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DanaUllman

• Courtesy link to recent discussion: Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive554#User:DanaUllman

DanaUllman (talk · contribs) is behaving exactly as he did before the arbcom ban. (Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Homeopathy)

I think that one set of edits will suffice: it demonstrates his WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT behaviour very well, where he'll accept something one moment, then bring it up as if evidence hadn't been provided to refute it shortly thereafter.

On the 30th, another user - not Mr. Ullman - asked about whether a study was withdrawn. The withdrawal had been linked a couple times in the thread, but you had to scroll down a bit, so I thought it worth pointing out the relevant sections:

From http://mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD001957/pdf_fs.html

“

Homoeopathic Oscillococcinum for preventing and treating influenza and influenza-like syndromes Andrew Vickers1, Claire Smith2 1Integrative Medicine Service, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, USA. 2Weston Education Centre, King’s College, London, UK Contact address: Andrew Vickers, Integrative Medicine Service, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, 1275 York Avenue, New York, NY, 10021, USA. vickersa@mskcc.org. (Editorial group: Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infections Group.) Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Issue 3, 2009 (Status in this issue: Withdrawn) Copyright © 2009 The Cochrane Collaboration. Published by JohnWiley & Sons, Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD001957.pub4 This version first published online: 8 July 2009 in Issue 3, 2009. Last assessed as up-to-date: 19 May 2006. (Help document - Dates and Statuses explained) This record should be cited as: Vickers A, Smith C. Homoeopathic Oscillococcinum for preventing and treating influenza and influenza-like syndromes. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2009, Issue 3. Art. No.: CD001957. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD001957.pub4. The editorial group responsible for this previously published document have withdrawn it from publication. REASON FOR WITHDRAWAL This review was withdrawn from The Cochrane Library, Issue 3, 2009 as the authors are currently unable to update it.

”

It's withdrawn. It says as much, three times. Sure, it's a little odd of a reason for withdrawing it, but it still makes it pretty impossible to include it here, when other, non-withdrawn papers exist. That people agreed with its inclusion before it was withdrawn three weeks ago is irrelevant now. Shoemaker's Holiday 19:41, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

While it was withdrawn, it has not been disproven, nor was it withdrawn because of an inability to reproduce the results, nor because another paper debunked it. It was withdrawn because it couldn't be modified as time went on. I see no reason why this is not still a perfectly legitimate study, aside from the fact that it doesn't go against homeopathy and any excuse is an excuse to exclude it. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ _¢ 18:01, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

On the 31st, DanaUllman responds to this, and a few intermittent comments:

We all seem to be a tad confused on the meaning of this "withdrawal," though the review is still listed at their website Ultimately, the homeopathy article states that there are no replications to homeopathic research, and this is now clearly inaccurate. We can cite the Cochrane Report from 2006 or 2009 or reference the Lancet's News and Notes that mentioned that the results of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology were clinically relevant. Whig suggested a good compromise on wording, and although I'd prefer saying something else, I can live with his suggestion. DanaUllman 00:48, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

And then today he posts:

In due respect, the Oscillo research is still very much alive on the Cochrane site: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/homepages/106568753/CD001957_standard.pdf -- It seems to be the same body of information as in the 2006 article. I cannot find evidence at their website that it has been withdrawn. Can someone else? Further, if, by chance, someone finds such a reference, we need to understand what "withdrawn" means because there has not been any new research to disprove what their previous analysis provided. Unless someone provides this information, reversion to the original reference and description is in order. DanaUllman 17:47, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

The withdrawal - with the link to the Cochrane website - was posted, he responded to this posting, and then - in the same thread where the withdrawal is posted, he claims no evidence of the withdrawal exists.

DanaUllman was banned for a year for his tendentious editing and WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT. Further examples, perhaps requiring more quoting, can be found on Talk:Homeopathy, of him refusing to get a point, or trying to twist words into a concession that he can do whatever he wants.

Furthermore, this is exactly the same as behaviour that came up in the arbitration case, only worse: Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Homeopathy/Evidence#1c:_Part_i is a discussion of Ullman insisting that the findings of a study weren't retracted, even though the authors wrote of said study in 1999:

"The evidence of bias weakens the findings of our original meta-analysis . Since we completed our literature search in 1995, a considerable number of new homeopathy trials have been published. The fact that a number of the new high-quality trials (e.g. ) have negative results, and a recent update of our review for the most “original” subtype of homeopathy (classical or individualized homeopathy ), seem to confirm the finding that more rigorous trials have less-promising results. It seems, therefore, likely that our meta-analysis at least overestimated the effects of homeopathic treatments."

Ullman claimed this wasn't a retraction as that word didn't appear. In this new situation, Ullman is claiming that the statement on the Cochrane site saying the paper is withdrawn three times doesn't mean that it's withdrawn by the Cochrane Collaboration.

Furthermore, in the middle of the Arbitration case, Ullman was topicbanned by Vassyana for insisting that Scientizzle agreed with him, despite Scientizzle telling Ullman he did not: .

Dana Ullman caused massive disruption for months with his tendentious editing last time. He has promptly returned to his past behaviour.

I would ask that he be community indef banned. Shoemaker's Holiday 19:28, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

• I'm not an admin, but I've checked his contribtutions and I endorse an indef community ban. Behavior like this is totally unacceptable. --Tenant23 (talk) 19:40, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

• Endorse indef ban as one of the editors that has to untangle all the misrepresentations of sources, and who helped in getting the first ban. At least topic ban him from anything homepathy-related, because of his huge COI as a full-time homeopath who writes books and articles saying that homeopathy is scientifically proven. Notice that all Homeopathy-related articles are under probation, so please some uninvolved admin review Talk:Homeopathy and issue a topic ban so at least we can work in peace. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:28, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

• Temporary action and note. Under the discretionary sanctions authorized by ArbCom, I am imposing a two-week ban from the homeopathy topic area across all namespaces, broadly construed, including userspace and user talk pages. This should not be construed to prohibit Dana Ullman from responding to conduct reports and complaints regarding him. Additionally, I have advised Shoemaker's Holiday about short-term repeated complaints about the same issue (the last ANI closed barely a week ago) and about his failure to inform Dana Ullman of either thread. The apparent battlefield mentality on both sides is highly disruptive to the project. The topic ban is meant to be a temporary measure, thus its short duration. If Dana Ullman cannot accept the problematic nature of his approach and/or is unwilling to focus on other areas where he does not get carried away, I regretfully endorse a community ban. I would consider this his last chance to reconsider and reflect on his conduct. I do not expect endless last chances to be extended, as we have seen so many other times (including for this editor). If necessary, I will utilize the discretionary sanctions to impose the maximum one year block in order to prevent further disruption to the wiki. --Vassyana (talk) 03:24, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

• As far as my current understanding goes, this is a substantially different situation from the previous one involving the word "retraction". Take the following with a grain of salt because I am simply repeating what came out in the discussion on the homeopathy talk page and have not tried to confirm it independently (I'm a bit handicapped by traveling): The old case was about the authors of a study later saying that the study was probably wrong. Whether they used the word "retract" or not, that's clearly a valid reason not to use the study. The present case is about a study that appeared in the "Cochrane library". Apparently this is a repository for up-to-date, high-quality medical studies. If the authors are unable to publish a new version of their study every X years, then it is removed from the library. This is what happened here. The authors "withdrew" the study because they cannot keep up with the literature. This is something that would not have happened if the study had simply been published in a prestigious journal of the normal kind. Note the wording "Status in this issue: Withdrawn" etc.

The lead of Homeopathy currently claims that (not: almost all of) the few positive findings of effects beyond placebo have not been replicated. If I understand things correctly that's not technically true because the study from 2006 that was removed from the Cochrane libraryin 2009 for a purely technical reason indicates that one of the positive findings is replicable. In my opinion the relevant language in the lead is still OK. That's because I am generally fine with little white lies in the lead, so long as they are explained further down. But here Dana's opponents insist on both leaving the lead as it is and not even mentioning the caveat in the body. That's at least borderline disingenuous, and it seems odd to take Dana's ineffective attempts to get the situation changed as a reason for a ban.

If you want to ban Dana because he is an undiplomatic, ineffective advocate of homeopathy who, instead of causing the changes to the article that he desires, merely brings out the worst in his opponents, then by all means do so. But don't pretend it's for a different reason that makes no sense. Hans Adler 05:19, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

• (ec)To be explicit, my imposition of the ban is simply based on recurring patterns. It is not based on any particular argument about content violations or related concerns. The plain fact of the matter is that DanaUllman's current mode of interaction, including misrepresentation and statements ignoring ignoring valid discussion points (popularly referred to as "IDIDNTHEARTHAT"), is the same scheme of conduct that lead to previous sanctions. I am saddened that he is returning to these old patterns, as his expertise and topic knowledge could be valuable. However, in order for that value to be realized, he needs to accept the impact of his conduct and make a serious course correction. --Vassyana (talk) 05:45, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

• Maybe Vassyana could be more specific. Please tell us what we should avoid in the discussion - exactly. Which behavior is disruptive so we can avoid it. Give us 2 diffs. There is a content dispute in Homeopathy -Thanks.--JeanandJane (talk) 05:49, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

• This appears to be straightforward advocacy which is discouraged by our basic conflict of interest and discussion rules. The following sections are similarly informative, with DanaUllman being obtuse (requiring another editor to puzzle out what exactly he was referring to) and appearing to represent his concerns misleadingly as a new point (the Cochrane Collaboration material has been discussed ad naseum and indeed prior to his ban DanaUlmman was involved in those discussions including about the very points he recently raised again). I know from observation that he is capable is expressing his points directly in a forthright fashion without such vague references and maquillage. Another sign that time has not changed the situation is his continual misuse of the phrase "NPOV" (such as referring to "NPOV sources"). If my point is unclear, there is no such thing as a "NPOV source". NPOV is an article measure based on the predominance of information in reliable sources, not some subjective/personal measure of objectivity or neutrality. With DanaUllman returning after such a harsh arbitration sanction, I would expect that he would take special care to familiarize himself with the expectations of our principles and practices, and especially to avoid the same patterns of conduct that lead to a ban from Misplaced Pages. Instead, he immediately soapboxed and engaged in tendentious debate. I hope this helps clarify why I have imposed the temporary topic ban while the community discusses how to move forward. --Vassyana (talk) 11:58, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
• Replying a bit more directly to the subject of your concern, it is not that difficult to avoid problematic behavior. Do not engage in general (forum-like) discussion and advocacy on Misplaced Pages. Do not misrepresent the content of reliable sources or the statements of other editors. Do not beat dead horses or mislead editors regarding the nature of discussions (such as whether they are novel or revisited). Be forthright in discussions and do not belabor discussion with vague points coupled with strong assertions of specific evidence. Follow these simple points and you will avoid the pitfalls that DanaUllman has experienced at this project. --Vassyana (talk) 11:58, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Vassyana: 1. The diff you gave shows that Dana referred to his point of view on BBC Horizon but very soon he moved to another subject and did not edit the article. Nothing else.I saw nothing else which could be problematic. Instead Ullman offered many reliable sources to discuss. 2. Lets give to Ullman some tiny credit.]

"The Cochrane Collaboration material has been discussed ad naseum" is incorrect. Just few days ago or so when Dana Ullman he was proposing to add a comment from the Lancet supporting the efficasy of OSCILL., the editors -they want him now banned, they were saying that the Cochrane review on OSC was a better source . Few hours later they discovered that it was withdrawn. That created confusion since it is still appearing in the Cochrane Library website.

You imposed the ban when we were discussing another issue : whether or not several papers and info from exceptional reliable sources (which express different views on the Homeopathy effectiveness and meta analyses) should be included in the article as you already have seen in the talk page.

Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. It does not say to exclude the minority view especially in an article on the specific minority view (which according to the policy must be described in detail).4 editors dispute the neutrality of the article and you chose to ban Ullman ban upon request. The editors asked they same question : Is appropriate to exclude minority views on Homeopathy since they are published in many decent RS? Some editors say yes. You agree with this ? Is it appropriate to take a side in a content dispute and ban an editor? --JeanandJane (talk) 15:08, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I think we will have the agree to disagree on the impact and nature of DanaUllman's talk page contributions, as we obviously have very distinct perceptions of the circumstances. Moving on, if you review the history of talk page discussions in the homeopathy topic area, you will find that the Cochrane Collaboration material (including the findings in particular that DanaUllman is asserting) has been discussed on many occasions. Part of my concern is this is the same material DanaUllman was discussing (in the same tone and fashion) in the weeks leading up to the arbitration case where a full ban was imposed on him for homeopathy advocacy. Regardless, the topic ban of DanaUllman is short-term and considered a temporary measure. Discussion may lead to other uninvolved editors supporting stronger restrictions, a set of alternate editing restrictions, a full ban, or even no sanctions at all. Let us give a chance for other uninvolved admins to review the situation and comment. I'll gladly follow whatever consensus emerges. --Vassyana (talk) 20:51, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

• I rightfully have said and still assert (and Shoemaker’s quote helps to verify!) that the findings of Linde 1997 study were NOT retracted. Shoemaker even quotes directly in Linde’s 1999 article that the new evidence “weakens” his previous findings, but he clearly doesn’t “retract” his results…he simply found that they were less strong. The quote that Shoemaker provides is: “The evidence of bias weakens the findings of our original meta-analysis.” The fact that Shoemaker asserts that this quote proves the Linde “retracted” his previous findings is evidence of poor scholarship or purposeful antagonism to the subject that clouds his normally rational mind.

Further evidence of Linde’s viewpoint on this subject was his strong critique of the Shang review of research.

Shoemaker is also upset that I did not see the link that he provided that “proved” that this article was withdrawn. http://mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD001957/pdf_fs.html -- However (!), to me, this article is not available without subscription. I could NOT make certain that this article was “withdrawn” with certainty, and further, I provided solid evidence that the 2006 article was still posted at the Cochrane site…and further, that this article was also posted in 2009, issue #2.

Since my return to wikipedia, I have not done a single “edit” of an article. I have only participated in Talk pages…and obviously, my bringing up studies in major medical journals and other RS sources is disconcerting to him. Although I know that we can all sympathize with him and his POV, we all need to make an effort toward NPOV.

The other people here who are recommending sanctions against me are the usual suspects…people who are extremely active on the homeopathy article who have a long history of blocking many even mildly positive facts or information on homeopathy. Then, there are some wiki editors who are claimly to be “uninvolved” but it just so happens that they are seemingly “new” wiki editors, despite many obvious editing contributions to complex[REDACTED] issues (is someone a sock here?): ]

I have been shown to be a civilized editor. I have been shown to provide important contributions to this discussion; however, just because I seem to provide RS references and facts that differ from Shoemaker, he makes the above complaint.

I believe strongly that my recent “topic ban” has been unfairly bestowed upon me, and instead, I urge Admins to evaluate those editors in the homeopathy article who are showing clear antagonism and bias to the subject and are blocking NPOV information in it. DanaUllman 05:40, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

• Endorse ban of any length, re-applied as needed. My recent experiences with him give me no confidence at all that he can be neutral about his pet subject. He'll go on indefinitely, wasting the time of other editors, if he's allowed to do so. Friday (talk) 14:24, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
• Endorse ban from Homeopathy and related pages. Homeopathy had stabilised and was improving, but Dana has turned it into a battlefield, promoting his own work, or trying to get[REDACTED] articles to agree with his published work. Doesn't seem to have learned anything from his block. Verbal chat 16:51, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
• endorse ban Clearly doesn't understand WP:BATTLE. Having him edit these pahes is detrimental to the construction of an encyclopedia. JoshuaZ (talk) 20:01, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Wow, all of this antimosity against me despite the fact that I have not edited a single article, have a history of being a civil editor, and have a history of referencing high-impact medical and scientific journals. I have no intent to have[REDACTED] repeat anything that I've written elsewhere, even various peer-review articles and book chapters. I only have a desire to submit information that seems accurate, reliable, and up-to-date. It seems that most of the above people who want me banned have content issues with me or are friends of those who do... It is not my intention to battle (at all). My intent is to collaborate...I hope that some admins look at my recent short contributions to the Talk pages and see for yourself (and please see context too). Humbly... DanaUllman 22:11, 3 August 2009 (UTC)22:08, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

• Please do something. After a year's ban, Mr. Ullman started right back up with the identical issues (the efficacy of oscillococcinum and the 20/20 episode) that he left off with in 2008. He is unequivocally engaging in advocacy, for which he was blocked for a year by arbcom. It is clear by his statement directly above that he sees nothing at all wrong with this. Sources that he presents invariably have to be double and triple checked to be sure they say what he says they do, which they usually don't. Furthermore, dormant user (User:JeanandJane) and a new user (User:Dbrisinda), both pro-homeopathy SPAs, jumped in immediately to support Mr. Ullman and make his suggested edits to the main article. Edit warring, gross source misrepresentation, talk page filibustering, and IDIDNTHEARTHAT have ensued. The situation before his re-arrival was one of incremental and agreeable collaboration. The final straw, for me, is continuing to argue for the inclusion of a withdrawn paper, after it has been made clear that a withdrawn journal article is unusable. Topic ban him, indef him, whatever, just keep him far away from anything related to homeopathy, please. Skinwalker (talk) 00:49, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

  Oppose ban. He should be given another chance to stop has disrption, because he doesn't seem to be editing in total bad faith. -- 科学高爾夫迷(讨论|投稿) 13:31, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• Endorse ban - this user has long since passed his use-by date. His pattern of disruptive and tendentious editing is well established. He's here to further a particular agenda, not the encyclopedia. It's time for the community to flush him once and for all. Crafty (talk) 13:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• Endorse ban We are not here to give people chances, we are here to write an encyclopedia. Someone does not need to act in "total" bad faith to be disruptive. We don't need people who turn this place into a battleground. Chillum 13:34, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose indef community ban, in case it wasn't clear from my TLDR post above. This seems way out of proportion. Arguing with Dana is frustrating and his presence at the homeopathy talk page seems unlikely to improve the article. But as in the case of Dr.Jhingaadey (just look at the groundless agitation at User talk:Avathaar) some people are going nuclear because of a perceived danger from Dana that I simply can't see. I believe any perceived disruption comes from the reactions to Dana at least as much as from what he says. It's not unreasonable to ban such an editor per putting the encylopedia above everything else. I believe the German Misplaced Pages might do it like this. But here? I am not currently aware of any other topic than homeopathy where a community ban would even be considered for this behaviour. Hans Adler 07:22, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

• I think the problem here is limited to the subject of homoeopathy, and probably results from Dana's advocacy and his frequent COI issues there. His failure to acknowledge COI issues may also contribute to the problem. For example here, where I had drawn attention to the fact that advocating insertion of references to "Oscillococcinum" on homeopathy so that it supported an article he has written (and which had recently been republished in several places on the web) about swine flu gave him a clear COI. He responded "why does it matter what I've written off-wikipedia, and have I ever mentioned any such writings here or linked to them?" He just doesn't seem to understand the issue here. Note also that in the diff I've linked to he also implies that he hasn't cited or linked to his own articles ("have I ever mentioned any such writings here or linked to them?") despite having done so (albeit having acknowledged that it was his own website) only a week before on the same talk page; in the past he has at least once pasted material from his own site directly into an article (see this diff and this article - incidentally the reference cited in that diff appeared to mention neither William Court Gully nor George Woodyatt Hastings, despite having been cited to support a passage about their alleged antagonism). A topic ban may be appropriate. There's probably no reason for a Misplaced Pages-wide ban (I assume that's what is meant by "community ban"); however, since all (or almost all) of his edits have been in some way connected to homoeopathy a topic ban may amount to the same thing. Brunton (talk) 13:41, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, a topic ban on homeopathy would serve the same purpose of stopping the disruption (mind you, only under the same conditions as Vassayana's two-week topic ban above). --Enric Naval (talk) 18:11, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

• opposeIt is quite surprising that a well known writer who has served as an instructor in homeopathy at the University of California at San Francisco, and as member of the Advisory Council of the Alternative Medicine Center at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons as the chairperson for the National Center for Homeopathy's Annual Conference, and has been consulted by Harvard Medical School's Center to Assess Alternative Therapy for Chronic Illness, he is a regular speaker at universities, medical schools, pharmacy schools, and hospitals to be treated like that in this forum. This does not look good on wikipedia. Even if I understand all the editor's concerns about pseudoscience and I agree with them ( some times ) this animosity cannot be justified. Maybe his style is passionate, maybe he made some mistakes in terms of style in the past but I think skeptics and Misplaced Pages could use him to improve the Homeopathy article. I don't think we are enemies here even if we disagree some times. I m confident that a civilized solution will be found. --JeanandJane (talk) 02:46, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

• His credentials outside Misplaced Pages are irrelevant they would be relevant if he used his expertise to improve the articles in[REDACTED] according to policies and guidelines, which he is not doing. And they are relevant when evaluating if he is violating the WP:COI conflic of interest guideline which seems to be the case here. The reasons for the ban are his continued disruptive behaviour in-wiki, and his refusal to correct it. "He is an expert in Real Life" is not a reason for not issuing a ban unless ignoring this reason worsens the quality of articles. If he behaves in Misplaced Pages in unacceptable ways then he can fully expect to be banned from it. I remember that User:ScienceApologist was banned (temporaly) in spite of being an expert, and so was User:Peter Damian, and Dana was already banned by one year by Arbcom, and I'm sure that there are other examples. And I don't think that those bans made Misplaced Pages look bad at all, quite the contrary, it showed that we treat all users equaly. And please don't understate the disruption that he has caused in the talk pages of homeopathy-related articles. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:23, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Brunton writes about my “frequent” COI, where he correctly sited the ONE time I referenced my own site AND where he referenced my acknowledgement of this and my assertion that it is not RS, along with my note that this link was to a personal email from Professor Ennis that provided some direct insight into the veracity of a discussion at hand. Brunton also expressed concern that my Talk contributions sometimes included some of the same references to research in which I provided in articles that I have written. In due respect, I did not reference or link my articles. Is he actually suggesting that a wiki editor who writes about a subject in a non-wiki source creates a COI if he or she writes about this subject on wiki, even when he doesn’t reference his own work? It seems that someone is either extending the definition of COI or simply selectively enforcing it.

By the way, I originally chose to edit under my real name because I seek to maintain high ethics in my life and being transparent seems to be one important way to maintain this standard. While I could have easily used a fake name and thereby allowing myself a lot more ability to refer to my work, this is neither my style nor ethics. If I were really trying to be an “advocate,” I would have done this. Instead, I want to be a resource to people who are working on this article.

User:Verbal asserts that my references and discussions the Cochrane Report and to a Lancet “News and Notes” article are “advocacy.”. User:Brunton then chose to question if the Lancet’s News and Notes was “peer-reviewed” , as though something written by their editors or editorial staff of this prestigious journal was suddenly not reliable because it had something positive to say about homeopathy.

What is remarkable is how offensive some editors can be to me personally and to my references to high quality research (as determined by reliable sources), and yet, no wiki editors or admins do any degree of admonishment of them. I can only imagine what would happen if I referred to an editor here as “delusional” as User:NRen2k5 did here or what User:Friday did when he created a section entitled Talk:Homeopathy#It.27s_probably_best_to_ignore_Dana_Ullman.

Because so many antagonists to homeopathy edit the article on wikipedia, it is not surprising when normally recognized reliable sources of meta-analyses are ignored when these sources report positive results from homeopathic treatment. There are many examples to give, but the Cochrane Report on the homeopathic treatment of adverse effects from conventional cancer treatment is ignored in the article My apologies for providing a “content” issue here, but my point here is that[REDACTED] needs more balance in many of its articles because they are dominated by just one side of the issue, while there needs to be a better effort at balance.

It is surprising how many editors who have sought to reference good research meta-analyses that have positive results for homeopathy have been sanctioned, banned, harassed, or simply overwhelmed by the larger number of antagonists to the field. I would hope that[REDACTED] would seek to protect some “experts” in order to create a real encyclopedia. DanaUllman 22:55, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Dana Ullman is known to misrepresent sources. Evidence of this appears on the arbitration page, but we can give

For instance, in Talk:Homeopathy#Proposed change on replication of trials, Ullman uses a note, which is not included on the journal's webpage or pubmed; a study's inclusion in a meta-analysis, and various other things to suggest that we throw out all large-scale metanalyses and work showing that homeopathy doesn't work, and replace it with his hand-picked set of studies, raising the weakest results to the status of "high-quality replicated studies". Shoemaker's Holiday Over 184 FCs served 00:27, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Shoemaker all the meta analysis are not definitive and are kind of controversial. Look at the talk page Linde's criticism to The Lancet about Shang meta analysis. Adler above says that the study from 2006 that was removed from the Cochrane libraryin 2009 for a purely technical reason indicates that one of the positive findings is replicable. Maybe he meant that? I don't know about the other papers. --JeanandJane (talk) 01:49, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

No. Dana has misrepresented sources, and also misrepresented the consensus of other editors at the talk pages, and he got that three-month topic ban when was caught red-handed misrepresenting the comment of another editor during the Homeopathy arbitration case, as seen here (at the end of the section). This is not a content problem but a behaviour problem. --Enric Naval (talk) 03:08, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

For recent (i.e. since his return from the 1 year ban) examples of this sort of thing, see for example this diff, in which he claims that when he cited his own website "several people defended this action": the "action" in question is in the section of the talk page headed "Rephrase please" - there is no sign there of anyone defending it. Or this diff, in which he writes "The wiki community thought that it was important to bring up the issue of replicability in this article, and I have simply provided references to RS and high-impact meta-analyses on the homeopathic treatment of specific ailments": scrolling back up the talk page to the relevant section (headed "Updating Info on Replication of studies") reveals that the issue was brought up not by "the wiki community" but by Dana Ullman himself. These may be comparatively trivial examples, but they would appear to indicate a continuing pattern of behaviour. Brunton (talk) 07:59, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Dana - What you are trying to do with Misplaced Pages is essentially to synthesize a secondary source here, from a number of primary sources. You have been constantly treading on the grey line dividing normal summarization and reporting and paraphrasing legitimate secondary and primary sources, and WP:SYNTH (and in the process, WP:BATTLE, and other related policies).

You are, for all intents and purposes, too close to the topic to be doing what you've been doing here.

If you go out and write overview secondary source / tertiary source articles in reliable publications, those can be cited in Misplaced Pages. Trying to write that material directly in here - what you've been striving to do (directly with pre-Arbcom-block, and indirectly with talk page discussion since) - is not acceptable behavior.

Fighting the secondary sources battle in Misplaced Pages is all about what WP:SYNTH and WP:BATTLE show is entirely what Misplaced Pages is not here for.

If you will not work to understand that, in good faith, then you need to leave the project. In this case, your being an expert (and as experts are, particularly opinionated) is leading to significant mis-use of the Misplaced Pages project. This type of debate is not what we're here for. Please accept that, or leave of your own accord. You will do your field much better work if you write these synthesizing opinions and reviews and overviews elsewhere and let others include those (presumably, as you're clearly an expert) reliable secondary sources here once you've published elsewere.

Thank you. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 03:05, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi there. Can you please clarify what do you mean? I agree though synthesis is not in our rules. For instance The lead which is not written by Dana Ullman says "Homeopathy 's efficacy is not supported by the collective weight of the scientific and clinical studies". Since meta analyses have been controversial and inconclusive with the results conflicting somehow each other ( according to our reliable sources ) this could be considered a synthesis and thus should be avoided? I m trying to understand what we should not do. Thanks --JeanandJane (talk) 04:05, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

In the case of controversial topics, we have to say something. WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE work to support WP:NPOV - we report the general community biggest consensus as our main focus, and present major alternative viewpoints commensurate with their weight in the field.

We can't avoid doing some judgement to determine what is the consensus neutral point, and how much weight, but in the case of Homeopathy (and many related fringe science/medicine topics) we have determined that the "mainstream view" is the consensus neutral point and that the proponents view, fairly reported, is the alternative. An article focused on alternatives like this should probably aim for something like 50:50 balance (the article topic is the fringe / alternative topic, after all) in terms of page space, though that will vary by topic greatly.

Dana Ullman's work, done in an external reliable venue, could then be presented neutrally and straightforwardly in the sections describing the pro-homeopathic research studies in more depth.

Done directly here, however, it's WP:OR, WP:SYNTH and bad for Misplaced Pages.

We are not denying that he's a major figure in the field - our point is, him being a major figure and being here does not shift the point of neutrality, even though he can both argue in more focused detail and depth than the average editor.

He can write synthetic overviews, in external reliable sources, and we can include them (he should not - WP:COI and WP:RS prohibit that - but others could). He can perhaps provide better, more balanced specific sources for the pro-homeopathy arguments. There are lots of things we can do here.

But what we and he can't do here is use Misplaced Pages as the venue to synthesize new material that's original research - whether that's new primary research or new secondary source overviews and reporting. You make secondary sources out there - in reliable venues which we can verifyably find and cite. And then, we can include them.

Synthesize here bad. Synthesize elsewhere in RS, then report on what RS said elsewhere, good. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 04:30, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. As an introduction : I was looking to determine if Homeopathy is a fringe belief and I could not find a reliable source which states it. In the contrary, I found a reliable source BBC which states "Homeopathy isn't some wacky, fringe belief." No skeptic argued against this during the conversation. If somebody has a major reliable source which states that Homeopathy is fringe - besides the skeptics organizations, please let me know.

Homeopathy is a highly controversial topic according to our reliable sources. The mainstream scientists have not reached a strong consensus about its efficacy, if we believe again in our reliable sources: World Health Organization is attacked by the Lancet for supporting Homeopathy 's efficacy. The American Medical Association states that "The efficacy of most homeopathic remedies has not been proven.". The early meta analyses are positive but not fully conclusive and definite, some others negative and positive and the recent Lancet meta analyses are negative but its results strongly criticized by other mainstream sources (with letters published in the Lancet and papers at the J Clin Epidemiol.

Meanwhile very notable Homeopaths have published their criticism for the latest meta analyses. Currently excluded from the article!

The main problem is that some of the sources have been excluded and the article reports that the mainstream consensus is that Homeopathy is unsupported by the collective weight ...... which is as you see above at least inaccurate according to the our RS.

I believe that Ullman tries to convince the other editors to use all the RS about Homeopathy's efficacy and not only the negative ones. And also to include the minority view in the article which is currently excluded for instance Fisher's article/J Clin Epidemiol.paper.

I did not see any synthesis from his part but maybe I have to look more for this. If you have seen something please provide a diff so I can also read it.--JeanandJane (talk) 05:23, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Oppose ban of DanaUllman.

What I've found most frustrating about the editing process for this topic is the screening of allowable RS articles published in respected peer-review journals, and also prominent secondary sources. When a statement that requires support of an RS is advanced, and that source either contends to support the efficacy of homeopathy, or criticizes the results of other anti-homeopathy research, that RS itself is attacked on some obscure grounds, lessening its value by stating it's too old, or it's been detracted (not!), or it's results have been heavily criticized and put to rest, or newer sources invalidate them (as if seminal older RSs suddenly become impertinent). All in an attempt to keep fair and RS supported content at bay. This is not in the least neutral in my opinion. DanaUllman, unfortunately, has been caught in this whirlpool of bias and intransigence. From my perspective, attempting to disassemble it, it seems, has proved overwhelming, to the point where one person cannot be expected to respond to every accusation or criticism made towards him by a group of others (allusion to IDIDNTHEARTHAT). In the short time I've contributing to editing for this article, many criticisms of propositions and suggestions I and others have put forward to make the article more neutral, have been repeatedly attacked even after they have been explained very clearly as to why and the reasons. And counter-suggestions have rarely, if ever, been advanced by the anti-homeopathy quorum. It seems as though a strong case of viral IDIDNTHEARTHAT is sweeping the forum.

As far as misrepresentation of RSs goes -- virtually *everyone* on the homeopathy talk page that has attempted to say anything substantive, has misrepresented sources by selectively quoting from them, selectively summarizing them, or biasely paraphrasing them, and then failing to notice a statement in some other part of the article which puts this interpretation into serious question. If DanaUllman is guilty of this, he is in *very* good company. Even so, I don't really blame editors for this if it's occasional, as perhaps this is due to unintentional zeal of having found what appears to be clear evidence in support of one's POV, to the blind exclusion of all else.

I don't believe DanaUllman should be banned, as I've learned a great deal from his participation in the discussion. He provides a unique perspective that is refreshing in (what I perceive to be) an already highly anti-homeopathy-biased forum. I've addressed specifically in the talk page two of the areas I see as biased, and now I've noticed a third involving the citing of publication bias -- but only in one direction in support of anti-homeopathy views, when there are *many* examples of publication bias in the opposite direction as well (the talk page reference lists many of them). But I haven't yet gotten around to addressing this latest issue on the talk page.

If DanaUllman is ultimately banned (which I don't support or agree with), then I would at minimum suggest banning at least two or three editors from the anti-homeopathy side as well -- those who are especially culpable in creating repeated and consistent obstacles to constructive editing and more neutral improvements based on the merit of arguments advanced and RSs to support these arguments.

Dbrisinda (talk) 06:50, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

The suggestion that "editors from the anti-homeopathy side" should be banned in some kind of cold war style tit-for-tat seems needlessly confrontationalist. Brunton (talk) 09:28, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Disagree with banning

But Agree with Dbrisinda above. While I would support DanaUllman not being able to edit the actual homeopathy article because of a conflict of interests, I see an attempt at totally banning him as the anti-homeopaths just trying to lock away any and all resistance.

I have also said this before, and will say it again: If a homeopathic doctor can not be used for input, research, and statistics on their subject of expertise, then all physicians must be banned from editing medicine related articles, as it is a conflict of interest, regardless of how up in the air the subject matter is.

It's pretty clear that every editor that contributes to Homeopathy puts their opinions first. Anti-homeopathic editors will always search the Earth for any studies that disprove the efficacy, and shoot down anything otherwise, while pro-homeopathic editors will always search for studies that prove the efficacy while shooting down anything that disproves it. To be quite frank and honest, everyone (Including myself) needs to take a break from the subject and come back to it with an editors neutral point of view. - ʄɭoʏɗoiaɲ _¢ 17:57, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Oppose ban - I have had some concerns that I have pointed out to Dana and he has been very responsive and understanding. He is a COI editor and he acknowledges this, and he has not recently attempted to edit the Homeopathy article or any related article to my knowledge. What he has done is participate in Talk page conversations related to Homeopathy, a subject in which he has expertise other editors do not. I believe that those most strongly accusing him of bad behavior have engaged in similar actions, cherry picking and selectively representing sources in order to portray homeopathy in the most negative possible light. As far as the claim of synthesis, the policy applies mainly in article space, not to the same extent in Talk space, where editors of all sides frequently synthesize in the course of discussion. The article has been one sided for a long time and I very much appreciate the input of others who can explain the other point of view and help us to achieve a more balanced presentation. I believe that Dana would benefit very much from helping improve Misplaced Pages in other articles unrelated to homeopathy, but I do not think a topic ban is necessary, nor would it be fair to single him out. —Whig (talk) 03:31, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Article Ban - It's time to see if Dana can edit articles (articlespace) other than Homeopathy. I recommend (initially) a 1 month article ban from Homeopathy. If Dana edits nothing else in this time, it's extended to 3 months. If there are still no edits to any other aricles - then indefinite ban implemented. I'm thinking that Dana needs to give the overall Community confidence that he isn't a one-trick pony and is actually interested in the project, rather than just one article out of millions. Of course if he violates the ban, then blocks can be issued per the Pseudoscience ArbCom decision. Shot info (talk) 06:17, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Since Dana hasn't edited the Homeopathy article recently, and has expressed his intention not to do so, I don't think an article ban from Homeopathy is meaningful. —Whig (talk) 07:36, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Dana is testing the Communities (short) paitence with him. I congratulate you that you are trying to help him. I'm trying to help him too - I don't want to see him permabanned, so how can he be encouraged to help himself? How about he go an edit another article - or discuss another article? His singleminded focus on homeopathy isn't helpful for him as a Wikipedian. If he doesn't diversify, well what is the Community going to do? Shot info (talk) 08:09, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think Dana is trying to test anyone's patience, but I appreciate that some people are frustrated, and I do agree it would be good for Dana and the project if he would edit some other article. I'm not sure what more I can do to encourage him: I think it would increase both his understanding of the project and his respect from others involved in the project. I don't think a formal ban is necessary to encourage positive behavior, only to prevent negative behavior, but what mechanism can do this? I'm open to ideas too, because the goal all of us share should be improvement of the encyclopedia. —Whig (talk) 13:48, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Note and reminder

If anyone was in doubt the Homeopathy Wars are now in full blood again after a period of relative calm. Note also that the article remains under Arbcom sanction. If there are admins out there who have rhinoceros-thick hides and want to help sort things out, please do. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:03, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, please, we have even gotten back where people will place POV tags at the top of the article because their proposed changes were all shot down at the talk page because of not being in agreement with what the high-quality sources say. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:46, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Did you notice how many editors dispute the neutrality of the article? .--JeanandJane (talk) 18:55, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Which is moot because, once it was discussed thoroughly, they failed to show that the article didn't represent sources accurately. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:05, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Or they failed to convince the editors who added those sources that there was a neutrality issue. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ _¢ 19:09, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

The NPOV dispute never ended, and I continue to believe that the article should be tagged, but I have not personally added the tag recently. —Whig (talk) 03:40, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

We're governed by WP:NPOV. WP:NPOV#Pseudoscience specifically deals with articles such as Homeopathy. That some editors disagree with it, and want a purely sympathetic view doesn't make the article a violation of NPOV. Shoemaker's Holiday 07:26, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Nobody is arguing for a purely sympathetic view. Perhaps you would like a purely hostile view? —Whig (talk) 07:46, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

The tag says in plain english that "The neutrality of this article is disputed" (By some editors). This is far from how some editors seem to think it reads: "A new topic disputing the neutrality of this article has appeared" or "This topic is not neutral". The tag simply states that some authors disagree with the stonewalling of the likes of User:Shoemaker's Holiday, User:Enric Naval, User: Verbal, and User:Brunton (And to a lesser extent by a few others to fill the gaps). The tag discussion, however, is for the talk page. If DanaUllman is causing chaos, its only because those 4 previously mentioned editors go absolutely haywire when someone disputes their studies (Which because they've been published later, somehow supercede the earlier studies... But haven't been around long enough for much peer review. Convenient, huh?). Dana has not (And has even privately said to me that he has no intention of doing so) edited the Homeopathy page, and has merely provided insight and discussion on the talk page. This is perfectly allowable. If you can't handle these comments, don't respond to them! - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ _¢ 15:29, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Floydian, you've been here enough years to know what WP:PSCI says. You've been here enough years to know that, for any subject, no matter how wacky, a few ostensibly reliable sources exist supporting it. You ought to know that some articles are the subject of continual campaigns to push them to meet a non-scientific point of view. Homeopathy is akin to Creationism. If Ssomeone showed up to the Evolution article with books by various Intelligent design proponents, and was abusing the scientific literature to find random quotes that seemed, out of context, to support his point, but, when you looked them up, didn't, would you still be complaining that the pro-science side was stonewalling? Shoemaker's Holiday 00:45, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware of the policies regarding this, and I only believe that the term fringe belief needs to be changed, as the common person reads that as "Very few or next to no people on the planet believe in this." I am also aware of what history can teach us, and that's not to trust everything that is handed to you immediately. The merits of this medicine are not widely understood, and studies are bouncing back and forth every decade changing the opinion of it. I am aware of what money can do to the world and that things that aren't marketable are always at a disadvantage to the things that are. Just like at Misplaced Pages, consensus is not always achieved merely by numbers. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ _¢ 03:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

There was just a long discussion on the Talk page about this and it was pointed out that the article does not call Homeopathy a fringe belief. It remains that some editors continue to refer to it as fringe in comments and edit summaries, however. I don't think there is reliable sourcing for characterizing it as such, and evidence of prevalence to the contrary exists. —Whig (talk) 15:33, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

If I might get back to the original point... all of the above only reinforces that we really need some uninvolved admins to maintain order. Pretty please? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 19:04, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

This I will agree with. A neutral admin who has no opinion of the topic either way needs to stand as a mediator, and possibly an overseer of edits. Consensus should be declared by this admin as opposed to the passionate editors of the topic. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ _¢ 03:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

This ANI shows that it is important, perhaps essential, for some non-involved admins to participate in the homeopathy article. The ANI is evidence of one group of editors, who have a strong POV on homeopathy, who want to mute someone who doesn’t have their POV. Even though I have not made a single edit (!) to the article and have provided references to RS, their solution is to mute me. I sincerely hope that non-involved admins consider policing these editors who may be abusing wiki policies.

As for specific assertions above, I take issues with Shoemaker’s statement where he asserts I am “known to misrepresent sources,” but his “evidence” is simply not there. I encourage people to read his link to the Talk pages and see for yourself.

For the record, homeopathy does not simply have “some” studies that show efficacy; there are meta-analyses on the treatment of specific conditions that show this, and there is evidence of replication of studies, and yet, the article at present says that there are no replications of trials with positive results. Ironically, the reference that presently exists of this statement is reference #12 that is dated 1995! Despite my and others efforts to change this misinformation, this outdated information still exists, as does the 1995 reference. DanaUllman 03:55, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Suggested resolution

• DanaUllman (talk · contribs) is strongly warned against general discussion of the topic, especially for specific issues where he is (or has been) directly involved or acting as an explicit advocate. Conduct contrary to this warning will be regarded as disruptive.
• DanaUllman is strongly advised to communicate in a direct, frank, and clear fashion. This requires avoiding vague references, misrepresenting the statements of others, misleading other editors regarding the nature of a discussion, selective omissions, and other actions that clearly cause misperceptions or obfuscate aspects of the discussion. Failure to communicate clearly and honestly will be treated as disruptive conduct.
• All editors in this topic area are explicitly warned against soapboxing and treating the area as a battleground.
• Editors in this topic area are strongly encouraged to utilize avenues of soliciting community feedback when there is an intractable disagreement or other impasse in discussion. This includes, but is not limited to, requests for comment and various content noticboards (such as for NPOV, reliable sourcing, original research, and fringe theories). All such requests should neutrally report the disagreement and solicit feedback.
  • Failure to seek out such community feedback or other forms of dispute resolution while persisting in edit warring and/or talk page arguments will be handled as disruptive conduct. Rejection of community feedback will be treated as disruptive behavior. Extremely biased or advocacy style requests on those noticeboards will also be treated as disruptive behavior.

This specifically addresses DanaUllman's conduct, while also addressing disruptive behavior by other editors. This should not be the basis for further (or practically endless) second chances. It should be regarded as a "final warning" and provides a clear basis for admins to act decisively. Thoughts? Comments? --Vassyana (talk) 09:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Does this do something that the arbitration case didn't already do? Any reasonable editor would have taken a year-long ban as a hint that a change in behavior is needed, right? Friday (talk) 14:15, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I still don't see how Dana Ullman has done anything wrong to deserve any warnings, let alone a final warning. He is not editing the article (And therefore is not engaging in vandalous advocacy), and the only "disruptions" are editors spazzing out at his comments on the talk page. All his comments are dedicated to improving the articles, none of them have to be carried out, or even taken into consideration if there is a general disagreement. Long arguments and discussion needn't be construed as a disruption, but rather as a means to some new resolution. My suggestions:

• Fully protect the article (Including from any admins involved with the article) so that only a neutral party can make the final edits to it. This way, nobody can accuse another of taking ownership of the article.
• Split the talk page into one dealing with style and one dealing with content. The content talk page should be labeled as a place where passions roar, and that comments should not be taken or delivered personally and should stick to improving the topic at hand.

The second is a bit unreasonable, but here is the alternative: Banning anyone that stands behind their opinions from editing Homeopathy or its talk page and related subjects. This isn't tribal warfare, I know we can be more democratic about this instead of being socialists crushing the rebellion. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ _¢ 14:25, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

What he does wrong: He's wasting the time of editors on the talk page. He misrepresents sources, and has a severe tendency toward "I didn't heard that". I believe he's proven himself unable to be a useful contributor here. You want us to change our standard operating procedure to accommodate one guy? I believe there is a simpler, more common solution, already suggested above. Friday (talk) 14:57, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

1) Editors waste their own breath (... or strain their finger muscles) responding if they are unswayable in the first place.

2) He hasn't edited the article, so he hasn't misrepresented anything nor contributed to it. Its a talk page, and anything on a talk page is merely a suggestion or comment which is put forth to review by others.

3) I don't want to change operating procedures, but I don't want a communist[REDACTED] where editors go cry foul whenever somebody disagrees with them and the perpetrator gets a midnight visit from which they don't return. If he is misrepresenting sources, you say "You're misrepresenting sources there", and ignore it. You are suggesting we silence the only professional involved with the subject on[REDACTED] because you want things to just be silent and left alone, as is. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ _¢ 15:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

No, misrepresenting sources should be an only warning the first time and a permanent disinvitation from editing the second time. It goes against the heart of WP:V to misrepresent a source. The fact that he is a professional here is rather the crux of the problem: he is promoting an inherently fringe view of a pseudoscience, something with no actual science (beyond the established efficacy of the placebo effect) to back it up. → ROUX ₪ 15:57, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure there is evidence of misrepresenting sources, perhaps he has selectively represented one side of the issue which offends other editors who selectively represent the other. In any case, I don't think that Floydian's split-talk proposal has much to recommend it, and the alternative is worse. We shouldn't be banning people based on POV. As far as fully protecting the article, since Dana has not edited the article recently and it is his conduct that is the issue here, there is no reason to consider that. I think that Dana is trying to help improve our coverage of homeopathy but lacks an appreciation of Misplaced Pages's wider community. I don't believe he has done anything to justify a ban, at this time, but a warning or friendly advice may be appropriate that Misplaced Pages depends on respect for the community and a difficult SPA runs the risk of exceeding the community's patience. —Whig (talk) 16:19, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I repied below in the evidence of misrepresenting sources. Dana has already had lots of warnings and advice, he had a mentorship by LaraLove, and he got banned for 1 year, and he still doing the same behaviour. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:12, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec)But can one assume he is intentionally misrepresenting them and not simply misinterpreting them? The human mind is bound to create logical fallacies in order to satisfy the pattern it seeks. That is, someone looking through a study for something to back up homeopathy is very likely to only catch the parts that do just that (And miss the counterpoints made), but it doesn't mean they are intentionally fabricating their own results. I know my suggestions are extreme, but there should be a place for these discussions on[REDACTED] as they incite change as opposed to stagnation. Rules need to be lay down, not punishments - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ _¢ 16:56, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Your point that one may misinterpret and not intentionally misrepresent sources is well taken. I don't believe there is evidence of bad faith on Dana's part. Nonetheless, I don't think rule changes are needed here. —Whig (talk) 17:34, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

See my comment and Brunton's comment. Dana was caught red-handed misquoting a comment to misrepresent it, the probation incidents page is packed full with complains and analysis of the misrepresentations, and the evidence page of the case is also full of that, Dana then got banned for 1 year for advocacy, and now he's back to misrepresenting again. We can't read his mind to know if he is doing it in good faith or not, but don't say that he didn't made misrepresentations because he has made a lot. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:12, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it is constructive to relitigate old battles from more than a year ago, and the evidence page you point to has been blanked, so there is nothing to look at or discuss. If you have a case to present to the ArbCom then as you know the article is under their supervision and you can bring violations to their attention. Here we are discussing recent conduct and I do not see evidence that intentional misrepresentation occurred. —Whig (talk) 20:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Not an old battle when Dana has been banned for 1 year and has restarted the same behaviour as soon as he was able to return. Just the continuation of the same problem after 1 year of forced pause. For the evidence page, you can simply click in history just like the blanking template says, but I'll give some links and all of Scientizzle's evidence (and Baegis' and PhilKnight's, and Shoemaker's might be too long to read but it has lots of diffs in painful detail). (and the stuff in the accident probation page was enough by its own to justify an arb case, mind you....) --Enric Naval (talk) 20:52, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

It is widely known that User:Enric Naval has a strong POV that is antagonistic to homeopathy, that he uses various wiki-lawyering strategies to keep potentially positive information about homeopathy out of the article, and has a tendency to take things out of context. He asserts that I have “misrepresented” sources, and he gives this as “evidence” ], and he has the audacity to reference User:Brunton who is another of editor with a strong POV and who makes similarly unfounded assertions. They seem to think that if they and other editors with their similar POV gang-up and repeat the same accusations that others will think that they are real. Because many editors with a strong POV against homeopathy know that I provide references to high-impact journals that are widely recognized as RS, they seem to see me as a threat to their POV, even though I am simply trying to make the article more accurate and NPOV. Several editors have asserted that I have not done anything wrong and that I provide a real contribution to wikipedia.

Brunton and Enric assume that the issue of “replication of studies” is not important to this article, even though our article at present has a 1995 (!) reference to the lack of replication of studies that confirm efficacy of homeopathy in the treatment of specific diseases and even though I have provide RS evidence from the Cochrane Report that verifies that there has been replication of studies by independent sources. Further, I provided a reference to the Lancet showed that the result of one of these studies was clinically relevant. Brunton asserts that only I am interested in this subject of replicability, and yet, his own link shows that this is a highly debated subject with people voicing pros and cons ].

My point here is that Enric and Brunton and select others make unfounded assertions primarily because I have a different POV than they do. The bottomline is that my new involvement on the homeopathy Talk pages is relatively short, and a non-involved admin can easily evaluate my contributions, see the many RS references, see my civilized efforts, see the many attacks (even personal attacks given by the NAME of a sub-heading ], and see the persistent stonewalling of information that a group of editors with a strong POV against homeopathy.

It seems clear that the editors who want me muted should be more carefully evaluated for their actions.

I also want to address User:Vassyana: I am an “advocate” for accuracy. If THAT is a problem, please let me know. Please clarify what I have done wrong since my return to wikipedia. It seems that your recommendations are good recommendations for ALL wiki editors, not just me. Because you have chosen to address them only to me, I would benefit from knowing on what you are basing your recommendations only to me? DanaUllman 20:57, 10 August 2009 (UTC)19:38, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I have not asserted that only you are interested in the issue of replicability of results: what I was trying to point out was that your statement that "The wiki community thought that it was important to bring up the issue of replicability in this article, and I have simply provided references to RS and high-impact meta-analyses on the homeopathic treatment of specific ailments" implied that the matter was raised by "the wiki community" and you just provided supporting info, and this isn't borne out by the evidence which shows that you brought it up yourself. If you had phrased it the other way round, stating that you had brought up the matter and provided references, and the community had considered it an important matter to discuss, that would have been fair enough, and would have reflected what had actually happened; but that isn't quite what you wrote. I provided diffs in the comment that Enric referenced so that others could judge the evidence and decide for themselves whether or not I'm mistaken here. For the record, I don't assume that the issue of replication of studies is not important, and I don't think I have posted anything that could be interpreted as meaning that - I was even one of the participants in the discussion that you cite as evidence that it is a highly debated subject. Brunton (talk) 22:33, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Dana, I don't want to answer for Vassyana, but the standard on Misplaced Pages is verifiability, not truth. I'm sure you know that, but I just wanted to make it explicit. —Whig (talk) 20:24, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Whig...of course...and THAT is why I have a history of providing reliable sources to verify what is NPOV information, usually in high impact journals, and sometimes with secondary reliable sources that have reported on them...and THAT is why I seem to be so threatening to some editors here. I cannot help but find a bit of irony that some editors assert that I am "wasting editors time" by providing this information, and they seek to mute me (this is why I feel that admins should be investigating those editors here who have are pointing fingers at me). DanaUllman 21:07, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

There is no such thing as NPOV information, Dana. I really think you lack sufficient perspective on Misplaced Pages's policies and practices. I don't want you banned, I don't want you restricted from participation in Talk page discussions on the topic of Homeopathy, but I doubt you are going to get why you confuse people if you limit yourself to one article without broader involvement in the encyclopedia project. —Whig (talk) 00:40, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Choices

Vassyana's suggestion

• Support Vassyana's proposal. There is far too much soapboxing on that talkpage. DU is certainly an instigator, but by no means the only one to wander off WP:TPG. As I believe I argued last year, knowingly and flagrantly misrepresenting a source should be grounds for immediate block. As a side note to the strong encouragement to seek input from the wider community, I would like to urge that such discussions when (not if) they occur not be overrun by the usual suspects. - 2/0 (cont.) 03:40, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
• Support, with the understanding that disruption of a talk page is still disruption. Suggest adding article probation if these problems continue. KillerChihuahuaAdvice 19:24, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

  Second choice KillerChihuahuaAdvice 15:10, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose Ullman returned after a year, and immediately, the talk page goes from civil to an all-out war. He's not a good influence, he has shown nowhere in this entire discussion any desire to change, and he has continued the problematic behaviour. It's far too little for a very obviously single-purpose account who caused months of disruption in the past, and who promises further months of disruption in future. Ullman hypes minor studies that support his view to the skies, ignores anything he doesn't want to hear - look at the incident that started this, where he participated in a discussion about a study being withdrawn, then went straight back to asking whether there was any evidence it was withdrawn - and is talking about exactly the same points as before the one year ban. Does allowing him to continue editing alternative-medicine-related articles serve any constructive purpose, or is it just another example of the holder of the minority view must always be given endless second chances? Shoemaker's Holiday 11:48, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose per Shoemaker, this in no way address the problem. This isn't a sanction prohibiting Dana's problem behaviour, instead it sanctions Dana to continue these actions; the very same actions for which he was banned for a year. Dana has shown an unwillingness or an inability to change his editing regarding alt med, so should be topic banned from alt med. I support the non Dana specific parts, but that doesn't address the problem that is Dana.Verbal chat 12:00, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose, clearly ignored the other POV's in this debate and made a hasty suggestion that really doesn't do anything to solve or address the problem. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ _¢ 15:40, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
• Comment - better than nothing, but would prefer a site ban. PhilKnight (talk) 18:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
• Support but the same advice for all editors .--JeanandJane (talk) 19:37, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Article ban

• Support. This keeps DU from editing Homeopathy (Which is already the case), but allows his participation in the talk page. This entire debate is being run by the individuals with a strong anti-homeopathic POV, and the other POV's n the matter are completely being ignored over this group that has simply banded together to take out their key opposition. This "war" is just as much their fault as DanUllman's, and this incident board post is a fucking joke. Every participant should be given the same punishment as DanaUllman. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ _¢ 15:36, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
  • On what grounds? Can you provide evidence of misrepresenting of soures? Of being a single-purpose account? Of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT? Of any good reason for a ban that would apply to the other editors? Provide diffs. Shoemaker's Holiday 18:48, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
    • On the grounds that the debate here is identical do the debate at homeopathy. It's essentially the same editors taking the same opposing viewpoints. There is very little to no input on this from neutral parties, and the decisions are clearly based on an effort to silence Dana. Why is a site ban necessary when a topic ban accomplishes the same thing? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ _¢ 20:14, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose - Talk pages are where Ullman causes the most disruption and problems. Shoemaker's Holiday 18:01, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. An article ban would accomplish absolutely nothing, since Dana has not been recently editing the article and has expressed no intention of doing so. —Whig (talk) 17:36, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose unless talk pages, and all pages related to Dana's published work are included. That's why I support the two options below rather than this. Verbal chat 18:55, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Topic ban

• Support, third choice KillerChihuahuaAdvice 15:10, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
• Support, as a second choice, as the harshest punishment possible. Includes all the homeopathy-related articles, as well as all the remedy articles. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ _¢ 15:40, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
• Support, if talk-pages included. Shoemaker's Holiday 17:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
• Comment, if this is imposed in such a manner as to encourage Dana's wider participation with unrelated articles/topics, it may help him to gain a greater appreciation of Misplaced Pages and the community. I do not know that it is necessary or appropriate to force him to do so, but if the topic ban may be lifted more quickly upon some demonstration that this account is no longer single purpose, then perhaps it may do some good. —Whig (talk) 17:36, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
• Support - if talk pages are included, but prefer outright ban. PhilKnight (talk) 18:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
• Support Second choice, but only if article talk pages are expressly included. And any off-site canvassing should lead to an immediate site ban. If similar behaviour manifests in other topics it should be a short step to a site ban. Verbal chat 18:55, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
• oppose --JeanandJane (talk) 19:32, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Site ban

• Support, first choice KillerChihuahuaAdvice 15:10, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose, there is no grounds in this and it is completely unneccessary to ever ban Dana from anything but his conflicts of interest. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ _¢ 15:40, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
• Support - continuing the same behaviour upon return from a site-ban is generally met with return to a site ban. Shoemaker's Holiday 17:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

But that is to assume that the last ban was completely justified as well. Perhaps it should have been a topic ban. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ _¢ 20:07, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

• Strong oppose, there is no basis for this. —Whig (talk) 17:36, 12 August 2009

(UTC)

• Strong oppose, there is no basis for this. No censorship.--JeanandJane (talk) 19:31, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

  All due respect, but this has nothing to do with censorship. We're not the government, and DU is free to say whatever he wants elsewhere, regardless of what decision is reached here. KillerChihuahuaAdvice 20:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

• Support - user was given a 1 year ban, and the user's comments above indicate the same problems remain. PhilKnight (talk) 18:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
• Support as PK says, a 1 year ban and he immediately behaves in exactly the same way and denies the problems that lead to the ban. First choice. Verbal chat 18:55, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

RetlawSnellac, Neftchi (formerly Baku87) and copyright issues

Locus of dispute, or action in dispute

User:RetlawSnellac

Involved parties and confirmation they have been notified of the discussion

• User:Neftchi
• User:RetlawSnellac

Description of the dispute and the main evidence

I don't contribute often on English Misplaced Pages, being mainly active in Armenian WP. While browsing through Commons categories I came across photos of new user RetlawSnellac who registered here: http://en.wikipedia.org/Special:Contributions/RetlawSnellac and on commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/User:RetlawSnellac

He uploaded 4 pictures to commons claiming to be the author . It caught my attention, because Retlaw Snellac is one of my Flickr contacts, and I do follow his photo stream . Retlaw Snellac is the acronym of his true name, Walter Callens, spelled in reverse. Browsing his folder on Azerbaijan, I checked, and found that all 4 pictures were in fact taken by Retlaw Snellac I know from Flickr. I became curious, because I remember Walter publishes his photos on Flickr under standard, "strict" copyright, as once I checked his Flickr page, to see if I can import some of his photos to Commons. The other obvious reason was, that from lot of nice photos from different countries, only those 4, and only from Azerbaijan were uploaded. Even more, he suddenly shows special interest in discussions related to Azerbaijan.

I wrote him on Flickr, to see if it was really him to upload his photos to Commons and participate in some discussions/voting. His reply was:

Hello,

Thanks for the information.

Retlaw Snellac from Wikimedia is NOT me.

Kind regards,

Walter

The problem here is that the RetlawSnellac on Misplaced Pages claimed to be the real Walter Callens, uploading his own works, using the date of the real Walters visit to Azerbaijan from flickr to come up with this story, he even explicitly claims to be the real Retlaw, see here.

Upon the incident I contacted another member who too contacted him. I was advised to prepare something about this and report it here, as upon checking this user contribution there seem to be one obvious correlation between this suspicious account and user:Neftchi (formerly Baku87).

Here is the evidence I gathered so far:

Since June 26th, Neftchi edited daily, until July 3rd. Retlaw registered on the 4th and edited until the 7th, Baku87 never edited during that time period. He returned on the 11th and soon request a name change from Baku87 to Neftchi.

• Ratlaw Snellac addeed this map, which has the same borders as this map uploaded by Neftchi. This was probably done to support the revert war on the ADR article initiated by Neftchi when he adding the map on Jan 2009 .

• Here he announces having uploaded new picture of petroglyphs of Qobustan. Note that the original uploader of those petroglyphs was Netchi(formerly Baku87). Neftchi then shows an interest in pictures, by switching the pictures.

• On Church of Kish, Retlaw reverts to Neftchi version. The article history indicates that there was an edit warring in process, this user, who registered one day ago, apparently knew the edit war was going on and reverted to Neftchi version.

• "All by sudden" continues the discussion started by Baku , , , , (adds a website owned by a well-known Adil Baguirov)

• The article Azerbaijani Special Forces was created on June 18 by Neftchi, Fedayee requested a source for an element, which was provided by Retlaw here. Check the article history and see that in fact this user who only registered on July 4, only showed interest in Neftchi contributions.

• He edits the Azerbaijani Armed Forces article, in which Neftchi is the most active editor.

• On Nagorno-Karabakh War, Neftchi added an unreliable source which was reverted twice. Retlaw re-added that source.

• Baku87 started a thread in August 2008 . Almost a year later RatlawSnellac backs him up , .

• Retlaw voted for an AfD here in which Baku87 had already voted.

• Retlaw created this article which was copied from here, Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan.

• Both users show interest in documenting Chinese alleged crimes during the Urumqi riots. Neftchi provides a source in its talkpage. So did RetlawSnellac.

• RetlawSnellac goes on to add dozens of individuals in the List of Azeris. , , , , , . Neftchi was by far the most active contributor to that list for the last couple of months.

• Neftchi adds a picture of a carpet manufacturing in Ganja and here RetlawSnellac adds one on the Carpet Museum.

• Here RetlawSnellac even leaves a message on the Neftchi talkpage inviting him to use his pictures. This leaves Neftchi to do what he wants with those pictures without having the trouble of using two accounts. Note that the real RetlawSnellac denied having anything to do with this account.

• Funny here, the fake RetlawSnellac even goes to attempt to have the picture of the so much loved by Neftchi petroglyphs of Qobustan to FA statues.

• Also see here, most of the edits in the last few months were done by Neftchi. And here, where he supports Neftchi out of nowhere to add the POV tag.

• Note also that Retlaw claims to be from Belgium/Netherlands. , prior to Neftchi name change, this was Baku87's personal page on Misplaced Pages, which read: Deze gebruiker spreekt Nederlands als moedertaal.

The pattern between both users, as if he switched from one account to the other, and while one user was contributing the other never was.

I do not know Neftchi and never interacted with him, so nothing personal, but impersonation, and compromising whole project by thief of IP and abuse of freedom and trust, is something that in my opinion, can not and should not be tolerated. --Aleksey Chalabyan a.k.a. Xelgen (talk) 21:22, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I have tagged one of his images at commons (File:Carpet Museum in Baku.jpg) with {{subst:npd}}, since I have found it on the flickr website. I'm out of time, I'm afraid, to contribute more now, but these are serious allegations which do need careful investigation. If he is truly who he says he is, he should be able to verify permission at the flickr site or through e-mail. If it should prove that this individual is deliberately misrepresenting himself to commit intentional copyright fraud, then I think it would be appropriate to immediately indefinitely block any and all accounts that may be involved. --Moonriddengirl 21:38, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Hello, I just received a message in my talk about alleged sockpuppetry, impersonation and IP thief suspicion related to me and RetlawSnellac. I certainly hope this has got nothing to do with me being ethnic Azerbaijani and Aleksey Chalabyan a.k.a. Xelgen being Armenian as we both work on articles with in which we have strong opposing perspectives. I noticed that the only users who have ever accused me in Misplaced Pages were ethnic Armenian. For example I was accused of having a sockpuppet account called Baki66 thats why I changed my name from Baku87 to Neftchi to prevent confusion. I want to make it clear that I dont know who RetlawSnellac is and its certainly not me, he posted a message in my talk see here and I never replied back to it. I have not talked or had any contact with that user I do have encountered him several times in[REDACTED] in articles in which I was active, I think he is just checking out my contributions list and works from there. Also notice how all his edits are done after me. This kind of approach is often done by anon-users. So just going through my huge contributions-list and finding any connections with RetlawSnellac is easy work but in no way is that evidence or proof. With this kind of approach I could probably link you to sockpuppetry aswell. I have been a member in[REDACTED] for a long time and I have never engaged in this kind of forgery so under what motive and reason would I suddenly start now. RetlawSnellac said in my talk page that I was welcome to upload any photo of his Photoalbum in Flickr and gave me this link and also note that the username in Flickr matches the one in[REDACTED] (that is retlaw snellac), why not approach him instead of me and ask him to verify his identity on both Flickr aswell as in Misplaced Pages. Neftchi (talk) 22:32, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

He has been approached in addition to you as both of you have been mentioned in this thread. --Moonriddengirl 22:40, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Hello. First of all, the main "hero" here, is owner of fake account RetlawSnellac, who did several serious violations and for whom I can not think of any excuse, for that. About you, no believe me you being azeri and me being armenian doesn't really mean anything for me. I had lot of contacts, and worked/lived together with azeris and turks. I'm soo far from being nationalistic or xenophobic in any other way. Also I'm in WP, since late 2006, but in en:wp 99% of my contribs are interwikis to hy:wp. So "we both work on articles with in which we have strong opposing perspectives" isn't correct, we really haven't meet, neither we worked on same articles. I'm not much into history or politics, and I do avoid Armenian-Azerbaijan related topics, as I find edit wars, one of the biggest and stupidest problems of wikis in general. I'm much into photography and I'm much for Free Software and Free Content, because I do really respect IP rights. Add because I've been following authors works for some period, I felt myself much more obliged, to report this. So If I noticed similar incident done by Armenian, my reaction would be the same. I'm probably most copyright-paranoid in hy:wp. I Hope my motivation is pretty clear now, and no one goes to look for ethnic problems here, and we can come back to incidents. Let me sum it up again, I'm sure RetlawSnellac on wikimedia, is impersonator and thief, as I got reply from author, I'm almost sure RetlawSnellac here is puppet (my expereince of moderating several forums tells me so), what comes to you, you're account has most correlations with RetlawSnellac's contirbs. But I don't think I have any moral right to accuse you in anything, until check is done, by admins. And if it proves you have nothing to do with all this, I'll ask your pardon, for my suspicion. --Aleksey Chalabyan a.k.a. Xelgen (talk) 00:55, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm back. I've also located several others and tagged them for verification of permission. If there were a contact address for the flickr account owner, I would happily contact him through OTRS so that we could quickly resolve this. If you are in communication with him, can you perchance ask him to get in touch with info-en-c@wikimedia.org, explaining that there is an individual on Commons impersonating him and uploading his images without permission? If his e-mail address can be clearly connected to the point of publication, this could resolve matters very quickly, at least as far as the copyright problems are concerned. --Moonriddengirl 22:39, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Just because this alleged imposter (RetlawSnellac) is going through my contributions list should not make me a suspect of sockpuppetry, impersonation and IP thief suspicion, these are serious accusations. Just think about it, what motive would I have for all this? I upload my own photos, edits my own articles and I have been doing this succesfully for several years now. Perhaps I am a bit overreacting, Im just taken by surprise by all of this. I would like to see RetlawSnellac's explanation to all of this aswell. Neftchi (talk) 17:36, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Hmmmm.... fascinating. And well researched and presented evidence, Xelgen. At the very least, RetlawSnellac seems to have been engaging in activities that not only break Misplaced Pages rules but which are quite clearly illegal. He has been pretending to be someone he isn't (Walter Callens), has been claiming that he owns the copyright of images which he does not own, has been uploading some of those images to Misplaced Pages, and has been inviting Neftchi to upload even more of those images to Misplaced Pages, thus breaking copyright laws. Whether RetlawSnellac and Neftchi are one and the same might be provable using CU evidence - but if they are the same person, the evidence suggesting he has been carefully avoiding being online using two accounts at the same time-period means that he has probably also been using two completely different ISPs. Similarity in editing styles, the identical use of particular words or phrases, might be another way of proving they are the same person (or proving that they are not). Meowy 21:41, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

There's smth wrong with my ISP, as it's second day I can't access Flickr. So using proxy, I've got to real RetlawSnellac profile on flickr. There is an email address, at the bottom of the page. Guess you can try it, to contact him. And I've just wrote a FlickrMail to him, leaving link to this report, and your instructions to info-en-c@wikimedia.org and describe the situation. --Aleksey Chalabyan a.k.a. Xelgen (talk) 23:05, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

After reading Neftchi’s reply, I feel it is important to clarify few things.

• Neftchi told, that RetlawSnellac was editing only after him, as do some annonims do. But there are cases, when Neftchi showed interest in some articles only after Retlaw contributed in them. One example is Neftchi's renewed interest in the petroglyphs like here and this clearly after RetlawSnellac. Also, if we dig a bit deeper into RetlawSnellac's contributions, we see controversial edits in articles which Neftchi did not edit (which seems to apparently discredit his claim of a plot against Neftchi). A few more examples: , , he also created Shirvan Domes. Also check his edits on Saingilo – the disputed region between Azerbaijan and Georgia, this image is in commons too.

• On the diagram we see how Neftchi takes a break twice, both for about exactly a week. RetlawSnellac posts right after him at both times, and most importantly, only at times. Such "perfect timing" makes plot against Neftchi quite unlikely (untill someone knew he will be on brake).

I'd like to mention, that some of the pictures uploaded by Neftchi, rise some questions to me, as well.

• Compare this with this.

• Uploaded to skyscrapercity.com on June 30, 2008 - Source Flickr vs. Uploaded to[REDACTED] by Baku87 October 25, 2008

Note that Neftchi again claims to be the author.

I have more in mind, but I'd like to re-check them tomorrow with fresher mind, cause after few hours spent digging contrib. history, I'm afraid to become a suspicious paranoic. --Aleksey Chalabyan a.k.a. Xelgen (talk) 00:27, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's some pretty hefty evidence of copyright infringement, unless Neftchi is a woman named Erica who lives in Maine. Both of those images clearly predate our usage here. I'll see if I can get an admin who works more routinely with sock puppetry to weigh in on the sock question. --Moonriddengirl 10:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Have you noticed its summer? Thats why I was on a break, what else could I be doing during this time. If I was changing accounts then wouldnt my IP remain the same? So check for IP between mine and that of RetlawSnellac's. Unless you have that it means nothing. And what do those photos have to do with this case, that has got to do with copyright and my previous website - euro-caspian.com (which is offline now). The fact that your out of topic makes it seem more like a crusade against me. Also note how fellow Armenian Wikipedian collague Meowy suddenly enters the talks, this at least raises the bar of suspicion of your accusations against me. Especcially taking into account Meowy's offensive language against Azerbaijanis, such as in this example, in which I qoute:

We also have to consider the plight of the population of Azerbaijan. They have a medical condition that's rather like a severe nut allergy. At the sight of a map showing the borders of Nagorno Karabakh their necks start to swell up, then they begin to involuntarily jump up and down as if possessed, arms swinging about wildly. If the situation is not quickly relieved by removing the map, their heads will quite literally explode! Many medical papers have been written about this unfortunate condition, but a yet no definitive cure has been found. The ingestion of a very large dose of democracy is known to alleviate the symptoms, but this is something the afflicted are reluctant to undergo because of cultural reasons.

So I would like to know whether this is a anti-Azerbaijani case due to my opposing perspectives regarding both our countries and politics. It could also very well be that you are RetlawSnellac and whilest I was on a break you made edits based on my contributions list and collected so-called-evidence for a case against me; considering you know my history of contributions very well. Anyway as I said before, I could probably find connections with you and some other user aswell and accuse you of socketpuppetry, because this is what kinda evidence you present. What you want you will find.Neftchi (talk) 14:43, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for inserting some off-topic humour into the thread - and, unlike your uploading of images, at least you are acknowledging the real creator of that satiric piece! However, I think you should be responding to the issues and the questions about your uploading of images that appear to be the work of others. Meowy 16:38, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

BTW, I think what Neftchi is trying to say in his "and what do those photos have to do with this case, that has got to do with copyright and my previous website - euro-caspian.com" comment is that the photo on the blog by a woman named Erica has actualy been stolen by Erica rather than the other way around. That seems possible. Looking at all the photos in her album there is no evidence she has actually been to Azerbaijan, and the photos show dancers in many locations around the world. So, unless she is extremely well-travelled, it would be common-sense to assume that almost all of the photos in that album have been taken from other sources. Meowy 17:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd certainly agree with you that Erica is unlikely to be the photographer of a lot of those images and may not be this one. I'm not entirely sure if Neftchi is either, though. I have confirmed that File:Kara Karayev.jpg was hosted, for instance, on the now defunct website, but I can't confirm that it was hosted there prior to its uploading here by another contributor, and copyright seems questionable, given that the photograph must be, what, 30 or 40 years old? Also, is he the copyright owner of the schoolbook from which this was scanned? Questions like this are worth some clarification. --Moonriddengirl 19:33, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I had hosted a website called euro-caspian.com funded by Heydar Aliyev Foundation, but the website was not required anymore and thus I closed it down, its offline now. The photos of Gara Garayev for example is from the database of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation. If your interested in learning more about the Heydar Aliyev Foundation I suggest you visit their official website here. The schoolbook picture is a scan of a schoolbook in Azerbaijan for 4th grade about Azerbaijani history. I wasnt aware that it was not allowed to scan book covers and upload them, I thought since the picture depicted Babek a heroic figure in both Iranian aswell as Azerbaijani cultures it would contribute to the related articles. I would also like to note that we stay on subject as I cannot represent myself while being confronted on several different subjects. I suggest we deal with the current case that is regarding the socketpuppetry and then later move on to copyrights regarding me, otherwise it would simply be unfair for me to represent myself. Neftchi (talk) 20:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

No, you cannot claim copyright to a picture you scan from a schoolbook and license it under GFDL and CC-BY-SA. I see that you've used fair use rationales before; unless you can verify that this picture is public domain, you can only use it if it meets the non-free content criteria and you provide a proper fair use rationale. With respect to the others, I see that you were advised in 2006, here, to obtain a letter from Heydar Aliyev Foundation to verify your authorization to release their materials. Did you ever obtain this? I don't see a copy of a letter from them in the OTRS system related to this (though there is one letter from them on an unrelated matter, which agents can see at Ticket:2008101710030661). You should add your comments to the PUF listing, which is linked at your talk page, as that listing will run its course within two weeks' time. --Moonriddengirl 23:53, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I can imagine, one doesn't understand the IP right laws, standards and the different licenses and cases. But I think every child understands, that writing "This work was done entirely by me", under work created by another person, is something "bad" and "wrong". I still, do assume good faith: for example - I can imagine being lazy, to properly provide all the necessary license/rights information. But it's not acceptable, in many ways. Project could be simply sued by real authors - seriously harming project, communities, and idea of Free Content in general. So can you please, look through all your uploads, mark for clean up all the images, you didn't have rights to upload, and provide info on images you really created by yourself, or had rights to upload. So this question never rises again in the future, and doesn't rise mistrust? --Aleksey Chalabyan a.k.a. Xelgen (talk) 01:16, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Dear Neftchi, it's second time you try to present this as personal and/or ethnic-biased. First time I ignored that, taking in account we had no contact before, and that you might be surprised by this situation. After all my explanation, and time I've spent trying to be as correct and accurate in facts/evidence rising suspicion to you, I find it quite insulting. If I by any chance would have any personal/national problems with you, I would contact you directly. I do understand, that this is not pleasant for you. Neither it's pleasant/interesting/fun for me. Noitce, that I didn't even put any of your words under doubt, without providing verifiable facts. You already did it several times. And constantly looking for ethnic background, you try to accuse me in nationalism. So I demand for mutual respect and civility.

About Meowy, as I can see you recently had a clash on her talkpage, I think it's natural she was quite interested in your edits at ANI.

I hope we'll finish with personalizing now, and deal with incident and actions, not persons.

Have, you really checked evidences? At both times RetlawSnellac posted really early the days you started to take brakes, check it, that person knew then you would be on vacation if not you. Please let's stick to what is presented, and solve this out fast. --Aleksey Chalabyan a.k.a. Xelgen (talk) 00:27, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

 Inconclusive based solely on technical evidence, it can not be ruled out nor proven solely on technical evidence.  Likely based on behavior and edit patterns that they are the same. I'd support indef blocks of the socks and a short block of the master. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:44, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Update; still unresolved, more feedback requested

I have listed several images by Neftchi at WP:PUF for clarification of their copyright status. The listing is here. Meanwhile, I have spoken to several admins who work sock puppetry or checkuser, and based on behavioral evidence and regional base of both registered accounts, the concerns are plausible. (see here and here. I have sought feedback from another CU as per suggestion, but would more than welcome other admin opinion here. :) Sock puppetry is not my neighborhood. --Moonriddengirl 14:11, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

After looking this over once again, I have issued RetlawSnellac (talk · contribs) an indefinite block, and Neftchi (talk · contribs) a one week block (bearing in mind that the image issue is still, as far as I know, unresolved). Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 11:16, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Possibly same case, in the past

I'm not sure if related, but while I was checking Neftchi contribs, I found another case, which looks quite similar, to this one. VanWeesp registered on Jan 10 and loaded related pictures on commons, with questionable rights. The only info I find on VanWeesp on google is hotel in Netherlands not a real person.

• See here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/Special:Contributions/VanWeesp. Questionable pictures, on google picture search results for example , here I find on September 13, 2008 a version of this here loaded on Jan 10, 2009.

• Here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/File:Azerbaijan_Navy.jpg Was uploaded on Jan 10, 2009, while http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showpost.php?p=3679927&postcount=134 Was uploaded on November 08 2008.

• Take a look at this photo. Now look at a LiveJournal of Ukranian pilot who visited Azerbaijan, for training Azeri pilots, and obviously made that photos during flights. It's written in the mentioned LJ post, anyone speaking Russian can confirm this. Now notice how photo uploaded to commons, was cropped out, to hide the watermarks of real author, and presented as "work done entirely by myself". A style we already know. Guess no need, to talk about dates, here.

• Same here - a cropped version of Photo at Military today. I'm not sure if last one is the author, but it could be taken from that website, and cropped out for the very same reason.

• On English[REDACTED] he also created an account and added those photos, see here. Not all photo's incorporated in articles by him, the rest were added by Neftchi, examples: , , .

• Neftchi was off wiki from January 8 to January 18 (VanWeesp only edited on Jan 10) and when Neftchi returns, first thing he do is put VanWeesp’s picture here. Note the only contributions by VanWeesp is on articles relating to the Azerbaijani military, articles which Neftchi is the most active contributor of.

• And majority of photos come from military parade of 2008, Neftchi too added pictures from same parade. See description here for example. This photo again was often seen by me on different forums, with photos weapons (like here), and again uploaded few months before, then they were uploaded here.

Add to this, that photos have small and different dimensions. And the reason is, that photos were taken from web, and then cropped out, to hide the watermarks, as it was with done with Fighter/MRLS photo. After few days I spent checking I'm almost sure all the photos of Neftchi and his puppets were stolen. A person who does create artworks/photos would be much more respectful to photos of others. And to me, Neftchi crossed the line, after which you can hope that at least 10% of images he uploaded, were created by him/or he really had rights to upload them. --Aleksey Chalabyan a.k.a. Xelgen (talk) 00:57, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

This example you have found (original:, on Misplaced Pages:) is a blatant case of a deliberate breach of copyright. VanWeesp, as you said, has simply cropped out the copyright-owner's original copyright information. All of this case is revealing just how much Misplaced Pages Commons is being used as a way of "laundering" stolen images. The methodology seems to be first upload them to Commons, then insert them into Misplaced Pages, using their established "Commons" status to avoid any inconvenient copyright questions being asked here. I know from experience that copyright issues on Misplaced Pages Commons are far more "relaxed" than on Misplaced Pages itself, and some of its uploaders are allowed to literally get away with theft. However, it isn't proven that Neftchi was aware of the true copyright status of these images - he may have just been searching Misplaced Pages Commons for suitable images to add into articles here. The connection you have discovered between this thread on militaryphotos.net and this image uploaded by Neftchi (the same photo is on post 27 of the thread) might just mean that "Zakali" is Neftchi - and if Neftchi is the actual photographer then there is nothing wrong. But is that credible? For example there are photos in that thread depicting similar stages of the same parade which have been taken from opposite sides of the same streets. This suggests two or more photographers at work - propably a lot more than two. Also, the subject matter, plus the closeness to the subject, suggests the involvement of official photographers (i.e. photographers working for the state or the armed forces, which would mean the photographers will not own the copyright of their photos). Meowy 16:16, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

For reasons I did not find explained, Zakali is labelled a "Banned user" on militaryphotos.net. Many of the photos contributed by Zakali in the thread on militaryphotos.net are watermarked "APA", which stands for Azerbaijan Press Agency, and were apparently copied from their site: see here, here and here. In either case, whether Neftchi is Zakali or not, something is rotten here.  --Lambiam 20:31, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

user:Jclemens

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Closing: B said it well. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Orly Taitz was nominated for deletion on July 31; when it was closed prematurely by user:Blueboy96 on July 31st, it was taken to deletion review (see Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2009 July 31). There was no consensus to overturn at DRV; on August 8th, the closing admin at DRV, user:King of Hearts, considered the other two possibilities (endorse or relist), concluding that consensus supported relisting rather than endorse.

King of Hearts reopened and relisted the AFD, but it was closed again mere hours later by user:Jclemens. When this was brought to his attention on his takl page, Clemens claimed that he didn't realize that he was closing a relisting that resulted from a DRV consensus to do so. But he refused to correct the error by reopening the AFD, and when pushed on the point, claimed that WP:SNOW supports his action. Clearly not: both myself and user:King of Hearts have made clear that Clemens' "early closure was highly inappropriate" and that the AFD "should not have been closed and should have run the 7 days" (), and Clemens himself has admitted that he "made an oversight in the process." That takes SNOW off the table, since it underlines that "f an issue is 'snowballed', and somebody later raises a reasonable objection, then it probably was not a good candidate for the snowball clause."

What's more, Clemens has admitted to a COI: he concedes that the early close was inappropriate, and that he closed the AFD early with a keep that reflects his personal opinion as to the notability question at issue. This is hard to square with WP:Administrators' warning against admins using their position to advance the side of a debate they support. He was not a "reasonably neutral party," in the argot of that policy, reviewing the debate impartially, but a participant. In effect, he attempted to unilaterally transform the DRV result from relist to overturn, using his position as an admin to close a debate as keep because he was persuaded that the keep position was correct.

As I said above, Clemens refused to accept DRV's relist mandate, so I have enforced that mandate by manually renominating the article. The immediate problem has therefore been dealt with, but we're still left with Clemens' acknowledgment of error but refusal to correct it. (To be clear, it is the refusal to correct an error brought to his attention that I wish to focus attention on, not his mistake in closing the AFD prematurely.) I wasn't sure where to bring this, but KofH suggested ANI, and WP:GBU says the same. We are told that administrators are accountable: what can be done?- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 23:01, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to look at the discussion and filter Simon Dodd's shrill accusations through a large grain of salt. He has repeatedly made accusations of bad faith, and failed to articulate any argument that the outcome was wrong--even when informed that a "reasonable objection" required objection to the outcome, rather than the process. My transparency in that process has been twisted and used against me. My detailed rationale for closing has been falsely construed as a COI. I think an appropriate admonishment for Dodd is in order, for treating Misplaced Pages as a WP:BATTLEGROUND and WP:BURO.

As far as the deletion discussion itself goes, more reliable sources publish articles about Taitz as a person every day, such as this one. Jclemens (talk) 23:32, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

That's two lies in one sentence. First, I have repeatedly explained to you why the outcome was wrong: that you disagree with those arguments don't mean that they weren't offered. Second, I accused you of acting in bad faith once (not repeatedly), and did so after a lengthy discussion in which you repeatedly acknowledged that you had made a mistake and yet refused to correct it. That is not a violation of WP:AGF, see User:KillerChihuahua. The bottom line here is that you made a mistake (I take you at your word that it was accidentally and in good faith, and that's fair enough - mistakes happen), failed to correct that mistake when it was brought to your attention (which was inappropriate), and then refused to correct it when asked (which was wholly inappropriate, and has led to unnecessary chaos, see ). Finally, your clami that Taitz becomes more notable by the day makes your refusal to let the AFD run per the DRV conensus all the more baffling: if you are correct, the case to keep will be stronger in seven days than it is now! - Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 23:42, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I see no point in responding to any post that accuses me of lying. If you'd like to refactor your post and be civil about it, feel free. Jclemens (talk) 23:51, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I took a quick look (having no opinion on the article subject), and it seems a pretty sure bet this article is going to be kept. Jclemens appears to have called this one correctly, even if a rigid adherence to procedure would have allowed Jclemens to step back and allow a pointless AfD to take place. IronDuke 00:35, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I strongly recommend leaving the current nomination open and not speedy anythinging it. Jclemsens' action was clearly inappropriate, but I'm not convinced that any corrective remedy is needed there. The better option is to just let this AFD proceed and for the closing admin to discount any "procedural" !votes in his or her closure. --B (talk) 01:34, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Iron, "it seems a pretty sure bet this article is going to be kept. Jclemens appears to have called this one correctly, even if a rigid adherence to procedure would have allowed Jclemens to step back and allow a pointless AfD to take place" cheers. Ikip (talk) 04:31, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• A snow close is appropriate where an admin (or a non-admin, occasionally) has reason to believe that extending the AfD will have 0 chance of impacting the outcome. In order for us to come down hard on jclemens for closing this AfD we first have to say with a straight face that the AfD would have been closed as delete had it been left open. I'm not sure where the 'reasonable objection' clause for a snow close comes in. I'm sure plenty of people reasonably hold the believe that wikipedia's inclusion criteria would allow us to delete (or merge/smerge) Orly Taitz's article. I'm among them. But I'm in a tiny minority. We have seen this movie before with Joe the Plumber and a dozen other flash in the pan political celebrities. By the time we decide that BLP1E applies (and some argument can be made either way), there is so much news coverage on the subject that it seems absurd to delete the article. Short circuiting a pointless debate on the topic is not something that should be punished. Protonk (talk) 06:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
  • There's an opposite side to this coin, however. And this is an example of it in action yet again. Speedy closures of good faith discussions usually make situations worse, not better. There are also plenty of examples of "flash in the pan celebrities" where we have in the end concluded that a biographical article is not warranted. It is not a good idea to adopt, as you appear to be implying, a general principle of "celebrity right now ⇒ early close as keep", because it's simply not the case.

    Haste is often a fault, not a virtue, in these cases. Look what we have now: A whole load of disgruntled editors (comprising those disgruntled by the early closure and those disgruntled by having to re-open discussion yet again), three AFD discussions, a DRV discussion, lengthy threads on two administrators' user talk pages, and two AN/I discussions (this one and that one). Most of that was avoidable by (a) not closing the discussion the first time after 5 days instead of 7, and (b) not re-closing the post-Deletion Review re-opening of the discussion after less than 1 day. The original AFD discussion, left to run its full course properly, and even allowing for a whole second week's re-listing (following new information), would have been over, with nowhere near as much ill-feeling generated, by now.

    There is a proverb, "more haste, less speed". There is wisdom to be gained from it. Uncle G (talk) 07:52, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

    • Is there any good faith assertion that this was one of those closes? I acknowledge the possibility in the abstract, but this critique, like others, I made the call that it was not a reasonable outcome. To this point, I've yet to see anyone disagree with me, even User:Simon Dodd, whose complaints continue to ignore WP:BURO by focusing on process rather than outcome. No one has come to me and said "Hey, that was going to be a keep" (or even a no consensus) aside from your close. The landslide !voting in the 3rd AfD demonstrates the correctness of the outcome. Jclemens (talk) 15:35, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

That is another demonstrable lie. For you to claim that "o one has come to and said 'Hey, that was going to be a keep' (or even a no consensus) aside from your close" is utterly false. I have repeatedly "come to " and said that this could be a no consensus close: You were told twice told on your talk page yesterday (see ), I explicitly stated in my renomination that we had yet to determine if this would be a keep or a no consensus close (see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Orly Taitz (3rd nomination)), and I've made the same argument right here in this ANI thread (see dif, or infra at 13:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)). Are you really going to claim that you missed all those comments where someone came to you to say that this could be a no-consensus close, despite the fact that you replied to all but the last one? Really? - Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 16:58, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Please refactor your personal attack, and I'll subsequently respond appropriately to the substance of your comment. Jclemens (talk) 17:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Protonk, I find it puzzling that both you and Clemens seem to believe that the only two outcomes available for an AFD are delete or keep. It is not true that "In order for us to come down hard on jclemens for closing this AfD we first have to say with a straight face that the AfD would have been closed as delete had it been left open"; we have only to recognize that there is a reasonable possibility that a no consensus close would have resulted. That was certainly possible, and was in fact the most likely outcome. There is a big difference between that and a keep decision, and that's why this is still a live issue.

In any event, it's the early close and then refusal to remedy the mistake that needs to be looked at, rather than the close itself (as I've said, I assume that the initial; mistake was just that: a good-faith mistake). As Uncle G explains with great force, heat melts snow; a snow close is clearly inappropriate for a contentious AFD, and this was an especially contentious AFD. All this disruption could have been avoided if not for two plainly inappropriate early closes, and the failure of the admins involved in the latter to recognize and correct his error. I resent benig put into a position by an admin where I have to take heat at the AFD for fixing his goof. This seems to be a pattern for Clemens (see the comments from other users about other incidents that you hatted below), and it's clear that he believes that he has acted appropriately. Accordingly, sanctions aganist him from the community are appropriate to disabuse him of that impression, and avoid his causing future disruption (cf. WP:BLOCK ("Blocks are intended to reduce the likelihood of future problems, by ... encouraging change in a source of disruption")).- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 13:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

It's not really puzzling. I have a different philosophy regarding snow closes than Uncle G. for snow closes I feel strongly that the proof of the pudding is in the tasting. It is a necessary condition that we feel the chosen snow outcome was wrong before we can begin to speak seriously about disruption and malfeasance stemming from the snow close. Uncle G's point that snow closes engender conflict is both correct and well taken. In many cases snow closes present as proximate causes for DRVs or AN/I posts like this one. So we may see this thread as evidence that the snow close was rash (maybe) or premature, but that is not the same as saying that it represented an abuse of the tools or a serious lapse of judgment. Because as sage as Uncle G's point is, all it really says is that there may be folks who would disagree with a snow close. And that's not indicative of admin abuse or malfeasance. Protonk (talk) 18:55, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Even if it is "a necessary condition that we feel the chosen snow outcome was wrong before we can begin to speak seriously about disruption and malfeasance stemming from the snow close," that has been shown. We do not know whether the AFD would have resulted in a keep or a no consensus close had it been allowed to rnu the full seven days. Calling it either way is thus necessarily erroneous.- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 23:11, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• I think it's also worth noting that the large number of people expressing frustration that the article has been renominated yet again demonstrates the disruptive effect of Clemens' premature close. If he had left the 2d nomination open as a relist, as KofH and DRV concluded it should be, or reopened it once his error was brought to his attention, this confusion and carnage would have be avoided. We should seek to avoid it recurrnig by sending two clear messages: SNOW closes are inappropriate in contentious AFDs, and when a mistake is made that will have disruptive consequences, the user should revert the mistake - or make appropriate amends - when the mistake is brought to their attention. - Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 14:49, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Rather, that your relisting, (as opposed to taking my close to DRV, as you were informed was the next step, yet explicitly declined) was a disruptive action that demonstrates that my close accurately judged consensus. Jclemens (talk) 15:29, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
    • It may have accurately evaluated consensus as it then stood, but it was very inappropriate for you to make that evaluation and close the AfD when a DRV had just determined that it should be kept open the full length. Opening yet another DRV on it is not at all a good idea.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:48, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
      • I've agreed that I was in error in closing it. I have yet to see anyone try to convince me the outcome would have ever become a keep if the discussion continued. So why are we here, again? Because one highly motivated editor thinks the remote possibility of a "no consensus" close is worth an ANI thread? Jclemens (talk) 17:49, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I cannot understand why you keep repeating variations on this clami that no one has tried to show that the outcome would have been something other than keep when that claim has been repeatedly debunked. It was repeatedly explained to you that the AFD could result in either a keep or a no consensus close; the fact that you disagree with that view (or perhaps that you fail to grasp the significance of that distinction) is quite different to your claim that no one has explained that view to you, as you keep claiming.- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 22:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for actually posing this question in a civil manner. As you yourself have repeatedly said a "no consensus" outcome is acceptable, you have personally and specifically endorsed my closure... with the exception of the name. Various deletion policies and guidelines make it abundantly clear that "no consensus" is a subset of a "keep" outcome, not a separate outcome.

• Misplaced Pages:Deletion_process#Process "If the decision is KEEP (including any variant such as NO CONSENSUS, REDIRECT, or MERGE)"
• Misplaced Pages:Guide_to_deletion#Closure "An AFD decision is either to "keep" or "delete" the article. AFD discussions which fail to reach rough consensus default to "keep"."
• Misplaced Pages:Deletion_policy#Deletion_discussion "If there is no rough consensus and the page is not a BLP describing a relatively unknown person, the page is kept and is again subject to normal editing, merging or redirecting as appropriate."

The WP:NOCONSENSUS essay likewise categorizes no consensus deletion debates as keeps. A "no consensus" outcome doesn't permit an earlier re-nomination or convey any difference in status whatsoever. Thus, despite all the storm and fury, not one Wikipedian has advocated reversing my close, merely disputed the "no consensus" sub-category of "keep" is more appropriate than the general category. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 03:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

It is, once again, a lie that I have "personally and specifically endorsed my closure." As you well know, I have done no such thing. As a figleaf, you offer your own theory - a theory I have repeatedly rejected here and elsewhere - that there is no difference between a no consensus close and a keep decision. In fact, they are plenty different; that a no consensus close defaults to keeping the article because no consensus has been established to delete it doesn't vitiate the force of this point in the slightest. One is a positive decision to keep, deservnig due deference, one is a failure to decide. A no consensus keep close leaves the door open for a future nomination; a vote to keep gives a future nomination a steep hill to climb. And even if you could in good faith argue to the contrary, that is my view, you know that that is my view, and for you to claim that I have accepted your view is therefore a lie.

Also a lie - and worth mentioning separately - is your claim that "not one Wikipedian has advocated reversing close...." To prove that this claim is a lie, I must show two things: that one or more wikipedians have advocated reversing your close, and that you knew about it. (If I could prove only the latter, that would only prove that your claim was wrong. Proving that your claim is a lie requires that I prove that you know that your statement is wrong.) I can do both. I advocated reversing your close on your talk page, here, here, and impliedly here. That proves your claim is wrong. You replied to all three of those comments, so unless we are seriously being asked to believe that you replied without reading those comments, that proves that you know your claim is wrong, and accordingly that you lied in making that claim.

It strikes me that if you're tired of being called a liar (as you claim to be at your separate attempt to get me sanctioned in another place, an effort that you failed to notify me of - I'll deal with that later), the way to achieve that is to quit telling lies that can easily be shown to be lies with a few diffs. Some friendly advice: you're in a hole. Quit digging.- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 04:41, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Again, please be civil. You managed to post a direct question to me without being incivil. That's commendable behavior and should be encouraged. As to the rest of your arguments... "A no consensus keep close leaves the door open for a future nomination; a vote to keep gives a future nomination a steep hill to climb" may well be your notion, but begs two questions: 1) Where is this in policy, guideline... or even an essay? I don't see it at WP:OUTCOMES. 2) Do you honestly believe a future AfD will result in her article being deleted? In case you haven't been keeping up with the ongoing reliable sourcing TIME just published a bio on her. Lastly, I find it mildly amusing that I'm supposedly the one in the hole, when another administrator closed this discussion, and you had to reopen it yourself to post. Jclemens (talk) 05:08, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

A few more comments: "seek first to understand"--in case what I said above wasn't obvious enough, not one Wikipedian has said that the AfD at the point where I closed it had a possibility of resulting in the deletion of the article. Changing a "keep" to a "no consensus" is only a semantic change, not a reversal. Likewise, reopening an AfD is not a reversal, but a reopening. Jclemens (talk) 05:25, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

When the community has decided through an AFD to keep an article, that decision has force - or at least inertia. Although no policy that I know says it explicitly, the underlying community judgment that previous decisions to keep merit deference is glimpsed through many policies and practice. For example, WP:BEGIN tells us that before nominating an article for deletion, an editor should see "if there was a previous nomination, check that your objections haven't already been dealt with." Similarly, an article can't be PROD'ed if it has been kept through AFD. And WP:NOTAGAIN tells us the rule through making an exception: "An article that was kept in a past deletion discussion may still be deleted if deletion is supported by strong reasons that were not adequately addressed in the previous deletion discussion...." None of these restrictions make sense unless they are understood to reflect the understanding mentioned above. We saw that in action in, for example, Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Criticism of Bill O'Reilly (political commentator) (3rd nomination), where many editors argued that the previous nominations should be conclusive. Although I argued that the previous nominations of O'Reilly lacked force because they did not address (as NOTAGAIN envisions) the merits of the nomination, but rather were closed on the basis that the nomination was in bad faith, there are many deletion discussions where I have expressly deferred to previous consensus to keep despite personal misgivings. See, e.g., Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Allie DiMeco (2nd nomination); Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Anti-globalization and antisemitism (4th nomination).- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 13:56, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

<-- To reiterate Uncle G's point: Patience is a virtue. Very little is ever gained by summarily shutting down a discussion or process early. It leaves participants feeling belittled and dismissed. A good and desirable outcome from a deletion discussion includes more than the correct choice between "keep" or "delete." A close that leads unnecessarily to multiple heated discussions on various forums is, self-evidently, not an appropriate close. Sometimes follow-on drama is unavoidable, but the pointless agita generated by this sort of peremptory action is not irrelevant, it is harmful, and it is easily avoidable. Nathan 19:55, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Other issues This is not a general venue for bitching about Jclemens. Protonk (talk) 05:32, 10 August 2009 (UTC)}}

• My experience with Jclemens is that he throws his weight around when confronted about his flouting of the rules. His behavior is consistent with a new user, not an admin. Experienced users should be even more civil than the average user, since their power to intimidate others is enhanced by their knowledge of just how far they can push the envelope and get away with it. Abductive (reasoning) 00:13, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

  If that's the best example of "flouting the rules" where I "throw weight around" and am not "more civil than the average user", then... wow. I appreciate the honesty, but that looks like me explaining rather civilly where my interpretation of a particular nuance (whether a prod decliner had to give a rationale, it was) differed from yours. Jclemens (talk) 02:25, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

  The problem with Jclemens' behavior is that he takes shortcuts where the outcome is going to be the same no matter what, makes it unpleasant for others involved, then gets his back up when people question him. "It's not the crime, it's the cover-up". Abductive (reasoning) 03:09, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

  So my crime is... ignoring process when the outcome is already obvious? I plead guilty! What cover up, though? It's not something I've ever denied. Jclemens (talk) 04:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• back in may, Jclemens speedy deleted LMFAO (band). I asked him for a deletion review ] because the band was seemingly notable, and not a candidate for speedy deletion, and the most Jclemens offered was to userfy it, which he never did. Another user eventually recreated the article from scratch. After he was told he made a mistake, he should have fixed the mistake by undoing the delete. Instead, he just obstructed the reacreation of an article that should have never been speedied Theserialcomma (talk) 00:43, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

  And where, precisely, did you actually ask for it to be userified? Looks to me like I offered, and you never took me up on it. Jclemens (talk) 00:54, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

  i assume you made a mistake and forgot to actually check your own talk page history before posting this (diff: ] Theserialcomma (talk) 01:33, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

  That link looks irrelevant. Want to update it? Jclemens (talk) 02:15, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

  oops. i apologize for posting the wrong diff. here is the real one (updated the old posting too) http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Jclemens&diff=prev&oldid=288878633

  At that point, which was almost five days after the original discussion, I replied to you indicating that it had already been done. What, exactly, should I have done differently at that point? Jclemens (talk) 04:28, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• at that point, there was nothing for you to do because it was too late. but what you should have done was prevented the situation from getting to that point by recreating the article as it was, once it was proven to you that it was not a candidate for speedy deletion. this is what happened: you speedied a notable band, i told you why they were notable, and showed you more media coverage and why it was not a candidate for speedy deletion. you told me you'd usefy it, and then someone recreated it at some point before i responded. the point is, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. you incorrectly speedied it, so you should have recreated it. an admin who misuses his tools, and refuses to correct the error, or even admit something went wrong, is not my idea of a good admin. Theserialcomma (talk) 20:30, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Separate report

Please note that Jclemens has filed a report over at Misplaced Pages:General sanctions/Obama article probation/Requests for enforcement#User:Simon Dodd regarding alleged incivility and hounding of Jclemens by Simon Dodd. As a strictly procedural note, perhaps that discussion should be brought over here or vice-versa. I don't know the substance of the dispute and I hesitate to involve myself, but on the surface of it the disputing parties may simply want to take a chill pill and be done with it.

As an aside, if any administrators are interested in helping out with the Obama articles, they may want to watch-list the "requests for enforcement" page I reference above, which has not been used much to date, and encourage editors to take Obama-related disputes there instead of here. That could reduce the traffic load and the heat here on this already overburdened page. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. I thought that it was a community norm that if you try to get someone into hot water, you should notify that person. Clemens has demanded that I be sanctioned at the link Wikidemon gave, but he hasn't notified me that he is trying to do so. I would have had no idea - and no opportunity to respond - had Wikidemon not posted this notice. If Clemens had posted his motion (preposterous though it is: this has nothing to do with Obama-related articles) at AN or ANI, that failure to notify would have been in defiance of the mandate to "inform other users and editors if they are mentioned in a posting, or if their actions are being discussed" or are even "the subject of a discussion." If he had posted it at WP:WQA, he would have failed to heed the mandate to "otify the reported user(s)." The warnings just quoted are not a series of isolated, unrelated provisions applicable only to the pages containing them. Rather, they are manifestations of a broader judgment by the community that both sides of a dispute should he heard. It speaks volumes that Clemens failed to notify.- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 04:47, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Given your rather acrimonious reaction to my prior good faith efforts, I expected an uninvolved administrator to review the evidence and chat with you about it. Far from an attempt at getting you in "hot water", my preferred remedy is that you simply refactor the personal attacks and incivility and apologize for your behavior. A topic ban would only be appropriate if a neutral party both found your conduct egregious and it continued past a warning, as has been pointed out on that page. Jclemens (talk) 05:12, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

it appears to me as if Jclemens is trying to seek punitive punishment against you for complaining about him. I don't see any evidence of actionable incivility, just what appears to be a counter attack from Jclemens. Just my opinion. Theserialcomma (talk) 05:33, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to move forward

(outdent for emphasis) If I changed the 2nd AfD to "no consensus", would you accede to that cataloguing and allow the third AfD to be closed as a snow keep without contesting it or requesting a DRV? Jclemens (talk) 05:25, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

It's astonishing to me that after all this, after all these editors explaining it to you (including but not limited to user:King_of_Hearts, user:Uncle_G, user:B, user:SarekOfVulcan, and user:Nathan), that you still don't understand that snow closes are grossly inappropriate for contentious AFDs. In proposing yet again to prematurely close the AFD, you admit that you have yet to absorb one of the two lessons that I brought this to ANI to help you understand. As to the other one, nor do I see any kind of recognition that having made an honest error in closing the AFD prematurely, you acted inappropriately by refusing to undo that mistake, or that your actions have led to utter chaos that now can't be undone. Because you give us no reason to believe that you've learned your lesson, you give us every reason to believe that you'll do the same sort of thing in the future (indeed, you're already champing at the bit to do it again: you are still trying to close the AFD prematurely!), which underlines the appropriateness of a formal warning or sanctions (see WP:BLOCK ("Blocks are intended to reduce the likelihood of future problems, by either removing, or encouraging change in, a source of disruption" (emphasis added))).- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 14:22, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Umm ... how many times do I need to say the closure was inappropriate? What is it I don't understand? --B (talk) 17:06, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

There is technically no such thing as a "snow keep". There's a "speedy keep", which this definitely doesn't meet the criteria for. JClemens, this was a _very_ bad suggestion. Might I suggest backing away from this article and its related discussions until the drama settles? You're not helping here. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:37, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I want to underline that I strongly endorse your proposal at AfD#3 that the closing admin there take AfD#2 and AfD#3 as one discussion in determining the result. Doing that would remove a lot of the sting from Clemens' error (I had thought that the harm was irreversible, but your proposal ingeniously undoes it), and I would appreciate any kind of input on how we can get the closing admin to do that.- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 15:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I think that's only necessary if AfD#3 is closed early, and consensus seems to be against that solution at the moment. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:48, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

So, you'd be OK if AfD2 (both parts) and 3 were considered as one unified AfD? Would you then be OK with closing #3 in ~12 hours--as the three have run just about 156 hours between them? Jclemens (talk) 16:52, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't matter what I think -- when I suggested it on AfD#3, I got jumped all over. The community doesn't like that idea. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:55, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, that question was to User:Simon Dodd. I expect if the two of us can come to a reasonable agreement to amicably end the dispute the rest of Misplaced Pages would--well, mostly not care, but certainly not object. :-) Jclemens (talk) 17:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I have a better idea -- let's wait 5 days and not find out. :-) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:39, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you do not seem to grasp that AfDs are about making decisions: outcome, not process. No decision on Taitz' article remains to be made--the community has been heard from, and each successive renomination has resulted in a smaller proportion of !votes to delete. Various uninvolved editors and AfD participants have pointed out WP:DEADHORSE (implicitly or explicitly), but in assuming good faith, I present you one, simple question: Under what circumstances do you see Orly Taitz being deleted from Misplaced Pages? Jclemens (talk) 16:33, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I have a simpler question: Under what circumstances do you see this AfD closed early without creating more drama than it solves? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:36, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll answer your question after User:Simon Dodd answers mine. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 16:53, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

In other words, you're in it for the drama. Got it. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

You might have asked my motivation before presuming it. I'm in it for WP:BURO--the drama is a regrettable side effect of the community simply not taking WP:BURO seriously enough to shut down WP:POINT actions like this. Jclemens (talk) 17:30, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

To answer SarekofVulcan's question, the simple answer to close the discussion and this thread without moar dramah is to impose a topic ban on Simon Dodd. He's below admitted he doesn't see any current chance of a delete outcome, yet insists on prolonging the process. The participants in the third AfD have widely endorsed keep and closure, and those who have advocated the third AfD be kept open would probably agree that it be closed early if there was no chance of yet another disruptive and futile renomination. Jclemens (talk) 22:42, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

What a puzzling question to ask to someone who thinks it ought to be deleted now. It will be deleted or redirected at whatever point in the future the community feels that we have sufficient distance from the single event for which Taitz is notable to see it as such. As you know, notability is not temporary. In ten, twenty months or so, Taitz and her crusade have vanished from the mainstream. When we then revisit this article, I fully expect that the community will, with cooler heads and clearer eyes, realize that it was temporarily dazzled by this event and the publicity around it, and that the article will be deleted (or at least merged) per WP:NOTNEWS, WP:BLP1E, and WP:SINGLEEVENT.- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 22:13, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Not at all. You've just admitted that tne entire third nomination is a WP:POINT violation. Jclemens (talk) 22:38, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, I'd say just put this baby to bed. I pissed in the wind and tossed in a token delete, but the outcome of AfD #3 here is a done deal. Tarc (talk) 17:15, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Any objections to just closing all of the drama? Jclemens is not going to be sanctioned. Simon Dodd is not going to be sanctioned. The closed AFD is not going to be reopened. The opened AFD is not going to be closed until its 5 days elapse. Continuing this thread and the one on Misplaced Pages:General sanctions/Obama article probation/Requests for enforcement only add to the drama, so I'd like to propose we close both of them and move on with life. There is NOTHING whatsoever that is going to be decided here. --B (talk) 18:51, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

No objections to closing this thread. It was closed before, and I wasn't the one who reopened it. Jclemens (talk) 20:01, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Something of a COI there! Do users often object to closing a thread seeking sanctions against them? - Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 22:13, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Sanctions against me aren't on the table, and you seem to be the only one who thinks they're appropriate. The more important question is: do you consent to the closing of this thread? Jclemens (talk) 22:38, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

User:Catterick

I have just put an indefinite block on this account on the ground that he is um 'really eccentric'. He has been here for years but has used sockpuppets to avoid banning (IMO). My reasoning for the indefinite is that I'm not sure how long the block should be but my thinking at the moment is that he is incompetent at actual editing (evidence in a minute) and that he is disruptive on talk pages so is very much a net negative to the project. However, as I said, I have only looked at his recent edits. perhaps he has been helpful at some time in the past? If not then I think we should go for community ban. Theresa Knott | token threats 08:22, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Evidence for disruption: See my talk page

Evidence for incompetence here Note that I am not saying that we should ban him because he can't edit articles, but that when coupled with constantly stirring up trouble for the sake of it means that we can cut him no slack. Theresa Knott | token threats 09:01, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

There was previous discussion of his actions here - and (unverified but checkable) evidence of sockpuppetry here. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:35, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Having just come across this person on the Richmondshire article and trying to work with them to get the information they supplied sourced so that it could be verified. I find that they appear more interested in long discussions on the talk page (which was moved to talk:Richmondshire from my talk page by the user), to attacking other users and complaining at my request for in-line citations. If an indefinite ban is not maintained then there needs to be some form of mentoring and guidance for the editor to enable them to work collaboratively with others. Keith D (talk) 11:35, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

With the best will in the world, I don't think mentoring would work - I've just discovered this and this, going back to 2003. Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:44, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

IMO Catterick is quite knowledgeable on British history and his opposition to the manipulation of various Misplaced Pages articles by myth making disinformation campaigns, carried out by various regionalist, separatist and post-Troskyite interest groups is a welcome addition. However he must approach this in a far more cool headed manner and also when writing articles, learn how to use references like in the Richmondshire article above. I've only become aware of the user in the last couple of days, but if he managed to calm it down a lot (and I do mean a lot) his contribution could be a positive one to the project. Perhaps the mentoring thing which Keith suggested is worth giving ago? As a last chance saloon sort of thing. - Yorkshirian (talk) 16:03, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I promised him that if he wanted to comment here I'd copy it over. However he has had a lot to say so it would be best if interested parties went to his talk page. Theresa Knott | token threats 17:33, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if that is workable. I just had a look at his Talk page & he has made quite a hash of it, cut-n-pasting the same few paragraph over & over to it until it weighs in at 2 million kbytes. I'd blank & protect his talk page, except that the last few times I pressed my Admin button no one was happy with the result. -- llywrch (talk) 19:49, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't see the need to blank the talk page unless it gets bigger substantially. But I'm also not seeing strong evidence that he should ever be unblocked. Protonk (talk) 19:56, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Well it needs doing but as the one who put an indefinite block on an established user's account I think it should be another admin rather than me. Theresa Knott | token threats 22:17, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Looking at Ghmyrtle's evidence above this is a long term abusive editor who has been here since 2003 and had been banned by the AC in 2004 for 1 year. He is pretty fond of using socks and we should probably try to identify as many as possible and block them all. Theresa Knott | token threats 22:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Sock-chasing is not my strong point but I agree. I can see very little evidence that he is anything other than a disruptive troll and an open-ended block seems over-due to me. Ben MacDui 07:24, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I suspect he's probably capable of interesting original research. But that's of no value on this site, especially when coupled with his inability to present his conclusions in a way which is comprehensible to readers; or to take account of other people's different conclusions and recognise the difference between fringe theories and consensus; or to engage in a civil manner with other editors and avoid becoming fixated on perceived slights; or to restrain himself from abuse and threats. Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:40, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

IMHO, Lord Loxley/Catterick seeks 'drama'. Will he change his Wiki ways? or will he accuse others of ganging up on him. 'Tis up to him to decide his Wiki-fate. GoodDay (talk) 20:24, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

If hes used socks before, won't he just do that again to get around the block? Perhaps it would be better if he was in the community but had somebody to watch over and guide how to correctly and coherently write articles, with refs and everything. - Yorkshirian (talk) 05:57, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, he will try again, and editors need to be vigilant - it's pretty much obvious from the articles he works on, and how he contributes (mostly incomprehensible, sometimes offensive, rants about obscure aspects of Yorkshire and related history, punctuated by abuse of other editors). I think, if you go through the archives of his past interactions with other editors, it's fairly obvious that the "mentoring" approach would not work. He's been around a long time and believes he is right, and I don't believe he will change. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

24.229.244.235 (talk · contribs)

Various articles edited by IP 24.229.244.235

24.229.244.235 (talk · contribs)

We've been dealing with gross contentiousness, 3RR, editing while blocked, vandalism, you name it, from this editor. In realizing this was a young person, I tried to be helpful while the IP was blocked, even after discovering a username had been registered in order to violated a block placed on July 21. Block log is here When I was looking at issues related to edits made today after the IP returned, I discovered that another IP, 24.229.233.239, traceroutes to the same location and had been blocked, finally for 3 months, on June 21 . In just looking at the posting style and patterns, as well as the articles edited, this is unquestionably the same editor, avoiding a fairly long term block, again. See User talk:24.229.244.235 and User talk:24.229.233.239. To expand upon WP:DUCK, when it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and calls itself Donald, it's the same duck. Could this be dealt with here please? Wildhartlivie (talk) 00:24, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Could I at least get a response here, please? Wildhartlivie (talk) 19:03, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

 Done Rodhullandemu 19:39, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Improper block by Georgewilliamherbert (the sequel)

I don't have much hope of seeing anything done about this, but I want to voice my protest. There have been recent disputes at three of the "LaRouche" articles, the main disputants being Will Beback, Coleacanth and Maybellyne. Will had been agitating to delete references to LaRouche's economics theories and proposals. Colecanth and Maybellyne found substantial sources in the Russian and Chinese press. Will resisted their use, but the consensus at WP:RS/N supported their use.

Then tensions escalated. The LaRouche arbcom cases say don't use Misplaced Pages to promote LaRouche, and don't violate BLP at LaRouche articles. Coleacanth and Maybellyne were pushing the limits on the promotion side, and Will was pushing them on the BLP violation side. I had filed a request with the Mediation Cabal (Misplaced Pages:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2009-08-06/LaRouche movement) on August 8, which I think might have had a beneficial effect, as both sides of the conflict have been responsive to outside input.

However, toward the end of last week Will went into a whirlwind of activity, making an enormous volume of controversial edits, and civility went out the window on both sides. I blame all parties, but Will more, because he's an "old hand," an admin, and my sense was that he was deliberately goading his opponents in order to create the pretext for having them banned (as in Misplaced Pages:Gaming the system#Abuse of process.) And sure enough, I discover this week that once again, Georgewilliamherbert has stepped in to do the job. Collaborating behind the scenes to impose a permanent ban based on the "duck test" diff is just a little bit too convenient, particularly because both admins are involved and share a POV; last time around, George was talking about the need to make sure the articles "are not a whitewash." As I said then, actions of this sort should be taken only by uninvolved admins, but I think that my request is falling on deaf ears. This smacks of an "old boys club" at Misplaced Pages where the club members get to dodge the constraints of policies such as NPOV, BLP, WP:CONSENSUS and WP:OWN, simply by making their opponents disappear with the thinnest of pretexts. --Leatherstocking (talk) 00:59, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

• Any diffs to speak of besides the one? Protonk (talk) 01:28, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

All three accounts which I indefinitely blocked have been checkuser-confirmed (by others, I'm not a CU) to be sockpuppets of indefinitely banned Herschelkrustofsky (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), who has been a prolific sockpuppeteer and (if you note the talk page strikeouts Will did at Talk:Views of Lyndon LaRouche ) were directly reinforcing each other in a discussion to create false sense of consensus, a direct violation of WP:SOCK, much less the prior user ban.

There is no thin pretext here - Hersch is permanently banned from Misplaced Pages, and to the extent that it takes us time to notice new sockpuppets arriving, only gets away with brief stints of editing here.

See also Misplaced Pages:Long_term_abuse/Herschelkrustofsky for more details...

Leatherstocking, I understand you're sensitive about people stomping up and down on legitimate discussion and viewpoints there, particularly with our history there. But this is a long-standing abuse case ( 5 years, 59 plus accounts or IPs used by now ), in which the user is banned from editing. If this appears to be unfair to others participating in discussion - I'm sorry, but we can't allow him to continue editing once he's detected. He should not be there in the first place, and he knows that. He's banned, really completely utterly banned, and we do not want him back. That he's still at it 5 years later and still using multiple IP addresses at the same time should tell you something about the magnitude of the problem.

I am not involved in article content - I have refrained from doing so since I had to full-protect the article for a year a couple of years ago (and I believe I didn't do so beforehand), though I would have to review to see if I did any of the article talk page consensus changes that followed the protection.

We do have to have administrators with longstanding experience around to deal with ongoing abuse cases - knowing the signature of these users over a period of years makes a big difference in efficiency of enforcement of bans. As noted - I found usage patterns which made me extremely suspicious, I saw other information from other sources (wikichecker etc) which lined up and confirmed it, and after I made the blocks a checkuser was performed and verified that the users were in fact Herschelkrustovsky. So my pattern matching was a correct analysis.

I did not rush to judgement here - I had been watching the patterns for a few weeks before I acted, and others were also watching for some time (I hadn't run the original wikichecker reports).

I'm sorry if you feel that this has a chilling effect. I have no intent to do so on your account. I have no reason think or suspect you're doing anything wrong at the moment, and actions against this user should not be interpreted as any reflection of suspicion on you or anyone else. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:10, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Several things puzzle me here. You say a CU confirms sockpuppetry, and at the same time you say Herschelkrustovsky is using multiple IP addresses. Did the original Herschelkrustovsky account use multiple IP addresses? I ask because I too have watched this business of account after account being banned as socks of this person, and I get the impression that many of them are simply users with similar POV, at which point someone says "close enough," bans them, announces that their IP addresses are Herschelkrustovsky, and by the time the smoke clears there are umpteen different ISPs or IP ranges which are all alleged to be his, so it becomes very easy to accuse someone of being him. The latest two banned accounts actually did a lot of useful work, and the other thing which troubles me is that Will Beback edits very aggressively with a rather pronounced POV and seems to have a free pass to do so. --Leatherstocking (talk) 06:23, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I can't answer in detail, because A) I'm not a checkuser and didn't see the actual results, and B) our user privacy policy prohibits checkusers from sharing those details (only results are released, not the underlying privacy-relevant data). However, what we have been told generally by CUs previously is that Hersh uses a consistent set of IP ranges and other identifying information. I am told that the correspondence is identical again - the same IP blocks, the same IPs, other characteristics the same.

With 60-odd total accounts in the history, there's plenty of evidence there. The CUs are good at this by now.

A banned user can at times come in with a new account and do some good work. But that doesn't mean they're not banned. If we find them, they are blocked again. That's what banning means.

In this case, what they were slightly more subtly working on was the same topic area where Hersh's abuse caused his banning - LaRouche related topics. A banned user who appears to be editing constructively with a new account in the area they were banned for affecting is often (though not surely) subtly trying to twist things to their personal bias or viewpoint again. In this case, as there were 3 accounts reinforcing each other, they were making it look like more people were involved in the discussion than there really were - essentially, a lot of that page comes to Will and Hersh's sockpuppets talking. And the sockpuppets talking to each other. And a bit of your comments. Having two or more accounts talking to each other, and reinforcing each other, is one of the prime reasons we have WP:SOCKPUPPET - it's entirely a cheat on our consensus rules, by making an artificial consensus out of one person's opinion, presented with the various socks.

I believe Will is working to seek NPOV on the article and good article contents in compliance with other policy. However, if you want a wider review of that, you can feel free to discuss it here. As I have said, I am not making article content decisions in general there as I am so involved in the enforcement issue over time. I don't think I'm grossly biased, but it deserves independent review. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 07:20, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

• First, I received no notification of this thread. It's only polite and reasonable to notify a user when initiating a thread about them on ANI.
• Second, User:Herschelkrustofsky is well-known as a puppet master. He has used literally dozens of socks, usually a few at a time.
• Third, I had no prior discussion with user:Georgewilliamherbert about this matter. He acted on his own, and then I mentioned the other accounts later.
• Fourth, after I'd supplied Georgewilliamherbert with information about the users, and after he'd confirmed the violation, I then requested an investigation from a user with CU privileges. He confirmed that the three acounts were all using the same IPs, etc. He also indirectly confirmed that the users where the same as used by user:Number OneNineEight. As a result of the CU check, a number of acounts were blocked. BFD.   Will Beback  talk  10:28, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

This looks like "prior discussion." If the banned accounts were "indirectly confirmed" as the same IPs as User:Number OneNineEight, why is the assertion being made that they are "confirmed" as User:Herschelkrustofsky, when User:Number OneNineEight is listed as a "suspected sockpuppet" of Herschelkrustofsky? I also distinctly recall that there was one group of accounts, including I believe User:Bill Chadwell, that you insisted were Herschelkrustofsky, and they turned out to be User:Gnetwerker. And by this time there must be so many IPs involved that I cannot help but suspect that some guesswork is being presented as scientific certainty, and that some users are simply being banned for holding the wrong POV. And meanwhile, all this banning certainly serves the interests of anyone who might have an agenda of moving the LaRouche articles a little off-kilter with respect to NPOV. --Leatherstocking (talk) 15:27, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Those are all checkuser confirmed socks. Whether they're socks of Gnetwerker or Herschelkrustofsky is irrelevant. I wonder why you keep arguing that their blocks are improper, citing dodgy evidence, while you yourself, and indeed the blocking admin, can't even view the evidence.--Atlan (talk) 15:49, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I've never heard of User:Bill Chadwell, and there's no sock tag on his user page. I'm curious how Leatherstocking even knows about this account or that he was a sock of Gnetwerker.   Will Beback  talk  18:09, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, wrong banned user. I was thinking of user:Guillermo Ugarte and User:ClarkLewis. You say here that you are confident that Guillermo is HK, and then here you acknowledge that he is Gnetwerker. Further down the same page you will see a comment by Bill Chadwell, struck through by yourself with the the comment "banned user." And in the course of searching for these diffs, I discover here that you were seeking to have me banned as a sock, but a CU by Jayjg found me innocent (incidentally, I received no notification of this thread. It's only polite and reasonable to notify a user when you are attempting to have them banned on ANI.) --Leatherstocking (talk) 01:03, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

No, we do not extend such courtesies to socks of banned users. I guess you could have been notified after it was established that you weren't a sock, but that's water under the bridge now.--Atlan (talk) 01:24, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Will didn't suggest in that thread that you were one of the socks - the only mention of you is Jayjg's comment on the CU results that you're unrelated and the blocks right below that, which said you were left alone. You were being discussed around that time last year, in various places, but I don't see anything in that thread. Was there a SPI on you right near then? I haven't found it yet. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:29, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the identities of puppet masters, as more information comes in a more accurate assessment can be made. In that case checkuser found those accounts and several others. The details of how they were used is murky, but under any construction they were being used to evade a block. If I start a thread about Leatherstocking on ANI I'll ll be sure to notify him. I didn't start the thread he's pointing to.   Will Beback  talk  01:35, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The edit Leatherstocking points to was in response to which was Will commenting on Maybellyne's talk page after I blocked them.

There was no communications prior to my block of Maybellyne that I remember or can find record of, and I was already deep into my work on the other two accounts when Will commented, and then sent me the info about the others.

Some inter-admin chatting, on and off the Wiki, is normal. I don't know Will outside Misplaced Pages, though we interact regularly on-Wiki and on email lists.

I would like to second Atlan's comment - regardless of how the accounts were spotted, checkuser confirms that they were in fact sockpuppets, and that's that.

I am glad that someone ran a CU and confirmed it - I am confident enough in my ability to spot the patterns that I will block on behavioral analysis. But a checkuser is a more firm confirmation. Sometimes I make mistakes with behavioral analysis, but I get it right (and CU confirms) much more often. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:38, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I generally try not to follow myself up, but I wanted to comment to Leatherstocking -

I understand where your concern is coming from. And it's reasonable to bring things to ANI for review. But this is fairly normal admin dealing with banned users and sockpuppets. The duck test - WP:DUCK - is approved administrator operating policy. We can issue warnings, sanctions, topic bans, or blocks based on reasonable behavioral evidence. Many admins don't get that involved in abuse cases, many do. But the thresholds have been discussed, approved by the community, approved by Arbcom, etc.

The particular topic is one I've been active in abuse issues on for some time - but it's a very small part of the total picture of abuse issues I have been involved in. If you're worried that I'm obsessive about the topic, please don't. I really would prefer to ignore it. It's only the very persistent abuser / banned user who keeps us watching it that closely. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:57, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Outing by BullRangifer

In a recent sockpuppet investigation, BullRangifer posted what he believes to be the city in which I live in an effort to link me to an IP address block which had been edit warring. Before he made his post, I made this post where I stated "if the investigating admin ... would like any information about my actual location or permanent IP address, please feel free to contact me via email." I think it is quite evident from my post that I didn't want my location discussed and/or revealed publicly in this forum.

Further, BullRangifer made his own post at the SPI where he warned editors against posting his actual location on Misplaced Pages because of "serious security issues". Unfortunately, BullRangifer didn't extend me the same courtesy.

In BullRangifer's defense, he claims that my location was well-known already by those at Misplaced Pages because of the one time two years ago that I accidentally edited while logged out. I don't think this is a valid excuse because while that one edit did reveal my location at the time I made that one particular edit, no one made a big deal about it and to the best of my knowledge no one on Misplaced Pages has ever discussed my location based on that edit. This presumed location of mine was not well-known until BullRangifer posted it on SPI.

By stating the location which he presumes I live, BullRangifer has violated WP:OUTING. I ask for the proper reprocussions and for my privacy to be reinstated by Oversight. Thank you. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ 02:24, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

The WP:Requests for oversight policy contains instructions for requesting oversight, to wit: E-mail the mailing list for such requests, oversight-l at lists.wikimedia.org. Posting private information, or potentially private information, to a widely trafficked public noticeboard is not necessarily a recipe for keeping that information under wraps. Nathan 02:52, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I already sent an email to the mailing list and effectively was told that the cat is out of the bag now, so what do you want us to do about it? Remove the entire SPI case?

If it is generally known by the other participants in this dispute that you live in LA, Oversight can not put that cat back in its bag.

I was baffled by this response. And it was not generally presumed by anyone that I live in L.A. before BullRangifer made this post. So here I am. The cat is out of the bag indeed (whether or not it is the correct cat) and WP:OUTING makes it pretty clear what is in order now in terms of reprocussions. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ 03:03, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't want to be a dick, but you have probably made this location and its possible attachment to you much more prominent by posting on this page. email oversight if you want the diffs removed. Protonk (talk) 03:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

In future if there's something you want oversighted, you're much better off handling it privately rather than posting about here on ANI which really defeats the purpose and just brings more attention to the incident. I understand you requested oversight but you really should have continued to discuss with the oversighters privately or even contacted an admin and asked them to do a selective deletion rather than coming here. Now that you've voluntarily reposted the location here yourself, I don't think there's any point in pursuing this further. Sarah 04:34, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I have been emailing oversight and just emailed them again at Protonk's behest. They didn't respond to my previous request. What am I supposed to do? -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ 04:39, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

It's courtesy blanked for now. Whenever oversight responds I'll figure out if I want to delete the revisions the old fashioned way. Protonk (talk) 05:57, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

That's a start. Thanks, Protonk. I want to make it clear that this violation of WP:OUTING wasn't accidental or non-malicious. BullRangifer is an editor with a long-standing grudge against me who was falsely accusing me of sockpuppeteering. He clearly knew it was wrong yet went ahead and "outed" me anyhow by revealing what he believes to be my location. He even went so far as asking another editor who contributed to the SPI to change his "inaccurate" location information so that the archives will contain the information about my location which BullRangifer assumes to be correct. That editor heeded BullRangifer's assumption about my location and changed his post in a further violation of WP:OUTING. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ 07:08, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I understood from your previous comment that Oversight had responded but didn't agree oversight was warranted, which (of course) is very different to not responding at all. If they told you they didn't think it was warranted and you disagreed and still felt it was warranted under policy, you should have continued discussing it with them and even asked another oversighter to give a second opinion if you felt strongly about it. In future, if you email the oversight mailing list and don't get a response or don't get a favourable response, you could email someone with oversight directly or you could email an admin you trust and ask them to at least do a selective deletion and, if necessary, block the user. If you don't know any admins personally that you could ask, you could look through the admin list. I haven't looked extensively at this and don't know much about the background, but I must admit that I'm not overly convinced by that evidence. The user seems to have identified an instance where you resigned an IP comment with your account and then done an IP lookup (which is something we facilitate by providing various links to whois, geolocate and traceroute services on each IP talk page). SPI walks a very fine line, trying to balance the project's interests with individual's personal interests, and it would often be much better if we could somehow present that kind of information in a way that can't be read by Joe Blow passing by, but when investigating suspected disruptive editing, we can't just ignore evidence where someone has mistakenly edited while logged out and then come along and resigned their comments. Admis can do selective deletions. A long time ago I did a selective deletion for a then non-admin (who is now an arbitrator) who was mistakenly logged out when posting a comment obviously from him and I'm sure if you asked nicely and it was possible (some page histories are just too messy) someone would have helped you and then you could have redone your post logged in, but you really need to do that straight away and without drawing public attention to it, otherwise it defeats the purpose. Also note that WP:OUTING doesn't apply if you voluntarily provide the information yourself. Note that I've just deleted the past history of your userpage because it contained a set of five links to what I can only assume is your real world identity, your real world website and real world work. Based on what I've seen at those links, I would concur with the oversighter who advised you that it was too late to put the cat back in the bag. From what you've been saying above about privacy and outing etc, I'm assuming you'd like those revisions deleted for personal reasons and am deleting before posting this here because no doubt once I post this people will try to look, but it needs to be noted that you appear to have provided considerable real world identifying information about yourself voluntarily and have made no effort to have it removed from this website, so I honestly don't think you have been WP:OUTed by the SPI. I have restored the last version of your userpage. If you didn't really want the history deleted and would like me to restore the whole thing or would like other versions restored, please email me and I will do so for you. Sarah 09:30, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Really, I don't see how posting an educated guess at someone's city of residence violates WP:OUTING. It's a stretch to consider "LA" to be contact information for you. If I take a stab and say someone is from the United Kingdom, is that a violation of WP:OUTING? The policy states that posting personal information is prohibited. I'm not convinced that your living in LA is "personal information". Misplaced Pages policy does not - and can not - guarantee complete anonymity. This policy - which is part of WP:HA - protects you against harassment, not against people taking a guess at what city you live in based on IP addresses. Tan | 39 15:42, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, that does it! By filing this absurd thread, Levine2112 forces me to file a full SPI against him. I have refrained from doing so for several years, and he should have known I could have done it and was being merciful, but this is too much. Why "absurd thread"? Because geolocation is an essential part of an SPI, and it's absurd for the one suspected of abusive socking to be allowed to have the evidence disturbed or deleted. Please stop all oversighting now before more evidence is disturbed. There is nothing urgent about this, nor is his security threatened. Los Angeles is a huge area! His userpage history contains evidence of gross deceptiveness and it is needed. I am traveling now and won't be able to file the SPI report for possibly a week, but it's coming and will show instances of socking, votestacking, etc.. Levine2112's silence during the current SPI has been telling, and it would have been wise for him to continue to lay low, but he made the mistake of pressing my hand, and even more of the cat will be out of the bag. This is an editor who has great potential, but who has abused the system, and the time has come for documenting his deceptiveness. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:40, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, we've all been grateful for your "mercy" of late, but I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say we can't wait for your tell-all SPI report. I'm sure Levine will regret "pressing your hand". Tan | 39 15:50, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Just two quick comments: 1) I had no idea where Levine is editing from; I don't think this was general knowledge. If it was, then I think I have quite a few things to say about BullRangifer that are also general knowledge. 2) I am not getting the impression that Levine is particularly serious about keeping the information private. Hans Adler 15:59, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

BullRangifer, like Tan I too look forward to your report. I am worried not because I am or was ever guilty of sockpuppeting or meatpuppeting, but because of the way that you twist information into the "truth" which you want to disseminate to the masses. I am worried because this is what you do both on and off Wiki and have been pretty effective at selling your version of the Truth to the masses. You provide selective information and conjecture to create misinformation and then pass if off as the truth. This is exactly what you did in this SPI with the information which clearly violated WP:OUTING. And though the report proved to be inconclusive, somehow your "evidence" was enough for an involved admin to mete out a six month topic ban. This is what I worry about. You are very convincing even when the evidence is not on your side.

Tan, BullRangifer was not providing a "educated guess". Educated guesses would be fine provided that it is clear that they are guesses. Rather, BullRangifer made a declarative statement about my location (Levine lives here).

It is ridiculous to blame me for publicizing the cat which BullRangifer had let out of the bag so I'll go now and leave you with this. Check my block log. I was once blocked for outing BullRangifer by provided an external link which contained one piece of personal information about BullRangifer. This personal information was something which BullRangifer had already shared with Misplaced Pages on his user page through the various external links he provided to his personal blog, web rings and chat boards. Yet, I still got blocked for violating OUTING. Now here we are, BullRangifer declares one piece of my personal information and his defense is that this information is already well-known. Is it wrong for me to expect the same punishment for him?

My question to BullRangifer is this: How do you know my location is well-known when no one on Misplaced Pages has ever discussed it aside from you? Are you discussing my location with editors off of Misplaced Pages? I know that over the years you have actively recruited editors to Misplaced Pages from other sources to come take up arms against me and "my kind", but are you now telling us that you keep in touch with these editors off Misplaced Pages and discuss my personal information? I don't want to sound too much like Abd (for fear that BullRangifer will now accuse me of being his sockpuppet), but there certainly does seem to be an cabal! :-)

BullRangifer's edit history shows that he came to Misplaced Pages with an agenda to disseminate mis-information. However, when his POV pushing efforts were repeatedly thwarted by yours truly, he marked me as a target who needs to be eliminated. Are these sockpuppet accusations just his latest attempt to extract this thorn in his side? I wonder. BullRangifer, have a safe journey and I look forward to your return when you can continue your now four-year mission to rid Misplaced Pages of me (simply because I don't let you push your POV). -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ 17:24, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Without responding to all that, two notes: I take no responsibility, nor accept any precedent from, any administrator who blocked you earlier. Secondly, expecting "punishment" is moot; blocks are not punitive. Using this as a tit-for-tat is simply using up Misplaced Pages resources and admin time without reason. Tan | 39 17:28, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

If you think I am asking for tit-for-tat, then I guess I am not being clear. I am thoroughly appreciative that you resist speculating or accepting responsibility for other admins and don't accept their actions as precedent. However, I don't think that the "blocks are not punitive" logic is fairly applied across Misplaced Pages. WP:OUTING even asserts that intentional and malicious violations of this policy are grounds for an immediate block. If not punitive, what other function would such a block serve? Okay, that's probably a bit off-topic here and I don't want to waste anymore of Misplaced Pages's resources, but that's one that makes me scratch my head. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ 19:12, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I suppose that you have to take it in context of my initial statements here in this thread - that I don't think this is an "outing". Naming someone's city of residence is far from personal information, in my opinion. That said, in order to block, I have to have something I am preventing - and I don't see any evidence that he was breaking policy in the first place, let alone threatening to do it again. Tan | 39 20:38, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Tan's comments that this does not appear to be outing and that it's difficult to see any justification for blocking and I don't think a block would be sustainable due to the fact that Levine provided the information himself which is an exemption under the outing policy. Sarah 02:53, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I remain unconvinced that there's been any outing due to the extensive amount of personal information Levine has voluntarily provided about himself and in nearly four years has never made any effort to have removed. The Outing policy talks about someone's home or workplace address but it doesn't say that general information or that the city an IP resolves to, when this information is obtained from an IP which the user has self-identified as their own, amounts to outing under the policy. And if it is "outing" ANI, SPI, COIN, etc would fall apart as we deal with this sort of information every day. The outing policy says: "Posting another person's personal information (legal name, date of birth, identification numbers, home or workplace address, job title and work organisation, telephone number, email address, or other contact information, whether any such information is accurate or not) is harassment, unless that person voluntarily had posted one's own information, or links to such information, on Misplaced Pages oneself." Like Tan I'm not at all convinced that naming a city which is one of the largest cities in the world constitutes "personal information" but it seems to me that even if we say a city name qualifies as "personal information", because Levine voluntarily posted (and left there for nearly four years) links to real world identifying webpages and identified his own IPs, I think there has been no outing. That Levine has continued posting the information he objects to here on ANI, even after being advised to pursue private resolution because posting about it here will only draw further attention to the information he claims to want kept private, just reinforces my belief there has been no outing and makes it hard to take his claim that he's looking to mitigate an outing seriously but rather, in combination with his comments above about blocking, appears to simply be an attempt to exact revenge and manipulate an admin into blocking a long standing opponent. I think it's about time to call this complaint resolved. Sarah 02:53, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Levine said: "It is ridiculous to blame me for publicizing the cat which BullRangifer had let out of the bag". No. BullRangifer didn't let the cat out of the bag. You let the cat out of the bag by posting links to extensive self-identifying information and self-identifying your own IP address. BullRangifer has simply collated the information you voluntarily provided yourself. The difference between what you describe you were blocked for and what happened here is that in this case you voluntarily posted the information yourself. Sarah 02:53, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Sarah, can you please email me and tell me about the self-identifying website you describe here. I am unaware of it. Thanks! -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ 05:09, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I explained above. You had five website links in your userpage history which is why I deleted it. As far as I can see you've outed yourself by providing those websites links, using this account name and resigning logged out comments with your account. I'm trying to AGF but I'm having a hard time believing you're genuinely distressed by what happened rather than merely seeing it as an opportunity to pursue "punishment" (as you say) for a long-time editorial opponent. Sarah 07:24, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

So I guess the outcome of this is that this was not outing, and a fortiori it is also not outing to say which country BullRangifer (formerly Fyslee) is from and what his website is. Is that correct? While on the other hand, it is not OK to mention BullRangifer's or ScienceApologist's real names, even though they have in the past been open about this. In fact, the ANI discussion that led to Levine's past block (as well as things I vaguely remember around ScienceApologist) suggests that it is also not OK to link to an external site or relatively obscure WP page which exposes a real name, not even when this is done for only tangentially related reasons such as exposing a COI. Is this correct?

The obvious context of this thread is the complementary/alternative medicine (what BullRangifer likes to call "SCAM") wars. Occasionally this war gets quite dirty, with parties on either side trying to score points on technicalities. Some people on one side of this war regularly assume that in spite of their sometimes extreme positions on relatively established practices such as acupuncture or chiropractic, which they can only back by referencing zealots such as Barrett, they represent the "mainstream" and therefore enjoy special protection against incivility, outing, or just being bothered by continued disagreement, while their opponents' interests deserve less protection than those of an average editor. In this context it seems important to make it clear that there is no such double standard, and that there is in fact a qualitative difference between what Levine did and what BullRangifer did, which explains the different outcomes. Hans Adler 08:37, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

3RR board blanking

Are editors allowed to blank notices on this board ? I may have overstepped by using rollback to revert, and if so I apologize. Thanks Tiderolls 05:41, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

If they want the report against them attended to faster, then yes. -- tariqabjotu 05:44, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Looks like standard vandalism from the user blanking it. Good use of rollback, good call. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 05:46, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

That being the case I'll stay out of the way next time and let nature take its course. Thanks Tiderolls 05:47, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, Homer. I didn't see your post while typing the above. Tiderolls 05:49, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Not a problem :) Just a note, the editor who was doing the blanking on 3RR was blocked for 36 hours for 3RR violations. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 05:51, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Somehow, 33 hours would have a better ring to it. :) Baseball Bugs carrots 08:56, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Or maybe 3.3 fortnights? -- Deville (Talk) 14:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I have 3.3 fortnights, am I bid 3 months? Going once, going twice...yes, that's right, going 3 times... KillerChihuahuaAdvice 17:29, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

As tends to happen, vandalizing/blanking central noticeboards tends to get attention of exactly the sort the person blanking was probably hoping to avoid. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:40, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Irrito

• Irrito (talk · contribs)
• 68.126.61.224 (talk · contribs)
• 67.94.16.18 (talk · contribs)

Hi. The above user (also working through IPs) has been edit warring on the Steorn article, refusing to enter into sensible discussions, hassling other editors and making bad faith accusations of CoI. I am requesting a permanent block of the account and a temporary one of the IPs.

Potted history:

• First of several edits suggesting that "Ian MacDonald", one of a jury of scientists chosen by Steorn, was a family doctor. Quickly reverted by User:McGeddon as OR and reverted again by User:Ianmacm as personal commentary.
• posted on McGeddon's talk page saying that "their research" had revealed important facts. McGeddon gave a clear reply and had what I think is a patient discussion.
• Starting to try to get Ian MacDonald to out himself. Reverted as vandalism by User:ZooFari — GDallimore , — (continues after insertion below.)

I asked him if he was Ian McDonald associated with UofA an if so please provide a link to verify. He said I was mistaken as he was another Ian McDonald. How this reached vandalism is beyond me.Irrito (talk)

• Found someone called Ian MacDonald on the Internet who was a dentist and suggested on the article that this was the same Ian MacDonald as mentioned in a news article. Reverted as OR by McGeddon and further explained on user's talk page,
• Opened the Irrito account and first two edits were hassling Ianmacm demanding that they confirm that they are "Ian MacDonald" and insulting — GDallimore , — (continues after insertion below.)

This is a telling edit comments by McGeddon becuase he edits something out of the article he has no information countering the fact nor does he have any fact supporting his position that McDonald is a dentist and a scientist.Irrito (talk)

McGeddon. Later accused McGeddon of a CoI, and of being mad and illogical when McGeddon was continuing his attempts to explain.

• Irrito then made a series of unconstructive edits which I reverted, and was re-reverted with the accusation that I was attempting to mislead and had an interest in Steorn. — GDallimore , — (continues after insertion below.)

This claims lacks any specific allegations: McGeddon is attempting to play fast and loose with his charges.Irrito (talk)

• At this point, I posted a strongly worded warning to Irrito (perhaps too strong) along with a full explanation of my reverts. Irrito has not responded but has continued edit warring and hassling.
• Latest reversion at 10.27 this morning led me to come here with a block request.

Thanks for listening. GDallimore (Talk) 10:20, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Just dropped by and saw this, I've protected the article for a week, maybe someone else can look at the editor, I don't think I have time right now. Dougweller (talk) 14:02, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Please could you undo that as it's not at all the result that I think will help. This is not a content dispute. At least four editors other than me have been reverting this one disruptive editor and protecting it to prevent anyone from improving the article is just further disruption. My call for him to be blocked is not for the edit-warring but for the personal attacks, insults and hassling that have gone with it when people have tried to explain why his edits are not appropriate. GDallimore (Talk) 14:06, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

One final thing I've just noticed: User:Irrito broke 3RR, although one of the edits was by IP. and between 15.47 on the 10th and 10.27 on the 11th. A block should be enforced just for that, irrespective of the rest of this user's behaviour. GDallimore (Talk) 16:23, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Blocking is preventative, not punitive. As the article is protected at the moment, there's nothing to protect (unless he goes elsewhere) and no reason to block. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:30, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

But that's wrong. The protection of the article prevents legit editors from contributing to the article, while the person who's disrupting goes blithely on his way. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 17:39, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

The {{editprotected}} template is a wonderful thing. :-)--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:42, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Give me a break. The only editor edit-warring is Irrito, with multiple people reverting him and one editor going so far as to call his contributions a "junk edit". Protection of the article is the least constructive resolution. Blocking one user would remove the only disruptive element, preventing all disruption. GDallimore (Talk) 08:57, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

exactly. Unprotect and block the single disruptive editor. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 18:20, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

• ←Just a note to say the editor in question has sought input from other people. He chose the wrong venue (DRV, of all places), but the thought patterns there seem absolutely correct to me.—S Marshall /_Cont 23:25, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

He sought input ONLY after being warned that this discussion was taking place here, and his way of seeking input was to accuse McGeddon of sockpuppeting, with me as the sockpuppet, an accusation repeated below. I am not after a punitive block. This is an SPA who has been warned multiple times not to make personal attacks and to assume good faith yet demonstrably refuses to do so. Block this guy to prevent this further unacceptable behaviour and let constructive editors get on with editing. GDallimore (Talk) 08:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

In the past three weeks I've advised Irrito four separate times to discuss his concerns with other editors at Talk:Steorn. A talk page section was created about the edits in question on the 27th, and Irrito was told about it and invited to contribute, but he has apparently chosen to ignore it in favour of making repeated reverts and increasingly incoherent personal attacks. --McGeddon (talk) 09:21, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

here is what is interesting about your advice to talk:Steron you continue to dominate the Stoern page while all criticism about you goes on the back pages, which most visitors never see.Irrito (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC).

The fact that I did seek help after the complaint was made on this page does not dimishish S Marshall's analysis. The fact that you attack me as oppose to my claim demonstrate part of the reason I have a problem with your and your friends upkeep of the Stoern page.Irrito (talk)

Counter claim

• GDallimore (talk · contribs)

It appears from the comments made about me, Mr. McGeddon failed to mention that he has done his utmost to down play the pit falls of Stoern. He does this by playing up Stoern claims, without criticism in the first party of the article. In doing so, he placed subject matter in places it does not belong--such as the jury of scientists Stoern hired in the first and third section, but does not mention, until the Jury section, that in fact Stoern's claims of scientific legitimacy was not supported by the Jury. Moreover, the McGeddon appears to be very selective in his editing, e.g., he will allow Stoern's unsupported claim (Steorn disputed the jury's findings and said that, due to difficulties in implementing the technology, the jury had only been provided with test data on magnetic effects for study.) to exist while claiming that a search on the University of Alberta's (U of A)website that returns no results as to Mr. McDonald's association is not supported by a 3rd source. I accept McGeddon's edits if it is applied equally to all contributors.

Furthermore, I doubt the legitimacy of McGeddon as a person without an interest in Stoern. Reviewing his editing over the YEARS of Stoern, he has made changes at all times, shortly after others have made editing changes. This appears to be a company hire to protect the editing of the Stoern Misplaced Pages page or Stoern itself then an altruistic in Misplaced Pages.

(p)Evidence of Year of Editing and editing within shortly after other's editing

(cur) (prev) 11:15, 6 July 2007 GDallimore (talk | contribs) (33,405 bytes) (not in source.) (cur) (prev) 11:11, 6 July 2007 Boldra (talk | contribs) (33,418 bytes) (→Demonstration (July 2007)) (cur) (prev) 10:07, 6 July 2007 GDallimore (talk | contribs) (33,405 bytes) (→Arguments against: use better source)

Moreover, I had a secondary source which I cited that Ivan McDonald is a family doctor associated with U of A, which MCGeddon and his sockpuppet quickly edited out--even though it met the requirement of a secondary source AND McGeddon had no source to dispute this fact. Irrito (talk)

You seem to be mixing up a number of different people

• Ivan McDonald is a family doctor associated with U of A - maybe but who cares and what's it to do with the article?
• Dr. Ian McDonald is the Chair, Department of Ophthalmology at the UA
• Prof. R Ian MacDonald who is involved in the Steorn stuff can be found here and his profile fits what Steorn claims - if needed, I'm sure I could dig up some papers that provide conclusive proof of the university affliction. — Cameron Scott , — (continues after insertion below.)

See, you fall into the trap. You could but you did not. Moreover, we are not discussing whether you could or you could not. The issue is whether my posting with a independent secondary source should have been deleted. If so, then, using the same rule, shouldn't Stoern's claim that the jury did not have the right data,which is not supported by any proof, be allowed to stay in the article. I guess this boils down to is this a fact article or a new arcticle.Irrito (talk)

Lets be clear about what the problem actually is - you are making very serious charges of misrepresentation against BLPs figures on what appears to be your misunderstanding of sources and your mixing up of two different people. You should stop unless you are provide reliable third party sources that make this link. --Cameron Scott (talk) 10:02, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

To be clear, you have not cleared up anything but have raised more questions. Please state each and every fact that you have to make the claims that my secondary source is not reliable as to Mr. McDonald. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Irrito (talk • contribs) 14:45, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Moreover, why do you address only one of my edits disputes and apply them to all. For example, my point was that he does his best to hide the bad information at the bottom of the article, you made no remark. My point is that he has protected the page at all times of the day, you made no remark.~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Irrito (talk • contribs) 14:39, 12 August 2009

I've only addressed the only point because I don't care about your other issues, only that your claims that an living figure has misrepresented his expertise is a violation of our BLP policies. I don't plan to get in a long debate with you as it's clearly you are already wasting enough people's time. This is how this works - if you can find a reliable third party source that says that Prof. McDonald has misrepresented his expertise, you need to present it. If you cannot present it, you need to stop making the claim or you should be blocked immediately as a clear and present danger to our policies at WP:BLP. That's the start and end of my discussion with you. --Cameron Scott (talk) 14:49, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Cameron, are you representing that you are a member of Misplaced Pages: "OUR BLP policy"?~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Irrito (talk • contribs) 15:06, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

All good faith editors can consider themselves members of the project. Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:11, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

How is it that you came to the understanding that Cameron is a good faith editor. Was it his statement: I don't care ... You are wasting people's time. Irrito (talk)

Cameron, is your contention that if I demonstrate with verifiable 3rd party evidence a fact concerning Stoern's jury that it cannot not go into the article. However, the fact that you are claiming is on a site that appears to have less credibility that U of A's website.

Is it also your contention that a valid argument that I have isn't worth your time?

Why do you what to narrow my concerns down to one issue and claim you don't have the time for others?

If you are going to get into an argument you should consider the amount of time it will take. I have spent more time doing this, but I am willing to consider other's arguments.Irrito (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:15, 12 August 2009 (UTC).

Lastly, Cameron, you miss the point. The point is there are no facts about the jury with the exception of Ian McDonald. I searched, as you did, facts concerning this expert at U of A. You seem to make a claim that we know his expertise, but Stoern has not provided any information that I am aware of any other juror other than the name and position of Ian McDonald.Irrito (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:24, 12 August 2009 (UTC).

User:76.177.224.98, 76.177.225.49

I seem to have a problem as does User:Ohnoitsjamie. This user was originally blocked a few days ago as a possible "Willy on Wheels" vandal, but he insists the name "Willyonwheels1969" is legit; he claims his name is William, was born in 1969 and his nickname as a child was "Willy on Wheels." I'm now getting messages on my talk page from Road Runner Cable IPs in Georgetown, Kentucky with this user demanding apologies, threatening "action," etc. I have tried to reason with this individual to no avail. He wants to edit with this username or variation thereof and both I and Jamie have basically (and politely) told him sorry, ain't happening and here's why. If he's legit, I regret his less than friendly reception. However, one of his first edits was to Jimbo's talk page; he's familiar with this system, claiming he'd mostly edited anonymously before establishing an account. To his credit, he hasn't done any WoW vandalism. No page moves, nothing. Otherwise, I'd dismiss him as just another Willy wannabe. I can't get through to the guy as to the myriad reasons he can't edit under that username. He seems more interested in the username than anything else. Any suggestions? --PMDrive1061 (talk) 14:52, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe that we as a community can state what is and what is not a disruptive username, and that naming yourself after a particular vandal is disruptive no matter if you have good faith intentions. If the user really really realllllllly wants to contribute to the encyclopedia, they're welcome to change their username. If the user is a WoW clone, they'd continue in the manner that they appear to be pursuing. In other words, demands and threats will justify blocks of the ip. Syrthiss (talk) 14:59, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Wholeheartedly agree with Syrthiss. — Satori Son 20:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Works for me; that's the conclusion I drew, but I wanted to weigh in here. I'll let you all know what he says in response to my last message. If he insists on going down this particular route, I'll request a rangeblock. --PMDrive1061 (talk) 15:06, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I've also had a request from this editor, and agree with the above comments. We can't always have the username we would like to have, and that's a fact of life here, whether it is disruptive on the face of it, or by association- which latter case is what we have here. I wanted different usernames, but they were already taken. It didn't bother me, and, er, I didn't shout about it. Rodhullandemu 23:36, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Concur with Syrthiss and Rodhullandemu. We're here to write an encyclopedia with minimal distracting WP:DRAMA and WP:POINT. User has made it clear he's only here for drama and point, and his stated intent to keep creating new accounts is blockable in its own right for the same reasons. DMacks (talk) 00:24, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks again, all. The last thing I would want to do is bite a newbie and I tried to reason with him based on his original claim, thinking that would be the end of it. When the hits just kept on coming, I knew this would be trouble. --PMDrive1061 (talk) 16:02, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

But newbies can be really tasty :-P No bites, just nibbles. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 17:05, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Trolls of Anti-Americanism

Trying to edit this article is like walking down an alley in Bogota at 2 AM....Talk:Anti-Americanism

Cast of Characters

Abce2|Aww nuts!Wribbit!(Sign here)

• Stalking

• Follows me to Islamaphobia, sole action is to revert me (same reversion as Munci). Obviously trying to draw me into an edit war.
• Follows me elsewhere to snipe and pester, e.g., , (there is more).

• Trolling. His only edit to the article is to revert me . Abce2's interaction with me is based entirely on personal remarks. Most of his comments on the Talk page of Anti-Americanism are scolding. He made a marginally polite offer of "peace" . All his comments on the related ANI's are sniping and pestering directed at me. He seems to have no actual interest in the topic, having never discussed any aspect of it.

User talk:Munci

• Stalking. Follows me to Anti-Americanism from Islamophobia, sole action is to revert me (same reversion as Abce2). The text being restored was added without discussion or consensus by an erased account. Obviously trying to draw me into an edit war.
• Trolling. His edit comments distort his edit. Part of the issue is a near-spam of multiple warning templates, which nobody has explained in Talk. They want to plaster the article with templates, without specifying what needs to be improved.

User talk:Gasta220 The text Munci and Abce2 are reverting to was added by this anonymous, hit&run account that doesn't even have a Talk page. (How do you delete your own Talk page? I tried and couldn't.)

WebHamster

• Warring, incivility. I won't beat the dead horse here. Blocked twice for warring on Anti-Americanism, and numerous personal attacks.
• Stalking.

• Followed me to First Amendment to the United States Constitution, sole edit was to revert me
• Single-purppose IP reverted my edit to Tehran. The IP geolocates to Manchester England. WebHamster's User page states he is from Manchester, England.

• Trolling. Just tells everybody to "fuck off" like it was his daily multivitamin.

User talk:Blippy

• A Third Opinion who doesn't stay neutral. Doesn't withdraw after reason for request no longer applies. I solicited a 3rd Opinion to help in my dispute with Webhamster, since it is specifically for disputes between two editors. Blippy ignored everything I said, proposed edits no different from WebHamster's, reverted one of my edits, inserted edits I opposed and generally acted like WebHamster's lawyer. After the dispute with WebHamster was resolved, Blippy continues to propose content changes that ignored everything I said. He is inserting changes he knows I oppose . What kind of Third Opinion is this?
• Similar pattern on Roald Dahl, where he showed up as an uniinvovled editor in an RFC. The similarity extends to supporting IP/Pantherskin's edits in the same way as on Anti-Americanism.
• Recent accusation of socking involving IP/Pantherskin on Roald Dahl and Anti-Americanism, and two sockpuppet investigations in the last two months.

Pantherskin

• Constant distortion of everything that is said; constant framing of every dispute as personal attack. Targets contentious issues, articles for deletion. Starts friviolous ANI's
• 3RR violation on an AfD, deleting my comment that he might be a sock , , , . 3RR violation on Talk:Anti-Americanism: , , , . These are discussions where he is removing my comments.
• Stalking. Followed me from Anti-Americanism to Animal liberation movement, sole activity was to revert me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Noloop (talk • contribs) 19:21, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Slatersteven (talk

• Trolling. His Talk page is a littany of warnings about disruptive edits, answered with wide-eyed innocence, such as one which "caused a mass deletion of active threads that took a couple of admins, Haemo and Slp1, some fussing to fix" . There are several dialogs of this sort, in which SlaterSteven basically says "Ooops." In Anti-Americanism, the feigned incomprehension takes the form of using Google search hits as sources. Repeatedly on the Talk page, he proposes text using a Google page of search hits as sources, I say "that's not a valid source", and he adds more pages of Google search hits as sources. He's been editing over two years, hard to believe he really thinks Google page of search results is a valid source. His other MO is to make barely readable comments because of a childlike use of spelling, punctuation, etc.

• Stalking: SlaterSteven has followed me to more articles than anyone else. He doesn't generally revert my edits, just buzzes about and often opposes. There are a million mild examples, but he has really followed me to about 5 different articles in the last month. A few examples: , , , , . There are more. None of these is indivudally problematic, but the overall effect of being followed everywhere is like dealing that a bug that just won't go away.

And what about User:Noloop?

• Stalking. I've followed once. After the sock case, I looked at Pantherskin's contribs and clicked on a deletion discussion page, because it interested me. I attempted to clean up the article and make constructive observations about the case, e.g. , and . I mentioned Pantherskin's sock case because socking matters when there's a vote. There are also two suspicious accounts on the deletion discussion, Kingcredibility as single-puprose new account, and an anon. IP.
• Trolling. I don't think so, but others have said so. This article has produced so much abuse and general irritation that I've lost my cool a few times. I don't believe any look at my behavior that considers what I've been putting up with will result in a conclusion of trolling, but I can't deny being curt more than once.

Other than WebHamster, all these editors are new to the article. They weren't there before my dispute with WebHamster. They've done little but snipe about behavior, and propose changes they know I oppose. They've followed me to (literally) a dozen other articles, where they either revert me or throw peanuts. There are no other active editors. There can't be. The article is uneditable. No newbie in his right mind would stay.

Are they all socks and trolls? Does the article just bring out the worst in well-meaning people? Am I paranoid delusional? I don't know, but the article is uneditable. Personally, I'd like to see a massive "relational" IP-lookup for everyone involved. The article needs the mother of all flea bombs. Noloop (talk) 16:01, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Ooh, all so many people wrong, but yet again you appear to be the only one in the right. Perhaps you should bimble over to WP:SPI and start making a nuisance of yourself over there too. Given your propensity for accusing people of being trolls and sockpuppets I'm surprised you aren't a regular fixture there. --WebHamster 17:57, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

No I have not used google search hits a sources, I would susgest you provide the link in question. I would also susgest that you refrain from commenting on users literacy.

*Stalking: SlaterSteven has followed me to more articles than anyone else. He doesn't generally revert my edits, just buzzes about and often opposes. There are a million mild examples, but he has really followed me to about 5 different articles in the last month. A few examples: , , , , . There are more. None of these is indivudally problematic, but the overall effect of being followed everywhere is like dealing that a bug that just won't go away.

A million, I suspect you exagerate, but in at leat one case there is correlation between what you awere asking and our discusion on anti-american. involved Blippy, who I was in some debate with over anti-american, so I saw the report on his talk page. As to Books on Arthur, does it look like I did not know my subject, odd then I included a book not on the page, as well as mentioning a few more (I am still wating on comments about that). Moreover I have not visited bitch , Islamaphobia, prostitutuion in fact you have editied far more pages then I have visited. As to the user talk page, that is not stalking I informed you of an ani against you, sorry if that offended you, I shall not repeat the offence. Slatersteven (talk) 17:47, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict, response to Noloop's original post) You know, when six people say your edits are wrong, there's a good chance you may be in the wrong! An edit like this to Islamophobia should be reverted, as it cosists of nothing but adding various tenses of "alleged" before various references to Islamophobia, until the whole thing reads like a Monty Python sketch (or should that be, "an alleged Monty Python sketch"?). The Anti-Americanism edits which seem to have triggered this kerfluffle involve Noloop deleting reliably-sourced content regarding anti-Americanism in Turkey and Pakistan. Noloop is told to get consensus on the talk page before tinkering with consensus-established content. Noloop, as many do at this point, flips out, demanding that people jump through bureaucratic Talk Page hoops to use Foreign Policy In Focus as a source. There's probably more to it, but I think that's the gist. You're not walking down the streets of Bogota minding your own business - you're walking through the streets of Singapore spitting your gum on the ground and doodling Kilroy on a wall or two, then wondering why everyone's glaring at you. Badger Drink (talk) 18:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Or even walking down his previously mentioned alley in Bogata shouting "I'm an American and everybody likes me and you shouldn't grow drugs". --WebHamster 18:25, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Noloop does seem to deem anything he does not agree with as an opinion.Slatersteven (talk) 18:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

He now appears to be canvasing support from users who have been involved with the accused ] & ].Slatersteven (talk) 19:21, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Seems that Noloop is right and everybody else is in the wrong. Even in his notification he couldnt refrain from personal attacks, . See also , including the subsection on Noloop for some of Noloops other attacks. Pantherskin (talk) 19:29, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Noloop, I am getting sick of this. I am not trolling, stalking, or any other crud you've thrown at me or others. I'm on my last nerve. I am getting close to submiting an RFC for you. Not many people have gotten on my last nerve.Abce2|Aww nuts!Wribbit!(Sign here) 19:34, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I would also like an inivloved admin to come and see this. Noloop, I've been here for, oh, 7 or 8 months. I have more experiance than you. You accusations are a joke.Abce2|Aww nuts!Wribbit!(Sign here) 19:45, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

• Calling Google search results reliable sources:

SlaterSteven proposed search results as reliable sources many times, as he knows. Here he proposed text to add that uses results from the books.google search for "the anti american phrase death to america": I object, he proposes it again, . I object again, and he adds three more . I object again, and he adds another ref that is a Google search results page. In between, he makes comments like "A list of google search hits is not there." . Finally, Blippy, the allegedly neutral Third Opinion, adds the whole thing to the article. . So, when SlaterS. says "No I have not used google search hits a sources, I would susgest you provide the link in question." he is (to be uncivil but accurate) lying.

• SlaterSteven's disruption under guise of innocence: , , , ,
• Regarding disagreement generally: the problem isn't disagreement. The problem is when I am followed around to a half dozen articles solely for the purpose of undoing my edits, and a another half dozen articles solely for the purpose of throwing peanuts. If I can't convince anyone of that with reason, maybe I will try convincing them of it by following them around to articles and undoing their edits. Noloop (talk) 20:29, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

They are links to pages In Google books, which if you had botherd to read them you would have realised. In fact they are links to specific pages that contain the information they support.

As to my feigned innocence, example one was created only a couple of months after I joined, and it was only the second page I edited (and the first I created). The second example was due to an editing error on my part (I think). The third is not me feigning innocence, it is some one informing me how to read Harvard citation templates, I did not even respond. Fourth example was again a mistake; I had two examples of the page open and saved the wrong one. Fifth example I do not feign ignorance, But I was in the wrong. I take it if I go back over your history I will find you have never made mistakes?

Do not make threats to be disruptive e if you cannot win please. It is not constructive. Most of the ‘following’ has been linked in some way to either disputes you are having or other users not you, at least on my part. In only two cases you have raised is this not the case. Less then 1/3 of the pages you have edits in the last 24 hours, and this is over the course a month or more.Slatersteven (talk) 21:06, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I have started a RFC for Noloop.Abce2|Aww nuts!Wribbit!(Sign here) 21:13, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Slater, thanks for explaining your rationale regarding the Google searches. The problem is that I had to start an AN/I to get that out of you. I don't agree that they support the text, that they are reliable, that you addressed the problem with due weight, neutral POV, systemic bias, or anything other objection I raised on the Talk page. However, those are content disputes. The problem is the complete disregard for these objections in the first place (until now). As for only following me to 1/3 of the articles I edited, instead of all of them, gee thanks. Noloop (talk) 01:41, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's good to see SlaterSteven is edging toward edit-warring on Criticism of Human Rights Watch, an article he followed me to. That means everybody but Blippy has now followed me to an unrelated article and reverted or warred. Is that the non-troll way of editing, or the troll way? Meanwhile, they are starting to war again on Anti-Americanism. I'm not asking for blocks here. I'm asking for some kind of supervision, and something more conclusive than this Sherlock Holmes-like approach to "investigating" socks. Just do a bleeping IP-lookup, folks. Any admin must be able to do it. Noloop (talk) 05:02, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

You appear to be living proof of the adage "give them enough rope..." Noloop. This is no way to collaborate or gain consensus for your views, but it's a great way to further alienate the people you should be trying to work with. I suspect you are suffering from the misapprehension that WP has some sort of authority structure that will ultimately vindicate your perspective. In answer to your question "Am I paranoid delusional?" - a little. This project moves forward through working together, not railing against everyone who disagrees with you. And it is purely human nature - something you have succumbed to yourself - to keep an eye on the actions of people who defame, belittle, and generally alienate people. That might explain why you feel stalked. The only reason I haven't bothered to do this myself is because I think you'll learn soon enough without any more of my (obviously unwelcome) input - such as I attempted on your talk page - and that once you attract the ire of enough editors you might start to wake up to your unproductive ways. I'm tipping we're just about there. Cheers, Blippy (talk) 08:48, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

If you are not asking for blocks then what are you asking for? You are asking (it woould seem) for Admins to do some digging for you to try and find evidacne of sockpupptery becasue you belive i9t but those Wiki rules just don't back you up?Slatersteven (talk) 12:45, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

What is interesting here is that it is Noloop who follows editors to unrelated articles and starts reverting and attacking other editors. Given that this is not the first time Noloops disruptive editing behavior has to be discussed here on ANI I propose a topic ban or 1RR restriction on this account. For this to work an admin should also make sure that all of Noloops sockpuppet accounts will be blocked. Pantherskin (talk) 12:48, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Noloop, you've managed to piss off alot of people, inculding myself. Why do you keep persisting even when it's you verus about 7? Abce2|Aww nuts!Wribbit!(Sign here) 14:39, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The simple answer is: I do what I think is right, not what I think is popular. Effectively, you are proposing I stop editing any article, since you are claiming everyone has the right to follow me to any article and revert me. Noloop (talk) 15:52, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, what you think is right. And then you accuse anyone who says otherwise of trolling. Abce2|Aww nuts!Wribbit!(Sign here) 15:53, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Au contraire you do what you know is right regardless of the evidence to the contrary, regardless of how many people who tell you that you are wrong. Your knowledge of everything is no doubt omniscient and highly admirable, the problem is that your interpretation of things you have little understanding of are skewed by your belief of your own perfection and inability to be wrong. The above complaint is certainly proof of that. Yes, you are definitely the sort of editor that WP cries out for. Can I recommend that you apply for your first RFA as soon as is practicable? --WebHamster 16:46, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

• Pantherskin is deleting my comments (documentation of his stalking) from this board: .
• I've now been followed to an article and reverted a 7th time, by Abce2. If this isn't stalking and harassment, then what the Hell is? Is it OK if I do it? Blippy is right about one thing: I have no clue what admins do or what this board is for or how behavior standards are enforced on behalf of any minority view. All of this is editors following me to an article they hadn't previously edited, with the sole purpose of making edits they know I opppose and reverting me.
• Abce2: ,
• Munci (stalked from Islamophobia):
• WebHamster: , (probably)
• Pantherskin (as IP):
• SlaterSteven:

We can add that Pantherskin has deleted my Talk comments 9 times: 4 from the AfD, 4 from Talk:Anti-Americanism, and once from here (that I've noticed). If admins think this is a waste of time, it would be nice of them to say so, so I can stop wasting my time here also. Noloop (talk) 16:39, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Noloop (talk) 16:39, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

you don't mention that the 4 reverts made by PS were your unfounded accusations that he was a sockpuppet. That you insisted on posting these accusations in spite of the fact that the Checkuser request hadn't gone through yet and he was ultimately found to be innocent of the accusation. Shoot first and ask questions after eh? --WebHamster 16:46, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Wow. Still, you have never admitted to be wrong. Not once. You must be sooo perfect.Abce2|Aww nuts!Wribbit!(Sign here) 16:54, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, it was an observation that he'd been accused of it, in a discussion that involved voting by single-purpose accounts. Noloop (talk) 16:56, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

It was still unnessecary to put it their, and was disruptive.Abce2|Aww nuts!Wribbit!(Sign here) 16:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Wow...how did it turn into this? I thought we'd just continue with the discussion. I shall address Noloop's concerns.

• "Stalking. Follows me to Anti-Americanism from Islamophobia, sole action is to revert me." Both of the articles are linked to from the "Specific Forms" section of Template:Discrimination. Anyone who goes on one article has a fairly quick link to the other.

• "The text being restored was added without discussion or consensus by an erased account."

Noone needs discussion or consensus to add well-cited information.

• "Obviously trying to draw me into an edit war." I do not want to start any edit war. I hoped that my edit summary was enough to show you that the reason for deleting the information was unfounded.

• "Trolling. His edit comments distort his edit." I thought at the time I wrote the edit summary that what I said in it would not be misinterpreted. I since apologised in the talk page and tried to explain how I thought my edit summary would not have been misinterpreted. Munci (talk) 17:20, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

meatpuppetry/sockpuppetry/COI on Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Alan_Roger_Currie

could someone look at http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Alan_Roger_Currie and tell me what is going on. there are multiple SPAs that came out of nowhere to not vote. Theserialcomma (talk) 17:27, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Tagged with {{Not a ballot}}. We'll see if that helps. — Satori Son 20:37, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh jesus, a "seduction community" AFD. *digs hole, crawls in, pulls dirt back over* Tony Fox (arf!) 20:38, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, the canvassing is here. Ugh. — Satori Son 20:46, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Edit Summary

Seb0910 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

75.146.126.129 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

I went to WP:WQA with this and they said to bring it here. An editor left a rather abusive edit summary to his edit after I reverted him (his edit was against concensus, heck it said in caps not to change it): . Perhaps a civility block, or at the very least a warning? Soxwon (talk) 18:42, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I put it on AIV, so it's in three places. A race to the block! Baseball Bugs carrots 18:49, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

It's a public library and has been a half hour since the last edit, so there is a good chance they are gone anyway, but I have blocked the IP for 3 hours. --B (talk) 18:55, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Alright, also, the first edit was made by User:Seb0910, is it possible it was his IP? Soxwon (talk) 18:57, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Did you report Seb0910 to AIV? That's where I usually start with this kind of stuff. Meanwhile, I'm not sure how much good a 3 hour tour will do - unless we get lucky, and they get marooned on Gilligan's Island. :) Baseball Bugs carrots 19:01, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I gave a cursory glance to the contributions of the two and I don't see evidence that they are the same. Obviously, if they were, it would be appropriate to block the named user indefinitely. A checkuser could be requested, but honestly, I don't know that they are very likely to run it just on this. --B (talk) 19:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, the only other thing was . Either it would be editing another's talk, or they're the same (I got this just from the abuse log). Soxwon (talk) 19:11, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Check his talk page history, he was caught in an autoblock at this IP address. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC) However, I note Sebi0910 has made some useful contribs, so an indefblock seems unnecessary. Since it's been a while since he edited, perhaps chalk it up to momentary loss of temper, and no action unless it happens again? --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:20, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Hrm ... it does look like they are likely the same person then, or at the very least, known to each other (ie, two kids sitting in a library). I'm ambivalent on blocking the account - as infrequently as it edits, this user probably isn't coming back today anyway (so a block is likely to be pointless as it's not actually going to stop him from editing) and the only block we could enforce would be to hard block the library IP - something we'd rather avoid unless there is serious disruption. --B (talk) 19:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Just for fun, I filed a SPI case. Worried that this is the tip of some iceberg. Wknight94 20:16, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Responded at SPI, left a warning on Seb0910's talk page. – Luna Santin (talk) 23:29, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Irano-Afghan

Admin/user Kwamikagami is misusing his admin respons. please feel free to study below dispute between user and admin and then please rev. Irano Afghan page to prev detailed version vers which is this one He insist he will remove anything I write. I will add those lines he did erase, as well as he is reverting to versions which sockpuppets (see below) edited on and revert to?!? Also study the discussion page where he says I have to convince, which I did, All I ask is for reverting version which majority as well as PHD doc. editors have edited on.

lines removed:

If you see disc. page read above, this is exc. what I have been doing, dont divert so to have an excuse not rev. to det. vers. there were a max. of 3-4 unexp. non read on issue ed. whom is altered by.. I did convince them since I presented all scholary work and got no resp. whats your next a/void. comment, "go to disc page and convince again"? High! (user Cyrus111)it also seem I have to bring in other admins myself since you wont do your job. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.209.29.165 (talk) 08:42, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

and:

Nah, things dont really work that way around, it seems you are misusing, confusing your given resp. link me your superior please] (cyrus111) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.209.29.165 (talk) 11:48, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I´ll place them further down where he removed them:

"dispute"

Obviously you have no respect for Westerners since you insist on deleting a modernised version which were edited on by PHD doctorates Americans and Iranians, Its intresting the expansion of the article is such a major factor for you while I keep the old version and add and edit with books in front of me from Coon, Gimbutas etc so their work should be limited to what you feel should be in the art? Whats the real issue here? Its no wonder 2/3:s of Americans think bombing of the East is justified after all the tech. yall copied from the West then disresp! I spent 2 hours with my Indian friends trying to Improve and advance the article but you rev. to a version which looks like it came from a book from the 1700 hundreds. While my version keeps all your edits and ads new! The tomography image is my own head! the 2 type Nor image is my own head, why dont you add new info instead of deleting 90% of the art.? Can you explain the reason for this? this image as admin you should help me correct it finding the right copyright!Thats your job as admin! You didnt even bother to debate me on the issue even though you lied about an edit you did. Here is what you will do! you will bring this up to power admins,(several) Americans alike then present all the disc, then explain to them why you insist on deleting modernised versions, scholars work and editors with PHD:s, and why this version is better and more justified than this And second why A German term should be used in an Irano-Afghan (Am vers. section art. Coon is princiality here), If you are intrested in editing on Anthropology please feel free to do so for East Asians or Mongoloid race (here is a start for you ) which occupy about half this planets population while I edit on cordeds-nordics and Irano-Afghan which ocupy 0.something % of world population and could almost be considered an extinct species". You are welcome to edit anywhere but please do not erase months of work after you just bash in, and then have the nerve to block me for wanting to keep more det. newer vers.!?! I will rev. to more modern more educational more detailed version while keeping your and other young peoples pref. version! Until you will get me several American admins who think that your vers. should stay and my vers. is false, (my vers. present all the scholars work) as well as them American. admins have to explain why they would del. a vers which a PHD:doc have edited on.Cyrus111 (talk) 17:21, 8 August 2009 (UTC)—Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.38.3.208 (talk)

Yes, I must be Anti-White if I don't buy your racist ideology. As I've said before, this kind of pseudo-Nazi bullshit from the 1930s is no excuse for an encyclopedia article—unless we present it as racist bullshit from the 1930s. You haven't even noticed that what I'm reverting to is not "my" version—AFAIK I've had no hand in crafting it. You are also engaging in fraud with the images you post—not that I'm surprised. Sorry, but you need to convince the other editors on the discussion page. If they accept your edits, so will I. Meanwhile, I will erase everything you do. If you don't like it, go to arbitration. kwami (talk) 23:12, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

There is no racism or pseudo-Nazi BS as you call or personal racism ideology, My version is scientific research up to the present day! Duda et al, lawrence Lunberg, Gimbutas Sharifi, Tehrani etc, you have 50:s 70:s 90:s up until present days, and yes Coon who wrote ex. on this issue as well as his theories today are being confirmed! and there are tons more out there. It seems you fail you reflect on your percep. which makes you think its racism. If so point this out, Its funny half the world ids being linked and still you use this as your argument. If you feel this way then point out in the presentation, presented what you feel is racism as well as the art.being strictly from scholary sources. I dont even know what racism is in the way you seem to indicate which is an insult as well. You narrow the whole art. into ---pseudo-Nazi bullshit from the 1930s--- and ignoring all work, all sources, just read them! Its not my work! Its theirs ! Presented here! You had no craft in it yes, but others have, other that were educated, and many other editors during months! while more younger editors about 4 of them is altered by bias my friend with no backing of whatsoever, it seems you fail to understand this. And then you stand behind these while ignoring others with ed. and many many others who ed. on det. vers.!? It has nothing to do with convincing those youths since sources do it perfectly, if you see disc page I presented all works etc when dis. them, while those who insist on rev it presented nothing!?So dont sorry yourself here, and whom do I have to convince?If anything you have to convince me and those other editors why you rev to poor vers. liked by a minority young editors! Majority have accepted detailed edited version. Also I asked for your help on the images rather than accusing and insulting --do your job as admin-- and help me correct the copyright, as well as some images were personally created and released PD (being my own head and all!) them you did wrong on. Here is what you will do, you will present our disc. disc. page disc. and them 2 vers. to admins and others who like to be involved and convince them why keeping a poor undet. vers. approved by a few kids is more justf. than the vers. which majority editors and educated. people approved and edited on. 194.14.94.1 (talk) 11:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC) (User Cyrus111

Take it up on the talk page, not here. As I said before, if the other editors accept your edits, so will I. kwami (talk) 11:16, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

First of all you blocked me! Second your arg. dont hold water since above arg. from me perf. explains the reasons, also just because some go to disc with no arg and also insults and with no pres. and then rev page with a click of a button, dont mean they are right and that we have to keep poor vers. because of this. You can not base art on this arg. It retards the art. I`ll ask your service as admin. to bring others more exp. involved on this issue, do your job! (User Cyrus111) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.14.94.1 (talk) 11:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

There are others more experienced on the issue, but of course you won't accept them because they don't agree with you. Meanwhile do your job and present your argument in a convincing manner. kwami (talk) 11:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Presenting and arguing in a "convincing manner" as you put it is exact. what I am doing here, while you block and avoid. I will accept if valid points are shown. It seems you try to avoid the issue and instead divert attention, if you read above I made my case clearly if there are more experience on the issue then where are they? they will then disc. on the disc. page which over there I cant see any, others that were debating presented no sources or valid arg. but insults and threats. Valid arg. and pres of sources I did indeed. Also bring these more exp. of yours which you for some reason claim I wont accept? to disc page then they will debate me, if not you must rev. to det. version which a majority have edited on for month and not vers a few with no arg. insists on keeping. I have already deb and disc. a valid point, them haven´t you also seem to avoid to bring in more unbiased admins on this which I asked sev. times, let them point out why present version is more just. than last version via reason. arg. sources and deb. I will, like you said, bring this case to Disc. page and deb. disc. via facts etc. If a no show. from "exp." and a "no show" via reas. deb. fact. etc. from editors, then your job is to rev. to prev. more det. ver. via rights of maj. of eds. and conv. arg. pres. via sources, old and new. Unfort. you blocked me for deb. and disc. and keeping det. vers. You might want to unblock if you want me to take this to disc. page... (User Cyrus111) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.209.29.165 (talk) 17:24, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

You are literate, aren't you? What part of "you need to convince the other editors on the discussion page" didn't you understand? kwami (talk) 23:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

removed line:

If you see disc. page read above, this is exc. what I have been doing, dont divert so to have an excuse not rev. to det. vers. there were a max. of 3-4 unexp. non read on issue ed. whom is altered by.. I did convince them since I presented all scholary work and got no resp. whats your next a/void. comment, "go to disc page and convince again"? High! (user Cyrus111)it also seem I have to bring in other admins myself since you wont do your job. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.209.29.165 (talk) 08:42, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

You apparently aren't literate, or at least are not cooperative, since you continue to post your argument on my talk page instead of the discussion page of the article. I'm also not going to bother deciphering your telescopic orthography, which becomes less legible the more you write, and will simply revert you from now on. kwami (talk)

removed line:

Nah, things dont really work that way around, it seems you are misusing, confusing your given resp. link me your superior please (cyrus111) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.209.29.165 (talk) 11:48, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh by the way, here is the one of the editor I am to convince and the editor whom you change last version to, thanx... (User Cyrus111) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.209.29.165 (talk) 19:53, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Please see to this so correct article can be restored. Thanks! (user cyrus111) (blocked...)

This should be an illustration on any "tl;dr" page. Tan | 39 20:42, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Cyrus, blocked means blocked, meaning you are not supposed to be editing while you're blocked. That means you cannot evade it by using IPs.

Can an admin please block this IP stat for block evasion? MuZemike 21:03, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

...and reset/extend the block on User:Cyrus111, as well? MuZemike 21:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Done and done. Tan | 39 21:12, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Sbakuria(talk) and Alexander Mashkevitch

Involved Parties -

User:Sbakuria(talk), User:Bricklayer (talk), User:PhilKnight(talk) and myself.

Issue: User repeatedly reverts to a version of the article which does not meet with consensus. Has ignored warnings and several requests for discussion of the article. Version consistently switched to by Sbakuria has issues with format, neutrality and a possible copyright violation. I can't think of what else can be done, doubt user will ever discuss the article and attempt to reach consensus.

Article's discussion page: Talk:Alexander Mashkevitch.

Requests made on user's talk page ].

Difference after repeated requests for user to halt behaviour:]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rtdixon86 (talk • contribs) 21:31, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Suggested action: A block or a ban for Sbakuria —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rtdixon86 (talk • contribs) 23:40, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Firefox crashed before I could complete edit, sorry.Rtdixon86 (talk) 21:45, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Although adoption or editing restrictions could be conidered, I'd support a site ban. PhilKnight (talk) 18:35, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Request for admin input

Hi. User talk:Cirt suggested that I contact you about an issue I posted on his talk page. I am not entirely certain what the right course of action is but the article about the upcoming Bollywood film, My Name Is Khan has been the subject of new user abuse on and off throughout its history. Particularly over the past few days. I think Cirt suggested ANI because at this point I'm not certain what the right course of action is - to ask for page protection or simply to have an admin. watch the page. I am trying to take a wikibreak for a few weeks and have been watching just this article to undo vandalism but it would be nice to have someone else watching it as well. The film promises to be a big hit in India at least and its producers have signed a contract with FOX for worldwide release when it comes out. I think that it is thus an article which should at least have a few editors monitoring it. Whether or not it requires protection at this point is a decision I'll leave to your discretion. Thank you, -Classicfilms (talk) 21:37, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Some canvassing from an apparently banned loon

see this for some crackpottery, no doubt this is already on some watchlists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.176.82.42 (talk) 22:39, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't see anything there that calls for admin action. If you think there is, can you clarify? Looie496 (talk) 22:44, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Ditto with Looie. What precisely do you want us addies to do? -Jeremy 23:10, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Thirded. There's plenty of crackpottery here. One more won't stand out really. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:27, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

AIV Backlog

If an admin or two could take care of the AIV backlog, it would be appreciated. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 23:38, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

FYI, in future these type of notices are best placed at WP:AN. Nja 07:29, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Long term vandal's IP needs longer block

• 64.228.128.39 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

From this user's handful of edits it was clear to me that this IP was a reincarnation of the vandal who slanders Haim Saban and vandalizes various pages relating to Power Rangers and its sister series (more information here). I had listed it on WP:AIV and it was blocked by Killiondude, however I feel that the IP should be blocked for a longer period of time as a previous short term block on another IP address that this vandal has used resulted in the vandal returning on the same IP to edit (I cannot find this IP address right now, but it is probably the one listed on my sandbox in diffs).

I am requesting that this block be extended and talk page editing disabled, due to the fact that he will inevitably fill the talk page with his usual screed, unless that has been blocked entirely by the edit filter that King of Hearts put in place per my requests.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 23:56, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Page semi'ed for duration of block. I think the extension request would be best directed at the blocking admin. Nja 07:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I asked and he refused.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 14:31, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Jay Jennings

The following user talk page here has created duplicate pages found here, and removed AfD notifications from the article as seen here. I would put a speedy deletion template on the second page and return the original AfD disclaimer on the first page, but I think the user would just remove them anyways. Thoughts?keystoneridin! (talk) 23:59, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I have restored the AfD notification to the article page; I see he had already been warned about this. Not sure what you mean by he has created duplicate pages, I don't see any. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 01:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Somehow the pages were corrected before you came along. Thanks for your help anyways.keystoneridin! (talk) 02:07, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Repeated Vandalism

Blackknight12 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) persistently vandalizes the article: History of Sri Lanka () with edits that are highly racist and offensive in nature. In the past, this user has frequently and consistently violated WP:C, WP:NPOV, and WP:RS on several articles, chief among which is: Sinhalese people () such as the serious WP:C violation this user made in this edit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SSJGoku3 (talk • contribs) 23:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure why this user's appeal was ignored in WP:AIV. Vandalism-driven edits on pages re: Sri Lankan Tamils and Sinhalese (by both parties) is becoming rampant, and largely ignored, so I thought I would second the appeal and to suggest a broader body to monitor vandalism re: articles on Sri Lanka etc. (unless there is already such a thing?). Just a thought.Markyboy333 (talk) 00:25, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the first two links that you claim are diffs are just links to the articles, where the third link claimed to be a diff is in fact a diff. Did you use the wrong links? --Mythdon 00:34, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Where do they claim the first two links are diffs? I don't see the claim. That begs the question though: Where's the proof of this "repeated vandalism"? Show some diffs please, I loathe to go digging.--Atlan (talk) 00:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

• I take it that SSJ is referring to and . Two reverts. Not edit warring. Judging from Elara (monarch), I'm not sure that I see a problem here; why was it reverted, SSJ? seicer | talk | contribs 02:31, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Repeated anonymous insertion of incorrect material

Several editors on the Newsboys page have been reverting edits from user:99.233.196.169. He has no verifiable proof that a member has left the band, but insists on making the change. The three editors continue to revert the anonymous editor's changes and the user refuses to follow the reasons given in the band's talk page or to verifiability guidelines. Could we have the IP address blocked, or possibly limit edits on the page to users with accounts? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:31, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I've blocked the IP for 24 hours. If he continues after he's unblocked, he should be blocked for longer. It's not a good idea to continue edit warring eight minutes after you're blocked. (X! · talk)  · @298  ·  06:08, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Block needed for someone using the President's name as user name

See Below, this is NOT resolved. 2 socks remain unblocked. Let's not be unfair or show favortism. Either that or unblcok the governor.Acme Plumbing (talk) 05:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Take any and all questionable user names to WP:UAA and let them handle it. That's what that page is for. Baseball Bugs carrots 07:01, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Block User:Barack Obama?

If there were a user named Barack Obama that was not the US President, would you block the user?

There is a user named User talk:Oscar Arias or User:Oscar Arias. The real President Arias is the head of state of Costa Rica. See Oscar Arias.

What is the correct thing to do? Block User:Oscar Arias and ask him to change his name? Oscar Arias (not the President) or OArias or Oscar Arias (USA) or Oscar Arias of Canada are better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Acme Plumbing (talk • contribs) 05:23, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The Misplaced Pages:Username policy says you should not use a real person's name unless either it actually is you, or if you make it clear you're not the well-known person that the name might be mistaken for. Baseball Bugs carrots 05:29, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The correct thing to do? The account has made no edits since 2007, so doing nothing is the appropriate course of action here. Kevin (talk) 05:38, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

So User:Barack Obama is ok if it is old? This user has at least one sockpuppet http://en.wikipedia.org/Special:Contributions/Oarias

I won't be mad if the user is allowed to go free. Acme Plumbing (talk) 05:43, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Somebody want to block Governor Mark Sanford (talk · contribs)? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 05:40, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's a moot question. The user hasn't edited since 2007 and hasn't edited an actual article since 2002. Recommend moving on. Wknight94 05:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Unresolved until somebody deals with User:Governor Mark Sanford. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 05:46, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

It's blocked. WP:UAA is thataway. Wknight94 05:48, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and I reported it at UAA before, but since this discussion was here, I decided to mention it. Blowing off my request without even commenting on it was entirely inappropriate, as is your uncollegial comment above. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 05:52, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Let's all call it off. If someone has to be blocked, then all 3 must be blocked. Acme Plumbing (talk) 05:48, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Uh, no. Resolved now. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 05:49, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Very unfair. 1 blocked, 2 not blocked. The 2 unblocked are socks which makes it worse (names bad + socks) while the Governor is only a bad name. Misplaced Pages is unfair. This could be POV because the Governor is a Republican and some people are violently anti-Republican. Acme Plumbing (talk) 05:52, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Uh, yeah, that's it, it's all because Sanford is a Republican. Isn't it more likely that blocking someone using his name falsely and getting blocked for it is a pro-Republican action? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 05:56, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

There really is no end to the silliness that is propagated here, is there. What socks are you talking about? Wknight94 06:00, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Now I see Barack Obama (talk · contribs) is blocked and has been for years, Oarias (talk · contribs) is very inactive and could easily be a different O. Arias, and Oscar Arias (talk · contribs) is even more inactive. Please don't strike my resolve above - this is wasting people's time. Like I said, WP:UAA is thataway. Wknight94 06:03, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Oscar Arias and User:Oarias are socks which edit the same articles. Let's treat all 3 users the same (make that 4 if you include User:Barack Obama). Block all or keep all unblocked. That's all. I see the block says they can ask to be renamed so it's not that harsh a block. Acme Plumbing (talk) 06:06, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Socks of who? Just each other? Or someone else? Oscar Arias only edits about once a year, and Oarias not since last year. Baseball Bugs carrots 06:08, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Of each other. There is another user. User:Jon Corzine, Governor of New Jersey? Acme Plumbing (talk) 06:11, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

If nothing is done to all the offending users, then should we change the username policy? It would be ok to use the real names of heads of states and state governors? No! Acme Plumbing (talk) 06:12, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Bring this up at WT:U and WP:UAA, etc. Enough. This is getting disruptive. Wknight94 06:14, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

You should take Oscar Arias and Oarias and any other user ID's of public figures to UAA, present them with said list, and they'll take appropriate action. Baseball Bugs carrots 06:16, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Bring this up at WT:U and WP:UAA, etc. If you look through ancient old abandoned usernames, you'll find nonsense that will make Governor names look tame by comparison. And those will be just as much a waste of time. Abandoned accounts are abandoned accounts. Wknight94 06:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Sahlomee

Sahlomee (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been forum shopping allegations of administrative abuse and vandalism against me in many places over the past days:

• Reported me as a vandal to WP:AIV: , ,
• Filed a report at WP:WQA:
• Filed an RFC against me: Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/MBK004
• Filed a request for mediation at the Mediation Cabal: Misplaced Pages:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2009-08-11/Apollo 12
• Filed a DRV for an article which was never deleted: Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2009 August 11#Apollo 12

All of this stems from one revert of a fringe nature from Apollo 12, apparently Sahlomee claims that Apollo 11 was a hoax, which is not the accepted history and not acceptable for the lead of the article for Apollo 12. This user seems to not grasp how to properly discuss grievances against editors and is not only blatantly forum-shopping but is also being highly disruptive in the process and is making an attempt to harass me into going away. This editor clearly is not here to contribute productively and to assume good faith or to discuss edits and seems to be a single-purpose editor because they have never made an attempt to discuss this matter with me or anyone on the talk page of the article and seems to be hell-bent on getting me in trouble for reverting him by as many means as are available (I'm surprised there hasn't been a complaint here yet). So far I have refrained from using my administrative tools to protect the article or block Sahlomee, but it is very tempting. -MBK₀₀₄ 05:28, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

blocked for disruption YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 08:14, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

• Courtesy note: I've closed the WQA. Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:05, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Indefinite bans required for vandalism accounts

These three accounts have been set up for the purposes of vandalism only. I recommend indefinite blocks be placed on all three: User:Sgeggie63, User:Wally1988 and User:Skiingat54162. --Jack | 06:45, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Have you taken these accounts to WP:AIV? - NeutralHomer • Talk • 06:57, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think they're even able to go to WP:AIV. The only account with enough of a history is the last one on the list who hasn't edited since their 48 hour block, thus it's not a pressing issue either. Nja 07:38, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Featured picture candidates

Of late, I've been the only person who's regularly closing FPCs. This causes a problem when I vote on them.

So, if you don't mind, I'm going to ask for some uninvolved administrator to close two FPCs.

I think both are pretty clear promotes, so I'll try to make this easy:

The decision

Go here: Misplaced Pages:Featured_picture_candidates/File:Chaga_hut.jpg. Confirm there is at least 2/3rds support for File:Chaga_hut_noadj.jpg - it's a little confusing, but it's pretty clear all of the support votes are referencing that as the supported one.

If you agree this has the necessary 2/3rds consensus, copy and paste the following at the bottom of Misplaced Pages:Featured_picture_candidates/File:Chaga_hut.jpg:

{{FPCresult|Promoted|File:Chaga_hut_noadj.jpg}} --~~~~

If you disagree, paste the following.

{{FPCresult|Not promoted|}} --~~~~

Similarly, go to Misplaced Pages:Featured_picture_candidates/File:Clavulinopsis_corallinorosacea.jpg and see if a 2/3rds majority supported it. If you agree, paste the following at the bottom of that page:

{{FPCresult|Promoted|File:Clavulinopsis_corallinorosacea.jpg}} --~~~~

If you disagree, paste the following:

{{FPCresult|Not promoted|}} --~~~~

If you then put a message on my talk page, I will handle all the remaining steps for you. There'll be more in two days, so if this goes well, I hope you won't mind further messages. Shoemaker's Holiday 09:19, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

 Doing... Jauerback/_dude. 13:03, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

 Done - admittedly, this was harder than I thought it would be. Jauerback/_dude. 13:11, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism revert request

As I'm at work can someone else check the contribs of 80.195.35.4 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and revert the vandalism. FT2  12:16, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

???user hasn't edited since 29 July. I agree every contribution appears to be vandalism, but it's all been reverted ages ago)--Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:15, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, being at work I'm limited on time and couldn't get round to checking whether the contribs had been sorted out or not. I noted at least one edit had not been (fixed today upon request ), so it seemed possible other vandalism edits had gone un-noticed too. FT2  14:10, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that one was fixed when I looked. Actually, I think this is more than one person. The early (May) edits are quite sensible and even useful. it is the later ones that are all vandalism. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Personal attack by LTSally

Among other things, User:LTSally, wrote these things in my talk page:

Part of my role here as part of the Misplaced Pages community is to moderate the influence of people such as yourself who search no further than your own religion's publications to determine the truth; people who think that dumping a dozen long extracts from the WT CD-ROM on a talk page adds value to a discussion. I don't care whether you have read Penton's book, or Rogerson's, or Holden's, or Wills', or Franz's, or Gruss's, or Stroup's. They are all diligently researched and provide an external, though not always favorable, view of your religion. You research, and parrot, only one source, because your religion tells you it is the only reliable, truthful source. That's your business, but don't lecture me on bias.

This is a direct personal attack, incited by religious prejudice, and I find it disgraceful.--Scientia est opulentia (talk) 14:18, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Whilst what amounts to an attack varies per person, I do not believe this is an issue that needs handled here. You should discuss the comment with the user, but if you're seeking comments by others then consider taking this to WP:WQA. Nja 14:35, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Though I have warned the user about our policy on civility. Nja 14:56, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Boyhere sockpuppeting, making disruptive edits

While he did post a "retired" tag on his original user page, he has immediately created a new account called User:XEuser! to avoid scrutiny. (Proof) Some action should really be taken against this user, since a large majority of his edits are disruptive. GraYoshi2x► 14:53, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks for noting this; I was about to do the same. XEuser! (talk · contribs) has redirected 66.30.164.2 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) to Boyhere (talk · contribs). It has since been reverted, but should be worth noting and watching. seicer | talk | contribs 14:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

• Looking at the IP's contributions, this is also clearly the same user - as evidenced by the types of articles (TV and TV-ratings related, redirects). -Sme3 (talk) 15:01, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I indefinitely blocked XEuser! per WP:SOCK and left a message on Boyhere's talk. As suggested here, marking one account "retired" and immediately creating another to do the exact same edits is a clear violation. Wknight94 15:15, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Chuthya is not assuming good faith.

Chuthya (talk · contribs) This user is not assuming good faith while contributing to Misplaced Pages, specially at AfD discussions. He/she is on personal rivalry with KevinOKeeffe (talk · contribs) and opposes his votes at every single AfD discussion without any valid reasons. I do not think this account is used these days for any purpose other than opposing kevin's vote. Such act disrupts discussions. User talk:Chuthya and his/her contributions are evidence of disruption caused by this careless behavior. Following articles 1,2, 3 and 4 were deproded just because it was proposed by Kevin and reason given was "asserts notability". Please look at this user's contribution for evidence regarding dubious votes. Hitro talk 15:22, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I really see no admin action necessary so far. Remember that AGF is a behavioral guideline, not a policy. If Kevin feels that Chuthya is harassing him, then I think Kevin should be the one to bring it here to ANI. Tan | 39 15:27, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with that but the major thing here is disruption at AfD. Harassing Kevin is secondary problem. Hitro talk 15:30, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Admins consider all comments and behaviour when closing an AFD. We know to look for certain things that may influence the consensus, but thanks for letting us know. Nja 15:40, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't 100% agree with the above. If someone is following someone's contribs blindly trying to cancel out AFD votes, that is stal... - er I guess the PC term is wikihounding now. That's disruption and a policy violation. I'll be happy to leave Chuthya a message to that effect. Wknight94 16:37, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Persistent and socking spammer

Brandbihari (talk · contribs) was indef. blocked as an SPA using the account to add links to his website www.brandbihar.com at Kama Sutra and other pages. Since then he has created obvious sock accounts

• Brandbihari2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log),
• Sweetriverfish‎ (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log),

and used various IPs including

• 59.94.41.130 (talk · contribs · WHOIS),
• 59.94.40.61 (talk · contribs · WHOIS),
• 59.94.38.51 (talk · contribs · WHOIS),
• 59.94.42.34 (talk · contribs · WHOIS),
• 59.94.41.96 (talk · contribs · WHOIS),
• 59.94.38.31 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 59.94.43.172 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 59.94.47.78 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 59.94.41.113 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 59.94.43.7 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 59.94.40.43 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 59.94.45.71 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 59.94.42.179 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

to add the link to Kama Sutra, Ananga Ranga and Missionary position more than 30 times over the last 3 months. The page has been semi-protected a few times, but the spammer just returns once the protection ends. Can someone indef. the two sock accounts and semi-protect the page fort a few weeks ? Also can the website www.brandbihar.com be added to a spam black list ? Abecedare (talk) 17:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Might want to take this to WP:SPI. Cheers, I' 17:24, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I considered thet, but the socking is too blatant to require any deep investigation or checkuser. I filed the request here since it concerns socking, spamming, semi-protection and/or address blacklisting and I am hopeful that a single admin can address all these aspects, without the need for multiple board posts. Btw, User:Tanthalas39 blocked one of the sock accounts for spamming just as I filed this report. Abecedare (talk) 17:30, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I am in the midst of packing for a trip, but I agree with Abecedare - and recommend an admin protect relevant pages and block the socks. No need for an SPI. Tan | 39 17:34, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

• Accounts indeffed. Three most prominent articles semied for a few weeks. 59.94.32.0/20 range blocked for 2 weeks because I'm sure there are more than three articles he can spam if we protect the three most prominent ones. Protonk (talk) 18:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Protonk. Abecedare (talk) 18:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Spanish flu

Hi, this may not be the correct place for this, but the Main Page talk page says to bring vandalism problems here, so it seemed like a good idea. The article Spanish flu and possibly others is marred by a giant image of a penis and I can't work out how to remove it. Can anyone help?--Jackyd101 (talk) 19:02, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks for the note. It was vandalism on {{Influenza}}, which has since been removed. If you still see it you can try purging the page. When you see this stuff in the future, click "Related changes" on the left sidebar and look for template edits like this one. Since the edit used the "includeonly" tag, the picture will show up only on pages where the template is transcluded, not on the template itself, so check the page history for the template. For example, Special:RecentChangesLinked/1918_flu_pandemic shows the Influenza template edits quite clearly. Again, thanks for the help and I'm sorry we didn't catch it sooner. Protonk (talk) 19:10, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Serial Venezuelan Katy Perry vandal

We have an ongoing problem with an editor on the Katy Perry articles that has been going on for nearly a year. These accounts are all obviously the same editor:

• 201.209.250.7 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 201.209.234.93 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 201.209.234.83 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 201.209.230.203 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 201.209.230.203 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 201.209.228.81 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 201.209.224.71 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 201.209.224.208 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

The logs and talk pages tell the tale: 201.209.224.208, 201.209.224.71, and 201.209.224.208 have all been blocked for inappropriate edits to Katy Perry articles. User talk:201.209.250.7, User talk:201.209.234.93, and User talk:201.209.230.203 are all covered with warnings for an editor steadily approaching a block, and then changing IP addresses shortly before the block actually arrives.

All of these addresses fall in the range 201.209.224.0/19. Scanning contributions for collateral damage, I find none. I manually stepped through every 24 in that range searching for anonymous contributions, and I can find no other contributions from 2009: all are from 2008 and before. I think it's quite safe to place a softblock on this range for say, 1 month, to see if we can get this problem to go away.—Kww(talk) 19:23, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

•  Done. Protonk (talk) 19:38, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Sleeper alert: DFKNGG took up the moment the soft-block went in effect.—Kww(talk) 19:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

•  Done. Boy, good thing you aren't an admin. Your raging deletionism would have surely gotten in the way of pursuing this particular thankless task. *sigh* Protonk (talk) 19:53, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

swastika barnstars?

Greetings all,

Im an admin on the Persian wikipedia. I need your input on this matter, if you would. Ive found no guidance on Meta on this particular matter:

There's a user awarding Swastika Barnstars to other users. I cant judge his intention for doing this. But he claims it is in good faith. (He does however, in my judgement, have a record of siding with antisemitic arguments on various articles.)

I'm inclined to ask him to withdraw or change the image, which can easily be offending to many other of our users. I have already received complaints. But he refuses to remove it, and claims that "the swastika was a symbol of Iranian (Aryan) heritage in Asian cultures long before Nazis came along".

How do I (would you) deal with this user(s)? Am I correct to enforce a ban on his usage of swastika barnstars? Am I correct to force him to change/withdraw the barnstar? If so, on what grounds?

He also claims that the fact that Swastika barnstars are not allowed on other wikis has no bearing or jurisdiction on Persian wikipedia. Is that a legit response?

Other admins have so far failed to respond one way or the other. (they are all busy elsewhere. There's only 7 of us for +100k users).

btw, this has happened before by other users. But each time the excuses keep getting more sophisticated.

I will read your responses. Thanks.--Zereshk (talk) 20:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

hmm interesting question. Its true that the swastika does have pre-nazi religous usage. What kind of context are the barnstars being given in, and to whom? However regardless of its history its obviously now associated with something much worse, which he clearly knows. If he has been told to stop though, especially if other people have found it insulting and complained i'd be inclined to block--Jac16888 20:20, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Further to Jac16888, I would suggest that this is something you need to discuss with other Persian admins and editors. Find a consensus, and act according to it. As regards the pre Nazi history of the swastika, it should be noted that is was usually configured differently (the "feet" pointed in the other direction). You may wish to discover whether the one used in the barnstar is the classical or nazi related version. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:29, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

If it helps, we (the English Misplaced Pages) do have a barnstar that displays a swastika (Template:Jainism Award). You'll notice, however, that it's rotated 45 degrees from the Nazi version so all lines are vertical or horizontal. Whenever I've seen a religious (non-Nazi) swastika, it's always been in that position. Do note that I'm far from an expert on the subject, though, and you should talk with others on your project regardless. :-) Hersfold non-admin 20:34, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The context seems to be of good intention. However my feeling is that the dual usage of the symbol is being exploited here. IOW, IMO, he could have picked another "Aryan" symbol. Furthermore, he does have a record of saying things (e.g. once on some talk page he mentioned "if Jews are hated so much nowadays, it's obviously because of their own doing".) I dont know how to respond to such veiled statements. Polite and friendly and well intentioned on the outside, malicious and deliberate on the inside.--Zereshk (talk) 20:35, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

LessHeard, So if antisemitism statements are deemed OK by admin consensus, then it is allowed? I thought some rules (like NPOV) have jurisdiction on all wiki projects.--Zereshk (talk) 20:35, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

1. http://search.cochrane.org/search?q=homeopathy+Oscillococcinum&restrict=cochrane_org&scso_colloquia_abstracts=colloquia_abstracts&client=my_collection&scso_evidence_aid=evidence_aid&scso_review_abstracts=Cochrane_reviews&lr=&output=xml_no_dtd&sub_site_name=Cochrane.org_search&filter=0&site=my_collection&ie=&oe=&scso_registered_titles=registered_titles&scso_newsletters=newsletters&scso_cochrane_org=whole_site&proxystylesheet=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cochrane.org%2Fsearch%2Fgoogle_mini_xsl%2Fcochrane_org.xsl
2. http://www.cochrane.org/news/articles/CD001957_standard.pdf

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