Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive603

The below discussion was moved from

Multiple instances of Sneaky Vandalism,

In presenting this, I hope to bring to the attention of admins the continual disruption and removal of content by User:PCPP on pages related to the Chinese Communist Party.

The user's editing pattern involves:

1. Repetitive blanking of vast amounts of sourced and centrally relevant material, with no discussion on talk, and often under edit summaries like “rv pov material.”

2. Distortion of sourced content and the addition of personal commentary, which he misattributes to sources already present in the article.

3. And, when under close scrutiny, the watering down of critical sources, with unsubstantiated claims to the effect that they are the content is “pov”, is undue, etc.

4. Attack of other editors to deviate attention when the issue is raised with him.

Even a superficial analysis can reveal his scouring of articles pertinent to the CCP’s human rights violations, from which he removes critical material, while simultaneously piling accusations against those attempting to contribute to those articles.

What I present below is but a sample of such behavior, all from within the past few months, by the user.

1. Article:

Nature of disruption:Repetitive blanking of sourced and centrally relevant material with no discussion presented.Concerns raised are ignored by the user.

The below content, drawing upon one of the few sources available on the topic, has been blanked 6 times by the user since its inception into the article.

"According to the 2008 Congressional Executive Commission Report on China, "Publicly available government documents detail the central role of the 6-10 Office in the persecution of Falun Gong."^[1] The report states: ""6-10 Offices throughout China maintain extrajudicial 'transformation through reeducation' facilities that are used specifically to detain Falun Gong practitioners who have completed terms in reeducation through labor (RTL) camps but whom authorities refuse to release. The term `transformation through reeducation' (jiaoyu zhuanhua) describes a process of ideological reprogramming whereby practitioners are subjected to various methods of physical and psychological coercion until they recant their belief in Falun Gong."^[1]"

The diffs:[11] [12][13][14][15][16].

Concerns raised regarding this behavior, on the talk page[17][18] is met with no response from PCPP, other than repeated blanking.

Together with the blanking, supported by neither discussion nor edit summary, the user distorts the lead of the article. The statement sourced to Congressional Executive Report on China, 2008: “This entity was charged with the mission of overseeing and carrying out the persecution of Falun Gong, which commenced on July 22, 1999.”, is distorted by the user to “It is responsible for monitoring, studying and analyzing matters relating to Falun Gong, and recommending policy measures for against Falun Gong, and also what the government calls "heretical cults" and "harmful qigong organisations"; and for promptly notifying municipal party committees of trends and developments within "cults".”[19]. The commentary added by the user is mis-attributed and not supported by any source.

2. Article:

Nature of disruption: Blanking of 12 paragraphs of sourced, centrally relevant material, with no discussion.

Shortly following the expansion and addition of sources to

The above was preceded by a similar blanking of content here. Before this, an editor who has continually supported, worked with, and encouraged PCPP, blanks a portion of the content added to the article[20] with an argument to the effect that its good enough for the article to remain a “catalogue.”

4. Article:

Nature of disruption: Whole-scale blanking

In the same article, the user, despite attempts to engage him in discussion, continues to blank a quarter of the article - 10K of content. He attacks the sources themselves, alleging their origin in US makes them anti-China and hence not RS. Kindly review the comments regarding this on talk:[21]. The blanking takes place in these edits: [22]

5. Article: Falun Gong

Nature of Disruption: Blanking.

Three paragraphs deleted with no explanation offered.[23].

6. Article: Falun Gong

Blanks almost the same content as above , this time labeling the sources “questionable” in the edit summary – no supporting discussion on talk. [24]. Concerns raised regarding this can be seen on talk of the article:[25]

7. Article:

Nature of Disruption: Blanking of material under a misleading edit summary

Content removed in edits with misleading edit summaries: [26]

8. Article: Mass line

Nature of Disruption: Repetitive addition of unsourced material and blanking of sourced content.

Adds several paragraphs of unsourced content [27]. And here he reverts ( with misleading edit summaries) contributions by other editors removing well sourced and centrally relevant content[28] ( he offers no explanation for his blanking). The issue was raised here on the talk of the article: [29]

9. Article:

'Nature of disruption: Removes an entire section.

Edit summary makes no mention of it and no discussion on talk. [30]

10. Article:

Comparatively minor disruptions such as repetitive changing of “Persection of Falun Gong” ( term used by academic sources, HRW, UN, Amnesty, US Congress reports, etc) to “Banning of Falun Gong”[31] [32][33]. Attempts to get the user to present a rationale for his insistence on using the word “ban” can be seen here: [34]

11. Article: Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident

Blanks a para while falsely claiming in his edit summary that the content he blanked is a “misattribution”:[35]

12. Attacking reliable sources on talk to justify blanking of material .

The editor routinely attacks sources which do not align with his POV. Here, as a justification of his blanking of content from that source, the user attacks a Freedom House article by China expert Kurlantzick with claims that : "a) is not a suitable academic source as most of its material relies on original research b) is from an organization funded by the US government, and the countries reported happened to be political opponents of the US c) used as such that claims made by the report is presented as factual evidence in disproportionate amounts"[36] and here he attacks a Reporters Sans Frontiers source on 'grounds' that: " A bunch of rhetorics froma CIA funded organization can hardly meet WP:RS"[37]. The user continues to blank the Freedom House material despite RS discussion[38]. The user also continually engages in personal attack on those attempting to contribute to the article.

--

The above are just a few instances illustrative of the kind of the disruption the user engages in. The arguments the user presents on talk are often of a disruptive nature as well, and often invovles personal attacks on those contributing to the article.

PCPP also repeatedly changes the words from sources to weaken or distort the claims they make, the case often being the latter - distortion of the perspective of the source. These edits he labels: "clarifying", "per WP:NPOV", etc.[39],[40],[41]. In all these cases, the sources said those precise words as were in the article. He provides no other explanation for the changes he makes to them.

PCPP also rarely, if ever, adds any research to the articles. He focuses pulling apart these articles and simultaneously discrediting the contributions of others. This behaviour of his has gone on for a long time and above are but recent instances. I request admins to kindly review PCPP's contribution history. In it is apparent a clear pattern of removal of material critical of the CCP from articles through out wikipedia.

In addition, I would also like to draw attention to a systematic blanking of critical content and images on articles related to the CPP and its human rights violations which, I notice, has been happening on articles throughout wikipedia. Academic and news sources state that the Chinese Communist Party employs an army, hundreds of thousands strong, targeting Web 2.0 technologies such as Wikipedia, Twitter and youtube[42]. My intent is not to imply that editors involved in such removal of material are all directly related to the CCP, but, to point out that the presence of research and reports, which uncover such activism by CCP’s propaganda departments, makes the issue deserving of further attention of the Wikipedia Community. I humbly request a careful analysis of the issue be done, before any judgment is made on the merits of this concern I raise, and if evidence is found of such activity, the necessary steps be taken to counter it. A lot of evidence exists in Falun Gong related pages themselves. For instance, the Persecution of Falun Gong article has had almost all information regarding the persecution( sourced to Amnesty, HRW, UN CAT, Congressional Executive Reports, academic sources, etc.) , blanked from it. Blanking has been done to the point that in the lead of the article itself, it is made to seem as if this major international crisis is but a mere claim made by practitioners. I point out the issue here on talk[43] In the past, these articles have witnessed attack from self-declared propagandists such as User:Bobby_fletcher. Identified by David Kilgour, and David Matas, and articles such as the ones here: [44][ http://www.westernstandard.ca/website/article.php?id=2436], as a major online activist for the CCP, “Bobbly Fletcher” engaged in presenting CCP propaganda on talk, de-tracking discussions, removal of content from the articles, etc. His presence on Wikipedia, and his disruptive activities were continually encouraged and supported by User:PCPP, who himself, as evidence above clearly demonstrates, has blanked vast amounts of info critical of the CCP from these articles.

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. [45] Warning by TheSoundAndTheFury (talk · contribs)
2. [46] Warning by Asdfg12345 (talk · contribs)
3. [47] Warning by Asdfg12345 (talk · contribs)
4. [48] Warning by
   talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA
   )
5. [49] Warning by
   talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA
   ) # [<Diff>] Warning by [[User:<Username>|<Username>]] ([[User talk:<Username>|talk]] · [[Special:Contribs/<Username>|contribs]] · [[Special:Log/block/<Username>|blocks]] · [[Special:Log/protect/<Username>|protections]] · [[Special:Log/delete/<Username>|deletions]] · [[Special:Log/move/<Username>|page moves]] · [[Special:Log/rights/<Username>|rights]] · [[Special:PrefixIndex/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/<Username>|RfA]])

Dilip rajeev (talk) 05:23, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Here, in another recent instance of dishonest editing / "sneaky vandalism", the user removes a sentence completely under the edit summary "copyedit"(In the article: Media of the People's Republic of China) Dilip rajeev (talk) 15:07, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that almost all of the below claims by PCPP are distortions and lies, as may be verified. FOr instance #1 is not an acurate summary of the content he removed. #2. The source he mentions is an article by Kurlantzick, a China Expert. He plays on that some political website hosted the article. The rest are not even replies to the issues raised - but mere statements made for diverting attention from the real issues. Dilip rajeev (talk) 05:57, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Discussion concerning PCPP

Statement by PCPP

I really don't see how the FLG sanctions can apply to any CCP-related article, as Dilip claimed. Dilip's personal attacks again Bobby Fletcher and rant about the PRC's "web spies" demonstrates exactly why I have difficulties working with him.

1)

I in fact shortened the paragraph to:

The name of the body draws from of its date of formation: June 10, 1999. According to the 2008 Congressional Executive Commission Report on China, the 6-10 Offices maintain extrajudicial 'transformation through reeducation' (jiaoyu zhuanhua) facilities, where Falun Gong practitioners are subjected to various methods of physical and psychological coercion until they recant their belief in Falun Gong."^[1]

I summarized the statement into proper English, which is perfectly acceptable within editing guidelines. When Dilip doesn't agree with with such changes, he reverts the entire article, along with everything else that goes along with it.

2-5)

Dilip himself added a large amount of questionable statements from a single unverified source from a political website [50], and completely destroyed the POV balance of the article. The only source I ended up removing was his; which is neither peer-reviewed or have any results on google scholar per

5-6)

That was a content dispute between me and another editor. I've since discussed with the editor, [51] who agreed that my edits has merits.

7)

All I did was shuffle a couple of paragraphs around and removed one sentence that is not relevent to the article topic. I only edited that article once, and was immediatle reverted by asdfg in its entirity. [52]

8)

Asdfg removed a large amount of material regarding Maoism, including the template and two web sources[53]. I restored the sources and properly attributed them.

9)

And ignore the fact that I added a large amount of info regarding the thought reform movement. The source I removed was from 1969 and no longer up to date, and contradicted by the info I added. I even searched google scholar for asdfg's claims, and found nothing as it claimed.

10)

The terminology itself was highly disputed, the sources themselves didn't even come to an conclusion, and an AFD on the terminology didn't even come to a clear concensus [54]. I referred to the Chinese's government's official label of the campaign per

11)

The source is disputed on talk page [55] and reached the concensus that it is misattributed.

12)

I am within my right to question such sources per

I find the current situation utterly ridiculous. No matter what I add, the FLG camp always find minor excuses over a couple of paragraphs or labels, and revert my edits entirely because of it. Dilip himself has a habit of disappearing for months, completely ignore the changes and concensus that has since ocurred, and revert back to his preferred version with little discussion. It's even more ludicrous that I have to document every change to single-purpose accounts that are used to promot Falun Gong.--PCPP (talk) 07:48, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Note Dilip's response only highlighted his own editing problems. He provides misleading diffs and expects it to stick, when a closer examination shows that the paragraph has been replaced, not removed. He lawyers around WP policies and completely disregards

WP:NPOV, refers to all of his favorite sources as "experts", no matter how unsubstantiated the claims are [56], while dismissing anything from China as "propaganda" [57] [58] [59].--PCPP (talk

) 12:51, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

LMAO, FYI I'm Australian, and neither am a Chinese govt employee nor Chinese citizen, and I don't even live there. And there's plenty of complaints about the neutrality and editing problems present in the FLG articles [60] by editors of a wide range of backgrounds including a Canadian, American, Swede, New Zealander, and Hong Kong resident.--PCPP (talk) 12:51, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Response to Jayen466

I find it hilarious to see me being single out and dismissed as a Chinese "web spy" by the creator who runs a FLG promotional website and advocates on Wikipedia [61] [62] . I am neither a member of the CCP nor an anti-FLG activist, and am not editing Wikipedia to promote these causes. My concern is over the POV problem present in the FLG articles and the existance of promoters here to spread their cause[63] [64], and due to their pervasive editing habits and constant attacks [65] [66] [67] [68] [69], it's obvious these people aren't interested in building Wikipedia, and I've adopted a no-nonsense approach to their behavior. --PCPP (talk) 12:51, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Comments by others about the request concerning PCPP

Comment by Asdfg12345

PCPP focuses on picking apart the contributions of others, and watering down the parts that aren't too friendly to the Chinese Communist Party. His behaviour is consistently destructive, and it, along with the explicit and implicit support he receives for it, has seriously eroded my will to contribute to this project (among other things.) Recently he has refined his methods, too. Instead of outright blanking, he just blanks some parts and weakens others; instead of saying nothing, he says a few perfunctory words and discredits the other editors intentions; instead of doing zero research, he does a bit. He is a drag on contributing, and exerts a net negative influence. He only destroys the value of others' contributions, rather than bringing his own ideas and sources to the table and working together for how to incorporate the different viewpoints. He only says the viewpoint of this or that scholar (it would seem, actually, every scholar who has documented the crimes of the CCP) is POV and tries to delete it or weaken it, without any regard for NPOV, which calls for all significant views to be represented. He has recently deleted swathes of material from several articles, then writes misleading edit summaries and notes on the talk page. What's even more bizarre is how the editors calling for my downfall don't care when he does this stuff. It's a bit farcical. I have left maybe a dozen notes to PCPP saying how I would like to work with him, asking him to explain himself, asking him to bring sources to the table that support the POV he wants to see introduced. But he doesn't play ball and just rebukes it all, going right ahead with the deletions and whatnot. It's a very effective technique, to be honest. At the very least, it's dampened my usually boundless enthusiasm--at least enough to take a break from all this for a while. I'll be back, but hopefully he won't be around. (Note: if he changed his approach and started doing research, and discussed his changes nicely, I would love to work with him. He has robust opinions on these subjects that, if sources can be found to support them, need to be represented and explained. But his focus on destroying my work really gets to me. I asked him to just paste onto the talk page stuff he deletes from now on. Maybe that will help. Though his deletions of any mention of the word "indoctrination" or "struggle session" goes on.) --Asdfg12345 05:20, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Comment by PhilKnight

The only relevant evidence is that which relates to the Falun Gong. The rest could be relevant to the user conduct Request for Comment, but shouldn't be listed here. PhilKnight (talk) 16:48, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I second PhilKnight. Long-term behavious is better addressed through an User RfC. ANI is more appropriate for dealing with issues that require more immediate admin intervention. Abecedare (talk) 06:01, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

The RfCU has not seen a lot of traffic, and it is mostly the usual suspects who have commented. I would urge uninvolved administrators to look into the allegations properly, and either clear PCPP's name or substantiate the allegations. --JN466 16:00, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I present here conduct, as recent as a few days back when the such behaviour of the user escalated. RfC has proved ineffective since there is a group of editors covering him up for and encouraging these edits. They win by democracy. This is precisely the cover that has allowed for such behavior of the user to carry on for long. I hope that admins would take a careful look at the case as many of the diffs I present are just a few days old, and constitute evidence of clearly disruptive behavior( for instance, the large-scale blanking in "Propaganda in the PRC" article) which calls for admin intervention. Dilip rajeev (talk) 06:34, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Comment by Epeefleche

The nom raises some points here that deserve close examination (which I've not had time for at the moment), and if which accurate should likely be addressed in some manner, though I agree with Phil that the only relevant information is that which relates to the Falun Gong, which does not appear to be the focus of many of the above diffs.--Epeefleche (talk) 07:12, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Comment by Jtrainor

Would be interesting to see if this guy's IP resolves to a Chinese government server. Jtrainor (talk) 06:36, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Jtrainor, I have had concerns along the same lines, and the issue is certainly worth investigating. But having explored this subject a bit, I have a feeling the issue could be more complex than that. You may want to skip through these articles:[70][71], and this material ( a significant portion of which was also recently blanked by PCPP). Dilip rajeev (talk) 07:45, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Comment by Gladys J Cortez

All eleventeen-squazillion of these evidentiary bytes seem (to me, at least) to have a better home than AN/I--has anyone tried adding all this info (ALLLLL this info!) here?? I mean, if we're having an RFC, it seems silly to have evidence spread in multiple places like this...esp since some of it seems relevant to the stuff already being discussed there AND I don't see a view by Dilip rajeev anywhere over there. Might be a thought......(Plus this bundle-o-text makes my scroll-wheel sad.) GJC 17:50, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Comment by Jayen466

PCPP's top mainspace edits: [72][73] 7 of the top 10 articles are Falun Gong-related, another 2 are related to the Communist Party of China. We have scrutinised pro-Falun Gong SPAs, we should do the same to SPAs on the other side. And if anyone has a spare afternoon, the Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/PCPP needs outside input. Moderated discussions may be the way forward. JN466 11:57, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Comment by Edward130603

Thinking that PCPP is a PRC gov't agent or something similar is really stupid. It doesn't mean that Dilip is paid/hired by FLG to push their POV and massage their image on Wikipedia, right? Funny how this ANI comes from a person that reverts constructive material of other users all the time.--Edward130603 (talk) 10:25, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

- IP seems to have cooled down (at least for now) --OpenFuture (talk) 06:48, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

58.96.94.220 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) added some links to a commercial course on Permanent makeup. [74] I removed it, it got re-added, so I removed it again, and used the normal template for spam warnings [75] and since then the user has been harassing me, refactoring comments [76], accusing me of edit warring [77], personal attacks [78], "highly offensive profanity" [79] and "swearing" [80] and all sorts of things. I decided to try to ignore the person, and archived the conversations of my talk page as a part of this, but he/she keeps reverting it [81], so obviously ignoring doesn't work either.

I'm clearly out of my depth here, desperate and can not handle this situation, and need administrator help to get this harassment to stop. --OpenFuture (talk) 23:41, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

You listed the wrong IP. It's actually 58.96.94.220 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 06:35, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry, cut and paste error. How did I not see that? Anyway, the IP subsequently of course reported me (see below) and was rebuked by several contributors. Hopefully that should solve it, we'll see. --OpenFuture (talk) 07:13, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

- IP did not return. --OpenFuture (talk) 06:47, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

This contributor did not wish to express his opinions on the discussion page and permit others to consider the merits of his opinions preferring to simply delete the contributions of others and then engaging in edit wars to maintain his dominance over the page content. Attempts were made to point out to OpenFuture that the time stamps on the page clearly indicated that he would not have had sufficient time to evaluate the external links before the first page edit that he made. OpenFuture did not wish to engage in reasonable dialogue on the merits of the information contained on the linked pages and the value to the article in question he preferred to just keep labelling it as spam in multiple locations. OpenFuture was invited to make a positive contribution to the page that he was so keen to edit by providing alternative sources of information that contained the same valuable content as the linked pages but he has chosen not to contribute in a positive way.

OpenFuture then resorted to swearing See History after swearing and being offensive he tries to hide his use of profanities by deleting the entire discussion and edit warring to prevent it being seen by others. Then OpenFuture tries to play a victim.

Is this honestly the type of immature behaviour that wikipedia tolerates from its contributors?

I see where you've added spamlinks but I don't see OpenFuture's use of profanities - please be more specific. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 00:16, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure how you can of missed it? It is quite clear that an alternative profane term for bovine excrement was used by OpenFuture towards me. That term is both vulgar and is highly offensive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.96.94.220 (talk) 00:22, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

OpenFuture's describing your attempts to justify the addition of spamlinks as "bullshit" while not exactly polite, is nowhere near as big a deal as you make it out to be. Suggest you disengage or if you must, take it to

WP:WQA. Finally, please stop re-adding comments to OpenFuture's talk page. --NeilN ^{talk to me}

00:28, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Are you going to ask OpenFuture to stop editing the contributioners of others without engaging in discussion first? Are you going to tell him to stop using profanties when communicating with other participants? Or is this the good old USA club where its OK to do as you please and abuse those from other countries who object? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.96.94.220 (talk) 00:41, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with other countries. I suggest you

drop it. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ}

00:43, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Profanity is currently allowed on Wikipedia. Equazcion ^(talk) 00:43, 15 Mar 2010 (UTC)

The links are clear spam, and were reverted per policy. You were edit-warring to keep spam links. While we don't advocate discourtesy, your determination to keep the links and attack those who remove them might move someone to indelicate language. The article has been a spam magnet, and in late 2007 was the subject of tendentious edit-warring, including legalistic innuendo, from an Australian editor. Acroterion _(talk) 00:46, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

There is a clear difference between the use of a profanity within a literary or artistic context and its use in abuse of another party. I also object to the attitude that a person should not express their opinion if you don't like it, such attitudes are arrogant and unhealthy and I would suggest completely at odds with the stated principles of what wikipedia is supposed to represent. Unless of course all wikipedia wants to represent is USA culture and opinions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.96.94.220 (talk) 00:53, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Other discussions here have pointed out that Americans seem to be more sensitive to the use of profanities than other English-speaking nationalities. I have no idea what nationality has to do with permanent makeup. In any case, profanity is allowed, you were spamming and got caught, and are now trying to make trouble for the person who called you out on it. Please drop it. Acroterion _(talk) 00:57, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Correct nationality has nothing to do with permanent makeup and yet the page contains 6 external links all to USA regulatory and industry sites, not one to another country. How odd considering that the USA has less than 5% of the worlds population. great effort is being exerted to ensure that the opinions, regulations, views and ideals of other countries are excluded. Edit wars are used to maintain the current poor quality content on the page. Any way I have heard enough of your USA is always right Bullshit (apparently abuse and profanties are OK here so enjoy). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.96.94.220 (talk) 01:07, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't know how things are today, but when I was in school, the instructors new what to call creative writing made up spuriously and designed to baffle readers by drowning them in words. When I was in school we generally abbreviated the term as BS. I find the use of the colloquialism thus described far less troubling than that the adding of spam links and the success in changing the subject form that blockable behavior to calling BS BS. Dlohcierekim 03:17, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

You have done an admiral job of providing a perfect example of what you are desribing within your own description, well done.

And for the record a link to a commercial site does not automatically constitute spam (which is a misnomer in such use anyway but thats another story), wikipedia is full of external links to commercial sites and even more links to sites that have a 'narrow benefit motive' (sites that claim no profit motive but they have a obvious commerical feel and benefit a narrow group or an individual). The question is not if a site has a commerical focus its whether the site has significant information that is of sufficient interest to make it worthy of linking to and if that information is on topic to the content in question. Of course if a person knows nothing about the subject matter and has no intention of contributing to the subject matter then they may regard it as sport to simply sit back and throw stones from tne sidelines. As is the case.

I would go further and say that the page in question is atrocious and contains a litany of misleading information, its poorly constructed and wait for it .... like many wikipedia pages it has an extreme bias towards the US perspective. In contrast external links provided contain a wealth of factual information.

The thing that can be gleaned from this is that content on wikipedia simply cannot be relied upon, in short much of it is created by the uninformed or to use your favorite vernacular BS. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.96.94.220 (talk) 05:12, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure it can be said this is resolved. The IP violated a number of Wikipedia policies in removing OpenFuture's comments on his own talk page. His violations of

WP:TALK probably should result in a block, if any such actions continue. — Arthur Rubin (talk)

08:17, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

We'll see what happens tonight, if the IP has given up or will return. --OpenFuture (talk) 10:18, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

 – diff removed Eagles 24/7 (C) 02:48, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

User:76.226.211.125 outed User:Jpgordon . Can someone quickly remove the edit? Eagles 24/7 (C) 02:40, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I've removed the diff from your report, please file an oversight request. Nakon 02:41, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Eagles 24/7 (C) 02:46, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Best to err on the side of privacy and contact oversight first. —

talk

) 02:48, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Kinda hard to "out" as openly identified a user as I am. Thanks, certainly. (And I'm sure grateful for caller ID.) --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 04:19, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Try not to post this kind of thing on a highly viewed board such as ANI. Instead contact oversight through email or through

08:24, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

English Democrats Political Position

Resolved

 – content dispute, no admin action needed at this time

Dear Administrators,

I see that the page about the English Democrats describes them as being 'Right Wing'. The only sources provided for this Political Position is:

1) A link to an article in The Telegraph from 30 Sep 2007 about Christine Constable, but Christine Constable stood down and left the Party in 2008, please see the following link : http://www.democracyforum.co.uk/english-democrats/52891-christine-constable-steps-down-edp-vice-chairman.html

2) A link to an article in East London Advertiser

In my opinion these are two very weak sources to use to label a political party. Until better sources can be found with which to label the Party I would like to suggest the 'Political Position' should be left blank.

If something needs to be added to the Political Position shouldn't someone consult the manifesto and make an intelligent informed decision?

Yours faithfully

Silvatici4

Link to the English Democrats website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Democratic_Party#cite_note-1 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Silvatici4 (talk • contribs) 15:43, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

This doesn't appear to need administrator attention at present - it should be discussed at

Talk:English Democrats Party to find consensus there. Tony Fox (arf!)

16:06, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

At Daniel Rodriguez someone keep putting wrong Olympic song sung by tenor. He sang "America The Beautiful".. There are a few mistakes in articles such as Media Wire article that names incorrectly as God Bless America, - that is not correct. There are now 3 sources including from Beijjing that show the correct song, in this article. Can this be helped to keep correct. Thanks 66.216.233.50 (talk)

This comment has been copied to Talk:Daniel Rodríguez#Can someone please help. The editors who are active on that article are the best folks to ask for help. Thanks. — Satori Son 17:31, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

On noticing the above threads about arguments concerning user conduct at articles related to

Michael Dobson says in the The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare:

Most observers, however, have been more impressed by the anti-Stratfordians' dogged immunity to documentary evidence, not only that which confirms that Shakespeare wrote his own plays, but that which establishes that several of the alternative candidates were long dead before he had finished doing so. ‘One thought perhaps offers a crumb of redeeming comfort,’ observed the controversy's most thorough historian, Samuel Schoenbaum, ‘the energy absorbed by the mania might otherwise have gone into politics.’

The doggedness to which Dobson refers has left Wikipedia with a whole swathe of articles that risk turning us into a laughing stock.--

I've said more than once that there is a coordinated effort to use Wikipedia to promote a fringe theory. Tom Reedy (talk) 02:00, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Feels like I've stumbled onto a conspiracy theory website by mistake.. Rehevkor ✉ 05:05, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

These articles should of course all be merged. --OpenFuture (talk) 07:16, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I used to believe that most of these should be left alone as a harmless playground while the grown-ups concentrated on keeping the more definitive accounts, such as

Old Moonraker (talk

) 07:35, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Making sure the other articles information is accurately reflected in the Shakespeare authorship question and then redirecting seems reasonable to me. But I don't have time for more conspiracies right now, that's for sure. --OpenFuture (talk) 08:07, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not around much this week sadly, but I agree that they should be merged into the Saq article, except for the bio, which should only mention the subject briefly.

talk

) 08:08, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I have duly added merge templaters per the consensus here. I recommend that a thick-skinned admin expedites this.--

I'm just wondering how this article

Baconian_theory achieved Good Article status. It follows the same format as the Oxfordian Theory article.Smatprt (talk

) 14:39, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Some people seem to have short memories - see

Talk:Baconian_theory/GA1 (all of it). --GuillaumeTell

16:29, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that is an excellent archive to reference. It shows that efforts were made to balance the article the exact same way the Oxfordian Theory article is - both have a "mainstream view" section at the beginning of the article which clearly states that the majority of academicians do not subscribe to the theory, and both have a "critical reception" section at the end. With these sections, which I helped to add, the article achieved GA status. As such, it should be the model for other notable theories. Notability has been easily established. The recent NY Times survey of college english professors Did He or Didn’t He? That Is the Question, shows more acceptance than was previously believed (6% of Shakespeare professors agree and another 11% acknowledge that it's "possible"), a major university now offers "Authorship Studies" and another university has just opened a multi-million dollar Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre. And 3 current Supreme Court justices have recently declared themselves authorship doubters. I sincerely doubt that is the case with Moon Landing Hoaxes or the like. Smatprt (talk) 16:49, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

BTW it might be useful is an admin checked this merger thread at

talk

) 21:43, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

That is a rather serious charge. I'm wondering what your evidence is to support it? If you feel like a witch-hunt, then by all means, have an administrator check IP's and the like. But I must say that as a successful sock-puppet hunter, I completely disagree with your "suspicion". Smatprt (talk) 18:49, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Some of this confusion was brought on by Shake-speare himself. When he received his first royalty check, he informed his family that he was "Bringing home the Bacon". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:58, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

Starting back in December, various IPs (each an SPA user) have been turning up at the

I posted on the talk page about the edits at

The article was protected March 8th for one week; the protection expired this morning followed a few hours later by the IP again restoring the POV. I was uncertain as to the best way to respond to such a tenacious editor; either to request longer page protection, to request

I am not sure how the admins can help us here, right now. A longer semi-protection might be worthwhile. Or we can just steadily revert the anon. There are at least 2 sets of eyes on the article. Maybe just kill the change steadily a couple of days and if the anon just won't talk and just won't stop, lock it again for a while or request a block for the anon then. Say, Thursday unless the anon breaks 3RR?- Sinneed 15:54, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I doubt that blocking the anon would be effective - he/she rarely edits more than a couple times under the same IP. And the anon's edits are usually no more than one per day - so it's too slow-motion of an edit war for 3RR to likely ever become an issue. That just leaves extending the semi-protection, or getting more eyes on the article to manual revert the POV material (which, hopefully, this ANI thread will encourage others to also watch and/or comment on the article talk page). --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:10, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

You and I are watching. The reasoning for non-inclusion is pretty clear: fails

wp:V. The article could certainly use more eyes and editors.- Sinneed

16:52, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I believe that this IP editor has worn out his welcome long ago. See the protection log for the background. The article first came to my attention on 16 August, 2008, through a request at

WP:RFPP. Since all the edits are so boringly similar, I think we can safely conclude that this is a single individual who has a grievance against the management of the Whitefish Mountain Resort and just never gives up. See Talk:Whitefish Mountain Resort if you think there is any glimmer of good faith here. Due to this IP editor's tenacity, and their lack of response to feedback, I suggest that one year of semiprotection would be appropriate. EdJohnston (talk

) 18:56, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

My last revert lasted 26 minutes. I support the long semiprotection, this is a time-waster on a very minor article, and clearly the anon strongly feels this belongs in the article (edit to add) and cannot or will not provide a source.- Sinneed 15:09, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

To employ the finance term "

hostile takeover

" certainly doesn't imply point of view. It has an objective definition.

However, it was not a hostile takeover, but a going-private transaction.

Appears 600+ shareholders were 72% of total shareholders owning less than 3 percent total equity. My guess is, these were locals with emotional attachment to their "ownership" rather than financial. These holders were required by the transaction to get cashed out.

See [[82]]

In this sense, perhaps, the transaction was "hostile" to the emotional interests of some of the shareholders, though this is merely an assumption.

Calamitybrook (talk) 15:31, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

But, as you stated, this is only an assumption -

original research

that has no source available for it.

I agree with others above that long-term semi-protection is the best available alternative at this stage. Wikipedia isn't the place for soapboxing of opinions, reliable sources are needed. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:04, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Article has been semi-protected for 1 month. It may be worth marking this resolved. One may hope the anon will be satisfied with the expansion of the section on the reverse split, or at least moved to talk.- Sinneed 20:34, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

 – No admin intervention required yet. Discuss at

talk

) 19:51, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

The article "Steinway D-274" created on March 13, 2010[83] was deleted today by User:Binksternet. The article was – against the Wikipedia proces – deleted without noticing the creator of the article. Furthermore, the article was deleted before anyone could make the requested changes and before a discussion was started on the discussion page.[84]

If User:Binksternet does nor like the article he still must follow the processes on Wikipeida. Fanoftheworld (talk) 18:51, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Nothing was deleted, the article was just redirected to another. Such disagreements should be sorted out at the article talk page. I do see a budding editwar at the article, which should stop. Ucucha 18:55, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Du you have an intern link to the article?

"Such disagreements should be sorted out at the article talk page." – But if one can not find the article and the talk page?

"I do see a budding editwar at the article, which should stop." – Where? Fanoftheworld (talk) 19:02, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Steinway & Sons. SGGH ^ping! 19:04, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Steinway D-274. Ucucha 19:05, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Links failed. They do not display the article. Fanoftheworld (talk) 19:07, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

See the history. Binksternet changed the page into a redirect to Steinway & Sons. Ucucha 19:10, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Ok. Thank you for helping. Fanoftheworld (talk) 19:11, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

At Talk:Steinway_D-274#References there is a discussion forming about the remade article. What has been seen by editors Karljoos and myself is that the article Steinway D-274 is a recreation of a previously deleted article, without any establishment of notability—the same problem that it had last time. Binksternet (talk) 19:20, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

The article is completely new and created few days ago.[85]

If one has requests about sources/references or other he can write these on a discussion page - not just redirect the page, of course. Fanoftheworld (talk) 19:23, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm having trouble determining what the deleted article was that this is a recreation of. I see no deleted edits in the history of

Steinway model D-274 (concert grand piano). I see no discussion at Talk:Steinway_D-274#References about it being a recreation of a deleted article. I have some concerns about the accuracy of some of Binksternet's claims here. -- Atama頭

19:59, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

See Steinway Model D-274 and Steinway model D-274 (concert grand piano). —

talk

) 20:07, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I am not an administrator, and I have no ability to delete an article. What I'm referring to is the deletion of all content in an article, to change it into a redirect, as I did here in August 2009 with the article

Steinway Model D-274, an action which was arrived at after talk page discussion. That same action was upheld three months later by User:THD3 in this edit here. I am aware that Fanoftheworld considers his creation of the article Steinway D-274 a new one, however, the subject matter is the the same, and the same lack of reliable sources is evident. Binksternet (talk

) 20:14, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

But the article that I have created on March 13, 2010, is a new article. If a new article about the same subject is made, and you think it got the same problem as the old article, you must remember and respect that it is a new article.
If you think an article needs references, you can write that on the talk page instead of redirecting the article.
You claim on the discussion page for the new article that there is a lack of references/sources that mention the model "D-274". The problem is that you do not know that D-274 is also known as "Steinway's concert grand piano" – D-274 is the only Steinway model, which is a concert grand piano. Furthermore, the look of the D-274 is different from all other Steinway models – one of the differences is that the D-274 has a Steinway logo decorated on the side. So there is no lack of references/sources. Fanoftheworld (talk) 20:29, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

This still does not appear to be an ANI issue. --Smashville^talk 21:14, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Errr. Wait a second. It seems we do have a much larger issue here. Fanoftheworld appears to be a Steinway & Sons promotional account. Virtually every single one of his 2000+ edits (yes, 2000+) is either adding Steinway & Sons information to a page, removing the name of competing company in edits such as these, removing positive information about a company, adding fact tags to articles on competing companies on some very mundane sentences. While many of these edits are within policy individually, when looked at as a whole, you kind of get an idea of the motive of this account. --Smashville^talk 21:31, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

To Binksternet... Please keep in mind that a

WP:3RR

.

To Fanoftheworld, if you are in any way affiliated with Steinway & Sons, an acknowledgment of that affiliation would go a long way toward gaining the community's trust. I strongly recommend declaring such an affiliation on your user page. -- Atama頭 22:08, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

To User:Atama, I am not affiliated with Steinway & Sons in any way. I am only a young Steinway fan, who is proud of Steinway. Fanoftheworld (talk) 01:46, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Which leads to things like

WP:COI anyway through bias. Are you sure your contributions are not affected by your liking of Steinway? SGGH ^ping!

13:12, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

The amount of bias coming from his edits is simply astounding. Just some examples in the last week or two: removes brand from one artistbut adds to anotheradds this to dozens of college pagesnominates a competing product for deletiona fact tag on a photo --Smashville^talk 14:39, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

It is astounding, but in his defense, Fanoftheworld has taken part in editing a few articles about Freemasonry and lawyers' groups—nothing to do with pianos. Binksternet (talk) 15:10, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

To Atama: Please forgive me for using the word 'delete' inexactly. Unfortunately for our purposes here, its use in English includes both the deletion of all content from an article, saving its web address, and the deletion of that article's web address along with its text. I will be more careful in the future. Binksternet (talk) 15:16, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

No problem Binksternet, I just wanted to let you know that it could lead to confusion (at least it did for me, I spent quite a while trying to track down what page got deleted). :)