Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive54

Just a little while ago, I protected an article about an American psychiatrist, E. Fuller Torrey, on the request of a user involved in an edit war that has escalated quite a bit over the past day. The user who requested the protection is a member of an anti-psychiatry group, User:Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC, who has been edit warring with an anon user of a more traditional opinion. I have a feeling that protection won't work, and that when it's lifted the edit warring will resume, since soon after protection the anon declared "As soon as it is uprotected, I will restore NPOV. I can wait" [1] (m:The Wrong Version) This subject is far beyond my personal knowledge -- if anybody's familiar with this stuff and has a minute to pop by to at least lend another opinion to the mix, it'd be welcome. · Katefan0^(scribble) 04:17, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Hmm.

(talk)

19:09, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Ed Poor (talk • contribs) has blocked Duncharris (talk • contribs), apparently over a disagreement with one of Duncharris's edit summaries (see User talk:Duncharris). The block was quickly undone, but this is not the first inappropriate block I've seen recently from Ed Poor. Ed, I know you've stated before that you will never give up your sysop privileges, so I won't bother asking you to consider that. However, I'd really like it if you'd agree to not use the block function anymore, as you seem to be having trouble knowing when it is or is not appropriate. Friday (talk) 20:00, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I think everyone should wait to hear Ed's side of the story before jumping to conclusions. Izehar 20:15, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

He explained his reasons for the blocking at User_talk:Duncharris. Friday (talk) 20:17, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't quite see how the case comes under the dissruoption clause and I can come up with some pretty imaginative interpritations.Geni 20:23, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

OK, according to

WP:BLOCK

:

Sysops may, at their judgement, block IP addresses or usernames that disrupt the normal functioning of Wikipedia. Such disruption may include changing other users' signed comments, making deliberately misleading edits, and excessive personal attacks.

It seems a valid block - however, before we enter the realm of

20:25, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Blocks for disruption are almost always controversial and Duncharris's edit summary barely qualifies as borderline disruption. It certainly should have been discussed here before a block was made. There's no way the block should have been for 24 hours. Furthermore, Ed is way too involved with Duncharris to making blocks like this. No matter what Ed's reasons were, it looks like a revenge block. Carbonite | Talk 20:34, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

The key phrase is "disrupt the normal functioning of Wikipedia". One false edit summery does not really have a noticable effect on the normal functioning of wikipedia.Geni 20:35, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Got to agree with Carbonite and Geni - I know I wouldn't block anyone for such a reason, especially if I had a past history with them. violet/riga (t) 20:39, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

me too.

dab (ᛏ)

20:45, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I also intend never to do this. Thryduulf 22:29, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Given all the comments here and elsewhere, and the obvious implication that discussion with Ed on his talk page is not working, that the next step in the dispute resolution process should be taken - namely starting an RfC. I suggest that in addition to linking it on user talk:Ed Poor you also note it here and at Duncharris' RfC. Thryduulf 22:29, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Just for context - this is Ed's third block against someone with whom he was in conflict in 9 days. He said he was wrong to do so in Dunc's RFC, then did it again to JoshuaSchroeder, and now Dunc. Guettarda 22:36, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Regardless of Ed blocking someone who he was in conflict with (or not, I can't really say), that has got to be one of the most absurd reasons for blocking I've ever heard.--

Black

00:01, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Certainly deliberately claiming to have the support of other editors for something when you do not is disruptive. On the other hand, to assume that the action is deliberate is an unfortunate assumption of bad faith on Ed's part. Phil Sandifer 00:12, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Maybe. But 24 hours? And only leaving a message on his talk after the block was inplace? Come on.--

Black

00:58, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

No matter what the situation, considering that Ed has a history with Duncharris he should have gone to another administrator who was uninvolved.

Jtkiefer^{T | C | @}

---- 01:47, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

As time goes by, I am losing more and more respect for Ed. He is seeming more of a liability than an asset. Ed should not block people he is in a dispute with period. That he has admitted this and yet continues to do so calls into question either his integrity or his stability or both. Paul August ☎ 04:54, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

A feeling I share entirely. Filiocht | The kettle's on 08:13, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Ed Poor has indicated on his talk page and mine that he is looking to modify his behavior and will be more receptive to others' comments—a very good sign, in my opinion (I'm always an optimist). — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:55, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Based on the number of similar promises Ed has made in the past, I'd say masochist would be a more appropriate term. Nandesuka 15:30, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposal regarding blocking editors in conflict

Thank goodness! I'm glad to see that this message is coming through loud and clear: Administrators must not block editors they are in a conflict with. I've put up a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy; I'd appreciate it if people who've observed this recent unpleasantness would comment there.

(No, it doesn't say "de-admin Ed Poor". It clarifies the existing policy and offers alternatives.) --FOo 04:56, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with this proposal. Disruptive users often claim that an admin who acts against them is biased and "involved," which by definition becomes a "conflict." This proposal would strengthen the hand of trolls and bad editors. Admins should not block users when they are involved in a content dispute with them, which is what the policy already says. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 13:40, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Handcuffing admins just leads to good admins like

Doc glasgow leaving. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)}

14:09, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

We depend heavily on human judgement in all editors, admins certainly included. As long as people are reasonable, we don't need extra rules that, as pointed out, could be helpful to disruptive editors. When inappropriate blocks are made, there's usually no shortage of editors willing to tell the blocker that the block was wrong. Any reasonably responsible admin will take such statements to heart and be more conservative in the future.

Personally, I think blocking is a big enough deal that anyone repeatedly abusing the block function should lose the ability to do it. The software doesn't currently support such a thing (AFAIK), but there's no reason the community could not implement such a policy. We'd be depending on the offender to voluntarily refrain from blocking, but if that didn't work out, we'd just continue through the dispute resolution process. Friday (talk) 15:31, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

If we don't trust an administrator not to abuse administrative functions, wouldn't it be reasonable to remove their administrative access entirely? --FOo 07:22, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I still think we should wait to hear Ed's side of the story to the specific issues raised here before making our minds up that he's a reincarnation of the devil or something. Ed's been here for years - he knows what he's doing. Izehar 16:33, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

We've heard "Ed's side of the story" -- it is expressed in his talk comments, his conduct on the AfDs about his fork articles, his remarks to other editors. His side of the story is a matter of public record. If I recall correctly, it involves such high points as claiming that nominating his articles for deletion was grounds for being blocked as a POV-pusher; and celebrating having driven a "subversive" [sic!] editor away from the project. --FOo 07:22, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

After some interesting and (I hope) productive discussion at Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy, there is now a small approval poll there to gauge consensus on the proposal(s). Please take a look. --FOo 08:46, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I went and blocked Brutus_Sanchez (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) indefinately. Looks to me as a rather obvious sockpupet of the already banned Dvirgueza (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), userpages where near identical (see [2] [3]), and all his contributions where to re-upload the images he had on his userpage that where deleted. Just letting you all know because, well I guess it's a bit unusual to ban someone indefenately without warning them first (though I understand it's allowable for sockpupets), pluss it's my first use of the block user feature (I'm not the biggest vandal fighter, and I'm a fairly "fresh" admin), so if anyone want to review the case I won't mind. --Sherool (talk) 18:20, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

No protest here. · Katefan0^(scribble)/my ridiculous poll 20:58, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

There's quite a mess at Jayjg's ArbCom election candidate page. Some users have been adding "questions" that are completely irrelevant or borderline personal attacks. Some of the more inappropriate question were moved to the talk page. Here an example of one of the "questions":

"Is it true that when faced with criticism, your first reaction is to lash out at your critics, and that when you can't do that you withdraw and are unable to function normally?"

Jayjg has wisely decided not to answer these "Are you still beating your wife?" type questions. I've already posted a question on that page, so I feel I'm involved and thus won't take action. However, this page was already protected once and there doesn't appear to be any end to this childish behavior. A review of the situation by other admins would be appreciated. Carbonite | Talk 19:04, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Ugh. Things seem to have cooled for now, but frankly, the behavior of some editors there sickens me. Bleh.--

Black

22:10, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Thing is, there is only one possible response, and we're not supposed to suggest that other editors do anatomically impossible acts. Bad witiquette, even when well deserved. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 05:07, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

RK was restricted from making more than one revert per day to articles related to judaism, he is currently using a sockpuppet account on chabad and perhaps other pages as well, to evade this restriction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/66.155.200.129 Please look into this. --Eliezer | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 19:46, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

All -- User:Flavius Aetius and User:Brian Brockman (who have unusually similar opinions and editing patterns) are repeatedly removing a talk page thread at Talk:Ken Mehlman because, they reason, it was copied from another user's talk page and so should be excised. (It's true that it was copied from a user's talk page, but only because that discussion bears on discussions currently occuring at Talk:Ken Mehlman. Additionally, the same editors involved in the copied discussion are also actively participating in discussions on the Ken Mehlman page.) Flavius Aetius has violated 3RR (which I've reported), but Brian Brockman continues to remove the thread of several editors' discussions. I personally consider this vandalism, but because we've been engaged in a content conflict on that article, I can't take any action. I report it here for others' consideration. · Katefan0^(scribble)/my ridiculous poll 20:43, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

A user, Bondigan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been spamming this into articles. I have no idea who created it but could someone investigate. --Sunfazer 21:49, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

• Yes: he created it himself on 17:35, 2 December 2005. – ClockworkSoul 21:54, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Deleted it as a template useful only for vandalism. - Nunh-huh 21:55, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I warned Cool Cat a few days ago about his unprovoked attack on Karl Meier as the latter edited

. Cool Cat was blocked by another administrator over the same incident. Karl Meier engaged in edit warring and I warned them both off.

The situation is complex. Meier is subject to a warning not to continue stalking Cool Cat, but in this instance it was Cool Cat who engaged in aggressive behavior.

More recently, Cool Cat has started moving material from the Kurdistan article to the talk page and questioning its presence; this is in my opinion acceptable, but not advisable. Other editors have resisted this. Meanwhile Cool Cat and Karl Meier have resumed their edit war on Kurdistan. Both are ignoring advice given by the arbitration committee and specific warnings given by me over recent behavior.

I have blocked both of them from editing for twelve hours.

See Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Coolcat, Davenbelle_and_Stereotek/mentorship. Karl Meier is the editor formerly known as Stereotek.

Cool Cat's behavior is of particular concern and as one of his mentors I am taking this case to his other mentors and may recommend that Cool Cat be banned for a while from

20:54, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I haven't reviewed the case/incidents thoroughly, but if you, as an ArbCom assigned mentor, feel that a block was needed and warranted, then it should be fine. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:12, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

It is necesary to point out that

WP:Point does not apply as he isn't even proving a point. --Cool Cat^Talk|@

19:07, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

This user has some few-dozen contribs, and after seeing just a few of them I'm willing to bet they're all the same - inserting an ext link to some football website. It's not really vandalism in progress, because they've stopped for now, but it appears no one else has bothered to check it out or warn them. Well, I just warned them, but is there a quick way to revert their changes rather than manually checking each one? Thanks, pfctdayelise 22:28, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it's

did you read this?

) 22:34, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

BTW, is this the right place to make posts like this? Because it's quite unclear to me and I'd like to do it in the right place the first time is possible. pfctdayelise 04:30, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, here's fine. There's also

WP:AIAV, but this kind of thing usually gets reported here. -Splash^talk

18:39, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Template:WivesMuhammad

I'm looking for help with a situation at the above. Zeno of Elea (talk · contribs) and Karl Meier (talk · contribs) have been reverting since August over whether the text of this template should call the women listed "wives," "consorts," or "wives and slaves," because the status of one of them, Maria al-Qibtiyya, is disputed, which the template makes clear. The consensus among editors is that they should be called "wives," which I believe is the mainstream position among Islamic scholars. However, Zeno and Karl seem to want to emphasize that Muhammad had sex with slaves. Could an uninvolved admin have a word with them? They're opposed on the page by Grenavitar, Zora, Yuber, Irishpunktom, and myself. It has gone on for so long that I believe it amounts to disruption. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 10:51, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Zeno just violated 3RR on that template. I gave him a 24 hour block for that. Nandesuka 15:10, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the help, Nandesuka, and thanks to Mark too. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:42, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I noticed User:Decembre 3 reverting to an earlier edit tagged as being by a lightbringer sockpuppet. I guess this user needs to be blocked? --pgk^(talk) 18:27, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

An anon with rotating IP addresses is editing each of the century articles --

04:27, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

If the anon keeps it up and can't be blocked due to changing IP's than an admin should probably lock the articles for awhile until the anon gives up.

Jtkiefer^{T | C | @}

---- 05:32, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Possible Scottfisher socks

160.91.231.73 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) is a potential sockpuppet of Scottfisher (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). I have blocked for 1 week accordingly. Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 23:35, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Verified. I'm also blocking his other IP sock. Kelly Martin (talk) 02:08, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Editing again as 160.91.231.73. Andy Mabbett 22:31, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

24.183.224.210 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) (part of a block registered to Charter Communications, 24.176.0.0 - 24.183.255.255) has mostly edited pages previsouly edited by Scottfisher; note removal of cleanup tag (despite no cleaning up); addition of image, another image addition and abusive comment. Andy Mabbett 17:49, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#160.91.231.73, below. Andy Mabbett 09:58, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

This IP contacted me on my user talk page asking about being unblocked. Since i've been kinda mentoring him by email for a while, I have to assume it's him. --

mmm chicken

) 23:50, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Who unblocked him? Andy Mabbett 17:23, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Assuming you were talking about

mmmmm chocolate!

) 17:32, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

No, I was asking about User:Scottfisher, forgetting that he can still edit his talk page while blocked. Sorry about that. Andy Mabbett 18:35, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Editing again as User:160.91.231.73 (an article previously edited frequently by User:Scottfisher. Andy Mabbett 19:43, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

And as User:160.91.90.103. Andy Mabbett 10:34, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Hello all I just received this email:

Hi Kevin,

I'm writing to you from the Political Science department at the University of Rochester.

I'm hoping you can help me locate an original article that has been deleted from Wikipedia.

I'm presently in receipt of the deletion review but would really like to obtain the original entry and :author's name.

If there's a way for me to obtain this from Wikipedia can you let me know? I'm new to the site.

Brent Henry Waddington is the subject of the article and he's a student of ours--We'd like the article :for his records.

Thank you for any help you can give me regarding this matter.

UofR's webpage confirms the identity of the sender. Regarding the article, it was a hoax article created by an otherwise legitimate user. The hoax was extensive and even involved amazon.com. Here is the missing article and its AfD. My guess is that someone complained to them and they are trying to deal with it. But, I have no idea what the appropriate policy is. Am I allowed to email them deleted article? Should I? My inclination is to send it to them, but I thought I should ask. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 22:10, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I have no idea what he means "in receipt of the Deletion Review", but if the sender is from the University, as you assert, and they want it for internal procedures, there is no reason to deny the request. In fact, it should probably be temporarily undeleted in its entirety and protected, so they can see the edit history for themselves.

did you read this?

) 22:15, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

She actually. I assume this means the AfD. If I do undelete it, I'll certainly move it somewhere where outside of the main namespace. But that's not a bad idea.--best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 22:20, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Is the emailer a professor at the university? Thanks. Flcelloguy (A note?) 22:25, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

She's an administrative assistant to the head of the department. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 22:30, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

There was more than one article involved in the hoax that wound up being deleted, Paradox Foundation (Kevin, I forget, did the Trout book have it's own page as well? I thought so but can find no evidence now). Should the request be viewed as implicitly including this article as well? Pete.Hurd 04:52, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

• For reference, please review
  Wikipedia:Undeletion policy. Zzyzx11 (Talk)
  15:03, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
  • From
    Wikipedia:Undeletion policy#Restoring the page (for admins)
    :

    If you wish to only view a deleted article, list it in the content review section and say why. A sysop will provide the deleted article to you in some form — either by quoting it in full, or by emailing it to you, or by temporarily undeleting it.

  • Therefore, you can go ahead and respond to her request and email her the content of the articles. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 15:09, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I am very wary of granting this request - I see little benefit in Wikipedia creating a precedent of "turning in" contributors where the bulk of their contributions are good. That he made a stupid hoax is stupid, but does not in and of itself constitute reason to help him be punished outside of Wikipedia. I also note that his name is not on the article, nor is it his username, nor does he give more than his first page on his userpage, so the information being asked for isn't really available. Phil Sandifer 19:14, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I actually don't know why they want the information. I didn't send any complaints to anyone, nor did User:Pete.Hurd (for exactly the reason you stated). But either way, if he's been "turned in" its already happened. Do you think it would be now appropriate to refuse their request? Here's my worry: we are increasingly sending complaints to ISP regarding persistant vandals. If they have some disciplinary process that they want our help in carrying out, is it a good policy for wikipedia to be uncooperative? Can we then legitimately ask their help in enforcing our bans in future? --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 19:54, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I doubt a Dept'l chairs' Admin Assistant would chase down information based on some complaint from the internet about a hoax. I would assume that there is some process afoot at UofR dealing withan issue of importance to them. If they bother to initiate an active investigation, I would expect it to be for academic misconduct, or something else they feel is serious. I very much doubt that whatever it is, it has this sillness at it's focus (or that they are at liberty to discuss the details with us). Pete.Hurd 23:09, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Since the balance of the opinions seem to be in favor of granting the request, I have undeleted the article and moved it to User:Kzollman/Brent Henry Waddington and protected it. I have deleted the remaining redirect. After they have looked at the article I will move it back and delete it again so that the record is preserved. Thank you everyone who chimed in! --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 01:26, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm curious as to whether Ward Churchill should be unprotected now, since what I saw from the talk page and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ward Churchill made it pretty clear that Keetoowah was the disruptive influence there. After asking him to cooperate in trying to resolve the dispute in some way or another (even inventing a more structured form of article rfc based on user rfcs), he denounced the attempt to cooperate towards a consensus version, thus retroactively activating the arbcom's PAP ruling on him in my opinion, which was at 3 days for an attack and I counted 20 on the talk page of Ward Churchill since that case closed. Thus, I blocked him for 60 days. This might seem harsh, but from what i've seen of him so far, he has done nothing constructive on Wikipedia, and 60 days is "short" in my definition since his behavior to this point from what i've seen and heard indicates that he should be blocked for several years, if not forever. karmafist 09:04, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

If the sole/primary disruptive influence has been banned then I think the page should definately be unprotected. Thryduulf 11:32, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Great, thanks for the outside view point Thryduulf. I'll unprotect it and remove it from the protection list now. karmafist 19:10, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

His latest incarnation was McBeer (talk · contribs). Have a look at the contribution history of this account, and you can see all his usual obsessions. In addition, he began a page to brag about himself: Wikipedia:Most persistent vandals, which I have left as is for now. I shut down 63.19.128.0/17 for 48 hours again, which stops him, at least until he can get himself a new IP range. Occasionally he makes valid edits (about one out of every ten or twenty), and it is characteristic of him to squeal like a stuck pig when one of those is either deleted or reverted. By the way, have a look at the deleted Six words you are never supposed to say for another example of the type of stuff he adds. Antandrus (talk) 04:11, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

This user continues to remove the IfD tag from this image, replacing it with increasingly bizarre claims about Iranian copyright law. First he tried to claim that it was "fallen into the commons domain". I

04:17, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Also edit-warring at

Black

04:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Iran is one of a small number of countries that is not signatory to the Berne Convention on copyright. As a result, many works published in Iran are not protected by US copyright laws, and Iran does not recognize protections for most works published outside Iran. The copyright laws that do exists in Iran also have a number of significant differences from US laws. However, it is official policy of the Wikimedia foundation to honor the copyright laws of Iran as best as we are able even though we may be under no legal obligation to do so. All of which is irrelevant if it is an AFP photo since the US certainly does recognize the IP rights of France. Dragons flight 04:40, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Cool Cat is banned from editing the abovementioned two articles from 1000 UTC December 5, 2005 to 1000 UTC December 12, 2005. The ban is enforceable by blocking by any administrator, subject to review and possible adjustment or annulment by the mentors, under the terms of the Mentorship set up by the Arbitration Committee:

• Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Coolcat,_Davenbelle_and_Stereotek/mentorship

This is not a punishment, but is a preventive measure taken to prevent possible further disruption on those articles due to his actions or those of third parties. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:23, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

This ban does not affect Cool Cat's ability to edit on the talk pages of those articles. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:25, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Blocks under this banning should be reasonable in length. A maximum period of three days is specified under the arbitration decision, but as a rule of thumb I would suggest that a block with a one-day maximum is less likely to be adjusted by review. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:53, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I've blocked Erectile99 (talk · contribs) and Breast99 (talk · contribs) indefinitely for spamming and using inappropriate usernames. From what I had seen, the spam links appeared to be added by a bot. Other administrators might want to watch the user creation log for possible sock puppets. Notice how their names both end with the same characters. --Ixfd64 10:55, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I blocked this account for 24 hours for a disruptive AFD nomination of George W. Bush. I suspect that this is a sockpuppet. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:57, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I've just blocked Asthma99 (talk · contribs) indefinitely for spamming. If I find any more socks, I'll list them here. --Ixfd64 11:02, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Add Bulimia99 (talk · contribs) to the list. --Ixfd64 11:07, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

These IPs (and surely others that I haven't come across, and indeed the whole range) are registered to the UK Internet for Learning, according to notes on several of the talkpages:

• 62.171.194.4 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 62.171.194.6 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 62.171.194.12 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 62.171.194.40 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 62.171.194.41 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 62.171.194.42 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 62.171.194.43 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 62.171.194.44 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 62.171.194.45 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

From them flows a steady, deep, inexhaustible river of childish vandalism into the encyclopedia. After quite some time spent sampling, I haven't found one single good edit from any of them, though I can't swear that one isn't hiding out somewhere, obviously. All the warnings posted on all the talkpages by all the ambitious Wikipedians have an air of pathos, if you read them all together. Don't we have enough to do? If the range is indeed static, and the sole purview of enthusiastically scrawling children, can it be blocked wholesale, by someone who understands the art of range blocking? Or can somebody who's better than me at navigating the intarweb find their way to someone in a position of responsibility at the UK Internet for Learning? Or, does anybody have any other suggestions? Please? --Bishonen | talk 17:03, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

My thought is to block all of these and then wait for some feedback from any legitimate users. It seems to be a network which would go to all primary schools in the UK when it is built out. Fred Bauder 17:14, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

From whois "All abuse reports should be sent to abuse at ifl.net Fred Bauder 17:17, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

There may be a handful of good edits in there - see the recent [4] by User:62.171.194.12. Which is not to say that I object to massive blockage. FreplySpang (talk) 17:21, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Further to Fred Bauder, the whois indicates that Research Machines have sub-allocated 62.171.194.0/23 to ifl.net. --GraemeL ^(talk) 17:32, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Ahh... I ... see. (Not.) Could somebody get on it, please? Bishonen | talk 18:01, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

See Classless Inter-Domain Routing. 62.171.194.0/23 is a range of 512 IP addresses from 62.171.194.0 to 62.171.195.255. It's also the format that you use for range blocking on the block page. Personally, I would like to see a greater consensus here before we take action to indef block such a large range. --GraemeL ^(talk) 18:09, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Do it. Just make sure the blocking admin has an email set and send a complaint at the same time.Geni 18:27, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

OK, I blocked 62.171.194.0/23 indefinitely. I sent an email to their abuse desk advising them of the block and the reasons that it was implemented. I also asked them if they subnet in any way that would enable us to reduce the size of the block and if they had any additional comments. --GraemeL ^(talk) 19:43, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

:-) Outstanding. Thanks! Bishonen | talk 00:32, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Make sure that indefinitely means indefinitely and not infinitely! Redwolf24 (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 05:15, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Collateral damage

I received an email indicating that this block is also affecting some libraries in the UK. I still haven't heard back from the ISP and I asked the user that mailed me to try and get the IPs of the library computers to see if I can work round that range with the block. Is this worth maintaining if we're going to cause collateral damage? --GraemeL ^(talk) 19:02, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Sounds promising. They must divide that block of addresses up. Fred Bauder 20:15, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

If we can get the library range (i.e. if the vandal fonts are, indeed, static), we can except them, but we need to be aware of the fact that libraries may be one of the sites of vandalism, and the only thing denied them now is the ability to edit. We're still good for researching on. The amount of spew the range was producing was truly staggering. Geogre 14:02, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm taking a wikibreak, so I removed the block on this range. Feel free to re-block it. --GraemeL ^(talk) 23:10, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Recent activity

In order to try to get a handle on what these folks have been up to, I've documented the contributions from all the IP addresses in this range (addresses with no contributions are not shown):

Activity since 1 Dec

Address	Vandalisms	Other
62.171.194.6	[5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]
62.171.194.7	[18] [19] [20] [21]
62.171.194.8	[22] [23] [24]	[25]
62.171.194.9	[26]	[27] [28]
62.171.194.4	[29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41]	[42] (revert) [43] [44] (revert) [45] (revert) [46] (revert) [47] (revert) [48] (revert)
62.171.194.10	[49] [50] [51]	[52]
62.171.194.11	[53]
62.171.194.12	[54] [55] [56] [57] [58]	[59] (questionable)
62.171.194.13	[60]
62.171.194.37	[61] [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] [67] [68]	[69] (revert)
62.171.194.38	[70] [71] [72] [73] [74] [75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81] [82]	[83] (new) [84] [85] [86] [87] [88] [89] [90] [91] [92] (revert)
62.171.194.40	[93] [94] [95] [96] [97] [98] [99] [100]	[101]
62.171.194.42	[102]	[103] (revert) [104] (revert)
62.171.194.43	[105] [106] [107] [108] [109] [110] [111] [112] [113]
62.171.194.44	[114] [115]

The "other" edits are good-faith attempts to create content, or at least, aren't clear vandalism (some of them have been reverted, some have not). Many of them are reversions of other edits from this range. The overall pattern seems to me that of schoolkids teasing each other using Wikipedia, and some other people (older students?) reverting them and sometimes adding content. The vandalism seems to come in short spates, and I'm guessing the IPs might correspond to workstations in a computer lab or school library. My gut feeling is not to re-block the IP range, but since the vandalism doesn't come very fast, to block the individual IPs as needed for short periods (but without separate warning). Demi ^T/_C 08:50, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Can someone official, e.g. ArbCom or Jimbo or related, please indicate the reasoning behind not having an election for the next arbitration committee? I find it worrying that neither has so far been willing to comment on this. At present, the impression is that without having the proper connections, one cannot become an arb. There has been

19:51, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

For those unfamiliar with ArbCom, answers to the following questions would also be helpful:

1. Has ArbCom been elected or appointed in the past?
2. Has ArbCom been doing a good or a bad job in the past, and how this is related to the change of election/appointment procedure?
3. How long are ArbCom cadencies?
4. Is it possible to remove somebody from ArbCom? If so, how?

A possible solution might be to have ArbCom appointed one year and elected another. After several years we should be able to judge which method is better.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 20:53, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

1.a mixture of apointements and elections at various times.

2.Imposible to objectively judge. Only one descission has been rejected by the community

3. in thoery 1 to 3 years. In practice untill they quit which tends to be a lot shorter

4.It could probably be done through getting the other arbcom memebers to vote them off or a descission by the board. It would not be easy. It hasn't come up yet though.Geni 21:35, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

• • I should point out in relation to (2), that criticism of Arbs and the ArbCom has increased significantly since Jimbo's recent appointements. But the situation is more complex than that, it's certainly not a straight "post hoc ergo propter hoc". The answer to (4) is almost certainly "no", given that it's already next-to-impossible to get deadminned. Radiant_>|< 23:27, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

I think 4 would just about be posible. Apointments would make it harder bit still doable. It would be likely to involve a fair bit of damage to wikipedia in the process though.Geni 23:54, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

The AC cannot comment on this with any authority because we don't know what the procedure will be. All I can say without wild speculation is that if you'd like to be considered, you should probably put a statement on the candidate statements page. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 22:23, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

• Once again, that is more information than was previously known, so thanks. So who does know? Only Jimbo? The board? Some hidden discussion someplace? Since this affects the entire community, I think it's patently unreasonable to keep the entire community in the dark on this. I've seen several candidates withdrawing because of the uncertainty; it gives the appearance that most people putting up candidate statements will not actually be considered at all, with no reasons given. Radiant_>|< 23:27, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

A very slight clarification of geni's comment, which I think bears explaining - the Committee has never been directly elected. There have been two times (out of five total) when Jimbo was appointing people to it where he asked the community to use the "voting" software to suggest who he should appoint; both times, he happened to appoint along the same lines as the "vote" suggested, but it wasn't an election per se.

James F. (talk) 23:02, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

• And has this system produced any undesirable results, apart from the infamous "disendorsements" page that everybody agrees should not be started this year? Radiant_>|< 23:27, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Well, out of all the arbitrators elected last time, only three served out the full first year of their terms. That's a bit of a botch there. Phil Sandifer 23:29, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I am aware of that. Do you believe that arbiters appointed by Jimbo would be less subject to burnout? If so, why? Radiant_>|< 23:51, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Radiant - Please check out User talk:Simon Chartres (... not everyone agrees to your common sense point) Raul654 23:31, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Okay, but I think we can ignore that sock, and anyway that wasn't my point. I ask again, "has this system produced any undesirable results"? Radiant_>|< 23:51, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Hello to you all. I think we can assume good faith for Jimbo :) Besides that I 'd like to point out, a part of his statement "with the appointments made in consultation with the existing and former ArbCom members and the community at large, followed by confirmation votes from the community requiring some supermajority". +MATIA ☎ 23:41, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
      • assumeing good faith is one thing. Assumeing correct judgement is another.Geni 23:50, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Current suggestion is 50%, which is not really a supermajority. To my best knowledge, no consultation of the community at large has occured. Radiant_>|< 23:51, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
        • If this wasn't clear - the steps I described above (where I mentioned the 50% number) is only my best guess. Jimbo has described the process informally several times, and if memory serves, he used supermajority in one description and majority in another. Raul654 23:59, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
          • So even Jimbo hasn't decided what's being done, then? A little keeping-the-community-in-the-loop would be really, genuinely helpful. I wonder where he is planning to conduct the consultation with the community before announcing his choices, for example? Can the ArbCom tell us what discussions they have so far had (the message from MATIA implies some), and who they are recommending? -Splash^talk 02:52, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
• I second Splash's request. I should also point out that most of the questions in this section and the previous have not in fact been answered by the Powers That Be. Radiant_>|< 16:29, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree with Splash too (and I must note that the message I've cited was given in the previous section by Raul654). Reading that message (and unless or until something else is announced) I think that Jimbo will select some candidates (from the volunteers that would go for an election), and then a second selection will be done by JW, ArbCom and the community in general (that's what I understand, perhaps I'm wrong). I also think that within the next days some announcement will be made that will clarify the things better (WP is not a crystal ball, am I? ) +MATIA ☎ 18:20, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

the statement was made on the 20th of october. we've been waiting for some form of clarification for some time.Geni 18:26, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, at least here, we 've shown that there are good reasons for the clarifications to be given and there's a consensus (or something like it) among many editors asking for them. +MATIA ☎ 18:37, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I we had managed to establish that about two weeks ago.Geni 19:06, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Now if only a consensus on the part of the community that Jimbo should say something had particular meaning. Phil Sandifer 19:26, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I think we should probably avoid elections for arbitrators altogether. They're just a bunch of people who make commonsense decisions when the normal dispute resolution process has failed. There aren't that many people both capable of and willing to do the job. Jimbo should just name some names of people that he would be happy with acting on his behalf, and we can forget about it for the next few months. The elections have been unnecessary and, in my opinion, probably only made things worse within the community. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:12, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

They're just a bunch of people who make what they may claim and even believe are commonsense decisions. But their idea of common sense may not be the same as mine or yours. Why should you or I or anyone submit to arbitrarily selected arbiters of what's "common sense"? I know that WP is not a democracy, but I hope decisions aren't made by a self-perpetuating oligarchy. -- Hoary 09:42, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Have you read

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2005/Straw poll? There's a large (and growing) consensus for direct elections; it'd be a disaster to carry forward with Jimbo only giving us his choices (and what happens if his choices don't get the majority vote needed; will he renominate them again or reconsider those he passed over, or will he leave that seat unfilled?). The worst part is that the details of how this election will proceed are virtually unknown to anyone except Jimbo. And the election is next month! —Locke Cole ^{(talk) (e-mail)}

09:59, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I think some people are forgetting that we are all here because Jimbo lets us be here. Electing arbitrators is not a right conferred to us by our citizenry in Wikipedia land. It's times like this that we should be thanking him for creating and maintaining Wikipedia, not making bold demands about how he should exercise his rightful authority over it. That said, I would like to echo Tony Sidaway's point. Given the trainwreck that was the last elections, I don't see the need for a repeat. Let Jimbo appoint some trustworthy folks so we can all move past the Wiki-politics and write an encyclopedia. :-) --Ryan Delaney ^talk 10:39, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

we are here because Jimbo lets us and because readers and community members donate money for the servers. I would definitely prefer some transparency here. If I began to feel WP was becoming a "self-perpetuating oligarchy" I would be less enthusiastic about investing time and content. If enough people felt like that, the project would be damaged (WP is, after all, about content).

10:55, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm another who feels just like that. As noted above elsewhere, I've withdrawn from the process because I refuse to be part of something that has not been explained, never mind justified. Filiocht | The kettle's on 11:02, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I thought we were here as volunteers (and I don't overlook neither Jimbo's contributions - including that he is the founder, nor donations - most of them are perhaps by volunteers). +MATIA ☎ 11:23, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Put another way, I think Wikipedia editors should not feel that their contributions to Wikipedia (monetary or otherwise) entitle them to a "Republican form of government" or anything else. Like MATIA said, we are volunteers, and donations are donations; they aren't payment for services. When someone donates to the foundation, she does not think she is purchasing a vote in a bureaucracy. If public elections for arbitrators are manifestly harmful, because they waste time and are highly contentious for no beneficial reason but that people tend to feel strongly about the Wikipolitics, then I would greatly appreciate it if Jimbo would "cut through the bullshit" as it were and just make appointments. I think these are the real questions in this disagreement:

• Are we "owed" anything by the WikiMedia foundation, in particular a vote in elections of officers? Why?
• Given the high cost, what would be gained by public elections of arbitrators, anyway?

--Ryan Delaney ^talk 17:11, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Well said. We're not owed particapation in selecting Arbcom membership and I still maintain that the projectable level of debate (where ever it occurs) will do more harm than good.

Rx StrangeLove

06:54, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. First and foremost I'm here to help write an encyclopedia. Regardless of what I've contributed, this isn't my website and I'm not owed anything. If Jimbo wants to make appointments, so be it. --Kbdank71 18:28, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I think this thread is getting off topic a bit, the only real point of the election IMO is to select people who will make the arbcom into something into something users feel will be authoritative enough to trust regarding enforcing/interpreting policy in disputes, much like a court(if people didn't respect the authority of courts, they'd be ignored, as some users do regarding the arbcom). If this happens via election or appointment, i'm happy, but I think the outcry here is it'll only happen through election and Jimbo stays on the sidelines as an advisor rather than any kind of participant. karmafist 22:56, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

18:45, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

See also

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR#User:Chooserr. --Gareth Hughes

21:34, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

And there are just as many (if not more) article which originally used BCE/CE, yet now use BC/AD. It is far better to leave article as they currently stand, and if a change is desired, obtain consensus on the talk page. Sortan 21:38, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Keep an eye also on 212.134.22.141, who just went on a short anti-BCE/CE drive. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 22:03, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

For the record, I paroled Chooserr from his 24-hour 3RR block on the condition that he not make any changes to date system for those 24 hours. If, before that period expires, he breaks his promise, the 24-hour 3RR block should be immediately reinstated. -- SCZenz 22:33, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I also think it might be an oversight that policy does not explicitly state articles should be left as they currently are. If it did say this, we could treat all such problems as simple vandalism after a warning. -- SCZenz 22:33, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

It does already (well, the style guide does say they should be left as started) and actually, you still can't per blocking policy - David Gerard 19:01, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

The style guide doesn't seem to say that about dates, that I've found—if it does, can you tell me where? Anyway, the problem with Chooserr is that he's changing pages that originally used AD and BC, which he feels is justified by the "left as started" clause. I think "status quo" would be a more sensible thing. Finally, you're absolutely right about blocking policy—saying that was a newbie admin error, and I should have realized that was a mistake. -- SCZenz 19:13, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Then, until the policy is changed (and given it's a hot issue it's unlikely just changing the page will pass unnoticed) he's actually acting according to policy, rather than doing anything wrong at all? - David Gerard 19:36, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, he violated 3RR, but aside from that... The policy, as I said, doesn't seem to say either way how a disputed decision should be made. Thus I would expect consensus to be sought to change from the current version. But of course, there are many ways to seek consensus. He's not acting explicitly according to policy, but he's only doing something wrong (aside from 3RR) if edit warring is "something wrong". Which is is, in the sense that it is not the best way to make decisions, but not in the sense that it requires administrator intervention. -- SCZenz 19:41, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

No, User:Jguk was banned from changing date styles for the exact same type of behavior, so you can't say he's acting according to policy. Sortan 19:46, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

jguk was banned from changing date styles for persistent and destructive edit-warring, a level that has most certainly not yet been reached. By the way, an Arbitration Committee decision does not policy make. On the other hand, he certainly has broken policy, the 3RR. [[Sam Korn]] 20:44, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

You're not suggesting we let it reach Jguk levels with a 1,000+ reverts before doing anything about it, are you? Sortan 20:48, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

No, not at all. I'm just saying the level of the behaviour is nothing like that of jguk's yet, and should be treated as such. That said, this does taste like a role account. [[Sam Korn]] 21:14, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I think this is similar to AE and BE spelling, both are equally correct, so changing them is useless. Besides, they still refer to the same year 0 so using one over the other isn't more NPOV and removing them alltogether fails the policy we should use the most common name for anything we write about. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:01, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Is this a sockpuppet of User:Jguk by any chance? --Victim of signature fascism 12:58, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Not as far as I can tell. Oddly enough, not everyone who thinks BCE is American academics' wankery is jguk - David Gerard 19:01, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, because an encyclopedia should by no means have any bearing on academics. Sortan 19:29, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Problem is that even the academic databases I cheacked favoured BC/AD.Geni 20:19, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

No, it's not a sockpuppet of mine. However, MacGyverMagic is wrong, it's not a case of AE v BE - ArbCom OK'd wholesale unilateral changes to BCE and CE notation (à la Sortan et al.) and condemned reverting these changes. With AE and BE, each have equal status and changes from one form to another may be reverted without penalty, jguk 20:02, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

"changes from one form to another may be reverted without penalty" (!) No. It is not a free-for-all and edit warring is always bad. You don't get any "free" reverts.

t

20:11, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Which is one of the reasons you were sanctioned.... you don't have an inalienable "right" to 3 reverts per day. Sortan 20:19, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Hardly - you were reverting far more than me and against many editors, making aggressive edits, changing notation to your preferred form in articles that had previously been stable in another form and hide behind a sockpuppet role account. If the objection was to pure volume of reverts, you'd have been sanctioned too. It's more a case of ArbCom preferring the BCE/CE notation style (or maybe mostly Fred) and tuning its decision to meet that objective. They even refused to let me defend the accusations laid against me (which to this day, I haven't even read, let alone responded to), though, to be fair to Fred, he did make it clear that he would ignore anything I said on the matter anyway. It happens in real-life judging all over the Western world - it's just unfortunate that it's happened here, jguk 20:31, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

You have a rather curious interpretation of the facts.... but then again I suppose most trolls who are sanctioned by the arbcom do. Sortan 20:36, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary to call jguk a troll. His behaviour, while occasionally, perhaps often, regrettable, has certainly not been of the level of the worst trolls, such as CheeseDreams, Lir, and Wik. [[Sam Korn]] 20:49, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

In which case, please tell us what other Wikipedia accounts you have to disprove the allegation that you are hiding behind a sockpuppet role account, jguk 20:44, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Hang on, Jon, has Sortan ever admitted to using other WP accounts? If not, please don't make provocative and (as far as I can see) unprovoked demands. [[Sam Korn]] 20:49, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

All this business about sockpuppets is a red-herring intended to distract from the fact that it is you who is proficient in their use and experienced in hiding behind anon ips. ([116] ring a bell? how about

User:Jongarrettuk? who knows how many others...) Sortan

21:05, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think either of you needs to be making provocative and inflammatory remarks, especially when it is quite clear that they will lead nowhere. Incidentally, Sortan, Jongarretuk is not a sockpuppet but a previous account of jguk's, just like Smoddy is a previous account of mine. [[Sam Korn]] 21:14, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

The

User:Jongarrettuk account has been used after the User:Jguk account was created, however you are correct that it is not a classic sockpuppet account. However he has still used various anon ips (as well as another account) to try to mask (and evade responsibility for) his edits. Sortan

21:39, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

So what? I don't consider that disruptive. The username redirects to the correct one. That ain't disruptive. May I advise you to leave off this unprofitable conversation? [[Sam Korn]] 21:46, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Well you must be the only one who doesn't consider hiding behind anon ips to edit and evade the notice of the arbcom disruptive. Sortan 21:56, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Mea culpa. I didn't mean use of anon ips to evade ArbCom sanction. I meant the use of the other usernames. As to the IPs, I don't know enough to comment. [[Sam Korn]] 22:24, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Sam, it is crystal clear from his edits that Sortan is a sockpuppet account of a very prolific WP editor (possibly an admin). A number of other editors commented on this before me, and it prompted David Gerard to do a sockpuppet check, although, as often is the case, it came up without results. Sortan regularly reverts me very quickly when I make an edit other than of a cricket or featured list nature, and has done so now over a number of months. He has also very quickly commented on WP:AN/I after I first referred to Sortan on there (without logging in so he couldn't see it in my user contributions). In the role account's early days, Sortan also has displayed knowledge of WP practice far exceeding his WP experience. There is no reasonable doubt that Sortan is a sockpuppet role account. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then in all probability, it's a duck!

I am probably most aware of this is that Sortan wikistalks me - the majority of Sortan's edits merely revert me, usually coupled with some personal attack. The only way I could be called a troll is in the technical sense that by making a non-cricket edit to the main namespace, regardless of what it is, Sortan will invariably revert it. Thankfully very few WPians have ever been wikistalked - it's not nice, and I don't recommend it. By the way, the only reason he knows under what other accounts I have edited because I have freely stated the fact - interestingly, he has repeatedly refused to come clean himself :) jguk 21:21, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

It is rather hard to make paranoid conspiracy theorists listen to reason. I suppose it's my mistake for even trying. Sortan 21:30, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Jon, I used to agree with you. You can see that from the workshop page of your second arbitration case. There is no conclusive evidence, so I am assuming Sortan's good faith. I also agree that the amount Sortan reverts you is troubling. However, I don't think this conversation is going to get anyone anywhere, other than upset. [[Sam Korn]] 21:40, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I would suggest that your time might be better spent trying to mentor Jguk, rather than trying to defend him. He is also (again) violating the MOS to favor his preferences (see Talk:ROC local elections, 2005), and his unilateral page moves, leaving a lot of work for other editors to clean up after. Sortan 22:07, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Something tells me Jon might not be too keen on the idea of mentorship... Look, Sortan, jguk's actions are by no means perfect. Nonetheless, he is, in my view, acting in good faith, and that deserves to be remembered. He can be foolish, but so can you, and so can I. [[Sam Korn]] 22:24, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I truly find Jguk most perplexing. Good faith can be extended once, twice, and perhaps a third time, but it is foolish to continue to assume it despite all evidence to the contrary. I admit that I've made mistakes, but I've done my best to learn from them and move on, whereas Jguk was warned

Manual of Style, I found was still disruptive (mostly due to jguk). I've learned from my mistake and have never done anything similar. It took me all of one day to realize this and to stop. Jguk, on the other hand, still hasn't realized this after more than a year. Incidentally you will note that it was jguk who initially started making personal attacks at me in his edit summaries. Another instance of him harassing me is here

, where he states that all my edits should be "revert[ed] on sight".

It is most troubling that he continues in the same pattern of behavior regarding other issues, including the ROC/Taiwan issue, US vs U.S. (which is again more than a year old, and which the MOS unambiguously states should be U.S.), American English vs British English, styles for royalty, etc. In the past, it seems, others let him have his way because of his tenaciousness and constant revert warring, but I don't believe things are the same now, and this type of behavior is sure to land him before the arbcom again. In addition, he is testing the limits of his ban by continuing to remove references to Common Era from articles, as well as continuing to indulge in conspiracy fantasies despite all evidence to the contrary. Some form of mentoring seems to be a perfect way to help him resolve conflicts amicably in the future without resorting to revert warring and name calling. Sortan 00:22, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Sam, thank you for your comment. Incidentally, I have never had time to read through the arb case, so am unaware of the comments - ArbCom closed it before I'd even read what I was accused of, let alone made a defence, but there goes.

There is a difference between "conclusive" and "beyond reasonable doubt". "Conclusive" implies 100% certainty, and absent Sortan admitting what his other accounts are, we're never going to get it. However, it is clear beyond reasonable doubt that Sortan is a sockpuppet role account used mostly for fighting this cause (interestingly he has never brought himself to deny that, although admittedly I wouldn't believe him if he did). Mind you having just looked at his user contributions again, it appears that he has become more concerned with hounding Chooserr than me for now. But let me assure you of one thing, Sam, Sortan is a bad faith account, jguk 21:47, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Likewise you are "beyond a reasonable doubt" trolling. Edits such as [119] designed just to remove references to Common Era, and to change American English to British English fit the definition perfectly. Do you really consider yourself acting in "good faith"? Sortan 21:56, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Sortan, an analysis of my edits will show that I have no fewer than six featured articles and am responsible for more featured lists than any other editor - indeed, I think there are only half a dozen or so editors with more featured material. It was me that helped spark the introduction of the portal namespace, and who has co-created the cricket portal, which has attracted many favourable comments. I am one of the two WPians responsible for promoting and failing featured list candidates; it was me who changed AfD from being shown by week to being shown by day (to the great relief of our servers). I have also copyedited a number of articles and been a strong advocate that articles, regardless of their subject, should use clear language, as free as possible of jargon, and as open to an international audience as possible. Notably, I greated improved the article on the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, which was far, far too long, into a comprehensible, smaller version, supported by sub-articles. Remarkably for such a major edit to such a controversial page, it was accepted, and indeed welcomed (though, of course, later improved by others). The edit you cite is yet another example of my changing an article to make it simpler - ie more intellgible to more people. Yes, one part of this was to remove the reference to "Common Era", which is a little understood term, certainly by the worldwide general public, and therefore should be avoided, where possible, on those grounds. However, there were other failings - for instance, the rather irrelevant comment about millennia and the lack of explanation as to why some people think the 21st century began in 2000 and others in 2001. I also added a clarification that the century began on 1 January, and will end on 31 December (which avoids the possible misunderstanding that by saying it begins in 2000, it is meant to say it begins at the end of 2000). It's a good copyedit, which I expect to stand (subject to further future improvements).

By contrast, looking at the edits of your Sortan account, it is difficult to find anything there of any real benefit to the encyclopaedia. It's mostly full of reverts, not only of me, but of many other editors, of which Chooserr seems, somewhat unfortunately, to be your latest favourite revert victim. Your edit summaries have also frequently included the use of personal attacks, which coupled with your unwillingness to reveal what your main WP account is, have merely served to embitter the atmosphere (as if WP is not a bitter enough place as it is). Anyone reviewing your contributions will soon see that there are no significant contributions there: none that we can really say have made WP a better place. You live on reverts and talk pages, yet have never contributed a decent article since the account was created, jguk 19:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Isn't it funny that with your overinflated ego of yourself, that you're still not an admin.... whereas people half your age, with a third of your time here, and with 1/20th of your edits are admins? Have you ever considered why that is? You have an inability to work with others, and due to your overinflated ego coupled with an arrogant attitude, cannot admit when you are wrong. Perhaps you should try working on that a bit more. Sortan 21:27, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Not funny at all. I've never stood, jguk 21:32, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I guess you're still waiting for all of the U.S. to be asleep [120]? Or perhaps you should try running for arbcom again? With your extraordinary list of accomplishments, perhaps you could even replace Jimbo Wales... Quite frankly, outside of indulging an obsession with cricket, you've been far, far more destructive than constructive. Sortan 21:54, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

On the contrary. Besides, what do you list as your achievements to improving WP? As far as I can see you've been nothing but trouble, with no substantive improvements at all, and by refusing to say what your main WP account is, have merely poisoned the situation and denied any responsibility at all for your edits. All your edits, almost without exception, have been in bad faith, jguk 22:01, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

How about containing POV pushing trolls? Sortan 22:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Is that what you yourself consider to be your only achievement? jguk 22:10, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

A note to Sortan and Jguk: Stop this petty squabbling, or at the very least take it elsewhere: It's nothelping anything. If you continue much longer, I'll consider it disruption.--

22:13, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

My apologies... I should have know better, and not been provoked. Sortan 22:19, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

It is now being claimed

00:11, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to know what the appropriate procedure is for making such a claim. I was unable to find an appropriate page on which to list such infractions (which is why I added my observations to the existing 3RR entry). —

Lifeisunfair

01:23, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, this falls into the category of "blocked users evading blocks," so I suppose that this is the correct venue. I'm surprised that there isn't a dedicated page for reporting such infractions. —

Lifeisunfair

01:27, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

• According to
  WP:SOCK you could add {{Sockpuppet|1=SOCKPUPPETEER|evidence=[[EVIDENCE]]}} to the userpage of the suspected sock puppet account. Sock puppetry per se is not against wikipedia rules. However, if you can convince an admin that a sock is being used to evade a block, then the sock account can be blocked and the original users block reset. JeremyA
  02:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

As you mentioned, sock puppetry is not the actual offense. Therefore, I doubt that the tag's insertion would attract administrative intervention. Evidently, this page is the proper venue for reporting block evasion, so hopefully something will come of this discussion. —

Lifeisunfair

03:03, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Lifeisunfair

02:25/09:38, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

The similarities are unacanny, particularly in the very new Thawa's awareness of the 3RR (as implied in edit summaries). I'd like another admin's opinion on this... -- SCZenz 05:15, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Looking through the edits of both users I would say that if Thawa is almost certainly a sock puppet of Chooserr. JeremyA 05:30, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Lifeisunfair

09:38, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

In a fit of utter optimism, I left a friendly note on User talk:Thawa#Multiple accounts? advising against the use of multiple accounts, and explaning that many people think (with good evidence) that they're the same editor. Don't know if this will help or hurt- he may cut it out, or he may insist he's not a sock and continue what he's doing. But, at least, even if he gets blocked for block evasion, he can't say he wasn't warned. Friday (talk) 15:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Thawa (talk · contribs) has created a large number of accounts in the past few days:

• Wellin1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) December 4, 19:05
• Thawa (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) December 4, 19:07
• Cwrn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) December 5, 01:28
• V.Chr (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) December 5, 04:49
• A.Chr (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) December 5, 04:50
• Ic kann nix (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) December 5, 04:51

One of IP addresses used to edit by Thawa was used 32 minutes later by Chooserr (talk · contribs) to edit User talk:Chooserr. This is suggestive that they are the same editor. Kelly Martin (talk) 22:18, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

It's quite obvious that Thawa and Chooserr are also the same editor, once you look at their edit histories. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:46, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I believe that it now is appropriate to reset

Lifeisunfair

23:37, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I concur, but would like a more experienced admin to double-check and take care of it. (I'm afraid I might make an error.) I apologize for the delay. -- SCZenz 23:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

It appears that this editor is now making anonymous edits, from a dynamic dialup (resolving to dsl.irvnca.pacbell.net). Unfortunately, this is a large dialup network and blocking all of it would block a substantial population of editors. Kelly Martin (talk) 03:13, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Is anything going to be done in response to

14:34, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

See {{Template:User ps}}. The copyrighted logo of Adobe's Photoshop product is on the box... I tried reverting it and the user who created the template reverted back. I do not want to start a revert war over this, but this is CLEARLY against our policies.

1. (cur) (last) 01:31, 5 December 2005 Ewok Slayer (Its Fair Use. There is a link right next to the image to Adobe Photoshop. The logo is illustrating a product. Thats okay. Next time put a note on my talk page before you mess up my user boxes.)
2. (cur) (last) 01:27, 5 December 2005 Alkivar (you cannot use a COPYRIGHTED LOGO in a userpage template!)

Someone else sort this out... If I have to deal with this rockheaded user I will probably start screaming.  ALKIVAR™ 06:40, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Looks like theres more too.... [121] User:Ewok Slayer needs to be educated as to what Fair Use means.  ALKIVAR™ 06:55, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Is there a WP policy or guidelines page that specifically states that copyrighted logos cannot be placed on userpage templates? I think it would be helpful if we could put a link to it in the edit summaries when we do remove them. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 19:59, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Not AFAIK, but all fair use images cannot be placed in any templates - it should be somewhere in

wikipedia:fair use. Johnleemk | Talk

20:01, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

It's near the end of

Wikipedia:Fair_use#Policy and begins with the admonition that fair use material is only to be used in the article namespace. -- DS1953

20:11, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Temporary ban on Copperchair editing

1) As Copperchair (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has continued to edit war on a number of articles pending resolution of this matter, he is banned from editing any pages other then these Arbitration pages and his own user and talk page. He may be briefly blocked should he edit any other page, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Copperchair/Proposed_decision#Temporary_ban_on_Copperchair_editing. Fred Bauder 21:45, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

As this is very new and he has just received notice on his talk page, take it a bit easy. Like block him for a few minutes first time. Fred Bauder 21:45, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

All_in (

02:27, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

The user hasn't been sufficiently warned to justify administrative action. Also, block requests should go to

WP:AIV in the future. --Ryan Delaney ^talk

02:48, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't requesting a block. I was on the phone and was hoping someone could look through his contribs.

Chick Bowen

03:25, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

The Article "BORED"

Dear fellow wikipedians, i myself have been a law abiding wikipedian.. but currently i have created a new article on "BORED", an organization that i founded with my fellow peers. It is an organization of 100 members worldwide, in cities such as LA, new York, Vancouver, Paris, London, Liverpool, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Sydney. But the user Shreshth91 keeps on deleting. Please give me permission to post it and protect it from deltion. Thankyou - --Larryau 10:22, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

The place you need to bring this up is Wikipedia:Deletion review. Thryduulf 10:34, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Having just looked at the deleted versions, however, I do not think that you have much chance of it being undeleted. There is a high-bar of notability required for student organisations and one that has been in existence less than one month does not meet that standard. There is a small chance that some people might consider it worth a full hearing at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, but I personally cannot see it surviving this. Thryduulf 10:39, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I've blocked him indef. for bad faith nominations for Afd: Rowan Atkinson and George W.Bush --Lectonar 12:15, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, after consulting the block-log, it wasn't me, but he's been blocked by 3 admins now :))) Lectonar 12:20, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

That and the fact that his username is parodying two banned users... Phil Sandifer 15:38, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

better one: User:Mr.Treason on the Run on wheels! --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 15:07, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

The admin Alkivar has gone over the top in the abuse of his power. If you look at his edit history, you will see that he blocked a guy named CapnCrack without warning despite Crack's vandalism being relatively minor. I think a warning explaining to Crack the proper way to use edit summaries would have been plenty.

Next, Alkivar reverted the Oklahoma Christian University page and then page-protected it. If page protection is not an edorsement of the current state of a page, why did he revert a page that was not vandalized and then protect it? I don't know how to reach any other conclusion other than that he did not personally appreciate the the most recent edits.

Thirdly, Alkivar simply labels everyone a vandal who tries to talk with him about this matter, and he claims any argument regarding the matter to be vandalism. Look at his talk page. Any time someone brings up the Oklahoma Christian University article on his talk page, he just reverts it or claims it is a personal attack. At one point, Alkivar was simply reminded of the official policy at Wikipedia and how he was presently violating it. Alkivar's response was to remove that comment as "vandalism". (Are the Wikipedia policies really vandalism? Alkivar also removed one comment claiming that the conversation is over. However, the page-protection sign clearly states that the page is protected until a resolution can be reached. How can a resolution be reached if the conversation is over?

I don't want to have to go through whatever the process is here to resolve a dispute. I just don't have the time. I like to edit Wikipedia, and I like to read at Wikipedia. But I won't have time for a couple of weeks to be able to spend a ton of time trying to reason with someone through some bureaucratic process. Is there anyway he can be convinced to cool it and to restore the pages and parties he has offended? I can't see how anyone who is behaving like he is can be considered within the scope of appropriate behavior.

68.97.36.194 11:14, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Oklahoma_Christian_University for essentially the same complaint. Note the "me too!" agreement with the complaint by Beisnj (talk · contribs) -- a contributor with total of 5 edits. I'm finding this whole complaint and its circumstances very suspicious. --Calton | Talk 11:53, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I find it very suspicious, too. A guy with 5 edits is evidence that weighs heavily against a guy reverting acceptable edits, protecting pages to "win" fights, deleting user comments, blocking minor vandals indefinitely without warning, and referring to the official policy as vandalism. Thanks for bringing this error in my reasoning to my attention. 68.97.36.194 12:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Dude, there was nothing in that last paragraph that resembled what most people call "reasoning"; rather, it resembled the output of a Sarcast-o-Bot: "Yes, <repeat what other person said>, <add own, unrelated complaint>." Two words for you: Matthew 7:3. --Calton | Talk 13:18, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, let me slow this down for you then. Here's the reasoning I used. I like to call it a "balancing test". The evidence you presented - one possibly controversial fact. Here is the evidence I presented - five facts that went uncontested that show poor judgment on the part of an administrator.

Now, in the backwards world that I come from, that's reasoning. I've tried to tell the people I know so many times that this whole idea of making solid arguments backed with facts and logic, refuting opposing arguments, and then defending the original constructive arguments is getting outdated, but they won't listen to me. Now, here I am, being shamed into defeat because I took the advice of all those wack-jobs who thought that was the way to win an argument.

Thanks for this really enlightening experience. I needed the nuances of argumentation cleared up for me. 68.97.36.194 02:13, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Miaoww -- CatWoman 13:36, 6 December 2005 (UTC) ( comment actually by 84.69.21.169 (talk · contribs))

John Lott was doing just fine ignoring the John Lott Sock and Meat puppets, but now it's just over the top. Please Sockcheck User:Cbaus and the other new users who show up just to revert John Lott and take appropriate action. Thanks. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:07, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Is someone going to enact the block that was warned about a few hours ago? --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 19:17, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Unless I'm mistaken, the user hasn't made any edits since the warning was given. --Kbdank71 19:35, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I count 9 edits (all vandalism). 7 to Republican Party (United States), and one a piece to List of socialists and Zikan. Unless this is a completely different user at this IP address. If so, I guess I'll go add a new warning. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 19:44, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I had originally received this request from Bonaparte. He wanted me to protect 4 pages that a pro Nazi anon has been hitting hard. The trouble is that this anon is using a dynamic IP based out of Hungary, so protection isn't the best option. The IPs that have been used are 81.182.194.197 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 81.182.104.136 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 81.182.195.63 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 81.182.20.159 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) and 81.182.194.197 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). He's been spewing really awful hate literature type stuff. I'm not an expert at dynamic IPs. Hopefully someone else on here is (I'm going to cross post this on ViP as well). Any help would be appreciated.

The articles in question are:

• Second Vienna Award (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views
  )
• talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views
  )
• Treaty of Trianon (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

--Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 19:53, 6 December 2005 (UTC) Unless you want to block every IP of this person for a long time, I think protecting is the best thing you can do. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:50, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

There is an edit/revert war going on at

) 20:00, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

00:13, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree, and would also observe the addition of two new parts of the protection policy: "Corrections" and "notability". -Splash^talk 00:33, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I think someone is misinterpreting what Jimbo said on CNN. We do protect articles when they're on TV, while they're on TV. But we do not protect articles merely because they are "widely noticed". Kelly Martin (talk) 00:47, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

This user has 3 edits as of this writing: 2 to his/her user page and 1 to User talk:Fred Bauder saying: "Why in your profile does it say retired lawyer? Your a censured lawyer you know that?" [122] This seems odd behavior for a new user. Can someone run a sockcheck? Firebug 03:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

It looks like they got blocked in line with the username policy (a move I was about to do myself). Ral315 (talk) 07:39, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

This is a very long, tedious story. Short version: This user used to be on the Hebrew Wikipedia, but was permanently banned for filling his user page with tons of Hebrew words and characters, so that if you searched Google for anything in Hebrew, his user page would be ranked highly. From talking with the admins on Hebrew Wikipedia, I found that they also blocked him for pornography-related content as well.

Anyways, he moved over to the English Wikipedia, and did the same thing here. He was found out, the hebrew spam was removed from his user page, and an RFC was brought against him, though I'm not sure whatever happened in this case (back in May).

Several months later, and I check his user page to find that he has once again filled it with the same Hebrew spam, only he's made the text ultra-small, and colored it white so that it will be as unnoticeable as possible. I've removed the content and indefinitely blocked him. If anyone else would like to handle this, feel free to do what you consider best. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-4 18:53

I think you did the right thing. He's been questioned in the past about his behavior (I remember participating in his RFC, which he appeared to ignore). Granted, I will admit that I don't seem to be as tolerant of those who abuse their privledges as editors as others... Alex Schenck (that's Linuxbeak to you) 21:52, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

He has apologized repeatedly, and has enough good edits that I'll unblock him, but he's already made the same mistake 3 times. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-7 15:53

"Mistake"? When a puppy pees on the rug,that's a mistake. When a human pees on the rug, it's either a sign of sickness or a malicious act; in either case, it's something that needs to be stopped. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 16:54, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

16:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I've blocked Marsden for 24 hours for suggesting in the guise of a question on Jay's nomination page that he is paid to edit Wikipedia [125], an allegation Marsden has made before. He was warned that he might be blocked for further attacks, though he's deleted the warnings from his talk page. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:09, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I saw the comment, and agree that this is a blockable violation of

WP:NPA. This user has been harrassing Jayjg, most recently on this ArbCom candidacy page, and has refused to tone down inflammatory "questions" (which are statements). JFW | T@lk

20:30, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

While, having reviewed some of Marsden's edits, I can understand why there was a block, I think it's a shame that SlimVirgin was the one to block him as she has been involved in disputes with Marsden in the recent past (at least on the page in question). I'd also question whether SV has been entirely fair on Marsden, for example, with this edit [126]. Many of Marsden's edits may have been objectionable - but going overboard on the guy is also objectionable, and no doubt contributes to him going on the offence as a kind of defence mechanism, jguk 20:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Posting counter-questions certainly did attract attention to the fact that this editor had a score to settle with Jayjg. Any admin could have blocked Marsden, and probably would have in the view of his harassment. JFW | T@lk 21:28, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Jguk, far from going overboard with Marsden, this is the first admin action I've taken against him and it's long overdue. I'm not involved in any content dispute with him except in trying to keep that page free of NPA violations and disruption. Marsden has been involved in attacks against a range of editors since he arrived at Wikipedia. Several people have tried to reason with him but it made no difference, so people started warning, which also made no difference, then applying blocks. He has so far been blocked five times by five different admins, each time for the same type of behavior. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:40, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Marsden contacted me during the block and we exchanged e-mails in which I tried to persuade him not to post any similar attacks in future. He then posted our correspondence without my consent on his talk page, [127] which had the effect of repeating the attacks he was blocked for in the first place. I've deleted the posts and protected his talk page for the duration of the block, which I now intend to extend by 24 hours. If anyone has any thoughts about this, I'd appreciate hearing them. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:36, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

As there are no objections, I'm going to go ahead and do that. His first block is due to expire around now. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:07, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Following the exchange directly above, it seems within the realm of possibility that objections will follow after the fact. ;) El_C 01:15, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

23:58, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I am not

talk

11:44, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

No, he said on the talkpage. --Node 12:12, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

This user:

talk

13:58, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Bonaparte has called people "loosers", said they were "dump", has made fun of me for being gay, for being Jewish, and seems to think it's of some great importance that I'm 16 years old. He has constantly disrupted the talkpage so that nobody could get in a word edgewise, because he kept adding long passages of text in Romanian that nobody was going to read anyhow but which basically just rehashed his previously stated opinions, which he says over and over again. Additionally, he has pretended to be an admin on the talk pages of several anons. --Node 21:39, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

And Node has called people for sperm and is a known liar. --Anittas 21:47, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

1) I have not lied; 2) Please show evidence of me calling people sperm. --Node 23:21, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

It's when you used your Russian slang on me, saying "tu esti Kochenii", or something like that. I could find the edit, but you know what I'm talking about. You could say that you meant something else, but in slang language, that's what it means. Mikka explained it to us. --Anittas 23:25, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Be aware Node. I said that this approach of yours is a looser approach. (16:21, 5 December 19:28, 5 December 21:50, 5 December 23:36, 5 December), because you tend to do only edit war. Also labelling others as "sperm" I consider also a looser approach. You have to behave yourself better. And I did not tell you those words. Everybody can check the history. I am clean. But you did labelled others "sperm". --

talk

09:15, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps you lot have trouble reading. Let me spell it out for you: at the head of this page, it reads...

Please be aware that these pages aren't the place to bring disputes over content, or reports of abusive behaviour - we aren't referees, and have limited authority to deal with abusive editors.

In other words, continuing this dispute of yours here is pointless; none of you are going to get what you want and you are taking up too much space on this page. Izehar (talk) 23:30, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Some closer review is needed of the links being added by newcomer

16:28, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

While I have commented more fully on the project talk page, I disagree with Uninvited Company and believe that at the very least an External link to

Find A Grave is equally useful to those of IMBD, which has now been accepted as a 'standard' External link here. Doc

15:38, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

The Find A Grave site is considerably less encyclopedic than IMDB. It's generally quite poor quality, both in the kiknd of information provided and its reliabiliy. DreamGuy 07:39, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

This editor, who is banned from removing referrences to Common Era and replacing them with AD or BCE has done that in this [128] and other edits recently, this time as User:Jguk. CDThieme 00:58, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

69.141.246.127 (talk · contribs)'s only contributions are doing the above, but only twice. Very recent, but I have no way of knowing if it is related. Jkelly 03:31, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

No, I don't believe that ip is Jguk... Jguk edits from the UK, usually with the range 195.40.200.0/10 (belonging to www.easynet.co.uk). Sortan 16:25, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

This might not be technically against his arbcom prohibition, but I do believe it very clearly violates the spirit, and is gaming the system (much like him making four reverts in 25 hours). The arbcom prohibition against jguk (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) states:

Jguk banned from changing BCE to BC or CE to AD

1) Jguk is indefinitely prohibited from changing BCE to BC or CE to AD in any article, for any reason.

Furthermore, there is a finding of fact which states:

Jguk's campaign

1) Jguk has changed the era notation on hundreds of articles which he does not usually edit to reflect his preferred usage BC AD, see for example his edits to Khazars: [129], [130], [131].

This is the exact type of editing he has continued to do recent edits (most specifically here [132], as well as the aforementioned

article). Is this allowed editing? Some sort of clarification would be most appreciated.

In my opinion, not only do his edits violate the arbcom prohibition, but in his quest to remove BCE/CE notation he introduces inaccuracies into articles. For example changing 3500 BCE to 5500 years ago (which is awkward phrasing, and might be correct today, but not so in 20 years), as wells as changing start of the Common Era to 1 BC and 1 AD (which changes general and vague phrasing to a specific date, which implies a precision that is not there).

Finally the arbcom case states:

Enforcement by ban

1) Jguk may be briefly banned, up to a week in the case of repeated offenses, should he attempt to change the era notation in any article.

Sortan 16:25, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

• My opinion is that these edits (Changing "beginning of the Common Era" to "1 AD" [133] and changing "500 CE" to "500" [134]) are clear attempts to game the ruling and follow the letter of the law while violating the spirit. However, I am both a very new administrator as well as someone with a personal preference for BCE/CE notation in his own editing, so I'd ask someone else to have a look and perform a block in accordance with the arbcom ruling. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 16:38, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Changing "AD 500" or "500 CE" to plain "500" may actually be wise. I recommend that in cases where the discussion does not include BC[E] dates.
    dab (ᛏ)
    16:45, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Wise or not, jguk of all people should not be doing this. Personally I think that "AD 500" or "500 CE" look and read better than a plain "500" (and linking dates like "500" to make them stand out / look like dates is not an improvement as dates are far too over linked- there was a discussion on this at the MOS). Sortan 16:57, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

• dab (ᛏ)
  16:42, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Let's hope not. As it is, I am blocking jguk for three hours as the edit certainly does contravene the arbcom ruling. I am also leaving a note on his talk page telling him not to be stupid and get himself banned over this. [[Sam Korn]] 16:49, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Most people who were around for the ceasefire have stopped (with the exception of jguk). New users (like User:Chooserr and his socks) haven't, as well as some anons like 209.115.69.107 (talk · contribs) Sortan 16:57, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
      • I have the dim suspicion that said anons are well-established users who are logged out because they know very well that their reputation would not gain from such campaigning.
        dab (ᛏ)
        19:24, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
        • Jguk's certainly tried that in the past (see [135]), but I don't think it worked out too well for him. Sortan 20:38, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I tried to keep an eye on this page as per the last notice here, but I was (I gather now, quite mistakingly) on the lookout for simple vandalism portraying Mr. Lauder-Frost as exhibiting Nazi sympathies. I haven't followed the actual content dispute closely. The legal action notice is

10:38, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I decided to protect the page for now. El_C 15:12, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to say, without prejudice, that this threat of legal action may be based in part on the reporting of a court case which took place so long ago that it is could be libellous even to refer to it. I might be wrong, I'm no lawyer, but if that is the case then it would be a good thing for those possibly libellous references to be entirely removed from the history of this page. Jon Ward 22:03, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

First, though, they need to be indentified. If discetion is saught on that front, any of the parties are free to email me or any other administrator with the details for these, and we can take it from there. I also urge a close reading of

WP:NLT, especially the section which reads: [I]f you really feel the need to take legal action, we cannot prevent you from doing so. However, we ask that if you do so then you do not edit Wikipedia until the matter of law is settled, one way or the other, to ensure that all legal processes happen via proper legal channels. If you do decide to proceed with legal action, you should deal with it privately with the user by e-mail. Do not thrash out the issue in a Wikipedia forum or talk page; you may find that other users take the side of the other party. (Would you really want to sue a group of users if that happened?) If your issue involves Wikipedia itself, you should contact Wikipedia's parent organisation, the Wikimedia Foundation. Thanks for your patience. El_C

23:52, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

User:Cognition

This user has seen fit to alter my comments here [136] in the 3rd green paragraph. Such behaviour is clear altering of the comments of another user. Can an admin please intervene?

18:19, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to mention that

User:Squeakbox was the one who altered my comments in the first place. [137] [138] In a list designed for drug-free users, this user continues to add pro-drug comments. The most egregious of these was replacing "drugs" with "sacred marijuana." I support Squeakbox's freedom of religion, but he should not be using a list for drug-free users to push his pro-drug Rastafarian beliefs. Cognition

19:10, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I swore there was an encyclopedia around here somewhere... --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 19:17, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You cannot produce any diffs that show me tampering with the signed comment you made, and I already have because I have not done so. You cannot source your false claims that I a Rastafarian. Please stop inventing things about me that are not true. We are talking specifically about signed comments and the sentence Cogniotion points out I edited was not a signed comment whereas he completely altered my signed comment, see the diff above. His attempt to invoke vandalism policy to defend his pot POV is really quite funny but his tampering with my comments is not,

19:22, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think Cognition altered your comment, Squeakbox; s/he just reverted you, to an earlier comment of yours. [139] SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:20, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Which basically means he removed my new signed comment entirelly. How is that acceptable?

19:22, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

He reverted your edit. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but it's not a blockable offense. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:24, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I would say he tampered with my comment. Obviously his reverting the other parts of my edit were completely acceptable, but I believe if I make and sign a comment thatthat is not a personal attack or in the main space that nobody else has the right to tammper with it, and I hope that if he does so again he will be blocked. Its no different from reverting someone's comment on a talk page from what I can see,

19:37, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Both of you please go away and write some useful articles; nobody's getting blocked for this unless the bickering persists. Squeakbox, stop tweaking Cognition. A reasonable person should be able to figure out that this edit to Wikipedia:List of drug-free Wikipedians would be seen as provocative. (Not only that, but it is POV and factually incorrect—shame on you.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:58, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

It may be POV (and I am trying to include it to counter the opposite POV, hence creating an NPOV page, real POV would have been removing the abuse of which has been linked by blatant assertion to memory loss and schizophrenia which Cognition had more provocatively put in as an unqualified statement about marijuana and then replaced it with my statement instead of adding mine as a comntradictory countwer statement) but I strongly disagree that it is factually incorrect, and I have no shame in expressing such an opinion as factually based (see some of the cannabis pages which I do edit regularly and whre a discussion of this nature reallky belongs). My contribs speak for themselves regarding my focus on this encyclopedia which is on editing main space articles. I just don't like to see my comments removed, having updated them the other day. My putting a POV comment elsewhere in the drug free page was no justification for that. I have no wish to see Cognition blocked but I did want him to stop removuing my signed comment and writing about the case here did indeed do that so I for one am satisfied with the outcome, and there is a heralthy discussion on the talk page.

23:33, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Seems to me that if a silly "community" page is causing this much acrimony it ought to be done away with. Wikipedia:List of drug-free Wikipedians ain't a part of the encyclopedia, guys. Try to remember that's what we're here to write. android79 02:43, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

On

19:28, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Looks like a perfectly good split of an article to me. The history of

Salad Bowl (American College Football) makes an appropriate reference to Salad Bowl as the source of the first version of the article. --Carnildo

00:05, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

As for my second opinion, I also feel it is a legitimate split because the page previously listed both definitions of the word. [140] Zzyzx11 (Talk) 00:11, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

The introduction in the Scientology article is not accurate. I have edited it more than once to put the dates and locations accurate and referenced / linked where the source of information is to be found. But some people are keeping an eye on the introduction in that article and continually change it back to the inaccurate and undocumented 1951 and 1953. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Terryeo (talk • contribs)

That's an editorial conflict, not something for this page. However, I did start

WP:SCN, so I'll keep a closer eye - David Gerard

22:00, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Chooserr

Chooserr (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is continuing his campaign of date format edit warring. He is using a wide range of dynamic ips so blocking is likely to be futile. Based on the precedent set with Jguk I suggest brief blocking of any account who edits using this pattern combined with deletion of any edit that such an account makes. Fred Bauder 22:05, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Note that Chooserr definitely isn't Jguk from IP evidence, despite Sortan's assertions otherwise - David Gerard 22:36, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

That's why I blocked Chooser, not Jguk Fred Bauder 22:46, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

And when did I make any assertions that Chooserr was jguk? Sortan 22:48, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

This feels like accusing jguk. Maybe it wasn't, but your whole set of accusations in the section above feel like you are accusing him of running sockpuppets. [[Sam Korn]] 22:59, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I accused him of using sockpuppets and pointed to a specific ip that was used by him to mask his edits. Both of which are absolutely true. Where do I assert that he is Chooserr? Sortan 23:05, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I am saying that, in the context, it appeared that you were asserting such. I didn't say you did; I should have made myself clearer. [[Sam Korn]] 23:06, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I did no such thing.

User:Dbachmann said some editors logged out and were using ips to mask their edits. I replied that, yes, jguk has done so in the past. How do infer from that context that I in any way shape or form implied that Chooserr is jguk? Misconstruing and twisting my comment in such a way is a pretty far stretch. Sortan

23:15, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Clearly you did not mean it. However, undoubtedly it is possible to infer that meaning. In fact, it seems to me that you have often gone to the edge of accusing jguk as being Chooserr but never quite doing so. [[Sam Korn]] 23:18, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

No, its not. There is no possible way to even remotely infer that I believe Chooserr is jguk from anything I've written. To do so is to twist the English language beyond recognition. Sortan 23:23, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh good. That's the highest compliment you can give to someone comtemplating the law. I have said all along that I don't see you having accused jguk and Chooserr of being one and the same. The discussion was about Chooserr and people using sockpuppets, whereupon you brought up jguk. I can see why you did, but you can also see how that could raise thoughts, I hope? [[Sam Korn]] 23:29, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I think you'd make a terrific lawyer. You certainly spend enough time trying to defend jguk and attacking those he disagrees with :) The discussion was most certainly not about Chooserr (if you'd read the heading and the first post you'd see that they referenced only about jguk). User:Jkelly was the first to bring up another ip address, and I actually stated the in my opinion it was not jguk. I repeat, that, from what I wrote, you cannot fairly claim that I meant to imply (or even raise thoughts) that jguk was Chooserr. Sortan 23:45, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

(whoa, loads of colons) I am very sorry; you are quite right. My sincere apologies. [[Sam Korn]] 23:48, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

While Jguk has been testing the boundaries of the remedies in other ways (e.g. removing C.E. or the phrase "Common Era" from articles), there is no indication that Chooserr (or his many sockpuppets) are Jguk, nor do I believe they are Jguk. In any event, I completely agree with Fred's advice and support his actions. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:51, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I have been trying to deal with the vandalism by an anonymous user. I first noticed the user for this edit to the bong article. After investigation I found that I'm not the only who feels this way. The user has been warned by myself numerous times and continues to make the same edits to the bong article. This is done even after blocking by changing IP addresses. Given the fact that this is my first experience with trying to block a user and it is getting so complicated I'd like someone else to get a second set of eyes on this one.

The user has edited as 71.109.147.86, 64.78.85.130, and 71.109.146.107. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Triddle 00:11, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

This IP's contributions appear to be entirely vandalism. Low level (inserts of "penis", "hello", "boobies", etc), but still should probably be blocked. see Special:Contributions/69.20.153.119. Ta. Deborah-jl 01:46, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

What should be done about User:Paranoid Pete? Other than creating a nonsense article earlier today which has been deleted, and an edit to his talk page, he has only edited the Sandbox, but his contributions there are very strange. He seems to be using the Sandbox as a place to write whatever he wants. I have asked him to stop adding nonsense on his talk page and someone else has as well, but he has not responded. Should he be left alone as long as he is on the Sandbox, or should something else be done? Academic Challenger 01:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Leave him alone if he keeps his (actually funny) behaviour to the sandbox. --

Shazaam! - <*>

05:39, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I don believe they have been spamming porn articles into Wikipedia. Therefore, I am summarily deleting:

• Aspen Brock
• Barbie Belle
• Candy andes
• Blake Mitchell
• Cassandra Curves
• Dee dee reeves

If any of these are notable porn stars, let me know (give me evidence - goodness, what am I saying!) and I'll get them undeleted. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:43, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

09:19, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Look at this diff. He is basically blasting the ArbCom for their decision on

12:03, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

• Apologies for not logging in, I'm in a hurry. But I don't find it surprising he's disagreeing with the arbcom, his probation didn't say anything about that. Do you have an edit that shows he edited an article which he wasn't supposed to? -- MacGyverMagic (feel free to post to my talk if you need confirmation). - 131.211.210.16 14:12, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Well the frustrating thing is that by tomorrow, his probation will be extended to all articles, in which case I'd be able to use this edit on the Price-Anderson Act. Honestly, at this point, I just would like to see a short block as maybe a wake up call so he can change his ways. Because right now, it's the same old stuff with him. He doesn't take any responsibility for his actions. And for Price-Anderson, he entered right in the middle of an edit war and joined it despite the fact that he was warned about it. And now he's doing his usual thing of claiming that the other side is doing massive NPOV violations and that people are not being genuine...and he's also suggested a conspiracy of some sort. Same old stuff. So that's why I'd like to see a short ban here. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 14:24, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

The edit to

Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration is not a violation of his probation. He has the right to complain about our decision, about his ban from race and intelligence and about the request that his probation be extended to other articles. Fred Bauder

14:29, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

OK. And like I said, the problem is that the P-A edit might be a violation but probation hasn't been extended yet. Oh well. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 14:33, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Blocked indefinitely - can you help me sort out the mess? --RobertG ♬ talk 14:52, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, I think I've done it. --RobertG ♬ talk 15:07, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

At present, there are a set of admins who are effectively seeking to permanently protect George W. Bush. Should it be permanently protected? Yes, or no? No daydreaming about semiprotection or other non-existent MediaWiki features. The article has been protected for most of the last 24 hours and is reprotected every few edits. If you can't edit pages in a Wiki, it's not a Wiki is my personal feeling. Should I just be leaving this page protected until 2009? It's a yes or a no. -Splash^talk 21:20, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Are you suggesting we unprotect

Template:In the News? If you can't edit pages in a wiki...? Even if someone slaps a penis on there a few times a day? I say we leave it protected til the Devs give us a better option. It's not a daydream, it's a requirement. --Golbez

21:24, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

That's the main page of a high-profile website. There is no analogy. But I read your answer as a yes to 2009. Semiprotection is a requirement that is firmly in daydream territory, and I'm trying to deal with right now. The Devs have never implemented a major new software feature overnight just because some people wanted them to. -Splash^talk 21:28, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

The proper analogy would be to one of the articles on the main page, linked from the FA, ITN, or DYK. They are never protected, precisely because they are so high traffic. And with good reason. (There is no reason anyone viditing the main page would ever really end up at the ITN template page, btw.)

t

21:42, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

A particularly good example of that analogy would be a few weeks back when Cheese was our main-page article. That gets silly amounts of vandalism as it is, and it was more than a little ridiculous that day. But we lived to tell the tale, without protection I think. -Splash^talk 21:45, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Splash, almost everyone agreed that

did you read this?

) 22:01, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

The import of the talk page is that it will be protected whenever vandals hit it. Which will be until sometime in 2009. The good-edit-per-24-hours idea was discarded very quickly by Jtdirl in reprotecting it, and there's no other offer. -Splash^talk 22:16, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

No other offer? We're trying to draft something to show the devs there. It will never be implemented if nothing is agreed on to implement.

did you read this?

) 22:29, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

That emphatically doesn't deal with what to do with the article today. Or until the devs implement something they aren't to our knowledge working on. Can you point out to me the last time that a comletely new mediawiki feature was added and how long it took between request and provision? This is why I deliberately asked for "no daydreaming". -Splash^talk 22:50, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

What admins are advocating a permanant protection? Phil Sandifer 21:33, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

A group acting together, but the protection log show frequent protection by Hall Monitor in particular, Golbez more recently and at least several editors on Wikipedia talk:Semi-protection policy. All this suggests I should see the numbers in favour and let it slide, but I dont think they are right. I deliberately said effectively, since whenever I point out 2009, someone says "well then until the devs invent something", which is basically indefinitely far in the future, and certainly not within any sensible timescale. -Splash^talk 21:37, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Although semi-protection seems to me useful (Though misplaced - don't we have a place for feature requests?), permanant protection seems to me an express violation of policy. Phil Sandifer 21:51, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Until this becomes "the encyclopedia that only admins can edit", then no, it shouldn't be permanently protected. --Kbdank71 21:51, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Seconded. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 21:56, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I believe it should remain unprotected (except for page moves). For one thing, it's an article that needs regular updates since the topic itself is dynamic, and we can't reasonably restrict editing ability only to admins. Yes, the vandalism there is a nuisance, but one we can live with. Antandrus (talk) 21:57, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think permanent protection is necessary, I agree with Antandrus here. But I'd encourage anybody who took a minute to think about this particular request to head to

Wikipedia:Semi-protection policy with an open mind and take a look at the proposal. · Katefan0^(scribble)/my ridiculous poll

21:59, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Agree with those who oppose protection: vandalism is just bothersome, protecting the page would undermine a crucial goal. One represents temporary damage to the encyclopdia, the other represents useful contributions permanently lost. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:02, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

As before, I think we should leave this page unprotected and continue reverting vandalism. It's so high-profile that lots and lots of admins and editors have it on their watchlist, and no vandalism is going to stay there for long. —

Cleared as filed.

22:13, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

In a sick sort of way, the vandalism is actually good for us. The very reason (most) people write crap in there is because they don't believe the "anyone can edit" thing. The vandalism is annoying, but it will lead to more good contributions in the long run.--

Black

22:23, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I am going to float an idea, which may just be crazy (and don't be afraid to say so), but how about some form of psuedo-protection. For example, protect the GWB page, but create a GWB/temp page that is an open copy of the page and have admins frequently incorporate the useful changes into the real GWB page. This wouldn't accomplish very much (since vandals might just as well attack the temp page), but it would ensure that the main GWB page consistently presents a good face to the world. Thoughts? Dragons flight 22:24, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

The problem with such an idea is that it already was tried, and it was quickly shot down. Also, there is a similar proposal,

did you read this?

) 22:29, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Specifically, the idea was to have a protected "good version" that admins would routinely add the useful changes to. That created the eqivalent of a copy-and-paste move, thus violating the GFDL.--

Black

22:32, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

No permanent protection. Just absolutely, HELL NO. --

mmmmm chocolate!

) 22:34, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Offer an alternate solution then. Just saying no to the offered one isn't good enough anymore. --Golbez 22:37, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Why isn't it good enough anymore? I know it's bad to have vandalism on such a highly visible article, but permanent protection would be worse. If you are tired of reverting, drop the page from your watchlist and let us revert it. No one is forcing you to revert it. There are plenty of others waiting in the wings. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 22:47, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

We don't have an alternative, adn we've to decide what to do or not with the tools that are available to us, as well as pestering for new ones. -Splash^talk 22:50, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

LV, all this talk about permanent protection, with all due respect to Splash, is a little diversionary. The real proposal is at

Wikipedia:Semi-protection policy. I doubt anyone is seriously advocating permanently protecting the article, or if they are are they're a serious minority. Unfortunately, this is distracting from more discussions on a policy that has more support. · Katefan0^(scribble)/my ridiculous poll

22:52, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

No, it's no distraction. The article is spending an increasing proportion of the time protected, and I think the majority of the last 24. It has been protected numerously many times over the same period. Deciding how to handle the problem, here and now with what we've got is as important and more important than thinking of new MediaWiki features to do the job better. -Splash^talk 23:00, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

It is a distraction to frame this issue in the alarmist way it's being framed. Nobody, that I know of at least, has proposed permanently protecting this article. You're suggesting that it's being protected for longer periods, but that's not the same thing. · Katefan0^(scribble)/my ridiculous poll 23:03, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

As I understand the options, they are

1. Protect until the vandals go away
2. Protect until the devs invent semi-protection

That sounds pretty permanent indefinite to me. -Splash^talk 23:08, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I realize you're suggesting that certain folks' actions on the page in effect mean they are pushing for permanent protection. (I'm not sure they'd agree with that, but that's for them to say.) My point is that the way this thread is being framed is so alarmist as to be distracting. Nobody has said the article should be permanently protected, at least not that I've seen (I'm willing to be proven wrong), yet this thread rattles on, while discussion on a real policy proposal gets lost in the hubbub. · Katefan0^(scribble)/my ridiculous poll 23:12, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Semi-protection as suggested above, is quite a good idea as it opens up editing to pages in more of a wiki-manner to pages that were fully closed before. There's a few things to iron out, though.

1. A certain type of protection could give someone an advantage in an edit war. One person can be locked out with the other continuing their editing. You can punish an admin for editing a protected article during an edit war they are involved in, but it's harder to block someone for editing an article someone else protected while you were unaware.
2. The tabs still doesn't show whether an article is fully protected or just protected from moves. If we were to make more levels of protection, one need to be easily able to see how an article was protected without slugging through logs and stuff.

Mgm|^(talk) 23:35, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I think that it's obvious that permanent protection is fundamentally un-wiki. That is all that needs be said against the idea. James F. (talk) 00:26, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't believe anyone here is lobbying for permanent protection. What has been said is that the current protection model is broken, and that some sort of "semi-protection" is needed. Hall Monitor 00:33, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

More specifically, what has been said is that this article should remain protected until that happens. — this is a call for permanent (indefinite, if you like) protection of the article. -Splash^talk 00:37, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, then let's end the confusion. No.

did you read this?

) 01:40, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

That said, semi-protection is a completely separate issue that should be discussed post-haste, since the current situation isn't pretty.

did you read this?

) 01:42, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm adding another "Hell no" vote to permanent protection. Permanent protection is worse than vandalism. The current situation isn't great, but permanent protection cures the disease by killing the patient. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 22:58, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

At this point, the article is protected without as much as a "protected" template. This is not acceptable. If you protect it, say it is "temporarily proctected due to vandalism". If the vandals persist, "temorarily" may mean "for a longish time", but that's still temporary. It's just Wikipedia as usual. I agree with permanent protection of the Main Page, since that's a special case, but there is no reason to extend this to individual articles. so, "hell, no", from me too. Semi-protection may be useful, but articles will also be semi-protected temporarily, at least in principle.

11:09, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

At that particualr moment in time, it was only protected against moves, for which we have no template. -Splash^talk 13:55, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh dear, I shouldn't have interferred if I didn't know what I was doing, then. my apologies :( I don't suppose there will be a need to move the article anytime soon.

dab (ᛏ)

14:08, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Just to chip in my two cents here, I am adamently against any type of protection at all. Flcelloguy (A note?) 22:40, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

What about implementing a fairly simple technical solution in mediawiki: protection from anon edits? Just as we had eventually introduced protection from moves, this would be another useful solution. Technical note: make sure the page can be protected in several different ways at the same time.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 15:30, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I think almost everyone agrees that having such tools would be useful. The main disagreement is over what to do until the developers give us this option, which is likely some time away. - SimonP 15:56, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I strongly oppose permanent protection. --Ixfd64 03:26, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

That page absolutely does not need permanent protection, indeed it should almost never be protected and then only for a short period. This is a wiki, and that is a popular article. That's why it gets vandalised more. It's on nearly everybody's watchlist, so just revert vandalism and carry on editing. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:16, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

This user is blocked for a week by

21:34, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

User has a history of being disruptive. I wouldn't object.--

Black

21:42, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

If he thinks he can remove his licence, the answer is 'no'. Once licenced the images aren't his any more. As such he cannot claim ownership again. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 21:47, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, they are still his. Just anyone can use them under GFDL restrictions. [[Sam Korn]] 21:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

As I recall, the Upload screen did not state that the user is releasing their own work under the GFDL for a period of time recently. Did this user release them under the GFDL by tagging them in that way? Jkelly 21:58, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

They contained the GFDL-self tag, so yes. [[Sam Korn]] 21:59, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Speaking of legal threats *sigh* this was posted on my talk page by someone called User:FakeName. The user was attempting to put a propagandistic article in place of the current article at Alan Dershowitz. In his rewrite Dershowitz was credited with everything except inventing a cure for cancer, a cure for AIDS and ending global warming in a single afternoon. He didn't like my reversion (twice) and posted the following:

You are now on notice that your biography of Alan Dershowitz is false in several regard and defamatory.

I deleted it from my page. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 21:47, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

• I am in the process of reverting all those images back to the former version with his original GFDL licensing statements
  Jtkiefer^{T | C | @}
  ---- 21:54, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

• I have blocked for 1 month for legal threats since he clearly continues to threaten us with legal actions despite being warned and being told how pointless it would be.
  Jtkiefer^{T | C | @}
  ---- 22:12, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Update: Jimbo Wales has caved in to the legal threat on Alan Dershowitz. A sad day for Wikipedia. - Xed 12:41, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

On this page, in the edit summery of the second deelted edit, the personal identity and employment info of a wikipedia user is revealed. This revision was delted specifically to get this information out of the history at the poster's request. Is there any way to remove this edit summery from what is visible to non-admins who click on the history tab? DES ^(talk) 23:07, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Ability to change edit summeries on this issue. DES ^(talk) 21:23, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Islam writer Zora http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zora belittlingly edited and destroyed portions of a Christian article unfavorably in favor of historic Muslim figure with the same name Aisha. Left sarcastic, libellous, inappropriate edit note.

Proceeded to go to the web site link provided in the article she improperly edited and left inappropriate, insulting email message.

Um, this user is defending a vanity page and is delusional. She's accusing me of things I never did. I'm not a Muslim and I've never even visited her web site. Perhaps I should -- it might be amusing. Zora 04:52, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

2004-12-29T22:45Z (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) I have blocked this user for two weeks for willfully violating established consensus and again attempting to publish unverifiable personal details about a porn star (in this case, Tawnee Stone). I have also deleted those items from the article.

For background see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive44#Jordon_Capri and related items.

Brief Summary: This user, who does in fact make useful contributions to the encyclopedia, seems to enjoy stalking porn stars. By doing "research" on obscure web forums, college directories, blogs and other sites, he claims to have discerned the real identity of several porn stars whose professional work appears exclusively under a psuedonym. (For example, in the case of Tawnee Stone his primary line of evidence is a forum post where someone claims to have known her when she was a waitress at IHOP and offers a real name.) Nor does he stop at identifying a porn star's name, but proceeds to include details on their family, hometown, current place of residence, current place of employment, etc. All very stalkerish.

Sometime ago (see above AN/I link), it was decided this was a Bad Thing and the unverifiable information was deleted from several articles. 2004-12-29T22:45Z was well aware of this and apparently decided to see whether he could come back months later and sneak some of it in again.

The message I left on his talk page said I would unblock him if he promises to stop doing this. Dragons flight 03:25, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Good job. --Golbez 18:18, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

RSPW Coaster has been going wild with sockpuppets to taunt Chadbryant. I 3RR blocked both this morning for the history of KTVX, but RSPW has also been appearing as RSPW Poster, John DeJong and Doctor Strangelove. He's on a DSL with fast-changing DHCP, so expect him to come back and come back and come back - David Gerard 22:00, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Add Pickles The Cat and Emperor Gluteus maximus. I've also blocked the subnet for six hours to give the poor fellow a break. And unblocked Chadbryant on the 3RR, but not RSPW owing to the latter's spectacular display of bad faith - David Gerard 23:10, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

This user has caused enough trouble over the past several months that he has his own category. Chadbryant 00:02, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Chadbryant has caused enough trouble over the past several months that he has been blocked for 24 hours on two seperate occassions. Captain Weirdbeard 02:00, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

And you've had a zillion socks blocked and will get them blocked as soon as they appear. Well done - David Gerard 09:08, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

As you can see, this abusive user has returned under a new account. Chadbryant 02:53, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I find your comments to be shallow and pedantic. Electric Frankfurter 04:34, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Mr. Bryant is not exactly innocent in this matter either. He consistently ignores Wikipedia rules regarding reverts, neutrality, and use of stage/proper names for entries. He has also in the past changed people's comments in his own discussion page to make it appear they are saying something else. He edits his discussion page so that any warnings posted by Admins are deleted (which is his right to do, but it just serves as an example). He also categorises any reverts he does as "repairing vandalism" even in situations where it is obviously NOT vandalism. He and rspw-poster have waged their personal feud on many entries. Both of them need to settle down. One only needs to look at his posting history and read his talk page history to see what exactly is going on. TruthCrusader

One is sockpuppeting like crazy, the other is trying to do things more properly - David Gerard 09:08, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Please define to me how misusing the Wikipedia definition of "vandalism" and repeatedly abusing User pages with unwarranted and unauthoritated accusations of sockpuppetry is "trying to do things more properly." Zippity Doo Dah 21:27, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

As you can see, this abusive user has returned under yet another new account. Chadbryant 00:27, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Which has–oh so tragically–been blocked indefinitely. (The subseqeuently-created sock ElevenOfAllTrades (talk · contribs) has also been blocked.) I hereby post notice of my actions for review, if anyone thinks I've overstepped. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:14, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Fuck yes you overstepped. Chadbryant is vandalising user pages with his baseless sockpuppet accusations. Call me crazy but last time I checked I thought only Wikipedia administrators had the final call on that authority. How would you like it if next you logged on some crazy son of a bitch had torn up YOUR user page with something like that? This, and the fact that he's constantly abusing the Wikipedia definition of vandalism means that there is more going on here than some idiot with sockpuppets removing the sockpuppet accusations from User pages. You, as someone with the ability to block users, should have at least investigated. Sure, it's Wikipedia, with thousands of users making thousands of entries and changes on an hourly basis, but you should have at least checked around -- as it seems you have done on here. You overreacted, you didn't even bother to mark my talk page, and you are a jerk for doing so. TwelveOfAllTrades 01:20, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Said user is now out-of-control as User:Ling Ling. Chadbryant 01:42, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

It seems like we need someone with checkuser to control this, he keeps creating new sockpuppet accounts. Rhobite 01:47, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

The only reason this is occuring is because Wikipedia admins do not allow opportunity for explanation. Stop blocking accounts and new ones will not be created. That's how I see it, at least. Zing Zing 15:20, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

As you can see, this abusive user has returned under yet another new account. - Chadbryant 15:42, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

This afternoon I am going to officially request arbitration regarding Chadbryant. This is getting fucking ridiculous -- you allow him to run about placing sockpuppet templates as he pleases, yet all he's been banned for has been two seperate violations of the 3RR rule. He needs to be stopped, and soon, or at the very least censured. Deathen Taxes 18:03, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Arbitration has officially been requested against

WP:RFAR or discuss the issue with me on my talk page. Deathen Taxes

19:30, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

You will be free to explain your case when you stop making personal attacks and removing comments from talk pages. Nobody should have to put up with your complaints if you can't resist namecalling. Rhobite 21:30, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

This latest DinkSock has toned down his behaviour slightly, but is still deleting items from my talk page, and reverting articles to previous versions which contain multiple errors. - Chadbryant 21:28, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Chad, as I asked on your talk page, could you please stop using {{

no personal attacks policy. Please think about whether your actions are resolving the dispute, or whether they are escalating it. Rhobite

21:41, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Template:DinkSock was created by User:Kelly_Martin for the purpose of documenting Alex Cain's numerous sockpuppets. - Chadbryant 21:48, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Does it matter who created it? You are one of the parties to this dispute and you should not be the one applying it to any userpages. Rhobite 22:07, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Ten bucks says he won't listen to you. Oh Good Grief 23:41, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

This user is once again attacking my talk page with his new sock (User:Oh Good Grief). - Chadbryant 00:17, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Nobody is "attacking" anything. I'm simply reverting your talk page to remind you that the arbitration entry exists, as well as removing the link you have that leads to an external page outside of Wikipedia which could be considered a hate page. Oh Good Grief 00:57, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

This user continues to attack and deface my talk page, even after being asked to cease. Obviously, he is not serious about resolving the problems he has caused. - Chadbryant 04:01, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Then please do not delete the remarks on your page which relate to the arbitration or to those actions on your part which have required Wikipedia administrators to remind you of the policies here on Wikipedia. Perhaps you should show your own seriousness by leaving such items in? Otherwise you look like a hypocrite. You and I both know that it wouldn't be the first time. Oh Good Grief 04:13, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Apparently not a bot, but still extremely consistent. Jpstackmoney (talk · contribs)goes to a lot of celebrity pages, does really minor changes, often ungrammatical ones, and then tacks a link to http://people.noteroom.com/ onto the top of the external links...said site appears to be some mass produced pages on celebrities grabbing news story summaries off the web with ads... this seems to me to be a clear linkfarming attempt on an entirely nonencyclopedic site. I'd appreciate if others took a look and reverted changes if they agree. DreamGuy 07:16, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed that this is just spam. I'll go revert some (hey, I'm bored).--

Black

07:35, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Upon further investigation, there are some productive edits in there. Hopefully DreamGuy's message about the external link policy will steer him away from the dark side.--

Black

07:42, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Really minor productive edits here and there amidst clear examples of poor grammar, removing of links to competing sites, and so forth... and has he ever touched an article and not left a link to his own site (occasionally he'll do two edits to same page, one of them clearly adding the link, I count that as one "touch" as it happens at the same time)? Not that I've seen yet. At the very least I'd think we'd want to kill off all the links so as not to encourage him from trying some more under a different name and hoping that any we miss would be enough reason for him to continue on. DreamGuy 08:06, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

That's true enough, and the username makes me feel that he intended to come here to promote the site, but he might just find something productive to do. If not, well, he was warned. I agree that it would best for him to register a new username to start with a clean slate were he to become a good editor.--

Black

08:26, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Good catch, DreamGuy. (How do you find all the spammers?) I'll support wholesale reversion of this guy's edits as long as he continues to add in the linkspam. If you have the time, restore any legitimate corrections he's made, if any exist. Looks like he's stopped for now; the non-uniformity of the edits leads me to believe this was not a bot. If he starts up again, he should be blocked indefinitely. android79 13:28, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I've got a number of low-edit articles I have no interest in on my Watchlist that I also know are high target spam space (like Mortgage), as well as a few that are natural targets for spam this season (Halloween and Christmas). Mainly it's just whenever I see anyone adding links that look suspicious to me I pull up their contribution history.... And I guess this guy pissed me off enough that I went through and manuaully removed the link everywhere this particular user name added it... unfortunately, as reported below, I think most of these spammers are smart enough to do it under multiple accounts and anons, and by warning a user (like I am supposed to) it just means they change identity... It'd be helpful to have spam-fighting tools and block lists for sites, though that'd just be extra overhead on the already-taxed system. DreamGuy 07:27, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

This link is all over the place and not placed by that particular username, User:137.71.23.54 has also placed it e.g. [143] [144] So to eliminate this is going to take searching and manual removal. --pgk^(talk) 19:34, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

My goal was to try to promote our website. Believe it or not, we're trying to do something good. Celebrities are the most searched subjects on the internet; however, there's no real good site for celebrity news. Wiki... IMDB... TV.com are all good sites for finding biographies, filmographies, etc about people. But where do people get news from? If you take a minute to look over our site, you'll find that the pages that we add links to on wiki are very relevant. Sure, Wiki has a policy of not using the external links section for commercial purposes, but just about every link that you see in these "external links" sections directs one to a commerical site - imdb.com, tv.com, nfl.com, espn.com, etc. It shouldn't matter who actually posts the links; rather, the link taken down solely based on the content of the linked to site. I really did think a lot of our pages were relevant to Wiki users. For instance, if a Wiki user is looking up Paris Hilton, I'm sure that they're very interested in finding current events about her. We facilitate this. I would love to hear what you guys think. Best- jpstackmoney

Please read and follow the Wikipedia:Spam and Wikipedia:External links policies. If you are trying to promote your website, then you are certainly nor working in the best interest of Wikipedia. IMDB, ESPN and etc. are commercial sites, but they are also proven valuable resources in their fields as agreed upon by thousands of people. If you ever get that level with your website, then other people will automatically list it and you won't have to. But you can't go ahead and try to use us to promote your site, as every webmaster out there can decide to do just the same thing with the same argument. I've seen many a page on your site now, and it doesn't strike me as a professional looking resource for valuable information so much as a blog spam bot attack trying to earn money off of Google ads that peoplpe click because they see links there to what they thought your site would have had based upon the links you had here. There's really nothing at all about your site that would make us want to link to you, and the fact that you go around linking it everywhere is more than enough for us to not want to see it anywhere. DreamGuy 12:18, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I created this template as an anti-vandal warning for the much-vandalised George W. Bush page. {{GeorgeWBush}} What do we do about the vandal who posts the libellous allegations about the president and Jimbo Wales?? --Everton Toffees Fan 11:57, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

We block them. The Land 12:09, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Before you slap this template on any article, might I suggest you first take a look at

WP:BEANS? → Ξxtreme Unction {^yakł_blah

} 12:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I think that template will attract even more vandals (and more of WoW's socks). IMO the best way to deal with vandalism is to quickly revert it, block the offender and then pretend it never happened. That template will make readers think that Wikipedia has a serious problem with vandals and that this compromises the accuracy of its content. While this may be true, we shouldn't admit it. Izehar (talk) 12:15, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

User:Everton Toffees Fan is himself a vandal, trying to be clever. I suggest you take a peek at his contributions. I've reinstated the indefinite block that was temporarily lifted against this user. --Woggly 12:23, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

He has a sockpuppet at User:GWR FM Bristol - The Better Music Mix. Please block that one as well. The Land 12:27, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I indefinitely blocked User:GWR FM Bristol - The Better Music Mix because he is making a lot of weird edits and I don't know what is going on with him. I would very much appreciate it if an admin more familiar with this situation would review his edits and consider shortening or removing the block. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 12:33, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

He also made The Mix (Digital radio) which I have listed at AfD. --Chainlinking2005 12:39, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=GWR_FM_Bristol_-_The_Better_Music_Mix - uploaded images which were copyrighted. --Chainlinking2005 12:43, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I have deleted the images he uploaded, but there are still the two articles: The Mix (Digital radio) and Dave Hill. Apparently they actually exist, see this site. Mushroom 13:02, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

You mean Dave Hills. The Land 13:19, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes of course. I also think that the vandal could be a sockpuppet of Ruddyburdon. Mushroom 13:32, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I concur, and would add User:Danielle Whitman to the list. The Land 09:52, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Doing RC patrol this morning I encountered this user making these edits: [145] [146] [147]

He was only blocked by me for three minutes, since I looked at his contribs, saw he was a regular editor, and immediately unblocked him ([148]). I hear he is whining that I violated policy in blocking him, but I would like to politely ask him not to waste our time vandalising. Maybe he could help us by reverting vandalism during the period 1600-2000 UTC on weekdays when we are being overrun, rather than adding to the problem.

I also received an e-mail from him and replied similarly. Chaosfeary, please don't do this again. Antandrus (talk) 17:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Block him for a month. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:03, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Blocked for 24 hours by Carbonite. I was about to do similarly :) Ral315 (talk) 18:27, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I see now. Appropriate. Antandrus (talk) 18:28, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Off with his head. --84.64.132.44 08:09, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Is User:Anna2005 a Lightbringer sock evading his block on Freemasonry articles, or just another anti-Mason who happens to be making the same exact edits that Lightbringer used to? Thanks.--SarekOfVulcan 19:11, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Crossposted to

User:Lightbringer

.

...and to AN/3RR, as well. This is getting less amusing as time goes by.... --SarekOfVulcan 20:07, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Blocked, but I'm sure he'll be back.--SarekOfVulcan 23:16, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Howdy - I just received a legal threat from 24.24.130.247 (talk • contribs • page moves • block • block log) over my removing links that she inserted to a range of southern california university webpages. The IPs only contributions are adding this website to a variety of pages. As I am in a content dispute (i guess) with this editor, could another admin please take the appropriate action. Thank you! --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 22:04, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

It is the most bizarrely useless legal threat I have ever seen. I'd just ignore the legal threat, point the user to

WP:NOT and laugh it off. Bring it back here if it get's nastier. [[Sam Korn]]

22:09, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

It is pretty strange, I agree. He is threatening to sue me for infringing other users rights to see his link. Anyway, I just received this email message which rearticulates the threat.

Kevin,

I got your "warning" message. I am not spamming. I happen to be good resource for students looking for off-campus housing. We are a completely free, community resource for posting and finding housing. I also put UCI's on-campus housing link which you deleted. Wikipedia's external links areas are places for RELATED high-quality information. The fact that you keep deleting my relative contributions is unwelcome and violates the purpose of Wikipedia's external links section. Please stop deleting my link or I WILL pursue legal action against you and report your actions to the rest of the Wikipedia community.

Sincerely,

Tim

Again, the same sort of threat. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 02:35, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

The person doesn't seem to get the point of Wikipedia. First, anyone can edit Wikipedia, this also means that anyone can remove anyone else's edits. Writing something on Wikipedia does not automatically guarantee a right to have that preserved. Second, Wikipedia is not a nondiscriminate dumping ground for any information whatsoever. It is an encyclopedia and has standards to maintain. — JIP | Talk 07:33, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

It's just a spammer who doesn't want to get the point of Wikipedia and is making ridiculous threats that they know they can't back up to try to preserve his free advertising. DreamGuy 07:49, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Ignore his threats or politely rebuff them, and keep removing his links and block as necessary. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 09:33, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I protected this for the duration of a block because he was posting personal attacks, and now for some reason I can't get it unprotected. The "confirm unprotection" page appears and I unprotect, but when I reload, it's still protected. Could someone else take a look, please? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:20, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Check now. Jkelly 22:22, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Jkelly. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:30, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Could some please speedy delete

23:41, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to presume the blocking admin knows their beans, and I have speedied this article as the creation of a banned user. Next, we debate whether we speedy banned users' articles. I'll start: Yes, we do. -Splash^talk 23:46, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Uh, this isn't going to be much of a debate. Someone who is banned isn't allowed to edit Wikipedia. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 09:31, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Striver has created a Template:Muslim conflicts, without any input from any other editors working on the Islam-related articles, and has applied it some fourteen articles so far. I reverted some five or so of them and then gave up in despair. Is there any way to do this as a mass reversion? The template, in my opinion, is completely useless, and the title is hopelessly vague. This is much better handled by a category tag, particularily as there are hundreds if not thousands of battles in the early Islamic expansion, not to mention the many thousands of battles that occurred in later centuries. Zora 00:02, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Take the template to

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion and get consensus to kill it for good. Phil Sandifer

00:07, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

(after ec)You'll want to talk about that somewhere, or, if you prefer, nominate it for deletion at

TfD. I don't think the use of this qualifies as simple vandalism, so I'm not going to do bulk rollback (which yes, admins can do).-Splash^talk

00:08, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. D'oh. I've never put a template up for deletion and didn't realize that I could. Now done. Zora 04:54, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

If anyone really wants to know what this kid is about, have a look at his latest (as yet unmolested) spree: [149] -- he's even back editing on North Carolina-related topics. It's all there--King of the Hill, imaginary TV shows, nonsense entries, etc. This time, it looks like some of his edits in the article space are valid, which makes it harder to pick through them for the nonsense. Is anyone else on to this guy? Antandrus (talk) 03:27, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• He's blocked for 24 hours. DS 03:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

He's back as Ahshi (talk · contribs). Nothing overtly vandalous so far, but please keep an eye on this one; he rarely goes on for long without starting a vandalism spree. By the way, look at the history for liquor [150] -- every sockpuppet that has been reverted is him. Antandrus (talk) 04:10, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

The article Jay Leno is constantly getting vandalised by IPs generally from the same range. I have done another range block, but this time for 3 hours rather than 24, and for a smaller range (/20 instead of /18, meaning four times fewer IPs). Perhaps the page should be protected. — JIP | Talk 08:59, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Some admin should probably do something about the move, edit and revert war that has been ongoing on

11:13, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

There is hardly any real edit history there; most of the history of both pages is filled with redirecting one article to the other and back. So I don't think a merge of the histories is needed/possible/desirable. I have just "protected" the location of the article at the location with the most useful history; see the talk page. (Actually, I protected the redirect at the other location, so the article cannot be "moved" back there. It can still be edited.) Let's just see if that can force the two parties to talk. Eugene van der Pijll 20:05, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it turns out that I've protected the page at the Wrong Version... Eugene van der Pijll 12:52, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Just had a look through the new users log, and noticed a new user called User:Nasty Dick has joined. Is his username grounds for a UsernameBlock, or could he be seen as a sockpuppet/impersonator of User:Dick Witham or User:DickyRobert??

It is all rather ambiguous to me. --Sunfazer 12:03, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

For goodness sake, you people are all paranoid and drunk with the powers invested in you with your pathetic little block buttons. What on earth happened to

WP:AGF? Has this user caused any problems? Why is a possible block being discussed even before s/he has barely started to contribute? How on earth is this an "incident"? 84.64.40.45

12:39, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• Not a smart name to choose by any means, but unless they make any questionable edits, I don't see any valid reason to block them. Just keep an eye on the account, just in case it's sleeper. - Mgm|^(talk) 14:07, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Dude, check the user contributions. It's the same boring old vandalism. --FOo 11:27, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Curps blocked Silver Marmot for the similarity of username and the brusqueness of the edit summaries. But they turn out not to be the same person, and I've unblocked Silver Marmot, with a note on his talk page about gritting his teeth in the face of stupid people ;-) - David Gerard 12:35, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Same comment as above. Well done David Gerard. --84.64.40.45 12:40, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Two users are trying to change the spelling of the verb form of "license" to "licence", and claiming that anyone who reverts them is unnecessarily provoking conflict, stating that the c form is the preferred spelling in Britain. And yet, the British-based Oxford, the primary source for all things English, makes it pretty clear:

"Do not confuse licence with license. Licence is a noun which means 'a permit to do something' (a driving licence), whereas license is a verb meaning 'give a permit to someone: allow something' (the loggers are licensed to cut mahogany trees). In American English, both the noun and the verb are spelled license."

I am now being accused of "bad faith edits" and "provoking conflict" for putting in the correct, universally-accepted, spelling of the verb form. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-9 13:41

I say we protect the page so that only administrators can edit it. They won't edit war. [[Sam Korn]] 13:57, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

For all who don't pick up on this, it is sarcasm. Admins are edit warring. The page is locked. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-9 14:09

Just have someone lock it if they continue without providing sources. You did everything by the book as far as I've seen. - Mgm|^(talk) 14:05, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

That's the problem, this page is protected. Carbonite | Talk 14:07, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I support the blocking of admins indulging in revert wars on protected pages.

dab (ᛏ)

18:18, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Isn't everything protected on the MediaWiki namespace by default?

did you read this?

) 18:24, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Admins shouldn't edit war. They should know better. Why are Admins sometimes held to lower standards? --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 18:35, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

The issue has now been resolved. (Not by me, I'm just passing on the info.) FreplySpang (talk) 18:42, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

At the top of

17:10, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

See also this nice edit, and

dab (ᛏ)

17:39, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I have blocked User:Pigsonthewing for 48 hours for violating his personal attack parole both on his talk page and in edit summaries. Specifically, in the edit summary to his addition to User talk:84.45.217.185, and for his implication that User:Evilphoenix was not acting in good faith on his talk page. This is a higher standard than I would apply to a user that is not on probation. But then, that's exactly the point of probation. In the interests of full disclosure, I will observe that I am in a (minor, low-intensity) edit war with POTW on Jeremy Clarkson over the presence of an NPOV tag. I don't believe that that influences my judgment in this matter (and I would not object to restoring that tag for the duration of the block to avoid even the appearance of impropriety; if anyone thinks that is prudent feel free to restore the tag or ask me to do so). Nandesuka 17:25, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I need attention to the article

17:49, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I would suggest you both stop reverting, as you both have exceeded

WP:3RR. It's not going to hurt anybody to let the "wrong version" stand for a while. Sortan

18:52, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

OK. I will stop, for the sake of order. And I expect the admins to differentiate between arguments well supported by various sources and those that are based on personal observation. Thanx.--TimBits 18:57, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

You can file a

WP:RFC on the article and see what others think. Sortan

19:00, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Probable WOW accounts

These new accounts are either sockpuppets of WoW or impersonations of him:

• User:Prince William County, Virginia on wheels!
• User:Croboys elite vs. rednecks carlow crab stokes county on tires!
• User:King of the Hill vandal on tires!
• User:WikiAdm on wheels!
• User:The Fish from Florida on wheels!
• User:King William County, Virginia on wheels!

It looks like Willy is getting slightly more creative in naming. Can someone block these, please? Jonathunder 22:58, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Looks like Curps has already got all these — check his block log. Hermione1980 23:02, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

The accounts listed above have been marked and blocked indefinitely by Splash and me. Hall Monitor 23:04, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you to all who helped with blocking and marking these. Jonathunder 23:08, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

That's almost certainly the North Carolina Vandal; about twenty of those fake WoW accounts have names which echo the NCV's interests. It's either him or someone who has been following his activities for the last five months really closely. Currently he has one active account (User:Ahshi) making semi-legitimate edits, but remember you always can shut him down by blocking 63.19.128.0/17 (unless he is editing from a school computer, which he probably does for edits around 1500-2000 UTC). Antandrus (talk) 00:11, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Wow! I wonder how the original WoW feels about all this - is he angry at his identity being usurped, or is he proud that he has started something grand? Izehar (talk) 00:14, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

He (or it, or whatever) started doing it again, creating these accounts, at 02:15 UTC ; I blocked 63.19.128.0/17 at 02:21 UTC. Let's see if that shuts him down. If it does -- draw your own conclusion.  :-) Antandrus (talk) 02:23, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

AND HERE HE IS -- [151] -- two minutes later, online, claiming not to be vandalising. That's the one creating those accounts. "I'm not even vandalizing!" LOL. Antandrus (talk) 02:31, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Has been inserting incorrect information. Surely wrong are thise: [152] [153] [154] (duplication), [155], [156], [157].

Suspicious, if you look in context is [158]. [159]

I reverted all other edits by this person just in case. Comments on what to do? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:30, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Just keep reverting... feel free to add the {{

template:test}} warnings and such to his userpage.  ALKIVAR™

04:20, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Might be related to 68.190.51.99 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) -- given that they have made the same edit to square root in short order. Antandrus (talk) 05:17, 10 December 2005 (UTC)