Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive233

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Contents 1 Spontaneous block of DreamGuy by David Gerard, please review 2 WP:BAN 3 Informationsdienst gegen Rechtsextremismus again and again severly vandalized 4 User:Burk Hale 5 Disruptive mass merging and mass deletion by User:TTN 6 Unsure what to do 7 Spamming to promote non-notable Yahoo group 8 Incident 9 Majorly 10 blocked .svg images 11 Inutero2222 (talk · contribs) 12 Personal Attacks 13 Bot keeps removing my articles 14 Disgruntled user gets indefinite block, please review 15 Legal threat and article to watch out for. 16 Blocked user editing as IP 17 Is this the place to tell admins if DYK is backlogged and you need an admin to clear the backlog? 18 Shadowbot: Unjustified Edit? 19 Lee Nysted returns 20 CINEGroup (talk · contribs) 21 Derogatory and insulting comments by User:Xerxesnine 22 possible COI/check user incident? 23 Lee Nysted (talk · contribs) and Matt Walker (drummer) 24 Comment: 25 Unjust ban for non-violation of WP:3RR 26 Ockenbock 27 Indefinite block: Dastard 28 Masterofsuspense sockpuppet recruitment 29 Blocks for meatpuppetry and sockpuppetry 29.1 Arbitrary section break 29.2 Evidence 29.3 Motion to unblock 29.4 Presentation of evidence 29.4.1 Bakasuprman conspiring with Hkelkar 29.4.2 Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington 29.4.3 Sir Nicholas attempted to thwart DaGizza's efforts to fight Hkelkar and co. 29.4.4 DaGizza's compilations 29.5 Statement by AMbroodEY 29.6 Unblock and take this to arbcom 30 Rachel Brown 31 WP:DE, WP:CIVIL, WP:HARASS and WP:NPA violations by User:69.141.30.12 31.1 WP:DE and WP:CIVIL 31.2 WP:HARASS and WP:NPA 32 A filthy propagandist vs. WP:NOT 33 Abuse on user page 34 Disruption by Elkman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) at RFA 35 Hundreds of copyvios - need help cleaning up 36 Hidden notes interlaced into article edit page on Pimp My Ride; possible threats?? 37 User:Nitraven copyright issue 38 Apparently blocked user still able to edit 39 User 212.88.34.124 40 Vandalism - antisemitism 41 Removal of blocked users' Talk postings 42 Possible sock/meat activity on wrestling-related articles 43 Sockpuppet, vandalism and 3RR violations for User:Hughey, also IP User:164.156.231.55 44 Soapboxing, possible disruption, possible deletion required 45 User will not stop "fixing" other users' talk page posts

[edit] Spontaneous block of DreamGuy by David Gerard, please review

On April 15, 216.165.158.7 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) was blocked for a month for POV-pushing by Theresa Knott, which I thought rather draconian, and reduced to one week. ANI discussion here. This is the IP of DreamGuy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log), as he has amply acknowledged. It's not an abusive sock. My week's block was about to run out today, when David Gerard re-blocked for a month, giving the reason that the IP is "a sock of a banned user" (? no), and that it has been making ""Continuing personal attacks using talk page as platform". (I agree DreamGuy has been surly on the talkpage; blocked users tend to be.) David has also blanked and semiprotected the talkpage. So, a one-month block plus the talkpage gag? Was this guy making personal attacks to the extent that it disrupted the encyclopedia? On his own talkpage, that nobody has any need to go to and be disrupted by...? Well, I think that would be an overstatement, please check the History and see if you agree. Theresa, prompted by DreamGuy's old adversary Elonka, has subsequently blocked the DreamGuy account for a month also. The DreamGuy block actually seems merely redundant, as a comparison of the IP block periods with DreamGuy's contributions will show that DreamGuy is blocked when his IP is. But perhaps, if Theresa's double block hadn't been placed, he could have used User talk:DreamGuy to communicate, say post an unblock request? Not sure if that would have been technically possible. It's moot now, anyway.

David's block seems excessively spontaneous to me. I'm hoping he will reconsider it. A hurried proceeding is suggested by the way he placed it last thing before going offline, apparently — I have posted on his page without response, and his contributions list ends with the 216.165.158.7 semiprotection — and also without a block message and without any report here.

Please note that DreamGuy, while not our sweetest-tempered user, is a constructive editor and certainly no vandal. As I wrote in the original ANI thread a week ago, he has done good work for the encyclopedia for a long time, in staunchly resisting spam, nonsense, conspiracy theories, and pseudoscience. A silent phasing-out of this useful contributor by means of longer and longer blocks is quite wrong in my book. Take him to WP:RFAr if measures are needed. Or perhaps a mentor? Anyway, this is no way of doing it. That's what I think, what do you think? Please review. Bishonen | talk 00:19, 21 April 2007 (UTC).

You know, DreamGuy may have his share of positive contributions, but so do most people who get blocked. From what I've seen, DG is obsessive about Elonka and actively tries to remove each and every mention of Elonka and her works from Wikipedia, taking the opportunity to spread incivility and bad will. Besides, I've always heard that RfAr (and our dependence on it) indicates that we're unable to solve our own problems.

DG should have no problem posting to his talk page, blocks or no blocks. If he expresses a willingness to discontinue his problematic editing patterns, he should be unblocked and monitored. What *isn't* productive is shrugging off these problems as "not being our sweetest-tempered editor". Philwelch 01:13, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't mean to sound disrespectful, but you are being overly naive regarding this case, Bishonen. Both the anon and DreamGuy are not productive editors, and their negative impact far outweights the positive ones. The Wikipedia isn't in such desperate need of editors that we have to take whatever comes... we can easily let go of editors who, despite having some postive contributions, are both agressive and disruptive. Not to mention completely impolite and confrontational. I don't know about other admins, but I am perfectly willing to move forwards with a community block or other such radical measure in case Gerard's decision is overturned. --Sn0wflake 02:05, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

This is actually nonsense. The only negatives come from conflicts with people who are not following policies and then try to win through false accusations and character assasination. You, for instance, were quite aggressive and disruptive and, as your talk page states, have a policy of blocking first no questions asked. This kind of behavior goes against the policies of Wikipedia and, in fact, causes more problems than it solves. If anything your own responsibility in this matter, first in harassing me until I said something less than polite in response and then in presenting false information to the ANI page about my activities, which led to a block under false pretenses, should be examined. It's might outrageous for you to be making claims about my edit history when the dispute I had with you was because you insisted upon placing information on how to pirate software back into an article talk page after I had removed it because it was not what talk pages are for. 216.165.158.7 23:11, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I was preserving the Talk page. If the discussion in it unfolded for two years without being censored, then I don't really see for what reason you would be allowed to go into it and erase basically everything. Still, trying to reach a middle-ground, I archived t and started a fresh Talk. Then, on the main article, you insisted on putting information which belonged to the article on Abandonware. I reverted and told you those matters should be addressed in Abandonware. You disagreed, so you insisted on pushing your bias into the article of the website. Then hell broke loose and your other conflicts surfaced. And here we are. You have now accused me several times of abusing my sysop rights, called me a software pirate several times also (warez lubber, wasn't it? Way to go with encyclopedia language) and your list of Contributions should be a textbook case on how not to behave on a Wiki. Now there seem to be 3 admins volunteering to mentor you and somehow you have been unblocked, which I find downright ridiculous, but I digress. My part in this seems to be over for the moment. --Sn0wflake 23:31, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

First up, however long illegal an completely off topic information may have existed on a talk page without being removed it certainly doesn't justify putting it back and then making very aggressive, rude and threatening comments about it. "Pulling information that belonged in the article"? Sounds like you had an edit disagreement. Edit disagreements are not cause for you to bully others. You kept putting your bias back in. But, again, you are ignoring that your stated policy to block first and ask questions later, which you certainly did (not to mention the later false info you presented on ANI) is wholly against the rules here and highly uncivil. The fact of the matter is, you were out of line. I admit to being less than polite sometimes, but on the other hand it usually comes from people being off the scale uncivil to me and violating policy (or, in your case, also the law). Blocking people without justification and bragging about it on your talk page is way more uncivil than me calling you a warezlubber (or whatever) after you had already clearly demonstrated a pro-piracy POV. The abandonware article (and related article giving free advertising to specific sites that do this) and other similar articles very clearly need to have information there so as not to confuse people into thinking that softwarepiracy is legal, either on its own or simply by giving it a fancy new neologism to rationalize it away. My edits simply pointed out that it is illegal, which is not a POV, and tried to undo some of the blatant pro-piracy POV that had been there. DreamGuy 00:32, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Never denied having a strong approach, never will. However, this is exactly the kind of thing which didn't need to happen, if only you had used a different tone back in the first edits/messages. I reacted strongly to somebody who was making his point strongly? Of course. Against policy? That's stretching a bit, no? You were being disruptive in several oportunities (I'm not even talking about myself anymore), and you are bounf to have realized that after all that has ensued. Also, what you describe as violating the law is very questionable. No direct link was being provided to downloads, AFAIK. There were just people pointing out how to reach the website. The site is online, not on some Freenet, but on the actual WWW, so really, giving a link to the website which is readily avalible from Google and a thousand other places is hardly violating any law. More like censorship, which I am very strongly against. Rather, you choose to assume bad faith and automatically turn me into a "pro-piracy warez lubber". I strive to mantain neutrality and block attempts at censorship. But saying I'm breaking the law etc makes it easier, no... if you hope me to hand out candy to people who unilaterally make changes to articles with agressive edit summaries and come to my Talk page loaded with guns instead of simply asking me what was going on, then no... I'm not that kind of admin and I never will be — my politeness depends on yours, admin or not. Also, about warning people about the legal status of abandonware... it doesn't belong on the websites' article. And that's it. It doesn't matter how evil you think it is. It belongs to Abandonware. --Sn0wflake 02:33, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Unless I am missing something, the IP block for being a "sock of a banned user" appears to be based on a factual error, in that DreamGuy was not blocked or banned and no one else has been identified whom 216 could be a sock of. The necessity for the block and its length should be reassessed, after taking this correction into account, by the blocking administrator, whose attention should be drawn to this thread if it has not already been. I do not see that at this point, a case for a continued block, let alone a block of one month, has been made out. Note that I have not reviewed all the contributions and I am not opining that a further block could not be justified, simply that it has not been thus far. Having said that, enough concerns have been raised about the user's editing under both the DreamGuy and IP accounts that it would be good to see improvements in his approach whenever he resumes editing. Newyorkbrad 03:09, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Philwelch: "DG should have no problem posting to his talk page, blocks or no blocks"? I guess you didn't notice my several references to the IP talkpage being semiprotected by David Gerard (confusingly, another DG) ? Semiprotection means an IP can't edit the page. That's why I also refer to it as "the talkpage gag". Thanks for giving me an opportunity to explain this perhaps little-known facet of semiprotection. A combined block-plus-semiprotection-of-Talk is the strongest way we have of locking up and silencing an editor. It's rare, as it's only appropriate in very extreme cases. I wish somebody would unprotect the page right now. I have probably performed enough admin actions in this context, so I won't do it. I have appealed to David to undo his protection himself, but he's not here. I'm disappointed nobody has thought appropriate to do it yet. Brad? Bishonen | talk 03:48, 21 April 2007 (UTC).

He doesn't need the IP talkpage. He can log in as DreamGuy and post on his own talk page. Philwelch 04:39, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

David is probably asleep. I don't see any problem with a cautious unblock here. Certainly David wouldn't object, he's not a nitwit. --Tony Sidaway 03:54, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Tony, did you mean unprotect, instead of unblock? David Gerard appears to have blanked and semi-protected the page, because DreamGuy was using it as a platform to generate personal attacks. However, it's true that Gerard didn't issue any kind of, "This is your last warning" message. So, if DreamGuy would agree to be civil, I'd say to go ahead and unprotect the page, as long as he behaves himself. The block, however, should stay regardless, as it's for personal attacks, of which there were plenty. I'd be against removing the block, until/unless DreamGuy could prove that he was willing to participate in a cooperative and civil fashion with other editors. --Elonka 04:18, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, what Elonka here is calling "personal attacks" is simply my poiting out that her and the other person falsely accusing others of using sockpuppets have a long history of harassing me -- and in fact is why I normally don;t sign onto accounts (it's not required by Wikipedia) as several admins suggested it might be a way to lessen their unnatural preoccupation with me -- and also of having sockpuppets on Elonka's Request for Admin vote, as proven by comments of several editors at the time. Elonka has a long history of branding things which are 100% accurate but which show her to be less than perfect person she wants the world to think she is as "personal attacks" and running around admin-shopping until she gets someone who will remove the posts. (Philwelch, above, being the perfect example, who in the past removed all documentation about Elonka's misbehavior that I had posted but insisted that Elonka's claims about me remain... 216.165.158.7 23:18, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I meant the block. It is the block that Bishonen has asked us to review. If this user after unblocking continues to be a pain in the wiki, he can be blocked again. --Tony Sidaway 04:20, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, unblock him.--MONGO 04:24, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I've undone both blocks because DreamGuy isn't a banned user. Actually I feel that my original 1 month block wasn't OTT at all. He was behaving awfully and needs to be told firmly that if he cannot edit cooperativly with others then he cannot edit at all. Anyway, that is done now, and we cannot block people as banned when they are not.Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 07:44, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

The talk page was being used as a platform for vicious personal attacks - see its history. That's why I semiprotected it, specifcially so the IP couldn't continue in this manner. Bishonen, I hope you're not yet again offering undue protection to someone who makes good content but is given to vicious personal attacks on the wiki - David Gerard 09:08, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that statement there is a vicious personal attack, both on myself and the actions of admins trying to act within the policies. 216.165.158.7 23:18, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi, David. That's rather disappointing as a thank-you note to me for sweeping up after your careless block late last night, when I would much rather have gone to bed. Please be more specific about my past and present undue actions, I'd like to know what they have been. Bishonen | talk 12:07, 21 April 2007 (UTC).

• I suppose the "someone" David Gerard is referring to above is me - though he is too timorous and polite to say it outright - or has he someone else in mind? - Whatever, perhaps we should be told - and more importantly how precisely Bishonen is "offering undue protection". If David Gerard does not want to put some diffs where his mouth is then he should shut up or cease his attacks - such as this one [1] on Bishonen and her integrity. Giano 12:23, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

David Gerrard's actions were outside of policy, and, honestly, so were Theresa's. If a person is being hateful, etc., we still have AN and AN/I. We still have warnings. Even if the person in question is notorious, etc., we have the same requirements. It takes a minute to do things the non-controversial way. "Personal attacks" are indefinable and are especially indefinable when we get to user talk pages. Talk pages are not article pages, and blocking someone without warning and then blanking and protecting the talk page because of self-identified "personal attacks" is not proper. Doing so and then going deaf to the appeals is only slightly worse. Geogre 13:20, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

As a user who had to deal with both DreamGuy and 216.165.158.7, I must comment: I think that this user has been repeatedly warned and given chances to reform, if not by warning templates, manually - I do not contest the block(s) itself. I do agree, however, that no user deserves to be silenced as such, especially given DG/.7's claim that the IP shifts over time. Since the block is reasonably justified, can we leave it as that, a simple block, and unprotect applicable talk pages? Besides, DG is a good editor, if extremely uncivil. I'd recommend leaving this block stand, but a warning that future cases may lead to a WP:RFAr. Nihiltres^(t.c.s) 13:46, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Bishonen, Geogre: if you think DreamGuy's work is of value and are this keen to stand up for it, I hope you'll both go to extra-special effort to get him to stop being abusive to others and to attempt to mitigate what damage he causes. If he can't work well with others - and his behaviour so far indicates he has no interest in such - then he should be writing GFDL text all on his own, not attempting to work on a site that requires massive collaboration - David Gerard 14:06, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I remember DreamGuy from a year or so back. I concur with the view that he's a well meaning and useful editor who has problems staying civil. If this has become a problem to the point where we must consider showing him the door, this wasn't the way to try to do it. Perhaps a user conduct RFC or discussion at the community sanction noticeboard would be an appropriate next step? Friday (talk) 16:05, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

First RFC, Second RFC. The habit of personal attack is not the behaviour of an unknowing n00b, and he's not getting better. Again, I strongly urge those admins who wish to defend him to work hardest on reining in his noted obnoxious behaviour - David Gerard 16:56, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

So... are you then going to get a mentor to help you stay within Wikipedia policies when it comes to blocks and so forth...? Besides, if civility is the supposed issue, I think your comments (and the comments of many trying to portray me as some hopeless cause) are certainly just as bad. AGF and civility should apply to you folks as well. DreamGuy 00:37, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

If two admins insist that this is such a good user, then I would suggest that they mentor him and clean up his mess from now on. Seems fair, as the work will not be left to people like me, Theresa and Gerard. --Sn0wflake 16:59, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is insisting anything. I don't mind cleaning up after him, I am an admin, it's what I do, it's what we all do. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 19:25, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

• I sometimes wonder why some of you people are admins, admins are here to do what admins do - I rather think that involves mops and buckets; you have volunteered for the job, not been dragged kicking and screaming against your wills. I note David Gerard has neatly avoided my question above so I repeat it, this time more clearly - please explain the "yet again" in "I hope you're not yet again offering undue protection to someone who makes good content but is given to vicious personal attacks on the wiki" you made the attack on Bishonen's integrity - now support it with some diffs and facts! Giano 21:49, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

David Gerard attacked nobody, please do not bait him. Bastique. 22:09, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe I gave precisely those diffs, and why you were only Bishonen's word away from a ban for gross incivility, during the last Arbitration case you were involved in. It is saddening that what I said then about you being unable to comport yourself decently on policy pages still appears to hold - David Gerard 22:14, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

• You seem to have a highly inflated idea of your own importance on this site. Perhaps you should learn to review it, and stop baiting others with your comments which have no relevance to a situation. Giano 22:19, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I sincerely hope that some actually click at some of the "precisely those diffs" as David Gerard puts it and finds in them "vicious personal attacks" as he claims them to be. --Irpen 22:37, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

• I would not worry Irpen, David Gerard is just dredging up old "has been" events and diffs, all of which have been discussed "ad nauseum" to justify his attack on Bishonen's judgement. I had rather hoped he may have found something new but it seems he has just chosen to resurrect all the old animosity - and open old wounds to cause trouble, I wonder why? Some people never know when to leave a sleeping dog alone. Giano 22:50, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

David Gerrard: I ask you to please avoid casting aspersions on another editor's competence. This is especially true when you have just blocked someone out of process. I have no need to think Dream Guy is valuable, nor does anyone else. Our editors do not have to prove their worth to us: We have to prove their disruptiveness and destructiveness to reach for a block, and then we need to warn. Geogre 23:04, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and I will extend the same caution to Giano. It really isn't necessary or profitable to talk about anyone's character. I understand that you were reacting to an apparent slur from him and being dragged into a discussion of his irregular block as an apparent attempt at distraction, and I know that readers miss these things, so we can't rely upon them to see what's really going on, but it's still not necessary or profitable to talk about David's character. Geogre 02:03, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm having a little trouble parsing the above post, but I think this is the first time I have ever seen Geogre criticize anything done by Giano. My respect for Geogre just went up. --Ideogram 09:41, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

• It is a pity David Gerard decided to start making his veiled hints in the first place, and an even greater pity that to cover his behaviour he has to drag in completely uninvolved parties, such as myself. Claiming (above) I am unable to "comport" myself "decently on policy pages still appears to hold" when I merely express disquiet at being drageed in to his mess - says more about him than me. It seems to me to be about time some admins had their status reviewed, or at least were sent for re-training. Giano 09:08, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I've blocked the IP indefinitely. He's using IPs rather than his official account to WP:SOCK#Avoiding_scrutiny_from_other_editors, and since its unblocking has been edit-warring with it and making all sorts of un-civil attacks. Enough is enough, let him login as Dreamguy, and edit as that. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:03, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I haven't time to look at this in detail. I trust Jayjg's judgment, but I also trust Bishonen's! Just a few points, though. One is that he is claiming on his talk page that he can't log on. I think Jayjg may have intended to do anon only in the block, but forgot? The other is that I don't think it's appropriate to be tagging the IP user page as an abusive sockpuppet of DreamGuy. "Abusive sockpuppet" really means sockpuppet used for double voting, multiple reverts, etc., not a sockpuppet who happens to be rude to people. As far as I know this IP was acknowledged by DreamGuy. I also have a question about the indefinite block of the IP. Without having time to examine the whole thing, I'd be inclined to leave it to Jayjg, if he says that the IP was being used to avoid scrutiny and to make uncivil attacks; but that IP's first edit was on 7 March this year, and DreamGuy has been around since November 2004. That would suggest that it's not a permanent IP, as it's unlikely that he'd decide to start making numerous logged-off edits after two and a half years. He says here that "this IP is a local DSL IP and by its nature will not be any specific person for more than a few weeks at a time". So, Jayjg, if you think his IP should be permanently blocked to prevent misuse, perhaps you should reduce it to a temporary block for this IP, and then block his next IP for a month, and then the next, and so on, if he keeps on doing the same thing. I'm not sure it's necessary, but I haven't examined it in detail. In any case, please have a look at the anon-only blocking thing, as your block may be preventing him from editing as DreamGuy as well. Musical Linguist 20:14, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I've just looked at the block log again, and I see that it was anon only. Don't know how I missed that first time. Anyway, he was claiming on his talk page that he couldn't log on as DreamGuy. But I see that he has posted as DreamGuy on the DreamGuy talk page since saying that he couldn't log on. Musical Linguist 20:30, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

And ... as User:DreamGuy on the IP talk page, saying he needs the IP unblocked! Uh huh - David Gerard 22:56, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I was not using IPs to "avoid responsibility", and there is absolutely no policy against using IPs. Nobody at all has given any sort of rationale that these IPs were used in a deceptive way or to try to get around any policies. The IP should be unblocked as a matter of policy, but also for the fact that whenever the local DSL provider switches it it'll blocked for no reason. Yes, after peole complained that the IP block prevented me from signing on and they said either that it didn;t or tht someone had fixed it, yes, I did sign on. Certainly David Gerard of all people knows that the IP was not being used to avoid responsibility as people knew I was using it and were tracking it. I fear a number of people have simply gone into witch hunts where they make blocks and take actions completely unsupported by any policy for the simple fact that when I have the temerity to actually say out loud that they were out of line when they broke policies they were supposed to be here to be enforcing. That, after all, is what I was pointed to as an edit diff to explain the "uncivil remarks" claim.

If admins as a whole decide I have to edit logged in (and not just the whims of people making things up as they go along), fine, but then I would expect them to make a policy then that everyone has to be signed in and that all IP addresses are banned, or to otherwise come up with some sort of real rationale. I also expect, however, that if I do have to be signed in that steps are taken to discipline those people who have in the past gone around and blind reverted all my edits, or brought up whatever accusatoins somebody somewhere made years back to try to rationalize away why they don't have to treat me as a normal fellow editor. WP:AGF has gone completely out the window here, and the baseless blocks and accusations and etc. are far worse violations of the rules on civility than any less than polite comments I might say out of frustration when I have people constantly threatening (and doing) blocks for no reason whatsoever other than old grudges or (as the early conflicts under the IP) trying to previal in an edit dispute of an article.

Anyone going over my recent edits, both on this account and my IP, can see that I have made a large number of good and needed contributions, both over the last couple of days and over my history here. I think some people have just plain forgotten that we're here to write an encyclopedia and not to play some sort of experiment in social interactions and power struggles.

DreamGuy 00:40, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Then perhaps you should stop "experimenting" in your social interactions - David Gerard 08:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:BAN

A message was left on my talk page saying I was "banned" from editing certain articles.[2].

1. Looking at WP:BAN, only the Wikipedia community, the Arbitration Committee, Jimbo Wales or the Wikimedia Foundation can issue bans and not individual admins.
2. I cannot see why adding a flag image to a template would result in a ban- various other users have been adding the flag images back to templates were a certain group of users are defying consensus and deleting them. I have also provided reliable sources on various pages to support the fact that the Ulster Banner is the unoffical flag of Northern Ireland.
3. The allegations about sockpuppets are false- no checkuser request has been filed, and there is no evidence that the anon user was me. Astrotrain 16:41, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

• Banning editor notified here. Navou ^banter 16:52, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

• You may also wish to list this ban for review at WP:CN. I would recommend reviewing the ban the editor placed, and not the actual editor himself, this might help keep the discussion focused on the "ban" rather than both the ban and the editor who "placed" it. I am using the term ban loosely in this context. Regards, Navou ^banter 16:54, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

• • But is it even a "ban"?- the policy page does not state that admins can ban editors. And looking at the banning policy, content disputes that are not unique to me as an editor are not grounds. He is clearly biased against supporting a particular group of editors- he ignored a racist taunt made by one of his friends that I reported, while blocking me for merely stating my opinion that a particular editor was "inexperienced". Astrotrain 19:49, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
    • No, unless you have been sanctioned by arbcom or in some other fashion, individual admins cannot impose bans. But unless I'm missing something, the edits you have made do look rather tenuous and you should note that editing from an IP address does not excuse you from 3RR. In short, you may not have been "legally" been banned from those templates, but I would strongly suggest that you make sure that your edits reflect a consensus, rather than your point of view. --BigDT (416) 20:22, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

A previous case of a "soft ban" being implemented by an admin, NicholasTurnbull was on certain editors regarding Peter Townshend.[3] This was discussed on AN/I.[4] The discussion continued on CN.[5] An alternative is a standard block, but where the problem is localised, this seems a better solution, as it allows the editor to work in areas where the particular problem does not occur. Astrotrain has made many productive edits elsewhere, but has proved unfortunately incapable of collaboration over Irish-related articles. My notice on his talk page is here:[6] Tyrenius 05:57, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that an influencing factor may have been the suggestion that Astrotrain allegedly sought to evade 3RR by using an IP address. I think the "partial ban" should be lifted until that issue is confirmed or denied by a checkuser. I have lodged aa request. - Kittybrewster (talk) 08:52, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

That was merely something in addition to Astrotrain's continuing lack of required behaviour for a collegiate editing environment.Tyrenius 02:31, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Tyrenius, imposed this ban on User:Astrotrain after I requested him to look into both Astrotrain and User:84.68.93.126 who where stalking and reverting my edits, I had ask Astrotrain to stop his stalking here and warned him that I would report him for vandalism, it was after this that a new editor User:84.68.93.126 with no edit history began doing the same thing as can be seen here, neither Astrotrain nor User:84.68.93.126 made any attempt to discuss their reverts in the talkpages of these articles, dispite being ask to do so. This is not the First time I have had problem with Astrotrain in this aspect, and he was banned prior to this for similar behaviour and attacks on me other editors. I should add that after Tyrenius posted his ban notice to both editors, User:84.68.93.126 stopped making any edits after that, and hasn't posted since.--padraig3uk 14:02, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

• The only edits I made were to add flag images to templates- this is not vandalism. In any case, it has been confirmed that Tyrenius's "ban" is invalid and he has no authority to do this- so his "ban" will be ignored. Astrotrain 11:02, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Where has this been confirmed, I see no confirmation of that here.--padraig3uk 11:16, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

An admin can certainly say "if you don't stop making this edit/disrupting this page, I will block you", and that's somewhat similar to a "ban" on the page. But no, an admin can't say "you can't edit this page at all", only ArbCom/Jimbo can. If Astrotrain engages in an ongoing edit war over an issue, he can be blocked for editwarring, but if you want him banned from the template page or all Irish-related pages or whatever, you need to talk to the ArbCom. Zocky | picture popups 17:53, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I won't discuss the current case because the question here is the general applicability of non-arbitration-imposed subject bans. Such bans with appropriate consensus and review have been successful on Wikipedia. This doesn't mean that the ban under discussion is likely to be successful, just that arbitration isn't always required. --Tony Sidaway 17:56, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

May I add that Astrotrain is most cases was simply reverting articles back to a previous consensus that was reached on such Northern Ireland - related pages. Users padraig3uk and vintagekits recently started mass disruptive edits on various Northern Ireland related pages, causing outbeaks of edit warring on previously stable pages which in turn have caused many of these pages to become protected. Tyrenius seems to have been excessively harsh on such user Astrotrain. Users padraig3uk and vintagekits are quick to contact Tyrenius if their actions are criticised in any way and will not accept anything negative being said about the clearly disruptive actions of such users, and Tyrenius is quick to label any negative comment on these users as a personal attack Jonto 18:04, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we should state what these negative coments are? NI flag removed by IRA sympathisers. Restore NI's flag, NI flag removed my a noted IRA sympathiser. Restore NI's flag, User:Padraig3uk and his mate User:Vintagekits are noted IRA sympathisers, I very much doubt that you can describe an undoubted POV vandal such as User:Vintagekits as 'editing in good faith' and delete harrassment from terrorist supporters. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 18:16, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

When editors make comments such as "Thank God for the IRA" and "the term British makes my skin crawl", as well as yourself adding "IRA" then "1916" to your signature- they cannot complain when other editors make the reasonable assumption that they are sympathetic to this terrorist organisation. Astrotrain 08:21, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Are you suggesting I made those comments or any such comments?.--padraig3uk 08:33, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Informationsdienst gegen Rechtsextremismus again and again severly vandalized

Need help there. Lemma was severally vandalized. A certain user:steschke was first politly asked not to delete informations that are well sourced. Please have a look on the disuccion too. Thanx in advance Pitohui 08:56, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Moved from WP:AN/3RR. Nishkid64 18:00, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

A new case of vandalism occured, I reverted it. Would you please protect the lemma? Regards Byzanz

Hallo, please observe the history and actual discussion page of the article closely.

User:Byzanz and before User:Pitohui carry on an edit war, calling sourced information "vandalizing the lemma" (with the exact same wording). They keep on to delete sourced informations about IDGR and put in their privat theory of a "pen" name and a "double" name of the editor in it - without any reliable source for that.

All references only show that Mrs. Margret Chatwin edited IDGR under that name and no one really knows her actual real name. The edit war on the name has no relation to the matter which is IDGR, not naming the editor of it with other names.

These arguments on the discussion page were completely ignored. So please decide whose behavior there is to be called "vandalism". 89.166.148.69 15:32, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

nice idea. Have a close and detailed look on the history of the lemma and the discussion page. Will take a little time to watch step by step but will be, no doubt about it, extremely helpfull. Afterwards you will be able to decide, who commited vandalism and who did not. Regards. Byzanz

It took a lot of time to repair demages and reinsert information which went lost when reverting the lemma becaus of deleting sourced information. Please see [7] On the whole all sourced informations plus some new fact should be given now. Regards Byzanz

user:stescke again comes along vandalising the lemma. Need help now. Byzanz 11:12, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Burk Hale

Burk Hale (talk · contribs) will simply not stop edit warring and pushing his extreme POV and original research (he continually argues that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which basically gave African-Americans and others the rights they have today) was the result of "subversive" action by the U.S. government. Also, there is a copyright concern with some of the text Burk Hale continues to add to this article. Burk Hale has been warned repeatedly on his talk page and on the talk pages of the relevant articles he has edited. Finally, consensus is clearly against Burk Hale's edits; several have opposed them and none has supported. Burk Hale clearly warrants a block for his continued, obvious disruption (I am involved in the dispute, thus I have not blocked him myself). · j e r s y k o talk · 12:49, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Burke Hale has also reverted the 1957 Georgia Memorial to Congress, three times in the last 2 hours [8], restoring his theory each time. Edward321 14:12, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I have blocked 48 hours for 3RR violation (five reverts in the last 12 hours or so), but I'd like to get more input on what to do with this editor. Natalie 14:55, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Jerseyko has given a good description. What he hasn't mentioned is that this user fails to assume good faith on the part of other editors and accuses everyone of being sock puppets. Heis being very disruptive by ignoring consensus to re-adding his material to a prominent article. -Will Beback · † · 21:12, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I expressed my views on Burke Hale a couple weeks ago - [9].

"While I appreciate Burke Hale bringing this interesting memorial to Wikipedia his repeated attempts to push his POV, ignoring several policies including those on concensus and original research, lead me to believe that he will never stop trying to push his theories unless he is blocked from editing the appropriate articles. He's clearly not willing to be reasoned with, claiming he has refuted others when he has done nothing of the kind and refusing to listen when people point out the flaws in his original research. Edward321 06:22, 10 April 2007 (UTC)"

I am not alone in having problems with Burke Hale's actions, so have Rocket Fairy, Zantastik, Will Beback, Jersyko, Isotope23, and Famspear. In addition to his other problems, Burke Hale has grown increasingly insulting - incompentant being one of the nicer accusations he has made. [10]

Burke Hale has also insinuated that some of the people disagreeing with him are the same person [11], which Famspear has already refuted [12]. Edward321 00:15, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

If we are to expand our conversation about Burk Hale beyond a single block for disruption, it is probably best to do so at the community noticeboard or in a user conduct RfC. · j e r s y k o talk · 02:10, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

That might not be a bad idea. I removed his NPOV tag from the 14th Amendment article a few days back and reminded him that "not NPOV" is not the same thing as "not my POV". Apparently he feels that everyone who points out consensus is against him or the fact that his edits 1957 Georgia Memorial to Congress are orignial research (as they are a novel synthesis and show a rather glaring misunderstanding of what constitutes law) is obviously completely biased against him. In my opinion at least, if you have 1 POV editor who is not adding anything of value to the article or discussion and is instead being tendentious it is probably a good idea to nip it in the bud.--Isotope23 16:40, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disruptive mass merging and mass deletion by User:TTN

I noticed that this user made a sweeping merge of characters from the series 7th Heaven (no matter their importance in the series) last week without any prior discussion on talk pages and no attempt at gaining consensus first. They just did it because they decided it should be done. When confronted on their talk page about it, they acted like they do not care about what other editors think and that they will continue making edits like this whether or not other people agree with the changes. He won't even consider gaining a consensus when I gave him possible options with how he can do it and not be so controversial.

The main reason I am bringing this up though is because this isn't the first time this user has done this. I wasn't even aware of it until I looked at the other messages on their talk page and 10 out of 20 of their current messages have something to do with them deleting massive amounts of information from articles or mass merging. I've skimmed through their archived pages and find much of the same sort of messages to this person. On one message in particular, someone told him to use talk messages to settle disputes about a trivia section and their response was, "I will never use talk pages for something that trivial."

My concern about this user isn't so much that they're doing this (some of these merges/deletions were probably the best option), it's that they don't want to take any time to see what other people have to say first and allow them to voice their concern. They also don't feel the need to use talk pages to settle issues if they feel they are right, even when they could very well be wrong. They also consider anybody else disagreeing with them as rabid/obsessed fans even though their opinions were blatantly ignored from the beginning. Of course they're going to freak out if their articles are messed with that drastically without being informed first! I'm not sure what, if anything, can be done about this, but it would be nice if someone with a bit more authority could explain how disruptive this behavior can be. --pIrish 18:52, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

"(no matter their importance in the series)" - Can someone help me? Being a character important in a series, movie, book, game, whatever, doesn't mean that the character deserves an independent wikipedia article, and that merging is probably a good idea. How does verifiability work with no suitable refs? But merging without discussion is probably not as successful. But maybe I'm wrong? Dan Beale 19:22, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

If all he did was unilaterally merge game characters into a single article and zap a trivia section it sounds like he's done a good job. Are you sure there's any problematic behaviour here? Being bold is encouraged after all. (NB: I haven't actually followed any of the links, this is just a general comment). --kingboyk 20:19, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Harry Potter would be a character so important in a series that he deserves his own article. So would Aslan from the The Chronicles of Narnia, Jack from Lost, and various others just because of the sheer complexity of the character. In the particular example about 7th Heaven, two characters, at the very most could possibly deserve their own articles (and their two articles could possibly be merged as one at that).

But that really was beside my point. I said multiple times in the message to the user (and here) that merging was probably the best course of action, however, not discussing the mass merge was the real problem I had. Which is the problem I am speaking of here. He's done this several times without even thinking about the fact that Wikipedia is a collaborative project, not his own personal playground where he can make any decision he wants without thinking abuot the consequences or concerns of others. This is what I would like advice on and would like to know if anything can be done to remedy this user's behavior that causes controversy and disruption. --pIrish 20:19, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

If it's not controversial (and presumably it isn't, as you said you don't disagree) it doesn't have to be discussed first. Bold, revert, discuss is a perfectly acceptable way of doing things here. That said, if he did the bold bit, you revert, and then he keeps reverting back without discussing it becomes a content dispute. Please see Wikipedia:Resolving disputes for steps you can take if it becomes an actual dispute. HTH. --kingboyk 20:27, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

The edit I talked with him about was not controversial. However, other edits that are similar have received a bit of controversy and he has gone into edit wars over them and had no interest in trying to settle the disputes on the talk pages. This is evident by the majority of the messages on his talk page being negative reactions to these changes. He thinks only his way is the right way. He has no interest in keeping the peace. I understand being bold, but I also understand being polite and keeping etiquette. When did it become ok for someone to treat articles like their personal playgrounds where nobody else's opinions matter? --pIrish 20:34, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

That's always been the case! I can go edit any article around here, any way I want. You can too! If someone objects or reverts, then it's time to stop and talk. If no one does, no big deal. If you think the changes were wrong, you can revert them and say why so. On the other hand, this is not a bureaucracy, and just going ahead and making changes is a perfectly valid way of testing if such changes have a consensus, or starting discussion to develop one. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:41, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Some sort of notification of this would have been nice. Would you point out some instances? In most cases, I only push the 3RR with anons that use all of the arguments covered by WP:ATA, and then soon give up after that. Most of the people on my talk page like to point out that I'm cutting "important information" when most of the time it goes against guidelines. Others are just content disputes that happen to pour over to my talk. Nemu 20:40, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I wanted to mostly get help in understanding and building my knowledge of the way Wikipedia works, not gang up on you so I don't particularly see why I should have notified you, especially considering I knew pretty much nothing but information and guidance for me would come of it. Like I have said multiple times now, I don't think most of your edits were bad or not warranted, I just feel like you should be notifying people first. The reason you get people freaking out on your talk page is because you didn't notify them. I wanted to see what the exact stance was with cases like this because I have never come across someone who was as unwilling to discuss major changes as you are. --pIrish 20:50, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, no, no, no, the reason for the messages on my talk page are either from people I'm just having a plain dispute with, people that don't understand that this site isn't a game guide/fan site, or people that realized a page was merged a month after it was actually merged, and have a problem with it. Nemu 20:55, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok. I understand that now. All I really had to go off of though was, "I really think you are removing way too much information from way too many articles." and "The mass deletion of the track listings for Mario Kart: Double Dash!! was uncalled for." That doesn't give me much room to assume anything other than exactly what they say and that people are angry you've done it without talking about it first. Clearing that up was helpful, but I still do maintain that massive edits should probably be discussed before. Of course, this does not apply to obvious policy-breaking and small or even medium edits. --pIrish 21:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I've had a quick glance and all I see is a bold editor who knows the guidelines and is responsive on his talk page. I'm seeing good not bad. If I'm somehow wrong, please present some diffs. --kingboyk 20:43, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I think all the above fails to meet the main point, TTN:

• 1: he does not merge, like some said above, he redirects to other pages, discarding much content
• 2: weather he is right or wrong he causes large amounts of content to be lost, and when confronted with a revert of his edit he engages in edit wars, instead of trying to achieve a consensus
• 3: he removes 3RR warnings and invitations to discussion from his talk page.

I am not saying this user is making incorrect edits, the problem is he engages in revert wars, instead of attempting to achieve a consensus, and refuses discussion. Hopefully someone more experienced than I may be able to explain to him better how to avoid edit wars. You may find an example of his edit wars at Mayor McDaniels. I would prefer to explain to him personally, however this is not possible due to him removing attempts at discussion from his user talk page, so I am forced to post here. --Jackaranga 03:34, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Merging if often cutting. The information removed is never crucial, and would be cut even if the page didn't stay. The above example isn't an edit war (unless two reverts is considered an edit war), so I felt no need to keep the message. If you didn't see, I asked for a discussion, but when you stepped in, he became content. Nemu 03:42, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

And yes, there are four reverts over a period of time, but those are just cases of random people reverting anything that's merged without any reason, so you cannot really count those. Nemu 03:50, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

You reverted four times in a short period of time for the exact same thing each and every time. This is the very definition of an edit war and would have been a violation of 3RR if it had been in the span of 24 hours, instead of being stretched over two days. After the first revert of the redirect, you should have immediately started discussion on the talk page to gain consensus. Instead? You chose to revert the edit and enter yourself into an edit war where four people disagreed with you, three of which were registered users, yet you still refused to discuss the issue on the talk page. This is the sort of disruptive behavior I tried to bring to attention here. --pIrish 04:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

You cannot count a random anon and a guy that randomly reverts any sort of merge in the whole discussion part or in a revert war. They aren't the type to discuss. The anon went away, and he gave up. Those two are isolated incidents that shouldn't be lumped in with the other guy, who was persistent and seemed to have refused to discuss. Plus, there was already a consensus to merge articles on the project for that series. Nemu 04:28, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Basically, those two are like people that just randomly revert a merge months after it happened. Those wouldn't require discussion, so these similar reverts also shouldn't, especially due to the fact that they didn't even give a reason for a revert. Nemu 04:40, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

It seems User:TTN is also violating WP:SIG, specifically the part which reads : In no circumstance should a signature be used to impersonate another user: in particular, a signature should not be identical to the actual username of an existing user. His signature is "Nemu", which is the exact same username as User:Nemu. I do not understand why it is accepted in his case in particular, as it also makes it hard to understand who is writing.--Jackaranga 12:10, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Hopefully this was just an accident, and I would have told you on your talk page except you deleted my previous comments, and those of other users.--Jackaranga 12:17, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unsure what to do

Ok, I searched "Chord" into wikipedia, and got a ton of e's - clear vandalism. I then copied what it said before and re-edited it back to what it was before the vandalise.

The person had attacked before, so I put semi-protection lock until some professional wikier saw to it. What should I do, or should I leave it with you guys?

You can see the events here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chord&action=history

--Dark dude 21:52, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but locking the page down seems excessive. Why not just address the vandal by warning or blocking, as appropriate?Chunky Rice 21:55, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

See Help:Reverting. Just revert back to the unvandalised version, warn the editor as described at Wikipedia:Vandalism. Adding a protection tag is on its own has no effect. -- zzuuzz^(talk) 22:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

That's true. The tag doesn't convey protection/s-protection; you need to be an admin to do that. Thanks for fixing the vandalism, though. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 12:53, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spamming to promote non-notable Yahoo group

Repeated spamming of Syd Barrett The Piper at the Gates of Dawn ([13]) and Pink Floyd ([14]) by 84.24.5.107 (talk · contribs) with non-notable Yahoo group, contrary to notices on talk page and many reverts by different editors, on the former. Andy Mabbett 10:49, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Incident

Not sure what to do about this: [15] --Savant13 12:52, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

See also Fatuglyhor (talk · contribs) and Fatuglyhor2 (talk · contribs). Andy Mabbett 12:58, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

User:Waggers has indefinitely blocked him. YechielMan 14:14, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Majorly

A a cup of tea for both of you guys as per Kelly. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:50, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] blocked .svg images

For the past hour, it seems that .svg images won't display on Userpages. I've tried this on 3 different computers, after noticing that Image:Stop hand nuvola.svg didn't appear on a vandalism warning I put on someone's page.

After making more tests, I find that .png images are OK, but the problem is with .svg images: they display in articles, but not user pages. When I attempted to look at the source code for Stop hand, I got a "malicious code" warning – are you aware of this problem? JGHowes ^talk - 15:50, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Problem already fixed. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:51, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inutero2222 (talk · contribs)

This user's only edits have been to repeatedly deleted the criticism section from the Ashley Simpson article. It's weak, but talk page consensus is that it belongs and needs to be improved, and he's only deleted the whole section at a time, never added anything or worked selectively to trim it down. I reverted him a couple times, then checked his history and gave him a 48 hour block for a long history of reverts without productive contributions. He created a new account and left a message on my talk page (which I indef blocked as a sock), and now he's requesting an unblock. Someone want to take a look? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Yamla turned down the unblock, and I entirely agree with Yamla's words. The unblock request does not show in any way that they understand the problem with their actions. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 16:44, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Personal Attacks

NetSnipe (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Found this on a new users page:

[16]

"Regarding warnings You're using all the wrong warnings and your spelling and grammar is quite atrocious and very unprofessional. From the looks of it, I doubt you're even over the age of 15. Please only use the standard warnings listed at WP:UTM. See Wikipedia:Cleaning up vandalism for further information on the correct way to deal with vandals. Thanks. NetSnipe"

From Netsnipe?? No way but yes, it was him! Is it just a bad day today? CINEGroup 17:44, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes people receive tons of reminders and messages re something they have done wrong but they never correct their behaviour. Maybe Netsnipe was a bit harsh but neither John Reaves, DLX, Gracenotes nor Chrislk02 were wrong. It seems that User:Staffwaterboy doesn't listen carefully. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:55, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Their 12th edit was a RfA self-nom indeed. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:59, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Just an application of WP:SPADE -M^ask? 18:00, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

BTW. It is not User:NetSnipe but User:Netsnipe. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 18:06, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bot keeps removing my articles

I am trying to contribute newsworthy material to Wikipedia and a bot by the name of Shadow1 keeps removing all my stuff from www.thesportsinterview.com. Please evaluate this bot and please take my site off removing stuff right away.

I am trying to contribute info, not spam. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SportsInt (talk • contribs)

From your username, I'd gather that you're adding links to your own personal website, which isn't allowed per the policy on external links. MSJapan 21:44, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes you shouldn't be adding interviews from your own site, it is a conflict of interest. Also people do not think your site is notable enough to be considered a reliable source.--Dacium 21:58, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

btw, Shadow1 isnt a bot. (: He's a warm-blooded user. He does operate a few bots though. ~Crazytales 01:06, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, if you keep this up, your web site may get blacklisted so that nobody will be able to add it to any articles. -Amatulic 19:52, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disgruntled user gets indefinite block, please review

Friday (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves • rights) has blocked Loomis51 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) indefinitely due to his harping on about personal attacks and his perceived one sided treatment by admins on wikipedia with respect to his contributions at the ref desk. (clarification: the italicized comment represent my own thoughts on the matter, not words used by Firday when delivering the block) [17] I think it is frustrating for admins and other ref desk regulars alike to see Loomis continue to display this negative attitude. But, while a cooling off period is probably a good thing, an indefinite block is probably unwarranted. For one, all of Loomis' recent comments were restricted to his own talk page. Could other admins review this block? Thanks David D. (Talk) 21:58, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, anyone who wants can feel free to adjust or remove this block as they see fit. I've washed my hands of this situation- I'm not well equipped to deal with this. Friday (talk) 22:02, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Has he even expressed a desire to be unblocked? I'd have to see some kind of remorse or willingness to behave better before considering it. John Reaves (talk) 22:19, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

He has expressed a desire to be unblocked, although, he has placed terms on the behaviour of the admins that frequent the ref desk: Loomis wrote:

"In short, if some necessary improvements are made, I request to be unblocked, and promise to be on my best behaviour. However, if those necessary improvements remain ignored, I have no interest in being unblocked, as I have no interest in once again participating in a project where WP:NPA except upon Lewis remains the governing guideline." For context

Loomis' grievances: [18]

Hope this helps David D. (Talk) 22:31, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

FYI, here is where Loomis says he'll keep being disruptive until I warn some other editors about personal attacks. I don't play the "do what I say or I'll keep being disruptive" game, so upon seeing this, I extended his block to indefinite. As I said, I've no objection to anyone else adjusting or removing, but I'm not personally inclined to spend even one additional second of my time helping an editor who threatens to keep being disruptive. Friday (talk) 22:56, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

It is worth nothing that Loomis has been deliberately skating rather close to the edge. I think it should be clarified that Loomis' 'harping on about personal attacks and his perceived one sided treatment by admins' is by no means the sole reason for his block (as an aside, those words are David's, and were never used by Friday), and that that particular conduct is not even the most important reason. Loomis' troubling behaviour is spread over many pages and a couple of months, so it's difficult to find all of the diffs. (Poor edit summary usage doesn't help.) Nevertheless, here's a sample of some of the behaviour that earned his block.

There is his insistence on calling another user a Nazi apologist and anti-Semite [19]; his habit of continuing to quote her out of context to further his attacks continues today: [20].

There were the disruptions to make a point; see for example these deletions of other editors' comments from talk pages: [21], [22], [23].

And, of course, his attempt to skirt WP:NPA by making comments on the contributions, and not the contributor (ahem): [24], [25].

Attempts by editors who had been on friendly terms with Loomis to help steer him away from trouble were met with cruelty and contempt: [26]. (Incidentally, I applaud JackofOz's continued attempts to bring Loomis back into the fold. Jack has the patience of a saint.)

Combine that with a stated intent to end any positive contribution to Wikipedia ([27]) and open acknowledgement that his behaviour has been and will continue to be deliberately disruptive: [28] "...all this admittedly disruptive behaviour of mine.... ...can you really blame me for being deliberately disruptive...? Of course you can't."

I don't even quite know how to describe this rant.

Loomis' talk page before he last blanked it (see this revision) shows numerous editors counselling him to calm down and avoid making personal attacks and engaging in disruption; this advice has gone unheeded. It might be reasonable to unblock Loomis at some point in the future if he calms down and agrees to avoid personal attacks, stops being deliberately disruptive, and becomes a paragon of courtesy and civility. Absent such guarantees – backed by some sort of parole arrangement – I fear that we would be in for more of the same conduct that brought us to this point in the first place. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:25, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

When I saw this, I pictured something from a Lovecraft story. You know, where there's the guy who's ventured too deep into the ruins and is telling his partner to get the hell out of there. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 01:43, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I have been in discussion with Loomis for a few days and in that time he has gone from personal attacks ("friendships you seem to have developed with those so utterly beneath you such as Rockpocket, Ten, Clio, Friday, eric, and so many others..." [29] despite the fact he and I had never actually exchanged words when this was written) to praise [30]. A similar, albeit more extreme, pattern of behaviour seems to have occured between him and JackofOz (talk · contribs) and Clio the Muse (talk · contribs) (from this extraordinary display of admiration [31] to accusations of Nazi apologism.) My concern is with the emotional investment Loomis appears to invest in his editing, and whether that is healthy for him, and those who interact with him, in addition to disruption that results in. Perhaps an enforced period of reflection - something he has said he would like to take voluntarily, but can't help reneging on - would be the best solution. I'll continue to speak with Loomis and see if he will comply with that. Rockpocket 01:56, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Note for review. I have now protected User talk:Loomis51 for one month, as he was using his talk page to continue his personal attacks ("Please take your Nazi Apologist filth elsewhere. It's not welcome on my userpage."). I have suggested that he may contact an administrator via email to request a lift of protection if he agrees not to launch further attacks on the page, and if he wishes to participate positively in Wikipedia again. Another admin may lift this protection as he sees fit. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:57, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Legal threat and article to watch out for.

Received this on the Unblock-en-l list today, from (redacted)

I am being blocked from creating an account because apparently my computer has been "tagged" as causing problems, or something. I live alone and I am the only person using this computer. I suspect I have been put in this list because information relating to "Bupropion/Wellbutrin" is 100% different than what you have listed. I am starting legal action against GlaxoSmithKline for misrepresenting Wellbutrin and poisoning Americans with thier drugs. I spent 14 years under the thumb of GlaxoSmithKline and only when I started taking the generic of Wellbutrin (bupropion) did my psychological symptoms go away. Go to www.shippyceramics.com and go to the "gsk profits" link to find out the actual truth about a drug that is being taken by over 21,000,000 million people. Until I am allowed to inform the public of the truth, I will include Wikipedia on my website as compliant in one of the largest mass-medications in earths history. GlaxoSmithKline is a terrorist organization, they are killing people and torturing them.

On the face, it's a clearly obvious legal threat against the project: Block, refer to foundation, move on. However, note the directly stated intent to damage the Wellbutrin and likely GlaxoSmithKline articles in response to this threat. WP:NOT a battleground etc. We should be keeping an eye out for this. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 00:38, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a philosophical problem with a block since this user has basically alerted us that he wants to add his POV to articles, but where is the "obvious legal threat against the project"? He just says "I will include Wikipedia on my website as compliant in one of the largest mass-medications in earths history." Since when is simply bad-mouthing the project a legal threat? -- DS1953 ^talk 01:19, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

He is suing Glaxo. He intends to list Wikipedia as "compliant" with Glaxo in the abuse of Wellbutrin. Obvious to me. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 14:31, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Why not just keep the kooks out? If a potential editor freely admits to paranoid ideations about the marketing of a drug used to treat psychological disorders, it's not a stretch to assume that he is not on any medication that might adequately treat his umm... "potentially disruptive" symptoms. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 01:28, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like he/she is already blocked from creating an account - must be the Wikipedia Pre-Crime Division at work. If so, nice catch. I'm happy to watchlist the articles in question. MastCell ^Talk 02:08, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out that obvious bit, I should have taken a longer glance at this section. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 03:00, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm assuming, Mastcell, that it was why it was sent to the unblock list, but since they didn't include an account name or IP, I had no way of knowing who it was (why I pointed it out here). I could be wrong, they could have run into an auto block and just sent an email to the unblock list by accident thinking it was the foundation's address. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 14:32, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Or, like a lot of people, they didn't read the autoblock message carefully and thought it was a regular block. Natalie 03:54, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally I just got a letter from another user (see my user talk), who was scared that they would be blocked due to the unblock list threat. I told them, after being incredibly confused by what they were talking about, I finally figured it out, and no I have no intention of blocking anyone. But in case anyone else is confused, and is reading this, I'm pretty well aware of who the person on the unblock list was. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 05:53, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blocked user editing as IP

Blocked user Dhimwit (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) apparently editing using 82.20.124.228 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log), including personal attacks. Andy Mabbett 09:32, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

That's mostly my fault for not enacting the same length block on both the IP and the account (they are the same person). I'd like to take this time to ask for a possible community ban of this user. He has harrassed via e-mail, used his account and IP to make continuous personal attacks, edit warring, disruption, etc...--Jersey Devil 12:28, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

• Blocked users can't edit. If you want to come back, you request an unblock with a LOGICAL reason that doesn't involve bashing admins. You don't log out and continue editing, regardless of how you feel about the behavior of admins. JuJube 22:45, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Someone should extend the block to the IP address. Andy Mabbett 22:51, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

This is ongoing. Andy Mabbett 23:39, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

User requesting unblock on the unblock-en list.

[edit] Is this the place to tell admins if DYK is backlogged and you need an admin to clear the backlog?

If not, where should I go to alert admins of DYK backlog? --Kaypoh 13:27, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Generally, backlog notices are placed at WP:AN, and you could also leave a message at WT:DYK. YechielMan 14:11, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

And place {{adminbacklog}} on top of the page to notify the sysops. (AQu01rius • Talk) 22:54, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shadowbot: Unjustified Edit?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=FileFront&diff=124931709&oldid=124931685

Shadowbot appears to have made an unjustified edit on the FileFront page. A user added a link to Alexa.org's traffic ranking for FileFront, which isn't spam at all, yet Shadowbot seems to have classified it as a spam link and removed it. Was this unjustified? RevenDS 16:10, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

• Uh have you asked the bot operator? --W.marsh 16:56, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
  • The bot's page points people to here to report misedits. Is this not the correct protocol? RevenDS 18:20, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Generally you should report bot mistakes at User talk:Shadowbot. You only need come here if a bot is malfunctioning and may need action taking against it, which in this case isn't the situation. Will (aka Wimt) 22:31, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lee Nysted returns

Could an administrator please look at 63.93.197.67 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log), who continues to insert references to Lee Nysted into the Matt Walker (drummer) article, even after their removal by several different editors. This IP is a obvious sockpuppet of permablocked user Lee Nysted (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log). In addition to the pattern of editing, as noted on its talk page, the IP address resolves to AG Edwards, where Nysted claims to be a "Managing Director, Owner Senior Vice President Investments." ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 18:24, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

IP blocked for WP:3RR for 24 hours. If it isn't a sock, it sure is a meatpuppet.--Isotope23 18:46, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CINEGroup (talk · contribs)

CINEGroup has engaged in a all kinds of disruptive activity in the past 24 hours.

He accused Netsnipe, an administrator, of conducting a personal attack.

He accused me and 8 editors in the past 24 hours either with vandalizing Wikipedia or creating nonsense articles. It seems that everyone he disagrees with gets threatened with a blocking notice. I received four 3RR warnings on [my disussion page] in the space of 10 minutes. This guy has also threatened the following editors in the past two hours with being blocked from editing:

• MKnight998
• Spence69
• Cherlrenae
• Jon6810
• Stagedives
• 158.59,214.157
• Rlhockey203
• Dwartam

This guy is clearly disruptive and a bully. Can you do anything about this? MiFeinberg 18:37, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Blocked for 24h. Trolling, disruption and excessive use of warnings especially that they only joined the project a week ago. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 18:44, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

• sigh*. I think both these editors need a time out so that they can read Wikipedia:Assume good faith. It appears that CINEGroup (talk • contribs) kept on labelling MiFeinberg (talk • contribs) as a single purpose account and striking out his votes at Talk:Walther P22 where's an ongoing edit war over whether to mention the gun's use in the Virginia Tech massacre. MiFeinberg (talk • contribs) keeps on reverting having his "vote" being discounted, CINEGroup (talk • contribs) issues WP:3RR warnings and reports MiFeinberg (talk • contribs) to WP:AIV at which point Chrislk02 (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves) issues a 1 hour block for "disruption", a block I personally find questionable. I then caution CINEGroup for being incivil in calling MiFeinberg a "single purpose account" when he clearly isn't and a vandal over a content dispute. CINEGroup then starts trolling my talk page and here as well. MiFeinberg on the other hand is indignant at being blocked and accuses CINEGroup of being a bully when all the above examples except for Jon6810 were appropriately issued warnings for vandalism. And to top things off, MiFeinberg has probably just been harshly blocked. It's my personal opinion that both CINEGroup and MiFeinberg have had their abuse reporting inappropriately taken at face value when it's clear both of them have grudges against each other. I'm going to sleep, so someone else can clean up this mess. --  Netsnipe  ►  19:01, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

We just went through all this with User:CINEGroup on April 18th. He was throwing around 3RR warnings to editors for simply making three totally different edits to an article. [32]. A summary of my issues with his editing at the time is here where I pointed them out on his talk page. Then he posted a retirement message. Sigh. So far as I can tell, he seems pretty argumentative, unwilling to read policy or listen to advice (I'm still not convinced he understands WP:3RR) and is pretty convinced that his small number of contributions require that other's respect his judgement on all matters [33]. I think this editor needs to be seriously dissuaded from trying to mediate, punish or otherwise deal with editing conflicts on Wikipedia until his understanding of relevant policy is a little bit more seasoned. I think his intentions are good, but he's like a mall security guard who thinks he's a cop. He really does far too much wading into situations that he can't handle and trying to kick butt and take names. Cheers. Dina 19:06, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't aware of this past incident. --  Netsnipe  ►  19:08, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

For the record, i made a erronous block. I have apologied and taken it up with the editor. It happens to the best of us. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 19:12, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Checking some of these warnings (god, I really hate the "this is the only warning you will receive" in the hands of the ill-tempered), it seems some are bogus, or at least way to harsh. I'm going to go through, check contribs and remove some if they really don't apply. Dina 19:16, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

You might further notice that there is even a complain against CINEGroup higher on this page under the heading "Odd." Clearly, this guy doesn't have the right temperament to be on Wikipedia. He treats it like a vast bare-knuckles bulletin board, not an online encyclopedia. MiFeinberg 19:56, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I was the one who posted that complaint. From the looks of it, it seemed as though this was an old user who'd "retired", but returned. It also seemed, though I have no evidence except conjecture, that this is a blocked user. His demeanor (attacks on other editors, especially), plus a couple of edits he's made AND his name, seems to suggest this. I have been speaking with an admin about this matter, as it is very serious. His MO seems to be to get into Wiki's good graces by performing helpful acts, then attacking others/vandalizing pages. That is, if this is the same user.

--Ispy1981 21:32, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I had an interaction with this editor yesterday - his first contact was to accuse me of "encouraging trolls" for replacing a speedy delete tag that had been removed when the creator added a "hangon" tag. The exchange we had was unpleasant and he/she certainly came across as unnecessarily aggresive and bullying. Natalie 20:32, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I also had interaction with this user before he "retired". He was unnecessarily aggresive and bullying, in my opinion as well. Daniel Bryant 23:11, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Derogatory and insulting comments by User:Xerxesnine

On the pages Talk:C++ and User_talk:Xerxesnine, Xerxesnine sparingly uses derogatory expressions like "petulant complaint", "hassles have been persistent", "persistent and disingenuous arguments", "puerile threats". He and previously User:Yamla do unsolicited accusations of people (including User:AnAccount2 and User:Red Baron) being my sockpuppets. The initial reason for this was my inclusion of the external link to the C++ page (this one, if somebody cares) and the dispute whether it conforms WP:EL or not. After User:Yamla erased it, I never restored it back, but I still think that this link does not contradict WP:EL and certainly I am not a spammer or vandal.

I have no sockpuppets and would gladly be checked by checkusers. I am ready even to give my real name to any checkuser. Furthermory, I would be just thrilled if Xerxesnine stopped his insults against me and other people who support my position. --Urod 18:57, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Quick comment: Checkuser is not going to get involved. According to WP:RFCU, they do not honor requests to "prove your innocence." This is a simple case of dispute resolution, which I leave for someone else to address. YechielMan 20:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

It is hard to resolve the dispute (except by arbitration) when everyone who supports my point of view is declared to be my sockpuppet, and treated with extreme contempt. --Urod 22:47, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

But still thank you for the information. --Urod 22:58, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

It would have been appropriate for Urod to notify me of this entry, as I just happened to stumble across it.

Regarding the external link, Urod closed his AMA request, stating "I am not interested in dealing with this dispute anymore." So clearly this is not about the external link.

The initial complaint was here. This, together with Urod's history with myself, User:Yamla, and User:Requestion provides ample justification for my skepticism. It is of course a matter of opinion about how to characterize Urod's behavior. In my view, "petulant" is being rather generous.

However the real reason I am writing here is to make sure it is understood that User:Rjakew used the wiki-link trick of [[User:Rjakew|Red Baron]] to make it seem as though his name was "Red Baron". Above, Urod has incorrectly referred to User:Red Baron, who has nothing to do with this. On Talk:C++, I rightly pointed out that it was disingenuous for Rjakew to attempt to pass himself off as Red Baron. Xerxesnine 01:07, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

The AMA link request which I closed was about different articles , namely 3 software lists. Since two of them had been deleted, the issue lost it relevance. This happened before I added the external link to the C++ page. So it is rather irrelevant to the C++ external link issue. I don't know why Xerxesnine mentions it here. Finally, Xerxesnine's phrases "petulant complaint", "hassles have been persistent", "persistent and disingenuous arguments", "puerile threats" related partly to me and partly to AnAccount2, not User:Rjakew or User:Red Baron. --Urod 01:33, 25 April 2007 (UTC) (modified --Urod 01:49, 25 April 2007 (UTC))

Xerxesnine wrote "It would have been appropriate for Urod to notify me of this entry..." However, previously he called both me and AnAccount2 (he believes that AnAccount2 is my sockpuppet) "an especially persistent nuisance" on his talk page. Why should I talk to somebody who thinks that I am "an especially persistent nuisance"? Judging from past experience, he would probably call my message "petulant", "hassle" or another similar name. --Urod 02:01, 25 April 2007 (UTC) (typo fixed --Urod 02:02, 25 April 2007 (UTC))

[edit] possible COI/check user incident?

Moved to the conflict of interest noticeboard. MER-C 03:13, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lee Nysted (talk · contribs) and Matt Walker (drummer)

Related report WP:ANI#Lee Nysted returns

I blocked 63.93.197.67 (talk • contribs • logs) for WP:3RR per that report for 24 hours. The person claims to be "Steve" and the IP resolves to a company that Lee Nysted has claimed to work for. After the IP block, another IP 67.186.123.21 (talk · contribs) has shown up also claiming to be "Steve" which would be block evasion to me. The IP resolves to Comcast in Illinois, one of the places Nysted claims residence. I've semi-protected the article for the time being to avoid any more silliness and opened an RfC with the request that completely outside opinions (i.e. nobody that has previously interacted with Nysted or from an IP that is likely to be connected to him), but since I've apparently become involved here and it is being claimed on talk:Matt Walker (drummer) that I have some sort of bias here (and in all fairness I've had some interaction with Nysted in the past as I've mentioned on that talkpage) I'd appreciate it if someone uninvolved would have a look at the IPs and the article protection and determine if the blocks or protection should be adjusted. I will say that the RFC may be a mistake on my part given the sock/meatpuppetry surrounding Mr. Nysted in the past, but hopefully we can get at least a few real legit editors chiming in to establish a consensus here.--Isotope23 20:44, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Further light reading:

• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/The_Lee_Nysted_Experience
• Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive72#The_Lee_Nysted_experience
• Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive77#Lee_Nysted

--Isotope23 20:48, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comment:

Mr. Isotope,

The article in question is not about Nysted. It is about Walker, the drummer. You are confusing the two issues and causing more disruption than is necessary. I stated I am here to contribute to the making of an article about Matt. I am going to add to Matt's discography, pictures, and his history. You left the part I put up about his current tour and took down the discography. The albums that this artist plays on should be in his profile/discography. I have verifiable real life sources that are considered reliable by Wikipedia. Please let me go to work. If anyone comes here that is not part of the Nysted history, that would be fine. Otherwise we are beating an old dead horse and it is a waste of time. This issue could go to Steadman and Brandt to see how they think we could resolve these things. ??? The discussion should be at the Walker page and you should not be "re-trying" Nysted in abstentia. WebmasterSD. (Lake Forest, IL. BTW, The Steve you were talking to is in St. Louis. 67.186.123.21 06:34, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unjust ban for non-violation of WP:3RR

User:Rotten made three reverts on William Connolley[34] and was banned for it[35] by User:Atlant.[36] The other user, User:Stephan Schulz, who made 3 reverts as well was only warned by Atlant.[37]—Preceding unsigned comment added by UBeR (talk • contribs) 22:50, April 24, 2007

Rotten violated 3RR and WP:BLP, which is more important.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 22:59, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Point taken. He was still (falsely) blocked on grounds of 3RR.[38] Maybe Atlant was not aware three reverts is allowed. Who knows. ~ UBeR 23:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Three is just an arbitrary number. Edit warring is still harmful.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 23:30, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

And I agree, but I don't think you should arbitrarily block one instead of the other because you agree with the other edit warrior. ~ UBeR 00:45, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, it's a block, not a ban.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 23:00, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Semantics. ~ UBeR 23:17, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

And self-referential referencing to make a point about the subject of the biography who happens to be a Wikipedia editor that it is known you have issues with.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 23:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Concur with Ryulong, nothing more to see here. – Steel 23:45, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

The WP:3RR explicitly does not apply to editors who are removing unsourced material from biographies of living persons. Any such material may be reverted and removed at any time. Stephan Schulz was doing just that - removing unsourced attacks from the article. FCYTravis 03:16, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ockenbock

I've been continuously harassed, basically every day, by the walled garden of Ockenbock (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) (for more background information see: Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Viva La France). You can see the accumulated nonsense here. Is there anything that can be done at this point? It's getting fairly ridiculous. It's getting fairly ridiculous. It's been pure harassment since late January up until now with almost one sock attack a day. Metros232 00:00, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry that I have nothing more to suggest than the usual steps: checkuser as many of the socks as possible and talk to a checkuser about rangeblocks; raise the possibility of an ISP report if there's an identifiable and consistent ISP behind the socks; and semiprotect your pages if the socks are recently created rather than aged. I'm sorry I can't be more helpful than that because I emphathize with the situation. Regards, Newyorkbrad 01:50, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Indefinite block: Dastard

The user account User:Dastard has been used only to create articles most of which sport the phrase "THis Page is meant to entertain and Humiliate certain People." and all of which do exactly this. I have indefinitely blocked this account. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:56, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Attack/nonsense articles only, warned more than enough. Kuru ^talk 01:17, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Endorse. Routine vandal/nonsense/attack-only block. Newyorkbrad 01:19, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a good use of the block-button Ceyockey. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 03:37, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Masterofsuspense sockpuppet recruitment

I've reported User:MasterofsuspensePT(priston tale) to WP:AIV for this edit to their user page. It indicates a recruitment of people for sockpuppetry. I don't have time to follow up on it now. Perhaps an admin/someone else can see if the users mentioned are blocked. Flyguy649^talk_contribs 02:44, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the alert. The account has been blocked and the pages deleted. As for the people who signed up, it looks like they would have almost all have been username-blocked at inception anyway. Newyorkbrad 02:49, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blocks for meatpuppetry and sockpuppetry

See also: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Cabalism

[edit] Rachel Brown

I vaguely remember hearing that name before. I received a fourteen-page-long e-mail from one BlackTeller regarding alleged sockpuppetry by Rachel Brown, with the request that I post it on this board. Did anyone else receive something similar? Could anyone familiar with RB inform me if such a post would be useful here? >Radiant< 07:33, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

• Did the fourteen page email actually contain any evidence? - Mgm|^(talk) 09:16, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
  • It establishes a pattern of similarity in editing style as well as xFD/RFA !voting habits, as well as a lack of overlap in editing times, of three accounts and one IP. I suppose that counts as tangential evidence. The link towards Rachel is somewhat tenuous. >Radiant< 09:47, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

She hasn't edited in more than a year, unless she is using sockpuppets and just hasn't touched her main account. hbdragon88 23:10, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

This talk discussion yields interesting stuff. Four accounts were blocked after a CheckUser, but they were all later unblocked due to a "lack of evidence." hbdragon88 23:22, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I got an email after putting a not_a_ballot message on Category:Jewish figure skaters saying that there are potential meatpuppets/sockpuppets participating in recent cfds on Jewish topics. It turns out this was true in part.

Supposedly, users have been leaving messages on each other's talk pages (or possibly emailing each other) in order to recruit their vote for those cfds. Specifically, User:Epeefleche was spamming user's talk pages with requests that they save "Jewish athlete categories" nominated for deletion. He did this before with categories such as Category:Jewish fencers. One of the userpages he spammed was User:Londoneye, who according to that link was previously blocked as a sockpuppet of Rachel_Brown, with a suspicious message of "Hello, I know this has interested you in the past" [49]. Though Londoneye didn't vote on the category, he/she did interestingly request for User:Epeefleche's email address [50]. And although Londoneye didn't vote, another suspected sockpuppet of Rachel_Brown DID vote on three recent cfds: User:Newport. ([51], [52], [53])

There are other discussions here: [54].

The type of vote fraud described in the past discussions of Rachel_Brown are very similar to the type of vote recruitment and email messaging that is apparently happening now. I had suspected meatpuppetry involved in some of these cfds even before the email, and I wouldn't go past saying sockpuppetry could be involved too in some way.

If these allegations are true, given that Rachel_Brown was accused of sockpuppetry in the past and accused specifically of vote fraud using these previously-blocked suspected sockpuppets (User:Londoneye, User:Poetlister, User:Taxwoman), it is unlikely she/he would be foolish enough to continue the vote fraud under all of the same usernames.

So it is reasonable to say there might be other usernames. I do recommend this be investigated. Bulldog123 07:49, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I wish this hadn't cropped up again but, if anyone wants to investigate, these may be relevant [55], [56]. I made one of the contributions. Thincat 11:11, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I find it odd that some of those users in the aforementioned discussions (Arniep, Mistress Selina Kyle, Zordrac) who were arguing for the unblocking of the Rachel Brown alleged sockpuppets are themselves now blocked indefinitely. The alleged puppet accounts seem somewhat connected, with suspicious statements placed with a seeming intent to dissuade suspicion (for example, User:Taxwoman's contributions articles (User:Taxwoman/articles) includes a link that writes: "Watford tube station (with photos, but not mine)". A little odd how she stressed the photo is not hers. Most people wouldn't even feel the need to mention it. Of course, when you realize that User:Londoneye is well known to provide pictures of local tube stations like that, it makes sense why she would feel the need to stress it wasn't her picture...definitely peculiar). Feydakin 05:17, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe it matters whether they actually were sockpuppets or just meatpuppets. Vote recruitment using friends is just as bad as sockpuppetry voting. Unless the information Radiant! has shows recent (meaning within this year or ideally this month) examples of such activity using sockpuppets or meatpuppets, there is no use in bringing back a year old discussion. That doesn't solve anything. Can Radiant! share anything that might be of use?

But to be the Devil's advocate, if they were just meatpuppets, they seemed to have timed their contributions to be in sync. This is output from my sorting algorithm, in which I input the contribution summaries of all four of Rachel_Brown's alleged sockpuppets from January 1, 2007 to today: [57]. This, I suppose, does back up what Radiant! mentioned: that there doesn't seem to be any overlap in editing times whatosever. The great similarity in which all their usepages look (or once looked) is something I found very interesting. [58], [59], [60], [61] At some point in time, all the userpages had a photo of "themselves" and a link to either an edit counter showing their edit count or to some page of their contributions (invariably written as "Some articles I've been involved with" or "a link to my contributions" etcetera). To me, this looks a lot like someone was trying too hard to make the userpages look like different people with different personalities (interests) without realizing they were organizing the userpages pretty much identically. My guess: these people actually do exist separately in real life and maybe they are friends, but only one of them actually edits wikipedia, and she/he splits up their interests among the usernames. This alone would be excusable since sockpuppets that are used only to concentrate interests are allowed, but the effort put into making them look like separate people and then using them in that way is inappropriate. Again, unless there's recent evidence of such activity, there is absolutely no point in opening the safe. Bulldog123 08:39, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:DE, WP:CIVIL, WP:HARASS and WP:NPA violations by User:69.141.30.12

[edit] WP:DE and WP:CIVIL

In spite of having been blocked for two weeks for sock puppetry (see Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/BlowingSmoke), User:69.141.30.12, alias BlowingSmoke, Moderation and EtaKooramNahSmech, to list the established sock puppets of User:69.141.30.12, does not seem to have understood the warning message and has reverted to his disruptive and malevolent editing. He has simply shifted his activity from the article on Passive smoking to the article on Smoking bans.

In the Passive smoking article, he made repeated attempts to remove the notion of causation linking passive smoking to diseases, running against the consensus of the long time editors of the article (this is well documented in Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/BlowingSmoke). He is now doing the same thing, attacking this time the Smoking bans article, deleting a relevant reference and altering the text to throw doubt on the notion of causation:

• 20:15, 13 April 2007
• 10:59, 14 April 2007
• 08:58, 17 April 2008
• 22:33, 17 April 2007
• 20:15, 18 April 2007
• 06:15, 19 April 2007
• 15:20, 22 April 2007
• 21:41, 22 April 2007
• 02:53, 23 April 2007
• 17:22, 23 April 2007

His edits were reverted by several editors, including myself.

[edit] WP:HARASS and WP:NPA

User:69.141.30.12 then made an attempt to harass me. He posted a threatening (unsigned) message on my Talk page, accusing me of "repeated violations of the Wikipedia policy" and of having "hatred" for smokers:

• 02:59, 23 April 2007

My personal policy is to ignore such messages, and I simply deleted it from my Talk page. Nevertheless, User:69.141.30.12 came back to my Talk page and undid my deletion of his threatening message:

• 17:22, 23 April 2007

This is a clear violation of WP:HARASS (See User space harassment).

Could you please do something to stop User:69.141.30.12's malevolent activities, as they are highly disruptive, they waste every other editor's time, and they are totally counterproductive. --Dessources 22:52, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

User Dessources has claimed ownership smoking ban article, reverting any changes which disagree with his anti-smoking point of view, which is clearly stated on his talk page. User talk: Dessources Is it not clear if the views are his own, or this of his meatpuppet, Nmg20

• [[62]]

Dessources has disregarded the following policies to retain control of these articles: WP:OWN Article changes by different editors are reverted by the same editor for an extended period of time to protect a certain version, stable or not.

• 18:56, 23 April 2007 (hist) (diff) Smoking ban (Undid revision 125225649 by 69.141.30.12 (talk) Restore to original, consensual version) [[63]]
• 23:20, 22 April 2007 (hist) (diff) Smoking ban (→Rationale - Rv unjustified mass deletion and changes) [[64]]

All diffs below qualify, as well.

WP:CIV:

Judgmental tone in edit summaries :

• 10:06, 23 April 2007 (hist) (diff) Smoking ban (Undid revision 125046223 by 69.141.30.12 (talk) Rv obstinate amd illusory attempts by same person to inject POV) [[65]]

Ill-considered accusations of impropriety of one kind or another (cite as WP:CIV#ICA)

• 10:55, 17 April 2007 (hist) (diff) Smoking ban (Undid revision 123482202 by 69.141.30.12 (talk) Rv - Blowingsmoke is back with his POV edits!) [[66]]

Removal or properly cited passages, in violation of WP:VERIFY "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth"

• 09:07, 19 April 2007 (hist) (diff) Smoking ban (Undid revision 124018690 by 69.141.30.12 (talk) False and anecdotal evidence)
• 10:59, 17 April 2007 (hist) (diff) Smoking ban (Undid revision 123481800 by 69.141.30.12 (talk) Citation is clearly unscientfic and unsufficient - mostly anecdotal)
• 01:15, 11 April 2007 (hist) (diff) Smoking ban (→Effects on businesses - Delete false statement: polls done prior to the ban showed that it enjoyed wide popular support)

He refers to requests that he refrain from violating WP: NPOV as "threats." He reverts good-faith attempts to neutralize the article, characterizing the edit as "vandalism," "malevolent" and "attacks."

• [[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Smoking_ban&diff=prev&oldid=123922408
• [[67]]

Such imflammatory langauge inhibits reasonable discourse, and is a clear violation of WP:CIVIL I have never ciriticized Dessources in any way, other than the quality of his edits.

In contrast, he has accused me of threats, vandalism, sock puppetry (I display my IP address specifically to avoid this tactic), and has reverted every single edit good-faith I have made to the article.

I imagine this type of harrassment allows him to keep control of the articles, which is clearly not acceptable.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.141.30.12 (talk • contribs).

I am not User:Dessources "meat puppet" (whatever that is; I presume he means "sock puppet"); we have in the past had arguments about aspects of the passive smoking page [68], and the edit history for that article reveals that we spent some time undoing one another's edits.

Unlike in the current situation, however, we reached an accord - User:69.141.30.12 refuses to do so despite a complete lack of support for his views. He also continues to ignore Wikipedia policy as Dessources has already outlined, and frankly it annoys me that I spend more time reverting his edits than I do working on new articles.

Regarding his tone, he has posted in the past using "we" instead of "I" [69] in an attempt to give his views more credibility, has deliberately ignored my repeated links to the Wikipedia policies he was breaching in the same section of that talk page, he continues to accuse me of "sanitising" articles to my own ends ("You state as the only grounds for its exclusion that there are no similar references used in the article, which is no surprise, as you insist on removing them"), refuses to sign talk posts ("Stop demanding that we sign our posts. We choose not to."), and has resorted to some pretty schoolyard comments ("I commend your decision to end an argument that you have lost."), albeit one that I admit I reacted badly to.

Really that thread is all you need to look at for evidence of the problem here - three separate users have explicitly disagreed with his views, and not one agrees with him, yet he continues to change the article and attempt to provoke a reaction on the talk page. I support what Dessources has said above. Nmg20 19:26, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

By way of follow-up, the Smoking ban article has been edited 40-odd times since yesterday (23rd April) morning, with the upshot of those edits currently standing at a change of 34 states to 35, and the addition of a link which has been disputed for weeks. The rest are almost all reverts of the same stuff User:69.141.30.12 has been championing on his own.

User:69.141.30.12's edits have been reverted by User:Dessources, User:Sigma 7 (who has an extensive edit history outside the page), and would have been reverted by me had others not got there first. In addition, User:John Quiggin has expressed his support for my objections on the use of ACSH as a source [70].

It would be great if we could get on with doing something constructive here rather than constantly having to revert destructive edits from one individual. Nmg20 19:52, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

You can find the definition of a meatpuppet at WP:MEAT

I have not accused you of santitizing any article. I submit that you and your counterpart, Dessources, conspire to bias certain articles toward an anti-smoking POV.

You have admitting reverting all my edits, without consideration or discussion. You and your counterpart have also revert every edit by every user who posts anything to support the other side of the debate.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.141.30.12 (talk • contribs).

As further evidence of User:69.141.30.12 harassment practices against me, he has made an attempt to add my account to the list of suspected sock puppets, without any justification. See [71]. His attempt was immediately turned down by User:Jaynestown and then was confirmed by User:Rklawton.

--Dessources 09:11, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A filthy propagandist vs. WP:NOT

I've just blocked this propagandist who has been spreading hate speech at Talk:Islamofascism in the form of forum discussions in opposition to WP:NOT. I had alarmed them before but i received a filthy message instead on my talk page before blocking the account. Can someone please review that if possible? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up ®} 09:12, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

• I'm not an admin, but I think you might have overreacted a wee bit. However, I found the claim that Islam was the only religion to have killed people very amusing. JuJube 09:20, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

• According to them, i am a plain killer. Does that mean that i like listening to Killing Time (Massacre album)?-- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up ®} 09:26, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

We block people for that sort of nonsense all the time. Calling a huge ethnic group a bunch of killers and fascists is well over the line. Can say I approve of the label "filthy propagandist", it is best not to insult even the people we block. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 18:40, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Muslims are not an "ethnic group", but a "religious group". Muslims can be found in all ethnicities. Corvus cornix 20:55, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

• I just wanted to comment that, whatever the editor you have commented on has done, FayssalF, I would like to think that no one deserves to be referred to as a "filthy propagandist" and, frankly, am shocked by such word usage. Regards, Iamunknown 18:42, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry about that. I know it was a moment when i was feeling really bad. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 18:49, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I won't hold it against you. I understand that things get heated. I felt like expressing my opinion nonetheless. Maybe I shouldn't have addressed it to you, but instead I should have posed my opinion in general. My apologies for putting you in what I would consider an uncomfortable situation. --Iamunknown 23:42, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh no. I appreciate your comments of course. My motto is "Just Wiki me up ® and correct me if I am wrong." -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 11:05, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Abuse on user page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Splash15hotel

Someone has been posting abusive comments on my talk- can something be done?

• It seems to have been 86.12.228.155 (talk · contribs) doing the harassing... I have blocked the IP for making personal attacks. --W.marsh 15:14, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Oh yeah you can remove that harassing comment from your user talk page if you want. --W.marsh 15:20, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Further (very) abusive attacks were directed at me today, but reverted by someone else. They are viewable thru the last edit made by this IP on my talk. If he has been banned how is he still doing it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Splash15hotel (talk • contribs)
      • The person did it after the 24h block expired. A new block is in place now. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 16:59, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disruption by Elkman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) at RFA

Could I get a ruling as to whether this edit to an RFA was disruption?

Assuming the edit was disruption, how long would the block be? And what do I need to do to make sure I don't get my ISP's /16 or my company's /19 address blocked?

No cups of tea will be necessary in this discussion, though another beverage would be appropriate. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 17:36, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure why that would considered disruption or something for which a block (which would be preventative, not punitive) would be imposed. He or she is certainly expressing his or her opinion strongly but it seems to be relatively polite given the editor's strong emotions and viewpoint. RfAs are meant to be discussions and those comments seem to be discussion to me. -ElKevbo 18:34, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Not disruption, just a bit irrelevant. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 18:36, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Not even irrelevant... Questioning someone else's opposition spree at RfA is hardly irrelevant, and it's certainly not "disruptive". Confrontational, yes, but sometimes it's almost unaviodable when someone has to take the fall and say what needs to be said. Grandmasterka 23:14, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I've never seen anyone report themselves to AN/I before. Acalamari 23:43, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Not disruptive and not remotely blockable. Sorry to disappoint. ;) Sarah 11:21, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hundreds of copyvios - need help cleaning up

Someone has added hundreds of links to copies of Stargate SG-1 screenplays hosted at media.dave.tv (see [72]). This is plainly a copyvio; unfortunately there are over 250 of the things now linked from Wikipedia. Would it be possible for someone to knock up a script to edit them out en masse? -- ChrisO 18:19, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

try wikiproject spam, they specialize in this sort of thing. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:26, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

technically its not a copyvio, wikipedia isnt hosting the information. Do agree it should go, though. -M^ask? 01:10, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Apparently linking to copyvios is out (WP:EL; a guideline but presumably reflecting a policy on that point?) Notinasnaid 16:28, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Official policy is WP:COPYRIGHT#Linking to copyrighted works. Phony Saint 16:30, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hidden notes interlaced into article edit page on Pimp My Ride; possible threats??

Interlaced into the article Pimp My Ride, I noticed that their are "notes." I copied them here for highlight:

On the first line to US Version =

• <!---- Please do not link one of the cars that are not shown in this article ---->

Right after Season 4 line =

• <!--- Do not link vehicles that has no articles, such as the Chevrolet Panel Van. Any ridiculous edits such as linking fictioal vehicles will result a 2 week block. --->

Embedded into Season 6 =

• <!---- Do not link the vehicle names without first putting the car owner's name and the vehicle's year. Also, do not link vehicles that has no articles. Any unsourced edits such as adding ridiculous episodes that was not aired will cause either anonymous or newly registered users will result a 4 month block. ---->

Are these acceptable in the article? The first one is confusing, the second one and third one have threats of blocking by someone who is not an administrator and seems to be extremely protective of the article given their edit history. I didn't notice them before I made a few edits and when I went back to do somemore cleanup, I then noticed the "notes." --293.xx.xxx.xx 00:25, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Definitely not, especially the "block" section. The editor who placed these notices has no authority to block anyone for doing these things, unless they did it repeatedly, and the editor was an admin. Feel free to remove them, as their only purpose will be to frighten off users. --Kzrulzuall ^{Talk• Contribs} 00:36, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

And what of the user himself? All he's gonna do is revert my edits and it might turn into an ugly 3RR debacle.--293.xx.xxx.xx 00:43, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Discouraging editing and mandating "rules" like that is not in the spirit of WP. I'm going to remove them - Alison ☺ 00:45, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Already done by user: Kzrulzuall - Alison ☺ 00:46, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I can think of circumstances where hidden comments, if they are conservative in quantity and in tone, are appropriate (see Jesus). I am unsure why they are justified here. --Iamunknown 00:47, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

It was in fact Professional Gamer who added the threats (at least one) see this April 21 edit. WP:OWN-violating HTML comments in that article though go back for months. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 00:51, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with HTML comments per se. These are clearly unacceptable of course because of the baseless threats of blocking. --kingboyk 00:55, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I think they become a problem when they become a replacement for message on the talk-page... as I've seen often happen. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 03:23, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

It really depends on how often the same thing happens. A great example is December 25 - practically every anon who stumbles on that page sees the list of births and thinks it's either correct or funny to add Jesus. So at some point someone added an invisible note asking people not to add Jesus. I have no idea if the anons actually follow the note, but it does inform a serious editor who stumbles on that edit that it's okay to revert and warn. But I agree that the threat of immediate blocking is excessively harsh. Natalie 04:01, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

There is also the fact that comments on the talk page can get archived and thus a consensus may not be easily seen. Also I'm currently using them to try and get the attention of an anon. They edit from a different IP every day and do quite a bit of good work but also add a lot of redlinked categories and put redirects into categories which have to be cleaned up. Because they use different IPs they may never see the message and may not see the edit summary. So a message in the article may get their attention. Most of the date articles have hidden notes asking editors not to add redlinked names to births and death, not just Jesus. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 08:08, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Well I'd say that hidden messages may be used, if there is a extremely good reason (persistent additions, disputes etc.), and if they do not contain any threats or negative comments. A talk message referring to the discussion of controversial changes should be allowed, as opposed to threatening to block someone over it. --Kzrulzuall ^{Talk• Contribs} 08:14, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Nitraven copyright issue

Nitraven (talk · contribs) has been warned multiple times in the past regarding copyright issues, must recently on the 18th of April. Yesterday, Nitraven created two more blatant copy-and-paste articles. I initially posted a notice about this user at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive83#Help_tracking_down_copyright_violations and thought I had handled the situation after going through all of the users previous page creations, removing the copyright violations or requesting speedy deletes for articles that were entirely copyright violations. I thought that would be the end of it after very specific warnings were given, but yesterday, the articles Sri Lanka Artillery and Sri Lanka Armoured Corps were created, lifted almost directly from [73] and [74]. Sancho 06:02, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Blocked for a week. Copyright violations should be taken as a very serious offense, and I will not be hesitant on applying an indefinite block if this behavior will continue. Michaelas¹⁰ 08:39, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you.Sancho 14:31, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Apparently blocked user still able to edit

Not sure how or why, but Dhimwit (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) appears to be able to edit while supposedly blocked. Andy Mabbett 09:18, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

A blocked user can still edit their own talk page. (for requesting an unblock)

It looks like a protected template was added to the page, but the page was never actually protected. --OnoremDil 09:25, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it was the latter I was thinking of. Is the most recent edit acceptable (removal of warnings/ block notices and replacement by allegations of harrasment)? Should the protection of that page me made real? Andy Mabbett 09:42, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

The page was protected, the protection has expired. No comment on whether an editor is allowed to remove warnings. – Riana ^ऋ 09:46, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User 212.88.34.124

This user has been given a last warning by Riana on the 23 April but is still vandalising. See edit to Oscar Wilde today. Natalie West 12:05, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Report to WP:AIV please :) – Riana ^ऋ 12:58, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism - antisemitism

My userpage was vandalised - see [75]. Lpwq-55 (talk · contribs) put there picture with incription, that mean "Jew is our enemy". --Daniel Baránek 13:18, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Quite a severe translation, I've warned for userpage vandalism, which I feel is quite sufficient as it is only the users first edit. Ryan Postlethwaite 13:25, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of blocked users' Talk postings

In general, is it permissible to remove postings by blocked users, including sockpuppets, from article Talk pages solely because they were posted by those users prior to being blocked? --ElKevbo 13:38, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Generally, no. If the user is banned instead of merely blocked, there may be justification for removing posts. Though there is no clear consensus on the issue, if the talk posts are personal attacks they can probably be safely removed. Finally, some talk page posts are pure vandalism, disruption, or trolling, and can be removed or reverted. · j e r s y k o talk · 14:09, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Nope. Only edits made between being blocked and unblocked can be removed. See also Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Evasion of blocks. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 14:20, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible sock/meat activity on wrestling-related articles

I was going through the new account log in search of positive contributors to greet, and I noticed what seems to be a series of throwaway accounts created for the purpose of removing information from wrestling-related articles. These accounts (all created within a few minutes of each other) make one edit, which involves the removal of a few lines' worth of information. None of them seem that odd by themselves, but taken together, I think they might be working as part of some kind of organized campaign.

The ones I've spotted so far:

• Slovenian WPE (talk · contribs)
• LWOfan6 (talk · contribs)
• Mikeyoha (talk · contribs)
• ACroven (talk · contribs)
• Pimpleless buzzard (talk · contribs)
• RCreilly (talk · contribs)
• LTaylorWM (talk · contribs)
• Reg swiinger (talk · contribs)
• Kruel Stripper (talk · contribs)
• EZmoneytites (talk · contribs)
• Hipflowter (talk · contribs)
• Laughingcras (talk · contribs)
• Kerach the Monster (talk · contribs)
• Hot Dogg Bunn (talk · contribs)
• Hardyboy44 (talk · contribs)
• Abss01 (talk · contribs)

There are probably more; those are just the ones I spotted in a coarse inital sweep.

Anyone have any idea what's going on here? -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 14:47, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

• I should note that I don't see anything obviously wrong with the edits themselves, but the manner in which they're being made just seems odd. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 14:49, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Long term abuse/JB196 is rather relevant here. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 14:50, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

• I don't have The Tools; how should this be dealt with? -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 14:55, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Let me get the admin who's been handling this. Probably time to go to CheckUser (again) SirFozzie 15:07, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Done, in the mean time, time to be the R part of WP:RBI. SirFozzie 15:12, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 15:13, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) No problem, it's become depressingly normal to clean up after JB. SirFozzie 15:22, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

• No need for a checkuser... these are pretty obvious JB196 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log · rfcu) puppets. I've blocked them though I don't have time to revert all of the articles per WP:DENY at the moment.--Isotope23 15:29, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

• I don't know that I caught them all, though, and a CU might help turn up any that I missed. Still, it's your call. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 15:33, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

• The only reason I was asking for a checkuser, is, I'm pretty sure JB's IP is currently rangeblocked, and was hoping to catch the open proxy he's been using. I took care of the Deny part for you. Thanks SirFozzie

Ah in that case, an IP check might be helpful to turn up any sleepers and OP's--Isotope23 15:49, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

He's started up again. Just noticed the following:

• Rthope (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log)

-Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 17:58, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Took care of it.. if you see any more that you're fairly sure are JBSocks, go ahead and revert them, and add it to the WP:RFCU I've started. (in the IP Check section). Will still need an admin to block the socks as they pop up, but hopefully, we can get a CU to shut down the proxies he's using. SirFozzie 18:02, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sockpuppet, vandalism and 3RR violations for User:Hughey, also IP User:164.156.231.55

On the Al Franken page we have one editor and an IP (they edit the same articles) who continue to put in unsourced POV statements into the article, with a citation that doesn't support those statements. The User has been warned, and it's now just vandalism. Can you please put a block in? They have already violated the 3RR rule to put these statements in, and been warned several times. He removes warnings from his Talk page. It is User:Hughey. --David Shankbone 15:45, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

The Sockpuppetry was inadvertent. Anyone can see that I simply did not sign in and that the result was to show my IP address instead of my username. Had I signed on with another username that would be a different thing. This is an ongoing situation between myself and two other editors. I have not vandalized that article, I am only reverting back to an original article that I did not even write. The article seemed to have been properly cited and was not NPOV. I have left properly worded on warnings on my Talk page. Hughey 16:00, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

New user, had not been warned for 3RR before. Further reverts will result in a block, but we'll call this resolved for now. — coelacan — 16:39, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Soapboxing, possible disruption, possible deletion required

I've been helping out a user who asked for assistance at the Village Pump on DeVry University. I've done my best for the article but I am more of a fixer than an adder to articles. Nevertheless, User:Codeplowed appears to have unusual activity. I've done my best to assume good faith here, but he has been doing things that seem to be quite strange. His first edit was to introduce criticism to the article, and he appears to be a single-purpose account only editing that article. He appears to want a large amount of criticism in the article ([76]). Not to mention harassment ([77], [78], etc.).

When I gave him a rough equivalent of {{uw-npa2}} with a little good faith as a warning for it (those and calling people "WikiImpostor"), but I was met with "stupidity out of my talk page". When I tried to give him a little bit of guidance on {{Talkheader}}'s usage, I was met with a revert calling me a Digimon (Digimon, I've been editing these over the past few years but I still know very little about it). Then when I told him not to call me names and notified him of some of my changes he might have missed, I got a riddle: "Just looking into verifiable facts: Digimon is all that is fantasy: it is not a person, it the creation of fantasy this entry is about actual families and their children and their future: Facts" - I only ended up deducing I was a fantasy of some sort. In all these conversations, he removed my comments from the talk page.

Then I think there are bad faith assumptions ("reverting: Check for official information, as interpreted otherwise, Harrasment was done by what it seems now many users/employeers of DeVry do not put yoursel at stake by vandals") and a reluctance to remove {{advertising}} from the article's header (the lack of links on the page makes it sound weird)... Could I get some feedback on how to approach him? x42bn6 Talk 23:47, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

• I have to say, calling someone a "Digimon" is a new one on me. I think next time I get in an argument with someone I'll call them a Duel Monster. ^_^ JuJube 00:50, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Could I get some assistance? Talk:DeVry University and its history (see User:Codeplowed's contributions. He is soapboxing the talk page putting views forward like:

BE BOLD and edit your own behavior, become neutral and better yet objective, weight the evidence do not fabricated the entry for your interests and selfish gains, like keeping your job or feeding your children without concern of all the harm that your actions and decisions are making in the life of our nation, many people that are our real ans infiltrated enemies[yours and mine and of your children] are helping you because they believe that our system does not work, in this regard they seem to be aiding you and working for/with you but only because their real aim and wants is to destroy our way of living and our reasons and values, our Freedoms and our future minds. By giving false promises, making money out of mediocre and obsolete ans inapplicable knowledge you are hurting our country and it is not the way for our future.

Does this violate WP:CIVIL?

The battleground is the REAL-life of thousands of people that have been victimized by DeVry and are or have been Victims of DeVry and you are part of it by interpreting facts as protecting this malady entitled DeVry Inc. It like protecting Hitler or working for an Institution that enslave people in the sense that you are doing wrong by receiving payments for a system that is causing harm and committing atrocities. What is worst is that you seem not to have the guts to recognize it. Intelligence is the ability to solve problems, to adapt to new situations, DeVry Inc. has taught you to use treachery instead, it seems, nothing to do with manners of well-intentioned individuals, you have exhibited your behavior in here and is documented, yes you can archive it but you can not erased, there are many backups of it, however you can still quit.

And this?

I think he is one of the people who has an agenda against this University. It doesn't fall under WP:COI but I feel this makes him one of the editors that should not be editing the article so aggressively. Help? Thanks. x42bn6 Talk 18:14, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I've added the article to my watchlist and I'll participate after I have looked around a while and learned the background, players, etc. It certainly appears to be a messy talk page and the article could certainly use some help but it's not too bad. Codeplowed's extremely long and dense comments on the Talk page are difficult to read and appear to wander off-topic quite a bit but I'm not sure that's a capital offense. --ElKevbo 18:37, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Codeplowed has also been switching between using his logged-in account and his IP, 24.90.244.160. The only abuse in the past was writing Talk pages in the third person, but I'd consider the recent post on User talk:Mysteryquest sockpuppeting. Vagary 18:56, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

There now appears to be a non-anonymous puppet: User:DiogenesRex Vagary 19:07, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Earlier he (well, I'm assuming it's the same person) posted to the conflict of interest noticeboard at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard -- kind of like the equivalent of a change of venue? Should we post links there to the discussions on this board to fill in anyone reading the post on the other board? OtterZero 20:17, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

• Related Incident report below: #Disruptive? Perhaps they should be combined into one report? --Parzival418 19:23, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User will not stop "fixing" other users' talk page posts

Bart Versieck (talk · contribs) has been warned many, many times, and blocked once already (and very recently) for this, but simply will not stop. Just a day or so after the block expired, he was right back at it, despite repeated promises to stop (or to "try to" stop, whatever that means). I suggest that a considerably more extended block may be in order. User claims it's an obsessive-compulsive disorder problem, but this not plausible as user has been on WP since 2005 but only started doing this last month. User has a very curious history of making good edits and almost as many disruptive ones; his talk page is piled to the metaphorical ceiling with complaints and warnings about almost every conceivable editing transgression, and his responses are uniformly either hostile or mock-obsequious, yet he's also got a number of kudos messages posted to him, and before I was aware of his disruption problems, I'd considered giving him a minor barnstar for some good editing work! See User talk:Bart Versieck#Perpetual problem with editing others posts after many warnings and promises to not do so for consolidated a meta-thread about this editing problem (or this history page if that consolidation has been reverted by the time this is addressed. I thought about filing this at WP:AIV, but this seems more a WP:DE than WP:VANDAL issue, per se. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:57, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

First of all, please correct your post on his talk page from 1995 to 2005 or whenever he started (ahh, I'm getting OCD! :)) Anyway, although psychological issues are not a laughing matter when they are true and Wikipedia may be tolerant, however, Wikipedia cannot indefinitely accommodate such edits. —²¹⁰physicq (c) 04:00, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Did I really say 1995? "Le-e-et's do the Time Warp aga-a-ain!" Sheesh. I must've been tired, or listening to an old album or something. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:27, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't get this. If people need to correct things, we have endless things to correct. Remember, anyone can edit, which means an endless supply of typos/whatsits/etc. We have pages devoted to lists of recurring nightmares. Trust me, there are dozens of 'desribed/desribes', 'unecessary', 'equivilent', and the like. If that's too easy, look at every 'Alpert' trying to find the ones that should be 'Albert' (they are out there!). And after reading project talk pages, it is marvelously calming to correct the few 'worshiped' or the one 'stronlgy', and then go to bed. (Ahhh! I have OCD!) Shenme 06:24, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we can stand you lose such an editor (with all the corrections and whatnot). Perhaps some very stern warnings and short blocks when he just can't resist fixing other people's comments would work. A bigger problem, is the misuse of minor edit marking. John Reaves (talk) 07:21, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Surely you mean "I don't think we can stand "TO" lose such an editor.....maybe he'll fix it ;) ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 16:15, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I think some talk page comment editing is helpful (such as if a message is too incoherent to read) but it looks as if he is taking this way too far. I'd agree with short blocks if this continues. I'd also suggest he put a self-imposed ban on himself from viewing article talk pages if it is getting him to the point of being blocked. VegaDark 07:39, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Agree, a ban is absolutely rediculous. Short blocks as needed. Besides, he makes people sound better on talkpages. Buy him a beer as a thank you, dont flip out at him. -M^ask? 16:10, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Certainly no ban; I would never propose that. Why I bring the issue up here is that he's already received a month's worth of "stern warnings" and received at least one "short block". They aren't working. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:27, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

It's pretty nice that a user is willing to spend time fixing other people's errors, but I agree it gets annoying after a while. He doesn't make major changes anyways, just minor wordings such as "and" -> "plus", so I don't think it's such a big deal? (AQu01rius • Talk) 22:59, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

See the multiparty discussion on this talk page that I linked to in the first post on this topic. A superfluity of "drive-by edited" users do think it is a big deal, and this behavior is specifically warned against at WP:EQ and even the subject of its own user warning template. While it isn't the same thing as blanking page or inserting defamatory comments in bios of living people, it is still disruptive and needs to be addressed. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:27, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I've been a big part of the discussions with Bart on this subject (see the summary discussion created on his talk page by SMcCandlish), and have found myself having the same dilemma people are discussing here. I certainly don't think he should be banned, as he does a lot of useful things here, but at the same time I think his actions on talk pages are very disruptive. I'm hoping the short blocks have made an impression -- he doesn't seem to have done it nearly as much in the last week or so. For those who don't think it's a big deal, I agree that it's not a big deal, but it's still a bad thing -- as the discussion on Bart's talk page shows, it's very easy to change the meaning of a comment unintentionally, and it makes many editors uncomfortable that others are seeing something other than exactly what they wrote. Pinball22 20:44, 25 April 2007 (UTC)