Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive885

Initial statement by EllieTea

User:Roscelese and User:Sonicyouth86 have been causing problems pertaining to the article False accusation of rape. I began making edits to the article on April 26. I continued making edits until May 2; i.e. I made edits for one week. Afterward, User:Roscelese undid all the edits that I had made.[1] Her stated reason is as follows.[2]

EllieTea's conduct in the article and on this talk page gives me little hope that their edits conform to

WP:NOR

, as in the week they've been here, they've blatantly misrepresented sources numerous times. EllieTea, since you are unable to edit the article in accordance with policy, I suggest that you propose edits on the talk page, gain consensus, and let other users implement them if consensus is achieved.

I twice requested that Roscelese supply evidence to support her accusation.[3][4] Here is one of those requests.

An efficient way to deal with this is to specify an edit I made that violated

WP:VERIFY. Please specify the edits via direct links.  EllieTea (talk

) 12:55, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Roscelese refused to specify any such edit. Another editor, User:Padenton, has also repeatedly requested that Roscelese specify the edits I had made that are problematic. Again, Roscelese declined to do so.

Additionally, Roscelese has accused me of being a Single-purpose account.[5] A review of my contributions shows otherwise. I joined Wikipedia in 2009. Until this year, I did not edit any articles related to rape. Most of my edits dealt with songs, movies, and actors.

I did not, though, edit often. This year, I became more involved with Wikipedia. I created my first, and so far only, article: Leila Araghian (an architect). Again, that is not related to rape.

The subject of Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight) is directly related to rape accusations, and I had seen the subject discussed in the media. In February, I looked the subject up on Wikipedia, and after reading the WP article, made an edit to the article, to include a short quote.[6]. Afterwards, I made three other very minor edits: adding some wikilinks, correcting grammar, etc.[7],[8], [9]

Two months later, I became interested in the topic, and so in mid April, I began making related edits to WP. I made several edits to

• May 2, 11:58, Edit Summary: improve reference formatting

This edit made no changes to any words, just formatted a reference better.

• May 2, 11:51, Edit Summary: Give another quote about the meaning of "unfounded"

This edit pertains to the FBI’s classification of some rape accusations as “unfounded”. The edit consisted of inserting one new paragraph. The paragraph explained that the rate of known false reports is much less than the rate of “unfounded” reports—yet some people have mistakenly used “unfounded” as a synonym for “false”. The paragraph is copied below (reference omitted).

Eugene Kanin (whose work is discussed below) remarks similarly: "unfounded rape is not usually the equivalent of false allegation, in spite of widespread usage to that effect … unfounded rape can and does mean many things, with false allegation being only one of them, and sometimes the least of them".

Thus, my edit provided support for the activist side of the debate.

• May 1, 20:07, Edit Summary: correct authorship

The name of one author was missing from a source; the edit fixed that.

• May 1, 14:52, Edit Summary: Undid revision 660248778 by EllieTea (talk) correction

  May 1, 13:59, Edit Summary: Undid revision 660247157 by Sonicyouth86 (talk) I have explained twice with link; you are violating policy

These two edits pertain to the inclusion of a reference. The reference is an opinion piece at

On April 27, I made an edit to

I was nervous about making the edit, because I am not an expert on WP policies. So, I also created a new section on the talk page to explain my edit in detail: Talk:Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight)#Citing opinion pieces. The edit was never reverted, and there were no comments made on the new section. Thus, I had been right about removing the reference. I felt good about that.

Two days later, on April 29, I noticed that the article

Sonicyouth86 reverted my edit. I re-reverted that; my Edit Summary said that the reference “violates WP policy for facts”.[12] On May 1, Sonicyouth86 reverted my edit again. I re-reverted that, at 13:59 (as linked above). I was aware that what we were doing might be construed as edit warring; I believed, however, that I was enforcing WP policy. I also created a new section on the article Talk page to discuss things.[13]

In the new section on the Talk page, Sonicyouth86 pointed out that the opinion piece was only being cited as a source for a statement by the author of the piece. I had foolishly not noticed that. I then restored the reference in the article (at 14:52, as linked above), and left a note about this on the Talk page.[14]

Everybody makes dumb mistakes sometimes. Sonicyouth86, though, had interpreted things in a different way, making the following claim on the Talk page: “I assume that EllieTea believes [that the reference should be removed] because the source contradicts his personal stated POV that In fact, only a small percentage of rape accusations is known to be true”.[15] The quote from me is from a discussion that we were having about a study that was done in Australia. In the study, 15% of the rape accusations led to formal charges of rape against an assailant: thus, only about 15% of the accusations are known to be true. (Only 2% of the accusations are known to be false, though; the remaining 83% did not have their veracity determined.) By quoting me out of context, Sonicyouth86 makes it appear as though I hold a POV that I do not hold (and in fact think is ridiculous; my real POV is that a study that only evaluates 17% of the accusations is of little value). Sonicyouth86 further accuses me of editing in bad faith.

The POV accusation that Sonicyouth86 had against me was also made earlier, on April 29.[16] Then, s/he added this: “It's a good thing that you expressed your POV so openly just in case anyone should doubt why you need to refrain from editing this article and others like it”. I responded by politely explaining the above issue with 15% (i.e. only 17% of the accusations in the study had their veracity determined).[17],[18]

None of my explanations had any observable effect. Indeed, on May 4, Sonicyouth86 told me this: “You have repeatedly stated your opinion that only a small portion of rape accusations are true but you need to read

• May 1, 10:35, Edit Summary: correct Turvey reference

There was an error in the way a reference was specified; the edit fixed that.

• May 1, 08:59, Edit Summary: add Philadelphia experience

This edit added a new paragraph to the article. The paragraph presented evidence that the police seriously over-report the number of false accusations. The paragraph is as follows (reference omitted).

In the year 2000, the Philadelphia Police Department reviewed about 2000 rape reports that had been classified as "noncrime" during 1995, 1996, and 1997. The review determined that there were actually only about 600 rape reports that were false or did not amount to crimes. The remainder of the rape reports included 705 true rapes, 532 other sex crimes, and 131 nonsexual offenses. The Police Department then agreed that henceforth women's groups would be permitted to review case files.

The edit obviously provides strong support for the activist side of the debate and against the police.

To summarize the foregoing, I made edits for seven days, with the edits for the last two of those days synopsized above. None of the edits during the last two days were against the activist side, and two edits were for the activist side, one strongly so. During those days, both User:Roscelese and User:Sonicyouth86 were active on the article and/or Talk page. Yet afterwards they claimed that I was pushing an anti-activist POV, and reverted all the edits that I had made during the prior seven days.

During the first five days, I made edits that supported both sides of the debate. Even then, though, the edits were reliably sourced and, I believe, fair. As an example of an edit that supports the anti-activist side, consider the Australian study cited above. Prior to my editing, the WP article described the study as follows (omitting the reference).

A study of 812 rape accusations made to police in Victoria Australia between 2000 and 2003 found that 2.1% were ultimately classified by police as false, with the complainants then charged or threatened with charges for filing a false police report.

Most people reading that would assume that all but 2.1% of the accusations were not false—as such, the description was highly misleading. After my editing, the WP article describe the study as follows.

A study of 850 rape accusations made to police in Victoria, Australia, between 2000 and 2003 found that 2.1% were ultimately classified by police as false, with the complainants then charged or threatened with charges for filing a false police report. Another 15% of the accusations led to formal charges of rape against an assailant; the remainder of the accusations were withdrawn (15.1%) or concluded with no further police action or were still be investigated at the time of the study.

The new version is obviously more informative, and no longer misleading. It does indeed have weaker support for the activist side of the debate, but only because it is no longer misleading. Nonetheless, Sonicyouth86 reverted my edit [20] and on the Talk page claimed that my edit was an attempt to impose a “serious POV” in the article.[21]

During the week that I was editing, I made two significant mistakes. One mistake was described above, about the removal of a reference to an opinion piece. The other was in quoting a statistic from an FBI report.

The FBI report states that 8% of rape accusations were classified as “unfounded”. The report further states that 52% of accusations were “cleared”. In editing the WP article, I assumed that “cleared” meant “final status has been determined”.[22] In fact, it means something else. (For example, if the FBI receives 108 accusations, 8 of which are classified as unfounded and 52 of which lead to criminal charges, then (roughly) that implies a cleared rate of 52%—the 8 are ignored.)

After I made the edit, Roscelese asked me to confirm the definition of “cleared”. I then googled the FBI web site, realized that I had made a mistake, and made a correction.[23]

Before asking me to confirm the definition of “cleared”, though, Roscelese suggested that I had made up the cleared rate.[24],[25] I then quoted the relevant paragraph from the FBI report, which states “Over half of all forcible rapes (52 percent) and aggravated assaults (58 percent) were cleared”.[26] Roscelese then apparently realized that the 52% figure was indeed real (and subsequently asked me to confirm the definition).

After Roscelese reverted all the edits that I had made, another editor, whom I do not know, became involved,

EllieTea (talk) 21:08, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Too long, didn't read. Robert McClenon (talk

) 21:41, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Robert. I'm actually very interested in this subject but I could barely make a dent in that wall of text, EllieTea. This is like evidence presented in an arbitration case not a simple request for administrator attention. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:16, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

• Most of my statement is here: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Request_concerning_Roscelese. The key point is that Roscelese and Sonicyouth86 reverted a week and a half worth of edits (70 edits) refusing to explain the reverts and refusing to allow EllieTea to discuss. They were dismissive and uncivil to his/her multiple attempts to discuss, often ignoring them. When asked to explain the mass-revert, they refused to provide any additional information than the already addressed concerns throughout the rest of the talk page. As Roscelese is under arbcom restrictions requiring that she explain any content reversions on the talk page, and prohibited from making rollback-reverts without explanation, her actions in this should be handled at the arbitration enforcement request, unless there are other claims against her actions. ― Padenton|✉   22:00, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the summation, Padenton. It sounds like some of this incident is being handled at AE. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:19, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Possible boomerang for EllieTea

• EllieTea (talk · contribs) is an SPA whose editing is limited to the subject of (campus) rape and false rape accusations. Only a minuscule fraction of their edits are not about this topic. ET promotes the POV that "only a small percentage (of rape accusations) is known to be true". Their edits demonstrate a clear bias which corresponds with their stated bias. ET's contributions to the False accusation of rape have been particularly disruptive and in violations of our content policies. Some examples.

• With their first edit to the page, ET adds a self-published rant that compares Jim Crowe lynchings and “contemporary rape hysteria.”

• Removes a reliable source that says that false rape accusations are relatively rare.

• Reverts without consensus.

• Removes a reliable source (statement by Keir Starmer on recent CPS research) which states that false rape accusations are rare.

• Reverts again without consensus.

• Reverts again without consensus.

• Misrepresents FBI statistics, incorrectly claiming that 8% of 52% (15%) of accusation are false, when in fact the source says 8% out of 100% in a larger sample size.

• Reverts without consensus.

• Misrepresents sources by claiming that police classified 9 % (216 of 2284) as false reports, when in fact the police classified 8% as false reports (216 of 2643) (There were 216 cases classified as false allegations: as proportion of all 2,643 cases reported to the police this amounts to 8 percent p. 47)

• Restores misrepresentation without consensus.

• Adds link to an obscure court decision (ruling: women in jeans cannot be raped).

• Adds information about retractions and withdrawals, conflating them with false allegations and implying that there’s no distinction between false accusations and accusations that were not prosecuted to withdrawn.

• Reverts without consensus.

ET has received several notifications. They are aware that the page is subject to the

men's rights article probation (false rape reports are the ultimate men's rights activist issue). Furthermore, they were told that their edits might fall within the scope of the ("any gender-related dispute or controversy"

) part of the GamerGate discretionary sanctions Unfortunately, the user did not adjust their behavior.

ET demonstrates a lack of understanding and/or care for statistics and

not here to build an encyclopaedia. --SonicY (talk)

09:20, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Sonic, I've taken the liberty of adding a subheading. This section is difficult to read. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 14:23, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

@EllieTea: It's unfortunate that you still do not understand why it is disruptive to repeatedly restore your preferred edits without consensus and despite objection from experienced editors. Most worrisome of all is your (continued) defense of your misrepresentation of sources. Your comments do not counter my points, your comments contradict the sources. And I don't know what to call you, SPA or "sleeper account" or whatever. You have made 222 article edits, 134 of them this year, and 66 article talk edits, 65 of them this year. All article talk edits in 2015 had to do with rape. And almost 100 of the 134 article edits were about rape. The non rape-related edits (with the exception of edits re Araghian) were minor and insignificant. You might have edited other topics between 2009 and 2014. But in 2015, your (substantive) edits and your discussions are limited to the subject of rape. --SonicY (talk) 23:02, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Rejoinder to reply by Sonicyouth86

Most of the issues raised in the first paragraph of Sonicyouth86's reply are addressed in my initial statement, and ignored by the reply. In particular, regarding being an SPA, this was addressed: I began editing WP in June 2009 and only became interested in rape accusations this year, mainly since mid April. And regarding the quote "only a small percentage (of rape accusations) is known to be true", this is discussed in detail in my initial statement: Sonicyouth86 misrepresents my position, again. The 13 examples in Sonicyouth86's reply are treated below.

1. My first edit to the article was indeed the one cited by Sonicyouth86: made on April 26. At that time, I knew very little about the subject of false accusations of rape. I googled the subject, and found, among other things, the book False Accusations of Rape (listed on amazon). This seems to be the only book that is entirely about the subject; moreover, the book had just been published. For that reason, it seemed reasonable to include the book in the WP article on the subject, under “Further reading”, which I then did. I did that, however, without looking at the book.

Afterwards, Roscelese removed the book from the article. I accepted that: I did not attempt to revert the removal, or discuss the removal on the Talk page, etc. Indeed, since I had not, and have not, seen the book, I cannot comment on the content. As a just-published book on the topic of the WP article, though, it initially seemed to me to be reasonable to include it.

Sonicyouth86 criticizes the book because it "compares Jim Crowe lynchings and “contemporary rape hysteria”". My suspicion is that this is an implicit reference to the book Against Our Will by Susan Brownmiller. Brownmiller’s book has been very widely cited by people on the activist side of the debate about rape accusations. Brownmiller’s book compares rape to white mob lynchings. Hence, my suspicion is that False Accusations of Rape, when comparing false rape accusations to lynchings, is trying to draw a parallel with Brownmiller's book.

2. We had a discussion about this at Talk:False_accusation_of_rape#DiCanio, on April 28. After I explained my reasons, no one replied. I therefore assumed that my reasons were accepted by other editors. Sonicyouth86 is now indicating that s/he does not accept those reasons—but is not giving any justification for doing so.

3. I do not see a policy violation here. I can, though, explain further if someone wants such.

4. This is discussed at length in my initial statement: about the mistaken removal of a reference. The reply of Sonicyouth86 ignores that discussion.

5. This is the same issue as the prior point.

6. This is the same issue as the prior point.

7. The issue of FBI statistics is discussed in detail in my initial statement. The reply of Sonicyouth86 ignores that discussion.

8. This is the same issue as the prior point.

9. There is a long discussion about this at Talk:False_accusation_of_rape#British_Home_Office_study_(2005):_the_percentage_rate. My comments there counter the point of Sonicyouth86 in detail.

10. This pertains to the same issue as the prior point.

11. Sonicyouth86 criticizes my adding a link to “an obscure court decision”. The court is the Supreme Court of Italy. The decision of the Court was as stated by Sonicyouth86: women in jeans cannot be raped. In other words, if a woman is wearing jeans and she makes a rape accusation, the Court ruled that the accusation should be held to be false. This really was the case in Italy, as of 1999—the date of the decision.

I do not understand what my edit is being criticized for. It is obviously directly relevant for the WP article on false rape accusations, and of substantial significance. Moreover, it supports the request at to the top of the article to globalize the content.

(Perhaps I should add that I do have a POV on the Court’s decision: I think that the decision is absurd, and I stated so on the Talk page. That did not influence anything in the article though.)

Additionally, note that my edit supports the activist side of the debate about rape accusations.

12. This refers to the Australian study, discussed in my initial statement. Sonicyouth86 criticizes my edit for two reasons. First, because my edit “adds information about retractions and withdrawals”; that information, though, is relevant and important, as explained in my initial statement—an explanation that is ignored by Sonicyouth86's reply. Second, because my edit conflates retractions and withdrawals “with false allegations and implying that there’s no distinction between false accusations and accusations that were not prosecuted to withdrawn”; this is a falsehood, as comparison of the before and after versions of my edit demonstrates—and both versions are given in my initial statement.

13. I do not see a policy violation here. I can, though, explain further if someone wants such.

EllieTea (talk) 21:52, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom

Two administrators have explained that the description I gave is too long for ANI. Additionally, Sonicyouth86 has made a fairly long reply, for which my rejoinder will also be long. Hence, I suspect that this issue should now be submitted to ArbCom. If that is not okay, please let me know.
EllieTea (talk) 14:54, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

It is doubtful that ArbCom will take the case without prior efforts at resolving it within the community. This (AN/I) is one method,

Dispute Resolution is another. BMK (talk

) 16:42, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

As mentioned above, this case is also being discussed at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Roscelese. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 17:25, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

I intended to start an ANI discussion or request AE concerning EllieTea's editing. When I logged in today to do that, I saw this thread and Padenton's AE request against Roscelese. I am 100% convinced that EllieTea violated the terms of the

men's rights article probation and probably also the terms of the "any gender-related dispute or controversy" provision of the GamerGate ArbCom decision. Just as a heads up, I'll probably request arbitration enforcement concerning EllieTea's editing unless their behavior is examined here or in the AE request against Roscelese. --SonicY (talk)

17:52, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

@BMK, Thank you kindly for explaining. I will treat things further here.  EllieTea (talk) 21:31, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Comment by User:Anupamsr

Actually by User:Cubancigar11 --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:18, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Hi! I am a very old editor who started editing English Wikipedia way back in 2003. Nowadays I am mostly dormant and I use a different account to lurk.

I am here to say that

Recently, when I initiated a discussion about why a change was reverted, I got this[30]

Upon further questioning about the what is the problem and how the proposed change is 'disruptive', a yet another unrelated personal attack came [32]. And suddenly out of nowhere,

As I said, I am mostly a lurker, and I will continue to improve Wikipedia where such psychopathic behavior is minimal. But Wikipedia needs to grow a strict action must be taken to stop this kind of bullying where they are called single purpose account, this is not your personal webpage and whatever mumbo-jumbo they can come up with. This behavior will not stop if these kind of users think they can get away from it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cubancigar11 (talk • contribs)

You tried changing "

Feminists claim to support equality before the law regardless of gender

" and then "Feminism claim to support equality before the law regardless of gender, with the explicit mandate which foreground the implications of the law for women and women's lives." with these charming edit summaries:

• "Added source and expanded section. Removed personal opinion of serial abusers. Go to talk page, this is not your friend's personal blog and everyone else is not your slave forced to promote to promote your opinions.)"
• " Ooh it is so much fun to quote the journals of encyclopedia. Little people won't understand the meaning of authoritative. I guess the professors and authors of book are also having only personal opinions.)"

--NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:27, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

You just open the source and find me where in it does it say 'feminists call for equality', as I have mentioned many times before and even above. By still claiming there is some kind of vandalism, you are only showing your laziness and lack of interest in actual topic that is being edited. If you actually read the source, it vehemently talks about feminist's class for inequality and end of masculinity. But I didn't want to create a discussion about feminism so I modified the totally incorrect statement into a more neutral one, so in case anyone has a particular interest in introducing that thought, such as yourself, he or she can find a source and add it. Instead you came and blindly reverted to a wrong version, without making an iota of effort in correcting or even discussing it. And by the way, when someone repeatedly says that 'wikipedia is not your personal blog' it is an apt reply to say 'it is not your friend's blog either'.--talk 20:06, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Here is Roscelese's latest antics: [35] Revert removing genuine citations in favor of what a junior judge said when she was young, while claiming that I am a sockpuppet :D, while ignoring the talk page altogether[36]. Can we let a deranged person have such autonomy?--talk 20:12, 10 May 2015 (UTC) Yet another proof, a check for sockpuppetry :D [37]--talk 20:25, 10 May 2015 (UTC) NeilN threatens to block me for showing the abusive behavior: [38] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anupamsr (talk • contribs)

1. Please use one account per topic.
2. Calling another editor "deranged" is not acceptable.
3. I did not call your edits vandalism. I said they were close to gibberish and synthesis. I stand by that.

--NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:35, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Anupamsr blocked 1 week for personal attacks here and abusing multiple accounts, only acknowledging them after the fact. Sockpuppet account Cubancigar11 (talk · contribs) indef blocked as an illegitimate sockpuppet account. Acroterion (talk) 20:37, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

The Nassim Nicholas Taleb article historically has included many, many citations to Prof Taleb's personal webpage.

I came on to the article recently, doing a bold edit, finding sources for several, removing some as redundant, and when necessary, placing ^{[citation needed]} for other cases, because I believed, based on reading:

• WP:BLPSPS
• WP:SELFPUBLISH
• WP:VERIFY
• WP:NPOV

that it was not the aim of wikipedia, as an encyclopedic venue, to reproduce personal biographical claims from an individual's self-published webpage, in an article about themselves.

Specifically, in Talk, coincident with the edits, I described them in this way:

I move this discussion here because various editors have been weighing in, with opinion divided as to how to interpret the policies. Moreover, in some cases reversions being done not only reintroduce the Taleb personal web page citations, but also undo significant copyediting and citation completions/cleanups.

I ask administrators to address us, @LoveMonkey:, @SPECIFICO:, @Limit-theorem:, @JanSuchy:, @Bgwhite:, @Jamool66:, @YechezkelZilber:, @LoveMonkey:, to make clear under what circumstances we should allow the appearance of the title subject's self-published materials.

Note, I have no issue with any specific edit of any of these editors.The question at hand, is if Taleb's personal webpage, [39], should be used as a recurring source at his WP article. Thank you for your attention to the matter.

Finally, (1) please forgive the "shouting" in the Edit history. I was trying get rapidly arriving editors to differentiate between contentious issues (as is being raised here), and other corrections that should not have been contentious (including the removal of redundant citations and the completing of incomplete citations).

And, (2) please move this to a more appropriate Noticeboard, if I have, in my naiveté, posted this in a sub-optimal discussion.

Cheers, Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 21:41, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

As a Wikipedia editor my job is to improve a page, by adding info. A source by an author on his own ideas is a source but it may be insufficient. It is not to be treated as irrelevant (when it comes to exposition of material) but to be added upon. So a reponsible policy is to find additional citations, and possible replacements, which requires some effort. Removing contents such as statements about one's own religion is not responsible editing. The problem is that edits by LeProf7272 appear to be erratic, to say the least, not counting his rants and shouting in all-caps. For instance, removing something that has a dead link (rather than adding "dead link" for someone else to add a citation would be more responsible. Limit-theorem (talk) 22:02, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

It looks like Le Prof went into a road rage on my page mistaking me for another editor.

An apology was issued when I understood I that you had done some, but not most of the knee-jerk reversions of sound copyediting. If you have issues with that matter, please feel free to take it up with me directly. The ANI issue i about how the policies apply to use of an individual's personal web page, including his self-published CV, being used as a source to support BLP biographical information at his article. This is what the ANI needs to address for us. You believe it fine, @SPECIFICO: and I do not. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 22:42, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Further, looking at Taleb's pages, much of the stuff is itself referenced by him and linked and his FB account is verified so his citations about his ideas are not invalid, though other sources would be more authoritative on other material. And bio material like resume is OK to take from CV as public figures are under severe scrutiny and the smallest lie is detected and used against them. Common sense. Limit-theorem (talk) 22:12, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

This is indeed the crux of the matter. Can we use self-published CV and related material, absent supporting material, in a BLP article context? I proposed removal of all unsupported references to the [40] (personal Taleb) web page. LT and others reverted these replacements of fooledbyrandomness.com with ^{[citation needed]}. How should we proceed? Leprof 7272 (talk) 22:42, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Finally Le Prof Leprof 7272 seems to be edit warring and went beyond the 3RR (4 RR if I am not mistaken). Limit-theorem (talk) 22:25, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

I protest this misrepresentation. The article has multiple matters going on. I have asked that these be separated, and all seem to use their reversion ability freely, and so throw baby out with bath water. The ANI is being addressed about the self-published citation issue. This matter is being confounded with other edits that have nothing to do with the ANI matter. My earlier edits moved incomplete citations in the lede to the main body, and completed those citations. Reverting these, as Limit-theorem has done, puts a deadlink source back into the lede—in this interim, while we wait for the ANI to speak—and I object to leaving the article in bad shape, and to confounding the ANI issue with unrelated issues. I will do no more edits, but I wish Limit-Theorem would appropriately parse the issues, separating the ANI issue from the correction of bad citations that had appeared throughout. His insisting on the reversion of the lede and PhD section edits as an ANI issue, is both incorrect (it involves no "fooledbyrandomness.com" citations), and puts incomplete, redundant citations into the lede (the ones in body are complete and all that is needed). Please, compare the citations between lede and main body carefully, LT!

And once again, all of this is immaterial to the ANI matter, of self-published source use, and I will not touch any of this again. No good deed goes unpunished here, it seems. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 22:32, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Note, to obfuscate matters, Limit-theorem has again reverted the non-ANI edits, and is making further edits to remove the deadlink, and so make it appear as if I have no case. When a discussion is taking place, and the opponent's arguments are undercut by modifying the article to make his issues disappear, there is no hope for unmuddled discussion, or fair outcomes. This is utterly base, and I wash my hands of the matter. Limit-Theorem can have his article, and reference it with whatever self-pblished material he wishes. I remove myself from this matter. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 22:53, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Dear all. Please note that authors/academics are allowed to post on their website gated material, articles and papers (I am an academic and am allowed to so do). So references to scientific articles that are gated can come via an author's website, though one needs to be careful to avoid self-reference beyond what is necessary and obviously useable. Removing all deadlinked (actually gated) references would be irresponsible. Limit-theorem (talk) 23:00, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

The "gated material" comment is simply not germane to the bulk of the issues at this article. (I am aware of only one edit to which this description might pertain.) The bulk of the issue has to do with unpublished biographical material at Taleb's personal web pages (CV and unpublished essay material) that is making its way into his WP article. Other cases involve draft or other versions of Taleb writings whose connections to actual published material is not as simple as "gating".

And as a fellow academic, I stand by my contention that the stated WP policies bulleted above are violated by citing self-published material in ones WP article. That such is done at other places in WP, or by academics does not make it consistent with the policies cited. Otherwise, because of LT's tactics of obfuscating matters by continuing to edit the article, in particular to remove issues I have called attention to, I can no longer interact with him (can no longer AGF), and I recuse myself. I support the suggestion of @SPECIFICO:, stated at the end of the discussion here, [41], to move this discussion to BLPN, but lack the experience to make this move. Cheers, thanks all for attention, bonne chance with resolute, issue-marginalizing Prof LT. Leprof 7272 (talk) 23:24, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

It sounds like there are several different issues being conflated here. Peer reviewed journal articles can be used as appropriate, and are not self published. The citation should be to the journal.

If the author republishes it on their website, a link to this copy can normally be included as courtesy link. The exceptions would be if the copy isn't the same as that which is published. Or it's feared that the are copyright concerns as. Generally an author is allow to have such a copy so we normally accept such copies particularly when on a university website. However if there is sufficient doubt, it's possible it may need to be removed as secondary infrigement per

WP:copyvio.

The inclusion or rejection or the presence or absence of such a courtesy link in no way affects the validity of the citation which is ultimately to the originally published article, not the courtesy link. If people are rejecting such courtesy links, examples should be given. If however Leprof is correct and these courtesy links are not an issue under discussion, then it's an unnecessary distraction to bring them up.

Nil Einne (talk

) 06:10, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Nil Einne for the thoughtful response. Replies: [a] No issue with peer-reviewed journals, concur that citation should be to journal; [b] do not disagree regarding the appearance of a courtesy link, but invoke the exception you state as applicable here (that in some cases, what appeared at the personal Taleb web page was not the published pdf, but a draft version), [c] to be clear, courtesy links are not the issue, it is such things as using his self-published CV appearing at his personal web page as the source of biographical information throughout the article. Here are the esamples, still in the article:

• [42] (to support family history, in lieu of standard formal records/publications)
• [43] (to support family history, in lieu of standard formal records/publications)
• [44] (left in in my edit, a courtesy link alongside primary, to Bloomberg Markets journal, per se)
• [45] (left in in my edit, a courtesy link alongside primary, to Business Week magazine, per se)
• [46] (to justify all of his finance employment positions, no other source given)

[further cases where personal web page references to articles as courtesy links are being ignored, as point has been made sufficiently with two above]

• [47] (to justify all of a long string of his academic employment positions, no other source given)
• [48] (that he jointly teaches regular courses with Paul Wilmott in London)

There may be more, but this is enough of a sampling to make clear that the issue is not courtesy appearances, of which I edited in support. The issue is biographical information that is sourced only to his personal webpage, and therefore seeks to make the article an extension of that web page, rather than an encyclopedic article with reliable and (independent) verifiable information. As it stands, for significant portions of the article, User:Limit-theorem having reverted my replacements of these cases with ^{[citation needed]}, the article is again in a "just trust me" state—we are being asked to simply trust the title subject to self-state, through his personal web-page, his employment, his personal family history, etc. That is, we have allowed this to become autobiographical, in these significant aspects. I would note that in no other article of a living person that I have edited, have I had this contentious issue, trying to ensure that people are not presenting their autobiographical aspirations as their encyclopedic article content. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 07:45, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Really? This is a bad block. Hilumeoka2000 did disclose, on their talk page that they are indeed a paid editor, so they met terms of service, yes their message on AFD was inappropriate, but not rising to the level of a block, the AFD's on the basis that they're an undeclared paid editor , are nonsense, she declared it. KoshVorlon Rassekali ternii i mlechnye puti 15:42, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

His user page does not include the crucial word "paid". He says only that he is "a wikipedia writer and editor. He specializing on writing wiki articles that are neutral and also follow the wiki rules", but most users would say that. That is not a sufficient declaration to comply with the Terms of Use, which require disclosure of "your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation." He only disclosed that he was paid yesterday on his talk page, in response to a direct question. JohnCD (talk) 16:13, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

I consider it a good block. Even if one regards that as disclosure, and I agree with JohnCD that it was inadequate as such, he was not blocked for being an undisclosed paid editor. This block, as I understand it, was for disruptive editing at AfDs. We should await the conclusion of the AfDs, but if the articles are deleted and he attempts to write similar ones, there would be a possible indefinite block for persistently inserting promotionalism after adequate warnings. We can and do block promotional editors regardless of motivation. DGG ( talk ) 00:31, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

XavierGreen When you open a section on this page, you must notify the other editor that you have done so on their talk page. You will also need to provide diffs of the problems you are discussing. AlbinoFerret 12:43, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

AlbinoFerret I did place a notification on his talk page here [52]. And i did post the diffs above. The warning user:Phill24th gave to the editor was here [53], the good faith edit he gave the warning for was here [54].XavierGreen (talk) 17:08, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

This ANI was brought here a full 2.5 hours after the dispute over Sweden arose. Not the most constructive use of this forum, I'd say.

Peter ^Isotalo 21:54, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Completely untrue, and you know it. The dispute at

WP:HOUNDING that led me to bring this to ANI, as it's one of the clearest cases of battleground mentality I've seen in years.Jeppiz (talk

) 22:01, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, I have consistently removed claims at

WP:NPOV

, and no sources have been forthcoming. You've simply referred to other users to reinstate those unreferenced claims.

And I have been involved in articles relating to both languages and Sweden for years, so it's not particularly odd that I commented on problems raised by others at

WP:HOUNDING

.

Peter ^Isotalo 23:16, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Are you honestly suggesting that it's pure coincidence that in all your years at Wikipedia, you never once went to

WP:HOUNDING and your denying of it is profoundly dishonest. My apologies, it was late and I misread the comment above.Jeppiz (talk

) 23:49, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Where did Peter suggest that? Here he seems to suggest it isn't a coincidence, rather that he's been active in the general subject area for a few years, and noticed one particular issue by checking out your contributions (I presume due to concerns over your editing brought up by the dispute). Checking out a persons contribution in response to concerns you see over their editing or just because you're interested after encountering that person and are wondering more about them, is perfectly normal and accepted. Commenting solely on the issue at hand, when you happen to see something in those contributions that you feel you can help in, or where you have concerns over the direction of discussion is also perfectly normal and accepted. The question of when it becomes hounding is a very complicated one, but I think it's rare that a single instance will cross in to the hounding threshold. More importantly, as I said at the beginning, your response is fairly confusing as it doesn't seem to relate to what Peter actually said here. If there is somewhere else where Peter suggested it was "pure coincidence", can you link to that? If you were solely responding to Peter's comment here I'll be blunt I'm tempted to check out your contributions myself as it sounds like you have a problem understanding peoples comments, and to make spurious accusations due to that. Nil Einne (talk) 06:42, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Sorry if I was unclear, and I was. Not that it's an excuse, but it was late and I read Peter's comment to quickly. He says he noticed it by checking out my contribution, so my comment about him claiming it was a coincidence was inaccurate and I have struck it. My apologies for that mistake. As for the policy, perhaps I've misunderstood

WP:RS and in each showed that the dates are correct. Once again, every user except Peter Isotalo is in favor of the consensus version and this reverting of anyone disagreeing has been going on for three months against any user who does not agree with Peter's (unsourced) decision that Sweden did not exist prior to 1523.Jeppiz (talk

) 08:52, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

• Comment I should add that the edit warring against consensus and strong
  WP:OWN is not limited to Sweden. At Melee, Peter Isotalo is doing exactly the same thing, endless edit warring to impose templates despite being alone in his view [66], [67], [68], [69], [70]. All of that edit warring is just in the last week, showing that the problematic behavior at Sweden is part of a general pattern.Jeppiz (talk
  ) 09:57, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

I was informed of this conversation by Jeppiz presumably because Jeppiz wishes me to explain the context of the disagreement over Melee. Melee is an article I recently visited for the first time in years because articles I am composing on the Waterloo campaign use the term, and I wanted to see if the content supports the link. So now for some recent editing history of the article involving User:Peter Isotalo:

• There was a proposed move Talk:Melee#Requested move 9 March 2015 to move "Melee" → "Melee (warfare)" and "Melee" (disambiguation)" → "Melee". The decision was "No consensus that other uses challenge this one". User:Peter Isotalo was in favour of the move stating I see no indication whatsoever that the modern meaning of "melee" has a specific military meaning. This article is devoid of sources and a merger to close quarters battle has been suggested. In my view, it smacks of original research. ...". there was an exchange in which it was pointed out anonymously that "The term has certainly been used in military scholarship" eg "The Battle of Hastings: Math, Myth and Melee". to which User:Peter Isotalo replied "It's also an attestation that 'math' and 'myth' have been used. That doesn't make them relevant encyclopedic topics."
• WP:COATRACK
  ".
• Having made similar arguments in two different forum (the RM and the AfD) and not gained a consensus
  tendentious editing. As I have not been involved in editing any other article that User:Peter Isotalo edits in recent years, I will leave it to others if this to decide if this indicates an inappropriate pattern of behaviour. -- PBS (talk
  ) 11:17, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks PBS, I had noticed as well that Peter Isotalo first was very active in reducing the article and then started adding templates, but knowing nothing of Melee, I preferred another user to expand on it, and I'm glad you did. For the record, this behavior is also emerging at Sweden now. After a number of users have expressed their opposition to the version Peter Isotalo has kept reverting to for months, he has started adding a large number of template [71], [72], even removing sources to keep the tags [73]. Just like at Melee, to echo PBS's words, this look more like vengeance, and the same goes for following me to List of languages by number of native speakers to start adding templates there as well, at an article he had never once edited until I "crossed" him. Taken together with what PBS says about Peter's behavior at Melee, this seems very much to be a battleground behavior.Jeppiz (talk) 11:37, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

As

Does anyone else have anything to say about this issue? -- PBS (talk) 12:50, 13 May 2015 (UTC)