews is also subject to) is about not taking sides in what you write in the first place then you shouldn't get into hot water. A focus on recentism, news stories, and individual events covered individually is actually a positive attribute at Wikinews.

  You'll also learn, from what Wikinews wants of Wikipedia, what most people here want of Wikipedia: Wikipedia, to Wikinews, is one of the biggest news backgrounder services in the world. Wikinews wants backgrounder articles like burqa, Jamejam, radio jamming, Majlis of Iran, Laïcité, BBC Persian Television, Fraud Act 2006, and Iran – United Kingdom relations from Wikipedia, so that Wikinews can have articles like Iran and Britain expel diplomats after Iranian presidential election, Sarkozy says burqa is "not welcome" in France, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks about Iranian presidential election protests at prayers, News services and web companies increase Farsi services in light of Iranian political situation, and U.K. MPs' expenses to be investigated by police that cover specific single events individually, down to the details of specific speeches, placing them in their overall context if necessary. Just as Wikinews editors do, Wikipedia editors view Wikipedia as an encyclopaedia, a reference work, too.

  If you want to rise to the challenge of doing recentism and news story coverage properly, and not in the (frankly) poor way that Wikipedia tends to do it (because, of course, Wikipedia is not a newspaper) and that you yourself have been doing it up until now, you could do worse than start with writing Silvio Berlusconi denies ever having paid women for sex, or getting Obama gives FDA the authority to regulate tobacco industry to publishable status. You could even write South Carolina governor resigns GOP post. Uncle G (talk) 13:20, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Other than impregnating Sarah Palin's daughter and the backlash that resulted from it, what else it Levi Johnston notable for? Grundle2600 (talk) 13:50, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

All I've ever done is add well sourced information to articles. And you people call that "disruption"? That's horrible.

I call any blocks or bans that get placed against me "censorship."

One thing that I find especially interesting is that none of you have actually pointed out any specific factual errors or untruths that I have added to any of the articles.

Wikipedia is supposed to be about truth. Those of you who want to block or ban me ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

Grundle2600 (talk) 13:24, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Since it has been suggested in this discussion that I edit the Mark Sanford article, would it be OK if I added this comment from Neal Boortz? "As one of my Twitter followers (14,000+ strong) pointed out (and I love this): If Mark Sanford had cheated on his taxes instead of his wife, he would have been a cabinet member by now." Grundle2600 (talk) 13:29, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• Actually, I suggested that you edit Mark Sanford admits affair and resigns post at RGA, not that article at all. It turns out that Wikinews has had South Carolina governor resigns GOP post in the newsroom for 18 hours already, at this point. This, of course, reinforces the point that Wikinews is on the ball with these things. It also reinforces the point that the project whose remit is to be a free content newspaper is the project that does that well, and is the place to be if one wants to write news articles on incidents and events, and if one has a focus on recentism, news stories, newsworthiness, and individual articles on individual events. Uncle G (talk) 15:24, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I remember after Obama raised the cigarette tax, I added an Associated Press citation about that to one of his articles. The article quoted his campaign promise not to raise taxes on people making less than $250,000 a year. The article also said cigarette smokers are disproportionately poor, and that by raising the cigarette tax, Obama was breaking his promise. But when I added that info to the article, including an exact quote of Obama's promise, people said I was being POV and unbalanced, and they erased it. All I did was add the sourced truth. What they did by erasing it was censorship.

Why is it OK for me to quote Obama's campaign promise to stop the DEA raids against medical marijuana, but not OK for me to quote a Democratic member of the House who pointed out to Obama that the drug raids were still going on, and who also asked Obama to clarify his position on the subject?

Grundle2600 (talk) 13:35, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Since someone else mentioned the Hugo Chavez articles - apparently, even though land redistribution is one of Chavez's biggest policies, I'm not allowed to mention anything about it in any of his articles, even though my source is the Washington Post. Grundle2600 (talk) 13:43, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• This is such a blatant WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT (cf Talk:Hugo Chavez and Talk:Economy of Venezuela) that I'm starting to think a topic ban, however broad, isn't enough. Nonetheless, due to my prior history with you my opinion shouldn't be counted, and I will make the suggestion I was going to: if you don't want to be topic banned completely (does that cover talk pages or just editing?), you could suggest alternative remedies for the issues the community has with your behaviour, such as WP:0RR or even a mere topic editing ban (so you can still comment on the talk pages). Rd232/Disembrangler (talk) 13:54, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
  • I will never agree to any kind of block or ban, because I don't believe that they are justified. But the whole point of blocks and bans is that it doesn't require my consent anyway. And I always wondered why such blocks and bans apply to talk pages, given that the administrators keep telling me to discuss things on the talk page. Grundle2600 (talk) 13:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Disembrangler - it was you, not me, who reverted first. I added sourced info, then you erased all of it. I agree with your claims on the talk pages that certain parts of what I added were cases where I had misinterpeted the sources, such as that quote from Chavez, which you explained to me I had taken out of context. But to remove everything about his land reform was not not justified. Grundle2600 (talk) 14:14, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

People keep saying that Indiana State Police Pension Trust v. Chrysler is unbalanced. But it's not my fault that U.S. bankruptcy law is 100% on the side of the plaintiff, and 100% against the side of the defendant. This is the first time ever in U.S. history that a secured creditor is being treated worse than an unsecured creditor, which is completely contrary to U.S. banktupcy law. That's not my fault. The article reflects the facts. If some people are upset by my citing the facts, that's not my fault. Grundle2600 (talk) 13:56, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• Grundle, you make some good contributions and you make some silly ones, as I think is generally acknowledged above, even by you. To stave off a topic ban, is there something else you think would work, and would improve the encyclopedia? Would you, for example, agree to get advice from an experienced editor before creating or moving articles? Jonathunder (talk) 14:17, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Thank you. I no longer move articles without getting consensus, unless it's an article that I just created and I thought of a better name. I have stopped creating "silly" articles in the mainspace. I don't want to ask for permission to create articles, but I also don't want to get banned or blocked, so I am being much more careful. I even nominated one of my own articles for deletion last night, as I mentioned earlier in this discussion. Grundle2600 (talk) 14:22, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

You people keep criticizing my renaming of the article on Levi Johnston (who is only notable for one event and the resulting backlash), but none of you have suggested a better name for the event. What do you think the article should be called? Grundle2600 (talk) 14:18, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• The talk pages of existing articles would have been a good place to raise that issue.

  Part of the problem, too, is that you are assuming an event must immediately have a stand-alone article. Many times it doesn't (fly-swatting, for example).

  And again, what would you suggest as a remedy, Grundle? Or do you not see any problem here at all? Jonathunder (talk) 14:34, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• I am not going to engage in a point by point rebuttal. While you may have made some good contributions, and some of your edits may have been judged unfairly, this is outweighed by other clearly problematic editing issues, and your general approach. Just one example: if you felt you were making legitimate edits to Hugo Chavez, the answer is to seek outside help through a content RFC, third opinion, or other discussion, rather than edit warring and violating the 3RR. Following discussion, it is now enacted that you are banned from editing any articles related to U.S. politics and politicians, for a period of 3 months. You are permitted to make suggestions and engage in discussion on article talk pages, provided you are civil and respectful of others. The topic ban will be enforced by escalating blocks. If and when the Arbcom review of the Obama article community probation is completed, you can request a review of this topic ban. Thatcher 14:35, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Endorse topic ban enacted by Thatcher above, on American political articles, broadly construed. The issue for me is his lack of acknowledgement that his actions could be understood to be disruptive, especially of the WP:POINT-making variety, considering his rediculous page moves and article creations cited above. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 14:38, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I asked some questions about the topic ban on my talk page. Someone please answer them there. Thanks. Grundle2600 (talk) 14:56, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

My questions on my talk page have been answered, so there's no need for anyone else to go there to answer them. Grundle2600 (talk) 15:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• Support topic ban. There are other articles/topics on Wikipedia. Take a break from these as it's obvious you need one. - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here} 15:06, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
• Support topic ban, broadly interpreted. We need an editor with your very considerable writing skills and verbal facility in many other areas. DGG (talk) 01:09, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

PJHaseldine's community sanction review

I blocked PJHaseldine (talk · contribs) for two weeks after he recreated Alan Feraday (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), in violation of his community sanction. The article was originally created by a sockpuppet of his Phase1 (talk · contribs) in 2005. It was then deleted in 2008 by JzG (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) for BLP violation in response to a OTRS ticket. PJHaseldine then recreated the article in May of this year.

There is now some question over the validity of the community sanction. Is the community sanction valid or should it be nulled? BJ^Talk 14:43, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd say it was a good block. The community sanction was enacted in good faith; there is no evidence it was ever revoked. The main issue may be the length, but even if I may have blocked him for a shorter time period, if he wants to edit sooner, he can request an unblock and explain himself, so for that reason I see no real problem with the block. I would rather see him explain to all of us via unblock request about his violation of his community sanction rather than simply letting this sort of blatant disregard for said sanction go unnoticed. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 14:54, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

There was a discussion that did find consensus among a few neutral editors that a temporary ban was warranted. In that discussion, Ncmvocalist closed with a broad and indef ban declaration, when a narrow, single-article ban was the original suggestion, but I did not notice until now that Ncmvocalist was not an administrator, and that, even if this editor were an admin, he'd have been prohibited from making a close of that nature because he'd suggested the ban himself. The ban discussion should have been closed by a neutral admin, who then becomes the go-to person to administer it, decide when it's not needed any more, etc. Since Bjweeks was the first admin to enforce this ban, with a harsh two-week block for an editor with no recent blocks, I suggested that Bjweeks review the original case and decide whether or not to effectively become the maintaining admin. I can understand why he might not wish to do that.

I do agree that the recreation of a BLP deleted article is a serious matter. I do not recommend that the ban be nulled as much as for some neutral administrator to take responsibility for it, so that issues around it can be addressed with minimal disruption. Whether or not to lift the ban is a complex question, and AN/I isn't particularly good at this. So, please, we should have a neutral admin to review the cause of the ban and its nature, from the original discussion, and not duplicate debate over the ban itself here. That admin can then, at leisure, review subsequent behavior and decide appropriate action, including advising PJH as to future behavior. PJH has not challenged the ban, nor the block, apparently, was clearly and actively cooperating with it, and may not have considered the creation of the deleted article, a month ago, to be covered by it, I do not know yet. My opinion is that Bjweeks bought this here prematurely, but, if we get a neutral admin, no harm. I'll come back with diffs. or links to the original discussion. --Abd (talk) 15:09, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

For convenience, permanent link to the discussion I began with Bjweeks, which contains links to the original ban discussion. --Abd (talk) 15:13, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Looks like a good block and the community sanction had the communities support at the time and is valid. I don't see any evidence of abuse by an "involved" or biased editor. The length is indeed long, but that's up to the blocking admin. Perhaps it can be reduced if PJ discusses this with BJw. Verbal chat 15:14, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Ncmvocalist proposed a broad, indef ban. Next week he closed and implemented at WP:RESTRICT his own suggestion. That's a classic involved close, no matter how you slice it. Doesn't mean it was wrong, and sometimes involved closes are acceptable, if they are accepted. This one was until now; the problem now is a lack of a maintaining administrator. That's all. --Abd (talk) 15:58, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be worth looking at the date stamps? EdJohnson proposed the ban on the 6th of March, discussion occured, with the last support vote being Abd's on the 9th, although some related comments were made on the 10th. Ncmvocalist took no part in the discussion. On the 10th, Ncmvocalist proposed a wording for the ban, it was supported, and Ncmvocalist closed the discussion. There is no involvement here. I suspect you misread the discussion, as Ncmvocalist's suggested wording was placed just after EdJohnson's request for the ban, even though it came much later chronologically. - Bilby (talk) 16:17, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

A temporary ban, possibly a narrow, single-article ban, had a small community's support. Not an indef, "construed broadly" ban, with a non-admin closing it and taking no continued resposibility. The block has been questioned as possibly over-harsh, but that remains to be seen. Both issues were quite premature for AN/I. All that had happened was that discussion had begun with Bjweeks, suggesting review. No challenge, no disruptive behavior, no unblock template, no nothing but some discussion on talk pages. --Abd (talk) 15:35, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, admins have special tools with regard to blocking, deletion, and protection of articles, but they are not specifically endowed with the right to enact community bans like this. Such bans can be enacted by a consensus of any editors; admins are not special with regard to this. Secondly, the ban discussion was not begun by the person who closed it; it was started by EdJohnston and closed by Ncmvocalist, who are seperate people as far as I can tell. Thirdly, the text of the community ban does not include a single article, it clearly states "any articles related to Pan Am 103" and looking at the editors that supported the ban, see [30], I do not see any evidence that they objected to or modified this initial wording. Fourthly, Alan Feraday is clearly related to the Lockerbie disaster, which would violate the terms of the ban. Fifthly, while you yourself used the word temporary in your support of the ban, no one else did, AND you yourself did not set terms on the temporary nature of your support. The ban was enacted in March. It's only 3 1/2 months later. This seems to meet the spirit of "temporary", even if left open ended as to when the temporary would last. So, I see no reasonable objections to this block based on the nature of the community ban. If the ban itself needs to be ammended or revisted, that may be a discussion for another day (or even today; feel free to start such discussion), however this block seems to be clearly within the purview of that ban. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 15:56, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Jayron, nobody has directly challenged either the ban or the block, so you are beating a dead horse. See above. You are correct, anyone can close, but it's irregular to participate in a discussion, suggest a sanction, then close, choosing that sanction over other suggestions, and when enforcing a close may involve admin tools, it's tricky and deprecated for a non-admin to close. Not impossible, though. What's been done on User talk:Bjweeks and now here is to simply suggest that a neutral admin review the original ban discussion, and determine a close, and then be responsible for it. Minimum disruption, now and for the future. --Abd (talk) 16:06, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

If a block is questioned then it is quite normal for the blocking admin to bring it here to solicit the opinions of others. This is normal procedure. You initiated the process that lead to this discussion, by complaining. It isn't premature, it is dealing with your complaint quickly. Verbal chat 15:41, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Quickly, perhaps, but not with minimal disruption. I was planning on waiting for bjweeks to respond, and was surprised that he brought this here. There was no rush. If the matter wasn't resolved with bjweeks, then there would be a solicitation of a neutral admin by PJHaseldine, presumably, with an unblock template. I don't know why it seems to be so difficult for some to understand what avoiding disruption means. Look at all the time wasted here! --Abd (talk) 16:10, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I think I just provided that review above. Isn't that exactly what you were looking for? I wouldn't call it wasted time; you had legitimate concerns, and asked for others to review it. Others have done just that. No waste of time at all! --Jayron32.talk.contribs 16:34, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

The sequence of events:

1. Bjweeks blocked PJH for violating the ban
2. Abd responded on Bjweeks' talk, questioning the validity of the ban
3. Bjweeks brought the question here of ban validity here

We are now responding to BJWeeks on the validity of the ban, and we are discussing whether two weeks was too long. We are also seeing some general comment by Abd about the nature of community bans, who owns them, who maintains them, which I do not wish to address here. I suggest he raise those questions at the Village Pump.

Since the closer of the ban discussion, User:Ncmvocalist, has not been very active lately, and since I'm the editor who originally proposed the topic ban on User:PJHaseldine, I'm willing to speak up to answer any questions about the original ban rationale. I did vote in the ban discussion. The nature of community bans is that they are collectively owned, so I don't agree with Abd that there has to be such as role as the'maintaining admin'. If the ban needs to be revised or rethought, let's discuss that. PJH's improper actions go way back and I don't think there will be too much controversy about those facts, nor about the policies and guidelines that he violated. Over time, many editors at the WP:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard became very familiar with Haseldine issues. I don't believe that Haseldine sees any problem at all with his actions, and am not sure he ever admitted that he had a conflict of interest.

At present, the only difference of opinion I can see (except for Abd's general questions about bans) is whether the two week block was too long. Any admin who wants to pursue an unblock discussion with PJH on his talk page is welcome to do so, but I will predict you will not get any admission at all of improper behavior. In the past, he has been 100% convinced he is right about all these matters. Abd has requested that PJH apologize for unintended disruption; if he acknowledges that, then a shortening of the block should be considered. I take note of the fact that PJH has not even opened an unblock request template, perhaps because a person who is 100% right shouldn't have to do those things. EdJohnston (talk) 16:57, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

There are a number of worrying aspects to this which would certainly militate towards a lengthy block. The fact that Alan Fereday is very much covered by WP:BLP, that the article (I am judging from the Google cache) was about as one-sided an attack as it could possibly have been, that the creator had previously been enjoined to avoid articles in this area generally, and specifically not this one, all combine. That would be so even if there were no Conflict of Interest involved. Sam Blacketer (talk) 21:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

On a related issue, can we have some review of User:Ncmvocalist's actions here?

I take no position on whether PJHaseldine (talk · contribs) should be banned or not. I do, however, object to how this was carried out procedurally. Ncmvocalist appears to make a habit of interjecting himself into matters for which he has no particular authority.

By way of full disclosure and to provide a second example I am familiar with, I first became aware of Ncmvocalist in the discussion that led to my own topic ban, see [31] for where he began to interject himself. Had this been the limits of his involvement that would have been fine, but after Wizardman closed the discuss and declared community consensus for my topic ban Ncmvocalist took it upon himself to close an RfC on me that was completely unrelated to the ban discussion. I still contend that his closing summary is misleading and biased, something that he refused to let me address on the record. He then altered the voted on language while creating a Community Sanction page in my user space, something that Wizardman had to correct after the fact. I take no position on whether this was intentional, or not.

Subsequent to all of this, we basically went on about our respective business. I only recently became aware of this case through my interactions with Abd.

In this current case we see Ncmvocalist again changing the wording in such a way that it expands the scope of what was actually !voted on (again I take not position on whether such change was intentional, or not). He did this at 10:54, 10 March 2009, and then took it upon himself to close the discussion at 03:46, 11 March 2009 which is only 15 hours later. Note that ALL of the !votes were made prior to his having even crafted the wording that he used in the close and when he added the notation at WP:RESTRICT.

Have we come to the point where ordinary users (i.e. non-admins) such as Ncmvocalist can take it upon themselves to assess community consensus, unilaterally close discussions, and impose community sanctions using their own wording without regard to what was actually !voted upon? Is this really how things are supposed to be operating here? --GoRight (talk) 17:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

When I went to his talk page to inform him of this discussion topic, I found this at the top of his page. So it seems that I am not the only one to have complained of such behavior, and that this has been going on for quite some time.

Look, I have no doubt that he actually means well. Honestly. But I find his behavior unacceptable as, apparently, do others. --GoRight (talk) 17:37, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Review, as requested. Looking at the PJHaseldine ban discussion as a whole, rather than individual diffs, I see several things that need to be made clear:-

• The "alterations" made by Ncmvocalist look to me like a good faith neutral summary of the proposal, which was supported by amost everyone who contributed to the discussion. The only user who wanted an alteration was Abd.
• Ncmvocalist did not vote in the discussion.
• Ncmvocalist was asked to close the discussion and notify PJH ("do the honors") by admin Georgewilliamherbert.

In other words, this discussion was closed fairly, by an uninvolved editor. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 17:43, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to look into it. But with all due respect, "prohibited from editing articles relating to Pan Am Flight 103, broadly construed" is not a fair summarization of what was actually !voted on. The original text enumerates 5 specific pages and requests a topic ban to "include articles about people who died in the Flight 103 crash", and "people who have written about the Lockerbie bombing, such as Hugh Miles (journalist)."

The summarization may have been made in good faith, as I said I take no position on intent, but it clearly expands the scope of the original wording. In addition, I question the propriety have having non-administrators injecting themselves in this manner, especially when they seem to be doing an inaccurate job. --GoRight (talk) 17:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Admins aren't anything special, so the fact it was done by a "normal" editor doesn't seem relevant, especially as an admin instructed them to. Those 5 articles covered Flight 103, broadly, and the wording, inadvertently or not, stops the banned editor from introducing new articles on the topic or adding the topic to other articles. Seems fair and in line with common practice. Verbal chat 19:25, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

"Admins aren't anything special ..." - I can certainly accept that they aren't special in that they are human, but they are special in that they have been given a vote of confidence by the community at large when they received their adminship. That is clearly a distinction from "normal" editors who have received no such vote of confidence.

"Those 5 articles covered Flight 103, broadly, and the wording, inadvertently or not, stops the banned editor from introducing new articles on the topic or adding the topic to other articles." - As I said above, I am not debating the validity of the PJHaseldine (talk · contribs) case either way. But the fact remains that his wording did, in fact, expand the scope of what was voted on. I merely want some sort of statement regarding what constitutes acceptable procedure when banning users. --GoRight (talk) 20:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

The ban language which was most specifically proposed (by Ncmvocalist) was widely discussed, everyone participating was aware that was what we were proposing to specifically implement, and it had wide discussion and overwhelming, near unanimous support (other than PJ). There's no issue here. There's no requirement that an admin be the person to close one of these or put the community ban notice in the edit restrictions page. Most of the commenters were admins, and I was the person who "called it" and recommended NCM close and enact, so if you feel there had to be admins involved there clearly were.

This was an attempt to see if PJ Hasseldine could contribute in other ways without the clearly disruptive involvement he's had in Pan Am 103 issues. There's widespread visibility of the problem among the admins and senior users communities. There's obvious near unanimity that his contributions on that topic have been disruptive. And he apparently is failing to stop involving himself with it.

Challenging the topic ban is not an appropriate response here and now. The question is, whether this needs to be escalated to a complete community ban or not. His responses to the block seem to indicate that he really does not "get it". He is a single-purpose account focused on a topic which the community has come to a consensus he cannot edit here without causing problems.

Is there any belief that he can contribute positively going forwards, in other areas, without continuing to find himself drawn back to the area we have prohibited him from editing in? Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:52, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

As I thought I had made clear above, I am not challenging the outcome related to PJ Hasseldine nor your involvement in that matter. My point was purely procedural as it pertained to Ncmvocalist's repeated attempts to intervene in a variety of cases, apparently including ArbCom cases, and not just PJ Hasseldine's.

Given the lack of concern among the community here today over the matter, I shall agree to let it drop. Thanks for your time. --GoRight (talk) 22:57, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I think one thing you are misinformed about, GoRight, is the place that admins hold in the Wikipedia community. Admins are given special priviliges only as far as their tools allow them. That is, admins are given the privilege to block users because they have the technical ability to do so; however admins are expressly NOT given any special weight in discussions of the community. Community-based sanctions are just that, community based. Admins can comment on those discussions, but when they do so their position as an administrator bears no special weight. If editors in an informal way hold admins in a certain regard that is one thing, but in a very formal way, admins expressly do not hold special weight in community based discussion. See WP:NOBIGDEAL for the words of our fearless leader on this matter... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 14:19, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Unacceptable image substitution

Resolved

 – per Arcayne's 22:17 comment. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:33, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
(Note: this was closed prematurely by a non-neutral admin. I'd appreciate some actual input from neutral editors) Erikeltic (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), an editor with whom I've had some difficulty with recently (mostly over Star Trek fan film production info in Trek-related articles) this morning replaced an image I uploaded of Ben Stacey portraying Spock with one of Ben Tolpin portraying the same character, offering a rather un-Spocklike Vulcan salute (1). The edit summary? "uploaded a new version of "File:Spock-B Stacey.jpg": This version shows Spock's face better and since STPII is getting a nod within the article, this modified Vulcan salute definitely shows off a new interpretation of Spock" I'd point out that this particular user has voiced at every point possible point in the past an irreconcilable dislike of any fan-film content; this is him voicing his displeasure by vandalizing by substitution the Spock. Add that to the fact that he replaced an image that I uploaded, he is likely thinking that the 'fuck you' depicted in the image is rather meant for me/ Lest someone think I am being paranoid, this user has a rather long and tendentious history of using images to insult folk he is in dispute with, and was in fact the source of a prior AN/I discussion. This image on his user page was to inform us that assholes "were everwhere". Then, the user changed it to barely clever edits that called his detractors ass-holes, some odd enhancement of the aforementioned edit, and this one, wherin the user invited those he was in dispute to Ben Franklin: History - One of Philadelphia's finest! Dover: Geography - The capital of Delaware. Hand: Science - More bones than any other part of the body, amazing. Kiss: Music - Who's that calling Dr. Love? Maya Angelou: Poetry and literature - Words are what make humans different as a species. Ash - essentially, "bend over and kiss my ass". After it was pointed out that this was an unacceptable use of a user page, he blanked the images out (2). We all thought the user had turned a corner in tehir behavior. As is indicated clearly by this image, such is clearly not the case. When asked fr the reasoning for the substitution, Erikeltic replied (3) "that it is one of the Phase II people portraying Spock & other than the "salute," it's no different than what you had uploaded", and acknowledges that it is "borderline WP:POINT" That the image is in fact not of the actor listed further disrupts the article I don't know how to undo the image vandalism, and I think I need an admin to do so. Additionally, I am thinking that this sort of tendentious editing nd lashing out at his detractors needs to be addressed and discouraged in the strongest possible terms, and the Trek articles need some protection from this person's behavior. Thoughts? - Arcayne (cast a spell) 14:58, 25 June 2009 (UTC) This didn't need to go to ANI and we certainly don't need to rehash things from months ago. If we were to review all of your issues over the past few months, we'd be here for a year & a half. It's uncessary and not worthy of discussion. Furthermore, I have bent over backwards since April to accommodate you. I have tried many times to build peace between us and find some common ground. Personally, I think your disruptive behavior and the way you ignore consensus to promote fan films should earn you a topic ban from Star Trek for a while, but I have not once filed the complaint. I have even asked other editors to take an easy approach with you, for fear of conversation degenerating into a flame war. It's a bummer that you took a tongue-in-cheek edit and turned it into this complaint. I hope that the progress we have made to work together hasn't been lost over it. For the record, here was my exact response to you, Arcayne: For starters, the modified Vulcan salute was pretty funny. C'mon, you know it was.  :) Second, it is one of the Phase II people portraying Spock & other than the "salute," it's no different than what you had uploaded. The Wired article you keep referencing features the "salute" picture... so I have to wonder if the article warrants inclusion, then what is wrong with the picture? I concede that this is borderline WP:Point, but it does further demonstrate the difference between studio work and fan films. Please don't pick and choose portions to further your complaint. That's not very honest and it's not very fair. I will restore the picture, but your reaction is very interesting. The picture of Spock flipping the bird is featured on the very Wired article you keep using to defend your position. I can see that you want to pick & choose which is appropriate from the Wired article, but the very existence of Spock giving the one-fingered Vulcan salute further demonstrates why fan films and fiction should not be given the same weight as studio productions. Erikeltic (talk) 15:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC) "Lest someone think I am being paranoid"... Well, between this and the above section ("When is it appropriate to pursue this?"), you do seem to have a loose grasp of WP:AGF. DreamGuy (talk) 15:55, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Let me see if I am understanding this right. Two different users come to the defense of unacceptable behavior by claiming that its all my fault. And KC - who has been somewhat less than pleasant in the past, (calling me a liar, yet unable to prove it when pressed) - preemptively closes it with no further discussion, except to call it spam on my talk page? Come on now, that's not even int he zip code of neutral. This is not a content dispute. If it had been, anything other than a 'fuck you' to me, I'd have just simply uploaded the image yet again. And there isn't the slightest confusion that it was indeed a fuck you, as evidenced by the exact same pattern before with this user. And then DreamGuy makes an appearance? Yeah, neutral input it wasn't. The image was indeed reverted, but only - as the last time- when this image nonsense was brought to AN/I. KC acknowledges in Erikeltic's page that it was bullshit, and asked if Erikeltic was done, who acknowledged it for the nonsense it was. If I were to call anyone an asshole or say fuck you to anyone here, i'd be blocked, and deservedly so. Why on earth does Erikeltic get a pass because KC doesn't want to play nicely? Additionally, why does Erikeltic get to sub a picture that he acknowledges was a pointy behavior? I'[ve reopened the premature closure of this AN/I, seeking better, neutral input. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 19:51, 25 June 2009 (UTC) I have stated my case to you and the admins. It was not a fuck you, despite what you may believe. Trust me when I tell you with all due respect that if I was to actually say fuck you, I would be as explicit as possible and leave it on your talk page or just redirect your page to douche. I suggest you calm down, get some tea, and read this page. We are talking about Star Trek, not the Holocaust. Erikeltic (talk) 20:01, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Yes, of course. It's all my fault for misinterpreting your self-admitted POINTy behavior, especially since you've never, ever done anything like that before. I am calm, thanks. And please, do not pretend tht you did it for any other reason than to get my hackles up; you've clearly expressed less than good faith. Allow me to illustrate what I saw happening. Erikeltic alters the picture to something that clearly wouldn't be allowed in the article, or in Wikipedia (I think inflammatory was word that R. Baley used). The image gets speedily deleted by someone else (likley not even knowing what was occurring), making reinstating the image a lot more difficult, and gives you time, via DRV, to argue against its reinstatement. Now, lest I be called paranoid again, note that immediately after this complaint was filed, Erikeltic admitted trying to revert the image back and instead quickly it for deletion. I don't mind content disputes, as those are at least honest disagreements. This was underhanded crap. When one method didn't work, he went the plainer route of nominating the image himself.Granted, I am not the most polite feller in the world, and I do sometimes assume less than good faith, but this stream of piss is clearly unacceptable. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 20:12, 25 June 2009 (UTC) I say this with no offense intended, but you are being paranoid. The picture was a tongue-in-cheek edit to a picture that is featured on the citation you keep using to support your position. If you find the picture offensive, then you should use another citation because both originate from the same Wired article. As for nominating the other picture to FFD, I did that to tie it to the discussion on the CawleyasKirk picture. You see, we already went through all of this sort of thing in March when the consensus was that fan portrayals do not get the same weight that studio portrayals. But because everyone involved was not explicit down to the last period, comma, colon, and semicolon (leaving it to common sense), we knew then that we were going to have to go through the process over and over again. This happens repeatedly because you're either unsatisfied and unwilling to work with the community unless your will is met, as shown here when you write, "Anything that removes or marginalizes Cawley is a non-starter for me." That is not a neutral position. I don't mean any of this as an insult, it's just how you deal with others from where I'm sitting. It's why I told Mike that the key to dealing with you is to "never disagree." I hope that explains why I nominated the file, following EEMIV's lead in nominating CawleyasKirk. Erikeltic (talk) 20:32, 25 June 2009 (UTC) It appears that Erikeltic acted disruptively yesterday by uploading an inappropriate image over an existing one, then nominating for deletion. In the context of recent disruption, a pattern of previous disruptive behavior may be discussed. Although Arcayne does not present the matter clearly or well (commentary such as "this stream of piss" is distracting and unbecoming), Arcayne's underlying message appears to be meritorious. Erikeltic, "it's just how you deal with others from where I'm sitting" is not an acceptable response. Editors who make a habit of dealing with others in that manner do find themselves sitting on timeouts if the behavior continues. One hopes that dialog makes further action unnecessary: let's raise the level of discourse and interaction. DurovaCharge! 21:43, 25 June 2009 (UTC) The previous stuff he is mentioning was on my talk page. I invite you to review the entire situation before you condemn me as "disruptive." Also, my comments to Arcayne were based on discussions that did not talk place here and were well within context. I don't believe pointing out Arcayne's eccentricities, when it comes to the best way to approach him, is an unacceptable response when I've been accused of being part of some grand conspiracy. I hope as you contemplate timeouts you are thinking about everyone that repeatedly makes inappropriate remarks. Erikeltic (talk) 22:02, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Of course I've reviewed the full situation. It would be more productive to raise one's standards than to engage in what gives the impression of a creative endeavor to snark at the margins of WP:POINT and WP:CIVIL. Eventually, as the pattern turns habitual, blocks do fallow. And Wikipedians who review the entire situation surely know those blocks will not originate from me. Please accept this as a friendly caution, so the matter can wrap up and (with a little patience and luck) need not return to this board. DurovaCharge! 22:41, 25 June 2009 (UTC) I agree that I have a temper like everyone else, and I've felt a little pushed over the past several days (its one of the reasons I was away most of the day, seeking to blow off some steam instead of getting more uncivil that I readily admit I was). I pointed out behavior that was perceptibly unsuitable, and complained about it, as the editor in question had proven unwilling to accept my say-so that it was unacceptable, When DR fails - as it had - this is the next step in resolving the problem. Maybe a warning instead of a block is called for - I've cooled down considerably since discovering the image substitution this morning. I am not encouraged by the responses from Erikeltic, but as you said, Durova, if a pattern continues to emerge, then appropriate action will take place whether I point it out or not. Thank you for taking the time to fully evaluate the situation, Durova; I will take your criticisms to heart. Seriously. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 23:54, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Thank you for that response, Arcayne. It's tough advice (have been in similar positions many times). Usually matters straighten themselves sooner and better when one takes the high road: editors who are willing to respond reasonably find it easier to do so, and the few who aren't show themselves by the contrast. Either way, resolution is swifter and simpler. Best wishes, DurovaCharge! 15:49, 26 June 2009 (UTC) Comment This was corrected some time ago; Erikaltic has stated he is done with such nonsense[32] and the only thing left is the back-and-forth insulting. Why, precisely, was this unclosed and the drama allowed to continue? I'm missing where anything productive is left to do here. KillerChihuahua?!? 23:06, 25 June 2009 (UTC) Reply Respectfully, let's not rewrite history, please; this was not corrected until after the AN/I complaint was filed here, and after you asked him if the "inappropriate" nonsense was done. Recall that the usertalk pages were seen to be just as inappropriate, and were only reverted after repeated attempts inter-talk failed to accomplish that task; AN/I was required then, As this was more than just little witticisms at one's page but actual disruption of the article, I felt less than willing to wait the several days to file the same complaint I did this morning. I'm upset over the underhanded method by which a discussion was forced, and the jab it appeared to be. No drama was intended. Had you not been so quick to close it after a proven unfriendly editor and the respondent , it would never have had to be reopened. As you and I have gone round and round, you weren't the best person to be evaluating the complaint, calling it spam or a content dispute - both of which were just plain inaccurate. I hope that answers your question, KC. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 23:54, 25 June 2009 (UTC) He stated he was done before you re-opened this[33] in order to continue your personal attacks and drama.[34][35][36][37] and oddly, [[38]] which includes both a very civil post to Durova, and an accusation (with no rationale) that I'm rewriting history. KillerChihuahua?!? 00:18, 26 June 2009 (UTC) Well, according to you, everything I write is a personal attack. How does one respond to that? Stating the obvious might be a WP:SPADE argument, but it isn't inherently uncivil. I wasn't paying as much attention to what Erikeltic was saying, I was paying attention to the premature closure - though I did note the friendly commiseration and offer of help in the future. As I noted before, calling an argument a stream of piss wasn't my finest moment, but consider I felt pretty provoked by that point. It's not an cop-out, it's the background. In point of fact, you simply weren't neutral, and shouldn't have closed the complaint before someone who didn't have an ax to grind weighed in. You clearly do. DreamGuy obviously does. Fact: Erikeltic wasn't acting appropriately, and he's been told as such by someone he will likely listen to. Hopefully it won't recur. Problem solved. Frankly, the only one offering drama at this point is you. If there is no further issue to discuss, I don't mind if the conversation is archived now. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 03:13, 26 June 2009 (UTC) There never was any actual issue to discuss, but that didn't stop you. Apparently you unarchived this section just to try to get some more pointless jabs in against additional targets. That now makes four editors in about a day that you've decided to complain about on ANI for no sensible reason and nobody endorsing your peculiar interpretations of events. Maybe you should take the hint. DreamGuy (talk) 15:21, 26 June 2009 (UTC) Actually--and I mean this very respectfully, DreamGuy--I almost reached the same conclusion. Originally read this thread wondering whether my Commons mop might help clean things up (which happens sometimes at media threads on ANI, but not this one). What I can affirm is that one of the things a good Commons admin checks for in deletion nominations is whether a different image was uploaded over the original filename. If it had, and if there appeared to be an underlying dispute, then I'd talk to the editors pretty much like here. Ideally Arcayne would have focused principally upon this issue at the start of the thread. Not everyone has a knack for presenting evidence, though, and one of the things that mentoring various editors has really brought home is how easily that can be mistaken for intentional disruption. DurovaCharge! 16:23, 26 June 2009 (UTC) Can someone please archive this again before it degenerates further? I think the issue has been solved. Erikeltic (talk) 15:46, 26 June 2009 (UTC) Since the mistake was indeed pointed out by someone else, resulting in the disruption ending, and the image being removed, the purpose of the complaint has been fulfilled. While I still have no idea what DreamGuy is complaining about (and have to admit that I largely don't care), I think the matter can archived at this point. Thanks to additional folk who came here neutrally. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 22:17, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Clearly not an article for speedy deletion

The article James P. Barker is an established years old article. It has been submitted to AfD but was speedy deleted just hours later and the article, history and discussion has been blanked. This is by no means an article for speedy deletion. The Afd process needs to be continued and the page should be restored until the Afd has been finished. Iqinn (talk) 16:14, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• Deletion review is thataway. Feel free to start a discussion there. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 16:25, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

  For deletion review i need access to the article so i can get the information to argue against A7. It has been a long time article. There was not even a warning time with a speedy deletion tag on the article page before it was blanked. How can i get access to the necessary information? Iqinn (talk) 17:17, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

This is not the project page to talk about this. However, email me (or drop me a note on my talk page) and I'll email the text to you. Gwen Gale (talk) 17:26, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I would rather not do this by email. Could an administrator please restore at least the history of the article. That should be enough for me to get the information to start the deletion review. Iqinn (talk) 18:36, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd be interested to know what the problem with email is. Is there a specific reason that Gwen emailing you the content is insufficient? Ale_Jrb^talk 20:04, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I just looked at the history, and I'd advise you not to bother pursuing this. While the speedy on the grounds that notability was not asserted may not have been accurate, there's no way that article would have survived AfD - I'm 99% certain that it would have be closed as delete and/or redirect to the crime he was convicted of, thanks to the WP:BLP1E policy.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:09, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I seem to remember redirecting this article to the killings article a couple weeks ago. Can an admin confirm or deny this? Was the redirect undone or something? --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:17, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Iqinn reversed the redirect and contested the PROD at the same time. It was then taken to AfD, and speedily deleted per the rationale there. Ale_Jrb^talk 20:20, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of whether this article would have survived AFD or not, Iqinn is correct that the article was incorrectly speedy deleted. A7 cannot be applied to an article that clearly covers someone who has sources and notability. BLP1E is after all for people that are notable "for one thing" - but BLP1E is not a reason for speedy deletion nor should it be and admins should not delete articles for these reasons. It's not really encouraging to see admins ignore policy without any pressing need to do so. The article existed for 3 years - we should allow the community 7 days to decide the issue, not some admin for reasons unsupported by current policy. Regards SoWhy 20:31, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

It is not entirely obvious that you are correct. See for example Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff#Summary_deletion_of_BLPs,

“ Any administrator, acting on their own judgment, may delete an article that is substantially a biography of a living person if they believe that it (and every previous version of it) significantly violates any aspect of the relevant policy. This deletion may be contested via the usual means; however, the article must not be restored, whether through undeletion or otherwise, without an actual consensus to do so. The burden of proof is on those who wish to retain the article to demonstrate that it is compliant with every aspect of the policy. ”

Then see Wikipedia:BLP#Articles_about_people_notable_only_for_one_event,

“ If reliable sources cover the person only in the context of a particular event, and if that person otherwise remains, or is likely to remain, low profile, then a separate biography is unlikely to be warranted. Biographies of people of marginal notability can give undue weight to the event, and may cause problems for our neutral point of view policy. In such cases, a merge of the information and a redirect of the person's name to the event article are usually the better options...The significance of an event or individual should be indicated by how persistent the coverage is in reliable secondary sources. ”

Speedy deletion is not obviously wrong in this case. Thatcher 20:45, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• And, since the relevant info is at Mahmudiyah killings, it is easy enough to list James P. Barker at deletion review without restoring the article itself, and I suggest that it should not be restored, or emailed, or userfied in any way, until the deletion review is finished. Thatcher 20:50, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Thatcher here. I will say though that it's a bit odd for us to keep this article while deleting the one on Barker. It's currently at AfD and has two keep votes. Basically the difference is that Green plead not guilty and had a trial which received coverage, while his co-defendants did not apparently. That probably technically makes him more notable than the others who don't have articles (e.g. Jesse Spielman). But BLP1E arguably applies as much to Green as it does to the other soldiers, and notability guidelines to the side it's difficult to explain in the real world why we keep one article simply because the man went to trial and plead not-guilty. This can probably be debated at the AfD, but it also might be worthy of a larger conversation. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:49, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I (obviously) don't think the article should exist, but I do think it is wrong for an admin to speedy delete it as failing BLP1E. That is not a valid speedy deletion criteria and there was no compelling reason to ignore all rules and delete the page without community discussion. --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:00, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I am the offending admin in this case. For starters this was done very late at night and may not have been my "best decision ever". Having said that I will stand behind my reasoning to an extent. The article I deleted contained three lines which were largely identical to the three lines in the Mahmudiyah killings article and gave no information beyond the involvement in the crime and plea bargain. A search found no information for the individual beyond what was at the latter article. Hence we had a case of what I regarded as A7 - a person who is not demonstrably notable. The debate here could be stated as "is BLP1E related to A7?", and there is precedent to agree with this notion. Does participation in a notable event make a person notable?. I have always thought not and I of the opinion that BLP1E supports me. BLP1E says being involved in a single event is not enough to achieve notability, so this is effectively a subcategory of A7. And to quote Arbcom: "The burden of proof is on those who wish to retain the article to demonstrate that it is compliant with every aspect of the policy."

Had I been less tired I might have considered WP:SNOW because a small BLP1E article that was essentially a cut and paste from Mahmudiyah killings will never pass AFD. Alternatively a redirect could have been used.

As far as Steven Dale Green, I read the article and related information and it *appeared* that there was considerable information beyond the Mahmudiyah killings article. It is more difficult to interpret a "crime plus an associated lengthy trial" as only a single event (or 1E). Not impossible, just more difficult. Hence I did not apply the same A7 reasoning, even though it could possibly still apply. But debate seemed far more warranted. Manning (talk) 00:51, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion invoking BLP as the reason forces the issue into deletion review. It is probably not a good idea to invoke this drastic solution when reasonable people can disagree, especially when there is no real possibility of doing additional harm. It would have been better to try to establish consensus in the regular way. DGG (talk) 00:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

DGG: Just to clarify - the deletion was done invoking A7, with a reference to BLP1E. I did not delete using BLP1E as my sole reasoning. Manning (talk) 01:18, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

You would have been on stronger footing, IMO, if you stuck with BLP as your basis. As an A7, this is clearly not an A7. In order to avoid an A7 deletion, the article merely needed to make a claim of importance/significance, this one did. The claim does not have to be substantiated by sources. The article doesn't have to meet the requirements for BIO/N to be kept. There was no violation of BLP, and BLP1E is not the foundation that arbcom was discussing above. This article should not have been speedily deleted. (Now should it be kept? In the current form no, a redirect is preferable, unless more can be found/added to the subject. I'm not a big fan of BLP1E, but this is explicitly the type of circumstance where it is applicable.)---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 14:48, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Proposed solution. Reverse deletion and create a redirect to Mahmudiyah killings. (I note ThaddeusB had already done this quite recently.) Re-opening the AFD seems pointless under WP:SNOW, and I concede my summary closure under A7 may have been too hasty. Manning (talk) 01:25, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• No. You could create a new redirect without a history, although I would expect it to be taken to RFD. (I express no opinion on the appropriateness of a redirect at this time.) But the history of the article should not be restored except following deletion review, if that is the consensus. Thatcher 14:21, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Why? The deletion was clearly incorrect, your citing an arbcom case that deals with BLP does not pertain to this case (as this is not a violation of BLP. BLP <> BLP1E.) The deleting admin concedes he acted hastily. The history should be kept.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 14:51, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
    • Presumably the idea of restoring the content under the redirect would be that it would still be available in the event the guys becomes more notable at a later date (which is doubtful, but possible). In the event people kept undoing the redirect, the page could always be protected. --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:05, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
      • I'm looking at keeping it more from this historical archive purposes. There is nothing in the article that violates BLP, so the history should be preserved.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 15:11, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
        • Read the Arbcom case and the section on BLP1E. Deleted content should not be restored until after DRV. The redirect does not need a "historical archive" if it turns out that the deletion is endorsed. Nor am I moved by arguments about process. Process exists to increase the chances of getting the right result; if the right result was achieved with the wrong process, it's counterproductive to start over with the right process for the sake of process. But, we can have a test if you like. You undelete and I'll re-delete, and then we'll find out whose side Arbcom takes. Funny thing, no one has even bothered to list it at DRV yet. Maybe people like complaining more than they like doing. Thatcher 16:01, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
          • I may be reading this totally incorrectly (and please disregard, if that is the case), but are you really threatening to wheel war if Balloonman IARs this and undeletes? I don't know much about Arbcom, but I don't think they would look very kindly on that. (For the record, I take no position regarding the underlying issue, but am just troubled by what it appears Thatcher is threatening to do here.) Unitanode 16:21, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

The first item on the DRV criteria is: "Deletion Review is to be used where someone is unable to resolve the issue in discussion with the administrator (or other editor) in question. This should be attempted first – courteously invite the admin to take a second look." In this case, the admin has agreed to restore it to a redirect which is an acceptable solution, IMO. Why force this to DRV if it can be resolved without it? --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:31, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• I agree, but am still troubled by my understanding of Thatcher's note above. He seems to clearly state that he will re-delete it if it's undeleted. Unitanode 17:33, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Abusive editor on Benzodiazepine page

Editor Literaturegeek | T@1k? has shown a consistent pattern of abusive behavior attacking everyone who dare to disagree with him. See the following diffs.

Stop intentionally faking data [39], which you grossly worsened by adding fake facts which you grossly worsened by adding fake facts [40], refs being faked [41], someone who does not understand the medical literature has formed an opinion using original research and are fighting systemic reviews with weak reviews and taking refs out of context [42], faking refs [43], falsifying of the refs [44], Faking refs, making them say the opposite of what they say or distorting them [45], fake data [46], he got caught faking refs... He really is a carbon copy of Mwalla and scuro. WP:DISRUPT is what is going on [47], totally hypocritical [48], bought into your nonsense...Mattisse was bombarding me with original research ...This disruption must stop [49] you got your education in addiction medicine from the newspapers [50], I am under attack by medically illiterate people... Mattissa is attacking me with her original research...this gibberish [51], These disruptive editors engage in character assassination [52], There is NO DEFENSE for your disruptive trolling on talk pages and vandalism [53],SEVERE trolling from Sceptical Chymist...OWNERSHIP trolling Sceptical Chymist...his VANDALISING editing [54], obsessive distorting the evidence [55], Sceptical ... an obsessive guy [56], Sceptical abuses policies like NPOV [57], got trolled ... original research by Sceptical Chymist [58], weeks of trolling by Sceptical Chymist [59], smears of this troll...a battle with a troll [60], fighting faked references [61], Matisse ... faking refs [62], faking [63], faking refs [64], he was trolling, intentionally faking refs [65], faking of refs [66], mattissee ...seemed to buy into medical nonsense sceptical was saying [67], it was absolute hypocracy [68], faked refs...disruptive with the intent on wrecking the FA...sceptical's fake refs...he who was faking refs...I got totally trolled for no reason other than I think kicks [69], this trolling [70], trolled [71], this is all more trolling what sceptical is claiming [72], disruptive editor who was faking or misrepresenting [73]. Mattissee's ... original research which was attacking my edits...the disruption she caused was temporary [74], you were trying to sabotage the FA from the start... for kicks perhaps [75]

The Sceptical Chymist (talk) 18:40, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

To whom are you referring? "Stop faking..." "You did XYZ..." ?? ╟─TreasuryTag►Africa, Asia and the UN─╢ 18:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

These are excerpts from the posts by LiteratureGeek referring, mostly, to me and Matisse. The Sceptical Chymist (talk) 18:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• The two of you are Cruisin' for a bruisin', and you are not the only one with a grudge list. I'd suggest you seek formal or informal mediation by a third party, and use the other mechanisms of dispute resolution (content RFC, third opinion) as needed. If you both don't alter your present behavior, it will not end well. Thatcher 18:50, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• (e/c, I type slowly) Looking thru LiteratureGeek's recent contributions, I note that User:MastCell has, on his talk page, said he would look into the underlying conflict between these two editors in the next few days. Probably the best thing at this stage is to ask both users to dial things back a notch, to make it easier for MastCell, and others reviewing the situation, to try to put out the fire without being blinded by all the smoke. I'll leave such a reminder on LiteratureGeek's talk page, and notify him of this thread while I'm there. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:57, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

There are currently admins reviewing this case. I have updated evidence for admin "MastCell" to review. Sceptical is trying to escalate this by drawing other admins into this, admins who aren't familar with the background. Those quotes are all recent quotes, quoted in such a way that it is essentially propaganda, totally taking those quotes out of their context. I have updated my evidence on this page.User:Literaturegeek/Sceptical_Chymist_evidence I would prefer if this matter was left to the admins already dealing with it rather than Sceptical trying to find an admin to side with him on what he did.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 19:08, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

To be clear, I'd welcome additional eyes, because I get tired of these sorts of disputes very quickly these days. I protected the page temporarily to help get the content issue sorted out. I don't really want to be a one-person arbitrator of this dispute, but I did promise to look into any egregiously abusive behavior. Parallel dialogues with Literaturegeek and The Sceptical Chymist are here and here, for the curious, and I'd welcome any additional input. MastCell ^Talk 19:41, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I've been watching the interaction between these two for a while. As far as I can tell, TSC has torn apart various sections of the article and audited the sources rather extensively. LG gets frustrated with this and sees it as an attempt to sink his nomination. He uses rather strong language at times regarding TSC, as evidenced above. LG is also frustrated by TSC's communication style. For his part, TSC seems to be acting in good faith but unwilling or unable to communicate in the way LG is requesting. They're not seeing eye-to-eye on anything, really, and as a result, nothing constructive is getting done. I think it would be best for both of them to stop editing the article until they can agree on a communication method to work out dispute on content and sourcing. The page protection was a good move, and I would even be inclined to leave it locked until they agree on said communication method. --Laser brain (talk) 20:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

As some background on this, there has been a long-term problem with several of the benzodiazepine articles of editors misusing sources, misquoting sources and twisting facts. I think those responsible for most of the disruption have now left, but this has left a very tense and antagonistic atmosphere. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:54, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

As a longtime lurker and occasional contributor to psychiatric articles, I can confirm Tim's impression of the situation, but I think the problems with editing are still ongoing. In particular, LG has engaged in long-term and subtle POV pushing across a range of articles with the intent of minimizing and denigrating mainstream psychiatry and psychiatric drugs. I have not once seen him argue for anything other than the most negative interpretation of sources, and I have observed that he often cherry-picks and misinterprets medical references. I think Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Franco-Mongol_alliance is a close parallel in the area of source misrepresentation. I invite anyone to review Talk:Benzodiazepine and especially the featured article review for benzos, where this behavior is on full display. Additionally, LG has become increasingly incivil when challenged on these grounds, characterizing his opponents as sockpuppets, vandals, or outright liars, and is prone to edit war. He is involved in the ADHD arbitration which mirrors much of this thread. This does not excuse TSC's edit warring, but hopefully provides some context. More eyes are certainly needed, especially from editors with the means to access and review medical sources. Skinwalker (talk) 22:22, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I work in addictions and my knowledge is based in addictions primarily with a special interest in sedative-hypnotics. I am not opposed to psychiatry and support the use of evidence-based psychiatric drugs in the treatment of the mentally ill. The only articles I have edited extensively are alcohol related articles, long-term effects of alcohol, alcohol withdrawal syndrome and prescription sedative hypnotics. I did spend a few weeks reading pubmed secondary sources on amphetamines and ADHD and contributed to the article, I have finished these contributions. The use of amphetamines in children is controversial even in mainstream academia and don't feel editing this controversy makes me opposed to psychiatry. I use reliable sources for my edits. Most of the benzo articles were start class until I worked on them. I don't feel skinwalker's criticisms is accurate. I have nothing against Skinwalker and know he is a constructive contributer to wikipedia but I feel he has the wrong impression of me. I can when I feel wronged be uncivil and I agree with skinwalker on this. It is a fault which I need to work on.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 23:51, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

One other point is that Skinwalker is an email contact of Sceptical Chymist, if you look on his talk page they exchanged emails.User_talk:The_Sceptical_Chymist I feel it is important to put this into context so just mentioning it.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 00:02, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Per User_talk:The_Sceptical_Chymist#E-mail, I have had no email or other offline contact with Chymist. I attempted to initiate contact to discuss sensitive material, but TSC did not have email enabled and did not wish to enable it. I'm sure he/she can confirm this if it's an issue. Skinwalker (talk) 01:27, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

without going into details, and not as an expert, I think it's probably that LG's edits are generally sound. However sound they may be, it is not good practice to insult other editors. The wording you have been using in reverting them is not conducive to discussion. An expert should be able to have their correct view of thing prevail by the quality of their arguments. Even when one think one's opponent ignorant, it is rarely helpful to say so. Even when they misquote, it is better to just quote correctly. If the argument makes sense, others will support it. For most of these subjects, there are however expert views on any possible side of the question. In fact, the various relevant specialties tend to have expert consensus positions that are not identical with each other. Certainly the matter of amphetamine use in children is one that has previously here provoked extremely heated discussions between people both of whom could find perfectly reliable sources. NPOV requires fair statement of all positions, but we do not attempt to reach a conclusion about which one is right. DGG (talk) 00:51, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Extremely well-put, DGG. Askari Mark (Talk) 23:11, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Michael Jackson cardiac arrest / reported death

Per the reports in the UK regarding Michael Jackson being found "not breathing" and taken to hospital I have protected the article for 6 hours, so we can make sure we get proper sourced comment and no rumours. Feel free to unprotect/vary as required. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:48, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Reuters has just reported believed (my emphasis) dead. Fully support full-protection until it's clear what's going on. – iridescent 21:50, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I expect Talk:Michael Jackson to get busy. Will watch, but will only be online for a while. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 21:52, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

TMZ reporting he's dead, but they've missed before. No reputable news source reporting it yet. Watching is a must, and protection probably a good idea. Dayewalker (talk) 21:55, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Definitely a situation where I favour pre-emptive protection. We'll know quickly what has happened, at which point it can be opened back up to the masses for ...tasteful... editing. Resolute 21:58, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Miami Herald reporting that Michael Jackson is dead. seicer | talk | contribs 21:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, Miami Herald is citing TMZ. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:02, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, seems everyone is picking up the TMZ report. CTV.ca is reporting it as well, again as a "report". Resolute 22:04, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

They have now sourced TMZ; it was omitted when I first clicked on it. seicer | talk | contribs 22:08, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Note: I've taken the unusual step of semi-protecting the talkpage as well, before it becomes a BLP nightmare (if the allegations aren't true). Any admin who disagrees has my explicit consent to revert. – iridescent 22:00, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Have added an invisible note to Deaths in 2009 as well; I remember several past cases where horrible revert wars broke out there over celebrities taken suddenly ill. Sam Blacketer (talk) 22:05, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Both LHvU and Iridescent's protections were a good idea. I'm sure we'll have more info in the very near future and can proceed accordingly. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 22:07, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Endorse both protections, obviously. See what happens in the news. Ale_Jrb^talk 22:09, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Only a note, USAToday got a confirmation he was taken to UCLA MC in cardiac arrest, before they stopped talking. Gwen Gale (talk) 22:09, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I want to register my disagreement. Pre-emptive full protection is going to far. There were a total of 5 (FIVE) reverts today. This is not a lot. Per WP:NO-PREEMPT, "Persistent vandalism, or the possibility of future vandalism for highly trafficked articles, rarely provides a basis for full-protection. Semi-protection is used for articles, such as Barack Obama, that have a pattern of heavy sustained vandalism." Full protection is overkill. --Elliskev 22:10, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

There were 5 reverts before the story broke, but when there are sufficient editors to patrol it we can drop the level down a bit - I am a veteran of the Sarah / Bristol Palin news frenzy, and this has even more potential of swamping. If it was the wrong decision I am making it for what I consider the best of reasons and I will accept the consequences. Also, I have enacted the same protections at Michael Jackson's health and appearance (following a request). LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Agree. WP:NO-PREEMPT is no substitute for long-ingrained experience. Nobody could sensibly argue that any of these articles would not be the target of editors unaware of our various policies here. And that's aside from the "anti"-factions who would use the opportunity to add all sorts of other nonsense. Can't argue with LHvU's actions here, except that I might have tried semi first; but then, perhaps I am unusually optimistic. Rodhullandemu 22:30, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

When there is a bit more clarity in news accounts, we can lower the protection level. I'm sure there will be lots of eyes. Jonathunder (talk) 22:21, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I think avoiding a potential B(L)P crisis before there's a little more information is the correct course of action. Ale_Jrb^talk 22:23, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

LA Times called it independent of TMZ, I'd say that's it. Soxwon (talk) 22:24, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the protections are absolutely in accordance with policy. The problem here is not with likely vandalism of the articles, but of almost certain revert wars and disputes over how exactly to describe his state of health and prolonged issues over whether an 'unconfirmed report' appearing in a normally reliable source is admissible etc etc. No-one is going to suffer if, by insisting on reliability, we are 'last with the news'. There are people who may suffer if unreliable information is stated as fact. Sam Blacketer (talk) 22:23, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Can someone protect Michael Jackson (writer) as well? It's getting damaged by misfires.—Kww(talk) 22:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

That's now been protected, and I had to protect Michael Jackson (disambiguation) for the same reasons. Acalamari 23:04, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

If the consensus is that this particular article falls under IAR, I'm fine with that. But I will ask that full protection rules are followed - meaning absolutely no edits by admins without talk page discussion. --Elliskev 22:29, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Seems like a bad precedent if it's going to apply more widely to other reported deaths and emerging news generally. But if you guys think it's best and do it under IAR, fine. Wikipedia follows the sources, it doesn't need to be ahead of them. Wikidemon (talk) 22:31, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd definitely agree with that. Things like this are not helpful. – iridescent 22:31, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but I fully support and endorse the actions taken to fully protect the article (and semi-protect the talk page). Michael Jackson is a huge public figure, and news like this is sure to attract all sorts of vandalism. Especially given the problems with WP:BLP recently, this is a very, very good idea. Dr. Cash (talk) 22:30, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, I agree with preemptive full protection in this case. Wait until it's confirmed in multiple, reliable, and independent sources. — Becksguy (talk) 22:31, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

LA times?[76] Wikidemon (talk) 22:32, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Already got that, NBC has as well. Soxwon (talk) 22:35, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Agree - a *lot* of people are going to be coming here looking for information - do we want people's first view to be "lol! he's dead!". Protection at this time is in the best interests of the project. We aren't a news source, slow and steady confirmation of sources is the way to go. --Cameron Scott (talk) 22:34, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment (multiple e/cs) Declined unprotection on the Michael Jackson article and fully protected 2009 for six hours. All proposed changes should be discussed on the talk page until this settles down. Enigma^msg 22:34, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I support the block, even if it is a technical violation of PREEMPT, this would be a clear case where IAR applies... also, I wonder if this might be reason why I am having trouble with my Wikipedia account. keep getting timed out, too many people looking at MJ? ;-)---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I find it rather amusing you fully protect it to stop WP:BLP problems yet you have admins using blogs as sources for his death.--Otterathome (talk) 22:44, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

That's been fixed; no need to hold a grudge. wadester16 01:58, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Confirmed dead. I still support leaving the article protected per Cameron Scott's arguments above. – iridescent 22:45, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Death of Michael Jackson

Death of Michael Jackson - Please protect. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree. That page should be salted. Unitanode 22:49, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Salted for 24 hours. By then it should be clearer what exactly has happened. Until then, Michael Jackson is possibly going to be the single most viewed page on the entire internet and we need to be careful exactly what it does and doesn't say. – iridescent 22:53, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Malcolmxl5 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) salted it indef.[77] Dabomb87 (talk) 22:55, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, did it at the same moment as Iridescent. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 22:58, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it should be salted indefinitely. There's absolutely no need for a new page to discuss his death Corpx (talk) 23:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Guess all the other 'Death of' articles should be deleted too. It's the biggest death since Princess Diana (which has its own article), and probably bigger than some of ther other 'Death of' stories. 82.31.164.37 (talk) 22:14, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if I'd call it as "confirmed", as we still have information second hand with no-one speaking formally and on the record about it. But it's sound more and more likely: The LA Times and the Associated Press are both running stories to that effect, and NBC News has joined in as well. Tabercil (talk) 22:52, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

BBC is as well, and they're the most cautious of them all. I think we can call it confirmed. – iridescent 22:53, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

BBC's live reporter in LA just said they rely on reputable sources such as AP so it's no more confirmed because they say so. leaky_caldron (talk) 22:58, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I dont get why this article is fully protected. I can understand semi-protection since IPs and new accounts would probably vandalize this, but I dont agree with locking it down so that only admins can edit it. If established registered users vandalize the article, then warn/block accordingly, instead of preemptively locking down the article so that only a select few can edit it. I dont foresee a large attack by established/registered users, so I dont see a need for full protection Corpx (talk) 23:02, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree, Welcome to Wikipedia. Anyone can edit, unless the admins want to edit it first.--Jojhutton (talk) 23:06, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Protecting this page is setting an incredibly bad precedent. --Susan118 ^talk 01:48, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Very very stupid. It was deleted out-of-process. Given that he is dead, there are no BLP concerns, and this should be done properly. What possible justification was there to delete and protect the article when the admins concerned knew that he was already dead?82.31.164.37 (talk) 22:14, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Our actions are being noted

See here. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:58, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Real good article, but it says that the article was protected for six hours, yet we just learned about all of this about two hours ago.--Jojhutton (talk) 23:04, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I assume it meant 2009, which has been protected for six hours: that's how I interpreted it anyway. I see the article also picked up on the technical issues that interfered with editing earlier and at the moment. Acalamari 23:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

The Michael Jackson article was fully protected for one hour and 17 minutes (77 minutes); talk page different. Now it's semi-protected. — Becksguy (talk) 23:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

But unfortunately there was a big template at the top of the page telling administrators not to edit it for quite a while longer than 77 minutes, which could have misled some people. Dekimasuよ! 07:24, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Not all that bad

Some sites are having the biggest flame war ever about it. PXK ^T /_C 23:17, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Admin edits

OK. This is crap. Why is there a flurry of undiscussed admin edits to a fully protected article? WP:PROTECT says, "Changes to a protected page should be proposed on the corresponding talk page, and carried out if they are uncontroversial or if there is consensus for them." There is no discussion. Admins are not super-editors. There aren't two classes of editors on Wikipedia. This is totally inappropriate. --Elliskev 23:06, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed; I posted pretty much the same thing below. But TerriersFan has unprotected. Mike R (talk) 23:07, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. — Aitias // discussion 23:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Agree also. Preemptively moving the article to full protection was a bad decision. Corpx (talk) 23:14, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• While I understand the thought behind the protection, I completely agree here. Either the admins need to start discussing edits to be made at the talkpage, or the protection level should be changed from full to semi. Unitanode 23:09, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

It's at semi now, but it's no doubt true that admins should not have made significant changes without discussing, but I think we should just move on at this point. Not a huge deal. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 23:13, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, your fellow admins abusing their positions IS a big deal. How is it not? Auntie E (talk) 00:09, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Actually it is a huge deal. It shows that a helluva lot of admins don't have a clue about the nature of full protection, or of the nature of their status as admins. This isn't the first time I've seen this recently. The same thing happened with the David Carradine article when he died. Preemptive full protection, admins editing without discussion... However, I'm not really up to pursuing it now. I'm just a little disappointed. --Elliskev 00:15, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

You really should not be disappointed. Going through an RfA these days involves not just an appreciation of policy, but also of article creation within those policies. I would be unhappy about Admins editing content through protection, particularly those they have applied themselves, and I have done that myself, in the best interests of this encyclopedia; but only to revert vandalism, or apply core policies. Sorry, I don't make any apology for that, since at the back of my mind, I retain some consideration for our readers (remember them?). We owe it to our readers, rather than ourselves, to present unbiased and reliably-sourced facts. That is what an encyclopedia IS. If that means preventing people from adding half-assed nonsense, then I, for one, am perfectly happy with that. We're an encylopedia, not a free-for-all. Please rememeber that. Rodhullandemu 00:27, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

What the hell is that supposed to mean? What the hell are you talking about? That sounds very....creepy. I did it for the common good. God grant the common folk the wisdom to accept what they do not understand.??? --Elliskev 00:33, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

How refreshingly naive. What's wrong with the "common good"? Is it not what we are ALL here for? And if Admins fuck up, they lose the bit. Meanwhile, we work silently behind the scenes, minimising the damage, with little kudos but much responsibility. If you've a problem with that, change it. As for my Admin decisions, from protections to blocks, I'm fully prepared to defend them all, and to the hilt. That's how seriously I take my role here. Would that others would do the same. Rodhullandemu 00:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Amen brutha'. wadester16 02:32, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

And if Admins fuck up, they lose the bit - uh, no, not really. not saying it's a bad thing, but admins fuck up regularly and get to keep the bit. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 10:36, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

(reset indent) I still don't know what you're on about. Do you have no problem with admins making major content edits to a fully-protected article without discussion on the talk page? --Elliskev 00:46, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

It is actually a violation of WP:PROT for an admin to edit through a full protection, but in some circumstances, per IAR, what the rules say and what common sense says vary. I basically agree with Rodhullandemu. Orderinchaos 07:43, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

WP:IAR. In this case it appears fully protecting the article for a short period of time was best for the encyclopedia. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 04:40, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

WP:IAR because some admins are too lazy to ask for consensus on the talk page? I don't think so. Auntie E (talk) 05:05, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Resp to Juliancolton. That is a separate issue. I accept that full protection of the article was best for the encyclopedia. My concern is with the editing done by admins while the article was fully-protected.

Editing Wikipedia is a privilege for all of us—including admins. Admins are by necessity granted additional privileges. That's fine. However, super-editor status has never been one of those additional privileges. There are times when circumstances necessitate an article being "shut down" to editing. Privileges are withheld for the good of the encyclopedia. There should be absolutely no changes made other than what is absolutely necessary for the good of the encyclopedia—things like spelling corrections, grammar corrections, vandalism removal. Any content edits and style edits should be discussed, since they aren't really vital.

That's not what was happening. The article was protected from editing by non-admins. Admins continued adding content, removing content, making stylistic changes. All as if the article wasn't protected.

Anyway, I think this horse I've been beating is beginning to rot. --Elliskev 12:47, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Full protection for article is probably fine. Semi-protection fo talk page is weird UNTIL there's a bunch of IP vandals to that page, and edit conflicts would have prevented many of those anyway. It's NOT ACCEPTABLE to have a fully protected page with a semi-protected talk page combined with admins editing the article without discussion. They're not discussing, and some editors are unable to dicuss the edits any way, and most editors are unable to revert possibly really bad edits. Lucky this is a BDP not BLP, but still. 82.33.48.96 (talk) 10:36, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

List

• Removal of a reference by an admin while fully protected - no discussion
• Addition of content about record ticket sales by an admin while fully protected - no discussion
• Addition of an inuse tag to a fully-protected article. Are you kidding me?
• Unnecessary and probably not the best edit by an admin while fully protected - no discussion

I really feel like I'm wasting my time, so I'll stop. I am very disgusted at the way this is being handled. The article is closing in on 30 edits since the latest full protection with little discussion. Why do admins think that it's okay to make any edits to a fully-protected page without any discussion whatsoever? --Elliskev 01:48, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely. Some admins really think they're better editors than non-admins and to lock down a page permanently due to two vandal edits is disgusting Corpx (talk) 02:31, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

What's even worse is the group of admins who think it's "no big deal." Auntie E (talk) 05:05, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

This is a big issues that says allot about admins attitudes, I am thinking on initiating an RFAR into the conduct of the administrators in question but more importantly whether or not it is right for an administrator to edit a fully protected article for non administrative reasons.   «l| ?romethean ™|l»  (talk) 05:46, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I am an administrator who has not participated in the MJ article in any way. I reviewed the list of changes presented above and found that none of them were edits that required any discussion, with or without protection. Removal of an EOnline reference when a Reuters one was already cited seems routine. The other two edits were simple copyediting. (The In Use" tag is hard to judge as I do not know the activity level at the time the tag was placed). None of what I reviewed required discussion or consensus as they were all non-controversial changes. If you can provide links to other edits I will gladly review them. Manning (talk) 06:16, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

As a fellow non participating admin I endorse Manning's comments, after reviewing the edit history myself. Orderinchaos 07:45, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

As another non-participating admin, agree that these were non-controversial edits and hence allowable, with the caveat that it's courtesy to report such edits on the talk page. That was evidently done in at least one case, and in a couple of cases admins erroneously thought it was semi rather than full protection, and apologised for that misunderstanding shortly after the initial report above was made. Admins should be aware of the need to make such reports, even though these were clearly difficult circumstances due to the sheer pressure of a breaking news situation and edit conflicts on the talk page. Care also needs to be taken in making accusations without carefully checking the talk page archives. . dave souza, talk 10:03, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Manning, what about this edit, which was done after locking the article saying "Edit warring / Content dispute: need time to update the death facts. will lower protection when done" and was later justified as a necessary evil. I'm absolutely disagree with the usage of admin powers to protect articles to push your edit through. As for the non controversial edits made by admins when it was locked, it was exactly what was done by regular users prior to the locking. There was no real edit warring and very little vandalism and there was no justification to lock it in the first place. Other reasons to lock it range from blaming a good faith edit that accidentally broke a table to the "higher server load" to non existent BLP issues. Locking it down and then proceeding to make "uncontroversial" edits just screams elitism and conveys the notion that admins are better editors than regular users Corpx (talk) 10:19, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

OK. Sounds like the consensus is that admins can edit a fully-protected article whenever they want, as long as they can justify it. Of course, everything is justifiable with IAR.

Why don't we just go ahead and change the term "full protection" to "reserved to editing by admins". Or should I bring that up at WP:PROTECT? --Elliskev 12:32, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Thankfully an event of this magnitude only occurs once in a blue moon. Our policies are good and generally work, but they are designed to work for 99% of circumstances - this is the 1%, a VERY high visibility page which is being watched microscopically by non-Wikipedians who visit our site. It's almost a designed case for IAR, but one should call upon it thoughtfully and carefully. Orderinchaos 16:28, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Protected again

[78] Dabomb87 (talk) 23:37, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Here we ago again. I like how the admin proceeds to edit the article right after fully protecting it. As mentioned before, admins are NOT super editors! I also fail to see any "content dispute" There were no real edit warring prior to this lock down Corpx (talk) 23:44, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

23:36, 25 June 2009 Wadester16 (talk | contribs | block) m (120,713 bytes) (Changed protection level for "Michael Jackson": Edit warring / Content dispute: need time to update the death facts. will lower protection when done ([edit=sysop] (expires 00:36, 26 June 2009 (UTC)) [move=sysop] (indefinit) ... Sorry, but what? — Aitias // discussion 23:48, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

It needed to be correct. There were many easily cited, verifiable, reliable sources that needed to be included. The state of that section before wasn't great and it needed cleanup. wadester16 01:46, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

It's back to semi. — Satori Son 00:07, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Looking at Today's Featured Article, vandal fighters are going to be busy. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:10, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

The Huggle Brigade™ should be able to handle the vandalism; admins should keep an eye on AIV if not on vandal-patrol already. —Animum (talk) 00:30, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Protected once more

I'm tired of this roller coaster ride. This time, by User:Cenarium, for excessive vandalism, even though I see just two instances of vandalism in the first page of the edit log. On top of that, these vandals were not warned for their edits, because I guess its easier to just lock down the whole page? Corpx (talk) 00:55, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Three vandalism in the latest seven minutes. I didn't warn them because I was too occupied to refresh the history to rollback new vandalism or fix infobox screw ups. It got circa 1 million hits per hour in the latest hours. Cenarium (talk) 01:02, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

There were two vandal edits in the whole first page of the edit log, which is really not that hard to revert. On top of that, I'm baffled at your reversion of this edit and further classifying it as "vandalism". High visibility does not mean that you should preemptively lock it down. Corpx (talk) 01:06, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd also like to note that there have been 8 edits by admins since the latest full protection went info effect. I dont think they get the concept that admins are not super editors Corpx (talk) 01:09, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

That was obviously not preemptive, and I could have waited a couple of new vandalisms or BLP violations to make my protection even more justified, but I excluded this due to the extremely high visibility, and also due to server difficulties due to the extremely high traffic making quick reversions difficult. Fo this edit, super BLP violation if you prefer. And that protection was due to vandalism, not content dispute, so they can edit with caution. Cenarium (talk) 01:15, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Exactly where is the BLP violation in the edit? To me, it seems that everything stated is referenced from the associated citation. The edit was made in good faith and is definitely not vandalism. Not counting that edit, you're justifying your decision to apply full protection based on two vandal edits over a period of 7 mts? Corpx (talk) 01:29, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

That wasn't properly sourced, the reference was to the primary source, it was giving an entire paragraph and was obviously WP:UNDUE, and it was negative, thus it's a WP:BLPVIO. My protection was not justified only by those two vandalisms and this BLPvio, but all the previous ones in the history and the multiple infobox breaks; but also by the traffic and the ensuing server instability making editing and reversing more difficult. Cenarium (talk) 02:50, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

What part was not sourced properly? What is wrong with referencing primary sources, as long as it not used to cite "interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims" ? "it was negative, thus it's a WP:BLPVIO". I dont think you understand WP:BP if you think that anything negative is a BLP violation. Criticism can be added to articles as long as it is cited from a reliable source, as it was in this case. I dont think server instability should be a factor in locking an article. What proof do you have anyway that just semi protection was causing server instability? Corpx (talk) 03:01, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Everything was sourced to the organization's press release, go read Wikipedia:BLP#Sources. I didn't say "it was negative, thus it's a WP:BLPVIO", I said "That wasn't properly sourced, the reference was to the primary source, it was giving an entire paragraph and was obviously WP:UNDUE, and it was negative, thus it's a WP:BLPVIO.", which is not the same (my conclusion came from the combination of all previous statements, not just the last one). The server instability was caused by the extreme traffic, and that instability slowed down the acceptance of edits, and thus reversions, considerably decreasing our ability to deal with vandalism and BLP violations, and other infobox screw ups, and so showing the reader a correct article. Cenarium (talk) 03:18, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

It isn't for you alone to decide what is a BLP violation and what is not. Remember to Revert and discuss, not revert to the version that you prefer and then protect your version, which is exactly what you did. Your actions are very questionable to say the least and although I truely want to believe that your heart was in the right place, your reversion of a good faith edit and immediate protection of the article does not look good.--Jojhutton (talk) 03:25, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I had already reverted two vandalism edits, attempted to fix the infobox that was repeatedly broken, and this one came up. I had to act quickly with the high traffic, and it really looked like a BLP violation, and BLP applies to persons dead just now, so I rvt'd that one and protected, this is the default action per Wikipedia:Blp#Semi-protection_and_protection. Propose to reinstate the edit on the talk page if you think it should be. Cenarium (talk) 03:36, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't care about the edit. What is important here is that you reverted a good faith edit, then protected the page so that your version would stick. A poor series of edits that many other have noticed as well. Perhaps you should have reverted and then gotten consensus to protect. Admins are suppose to help and work with other editors, not make the decisions for them.--Jojhutton (talk) 03:53, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Everything sourced to the press release was stated as such. Press releases from organizations can be used as reliable sources to cite content from. I'm still wondering which parts of the edits violate BLP. First sentence is "n early 1996, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued a press release charging Jackson with antisemitism regarding lyrics in the song "They Don't Care About Us", the fourth single from HIStory.". I dont see any violations here since the claim is directly attributed to the press release and states as such. Next is "The song had originally been recorded with lyrics that included the phrase "Jew me, sue me", and "Kick me, kike me". This is a fact and is also said so in the link. Next is "The ADL complained and Jackson responded by saying he would re-record the lyrics before the album went into production." Again, this is a fact that can be attributed directly to the link. Next is "But the ADL's press release charged that Jackson had performed the song live and included the lyrics in question during the live performance" I fail to see anything wrong here either. It just states a complaint that ADL had and is said so in the document.

As for the negative part, you clearly implied that the content being negative constituted to a BLP violation. Why else would you throw the "and it was negative" part?

As for the server load issue, there is absolutely no policy here that justifies protection for an article because of the impact edits would cause on the physical server. You reverted two blatant vandal edits, a number that will not even get you semi-protection for an article at WP:RFPP. I guarantee you that those edits would have been reverted quickly in an article like that. As for the breaking the tables, they were caused as a result of a good faith edit, and not vandalism. Mistakes in good faith edits should not be used as an excuse to lock up a page. Corpx (talk) 04:03, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

To Jojhutton: as you put it here, spam is spam, even when in good faith; likewise, blp violations are blp violations, even when in good faith. I had to act quickly due to the server troubles and extreme traffic, proposing a full protection on the talk page or at ANI then waiting for the decision would have been too long. The cache couldn't follow the traffic and users were seeing outdated revisions [79], I experienced this, even when purging the page, it was not updated. This explains why so many users complained about the broken infobox and vandalism while it had already been fixed (sometimes a dozen of minutes before). And additionally to that, there were database errors when editing and reverting. I hadn't realized the full consequences of this at the time, and now I feel even more justified in my protection. That was an extraordinary situation, and my protection was certainly done in the spirit of WP:IAR. For the two vandalism edits, they were not reverted that quickly, especially in light of the traffic, a dozen of seconds for the first one, a few seconds for the second one (so a thousand of readers saw those based on the traffic per hour, probably more due to the server issues), estimation based on the intermediary edits on the site, and that only because I refreshed the history non-stop. With the server issues at the top of that, it's clear we couldn't cope up with vandalism and other disruptions, and many, many of our readers were seeing bad content. I didn't block the most egregious vandal immediately because I was too occupied to check the history and in my experience, those edits are not repeated, or not immediately at least. When I moved to block, the user was already indef'd. The second one didn't deserve a block. For the disputed edit, BLP is not just about facts, but also balance, and 'worthiness of bing mentioned'. That's a self-published source, a press release, so obviously not enough to support an entire paragraph of negative information. Now it's been lowered down to semi and I fully support that, there's no extreme traffic any more (although still very very high) and the devs are working on the server issues (they applied some patches to improve performance and redistributed resources, some wmf sites of lower priority are down, eg the techblog), so most of the vandalism and disruption by autoconfirmed users can now be contained, and is not so frequent as it's too late for drive-by vandalism. Cenarium (talk) 20:55, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

The server issues are even in the New York Times: With Jackson Entry, Wikipedia May Have Set a Record. Cenarium (talk) 21:01, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

IP request to unprotect talk page

Please resolve. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:22, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I've obliged. If needed, revert me. —Animum (talk) 00:48, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

For reference: 00:47, 26 June 2009 Animum (talk | contribs | block) changed protection level for "Talk:Michael Jackson" [move=sysop] (indefinite) ‎ (Preemptive protection only goes so far. Until we have an idea of the degree to which this page may be vandalized, IPs should be allowed to comment; revert me immediately if necessary. BLP-violating IPs can be blocked.) —Animum (talk) 00:52, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Quick note relating to Michael Jackson

(ec X infinity) Since I edit-conflicted non-stop in the main thread, I'm posting this in a new section; apparently the news is being spread to completely unrelated pages as well; see this edit to WP:PERM/R by Texas Ty (talk · contribs). → Dylan620 (Toolbox Alpha, Beta) 22:36, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Pls Unprotect Michael Jackson

It would be one thing if the article were fully protected and the only edits being made were after extensive discussion on the talk page, but what's happening is that admins are editing away willy-nilly, while everyone else is locked out. That creates a divide between admins and non-admins that has heretofore not existed. Admins are chosen to be janitors, not elite editors. Mike R (talk) 23:05, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

TerriersFan has unprotected. Mike R (talk) 23:06, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

There's work to be done

It's not particularly productive to indulge in discussion right now over whether Wikipedia administrators did a good or a bad thing in protecting a high profile biographical article, and whether specific edits under protection were within the letter of policy. People, there's far more pressing work to be done right now. Discussion can wait a few hours, or a day. Remember that this is the incidents noticeboard, and we have an incident here.

As you can see from the news, the news about this event has caused a noticable spike in traffic for several WWW sites. The WWW site for The O2 Arena (London) is currently unresponsive. And there are other side-effects. I strongly urge a lot of BLP-knowledgeable eyes to keep watch for BLP vandalism related to Jeff Goldblum and Harrison Ford, for example. I also strongly urge administrators to remember that many of the novice editors and editors without accounts are here to help and will help if you let them.

Work to protect the encyclopaedia now; blame-throwing and squabbling (if you really must) later. Please? Uncle G (talk) 04:47, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

WP:IAR and Time is of the essence sound like sound concepts here. We can tar and feather people later. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 04:57, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I will echo Uncle G resoundingly. Sure I have seen a handful of things I do not necessarily agree with occur, but I have not seen a single action taken that was not entirely in good faith, and done with a view to preserving the encyclopaedia. Let's move on and get the job done. Manning (talk) 04:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Couldn't have said it better myself! –Juliancolton | ^Talk 05:03, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Good comment. Dekimasuよ! 06:34, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

the problem arises when Admins use their capability in an inappropriate, pre-emptive or preferential manner, thereby denying others the opportunity to edit in "good faith". Is an Admin's "good faith" in some way preferable to any other editor? I think not. leaky_caldron (talk) 10:19, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

corrupted edit history

Don't know if this is the right place to put this but it is obviously michael jackson related. At the time this was happening I was editing George Tryon. Today i look at the edit history and see it says '23:18, 25 June 2009 (hist) (diff) George Tryon ‎ (moved to royal albert) (top) (Michael Jackson vandalism)' [80]. The 'moved to royal albert' bit is what I wrote and has nothng to do with page moves but rather what I was writing about. I don't understand why the edit history has acquired a note saying 'michael Jackson vandalism'? Has it been vandalised somehow? Sandpiper (talk) 06:37, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

This is the result of a hit from an abuse filter (#195). It's already been noted that there were some false positives and the filter has been adjusted to prevent recurrence. It isn't anything to worry about. Dekimasuよ! 06:58, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Pre-emptive blocking (protection)?

While I'm here I am a bit puzzled about what has been going on. Admins seem to have blocked this page pre-emptively with the result that it could not be updated at a reasonable rate for breaking news. From the argument above it seems people did not agree about this, and also were editing through the blocks to try to insert something. Why exactly was it necessary to interfere with what seems to have been basically accurate updating of a page? Obviously no essentially false informaton had been posted! Sandpiper (talk) 06:53, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

As a side note, Wikipedia is not a news webiste, it is an encyclopedia As such we do not need to (and more than likely should not) have information up the moment it breaks. Accuracy is important, not reporting the news. Wikinews on the other hand is a news webiste. Matty (talk) 07:16, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Surely all those people trying to make edits don't agree? You are proposing that wiki should by choice be inaccurate just at the moment an article is getting a vast amount of attention. Um. Sandpiper (talk) 08:39, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

There were not many vandal edits, or BLP violations, or content disputes. Some admins felt that it would be for the "good of wikipedia" to restrict access to only admins, due to high visibility and "server load issues" so that only they could make edits to the article in its locked state. There was certainly abuse of admin powers, albeit in good faith. What made is worse was the back and forth switching from full protection to semi, without any prior discussion by anyone. Corpx (talk) 09:54, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the protection was fine, personally. While we shouldn't protect pre-emptively, we also shouldn't refuse to pre-emptively protect when we know that there is a high-profile situation with a great deal of confusion abound. This was one of the times when reports of his death could've been an exaggeration, and a trigger-finger addition by a good faith editor could land us in potentially hot water. This is why I feel it was necessary to protect the article, to ensure that we didn't get wrapped up with the mass-confusion on the world's seventh biggest website, but instead took it slow and ensured that we were certain before calling it ourselves (like the BBC did). Sceptre ^(talk) 19:52, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

This Michael Jackson situation is a bit of a thriller--The Legendary Sky Attacker 10:54, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Are you channelling Baseball Bugs this morning, or competing? I bet you can't win by a nose. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 11:11, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Death of Michael Jackson (stub)

I just created a stub so we can have a separate Death of Michael Jackson page, which we're obviously going to need for the future. Just before saving, I noticed the title had been protected. Can someone unprotect, please, or is there a reason we don't want a separate page? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 01:19, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Done (autoconfirmed users only). Gwen Gale (talk) 01:22, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

No objections. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 01:28, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 01:36, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

WP:SOAPboxing at Talk:David Letterman

I removed a 12,000+ character post from the above page, and was reverted] by User:Mantion, who first posted it. First, was I wrong to remove the initial post? Second, is this type of posting acceptable at an article talkpage? I'm not going to remove it again, unless an administrator advises me it's acceptable -- as I assumed it was, per WP:SOAP. Unitanode 21:54, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

It was clearly inappropriate. It has been undone by another editor. Mantion has been told about this thread. Until and unless Mantion does something further, this issue has been resolved.... but I'm not going to mark it such. We need to keep an eye on it to ensure that Mantion doesn't restore it. If he does, then we need to drop him a warning and proceed from there.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:29, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I just wanted to make certain that I was in the right on the issue, and getting extra eyes on the situation. Unitanode 22:31, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

You were. The next move is up to Mantion. At this point, I am not going to issue a warning. He made a post, it was reverted, he reverted that, and it was subsequently reverted by a second party. If he keeps it up, then we can issue him a formal warning. But right now, I'm of a mind to let the issue die (if possible.)---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:40, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

The length was due to me copping and pasting the section from Don Imus's page to show of when he made an insulting remark. It was put on his page not the page of his show. In contrast when David Letterman made what is arguably a more insulting remark, no mention is allowed on his page. If you were upset about the length, I can delete the portion of Don Imus's page and put a link. Would that be better? I reverted because I was under the impression it was improper to delete content from a discussion page. It is nice to know I can simple delete "WP:SOAP".Mantion (talk) 23:52, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Make a link to the section in question and it should be ok... as long as it isn't a gazillion bytes in size. This is a subject that can be talked about, but Wikipedia isn't a soapbox.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 00:26, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Kruško Mortale

I don't know what to do with this guy... he reverts because of completely imagined POV, he just clicks undo and reverts everything because he doesn't agree with a few parts of an edit (even paragraph organization edits), and he reverts "out of principle" if he happens to think the other person is somehow promoting a "POV". All this and he barely discusses the issues, if he even lists his objections. The articles are Bosnian language and Template:Infobox Bosnian War. This may sound "corny", but I did venture to honestly improve the factual accuracy of the articles in question. In the process I've apparently had the misfortune of being labeled as an "enemy" by a Bosniak nationalist and now everything I do simply gets reverted because the guy assumes it must somehow be POV... This is why none of these articles can get brought up to a legible standard. There's always some guy out there who'll imagine its "POV" and edit-war the other guy to death. Could someone with a little authority intervene in this mess? --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 23:08, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Apologies DIREKTOR, with all of the MJ issues today some things got missed. Can you provide some links to specific examples of reversions so the matter can be examined more closely? Manning (talk) 06:24, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• Both editors blocked for 24 hours for 3RR; sanctions recorded at WP:ARBMAC. Apologies, but I saw this via my watchlist and didn't realise there was an ANI thread. EyeSerene^talk 09:58, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

changes needed

In regards to the Michael Jackson article, I see a huge discrepancy in policy and performance. WP policy dictates that a page may not be protected to prevent disruptive changes. Personally, I believe this needs to be changed, because it has not been followed. In any case, the page was protected, and sources reported his death. many of the first reports were from unusable sources, then possible verifiable sources, administrators did not wait for a consensus before editing the article, resulting in the current report of a death that has not been confirmed by official sources. Changes are needed. Sephiroth storm (talk) 23:20, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

It's all over TV news, well-confirmed. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 23:35, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that we need to make a mountain out of a mole hill on this, but I agree that it was bad form to fully protect the page, yet continue to edit the article as an admin. There is no policy nor precident to use preemptive protection. Although I do agree that the admins heart was in the right place. I haven't seen any abuse since the protection level was lowered, but its still too early.--Jojhutton (talk) 23:36, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Bugs, it was not confirmed, it was a bunch of news that was taken from other sources, look over the talk page, TMZ reported death, state and local news reported the TMZ piece, AP reported, CNN reported the reports of death, and yet we have experienced editors soliciting admins to make changes to the article! As for the article's current state, the death section is not written correctly, and is still fully protected. Sephiroth storm (talk) 23:49, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

As outlined clearly in policy here, "Pre-emptive full protection of articles is contrary to the open nature of Wikipedia. Brief periods of full protection are used in rare cases when a large number of autoconfirmed accounts are used to make a sustained vandalism attack on an article." No autoconfirmed account, or IP has vandalized the page. This is unnecessary and is "against the nature of Wikipedia." I would somewhat go as far as to say that it is an abuse of administrative power. A semi-protect, per policy, would be helpful. If the problem escalates, as everyone fears, then we can do something. Otherwise, you're only fearing a problem that doesn't exist. --Blurpeace (talk) 23:52, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

It was confirmed at least an hour and a half ago, and the known facts are already in the article. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 23:57, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

That gives reason for why it goes against policy? I think not. Things can be edited and expanded upon. What I'm really trying to get across is that it was wrong to fully protect on first sight from the news. Sorry if I come on a bit agitated. I'm never known to edit while annoyed or agitated. --Blurpeace (talk) 00:00, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

It wasn't wrong. And it's moot anyway, as it's no longer fully protected. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 00:06, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, it probably was wrong to fully protect the article so quickly, but BB is correct that the issue is now moot. We should move on. — Satori Son 00:11, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

It wasn't wrong until admins decided they could edit as they pleased without consensus on the talk page. Auntie E (talk) 00:12, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

AuntiE, let's not make drama. The problem has been resolved; discussion is no longer needed. --Blurpeace (talk) 00:16, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

In what way has this been even remotely resolved, or is this unecessary drama? IMO this was unacceptable. I have never, to the best of my recollection, edited a fully protected article without an {{editprotected}} request with full consensus on the talk page. I believe I have made three such edits; one to Intelligent design, and two to Sarah Palin (I hope you'll forgive me if my memory is playing me false.) I had no idea any admin considered any other approach acceptable, and am quite troubled by recent events. Note that I am speaking only of intentional edits to fully-protected pages; the admins who were under the erroneous assumption the protection was semi- are certainly entitled to our understanding. Those who are arguing that their edits were "uncontested" are making specious arguments unless the edits were spelling or odd characters; they didn't give anyone a chance to object, as they didn't discuss prior to editing! What happened to The world will not end tomorrow? KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:57, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

There's enough ambiguity in Wikipedia:Protection policy#Full protection "Once consensus has been established for the change, or if the change is uncontroversial, any administrator may make the necessary edits to the protected page." for some admins to apparently have assumed in good faith that minor uncontroversial edits were ok, but the preceding sentence "Any modification to a fully protected page should be proposed on its talk page (or in another appropriate forum)" should be enough to ensure that care is taken to at least provide prior notification of intent, and doing it properly by using the template is the right thing to have done. Is some rewording needed, or some other way of ensuring that all admins take more care in future? These were particularly difficult circumstances for edit conflicts, but all the more important to do things right. . . dave souza, talk 18:10, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I have always been of the understanding that policy is descriptive, not prescriptive; what needs to be determined here is, has consensus changed regarding editing protecting pages? If so, we need to argue this out and clarify where and why; if not, then those admins merrily editing away on a fully protected page have committed a grave error in judgment. KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:32, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

To KillerChihuahua: Thank you, thank you, thank you. --Elliskev 18:18, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

You are more than welcome, Elliskev - coming from such a long standing user, this is much appreciated. But why? KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:32, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

See my diatribes above, in the Admin edits subsection of the Michael Jackson cardiac arrest / reported death section. I was starting to get the idea that all admins were of the opinion that editing a fully-protected article is perfectly fine - no problem. So, thank you for supporting the idea that this is, at least, something that needs to be discussed. --Elliskev 19:12, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Seriously, the abuse of good faith editors needs to stop

I am closing this, as much for CoM's protection as anything else. ANI is for thing that need immediate admin attention. If you continue lashing out here, nothing good can come of it, CoM. Unitanode 03:00, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Extended content

I don't really care that much about the harassment I'm receiving. But this wp:ani#Never-ending disruption by Grundle2600 monstrous attack by pov pushing editors like Tarc, Allstarecho and Bigtimepeace targeting those whose politics they disagree with is totally unacceptable. Allastrecho and others have been trolling here on ANI making accusation after accusation against any editor they disagree with. This behavior was learned from Wikidemon's whose abuse of ANI in order to win content disputes is well established. It needs to stop NOW! Using ANI reports and harassment to get the upper hand in content disputes is totally wrong and inappropriate. The admins who've gone along with it need to shape up. Grundle has an interesting approach to be sure, and he's not perfect, but he's one of the most collegial and patient editors on here. He's created numerous good articles on many subjects including political topics like these: Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act Indiana State Police Pension Trust v. Chrysler Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2009 Air Force One photo op incident Ricci v. DeStefano Students for Concealed Carry on Campus That he'd be banned from creating new articles of this kind by editors misrepresenting his work here is outrageous. The evidence they cite includes perfectly legitimate article subjects like Gerald Walpin firing that was censored and deleted at AfD. And now they're going after the Gerald Walpin article too, even though a simple google news search shows he's been notable for a long career of interesting legal work. Incompetence, dishonesty, and abuse appears to rule the day here on Wikipedia. The editors going after Grundle can't hold a candle to his article creation talents or good nature. Shame on them and all of you reading this for not stepping up to his defense. ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:59, 26 June 2009 (UTC) Hello pot, meet kettle. You accuse others of trolling and you're here doing the same thing? And you include my name in POV pushing? I'm not the one banned from Obama articles for their POV pushing... you are. - ALLST✰R▼echo wuz here 01:11, 26 June 2009 (UTC) Just a quick note, read through the thread carefully C of M. I think literally everyone who weighed in (and there were a number of people) came down on the side of a topic ban. This included a number of people who have little or nothing to do with Obama-related articles. When you have that kind of overwhelming consensus to take a particular action, including from people who are completely uninvolved in the situation, there is a strong possibility that said action was not "outrageous." You're welcome to disagree, but the comments from some of editors and admins in that thread should give you some pause. Also coming off a block for civility—which I think was ill-advised as I've said on this page—it's just not a good idea to casually refer to other editors as "pov pushing" without any evidence of that. Obviously we've had this conversation five times before, but I really wish you could assume a bit more good faith and be a bit less cavalier about casting aspersions on other editors. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 01:55, 26 June 2009 (UTC) Editors are getting hounded because of their political views. I understand that most editors here are to the left of center and that's fine, but it takes all kinds. Grundle has created numerous good articles on political topics, I've also created a few of my own. I'd be very interested to see the list of political articles created by Bigtimepeace, Tarc, and Baseball Bugs. This is about censorship and intimidation pure and simple. Wikidemon and Allstarecho have taken me to ANI 7 or so times, and have canvassed admins. When they didn't get the response from GTBacchus they wanted (he suggested focusing on content) they moved on until they found Bigtimepeace who proudly announced on the Obama talk page that he's to the left of Obama. ANI IS NOT FOR CONTENT DISPUTES. Grundle's article on Michelle's arms had problems, but we're all editors here, and we could have trimmed it and added sources about her fashion and its influence. Instead all we have are attacks and censorship by the same characters time and again. STOP THIS ABUSE!!! ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:15, 26 June 2009 (UTC) The cry of "Censorship!" is part of the Credo of POV Pushing. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 02:20, 26 June 2009 (UTC) Ooh! Do they get credo cards? HalfShadow 02:22, 26 June 2009 (UTC) I don't know, but they do write ridiculous essays: [81] Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 02:24, 26 June 2009 (UTC) That's right, Wikipedia was a media focus after the POV pushers stripped out any mention of Rev. Wright, who was close with Obama for many years and certainly notable in relation (his book is dedicated to him) and it was a campaign issue, the subject of speeches, and a renunciation of the Rev. and a switching of churches). And when many good faith editors tried to fix it (and there were some fringe edits attempted also) the worst kind of personal attacks and ganging up happened. I'm still waiting for the articles you Tarc and Allstarecho have created on political subject. This game of going after any editor that's conservative and trying to harass and intimidate them, and to hound them off the articles and delete anything they create needs to stop. ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:29, 26 June 2009 (UTC) Neutral Homer is even now abusively trying to close this discussion even though he's involved and one of the problem editors. ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC) Yeah, I am being "abusive", when you are starting a thread looking to pick a fight with anyone and everyone. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 02:43, 26 June 2009 (UTC) What are you even trying to accomplish with this thread? If it's to just lash out at everyone, this thread should be archived. J.delanoygabsadds 02:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC) Support for archiving the thread. CoM...please take a wikibreak and have a good glass of wine or beer and then come back later with your cool head. As I said, follow DR.--Caspian blue 03:02, 26 June 2009 (UTC) Support get a coffee, or whatever your poison is. Ohconfucius (talk) 04:34, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Rcool35 still falsifying album ratings

Resolved

 – User indefinitely blocked. — Σxplicit 04:10, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• Rcool35 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Once again, User:Rcool35 is deliberately changing album ratings again by increasing them by .5 stars in Nas related articles. He was previously warned, blocked and had his blocked extended for block evasion, and his edits continue despite another warning given by myself. I'd appreciate it if an administrator looked into this. — Σxplicit 02:10, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Rcool35's editing permissions are sleeping with the fishes. He failed to see the light, and saw Cod instead.

Please feel free to clean up any of his recent edits that others haven't already deleted. Everything I saw that he'd done today qualifies as vandalism., but most had already been repaired. I'd rather let people more familiar with those articles do the final fixes though. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 03:21, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll clean up anything else that needs it. Regards. — Σxplicit 04:10, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Suspicion of sock puppetry pertaining to the Anderson Cooper article

Back in early August of 2008, a banned user under the pseudonym Mr. Kruzkin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (which is a sockpuppet of banned user JIM ME BOY (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)) made vandalizing edits to Anderson Cooper’s article, exploiting Cooper’s sexuality, and saying that a man named Julio Cesar Recio was his boyfriend. This banned user’s ridicilous claims on Cooper did not stopped immediately after a permenent block was placed on his Mr. Kruzkin’s account. Moment’s after, he created a sockpuppet appropriately named Mr. Kruzkin Returns (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) to evade the block on his first account. Ultimately that account was blocked as well shortly after.

Jumping forward to today, a user by the named The Great Big Guy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is putting the exact same egregious edits that Mr. Kruzkin put around this time last year with associating edits on Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, and showing the same agression that Mr. Kruzkin showed whenever an administrator tries to tame him by reverting the information on Cooper’s article back to same controversial edits. Call me crazy. But if I have to venture a guest, it’s déjà vu all over again. Mr. Kruzkin, JIM ME BOY or whoever this obxious editor is has return to cause more unwanted drama to Anderson Cooper’s article under this freshly made sockpuppet, The Great Big Guy. I request that an administrator please take a look and investigate this matter, and come to a consenus on any appropriate action to this re-occuring banned Wikipedian KeltieMartinFan (talk) 06:13, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry is down the hall, second door on the left. //roux   06:40, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry is one thing, egregious BLP violations should be dealt with immediately. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 22:55, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Little Boots Talk Page

Numerous accusations by several editors of homophobia against my self in The Little Boots Talk Page, My Personal talk page and the Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Little_Boots. Accusations of homophobia against another editor. In addition an accusation of collusion against me and another editor. Edkollin (talk) 06:46, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

What action are you asking for? If you're concerned about the IP editors, I suggest that having explained yourself, you now simply ignore them. If they contine to attack, something more serious can be done. Looie496 (talk) 17:25, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I understand that emotions get the better part of humans and we say things we regret later. This was the exact opposite of that. It was a continuous systematic slandering that occurred on several forums and in some ways is still continuing. It continued despite requests to stop by several editors. On general principle editors that engage in this type of behavior need to be held accountable and need to have some sort of disincentive from behaving that way in the future. I am putting my trust in those that deal with these sort of things on a daily basis to find the correct way to do this Edkollin (talk) 20:11, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Browy sockpuppet of User talk:TDTH

Resolved

 – Blocked indef.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:17, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

The user is back and is again creating fancruft pages, the reason for which he/she was blocked indefinitely last time. Again created the Lady Gaga song page on Brown Eyes (Gaga Song). --Legolas ^(talk2me) 09:07, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Blocked indef. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:17, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Old CFDs which have not yet been closed

To Whom It May Concern: Please be advised that the following CFDs (originated between 7 June and 10 June) have yet to be closed, including:

• Category:Atheist and agnostic politicians (Caveat: I nominated this one; 10 June)

• Category:Musical forms (10 June)

• Category:Polygamy and the Latter Day Saint movement (10 June)

• Category:People associated with e-mail controversies (8 June)

• Category:University of Missouri–Kansas City (7 June)

Thanks, Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 09:38, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism account User:Tombar22

Tombar22 (talk · contribs) is a vandalism-only new account ([82], [83], etc.) - all contribs need rollback. 62.147.38.254 (talk) 09:46, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I've listed the account on WP:AIV, where such notifications should be made in the future.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 09:53, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Blacklist

I would like that my address http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Zhoroscop is unblocked. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zhoroscop (talk • contribs)

That's not going to happen, you're a spammer. And you have no reason to unblock your meta account, you never use it. Finally, if you want it unblocked, you need to make a request at meta, not here. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 10:31, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Ban J.delanoy for Vote Rigging

Resolved

 – No wrongdoing on J.Delanoy's (or other involved parties) part. Recommend that reporting user abide by consensus (no SPA !voting) and avoid future disruption. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 18:08, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

My votes and comments in the Macedonia debate were erased by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:J.delanoy in an attempt to vote rig. He should be banned from Wikipedia indefinitely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Centralized_discussion/Macedonia/Greece-related

Vote D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Centralized_discussion/Macedonia/international_organizations

Vote C

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Centralized_discussion/Macedonia/other_articles

Vote E

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Centralized_discussion/Macedonia/other_page_titles

Vote C with reservations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Centralized_discussion/Macedonia/main_articles

Vote D with reservations

My Comments on all the above which were erased are as follows:

"All other proposals seek to steal the identity of Greek Macedonia and Macedonian history and are racist, politically motivated, violate Wikipedia's rules on accuracy and neutrality and is insulting to Greeks and academics who know that the only Macedonia is the province of Greece and the FYROM is the result of Titos bid to lay claim to Greek territory by renaming the Yugoslav province of Vardarska Banovinia with the name of the Greek province to which it has no historical or geographic connection to whatsoever. At no time in history did the Slavs of Vardarska Banovinia ever refer to themselves as Macedonians or the region in which they lived as Macedonians. Only the Greeks used the terms Macedonia and Macedonians to refer to themseselves and the land they inhabited in northern Greece and the term was never used to refer to a wider fixed geographic region. The term Macedonia only pertained to Greece and Greeks. The only acceptable way to refer to the entity know as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is the name by which it entered the United Nations, FYROM. This is the name by which it is recognised by all the international organisation it is a member over and the only name which stands to reason."

Please ban J.delanoy for life. Vote rigging cannot be tolerated.--Odin5000 (talk) 17:17, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I find it literally impossible to believe that J.delanoy did anything wrong in this case. Wikipedia is taking a hard line against any nationalist POV-pushing, see the recent Arbcom case outlining exactly what is and is not allowed, as well as the previous one. //roux   17:25, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, Odin5000's "votes" (it is not a vote, but simply a request for endorsements and comments) were reverted by no fewer than four editors in addition to J.delanoy--Taivo, ChrisO, Future Perfect at Sunrise, and man with one red shoe. It was agreed well in advance of the request for comment that no Single Purpose Accounts (SPA) would be allowed to participate. Odin5000 is a classic SPA. (Taivo (talk) 17:28, 26 June 2009 (UTC))

Prove it. My account was created in March 2009, long before this vote. Taivo, ChrisO, Future Perfect should also be banned for life for promoting Fyromian nationalist views against Greece in Wikipedia and taking sides by erasig all opposition.--Odin5000 (talk) 17:39, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Is this[84] proof enough? Because if it isn't these difs [85][86] show that your two (sic!) edits to mainspace also consist in introducing the same POV. ·Maunus·ƛ· 17:50, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

For those who are uninitiated in the wonderful world of extreme Greek nationalism, "Fyromian" is a derogatory term for Macedonians, like some people use "wop" for Italians or "dago" for Mexicans. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Macedonians are Greeks. Refering to Fyromians as Macedonians is offensive and insulting to Greeks. You are clearly expressing anti-Greek nationalist views of your own.--Odin5000 (talk) 18:00, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Inserting the same block comment five times in a discussion doesn't do a lot for the credibility of his editorship. Clearly disruptive.·Maunus·ƛ· 17:31, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

It saves typing. The same comment applies to all cases as is clearly evident, so there is no justifiable reason why I should not have changed it.--Odin5000 (talk) 17:39, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

You mean there is no justifiable reason that you should have repeated it instead of merely stating it once and referring to it.·Maunus·ƛ· 17:47, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

(ecx3)Also, note that J.delanoy has now banned Odin5000 from Macedonia-related articles pursuant to this diff. While appealing here isn't a violation of the ban, pasting the complete text of his argument, including votes, is treading awfully close to the line, if not actually leaping across it.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:32, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Odin5000's actions have been significantly disruptive - despite the clear instructions of the referees in the ongoing Macedonia naming discussions, he has been spamming ultranationalist rants to multiple pages ([87], posted to several pages) as well as re-adding proposals [88] that had been discarded at an earlier stage by the referees, in accordance with their instructions from the Arbitration Committee. Given his continued disruption, I suggest that a block would now be appropriate. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:34, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Odin5000, perhaps you should take a step back and disengage. You have been found to be disruptive by a number of very highly regarded people here, and rather than tryng to learn from their advice and correct the behavior which has been found to be problematic, you are lashing out and escalaing. Please reconsider, this cannot be a Good Idea. KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:38, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I have not been dissruptive in any way. --Odin5000 (talk) 17:43, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Many would contend that this very thread is disruptive, in addition to your participation at the RfC. Unitanode 17:45, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

The people who have been disruptive are those who have taken sides and tried to erase my votes and comments, and alternative proposals.--Odin5000 (talk) 17:48, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Odin5000, you have been disruptive, I am sorry to say. It is possible you don't understand what we consider disruptive, in which case you may ask for clarification, but your contention that you have not been disruptive is not helpful, it is defensive. KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:50, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

It's disheartening to see a thread like this without at least one mention of the word "abuse." --MZMcBride (talk) 17:47, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Not sure I get your point? KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:50, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

It's a custom in these 'ere parts to always accuse an admin of "abusing the bit" when calling for them to be "banned for life". To remedy the situation I formally accuse - J'accuse - J.delanoy of piracy and other high crimes, and demand that they be tarred and feathered. Contributors to this thread should be ashamed at the complete lack of dramahz. I expect every new comment to use the word "abuse" at least once, or additional sanctions will be sought. Possibly involving rogue ninjas. Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 17:57, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm aware of the custom, I just don't get what MZM is getting at. KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:04, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Could we just close this? I'm sure that J.delanoy and the other referees (myself included) will have a difficult enough time without drawn-out threads by obviously disruptive editors. This is not going to be an easy dispute to handle, so anything we can do to minimize the need to defend the mandate in multiple forums would be incredibly helpful. Shell ^babelfish

I want my votes reinstated and those who erased them banned. Fyromian is not a Greek nationalist or derogatory term. Refering to Fyrominas as Macedonians is both offensive and insulting to Greeks. The Greek term for Fyrominas is Skopjians which is neither derogatory or nationalist either. Fyromian is the English equivalent based on the UN name.--Odin5000 (talk) 18:06, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I'm going to be blunt, Odin5000: No. You cannot stomp in here and demand something. It does not work that way. Either learn to get along here and follow the rules, listen to and respect and learn from the critical feedback and advice you recieve, or you'll end up with sanctions. Feel free to contact me on my talk page if I am being unclear in any way. KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:10, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I want me votes put back and to be unbanned. This matter is not resolved untill this is done. J.Delanoy has failed to prove that my account was created for a single purpose which was his reason for erasing my votes and banning me.--Odin5000 (talk) 18:13, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Good call by Ohnoitsjamie — Rlevse • Talk • 18:14, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

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

Sneaky

Resolved

 – Indef block, vandalism-only account --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:24, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Jackson72 (talk · contribs) went on a little vandalism spree sometime early this morning. He blanked the warnings he received, the latest a few minutes ago, thereby each time someone warns him, they don't know he's actually already had warnings. He hasn't edited an article since early this morning - at least as I post this - so that's why I haven't taken it to WP:AIV. - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here} 20:14, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Blanked his talk page as of a couple moments ago (20:03 UTC) - NeutralHomer • Talk • 20:20, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

This can stay resolved but I think the indef was a bit hasty. The account seemed to have made some legitimate contributions, and I was in the process of writing a final warning when I saw that the account had been blocked. Sometimes users like this can be turned into legitimate contributors, and I think a final warning from an admin would have been worthwhile (maybe we would have blocked in the end anyway, but the wait would not have been a problem in my view). But I'm clearly not going to reverse Jayron32 here, just wanted to make this point. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 20:30, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I had already left the user a final warning of which the user blanked. - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here} 20:33, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

The user had actually received countless warnings, including at least one final warning. In several of these cases he vandalized-deleted warning-vandalized again in quick succession, which shows complete disregard for the warning which he plainly received. If he wants to edit again, he can request an unblock just like anyone else, and defend himself. As always, if anyone feels that, after reviewing the totality of this users editing history, that I have acted poorly in blocking him, I open myself for review. I can only say that I checked a half-dozen or so edits, and every one that I checked was vandalism. If I had to check every single edit he ever made to find an occasional edit which wasn't vandalism, I am not sure that is enough to mitigate my feelings towards this editors future potential, but if others disagree, feel free to let me know how bad of an admin I am... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 21:06, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

To AllStar, right, but they can do that (blank warnings), and I was going to word mine a bit differently, plus it may have had a different effect coming directly from an admin (or maybe not). And to Jayron, I really am not criticizing you as the block was certainly legitimate, and I certainly don't think this was bad admin behavior. I was in the midst of taking a slightly different approach than you and was just articulating the rationale for that here. Neither of us is right or wrong, it's just a slight difference of opinion, and I think something that was worth pointing out for when future cases like this arise (for what it's worth I think my, relatively lenient, attitude is the minority position around here, and as such you were very much on solid ground with that block). Anyhow I've said my piece. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:12, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

An editor is permitted to deleted comments or warnings from his talk page. We just take that as an indication he has read them. When you post a warning, use an informative edit summary, so it is easy to find what previous warnings have been issued by looking at the history. Do not assume that if you don't see previous warnings, none have been issued. That said, if I find a vandal has removed a series of warnings, I may restore them with mine added at the end, since it makes viewing them easier for the next vandal fighter. Each time the vandal removes or changes a series of warnings, the next can be appended to the restored collection for convenience of reading. Edison (talk) 21:10, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I should note that I never said he could not delete the warnings. I have personally stated twice in the past 48 hours on this very noticeboard which advocate for other users to leave people alone for deleting warnings. If you read through my history, I am always the most vocal critic of people who try to claim that deleting warnings should be restored. It is perfectly fine that he delete his warnings. What is not OK is for him to read his warnings (evidenced by his deletions) and then immediately vandalize again. That throws out the "he didn't know what the orange bar meant" defense, or the "he just didn't get the warning yet" defense. He obviously got the warnings, and then vandalized again. That blatant disregard for the warnings is patent evidence of having no desire to stop vandalizing for anything short of an indefinite block... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 22:40, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

What is not OK is for him to read his warnings (evidenced by his deletions) and then immediately vandalize again. Which was my point for bringing it here - not about the actual warnings being blanked. Sorry for the confusion. Although I do think warnings shouldn't be blanked so that other "warners" know which warn level to use, it is currently allowed by policy so I don't question that. - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here} 23:29, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Michael Jackson

Resolved

 – User blocked 24h for edit warring - Fritzpoll (talk) 21:38, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Could someone get ahold of the edit war on the talk page there? My watchlist is making me dizzy. - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here} 21:05, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I tried… It seems to have put a stop to the editwar if nothing else. Since I count six reverts by Shiggity of the paragraph in question, with no effort to add any sources for the theory he's trying to promote, there's only one way this is going to end if it doesn't stop. – iridescent 21:23, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

To be fair though, the user has only been active for about 2 weeks and has made less than 200 edits. I think the block suits, but the admins could have used WP:BITE a little better.--The Legendary Sky Attacker 21:31, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Huh? He's been active since 2006. – iridescent 21:35, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Whoops! I saw June 12 and assumed 2009. My mistake. But he has still made under 200 edits, he is hardly what you would call an experienced editor. I agree that the block was needed though.--The Legendary Sky Attacker 21:37, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I page contribs on 500 per page - he has between 500 and 1000 according to my page. Fritzpoll (talk) 21:39, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I get 181 here + 1 deleted edit technical error?--The Legendary Sky Attacker 21:42, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

No, it's Fritzpoll being suitably inept as usual Biggest Critic of Fritzpoll (talk) 21:48, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

William M. Connolley

Unresolved

I'm not sure if he's drunk again, but William Connelly is back at it. See [89]. This follows his recent drunken (self-admitted) actions unilaterally blocking against consensus. I hope we can stage an intervention to help this troubled individual. ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:53, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

It's called humor, try looking it up. Until then, is there anything here that requires an admin or are you just blowing off more steam (not to mention the personal attack) and misusing ANI? - NeutralHomer • Talk • 22:54, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

ChildofMidnight, sorry for my another redacting the title, but I could not help it since it is too provocative and BLP user violation. CoM, you really need to follow WP:DR, file a RFC/U on WMC if you really must resolve the issue with WMC. Why are you ruining yourself? -_-;; --Caspian blue 23:01, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a mind reader. His edit summary "this is a f*ck*ng wiki. it allows links. which work best if you spell things properly" showed up on my watchlist. I'm sure he would have blocked me for similar, but so it goes. If others determined he was joking, I'll take their word for it. ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:07, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Be glad you were blocked for the continued abuse of ANI (this is your second "blowing off steam" post in 24 hours) and personal attacks. You need to take Caspian's advice and take a short Wikibreak before you get yourself in more trouble. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 23:10, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Neutralhomer, do not poke on him and please de-escalate the situation. You also have to reminded of the yesterday warning that you received from admins.--Caspian blue 23:16, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Neutralhomer, I assume you mean "weren't" blocked. My reports have been appropriate and accurate. I don't think it's appropraite to use that kind of language and description in an edit summary, even if he was joking, which I haven't investigated. I think action should be taken. I also think the ongoing harassment and stalking of me by you and others should be put to a stop.ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:19, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

CoM, I can't help you. You are spiraling and you don't know it. People are trying to help you, me for one, and you aren't taking our advice. Please consider a wikibreak. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 23:22, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

@ChildofMidnight: What exact “action” do you expect us to take? — Aitias // discussion 23:25, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

That edit summary is ostensibly WMC responding to a user coming top his talk page for help. I would definitely say at the very least an Rfc is in order, if WMC has no explanation for it. MickMacNee (talk) 23:32, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, not really an appropriate edit summary. I also think that CoM should remove William's talk page from his watchlist, considering the bad blood between them. - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here} 23:34, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I fail to see the humour in the edit summary, perhaps Neutralhomer would care to explain for a bear of little brain. Nev1 (talk) 23:35, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

@MMN: Yes. Someone came to me for help with a possible sock. I linked to the account, investigated, and have indef'd the sock. This was exactly the help required. Meanwhile... how exactly are *you* helping wiki? [ps: I hate ANI, you can't post a thing without e/c] William M. Connolley (talk) 23:38, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

It is one of those comments you make to yourself. Like you forget to type something in, and it seems he did, you say "it helps to type in words" or whatever. I take it as self-deprecating humor. Now, I have been asked by Caspian and WMC to not comment on this thread to not POKE CoM anymore, so if you have anymore questions, please direct them to my talk page and I will be glad to answer. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 23:40, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

If it was his own comment that WMC edited then I'd agree, but it wasn't. Nev1 (talk) 23:46, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Two separate issues:

1. Inappropriate edit summary from WMC that, in light of recent events, should be taken more seriously than as a blip in an otherwise normal record. This does need admin attention, as no non-admin user would be able to get away with that sort of thing.
2. CoM needs to get over it, and walk away from the dusty remains of what was once a fine, fine horse. CoM, I agree with Allstarecho: you should remove William's tpage from your watchlist and avoid interaction with him; you are doing yourself no favours and slowly starting to cross into hounding territory. Your current trajectory looks like it's going to end in an indef block by some admin who gets fed up, and/or a community ban by the members of the community who are fed up. Only one person has the ability to prevent that from happening. It would be best for you to do so, or find a hobby that causes you less stress. //roux   23:45, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me, but an inebriated admin unilaterally blocked me against consensus. If someone wants to have that block oversighted and Connelly apologizes, then we're all good. But as this seems to be a pattern of inappropriate and possibly drunken behavior by this admin it was completely appropriate for me to bring the latest issue to the attention of the community. This has, as usual, provided an opportunity for Neutralhomer and Allstarecho to stalk, harass, and cast aspersions at me, but I don't want any editors to be affected by Connelly's abuse the way I was, so I won't be intimidated into ingnoring the problem. I trust the community will resolve the situation appropriately, it doesn't have much to do with me other than my also being at the receiving end of his abuse, so please stop attacking me. ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Once again another cheapshop at me for something I've had no involvement in. At least you're consistent. - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here} 00:18, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Neutralhomer has acknowledged the idea for a short wikibreak.--The Legendary Sky Attacker 23:49, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Acknowledged and put up a banner too :) If anyone has any questions, please see my talk page and the banner at the top. It has a link to the email template there. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 23:57, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Fortunately, I think that neither editor's conduct is really all that far from where it needs to be. WMC, I think you realised when you typed asterisks that part of your comment was inappropriate. The next step is to edit out the swear word altogether. CoM, it's good that you brought matters here that concerned you, and it is also good that you did so with the attitude that you're willing to accept if your opinion might not be 100% correct. As it happens, that seems to be the case where WMC is concerned, and I join those urging you to remove his page from your watchlist, if only for the benefit of your stress levels. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 00:02, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

As this is under the title of WMC could I ask an admin to please review this block of an IP for edit warring which I feel is unfair. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:79.97.98.207_reported_by_User:Betty_Logan_.28Result:_24h.29 (Off2riorob (talk) 00:14, 27 June 2009 (UTC))

Possibly inappropiate edit summary of Off2riorob considering the recent "drunk" accusations. "sorry I forget the link i've had a couple of drinks"--The Legendary Sky Attacker 00:20, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

• ChildofMidnight, the next time you make a reference to WMC being "inebriated", I will block you myself. Remove WMC's talk page from your watchlist, and stop interacting with him. If you bring another complaint against him to AN/I, I think that the whole community ban might make another appearance. You are way out of line here. Horologium (talk) 00:18, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

After all this nonsense I'd be surprised if he doesn't start drinking. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:46, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Recommendation by uninvolved admin

I recommend that this little feud not be brought back to ANI again. If it continues, the right place for it is unfortunately ArbComm. This noticeboard is not structured to resolve complex disputes like this. Arbcomm is. Toddst1 (talk) 00:19, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a feud with anyone, I don't stalk anyone, and I try to avoid my many harassers in so far as is possible. I brought a report about Connely's refactoring another user's comment with the edit summary "this is a f*ck*ng wiki. it allows links, which work best if you spell things properly" (which follows his abusive block of me a short time ago). His behaviors don't seem appropriate to me, and apparently others agree. I wouldn't have posted further in this discussion except that the usual stalkers and attackers showed up trying to smear me. If it's not appropriate to discuss an admin's abusive behavior in relation to a possible alcohol abuse problem, I won't do so. But I think the threats against me are wholly inappropriate and outrageous. I obviously can't control the actions of others, but I'm not going to apologize for bringing this issue to the community's attention in light of this admin's pattern of abusive and disruptive behavior. If other admins want to defend these behaviors and attack me for bringing them to light, then that's their choice. ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:34, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

As an uninvolved member of the third party myself, I would like to point out that Arbcomm probably won't do well for conflict as severe as this.--The Legendary Sky Attacker 00:24, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I disaprove of my edit being reverted but never mind I will replace the comment as it is still relevent here under the WMC title and I am requesting an admin to review this block of an IP by WMC that I consider to be unfair. I have brought it to WMC on his talk and he stated that he was ok with a review. here is the link ..Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:79.97.98.207_reported_by_User:Betty_Logan_.28Result:_24h.29 the other user in the revert war is now saying she is happy to have the block lifted..(Off2riorob (talk) 00:39, 27 June 2009 (UTC))

I'm fairly sure that Off2riorob spelt "dissaprove" wrong.--The Legendary Sky Attacker 01:33, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

C of M you're perhaps not the best person to be putting this forward (really for your own sake), but there is a longstanding pattern (at least in my view) of problematic admin behavior by WMC. A user conduct RFC would not necessarily be a bad idea at this point. I do think that little or nothing will be solved here on ANI—this calls for actual dispute resolution if things cannot be worked out.

One thing that needs to stop is the constant reference to alcohol use. WMC made one remark about needing to edit while sober which was quite possibly a joke. Regardless, it is unbelievably inappropriate to make reference, as ChildofMidnight does above, to "a possible alcohol abuse problem" with respect to another editor. Horologium is right in his comment above where he says continued remarks along those lines are worthy of a block. C of M and others bringing that up need to knock it off, and focus on the edits you see as problematic. As I said, consider opening a user conduct RFC. It would give us a sense as to whether the community views Connelly's admin work as problematic or not. That's all he should be judged on here, not whether he had a few pints, or just joked about doing so. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 01:32, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll drink to that. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:44, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

• I've already agreed not to mention it again. In my experience covering up that kind of thing can serve to enable the behavior. I brought it up as I think it's a legitimate concern related to erratic and totally unacceptable behavior. Again, I will not mention it in future per the request made by you and others.

I would also request that you ask Allstarecho to stop stalking and hounding me at ANI and elsewhere. He has no need to interact with me and has a history of seeking out conflict with me. His behavior is especially troubling as it comes after his copyvio, COI, vicious attacks on numerous editors (including putting up a large middle finger to Wikipedia on his talk page), as well as other problem behaviors. I'd like to have as little to do with him as possible, and I don't see any reason why he needs to involve himself in my affairs other than to harass me. Surely you don't think that behavior is acceptable. ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:47, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Bigtimepeace, if you believe that WMC has a longstanding pattern of problematic admin behavior, the best thing to do is get that admin desysoped.--The Legendary Sky Attacker 01:37, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

What is the correct time?

In terms of the correct time, it really depends on where you are. There are probably other parts of the internet where this is being discussed thoroughly—and in different time zones.

To Sky Attacker, unfortunately we don't have an easy way to do that, which I think is a serious problem. I'm suggesting a request for comment as a reasonable first step, since there have been a number of concerns about WMC on the noticeboards the past few weeks (though probably not all are legitimate). I'm not really inclined to set up an RFC myself or put a lot of work into it—it's just not a major concern of mine right now—but I would consider signing on to it in some way, or at the least commenting there. The other possibility is going straight to ArbCom (which is where a desysopping could happen), but I don't think that's appropriate at this point. A lot of people have complained about WMC over the last year or so, and an RFC can be a good way to gauge community sentiment. I believe one was attempted over a year ago but was not certified, and I'm not sure if anything has happened since. In any case while I have concerns, I'm not going to be leading the charge here. Honestly, if WMC was just more responsive to, and respectful of, criticism of his admin actions I think most of the issues would go away. But in the past I have not found that to be the case. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 01:54, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I think if WMC would do less of the thankless job of handling WP:AN3 complaints quickly and correctly, there would be fewer whiners here... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 01:59, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Another reason to desysop him.--The Legendary Sky Attacker 02:08, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

What it appears to be is a bit of wikistalking by CoM of Connolley, honestly. Connolley blocked CoM, he thiks it was unfair, and now runs to AN/I every time there's a perceived misstep by him? Jesus CoM, the "fucking wiki" comment wasn't even directed at you, so why are you running here to tattle-tale? This eDrama can be alleviated simply by separating these two parties.

Full disclosure; I've had a few drinks tonight too. Please don't bring me to AN/I too! Tarc (talk) 02:10, 27 June 2009 (UTC)