User talk:Novasource

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Archive 1 of Novasource's talk page

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[edit] Serial POV vandal from 70.134.*.*

Several Wikipedians and I have been on patrol for a serial vandal from 70.143.*.*. This person injects information just to cheerlead a POV on fuel efficiency, the (defunct) federal 55 mph speed limit, and other energy conservation topics.

The problem is not the factual relevancy of his additions; the may or may not be right. The problem is the author has proven himself non-credible through blatant, persistent campaigning for specific polcies through abuses like the ones detailed below.

[edit] Example Abuses

  • Adding barely relevant links to many articles related to or that happen to mention petrochemicals. For example, peak oil or fuel efficiency are often added regardless of whether they are directly relevant to the article.
  • Repeatedly adds information to National Maximum Speed Law about modern research on fuel efficiency. That information is irrelevant to an article about a federal policy that was enacted in 1973, 33 years ago, and ended in 1995, 11 years ago. (It would be a different matter if he found studies from the era of the policy that could have influenced the policy.)
  • Adding text to various articles that serves no purpose but to campaign for a 55 mph national speed limit.
  • Changing valid links from Hubbert peak theory to peak oil (the latter just redirects to the former), presumably to sell the concept with a prettier term.
  • Adding links to 55 mph national speed limit to promote this specific number (55) as a limit. The correct article is named National Maximum Speed Law, and it allowed 55 and 65 mph limits.
  • Adding duplicate links to See Also sections, presumably to promote his favorite topics.
  • Promotes sites with strong POV bias like www.commondreams.org or www.dieoff.org by using them as references.
  • Refusal to use a Wikipedia account or engage in any kind of debate. Instead, just persistently engages in edit wars.
  • Labeling data he does not agree with as "controversial" or "mixed."

(I give all users permission to modify the above list to add additional abuses.)

It should be noted that some of this vandal's additions are subtle and on their own do not cause much grief. It is the totality of his edits that is beyond obnoxious.

[edit] Why revert his edits?

This guy's campaigning renders him utterly non-credible, and his persistence makes him a vandal, so I recommend instant reversion of all his edits unless they are:

  1. 100% contextually relevant,
  2. backed up by credible references that you have checked (www.commondreams.org or www.dieoff.org are not credible references, and his credibility problems should require him to be held to a higher bar than using generic marketing documents as the source),
  3. does not duplicate other information already in the article, and
  4. is information that you personally know is credible (i.e., don't simply trust his veracity).

This is a suggested edit summary for reversions:

rv non-credible, serial POV vandal 70.134.*.* ([[User_talk:Novasource#Serial_POV_vandal_from_70.134..2A..2A|more info]])

[edit] IP addresses

Here is a list of his contributions:

Note that this guy appears to be using SWBell.net. He also has many more IPs than this; this is only a list of his relatively recent IPs.

(I give all users permission to modify the above list to add additional addresses this guy has used.)

[edit] 3RR Notice

Notice to all admins: given this guy's problematic nature and given the fact that he is under investigation, I am using the spirit of WP:IGNORE to interpret the guy's edits as vandalism, thereby exempting his edits from 3RR per the vandalism exception. (This notice is posted on 8/22, after Arthur Rubin's 8/18 notice below which was reported before the user was under investigation.)

Hey, I am documenting this 55 mph vandal on my talk page.
Yeah, I've been reading it. Thanks for your efforts. Also, I thank you for revising your comments. I think that will be helpful in building a stronger case against 70.134.___.___. I hope this guy gives up soon, but if not, you can count on me to help in reverting. Thanks. Ufwuct 14:04, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:3RR warning.

Although I agree with your position on his edits, please don't revert the same article more than three times in 24 hours. Invite friends. I don't think there's yet been a finding that his edits are vandalism, so WP:3RR still applies. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:00, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

How do we establish this finding? Nova SS 18:38, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Try WP:AN/I (Administrator's Noticeboard/Incidents). — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:04, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually, it's WP:RFI (Request for Investigation), according to the headers. Complex vandalism. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
OK, I reported him. Nova SS 20:40, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Blog

Heh. I fixed the majority of the apostrophes, but I was reverted by an anti-vandal bot and reverted to the wrong version. Whoops and ty! Computerjoe's talk 20:49, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I just noticed the vandalism and all the broken links it caused, so I simply reverted to your prior good version. Nova SS 20:58, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "For some reason improper capitalization makes a red link."

Yep. Wikipedia titles are case-sensitive. The search bar on the left will find case-different matches, but links and redirects will not. Fan-1967 03:49, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the search bar on the left is incapable of doing case-different matches. A search on st. augustine grass turned up no results (!), but searching on St. Augustine grass found the exact page. Nova SS 14:42, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
The interesting thing there is that the "Search" button doesn't work, but the "Go" button (that you would think would require an exact match) does work. The Go button seems to only be case-sensitive where there are multiple entries with different capitalization. Fan-1967 19:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia bug? Nova SS 19:16, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Having spent over 25 years in IT, I'll remind you that there are no such things as bugs. Only "undocumented features". Fan-1967 18:47, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
The undocumented feature in this case is that the first character of a page name is always treated as a capital letter, so that sentences like "[[Carbon dioxide]] contains [[carbon]]." work without extra effort.--Stephan Schulz 12:06, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
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