Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive109

Anon User on RFC

Am I allowed to remove anon comments form my RFC?

This user is the same one who keep insisting I am Rex/Merecat. He always traces back to Kornet (Korea Net) and has been following me around and refuses to register an account.

• Whois Lookup for user:59.17.2220.220 [1].
• Whois Lookup for User:221.146.211.193 [2].
• Whois lookup for User:211.242.159.207 [3].
• Who is Lookup forUser:221.159.131.100 [4].

These are obvious all sockpuppets of someone involved with RFCU. If you look at their edits they are based against me and all from Korea Net. As you can see by their contrib lists all of thier edits are primarily focused on me

• 221.159.131.100 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 211.242.159.207 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 221.146.211.193 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 59.17.220.220 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))

These accounts are obvious sockpuppets and I would like to know if I can remove them from my RFC, or if am admin can. I would like to also add that the user certifying my RFC had shown no proof of dispute resolution, nor of their participation in the dispute being discussed, both against the rules of certifying an RFC. One of them has also began calling me sockpuppet, the RFC is turning into a witch hunt.

The certifying user has even resorted to going around and telling people I am a sockpuppet of Rex and attempting to get them to comment on my RFC [5]

--zero faults ^{|sockpuppets|} 13:24, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

• I've been havbing a similar problem--Tex^talk 15:58, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

While I have also noticed a pattern of Koren IP's making complaints about Zer0faults, I doubt if TexYokal (talk · contribs), established today, is a similar victim. Thatcher131 18:12, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I do too, considering they just joined recently ... --zero faults ^{|sockpuppets|} 18:43, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

It should noted that merecat was originally from Texas, the user I am accused of being, this may be someone attempting to mock him by calling him "retarded" etc. Perhaps a bad joke, but I guess only the user in question can say that. --zero faults ^{|sockpuppets|} 18:44, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I have asked the person who handled the RFCU to make a clarification if possible. The RfC filed against me, which I still doubt to its legitimacy, is being flooded with Korean anon IP comments and the same user, one I have had no experience with before, accusing me of being a sockpuppet. Its already been proven I was not. --zero faults ^{|sockpuppets|} 18:16, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

• 218.149.163.158 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) is another Korean IP with the same agenda. Thatcher131 21:04, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I hate to point out the obvious, but Rex, long before he was nearly this infamous, initially decided to wikistalk himself with a whole host of forced proxies, in fact he pretty much went around targeting only accounts that he had created, since this was back in the infancy of checkuser, I don't think he realized until it was too late that the accounts he created could actually be traced back to their IPs, at time. Once discovered he promised to play nice, and it never really came up for a while. For the record he's been known to play both sides to a political debate, and operated a number of strawmen for a while, even kept debating himself for a while, never did find out what that was all about.. either way, don't make the mistake of assuming this is political, it's just that political articles are easier to troll I'd assume--205.188.116.65 11:19, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Indefinite IP blocking

(moved from Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) by User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:54, 11 June 2006 (UTC))

I requested an {{unblock}} of IP 169.244.143.115 based on the fact that despite the large amounts of vandalism, it is still a shared IP for public terminals, and blocking an IP that's shared (which is different from an open proxy) is supposed to be limited to one month. I had a conversation with Shell Kinney when my unblock request was denied, but without resolution. I still think it should be unblocked, or at least have its block shortened to the standard one-month-or-less length. Did I interpret policy right? And does any administrator want to unblock it? Phoenix-forgotten 04:51, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

It is indef blocked because it is an open proxy. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 10:38, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

No, it actually isn't. Natal wasn't serious when he claimed that. It's a shared IP, which is different from an open proxy. Blocking this IP is effectively blocking an entire state's public libraries. Phoenix-forgotten 04:07, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

It still seems more trouble than its worth. It only takes one rotten egg to spoil an share IP... Sasquatch t|c 05:17, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I have reporeted the unblock request to the admins who do the open proxies. Can take some days. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 05:31, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

If it isn't an open proxy the max block time is a month, as per WP:BLOCK#Expiry times and application. Prodego ^talk 15:22, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

The only person who claimed that this was an open proxy was Natal, and he said that he was only indefinitely blocking this IP address as part of an experiment with a feature, as he had just unblocked it from Can't sleep, clown will eat me (talk · contribs)'s 52-week block. I'm sure he wasn't serious about his claim that it was an open proxy; he was just putting something in the 'Reason for blocking' box. Is it really necessary to take several days to confirm that this isn't an open proxy? Phoenix-forgotten 23:01, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Err, wrong addressment. ;-) Anyhow, it was blocked as a "compromised IP" before - the templates are now merged so it isn't more of an "open proxy" thing than the fact it's a severely compromised IP. Unblock it if you want: I have no objections. I only put indefinite because other administrators were objecting to my short time period for unblocking and I saw no reason to keep up the charade of blocking for one year as because as soon as that year expired it would all begin anyway. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 03:13, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Hall Monitor's original justification. I wanted to treat it like an AOL IP: ie. block frequently for short periods, but I seemed to be the only one, so I relented. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 03:24, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

This address is undergoing an abuse investigation and, due to its extensive history of vandalism, should remain blocked until said investigation is complete. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 23:04, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I was previously blocked from using the library computers because they had this blocked IP address, but now it's a different IP entirely. Is that related to the XFF thing mentioned here? 64.45.88.54 16:48, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Possibly nearing WP:LEGAL at Talk:Gorgeous George (TV personality)

Things over at Talk:Gorgeous George (TV personality) are getting awfully close to WP:LEGAL. Would an administrator mind keeping an eye on things there? --Takeel 15:56, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

This is appalling. I'm not up to a controversy today, but this page should be speedied out of human decency - its a page on an at best minorly notable Internet celebrity who is notable purely because the folks at Something Awful harassed and mocked him. He doesn't want to be notable, and we should be humane enough to recognize that our need to have a page on every stupid Internet meme to come our way does not outweigh basic human kindness. Phil Sandifer 16:26, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm not humane, but I'd note that Wikipedia:Wikiethics and WP:NOT EVIL have been rejected by the community, who ostensibly believe that we ought to edit dispassionately and disinterestedly vis-à-vis the external consequences of our editing, whilst WP:V and WP:NN continue to command the support of the community. To my mind, basic human kindness is a wholly unencyclopedic motivation and does not militate against our having an article about a subject whose notability is avolitional and who expresses a desire that we not have an article. To be sure, this situation rather well parallels that of Brian Peppers, and so it's eminently possible that, upon the subject's again contacting the Foundation, the page will be OFFICEd. In the meanwhile, though, IMHO, we ought not to care what the subject thinks of our article apropos, principally, of his radio program (except, of course, if he reasonably takes issue with the NPOV of the article; no such objection is essayed here). As the debates over Wikiethics and WP:LIVING have borne out, there is no consensus for the view that we ought, like journalists, to comport our editing with a harm limitation principle, viz., that we ought to take particular care in editing articles of which the subjects are living persons, in order that our editing shouldn't have untoward results. I readily concede that the Daniel Brandt situation isn't a perfect analogue, inasmuch as his notability entails (arguably) directly from his actions, whilst George's entails only indirectly, but the sundry AfDs surrounding Brandt should make clear that we don't delete articles simply because the subject requests deletion. Now, I'm not at all confident that George is notable, and I'm inclined to think I'd support deletion at AfD, but a deletion decision should be taken only in view of encyclopedic concerns. Joe 17:03, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

On the other hand, Jimbo and WP:LIVING have made it clear that we are to take ethical concerns into account. That the community has stamped its feet about this seems immaterial. Phil Sandifer 17:06, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Now, he may well be insufficiently notable to have an article; that is what the AfD debate is about. However, he does get on TV (locally) by his own choice, which makes it somewhat hypocritical of him to demand that he not be publicly mentioned. *Dan T.* 17:08, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Someone who has a TV show is, for US libel purposes, a "public figure", and "actual malice" is required for libel. And certainly the opinion that someone's TV show is lousy is not libellous. So don't worry too much. I suggest letting the AfD run to its conclusion on notability. Whether the subject of the article likes the article is irrelevant. --John Nagle 17:22, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with John. FWIW, WP:LIVING is only a guideline and not policy. In any event, bonus dormitat Jimbous, and I'm sure that if WP:OFFICE were to be used to remove an article about a subject whom the community writ large considered truly notable, Jimbo would consider reversing himself. Joe 17:29, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, the article has been deleted as a non-notable biography per its AfD. JDoorjam Talk 21:31, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Clever curmudgeon and User:Iodyne

These users seem to have something against me.

Iodyne...

1. Thinks fair use policy is some sort of joke [6];
2. Attacked me by placing a picture of me on his friend's page with a demeaning caption [7]
3. Places fair use images on his friends page after my explanation they're not allowed [8]
4. Just added a picture of me to Clever Curmudgeon's talk page with the caption "The dark side of the force is the path to many abilities which some consider to be... unnatural". User does not take me seriously at all. [9]

Clever curmudgeon...

1. Reverts my removal of a fair use image off his userpage despite a good explanation why it's not allowed [10]
2. Has now said he's got popups so he can revert anyone who reverts him [11]. This likely refers to me on reverting fair use images off his userpage and people who revert his additions of pornographic material into articles. See his upload log.
3. He repeatedly accuses people of vandalism for undoing his addtions of pornographic materials into articles. [12] [13]
4. Got narky with me saying he can do whatever he wants on his userpage (regarding fair use images) [14] [15]

Both users...

1. Chat to each other on talk pages as if Wikipedia is some sort of communications medium for them to have fun in. See User talk:Iodyne and User talk:Clever curmudgeon.
2. Are not vandal only accounts. They have made minor contributions to a number of articles. (I would have blocked them already if they hadn't contributed to the encyclopedia)

I would like other administrators to weigh in on what to do here as I see a problem brewing. I may add more evidence as this progresses. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 20:08, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll block at the next personal attack. This is very bad behavior and you have given warnings. --Tony Sidaway 20:25, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. CC might be able to be salvaged with a good, stern talking to, but Iodyne should most definatly be blocked at the next sign of incivility. --InShaneee 20:26, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Iodyne left a nice little demeaning note on my talkpage. I just told him he was totally wrong and to leave me alone. If he doesn't and continues, I'll block him indef. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 20:40, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I think a block of that length at this stage in the game might be a bit premature. --InShaneee 21:41, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought that's what you meant. No need now anyway, Tony Sidaway blocked for 3 hours and I'm just hoping that'll solve the problem. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 21:42, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

• 20:47, 11 June 2006 Tony_Sidaway (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) blocked Iodyne with an expiry time of 3 hours (A short, sharp lesson in civility)

I hope he'll learn quickly from this. --Tony Sidaway 20:48, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 20:52, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Blocked the other guy who seemed to be a willing participant. Another three hours thing, nothing heavy. --Tony Sidaway 22:35, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Clever curmudgeon has just moved on and started talking about a new article he's made, Iodyne has done the same thought I liked his "shhhh theyre watching our talk pages" that he left on Clever curmudgeon's talk page. I'll leave them alone. Thanks Tony Sidaway/InShaneee. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deskana (talk • contribs) 08:25, 12 June 2006

User Mr. Lefty has been blocked by a bot (page moves)

User:Mr. Lefty has been blocked by a bot intended to block pagemove vandalism.

Please check the move log for this user and unblock if this was an error.

Please delete this message after the situation has been resolved.

This message was generated by the bot. -- Curps 20:47, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I've unblocked and reverted teh page moves. Seems to be a misguided attempt at humour. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 20:50, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

This is Mr. Lefty from his IP saying that your unblock didn't seem to work. Anyone want to try again? 24.10.142.25 23:59, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

This one's still being blocked can someone else have a try. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 00:46, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, everything's okay now. Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 04:16, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Fetish vandal

A vandal using anonymous AOL and Telewest accounts has vandalized the Pinafore page about a dozen times. Can the page be blocked from further anonymous edits for awhile until the vandal loses interest? Thanks! The Editrix 08:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Done. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 09:55, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Personal attacks, legal threats and vandalism of administrator's user page

An anonymous editor who claims to be the writer William H. Kennedy has consistently added an irrelevant piece of subtrivia to the University of Kent page, namely the statement that somebody on trial for downloading indecent images of children once visited the campus. This has been removed several times by different editors, on the grounds that many people have visited the campus and the visit of one person, who has not to anyone's knowledge done anything illegal while he was there, is not relevant to Wikipedia. He has resorted to extremely unpleasant attacks and threats of legal action against these editors on the article's talk page. He has now vandalised my user page, clearly implying that I myself am a paedophile for daring to remove his edits. I am loath to block him myself, despite his obvious vandalism, since I think that would just add to his spurious claims of victimisation. I would therefore be grateful if someone else would be kind enough to take a look at his actions. Cheers. -- Necrothesp 11:46, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I am another editor who has been involved in reverting his edits. They started with him putting forward scandals to the University of Kent page and me reverting it because of A) lack or sources and B) the fact they weren't really relevant to the article. The editor, who claims to be William H. Kennedy, very quickly resorted to personal attacks and legal threats on the talk page against myself, User:Nuge, User:Necrothesp and other users claiming we are biased, don't want to know the truth, are pro-paedohile and most recently bringing Necrothesp's part time job into the equation with regards to taking threats outside of Wikipedia. None of the editors involved have (in my opinion) done anything wrong, we've simply reverted edits that were either irrelevant, not connected to the article in anything other than a spurious way or just downright libellous. Ben W Bell talk 11:57, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

This seems a clear case of WP:SOAP. Presuming its spokesman is sufficiently notable (and, less than 300 Google hits leaves that in serious doubt), this information might survive on Diocese of Oxford (also in doubt) if using this link rather than this clearly biased link that fails WP:RS. In any event, it clearly does not belong on University of Kent. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 16:48, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Editing/Revert War on Golden Dawn article

There's a full scale edit and revert war broken out on this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetic_Order_of_the_Golden_Dawn

This edit war has spilled over from the Rosicrucian order of A+O, onto the main article now and has been reverted back on forth now incessantly. An administrator had already banned new users from editing the article, as there were a suspicion of myself using sock puppets, which I vehemently disapprove of. I have never used sock puppets and I am will to send my IP address to any Wikipedia Admin, so that they can see that the new users that edited the article were not operative from my IP address.

It is user JMAX, 999, Zos, and synergeticmaggot, that are reverting the article back to their own biased political agenda, and it is these users that are working as a team to avoid the three revert ruling

An administrator blocked new users from editing the article last night, however, its not new users that is the problem, its the aforementioned established users that are perpetuating this edit/revert war by trying to promote their own political agenda.

More footnotes and citations were added last night to the article but JMAX reverted the article back 4 times to his version that promotes his biased political agenda, in current trademark litigation.

This page needs to be fully blocked, immediately, so that we can sort this out, otherwise this edit war is only going to get worse, and the reverting will continue. The only way the edit/revert war will cease over this, is if the page is fully locked and then users JMAX555, 999, Zos and synergetic maggot that edit and revert the article back in sequences to avoid the three revert ruling can stop. This is the only way a compromise will happen.

All the aforementioned users are conspirators in this edit/revert war and have a strategy to keep reverting and editing the main article as, they tried to do with the Rosicrucian Order of A+O page that had to be fully locked a couple of days ago. So the problem isn’t new users editing the page, its established users editing and reverting the page back to their own biased political agenda. These aforementioned users are also working, as a team to keep reverting these articles back and are exploiting the fact that some users are new to wikipedia, like myself.

I have made a request over at the page protection page, however the edit/revert war was just beginning to start; now it’s in full swing. Please protect this page with immediate effect so that we can stop this edit and revert war, and sort this out properly. Otherwise today this edit/revert war will continue to escalate and get ugly.

Frater FiatLux 11:59, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Here’s the appeal I made about this page, however, at the time the edit/revert war had just begun, but now it’s in full swing and there have been many more revisions since then.

Full Immediate protection needed:

A full scale editing war has broken out on this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dawn_tradition#The_Hermetic_Order_of_the_Golden_Dawn_.28Inc..29

They’re reverting the article incessantly, and arguing over whose order is at top of the links section, furthermore, there is also an editing war being perpetuated rampantly about a non- traditional Golden Dawn order being included in the links section. The article is being edited and reverted now, every couple of minutes.

Help! Can someone please lock this article to stop this vandalism, so that the other editors and myself can work this out. Please lock this article to stop these new, unscrupulous users frivolously editing the links in this article. Please lock the article immediately, so that myself and the established editors on the Golden Dawn article can stop this rampant editing war.

User 999, Zos, JMAX555 and senergeticmaggot are making false claims that I am using a so-called sock puppet, I vehemently disapprove of this, and I can state categorically that I am not using a sock-puppet. I am willing to send my IP address into a Wikipedia admin so that they can verify that these other new users, that are frequently editing the page are not operative via my IP address.

User 999 is creating schism and false intrigues against me they should he should rightfully receive a warning or a 24 hour block ,so that myself and other established editors of the Golden Dawn article can put a stop to this edit war. Please lock this page immediately to stop further abuse and editing wars.

A moderator has already blocked new users to the article; however, this is not the problem. It is not new users that are causing the disruptions, it is established users: 999, Zos, synergetic maggot and JMAX555. The article needs to be immediately fully protected as the aforementioned users are on one side of a current trademark litigation case and I am on the other. Their trying to get me blocked to that they can vandalise the article to their own biased political agenda. The aforementioned users have in fact had me innocently blocked a few days ago and then vandalised the article to You need to intervene more seriously and put a permanent block on the article, as these problems won’t go away until you take action against the aforementioned users.

These aforementioned users have instigated a full-scale edit war and the problem isn’t due to vandalism by new users. Take a look at the Rosicrucian Order of A+O page that was locked due to these aforementioned users creating an edit war, and now this has spilled over on the main Golden Dawn article.

These users are conspirators and are attempting to get me blocked so that they can go unchecked in an edit war to change the article in a defamatory tone, in an attempt to promote their political agenda over the other orders entries.

Here’s the link to show the aforementioned users last editing war that has now spilled over onto the main Golden Dawn article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetic_Order_of_the_Golden_Dawn_%28Rosicrucian_Order_of_A%2BO%29

Frater FiatLux 21:04, 11 June

Comment: This user has repeatedly accused numerous other individuals who disagree with him of "pushing a political agenda"- rather bad faith in my opinion. Furthermore, at the same instance that he tried unsucessfuly to report a different user of a 3RR, he actually violated the rule himself. Strangely enough, within the last ten minutes I've mysteriously been attacked by an "anon" IP 205.188.116.200 on my userpage, which makes me strongly suspicious that it is this individual acting out of spite. -- Daniel Davis 13:21, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Comment: My IP address is:84.71.75.180 your suspcicions are unfounded, as it wasn't me. There is an edit war going on at the Golden Dawn article please lock this page fully so that it can stop and we can start to discuss this. Frater FiatLux 13:37, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

user: Rich Farmbrough

On the 5th and 6th of June user: Rich Farmbrough started so many articles like this for every book of the Bible - all are just redlinks... I have nminated for AfD the Esther one and the Job one but do I have to list each separate one for AfD or can an admin advise about removing the lot on block? It seems that this user has been creating endless empty artciles for several days can they be stopped - they appear to be simply filling up WP and making their edit count large!!! Robertsteadman 12:28, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Would speedy delete be appropriate? Robertsteadman 12:29, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Says he will usefy - but this is just clogging up space..... and apart from all the books of the bible he's started loads of other redlinked articles!!!! Robertsteadman 12:55, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

There is no policy or guideline against red links, the worst case scenario is that they are redirected to the appropriate page, which can only be useful. Martin 12:58, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The articles are nothing BUT redlinks - no other info at all!!!! Robertsteadman 13:26, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

You have answered this already, he said he would userfy them, I was referring to the red links put into existing articles, which can be redirected. Martin 13:35, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

In think we're both discussing slightly different things!!!! - if an arfticle article is nothing but redlinks what is the point? Robertsteadman 13:39, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

In arreas where we have systemic bias, big sets of redlinks can sometimes help suggest a direction for expansion to motivated editors who lack context on the subject. That doesn't seem to be the case here, but it's still true; not all red links are bad. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 14:11, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree - I quite like redlinks - this just seems like manic redlink creation and page creation for the sake of it.... Robertsteadman 14:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I concur. I can't see the point of "articles" like this. CSD A1 might seem to apply but I would recommend just doing an AfD for them. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 14:19, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

205.188 vandalism

An ip-jumping aol vandal has been hitting several pages this morning. I've been blocking on sight for ~3hrs, but if someone has the ability to check for open proxy-ness (I know the toolserver tools aren't up at the moment) you might go down my block log and check them out. Otherwise, just keep reverting and doing short blocks I guess. Syrthiss 13:17, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I did an IP trace. It's just like you said- it's an open proxy coming from an AOL user. You may block it at your own discretion. -- Daniel Davis 16:41, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Well wait... Did you do a whois and find it was an aol ip, or did you actually find it to be an open proxy ala WP:OP? Syrthiss 16:43, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I did a trace using UrgentClick's Tracer, and the address itself popped right up as cache-dtc-ad06.proxy.aol.com -an open proxy utilized by AOL. -- Daniel Davis 16:48, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Craiky333

Could someone with admin powers please look at this user and see whether an indefinite block was really appropriate? I noticed him when he showed up on the changes log of an article on my watchlist, and while his edit wasn't particularly helpful, I don't think it's really classifiable as vandalism, either. I then looked at his contribution log, and it didn't have the kind of blatant vandalism I would've expected for a blocked vandal account. Only two of the edits (the ones to soccer bios) are really vandal-type edits, and he didn't get a warning for either one, just an indefinite block from User:Mike Rosoft. Are there some kind of hideous deleted changes on his log to explain the block? -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 13:24, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Have you asked Mike? --Sam Blanning^(talk) 13:45, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Not yet. I wanted to find out whether there were scads of deleted edits in the guy's history first, to know as much as possible about the situation before I engaged with Mike (if necessary). If there are a bunch of deleted attack pages or somethin' like that on the guy's log, there should probably be a note to that effect somewhere (in the interest of transparency). -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 14:14, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Sadly, without knowing what deleted articles were named, there's no way for us to see a user's connection to a deleted article from their contributions. If we knew the names, we could pop in to the articles and look at their history...but as you say, deleted articles don't show up in the contributions. Syrthiss 14:17, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Ask Mike first. Make it informational, not confrontational. Admins are obligated to give clear answers about their actions, and it's politer to ask for those answers directly than to run around gathering information (and announcing to a hundred other people that you're doing it). -- SCZenz 14:26, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I concur. Always contact the other administrator first to avoid creating a potential wheel war. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 14:27, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'll take care of it that way. Thanks for the feedback. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 14:37, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Please assist

RE, Pages: 1.Golden Dawn Tradition 2.Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (Rosicrucian Order of A+O) 3.Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn 4. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Inc.

The background of the ongoing conflict on these pages is an ongoing legal dispute between esoteric orders 2 and 4 above over trademarks. Members of 4 are trying to control everything on Wikipedia over the Golden Dawn and they have mobilized the membership of their orders to act in unison in guerilla edit warfare promoting their extremely POV biased versions.

MORE IMPORTANTLY ON PAGE 4 (The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Inc) ABOVE THEY CONTINUOUSLY PUBLISH A LINK TO A FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN FOR A SO CALLED "GOLDEN DAWN LEGAL FUND" TO RAISE MONEY FOR THEIR LEGAL EFFORTS AGAINST 2. Here is the link they keep publishing discuised as a citation:

This ia highly inappropriate as I have pointed out on the discussion page. I am doing everything that I can to stop this disguised advertisiing without breaking the 3 revert rule, but desperately need administrator assistance!

The primary soldiers of HOGD, Inc above responsible for this are User 999 and User JMax555.

--Zanoni666 14:32, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

You demonstrate an exceptional knowledge of Wikipedia for a new editor, my friend. Your first edit was a revert. Smells of sockpuppetry/meatpuppetry. The article is protected, try discussing it rather than running to administrators to take out people who don't agree with you. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 14:35, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at this edit --Ehheh 14:37, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Frater FiatLux is blocked for 3RR and someone that seems to agree with this user is requesting "administrator assistance" - ironically enough, someone who can't get past the semiprotection I placed on the article. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 14:42, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Just because I am new here does not mean that I am a sock puppet, Deskana. I am not a sock puppet. Thank you for your comment about my exceptional knowledge. I am a quick study, but not a sock puppet. I am, howevvew, a member of the opposing order in the legal twist and am fed up with 999 and JMax555's bullying tactics. Are you a member of Inc, yourself? If not why do you call everyone from the opposing side a 'sock puppet' and yet allow Inc. members to run ramshot over Wikipedia and take sides constantly with them? Are administratrators not supposed to be fair and objective? There is a real problem here, Deskana. Two sides in a legal conflict affecting 5 pages!

Why are you ignoring Inc's. shameless advertising for fundraisisng that they are using unfair tactics to keep published? Please try and be a bit more fair and objective, Deskana. Why not use your influence encourage all sides to compromise instead? (In addition to telling them that the ad is inappropriate, of course) --Zanoni666 14:48, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I've not read the article, that's the point. I comment on what I see. Someone that's new comes along, demonstrates exceptional knowledge of Wikipedia, knowledge comparable to someone else who edits that article, and agrees with a user who was blocked for reverting too much. I have absolutely no knowledge of the subject. I don't want to act on this. Other administrators are welcome to. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 14:52, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

What about the ad?--Zanoni666 14:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC) Please DO read the article, or at least look at the link that I referenced above. You could say the same thing about Eheih, JMax555, 999, and SynergisticMagtgot, tho all argue the opposiing argument and are working inconcert to avoid 3R...all licensees or members of. Inc.--Zanoni666 14:56, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

What we have here, Sith Lord, is a legal conflict between two esoteric orders, almost like a religious conflict. Both sides are trying to present their side of the story. Instead of collaborating to find consensus, the Inc. side are bringing in their whole order to bully their truth through. The other side is waking up and coming to do something about it, but we are much newer there than they are.

If this is to be resolved there must be some kind of arbitration. We could use their tactics as well and probably will if we cant get them to seriously attempt to gain consensus instead of just reverting anything other than their point of view and pointing fingers at Fiat Lux. He is not alone and many others will be here shortly to balance the equasion.

This is not a solution, however. One page has already been locked down completely. Please assist in making both sides find consensus on Wikipedia instead of senslessly conflicting across five distinct pages. --Zanoni666 15:02, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure any of this material is encyclopedic anyway. I'm still thinking about just recommending the whole lot for deletion. Tom Harrison ^Talk 15:06, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

That is not quite true, Tom. The Hermetic Order or the Golden Dawn is historically important. To a lesser degree, of course, it is encyclopedic in the same manner as is Freemasonry. You did the right thing in telling both sides to reach consenses on the page for the Hermetic Order of the Godlen Dawn (Rosicrucian Order of A+O). The problem is that there are 6-7 separate pages that are involved, and when you locked down one, the conflict just spread to others. When we appealed for halp again, Deskana did not really grasp the nature of the problem, but only noticed that the members of one side are new here and mistook the problem for one of vandalism, whereas the true problem is the same previous conflict that just moved from one page to the next when you locked the first one down.

Are ther not some arbitaration procedures or some such that could help to solve this. It is certainly not a solution for both orders to bring more and more members here to try and push their agenda, which the Inc. side, with at least 6 members are already doing at this juncture, and the other side will invvitably do as well if we do not find a better option. I truly think that we can still work this out, with a llittle help from admin, of course, so that things get better instead of worse.--Zanoni666 15:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

This user appears to be a sockpuppet of the prior blocked user User:Frater FiatLux. I recommend a CheckUser to verify. -- Daniel Davis 16:42, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

That's probably not needed. Start at this diff [16] and step through the next few edits. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:13, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I am still waiting on a decision regarding user 999 and friends use of gate/gang reverting to keep an inappropriate fundraising ad included on the page. And no I am not Fiat Lux. Check the IPs. He in in the UK. I am in California. I suspect that 999 and Zos however are socks for JMax555--Zanoni666 18

40, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

What a mess. Are there two or three warring factions? Do the factions have names? Maybe we need some page moves and a disambiguation page at Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. --John Nagle 19:50, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

There are two factions. Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (Rosicrucian Order of A+O) is being sued by The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Inc.. The former contest everything that the latter say about themselves on their website, and keep removing cited information from Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Inc. and replacing it with biased original research intended to support their side of the court case. As for membership, I am not a member of any of the Golden Dawn organizations and have no particular bias except that I disapprove of the way members of A+O have been handling themselves on WP. User:Frater FiatLux is definitely a member of A+O - he is probably running sockpuppets User:HermeticScholar, User:Zanoni666 and possibly others; User:Kephera975 is I think a member of A+O. User:JMax555 is NOT a member of either, but is a member of another branch. I don't know User:SynergeticMaggot's affiliations. Hope this helps. -999 (Talk) 20:06, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Typical 999 misrepresentations. He knows full well that JMax555 is a member of the Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn, which is licensed by HOGD, Inc. The head of his order is on the board of HOGD, Inc. Also, I believe that 999, Zos, Eheih, and SynergeticMaggot are all members of one or the other orders lisensed by HOGD, Inc and are concealing the bias of their affilliation as is JMax555. Tell the truth guys! Your noses are growing--Zanoni666 22:43, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually there at least 6 or 7 factions. the HOGD, Inc. recently lisenced God and his brother to use the HOGD trademark. Actually, to about 6 other orders including the Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn to which JMax555 belongs and is one of the leaders. This has lead to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the outer order of the Rosicrucian Order of A+O being defamed and libeled on forums operated by the lot of them, including one owned and operated by JMax555, who together with his cohorts are now trying to use Wikipedia as a soapbox as well. This nonsense does not belong on Wikipedia....certainly not links on pages to fundraising as to fuel the legal battle!--Zanoni666 22:56, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot to mention that it is HOGD, Inc. and its lisencees that gain most by the present arrangement. Thje A+O gets one page. They get six or seven. Why not create only one page for HOGD, Inc and all of its lisenced orders instead. That would be mopre fair.--Zanoni666 23:10, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Also, there should not be a disambig. Technically, Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn refers to an historic organization which no longer exists. There are half-a -dozen or so revival organization and they are all listed under the heading Contemporary Golden Dawn Orders in the main article. The intent was that nothing about the modern orders would be in the main articles, and that the subarticles would simply use each order's web page and other supporting documentation to describe themselves. Except that the A+O wants to replace HOGD, Inc.'s description taken from their own website with one that would be harmful, possibly to be used in the court case. -999 (Talk) 20:14, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've been accused a number of times for being a member of golden dawn faction (which is irrelevant anyway, but I'm not), or supporting biased information. Anyone who wishes to check my history, can. My reverts we due to the fact that I was ganged up on, in a manner of speaking, trying to keep cited material of another users on the article. Thank you. Zos 20:18, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, then it looks like there is only one faction, that of A+O, primarily Frater FiatLux and his socks. The other "side" consists simply of unaffiliated and unrelated WP editors attempting to deal with what appears to be an attack effort by A+O is order to bias readers toward their organization. Specifically, no one involved is a member of HOGD, Inc. whose article is being attacked. -999 (Talk) 20:22, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Yet another misrepresentation. Notice tha JMax555 below intentionally neglects to clarify this as he is attempting to cinceal his biased POV. It is true that no one here has admitted being a member of HGOD, Inc. Joseph Max, however, JMax555, is the leader of the OSOGD, licenced by the HOGD, Inc. These guys are playing games trying to cinceal their biased POV while trying to create the illusion that other points of view belong to only one lunatic and a bunch of socks. This is far from the truth! --Zanoni666 23:03, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, it is a mess! Thank you for trying to sort it out. There is no "fund raising ad" in the article. The HOGD Inc. has a legal fundraising page on their own website, but it is certainly not in the WP article. We've tried moving all the factions to their own pages, but the HOGD/A+O faction keeps editing the main article and putting in a lot of self-promoting information about themselves, culled directly from their own website, which has no verifiable sources outside of their own website; it amounts to original research done by their own faction. And User 999 and User Zos are NOT my "sock puppets", and as I've said several times in Talk. They've been around Wikipedia longer than I have! - JMax555 20:58, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Your nose is growing too, Pinocchio, just like you have no relationship to HOGD, Inc. as 999 claims above and you do not come clean by clarifying that you are a leader of an order lisenced by them and have a definite bias, right? No, there is no ad in the article...there is a LINK to a fundraising ad that has no business being there. It is a shame that you are so deceptive Joseph Max or maybe we could finally get somewhere. Until you are more forthright and honest, however, haw can that possibly be? --Zanoni666 22:50, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

If you guys keep up reverting to pro-HOGD, Inc and remain unwilling to cooperate, the only good solution would be to delete ALL of the individual order pages and just keep the page on the historical Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and allowing no modern history at all except links to the various orderss web sites. The other alternative would be to toss everything having to do with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn entirely off ow Wikipedia. I can't believe how dishonest you are behaving, Max! Please stop this nonsense and collaborate...honestly rather than disingeniously by pretending that you have no vested interest.--Zanoni666 22:50, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The only "good" solution is to get this ridiculous edit conflict off the Administrator's Noticeboard and seek mediation. There have been 3RR violations committed by individuals (and apparently their socks)- which are about the ONLY thing that should even be on here. All this other junk- the accusations of bias, the attemps to "convert" readers to one "side" or another of an edit, does not belong here. What you need to do is stop what you're doing and SEEK MEDIATION. There are specific policies laid out on Wikipedia in order to accomplish said mediation. Read about them. -- Daniel Davis 01:45, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

How do you do that?--Zanoni666 04:00, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I've replied onto your Talk page about how you can request mediation on an article. I hope that it helps you out. The fact that you want to take the neccesary steps to solve this is certainly uplifting. -- Daniel Davis 05:22, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the information about mediation. I have passed it along to Frater Fiat Lux who is more Wikipedia savy than I am. He has promised to follow up on it. Hopefully mediation will help to clean up this mess. Certainly it is better than the filing of endless frivolous adminstrative complaints, such as the one lodged against me today by User 999 from the other faction. (See below: Privacy violation by User:Zanoni666.) I just want to make sure you guys are aware of the tactics that they are using. They have done the same against Frater Fiat Lux on numerous occasions. Unfortunately, they gained some credence against Frater Fiat Lux because he violated 3RR twice trying to stand up to their gate/gang editing tactics. I have violated nothing, yet they keep calling me a 'sock,' (untrue) filing frivolous complaints against me, etc. Why? Simply because I refuse to be steamrolled into allowing the HOGD, Inc supporters to ram through their biased POV. Therefore they are trying more and more agressive techniques like the filing of frivolous compaint after admin complaint. Hopefully the mediation will begin soon and these fellows will stop filling this board with such nonsnese.--Zanoni666 19:41, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

User ER MD refuses to cooperate

We\'ve got a user at the American conservatism article who has been repeatedly blanking out a section. He\'s been blocked under the 3RR rule once, but this situation is a little different, he has announced that he will continue to blank the section in question ad nauseum until and unless a few administrators come tell him that this one section must be there. See the talk page for details. I\'ve tried talking to him, explaining the 3RR, posting to his talk page, inviting him to join the discussion, all to no avail, he adamantly declined to address the substance of the edits. I\'m not sure what to do about it at this point, I\'m hoping a wiser mind might take a look at the situation. Bjsiders 15:41, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I think he should be blocked once more for 3RR, I count 6 or 7 reverts today... <_< -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 16:04, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

WP:AN/3RR for 3RR reports. By the way, User:Bjsiders is editing from a badly configured open proxy... --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 16:11, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

It's out of my hands, unfortunately. Bjsiders 16:25, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it appears to be User:208.101.25.202 who's the open proxy. See this diff. --Carnildo 09:30, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I added blanked content back to the article because it seemed well sourced and appropriate. I added one fact templ. All editors of the article need to engage in better consensus editing. FloNight talk 17:07, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Tibbs

Mr. Tibbs is spamming talk pages, trying to turn an RfC regarding User:Zer0faults into an adversarial proccess:

1. [17]
2. [18]
3. [19]
4. [20]
5. [21]
6. [22]
7. [23]

It's quite clear by this [24] that Tibbs has a weird "Rexian" fixation and seeks to hound other editors on that basis. 208.101.25.202 16:01, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

What do you want us to do about it? 66.90.73.25 16:06, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Us? IPs aren't administrators. Anyway, I don't see any problem with notifying interested users about an RfC. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 16:07, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The amount of anons respomding (in favour or against) in the ongoing Zero chronicles, is disturbing. Although we might disagree with what editors do I think we should refrain from turning into little children.Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 20:56, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

List of British companies

Came across something I'm not sure what to do with (if anything). The new article List of British companies seems to be redundant given the similar category that already exists: [25]. Is it ok to have such a list, or should it be speedied or something? Just not sure of the policy here. thanks. --mtz206 (talk) 18:10, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I see it was deleted, so that's that. --mtz206 (talk) 18:40, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Seal it against recreation?-- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 19:02, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Query about possible issue with another editor

Administrators -

The message pasted below concerns me. I did not request a password change, but recognize the IP address as belonging to a member of a small group that repeatedly harasses my employer, DePaul University, through e-mail.

This group has built quite a controversy section for DePaul on our Wikipedia entry. I have recently begun editing the site to present DePaul's perspective on their charges.

I am concerned that a member of this group is now trying to hijack my Wikipedia account to either make false edits to DePaul's site or to cause trouble under my name on other sites, which would lead to me being banned. Are there any Wikipedia policies that cover this situation?

Kris Kgallagh 7 June 2006

---

Original Message----- From: wiki@wikimedia.org [1] Sent: Wed 6/7/2006 4:21 PM To: Gallagher, Kris Subject: Password reminder from Wikipedia

Someone (probably you, from IP address 69.116.141.82) requested that we send you a new Wikipedia login password for en.wikipedia.org. The password for user "Kgallagh" is now "[password]". You should log in and change your password now.

If someone else made this request or if you have remembered your password and you no longer wish to change it, you may ignore this message and continue using your old password.

---

end of message--------

• Ignore it. Anyone can click on "I forgot my password" and it sends an e-mail to the address of record. It may even happen many times a day. It's a minor form of harassment. "They" don't have either your new or old password. Best thing to do is ignore them all and continue to use your old password. Thatcher131 20:26, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

• • They really should put a limit on the thing so "you" can only request your password 3-5 times a day.... Any dev's wanna take a crack at that? Kris 22:43, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Bot

I've got a bot running on my own personal wiki that gives warnings, blocks users with the following edit summaries:

• (username)
• (impostor/too similar to existing user...)
• (spam-only user)

Would this be useful on Wikipedia??? It's different to User:Tawkerbot2.

Note: It blocks pagemove vandals too! Sunholm(talk) 20:35, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

• Bots are almost never given sysop permission here. Thatcher131 20:39, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
• Curpsbot does that anyway. --Rory096 21:03, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

help!

I'm being attacked by a vandal-bot Winosbaily 22:43, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Vanity gone mad - Ken Standfield

User:kenstandfield has created Ken Standfield, plus edited a large range of articles adding in references to his own books (really his own, I don't know) and foundation...

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&limit=500&target=Kenstandfield

Urgh... I'd normally AFD, but too busy just now, sorry! Thanks/wangi 23:06, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

• He's actually creating new articles and referencing his books, making it OR... --Rory096 23:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

All relevant articles have been edited, reverted, or marked for deletion as appropriate, by about five different editors. Actually, there could be a good article on Stanfield's approach to intangibles accounting, but it would be better if someone other than Stanfield wrote it. --John Nagle 06:20, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Privacy violation by User:Zanoni666

Zanoni666 (talk · contribs) has posted the full name of another user, JMax555 (talk · contribs) on this page. Here's the diffs: here and here. -999 (Talk) 23:12, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

JMax555' name appears on his talk page, as part of his signature. The diffs you cite are examples of uncivil behaviour, but they are not revealing any private personal information. --bainer (talk) 00:52, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

There is no uncivil behaviour going on here. What is really happenning is a conflict between two sides of a legal trademark dispute disagreeing over content in a page (well, actually 7 pages concerning the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and its modern derivitives). I have alreadyidentified my POV bias. The other side, including JMax555, 999, Eheih, SynergisticMaggot continue to attempt to conceal and deny theirs yet pushing a POV agenda which clearly "outs" themselves. The identification of JMax555 was necessary to set the record staight due to the attempted deception on the other side concealing their POV bias and actively denying any relationship to HOGD, Inc.. User 999 is still attempting to conceal his POV bias. JMax also suggested that the article should be delated to end the bickering. Once a survey PROPOSED BY THE OTHER SIDE began, the initial suggestion by JMax555 was appartently deleted for posturing as though our side are exclusively in favor of it. Admittedly, this is a mess. However, it is not uncivil despite the unethical tactics being used by certain users. This complaint by User 999 is yet another backhanded attempt to ram through their biased POV and eliminate any opposing voices. These unfair tactics have already led to one page being fully protected and one other partially protected. The conflict involves 7 npages at this time, which is ridiculous. It would be much better in there were more good faith and willingness to compromise instead of filing frivolous administrative complaints such as this one lodged by user 999.--Zanoni666 19:29, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

blocked

Hi i'm blocked but its the first time im using the site? username saima85 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by saima85 (talk • contribs) .

If you were able to post here then I don't think you're being blocked. Is the article you're trying to edit protected? -Loren 23:20, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Don't tell me, AOL user? I just hit a 15 minute AOL range block, that could be the culprit--152.163.100.65 23:21, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Netscott insisting on an irrelevant tag and acting in bad faith

moved to AN/i-subpage, content was SPAMesque in length]--152.163.100.65 23:52, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks 12.206.233.75 23:26, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, the subpage was deleted as "not necessary." Should this discussion be restored in that case? Metros232 23:59, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Problem solved--205.188.116.65 00:13, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

The sockpuppet anon-IP 12.206.233.75 was blocked again. Netscott 09:26, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Sceptre and misuse of rollback

I'd like to make an open informal complaint over the behaviour of an admin. Yesterday User:Sceptre reverted an edit to the Scotland article by User:Wikinorthernireland: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scotland&diff=prev&oldid=58058444. The summary given was just the default, and largely meaningless "Reverted edits by Wikinorthernireland (talk) to last version by Calum Hutchinson". However the edit was clearly not simple vandalism - it was content complete with references.

I've asked on the admin's talk page for a reason, without reply: User talk:Sceptre#Scotland revert.

I've not hunted through other edits, but I beleive this to be a misuse of the automated revert functionality / rollback button - which should only ever really be used against obvious vandalism - if you're not sure, don't touch it... Wikipedia:Revert#Administrator feature:

Rollbacks should be used with caution and restraint, in part because they leave no explanation for the revert in the edit summary. Reverting a good-faith edit may send the message that "I think your edit was no better than vandalism and doesn't deserve even the courtesy of an explanatory edit summary." It is a slap in the face to a good-faith editor. If you use the rollback feature for anything other than vandalism or for reverting yourself, be sure to leave an explanation on the article talk page, or on the talk page of the user whose edit(s) you reverted.

Thanks/wangi 23:42, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I would have reverted this edit, too. Looks like simple praragraph blanking. Sceptre may not have checked to see if there had been a good edit from the same account as part of a string of edits. Jkelly 01:03, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, but a whole lot more was reverted besides that. And I think it's not too much to ask to assume good faith when somebody makes edits that include references and not hit them with the vandalism stick... Thanks/wangi 07:32, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Thewolfstar?

Another backslashing proxy, 65.99.213.124 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), manually signed as Metrocat. Suggest short block while I post to WP:OP. Thatcher131 00:59, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I indef blocked. 'Tis what happenses to backslashing proxies. -Splash - tk 01:20, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Escyos - vandalism-only account

See the contribution list. He has been warned, but persists anyway. --TJive 01:50, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Blocked... but this is the wrong board for that sort of thing. Next time go to Wikipedia:Administrator_intervention_against_vandalism (WP:AIV for those who just luurrve themselves some shortcuts). Cheers, JDoorjam Talk 01:57, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Threats of disruption of wikipedia

User:Goldufan who is a possible sockpuppet of User:Lonafi, User:Hryun and others has threatened disruption of wikipedia on my talk page [26], in what appears to be retaliation for administrative blocks. These blocks were imposed as a result of edits on the Uncertainty principle and quantum indeterminacy pages. The justification of these blocks have been amply discussed here [[27]]. I am an admin, but this threat may require another course of action besides further blocks.--CSTAR 03:27, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Maybe... but I blocked him anyway. I guess I'm not very creative. JDoorjam Talk 03:57, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Potentially defamatory username

Is this the best place to note a potentially defamatory username? And could User:I am Jimbo's illegitimate son (User talk:I am Jimbo's illegitimate son) be considered defamatory (implying as it does particular activities by Jimbo)?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ziggurat (talk • contribs) .

Thanks, I should have checked the user's blocklog first. Ziggurat 04:22, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

For future reference, anything that mentions Jimbo is usually defamatory. --Woohookitty^(meow) 04:41, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Requests such as this belong at WP:RfDNA, where genetic material will be assessed to determine paternity. Or one may simply take Jimbo to The Jerry Springer Show. Joe 06:06, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Isn't this more Maury's speed? -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 13:03, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Request

Could someone please take a look at CTUFieldOpsDirector. He's on a massive upload binge of some 24-related fair use images. The problem is, he is leaving all the images unsourced and untagged, plus, there is no way this many images can qualify for fair use anyway. Thanks. --Hetar 05:23, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Some of the older ones are actually copyvios, too, tagged with {{CopyrightedFreeUse}}... --Rory096 05:42, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Suthee4321's recent mass upload of images

Suthee4321 (talk · contribs · logs) recently uploaded a total of 33 images of a single character from Xiaolin Showdown and then proceeded to put them into the article for the character (I reverted the changes, but I worry that it may not stay that way [28]. It appears that the user took photos of the television, and he may have re-uploaded some images that had been speedy deleted in the past for no copyright information. However, he now has listed them all with information I gave him during his recent mass upload. I do not know how to deal with the uploads now. Ryulong 05:28, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Looking through the user's logs myself, I discovered that all of the images are reposted when they were deleted prior. I labeled all of them with {{db-repost}}. The way he avoided this was through minor renamings of the files he uploaded (such as with a hyphen in the beginning, or a number, or other things). Ryulong 05:43, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

You know I rely don't think that's the apropriate way to deal with them. They where deleted the first time around for lacking copyright info, fair enough. But then saying "this has been deleted before so get rid of it" when the re-upload with proper copyright info seems to be sending all kinds of wrong messages. Also while it is a lot of pictures of the same character note that they are beeing used in a section explicitly describing the chraracter's various outfits in different epsiodes and while there are a lot of images there are only one or two used in any one article. That's arguagely a valid fair use. It would proably be better to merge the various episode articles or something and cut some unnessesary images and mark them as orphans, but IMHO there is not rely anyting here that warrant any major speedy admin intervention. Yes the images are fairly high resolutio, but they are clearly inferiour quality since it's photos of a screen and we have {{fairusereduce}} for dealing with high-res images. --Sherool (talk) 05:56, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

If the user wants to upload a useful number of images with the right tagging, and put them in an article then thats fine, but this is ridiculous.Voice-of-All 05:59, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Note: I replaced the link I had originally put with one that shows how the edit was made. Ryulong 06:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok yeah, this was bad, I only checked the current use, wich seems ok, wich is why I think it's inapropriate to call {{db-repost}} on all his images. Some of them can and are beeing used legitemately, the rest will be deleted as orphans, no reason to speedily nuke them all just because he put too many of them in an article at one point. At least not untill someone have explained to him why doing so is wrong and have it ignored. Trust me I know this copyright stuff is importnat, but beeing overly hostile about it to clueles newbies just drive them into the arms of the likes of Wikipedia review and what not. --Sherool (talk) 06:25, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, now he's reuploaded all of the various images that were deleted, using a similar renaming process. I will not tag them with {{db-repost}} this time around, though. However, I still would like his case to remain reviewed. Ryulong 07:36, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

User:216.22.26.46

User:216.22.26.46 is editing from this proxy: http://www.myspaceproxy.eu —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.22.26.46 (talk • contribs) .

Has been blocked by Can't sleep, clown will eat me. Thatcher131 15:30, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Disruptive but slow edit-warring on multiple articles

Tatra (talk · contribs) has for several days been conducting a slow revert-war on multiple articles. He keeps reverting dozens of articles once a day because he disagrees with a categorization scheme. Many of these reverts are apparently blind reverts, undoing a host of other seemingly unrelated edits to the articles. His reverts have been countered by several editors, most notably ImpuMozhi (talk · contribs), but also Telex (talk · contribs), Tom Radulovich (talk · contribs) and myself. While this isn't technically 3RR, it sure is disruptive edit-warring. Can someone step in? Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:56, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

This is an indefinite block job. The account has only been active (saving some initial edits) for about a week, and in that time nearly every single one of its edits has been a revert of non-vandalism. That is not editing, it's warfare. --Tony Sidaway 11:23, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Agree. Some people seem to be of the opinion he's some returned sockpuppet of the old Rajput gang. See also the exchange on Dbachmann's talk page. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:28, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

• 11:24, 13 June 2006 Tony_Sidaway (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) blocked Tatra with an expiry time of indefinite (See here) --Tony Sidaway 12:36, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

  Thank you Tony -- as usual! I just wanna clarify that "disagrees with a categorization scheme" is just too kind an assessment of Whats-his-name's actions. It was a specious plea designed to addle those who are not informed enough to judge. The point is just to revert me everyday, including on such pages as National Physical Laboratory, India, Kannada Brahmins and Konkani Brahmins. Regards, ImpuMozhi 13:43, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

SPAM

• 195.38.164.184 (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log)

Just on my way out. - brenneman ^{L} 10:21, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Temp block request for User:68.175.88.20

This user has 4 times today and yesterday made the same change to Surviving veterans of World War I, despite it being reverted by other users, and being encouraged to discuss it in talk. Can the IP be temporarily blocked?--Rye1967 19:28, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Blocked for breaking the WP:3RR. You can report cases like this to WP:AN3. Cheers, Petros471 19:35, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

PoolGuy

PoolGuy continued his vandalizing pattern by placing 3 clearly unjustified NPA tags on my talkpage. (supported by another user)[[29]] Can someone please take a look at this and carry out the necessary sanctions? --Bonafide.hustla 06:29, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Please read this, and go away. The NPA tags seem justified to me, given some of the things you have complained about in the past. --ajn (talk) 06:40, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Please read [[30]]. I was reinstated personally by Bishonen. Please get your fact straight before making decisions based on personal vendetta. And please provide diff. link. Thanks--Bonafide.hustla 07:14, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

You can't honestly expect administrators to read through your talk page thoroughly just because you post. I noticed you never stated you were allowed to post again by Bishonsen in your first post. Use common sense. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 13:51, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

It wasn't even on his talk page, it was on Bishonen's (he has now added a link to the relevant diff, below the ban notice). In any case, calling someone "a dick" and telling them to "get a life" are personal attacks, and the NPA tags were justifiable. Where this idea of a "personal vendetta" comes from I don't know. If I was a sensitive soul, I'd stick yet another NPA tag on Bonafide.hustla's talk page. --ajn (talk) 22:03, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok. I'm sorry. But I think we're going off-topic here.--Bonafide.hustla 20:12, 11 June 2006 (UTC) The term dick was first brought up by User:Jzg in the arbitration case against PoolGuy. Don't be a dick is also a unofficial wikipedia guideline. In addition, PoolGuy has been disruptive on wikipedia.--Bonafide.hustla 01:10, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for wasting people's time! I should have linked to the withdrawal of my "softban" in both places where I'd originally posted it (=on ANI and on BH's talkpage), rather than merely advise BH to do so. Bishonen | talk 11:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC).

For more background on this situation, please see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/PoolGuy/Evidence. I think the statement that there's a vendetta here is justified. Because of that, I am going to re-remove the tags that PoolGuy (talk · contribs) re-added, but another administrator is free to reinstate them if it appears justified. I am not going to block PoolGuy as Bonafide.hustler requested that I do, because I don't think I should do that prior to the RfAr closing, but I'd invite another admin to look at the situation as well. --Nlu (talk) 13:29, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

An Admin stated they are justified in this section [31] [32]. Nlu removed the warning before [33] [34] [35], even though Nlu was told by another Admin that the warning was justified [36].

What am I supposed to do when an Admin encouages one user to personally attack me by removing legitimate tags? Nlu has a history of following me and blocking me despite the absence of a policy violation. He brings an RfA against me without evidence of a violation, and from that Bonafide.hustla posted evidence on my RfA [37] and then personally attacked me on my user page [38]. I never communicated with this user before that, and now I am the subject of repeated personal attacks by someone that is given a free pass by an Admin that pursues me. What kind of environment is he trying to create here? I would appreciate if someone could help per Wikipedia policies. Thank you. PoolGuy 04:58, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

The admin involved didn't know your history. Again, I invited the admins here to review the situation and either restore the tag or leave it off. Please do not restore it on your own. --Nlu (talk) 03:44, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

My history has a user that I have no connection with personally attacking me and you facilitating it. I have posted diffs with Admins stating the tags are justified. I don't know why they don't restore the tags. Nlu, you should not remove the tags unless you can come up with some basis for removing them. This is just like your other administrative action against me that you conveniently ignore all evidence contrary to what you want to do. In this case, your actions encourage another user to personally attack me. PoolGuy 04:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

TheWolfstar ---> User:The Ungovernable Force

User:The Ungovernable Force has a death threat against President Bush on his user page. It's an image Image:Anim hitler bush skull and bones.gif with the text underneath saying "Death to Tyrants". The animated .gif has Hitler turning into Bush. The use of Bush's face along with "Death to Tyrants" is indeed a death threat by secret service standard. This should be removed right away. Also, the user who uploaded the image is the banned user User:thewolfstar, who has been a big sockuppet problem. Why User:The Ungovernable Force is the only user with User:thewolfstar's image on his user page should be looked into.216.22.26.46 03:58, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

We're not the Secret Service. If you have something you want them to know about, please contact them directly. --Cyde↔Weys 04:20, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

• UGF has never been the subject of a checkuser request. Two requests on Thewolfstar have not turned up his name. Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Thewolfstar. Thatcher131 04:25, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Since our servers are stored in the US, and threatening the president's life is illegal here, I've removed the image from The Ungovernable Force's talk page and left him a note explaining why. Thanks for bringing this to our attention, 216.22.26.46. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:27, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Threatening anyone's life is illegal. The president doesn't get special protection in these circumstances. --Cyde↔Weys 04:43, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

It's not a threat in my opinion, it is merely wishing for the death of someone, which is different. I would never kill him myself nor ask anyone else too, but I wouldn't cry for a moment if someone did. I suggest he eat more pretzels. Anyway, as to the sockpuppet claim, that's ridiculous. Thewolfstar left me a message one day, I went to their page, saw the image and liked it. Anyway, this anon is a suspected sockpuppet themself (of User:Rex071404 and User:Merecat)and seems to have something against me [39]. On their talk page they say it's a shared IP, so maybe after seeing my message another user of the IP went to my page and made this complaint, but I doubt it. Anyway, I've changed the caption, but this is ridiculous. The Ungovernable Force 05:02, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Cyde, I can't imagine what point you think you're making. The Ungovernable Force, semantics games are very fun, I agree, but whether or not you feel "Death to tyrants" accompanying a picture of the current president should be considered a threat, the fact remains that it is. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:22, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

First, to Cyde, threats against the president are treated differently from those against other individuals (to-wit, they are prosecuted under a statute that applies only to threats against the president and are prosecuted in federal court). Second, I'm not at all certain that the image and concomitant text constitute a threat; indeed, I agree with UGF's analysis. It ought to be said that the Secret Service frequently (and, IMHO, overzealously), investigate comments of this nature, even as they readily concede that much of the speech they investigate is protected or otherwise not criminal (they investigate primarily in order to discern whether an actual threat underlies hyperbolic speech). Third, it's unlikely that the Foundation's hosting a user page to which the putative threat is appended is legally impermissible; in any event, I can't foresee any civil or criminal action that could be essayed (although, of course, there are issues of public perceptions of WP to consider). Beyond all that, though, and even as I'm inclined to agree with TGF's sentiment (though for very different reasons), it is plain that the image, etc., as against many divisive userboxes, does not create an atmosphere in which users may collaborate, if only because many editors (though not I) will have difficulty working with an editor who expresses that he/she would be pleased were an individual to die. It is not the divisive content of the message (i.e., the political aspect) that impairs the communing of editors here, I think, but, instead, the character of the image and text. Joe 05:37, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Joe is correct in that one cannot joke about killing the president (or this Prednisent). Conspiracy to treason is a very low bar in US law. You can joke about killing me, or wish me dead, and you won't go to prison. The same cannot be said of the prednisent. Beyond that, the page is yet another example of the one thing I find disturbing about the boxen: the more of these doodads we have, the closer we get to being a free web host and replacement for Angelfire. Finally, the servers and the project are private property, and there is no right to expression. There is sufferance, and it ends whenever the patrons say that it does. Geogre 03:16, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

• That entire user page is a definitive violation of the Wikipedia:User page policy. Has nobody warned him of this? --Tony Sidaway 23:25, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't see how that is. Many users express their opinions and as I have said, it helps people understand who they are dealing with. Anyway, I have recently (w/in the last 5 minutes) been receiving constant vandalism of my userpage (and talk page) by user: SVC (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Can someone block please? The Ungovernable Force 23:36, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

it's actually User:SCV, who also appears to be a sock. Somebody should block both of these. --Rory096 23:46, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

So it is! Anywho, the person was just blocked indefinitely for trolling, and although it does seem like a sock, I'm not sure who. Anyway, that means I can respond to this now without checking my watchlist every 10 seconds. First off, it's a guideline, not a policy, so I'm not bound to it (though if everyone here agrees that I should change it, I wouldn't want to cause too much drama). Anyway, many users have opinions expressed on their userpages, not just me. Besides most of the content on the page is dedicated to clearly wiki-related things (eg, wikipolitics, my outlook on worldviews and truth and how it affects editing here on wikipedia, pages I've edited, pages I've created, editing interests and wikiprojects). The guideline says that "the Wikipedia community is generally tolerant and offers fairly wide latitude in applying these guidelines to regular participants", and I think I qualify as a regular participant. The Ungovernable Force 00:02, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

The problem I'd say is the sheer volume of polemical statements. Not the fact that you give your opinion, but the way you express it. For instance:

• This user is opposed to the American Police State and the rampant supression of dissent.
• This user believes the death penalty should never be used except on some politicians and CEOs.
• This user opposes gun control for civilians but supports gun control for the military and police forces.

There are a great many opinions expressed in this very polemical tone of voice. You're basically using your user page as a noticeboard for political slogans. I don't think that is a defensible use of the user page. --Tony Sidaway 00:12, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, let's see what others think. Like I said, the majority of the page is clearly related to wikipedia. And if you look at the begining of that section I say "If you consider my userboxes divisive or offensive, ask me to explain them, I'll be happy to expand on my ideas, and have done so with users in the past. Chances are we can all learn a lot from each other and where other people are coming from in life". I can't help it if some people consider it "polemical", but I have made a clear attempt to reach out to such people, but whether they choose to listen is up to them. Any opinion that someone expresses can be considered polemical. If people can't learn to edit with someone they don't agree with, they shouldn't be here anyway. The Ungovernable Force 00:23, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

The Ungovernable Force, hi. I agree that the majority of your user page is about Wikipedia. The portions of it that I would ask you to consider changing are limited to a few of your userboxes. I would certainly include the first two examples Tony cited above, especially the second one. While I suppose any idea can be taken as polemical, it's hardly a stretch with a call for the death of other people, whether or not they're named. If that's not polemical, then what is? I couldn't really oppose the deletion of that box from your page, but I would be disappointed with the admin who deleted it, for passing up the chance at a mutually beneficial conversation untainted by a heavy handed assertion of the power differential.

I would request that you consider the perspective from which Jimbo was speaking when he said "Userboxes of a political or, more broadly, polemical, nature are bad for the project. They are attractive to the wrong kinds of people, and they give visitors the wrong idea of what it means to be a Wikipedian." Please think about what it would mean to be in the shoes of someone thinking that way. Remember that Jimbo, and those of us who are supporting his idea here, really believe in and care about Wikipedia, and have some real specific knowledge about the social dynamics that emerge in a Wiki structure. It's not random, it's not motivated by a desire to control others, it's not about freedom of speech. Another thing it's not is intuitive; unless you're already thinking this way, a paradigm shift is required. It's worth it though, because we're actually saying something real and meaningful. There's a better way to approach a Wiki than by proclaiming those deeply held political beliefs of yours that way. I don't suggest you hide those beliefs, or compromise them in any way. I do suggest you think of this project in a different way, and try to understand why, even though I have strongly held political beliefs, I don't advertise them on my user page. It's a conscious decision, made because I think Wikipedia is a very important project, which works best when more of us get into the spirit of it, and the spirit of it involves me getting outside of our own particular world views, and trying to see from all perspectives, so as to better understand WP:NPOV and WP:AGF, which are the magic ingredients that make this whole thing run. If my political beliefs were presented in a remotely in-your-face way on my userpage, they would strike me as very out of place, just like keeping my tennis shoes in the food cupboard, or car parts in the bathroom with the toothpaste. The fact that I don't keep my car parts on the bathroom sink isn't because I'm trying to hide them, or because some fascist is oppressing my freedom to store car parts where I want to - it's just that isn't where they go.

I really hope I'm making any sense at all; please let me know. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:35, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

The way I see it (and perhaps I'm being far to utopian) is that people need to be able to deal with people regardless of their politics. I have worked well with users who have had vastly different views than mine, and with the exception of neo-nazis and a few others of their ilk, I'm very open to discussion on differing ideas. I would hope other people would be too. But since I don't feel like getting into a big stink about all this, and because my own idea is perhaps far to unrealistic (it often seems to be in real life, and based on some of the vandalism on my userpage and snide comments on my talk page from anons/new users the last two days, perhaps here as well) I have tried to tone some of it down. Despite this, I have said many times and continue to say, that people who can't handle differing ideas really shouldn't be here anyways, and probably should stay in whatever political ghetto they come from, since they clearly do not have enough social skills to interact with a broader society. I think this segment of my manifesto sums it up well:

We must respect each other's differences in opinion and should work to create a truly pluralistic on-line society. This includes open discussion of opinions, which cannot be accomplished by banning "divisive" opinions from userpages. Most people are able to respect the differences of others, and the few who are not will still have to answer to the rest of the community for any disruptions they may cause.

Trying to hide ideas because they might be unpopular makes the community nothing but a group of faceless robots with little individual character. I think the question becomes, "which is more valuable: free expression of ideas or selfless devotion to uniformity?" Anyway, I'm done ranting, so unless anyone else has something to say, I will consider this matter closed. The Ungovernable Force 04:17, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I get the impression from your reply that you didn't read what I wrote, since you seem to replying, not to it, but to some strawman argument in which someone argues against free expression. Since I'm not against that, I'm sort of puzzled by your answer. Note especially that I said "I don't suggest you hide those beliefs". How did you get from that to thinking that I want you to hide your beliefs? -GTBacchus^(talk) 14:35, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I was responding largely to this sentence: "I do suggest you think of this project in a different way, and try to understand why, even though I have strongly held political beliefs, I don't advertise them on my user page". I did read what you said, and I was trying to think of a better way of phrasing my post, but was getting tired and had written too much. It was more the attitude of some editors. I realize you are not trying to force me to do anything, and I also understand your intentions are good. I'm just trying to show why I believe a better way to approach wikipedia, and the world in general is with your ideas on the table, open for discussion. Of course, to put your ideas out there, you should be (and I think I am) open-minded and ready to seriously examine other ideas as well. I'm just saying we have different outlooks, and yours seems to include the idea of hiding your ideas to create a false unity between editors, whereas I feel we have strength in our diversity. The Ungovernable Force 22:28, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for telling me in some more detail what you think I'm saying; slowly we learn to understand one another. You suggest that my outlook includes the idea of hiding our views in order to create a false sense of unity - that's a misunderstanding. I didn't say that, I wouldn't say it, and I don't believe it. I agree that we have strength in diversity, and that we should celebrate that. Apparently, I'm quite bad at communicating the view I'm actually trying to get across, but I'll try again.

Do you have different roles in your life? Sometimes, perhaps you're a student, or an employee, or a sibling, or a parent, or a sports fan, or a volunteer, or an actor, or a gamer, or... lots of things you might be. Do you talk about each of those roles, when you're in the other ones? I mean, isn't it conceivable that someone takes on different roles, and doesn't really find occasion to talk about one when they're in another, at least in some cases? If you don't happen to mention your sports allegiances when performing your role as a volunteer, does that mean you're hiding them, or denying them? Couldn't it just mean that they're out of context? What if you had a vision of your role as a Wikipedian, that just made it so that you didn't feel your political views were the number one thing to talk about. If they come up, you have no need to hide them - if you ask me about politics, I'll talk your ear off about what I believe and why - but what if working on Wikipedia is a role in which other things are just more important? What if you came to Wikipedia to exercise your ability to get outside of yourself and try your best to see things from multiple perspectives. What if you got really excited about how best to achieve NPOV and AGF, and found those much more important to talk about on your user page than the fact that you're an anarchist? Is that conceivable?

I don't want anyone to hide anything. I think it would be awesome if people said "hey, Wikipedia is something pretty amazing, where I go and experience the transcendence of participating in something larger than myself; sometimes I even edit articles to incorporate POVs that I don't normally tolerate, but here, I get to partake in universality, if I try very hard." It's actually a beautiful thing. It makes those boxes feel small. When I'm at Wikipedia, dissolving dichotomies is much more appealing than reinforcing them. How else are you going to edit a controversial article with POV warriors from each side? Not by digging in with one side or the other, that's for sure. Don't hide your POVs, just show that you're far larger than they are.

Please let me know if I've managed to come across as saying anything different than what you heard before. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think I have a better understanding of what you're saying. At the same time, the only roles where I don't incorporate politics/philosophy are roles I really don't want to be in (my job for instance, or being with conservative family members I would rather avoid). The thing is, I view my number one role in life (after being a human) as being an anarchist--everything I do stems from it (except for times in which I'm forced into something that I have little choice in for the time being). So perhaps that is the real underlying issue. At the same time, I have not let that get in the way of my editing. I even got one of the most prominent living American anarchists pissed off at me a few days ago for adding criticism to the article on his webpage, even though I support his website (before finding wikipedia, it was the page I spent most of my time on). The Ungovernable Force 03:16, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Incivility / personal attacks

A number of recent comments on Talk:Circumcision are very incivil. I'm reporting the following for incivility and personal attacks.

"I would say at least one user agreed with this move. No consensus not to truncate and revitalize the article with less biased phrasing. User:Jakew is actually mostly responsible for the "female genital cutting" title, as he has been dominating this article with his biased homosexual male adult circumsized views for nearly a year now. I'd also like to add that he is probably behind the proposed merge with Circumcision advocacy, and I might also theorize that Jakew is the one who is attempting to increase the real estate offered on Wikipedia for close up shots of male genitalia, most likely to appease his own homosexual ego. Also, Kesreyn, in my own defense I've merged nothing. Johnny Dangerously 06:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)"[40]

Also, from User:Dabljuh, who - with an RfC on his behaviour and at least one block - really ought to have learned by now:

"Due to the sensitivity of the topic, adding or removing anything to any of these articles may cause a shitstorm of ridiculous proportions. Essentially, circumcised folks generally don't want to hear they're actually mutilated, jewish/muslim folks don't want to hear that their stupid practice should be outlawed, and the genital integrity dudes don't want to hear about "uncircumcised" when they call that "normal", "intact" or "not genitally mutilated", and want to make very clear in the article that Circumcision blows huge amounts of donkey cock. Welcome to WikiHELL! Dabljuh 05:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)"[41]

Thanks in advance for your attention. Jakew 10:09, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand the part about the donkey cocks but the rest of Dabljuh's comment seems reasonable to me. What do you object? Vulgar language?

Fantasizing about others' "homosexual egos" says more about the one who does it than about anyone else. Socafan 11:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

In brief, it completely misrepresents the editors involved, their positions, and implies that there is nothing more than a bunch of biased, thoughtless people editing the page with no more at heart than their own agenda.

But please concentrate on the first. While I agree that it says more about the source than others, it is blatantly rude and poisonous to a collaborative environment. Jakew 14:29, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Do you do need to be thoughtless and biased to feel offended if others write in a derogatory way about the state of your genitals? Socafan 01:21, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Homosexuals HAVE egos. He is obviously biasing the article to appease his homosexual ego. Johnny Dangerously 14:54, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Everyone has an ego. Will someone please block this person for being incivil in response to a complaint of incivility? Jakew 15:42, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Jakew, you are an openly gay man. If so, you should not object to someone referring to you as a homosexual, nor object to someone specifying that your ego is one that is biased by homosexuality. Johnny Dangerously 16:30, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

If you have evidence that I'm doing so (particularly with respect to the images, which I have never had anything to do with) then present it. Otherwise, retract your allegation. Jakew 19:05, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

You are the evidence of your own homosexual, homoerotic tendency toward males. Since you are the "top editor" of the article, thus "owning" it, it is obvious to me from a lengthy trend in the bias of the article toward male genitals, that your underlying ulterior motive is to increase the number of penises present on wikipedia not for information, merely for your own personal amusement. Obviously this has also struck a chord with other editors of the article. I believe with statistical analysis tools not yet invented for Wiki's history features, we could determine how many times you have edited the article, versuses the other samplings, and would be able to make a judgement about that based on the fact that I am guessing (with some accuracy) that you are the "owner" or "hijacker" of the article. Johnny Dangerously 01:56, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I find an article about circumcision without a picture of a circumcised and an uncircumcised penis strange. Am I homosexual then? And if so, would turning that against me be very civil? Socafan 01:18, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd also like to add that that's a fargin lie! Fa! (This is in regards to the suggestion that calling Jakew's ego homosexual is somehow an insult.) Johnny Dangerously 16:33, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Please assume good faith and take this back to the respective talk pages. Thank you. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 16:34, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Good faith incivility? That's a new one. Jakew 19:05, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Dabljuh has a history of making personal attacks and has been blocked for it already, I am therefore blocking him for 72 hours for this. --PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 22:44, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Also be apprised that this user has been vociferously arguing for the abolition of WP:NOR. While not itself prohibited...well, it's not a good sign.Timothy Usher 05:52, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Uh, so? He says it's redundant, that's hardly a reason to block him or even to say he's doing anything bad. --Rory096 06:58, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Agree with Rory. I support NOR, but if Dabljuh wants to try to convince others that it's a bad policy, there's nothing wrong with that. I really, really, really doubt he'll succeed, but it shouldn't be quashed unless it becomes disruptive to the project. Kasreyn 10:21, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

He's requesting unblock, and he thinks you've confused him with Johnny Dangerously. --Rory096 06:58, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I must point out that I have not been making personal attacks, or been incivil in particular. I was trying to introduce User:Johnny Dangerously to the article series, and the caveats of editing anything whatsoever in them. Being able to communicate this effectively, and if possible, with a somewhat lighthearted, humorous spin, is more important than people who object to profanity. Wikipedia is WP:NOT censored regarding profanity. Additionally: I have only been blocked once, so far, for incivility. And the last time I checked, having been blocked in the past does not mean one can get blocked for absolutely no valid reason, whenever an administrator feels like it. User:Dabljuh 84.73.116.51 07:56, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I have to stand up for Dabljuh this once. His comment was outrageous and certainly not in good taste, but I don't believe he deserves a 72-hour block for it. I don't dispute that he's made personal attacks in the past, or that his remarks are colored by a certain... how shall I say it... assumption of bad faith on the part of other editors. But the specific comment in question is more of a joke in bad taste. I don't detect in it any attempt to be deliberately mean to a specific editor. He seems to be focused on lampooning the most extreme viewpoints in the debate. To be honest, I find Dabljuh's tasteless jokes less disruptive than Johnny Dangerously's constant mainspace content blankings against consensus and slurs against Jakew. Cheers, Kasreyn 10:18, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I find no one should be blocked without a specific reason. The above cited remarks are in no way a personal attack. Please unblock immediately. Socafan 01:37, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

There is clearly no personal attack here. Note the complete absence of a person as the target. Looks more like he's being humorous and blunt, which is just fine. Al 02:49, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Disputed tag is removed from Dhimmi article

The article Dhimmi is totoallydisputed since couple of months but now they have removed the disputed tag overnight without any consensus. The article whose talk page is filled with disputes and which had massive edit-wars during last weeks is now no more disputed. I want to know that how can this new dispute regarding restoring the disputed-tag could be solved. Please restore the disputed tag on the article, so that we can continue our discussion on the talk page. I hope to get some help in this regard. Thank you. --- Faisal 11:58, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Why do you need an administrator to do this? Talk about it on the talk page. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 12:00, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

That is why it was called disputed and there are many edit war on it. The both groups are not agreed on anything since a while for example see this [latest talk] on the talk page. and many more such examples on its talk page. I think it is useless to continue talk without having the tag restored first. I think that without an administrator we might end up in another edit-war for restoring the disputed tag. Hence please help. --- Faisal 12:12, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I suggest that an uninvolved admin simply remove this section, which does nothing but clutter the noticeboard. This is the place to request intervention from admins, not to whine about being on the losing side in a content dispute. Pecher ^Talk 12:18, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Any administrator can guess with the post of Timothy and Pecher that how much involved we are in the dispute on Dhimmi article. The dispute that was started at Dhimmi article is now extended to my User-page. Will it be still okay to leave us alone? I request an administrator to restore the disputed tag on Dhimmi article until this dispute is really over. --- Faisal 12:28, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Just because an administrator puts a tag on a page doesn't mean it can't be taken off. I suggest you talk about your problems on the talk page. Why not try and resolve the dispute that you say exists rather than arguing about the dispute tag? By the way, it's difficult to reply if you keep changing your spelling etc. If the meaning is clear, it's OK to just leave it. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 12:32, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

There seemed to be an unproductive edit war over whether the article was disputed. From the talk page there do seem to be disputes, which one party is denying are significant disputes. Accordingly I've protected the article until the parties at least can agree on terms of reference. --Tony Sidaway 09:57, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Indefinitely blocked user evading block

Indefinitely blocked user Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is back as MaryLouise@gmail.com (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). This account has the same editing patterns as User:Rms125a@hotmail.com -- notably inserting external links in the format "(see [[42]])" or "(as per [[43]])", a free email address as their username, assumption of a fake "Irish-American" persona and referring to Wikipedia articles as "wikipages". As proof: they're now edit-warring to insert the same (incorrect) fact as this edit. Can an administrator block please? Thanks! Demiurge 13:36, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

• Demiurge continues to undo all of my edits by claiming I am a sockpuppet because I updated one of his edits. I have gone to User:Bobcheezy, a Member's Advocate twice; he has confirmed that I am not a sockpuppet, but Bobcheezy refuses to have Demiurge blocked; Demiurge appears to be engaging in a vendetta against another Wikipedian and I am caught in the crosshairs; he needs to be blocked.— Preceding unsigned comment added by MaryLouise@gmail.com (talk • contribs)

June 13, 2006

Dear Sir or Madam: See below for one record of User:Demiurge's vandalism against my edits (Peregrine Worsthorne).

• (cur) (last) 13:40, 13 June 2006 MaryLouise@gmail.com (rv vandalism by Demiurge)
• (cur) (last) 13:33, 13 June 2006 Demiurge m (rv blocked User:Rms125a@hotmail.com)
• (cur) (last) 13:31, 13 June 2006 MaryLouise@gmail.com (vandalism by Demiurge rv; check with Bobcheezy re Demiurge vandalism which merits a lengthy block from Wikipedia)
• (cur) (last) 20:28, 12 June 2006 Demiurge m (rv blocked User:Rms125a@hotmail.com)
• (cur) (last) 18:30, 12 June 2006 MaryLouise@gmail.com m (minor syntax/grammar edits)

Demiurge continues to undo all of my edits by claiming I am a sockpuppet because I updated one of his or her edits. I have gone to Bobcheezy, a Member's Advocate on more than one occasion who has confirmed that I am not a sockpuppet, but Bobcheezy refuses to have Demiurge blocked; Demiurge continues to engage in vandalism. He or she appears to have a history of censorship against those who differ from him/her.

Sorry I forgot to sign my original comment. Marylou 13:54, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

• "appears to have a history of censorship" — now you've given youself away for sure Rms. "Censorship" is Rms125a's favourite accusation; see Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Rms125a@hotmail.com. Besides, how would a new user like yourself know about my "history of censorship"? Demiurge 14:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Ask a CheckUser to take a look and confirm it. robchurch | talk 14:09, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok, a CheckUser request was entered earlier today by Demiurge [44]. We'll see what happens - Ali-oops^✍ 20:06, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

No offense to Bobcheezy, but I'm not sure how someone who has been a wikipedian for 25 days would be qualified to determine if you are a reincarnation of a banned user or not. Thatcher131 14:30, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

• This really needs to go to WP:RCU now. If they've nothing to hide, I'm sure there won't be a problem. They've already made a complaint on WP:AIV against mine and User:Demiurge's "vandalism" which wasn't upheld. Please also see [45] and User_talk:Ali-oops/Robert_Sieger. View our edit histories and judge accordingly. - Ali-oops^✍ 16:17, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Ok, a CheckUser request was entered earlier today by Demiurge [46]. We'll see what happens - Ali-oops^✍ 20:07, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Chakabuh, User:Dont even try to hide the truth, and "Brian J. Bruns"

I recently blocked Dont even try to hide the truth (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) as a disruptive vandal sockpuppet of Chakabuh (talk · contribs), which was quite clear because of the singlemindedness of the subject matter of interest. The sock account was blocked after he removed all the IFD tags and the IFD notice I had placed on irrelevant court documents he uploaded in some campaign I really don't understand against some individual we decided does not merit an article (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brian J. Bruns); he had also tried altering prior vandalism warnings on his talk page. This whole mess has been going on for awhile (this is at least the third ANI relating to Bruns and this user) and I have been one of several admins to intervene in one fashion or another; judging from the determination shown, and the knee-jerk "you are all supporters of Bruns" responses, I would not be surprised if another sock popped up. I also have not block the original account, Chakabuh. Postdlf 18:26, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

A couple of things. First, why did the original account not get blocked? I'm probably missing something there, but I figured I'd ask. Secondly, Chakabuh showed up in #wikipedia and tried to gather more support there, and when he didn't find it, resorted to namecalling and on his way out the door mentioned that he was User:AI. Just thought I'd mention that, it seems AI doesn't have a great reputation. Mo0[talk] 19:57, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Chakabuh seems to have turned his focus to launching a DoS attack against the SOSDG/AHBL and its providers since he did not get what he wanted here. I wouldn't be surprised if he does the same to Wikipedia. Brian 23:34, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Chakabuh (inconclusive). Al is a banned user Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/AI but has edited his talk page recently, making a checkuser request possible again. If you believe you have good evidence, you can make a new checkuer request. Thatcher131 20:16, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, even if Dont even try to hide the truth wasn't a sock, he should've been blocked. --Woohookitty^(meow) 21:50, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think the question was regarding Chakabuh. If that account is a sock of Al, it should be blocked because Al is indef banned. I was pointing out that evidence may now exist for a CU. Thatcher131 21:57, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

AOL DOS attack

There's a pretty bad DOS attack going on right now. Check the list of blocked users. --Ixfd64 22:06, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but please, folks, don't block any AOL IP for more than :15. That will generally disrupt the DOS attack, and, what's more, please, please, please remember that specific trolls at AOL IP's are not blocked by blocking their IP. That's right: you never hit them when you block them. Instead, you block the next poor schmuck, like me, who happens to roll over onto that IP without knowledge. Geogre 03:20, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, you can't know if a vandalistic username is editing through AOL. Then, you block the vandal under {{usernameblock}}, and you get the lovely surprise that the vandal is trying to edit through entire AOL IP ranges at once. They're cleared fast, but they're annoying. Titoxd^(?!?) 04:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I can't speak for the other checkusers, but for me, when one of these AOL DOS attacks happens, if someone will ping me on my talk page, I'll checkuser the accounts and unblock any IPs they've used, by hand, in order to prevent rolling autoblocks. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 05:38, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

To Titoxd: You're right. When a named account is an AOL vandal, there's nothing one can do but block. I understand that the collateral damage in that case will be unavoidable. I was just asking that people not do something like block the entire ISP to stop an IP DOS attack or to block for only :15. (I hate being at an ISP that's an AOL client, but it does give me a big dose of sympathy for the AOL users.) Geogre 11:42, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

UkPaolo

UkPaolo- spent most of yesterday blocking users who he thought had broken the 3RR such as me and Foxearth. Does not know how to handle the admin tools. Suprised he was granted adminship in the first place. He also has forced me to leave Wikipedia. ForestH2 23:05, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

The block looks fine to me. "Three reverts per day" is an upper limit, not an entitlement. You shouldn't be revert-warring like that in the first place. --Carnildo 22:59, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Actully I didn't vandalize more than three times. Ethier did Foxearth. Foxearth was vandalizing the page. ForestH2

"Three reverts" is not an entitlement. If you're revert-warring, you can be blocked. The exact number or timing of the reverts doesn't matter. --Carnildo 23:26, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

1. The edits were not vandalism. Clearly a content dispute.
2. It was a 12 hour block for edit warring. Heck, 12 hours is half a day. Take a nap, finish your homework and it'll already be over.

You shouldn't be edit warring in the first place. And he did not "force" you to leave Wikipedia. You left on your own accord. Sasquatch t|c 23:37, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Help with vandalism

User:Brando03 has repeatedly vandalised my user page today, not sure why. Thjis being a common example: [47] Can someone help? BabuBhatt 23:15, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

He's been blocked for a week. JDoorjam Talk 23:21, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Deletion needed

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Highways, its talk page, and their subpages. The case has become a drama ForestFire, and the ArbCom has done nothing anywhere but the proposed decision. --SPUI (T - C) 00:16, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you're going to get far trying to delete an ongoing Arbcom case involving you. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:19, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

The point is not that it involves me. It's that no one seems to care about it, so the ArbCom is going all top-down on the proposed decision and leaving us peons to sling mud elsewhere. AKA a ForestFire. The only way to deal with it is to delete it. --SPUI (T - C) 00:21, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

The {{db}} tags have been reverted. I don't think you're going to have any further luck trying this, and I suggest (preemptively) that you not replace them. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:24, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for not helping. Bloody admins/"trusted users" don't do anything to convince people that the correct names are correct, and then don't give a shit when it disintegrates. Bloody fuck. --SPUI (T - C) 00:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

WP:NPA -- please read it. AmiDaniel (talk) 00:27, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I have. Nice non sequitur. Thanks to you too for being unhelpful. --SPUI (T - C) 00:30, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunate phrasing aside, you have a point. If you want that Arbcom case to be closed, why not say so and explain why on the Workshop or talk page? If your case has merit, the Arbcom will close it. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:36, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Why would the ArbCom care about the ForestFire? --SPUI (T - C) 00:39, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Because the ArbCom is interested in 'making sure the trains run on time', as it were. If you can persuade them that the most effective way to get people to stop wasting time on this bloody stupid war and go back to productively contributing to the encyclopedia is to give up on the case and return to the status quo, then they'd probably go along with that.

First, however, you would have to show some kind of convincing argument that the drama wouldn't just get moved back to the highway articles and WP:AN/I, and that we wouldn't have to keep blocking you and others for move warring over the highway names. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:21, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

The best way would be for them to get more involved, but I understand that they're busy. So maybe someone else that understands what vandalism is can lay the smack down. --SPUI (T - C) 02:38, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

That, in a nutshell, is the problem—the editors most involved in the issue all think that what the other guy is doing is vandalism. The rest of us are happy that you guys are fighting it out on the Arb subpages (the so-called forest fire seems contained there, yes?) rather than move warring. The ArbCom – this is a guess; I obviously don't speak for them – realizes that this is a trivial and stupid dispute, so is focusing on other things. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:53, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Removal of Vandalism Warning by The Haunted Angel (talk · contribs)

The user recently removed a warning I gave him in his talk page of an edit that was clearly vandalism. The user seems to have done this (though not neccessarily with vandalism warnings) in the recent past aswell. [48]--Jersey Devil 00:32, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I left the user a warning. If he continues, he can be blocked. Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 00:34, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Interesting action by User:Freakofnurture at CFD

• Does not require adminstrator attention. Moved this discussion to User talk:Freakofnurture - brenneman ^{L} 01:44, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

User:HonkIfYouLoveWikipedia

Hi all. User:Honk If You Love Wikipedia was blocked a while ago as a suspected AN/I troll. The user created another account, User:HonkIfYouLoveWikipedia. I'd like to leave this account unblocked for a while, since I'm not convinced he isn't just a new user. If a few others could keep an eye on his contributions while I'm away, I'd appreciate it, thanks. ~MDD4696 03:28, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

User:MaindrianPace

User:MaindrianPace constantly adds copyrighted material from here to the Frank Serpico article. I have given him three warnings (though one may not count), yet he persists on adding the copyrighted material without comment. At the very least, others could help in reverting his additions. PBP 03:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Blocked for 24 hours. Bishonen | talk 06:19, 14 June 2006 (UTC).

Impersonation

There is an AOL user who is is impersonating me with edits like [49] and [50].

He's used the following AOL IPs User:205.188.116.72 User:205.188.117.65. You can check that I am not this user as I do not reside in the United States. I would like to know what to do. -- Jeff3000 04:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

User:URBAN MEDIA INC.

Can someone please block User:URBAN MEDIA INC.? Despite multiple warnings on his or her Talk page, he or she continues to revert edits to pages "owned" by him or her (presumably radio stations owned by or associated with Urban Media, Inc., if there is such a corporation), including categorizations of articles, maintenance templates, and his or her Talk page. He or she has never participated on a Talk page or even used an edit summary. Edits made to articles and the repeated blanking of his or her talk page indicate an unwillingness to work within Wikipedia rules and policies. Specific pages "owned" by this user include 92.3 The Beat, WXBT, and HITZ-FM. --ElKevbo 07:42, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Blocked. Lets see if that gets their attention. They certainly knew enough to be blanking their talk pages, so they're not ignorant of the many messages they've been getting about their behavior. Shell ^babelfish 07:57, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppets of User:SPOV

I have permanently blocked Lordess of the ring (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Wikpedia (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for some disruptive edits/vandalism, and as sockpuppets of SPOV (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). (Evidence: identical user page, in one case created by SPOV.) Due to SPOV's edits to the user page of EntmootsOfTrolls (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), I suspect that the accounts may be related to this banned user. - Mike Rosoft 11:16, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Stan Lee

Much childish vandalism by apparently different users of IP 70.51.122.186 [51] beginning 20:43, 13 June 2006 70.51.122.186 [52] Maybe a stern warning might be in order?

User:Tony Sidaway

It is with sadness, considering that he is an administrator who should know better than to knowingly and willingly violate WP:POINT and WP:VAND repeatedly by altering other users' otherwise compliant sigs ([53] [54] [55], just to enumerate the most recent examples) and removing legitimate warnings from his talk page while characterizing them as tripe ([56]), that I announce I will be blocking User:Tony Sidaway upon his next violation. No one involved in the project is above policy and everyone involved must be held accountable for his/her actions, regardless of "stature". My job as a janitor demands I make this sad notification. RadioKirk 03:33, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

This is phrased very strangely. Have you read Wikipedia:Vandalism or Wikipedia:Blocking policy recently? It is pretty clear that you don't understand WP:POINT. Jkelly 03:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

With all respect, I believe I do. Thanks :) RadioKirk 03:42, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

You genuinely believe that Tony Sidaway does not want signatures altered? Jkelly 03:45, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Not sure how you arrived at that conclusion... RadioKirk 06:30, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

If you understand Do not disrupt Wikipedia to make a point, and you believe that I'm doing that, it follows that you think I believe that signatures should not be altered and am attempting to cause disruption by doing so in order to demonstrate that signatures should not be altered. --Tony Sidaway 22:27, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

No, because the sine qua non is missing: I believe signatures should not be altered unless an expectation of such to those users is made clear prior to altering them. RadioKirk 22:36, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

You don't seem to have read and understood my statement, because you have not addressed the point. --Tony Sidaway 11:05, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

There is already an RFC on this issue where TS would seem to have a great deal of support: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Tony Sidaway 3. Why don't you participate there? I think any block would be incredibly misguided and would serve no purpose. Your job as a janitor is also not to inflame the situation, sadly or otherwise (although you seem more gleeful than sad)--JJay 03:46, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd seriously like to know how you got that impression... RadioKirk talk to me 03:03, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

See this edit. Ardric47 03:19, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Response already made to user's talk page, BTW. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 22:42, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Isn't there a better place for this? How many previous threads have been brought here to no avail? --Cyde↔Weys 03:37, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

This continues to be absurd. The RfC went nowhere because the vast majority of commentors were solidly behind this refactoring. P.s. Cyde is one of those upon whom Tony is said to have unjustly trampled.Timothy Usher 03:42, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Tony trampled me? When? --Cyde 03:43, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Never before have I had a hankering for a userbox. "This user is not an elephant". --Tony Sidaway 22:27, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

It depends on whether you believe refactoring of your sig on this page constitutes "trampling". RadioKirk talk to me 03:45, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't feel trampled on. It's a wiki, I expect stuff to be edited. He's not even changing the content of any of the messages, just rearranging the format of the sig. I could care less. My signature is absolutely frivolous – I change it more than once a month. As long as the link goes back to my userpage identifying me it's all golden. --Cyde↔Weys 05:07, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, that's an admirable stance. Given that, by nature, personalization on Wiki is kept to a minimum, however, it's absolutely understandable that users would find it a violation when that "personality"—especially when it complies with policy—is altered, without prior notice, query or comment. While it may not violate the letter of WP:VAND, I remain convinced that it violates the spirit thereof. RadioKirk talk to me 06:36, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

So long as content has been preserved, and everything remained working as well as it did before (arguably, better), than 'violating the spirit of of WP:VAND' sounds like it's stretching the point. Especially if the changes are consistent in being nonpersonal in nature. You may be confusing it with WP:POINT here. El_C 06:44, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I knew what I meant, but thanks. The letter of Changing people's comments is, "(e)diting signed comments by another user to substantially change their meaning"—I maintain that the spirit thereof should extend to "substantially change their appearance". Call this subjective interpretation, but that's my view (and WP:POINT was a given [grin]). Anyway, I'm off for the night. RadioKirk talk to me 06:54, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Are you kidding!? The spirit of WP:VAND is that "editing a page on Wikipedia in order to deliberately compromise its quality is vandalism". Can you seriously justify accusing Tony Sidaway of "Vandalism"!? If it is vandalism, then feel free to use the {{test}} or {{bv}} templates. If you can't justify using those, it is not vandalism. Werdna (talk) 23:33, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the thanks, but I also knew what I meant when I mentioned that you may be confusing the two policies. ;) The sig isn't part of the comment; and it is the sig originally assigned by Wikipedia (utility-wise). El_C 07:03, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Precisely. Signatures are not comments and vice-versa. A comment tells you the opinion of the person writing it. A signature tells you who wrote the comment. That's all there is to it. Whether or not you have a point, purposely conflating two things isn't helping. A comment is just as useful as long as we can tell who wrote it. A de-formatised signature might be slightly less helpful (as typified by when links to user talk pages are removed), but often it usually we are better off with de-formatised sigs. Johnleemk | Talk 11:44, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

With all respect, signatures are comments; "this is how I want to be seen" is every bit a part of the editor (though it should be a very tiny part) as the words (s)he types. We ought not be showing editors how to customize their sigs—or, for that matter, including the option in preferences in the first place—if we want to stop the practice. Even then, the policy must be changed. Noncompliant sig? Kill it! However, simply forcing one's will onto someone else's compliant signature with no prior comment or query demonstrates a willingness to change whatever, whenever, by no more reasoning than preference—an arrogance that no one on Wikipedia should have, lest it betray self-importance over project importance. RadioKirk talk to me 17:34, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we'll soon reach a point where every AN/I archive will have a "Tony Sidaway" thread ;-) Kirill Lokshin 03:46, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I propose the following changes to the AN/I header: User:JDoorjam/Proposed_ANI_template. Please let me know what you think. JDoorjam Talk 04:06, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

blocked

sigh Blocked 1 hour per this. RadioKirk 03:48, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Interesting that you provoked the block immediately after placing your first message. Without attempting dialogue. How foolish. --JJay 03:51, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

If you say so. The user's disruption provoked me to end the disruption, nothing more. RadioKirk 03:54, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

That's why Tony should stop removing things from his talk, JJay. He's been asked and warned lots of times. There needs to be some seperation here: Most people did say that sigs were too long, and that shortening them was no big deal. But Tony's block (having followed the conversation) is actually for disruption. It's possible (and often happens!) to be blocked for doing something that's not "wrong" in a disruptive manner. British english, common era, etc... --Aaron Brenneman 03:58, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Fantastic point, if the RfC didn't have a concensus going in the opposite direction. When the majority of editors feel the refactoring is no big deal and the RfC was frivolous, blocking and warning over it is completely absurd. Shell ^babelfish 04:03, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I disagree— in fact, continuously pointing out the "majority" when the "minority" had valid points that will be utterly discarded if "majority rules" is adopted somehow is to consider the "minority" nonexistent. Wrong move, IMO. RadioKirk 04:17, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, do you understand concensus? If the vandals want our blocking policy changed, but the concensus of editors is that it should remain, do we change it because someone makes a valid point? How about the cartoon controversy - have we moved/removed those because someone made a valid point? I'm not certain if you're doing all this tongue-in-cheek or if you really have some incredibly bizarre interpretations of policy. Shell ^babelfish 04:29, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

If "consensus" means "don't accept anything the minority says, disregard it in its entirety as if it never existed" then, no, apparently not—and that would be a tragedy, indeed... RadioKirk 06:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

No, "consensus" means we request comments on something, and once the comments are in, we make a decision based on them. This is like saying we're disregarding the opinions of some editors who didn't like the Muhammad cartoons being above the fold of the Jyllands-Posten controversy article simply because we didn't implement a solution they liked. (Note: I am one of those who argued for putting the cartoons below the fold.) Johnleemk | Talk 11:48, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

That's what I thought it meant—or, certainly, should mean. However, someone needs to explain this to Tony, for whom "consensus" seems to mean, "the majority is with me, the rest of you can bugger off!" RadioKirk 17:36, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

So what do you suggest he do? In this case, the status quo is clearly unacceptable to a majority, and a majority of longtime editors at that. (Disclaimer: A number of those on the "other side" are longtime editors as well.) "No consensus" doesn't mean the status quo should hold, as the userbox situation currently unfolding indicates. Johnleemk | Talk 18:01, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I've already made that suggestion; either leave other editors' sigs alone if they comply, ask those editors with borderlne sigs to fix them, or gain a consensus to change the policy. Despite the fact that this editor considers me a "silly sausage" playing "silly buggers" by spreading tripe, I don't want this to go to arbitration—and, I blocked a disruptive editor, no more—because I wwould rather see the editor show some initiative, recognize that some of his actions have hurt the community, and back away from them. RadioKirk 18:16, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the community or the wiki are hurt by the diligent actions of public spirited individuals who remove clutter from discussions. I don't believe for one moment that you honestly believe that you could command a consensus on such a preposterous suggestion. --Tony Sidaway 23:15, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Tony, if enough people feel slighted, whether or not they should feel slighted, then you are being disruptive. You cannot dismiss the concerns of those who feel slighted as "rubbish" or "frivolous" without appearing to display contempt and disdain for those individuals. Contempt and disdain create an atmosphere that contributors do not like. This is why civility is so important. We want it to be pleasantly civil here. In fact, we insist. Your apparent disdain for others is unpleasant and uncivil. Your public spirit and initiative are commendable, but you're naïve to think you can dismiss any complaints you judge to be frivolous, without incurring negative effects on the community around you. Too much heat, Tony. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:35, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, we can all work on our civility. I have acknowledged this and, although I find absolutely no merit in what I view as territorial claims to real estate on Wikipedia discussion pages, I acknowledge that there do actually exist a small number people who take them seriously. However I think you're conflating civility and agreement. One can show respect for a minority position without being unduly influenced by it. We do not, for instance, permit personal attacks, although in straw polls a sizeable minority of editors oppose the No personal attacks policy. --Tony Sidaway 09:05, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how I've given the impression that I think you should agree with those who oppose your refactoring. I certainly don't agree with advocates of signature creep. I just wouldn't be dismissive of them, no matter how much I disagree. It's more work, to actually treat each person's concerns as valid and worth responding to, but it's worth it. -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:41, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

unblocked

• Unblocked. The block was unwarranted. --Improv 04:00, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Obviously, I disagree, or I wouldn't have imposed it. Also, that you undid a one-hour block is unsettling. Nevertheless, that's your call and I will not argue. RadioKirk 04:07, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't work out what Radiokirk was complaining about. That someone should dare to refactor a talk page discussion? It just seems so silly. Obvously it was a bit naughty of him to abuse his blocking powers in a case in which he was involved. But he's a new admin and these things happen. --Tony Sidaway 05:50, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Notice Tony's refactoring of my sig immediately above—on AN/I, not on a "talk page" which, you'll note, I've specifically avoided (except to restore legitimate warnings). If this is an attempt at deflection, Tony, it exposes you far, far better than anything I could have said. Your underestimation of my abilities is touching, really... RadioKirk 05:57, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Refactoring on pages like this, which many people will need to edit, is an especially useful service. We all benefit. --Tony Sidaway 18:32, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Then place a notice at the top of the page warning user in advance that this may happen. You otherwise are forcing your will upon others without comment or query. RadioKirk 18:35, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Alright, I've been bold and added a notice at the top of the page, given the legitimacy of the issue on a page that commonly gets huge. Reformat to your heart's content. RadioKirk 18:46, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Such notices are superfluous on a wiki. That's what wikis are for. --Tony Sidaway 11:11, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

That's a gross oversimplification. Were that altogether true, changing people's comments would not be considered rude. It is, and with good reason—and, I've already enumerated why I believe signatures are comments of sorts. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 12:57, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

We gotta shorten the max no. of characters, this is ridiculous. It takes me way too long than it should to edit pages like WP:PP and so on (the other day, it was esp. striking for me). Tese long sigs are quite a time waster for everyone. El_C 06:05, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

In an effort to head off any further "dumb questions" (using the words of those inquiring, not in an insulting manner), I truly believe that, after watching this user deface others' sigs over and over and over and over and over again, that the disruption was intentional (WP:AGF goes out the window in the face of such demonstrable contempt for fellow users) and that he may, in fact, have been trying to get himself blocked. Whether I walked right into that effort remains to be seen. I know full well the potential consequences of a decision I believe I was forced to make. RadioKirk 04:01, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

No, I really don't think Tony was trying to get blocked. That doesn't help him at all. --Cyde↔Weys 04:04, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

• You were not forced to do anything. We're all responsible for exercising good judgement, both regarding rules and regarding the good of the encyclopedia. The rules are just approximations of the ends. I disagree with your judgement on this matter, and hence reverted. --Improv 04:06, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Disagreed; vandals "force" us to act every day and, one would hope, the resulting act is made in the good judgment as, I believe, was this one. RadioKirk 04:17, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

The discussion on your talk page just prior to blocking is disturbing to say the least. Shell ^babelfish 04:12, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I disagree again. The user merely reminded me of something I was already in the process of doing. RadioKirk 04:17, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me, but are you really saying that you intended to circumvent discussion here by intentionally posting seconds before issuing an ill-conceived block you'd already decided on? Shell ^babelfish 04:26, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

• leave note at ANI saying you're doing so like two second before and reminding everyone that the de neuvo interpretation of blocking policy is that attempts must be made to talk it out with the blocking admin before unblocking should occur[57]
• I've intended all along to do exactly that.[58]

sigh No, that's not what I said or meant. I saw the edit that prompted the block after the comment, and that edit was the removal of a legitimate warning, again. "I've intended all along to do exactly that" referred to not imposing a block before posting a notice thereof; the result came sooner than expected.

Meantime, for those who intend to shoot the messenger, let me remind you once again that I acted in accordance with what I expect of policy and its implementation. If a new user did what Tony did, an indef-block would have been heartily endorsed, and you know it. Simply put, it's time to stop that activity that led to this whole issue on the first place: if a user's sig complies with policy—including, but not limited to, avoiding excessive code and exposition, leave it alone. To change it is impolite at best and a violation at worst. RadioKirk 04:36, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Contrary to common belief, WP does not treat everyone equally. Old and experienced editors' input count for more than something someone who just arrived yesterday says. A more appropriate comparison would be to people equal to Tony's age/standing on Wikipedia, and I daresay these people would not have been blocked. Johnleemk | Talk 11:57, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I know it doesn't; I'm saying it should. Tony has "power", and he knows it, giving the outward appearance of someone for whom the project takes a back seat to the imposition of his will, anywhere, any time, any page (see above where he forcibly changed my compliant sig here, on the bloody noticeboard!), with the ability to spout (spin?) policy to back himself up. If he actually believes as he appears, he is nothing short of a cancer, growing from within to choke off the beneficial "organs". If he doesn't, he needs to reevaluate what he's doing here and why—and now. RadioKirk 17:44, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Then (as I suggested below), bring it to the attention of the arbitration committee. As far as I'm concerned, Tony's actions, while certainly debatable, are not unacceptable, especially for longtime editors. I do not favour the idea of treating editors in an egalitarian manner for the same reason that an encyclopaedia publisher tolerates some mistakes from a longtime editor, but may fire a new employee who makes the same mistakes. We're not here to be fair; we're here to write an encyclopaedia. Having said that, I think that only a decision from the arbcom can finally end this (and even then, things will flare now and then). Piecemeal actions like blocking Tony or randomly altering editors' sigs will only continue to escalate the situation. Johnleemk | Talk 17:59, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I have only ever restored compliant sigs that Tony has "altered". As for the rest, see my reply to you above. :) RadioKirk 18:19, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) So... you are saying that longtime editors can get away with incivility and other behaviour that would get a more recent user blocked? And you think this is a good thing? For months now I've been pointing out what seemed to me an increasing gap between the standards of behaviour admins, particularly certain admins, are held to vs those ordinary users are expected to comply with. Now you seem to suggest that this is intentional. Who knew? Horrifically bad idea in my opinion. There is always a danger of bad behaviour by people in authority. Make it acceptable and it becomes a certainty. Forget about the fact that it is inherently unjust, and thus breeds resentment, it also inevitably leads to increasingly disruptive behaviour and ongoing conflict. You say 'we are here to write an encyclopedia'... consider that allowing the 'senior editors' to bully and harass the actual writers any time they feel like it isn't a good way to go about it. You can be certain that the management at Brittanica doesn't go around to peoples' cubes and toss their family photos and personal effects in the trash with a cry of "unencylopedic!"... nor would they keep their jobs if they did. The longer we tolerate this kind of nonsense the worse it will be for Wikipedia. --CBDunkerson 18:25, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, because: 1. Tony has a history of being right; 2. Tony has a history of contributing to the encyclopaedia; 3. We know Tony is acting in good faith. When a newbie does something that Tony does, it's an indicator of something systemically wrong with that newbie, because you need to have a track record before you can go around criticising this and that, and simply being outrageously bold. It's pretty much the same with any real organisation or company; people who can do the work, have a history of being right, and clearly aren't acting in bad faithwill be cut more slack. They are subject to the same policies, but not necessarily the same social conventions. The admin vs ordinary user dichotomy is imaginary, simply because most experienced users are also admins, and vice-versa. (Also, I've noticed some "ordinary users" getting off with alleged incivility similar to Tony's.) I'm quite sure that a number of non-admins (e.g. Kim Bruning) who have been around for a while would be cut a similar amount of slack if they did what Tony did. Hell, if Tony quit, I'm sure he'd be treated pretty much the same.

The analogy you draw is inaccurate. For one, the picture frame and paper the family photo was printed on is made by the company, and the picture was taken using a company camera. For another, those personal effects are in the editor's cubicle by virtue of having been placed in a common space designated for work use. (This is a very crude analogy, but more accurate than yours.) The cubicles then become so cluttered with these personal effects that prospective employees apply simply to be given such leeway instead of doing any actual work. Can you see why the management (again, crude analogy, but the best one I can think of) would be annoyed and want to crack down? It's not the total obliteration of individuality that people like Tony want. They just want to ensure that people understand that the encyclopaedia comes first, and not colourful signatures on memos which let everyone else on staff know how much of an individual you are. Johnleemk | Talk 16:58, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I could not disagree more strongly. Being 'right' and acting in 'good faith' should not excuse generating unnecessary conflict. Wikipedia is not a battleground. When someone deliberately takes a confrontational and disruptive stance rather than politely discussing the issue in an effort to get agreement that is more harmful to "building an encyclopedia" than just about anything they could be standing against. Certainly more harmful than bloody signatures. Saying, 'oh it is ok for him to cause all that disruption rather than discussing it politely with the users because he is a good contributor' amounts to rewriting 'pillar #4' to say 'be polite and work together... unless you have sufficient support from the PTB to get away with not doing so'... and that is horribly bad policy. On the rest... yes, all analogies are inaccurate... your implication that people come to Wikipedia for the sole purpose of creating fancy signatures and never ever contributing anything positive to the encyclopedia certainly being no less so than mine. Yes, there are some people who set up userpages and put boxes on them and then are never heard from again, but that has always been the case and really has nothing to do with the boxes - since they started doing it long before the boxes even existed. Nor has the 'crusade' been against those users... those with userpage edits and no others have been left largely untouched - at most perhaps losing a box that happened to be one of those deleted. The primary 'targets' are not these non-contributors you suggest, but rather active constructive editors of the encyclopedia. The 'crusaders' always say, "we are here to build an encyclopedia!"... but never explain exactly how ignoring the 'not a battleground' principle over something as inconsequential as signatures is supposed to accomplish that. --CBDunkerson 12:56, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Then what exactly was Tony trying to do? When someone says, "Hey, if you keep doing that I'll block you" and you keep doing it? - Aaron Brenneman 04:10, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Depends on the someone. WP:POINT is a double-edge sword. It appears to have been an improper warning & block: the two users are in dispute and should not apply blocks on each other for the time being (in general, & especially involving that dispute). El_C 02:18, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Again, I disagree, and vehemently. As I had been reverting defacement of others' sigs, Tony then defaced mine—probably knowing full well that this action therefore "involved" me. Vandals do it every day, and we block them for vandalism or disruption with nary a whimper—and, correctly so. Inarguably, this was a case of a longtime admin knowing the policy and using it in his favor, knowing full well that he would see arguments in response like the one you just walked right into, with every respect. The block was earned, and it was proper. RadioKirk 02:27, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

That wasn't vandalism. And you chose to involve yourself further in the dispute, you could have ignored his changes completely until the warning/block, but you didn't. That was your prerogative. El_C 02:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

And, that is yours. :) RadioKirk 02:42, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I won't argue this block beyond this: you seem to have a somewhat novel intepertation of what counts as a vandal/vandalism/defacement/etc., which is fine, so long as you don't act on it. El_C 02:50, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'll note in closing that we all are called upon to stop disruption, and I did what my "job" as a janitor demanded of me, "novel" interpretation or no. At any rate, I do appreciate the input—the real tragedy is, only some of us will gain some insight. ;) RadioKirk 02:56, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Likewise, I appreciate you taking the time to listen and respond to my thoughts on this. Regards, El_C 03:02, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Clearly the block here was ill-conceived and does not enjoy community support. I accept that it was carried out in good faith; however that leads me to seriously question RadioKirk's judgement. --Tony Sidaway 23:23, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Then, we're even. As noted, I seriously question yours. RadioKirk 23:27, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. My blocks tend to stick, though. --Tony Sidaway 23:36, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

If the percentage of blocks sticking is a contest, then questioning your judgment has just become an understatement. RadioKirk 23:42, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Well no, I'm not talking about a contest; I'm simply referring to your inappropriate block as an example of your poor judgement. --Tony Sidaway 11:22, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

"Inappropriate" is subjective and, in my view, incorrect. That I've now had all of one block overturned seems to me to be a point of much glee to you and, if you're counting, then you're looking at this whole thing as a game. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 12:57, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

deleting talk page commentary is against policy

There is a section of Tony's talk page which (among others) I and Mongo had comments on, which Tony removed and did not "refactor", simply took it away. It was not personal attacks, and specifically included references to the discussion on Wikien-L in which a number of people have complained about Tony's current behavior. I was seeking to remind him that there is widespread opposition to Tony being contentious enough that people complain so loudly. Regardless of the silly signature refactoring issue, there is a clear policy and admin activity question posed by Tony's activities which continue to garner extremely upset refactorees. Regardless of whether those are silly signatures, the discussion regarding whether Tony's activities, in causing this much strife, are bad for WP on the whole is a legitimate discussion. Tony deleting that section off his talk page is not refactoring/summarization, and is not deleting vandalism. This is not appropriate. Georgewilliamherbert 06:53, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I should note for the record: Mongo was supporting Tony, not complaining about him, in the now-deleted section. Though that's in the histories... Georgewilliamherbert 06:54, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Deleting unwanted sections from your talk page is not vandalism. --Tony Sidaway 18:29, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Those sections aren't unwanted. They're part of the legitimate feedback which other editors are sending you regarding your recent misbehavior. Your deletion of them, and flippant response to the two longer-term admins who complained about the deletion there, is not engaging in good faith discussions or consensus building.

You cannot go around deleting people's legitimate and reasonable feedback that we feel that you're being abusive in the way you're pursuing this refactoring campaign.

I still also have yet to see you constructively engage with any of the refactorees in a discussion as to what signature you would consider acceptable and not refactor. Several have asked for you to do that.

This is profoundly disturbing behavior you've been displaying over the last 24 hrs or so.

Georgewilliamherbert 18:56, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually I have seen people letting off newbies and established users with removing comments from their talk pages. I have done so myself (letting people off, that is; I've never deleted any good faith comments from my talk). As long as there is nothing specifically important there (e.g. vandal warnings on an IP's talk), there's nothing really wrong with removing comments. Johnleemk | Talk 21:10, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

It's not a matter of "letting off". If you find crap on your talk page, delete it.

On refactoring of signatures, I think George is completely misunderatanding why signatures are refactored in the first place. As far as I'm aware that is no signature that cannot be refactored. My own relatively small signature, for instance, produced by Mediawiki's interface, can be refactored by deleting everything between the pipe character and the first right bracket (as I've done here). The complainers' problem is that they falsely believe themselves to have grounds for complaint. --Tony Sidaway 00:59, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Pfft... yet another case of policy spin. WP:SIG#Customizing your signature does not say "even if your sig complies with these guidelines, it may be changed without your consent at any time." The correct reaction would be, "then why bother?" The only answer is, stop the spin or change the policy. RadioKirk 01:18, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

This reflects a fundamental divide here; when in doubt, some of us don't do anything policy says we can't. When in doubt, the rest do whatever isn't banned by policy. Now, who is in the right tends to depend on whether there is an actual hole in policy, or if someone just found a legalistic loophole to slip through. Seems we're going to have to agree to disagree on this, because I think there is a legitimate hole in policy here. Johnleemk | Talk 16:48, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 00:06, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

At the bottom of this edit box, are some words that I accept each time I click the "Save page" button or press "Alt-S":

If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it.

This applies in spades to trivia such as clutter on talk pages. Kirk, it's our words on a discussion that matter, not whatever random bit of html or wikicode we might shove after them. That's what discussion means.

If you don't think that what I have been doing is amply and fully backed up by Wikipedia policy, then you don't know that much about how policy is made on Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway 23:42, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Your argument applies in response. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 16:12, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Two seconds

Re: Shell_Kinney's "disturbing" comments, since when do we post block notifications here asking permission for blocks? The accepted standard is to block and then notify. By doing both at once, it stops (or should have stopped) a lot of back-and-forth and wheel-warring by making the reasons for the block clear. Disturbing? Please. - Aaron Brenneman 05:07, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

As the current vernacular goes, "meh"... if somehow the expectation from some folks is that I needed (or wanted) the scrutiny, they're entitled—wrong, but entitled. I'll live. ;) RadioKirk 05:21, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Would both of you mind reducing the number of characters in your signatures? It makes editing pages you've signed difficult. El_C 05:56, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Chars in my sig: 235. Recommended max: 300. RadioKirk 05:59, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll take that as a no? El_C 06:02, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with El C on this one, it would be nice. (also see Wikipedia:Signature#Length). When your comment above is about 1/4 the length of your sig, it can be a little distracting... I won't say anything else but it would be rather curteous. Sasquatch t|c 06:04, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Then, simply put, the answer is to find consensus to change policy. Since, however, you actually asked me, rather than to take it upon yourself to change it unremittingly and unapologetically, I'll see what I can do. RadioKirk 06:09, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

There, 165. RadioKirk 06:13, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

That is an improvement. Thanks. El_C 06:17, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Caught an unnecessary reduncancy following the previous edit. 156. :) RadioKirk 19:19, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

As a mentioned on Tony's page, "235" chars used merely to say "if" strikes me as problematic. It's not one person, of course, but it's clear these unrealistic sig char lengths are having an adverse effect on productivity. El_C 06:17, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Are the sigs really that problematic, or is it the users who change them without bothering to ask? I should probably note that I've never had difficulty navigating through sigs; the addition will always follow "(UTC)" ;) RadioKirk 06:24, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, they are. I would find no super-char sigs on various backloged pages a great improvement. I am having difficulties navigating through those pages, and it is wasting my time because it should take me a few seconds to remove a protection notice from WP:PP. It's a totally needless, non-WP:ENC challenge for me. Too much time spent time (wasted) navigating super-char sigs. El_C 06:32, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay. I don't have the same difficulty, but I accept that others do. RadioKirk 06:41, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Do you actually edit WP:PP? Have you ever noted any of the pages you un/protection there? There it's mostly VoA's sig. I asked him to consider shortening it a few times there. El_C 06:53, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Just took a gander; at 1024x768, it's easy enough to go to the first line that doesn't start with color= (grin). Seriously, all I look for is (UTC) and the next line is the next comment; sure, at 270 characters VoA's sig is a bit of a monster, but it didn't strike me as especially difficult. RadioKirk 17:52, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Again, should I take it as a no? (you don't note any of the pages you un/protect on WP:PP?) I'm a non-native English speaker, so maybe I'm not your average admin. The fact is that these super-char sigs complicates things for no good reason. But this really isn't the venue for such a discussion, so I'll leave it at that. El_C 02:55, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

On second thought, I want to clarify that I didn't mean for that first sentence to come across as overly critical, or acerbic in any way. And in case there's no followup, I'll explain that from my standpoint, if you haven't been using WP:PP to note un/protects, it's no big deal (I simply ctrl.F'd the history three-500s and didn't see your name, is why I asked), but please start using it more regularly from now on. This is unrelated to any of this, and in the scope of this, just a minor point I wanted to bring to your attention. Regards, El_C 03:10, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I do not edit that page, at this point, but I'll keep it on my list—meantime, I did run through the edit window to see if anything seemed unusually challenging or difficult, and it wasn't—at least, not for me. As I've mentioned before, though, I can see how this could present a challenge; but, again, this points to a need to deal with policy as a policy, not as a personal preference. Thanks again for the input. :) RadioKirk 03:17, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

It's just a signature for gods sake. It's not like he's changing people's comments, just their signatures. I can't see what the big deal is? --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 11:44, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Clearly, the big deal is that there's more html markup in the above dicussion than sensible commentary. I've a mind to refactor it into something readable. Mackensen (talk) 12:21, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

It makes pages harder to edit and has no obvious benefits to the project. The more superflous crap/markup we have the greater the barrier to editing. It's also just plain vanity to be honest. Secretlondon 22:12, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

This is an irrelevance. Tony is an admin, duly elected. That means that he can do what he likes to those below him. Unlike the President of the United States, Tony cannot be unelected. Wallie 13:08, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, no. He's an admin, but WP:NOT a democracy. He can't be unelected, but he can be "impeached" by the arbitration committee. Admins can't do whatever they like. Having said that, Tony is correct based on the overall principle behind his actions. If anyone has a specific issue with what Tony has been doing, please bring it to the attention of the arbitration committee instead of griping about "abusive admins" who can't be desysoped. Johnleemk | Talk 13:18, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

That really takes the biscuit. Best laugh I've had for years. The edicts are handed down from the Arbitration Committee are from Tony Sidaway are they not? Fair trial? (nope) Wallie 17:01, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

That is really an unjust accusation. I am not an admin, but I have personally never seen Tony misuse his clerk privilege (if you can call that one). He makes it a point to recuse himself from every RfAr he gets involved in. - Aksi_great (talk) 17:03, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Ease up. :) I have nothing against Tony... although I think he reverted one of my "pieces of genius" once - probably me on my pet project, Paris Hilton. The last comment is just my silly sense of humour. Wallie 17:34, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Who told you that? That's a total mischaracterisation of clerks' role in arbitration (unless Tony has some extracurricular activities I'm unaware of). When clerks write anything in the workshop, they do it in their capacity as normal editors. The arbitrators act independently in deciding what to include in their final decision, and at no step in the process of deliberation are clerks involved. We don't even have read access to the arbitrators' mailing list. Johnleemk | Talk 17:53, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

OK. I think I've got the picture now. Thanks. Wallie 18:06, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

If you look at Arbitration Committee announcements (of which I make quite a lot) they always contain a link to the Arbitration Committee's final decision in the case, and from that you can follow the paper trail to see which arbitrators took part and how they voted. Clerks play no art in this and, as a matter of fact, don't even redact or summarise the evidence often. --Tony Sidaway 18:28, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks.  :) Wallie 21:02, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I've decided that in future I'll try to make it clear in clerk announcements that I'm a clerk, and that I take absolutely no part in making the decisions. --Tony Sidaway 19:31, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

mboverload's position

Responsibility. I could go paint my car bright pink with rubber spikes comming out the back, but I'm not a jackass so I don't. People should know when their signatures are just too damn long. But it's more than that, it's the complexity, how you can tell the writing apart from the signature.

[[User:Mackensen|Mackensen]] [[User_talk:Mackensen|(talk)]]

Small, simple, and elegant. You are never confused about where the text stops and the signature begins. Major props to people who use this design.

[[User:Mboverload|mboverload]][[Special:Emailuser/Mboverload|<font color="red">@</font>]]

Add in a talk link and change the color of something so you can find your posts. Done, yay. Longer than I would like, but it's still somewhat simple and not hard on the eyes when you look at it when you're editing.

<tt>[[User:RadioKirk|<span style="color: #161;">RadioKirk</span>]]</tt><tt>[[User talk:RadioKirk|<span style="font-size: 9px; color: #161;">talk to me</span>]]</tt>

Note I couldn't use <pre> or it would brake the page When we get into having span classes in our signatures...come on. "OMG IS THIS AN INFOBOX?" Is what I think when I come across signatures like this.

Maybe Tony is being a hippie. It's like complaining that people are comming and mowing your lawn for free during the night, or a supermodel is taking advantage of you sexually. You COULD get them arrested, but why? ...Wow those examples suck. --mboverload@ 02:49, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

<<font="(whatever)"> is degraded code, it's really that simple—still, I've changed to use it in the first incidence (the one that's color only) because it saves eight characters (my sig is now 148). RadioKirk talk to me 04:05, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

<tt>[[User:RadioKirk|<span style="color: #161">RadioKirk</span>]]

[[User talk:RadioKirk|<small style="color: #161;">talk to me</small>]]</tt>

It's 14% shorter. (Shame on you, RadioKirk, for using absolute font sizes!) æ² ✆ 2006-06-12t18:03z

I've redone it since, anyway. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 00:08, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Archive reversion

I reverted Cyde on moving the above sections to Tony's talk page, simply because there was a block issued, thus it sho}ld be noted for the record. Which of course dosen't impact drawing whatever correct lessons for the future from .. the above. El_C 03:59, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

It would still be in the page history. I don't understand the point of keeping this discussion here when it's quite clear the administrator's noticeboard isn't supposed to be used for these purposes. --Cyde↔Weys 16:21, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

The announcement that Tony was blocked clearly falls under the purpose of this page; you weren't selective enough with your move. El_C 16:45, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Frankly I don't see it as important enough to be listed here. A one hour block, reverted within minutes? That's not a big deal. Tony Sidaway is always attracting controversy (for whatever reason) - and an ill-conceived block by someone he was in a dispute with, while wrong, isn't big news. --Cyde↔Weys 17:02, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, I think the threat of blocking and the circumstances under which it was made are very much subjects for WP:ANI. --Tony Sidaway 19:24, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Admin protecting, then editing article

Admin KimvdLinde first protected Israeli apartheid (epithet) against further editing, then moved it to Israeli apartheid asserting "consensus." This move must be reversed forthwith and the action evaluated for admin abuse. Thank you. --Leifern 23:16, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I welcome the report here, as I would like to have a wider input on this topic. The extensive edit war stretching various pages related to the term apartheid has resulted in a series of AfD's, a protecting of three pages (Israeli apartheid, Apartheid (disambiguation) and Apartheid outside of South Africa) and much soapboxing. The word Apartheid itself is just a redirect to History of South Africa in the apartheid era. After I protected Israeli apartheid (epithet) as a result of edit and move warring, I have gotten involved as an informal mediator as there was a request for changes to that page at WP:RFPP (diff. After everybody had given their input, it was clear that there is a consensus to change the first sentence (all but one editor), and that there was a solid majority to change the page away from Israeli apartheid (epithet) to either Israeli apartheid or Israeli apartheid (phrase). A small majority was in favour of moving it to Israeli apartheid, and this is in line with existing policies and guidelines such as WP:DAB and WP:NPOV. If I in the role of informal mediator have done things wrong, I am perfectly fine to undo them without hesitation and to pass the mediation task to those that think I was wrong and I will wish them luck in resolving this conflict in a better way. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 00:18, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the page move as a problem. There's a big dispute over the content of the Israeli apartheid article, one serious enough that the page is currently locked. But both WP:DAB and WP:NPOV indicate that a name change from Israeli apartheid (epithet) was appropriate. Suggest that all parties concentrate on more verifiability for statements in the article. --John Nagle 00:03, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The page move was done under the veil of following consensus. In reality there was a majority of users against the move. One could argue that the move follows WP:DAB and WP:NPOV but it certainly is not definitive. The fact that it was done under false pretenses is enough to make it innappropriate.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 00:10, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I urge the people to make their own count of the heads here: Talk:Israeli_apartheid#Page_move: 4 wanted to keep it where it is, 2 wanted it to (phrase), 2 would accept (phrase) as an compromise but preferred no qualifier, 3 wanted to no qualifier, one wanted to move to Allegations of Israeli Apartheid. Furthermore, 4 additional editors expresed that the title should be without qualifiers at Talk:Israeli_apartheid#Original_research. Furthermore, I asked the question at the vilage pump (policy) to get input and 3 addional editors expressed the same opinion again. That makes 15 editors for Israeli apartheid backed up by policies and guidelines, and 4 who wanted to keep it as is. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 00:34, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

First, my count at the first of those pages indicated 7 or 8 against the unqualified title "Israeli apartheid" and 5 in favor. Second, with all respect, I believe the fact that the "poll" or "vote" or whatever, was taken in three different places, invalidates the result. Those who expressed their opinion in one place did not necessarily know there were discussions going on elsewhere and did not have the benefit of those discussions. Third, you set up a "vote" in a particular location and if someone wanted to comment, they probably should have commented there. So I don't see a valid majority here. And I'd also point out that this underlines, in perhaps a somewhat comical fashion, the pitfalls of the fragmentation of discussions that has taken place. I see that you tried to "centralize" the discussion in a particular place, but there is no guarantee that everyone who is interested in the subject will go to that location. I am quickly coming to the conclusion that the whole effort is pointless. I am beginning to think that every article that has anything to do with the Israeli-Arab conflict should have a label that says something like "Wikipedia has determined that the group editing process is unable to produce a consensus article on this subject." At least, that is my determination, but it seems pretty clear. 6SJ7 01:17, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the latter, as there is so much political soapboxing going on, that going back to the basic policies and guidelines would be the first step in normalizing this stuff. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 01:35, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

We might start with WP:RS and WP:NOR - the heart of this deeply unencyclopedic article is little more than a link farm to activist sites, cobbled together to advance an argument contra WP:NOR. That it survived AfD does not make it compliant with policy.Timothy Usher 01:42, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

See my proposal here Talk:Israeli_apartheid#Title.2C_merge_and_mediation, which I based on policies and guidelines. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 01:50, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Rather, you based it on your interpretation of the guidelines. It clearly isn't as unambiguous as you present it.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 01:52, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

That entire afd was extremely suspect, nearly all of the "keep" votes were submitted by editors who have no history of editing either that article or even the wider subject area, also somewhat strangly, almost none of the editors have touched the article since. This coupled with the fact that the article's most vocal supporter has a history of spamming people through E-mail makes me really wonder about the whole process.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 01:47, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Moshe, this is intersting. Are you saying there was fraud ? Zeq 05:22, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Moshe, the fact is the only person found to be vote-stacking during the AFD in question was Zeq who was spamming people encouraging them to vote to delete the article and was banned for 72 hours as a result. Is it your argument that the number of "Delete" votes is exaggerated? If not, why not given that the only evidence of vote stacking is related to Zeq's attempt to get the article deleted? I sent you one email while I was banned for 24 hours for 3RR and that email had nothing to do with the AFD and I emailed a few ArbComm members about Zeq's conduct. Sending editors emails about matters other than the AFD is a) not "spamming" b) not evidence of anything to do with the AFD. The last time you raised this insinuation I asked you to email the AFD participants yourself and ask them - have you done this? If not, why not? It's easy to make insinuations when you are unwilling to actually inquire about the facts for fear of being proven wrong. Your insinuations are baseless and are borderline violations of "No personal attacks".Homey 16:27, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Moshe, here are some facts:

1) Zeq was found to be vote-stacking by contacting editors and encouraging them to vote "delete"

2) a number of the people who voted "delete" have not touched the article, before or since.

Are you suggesting that, given 1) and 2) the number of "delete" votes is suspiciously high and that the outcome of the AFD should be declared to be a consensus for "keep" rather than "no consensus"? Homey 16:33, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Kim is acting as a mediator and has been recognised by both sides as such, at least until now. It has been accepted practice on wikipedia for those acting as mediators to make adjustments to article based on consensus or wikipedia policy. Homey 06:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

How to move forward?

Let me ask a question. What do we want:

1. Keep pages protected forever and have a never ending discussion without consensus?
2. Unprotect the pages and have a edit/revert/move war forever?
3. Apply first policies and guidelines, then add contributions of many editors?

I probably missed some options, feel free to add. I am really curious what people think is the way forward.... -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 02:27, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I also find the recent flareup disturbing. I don't have the answer, but m:Polls are evil, especially ending in no consensus. In this case, there was no consensus to retitle into Israeli_apartheid. The sensitivity of the subject should be considered as well.

There was no reason for Israel section to be separated into another article, especially offensively titled Israeli apartheid (surely to be included into Apartheid (disambiguation)). At this point, Israeli apartheid is being treated as if it's an encyclopedic topic, and Apartheid outside of South Africa#External links contains 17 links, all exclusively target Israel. Note that the topic is covered in Zionism and racism, Anti-Zionism, Zionism#Anti-Zionism and post-Zionism, Post-Zionism, New anti-Semitism, Jewish state#Criticism Hafrada, etc. - not counting Israeli-occupied territories and more. Certain editors lose any sense of civility and proportion when it comes to Israel. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 02:34, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

It is easy to not have an answer yourself and critise others. I build a proposal at the talk page, maybe you would like to comment on that. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 02:37, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

You either didn't read beyond the first line or missed the point completely. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 03:02, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I take the first part back. If you read my proposal at the Israeli apartheid or in more detail here User:KimvdLinde/Apartheid, it is clear that we have roughly the same idea, coming from different angles. However, when mediating, I can propose, and than have to wait for people to comment, and I am curious what people think of it..... -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:09, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Kim, I am bewildered that you moved this page. In a contentious discussion covering many pages, it seems to me that the central and most contentious issues are whether this page should exist and, and if yes then how to name it. If people cannot agree on a title when the article is unprotected, changing it while the article is protected seems very inappropriate. Now that people have told you that there is no consensus, I cannot understand why you haven't yet moved it back.

To offer a response to your question about how to move forward, I was hoping for something along the lines of:

4. Keep pages protected until disputes have been resolved. Work towards resolving disputes by understanding the needs of each side and finding solutions that meet both Wikipedia policies and the needs of each side. Consensus will require that everyone involved in the discussion works in good faith towards consensus; this might require editors to leave the discussion. Su-laine.yeo 06:34, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Consensus will require that everyone involved in the discussion works in good faith towards consensus; this might require editors to leave the discussion., that would be nice, but inpractical. Who is going to determine who should leave the discussion? And what if editors are not willing to find a consensus? -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 18:20, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. I just made a rephrasing of your observation that "mediation only works if people are willing to seek consensus" ([59]). If editors are not willing to find a consensus, then my understanding is that the pages will have to stay protected. I don't think they'll stay protected forever because eventually people either mellow or leave. Su-laine.yeo 06:08, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

"In this case, there was no consensus to retitle into Israeli_apartheid."

Humus, there is a broad consensus against Israeli apartheid (epithet) which is what you unilaterally changed the title to without consensus just prior to protection. If you are a believer in consensus then you must concede that your unilateral name change was wrong and should have been reversed. Homey 06:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

This is a lie: "there is a broad consensus against Israeli apartheid (epithet)". Learn the difference between majority and consensus. WP is not a democracy and not everything is done unanimously. Also, there is no reason to crosspost. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 10:01, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

"This is a lie". Please watch your language. According to the straw vote there was a 2:1 consensus against "epithet". Homey 16:39, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I am finding it annoying that there is almost an exact duplicate of this discussion happening simultaneously at Talk:Israeli apartheid. Homey, moving an unprotected page and moving a protected one require very different levels of consensus. It's explained quite clearly here: [60]. "Administrators must be cautious about editing protected pages and do so in accordance with consensus and any specific guidelines on the subject." (emphasis added) Unless there is something incredibly offensive on the page, such as copyright violation, the consensus requirement seems to be clear. Su-laine.yeo 07:03, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Transcendental Meditation

Could someone please have a look at Transcendental Meditation? An anon ip repeately removed large parts of the article without giving a proper reason for his action on the discussion page. He was at least reverted by three different persons (including me) and the situation becomes increasingly annoying. Thanks in advance -- mkrohn 21:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Range block, please?

I took a look at the history and the talkpage. The IP's 213.112.235.112 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 213.112.235.71 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), and 213.112.235.81 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) are obviously the same person, and are equally obviously on Wiki for the sole purpose of pushing their POV about Transcendental Meditation by removing all criticism from the articles Transcendental Meditation and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. This is a sadly familiar situation. It would be great if it could be rectified by blocking the range. Dare one hope that that is possible? The anon user may ultimately mean well — by telling the world The Truth as they see it — but the actions are still nothing but vandalism from the point of view of the encyclopedia (which is not a venue for negotiating Ultimate Truth). Meanwhile, I have semiprotected the article. Bishonen | talk 15:21, 14 June 2006 (UTC).

Complaints to ISPS

I've just noticed an unblock with the unblock text "AOL proxy; it is against guideline and policy to tell people to "complain to their ISP.", which is in response to a block "repeated vandalism from this AOL IP range, sorry, complain to your ISP)". The block was rather broad ranged (a /24) and for 3 hours which seems a little excessive for the collateral damage for AOL, but the aside the idea that it is against policy or guidelines to get users to raise issue with their ISP seems to be a nonsense. The block message actually suggests those impacted by the block can contact there ISP. Any views on this, should we be avoiding telling people to complain to their ISPs/Schools/Whoever? --pgk^(talk) 20:23, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I have nothing to do with the block/unblock, but there's a separate section at Wikipedia:Advice_to_AOL_users and its advice includes no reference to contacting one's ISP, which in the case of AOL would be completely useless. Ken Arromdee 20:43, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I too have nothing to do with the block/unblock itself, just noticed it in the logs. As to if it's absolutely useless, you might be right on the other hand I'm sure a number of AOLs customers complaining will have more effect than the occasional wikipedia admin. --pgk^(talk) 20:45, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

It was me who did the unblock and the nastygram. A primer for those who haven't heard this before: AOL proxies roll, and the user doesn't know which or when the IP rolls. It occurs, with AOL itself, with every page load. Thus, if you see 24.XXX.XXX.XX vandalizing, and you block it, that troll will never see the block. He or she will go on to a new IP involuntarily. Instead, some innocent person will roll into that IP and find himself blocked. I don't use AOL. Instead, because it's $10/month instead of $25, I use Netscape ISP. Netscape is owned by AOL, and so I get routed through the AOL pool. This means that I can write a full article, have references and everything, and then click to "save" and see that I'm blocked because someone decided he'd had enough of AOL and blocked the whole damn ISP and its hundreds of users. Great. I fully sympathize with the frustration of trying to combat AOL vandals. If you have an IP that resolves to AOL, block it for :15. That's about the longest that an AOL user will be at a particular IP. If you catch him just right, you'll mess up the vandal without slapping the innocent. For my part, I'll try to be more polite in my unblock messages if people are more polite and less contemptuous in their blocks of a whole ISP. Geogre 03:25, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that if your ISP does something unusual that makes it harder for the rest of the Internet to stop abuse from that ISP ... then you should expect to be blocked randomly once in a while. I'm not saying that the random blocking is good or that you deserved it for using an AOL-owned ISP. But as a technically aware Internet user, you should be cognizant of the fact that your ISP putting you on a random proxy makes it much harder for sites such as Wikipedia to block abusers on your ISP without blocking you too.

Your ISP is making it effectively impossible to block some but not all of its users. It is doing so by creating a proxy setup that is entirely idiosyncratic -- to my knowledge, very few (if any) other Internet sites do what AOL is doing. I see that you recognize that some of your fellow AOL-proxy users do abuse Wikipedia, and as a Wikipedian I assume you want to stop that abuse. But please understand that AOL is willfully making the job of Wikipedia administrators -- and other Internet abuse fighters -- needlessly difficult. Please lay the blame for that difficulty at AOL's feet and not those of Wikipedia admins. (And no, I'm not an admin.) --FOo 04:15, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

You can say that it's idiosyncracy, if you wish, and I am a Wikipedia admin (which is why I could unblock), but it is, as I've said, our guideline/policy not to block an ISP, to block AOL only for :15 at a time. Yes, AOL does something funky to its users and its clients, but AOL is far, far, far too large to say, "Tough! You Losers need to lump it." This is not an ongoing debate, but established. We all agree that what AOL does makes things virtually impossible, and some of the AOL vandals seem to know it and exploit it, but there's nothing we can do about it as things stand now. Geogre 11:48, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

We really need to get blocking fixed so that IP blocking doesn't block logged-in users, if only because this AOL issue causes trouble regularly. --John Nagle 04:25, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Amen, brother. This has been a pita since 2003, at least. I say this as a person who can't program a calculator, much less Wiki software, but getting the autoblocker fixed would be a great goodness. Geogre 11:48, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Fixed? It isn't broken. AOL is the problem here. AOL is the only entity can solve this issue. /me adds to his list of reasons why AOL is a poorly ran busness. ---J.S (t|c) 17:52, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

When Geogre says "there's nothing we can do about it", it sounds to me as if he is saying, "We can't block AOL, so we have to let vandals vandalize, at least once every 15 minutes." I disagree. If a persistent vandal is operating from AOL, and AOL makes it effectively impossible to target a block narrowly at that vandal alone, then blocking AOL entirely, for as long as is necessary, is certainly an option.

The party that needs to change their ways in order to solve this problem isn't Wikipedia; it's AOL. It would be entirely reasonable to present a special page to users blocked under this circumstance, something that said, perhaps: "We're sorry, but your ISP's proxy setup is preventing us from distinguishing you from some jerk who's trying to replace all the adjectives on George W. Bush with "poopy penis". As a result, you won't be able to edit Wikipedia articles from this address for 23 minutes. If your ISP got a clue, or the vandal went away, this wouldn't happen." --FOo 02:19, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Blocking AOL for more than :15 is against our guidelines. If you want to deny Wikipedia the edits of the five or six administrators who use AOL proxies, plus the 15-30 regular editors who do, simply because you don't like AOL, then you may not have the correct disposition for holding the block button. Yes, we do have to put up with the vandalism. No, we can't block an entire ISP...ANY ISP...because a vandal is operating from it. Blocking an entire ISP is done only after serious discussion and proof that, like Sodom and Gamorrah, not a single just man is left there. But, because you don't like AOL's business practices, you think that it should be an exception? That we wouldn't block SBC because it has vandals, but we will block AOL because you can't nail down the specific vandal? All I can say is that I profoundly disagree and suggest that you re-think your position. We can wheel war, of course, but there's absolutely no profit in that for anybody. Geogre 02:32, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

User Ransom E. Olds has been blocked by a bot (page moves)

User:Ransom E. Olds has been blocked by a bot intended to block pagemove vandalism.

Please check the move log for this user and unblock if this was an error.

Please delete this message after the situation has been resolved.

This message was generated by the bot. -- Curps 05:37, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Valid block, offensive page moves. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 05:42, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Tag team blocking happened, damn, I wish we could bot the pagemoves -- Tawker 05:45, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't think anyone would object to a bot that reverted the moves and tagged the resulting redirect for deletion. I sure wouldn't. AmiDaniel (talk) 06:16, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

This could be a sockpuppet of User:Terrence V. Powderly who performed similar page moves awhile back. [61] Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 16:27, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

plagiarism in the article on Caligula

I reported the information on the discussion page and I ask that the page on Caligula be removed until it all the material that was stolen is removed. Thank You — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.118.46.225 (talk • contribs) 07:50, 14 June 2006

Ouch. This isn't just a question of one page, we have a serial plagiarist. Here are just a few examples of her or his handiwork: [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] The edit summary "added to entire page" seems to be a favorite for this type of edit. I've reverted the above and done some work on restoring useful contributions since then but more is needed. Please help. See Talk:Caligula for some more information. Haukur 13:24, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Has the plagiarist been warned and/or blocked, or is it an AOL IP? Serial plagiarists are a serious problem. Geogre 02:24, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Semi protect?

This closed AfD keeps getting vandalized. Is it possible to get a semi on it? Yanksox 13:19, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Uh, not to be overly beaurocratic, but the place for this is Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. --W.marsh 13:37, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, complete mistake on my part. Yanksox 13:39, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Request history deletion at Avery Johnson

Hello. There have recently been some abusive edit history comments left at Avery Johnson. Could an administrator please remove the edit history from Boogly (talk • contribs) and Texican25 (talk • contribs)? If this is not the appropriate place to request this action, please direct me to a more proper channel. Cheers, Lbbzman 14:01, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

• Their edits have already been deleted from the article (though their edits looked to be simple vandalism). --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:28, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks. The edits themselves weren't the issue, it was the edit summary comments. Glad someone removed them. Thanks again, Lbbzman 15:35, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Oh, sorry. Yeah, I deleted them. It appeared from two of the edit summaries that they were brothers who were taking turns smack-talking in Wikipedia edit summaries. Clearly not the most efficient smack-talk vehicle... ah well. Anyway, they're gone now and both accounts were blocked as vandalism/disruption-only accounts. JDoorjam Talk 15:36, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

{{PAGENAME}}

is there anyway to make this swap " " for "_", as it is right now, very hard to work into templates, for reference, see template:AOLdos--205.188.116.65 16:18, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

• Just so you all know, there's a rather bad AOL DOS attack going on right now, a little autoblock clearing would be appreciated--172.164.37.84 16:55, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

A space and an underscore are interchangeable. Wikimedia software automatically makes the substitution from space to underscore. Not sure this is the right place for this question tho:) Maybe the village pump or the helpdesk. ---J.S (t|c) 17:45, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Well actually, it doesn't, which is a problem, suppose you're trying to link to

check your socks at [http://www.checkformadeup/socks/{{PAGENAME}} sockcheck], thank you

works just fine, unless the {{PAGENAME}} contains a space, then it becomes a template-breaking-mess, and can only be fixed by manually changing the space to a _--205.188.116.65 17:57, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

This isn't the right place for the question, this doesn't require people with administrator access. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of the Sith} 18:03, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Use {{PAGENAMEE}} with an extra E, this is the URL friendly version. Martin 18:07, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks--205.188.116.65 18:12, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Casey and dew

Links provided by the article's creator, User:ForeverYoung2, indicates that "Dew" is 13 years old, or at least was 13 in 2005. See the links at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Casey and dew. According the nashvillescene link, Casey is an adult, "living" with Dew. This seems like we want to question having an article about the "adventures" of a pederast and the 13-year-old boy he is having sex with. User:Zoe|^(talk) 18:46, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

IMHO, and as I'll note at the AfD, the only relevant question is whether the pair (or the Internet site on which they describe/depict their adventures) are notable; even as I'm not offended by much of anything, there are surely articles here, as we've well discussed, the subjects of which many readers find distasteful. To be sure, an article about an individual who has sex with a 13-year-old boy (see, for example, the numerous teachers at Category:Statutory rapists) is different from an article about the exploits themselves, but if the exploits, as disseminated on the Internet, are notable (per WP:WEB, for example), the article ought to stay. In any case, since there is no legal issue and since I don't imagine that anyone will invoke WP:OFFICE with respect to the article, I don't know that there's any issue here that requires admin intervention, although I imagine that Zoe probably brought the AfD to AN/I in order that respected editors might weigh in on a quasi-contentious issue, and that's probably fine. Joe 20:47, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Sure, lets make Wikipedia like Perverted Justice or something. Lapinmies 20:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I presume Zoe's reason for raising it here is that there have been a number of cases recently where users were using Wikipedia talk pages to arrange assignations with minors. My presumption is she's asking whether this article raises similar issues. My advice would be: run it by Wikimedia's lawyers, just to be on the safe side. Nandesuka 20:55, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually I'm wondering whether an article about the exploits of a grown man and his teenaged lover are something we want to retain. As well as whether it meets notability concerns. User:Zoe|^(talk) 23:52, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and I suppose I'm suggesting that the former concern isn't one I share (or that I think to be encyclopedic); it should be said, though, that, even with the inability of WP:NOT EVIL and Wikipedia:Wikiethics to command a consensus, there does seem to be a trend (see, e.g., in various discussions apropos of WP:OFFICE) toward users' opposing our having articles such as this on grounds other than WP:NN, and so I think, even as the question is easy for me to answer, it's one that the community likely wants asked. Joe 03:14, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Is there a problem with viewing non-vandalism edits as vandalism?

Yeah, basically what the header says. If someone calls my edits vandalism, is there anything that can be done, or does one of us have to break 3RR? --SPUI (T - C) 19:35, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Take it up (in a friendly manner of course) on a talk page. --emc! ╬ ^{(t a l k)} 19:55, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

It's kind of late for that :P Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Highways/Workshop#JohnnyBGood and PHenry persist in misrepresenting SPUI's moves as vandalism --SPUI (T - C) 20:20, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Why have you brought this here? This really should be confined to the Arbcom at this point. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 22:12, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Davis21Wylie (talk · contribs)

User complained of being blocked the other day with an odd message "Your user name or IP address has been blocked from editing. You were blocked by Jayjg for the following reason (see our blocking policy): Alberuni Your IP address is 68.219.174.107" His account hasn't been blocked since the 26th of February and the IP address had been unblocked twice on June 11th and 12th because of collateral damage. Davis21Wylie reports that he still cannot edit and is getting that same odd message. Can someone else eyeball this and see what's up? Shell ^babelfish 19:45, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

• blocks have been going slightly wonky, block the username and ip for 1 minute to flush any wonky blocks lurking around Benon 21:47, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

  Tawker has run the blocks through for me Benon 21:51, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Comments on Talk:Ehren Watada

Basically I told User:Panzertank1 that the purpose of an article's page is to discuss the article, and that it's not a soapbox or a blog. He either did not understand or did not care.

I don't know if it warrants attention, but just in case it does, I'm bringing it to the admins' attention. Some of the stuff said is basically personal attacks in a passive aggressive manner. I don't know if the comments should be deleted, but I'll leave the admins to decide what, if anything at all, needs to be done. Hong Qi Gong 20:11, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Don't answer Panzer's comments and remove them after a few days after he has forgotten them, now it is turning into a fight. Lapinmies 20:54, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I tried to divert his comments and not engage him. Hong Qi Gong 20:59, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I left User:Panzertank1 a message and will be patrolling Talk:Ehren Watada. JDoorjam Talk 21:20, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Blocked user still reverting articles as an Anon IP

User:Leyasu, blocked earlier today by Tony Sidaway, continues to edit articles as IP User:86.132.135.23 . Anger22 23:19, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Repeated changes to WP:V w/o consensus

User:Light current has made at least four changes to the Verifiability policy without a consensus for the change and against stated objections from others. I have reverted, opened a discussion, and reverted twice more. I am done for 24 hours. Light Current's changes do not technically violate 3RR, but they are an attempt to change the same text to suit his lights. Can someone explain to him that this is not helpful? Thanks. Robert A.West (Talk) 00:19, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

TharkunColl and Lord Loxley

TharkunColl (talk • contribs) and Lord Loxley (talk • contribs) are engaged in an ill-tempered content dispute, complete with personal attacks and improper accusations of vandalism as is visible from their edit summaries. The edits on Talk:English people are rather depressing. Not reported at WP:PAIN or NPA warnings left as the editors have done a good job of plastering templates on each other's talk pages already. Perhaps someone could have a tiny word with these editors before things get any worse ... Angus McLellan (Talk) 01:06, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Let's see. I await the return of User:Wobble for a balance. Lord Loxley 06:45, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Improperly Blocked as a Sock

I have been improperly blocked as a sock. Who do I talk to to clarify this? What do I do? How do I find out which administrator blocked me and contact them Sorry, looks like I was mistaken. I misread something in my talk. Thank you anyway. --Zanoni666 01:26, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

The tag was not added by an admin, and you are not blocked. Seems that User:999 is playing some more tricks.... -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 01:43, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok, seems the rules indicated to do that. My error. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 05:08, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

That's funny. Opuaut (talk · contribs) was blocked as a sock today. Could you have been logged in as that user and reading that user's talk page? Are you saying that you are also that user? -999 (Talk) 01:45, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that one was blocked, but a sockpuppet tag alone is worthless. If you suspect sockpuppetry, report it at the appropriate place. That helps better. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 01:49, 15 June 2006 (UTC) Same, my error. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 05:10, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, Kim, User 999 has been playing games. We have gathered concrete evidence of his active recruitment of other users for revert war activity. Somehow today, he managed to convince an adminsitrator that Opuat is a sock of Frater Fiat Lux, getting both users improperly blocked. How can this be straightened out? How can I find out which Administrator did this? A cimple examination of each users IP adress should straighten this out. Opuat is an editor who lives and edits from Germany whereas Frater Fiat Lux is in the UK. And NO, User 999, your games are NOT funny. Should not User 999 perhaps be blocked for violation of Wikipedia's rule on disruptive behavior?--Zanoni666 01:53, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually Frater FiatLux (talk · contribs) was properly block for breaking 3RR and Opuaut (talk · contribs) immediately made the exact same revert within minutes after FFL was blocked. And this was not the first time Opuaut had carried on reverting for FFL after he either ran out of reverts or got blocked. Go figure! -999 (Talk) 01:57, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

You mean that they were engaging in the same behavior that you have been doing together with Baba Louis and SynergisticMaggots whom I can prove that you RECRUITED on their talk pages to do reverts. No one likes this. We are trying everything to get you guys to collaborate. Frater Fiat Lux had prepared a mediation request that he was going to submit just when you pulled this game on him today. This is certainly not a way to resolve anything--Zanoni666 02:03, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

There are open discussions and surveys which Frater FiatLux declines to participate in. Again, go figure. The consensus is against your additions, even if you could cite them, which you can't. You yourself have dropped the ball on discussion, preferring to try to overcome your opposition with revert. We wrote the articles first, you can't just replace them with yours. Now, if you are sincere, why not pick up discussions left unfinished on the talk pages. -999 (Talk) 02:08, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Hryun and the certainty elephant

Certainty principle was deleted. Hryun (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) who is an advocate of the certainty principle declared his intent to wage a war about the issue, was blocked indefinitely for disruption, started creating socks on a daily basis (Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Hryun), and lately has been creating socks which impersonate physics editors. This was discussed for a while at the Physics wikiproject talk page including some participation by Hryun before he was blocked. Another discussion at that same page lists some of the impersonation socks. Lately we've just been permabanning all socks and reverting all edits on sight. -lethe ^{talk +} 02:01, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

New England

The article New England, is getting a bit out of hand involving a discussion about Connecticut's relation to New England. 66.159.172.100 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) is also making uncivil comments.[67] Also, is attacking other uses and refuses to back down. Some kind of administrative assistance is requested. Thank you, Yanksox 02:30, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

The North Carolina vandal?

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

They appear to follow the editing patterns of the North Carolina vandal, by tring to create a fake town called Zandi's Bay, North Carolina and make it a county seat as opposed to some rather large city. I got that article up for deletion, and all their screwy edits I or someone else reverted. Fake statistics, manipulation of North carolina articles. It seems like the NC vandal, so here's the notice on the noticeboard. Kevin_b_er 02:40, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I have speedied the article as utter nonsense. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:57, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

The fact that so many people spend so much time creating an entire persona around their patterns of vandalism tends to make me believe that they are probably doing it because we spend so much time openly talking about them and giving them names like the "North Carolina Vandal", a result of this is we end up massaging their egos. I understand the importance of synchronizing the efforts to revert their abuse, but I still think a lot of the worst vandals wouldn't be spending so much of their lives screwing up wikipedia if we tried to treat them like any normal attention seeking wierdos in the real word, either ignore them (or pretend to) or ridicule them.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 05:25, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I concur. We've practically built shrines to some of the more notorious ones (i.e., Willy, Wiki is Communism, etc.). We should just give them case numbers and use really dry language to discuss them: "Lonely Nerd #5708 is vandalizing articles related to North Carolina. His edit habits are similar to LN3472; suggest CheckUser." JDoorjam Talk 05:40, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Worthy sentiment, but I don't think it'll catch on. "North Carolina Vandal" is easier to remember. And the 'shrines' do serve a purpose - perhaps when we start giving them special pictures, like Willy's car, that's going a bit overboard, but when someone new to Wikipedia asks "hey, why was this guy blocked indefinitely? All he did was move a few pages, maybe he's just experimenting" or "why was this guy blocked indefinitely, POV isn't grounds for an indefinite block?", we should be able to point them to a centralised history. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 09:20, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I understand the complaint, but this particular vandal confessed and promised to never do it again. Either recidivism or boredom appears to have set in. Geogre 12:24, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

List of unrecognised countries

A serious attempt to deceive editors and mess with the system has been committed in the above article by anon User:83.66.22.10.

1. The user changed the content of the article to include a POV edit that has been rejected by all other users in talk, using the edit summary: "based on consensus on discussion page"
2. S/he then modified the talk-page accordingly to justify his/her alleged consensus!

These nice new versions stayed on air for two hours before I reverted both. Please see to it, as the said article suffers frequently from relative POV edits. NikoSilver 09:39, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

PS. The user also made a cute edit at Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which was also reverted an hour later.

User:CAYA

Could some other administrators keep an eye on the recent history of the user page and talk page of CAYA (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). He is inviting people to vandalize his user page. An anon added an image of a penis, which was reverted by JoanneB, was put back by CAYA, and was reverted again by me. We've discussed similar issues recently at this noticeboard. If people don't want to see such images, they can't reasonably complain if they suddenly see them when they read articles about penises; but they do have the right to be able to click on a link to a user page without finding such images. AnnH ♫ 10:25, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Changing the text to say "Don't vandalize" would be vandalism, wouldn't it? I've started. After all, vandals change to displease, don't they? If a person is interested in being offensive, then vandalism of such a person would be things like, "I love sitting quietly in my room and coloring in my primer." Geogre 12:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)