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    BLP violations by User:Delicious carbuncle

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

    Repeated BLP violations by the user in question, despite requests to stop and 3:1 consensus at WP:RSN against using a questioned source that fails WP:RS on a WP:BLP page.

    1. Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) adds controversial info sourced to website "www.truthaboutscientology.com" to WP:BLP page on Jamie Sorrentini, diff link
    2. After talk page discussion, this issue was taken to WP:RSN. At the RSN discussion three editors, myself and two others, did not support use of this website as a source.
    3. Fifelfoo stated, "Unreliable. Self-published; absence of recognised expertise; no editorial oversight."
    4. Becritical commented, "There's no indication that the site is reliable."
    5. Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) was shown a prior Request for Comment on the matter, where dispute resolution did not find consensus to use the website as a source, at Talk:Catherine_Bell/Archive_1#Request_for_Comments_-_Use_of_the_.22truthaboutscientology.22_website from 2007.
    6. In a strange edit summary actually acknowledging there is no consensus supporting use of a questionable source in a BLP, Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) willfully violated BLP anyways, and added the questionable info back with the website source that fails WP:RS, see diff link.
    7. I posted a note to the user's talk page, asking him to stop the BLP violations at the BLP page, and stated the issue would be reported if the disruptive behavior continued, see diff link.
    8. Despite the 3:1 consensus against using this website source from the WP:RSN thread, and the WP:BLP issues involved as mentioned at the user's talk page - Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) proceeded to add this website source and questionable info to the BLP page, now a 3rd time, see diff link.

    Requesting a previously uninvolved admin take action here. The info violates WP:RS and violates WP:BLP. It is contentious, poorly sourced info about a BLP, and should be removed from this BLP page. Admin action should be taken with respect to the disruptive behavior of Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs); deferring to uninvolved admins to review. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 07:52, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    • This looks also as though it has WP:ARBSCI implications, especially remedy 13 and remedy 4. --Jayron32 07:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, however the user has not been previously notified of WP:ARBSCI by an uninvolved admin. In any event, it seems actionable simply under the repeated WP:BLP violations, itself. -- Cirt (talk) 08:03, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • DC has now been notified that all Scientology articles are under ARBCOM sanction. I have also removed the contested text per WP:BURDEN and WP:BLP pending resolution of the issue. I have no opinion over the reliability of the source nor of the appropriateness or relevence of the text to the article in question; the removal of the text is purely administrative as Wikipedia policy is clear that contested text of this nature is to be left out until the dispute is resolved. --Jayron32 08:24, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    He obviously meant the edit summary to be "there appears to be no consensus on NOT using this source and it is used on other BLPs" We really need to have a consensus for or against using it, it seems to be a wider issue. I see no indication of editorial oversight as I said before, and would not use it. BE——Critical__Talk 09:06, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Reply by Delicious carbuncle

    I am not a Scientologist nor an activist against Scientology. In fact, I have no particular interest in Scientology and have no strong opinion on the reliability of the source that seems to have sparked this tempest in a teapot, but I hope that this episode does get the attention of ArbCom as there is clearly something very wrong in the area of Scientology-related articles.

    1. I identified Jamie Sorrentini as a Scientologist, citing a source that at that time was being used in other biographies of living people (I know this because I copied the citation from another BLP to save myself a bit of typing).
    2. Literally within a minute of my adding that reference, Cirt had removed it, claiming it was not a reliable source.
    3. After I point out on the article's talk page that Cirt has used that source themselves, they state "I have not used that source for years, after discussion on multiple talk pages and consensus against using that website as a source".
      1. The first statement is simply wrong, as this same source had been added by Cirt to articles as recently as August 2009, including BLPs (eg Barret Oliver). What is more , as recently as April, Cirt left the source in a BLP when they went on a spree of trimming information from BLPs of Scientologists.
      2. The second statement (about consensus) appears to be wrong, although it is repeated by Cirt in the WP:RSN thread that they started ("Consensus in the past at Scientology-related talkpages has been that it is not an acceptable source and fails WP:RS"). When Cirt provides a link to this consensus, it is a discussion from 2007 that is inconclusive and where Cirt (editing at that time as User:Smee) is in favour of using the source. Cirt later contradicts their earlier statements by stating that "There is not consensus now, there was not consensus then...".
    4. Minutes after saying "there is not consensus now", Cirt posts in the RSN thread saying that I had gone against consensus and "violated BLP" by adding the information back into the article. Again, this was a source that was being used in other BLPs and the RSN thread was still very new.
    5. In messages left on my talk page and elsewhere, Cirt uses the phrase "3:1 consensus" meaning that three editors have suggested that the source is not reliable and one (ostensibly me) believes it o be a reliable source. This appears to be a novel interpretation of consensus.

    Although I was not aware of the extent of Cirt's involvement with that source, my feeling is that they were content to use it so long as it suited their purposes. Once I used it to label Jamie Sorrentini as a Scientologist (and note that there appears to be no dispute that Sorrentini was a member of the Church of Scientology), Cirt decided that it was no longer a reliable source. Only after this dispute began did Cirt remove the source from CoS-related articles. And only after being questioned about it did Cirt remove sections in BLPs that were left unsourced or poorly sourced by that removal.

    To be plain, Cirt's purpose here and on Wikinews is to advocate against the Church of Scientology (hereafter referred to as CoS for brevity). Not to ensure a neutral point of view, but to identify, minimize, and add negative information about members of the CoS and the CoS itself. This is the sole reason for the puff piece Cirt created about an otherwise unremarkable minor actress named Jamie Sorrentini who has split from the CoS and become a critic. It does not suit Cirt's purpose to have her labelled as a Scientologist, hence the aggressive reaction to my edits, by which I hope Cirt has helped to make the real issue clear. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 02:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Comment: The simple issue here is of Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) adding a poor source website that fails WP:RS to a WP:BLP page, then when this was clearly disputed and consensus did not exist to re-add the source, repeatedly, to the WP:BLP page, Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) did so anyway, despite objections to the source from multiple editors at WP:RSN. -- Cirt (talk) 08:16, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You can certainly fault DC for using a BLP to make his [WP:POINT}, but the point remains well made. Any admin should really take a good hard look at Cirt's history (including that of User:Smee) before closing this matter. The fact that scientologist probably deserve it is neither here nor there.120.23.73.50 (talk) 09:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Cirt, do you dispute anything that I wrote about your anti-Scientology POV-pushing, and the disturbing ownership of Scientology-related BLPs that you have demonstrated through your actions in this tempest in a teapot? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is quite a difference from adding the link in as an EL and using it as a reference in an article. Furthermore, the consensus at the RSN discussion is quite apparent and it seems to me that you are the only one arguing for this, even when multiple other users have clearly explained why it shouldn't be used. Also, you went ahead and added the information back in, twice, essentially starting an edit war. I agree that something needs to be done about this, especially in light of the ARBCOM sanction in the article area. SilverserenC 19:52, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Scientology-related article fall-out

    Rather than spread this out across WP:RSN, WP:BLPN, and WP:NPOVN, I am going to post items here to back up my allegations of Cirt's anti-Scientology agenda. I believe it is glaringly obvious, but some recent examples may be helpful. Bear in mind while reading this that Cirt is an admin who is very well-versed in our policies and guidelines, that my interest here is our neutral point of view (not Scientology), and why this thread was started. To make sense of this, it is also helpful if you know that Jamie Sorrentini is someone who has split from the Church of Scientology and is now publicly critical of that group.

    Only after I used the source to cite that Jamie Sorrentini was a Scientologist did Cirt object to www.truthaboutscientology.com. Cirt repeatedly and falsely claimed there was consensus against using this source and inaccurately claimed that they had not used it "for years". In fact, there was no such consensus -- although there is now -- and Cirt had used this same source for the same purpose as recently as August 2009. More to the point, that source was left in biographies of living persons edited by Cirt, as this example from April 2010 shows. It was only after Cirt had started this thread and the RSN thread that they went through and began removing it from articles.

    I fully support the removal of the www.truthaboutscientology.com source, but although Cirt is normally a very careful editor, their edits have left us with some problems:

    • Heron Books - this article, which has a large Scientology footer on it and lots of Scientolgy categories, appears to exist only to label it as related to Scientology. Where it previously used that source to identify the founding headmaster as a Scientologist (i.e. a WP:COATRACK article), Cirt's removal has left it with no source at all for the connection to Scientology. Although untouched by this, Delphi Schools appears to be in a similar situation (and is similarly a coatrack article).
    • Barret Oliver is now identified as a Scientologist, completely unsourced.
    • Alexandra Powers continues to be in Category:American Scientologists despite the removal of the poorly sourced identification. This article could probably be speedily deleted for lack of notability.
    • On Lee Baca, Cirt removes the reference (which was actually applied to the 'wife of the subject) but then takes another swipe to remove what appears to fairly innocuous material sourced to CoS sites. Heavy-handed removal of positive or neutral material about people associated with the CoS seems to be a pattern with Cirt. Note that Cirt failed to remove an unsourced statement about the Baca's salary.

    Much of this could be attributed to plain sloppy editing, which would be unlike Cirt, but in each case it serves Cirt's purpose, which is to identify, minimize, and add negative information about the CoS and associated individuals. The flip side of that is creating articles about anti-Scientologists like Jamie Sorrentini and oddly controversial wine bars. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:33, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]


    • This has absolutely nothing to do with your actions explained above and is clearly an attempt of misdirection of the topic onto Cirt in order to avoid coming under further scrutiny yourself. Bringing up events from the past (events that are about content disputes no less) about another user in a discussion about your own conduct is not appropriate. SilverserenC 21:43, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Silver seren, considering that all Scientology-related articles are under an ArbCom probation, I fully expect to be under a great deal of scrutiny for this. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:06, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    FYI, I asked Cirt to remove this material. It is trivial at best.Griswaldo (talk) 22:16, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Silver I can't make heads or tails of how you get from here to there. I think it is clearer than day that User:Delicious carbuncle inserted that reference specifically to make a WP:POINT -- and yes I think he ought to be admonished for violating WP:POINT. However, what he is now doing appears, again rather obviously, to be the larger point he was trying to make in the first place. By all means take issue with his methods, I think there are issues to take with them, but lets not pretend to misunderstand what is going on. Carbuncle, if you think there are serious NPOV, or BLP issues with some of Cirt's articles you should have posted to the NPOV/N or BLP/N and not inserted an obviously unreliable reference to one of his articles to illustrate your point. That said, I think at this point this is exactly the type of productive thing that can come out of this. I have already, myself, started addressing some of the issues. Please keep them coming.Griswaldo (talk) 22:11, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    As some one who has a lot of interaction with Cirt, due to our similar interests (though completely ideological perspectives) I am unsure of what your problem is. I suspect it because you believe him to be paid editor with COI. That being said I cant see what the problem is other than your irritated with him and assume things that may or may not (and knowing Cirt are not.) If you feel so strongly collect evidence in RFC/U but really I fail to see any issue apparent here. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 02:56, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I am not irritated with Cirt, nor do I believe them to be a paid editor (although that has been suggested by others, as the link you provided shows). My "problem" with Cirt is the campaign against the CoS which they are waging on Wikipedia. Cirt does a lot of good work in both an editorial and admin capacity, but it is time to put a stop to their rather blatant POV-pushing. As much of a problem as the pro-Scientology activists have been here, we should be looking for a neutral stance rather than having one of our admins using Wikipedia to advance their own ideological position. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 03:33, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    This is not the proper venue then, I but heads with him more often than not. Cirt does good work thus people at WP:NRM and balance him out quite adequately for NPOV. His extensive collection of work demonstrates the ability for neutrality. start an RF/U or drop the stick there is nothing here that needs immediate Admin attention. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 04:07, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Out of curiosity when do you butt heads with him? I agree that I'm not sure this is the right venue. RFC/U does seem more like what carbuncle is looking for unless he wants to just tackle the content issues in which case there are several applicable noticeboards, and I already mentioned two above.Griswaldo (talk) 05:08, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    While the noticeboards can help with individual articles, they are not intended to deal with a pattern of biased actions. I have placed notes on the relevant ones linking to this discussion. There is no need for an RFC/U as all Scientology-related articles and editors are already covered by the WP:ARBSCI ruling. I have notified ArbCom of this discussion. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:36, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    More fallout: Speedyclick.com & Doug Dohring

    Two more examples of articles from which Cirt removed the www.trthaboutscientology.com source: Speedyclick.com & Doug Dohring. Speedyclick seems to be a defunct company that is "notable" for being started by two Scientologists (and sold two years later) and later being associated with spamming. It's another coatrack article:

    Connections with Scientology The founders of SpeedyClick, Farid Tabibzadeh [4] and Shahab Emrani [5] [6] are both OT VIIIs, the highest currently attainable level of the Church of Scientology. Doug Dohring, Scientologist and CEO of NeoPets, was a significant shareholder and personal acquaintance of Tabibzadeh and Emrani[7][8]. Donna Williams, co-founder of NeoPets, worked as an administrative assistant at SpeedyClick for a short period of time. Like NeoPets, SpeedyClick was run according to Scientology business management techniques.

    I am not sure how it is relevant that the former owners were Scientologists, but the source used is something called "Freewinds 45 (Scientology publication)". Note what Cirt said when questioned by another editor about {http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lee_Purcell&diff=401216959&oldid=400929558 removing Scientology sources] from an article just days ago: "In particular those primary sources are notoriously unreliable and will say whatever they wish to manufacture, in order to promote the parent organization. Get it?". So it is ok to source membership in the CoS to CoS publications, but not to cite that someone was the MC at an event?

    In the external links section, there are links to what purport to be (but are likely not) the personal websites of the former owners, identifying them as Scientologists. Remember that this article is ostensibly about a company not about the former owners. The section that links those named individuals to spamming either relies on dead links or is fabricated since I could turn up nothing relevant at Spamhaus. (Finally, could someone remove the AdPro Auction spam from Speedyclick? I'd rather not touch anymore CoS-related articles in case people misunderstand my goals here.)

    Doug Dohring (see Speedyclick.com excerpt above) would seem to have been quite successful in business, but you might not know that from our bio. Like the former owners of Speedyclick, he is linked to spamming with non-functional Spamhaus links. Using CoS primary souces, the article states this:

    According to the Church of Scientology's magazine Source, Dohring completed the course OT VI[17], which, according to Scientology, means that he is progressing on a program to become "essentially a being able to operate free of the encumbrances of the material universe".[18]

    I can see no reason for including that quote except to make Dohring appear foolish. Although they removed the one source that was under discussion, Cirt, an admin who claims to be very concerned about my possible violation of WP:BLP, managed to overlook all of the things that I have pointed out in articles that are in Cirt's primary editing area. I am sure if someone wants to start digging, it won't be hard to find much more evidence to back this up. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:27, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    The case is well made that Cirt is an attack account. I'm sure this will be dealt with now. Right?Bali ultimate (talk) 22:36, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The above comment clearly violates NPA. SilverserenC 23:10, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Why are you spinning all of this as if it was a Cirt problem? Did Cirt introduce those problems in the articles? (assuming for the moment that they are problematic, which I cannot judge yet). No, apparently he did not. He hardly edited these two articles at all, and the only edits I can find are those where he removes those external links, an action which you say is justified. What kind of twisted logic is this: he went and touched an article, uncontroversally fixing a problem, so now he's suddenly responsible for all remaining problems in that article, real or perceived, that he happened not to fix? If you feel those articles are problematic, then go and fix them, otherwise drop the stick, or this is going to become a boomerang for you. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:47, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not sure if it's a Cirt problem, but the references to publications such as Freewinds is certainly problematic. A fair few of the articles are just unsourced coatrack articles, and although I have every respect for Cirt, there does seem to be an ongoing issue as to whether or not in-house magazines such as Freewinds are actually good enough for references on BLPs. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 23:03, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The simple cases are in the "Scientology-related article fall-out" section above. In Barret Oliver for example, Cirt did add the source. When Cirt removed the source, they left Oliver identified as a Scientologist with no sourcing at all. Cirt is an admin. An admin who claims to be very concerned about WP:BLP. Scientology is their primary editing area. Cirt reacted very aggressively to my sourced addition that someone was a Scientologist, yet when they edit BLPs they accidentally leave people identified as Scientologists with no sourcing at all? In multiple cases? So you are suggesting that Cirt is merely incompetent? Sometimes? But that the rest of the time they are fastidious? Really? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 23:12, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    So he committed an error of judgment by adding that external link (not "source"), and then he later fixed his own mistake by removing it again. So what? It still wasn't him who inserted the claims about Sc. membership in the article – that was in there unsourced even before his first edit. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:18, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I echo Future Perfect. Are you seriously going to say that any user who edits an article must immediately notice anything bad that's in it and removed it or it is their fault that the bad stuff is in there? That is utterly ridiculous. It is not his responsibility to remove all of those things from the article. If he had been the one to add them in, that would be one thing. But he didn't. This is a completely frivilous section and an utter waste of time. ANI should not be used for content improvement. If you don't have any actual situations to report based on a user's conduct, then this discussion should be closed. SilverserenC 23:09, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • It's not just that Cirt has left BLP violations inserted by other editors; this edit is as clear a BLP violation as any I've seen. At Talk:List of Scientologists Cirt insisted for a long while that anyone who had ever done a Scientology course should be listed as a Scientologist, because that is the definition of a Scientologist the Church of Scientology uses (to inflate their membership statistics). Listing people like Chaka Khan, Gloria Gaynor and Will Smith as Scientologists spawned several BLPN threads, and got Jimbo involved. Cirt wrote a complete puff piece on minor politician Kenneth Dickson (Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Kenneth_Dickson_(2nd_nomination)), because Dickson at the time stood against another candidate deemed too friendly to Scientology. Cirt has in many ways become more cooperative and proactive in recent months when there have been disputes, and has written some articles on Scientology of late with whose neutrality I was genuinely impressed, given Cirt's history in this topic area, but no one should pretend that Cirt's hands are entirely clean here. They are not. --JN466 01:54, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • That doesn't change the fact that ANI is not the place for this content discussion. Take it to the article talk pages or make a subpage somewhere, but it shouldn't be at ANI. SilverserenC 04:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • OK, I'm lost, can someone explain why that video link is a BLP violation? I'm sure I'm missing something obvious, but I'd appreciate the explanation anyways. Hobit (talk) 03:12, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • It is a self-published YouTube video, airing various allegations against living persons, including rumours of sexual abuse. It fails WP:BLPSPS. (Imagine your son making a YouTube video about all the things they didn't like in school, and you including that video in our article on the school.) --JN466 16:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • I've only listened to parts and didn't hear any names (I'm not doubting you though). If there are such clear BLP issues, why not nominate the file for deletion? In any case, I think the accusations in the file are of abuse, and much stronger than just things she didn't like (yes, being made to sleep without adequate protection from the weather is abuse.) Don't think that has anything to do with the BLP issue, but your attitude about such claims worries me quite a bit. It's more than a child complaining, it's an adult describing abuse they suffered as a child and to brush that aside as a child describing things they don't like bothers me quite a bit. Hobit (talk) 02:46, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
              • It is self-published, Hobit, and the people who ran the school are mentioned by name in the article. We either have a BLP policy or not. In Roman Catholic sex abuse cases we don't include links to self-published YouTube testimonials about sexual abuse suffered at the hands of Catholic priests either, no matter how harrowing or genuine they may appear. We wouldn't even do this if there had been an actual verification of the crime and conviction in a court of law. If you tried, you would find yourself here on this board and subject to sanctions within a very short time. --JN466 11:39, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Case study number one: Michael Doven

    Michael Doven is apparently an actor and a producer. His biography was created almost solely by Cirt. We actually get four sentences into the lede before Scientology is mentioned (if you discount the completely unnecessary reference to well-known Scientologist Beck in the second sentence). Like other BLPs of this type, it is a coatrack on which to hang information about the individual's connection to the CoS. There are four paragraphs in the section labelled "Career" - the first is fluff the rest are about Scientology. Those who doubt my accusations against Cirt should simply read this article and ask themselves if this is just a normal BLP or if it is something more. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 00:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I agree that this article was problematic. It did have the appearance of a Coatrack. I think that it has improved drastically now, with Cirt's colaboration. One possibly remaining problem is whether it conforms to WP:EGRS, and whether the person in fact selfidentifies as a scientologist.·Maunus·ƛ· 02:12, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Please see action by Maunus (talk · contribs) in edit to article, see edit summary: "remove neutrality tag - Cirt has argued well for the merit of included material" -- thank you very much for this. This comment and action is most appreciated. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 03:42, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Case study number two: Jamie Sorrentini

    Jamie Sorrentini (the article involved with the start of this ANI thread) is an minor television actress. Most similar bios do not survive AfD, but they are usually created by publicists or the actors themselves, not by Wikipedia admins. It may be helpful to connect some dots here:

    • 15 July 2010 - Marty Rathbun, well known critic of the CoS, posts on his blog a piece by "Jamie Sorrentini Lugli" about her split with the CoS.
    • 15 July 2010 - Cirt creates Jamie Sorrentini
    • 16 July 2010 - Cirt creates Daryl Wine Bar and Restaurant. The restaurant is named after one of the founding partners, Daryl Sorrentini, mother of Jamie Sorrentini, and herself a former member of the CoS.
    • 8 October 2010 - Rathbun posts an entry entitled "Free Daniel Montalvo". According to Rathbun, Jamie Sorrentini and her husband Tiziano Lugli got Montalvo released from jail by posting his bail.
    • 9 October 2010 - Cirt uploads the image of Daniel Montalvo uses on Rathbun's blog entry to Commons
    • 9 October 2010 - Cirt creates an article on Wikinews entitled "Scientology defector arrested after attempting to leave organization". One of a long series of anti-CoS articles created by Cirt. There likely isn't a lot of positive news about the CoS, but nor is there a need to write negative pieces, except by choice.
    • 22 October 2010 - Rathbun posts an update about Daniel Montalvo, including the information that his lawyer is John Duran.
    • 23 October 2010 - Cirt uploads an image of John Duran (plus two cropped versions)
    • 23 October 2010 - Cirt makes nearly a dozen edits to John Duran including adding the image from above.

    I haven't taken the time to find further correspondence between Rathbun's blog and Cirt's edits, but it should be blindingly obvious by the above that Cirt is in lock-step with a well-known critic of the CoS. It should also be clear that Cirt's contributions on Wikinews need to be examined to get the whole picture. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 01:49, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    yah, and that proves nothing as far as WP:NPOV is concerned, because wikipedia is not concerned with your personal opinion, personal motivation, or even where you get your inspiration. Even WP:COI doesn't say "if you get your inspiration from" or "people with the following opinion/occupation can't...". All of those articles you mentioned are sourced, verifiable, and a few went through heavy discussion to validate their notability.Coffeepusher (talk) 07:08, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment: Yeah, I read the blog. That is in and of itself a non-issue. Actually, if from there I find BLPs that need quality improvement, that is a good thing. This is simply an attempt by Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) to deflect attention away from the user's BLP violations. -- Cirt (talk) 17:48, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    There is nothing for me to deflect. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    information Note:: User:Cirt is requesting Arbitration Enforcement under WP:ARBSCI sanctions for User:Delicious carbuncle at WP:AE#Delicious carbuncle

    Cirt's anti-Scientology articles on Wikinews

    Cirt is also an admin on Wikinews. Here are some of their articles on Scientology, in the order that they appear in a listing of Wikinews articles created by Cirt:

    The eleven I have listed appear in the first twenty-five articles on that list. An article on US politician Sharron Angle could probably be included in that list, since Cirt includes a hyperlink back to their Wikinews article on allegations of coerced abortion. Note also that in the talkpage comments of the "forced abortions" article, two editors take issue with the closing paragraph of the article which is, inexplicably, all about Angle.

    Note that some of those articles are interviews conducted by Cirt. Cirt's point of view is made very clear by this series of articles and the evidence I have thus far offered should show that their edits here are not neutral at all, but very much in keeping with that anti-Scientology viewpoint. I have no opinion about the appropriateness of their activities on Wikinews, but the time has come for their activities here to be dealt with. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:06, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    so if Cirt is not being neutral, how is he distorting the viewpoints that are being published in reliable sources, since that is the qualifying factor in WP:NPOV. from what I have seen of the reliable sources available Cirt is editing in regard to weight, not distorting the information presented in these sources one way or another, and verifiability. to prove that he is not neutral from wikipeida standards you will have to present that he is willfully distorting those reliable sources, or that he is suppressing the other viewpoint when presented with reliable sources...neither of which is accurate. I have personally seen Cirt defend pro-scientology edits when they are compliant with policy, and oppose critics who do not comply with wikipeida policy.Coffeepusher (talk) 17:04, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    this entire section is an obvious example of gaming the system to prove a point. The discussion was opened up regarding Delicious Carbuncle's use of an inappropriate source, soon thereafter s/he agreed that the source was not a reliable source and then since the discussion was going on, proceeded to use the ANI as a soapbox for his contempt of Cirt's editing in an attempt to discredit an editor. This argument strangely familiar to Justallofthem's, justanother's, Justahulk's, Alfadog's, etc. attacks on Cirt, up to and including the wikistalking of Cirt on Wikinews. At best this entire thread is a direct violation of WP:POINT, at worst sanctions have already been instated as a violation of "...refrain(ing) from any form of advocacy concerning any external controversy, dispute, allegation, or proceeding."Coffeepusher (talk) 17:23, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment: This is absurd. Many of my contributions to Wikinews are Featured Articles on that project. This is merely an attempt by Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) to deflect attention away from the user's BLP violations. -- Cirt (talk) 17:49, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Is anyone expressing agreement with DC that there is a problem needing admin attention here? If not, I recommend that this thread be closed/archived. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:31, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I have placed a comment on DC's talk page asking him to cease gaming the system.Coffeepusher (talk) 19:35, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Coffeepusher, on your user page you call Scientology "The fruity little club that scrambled Chef's brains". Unlike you, I have no dog in this race - my concern is neutrality. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 20:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is the wrong venue. Article content can be dealt with on article talk pages, or the various noticeboards; if DC wishes to comment on Cirt's editing in general, he should prepare an RfC/U or go to WP:AE. --JN466 20:08, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    you are right, I do have that printed on my page...which is an allusion to what television show...what was that show called...it was a direct quote from what show that I have watched over and over and over...that show that insulted EVERYONE including 3 organizations I belong to and I still love it...that show that I own every single DVD from and even have a "oh my god they killed kenny" keychain that I have owned and used since the first season... so is it a political stance or a direct reference to a cartoon?Coffeepusher (talk) 20:10, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Note: Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) has failed to attempt any previous form of dispute resolution, content-based-RFC, discussion at article talk pages, discussion at my user talk page, or anything of the sort. -- Cirt (talk) 20:12, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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

    User:Malcolm Schosha and User:Kwork

    Resolved
     – Everything seems to be worked out now, socks can be kept track of and talk histories are intact, yet hidden and NOINDEXed. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 14:57, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    This is a multiply banned user. Kwork got dinged years ago, then was allowed to "vanish." He somehow was allowed to return as User:Malcolm Schosha got banned under that account too (mostly for serial and unfounded accusations of antisemitism against people who disagreed with him). That discussion is here.[1]. He's then been found to be socking through IPs, advocating for other banned/indef blocked users, throwing around unfounded and hateful accusations against others (me among them, if that wasn't obvious). When i came up against him, i figured out who the IP belonged too by looking at old talk pages and archives of noticeboards like this one. If I were to be subject to such stalking and abuse now (without the background i have in my head at this point) I wouldn't be able to put two and two together. Why? A series of "courtesy deletions" of the "Malcolm Schosha" talk pages and user pages. If one goes to any of the old noticeboards and stumbles across the name Malcolm Schosha (or, as i did, looks at the "global contributions" of one of his IPs and find him correcting his own logged out edits on commons, where he's still somewhat active as "Malcolm Schosha") and try to look at the user's contributions, you find he's been airbrushed out of history. It turns out that, as a courtesy to this banned abusive editor, an account called User:Kwork2 has been created for his old contributions. But you'd never find it or stumble across it in the same way. It's my understanding that banned, abusive editors don't have a right to vanish, or courtesy blankings, or what have you, particularly ones with a recent record of socking to abuse others. As I see it, a nationalist edit warrior (who repeatedly said he intended to sock and edit as he sees fit, when he sees fit) is being enabled by this obfuscation of the history. What do i want? While i think the talk page of Schosha should be restored, i'll let that go. All i want is a redirect from the old name User:Malcolm Schosha to the "courtesy rename" of User:Kwork2. Why? So others will have as good a chance of catching him and his abuse when/if he turns on them. Would be interested to hear the reasoning behind these favors being done for this fellow, and why they're being done (obviously emails/chatroom stuff).Bali ultimate (talk) 20:10, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Here's his contributions under the name "Malcolm Schosha" at commons. [2]. Have a look at the block log. Reminisicent of his own behavior here.Bali ultimate (talk) 20:17, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Malcolm Schosa has done lasting damage to a lot of articles (see his tactics at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Judaization_of_Jerusalem/Archive_1 ) and contributed to the dreadful state of the Middle East topic. It's difficult to understand why his contribution record has disappeared, other than to make it easier for him to return and carry on where he's been forced to leave off. MalcolmMcDonald (talk) 21:16, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    "Courtesy deletion" of a usertalk page? We don't do that (or at least, admins who aren't intent on acting contrry to policy don't do it). DuncanHill (talk) 22:58, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    uhh Duncan you should prolly check the page then; Malcolm's user talk page was deleted for courtesy reasons. User:Smith Jones 23:10, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    That's bizarre. What possible purpose could erasing the history of a disruptive editor serve? Sol (talk) 03:29, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Any deleted talk pages should definitely be restored; these should be deleted only in exceptional circumstances. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 03:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    According to the log, the userpage was deleted because "The intent here is to minimise drama and reduce disruption." Looks like it may have backfired a bit. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 04:22, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    i thinkt here are issues with the right to wp:vanish here. his talkpage should be deleted since without it peopele can still interact with him as if hes still here, even though hes not. that is contrapositive to the purpose of the concept of the right of vanishment. User:Smith Jones 05:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Vanishing is a courtesy to users who make a credible announcement of their permanent departure from the site. If the vanished user breaches the courtesy by coming back, the vanishing can and should be withdrawn. Restore the pages as appropriate. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 06:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • The account has been renamed. While the redirect remains (and that is 100% of the content that I deleted, a redirect) he will continue to obsess over it. If it's gone, there is a chance he might not. WP:RTV. He freely acknowledges that any attempt to evade the block would be trivially easy to detect as his style is distinctive, and he understands that if he does come back then so will the redirects and templates. The issue is not that he's trying to obscure previous issues with an account, but that the account was in his real name. That is a mistake fro which we can and should allow people to recover, even if they are to remain blocked. Given that he has an account on Commons it is possible this was set up as a unified logon, I don't know; I have registered and blocked the account so that cannot happen again. Guy (Help!) 09:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Last time he lied repeatedly, including claiming when caught that the fact he was socking was known about and approved of by Arbcom. His style had nothing to do with how I uncovered him when he was attacking me. I uncovered him because i looked at the contributions of the account "Malcolm Schosha." That is now impossible. What you've done is against policy, standard practice, and common sense. As for the "real name" -- that was his choice. He continues to use his "real name" on commons, where he also has a horrible reputation, so I think you're being taken for a ride when he tells you (by personal email) that his real name is a concern here. All you're doing is helping to cover the tracks of a serial abuser and sockpuppeter. The redirect should be restored. Bali ultimate (talk) 12:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Admins can still see everything, the way it's set up now. That said, I wholly agree that MS has asked for this as a way to cover the sad wake(s) he has left behind, likely for another comeback, which for both the project's sake and I would think, his own peace of mind and privacy, mustn't be allowed. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:59, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    In my case, I had to figure out who was harrasing me myself. What an admin might be able to see was irrelevant, and will be if this guy starts taking shots again at me or anyone else. This makes it easier for him to harrass again without being uncovered. The banned user is being enabled by JzG here.Bali ultimate (talk) 13:10, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I believe I can say, JzG isn't trying to enable anything of the kind. However, I do agree the lack of a redirect will hinder non-admins from looking into things if (which is to say, when) he does try to come back. There can be no "fresh start" on en.WP for this user, he's had at least three or four already. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:35, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Could have a bot replace every reference to User:Malcolm Schosha with User:Kwork2, but that's probably too disruptive. Barring that, I think he's forfeited the right to have the accounts unlinked given the consequences for enabling socking. Disclosure: Schosha almost made me quit WP. Rd232 talk 13:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I had thought of that yesterday, but I've never seen it done cleanly and tidying up the loose bits would take scads of someone's volunteer time so I didn't bring it up. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Schosha continues to be active as "Malcolm Schosha" at a website called wikibias, a site where wikipedia editors gathe to coordinate efforts to fix what they perceive as bias against israel in wikipedia articles. Much of their work focuses on outing and harrasing editors here. For instance: [3]. Most recent post of his i find there under the name "Malcolm Schosha" is Dec. 1. This stuff about his real name is a red herring.Bali ultimate (talk) 13:53, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I would say that's true, Bu and given that, I don't see harm in a redirect. Truth be told, only since this has come up again, I wouldn't care if all the histories of all his accounts were restored, though keeping them out of public view may indeed tamp down some kerfluffle. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:32, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Let's at minimum get the redirect back. As stanard practice, the talk page shouldn't have been deleted and should be restored, but i'm not going to fight about it. But the redirect is the minimum and I guess that will go back on shortly.Bali ultimate (talk) 14:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    User talk:Malcolm Schosha should never have been deleted - blanking and/or redirecting are acceptable, but we don't speedy usertalk pages. They can go to MfD, but even then it's rare for them to be deleted. DuncanHill (talk) 14:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    It won't tamp it down a bit. Schosha also infests the lowers rungs of the Wikipedia Review; getting these gift courtesy blankings/deletions...which should be undone IMO...hasn't altered his obsession one bit. Tarc (talk) 14:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]
    I agree that the talk page should be restored -- though it could live at "Kwork2" with a redirect. Interesting to find out what led Administrator Jpgordon to provide a "courtesy deletion" on Nov. 11 2010. In the logs, we see that Gwen had deleted the talk page in June 2008 per his first request to vanish and then that the talk page was restored by Happy-melon in May 2009 with the note "RTV has not been adhered to, restoring." Why exactly are rules and practices being bent into pretzels for a banned troll who made life hell for many contributors in good standing?Bali ultimate (talk) 14:49, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    None of the several deletions of the usertalk page were acceptable in policy. We don't speedy in RTV, and we don't speedy just because someone's a prolific banned troll. DuncanHill (talk) 14:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    User talk:Kwork should have its history restored too. A lot of admins do seem to have been bending over backwards to protect this person. DuncanHill (talk) 15:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    User talk:Kwork was deleted in November 2007 by User:Pedro with edit summary "User request - right to vanish - after due consideration. Should be restored is user returns. content was: '{{:db-userreq|rationale=rationale. Since my actual name is on my user page, and in some talk page discussion, I would like to have my user page and". User:Malcolm Schosha was created in January 2008. So either Schosha isn't his real name, or he was screwing around with the original RTV request, because it would hardly make any sense to RTV because of privacy and then create an account not that long after with your real name! Rd232 talk 16:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have received an email from User:Kwork2 via the Wikipedia email, which he has asked me to convey to the board.

    [header removed] It is frustrating that I can not explain on AN/I what I am trying to get done.

    It was never my intention to have my user pages deleted, and I did not request it. Neither am I trying to hide anything. What I wanted was to have the two tags ('banned' and 'sock') that were on the top of my user page and talk page removed and replaced with 'retired user'. I wanted nothing else changed.

    The reason I wanted that done is because anyone on the web who does a search will see that, but the rules they refer to exist no place in the world but WP. The tags made me sound like a wiki-criminal or reprobate, and I am not. So the request seemed rather small, but has (so far) proved out of reach.

    I only requested that my user name be changed when my request to remove the tags proved futile. But I would be quite satisfied to have my user pages restored to their former state as User:Malcolm Schosha, IF the tags are not placed there.

    No doubt it was a mistake to edit with my own name; but, considering that I did, I think the request to put 'retired user' instead of the other tags is a modest request and changes nothing essential about my block.

    I have promised that I will not return to WP. I have moved on to other things.

    Perhaps you could convey this to the thread.

    [signature removed]

    DuncanHill (talk) 16:29, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Trouble is, he's a twice banned user with a history of using socks to evade his blocks and attack other editors (which is what led to the page having "banned" restored to it after he started socking again. He's forfeited any standing here by his own behavior, for which he alone was and is responsible. And he continues to use the internet handle "Malcolm Schosha" to attack others elsewhere.Bali ultimate (talk) 16:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I must say, he learned years ago how to find admins who didn't know him and were willing to help with civil requests. That email is not unlike the first I ever got from him almost two years ago (?). It began, as I recall, with a request for "retired" tags. Over time, with input from other helpful-minded admins, it became yet another "fresh start." I could look into the background further but I don't think it's worth my time. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:35, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, he found me and I'm not an admin. The history of the talk pages should be restored, as there was never any justification for deleting them. DuncanHill (talk) 16:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Here's the simple truth: if we insist on having a redirect, he will waste the Foundation's money responding to a frivolous lawsuit. And the benefit we get form this is... is... is... no, actually, I can't see any benefit. Other than the satisfaction of making it plain just how much we don't like him, which I think he already knows and so do we. Is there anything worng with shoing a little class here? Guy (Help!) 16:53, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • This has the effect of enabling him (I accept that's not your intent). Lawsuit? What nonesense. On what grounds? He'd be laughed out of court (indeed, prolly out of the lawyer's office when he asks one to take the case). He's just throwing empty threats (apparently) by email. The benefit is not to allow him to try to drive more editors away -- you know, the editors who haven't been indefinitely blocked and banned.Bali ultimate (talk) 17:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • The benefit is not facilitating a sockmaster in escaping detection of future socking. Why should we believe he won't sock again, when he's still active in coordinating in the dissemination of his beliefs on WP? Let him sue, it's not our problem (and he's probably bluffing anyway). Rd232 talk 17:02, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    "The tags made me sound like a wiki-criminal or reprobate, and I am not." We seem to have a disconnect here: that's exactly what the tags are there to warn people of. He's got a laundry list of blocks on both accounts and appears to have dedicated a lot of time to earning his ban. If he wants a "Retired user" tag he should have retired. Removing his history does nothing but makes it easier for him to come back. Whether or not Malcolm Shoscha is his real name, he's indemnified WP from any privacy tort by volunteering it as his user name. Sol (talk) 17:28, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    What's the concrete objection to User talk:Malcolm Schosha being undeleted, blanked (in whatever fashion), and renamed without redirect to User talk:Kwork2? Uncle G (talk) 17:27, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    • Uncle G -- do you have ANY idea that cost of defending of against even a frivolous lawsuit? Malcolm Schosha could burn away thousands ofdollars of Wikimedia Foundations money if he sues us under the WP:NLT barnstar. in the same time, we are also in the middle of one of the most comrpehensive fundraising campaigns in history. it would be a tragic and monsterous crime for this devious fiend to suck away all the money that has been raised so far in this foundations fundraising. Pehraps before we make a move we should contact Wikimedia Foundations legal counsel and seek his or her advice and assistance on how to proceed. User:Smith Jones 17:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • In amongst all that hyperbole, I cannot see an actual answer to my question. I repeat: What's the objection? Uncle G (talk) 20:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • The problem is the absence of the redirect from User talk:Malcolm Schosha to the new page (and from User:Malcolm Schosha to the new user page). Why? The redirects allow people who come across the edits/discussions involving "Malcolm Schosha" to actually find his history, rather than come to a complete dead end. That's the objection to the absence of redirects in a nutshell (and such redirects are standard practice). This is the general nature of the objections from others in this thread. If i'm misunderstanding, and it's possible to simply rename everything so that all the old links go seemlessly to "Kwork2" i wouldn't have a problem, and i doubt others would either. Is that feasible, i.e. if one clicks on User:Malcolm Schosha you're taken directly to the new page (and the histories) without redirect? Bali ultimate (talk) 20:59, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • No, not with the way that MediaWiki works. But that's an objection to a different thing — an objection to having no user page rather than an objection to restoring and renaming the user talk page. Consider the real Malcolm Schoshas of this world. (Is this this person's real name? There's certainly doubt about that. And do you have reason to think that there's no-one else in the world named that?) They find Google Web coming up with "Malcolm Schosha, Wikipedia troll and sockpuppetteer" high in the list of results for their names. That's one reason not to have everything in the name "Malcolm Schosha". But, as I've noted and as several others have noted, it's not a reason for the user talk page history to not be available, behind a blanking, at User talk:Kwork2, which at least would enable you and anyone else, along with this log entry and these log entries to find where the user went and read the old user talk page discussions, should that be necessary.

            Having the user talk page alongside the renamed account satisfies the sockpuppetteer, satisfies the people who want the talk page history available (when they come across an edit that leads them to Special:Contributions/Kwork2), and (additionally) prevents harm to the real Malcolm Schoshas of the world. I'm trying to determine whether there's a concrete objection to that state of affairs, because it seems like a reasonable, and simple, compromise amongst competing interests. Uncle G (talk) 21:29, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

            • If i follow you, that wouldn't satisfy me. I found this guy because i found a discussion of User:Malcolm Schosha. What i want is to be able to click on that link and get to somehwere that allows me to review his contributions and history. Right now it's a dead end, and will remain so by your proposal. I'm not concerned about satisfying him, and i'm particularly unconvinced by this "real name" nonsense. That was (and on commons and other sites, still is) his choice. There's no reputation risk for other m schosha's, if any exist (which is doubtful). It just shows that someone misbehaved on a website and got booted. Let's stop enabling this guy, particularly since it violates the websites policies and guidlines dealing with banned users, RTV, and so on.Bali ultimate (talk) 21:35, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • It would make things harder to understand any socking to come (which is likely, given the background) and easier, in time, to get what would be more or less his 5th "fresh start." I don't like saying it, but he has always gamed steps taken in the name of this project's forgiving and worthy outlook on tidying up the userspaces of those who have left, even under a cloud, to to speak. Gwen Gale (talk) 17:42, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Maybe a compromise is possible: stick a "retired" tag there, but also link manually (not with template) and as politely as possible to the ban discussion and socks. Rd232 talk 17:56, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    • i agree with the above. although perhaos we should redact the link to the ban discusions and the socks. if this user is actually leaving, why maintain a secret file against him?? there is noer ason to continue to menace someone who has left the project; what is he going to do, badmouth us on some other site?? that hath never been a policy on Wikiepdia b4 and it should not become one now!!! By closing the book on this incident, it limits the amoun tof drama created and helps make the proejct more efficient and mature. User:Smith Jones 18:00, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Only saying, most of the time, RTV and other tidying done by request when a user leaves doesn't stir up much if any fuss, so we only hear about it when someone has come back and caused disruption. Mostly, from what I've seen, the way this kind of thing is handled on en.WP is most of the time indeed "mature" and "classy." This can be (and is now and then) gamed, but not all that often. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:06, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    • In response to some of the above lawsuit discussions....whatever is decided here should not at all be made in concern with "spending the WMFs money" or similar sentiment. That is an ugly, slippery slope to go down. Tarc (talk) 19:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • I agree. If someone sent me an email threatening to sue WmF I wouldn't even answer it, but would likely forward the email to arbcom. Likewise, I don't think talking about legal management is within the bounds of ANI. Gwen Gale (talk) 20:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • We had a recent RfC about deleting talk pages when users want to vanish, and the consensus was that they should not be deleted as a rule. The idea that this is an exception because it's his real name doesn't wash (whether it's his real name or not), because he set it up after he was blocked as Kwork, so he can't say he was a newbie who didn't understand the dangers of using real names. Regardless of what happens to the user pages—whether they are deleted, linked, or directed to new names—the talk pages ought to be undeleted, because they were not written by him. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 19:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree that the user talk page should not have been deleted, and have asked JzG to restore it and to send it to MfD if he still believes there are good reasons for its deletion. I also see no harm in restoring the redirect to the renamed account. WP:RTV is normally extended only to users in good standing, which this user is not. It is not our job to speculate about lawsuits. If Foundation staff believe that any action is required to avoid a lawsuit they will take that action per WP:OFFICE. Until then, we should proceed as per our normal policies.  Sandstein  20:20, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    This seems fairly simple, and although I've repeated the question already once to Smith Jones, who didn't answer it, it deserves general repetition. Non-administrators want the user talk page around, so that they can keep track of things, and I find myself sympathetic to that. "Malcolm Schosha" wants things not to come up under xyr (possibly) real name in a Google WWW search. It seems possible, at least to me, to accommodate both sets of people by undeleting User talk:Malcolm Schosha, blanking it (in some fashion), and renaming it without a redirect to User talk:Kwork2. That way the user talk page, with all of the prior discussion, is visible to everyone, associated with Special:Contributions/Kwork2 which is the account's current name, and not associated with the name "Malcolm Schosha" (the new Malcolm Schosha (talk · contribs) account now belonging to JzG, as stated above and as recorded in the log). What are the concrete objections to this? Uncle G (talk) 20:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I have none, but it is also not clear to me why we should seek to accommodate a disruptive banned user at all by disassociating their former username (which is picked up by Google in many places) from their edits. The right to vanish is normally granted only to editors in good standing. If they choose to disrupt Wikipedia under their real name, they have to bear the consequences.  Sandstein  21:19, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    If the google search is the complaint, can't we just "noindex" it the way this page is (i believe). I would not object to that -- i'm concerned with people inside wikipedia being able to keep an eye on all this; i don't care if they can find the userpage or not on google.Bali ultimate (talk) 21:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    (ec) Uncle G, you mention the problem that a Google search for the name still links to various disruption-related pages. Can't that problem be solved by NOINDEXing the relevant pages? I think the request to be able to connect the "Malcolm Schosha" signatures to the banned account and its contributions (e.g., with a link from User:Malcolm Schosha to User:Kwork2) is reasonable. By the way, meta:User:Malcolm Schosha, where he is not blocked, still contains a lot of googleable personal information put there by the user themselves.  Sandstein  21:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    sory, Uncle G -- I didnt see your original repetition; it wasnt a deliberate attempt to ignore you. I am not too concerned over the Google image bu t i am worried that this users right to vanish is being tempered by the fact that he can be constantly blackballed and cockblacked using his prior bad acts regarldess of whether or not he has reformed. the cornerstone of WP's antivandalism and pro-vanishing policy is that a user who doesnt want to participate in the project any more can just leave without being having to worry that they will be continually monitored, tormented on their talk pages, or followed around off-wiki. Instead of linking to his bad history on his user page, why not just undelete his talk page and post the history there, or a link to an external page maintained by the community. User:Smith Jones 22:18, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • RTV is a courtesy we may grant to users in good standing. This guy's multi-banned, so we should move things back to the MS account, which seems well-out-of-the-bag per Bali's extern, and point the others at a {{banned}}/{{indef}} tag at user:ms ("{{retired}}" is simply off-the table). the prior user page history can be deleted, but the talk should be restored. There are lot of links and sigs pointing at u:ms and folks should be reasonable able to find the laundry. nb: no OFFER for this POV-warrior. Cheers, Jack Merridew 22:23, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I have restored User talk:Kwork per the discussion here, the other one should be restored as well but since it is at DRV now, I thought it better to let that one run its course. Fram (talk) 11:55, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Looks like both Kwork histories will wind up being restored, which is ok by me (as to policy). Perhaps letting non-admins know about the link between MS and the Kworks by putting up a retired tag, with something like see User:Kwork2 in the edit summary only, would do the trick. MS can always go to WP:BASC with any other questions. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:09, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I think we have a consensus to restore the redirect. How about this: A redirect at User:Malcolm Schosha to User:Kwork2 underneath a "noindex" tags for yahoo and google to opt out of the searches. That way privacy satisfied, my and other concerns that future socking will be easy to uncover satisfied. Random internet searches won't lead to the page.Bali ultimate (talk) 23:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Speaking as an uninvolved user, that sounds like the ideal solution: restore, redirect, tag as banned and "noindex". That allows us to follow the user's history, while keeping the world-at-large-via-Google from hitting those pages. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 23:25, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Makes sense to me:  Done. Rd232 talk 10:44, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I am sorry but I have re-deleted the userpages; they serve no useful purpose given the ex-user's stated intention to leave Wikipedia permanently. The primary concern here is that they involve the renamed user's real name and interfere with the desire to separate him from the project. The pages should be restored if the user returns to Wikipedia and resumes socking, but otherwise there is no point to doing so. I express no view on the talkpage deletions; they honestly do not trouble me, but I understand that others may have issues with those. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:04, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Except that he's a known liar, a frequent abuser of socks (to abuse editors in good standing here) and you've just helped to cover his tracks yet again, overriding a rather extensive consensus, both here and at the recent DRV. What gives you the right to act by fiat, and against the interest of being able to uncover his bad behavior in future. Are you one of the arbs that he claimed was in his pocket the last time he was caught brad? You're way out of order here, at any rate.Bali ultimate (talk) 13:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Not the first known liar who abused other editors that Brad has gone out of his way to help. DuncanHill (talk) 14:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Agree in principle with Bali ultimate. Also, Brad deleted the "Kwork2" userpage, not the Malcolm Schosha one... his name isn't Kwork so the deletion rationale doesn't seem to apply. The sockpuppet tag should be reinstated to the Kwork2 account for purposes of keeping track of someone who has "vanished" multiple times in the past, only to return and resume his disruptions. I would suggest a soft redirect from the MS account talk page (which is already robot.txt'd out of the Google spider). His old MS user page can probably stay deleted since that's what was upsetting him so much. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 13:47, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Well I'm sorry too, because you don't seem to appreciate that (a) this user's stated intention is worth zip; he's socked repeatedly and AFAIK continues to coordinate activities on Wikipedia offsite (b) their primary claimed concern was their real name showing up in Google, which my noindexing took care of (c) they exercised RTV as User:Kwork allegedly because of privacy concerns only to return as User:Malcolm Schosha, allegedly his real name! So his privacy concerns may be taken with a pinch of salt; and at any rate noindexing is sufficient. Rd232 talk 14:01, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Struck a point I picked up from someone else without confirming myself, since Schosha objected to it (via Wikipedia Review). I believe the original reference I picked up was related to Schosha's moderation of a forum on Yahoo groups, but I haven't confirmed that activity or the significance thereof, and at this point it doesn't seem worth doing so. Rd232 talk 11:04, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Can someone recreate the Kwork2 userpage that was deleted out of process and against the wide consensus formed both here and at DRV? - Burpelson AFB ✈ 15:33, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    This is seriously worrying. I have great respect for Newyorkbrad, but none, including he, are above the deletion policy or the wheel-warring policy. By deleting that page instead of taking it to WP:MFD, he has repeated an administrative action opposed by several administrators (notably the most recent recreator of the page, Rd232). From WP:WHEEL, bolding in original: "Do not repeat a reversed administrative action when you know that another administrator opposes it. (...) Wheel warring usually results in an immediate Request for Arbitration." Is there a good reason why such a request should not be made in this instance?  Sandstein  17:39, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes he overrode the consensus of this discussion, the recent MFD, standing policy and practice and he's been asked to reverse the decision, which he has not done. Incredibly high-handed and innappropriate -- now the histories of the sock evading IPs are gone, an ability to link the banned accounts to their past actions is gone, etc... I'll certainly take this to arbitration if it isn't dealt with quickly.Bali ultimate (talk) 17:43, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Whoa. He re-deleted the user pages, not the talk pages. That doesn't do much to cover up a history, but does help address the person's concerns about real-life harm. I do not see that any harm is being done to Wikipedia by Brad's action that would outweigh the potential for real-life harm he is seeking to avoid. Wikipedia is not a pillory. alanyst /talk/ 17:59, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    While this has been messy, I can say, there is no way Malcom will ever get away with socking or another "fresh start" on this website, however the Kworks are handled. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • NYBs actions go against consensus here and that at the DRV. As with the Fences&Window's bad unblock of Colonel Warden last week, this is the sort of thing that should be clearly reversed immediately. Tarc (talk) 18:20, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Absolutely no more reversals. Extending the chain of disputed administrative actions at this stage would be a very bad idea. Instead, those who are concerned about the action should discuss it until a final consensus emerges. Jehochman Talk 18:22, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Final consensus did emerge and one Admin overrode it unilaterally. The deletion rationale for "Kwork2" is that it's that users real name, but his name is NOT "Kwork2". It needs to be undeleted and correctly tagged as a sock. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 18:24, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Pardon me, but fuck that logic. That is the issue that came up with Warden; an admin can perform an action and then another admin can, with absolutely no leg to stand on at all simply reverse that action. And then THAT is where the oh-my-dreaded wheel-ewarring comes to play, where if anyone tries to restor the CRSTAL-CLEAR consensus, Then THAT admin is the one that is at fault while admin #2 goes scott-free? I believe it was Black Kite who reversed F&W that time anyeays and was roundly supported for doing so. The same should happen here. Now. Tarc (talk) 18:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Any banned editor wanting to make it harder for the rest of us to see what they got up to is strongly urged to engage in sockpuppetry, on and off-site harassment, and legal threats. DuncanHill (talk) 18:29, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    As I've said, MS has gamed RTV for years. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:36, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    As indicated, I've set forth my views on my talkpage, at some length. (Although, less length than it would have been in the past; I've given some attention to the authors of voter guides who opined that some of my posts are too long.) My intention in deleting these particular pages was not to show disrespect for the views of other editors, but to address an issue affecting this particular banned user, in a fashion that calculated to further that banned user's separation from Wikipedia. Based on my four years of experience, I think that our approach to tagging the userpages of banned users is terribly misguided and counterproductive, and this is an instance where we are perpetuating a negative interaction between the banned user and Wikipedia rather than trying to put an end to it. Those interested in my thoughts on this matter in further detail may find them on my usertalk.
    I still believe very strongly that the action I took was best for all concerned and should be allowed to stand. I hope that some other editors with significant experience in dealing with significantly troublesome users might weigh in here with their opinions, which I believe would generally parallel mine. However, if in spite of these views there remains a consensus here to reinstate the tags, I will not interfere further. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm confused as to whether we're discussing his user pages, which can be deleted on request, or his talk pages, which should not be deleted without consensus—for the simple reason that he did not write them. The deletion of user talk pages by admins should be rare. See Wikipedia:Right to vanish. I can only see deletion of the user pages in Brad's log, but I can't find the talk pages, so if someone could explain the current state of affairs, that would be very helpful. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 21:42, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    By the way (and yes, I've known about this all along), NYB missed deleting User_talk:Malcolm_Schosha. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:46, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, thanks, Gwen; I see the talk page history is there. That should be moved to User talk:Kwork2, so that the new account's history (contribs and talk page history) is intact, just under a new name. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 22:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, spot on, as you say. This has all been handled very messily, but then, MS has always stirred up messes on en.WP. Gwen Gale (talk) 22:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, done that. Rd232 talk 22:11, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    (ec)Brad, there are better ways of changing policy and practice than to try to force them through by ignoring what has been said in an ongoing debate. I think it shews very poor judgement that you went ahead with the deletions without even attempting to see if there was any consensus for them - this thread was open, you must surely have been aware also of the DRV relating to the user talk pages, but you imposed your own solution without consultation. You are also, I am sure, aware that your position as an arb makes it very hard for others to meaningfully challenge you when you choose to use your admin tools in such an issue. Few admins would want to risk their tools to take you on. DuncanHill (talk) 21:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    OK, per consensus here and Newyorkbrad's comments on his user talk page, I've recreated the user page as a noindexed redirect to the user talk page, which has had its history restored and is blanked apart from a mention of the renaming to Kwork2, and also noindexed. I think that might just make everybody happy? Schosha gets his privacy respected, and the link between the Schosha name and the Kwork2 edits remains for information purposes (primarily possible sock detection). Rd232 talk 22:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Whatever we do, the account's contributions and its talk page history must either be at the same place, or linked. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 22:11, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Contributions and talk history are now at Kwork2. User:Malcolm Schosha, as noted above, is a (fully protected) noindexed redirect to User talk:Malcolm Schosha, while User talk:Malcolm Schosha, also noindexed but not protected, merely notes the rename to Kwork2. With any luck, that's an end of it. Rd232 talk 01:09, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    That seems fine. Thanks for sorting it out. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 02:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Good enough. The Kwork2 had the old language from the MS talk psge on it that made no sense in its current location so I replaced it with the sock template, leaving in the noindex stuff. Guess I'll mark this resolved. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 14:57, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I have created User:Kwork2 as a redirect to User talk:Kwork2, which seemed to be reasonable. DuncanHill (talk) 15:02, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I replaced the sock template with a note; AFAIK he wasn't actually blocked for socking, and anyway this labelling isn't necessary. Rd232 talk 15:16, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Pmanderson's claim that the current spelling of Marseille is POV-pushing

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

    His disruptive edits: [4], [5]

    This user has been reported on project pages mutliple times for tendentious edits and for creating problems, Now, without any support from WP:RS, he is suggesting that one of the two major cities in France after Paris, Marseille, is normally spelt in English with an "s". He has tagged the page twice now to suggest that this spelling violates WP:NPOV. It appears that he has decided that his next major battle on wikipedia will be over this topic. As far as I can tell, from his past editing history, he has no interest whatsoover in the content of the article or WikiProject France.

    The same "argument" (whatever it is) would presumably apply also to Lyon, for which the old-fashioned spelling in English has an "s". Pmanderson has not brought up this city ... yet. Pmanderson's activity seems to be an attempt to disrupt wikipedia to make a WP:POINT.

    On the talk page of Marseille—and I will not repeat the arguments or the links here—it has been carefully explained that most major English-speaking newspapers, the Encylopedia Britannica, British airlines, travel guides in English and the British and US consulates in Marseille all now adopt the spelling without an "s". This has made no impression on Pmanderson - it seems that he believes that he is simply right and doing a huge service to wikipedia in righting a terrible wrong. The issue has no real importance, but he has made it so. Straight WP:BATTLEGROUND conduct.

    I have reported this bizarre activity here in the hope of nipping it in the bud. It could be the straw that breaks the camel's back, from the point of view of ongoing problems with this editor. It certainly seems to be "his style". His block log speaks for itself.[6] In this case he has made an unsupportable but hardly very interesting claim seemingly devised to waste other editors' time. I am unable to see any possible benefit editing of this kind could have to this encyclopedia. Mathsci (talk) 20:18, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Marseilles and Lyons are perfectly normal English spellings, as used in the Oxford Dictionary of the World, for example. DuncanHill (talk) 20:35, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Not only "normal", but also common in English. Pmanderson has only himself to blame for acquiring a reputation that allows bringing his actions here based on a vague handwave toward his past problems, but in this content dispute he would seem to be correct, even in the argument that you have invented on his behalf without asking. — Gavia immer (talk) 20:39, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    (ec) True, but that is hardly the point. As with Mumbai/Bombay and Calcutta/Kolkota, things change. The US government is not pedantic.[7] [8] Tagging in the way Pmanderson did was clearly not a helpful approach to improving this encyclopedia. It does not quite rise to the level of tagging articles like Europe, for example, but it was not far off. Mathsci (talk) 20:55, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually the U.S. Government is pedantic; the Board of Geographic Names tends to prefer systematic forms to what English-speakers actually use (as the guideline on geographic names explains) and in principle their decisions are binding on the Federal Government.
    But this complaint is another effort to settle a substantive dispute by false claims of misconduct. As the move discussion on Talk:Marseille would indicate, the fundamental issue here is my unwillingness to simply accept the opinions of a major contributor to an article. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:32, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't agree at all. Pmanderson's edits today have nothing to do with calm and reasoned discussion. He has chosen to adopt a battleground attitude on an article, in which, until today, he appeared to have absolutely no interest. I am currently on wikibreak, so have only a few articles on my watch list. Pmanderson's edits today on Marseille are amongst the most dire I've seen in almost five years of watching the article. Mathsci (talk) 21:59, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Recommend WP:DR. Nothing else to see here (other than to note I just blocked PMA for similar activity, but hasn't edited the project space since). Magog the Ogre (talk) 22:06, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I was surprised to learn that Marseilles is now being spelled "Marseille" in English. This must also come as a bit of a shock to the citizens of Marseilles, Illinois, for example. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:08, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    As my recent edit at Talk:Marseille will show, the (current) French spelling seems to be catching on with the sort of columnist who laces his prose with malfamé and bistronomie. It is still a less common usage. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:17, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I've removed the POV-title tag. There may be a good-faith discussion of which spelling should be used, as happens from time to time with many geographical names, but this cannot reasonably be framed as a "POV" issue: no "point of view" is promoted by using the spelling "Marseille" as opposed to "Marseilles" or vice versa, except on the sharply limited issue of which is the correct spelling. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:23, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    But there are two - which is why dispute resolution will be welcome: The point of view there are no distinctive English forms of names - and even more seriously, that the anglophone Governments do and should determine English usage. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:27, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    It's a legitimate article title/requested move issue that is subject to dispute resolution on the basis of which title better comports with our guidelines on geographical names. Appropriate dispute resolution seems already to be well underway with the RfC/RM discussion that is now taking place on the article talkpage. Adding the "POV" tag does nothing to advance a decision as to which article title should be used. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:34, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Little enough in all honesty; but if we cannot even protest the entrenched territorial cliques which seek to use articles to promote a political or (as in this case) a linguistic program, we have very little hope of checking them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:42, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    What "political programme" is this here to promote? Who are these ""entrenched territorial cliques"? What is wrong with my "grasp of the English idiom"? Mathsci (talk) 23:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    For third parties (and on the off-chance that this is ingenuous):
    • As I said, "in this case a linguistic program": that the characteristic English forms of names should be downgraded, and English be subjected to Government standards.
    • Well, to begin with: "grasp of the English idiom" isn't idiomatic; neither is "dire" (unless you're writing Tolkien parody); nor is Marseille; the reactions of anglophones in this thread alone should have been enough to make the last clear.
    • And as for the clique entrenched on the territory of the article: I invite any curious reader to look through Talk:Marseille and see how the self-declared "most frequent editor" has been behaving. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:32, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Are you suggesting now that English might not be my native language and that is why I have not agreed with your point of view? Mathsci (talk) 00:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    If English is your native language, you have an abominable grasp of idiom; if it is not, you have an abominable grasp of idiom, but this would be explicable. I believe l'idiotisme anglais would be correct French; but I will defer to a literate native speaker. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:36, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    But really, if having a tag added twice is "amongst the most dire" things to happen to the article in years, the real complaint here is that I have not immediately conceded to Mathsci's opinion and his grasp of English idiom on his article. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:33, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    See above. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:34, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    My Webster's, dated 1994, gives Marseilles as the preferred and Marseille as a secondary spelling; Lyons as the preferred and Lyon secondary; and Rome (not Roma) as the English name for the Italian city. So it seems that the "Marseille" and "Lyon" spellings, without the "s", are the ones that writers have actually tried to impose on us, to override the traditional English spellings "Marseilles" and "Lyons". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:35, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    This input is welcome, but would be better placed on the article talkpage, where the requested move discussion/RfC is in progress. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:37, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Pmanderson's continuing disruption on Marseille

    Pmanderson's conduct continues to be disruptive. As well as adding various other drive-by tags and dramatic notices of innacuracy, [9][10] he just tagged a reference to Thucydides in the article, claiming that Thucydides did not mention Massalia. But that claim is wholly inaccurate, since I checked the reference directly in Thucydides and also in a secondary WP:RS, a very long recent history of Marseille (in French). This second bout of tagging is as disruptive as the first. I cannot guess what Pmanderson's motives for this type of editing could be, but at first glance it appears to be unrelated to improving the encyclopedia. He has now reinstated the questioning of the quote from Thucydides. I find the edit summaries that he left with his talk page diffs extermely aggressive without provocation. [11][12][13] It seems that Pmanderson is questioning a number of statements which are not in doubt, although, as always, could be better sourced. On the other hand—and I think he has decided to take this as a personal attack—I pointed out that he himself probably does not have access to a detailed history of Marseille. I do, but at present I see no point in using my own history sources to edit the article when overnight it has been transformed unrecognizably from an anodyne backwater into a full-blown toxic WP:BATTLEGROUND, (In RL I am very busy finishing off a research paper, which probably will be linked by another user to one of the mathematics articles. That partially explains my wikibreak from articles.) Maunus has written that the tags are not merited.[14] He wrote in his edit summary: " Probably the tags should be removed altogether this looks like someone is trying to make a WP:POINT". That is my feeling too. Mathsci (talk) 03:03, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I've noticed before that Pmanderson is quick to tag. It would be helpful if he could use the tags as a last resort only (i.e., when prolonged discussion has failed, or when he has looked for sources and found none, but removal is being reverted), and then only if the text leaves verifiability or neutrality issues. We shouldn't use tags to signal that we personally dislike something. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 03:49, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Many thanks for intervening SV. The Peloponnesian war is one of the texts that has been studied to death (we had to read book IV at grammar school in England) and there are numerous commentaries. The particular seven word sentence referring to the colonisation of Marseille has generated pages and pages of comments. Here is one example that runs over three pages (310-312). [15] More modern ones place the history in the context of recent archeological discoveries and in fact are unsurprisingly in agreement with most of what is in the article. The ancient history of Marseille seems to have some kind of fatal attraction.[16] Mathsci (talk) 04:25, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    This appears to match a textbook definition of WP:POINT - I have asked PMA to explain his reasoning and intent.
    As a rule, not the sort of behavior a recently blocked, historically multi-blocked editor under all sorts of additional scrutiny should be engaging in. At all. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 04:05, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    This statement is another effort to settle a content dispute by spurious conduct charges. In addition, it alleges that I said things I did not say, and do not hold.
    While waiting for the RM to settle itself, I read through the article, and found the ancient history section seemed most implausible. It cites three sources.
    • Thucydides is claimed to support the settlement of Marseilles in 600 BC. He does mention the Phocaean settlement at Marseilles, but gives no date. (I have now said three times that he mentions the settlement; all this is on the talk page; therefore Mathsci's assertion above is false.)
    • A book called Vintage; the History of Wine is cited for trade between Massalia and Rome in 500 BC. It actually discusses the trade around 125 BC.
    These claims, therefore, I tagged as failing verification, and added Talk:Marseille#History to discuss them.
    The proper response to such tags, I thought, is to answer them; to fix the article, to convince me I am wrong, or to convince a consensus that I am mistaken. Mathsci did none of these; instead he reverted; so I restored them until one of the three appropriate means of resolution can be done. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Tagging can often be seen (rightly or wrongly) as simply a way of signalling that we didn't get to make the edits we wanted. It's best to do it only after trying everything else, including prolonged discussion, and looking for additional sources yourself. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 04:38, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Since the the existing sources don't support the text, and my relatively careful phrasing has been read to assert something I have never said, I doubt additional sources will do any good. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    A quick Google Books search shows several sources for the founding date, including this from George William Cox, published in 1874 (p. 156), which helpfully cites its sources in a footnote. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 04:51, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Here is another footnote in a more recent text dating the founding of Marseille to c 600 BC. [17] It is one of many. What is interesting here, and a reason for administrators to keep tabs on Pmanderson, is that this time he has chosen to disrupt in a disproprtionate and uprovoked way a neutral and uncontentious article, amongst the main wikipedia articles on France. I made a simple edit modifying "historically" to "in antiquity" in the lede [18]; then very shortly afterwards Pmanderson appeared to tag the section of the article concerned with classical antiquity. Pmanderson appears to be more interested in other editors than in content. Mathsci (talk) 13:17, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Who was right and why in this dispute is beside the point here - all that can be resolved at the talk page. What is relevant here is how the dispute was handled.

    If you add a tag in good faith and that tag is removed, especially with someone with whom you're already disputing, I suggest presuming WP:AGF and the R in WP:BRD and proceed with D. Do not engage in yet another edit war, no matter how sure you are that you are correct. This is an edit war

    (cur | prev) 18:08, December 14, 2010 Pmanderson (talk | contribs) m (77,945 bytes) (Reverted edits by Mathsci (talk) to last version by Pmanderson) (undo)
    (cur | prev) 17:50, December 14, 2010 Mathsci (talk | contribs) (77,826 bytes) (Undid revision 402439004 by Pmanderson (talk) tagging seems inaccurate) (undo)
    (cur | prev) 17:21, December 14, 2010 Pmanderson (talk | contribs) (77,945 bytes) (→Prehistory and classical antiquity: not really.) (undo)

    Again. No matter how sure you are that you are correct... don't edit war. Just don't. Take it to the talk page. I've learned that lesson without ever being blocked; how many more times does PMA need to be blocked to learn that lesson? --Born2cycle (talk) 06:05, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    As this kind of information about the early origins of Marseille is copious and freely available in academic sources, there was no rationale beyond simple disruption for the edits of Pmanderson. At least PHG did his research properly even if he was at that stage pushing Greek colonistation of Provence a little too far. I would hope that Pmanderson might take note of what NYB, SV, GWH and Maunus have told him and drop this habit of disrupting wikipedia to make a WP:POINT. Mathsci (talk) 10:56, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Please note the participants in the Franco-Mongol case; I know all about PHG. This continued series of personal attacks, to defend an innacurate rendition of a local history of a century ago, is indefensible. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:24, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Request to block Pmanderson for removing sourced content and continuing his tagging campaign

    This editor has been warned for tagging the article by four administrators, Newyorkbrad, SlimVirgin, Maunus and Gerogewilliamherbert. He has now added tags and removed a substantial amount of sourced content. [19] What he has written contradicts one of the main sources,

    • Duchene, Roger; Contrucci, Jean (1998), Marseille, 2600 ans d'histoire, Fayard, ISBN 2213601976

    I have no idea why he is behaving in this way after the mutliple warnings he has received, but his block record speaks for itself. Mathsci (talk) 14:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I have, as requested by SlimVirgin, on Talk:Marseille, found other sources; I have added them, with input from third parties; my sources may be seen in this exact reversion, which looks like Mathsci's fourth in the last 24 hours; see the history of the article. (There are better sources, which I could add shortly; but why bother when they will only be reverted.)
    Please deal with this disruptive WP:OWN violation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:17, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    (ec) I have reverted Pmanderson's later "essay-like" additions because they conflict with known sources. The legend of Protis and Gyptis was removed, despite being sourced. The legend has the same status as that of Mary Magdalen being conveyed on a sailless boat without rudder or oar from the Holy Land to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in the Camargue and then, following her death in a cave on the Sainte-Baume, being wafted by angels to Aix-en-Provence and the site of the cathedral of the St Sauveur. But the provencal legend is well sourced and discussed carefully in those sources. it can therefore be included in a wikipedia article (as a legend). Pmanderson included a phrase about a "romantic idea" that seems to be of his invention. But wikipedia is not Pmanderson's blog , he can't act as a historian here, and he should be editing according to the usual rules of wikipedia: no special rules apply to him. He should avoid removing sourced content just because of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. His approach is unscholarly and adversarial. Nobody expects to read Marseille and suddenly come across a little essay on the history of Marseille "according to Pmanderson", an unknown author with unknown credentials. There are excellent sources and Pmanderson is simply not using them. Some of the principal ones happen to be in French: I don't find that in the least bit surprising. Once sources are known to exist on the history of Marseille, it's not a great idea to dismiss them and then attempt to cobble together the history from fragmentary sources elsewhere. Pmanderson seems to have a bee in his bonnet about French sources and possibly even the French: that does not in any way excuse his disruptive behaviour. Some of the comments levelled at me, which I have ignored, indicate that he thinks that I am French, which is not the case. Although on en.wikipedia, we do not use fr.wikipedia as a source, editors concerned with WikiProject France usually do pay attention to the corresponding articles there, which usually are written prior to the English version. (Exceptionally that was not true with Chateau of Vauvenargues but fr:Église_Saint-Jean-de-Malte_d'Aix-en-Provence has no English equivalent: that would be an article that I would normally consider writing, although not if I'm scared off WikiProject France by hostile editors like Pmanderson.) In the case of major cities, the French language articles can provide a useful guide to missing content. When the two corrsponding articles become widely divergent and contradictory (as was the case with Pmanderson's personal essay on the history of Marseille), alarm bells will normally ring. That is just common sense. Mathsci (talk) 18:30, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Pmanderson is misrepresenting his own actions. He removed a lot of sourced content that he didn't happen to like. His actions are as disruptive as those that have resulted in previous warnings and blocks. He certainly didn't seem to like the legend of Protis and Gyptis, which he removed, That is a short section that I rewrote and sourced. Certainly SlimVirgin was not suggesting that he remove content that he didn't like, that he restore his tags and that he rewrite the ancient history section as a personalised essay from fragmentary sources. Pmanderson is not righting a great wrong. He is just attempting to manufacture a WP:BATTLE by editing in as awkward a way as possible. It is a classic case of disrupting WP to make a WP:POINT, as others have already commented. Mathsci (talk) 18:47, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Mathsci is telling great and small untruths. As his revert-warring will show, I retained the fable of Protis and Gyptis; what this good soul omits is the consensus of the sources that it isn't likely to be true - whether or not Massalia was founded in 600 NC, it wasn't founded like this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:58, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Can I suggest that this be resolved by sticking closely to academic secondary sources? It would make sense to write up a brief suggestion for that section, together with the sources, and post it on talk for discussion. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 20:32, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    PMA and Mathsci both blocked for 48 hrs for edit warring

    IMHO - Both stepped clearly across the line. PMA backed away incrementally from his prior behavior but not from disruptive editing of the article. He did engage on the talk page, but kept butting heads with people. Mathsci kept reverting without adequate talk page involvement.

    Both parties are longtime users with extensive experience with dispute resolution. They both know what we expect of editors participating in a content dispute. Neither chose to act in accordance with our policy and community standards. Both are blocked for 48 hrs.

    Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:48, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Potential WP:CANVASSING by User:Cirt

    Cirt canvassed at least four admins today, while an arbitration enforcement thread was ongoing, using non-neutral messages:

    Prior non-neutral posts to admin talk pages on the same matter:

    Previous thread about Cirt's soliciting other admins off-wiki: [20]

    Previous thread about Cirt's behaviour in content disputes: [21]

    One of the above admins, Future Perfect at Sunrise, closed the AE thread, forbidding Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) from ever bringing a complaint against Cirt again in this topic area.

    I am slightly concerned that Cirt's actions here may not have been within the spirit of WP:CANVASSING. Views? --JN466 00:46, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I have to say that my initial reaction, pending an explanation from Cirt, is one of dismay. These are non-neutral messages. Admins regularly patrol AE. There was no need to procure admins to look at the AE request, let alone using messages of this kind. If a party to an AE request has concerns about the behaviour of another party, the concerns should be addressed within the AE request. I have to say that if I received a message of this kind on my talk page, I would feel quite uncomfortable intervening. As EoR said in response to a concern about the message on her page, "asking people to take a look in this way has the potential to blow up in Cirt's face".--Mkativerata (talk) 00:55, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    One could also argue that this matter could well have been brought up within the AE request as well. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    and it strikes me it was hardly necessary to do more than just point to the matter--the people notified would not have failed to understand. DGG ( talk ) 01:20, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Maybe Jayen and Cirt should stop interacting. Much of this seems to be related to their personal chemistry and history.   Will Beback  talk  01:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Cirt and Jayen's extensive history is undeniable, However Cirt should know knows better than this. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 01:40, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    There's no mileage in shooting the messenger. Also, I'm beginning to get annoyed at people whose sole function seems to be trying to argue that one can't discuss this here (wherever here is). Over at AE, several voices were saying hours ago that nothing further can be raised there - it has to wait for DC to make an appeal. So there is absolutely no point in sending it back there. It doesn't concern DC or Scientology in any case, just the behaviour of Cirt.

    Cirt must not canvass in this way. End of. I wasn't particularly concerned with the first message, as I've never had anything to do with scientology, DC or Cirt, so it seemed a reasonable request for an uninvolved admin to have a look. The second communication from Cirt was concerning, because it obviously wasn't a neutral request. I have advised Cirt that this type of action is likely to have unwanted consequences, and the community ought to recognise that this is not proper behaviour, no matter whether the intent was innocent.Elen of the Roads (talk) 02:02, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    The point is well taken that you have had no dealings with Cirt, DC or Scientology, but it should be pointed out that Future Perfect had made the following comment to DC at AN/I prior to taking Cirt's solicitation - "If you feel those articles are problematic, then go and fix them, otherwise drop the stick, or this is going to become a boomerang for you.". I highly doubt that Cirt missed that.Griswaldo (talk) 03:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    (ec)User:Jayen466 is not, by any means, the only editor dismayed by what transpired there. The first admin to comment at the AE request had this to say to one of the solicited admins, after that solicited admin decided to act upon the request. When Cirt contacted you to ask you to look at this request, he made you involved, especially when the message might as well have said "please go over to AE and sort out Delicious carbuncle for me". I also voiced my concern, and so did ResidentAnthropologist. In fact I'm still dismayed about the situation. No editor should be able to solicit this kind of instant satisfaction at AE. NEVER. If the person who files an AE asks an admin specifically to go over and have a look at it that admin should not be the one to act on it. That's pretty much common sense. This is especially true when that admin is known to the person who filed the report to agree with him to one extent or another, and such was the case with Future Perfect, and no doubt the other admins solicited by Cirt. I doubt he flipped to a random page in the phone book so to speak. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 02:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    This can and should be discussed here. Are there previous instances of Cirt being warned about these kinds of messages. If so, I would go so far as to suggest an appropriately tailored discretionary sanction (or, because the scope of Arbcom discretionary sanctions in Scientology seem to be more limited, a community-imposed restriction) to prevent it happening again. --Mkativerata (talk) 02:52, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    It appears there is form, eg [22] --Mkativerata (talk) 03:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Proposal (Cirt)

    Reading the diffs above it appears this has happened multiple times in the past, and Cirt has been admonished for it (eg at ANI) multiple times. There is the case of contacting a fellow administrator off-wiki in respect of a block, and contacting User:DGG to procure a sanction in respect of which Cirt was involved. If Cirt is unable to see what the problem is (having been admonished previouslt), the community needs to impose a restriction accordingly. If this was a first sign of trouble, a restriction would be heavy-handed. But it appears to be a repeat problem. I propose as a community-imposed restriction:

    Cirt is prohibited from posting on the user talk pages of uninvolved administrators or contacting uninvolved administrators off-wiki in relation to disputes in which Cirt is involved

    Comments please. --Mkativerata (talk) 03:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Um... considering his dicking around, should he even be an admin anymore? HalfShadow 03:54, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I think that's the question nobody has wanted to ask. Both parties have been disruptive, but I don't think anyone more or less than the other. It's not a behavior we should accept from an admin. We wouldn't take it from the run of the mill user. Grsz 11 03:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict) Desysopping would have to be taken to Arbcom, and Arbcom will require that community attempt to address and resolve concerns first. I should add that these concerns are largely unrelated to Cirt's position as an administrator - such messages would barely be any less concerning if they were from a non-admin. --Mkativerata (talk) 03:58, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't really care one way or the other, it just strikes me as "not the sort of thing an admin should do". HalfShadow 04:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Before this goes any further I would like to hear from Cirt. Certainly he can shed some light on to this topic. I don't think there is any rush, is there? Basket of Puppies 06:08, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Comment: I am sorry. My actions in posting to those user's talk pages in that manner, was inappropriate. Jayen466 (talk · contribs) has been WP:WIKIHOUNDING and following me all over Wikipedia for over three years now. I admit that his actions got the better of me, and have made me quite frustrated indeed. Jayen466 (talk · contribs) shows up time and time again to disputes where I am involved and where he previously was not involved, comes in, and posts a comment, often taking the opposing position to whatever I am involved in. Unfortunately, I did not take the higher road, and I let my emotions get the better of me. AE was not the proper forum to address the WP:WIKIHOUNDING by Jayen466 (talk · contribs). I will strive to work on my behavior in the future. I hope that Jayen466 (talk · contribs) will as well, and I hope that he will avoid the inappropriate WP:WIKIHOUNDING that has gone on now for over three years against me. -- Cirt (talk) 06:40, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    This seems like a perfectly good explanation of the situation. Cirt has recognized that his actions were less than ideal and has pledged to not preform them again. I don't see the need for any formal sanctions or anything else. Thoughts? Basket of Puppies 06:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    If this was the first such mea culpa for this behaviour, I'd agree. Unfortunately it's not. --Mkativerata (talk) 06:59, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Cirt, that is unfair. We both work in some of the same topic areas. We have a number of the same articles on our watchlists. I have as often agreed with you as not when you have been in dispute with other users. Examples:
    Even when we have disagreed on content, we have resolved matters amicably enough, and you have thanked me often enough for my appreciation of your content work:
    Even though I have been horrified sometimes at the way you treat other editors, I have sung the praises of your ability as a researcher. You have a barnstar from me. I supported you at your RfA. Please be assured that where I have disagreed with you, it was strictly on content and policy grounds, and because of the WP:OWN problem that mars your work and makes you have goes at other editors, like Dbachmann here and Scott MacDonald here. It's not personal. I respect you and like you, and I am sorry the cases where I do disagree with you cause you irritation. --JN466 11:08, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I do not think that the issue raised by Jayen466 should be discussed in terms of canvassing. Canvassing means selectively notifying people with the intention of influencing a consensus. However, arbitration enforcement actions are not based on consensus. Like speedy deletion or blocks, they are made by one single (uninvolved) admin acting on their own discretion. There is no consensus to sway. So, by definition, AE actions cannot be canvassed. As long as the admin who acts on the request is uninvolved and considers the request on its merits, it does not matter how they learned about the request.

      Whether it is proper to ask admins to take AE actions directly is another matter, unrelated to canvassing. I have always declined AE requests that were asked of me directly and asked people to post them on WP:AE, for the sake of transparency.  Sandstein  06:41, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Comment: Thank you, Basket of Puppies (talk · contribs) and Sandstein (talk · contribs), I agree with your above comments. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 06:54, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    (undent) I agree with Will's comment above. People need to get back to writing an encyclopedia. Both Cirt and Jayen have done a lot of great work but probably need to interact less. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:28, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    What little interaction Cirt and I have is productive in terms of improving article content. Will Beback turns up at most every RfC and noticeboard discussion involving Cirt, and invariably in support of Cirt. Note that Will Beback's block log dates back to an occasion when I reported him at AE. --JN466 11:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Cirt, I do think this is down to not seeing how your actions look, rather than Machiavellian intrigue (Machiavelli would have used email). That said, can you agree that in future if you lodge a complaint somewhere, you understand that you should not then go and ask not previously involved admins to have a look at it. This will save a lot of trouble in the future, believe me. Elen of the Roads (talk) 11:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Comment: Elen of the Roads, yes, you are right, I can agree to that, it is a most reasonable and logical suggestion, thank you. As to the above comments from Will Beback and Doc James, I must say it is indeed quite creepy to time and time again be subject to the disturbing WP:WIKIHOUNDING against me by Jayen466 (talk · contribs). It does not matter whether he shows up to oppose something I am doing, or even be supportive — the issue is that he is repeatedly following me around and showing up multiple times to conflicts I am previously involved in, that he has not been previously involved in. I do not care whether he comes up and is positive or negative about something, I just wish that he would stop interjecting himself into disputes I am involved in where he is not, altogether. I agree with Will Beback and Doc James that it would be beneficial for the project and the Wikipedia community as a whole if Jayen466 (talk · contribs) were to voluntarily agree to interact less with me. Thank you. -- Cirt (talk) 12:13, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Cirt, I am not in the habit of checking your contributions history, and I don't have your talk page watchlisted. When I do comment on articles you are working on, it is usually because your disputes with other editors have spilt onto Jimbo's talk page, which is on my watchlist, or onto one of the noticeboards. When I comment, I comment on the merits, without prejudice to you. --JN466 13:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Comment If Jayen and Cirt have a lot of overlapping interests Cirt's request seems entirely unreasonable, particularly without more evidence of actual hounding. I also hate to say this, but in the few times I've been invovled with an issue where Cirt is heavily invested or being criticized the same faces show up repeatedly to defend him blindly. It is very difficult to understand what the true consensus is in those situations. Again, as much as I hate to discuss Wikipedia this way, if Cirt is going to invite friends to all his scuffles he's going to have to assume that some antagonists are going to show up as well. I don't say this lightly btw, and I've commented on this cliquish behavior elsewhere recently, (Col Warden RfC). I truly despise both sides of it -- the allies and the antagonists. My point though is that Cirt appears to work his allegiances more than most, so it is a bit hypocritical to think that he is just going to be able to stack things in his own favor without some of his critics showing up to turn the tables. If he was willing to ask his friends to stop involving themselves everytime he needs help I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to ask other editors to back of as well. Consider that here we are asking for a baby step in the same direction - for Cirt not to actively solicit admin help everytime he wants satisfaction. Indeed that would be the ideal solution, but how likely is it that people here stop acting like their in a gang? Not very.Griswaldo (talk) 13:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    • Support the proposal by User:Mkativerata. The problem is recurring, and my faith in apologies and promises is limited. If the behaviour stops, the restriction will never have to be invoked, which will be the best solution all round. --JN466 13:36, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • At this time I oppose sanctioning both parties. They should both consider this thread a warning: (1) Cirt, do not try to handpick admins to resolve disputes. Instead, post to a noticeboard, notify the involved parties or those with prior knowledge of the dispute, and let matters proceed. (2) Jayen466, stop hounding Cirt. I've been around since the first Scientology case (COFS) in 2007 and am well aware of your and Cirt's history of conflict in the field of New Age religions. Please don't join any issue related to Cirt that you aren't already involved in, (2b) and Cirt, likewise, you are expected not to jump into Jayen's issues. If you two want to work together, feel free to leave polite invitations or offers of assistance on each other's talk pages. Jehochman Talk 13:40, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Jehochman: Alright, your admonitions are indeed reasonable. I will take them to heart. -- Cirt (talk) 13:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • I have not been hounding Cirt. Matters are raised at public noticeboards to gather community input. This is a normal community process. If you feel I have been insulting to Cirt, or done anything other than commenting in good faith on matters brought to the community's attention, please provide evidence. Otherwise, I can only observe that you are also a fairly regular visitor to discussions involving Cirt, and that Cirt is one of the top ten posters to your talk page. --JN466 14:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • Jehochman, I already try to avoid posting or editing in areas where Jayen466 (talk · contribs) has previously interjected himself, but I have not. I will continue to avoid joining any issue relating to the user. It appears Jayen466 (talk · contribs) is refusing your request to respectfully do likewise with regards to myself. -- Cirt (talk) 14:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • Jehochman - Jayen466 (talk · contribs)'s failure to stop WP:WIKIHOUNDING me, is now evidenced, today, right now, by his active refusal to abide by your request above, and activity at AE diff link (again, taking opposing stance to dispute I am involved in, etc.) -- Cirt (talk) 14:28, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
              • Are you being serious? Even if Jayen decides to heed Jehochman's request he's already fully involved in the issue you are linking to. In other words, even Jehochman's request (which I in no way agree with myself) does not require him to do that.Griswaldo (talk) 14:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
              • Actually, Cirt, right now I feel hounded by you. If I see you violating BLP policy, as in this edit or at List of Scientologists, which led to posts on Jimbo's talk page and several BLPN threads, and to your removing the information you had added in violation of policy, as it did here, how is it in the interest of the project if I fail to comment? I can see that it is in your interest, because as you have said, my interventions have been a source of profound irritation to you, but please look at the article outcome. We are not here for self-gratification, but to generate NPOV content. That is done through collaboration, and team work. The number of editors who have complained of your WP:OWN problem is legion: [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28]. So is the number of editors who you have claimed are "hounding" you. --JN466 14:43, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                • This is exactly the problem with requests like Jehochman's, and sanctions like Future Perfects. The net result is not to prevent disruption but to remove people who might call Cirt on POV pushing from Cirt's general area of interest. Until I see a consensus that Jayen is hounding Cirt, I think Jehochman's request has no merit.Griswaldo (talk) 14:54, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    For the record I support User:Mkativerata's proposal above. And I should add that I have found Cirt to be quite reasonable when I have interacted with him, but only after some sort of drama created by his aggressive defensiveness has died down. What I haven't found reasonable is how he seems to frequently take his content opponents to AN/I and related noticeboards. My first interaction with him was in the Daryl Wine Bar AfD, and its fallout, where he spuriously reported his opponent User:Njsustain to AN/I. Then he dragged User:THF to AN/I recently because THF opposed him at another AfD, and now he took carbuncle's bait and jumped to AN/I. When he runs into trouble with an content or POV opponent this appears to be the pattern he is follwoing. Report them to AN/I and ask his admin friends to help him out, or simply ask admin friends to help him out. I think that behavior really needs a thorough looking into, unless Cirt is able to see it himself and promise to keep it in check.Griswaldo (talk) 14:56, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]


    Are you serious? I think that it takes a bit more than a "um, yes, my bad, but he is WP:WIKIHOUNDING me, it would never have happened if he wasn't WP:WIKIHOUNDING me, did I mention that he is WP:WIKIHOUNDING me?". That is a grievous act of misconduct, especially on AE where first mover has a virtual carte blanche. I submit that Fut. Perf. should not have acted on the message, that by having such a message posted to him he should have excused himself as a matter of course. I support the proposal above, I would also urge Fut. Perf. to vacate his motion at AE in this instance and leave it to someone else. un☯mi 15:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    • For the record, this thread is a mess, tl;dr stuff. We just have the same litigants repeating their positions more and more stridently. Please stop now and drop it. Unomi, I am especially unimpressed with the way you are belittling another editor making jokes about their concerns. Jehochman Talk 16:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Huh? I see serious concerns about the way an editor is using "hounding" to deflect attention from or excuse his own behavioral issues. Asking Unomi to "please stop now and drop it" amounts to saying, "you're perspective on this is unwanted here" and that is utterly inappropriate in my humble opinion.Griswaldo (talk) 16:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • You've made your opinion clear, several times. Do you think repeating it again is helpful? Please stop it now and drop it is directed at all the litigants who are prolonging this unproductive discussion, not just Unomi. And yes, unhelpful comments such as belittling other editors are not welcome. Jehochman Talk 16:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • I, on the other hand continue to be impressed by your self control, were I to engage in your level of brown-nosing I would have thrown up long ago. Jehochman, it is impossible to read the messages that Cirt left and not find them completely unbecoming of anyone, that this was done by an admin who understands the dynamics of AE makes this a rather serious situation indeed. Cirt's apology is here:

    if that is not a joke in and of itself I don't know what is. I am sick and tired of the mentality that excuses that kind of behavior, if you can't clean up the shit then at least stop pretending that it smells of roses, Jehochman, you either owe Jayen an immediate apology for alleging that he is hounding Cirt or provide evidence for community perusal, casting aspersions should be well below you. un☯mi 17:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    • And while he's at it he might consider not bullying other editors into silence as he's doing here, and over at AE as well. People make points, others refute or try to refute those points, and then those people return to argue some more. That's the nature of discussion. Please stop trying to censor it Jehochman.Griswaldo (talk) 17:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • When points are made rudely, such as with insults such as "brown nosing", they are likely to be disregarded. If you have a point to make, say it once and say it politely. Repeating your point while becoming more and more strident, insulting and assuming of bad faith is not at all productive. Jehochman Talk 17:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Oppose Not needed as user has already agreed to alter behavior. Only a continuation of the above.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    [29] [30] Third such ANI discussion in less than two months. Each time Cirt pledged to alter behavior.. Do you see any reason that it will stop now? The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 19:54, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't think that people who write about their Wikipedia conflicts on Wikipedia Review, as Jayen has done, are in a position to complain about canvassing. He comes to this with unclean hands. If anything, canvassing on-wiki is less of a problem than using off-site forums.   Will Beback  talk  20:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • WR is a public forum (the relevant thread is linked at AE). Half of our arbitrators have accounts there. My WP account is openly linked there. I haven't said anything there that I haven't said here, and I have not asked anyone to go and close AE threads in my favour. So what is your point? --JN466 00:04, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • I don't see any diffs showing a request to close an AE, simply to look at it. Writing about an issue on WR is an implicit invitation to go look at the WP thread. Gossiping about him behind his back and talking about his activities with severe critics of WP doesn't seem like a helpful behavior to resolving your disputes. You write about him there and he writes about you here. I propose that both of you try to avoid each other rather than following each other around.   Will Beback  talk  00:42, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    AE Appeal

    It might not be obvious to some commenting just above that there is another forum where the canvassing is also being tackled. Carbuncle is appealing his AE sanctions - Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Delicious carbuncle. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 16:19, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Powerchip

    Resolved
     – Article speedied as purely promotional. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 18:48, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I have blocked 58.106.54.21 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) temporarily for legal threats. However, I am concerned that they may have true concerns regarding article content. I would request more experienced editors to take a look at the recent flurry of edits to determine if any of them need to be reverted to avoid trouble for Wikipedia. I have e-mailed the foundation and will notify the IP of the post. Thanks Tiderolls 03:34, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Seems closer to AFD or Speedy Deletion than anything. It looks like some legit concerns The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 03:39, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I've semi-protected the article and removed the unsourced negative stuff. I agree with TRA that we probably have a deletion candidate on our hands here.--Mkativerata (talk) 03:41, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    There's a retraction of sorts on the IP's talk page. If another admin wishies to unblock I won't scream. However, I don't think this would help the present situation. Tiderolls 03:44, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Yep, it's still a legal threat (against the "poofters"). --Mkativerata (talk) 03:47, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Article at AFD see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Powerchip The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 03:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I've just waded through the page history. What a mess. I've made two revision deletions but other admins might find cause to do more. --Mkativerata (talk) 03:54, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I took out six more versions. No way am I going to let that stay in the history. - KrakatoaKatie 05:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    (outdent) The AfD is being hit by anon IPs and SPA accounts, one of which is making "statements" about someone's wife. Can someone look into that and block as necessary? One of the IPs is clearly also double voting as an SPA account. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 14:19, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I just speedied it -- it appeared purely promotional to me, and the opinion on the AfD was unanimously for deletion anyway. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:15, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I've also salted the founder's bio, since it was created today for the purpose of attacking him. If notability is established, it can be unprotected. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:29, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Harassment by Lunalet

    LAz17 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
    Lunalet (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

    Issue

    Lunalet (talk · contribs) has been making personal attacks against SMasters (talk · contribs) since December 4th. This has gone to the point of harassment.

    Desired outcome

    Lunalet (talk · contribs) will desist in making personal attacks against SMasters (talk · contribs) and will stop harassing SMasters.

    Background

    On December 1st, SMasters sent out a large number of neutral messages to all of the GoCE users informing us that there was an election going on. The purpose of this election was to elect new coordinators for the Guild. The election was by simple affirmation voting in "support" sections, with another section for comments or questions. He also sent out ~18 neutral messages to other users who have actively used our services, encouraging them to vote too. (This was acceptable since non-GoCE members were permitted to vote in the elections.)

    Development

    On December 3rd, 01:36 UTC, Lunalet makes his first post to the election page asking about SMaster's AWB run. [31] On December 4th, 00:01 UTC, Lunalet makes his first canvassing accusation. [32] Just after this, he makes a post containing the edit summary "support the only good candidate" (supporting Diannaa). [33] I then read this and ask were SMasters was canvassing, [34] and he answers "see question 4". [35] Suspicious of canvassing, I then struck my support, [36] but reinstated it when I noticed Lunalet's talk page was full of civility violations. [37] After a bit more of this passes, I reply to Lunalet's harassing, [38] upon which he directs a personal attack at me. [39] Lunalet then sends out messages to users whose articles were specifically copyedited by Diannaa. [40] Diannaa then asks why Lunalet did not send messages to the other 4 candidates. [41] I then reply to Lunalet's personal attack against me, pointing out how he appears to be attempting to destroy the Guild. [42] Lunalet then dodges Diannaa's question. [43] Lunalet then makes an even more blatant personal attack on SMasters, [44] which I reverted and warned him for violation of personal attacks. [45] There also are no "oppose" sections on the election page since it is simple approval voting. Lunalet then undoes my revert claiming that it is not a personal attack. [46] Finally, SMasters replies to this new personal attack. [47]

    I would also recommend reading the page since there is a great deal more I have not mentioned here. Reaper Eternal (talk) 02:27, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Without commenting on the issue at hand, you don't need four sections for this. To minimize how much longer this lengthens the table of contents, I've removed them, and replaced them with markup that has the same effect in terms of bold.— Dædαlus+ Contribs 05:40, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I have noticed a large quantity of civility issues from this user. I first became aware of their behavior at an AFD (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sun Way Flight 4412), where they were making lengthy and fairly uncivil posts with regard to positions they did not agree with. When queried they accused pretty much every user who voted keep of tag teaming (see User Talk:Lunalet for this). Their posts to the aforementioned AFD were this account's first posts on wikipedia. The user is obviously not new, and does not claim to be. Lunalet claims to not remember the name of their previous account. I find this hard to believe, and based on Lunalet's present behavior consider it highly likely that their previous account is subject to active sanctions. However, I have no idea what the previous account is and as such am unable to file a SPI case. And as Checkuser is not fishing I don't think a request would be granted. I left a note for this user on their talk page regarding WP:CIVIL, which was responded to with a terse and fairly pointy message. My reply has since gone unanswered, as have all other posts on Lunalet's talk page. A check of the user's contributions to see if they were still editing turned up the user's participation in the Guild of Copyeditor's Elections, on which which Lunalet appears to be making pointy edits, possibly unfounded accusations, borderline personal attacks, and potentially causing disruption through canvassing. Hopefully someone reading this thread recognizes the behavior and can determine the name of the previous account. If not, there is probably enough disruption here to warrant a block, though Lunalet should be given the opportunity to respond here first. N419BH 07:34, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I've no idea about the stuff re SMasters, but endorse N419BH's comments; Mjroots, will, too, I expect. This is an obvious returned problematic editor; wade through the evasiveness on their talk and you'll see. I did last week. Bzzt. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    The guy is a self-admitted sock, and I reported him 2 weeks ago and nothing was done. Maybe they will this time. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Between trolling, he has some odd habits, like moving stub tags[48][49][50]. Seems to use AWB or some similar program, correcting "dashes" and such. Doc talk 10:51, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    (ears burning) FWIW, I don't buy Lunalet's assertion that they can't remember their previous username. I agree with N419BH that the user is probably a sock, and the puppetmaster is probably under active sanctions. I'm not sure whether suspicion of sanction evasion is sufficient grounds to indef the account. However, sock or not, the editors behaviour is open to scrutiny and may be grounds for action in itself. Mjroots (talk) 11:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The account's most recent edit as of now says it all[51]. For me, "Knowledge of policy" coupled with a deep misunderstanding of policy = Possibly Frustrated Troll. And that is not a "personal attack", mind you. The forming consensus seems clear that this is a disruptive account and one that may need a "wake-up call". This[52] edit is also "interesting" and may give a clue to the account's identity. Doc talk 11:41, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Good catch, Doc. And thanks to LHvU↓ and Google Chrome OS for sponsoring the free in-flight wifi. Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:11, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You may well be onto it, as the one editor's last edit was shortly before the other editor's first. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:47, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    AIV wouldn't do anything, just like 2 weeks ago, but hopefully an admin here will take care of it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:52, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I was the admin who blocked LAz17 for 3 months and, if I recall correctly, declined to block Lunalet - since it was not obvious socking - when reported by Baseball Bugs. I think I suggested an SPI request, should there be sufficient grounds, because if positive it would mean the editor is evading a block which is an indef on the sock account and possible repercussions for the master. It seems to me that there is sufficient evidence now to present in an SPI report, and I suggest that option again - any evidence of disruption from a block evading sock will likely result in strong sanctions being applied. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I declined Bugs' most recent AIV report, in spite of a strong itch in my banhammer hand. Concur with Less that there is an SPI case in this. Favonian (talk) 16:34, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Sock or not, he's been attacking other editors from the get-go. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:13, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    That edit to Laz17 looks like their only slip-up. I don't see any reason why Lunalet would visit that talk page unless they were previously familiar with it, and the timing is extraordinarily coincidental (Laz17's last edit was a mere 4 hours before Lunalet's first). Anybody see any other behavioral links? I also think it likely that this isn't the only sock we're dealing with. I bet he's created another account due to the extensive heat on the Lunalet account, as the contributions, quick at first, have slowed to a trickle. Looks like Lunalet is now a SPA for Guild of Copyeditors. I bet there's another one out there now working in other areas. Just a hunch. N419BH 20:12, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    User:SMasters does not have any overlapping edits with LAz17, so it is unclear why he as been selected as a target. Sarek has removed the most recent post as a personal attack. Any further attacks by Lunalet and I would like to see a block for harrassment/disruptive editing. They are not here to improve the encyclopedia. --Diannaa (Talk) 20:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I have no idea why Lunalet has singled me out as a target. Lunalet is not a member of the Guild of Copy Editors, has never worked on any of our projects, is not on our mailing list, and has never participated in any of the Guild's drives. The attacks started a mere five days after the account was created. I also don't buy Lunalet's assertion that they can't remember their previous username. However, I don't recall any major conflicts with anyone else, so I guess I might just be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Nevertheless, Lunalet has wasted all of our time here. The account appears to have little contribution to the encyclopedia except to make personal attacks and to cause conflict. Someone has mentioned that his strategy may be to cause disruption or to even destroy the GOCE by pitting the leaders there against each other. I am concerned that the attacks will continue after our elections are over. – SMasters (talk) 23:05, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Update: Lunalet was informed of this ANI by Reaper Eternal on 03:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC) [53]. Lunalet chose to ignore this and SarekOfVulcan's revert on 05:03, 14 December 2010 [54], and continued the attack by posting on the GOCE voting page on 00:08, 15 December 2010 [55]. This was then reverted by The Utahraptor [56], who was probably not aware of this ANI. The Utahraptor then posted a warning against personal attacks on Lunalet's page [57]. So, the attacks have continued despite several editors telling him not to do it, as well as several reverts, in addition to knowledge of the existence of this ANI, which he has chosen to ignore. – SMasters (talk) 08:00, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have blocked Lunalet for 3 months, the same as LAz17 who I suspect is related, for their disregard of the concerns, requests and warnings from other editors. I still think an SPI is warranted, but perhaps it might wait for the next forgetful new account to start posting. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:51, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I have filed an SPI case at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/LAz17. N419BH 20:19, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Mass article merger

    Resolved
     – content dispute, no admin action needed at this point --Errant (chat!) 10:33, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I would like some admins to take a look at the ongoing discussion on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Automobiles here, where a mass merger was proposed, so far involving 36 articles (and the list keeps growing) to be merge in a batch fashion, without any discussion in each article page, which I believe it is a blatant violation of Wiki policy and procedures on how an article should be merged. But please, can some admins drop by and provide some guidance about the right way to do a merge. Thanks.--Mariordo (talk) 05:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    If any policies were violated, we will more than happily open up 36+ individual merger discussions on the "appropriate" talk pages. However, to me, this seems like a ludicrous notion, but if that's the way it must be done, then so be it. OSX (talk • contributions) 06:11, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Mariordo, the aim of the discussion was not to mindlessly merge 26 or so articles with their larger counterparts, but to discuss a resolution the issue of repeated information and the lack of 'rules' surrounding the topic of articles of specific trim levels of cars. --Pineapple Fez 06:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Mariordo, this is the wrong forum; this is a forum for requesting admin action on specific behaviour. Content disputes must be worked out amongst editors. --Errant (chat!) 10:33, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Errant: I believe that Mariordo is requesting admin action regarding a specific proposal to bypass Wikipedia merging policy. I request that you reopen this discussion pending admin review of this proposal. Ebikeguy (talk) 17:39, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is a simple resolution to this. Add merger tags to each article, but link them to the page where the mass merger discussion is taking place. Like this:

    {{mergeto|merger target|discuss=Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Automobiles#Mass article merger}}. That way discussion remains centralized but anyone watching any of the articles will be informed. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    This is what I would have suggested. WP:Merging is not policy, but I expanded the relevant paragraph, as these combined discussions at relevant WikiProjects have been used in the past. Flatscan (talk) 05:34, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Admin User:The ed17 and BLP

    Cliff Lee is fully protected. I saw that The ed17 (talk · contribs) had edited the article to insert an unsourced allegation concerning this living person. When I asked him if he would really edit a BLP without providing a source, his reply was "Are you serious? Read my edit summary, and feel free to go to Google News and read the 935 articles.". I replied that "Go read Google News" was not a reliable source for a BLP, and he replied back, "I'm sorry that I don't edit things in one swipe. Please don't ever berate someone over easily provable pure facts that aren't even controversial". Is this the proper BLP attitude for an admin? Corvus cornixtalk 08:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Full story: I changed the intro, then moved down to edit the "Return to Phillies" section of the article. I was in the process of adding the same information with references when I replied to Corvus the first time. The information in question is "Lee will sign a $100 million, five year contract with the Philadelphia Phillies, contingent on him passing a physical examination.[two refs]" and in the lead, "[...] who is currently a member of the Philadelphia Phillies." Not exactly the most controversial information I have ever seen in any article, much less a BLP. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 08:28, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    .. And that justifies your hostility towards them how? You could have easily told them you were in the process of citing a source, instead of asking if they were serious.— Dædαlus+ Contribs 09:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Very true, I should have mentioned that. The "are you serious" stemmed from the multiple news outlets which were all posting the story for an hour before Wikipedia was edited to reflect them. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:44, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    With the article blocked, there was no rush to post the info. I have to ask what I typically do about BLP's: If you don't have a source, how do you know it's true? And if you do have a source, why didn't you post it? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:39, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I also question the assertion that he's a member of the Phillies yet. It seems that he has agreed to terms, but his becoming a member of the Phillies seems to be contingent on passing a physical. The reports are saying that he has agreed, not that he has signed a contract yet. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:42, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict) I didn't post it in the lead per WP:LEAD. I did, however, cite it farther down, just not in the same edit. Please see Cliff Lee#Return to Philadelphia. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:44, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You did, in fact, re-post the comment to the lead for which full protection had been applied to prevent:[58] ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:29, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I have asked the "locking admin" to come here and comment. I don't think locking the page was necessary, and I also think you bent the rules a bit, though well short of being desysopped, more like maybe not being allowed to have dessert tonight. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:47, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, admins shouldn't edit fully protected articles unless there's a very good reason (such as a major breaking news story in which the article needs to be updated to retain credibility). This particularly applies when the duration of full protection is relatively short, as is the case here. That said, Ed's edits were clearly made in good faith and 1) followed an edit request on the article's talk page ([59]) and 2) were sourced to a reliable source following User:Corvus cornix's post on Ed's talk page ([60]). Given that Corvus cornix noted that the "edits you provided are valid" after a source was provided [61] this seems to be much ado about not very much. I'd suggest that the best action for Ed to have taken would have been to have lifted the protection given that what was being edit warred over had now been confirmed, thereby ending the scope for the edit war to continue - with a note to the admin who implemented the protection, of course. Given the amount of edit warring from registered accounts which was going on in the article, I also endorse the original decision to implement full protection - that's a pretty standard response (disclaimers: 1) I know nothing about baseball 2) I've worked with Ed on a number of articles and in my former role as a coordinator of the military history project and think that he's a first-rate editor and admin). Nick-D (talk) 10:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    What Nick-D said. Rd232 talk 11:04, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I see where the edits were reverted. Ed's mistake was in re-instating the assertion that Lee is now a Phillie, which is not necessarily the case. It's not really a BLP issue, though; it's simply a technical factual matter. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Ed, keep in mind that random editors patrolling BLP's (especially protected ones with ongoing edit wars) may not be baseball aficionados caught up in breaking news about the subject. Your edits to the article (from the description here) had only slight problems at worst, but it would have avoided some drama if you'd kept your responses to Corvus more matter-of-fact, e.g. instead of "are you serious" etc. (expecting Corvus to be following baseball news), you could say "this is an ongoing event getting tons of news coverage and not controversial; I'll add sources from [google news link] to the appropriate part of the article in a minute". For that matter, if you're going to edit a protected article on your own initiative (I guess ok in this case per NOTBURO) then you should probably always announce on the talk page what you're doing before you start, inviting people to speak up if they have any objections. That would have also given a place to link to a news search. I do think Corvus overreacted a bit by opening this thread instead of just checking the news, but that's par for the course around here. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 14:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    ↑ This. We're never in such a rush that we can't add a source, and not everyone who edits will be looking for up-to-the-minute news on the subject. Not a big deal in this case, but it's something for everyone to keep in mind in the future. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 16:07, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I fully protected it at the behest of an editor at WP:RFPP. A lot of editors kept changing the lead, when the fact remains that Lee is not yet officially a member of the Phillies. Semi-protection was tried, but the same stuff was still happening. As for editing through full protection, that should not be done unless it was a thoroughly uncontroversial edit. When I protected, I checked the page, and it did say that Lee had agreed to terms, citing a source. That's all that had to be said. Enigmamsg 16:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Perhaps wise to go to semi-protection now. I don't know that there's more to be said about what Ed did. Yes, it looks like he made a miscall, but that happens, and unless there's a pattern of such things, it is pointless to keep beating it into the ground.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:14, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Based on the discussion on the article talk page, unprotecting now would immediately resume the edit war. Best to keep it protected until Lee signs (or doesn't sign). ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:12, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Keep protected per Bugs and WP:NOTNEWS. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 19:54, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Yep. It can't go back to semi until the signing is official, really, unless you want non-stop edit-warring. As for my comment above, Baseball Bugs asked me to comment here, so there are my thoughts, even though it's basically rehashing what's been said. Enigmamsg 20:39, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for your input. The article currently has a bare-bones reference to the tentative deal, and that's sufficient for now. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:22, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Blocked for following WP:BRD?

    The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
    It is clear that multiple editors have objected to the mass-conversion, either by reverting, or by asking Bender235 to stop. Bender235 is reminded that, even though he may not have broken a specific rule, he did cause a degree of controversy, and is therfor advised stop making changes to {{reflist}} in articles. — Edokter • Talk • 22:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    While I'm roaming around Wikipedia, I frequently see articles with 20 or more refs, that could use a multi-column reference list. I know there is no clear cut recommendation on Wikipedia whether to use columns or how many, but that it's up to the article's editors to decide on the reference list style they like. Now I (as a person that has never contributed to the article before) could either start a discussion on the talk page to find out whether there's consensus, or I could rather be bold, wait until someone reverts, and then discuss the changes. The latter is the Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, and that's what I've been doing over the last couple of years.

    In recent months, however, tow admins (User:CBM, User:Rd232) are wikihounding me throughout Wikipedia for this, claiming that I'm not allowed to edit an article I was not "actively involved" in. Which is kind of surprising, because IMHO one of the Five Pillars says: "You do not own articles (nor templates and other features of Wikipedia). If you create or edit an article, know that others will edit it, and within reason you should not prevent them from doing so." In my opinion, this means everyone can edit every article, no matter how long he edits on Wikipedia or actively involved he was in the article. No one "earns" they right to prevent others from editing just by "actively contributing" to an article.

    Just yesterday, Rd232 has threatened to block me if I would continue to make "this type of edit again to an article you're not actively involved in". Is he correct? Is following WP:BRD a valid reason to get banned for? —bender235 (talk) 11:56, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    They've explained to you why not to do it. So don't do it. Beware the boomerang. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:05, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, they did. But in my opinion they are not correct. This is certainly not a "rule" that only applies to me, so if I'm not allowed to edit an article I previously wasn't "actively involved" in, then who is? —bender235 (talk) 12:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    From what is presented here, those edits seem fine, particularly the second one. If you were making these changes en masse that would be a different issue; but as it stands there seems no reason for anyone to stop you making such edits. Suggest chastising those two gently. (with the caveat that they are made on very long lists of references where the change is duly warranted) --Errant (chat!) 12:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, I've amounted nearly 100,000 edits over the last couple of years, and quite a number of them were reference list style changes. So what does "en masse" mean exactly? —bender235 (talk) 12:13, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    If you were going through articles and changing shed loads of them to this method with no obvious need. As I said; it does not appear that is the case so there is no reason for anyone to dispute this practice. Having checked on the last several (10 or 15) times you have done this, the changes are 100% fine and improve the article. I see no reason why you should not continue to make these changes where they seem warranted. --Errant (chat!) 12:14, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Bender235 does make the changes en masse [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] [67] [68] [69]. There are many more, and the pattern extends over a long period of time. If this was just a single article that he had been editing, I would never have noticed; the issue is that Bender235 goes from one article to another changing styles to suit his taste. Our guiding principle is to avoid that sort of editing. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:16, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    "Our guiding principle is to avoid that sort of editing."
    That is the main question. Am I allowed to make reference style changes? Is anyone allowed to? Because this isn't just about me, CBM also tries to prohibit User:Thecheesykid to make these kinds of edits. Which essentially means whether CBM, just because he's an admin, is allowed to impose his prefered reference list style on Wikipedia? —bender235 (talk) 12:25, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I am not going to block anyone or protect any pages, just use my powers of persuasion. As far as I know Rd232 responded to the last ANI thread as an uninvolved admin; he closed the ANI thread saying you should stop these edits, but you persisted, which led him to warn you (again) to stop before being blocked. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict)I'd hardly call that en masse in the context of the other edits. And all of the cases you provide (which I checked previously) seem improvements and 100% fine. Going to a column based layout makes the article nicer; where there is no dispute that is an entirely uncontroversial change, and attempting to stop such work is just disruptive and pointy. Sorry. --Errant (chat!) 12:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    As far as I know Bnder235 made no other edits to those pages, so I don't know what "other edits" means here. There are hundreds of these diffs - Bender235 makes it a habit. The point is that "fine" is not a justification for changing styles on articles like that. Like WP:ENGVAR, the principle is that editors should not go around setting things to their personal preferences. Other editors have pointed out the Bender235 that they don't prefer the style he is changing to, so he knows it does not have consensus. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:33, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, I'm well aware that there is no Wikipedia-wide consensus to use columns in reference lists. Just like there is no consensus not to use them. It has to be decided on every single article, by finding the consensus there. And how do I kickstart the consensus-finding process? Per WP:BRD. —bender235 (talk) 12:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict) Uh, all the other wiki-gnome edits he peforms of course! As I may have stated before I believe you have a "wiki-lawyering" perspective of that policy and have missed the spirit of it - which is to avoid silly disputes over which style article references should take. In this case, long reference lists are turned into widthed columns and it makes the page a little neater; such edits appear to have not been disputed or rejected and Bender is not going round every article he visits imposing this style. In this case; the spirit of the policy says "it's great". Someone came by and made a similar edit to one of the pages I was editor (in fact the sole writer) of, and I was quite happy with it having not known of the option before and liking the neater reference layout. This is all just nonsense --Errant (chat!) 12:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree the spirit is to avoid silly disputes over style. But the way we achieve that is by telling people not to go around changing the style based on their personal preference. Here is another quote:
    (Just to underscore that editors disagree about this) I, for one, prefer to see my references in one column, because it makes it easier to pick out the the author names running down the far left side. In fact, if it were possible, I would prefer that they didn't "wrap" at all. Multiple columns are just too dense. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) [70]
    The reason that we have rules on the stability of styles is to respect these differences of opinion. You may prefer multiple columns, but others don't. The way we handle such things is to tell everyone to leave the styles alone unless there is a wiki-wide consensus that some style should be adopted universally (e.g. WP:MOS). — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:45, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    And in this case a long list of references is reasonable cause to suggest a column layout. And the proper process to follow is WP:BRD. I see zero issue here except a lot of nonsense and hand waving for zero net gain. --Errant (chat!) 12:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    If there was consensus it was a reasonable cause, it would be in the MOS. The reason it is not is that people do not agree about it. That's why I quoted an editor who explicitly says he does not like that style: to underscore that there is not consensus about which style is better. It's just a matter of personal taste, and personal taste is not a reason to make stylistic changes to large numbers of articles. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:51, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    (edit conflict) I think what Rd232 means is those "cosmetic" changes should not be made en masse in that manner (e.g. they should only be made when a more substantive edit is being made at the same time). Also, BRD doesn't necessarily give you "one chance" on every article. IF somebody has asked you to stop, in some cases you shouldn't then claim BRD again simply because it's a new article. - Kingpin13 (talk) 12:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    So someone could deny me the right to make a certain type of edit on Wikipedia in general? —bender235 (talk) 12:20, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Umm... Yes. Anyway I'm just clarifying what it appears Rd232 means, as I don't think your accusations of article ownership are fair. - Kingpin13 (talk) 12:22, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not accusing him of claiming ownership. I accuse him of attributing ownership to whoever "actively contributed" to the article I was implementing a reference list style to. But there simply is no rule that says just because you've edit a particular article longer than others you've earned the right prevent first-time contributors from editing. Actually Wikipedia:Ownership of articles#Examples of ownership behavior says exactly the opposite. —bender235 (talk) 12:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The same argument you are making would apply to WP:ENGVAR: why should the person who edits an article first get to set which type of English it uses? But the fact is we don't let people change these things based on their personal preference, and we do default to the first established style in cases of disagreement. Here, it is clear there is disagreement with your edits. Just moving on to another page and making the same edits that were disputed before is no better than re-doing the disputed edit on the same page. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:36, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't see where WP:ENGVAR differs from WP:CITEHOW. It doesn't say "the first contributor has the right to cement the article style", but rather "in case of disputes (American or British English, columns or no columns) the rule-of-thumb solution is keeping the original style". WP:ENGVAR does not prohibit anyone from changing to another variety of English if there is consensus for it. Just like WP:CITEHOW does not prohibit me from adding a columns feature to the reference list unless there's consensus (among the article's contributors, not among Wikipedia users in general) not to do it. —bender235 (talk) 12:45, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The rule is not that you can go around changing ENGVAR or other styles, and then require people to object at each individual article. Because if someone else objects about one article they are likely to object about many or all of them. In this case your changes are obviously disputed, so you should stop making them. Making the same change to a different article doesn't start a new dispute; even less when you make the same change to dozens of articles. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Uhm, no, thats is not how it works, the article contents are under the purview of the current editors of that article, they may object or they may find the changes reasonable, that is the beauty of BRD. Censuring Bender235 for what seems to be good faith attempts at improving the article seems a bit over the top, I could understand if he was engaging in edit warring or employing less than constructive argumentation on the talk pages, is there any evidence of that? un☯mi 13:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    If you make an edit, and someone reverts it, and you make the same edit to a different page, and it is reverted there, and then you move on and make the same edit to another 12 pages, and then another 12, at some point it becomes edit warring even though you are never re-doing the edits on any particular page after they are reverted. This is what Bender235 has been doing: he knows that editors disagree with his edits, but he keeps moving on to more pages. I think some of the principles in the Date Delinking arbcom case are relevant here, such as the advice not to go around making the same change on numerous articles in an attempt to wear down the editors who disagree with the change. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    All he can know is that the editor reverting disagrees, I must admit, having read through the previous ANI thread, the thread on Template talk:Reflist that it seems to me that you are overstating the support you have regarding these edits. The issue seems to be that some column widths are too narrow, not that it must be 2 (as on lower resolution monitors, even 2 columns could lead to an undesirable degree of wrapping.) There should be no issue of 'wearing down editors' as I would imagine that each of these articles have a number of non-overlapping active editors. Let them decide. un☯mi 13:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Here are quotes of comments Bender235 received the last time his edits were discussed on ANI:

    • @Bender, Let me say also, that you should not be replacing <references /> with {{Reflist}} willy-nilly. Several editors have said so here. Bender's replies here seem to me to amount to just asserting that "Reflist is better". It has been explained here why you should not go around making this change. CBM is being entirely reasonable and polite. Bender, you should please participate in central discussion about whether such a change should be made wikipedia-wide, but just stop it now! --doncram (talk) 20:28, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
    • I would think it unlikely that we would change our policy to permit this sort of instability in article formatting--the rule to observe the original style is one of the most sensible rules in the entire MOS. Following it will eliminate this sort of conflict over trivia. If we ever do have an agreement on preferred reference style, this would beanother matter, but I doubt very much that the agreement would be for any of the existing formats. DGG ( talk ) 00:56, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
    • In general, even if you're doing something you see as reasonable, if a bunch of editors say you should chill out, that really ought to give you pause. —chaos5023 (talk) 19:26, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

    I think these make all the points I would make myself. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Questions

    Two previous AWB discussions are [71] and [72]. I don't know of any significant edit warring recently, but another editor (not Bender235) changed the reference styles of several hundred articles this week, so it's not just a case of one or two articles being changed.
    The difference between <references> and {{reflist}} is font size, and there is a proposal on the village pump to standardize these. But the difference between {{reflist|2}} and {{reflist|colwidth=30em}} is more significant, especially for editors with large screens. Recent discussion on Template talk:Reflist showed there is strong opposition to the appearance of the "colwidth" style. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:05, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    There was opposition to settling on a too low value for colwidth; as per your and Chaos5023's exchange:

    I made the original proposal one month ago because the usability project seemed to be claiming that we should switch from the fixed-count method to the width-based method quite generally. However, there is no way to tell whether there was actually broad consensus for that sort of change. It seemed at first like there was consensus, so the change was made. That led to more feedback, and more it is now clear that there is not consensus for any large-scale switch to width-based formatting. Given that fact, it stands to reason that articles that use a fixed-count format should not be changed en masse to the width-based method, because (despite what the usability project thinks) there is not consensus that a width-based format is an improvement. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:08, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

    Yeah, this is the sort of reasoning that raises my hackles with you. A clear consensus that {{Reflist}} should not misrepresent its behavior by taking a specification for a fixed number of columns and turning that into a width-based columnization is absolutely not the same thing as a consensus that width-based columns are not an improvement over fixed column counts. —chaos5023 (talk) 21:11, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
    I don't think it is as clearcut as you seem to think. un☯mi 13:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    (edit conflict)To answer Unomi's questions:

    • Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive652#User:CBM, a case of WP:WIKIHOUNDING?
    • No, I have never re-added my change after it has been reverted. To be honest, I rarely started a discussion either, I just left the article as it was, accepting that some editor does not like the proposed reference list style change.
    • The way I see it is this: someone starts an article with only a few refernces and no columns in the reference list. Now the article gets bigger and bigger, and more refs are added. Now the reference list could use columns. But who's allowed to add them? Everyone that comes along and recognizes the "problem", or just an "actively contributing" editor of the article in question?

    —bender235 (talk) 13:07, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

      • I think the problem, bender, is that you are looking at your edits in isolation; that is each article is looked at of itself, while others are complaining about the pattern of behavior. If you, once, did this, this conversation wouldn't be here. The reason people thinks this rises to the level of disruption is that people find the behavior problematic, and have asked you to stop before, and you have not. It isn't reasonable, if you do this 1,000 times, that 1,000 times people have to object individually to the problem for each article. People object to the practice in general. That you wish they wouldn't object is irrelevent. The object exists in good faith, and has existed as a general objection for YEARS. It's the repeated refusal to acknowledge others objections that is the problem, not your action on one article. --Jayron32 13:12, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    If I did this 1,000 times (could be), than it is still 1,000 different articles, with 1,000 different editor groups who may or may not like the change. In fact, there are articles I introduced columns, CBM reverted it saying I was not allowed to do the change, and then another editor came along and restored my edit because he like it. The thing is: as long as Wikipedia MOS do not say "use columns everywhere" or "do not use them at all", the decision whether to use them has to be made on each article alone. Which makes it absurd to prohibit me (or anyone else) from introducing these changes in the first place. —bender235 (talk) 13:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You keep claiming that there is not an established convention. There is and established convention. The established convention is don't change it. --Jayron32 14:24, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Please cite the Wikipedia policy that says "you're not allowed change the style of any article".
    Because in my opinion the rule in question (WP:CITEHOW) does not say "you're not allowed to make any citation style change", but rather "if you change the style, and some else reverts it, avoid an edit war by simply keeping the established style". —bender235 (talk) 14:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah, see you do not represent a consensus of one. As you say, "in your opinion". However, in the opinion of multitudes of Wikipedia editors who came before you, and in the opinion of everyone commenting here, your interpretation of said statements is incorrect. The statements mean "Don't change established conventions where they firmly exist". That you are claiming that horses have five legs doesn't mean that they do. The attitude of "I don't care if everyone else who comments says that I am wrong, I am going to continue doing it" is disruptive. You asked for opinions on the matter. Everyone keeps telling you that you are going about it incorrectly. Eventually, you are going to have to relent. --Jayron32 14:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You've got a strange perception of reality. Just look around this discussion, there is by no means a consensus that the "establised style" cannot be touch by any means. Read Errant's comments above, or User: Unomi's below. —bender235 (talk) 15:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    side note
    The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
    (ec)It would be nice if Rd232 and/or CBM would come here and comment on the matter. I'm not seeing where the OP notified them. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:19, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    He didn't. I have done so.--KorruskiTalk 12:20, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    To be fair, he did leave us a note in a thread on his talk page, which we would have seen the next time we checked it. Thanks for notifying us, Korruski, so we can get on with the main issue. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:28, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Why are we doing anything major decision wise without hearing from Rd? Without him we are only acting on our own interpretation of what he is thinking. S.G.(GH) ping! 12:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think the thing that we are all missing here is the background behind this sort of thing. The reason there are prohibitions against making trivial changes to articles, whether its adding the "U" to humor or making minor changes to all of the references or the stupid "date delinking" mess that went to ArbCom, is that it pisses people off. That we wish it did not piss people off isn't the point. It does, so we have established guidelines that say "don't do it". The problem with bender's changes isn't that they are major, its that they are minor and cause major conflict. Its that, in the past, these changes have invariably caused conflicts out of proportion with the substance of the changes. Look at this rediculous shit here today? We want people not to care. But they do. So since a) People care and b) The changes don't matter, default to the behavior that does not cause predictable conflict. Period. It's not about BRD here. These aren't bold changes, they are trivial changes, and insofar as people object in good faith, just don't do it. --Jayron32 13:01, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Discussions are good to have though, from my reading of the threads the brunt of the issue seems to center around a too small value for the colwidth EM. Now I am sure that such changes should be made with care towards legibility of references, but I don't think that we can, or should, argue for not trying to improve the reference sections, as they are, to my mind, the most important sections that we have ;) un☯mi 13:45, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: "Blocked for following WP:BRD?" is a funny thread title. I warned Bender235 not to continue his actions, because continuing to do them amounts to (unintentional) disruption. Jayron32 explains the reasons why people shouldn't do this sort of thing, and Bender235 has continued to both make and assert a right to make them after being told he shouldn't. I'm not sure there's anything else to add. Rd232 talk 13:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    This is, by the way, not only about reference list w/ or w/out columns. The same argument could be made about my implementations of Wikipedia:Citation templates (recent examples [73], [74], [75]). I did that on probably a couple of thousands of articles as well, as do other members of WP:WCC. By definition, however, this changes the "established style" of the references. So am I (and everyone else) allowed to that, or does WP:CITEHOW prohibit it? —bender235 (talk) 14:12, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    The relevant part of WP:CITEHOW is "Citations in Wikipedia articles should be internally consistent. You should follow the style already established in an article if it has one; where there is disagreement, the style used by the first editor to use one should be respected." Where there is clearly an established style of using cite references, it's correct to change individual references to match that style. Issues arise only where consensus isn't very clear (in which case, discuss), or where someone wants to impose a new style (generally, don't). Rd232 talk 14:20, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The long standing, and in my opinion correct, principle is that matters of style in the cases where there are several options is the decision of the main contributor to an article. This principle does not give ownership but rather has the purpose of avoiding style wars - because as we all know it is silly to argue in matters of taste. So yes - don't impose styles on articles that are already using another one based in a conscious decision by other editors.·Maunus·ƛ· 14:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Right, but that still leaves room for attempts at change. The main contributor(s) are perfectly able to revert on their own, the issue is if we are going to presuppose that the current main contributor(s) have even considered if such changes could improve the article, the straight forward way to find out is via BRD. un☯mi 14:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    That way madness lies. Have the contributors to this page considered how pretty it is to have the first word of every paragraph highlighted in pink? What about this page, and this one... etc? The reason style issues are somewhat bureaucratic on Wikipedia is because the alternative is anarchy; and unlike with content, we don't have verifiability from reliable sources to adjudicate things, it's basically convention and personal preference. The status quo balances these reasonably well; unleashing BRD in the way Bender235 wants and you seem to endorse is simply untenable. Rd232 talk 15:13, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict)Wow, this turned into a debate of extremes, didn't it? So in your opinion, if we allow everyone to edit every article (is this still Wikipedia here?), sooner or later someone will color all text pink because he considers it an improvement. Let's put aside that Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting)#Color already prohibits the use of coloured text in general (unlike the use of reference lists with columns), how would you solve this problem? By assigning the sole right to edit an article to the article's owners? By determining that the creator of an article gets the right to cement the article's style for all eternity? —bender235 (talk) 15:24, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    So, basically, anything that is done in good faith and isn't specifically disallowed is OK? Fine, we can do that: it's called an edit restriction. PS I suggest you look up argumentum ad absurdum. Rd232 talk 15:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict) Yes, anything that is not explicit prohibited by Wikipedia rules (like coloring text pink), everyone should have the right to implement per WP:BRD. That's not to be confused with the right to impose it on the article, because that's not what it is. It's a way to find a new consensus for the article's style. —bender235 (talk) 15:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    LOL for pointing me at argumentum ad absurdum, because that's exactly what you should read after comparing my edits with someone who would color all text pink, which fits the definition of apples and oranges. —bender235 (talk) 15:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Bender, re "This is certainly not a "rule" that only applies to me, so if I'm not allowed to edit an article I previously wasn't "actively involved" in, then who is?" -- I would say you received a personalized edit restriction based on a repeated series of drama-provoking edits that you did, but maybe that was not made sufficiently clear to you. Edit restrictions are standard WP remedies to problems like this these days, and they are precisely rules that apply only to you. It might help if Rd232 clarifies this, e.g. by imposing a formal restriction. Such a restriction (based on above discussion) seems reasonable to me so I'll pre-endorse it. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 15:14, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I had at one point in fact intended to propose a formal edit restriction if Bender235 didn't desist; but then felt the actions had risen to a level of being disruptive, for the way they continued despite the user talk discussion. I've been hoping that with this ANI discussion Bender235 would come around and that neither blocking nor edit restriction would be necessary, but it doesn't seem to be headed that way. It might also help to clarify policy (probably WP:CITEHOW), but that will inevitably take longer, so will only help here if Bender235 agrees to desist pending the outcome of any such discussion. Rd232 talk 15:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    So CBM or Rd232 ars authorized to deny me the right of WP:BRD? No they are not. —bender235 (talk) 15:24, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Well that's revealing, isn't it? BRD is an essay on minimising edit warring, not a right to make contentious changes willy nilly and see if they stick. And quoting myself from your talk page: "The root problem here is that if the logic of BRD is permitted to apply for a campaign of mass changes then it applies equally to reverting that entire campaign. Permitting that is simply too disruptive, particularly when it's a matter of personal preference and you know some people don't like the change being made. In that case, you might as well skip the editing and say "for argument's sake, I've made all those changes, and someone else has changed them back, now what?"" Rd232 talk 15:27, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Exactly. BRD doesn't apply to style changes since this is not something that can be rationally discussed - it is a simple matter of trying to force one arbitrary preference over another - this is clearly disruptive when done over a wide scope of articles - especially articles to which one has not added any content. The style guides statements that style choices should be deferred to the main contributor is exactly to avoid this kind of unproductive editing and let editors focus on content - I suggest that Bender235 leave this issue and go improve the encyclopedia by adding content and sources instead of campaigning random cosmetic changes.·Maunus·ƛ· 15:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    So essentially every member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Citation cleanup, who fixed broken citations, implemented citation templates, and re-designed the reference section, had no right to do this, because it violated the rule of first-user-cements-the-citation-style? Did I understand this correct? —bender235 (talk) 15:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Sounds like you're trying to be tendentious, but taking your question at face value: fixing broken citations is fine, implementing citation templates when it's not the established style is not, and "re-designing the reference section" is too ambiguous to answer. Rd232 talk 16:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Fixing a citation inevitably changes the citation style (like here), so your answer is inconsistent. "Re-designing" the ref section means adding columns or removing them, widening or shrinking them, depending on what suits the article best. So that is all considered illegal? —bender235 (talk) 16:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    "Fixing a citation inevitably changes the citation style" - only if the style of the citation is inconsistent with the article's established style. (We've been over this.) Rd232 talk 17:50, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    This is getting absurd, the 'rules' regarding main contributors having the say was never meant to exclude the introduction of change, it was to avoid a tug of war if edit warring arose. Again, the contributors to the articles in question are likely quite capable to make up their own mind. The only 'edit warring' that I have seen evidence of is where you, Rd232, follow Bender235 around and, seemingly, reflexively revert his changes. Please stop misrepresenting the intention and function of giving the main contributors the final say, and allow that neither you nor CBM constitute the main contributors. un☯mi 16:17, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Clarification: I reverted 2 of Bender235's edits which he made after I thought he'd got the message via the user talk discussion that these changes should not be made on pages he's not an active+substantive editor of. (I had even unwatched his user talk page.) I didn't revert before that, or any previous ones. Rd232 talk 17:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Please accept my sincere apologies for getting it wrong, I should have checked both edit histories :( sorry! un☯mi 17:39, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    In defense of Rd232, he only reverted my edits today. User:CBM is the original wikihound here ([76], [77], [78], [79] led to [80], [81], [82], [83], and literally hundreds more). —bender235 (talk) 16:25, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    It seems that you admit that you changed hundreds (thousands?) of articles, and claim it's justified by "BRD", but then complain when someone takes you up on the "R" part. That's the problem with trying to apply BRD to stylistic changes: everyone has an opinion, but we don't want everyone to go around implementing their opinion on hundreds of articles that they otherwise never edit. Any change that is going to affect hundreds or thousands of articles needs a stronger basis than personal preference and BRD. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:33, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You are free to remove the columns feature where ever you don't like it, including where I originally added it. But please don't do it reflexively per some Wikipedia rule you misunderstood, and accuse me of rule violation in the process. Also, accept that the actual "main contributors" of the article in most cases favour the columns set, and will on their part revert your edit as well. —bender235 (talk) 16:45, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Look it is never a problem when you are fixing something that needs to be fixed - i.e. something that is broken or inconsistent. It is a problem when a single editor tries to enforce a single arbitrarily preferred style throughout wikipedia without having any kind of consensus backing. You should have stopped implementing the change wholesale as soon as you found out that a considerable amount of editors disagreed with it.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:51, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You have no rights here (well, apart from the right to leave), only privileges. And if you are disruptive your right to edit can be withdrawn by any admin, yes. Black Kite (t) (c) 15:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    It should be noted that part of the backstory here is the fairly recent introduction of the colwidth= parameter to {{Reflist}}, which enables Bender's usage of colwidth=30em. The parameter and its use probably merits further discussion at Template talk:Reflist (maybe with an RFC). Rd232 talk 16:11, 14 December 2010 (UTC) [reply]

    Here is part of that story. The usability wikiproject made a recommendation that the "colwidth" parameter was better than the fixed column count parameter. Bender235 and others began going through and making large numbers of articles use "colwidth". Bender235 claimed there was consensus this was an improvement, and initially other people at Template talk:reflist agreed. So they made a change so that the default would be to have a flexible column count. That change led to numerous complaints from editors with wide screens that they preferred the fixed column count. This was somewhat ironic, because the people who are claimed to benefit from the flexible column count are people with wide screens. In any case, the default was restored to a fixed column count, and it is now clear that there is not any widespread consensus that a flexible column count is better. Neverthless Bender235 has continued to change articles to use the flexible column count (via the colwidth parameter). This is exactly the type of situation that the "keep the established style" rule is meant to cover: when there are different ways to format something, with advocates on either side and no general consensus. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    "So they made a change so that the default would be to have a flexible column count."
    LOL. What CBM deliberately forgets to mention is that he started a proposal to modify Reflist so that {{Reflist|2}} actually produces a flexible column set. That obviously upset a lot of people and had to be reverted, because "colwidth" should not be used everywhere. If there are only two or three refs, "colwidth=30em" would split them up to four or more columns on large screens, and no question that's ugly. If you enter {{Reflist|2}}, you do that for a reason. There is absolutely no need to disallow the use of fixed columns, or flexible columns, for that matter. —bender235 (talk) 16:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    "If you enter {{Reflist|2}}, you do that for a reason. " - that is exactly what you are not taking into account when you change the style away from {{Reflist|2}} based on your personal preference of what looks better. The presumption made by the MOS is that articles should not be "corrected" or "fixed" from one optional style to another. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:42, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Your problem is that you for some reason believe that WP:MOS should have a general rule how reference lists should look like (e.g. "columns everywhere", or "columns nowhere"). But that is wrong. Articles with 3-4 refs don't need columns in the ref list. Articles with 100-200 refs definitely do. There is no and will never be a one-size-fits-all resolution. —bender235 (talk) 16:54, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that there is no single style that fits all articles - that is why optional styles should not be changed without prior concensus on the talkpage. ·Maunus·ƛ· 16:59, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Don't you realize that this doesn't work in practice? I mean if I see maybe a dozen articles that could use "colwidth", am I supposed to start a dozen discussions on the article's talk pages? What if no one reacts? How long do I have to wait for reaction? Weeks? Months? Wasn't WP:BRD established to prevent this bureaucratic nonsense? —bender235 (talk) 17:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, you are supposed to discuss this on each and every article, since there is no global consensus. Don't like it? Try to reach a global consensus. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 20:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    If there was a consensus about the best formatting for articles with many references, a bot would go through and make it so, and AWB would make the change by default. But there is no such consensus, which is why nobody should go around changing hundreds of articles as if a resolution had already been worked out. If you think there is consensus for the edits you are making, start a discussion somewhere and get consensus for it. I'll be happy to run the bot that goes through and makes the changes. Until then, as long as you know the edits are disputed, continuing to make them is disruptive. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:01, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Good point. If there is an actual site-wide consensus for using multiple columns in certain situations, we might as well clarify that, and then implement it a bit more systematically (while still allowing local deviations from that consensus). One of the points Bender235 made which actually has merit is that many people don't actually know about how to do multiple columns. So get a consensus and a bot or AWB general fix, problem solved much better. Rd232 talk 17:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Move to Close

    • I suggest we close this discussion as it is clear that consensus and policy does not support wholesale changes from one optional style to another. I suggest that User:Bender235 be cautioned not to continue to implement stylechanges wholesale over a wide range of article unless by prior consensus at the articles talkpage. ·Maunus·ƛ· 16:59, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Second the motion to close. Bender has been presented with evidence of widespread (not universal, but still widespread) objection to his edits. Continuing to behave in the same manner in the face of these objections is disruptive, however there is nothing further to be gained by belaboring this point any further. Closeing is a good idea. --Jayron32 17:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • I agree that there isn't much that this board can do in this matter, I still hold that final say over the presentation of the articles should stay with the main contributors to the articles in question, this does not and should not, prevent other editors from proposing changes, either via BRD or by starting a discussion on the talk pages. It is somewhat ironic that the suggestion of getting community 'consensus', which is often decided by a comparatively small group of editors, would result in precisely the disenfranchisement of actual article main contributors, by way of seeking to mandate one form over another. Anyway... un☯mi 17:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm fine with Bender gettig a formal restriction backed by possible blocks, since this same stupid drama has arisen many times so these more drastic measures may be needed. They should certainly be used if it happens again. Either way, the closing admin might note [84],
      "Fait accompli: Editors who are collectively or individually making large numbers of similar edits, and are apprised that those edits are controversial or disputed, are expected to attempt to resolve the dispute through discussion. It is inappropriate to use repetition or volume in order to present opponents with a fait accompli or to exhaust their ability to contest the change. This applies to many editors making a few edits each, as well as a few editors making many edits."
      67.117.130.143 (talk) 17:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    and are apprised that those edits are controversial or disputed
    But if {{Reflist|colwidth=30em}} is controversial, why is that feature available?
    are expected to attempt to resolve the dispute through discussion
    How can this be solved thru discussion? Its not possible to do it in general. So on each specific article? That would pretty much deadlock any introduction of change on Wikipedia articles from now on. —bender235 (talk) 17:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I suggest that User:Bender235 be cautioned not to continue to implement stylechanges wholesale over a wide range of article unless by prior consensus at the articles talkpage.
    That is ridiculious. With that kind of bureaucratic nonsense Wikipedia can't be improved anymore. It simply wipes out WP:BOLD and WP:BRD, which say "act, wait till someone reacts, and discuss", not "start a discussion, and hope someone participates". —bender235 (talk) 17:05, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You are not listening: this is specifically about trying to enforce an optional stylechange across a wide range of articles. As long as the stylke change is optional introducing it is not automatically an improvement, and introducing it in the way that you are doing is only disruptive. You can improve all you like, but this is not improvement this is just change. And as for your suggestion that the process of consensus making on individual articles is absurd that suggests to me that you have amore fundamental problemw ith how wikipedia works. ·Maunus·ƛ· 17:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    widespread objection to his edits
    That is not true. —bender235 (talk) 17:07, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    BRD relies upon the third step, discussion, to avoid chaos. It's a means to achieving consensus, not for departing from consensus. The proper use of it depends on the acceptance by the community. It is pretty clear that you do not have it here. DGG ( talk ) 17:11, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    But if {{Reflist|colwidth=30em}} is not "accepted by the community", why is it available in the first place? Why not have the feature completely removed instead of keeping it, but prohibit people from implementing it? And how am I supposed to find out the consensus on a specific article w/out using WP:BRD?—bender235 (talk) 17:19, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT much? People are not prohibited from implementing it. Create a new article, and no-one will object if you use it. Implement it in an article you've made substantive content changes to, and it's a local consensus issue. Go around doing it wherever you feel like - that's disruptive, and therefore not permitted. PS You've heard of talk pages, right? Rd232 talk 17:28, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    By going around and implementing it I am trying to find out the local consensus. For god's sake, that's how WP:BRD advises anyone to act to avoid a deadlock discussion on the talk page for weeks and months.
    And again, on Wikipedia there is no such thing as user's with more right to determine the style off an article. Just because you contributed the majority of the content doesn't mean you earned the right to decide on the style of the reference section, and everybody else doesn't have that right. That is just nonsense. —bender235 (talk) 17:34, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Multiple admins have explained to you why this is policy. At this point, the most productive thing you can do is follow CBM suggestion above on pursuing discussion re a global consensus, which can the be implemented more systematically by bot and/or AWB, instead of haphazardly as it is now. Rd232 talk 17:41, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    No, for crying out loud, that should not be done. There is no need for a global consensus. Leave that decission to local consensus on the specific article. —bender235 (talk) 17:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    So, which is it? Are you going to seek consensus on each and every article you want to change first, or are you going to try and achieve a global consensus? You seem unwilling to do either, based on your statements here on ANI. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 20:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I always acted this way: first I made the change. If it wasn't reverted, I did nothing. If someone reverted it, I did nothing, too. That's it. No meaningless debate, no edit war, no nothing. I can't believe this is now all wrong. —bender235 (talk) 22:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Motion to close this is getting ridiculous, per Carl's explanation above, Bender actually had consensus to go ahead with the change (and this is a trivial change), as with any change, there were members of the community that didn't like it, it happens, but rather than get consensus, it appears that the consensus is being ignored. Yes, i looked at the page, and as of right now, consensus reflects differently. At the risk of being accused of being a policy wank, I'd say, either overturn the consensus which allowed the change to begin with and establish a consensus for what sort of formatting would be supported that way it's abundantly clear what's not acceptable for format. It that gets changed again (against consensus) then it removes any argument of "I didn't know" as it's there in black and white. Just my two cents.

    KoshVorlon' Naluboutes Aeria Gloris 17:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    "Bender actually had consensus to go ahead with the change"
    No, I never had. There never was a consensus to use {{Reflist|colwidth=30em}} in general. There never was a consensus to use {{Reflist|2}} in general. WP:MOS simply leaves it to local consensus on the specific article.
    What Carl (CBM) is refering to above was a proposal of his in which he suggested that inserting {{Reflist|2}} should generally produce a flexible column set. That upset a lot of people, and got rightfully reverted. I never supported the idea, because there should be all options available. Some article look better with {{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}, some with {{Reflist|2}}. Some might even look better with {{Reflist|colwidth=20em}}. Just leave that decision up to local consensus. And allow people to kickstart the consensus finding process by making an edit, wait for the reaction, and then discuss. That's all I want. —bender235 (talk) 17:45, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    When all is said and done, what you want is to use an essay (BRD) to impose your stylistic change unless someone complains about it - but only editors who've previously edited the article count. The net effect is that you seek to appoint yourself as some kind of Stylistic Super Editor. Um, no. To make global stylistic changes (for certain types of situation), get a global consensus: it's really not complicated. Rd232 talk 17:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    No, I'm using WP:BOLD. I just cite WP:BRD as an instruction how to use WP:BOLD to avoid improvement deadlock. And no, everyone counts in determine consensus.
    And lets's look at it from your perspective. You're trying to deny me the right to make certain edits based on a rule (WP:CITEHOW) you still misinterpret. Like User:Unomi already tried to explain to you: "the 'rules' regarding main contributors having the say was never meant to exclude the introduction of change, it was to avoid a tug of war if edit warring arose." —bender235 (talk) 18:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You should read the entire BOLD guideline especially this section Wikipedia:BOLD#...but_please_be_careful (also note that it is a guideline not a policy). Also what you are being denied is 1. not a right but a privilege. and 2. not certain edits, but a certain way of editing (wholesale previously undiscussed changes).·Maunus·ƛ· 18:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I read WP:BOLD, and it covers my edits. Now find me that policy that says "before you change something on an article, discuss it". Because WP:CITEHOW says the opposite: change it, and if it gets reverted, discuss and in the end its better to restore the status quo. —bender235 (talk) 18:25, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    BOLD covers individual edits, not mass changes to multiple articles. You've been told this multiple times. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 20:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    So am I allowed only to add a article per day, or what? —bender235 (talk) 21:22, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    what. See the proposed editing restriction, which is an articulation of established practice as discussed increasingly ad nauseam. Rd232 talk 21:33, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'd like to close this long, inconclusive thread with one personal comment. I think that dates of birth & death ought to be linked, but a lot of other editors don't. (And the WP:MOS be damned.) Now I could spend my time fighting this decision on linking, or I could be working on improving content: which do you think is the more productive decision? And which do you think will result with someone being valued more as an editor? Sometimes one must concede the battle to win the war -- which is to create a useful & reliable encyclopedia. -- llywrch (talk) 18:29, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • I fail to see how screwing around with this one formatting item, while doing nothing else with the article, is any kind of improvement. But if the editor continues to fall back on BRD, then here's a possible counter-measure: Find the thousands of items he's changed, and run a script reverting all of them. That will force him to discuss the changes individually on thousands of pages. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Llywrch, you're comparing apples and oranges. WP:MOS clearly says birth & death date should not be link. But WP:MOS does not say whether reference lists should use columns or not. So by implementing "colwidth" on some articles, I do not violate a WP:MOS guideline, because there is none. This is simply a case where discretion is better than rules. Whether an article uses flexible or fixed columns (and how many), should be left to local consensus. —bender235 (talk) 18:42, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Hence the need to revert all your changes - to lead to active local consensus. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:43, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Bender, you need to generalize from the example I offered you, & apply it to your own situation. I used my personal example to explain a point you appear determined not to understand. The only reason you haven't been told to stop adding {{reflist|colwidth=30em}} to articles -- or being blocked from editting -- is that the majority of Admins here don't think this matter is worth more than a warning. Yet. You are skating on thin ice here: Rd232 has raised a rather intricate point here -- I'm not sure I understand it entirely -- so instead of going thru the bother of sanctioning you, you have been warned. Count your blessings, because WP:AN/I often hands out rough justice. Now leave this thread & go do some more wikignoming, but do not add that {{reflist|colwidth=30em}} tag to any articles for a while, say a month or three, or you will suffer the consequences. The horse is dead; it is time to put down the stick. -- llywrch (talk) 22:01, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Now leave this thread & go do some more wikignoming
    I am now longer allowed to do any gnomic edits. Haven't you read this discussion? According to CBM, WP:BRD is meaningless. Instead, I'm supposed to always ask for permission before doing things like [85], [86], [87], [88], [89], [90], [91], and [92]. And I certainly won't do that, because it's ridiculous. How long am I supposed to wait for reaction on articles' talk pages, before making citation cleanup? A week? A month? Or even longer? I simply won't do it. —bender235 (talk) 22:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    This silliness is getting tedious. The rules on fixing citations and change cite formats are quite clear, and have been explained to you explicitly here several times. As for the stylistic change you want: you can propose it on the talk page and walk away and let someone else implement it, or come back a week later. Rd232 talk 22:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The rules on fixing citations and change cite formats are quite clear
    Yes, clear to most people. Like User:Unomi, who already explained to you that this "'rule' regarding main contributors having the say was never meant to exclude the introduction of change, it was to avoid a tug of war if edit warring arose." So what WP:CITEHOW actually allows me, you are now trying to take away with an edit restriction. This is just disgusting. —bender235 (talk) 22:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Well I give up on trying to persuade Bender235. Suggest cutting to editing restriction to avoid wasting any further time on this:

    User:Bender235 may not change reference styles in articles he has not either created or made substantial content changes to.

    Rd232 talk 18:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    • No Or, just stick with the BRD guideline, and boldy revert maybe 1,000 of his bold changes. If he reverts again rather than discussing, then you've got him for edit-warring. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • When I did revert his changes as you sugggest, he started accusing me of wikihounding. There are always more articles for him to edit, so even if we revert 1000, it appears he is set on doing another 1000. Given the amount of time that has been spent discussing the issue, the restriction seems necessary, unfortunately. The goal is to prevent having the same discussion going on at 1000 articles, rather than to encourage it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:02, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    One final question: since when does a user earn additional "sovereign rights" by making "substantial" edits to an article? I thought Wikipedia:Ownership of articles, one of our five pillars, clearly says: no matter how skilled you are, no matter how long or how much you've contributed, you still have no more rights to edit an article as any other user. No one owns an article, or is in charge of being the style police, just because he contributed more to the article other users. Has this Wikipedia policy been defunct over night? —bender235 (talk) 22:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    One final answer: Wikipedia:MOS#Stability_of_articles. Rd232 talk 22:16, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    And even that guideline says: "Where there is disagreement over which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor." It is a rule for when disagreements arose, not a rule that prohibits any change to article per se. —bender235 (talk) 22:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The preceding sentence is "The Arbitration Committee has ruled that editors should not change an article from one guideline-defined style to another without a substantial reason unrelated to mere choice of style". Rd232 talk 01:04, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    User:Desno and 31st Golden Raspberry Awards

    What is up with this? 31st Golden Raspberry Awards appears to be a hoax page, creation of page about something that has not yet happened yet in 2011. Disruption? -- Cirt (talk) 13:56, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Update: Please see also, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Onelifefreak2007. -- Cirt (talk) 14:02, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Not a hoax, surely, just a case of WP:CRYSTAL? Any reason not to just go through the AfD process?--KorruskiTalk 14:13, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    See the prior version of the page. -- Cirt (talk) 14:39, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Meh. Bit odd, but doesn't seem desperately disruptive. I'd just let AfD take its course.--KorruskiTalk 15:58, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Hoax articles are clearly disruptive, and in this case, verging on a BLP violation. Corvus cornixtalk 18:56, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not the article that's a hoax, it's the content. There's no harm in creating a skeleton article ahead of time. But in this case, that would result in stripping it down to about 3 lines of text, which seems fairly useless. The article seems acceptable and accurate now. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The 31st Golden Raspberry Award nominations hav enot been made yet. How is this article not a hoax? Corvus cornixtalk 02:00, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The tentative dates for nominations and presentations have been announced on their website. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:42, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Block review—image remover

    I have blocked this user for 24 hours for persistently removing the images from the article on Ali against consensus and in spite of warnings. The editor has previously been in conflict over a similar issue on the Muhammad article, as may be seen from their edit history and warnings on their talk page. This is of course a hotly contested issue, hence this request for review of the block. Favonian (talk) 16:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Obvious edit warring is obvious. No objections here to block. --Jayron32 16:55, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The editing pattern to date is patently disruptive; looks like a good call. Doc Tropics 17:51, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Per Doc Tropics, the blocking seems like it was the right thing to do. - Dwayne was here! ♫ 18:52, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Another matter where where personal principles collide with those of the Wikipedia ethos - appropriate sanction under the circumstances. Any future sanction should, I feel, continue to make clear that the individual editor has the option to regulate their viewing of such material but not of others; and that sanctions will increase upon resumption of these disruptive edits. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:44, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed, good block, we can't let religious doctrines dictate what is and is not posted here. Suggest severely escalating block length if this behavior recurs. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Agree. Good block, and keep them escalating per Beeblebrox. Saebvn (talk) 03:04, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Varlaam's recent edits

    At Hedd Wyn (film), Varlaam has made various disruptive edits concerning the description of the film (Welsh, British, or both). A discussion has been taking place on the talk page about it today, though Varlaam has not joined in. Varlaam was warned earlier by two users about this behaviour, with Rockpocket warning that further such edits would lead to a block measured in weeks.

    Despite this, in this edit, Varlaam for some unknown reason decided to describe the film (a Welsh-language film about a Welsh-language poet) using "{{flag|England}}", which frankly I regard as good an example of trolling as Varlaam's use of "{{flag|Mozambique}}" on this article earlier today. I would have blocked for this latest edit, but had earlier expressed a view on the issue on the article's talk page. Looking at Varlaam's recent edits, though, I found this disruptive edit changing "mum" to "dad" on the article of Cheryl Campbell. I am tempted to block for the latter, too, particularly given the user's history here (see block log) but thought I would bring this for further opinion rather than risk a contentious block. Thoughts, please? BencherliteTalk 21:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I have blocked this editor for two weeks, since the previous, shorter blocks don't seem to have made much of an impression. As I shall not be around for the next 12 hours, please feel free to adjust this as the community sees fit. Rockpocket 00:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Good block. Varlaam needs to cool off a tad. GoodDay (talk) 03:29, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Denigration of Australian National Awards

    In the discussion Angela Slatter (AfD discussion) the Ditmars and Aurealis Awards, Australia's national SF awards that have a long and proud history, have had their value and worth repeatedly questioned by User:Ttonyb1 and User:EEng

    I would therefore request an administrative ruling that recognises these awards are important, notable and that being nominated for or winning one would be suitable to contribute to WP:CREATIVE. I am not suggesting that these be suitable as sole criteria, but that they be able to be included without prejudice.

    If these awards are not given suitable recognition, this may create an impression of bias against Australian literature. Punkrocker1991 (talk) 01:58, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Comment I am not sure how I have Repeatedly questioned the awards. My comment in the AfD to Punkrocker1991 was, " I am unfamiliar with the Australian awards listed. If you are saying they are adequate then, I can only assume they are. Assuming as such, the article will most likely survive the AfD." Punkrocker1991, I suggest you get your facts straight. As far as the alleged bias I find that to be absurd. ttonyb (talk) 21:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Lol, the Ditmars ARE a non-notable award. Half my friends are winners. The Aurealis awards, yes, are almost certainly notable. But more to the point, this isn't a matter that requires administrator intervention. It can be resolved through normal discussion, and more importantly WP:CREATIVE is in any event subordinate to WP:N, and if in doubt you can decide the matter by whether the subject passes the general notability guidelines. - DustFormsWords (talk) 02:05, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • How are the Ditmars, an award that has been presented annually since 1969, a non-notable award? Are the Hugo Awards similarly non-notable, afterall, their processes are quite similar? Punkrocker1991 (talk) 02:17, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • The Hugos (and Aurealis awards) are typically covered by both the mainstream press, and the major SF news sources. The Ditmars generally only receive attention within Australian fandom. - DustFormsWords (talk) 02:53, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • Sorry, I beg your pardon, while I hold to the above, and the Aurealis awards certainly do have better mainstream coverage (which is what comes of being backed by a publisher) after doing some searches I think there's sufficient evidence that the Ditmars are notable, at least to the extent that I've seen less notable awards kept at AfD. But, again, fixable through normal discussion. - DustFormsWords (talk) 03:01, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Oh, actually I think I know you personally, Punkrocker1991. (Does your last name rhyme with "bar"?) If I'm correct you've been a Ditmar nominee and maybe winner yourself, and probably not well-placed to independently comment on their notability. - DustFormsWords (talk) 02:07, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • I am probably who you're thinking of, but can't work out who you are. I have been nominated for and won Ditmars, Aurealis and other Awards. But then so have the likes of Greg Egan, Margo Lanagan, Jonathan Strahan, Sean Williams, Garth Nix and a host of other people. I have also been a reader, critic, reviewer and contributor to the Australian SF community for 20 years. Am I wrong to think that this means I might have some knowledge in the field? Punkrocker1991 (talk) 02:17, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • You seem to think that admins are some sort of judges. I think you're looking for dispute resolution, not this page. Corvus cornixtalk 02:10, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oh, for crying out loud, as stated over and over, [93] [94] I never questioned the value of these awards, but merely pointed out that the subject of the article under discussion did not win them. What a lot of fuss over imagined slights! EEng (talk) 13:36, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • After reading the discussion at AfD, anyone will see that this thread here is spill-over from an acrimonious debate. (Part of the reason for the dispute is due to problems in Wikipedia's definition of notability for writers, but I don't see a way to improve on the definition without introducing subjective opinion -- & thus original research.) I pity the Admin who closes the discussion, because it's clear one side or the other will continue fighting to keep or delete the article. Other than that, as Corvus cornix writes above, there's nothing here that an Admin can do for all involved. -- llywrch (talk) 18:51, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Not acrimonious as far as I'm concerned. It's beginning to look like the subject might be notable after all. Too bad Punkrocker didn't spend less time complaining about imaginged disrespect, and more time reading policies and guidelines (on notability likely, and on opening an ANI thread for sure!) and marshalled the evidence systematically and clearly in the first place. EEng (talk) 19:52, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Sanity Check at AE

    Please look over that enforcement request and my suggested solution. A couple of outside opinions from other administrators, whether agreeing or disagreeing, would be helpful. Most of the people are fairly constructive, but there are signs of behavior that lead to the previous ArbCom case. I'm just looking to impose a bit of calm and push them towards WP:DR to sort it out, while leaving little room for any further disruption. Vassyana (talk) 03:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    It looks pretty complex to review well... Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 10:22, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    As I commented at AE overly harsh and punishing the victim of baiting behaviour rather than the perpetrators. Given the behaviour complained about is not ongoing this is punitive rather than prevantative. Wee Curry Monster talk 10:24, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    sockmaster using openproxy

    A few days back a prolific sock master Shinas/Anwar Sadaat was banned Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Shinas/Archive after a check user. Now he has popped up again using an open proxy in Germany. He was earlier using an IP range 117.193.32.0/19 to edit articles and is currently using the 84.19.160.0/20 open proxy range to edit the same articles. Comparing edits from known IPs ([95] with [96] and [97] with [98] [99] with [100] indicate this is Shinas/Anwar Sadaat. A google search reveals 84.19.160.0/20 (Keyweb AG IP Network) is a open proxy used for spamming. I am reverting his additons.

    My question is what do we do with open proxies like this? do we block them? (if yes i request a range block on this)--Sodabottle (talk) 07:08, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Also FYI: he has opened a new account in Commons; compare [101] with [102]). I have posted in the admins notice board there.--Sodabottle (talk) 09:43, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    If they're properly open proxies, yes we'll rangeblock them, usually after it's been confirmed and the range properly determined. This range appears to belong to CyberGhost, so if someone wants to download the free version and confirm what ranges it uses these days, list them here or at WP:OP, as well as list some of the IPs being abused, that would help speed things up. -- zzuuzz (talk) 09:46, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I downloaded Cyberghost as suggested. It is using the server 84.19.165.217 to connect as anonymous. Which is the same as the IP used today by the sockmaster. On December 8 he used 84.19.169.163. How do we identify the range from this?--Sodabottle (talk) 10:38, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    According to the rangeblock calculator: "Range 84.19.160.0/20 (up to 4096 users would be blocked)" --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:51, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks!!. So dear admins, can someone please block this range (or should i go through WP:OP?)--Sodabottle (talk) 12:57, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I've proxyblocked 84.19.169.160/28 pending more information. -- zzuuzz (talk) 13:10, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    That doesn't block today's IP - 84.19.165.217. shouldnt it be a /20 block instead of /28?--Sodabottle (talk) 13:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    There's a variety of network providers in that range. Personally I'd rather target the blocks on abusive known proxies, and so I've now blocked the 84.19.165.208/28 and 84.19.169.224/28 CyberGhost ranges. Feel free to mention any other examples and/or (admins) adjust the blocks. -- zzuuzz (talk) 18:42, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The organization delegated those ranges also seems to own 217.114.211.240/28, according to RIPE. Anomie⚔ 21:49, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    RevDel Request

    I would like to request a RevDel under the second paragraph of WP:CFRD for my user page at User:The C of E. I am requesting this because last night unknown to me an IP, 89.242.208.253 vandalised my user page and left some rather rude, insulting and offensive comments about me in it here. Thankfully Duncan reverted it but I'd like it if the slander from the IP could be RevDel'ed please as I'd rather not have it left there to be read as I don't think that people should have to read rude vandalism if they had a look through my history. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 08:53, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Which of the RevDel criteria do you think it meets? It just seems like normal vandalism of the sort which we usually revert and leave behind to me... ╟─TreasuryTag►pikuach nefesh─╢ 08:57, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The Grossly insulting, degrading, or offensive material one. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 09:02, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    'But not "ordinary" incivility, personal attacks or conduct accusations' – ╟─TreasuryTag►international waters─╢ 09:12, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The content of the edit seemed to go beyond an "ordinary" attack in my opinion so I deleted it prior to refreshing this page and seeing your comment, hope that is okay. Camw (talk) 09:24, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 09:30, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree, that went pretty far beyond ordinary incivility. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Well you'd know – ╟─TreasuryTag►Counsellor of State─╢ 17:59, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    User abusing other editors

    Among other disruptive actions, Humaliwalay (talk · contribs) is constantly abusing me and my edits [103], [104], [105], refusing to maintain civility by filling my talk page with many bogus warnings [106], using unreliable openly Shia-centric websites as refs which only provokes sectarian edit-wars.[107] [108]. Talk about a fearless no-respect-showing disruptive user [109], who even edit-wars with admins [110], [111].--AllahLovesYou (talk) 09:11, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I just asked you to have break, that was intended to calm down your aggressive and editing. "Need some break" is not abusive statement rather accusing someone wrongly of abusing other editors is an attack of accusation. You even claimed in the headline that abusing other editors, can you bring any abusive word which I used in front of us? I am in discussion with admin Dab here[112] where is the edit warring? - Humaliwalay (talk) 14:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I asked this on the article talk page, but someone needs to explain to uninvolved parties why the website is so bad as to not be a usable source.
    I see that it seems to be a mildly advocative "Shia and Sunni aren't so different" site, on first impression, but I suspect there are levels I am not understanding on reviewing it briefly.
    There appear to be very vehement feelings about it - those need to be explained.
    Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 09:38, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    IMO comments of ALY were more abusive as they tend to encompass whole community and definitely those comments point that per se user's comments, Indo-Aryans are some what inferior to Semitic-Arabs in addition those comments tend to defile dignity of Shi'a community by accusing them of forging lineage links.
    But, imo, everybody should stick to the point and refrain from attacking believes, communities, nationalities, individuals, etc.
    Finally, al-islam.org can be relied upon as it contains reliable articles such as [113], [114], [115], [116], [117], [118], [119], [120], [121], etc which are work of reputed Shi'a, Sunni & Western scholars. May be we should be cautious while referring to it as this website is an online library and all content at this website may not be NPOV or academic (as in the case of physical libraries) but that does not discredits importance of the website as source.
    --Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haidertcs 19:01, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Removal of AfD tag

    Resolved
     – Editor understands now that removing AfD tags is against policy. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:53, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Page: Sabby Dhalu (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
    User being reported: Johnsy88 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

    Johnsy88 continues to remove an AfD tag for an article nominated for deletion.[122][123] He also continues to remove a "failed verification"[124][125][126] or "dubious"[127] tag for content that is under discussion on the talk page. TFD (talk) 15:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    This issue has been discussed with an admin (NawlinWiki) who has originally flagged the issue, consulted with myself via his discussion page and resolved the issue and this issue has now been brought up again by the above editor TFD, The reason for my removal of the deletion tag is due to the previous discussion with the admin. I would also like to mention that the above editor has been involved in the editing of the article Unite Against Fascism and has also had previous issue against my user name attempting to persuade me to change my user name under the presumption and prejudiced assumption that the number 88 was due to a link to Nazism. the user TFD has also made factless assumptions about my editing and request for help by apply canvassing label to my user page discussions in the past and i feel that this user is targeting me for an unknown reason[1] Johnsy88 (talk) 15:28, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi Johnsy88. Articles for deletion is a week long discussion/debate over the merits of a particular article. Any Wikipedia editor may start one up and any Wikipedia editor may contribute to the discussion. After the week is over an uninvolved administrator will judge a rough consensus to either keep the page or delete it. Just because one admin told you the article looked ok doesn't mean other wikipedia editors feel it is ok. At these debates admins and regular users have the same say, so if 2 admins think an article should be kept and 6 regular editors feel it should be deleted, the debate could easily be closed as "delete". Because it is important to let readers and editors of the article know that a deletion discussion is occuring, the deletion tag must remain on the article for the full week. If you want the article to be kept I would advise you to look over the reasons why deletion was proposed and attempt to fix the article so that it meets the objections. ThemFromSpace 15:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The particular issue of the removal of AFD tags doesn't really need to come here; I have warned the user that he will be blocked if he continues, as he clearly knows this is against the rules. In general, though, I would say that this editor seems particularly inflexible when confronted with Wikipedia policies, instead choosing (as in the above comment) to believe that there is some sort of organized campaign against him. Johnsy, I can assure you that there is no such campaign, and I think nearly every editor who has tried to work with you has operated civilly and politely when trying to explain the rules to you. (ESkog)(Talk) 15:36, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I have restore the AfD tag, with an edit summary which explicitly states it should remain until the discussion is closed. Johnsy88, please note that NawlinWiki knows quite well that the tag should remain as long as the discussion is open, and what the rules are for closing it. I find it hard to believe that he would advse you to remove an AfD tag - you may be confusing it with the PROD tag which he added earlier. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 15:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    i resent the accusation of inflexibility considering that in nearly all cases i will attempt to resolve any issue with consultation with the opposite editor. What i feel is plain to see is that the editor TFD has on more than one occasion appeared to attempt to use other tactics (accusations of nazi code words in name, non suitability of article) when discussions have failed to produce an outcome that would benefit him (discussions on the UAF article).
    If i am breaking policy by removing the Deletion label (which i now fully understand i am) then that is my fault and i humbly apologise for my mistaken removal.
    What i would say is considering the weight of sources that prove the article should exist due to the notability of the person "sabby Dhalu" i would say that their is a probability of an agenda when it comes to the flagging of the article for deletion. Johnsy88 (talk) 15:48, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Johnsy, you need to comment on the articles, not the editors. Accusing editors of having an agenda for nominating an article for deletion when insufficient sourcing about the subject has been provided is not generally a good idea around here. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:53, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    We call it the "assume good faith" policy; and it's one of the necessary social lubricants which makes this project viable. Don't ignore it. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:56, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I understand and although i stand by my opinion of above mentioned editor i am willing accept deletion of the article above (please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Sabby_Dhalu#Sabby_Dhalu) due to the fact that i am in the wrong with regards to the requirements for acceptance of an article on policy grounds. Johnsy88 (talk) 16:00, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Improper removal of speedy deletion tag

    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.
    Resolved
     – CFD now has a reason to live. --Jayron32 23:07, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Last week I tagged Category:International military aircraft 2010-2019 for speedy deletion per the C1 speedy deletion criteria. Shortly after, User:The Bushranger (the original creator) removed my tag and placed the {{empty category}} template in its place, stating "no reason to delete it when it will only need to be re-created later". I objected to this on his talk page, detailing how he shouldn't have removed the tag himself (as the original category creator) and how the category didn't meet any of the exceptions to the C1 deletion criteria. I then re-tagged the category explaining that Bushranger should use the "holdon" template if he had any objection to the deletion, for the reviewing admin to consider. Immediately afterward, however, User:Ahunt removed my speedy deletion tag, stating that "this is a useful category. If you still think it should be deleted than take it to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion". I once again objected to this, because Ahunt is not an administrator, and because the category still did not meet any exceptions to the C1 speedy deletion criteria. I don't dispute that non-administrators can remove speedy deletion tags, but it is my understanding that they should only do so in unambiguous situations where the tag was obviously improper or no longer applies. This was not the case here. Looking for administrator input as to what I should do next. I don't think CfD is appropriate, as I don't actually object to the merits of the category, only the fact that it is empty, which is a procedural issue that clearly meets the C1 criteria. It's been empty for well over a week, by the way, so it can be deleted any time. 69.59.200.77 (talk) 20:32, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    No, speedy tags can be removed by anyone. The reason for the speedy delete process is for a means to remove uncontested articles - as soon as it is contested for any reason the article needs to go to AfD. Them's the rules. So, open an AfD discussion. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:42, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    No, CSD tags cannot be removed by the article creator. Doing so is disruptive, and doing so repeatedly usually earns a block.—Kww(talk) 20:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Er... whoops. Couldn't have been paying much attention - since I was wittering on about articles anyway. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:47, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    At this point, the CSD tag has been removed by someone other than the creator, so it would have to go through CFD.—Kww(talk) 20:45, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Just to pile on, CSD-tags can be removed by anyone, except for the original creator. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 20:51, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Seems pointless and perhaps even a little GAME-y to require a cfd discussion on something that so plainly meets the criteria, when the very criteria itself was introduced to prevent people from keeping empty categories around because they like them. If that's consensus here, though, I'll respect it and bring it to CfD, where my sole argument is that it's empty and doesn't meet any exceptions, and the sole arguments to keep will go completely contrary to the criteria, and will still be eligible for speedy deletion even if the CfD ended in keep. 69.59.200.77 (talk) 21:00, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I think we can close this one. Maybe leave a note on Bushranger's talk about removing speedy tags from articles you've created yourself. N419BH 20:54, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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

    92.14.73.142 and 92.14.116.65‎;

    I think this is a clear case of being the same person, despite the latter IP being blocked for a month. Do i need to go through SSP? Simply south (talk) 22:41, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Blocked for vandalism 24h; seems to be dynamic IP so not matching the earlier 1mo block. Pretty obviously the same guy. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 23:22, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Wait, changed it to 1 month based on further research. I don't know if it'll change faster than 24h. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 23:24, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Ben_Henderson_(fighter) Needs temp protection

    The page on requesting protection recommends speaking to an admin before doing anything, and that's what I am attempting now. The issue is minor, but is vandalism none the less. The fighters record has been modified to show him loosing to a fighter in an event that has not been held yet (the event is tomorrow night.) I recommend and request the page be protected until 11PM EST US (after the event is scheduled to end.)

    Ben_Henderson_(fighter)

    --24.158.235.252 (talk) 23:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    • Last post by me <.<

    --Sdamon (talk) 23:29, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Something Unusual

    I've got this my discussion reverted[128] and an unusual legal threat[129] from 69.31.68.51 who has a dynamic IP address. I think this is rather unusual for removing a sentence in Public opinion on climate change and posting the accompanying reason on the talk page. Maybe you can have a look and offer your opinion, because I'm a little taken aback. --CaC 155.99.230.249 (talk) 23:52, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    1. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Johnsy88#User_Name
    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=402606206"
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