Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive993

The negatives come in two spades: breaking article or reflist layout because of technical mishaps, and disrupting the help desk because of repeated hand-wringing queries; neither of which come even close to outweighing the positive in my view. About the former, adding a reference to the article and breaking the formatting along the way is in my view even a positive; yes, it would be better not to break the layout, but at the end it still gives us a useful ref. About the latter, the volume of queries is rather low (maybe 2-3 per week) and is not impeding the help desk's operation in any significant way.

On the whole I stand by my comment at Wikipedia_talk:Help_desk/Archive_12#What_is_the_Help_Desk?: if you don't want to correct her mistakes, don't do it, but don't complain that others do so. Tell others they should not be fixing the mistakes because it encourages the bad behavior, sure, but don't force them not to help either. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 13:15, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. I believe that Srbernadette is an asset to Wikipedia, adding referenced content, albeit on topics of no interest to me such as the British royal family. Yes, she is incompetent, but she is invariably polite and is not argumentative or disruptive. I find it easy to carry out her requests, by e.g. moving the date of a ref into the "date" field, and have no objection to doing so. I cannot explain her incompetence, but I acknowledge it, just as I acknowledge that there are people who can't calculate 57+26 in their head, and will never be able to despite any amount of nagging. The continuing reprimands issued to Srbernadette by some of the experienced editors listed above remind me of the quotation "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". A block, or the threat of a block, will not reform Srbernadette's behaviour, it will just cause the loss of a useful contributor, who has not violated any rule. If you believe that disruption of the Help Desk is a serious issue, then please try to get Srbernadette to direct her requests to my talk page instead; she has once made a request there (and I realise now that I should have answered it by correcting what she had done, rather than just giving factual answers). Maproom (talk) 13:49, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose Agree with Tigrann and Maproom. This editor may have some difficulty grasping usage of citation templates but overall is a positive contributor and not causing any significant disruption.MB 16:43, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
• Comment I am very much undecided on this issue. I would agree that SB overall contributes to the encyclopedia but also share the frustrations expressed by other editors. I quite often fix their errors after requests at the help desk and then return to their thread pointing out what was wrong in the hope that they will gain some knowledge: that doesn't seem to work!
  WP:NOTTHERAPY suggest. The IP editor was disruptive in multiple ways though not just in lacking the skills. Overall I think a block or ban to be a bit harsh; it may ultimately come to that but I do not know if there's an effective way of getting SB to improve in these small ways. (Thanks Tigraan for the 'ping'). Eagleash (talk
  ) 19:55, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

  I'm strongly on the Oppose side, but I've seen enough of SB's activity to believe nothing will get her to improve her editing skills. Incidentally - we see plenty of editors who add references in the form of bare URLs - that's more annoying than the behaviour of SB, but no-one threatens them with blocks, eventually some drudge just gets round to filling in the details. Which is worse, adding a ref incompetently and walking away, or adding a ref incompetently and reporting what you've done? Maproom (talk) 20:38, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

  If there is any problem here, it seems to be with the edit errors and not necessarily their reporting those errors to the

  refactoring.)

  As for the bare URL references, they may be inferior to well-formated and wikified citations (and in that sense annoying), but they are at least leads for WikiGnomes and the like to clean up. The community tolerates users like me for exactly that reason. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs

  ) 22:48, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

  Considering

  uncivil), nor is it ultimately relevant. It may, in principle, explain certain behavior; however, what matters is the competence as such as not whatever might be affecting it. Given what you said, I suspect you agree. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs

  ) 22:17, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

•  Comment: I am unfamiliar with this case and have not reviewed it, so I have no comment on whether any action should be taken, but I do have a suggestion for everyone to consider: If the problem seems to be with the use of CS1 and CS2 templates, or even templates generally, then perhaps a specific ban on using them would solve it? I do not know if that has ever been done, and I generally only cite in CS1 myself; however, if the editor is otherwise productive in providing worthwhile prose and sourcing, then sticking to plain-text contributions with minimal MediaWiki (and HTML?) markup may resolve this. There are plenty such users; the wikification can be left to others, like me.
  If retaining this editor is a net positive for the project, and bare URL references count as a net positive, then this is a way that might achieve that. If not, the conditions of the ban would involve a block for violation, anyway. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 22:17, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
•  Comment: It's late, so I'm not going to say much now except to point out that SB has only ever edited their own talk page once. And that was to ask for help in a section started by SineBot. I'd be more inclined to help a person if they showed the least amount of effort to respond to questions or guidance. SB has not done that. We only get "I can't do it" type replies followed by another request to make the fixes. †dismas†|^(talk) 02:05, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
• For better or worse, I'm going to point out that
  WP:CIR. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits
  ) 14:38, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support To put it bluntly, SB is being a child. They are continually asking the same questions again and again and not learning or progressing at all. If a child were to ask you to tie their shoes every day, you'd teach them how. Or give them a pair of slip-on shoes. Either SB learns how to tie their shoes or they're told they have to use A) use bare URLs, or B) leave the error. Let's face it, the error isn't that bad. And it still leaves the bulk of the information there in the reference. It's nothing for someone to come by at some natural or "organic" time and fix it whenever someone gets the hankering to fix some citation errors. SB has always and still continues to have the option of actually replying to someone, anyone, to explain why it is that they can't follow instructions. †dismas†|^(talk) 17:51, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Undo? I think it's either a sock or promotion. --Balintawak (talk) 16:20, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Generally, new users are welcomed, rather than reported to ANI. As for 'promotion', possibly, though it doesn't seem that blatant. And if you are going to accuse someone of being a sock, you should tell us who's sock you think it is. 86.149.219.138 (talk) 17:12, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

The added content is full of citations to a law firm web site. It doesn't look right to me. I will work on cleaning it up. --Balintawak (talk) 17:40, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

• I think all new editors should be reported on ANI immediately. This would reduce editor retention to zero, and as older editors die or drop out we'd eventually have no editors at all. At that point there would be no more edit warring, no more conduct or content disputes, and no need for Arbcom. Paradise. EEng 17:48, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Great idea! --Balintawak (talk) 19:21, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Wiki Commons deleted a photo MaraprI uploaded. MaraprI requested undeletion stating that the law firm holds the copyright and he/she represents the law firm. So at the very least, the editor wasn't unbiased. --Balintawak (talk) 00:17, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

1- He removes the contents on the ground that he can't find them in the cited sources, this is while they are indeed supported by the source:

A) Here, he keeps on removing contents. while they are supported by the sources. Again, he removes same content from another article, while the content is clearly seen in the source.

B) Again, the materials he removes here are fully supported by the cited source and I fixed his false removal.

C) In this edit he removes contents regarding bombing of US buildings by MEK, this is while the content is really supported by the source.

2- He writes a misleading edit summary for his edits and dishonestly removes other contents in between (some sort of Gaming):

A) Here, he removes some sourced content from the lead writing in the lead that Aaron Schwartz's source, here labeled as 'PSJLIA', is not reliable. This is while the most of the materials he removes has nothing to do with the Schwartz's source and are supported by the book by Jonathan R. White.

B) In this edit he removes a well sourced sentence, alleging in the edit summary that one of the sources (infoplease.com) is not reliable. Stefka refers to the discussion I started at RSN, where there is no consensus over using 'infoplease.com' and the springer book which uses 'infoplease.com' to cite the 16,000 figure. However there was not any objections against using other sources cited for 10,000 figure. In that discussion, Stefka Bulgaria himself says "...hence this figure [i.e. 16,000] cannot considered reliable". Stefka is clearly GAMING us by removing the 10,000 figure which is supported by other sources.

C) In this edit he removes two sentences each supported by two different sources. In the edit summary Stefka writes ‘Strategic Culture’ is a Fringe source but removes the second sentence cited to another reliable source.

D) Here and here, he pretends to be inserting quotes from a source, but is in fact removing the sourced materials.

3- Miscellaneous:

A) In this edit, he removes a whole section he does not like to see in the article, only because the title of the section is not matching with its content. He could simply edit the title and keep the well-sourced material.

The above diffs are only a brief overview of his recent edits in

Stefka, whether he is doing right edits or not (I don't have a opinion on that), is made in good faith. Saying he is "

not here to build an encyclopedia" is really exaggerating. This shouldn't have gone to ANI, you should have waited for his response at the very least. He does a lot of constructive stuff on this site. --HistoryofIran (talk

) 14:31, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

But those diffs speak for themselves. --Mhhossein ^talk 17:10, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

• This repeated filing of complaints towards editors attempting to balance the MEK related articles (which are heavily skewed to the Iranian gvmt POV) - is not reasonable. In regards to the supplied, diffs - 1A - It would seem Stefka removed un-referenced information (as well as info sourced to the Christian Science Monitor) in a BLP article. 1B - is a rather CHERRYPICKED account of the thenation article (including removal this was "one website"). 1C - the first half of the paragraph is sourced to what appears to be a position paper which seems a somewhat dubious source for unattributed use. 2A - this is a student-edited journal that was removed - quite a sketchy source. 2B - [2] seems like a sketchy source, however it says "Total: Since 1979 over 10,000 people have died in the conflict. - which does not support - As a result, more than 10,000 people have been killed in MEK's violent attacks since 1979 - or rather is a blatant misrepresentation (as a large portion of the fatalities in the conflict were killed by the Iranian government). 2C - The econd sentence is sourced to a state department report - which is sketchy. 2D - seems like an expansion of content based on the source. 3A - perhaps one shouldn't add off-topic content to a section to begin with? Icewhiz (talk) 20:41, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

  And all that being said - that a bit of information passes

  WP:NPOV. Icewhiz (talk

  ) 20:41, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

  • • Note to viewers: Icewhiz appears up (needless to say it's sort of hounding) almost when ever I file things against users. @IW: Sketchy sketchy sketchy sketchy...Be realistic. Don't defend others at any price, editors will certainly judge your words and won't be mislead by your comments. You had the same behavior at AE and the other guy you always used to defend, got blocked for the third time. This is not good for you. --Mhhossein ^talk 05:09, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

I had not intended to comment on this thread until I saw Mhhossein's above comment. I do not believe a user who defended a neo-nazi sock puppet (Expectant of Light) has much room to comment on who or what other users should defend, and I'd further recommend that MH keep

WP:NPA in mind. While I do not feel Mhhossein has done much that is actionable, I have found them notably obtuse and overzealous at ANI. Icarosaurvus (talk

) 06:24, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Icarosaurvus: Be careful about what you say. You can take it as warning against making personal attacks. --Mhhossein ^talk 12:40, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Unless you didn't actualy defend Expectant of Light the above statement is nowhere near a personal attack. MPJ-DK (talk) 12:47, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

That's a point we can rest on...Cheers! --Mhhossein ^talk 18:56, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Given that the user did indeed defend Expectant of Light, I'd say it's most certainly not a personal attack. While I do not believe the two are connected in any meaningful way, other than sharing an interest in Iran, one has to be careful about defending another user simply because they share one's POV; something which Mhhossein has been less than stellar about in the past. Thus, I do not believe the user in question is particularly well qualified to comment on what one should or should not defend. Icarosaurvus (talk) 21:54, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Icarosaurvus, with your 43 edits to mainspace in 4 years, I really think you should tone it down some lest someone think you're not here. Now, it is true that those who file reports an ANI should expect to come under scrutiny, but what you're doing here is not scrutinizing--it's simply casting aspersions. And whether someone defended a neo-Nazi or not has, as it happens, very little to do with this particular case, unless you can make a connection that somehow involves Stefka Bulgaria's edits. If you can't, stay away. Yes, please consider this a warning for a violation of [{WP:NPA]]. Drmies (talk) 00:49, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

I primarily edit portals; specifically, Portal:Current events. The idea that only mainspace edits should or do count is ludicrous; mainspace is only part of what keeps our encyclopedia functional. A large part, granted, but if we neglected the other components of this great work, it would not be the respectable site which it is today. While I disagree with your assessment of the above as a personal attack, I will leave this thread alone, unless pinged. Icarosaurvus (talk) 01:05, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

• Unless requested otherwise, I'll reply to Mhhossein's remarks on the article's Talk page. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 08:59, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

• As requested, here's my review of Mhhossein's comments above:

1. A) Content I removed was concerning Masoud Keshmiri’s alleged affiliation with the MEK: The first source I removed does not mention the MEK, and second source says "The office of the revolutionary prosecutor identified one Masud Kashmiri, a Mojahed, as the secretary of the Prime Minister's office...", which is not the same as confirming that Keshmiri was a MEK member (I have not found a source that confirms the MEK took responsibility for Keshmiri). The IRI blamed numerous incidents on the MEK, many of which turned out to be false allegations. As discussed on WikiProject Iran’s Talk page (and as user Mhhossein is well aware of), IRI sources are not suitable for fact-checking of political opposition groups.
B) The Nation source is being used to support the MEK’s “Alleged involvement in Syrian Civil War”, but source does not mention Syria at all.
C) The section in question was titled “Anti-American campaign”, and the text in the article said: “In 1973 ten major American-owned buildings were bombed including those of the Plan Organization, Pan-American Airlines, Shell Oil Company, Hotel International, and Radio City Cinema.” What the source actually says is “The Mojahedin intensified their armed operations in the years between 1973 and 1975. In 1973 they fought two street battles with the Tehran police, and bombed ten major buildings including those of the Plan Organization, Pan-American Airlines, Shell Oil Company, Hotel International, Radio City Cinema, and an export company owned by a prominent Bha'i businessman.” Nothing in the sources here suggest that there was an anti-American campaign by the MEK (rather, it comes across as deliberate misrepresantation of the source), and I ended up including this information without the misleading insinuation.
2. A) A graduate student (Aaron Schwartz ) thesis was used to confirm that the MEK is currently a militant organization. The following text: “advocates the violent overthrow of the current government in Iran, while claiming itself as the replacing government in exile.” is also misleading (and not encyclopedic). This, on the other hand, would be more a accurate/encyclopedic description: “It was ‘based on Islamic and Socialist ideology’ and advocated ‘overthrowing the Iranian government and installing its own leadership’” (Katzman 2001; Country of Origin Research Information 2009, p.2).
B) This is user Snooganssnoogans’s assessment about using infoplease.com (and the springer book that uses 'infoplease.com') to cite that 16,000 have been killed by the MEK: “The stringency and quality of editorial oversight and peer review varies in publications by commercial academic publishers. That the book cites infoplease.com for that fact is an indication of poor editorial oversight and poor peer review, and reflects poorly on the author. It is sometimes the case that editorial collections (such as this book) are not independently peer-reviewed, and are only comprehensively edited (in terms of substance, not copyediting) by the editor of the edited collection. The book should not be considered a RS for the 16,000 figure.”
C) This report on the MEK reads like it was heavily influenced by the IRI (and there are reasons to believe that this may be the case). Big claims such as that the MEK "conducted attacks and assassinations on Western targets" should be backed up by more than a single report (that has since been taken down).
D) I don’t understand what the complaint is in the first instance (there is a typo error by me, but for the rest I simply updated the text from the Abrahamian source). In the second instance, I used better sources to clarify the sequence of events: The MEK accused the IRI of monopolizing power, which led to a protest where MEK sympathizers were killed, which led to the MEK retaliating against the IRI, which let to the IRI retaliating against the MEK, etc.)
3. A) There isn’t any evidence in the provided sources that the MEK was involved in the Syria conflict, yet Mhhossein continues to make this allegation. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 12:52, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Comments in response to the above allegations. (@Drimes: can you please see my explanation on his misinterpretations?):

1.

A) Besides the point that 'WikiProject Iran’s Talk page' is not the right venue for making global decisions regarding sources, I can say that there's absolutely no consensus over IRI sources being "not suitable for fact-checking of political opposition." Even you can't find any mentions of 'fact checking' in this semi private discussion he refers to. However, the dispute is not over the reliability of the Iranian sources. Above, he alleged that he had removed ([3], [4] and [5]) the first source since it had "not mention[ed] the MEK". This is while, in P:27 it reads"...subsequent investigations revealed that Kashmiri was an agent of the leftist People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), supported by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and blamed for 17,000 Iranian deaths during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988," and in P:28 it repeats the same thing: " Although the Bahonar-Rajai assassination was solved with identification of bomber Massoud Kashmiri as an MEK agent he remained unpunished."

B) This source clearly supports "MEK website gave a triumphalist account of the conquest, referring to ISIS as “revolutionary forces.”" Although the source is commenting on MEK's reaction to ISIL's activities in Iraq, not Syria, it's not a suitable reason to remove such a sourced content.

C) He removed materials regarding MEK's armed acts against U.S. personnel and civil bodies only since the section title. i.e. Anti-American campaign, was not suitable. I've already changed the title, but Stefka gradually removed the whole section based on his self-made allegations. I've now simply restored

the section with a new title

.

2.

A) Stefka already revealed that his edit summary was not in accordance with his edit.

'B) I think Stefka is digging himself deeper regarding the '10,000 deaths' issue, since we're not even talking about whether or not figure 16,000 is reliable. He has removed the well-sourced figure of 10,000. @Stefka: So, don't say infoplease is reliable or not, since that has nothing to do with our dispute. Stefka is GAMING us by removing the well-sourced 10,000 on an irrelevant basis. Yes, there were no consensus over 16,000 being supported by a reliable source, but we're not talking about that.

C) Again Stefka admits having used a misleading edit summary. In this edit stefka removed, among others, materials cited to a U.S. state report and now he revealed that the removal was only because he though the US report was heavily influenced by Iran!!! So we need to know Stefka's definition of reliable sources. In that edit, the edit summary tell us he's only removed the the materials cited to 'Strategic Culture', which is not correct.

D) Stefka's edit summary ([6] and [7]) reads "Quote from the source[s]". Are the edits only inserting quotes from a source into the article?

3.

I don't say there's "any evidence in the provided sources that the MEK was involved in the Syria conflict", rather I say Stefka "could simply edit the title and keep the well-sourced material" instead of removing them.

The case is really getting time wasting but I think it's worth trying to let the others know what I mean by Stefka's "dishonest" edits.--Mhhossein ^talk 13:24, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

A majority vote at WikiProjet Iran contended that IRI-controlled sources should be used for IRI positions. The majority vote argued that IRI-controlled sources are subject to censorship, particularly concerning political topics (where covering certain political topics can lead to imprisonment or execution).

Based on the fact that the IRI executes MEK sympathizers, I’ve tried to bring some neutrality to the article by making a distinction between IRI and non-IRI sources; as well as replacing weak sources / fringe statements with quotes from more established scholarly works. Many of these have been objected/reverted by Mhhossein, who comes across as having POV issue here. Mhhossein’s POV-pushing edits include:

• Restoring “Anti-American campaign” title (despite it being deliberately deceptive).

• Trying to establish the MEK is referred to with the derogatory term “Hypocrites” in Iran 1, 2, 3

• Removing well-sourced content: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

• POV summaries from sources:

Source: The U.S. government has accused the group of helping Saddam brutally put down a Kurdish rebellion in the early 1990s, and of launching numerous attacks inside Iran.

Mhhossein: MEK assisted

1991 uprisings in Iraq.^[1]

Source: In the wake of the revolution, Khomeini grew suspicious of Rajavi’s ambitions and of the MeK’s Marxist slant and widespread popularity.

Mhhossein: After the fall of the Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, when Khomeini got "suspicious of Rajavi’s ambitions and of the MeK’s Marxist slant.”

About Mhhossein’s points above, here’s my reply:

1A. “Keshmiri” is spelled “Kashmiri” in the source, which may be the reason why my word search initially gave no returns when I searched for it. Nevertheless, it was the IRI who identified Keshmiri as a MEK agent. Considering that the IRI was pinning whatever it could on the MEK at the time, these need to be presented as allegations rather than facts.

B. @Mhhossein, how is the statement "MEK website gave a triumphalist account of the conquest, referring to ISIS as ‘revolutionary forces’” a valid attribute to the “MeK’s alleged involved in Syria”?

C. @Mhhossein, again, the section was titled “Anti-American campaign” (a title that you you included). Here, I already made a point concerning Mhhossein’s misrepresantation of sources.

2A. As pointed out, there is a POV issue there.

B. First, the source says “Since 1979 over 10,000 people have died in the conflict, which is not the same as “As a result, more than 10,000 people have been killed in MEK's violent attacks since 1979”. Second, Ploughshares report is not RS, particularly on account of its links to the IRI.

3. Finding titles to random remarks is not my objective at the MEK page.

Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 16:31, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Too much boring...hey look, be careful about how you use the sources and edit the articles. You edit as if others are keeping their eyes closed. Already wasted my time on this. --Mhhossein ^talk 16:55, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

I have explained my edits. The issue here is your POV pushing and constant reporting of editors that disagree with your edits, which you have yet to explain. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 06:55, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Boomerang

A

Previous complaint here by blocked sock - [9] supported by Mhhossein. Another one by the blocked sock - [10] supported by Mhhossein (the sock got blocked for the nature of their comments prior to being discovered as a sock). Filing baseless ANI complaints every month or so against Stefka Bulgaria over a content dispite (in this case - without even engaging in the talk page of the article) - is not reasonable. @CaroleHenson: has been attempting to mediate in the content dispite(s) and might have input.Icewhiz (talk) 06:16, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Additional recent complaint against another user at ANI over content - [11].Icewhiz (talk) 06:39, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

The very providing of this diff clealry demonstrates your bad faith approach towards me. In that ANI, the reported user was to be sanctioned but survived after he changed his behavior. Read ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 12:28, 5 August 2018 (UTC) and Icarosaurvus (talk) 02:46, 9 August 2018 (UTC). --Mhhossein ^talk 12:38, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

• Support - Article issues could have been dwelt on the article's Talk page. Mhhossein has resorted to making unactionable complaints against editors that disagree with him much too often. His POV pushing and inability to work constructively with others that do not share his perspective is disruptive. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 08:50, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose pending some evidence. @Icewhiz: Do you have any diffs or archive links of these "repeated unactionable complaints"? The two links above are to threads started by a different editor, and smearing the present OP by attempting to associate them with "a blocked sock" is clearly inappropriate. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:05, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

BTW, it's not the first time folks have attempted to link Mhh with the David Duke fan in question. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:15, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

• Comment Note that #WP:IUC by Pahlevun is about the same dispute.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:16, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, but that thread was opened neither by Mhhossein nor about Stefka Bulgaria, and from what I can establish (by looking at who edit-warred with whom, which is as far as I'm willing to delve into this content dispute) Pahlevun's "side" is ... not Stefka Bulgaria's, whatever either one is, so the existence of that thread doesn't back up Icewhiz's claim. And I should point out that while I was on Icewhiz's "side" during the EoL mess, that was purely because EoL was a DavidDuke-citing, antisemiticcanard-spouting Holocaust-denier; from what I can see, nothing about this mess that isn't ... that ... is black-and-white. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:58, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

• Comment Just one note to show the guy is wrong. On the killings issue, this scholarly source clearly supports the quote in question. It reads: "...Mojahedin was an organization of questionable reputation responsible for “the deaths of morethan 10,000Iranians” since its exile. Or you can read here: "...and its leader even boasted about killing thousands of Iranians while this cult served ex-Iraqi dictator's expansionist ambition," here: "...the group returned the favor and killed by its own claim more than two thousand regime leaders," here: "..."Since 1981 the [MEK] have claimed responsibility for murdering thousands of Iranians they describe as agents of the regime," the report said." Also, this source suggests that this archive Washington Times article supports the figure in question. Where are those "repeated unactionable complaints" or those "baseless ANI complaints every month or so [filed] against Stefka Bulgaria" by me? --Mhhossein ^talk 12:32, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

  Mhhossein restored this (which seems somewhat sketchy) as a source, and it does ineed read ""Total: Since 1979 over 10,000 people have died in the conflict." Nearly all sources, unless quoting the Iranian regime, refer to bi-sided conflict deaths - MEK's militia sustained quite a bit of casulties.Icewhiz (talk) 13:31, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

• Comment - Responding to Mhhossein's points above:

1. According to Piazza's article, the alleged "death of more than 10,000 Iranians" figure derived from an alleged U.S. Senate statement published on The Iran Times (Islamic Republic of Iran-controlled media has been proposed inadequate for fact-checking for political opposition groups on account of current censorship issues in Iran, including a misinformation campaign by the Islamic Republic of Iran against the MEK).^[2][3][4][5]

2. Mhhossein's second source is an Opinion Piece on USA today written by Hamid Babaei, who appears to have links the Islamic Republic of Iran (the article is reminiscent of the misinformation campaign noted above).
3. Mhhossein's third source is far from being RS.
4. Mhhossein's fourth source quotes a State Department report that does not mention a particular figure of how many died. Also considering that there have been thousands of deaths on both sides, resuming in the article that As a result, more than 10,000 people have been killed in MEK's violent attacks since 1979 is clearly POV pushing.
5. Here's a list of Mhhossein's unactionable complaints against different editors: [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21] Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 17:33, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Also, here are a couple of previous reports against user Mhhossein for POV-pushing: [22], [23] Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 17:50, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Oh...sorry. Both are some years old cases. The first was opened by a sock and the second was nearly ending into a Boomerang for the user commencing the report. Claearly shows you're doing your best to find something against me.--Mhhossein ^talk 19:13, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Those are to show that Drmies had already warned you that your POV pushing was disruptive. Some of your unactionable complaints against different editors, however, are more recent. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 22:41, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Stefka Bulgaria, said Drmies has a pretty good track record when it comes to POV warnings, but one wonders how that is relevant here. Now, in the section above you said you'd reply to the charges on the article talk page. I suggest you answer them here. You really don't want me and a bunch of other admins to turn off the Alabama game, make a pot of coffee, and wake up to investigate these charges and draw our conclusions without your input. Drmies (talk) 00:53, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Stefka Bulgaria is not sad with the marginal discussions distracting the admin's eyes from the the diffs I provided. Thanks to the Icewhiz's defenses, Stefka's failure at replying to them is losing its importance. Anyway, I'd like to add one point in response to Stefka; His in vain 'censorship' accusations aside, Piazza's article makes use of an Iran Times article dealing with a U.S. Senate statement. The simple point is that The Iran Times, in contrast to what Stefka alleged, was ‬"founded‭ ‬in Washington‭ ‬D‭.‬C‭. ‬in‭ ‬1970‭, ‬in‭ ‬accordance‭ ‬with‭ ‬U‭.‬S‭. ‬federal‭ ‬and‭ ‬local regulations‭,‬" hence has nothing to do with the Iranian government. Had Stefka bothered to check the sources and contents of the articles before making edits, there would not be such a discussion. --Mhhossein ^talk 13:28, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

The Iran Times is a fringe publication with a sole editor, does not qualiy as RS. I have responded to Dmries request above. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 13:03, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

At first it was unreliable since it had some relations with Iran and now that otherwise is proved, it's a fringe source! Maybe

John Wiley & Sons and editors of 'Digest of Middle East Studies' need to get aware of it. Btw, your link does not say the mentioned guy is the sole editor of the source. --Mhhossein ^talk

14:09, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

"Javad Khakbaz, the sole owner and editor of the Iran Times". Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 15:11, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

He might be the sole owner but not certainly the sole editor. Anyway, it's a time wasting discussion. The

WP:SCHOLARSHIP.--Mhhossein ^talk

11:23, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Iran Times is not RS, and no link/reference is provided to the alleged US report (all of which simply reflects on the author). Your John Wiley & Sons source has a number of other fascinating statements such as:

And many more.... Can you guess why I haven't included these in the article, despite it coming from a John Wiley & Sons publication? Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 06:55, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

We don't edit based on YOUR standards, including your own definition of Reliable Sources. --Mhhossein ^talk 12:43, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Are you saying then that these statements mentioned above would be ok to be included in the article just because the source is a John Wiley & Sons publication? Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 06:55, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

I believe 151.82.153.227 has a relationship to 151.51.0.0/17 151.0.197.64/29. I think we should merge these two along with 151.82.153.227, and block them all together — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1009:B045:A446:4059:8DE:E3BF:7527 (talk) 15:02, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

It took me a minute to figure this out. But, yes, it looks like 151.82.153.227 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) is evading a previous block. I've blocked this new IP address. If more show up, I can maybe do a range block. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 16:32, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Ponyo blocked the Los Angeles range Special:Contributions/2605:E000:1301:4462:0:0:0:0/64 for three days ending earlier today, but the person has started up again with grammar warring of the exact same nature, changing "crew was" to "crew were".[24] The IP Special:Contributions/2605:E000:1301:4462:C049:D05D:2B1D:A481 has come out of the rangeblock to resume this kind of grammar warring. Parsecboy was also dealing with this person before the earlier block.

The person behind this IP range was offering unhelpful Teahouse contributions, for instance this rude invitation to self-destruct, and this incomprehensible complaint which required Cullen328 and Nick Moyes to perform further research. The number of Teahouse contributions from this range is large, and most of them are time wasters, not helpful.

A third area of disruption by this person has been in film plot sections, where he/she tangled with TheOldJacobite over The Last Samurai and The Departed, among others. Binksternet (talk) 18:49, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Additional context. GMG^talk 19:33, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Just at this moment I don't see how the disruptive behaviour has resumed, they're just making grammar corrections, unless you're saying those corrections are wrong? Also, just noting that an IPv6 /64 is functionally equivalent to a single IPv4 address - all addresses within the /64 should be presumed to be the same user in the same way that discrete IPv4 addresses should be presumed to be the same user (at one time, they're dynamic, etc). I'm not even really sure why we *can* block individual IPv6 addresses - should just always block the /64. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:44, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

The grammatical corrections are, in fact, correct. That is: unless any of the ships affected really did have a crew of just one person (plain impossible). Since crews are resolutely plural, then "the crew were rescued" is entirely correct and plural. TheVicarsCat (talk) 16:04, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Not necessarily. It is more of an

English variation matter, since collective nouns are given a different grammatical number depending on the variation. For example, at least in British English, collective nouns (which "crew" can be) tend to be treated as plural ("...the crew were...") rather than singular, the latter being more common in other variations and especially in American English. Moreover, "crew" can refer to a single crew member, in which case singular forms are due irrespective of English variation; likewise with ships whose crew comprises one member, which may be the case in certain contexts however rare. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs

) 23:10, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Per Nøkkenbuer, there is no universal correct way to refer to collective nouns of a singular form. There are two approaches: treat the collective as what it represents (called

formal agreement). It also is NOT as simple as "British English does one, and American English does the other". There are situations within each dialect where one form is favored over the other, but there are some cases that BrEng treats notionally and AmEng treats formally, and vice-versa. The problem comes not from people, in good faith, changing one they think is wrong because they are only exposed to one variety of English, the problem comes when people are informed of the fact that multiple varieties of English exist, and refuse to believe it. --Jayron32

23:25, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

English varieties does not come into it. With the exception of one article affected, all the ships are British registered and therefore British English is the language variety that should be used. The sole exception (French frigate Vénus (1780)) is about a French registered ship. However the edit to that article was not a grammatical correction but a minor CE)). TheVicarsCat (talk) 09:08, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

From: Collins Dictionary of [British] English Usage. "A collective noun meaning 'a number of' can mean either 'some' or 'a large (or small) number', and is accordingly treated as plural." It does note an exception where the collective noun is qualified by what it is a number of. Thus 'the crew were rescued' is correct (because 'crew' means 'a [large] number of [sailors]'), but the cumbersome 'crew of sailors was rescued' would be similarly correct (because there is only one 'crew of sailors'). TheVicarsCat (talk) 09:32, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Which is why I already pre-agreed with you before you objected to my agreement with you. I'm sorry I wasn't clear. When I said " the problem comes when people are informed of the fact that multiple varieties of English exist, and refuse to believe it." what I really meant was " the problem comes when people are informed of the fact that multiple varieties of English exist, and refuse to believe it." --Jayron32 11:06, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: I think it's fair to say here that this rangeblock isn't going to be actioned at the moment - it now appears to be a content dispute of some sort (a grammar dispute - the best sort). Would it be possible to continue this discussion on the talk page of the articles in question, or more appropriately in this matter, some sort of

💖

09:50, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Some months ago (early July), I was involved in an ANI thread due to my incorrect usage of AWB to update the use of "U.S." to "US" in usages of {{Episode table}}. After this thread, the general consensus was that editors should determine the usage of "U.S." or "US" on each article separately, and implement it thus. I understood the consequences of this, I was allowed to reapply for and was granted AWB rights for my account, and everything ended all well and smooth.

My question is that, while I understood and came to terms with the wrongdoing of my edits, it then acceptable for an editor (The Optimistic One (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)) to mass revert those edits over the span of several months via the revert function, spamming my notifications in the process? Here are screenshots of these reverts. This continues despite my requests to cease this by moving to editing the article rather than reverting, firstly at User talk:The Optimistic One#Reverts (at a later point, a seemingly passive-aggressive comment was added in another language; the text in the diff apparently translates to "Oh, and thank you for the heads up."), then User talk:The Optimistic One#September 2018 today when I received a further nine revert notifications, after the first thread (indicating that the editor is doing this deliberately to spite me).

The biggest issue with this so far is that these edits are becoming disruptive in the fact that the editor is blinding reverting edits that are just by me without checking that it's the right edit, and thus reverting the incorrect edit. As a "punishment" for my edits, which I already received through the removal of the AWB right to my account, do I now have to deal with this for however many more months? Is my "punishment" for the linked thread to wake up in the morning at the end of next year to another dozen reverts? --