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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 Ullman - asked about whether a study was withdrawn.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 Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Issue 3, 2009 (Status in this issue: Withdrawn) Copyright © 2009 The Cochrane Collaboration.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 The editorial group responsible for this previously published document have withdrawn it from publication. REASON FOR WITHDRAWAL This review was withdrawn from The Cochrane Library, Issue 3, 2009 as the authors are currently unable to update it.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It's withdrawn.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little odd of a reason for withdrawing it, but it still makes it pretty impossible to include it here, when other, non-withdrawn papers exist.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)

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 Vassanya, 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)

Alleged incivility and soapboxing by Keepscases

Moved from AN Viridae 00:10, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

1. Oppose User scrubbed offensive userboxes, including "please keep your imaginary friends to yourself" directed at religious folks, in hopes of passing this RfA. Keepscases (talk)

...

1. I advise the oppose section to find a less flimsy rationale. Shappy 01:48, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

   Flimsy? You're not even taking a stand one way or the other, so you may want to dismount that giant equus caballus of yours. Keepscases (talk) 02:13, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

   He has just yet to make up his mind. He is stating that in order to convince him to oppose he will need a more solid argument.--Gordonrox24 |  02:15, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

   Like Gordon said, I'm Takin' My Time reviewing this candidate, making sure I have a good all-around perspective in them. Better than automatically opposing someone for their beliefs. Shappy 02:16, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

   If you think anyone's being opposed for his beliefs, you need to work on your reading comprehension. Keepscases (talk) 02:18, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

   No, it's obvious that you've used RFA as your soapbox against atheism. Perhaps you should try and review the candidate's contributions and their article work to give you a better idea of what kind of an admin they would be instead of their religious beliefs (or lack thereof). Shappy 02:21, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

   Oh? Surely, then, you can provide an example of a time when I've taken issue with atheism itself, as opposed to elitist and confrontational attitudes that make someone of any religious persuasion (or lack thereof) look awful. I'll wait. Keepscases (talk) 02:24, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

   In Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/Tedder, you go as far as to bar good-faith users of WikiProject Atheism from becoming administrators due to a few users carrying a certain userbox. While not a bias against atheism per se, it shows that you have an unacceptable predisposition against good-faith users who are interested in the subject of atheism. Shappy 02:32, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

   The group in question proudly displays that userbox on its page to this day. I do not trust anyone who is associated with such a hateful group; the religious preferences of such a person are irrelevant. Keepscases (talk) 02:38, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

   When you see a candidate using an atheism userbox you instantly infer that they are going to act inappropriately and cannot be trusted. Please please please explain in detail why this is. I do not like these userboxes, but boxes do not make the candidate. You are going out of your way to check if the candidate has at one point in time had an atheism related userbox. Can you also please explain why this is? I do not wish to sound mean, but I am utterly puzzled. --Gordonrox24 |  02:35, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

   Sure--because I simply can't fathom how any responsible, respectful, and thoughtful individual--the sort of person I want to see promoted to administrator--would ever display such a userbox, or associate with a group who did. For anyone who paints me as anti-atheist--find me any other userbox, religious or otherwise, that is so intentionally disrespectful towards other Misplaced Pages users, and I will enthusiastically oppose its proponents with the same vigor you've all come to know and love me for. Keepscases (talk) 02:42, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

   You are attacking a specific subset of editors with a specific belief. I can't see how that isn't worse than displaying a few pixels on one's userpage. Triplestop x3 02:44, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

   I only agree with you if by "belief" you mean "belief that being condescending and confrontational towards other users is a 'cool' thing to do". Keepscases (talk) 02:45, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

   (edit conflict) I'm not trying to stop you doing so; I knew before this argument. I just gave you advice on other ways to review RFA candidates. You've also been told by many editors that your stereotypes are just as, if not more offensive that said userboxes. Shappy 02:47, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

   (ec) No, by belief I mean atheism. Hate/smugness between people of different groups happens everywhere. And I don't see you opposing based on this "condescending and confrontational" from any other belief than atheism. Again, Rfa is not your soapbox. Triplestop x3 02:50, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Copied from http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_adminship/Alan16&oldid=306328221#Oppose and #Neutral.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 05:03, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

This doesn't belong here. Are you proposing a ban? Malinaccier (talk) 05:00, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I am helping to expose what this particular user is doing, to a larger audience than WT:RFA. I do not find that such behavior is consistent with building an encyclopedia, therefore the user is not here to build an encyclopedia, and should consequently be banned, or at least blocked.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 05:09, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

A link is sufficient. I recommend removing the text as it's distracting and will likely lead to more admins ignoring this than paying attention. Also, may I recommend Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for adminship? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Keepscases makes the comments above that Anyone associated with Atheism is a member of a "hateful group". He states that anyone who is an atheist, and not ashamed of it is a "condescending and confrontational" person. It can be read from other comments that Atheism is not a 'belief' to be respected like a religion is. How much of this Dominionism-based disruption and bad faith are we expected to endure here? By his logic, I should oppose every single RfA candidate who displays, or has ever displayed a userbox identifying membership in a faith in an irreverent, or humorous, or even sarcastic, manner. That will certainly reduce the number of candidates if it catches on. ThuranX (talk) 05:43, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Again, why is this here? No, I didn't move the comments asking why was it at ANI but I think the point was clear nonetheless. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:48, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Let me be more specific. He's been here almost two years. So why should his very recent behavior in two RFAs be justification for a complete ban as opposed to a discussion at WPT:RFA about limiting his discussion at RFAs? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:51, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

As of about four days ago (due to toolserver replag), 54.90% of this user's edits were in the Misplaced Pages namespace, with eight of the top ten edited pages in that namespace being related to RfA and all of the edits in Misplaced Pages talk namespace being related to RfA.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 06:12, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Setting aside the minor issue of what the right venue for discussion is, a ban from RfA would sound like the appropriate measure to me. Looking at his contributions, I have a feeling he's been running a very long, very successful troll, knowing that Misplaced Pages has a high proportion of atheists and that tempers run high on RfAs. The trolling could be motivated by actual hatred for atheists, or he could just be doing it for, as they say, the lulz. But one thing that is clear is that these opposes do not contribute to the discussion at RfA, they undermine it. rspεεr (talk) 09:12, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

If only you were as concerned about the reasons why administrator hopefuls might think disrespectful and confrontational attitudes are acceptable, as you are with the user who thinks such attitudes aren't compatible with adminship. When people like you claim that it's the jerks who are being persecuted and suggest that it's me who's the hateful one, I feel like I'm in Bizarro World. Keepscases (talk) 00:08, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Collapsed long copy-paste Badger Drink (talk) 06:21, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

This should be at ANI if it is a ban discussion.....Malinaccier (talk) 16:15, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Why? I think ban discussions are more appropriate here than at the shitstorm that is ANI. See previous discussion on this here: Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive199#Use of this page. –xeno 20:10, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether or not this is Incivility and soapboxing, the user has a right to express his opinion. However, there are some points that are for sure:

1. Keepscases's comments do not address individual candidates, the point of RfA
2. Keepscases's comments have incited much conflict
3. Keepscases asks many "unique" questions on RfA
4. The user has done nothing but do this lately

Triplestop x3 16:16, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

(Begin random lurker's opinion...) I have no dog in this fight, and no opinion one way or the other on what should be done. However, I think it's important to point out that the issue Keepscases seems to have is not with Atheists per se, but rather with the userbox that says "Keep your imaginary friends to yourself". The reason he brought it up at the RFA is that the candidate seems to have recently removed it from his userpage, which would appear on the surface to be an attempt to "cover up" something that would potentially have a negative impact on the RFA (as opposed to removing it because one no longer agrees with the sentiment expressed). Could he have argued his point more tactfully? Sure...but I think it's important to note that the disagreement seems to have its source in how the userbox was phrased rather than the actual sentiment behind it. Dgcopter (talk) 16:23, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's seems this discussion supports your theory. He should just file an MfD and get the box deleted if he hates it so much. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:06, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I am not an advocate of censorship. I think users should be able to create and display any userboxes they wish, but any user who thinks posting a disrespectful userbox is a good idea is an unsuitable candidate. Keepscases (talk) 23:54, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Also, I'm increduluous that people are actually proposing to ban me. I'm not doing anything wrong. Your beef should be with people who insist my long-standing, very sincere opinions are not valid...most of whom blatantly misrepresent said opinions to try and undermine my credibility. I just now supported an atheist who appears to have no connections to publicly-displayed elitism and hatefulness, and I have done so in the past. Keepscases (talk) 23:58, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

That does not excuse your long history of disruption. Triplestop x3 00:18, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

All I do is post my vote, guy, but don't expect me to stay quiet if people want to argue I don't have the right. Keepscases (talk) 00:20, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

The right to do what? What you're doing is basically the definition of disrupting Misplaced Pages to make a point. Even if all you were doing was fighting against a userbox (in which case you wouldn't have seen anything wrong with Tedder), RfA is not the venue to fight against a userbox. rspεεr (talk) 00:27, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't fight against any userbox, I oppose candidates who think it's a good idea to display it. I do not think any such user should represent Misplaced Pages in any position of power, "no big deal" be damned. I don't disrupt anything. All I do is cast my vote and then defend myself against people who attack me for it. Keepscases (talk) 00:33, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Nineteen edits alone to Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/Alan16, seventeen edits to Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/Tedder, ten edits to Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/Gordonrox24 2. These are just from the past couple weeks; the pattern has been evident for a long, long time. How many "keepscases oppose" threads are we gonna start? When someone generates as much mass drama as he does, it's clear whether they are a net positive or a net negative to the project, regardless of motivation. Highly support a topic ban from RfA or related threads. Tan | 39 00:21, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

(ECx7)Really? You are surprised that few other editors are voicing support for your bigotry? You're actively discriminating against a large, and growing, group of people, based on their beliefs. This is exactly the same as discriminating against the Jehovah's witnesses, Mormons, seventh day Adventists, southern baptists, Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, protestants or any other christian group which proselytizes. I don't see you doing that; I see the opposite. Why should we keep around someone whose attitude is 'anyone who isn't a christian shouldn't be an admin, especially people who think really differently than I do about something which has nothing to do with Misplaced Pages. ThuranX (talk) 00:22, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps it's you who should be banned, for completely misrepresenting my beliefs and actions. There is nothing wrong with being an atheist. I defy you to show me one edit in which I say there is. Keepscases (talk) 00:26, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Support a topic ban Besides the issue of having almost all of your edits to RfA religion based, you also repeatedly make inane edits such as these . This is 100% unproductive and does nothing but incite conflict. Triplestop x3 00:25, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Right, because the idea of actually making a potential administrator think about something new/unexpected, and give voters a little insight into his or her personality/demeanor, is grounds for a ban. Tell me, exactly what conflict did the edits you mention bring about? Keepscases (talk) 00:28, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

they didnt yet bring conflict but they were definitely a little silly and not really relevent to his duties as an admin. usually the questions show how they would interpret policy and improve Misplaced Pages nad not how they would cast a movie about Misplaced Pages!! Smith Jones 00:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Right as always, SJ! Let's slay these misconceptions about a Misplaced Pages movie! Skinwalker (talk) 00:45, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I think if you go through my questions, you'll find plenty of instances in which candidates were sincerely appreciative for the opportunity to answer them and/or they were helpful in voters' decision-making. The one candidate chose not to answer my movie question, and you know what? Everything was fine. There was no drama. Keepscases (talk) 00:39, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Smith Jones 00:45, 8 August 2009 (UTC)::Thats a fair point, and I agree wthat you dont deserve to be sanctioned because of THAT (I dont know about the other things too much) but i can see how that might be constured as being part of a pattern of mocking behavior. you have to see this from evryones perspective since this a community-oriented and circumobular project which sometimes things that you thing are WP:FUNNY are actually being seen as violating WP:CIVIL due to too much sarcasm or Smith Jones 00:45, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Now supporting a full ban Keepscases was already blocked indefinitely for asking blatant, inane questions and was warned. See here for examples. And he still continues to this day. I don't know what is going on, does he not get it or is he deliberately trying to troll? He clearly still hasn't got a clue and given his attack against Thurnax, it isn't likely he will get one anytime soon. Given that his edits to articles are all minor changes, and his inane posts at the Help Desk recently, I don't see that this user will turn around and go do something productive if he is banned from RfA alone. Triplestop x3 00:44, 8 August 2009 (UTC) Per below Triplestop x3 01:22, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Exactly what "attack against Thurnax" are you referring to? He accused me of something I've never done. As for my "inane posts at the Help Desk", I posted there looking to learn something. That is inappropriate why? Keepscases (talk) 00:48, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Seems like a no brainer to me.--_{Sky Attacker} 00:49, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear that, as the things I'm being accused of are easily disproven. Keepscases (talk) 00:51, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

How are they disproven? Can you explain, please?--_{Sky Attacker} 01:08, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I've been explaining throughout these discussions. The main accusations against me seem to be that I am prejudiced against atheists and that I cause drama. Neither are true. Keepscases (talk) 04:26, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I supposed I'm a bit biased (seeing as I was an active participant in the argument at Alan16's RFA), but I don't see Keepscases as a positive contributor. Shappy 01:04, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Also, we've given him/her way too many chances. Like Kmweber and DougsTech, people who troll RFA should be topic banned. Shappy 01:10, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Outside views will be the judge of that.--_{Sky Attacker} 01:12, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Support a topic ban. RfA is just like any other topic area. If an otherwise productive editor is unable to participate positively in one topic area, we can and should remove them. Protonk (talk) 01:08, 8 August 2009 (UTC) See 'vote' below. Protonk (talk) 04:31, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Protonk, it may actually be worth your time looking at the section below.--_{Sky Attacker} 01:15, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I trust whoever closes this to be mindful of both discussion and vote, but thanks for the heads up. Protonk (talk) 01:45, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, this thread wasn't an official topic-ban thread. For there to be a discrete community-sanctioned ban, we need an obvious consensus, not the willy-nilly discussion above. However, you obviously may participate as you see fit. Tan | 39 03:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

RfC?

I'm just reiterating this outside of my comment in the oppose section, as What we need at this point is not an ANI thread, but an RfC. At the moment, this is just a cacophony of various archives, failed proposals, yelling at each other, and hard feelings. I think that we need to organize this data into an RfC, which would be much more likely to return a result than here. (X! · talk)  · @997  ·  22:55, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Given there has been no consensus here for an admin to do anything, an RfC might be a helpful next step. This said, so far I see no clear consensus that within an RfA, soapboxy questions, alikened across many RfAs, should be kept out of the discussion or otherwise banned. Gwen Gale (talk) 23:06, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

You may find the RfC at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Keepscases.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 23:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Proposal for Keepscases topic ban from RfA

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

There is no consensus for this. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:11, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Might as well officially figure out if this has community support.

Proposal: Keepscases (talk · contribs · logs) is topic-banned from WP:RFA-related pages.

Support

1. Support as nominator. My comment above and a quick look at Keepscases contribution history, along with the above thread, should be sufficient. Tan | 39 01:02, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
2. Support. Comparing this to DougsTech: While DougsTech's opposes are not very constructive, they at least don't cause problems, and after all, he is entitled to his opinion. Though I find opposing based on atheist userboxes to be groundless, Keepscases does have a right to his opinion (an not unreasonable argument could be made that they are inflammatory), but asking such questions bites the candidates and does adversely affect the RfA. (Sorry this was poorly worded, with so many negatives.) -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:05, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
3. Support Definitely. All that is done here is disruptive. Shappy 01:05, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
4. Support as above. Textbook case of WP:POINT. rspεεr (talk) 01:13, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
5. Support giving Keepscases a change to be productive outside rfa. Triplestop x3 01:21, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
6. Support Enough. This is not because he is attacking atheism, it is because he has done nearly nothing aside from this constant disruption. \ Backslash Forwardslash / {talk} 01:22, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
7. Support I haven't been involved in the discussion, but I've seen enough. Jeni 01:25, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
8. Suppport Even though I think that some people in this discussion have had a knee-jerk reaction against "anti-atheism", when in my opinion the template isn't pro-atheism, it's anti-faith. But RfA is not the place to bring up that argument. Banning the editor from an area where they are causing routine disruption is both appropriate and fair, it allows them to edit constructively elsewhere if they choose to and also to start or participate in an MfD of the userbox they dislike so much. -- Atama 01:31, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
9. Strong Support, although repetition of such behavior after being blocked for it deserves a stronger remedy (that is, I prefer the proposal below to this one). Keepscases' disruptive behavior at WP:RFA has gone on for far too long.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 02:48, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
10. Support based on the diffs provided by Mythdon down below in the This is distracting to the above, and premature. collapsed discussion. TIMMEH! - ALLST✰R▼ _{wuz here} 03:05, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Did my providing of diffs make your investigation easy? --Mythdon 03:09, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    It certainly helped. - ALLST✰R▼ _{wuz here} 03:17, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Good! I hope it's helping the other users. I'm glad I took the time to provide that much evidence. --Mythdon 03:27, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

11. Agree that behavior at RfA thus far has been disruptive enough to warrant a topic ban. –Juliancolton |  03:06, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Kindly provide one edit of mine you believe was "disruptive" and not merely a statement of my opinion and/or a defense/clarification resulting from an attack on me. Keepscases (talk) 04:28, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    A list of diffs of your behavior is right here. --Mythdon 05:10, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    And none of them support the allegation. If you disagree, be specific. Keepscases (talk) 05:48, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    This is disruptive. "Who would you tell?" What has that got to do with anything? And so is this. Voting so the numbers look pretty is not disruptive? Opposing per age is disruptive - if they are a competent editor, there age is irrelevant. This is just stupid. And there are plenty more. And thanks to Mythdon for the list of diffs. Alan16 (talk) 15:16, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Heh--if you're proposing that anyone who makes light-hearted or seemingly frivolous edits should be banned, be forewarned that you'd be taking out a veritable all-star team of Misplaced Pages users. The edits you provide weren't disruptive anyway. Keepscases (talk) 15:22, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    If you think "Who would you tell?" is a productive question, and one which would decide whether to vote for them or not, then you should certainly not be allowed to vote again. If you did this sort of thing once in a while, then it would be fine, but you don't. This isn't one or two frivolous remarks, it is a few dozen. Alan16 (talk) 15:30, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    A question like that can be very useful to understand someone's personality/character/demeanor. Have you ever been to a job interview? Anyway, I am allowed to ask whatever questions I wish. Keepscases (talk) 15:39, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Yes I have. And however you try to defend it, that is a pointless question that helps you judge them not at all. Alan16 (talk) 15:48, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    I encourage you to criticize questions with the same fervor when you're interviewing for jobs. It will get you far. Keepscases (talk) 15:52, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

12. Support Well, I certainly support it, to the surprise of no one who's seen my comments at the related RfAs. Please understand that merely displaying a userbox that simply and politely states that one is a member of the Athiest Wikigroup is enough to disqualify an admin candidate in his view. Why? Because there are apparently some other atheist userboxes he doesn't like. But rather than try and delete them, he seeks to ban any and all self-declaring atheists from adminship, per WP:POINT. Anyone who self-declares as a non-believer therefore becomes non-admissible. It's prejudice. It's intolerance. I look south from our border and see this kind of religious fundamentalism ruining a country I used to have respect for: I don't want it infecting this project. thanks, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 03:09, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    May I just add that WP:NPA expressly prohibits "Using someone's affiliations as an ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting their views." Shawn in Montreal (talk) 03:31, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    I would never, *never* "seek to ban any and all self-declaring atheists from adminship". Your contempt of me based on things I would never do is becoming tiresome. Keepscases (talk) 04:20, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

13. If the user can't be indefinitely blocked, then a topic ban should certainly be done. This disruption can not be tolerated, and it is much worse than DougsTech ever was. I support a topic ban, though I would prefer an indefinite block. --Mythdon 03:14, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    All I do is vote. Why do you fault me for the disruption? I have a right to believe that offensive userboxes show a candidate has no business representing Misplaced Pages. Keepscases (talk) 04:22, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Whether you believe that is irrelevant. In RfA, you're suppose to participate based on the behavior of the candidate, but more importantly, whether they'll abuse the tools or not. Comments there are suppose to be relevant to the candidates qualifications for adminship. You are not doing that. Instead of asking nonsense questions, you should be asking things like "how would you have closed this AfD?", or "what is your understanding of this policy?". Those are the questions you're supposed to be asking, but those are just examples. If you look through previous RfA's you'll find the questions you should be asking. Instead of doing that, you ask "Kindly demonstrate your grammar skills by explaining at least one way Quadell's nomination could be improved. ", and "Were these definitions provided by you? ". And as for your comments in the "support"/"oppose" sections, instead of making comments like "I do not agree with this user's positions on singular 'they', usage of quotation marks, and spacing between sentences. ", you should be explaining whether or not the candidate will abuse the tools and whether or not the candidate behaves consistently. You have a right to your opinions, but to express the opinions you are expressing at RfA is disruptive and irrelevant to the candidate. Let me be as clear as possible here: Your comments are disruptive to RfA, and it is best to ban you from all RfA participation to prevent further disruption. Until you learn your lesson, you just can't be at RfA. --Mythdon 04:39, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    It is telling that you have to bring up things that have nothing to do with this discussion in order to try and appear that you're "right". But--those questions were asked for specific reasons and were appreciated by the users in question, and shame on you for trying to tell me what my voting criteria should be (would you like to live in a country that did that?) Keepscases (talk) 04:44, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    I am not telling you how to vote. I am telling you to vote within the relevance to the candidate, and you should do the same when asking questions. Whether or not the candidate appreciated the questions is irrelevant, as they disrupt the RfA. Your participation is no better than the participation of the now blocked DougsTech. After all, There was a discussion about whether to topic ban DougsTech, and let me tell you that that user didn't get nearly as much support as you are getting for such a ban at this rate. DougsTech didn't get topic banned, but did later get blocked. Let me tell you that if I were an administrator, and if I saw you engaging in this behavior, I would block you, no questions asked. --Mythdon 04:56, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

14. Support, as Tan is predictably on the money here. Alternative option, allow Keepscases to vote and ask questions, but only by proxy of a crat (who will then obviously recuse from closing or voting themselevs) who must approve of the question/vote rationale in order to vet it for drama-inducement. In six months, revisit topicban to see if Keepscases can be trusted to edit on their own at RfA without creating drama. → ROUX ₪ 03:47, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    I don't think that will work. Having somebody vote for the user will not be a good idea. I think the user should learn on their own. --Mythdon 03:55, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

15. Support Per my above, for the sake of transparency. Also, note Tan's important comment below. The alternative to this is that the community go through this rigmarole each and every time Keepscases feels like disrupting an RfA. We eventually learned our lesson w/ Kurt and RfA was better off for it. This is analogous. Protonk (talk) 04:30, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    I have the right to vote based on my criteria that I have made perfectly clear time and time again. Why do you blame me for the disruption, and not the users who attack me for my opinion, usually twisting my words to make me appear anti-atheist? Why am I the bad guy, Protonk? Keepscases (talk) 04:38, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

16. Keepscases' votes have always struck me as single-minded and POINTy. rʨanaɢ /_contribs 04:33, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    "POINTy" implies that I am intentionally disrupting Misplaced Pages. I am not. I vote based on the fact that I think users who select intentionally offensive userboxes have no business being administrators. Keepscases (talk) 04:40, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Whether you are intentionally doing this is irrelevant at this point. You have a right to your opinions, but that opinion is not an opinion that you should be expressing at RfA. If I was an administrator, let me assure you that I would block you. --Mythdon 04:48, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Good to know; see you at your future RfA. Keepscases (talk) 04:54, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    You won't be there, because if I see you there, and if you are topic banned, you'll be reported, period. --Mythdon 04:56, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    I don't plan on being banned, as I'm not doing anything wrong. Don't fool yourself into thinking that this "people who don't respect Keepscases" convention gets to decide my fate. Keepscases (talk) 04:59, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    You don't have to plan on getting banned, because the community has power on Misplaced Pages. They can actually decide your "fate" by a simple majority consensus, which you seem to find hard to believe based on your recent comment. --Mythdon 05:05, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Unfortunately for you, this is not a representative cross-section of the Misplaced Pages community. This is a bunch of people who hate me in here, most of whom completely misrepresent my views and actions. A lynch mob alone can't get someone banned here. Keepscases (talk) 05:09, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    These people in this discussion have absolute power to direct you out of further participation in any RfA, and have the power to tell an administrator "please block", and that administrator will act fast, and will ask you no questions. A possible future block for a violation will prove this point. --Mythdon 05:14, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    And yet, as much as it may pain you to hear this, I have exactly the same rights as a current Misplaced Pages user as you do, so you may want to get off your high horse, quit flexing your cyber-muscles, and go away. At some point, Mythdon, when you keep sounding off on every comment that I make anywhere, you have to understand it is you who is responsible for the drama. Keepscases (talk) 05:31, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Actually, we're both responsible for this drama. If you respond, you have fault. If I respond, I have fault. Not all users have the same rights. Some users are placed under editing restrictions, and you're just about ready to get a restriction when a user closes this as successful. --Mythdon 05:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    The extent to which you're fantasizing that I get blocked is more than a little scary. Keepscases (talk) 05:47, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    It will happen should you violate your future topic ban, if it becomes effective. --Mythdon 05:50, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Could you just have your orgasm already and go away? Keepscases (talk) 05:57, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    I am not going away until this is done, and when it's done, your participation at RfA is over. --Mythdon 05:59, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

17. (ec x3) While I 'get' that Keepscases claims to only object to outspoken Atheists, i.e., only those who make public their view that people of faith believe in fairy tales, this to me is a sign not of his view that they should be 'respectful', but of an expectation that they should be all out deferential, and that by his actions he is actively working toward a 'chilling effect' against atheists. It is that subversion of WP, and the fact that he's voted against non-offending atheists as well, that leads me to this vote. He wants the atheists to shut up, keep wuiet, and stop speaking out. Well, once theyv'e come for all the atheists, who will they come for next, and will anyoen be left to speak up for me when he, and his, come for me? ThuranX (talk) 04:47, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    I've been on Misplaced Pages for years, and I'm sorry, but that is the single dumbest thing I have ever seen posted. I think people who like offensive userboxes are unsuitable for adminship, and you're comparing me to Hitler. Keepscases (talk) 04:56, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Ah. You saw my Jewish Userbox, and now try to bait me by suggesting a Jew made a Hitler comparison. I see what you did there. Very shallow and transparent. I like the attempt to turn the persecutor into the persecuted by sugggesting a persecuted is now immorally behaving like hispersecutor of old. Very Interesting. And a transparent bid to someone get my vote ignored. Nice try. ThuranX (talk) 05:01, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Get over yourself. Your little statement there was based on an easily-recognizable quotation about Nazi Germany. It sucks when you try and put one over on someone and fail, huh? Keepscases (talk) 05:03, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    What the fuck are you going on about? You said I compared you to Hitler, I did no such thing. I used an old quote about the cumulative effect of giving in to a Chilling Effect. That it came out of the Nazi era is thoroughly irrelevant to my point. IF you really think that's me saying your Hitler, let me say it this way: My family ran from Hitler. And you sir are no Adolf Hitler. You're a paranoid little man, afraid that if you are exposed to too many new ideas, you may have to actually face them and think about them. I never, in any way, compared you to Hitler. Get over yourself. I stand by my assertion: Not content to insult ONE set of beliefs, you now are either looking for bigger fish, or so defensive that you're now lashing out at anyone NOT LIKE YOU. Bigot. ThuranX (talk) 05:09, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    You're just making an ass out of yourself now. Feel free to continue if you like. Note to all: I don't want this. I'm being compared to Nazis by someone who first denies it and then claims I'm a bigot for bringing it up. All I want to do is oppose RfAs from users who like offensive userboxes. Keepscases (talk) 05:12, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    And http://en.wikipedia.org/First_they_came... is required reading for anyone who might buy this bullshit that ThuranX wasn't comparing me to the Nazis. Keepscases (talk) 05:14, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Chilling effect (term). Read it. That is my intent by that, and you know it. That it happens to make you look like a Nazi is your own conscience telling you something. YOu seek to make a class of people shut up and hide their presence. I simply pointed out what will happen when you're done with that group. That you suddenly see in that statement a comparison between your attitude and that of that Nazis is entirely of your own inference, not my implication. That you suddenly choose to accuse a Jewish Editor of Godwin'ing this, hoping for the Irony points, just shows how desperate you are. Let me help you out. this is only 6 to 12 hours from a SNOW closing, especially given your tactic for antagonizing every single voter, which is get a different campaign of intimidation. ThuranX (talk) 05:23, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    But yet all you're going to get is either a block or a topic ban from RfA. --Mythdon 05:17, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Does it make you feel powerful to pretend you're in control here? Keepscases (talk) 05:19, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    We the community are in control as one. --Mythdon 05:21, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Thuran, the "bigot" comment was blockworthy, so please don't repeat anything like it. And I suggest all of you end this line of discussion right now, because it's headed nowhere fast. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:24, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

18. Support Absolutely. →javért 05:05, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Good word! That word is what I think too. --Mythdon 05:10, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

19. Support I really thought I was going to oppose this; even though Keepscases questions are often off-the-wall, they do provide interesting answers and a bit of levity. I didn't see a problem with the majority of Mythdon's links below, but those that are a problem are a serious problem and I hope this disturbing pattern doesn't show up anywhere else in Keepscases editing. Specifically, Keepscases seems to have difficulty with editor's personal religious beliefs and has gone so far as to attack other editors (examples here and here. Other comments that indicate an inability to put aside personal prejudices in this area are , , and this is just the past few months of RfAs. RfA is a difficult enough process; there is no need to subject editors to attacks based on personal religious beliefs. Shell 05:34, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Every single link you provided was based on userboxes, Shell. Part of me wishes that religious groups had offensive userboxes that I would of course oppose in a similar fashion...but I guess a bigger part of me is thankful that they don't. Keepscases (talk) 05:43, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    So? Can you explain how that justifies calling someone "pompous, unprofessional and disrespectful"? If their userboxes offend you, its clearly possible to say so without name-calling. Since you don't see a problem with this hyper-focus on religious beliefs (which has no bearing on suitability for the mop), I don't see any course but removing you from participation where you're causing the disruption. Shell 05:51, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    It's so annoying when people claim they support the concept of freedom of speech, but pretend there's something wrong with judging people based on what they say. Keepscases (talk) 05:56, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    This is easily your strongest argument, and why someone might be willing to protect your privilege to oppose candidates based on userboxes. I don't feel that your opposes are limited to that (despite your claims here to the contrary) and I don't feel that your opposes represent a sensible way to go about criticism of candidates. Beyond this, you seem to refuse to accept that you might not be going about things the right way. Protonk (talk) 06:10, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    "Right" and "wrong" are arbitrary, and userboxes are contributions that should be evaluated unless someone else put them there. Which opposes of mine do you believe I haven't been straightforward about? Keepscases (talk) 06:16, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Keepscases, you might want to take a breath and realize that attacking folks who support your topic ban isn't doing your case any favors. I never mentioned free speech, so lets see if we can get back to the point. Do you have an answer to why you feel personal attacks are acceptable? Can you show us where you've gone through proper channels to object to these userboxes or start a community discussion about them? If you just keep on indicating you don't respect the concerns other editors have raised about your behavior, then you're painting us into a corner. Shell 06:19, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    My so-called "attacks", and by "attacks" I guess you mean single "oppose" votes on RfA's, were based quite clearly on attitudes that the users in question chose to express through their selected userboxes. And, as I have said countless times, I am no advocate of censorship, and think users have the right to create and display whatever userboxes they wish...but they should damned sure be judged on them. If I had a userbox stating (and I apologize, this is intentionally going to be offensive) "Any NIGGER Misplaced Pages user is gonna be MY SLAVE", would you EVER consider promoting me to adminship? Because, admittedly that was over-the-top, but you need to understand I find certain confrontational atheist userboxes *really, really offensive*. I don't want to censor the userboxes. I'm thankful I get to see which Wikipedians think they're a good idea. Keepscases (talk) 06:27, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    I'm going to take this to talk to avoid cluttering up this page further :) Shell 06:34, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    The talk referred to above is at User talk:Keepscases#Userboxes.2C_RfA_etc. and User talk:Shell_Kinney#Hi.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 14:28, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

20. Support My concern is not so much that there is a violation of WP:POINT, but that the editor persists in labouring the point. An opposition to a candidate for displaying a particular userbox which may inflame the sensibilities of other editors is legitimate - but using that !vote to focus upon that aspect of the RfA is not; either the premise of the oppose will influence other respondees or it will not - it does not need bringing up repeatedly. It is evident that Keepcases is unable to understand this, since they are engaging in the same behaviours in this discussion here. Disagreeing and explaining your stance at every oppose vote is disruptive. The other point of interesting questions is as troubling, in that there seems to be an element of elitism in requiring some arcane standards of English or similar - and I say arcane because while this is the English language Misplaced Pages there are very different cultures using different grammatical constructions. Simply, RfA is a discussion regarding the trustworthiness and experience of the applicant in requesting extra tools and not a battleground for idealogical/religious viewpoints, nor a dissertion upon grammatical styles. Keepcases appears confused in this, and should therefore be required to avoid those pages until they can contribute in a more appropriate manner. LessHeard vanU (talk) 10:38, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
21. Support - "No member of "WikiProject Atheism" should represent Misplaced Pages as an administrator" is an invalid reason for opposing adminship. Baseball Bugs carrots 13:01, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
22. Support Oh hell yeah. BigDunc 13:17, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
23. Weak support. I was going to oppose per WereSpielChequers. I still endorse everything WSC said except the bit about former membership in the National Secular Society and being a "lapsed atheist" (not sure what that means, exactly). I consider some of Keepscases' RfA questions to be more problematic than the problematic userboxes. But what really made me switch to supporting the RfA ban was when I realised that apart from a few trivial fig leaf edits Keepscases seems to be a single purpose account for voting on RfA. That's bad enough in itself, but it's particularly bad when it's reasonable to assume that the voting behaviour is controlled by ideology/religion. – I also note this (unrelated to RfA), which suggests to me that this user is already well on the slow route to a permaban. Hans Adler 13:29, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    While you may consider that assumption "reasonable", it's still incorrect. I believe users who choose intentionally offensive userboxes are unsuited for adminship, and I'll oppose every one of them, no matter what ideology is involved. That only atheism-related boxes have been involved is a reflection on the users responsible for them, not on me. Keepscases (talk) 15:13, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Don't talk such nonsense. It is only atheists you oppose because of userboxes. this this, and this surely portray the same supposed elitism that you think certain atheist userboxes do. However I've not seen you crusade against these userboxes. Alan16 (talk) 15:27, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    This is the first time I've ever even seen any of those userboxes, and they are statements of belief and not confrontational. It's okay to believe in loving Jesus, it's okay to believe in creationism, it's okay to believe in atheism. It's not okay to be disrespectful to others. Keepscases (talk) 15:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    "Real men love Jesus" is easily as confrontational as "keep your imaginary friends to yourself". Why will you not just admit that you have something against atheists? Alan16 (talk) 15:51, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Because I don't have anything against atheists; why will you not just admit that you can't seem to argue against me without using strawmen? "Real men love Jesus" is not aimed at people who don't love Jesus, nor does it suggest there's anything wrong with them. Whereas using the term "imaginary friends" towards religious people is intentionally confrontational and disrespectful. Keepscases (talk) 15:55, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    The use of "real men" implies that people who do not love jesus are not real men. If "imgainry friends" is confrontational, then so is the "real men" one. Alan16 (talk) 16:15, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Both are wanton, empty personal attacks. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:19, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Well, unless anyone can provide examples in which I've failed to speak up against RfA candidates who displayed the userboxes Alan16 cites, none of this is relevant anyway. Keepscases (talk) 17:49, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    (ec) Actually, there is a big difference. "Keep your imaginary friends to yourself" is a brilliant insult against believers, optimised for maximum impact. "Real men love Jesus" can be read as a negative statement about men who don't "love Jesus", but I think it makes much more sense to read it as a self-ironic statement that plays with (1) the stereotype of men with strong religious feelings being soft, and (2) the homoerotic overtones that stem from the fact that Jesus was a man, and which create a tension with the conservative attitudes that are particularly common among religious people. Also note that it fits the general pattern exploited in Real Men Don't Eat Quiche. For me this is a typical statement of a young Christian who is looking for his place between the conservative norms of his community and the much more open-minded culture among his friends.

    I was aware of all this, but it's no reason to change my opinion. I did not support the bans in the previous somewhat analogous situations, but there are just enough differences to make me support a topic ban in this case, especially the danger of polarisation along religious lines where religion simply shouldn't matter and the danger of an actual impact on RfA outcomesHans Adler 17:53, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

24. Yes, please. RfA is already dramatic enough without Keepscases; we need people who throw water on the flames, not gasoline. --Dylan620 (contribs, logs) 14:05, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
25. "Everyone is entitled to their opinion" is like the First Amendment: on paper, you can do anything, but there are actually restrictions to prevent the abuse of power. Now, seeing as both Kmweber and DougsTech were eventually both kicked off Misplaced Pages even though people insisted "oh, they're just saying their opinion!", I think we should actually learn from our mistakes and topic ban him before he does something which would warrant a site-wide ban. Sceptre 14:28, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    I'm not comfortable with your analogy, given that I'm not making any false statements and not looking to abuse any power. All I expect is one vote, just like everyone else gets. Keepscases (talk) 15:17, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    However, you're not voting or asking questions based on the candidate. If you would just do that, we wouldn't even be here, and you would have nothing to worry about. --Mythdon 16:46, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

26. Support He appears to have a bias against atheists or maybe it is only just one userbox, but that doesn't matter because either way it shows that he doesn't actually read the RfA before voting oppose, and I don't think this is the sort of person we want voting in RfAs. Alan16 (talk) 15:10, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
27. Support (mind, I don't "self identify" as atheist). Gwen Gale (talk) 15:19, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
28. Support, though I don't exactly have much to add, given the completeness of the reasons above. Irbisgreif (talk) 15:45, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose as I am not doing anything wrong. I have nothing against atheism, no matter how many users try to paint me as such, and I have the right to vote in RfA's and the right to defend myself against attackers. I propose discussions on how to discourage others from badgering me about my votes. Keepscases (talk) 01:04, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

   You said above that the accusations against you are "easily disproven". It would be helpful to your case to see some evidence of this.--_{Sky Attacker} 01:19, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

   Strongly Oppose Full disclosure, I haven't edited in about 9 months, but I still do a lot of reading on various policy and process pages, and I'm finding it impossible not to step in here, so here I am. First of all, let's put to bed the notion that this user is voting based on candidates' religious beliefs. This all stems from a higly inflammitory and inappropriate userbox displayed by the athiesm wikiproject. Frankly, I'd be shocked if anyone here thought this box, which blatenly insults anyone who believes in any form of higher being, was appropriate for display anywhere. The idea that an oppose based on a user endorsing such divisive and insulting content is worthy of a ban is silly, even if you don't agree with Keepscases views or methods of voicing them. If a Cristian RFA hopeful displayed a userbox that stated "Anyone who doesn't believe in God is doomed to burn in hell for the rest of eternity", I'd expect an oppose or two. Bleeding Blue 01:17, 8 August 2009 (UTC) To Neutral per discussion below. Bleeding Blue 04:20, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

   What someone puts on their userpage doesn't need to have anything to do with their article contributions etc.--_{Sky Attacker} 01:23, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

   More to the point, Keepscases has opposed people simply for being members of WikiProject Atheism, even if they never displayed one of the userboxes that are supposedly the sole problem. rspεεr (talk) 01:26, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

   More to the point, that is what I was just saying. What someone's personal views are should not be as significant at an RfA as their relevant contributions to the project.--_{Sky Attacker} 01:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

   I say if you have have a problem with the userbox itself, nominate it for deletion via the Mfd process but the userbox itself shouldn't be used support or oppose anyone. Creating drama around it, even more so. - ALLST✰R▼ _{wuz here} 03:42, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

2. Opposed to shotgun witch trials on general principles. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:31, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

   In favor of block. - Changing to support. Block discussion closed. --Mythdon 02:03, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

3. I'm in the clear minority here, but so be it. While I disagree with Keepscases' opinion, I think he is entitled to it. Personally I don't think it is right for the community to say certain kinds of opposes aren't allowed at RfA. The only reason Keepscases' !votes cause a lot of drama is because editors feel the need to reply and say how dumb they think the !vote is. If people just ignored the !vote, much like the closing crat is likely to do, then there would be no drama. --ThaddeusB (talk) 05:06, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
4. I support the right of anypne to come up with any grounds they feel like to oppose an RfA and the right of the community to summarily ignore them. Viridae 05:19, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

   I thank you, but why should I be ignored? Why shouldn't my vote count as much as anyone else's? If I'm out of line, won't the votes reflect that? I don't like where your slippery slope leads to. Keepscases (talk) 05:22, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

   That wasn't directed at you specifically, but at the ether. As to why your vote shouldn't count, that is up to the community poor some some representative portion of it, to decide. Viridae 05:41, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

   I for one believe everyone's vote should count. If a user's position is unsupported, the votes should reflect that. Keepscases (talk) 05:53, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

5. Oppose for the most part Keepscases has been spot on about the userboxes and while I have found some of his other conduct trivial at times it has been repeatedly sanctioned at WT:RFA as acceptable. Icewedge (talk) 07:05, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
6. oppose Anyone with an account can NotVote for any reason, or no reason at all. Merely having a numbered comment SHOULD NOT MEAN ANYTHING in itself. I'm baffled that RfA editors refuse to spit the hook - didn't they learn after the "SELF NOM IS PRIMA FACIEA EVIDENCE etc etc" stuff? About the ubx: I'd agree that people displaying that ubx are probably not suitable for admins, but Keepcases has begun notvoting on people who are members of a project that has the UBXs, even if those editors have not had the ubx. this atheist thinks some people need to think hard about the userboxes they display NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 07:28, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
7. These ridiculous voting sections should be removed; sanction discussions are not RFAs, nor should they take this RFA format. Why is this considered an exception? I'm sorry; Keepscases is not an exception - the sanction proposal discussion should be treated like any other user. Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:08, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
8. Oppose I do not share Keepcases' concern over the userboxes and I have stated as much in an RfA from several months ago. That being said, the only genuine drama that is generated does not come from Keepcases himself, but from a tiny number of individuals who have repeatedly sought to take his occasional and (admittedly) non-influential userbox-related comment and turn it into a Wagnerian opera. I have yet to see any evidence of how Keepcases has derailed an RfA based on his unique observations. Ultimately, this debate is going to have to question something that is becoming painfully obvious: is Keepcases being prosecuted because he has hopelessly disrupted the RfA process, or is he in the hot seat because a few people hate him and this is the only way they have to get back at him? Pastor Theo (talk) 12:17, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
9. Weak Oppose. Amongst encyclopaedians views on religion should be as irrelevant as ethnic background or preference in team sports; providing they edit with a neutral point of view. I think Keepscases would be a much more effective participant at RFA if he were to shift his attention from POV userboxes to POV edits and broaden his opposes so that he didn't appear to be targeting atheists. As a lapsed atheist myself and a former member of the National Secular Society, I'm aware that one of the differences between the US and the UK in particular is that a lot of our US editors come from societies where prejudice against atheists is one of the few socially acceptable prejudices, whilst many of our UK editors come from a post Christian society where atheism is pretty normal, at least amongst educated people. To make this project work we all need to find ways to work with people we wouldn't normally expect agree with. I would prefer that this sort of debate was held at MFD's over particular UBX's rather than here, and would suggest that Keepscases not be topic banned but instead consider this as an admonishment for an RFA !voting record where a disconcertingly high proportion of his opposes have been of atheists. BTW I wasn't impressed by this either. ϢereSpielChequers 12:43, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
10. Oppose mostly per Pastor Theo. We've seen similar disputes regarding userboxes; people who support Israel, Palestine, and Christianity, and many others and at those time people made controversies on any possibility of candidate's bias on race, belief, religion, politics, etc. If you want to ban Keepcases, bring all people who had the similar disputes in the past on the table. --Caspian blue 13:25, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Okay. Show me any editor who is repeatedly arguing in RfAs that, say, a Jewish or Muslim editor cannot participate fully and equally in Misplaced Pages on the basis of their declared religious affiliation and I'll vote to ban them from RfAs, too. With pleasure. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:39, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    I don't think I need to. I've state my stance so have you.--Caspian blue 19:03, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

11. Oppose What ThaddeusB says above is the essence of the problem: We cannot go around telling people for what reasons they are allowed to !vote and for what not. I have argued against DougTech's topic ban the same way. The problem does not come from Keepscases' irrelevant !votes (and they are irrelevant because he has so far failed every single time to show any single piece of evidence that a candidate he opposed for such reasons has really edited in a non-neutral way). The problem is the reaction they cause and we would do good in reminding people to simple stop commenting on these !votes and let it rest. No candidate will fail RFA because of these !votes because I think no closing crat will consider any !vote (support or oppose!) valid that does not have any relevance to the contributions of the candidate in question. But as Thaddeus says, we should not start forbidding people to !vote for whatever reasons they deem relevant. We should instead inform those !voters that their reasons will be ignored if not relevant to the candidate and we should encourage people to simply let those !votes stand. Misplaced Pages:Thank you for your vote is a good essay on this "problem" (although the problem is caused by wasting hours discussing such topic bans instead of simply ignoring those !votes and doing something that is more important). Regards SoWhy 13:37, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    I disagree 100% that my votes are "irrelevant"; first, the addition of a userbox itself is a non-neutral edit, and secondly, I have always been clear that my concern is regarding users with disrespectful/confrontational attitudes being the face of Misplaced Pages, and not so much with their edits themselves. Keepscases (talk) 15:32, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    I know that you do. Unfortunately for you, an overwhelming consensus in the community agrees with me on this. Edits on userpages are per definition non-neutral and as such, your argument would be against having userpages at all. As for the "face of Misplaced Pages", in my experience, no new user or outsider will go to a userpage before observing edits by said user and as such, their edits are what people will see first when encountering them. Personally, I have not observed a single occurrence where a new user agreed with someone's edits but has then afterwards felt threatened by something they read on said user's page. Usually they will judge someone by their edits and so do we at RFA. Hence your !vote, while your right to cast, has so far not been considered relevant to someone's ability to become an admin. Regards SoWhy 19:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

12. Caspian is right; this argument feels like a nationalistic dispute to me. And for some readers, that's just what it is; there's been a steady decline in the relative influence of organized religions in western civilizations for the last 500 years, but that decline is spotty, and nonexistent in much of Asia and Africa. Equating religion with having imaginary friends is certain to be perceived by intelligent people in many countries as painting their entire country as childish or delusional ... not cool. Keeps is picking up on this, and I'm happy to see he's willing to take a stand; the problem is that he doesn't seem to be as interested in any other battle, and the overall effects of this fight at RFA are, for now, negative. As a first step, I'd like to see more discussion about the problem Keeps is pointing to. On the other hand, I reject Keeps' position that a topic ban is out of the question ... it's too soon IMO, and when it comes, a first offense should be temporary rather than permanent, but it's on the table. - Dank (push to talk) 13:38, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
13. Oppose - as per SoWhy and Caspian. Danks point regarding the wording of the userbox wording as it may be precieved as offensive to some people is, to me, the real problem. That being said, I don't agree with the methods or standards used by Keepscases at the RfA's and hope that he would reconsider his views. Shinerunner (talk) 13:59, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
14. Strong oppose - So let's see, this is the 3rd person we don't particularly agree with the views for? I wanna say this: We're turning RFA into a personal blocking because of how they feel, not because of how others feel. This is the fourth person who's caused crap at RFA, and it takes less than a month to go after him? We're talking walled garden here, very tall walled garden. I think the sensible solution is to work this out at WT:RFA, not causing an issue at WP:ANI. Oppose topic ban and indefinite block completely. I feel this is just getting out of hand.Mitch32 14:10, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    I respectfully disagree that RFA is a walled garden. Everyone who wants adminship, and everyone who supports or opposes them, gets involved at RFA to some extent, some to a great extent. That's one reason we have more conflict than some other areas; participation is very heterogeneous, including lots of people who don't agree with each other and sometimes don't like each other. - Dank (push to talk) 14:19, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    That's not completely what I mean. Look at this - this is the 4th time in 12-15 months we're crucifying someone for making strange votes on RFA. And what a shock, the first three are blocked :|. We don't need to tell another one through this - Mitch32 14:24, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

15. Oppose Mainly per Icewedge because in my opinion, having a userbox that simply says "This user is an atheist" is fine and non-controversial and unoffensive, but saying "keep imaginary friends to yourself" is offensive and is a legitimate oppose rationale.--Giants27 (c|s) 14:17, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

    Fine. But he voted to oppose Tedder for simply displaying the fine and non-controversial and unoffensive "This user is a member of..." userbox, stating unequivocally that "No member of "WikiProject Atheism" should represent Misplaced Pages as an administrator." Tedder never displayed an even potentially disruptive userbox, by your own criteria. This was an attempt to blacklist by affiliation, contrary to WP:NPA. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:39, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

16. Oppose per SoWhy. By now, Keepscases should be keenly aware that xe is in the minority. It shouldn't be the community's responsibility to keep anybody from tilting at windmills if they are so inclined. The !votes will be ignored, people will grumble under their breath, and eventually Keepcases will move on to other endeavors. A topic ban at this point will do nothing but provide a solid platform from which Keepcases (or anybody) can yell loudly about the evils of Misplaced Pages. CosmicPenguin (talk• WP:WYO) 14:30, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
17. Oppose Objections to how an editor votes can be disruptive. The votes themselves, which can be discounted by a bureaucrat and have never been shown to change the outcome of the discussion, rarely so. If an editor wants to object because of someone's user box, I think that's their privledge. Their vote doesn't have to be counted if it's not legitimate. ChildofMidnight (talk) 20:10, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
18. Oppose There must be a very, very high bar for banning an editor from spaces like RFA where significant discussions and decisions are made regarding the governance of this community. Even if the accusations made by his or her detractors are accurate - a concession I am not yet willing to make - this editor's actions do not rise to that level. --ElKevbo (talk) 20:21, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
19. Oppose I'm no fan of Keepscases (although I will admit that his/her questions can help inject some well-needed lightheartedness into the discussion) nor his/her views. However, I do agree with some of the above comments that a fair portion of the disruption comes simply from feeding the troll. If Keepscases opposes or supports for a reason you feel is inane, just ignore it - it will go away. The solution to all of this is that the result comes through consensus, and not a vote. An oppose based on a removed userbox is not likely to be given the same weight as a support or oppose based on an analysis of recent contributions. We should trust our bureaucrats and the working system we already have in place, not try to restrict opinions. An oppose based on religious beliefs, however flawed, is no more "flimsy" than "Why not?" Essentially, what ThaddeusB and SoWhy said. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 20:30, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
20. Oppose. While he may have a bee in his bonnet about the issue, he has clearly explained why and though I may disagree with his arguments, I think it is not an obviously unreasonable stance. Quantpole (talk) 21:14, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
21. Oppose Just because he has a minority viewpoint doesn't mean he should be prohibited from expressing it.--Cube lurker (talk) 22:22, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
22. While I disagree with his opinion, I will say that this is too soon. I fear that we've rushed into this much too rashly. What have we done so far? A few RfA threads, and then a topic ban proposal. There has not been any sort of dispute resolution, nor any sort of formalized discussion. Most of the WT:RFA threads have been just a lot of lynch mobs, which are trying to get Keepscases to stop via force. Those threads will not get him to change his opinion or his !vote. Conversely, they'll just make him more irritated, and that will lead to hard feelings all around. I think that there's still hope in Keepscases, as long as we go about it rationally and in an organized fashion. My opinion is that there should be an RFC over his behavior, which will 1) lay out the problem in a neat and organized fashion, 2) not have the pressure of any pending RfA hovering over it, 3) allow everyone to get their opinions out equally, and 4) be a lot friendlier way to go. It's amazing just how much a clean presence of mind will solve. (X! · talk)  · @184  ·  03:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

    Good suggestion with the RfC. I'll file an RfC after this discussion ends. --Mythdon 03:27, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

    If you have the best interests of the project at heart, Mythdon, you'll let someone else handle an RfC; you've been more than a little obsessive about this whole thing, and while you have every right to participate and share your opinion, I hardly think you're the person to orchestrate any kind of rational and calm discussion that X! suggests. Keepscases (talk) 03:58, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

23. Oppose per Viridae. This is a reenactment of every other "He can't soil my RFA!" bullshit that solves nothing, stokes nothing but drama and reveals nothing unseen except how little faith people have in the basic observational skills of our bureaucrats and how violently butthurt some people get over their RFAs. Please note this does absolutely does not count as an endorsement of Keepscases useless conduct. I should also note that as a completely uninvolved observer, Mythdon's unhelpfully antagonistic "I'll see you blocked and laugh at you for it, punk" sneering in this thread is tremendously dismaying to me. His baiting is doing his side of the discussion no service and has almost single-handedly changed my perspective on the whole matter. With that in mind, I refuse to support breaking this particular vexatious butterfly on a wheel.Bullzeye 03:32, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

    Where did you get the idea of "I'll see you blocked and laugh at you for it, punk" in my comments? I did not say I would laugh, nor did I call Keepscases a "punk". I do not know where you got that idea. I actually said things, including but not limited to "you won't be there, because if I see you there, and if you are topic banned, you'll be reported, period" and "let me tell you that if I were an administrator, and if I saw you engaging in this behavior, I would block you, no questions asked.". I don't know how you picked up "I'll see you blocked and laugh at you for it, punk" in my comments. I was not making any attempt to bait anyone. --Mythdon 03:39, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

    Since you chose to single out my comment for further inquiry, I'll oblige you and be blunt; I initially weakly supported an RFA ban after reading the discussion, and then slowly segued to a strong oppose after seeing the eagerness and self-righteous vitriol in your comments, which suggest to me (an uninvolved and previously sympathetic observer) an unsettling degree of unprofessional "enthusiasm" in your interests here. This is the end of my comments on this topic. Bullzeye 03:45, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

24. Oppose If comments at RfA are irrelevant, ignore them. DGG (talk) 04:31, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
25. Oppose there should be a more formal attempt at dispute resolution before a topic ban. The RFA questions and opposes by Keepscases may be controversial but I think they should be permitted (at least those mentioned here; comments such as those that led to the user being blocked in 2007 were inappropriate). However, there does appear to be a lack of civility in the replies to other users at Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/Alan16, so maybe there could be a restriction on the user's discussion at RFA without preventing participation completely. snigbrook (talk) 12:07, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

Note to Bleeding Blue, regarding your oppose above - I couldn't care less if Keepscases likes, dislikes, hates, agrees with, !votes per, or otherwise has proclaimed jihad against atheist admins. My proposal for the topic ban had absolutely nothing to do with this. It is for the years of ongoing drama in RfA. Tan | 39 01:19, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

A block of sorts would probably be better right now than a topic ban.--_{Sky Attacker} 01:27, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Excuse my ignorance, but all the drama I'm aware of is the stuff related to that box, and a few irreverent questions. (Admittedly, if something more serious happened some time ago, I'm probably unaware and am willing to reconsider based on that.) I've also seen valid !votes and discussion on other RFAs, so I think a full ban is harsh, even if I don't particularly endorse some of his/her actions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bleeding Blue (talk • contribs) 01:24, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

With all due respect, if you don't have a full awareness of the situation, you might want to rethink jumping in with a strong oppose, especially with a strawman argument that it is about atheism. It is not. You might want to take a stroll through Keepscases contributions, and note the trends. Most of the drama you will find has nothing to do with atheism. Tan | 39 01:27, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to stay down here for now, I'm finding it confusing to respond in two different sections. I'm aware of the Tedder !vote, that seemed to start this whole ball rolling. I didn't and don't think it's valid to oppose based on the actions/views of a WikiProject you associate yourself with. If you all think that !vote alone is worthy of a full topic ban, that's fine, but in my mostly useless opinion, that's a little on the harsh side. I do, however, think that opposing someone who actively displays the box is as valid as an oppose on edit count or namespace distribution. While it indeed says nothing about the editor's ability to contribute, that's very little of what adminship is about. It's more about conflict resolution and cooperation, which that box is severly harmful to. As for the claims of continuing drama, if there are other issues, again, please point them out, and I'll consider them. I can only respond to the issues you raise directly in support of this ban. Bleeding Blue 01:42, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

If you look at User talk:Keepscases, you'll see a lot of drama kicked up about Keepscases' actions on RfA. Note that not all of their edits have brought negative attention; among many generic "thanks for voting" responses there are a few mentions of appreciation (and I have to admit that I agree that this was hilarious) but far more people who were upset by Keepscases' strange opposition votes and questions for RfA candidates. They included an oppose for a person who had a picture with a cigarette on their userpage, a question about notification if the candidate died after being an administrator, whether or not they edit under the influence of hallucinogens, etc. This userbox crusade is the latest in a very long history of strange behavior at RfAs. -- Atama 02:04, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. Yes, I've had a look at that. It seems to me that this user has a habit of posing unusual questions at RFAs, that seems to account for most of the queries. S/he's certainly been warned about it plenty and if it's becoming overly disruptive to the process, something certainly needs to be done. My oppose was mostly based on my perception that this stemmed from the userbox issue, as most (if not all) of the recent discussion has arisen from and been about that, and I think that usage of divisive messages on your user page is a valid concern in an RFA. The pattern of behavior re:RFAs has been consistent and odd, but it seems like we're trying to elevate it to the level of "Power Hunger" and "Too many admins", if you catch my drift. The questions s/he asks are optional and it seems , according to one particular post on her talk, that there is consensus to remove "stupid" questions. That seems like a fairer solution to the problem to me. Bleeding Blue 02:39, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

If we say that stupid questions are to be removed, do we need a full-out discussion each RfA of which ones to remove? Who decides this? Why should resources be taken up to determine this? This has already been proposed many times and shot down each time because doing it on an ad hoc basis would be too difficult to determine. It is akin to addressing the symptom of a disease. Here, we address the root of the problem - he simply cannot participate anymore. Questions are not the only disruption; it is also in his supports, opposes, and subsequent megabyte-long discussions that ensue. If you don't want to take the time to investigate the issue, I respect that. However, you should rethink your "strong oppose" vote with a strawman argument (sorry to repeat that, there's no other way to put it) and instead either don't vote, or state something to the effect that you are opposing without taking the time to investigate the situation. Tan | 39 03:16, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

(Outdent)I believe that both of your accusations against me and/or my vote are unfair. My 'strawman' argument was in response to how every prior discussion about the athiesm thing has gone prior to this thread, and was made prior to the focus changing to his/her unusual questions at RFAs. Each prior discussion at indifidual RFAs has boiled down to slinging the 'anti-athiest' tag around, and Keepscases' futile attempts at making it understood by everyone that he has a problem with that box, and not the beliefs it represents. It's unfortunate that he opposed one user for simply belonging to the wikiproject. In my opinion, it would have been valid to ask the user what his opinion of the box was, as a member of the project, and whether he thinks it's appropriate to display there. But, judging by the standards that have been set in this discussion, that would have been dismissed as another disruptive silly question and no doubt included in that exhaustive list of diffs provided earlier.

As for the idea that I didn't look into this issue, the only reason I'm here is because I silently witnessed all of the prior discussions unfold at WP:RFA and felt s/he was being unfairly attacked for bringing up a valid concern. I was of the (apparently misguided) impression that you all were more concerned by that than some silly hypothetical questions at RFAs, and so didn't directly address them. If my vote is improper, it will be properly discouted when the time comes. Bleeding Blue 03:38, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

It isn't as if a 'crat is going to close this with some defined outcome. This is a community-sactioned ban proposal. I made no purposeful accusation of you. You state above, "Admittedly, if something more serious happened some time ago, I'm probably unaware and am willing to reconsider based on that." I have no other interpretation of this other than "I haven't investigated the situation in full". If you meant something different, I apologize. I made a proposal based on over a year of past disruption. I am familiar with that disruption, and intended the participants to also familiarize themselves with the evidence at hand in the user's contributions, as I stated in the #1 support of the ban. Your strong opposal was based on this statement: "The idea that an oppose based on a user endorsing such divisive and insulting content is worthy of a ban is silly". The ban was not at all proposed because of this. Thus, by definition, your argument became a strawman argument. I don't mean this as an insult, it's just the way it is. All in all, I don't mean to belittle you or strongarm you into changing your mind. What I do want you to do is ensure that your participation here is based on sound reasoning - for your own integrity. If you prefer to leave things as-is, I will comment no further on this. Tan | 39 03:47, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I've changed my vote above, but I'd like to make a few things clear, mostly to indeed preserve my integrity.

I was under the impresson that Keepscases alleged "Incivilty and Soapboxing" (ie the title of this discussion) was the primary issue here. As I stated earlier, I was aware of these RFA questions because a simple glance at the user's talk page makes it impossible to miss the issue. But, at least to me and judging by the nature of most of the comments I found there, it was a minor concern compared to the userbox voting. Hence my "more serious" qualifier in my original statement.

As far as integrity goes, I'm here partially because it bothers me that a hopeful admin posting divisive, attacking, hurtful, etc messages on their user page is so readily dismissed by the community as unimportant. The very nature of adminship is dealing with other users, often in heated situations. If we're all failing to see a problem with posting hateful language on a page that's supposed to represent a user charged with conflict resolution, I'm not sure what else I can say. I'd actually like to preserve my own integrity by standing by my position that these kinds of things are perfectly appropriate to discuss at an RFA. I refuse to believe that this isn't the relevant issue, because it's blatently obvious that this was the issue that caused this action, that inspired it's title, and that had been discussed several times in the past couple of weeks. If this was purely a "silly questions" problem, the timing is curious at least.

As far as the MfD dismissal I keep hearing repeated...okay, so the template gets deleted. That doesn't change the fact that users that used to have that box on their page were ready and willing to post such a message. It doesn't stop them from reposting it in a different form. I don't suppose we're going to XfD every user page that posts such messages? If I post a racist, sexist, anti-religious or otherwise bigoted message on my user page, I fully expect it to be brought up if I should run for adminship someday.

Finally, I'm mostly retracting my original !vote because I respect some of the editors that have arrived here, and if they are of the opinion that Keepscases behavior is truly detrimental to the RFA process, I'll respect it as a less experienced editor and trust their judgment in that area. I hope you'll in turn respect the opinions I've laid out here. Bleeding Blue 04:20, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

It saddens me that you changed your vote. Unlike most here, you did and still do seem to grasp what this is about. Keepscases (talk) 04:31, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

To Thad and Viridae, I understand your point, and see it as analogous to a community's response to trolling. Permit me the parallel here, even though I do not feel Keeps is trolling. When a board is trolled, the actual disruption comes not from the troll but from the response of unwary individuals. Someone (to pick an old example) asking faux-naive questions on a usenet board only succeeds in trolling if respondents are ensnared. A simple community policy in the face of that kind of trolling is don't feed the trolls. And while there are tremendous returns to such a policy (for one, it is ahierarchical), it clearly doesn't work in all cases. RfA represents a venue ill suited to DFTT. Kurts question and oppose invariably brought responses from regulars, candidates and new users just discovering RfA. No amount of time passing or admonishment offered from regulars diminished the yield on Kurt's questions. Even worse, discussion would be locked down (or shuffled off to the poorly attended RfA subpage talk space), leaving only the oppose. From the standpoint of an outside observer, it would appear that community norms allowed the irritant but not the response (obviously this is a lopsided and rushed comment on the business of RfA baiting/trolling). Misplaced Pages has developed the practical necessity for some community control. DFTT is insufficent. If we don't establish some norms and enforce them, we will fight and refight this battle until everyone is sick from hearing it. How long before we can make a determination that Keeps's participation in RfA is distracting enough that we respond (rather than shuffling it off to the closing crat and adding the insulting and inaccurate "of course this vote won't be counted" response) as a community? A year? 2 years? Rather than recapitulate this debate each and every time we have a new RfA, just have the debate now and be done with it. Protonk (talk) 05:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

It's amazing that the consensus here seems to be that "ban Keepscases from RfA" is a more appropriate solution than "figure out why many users seem to think intentionally offensive and confrontational userboxes are okay." Keepscases (talk) 05:40, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

That's not amazing at all. The userboxes aren't an issue. The original impetus for your opposes isn't what drives this discussion. This isn't about whether or not userbox XYZ is ok or not ok. Protonk (talk) 05:44, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

If people let me oppose and left me the hell alone, none of this would have ever happened. If you agree, then why am I the problem? If you disagree, tell me what I am doing wrong. Stop being vague. Keepscases (talk) 05:50, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, my first response to that is that you are obviously postulating a counterfactual. The problem with DFTT (again, excuse the parallel, I don't think you are trolling) is that people do rise to the bait. But, let me also be very clear. Just because one link in a chain breaking may stop the end result, doesn't mean that all links are equally important. I have a hard time casting a wide net and saying "everyone who responds to Keeps is wrong" when the only constant in all the responses to you is you. Also, don't confuse my statement that 'the userboxes aren't an issue' with some sort of agreement about your opposes. I'm just attempting to cut short a discussion about the relative merits of userboxes because it isn't germane. Just as a relative discussion of userbox merits is only glancingly related to a particular RfA. Protonk (talk) 05:55, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not really looking to paint anyone as "right" or "wrong". I have my opinions, others may have theirs, but I for one believe I know which side has brought the dishonesty and obfuscation to this debate. As much as I have been attacked for being prejudiced against atheists, one would think at some point a link demonstrating that would be provided. Keepscases (talk) 06:02, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Tan's block/ban happy approach creates a chilling effect. NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 07:32, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

NotAnIP - comments like that provide absolutely nothing productive to the community effort. Tan has always done his best to improve the quality of our project, and regardless of the results - suggesting that there is an ulterior motive is simply ludicrous. I suggest that you rethink your approach. — Ched :  ?  13:09, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Invalid, prejudiced reasons for opposing, that have nothing to do with adminship, should be chilled. Baseball Bugs carrots 13:14, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't have any prejudice. If someone wants to display a userbox that announces he's a jerk, I'm not prejudiced when I believe him. Keepscases (talk) 15:26, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Your own words say otherwise. Baseball Bugs carrots 15:33, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Surely you can provide an example, then. Keepscases (talk) 15:43, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I stated it earlier, and here it is again. Your statement, "No member of "WikiProject Atheism" should represent Misplaced Pages as an administrator" is an invalid reason for opposing adminship. It expresses prejudice (prejudgment) that has nothing to do with adminship. Baseball Bugs carrots 15:54, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

That comment is based on the attitudes that that group publicly displays. You need to get over this way of thinking that it's "prejudiced" to judge a person or a group based on positions that they publicly and intentionally represent. Are users who flaunt KKK membership suitable for adminship? Keepscases (talk) 15:59, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

As do many Christian groups. So what? As to the KKK - why not? Baseball Bugs carrots 16:10, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Someone who says he loves the KKK or is otherwise some kind of political extremist will probably not last long enough to even be considered for adminship. Axmann8 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) comes to mind. They will most likely engage in extremely tendentious editing, and even if they don't get indef'd for it, that will sink their chances for adminship, because then you've got a valid reason to oppose. Likewise with membership in any other organization, never mind some wikiproject. If you had evidence that Tedder was editing tendentiously, you might have something. Pre-judging as being unfit, just because of membership in a project, but without supporting evidence of actual bad behavior, renders you unqualified to cast a vote in the matter. Baseball Bugs carrots 16:46, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

UNINDENT - Baseball Bugs - You should read through some RfAs sometime. Many people support / oppose for arbitrary nonsense. The only difference with keepscases is that everyone knows they're nonsense reasons and piles. A few admins directing irrelevant discussion to the talkpages would be useful, as would telling people to ignore pointless notvotes. NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 17:49, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

If you're saying there are others who have no business voting in RfA's, I certainly agree. Baseball Bugs carrots 17:58, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Chad Davis - Tan often suggests blocking people who he finds difficult to work with. What policy is being broken here? We see here Baseball bugs suggesting that these opposes are "not valid" and should be blockable. There is no policy stating what reasons are not valid for RfA. Indeed, the policy specifically says that bizarre opposes happen and are ignored by the crats and can be ignored by everyone else. Frankly, opposing someone because they are a member of the atheism wikiproject (which has a "hateful" userbox; even though the candidate has never used that userbox) is no less stupid than many contribs to the thoroughly fucked RfA process. BUT I WOULD NEVER SAY THAT BECAUSE IT ASSUMES BAD FAITH. NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 17:35, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

For the record, I concede that that particular vote may have been a mistake on my part. Tedder seemed to be genuinely unaware of that userbox, disapproving of its contents, not closely connected with the project anyway, and understanding of my vote. I have wished him well. Keepscases (talk) 17:43, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, the candidates calm response to you may have swayed more people to support the persuaded people to oppose. Admins will often come into contact with people who have strong viewpoints. Being able to understand those views (which many people in this thread haven't demonstrated) and being able to work out a "solution" is a good thing. I do hope you see that asking candidates of their opinions about the UBX is probably better than opposing right away NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 17:55, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

• I have not read every comment involved in this thread and have not followed the dispute in every intimate detail, but it seems to me that those objecting to certain votes are causing more of a disruption than the votes themselves. There are already bureaucrats whose job is to sort through the discussion and to weed out votes that aren't reasonable. I am very wary of restricting good faith contributions to RfA discussions. I suspect that once a pattern emerges in a particular voters comments, they will be viewed accordingly and appropriately to that context. I'm really not sure why it's such a big deal why a particular editor votes the way they do, and as others have pointed out, lots of RfA votes are based on dubious arguments or either straight support or opposes. So if someone wants to vote based on a reason that others see as frivolous, let the policies and those elected to assess votes deal with it. Sorry if I'm not grasping the big picture or some critical detail. I would just like to see votes and discussion at RfA go forward without those objecting to a particular vote or pattern of votes being able to cause a disruption and then say, "see all the disruption this editor is causing when we keep objecting to what they're doing?" in order to restrain and limit those they disagree with. If there is a true consensus among editors that a certain type of vote is inappropriate, then I'm okay with that too, but deciding which chads to count can get pretty tricky and we already have people elected by the community serving in that role. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:08, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
• Would someone please care to identify exactly what policy Keepcases has violated?   bsmithme  04:36, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
• Are quirky questions and comments a bad thing, at RfA? I'm not sure that they are. Depending on how you look at it, they might provide a bit of levity, or they might give us a glimpse at how candidates respond to tense feelings, unusual characters, or even outright trolling -- all of which can be very useful, seeing as administrators are likely to run into all of the above. Some of these comments I would not consider disruptive at all -- or, at least, not disruptive to an actionable level -- for example expressing concern over candidates who are legal minors (not a position I agree with, but certainly one people should be free to express), or concern over userpage material that the commenting user considers to be hateful (specifically the "imaginary friends" bit), or pointing out that users have adjusted otherwise regular behavior just prior to RfA. This isn't the sort of comment I look kindly on, but I'm not sure if it rises to the sort of thing I'd ban someone over. This, on the other hand, is quite a problem -- we shouldn't be opposing candidates based on their religious beliefs. – Luna Santin (talk) 11:57, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

• It's beyond obvious now that this proposal is not going to receive a community consensus, particularly in this format of discussion - can someone please close this accordingly? Ncmvocalist (talk) 12:58, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Proposed indefinite block and evidence

I have proposed an indefinite block here. --Mythdon 02:13, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Edit warring at Ancient Egyptian race controversy continued

Anyone remember Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive554#Disruptive editing by Wdford at Ancient Egyptian race controversy? That was a little more then a week ago. Yesterday I actually added my first new contribution to the article, the first sentence: "The Controversy surrounding the race of ancient Egyptians involved Eurocentric and Afrocentric considerations in the 19th and 20th Century." I have more than one reference for the term "Eurocentric"; this is provided at Talk:Ancient Egyptian race controversy#Towards an acceptable lead parapgraph (typo sic). However, Wdford, whom you might know from the preceding discussion, vehemently opposed this one sentence, but I still can't figure out what his editorial argument for his opposition is, actually. He is saying that this is an "inappropriate POV statement" diff, but actually all I did was to refer to one of the best non-partisan sources I could find. The statement was (in a slightly different form) previously present in the article and simply flagged with 'citation needed', before Wdford removed all flagged statements from the article. diff. I think that "Eurocentric considerations" need to be mentioned in the lead. Just look at the statement of the historian to whom I referred:

"Far from trying to conceal these cultural sources , they took pride in what the received from Egypt. For centuries thereafter Western historians too made no attempt to conceal this debt ; only in the nineteenth century did Grecophiles or Philhellenes, under the sway of Western racism, reject the idea that the sublime culture they so admired was not original or, worse, was not of Indo-European (Aryan) origin. The mere thought that Greece had been influenced by second-rate Egyptians or, perish the thought, by African, made them break out in a mental rash. They resorted to every trick in the book in the book to hide the truth and disseminate a perverted history with unmistakeably racist overtones. For the African-American authors, reconstruction of the ancient world thus means liberation from the shackles of the racially distorted picture of the past and redemption of the historical truth. It means discarding the Eurocentric point of view in favor of a fresh description of the ancient world's history and its cultures - a description in which Europe has neither primacy, exclusivity nor supremacy." (Yaacov Shavit, History in Black, pp. 43-44)

Shavit certainly is not an Afrocentrist. "History in Black" is one of the best books on the topic. But in any case, there would be a lot more sources that say essentially the same. But regardless of my argument, the edit warring with Wdford continued, and currently I am at 3 reverts, if I count correctly. With his last edits, Wdford then re-added a lot of content from the previous revisions diff. To me this looks like a cheap evasion tactic. Wdford doesn't want to discuss the issue of the relevance of Eurocentrism for the article, so he adds some different content. But I am not falling for that. We need to discuss the issue, and I don't suppose that Wdford can bring forward a source-based argument that the "Eurocentric considerations" should not be mentioned in some form in the lead paragraph. I would revert him again, but that would be breaking 3rr.

In any case, I can't work at the article under these conditions. If this wasn't actually a notable topic, I would have already proposed the article for deletion, but the topic is notable and I could write an article - just not under these conditions. So could an admin please take a good look a the issue? Zara1709 (talk) 13:39, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes please - you might also be interested to check the talk page near the end of "Towards an acceptable lead parapgraph", where the complainant openly threatens to start an edit war in order to "speed things up a little" and then says "Let's see what the admins have to say about this." This article is plagued by editors with fringe POV who start edit wars on purpose to cause an article to be protected, so please would you look carefully before simply protecting the article. Please would you also review Zara's history of edit-warring, her previous involvement in this article specifically and her tendency to prefer to work on articles she is allowed to "own", as indicated yet again by her wording above.. Wdford (talk) 13:57, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

"This article is plagued by editors with fringe POV who start edit wars on purpose." I couldn't have put it better. That only leaves the question who the editor with the fringe POV is. And it is certainly not me because I don't even have an individual point-of-view. Really, I wouldn't know what that POV should be. All I did was look up what the reliable sources, which I had previously identified, have to say on "Eurocentric", and I came to the conclusion that is is an appropriate term to describe one side of the controversy in the lead paragraph. From what he has written on the talk page, I wouldn't even know that Wdford understands the difference between an editors POV and that, what reliable sources have to say, and I suspect that I could discuss this issue for about a month and Wdford still wouldn't understand. SO it is necessary to speed things up a little. Zara1709 (talk) 14:31, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

And here we are again, in under a week, like clockwork. People still doubting my suggestion that everyone at that article should be topicbanned to let the cooler heads prevail? It isn't stopping, and nothing we are doing is working to end the nonsense. According to Wikichecker here, four editors are responsible for approximately 50% of the edits to the article, and many of the same names pop up when you look at theincredibly high number of edits to the talk page.

I suggest the top 10 contributors to the article and the talkpage be topicbanned for six months. Let non-SPAs do something about this article. Alternatively, delete and salt the nonsense. If nothing else, the name that keeps on coming up here as being non-constructive is Wdford, so a topicban there at the very least would reduce a lot of this ridiculous disruption. → ROUX ₪ 15:24, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Alternately, since Wdford was unfairly accused before (go check the arbitration record) and has been unfairly accused yet again, instead of listening to gossip you might instead review the actual talk page and edits and make a decision based on the facts. Topicban Zara, who is blatantly gaming the system here, and the threatened edit war won't materialise. Seems simple, but it requires admins to look beyond the superficial and the gossip. Wdford (talk) 16:00, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Incredibly, I am only number 8 of the contributors to this article. By the way, the main reason that I am editing there now is that another editor remarked on my talk page that I would "find it a more congenial editing environment" at the article by now. Most likely, that impression was wrong. I don't mind the additional work I have to for the article, but I don't really need it either. And I especially don't need having to deal with editors like Wdford. In a review of "Not out of Africa: How Afrocentrism became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History" by Mary Lefkowitz, August Meier, who some people from African-American studies should know, remarks:

"Not out of Africa" is an effective polemic. Not recognizing that Afrocentric views are rooted in a long a respected tradition, she simply falls to answer the question raised in this books subtitle . To argue with the claims of the Afrocentrists is one thing, but to overlook or ignore the work of the band of Afro-American intellectuals and popularizers who enunciated a line of thought that was deeply rooted among rank-and-file Negroes would, I believe, reveal an essential Eurocentric orientations in this study. Thus, as a work of scholarship "Not out of Africa" is deeply flawed." (Emphasis added)

This is from the December 1996 issue of the Journal of American History: (stable link). If the Organization of American Historians, or at least the board of editors of their journal, doesn't have a problem with describing one side of the controversy as "Eurocentric", why would Misplaced Pages? The only reason can be that some editors at Misplaced Pages disregard reliable sources and rather write articles based on their own POVs. Of course, you could simply ban all involved editors, but that wouldn't solve the problem, because sooner or later some more come along. Even deletion wouldn't solve the problem, sooner or later someone is going to recreate an article on the issue, because the topic is, as one historian would put it, the battlefield of a "culture war" in the United States. Zara1709 (talk) 16:37, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

• I think these types of content disputes should go to content related noticeboards such as the article content noticeboard before coming here so that additional opinions on the content and citation issues can be solicitied in hopes that a consensus or compromise can be reached. That article, like many on Misplaced Pages, seems to be very contentious. But arguments over citations and content are not really administrative issues. Appropriate dispute resolution needs to be tried, and consensus sought. I'm not seeing clear behavioral issues other than frustration on both sides. Getting more opinions to try to work out the differences seems like the best way forward. ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:57, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
• Both editors that have posted here are currently edit warring at the article. If you continue, you will be blocked to prevent further disruption. Nja 19:01, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

• Wdford has already been banned from this article before. His block was commuted here . Now, less than two weeks later, he's at it again. Is there any reason why he shouldn't be rebanned immediately? I'm rather inclined to ban Zara1709, also, since he/she seems to be pretty consistently edit warring. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 22:29, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Though looking closer, it appears that at least Zara is trying to include sourced content, not unsourced like Wdford, so perhaps that should be a mitigating factor. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 22:37, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

They're both repeat offenders, but banning people isn't the best way to do this. Too heavy-handed. I'd prefer we settle this like civilized people, on a level-playing field, rather than the admins stepping in and dealing out punishment arbitrarily. The furthest I think we should go is a protection of the article; otherwise, I plan on discussing the matter thoroughly and possibly mediating a compromise between Wdford and Zara (who are warring right now). Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :D} 22:46, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Left messages on Wdford's page and Zara's. I'm hoping to get some productivity out of this. Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :D} 22:53, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm far from convinced I agree that banning is too heavy-handed. These kinds of POV disputes are rarely solved with out it coming to blows (figuratively, of course). Remember that this article is under probation from ArbCom and has been for quite some time, and that this article has been discussed here several times. It seems pretty unrealistic to think things like warnings and discussions are going to get us anywhere. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 22:59, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Topic-banning them won't do anything, though. It'll save us a headache, but I doubt they'll just give up. As has been said before, they're both repeat-offenders; they've already been talked to about this and punished. I just don't think that's the way. Listening to what they have to say and settling the issue in a human fashion, rather than telling them to back off for a week, is more promising, at least in my eyes. By no means is my idea binding; even if they agree to it, other administrators can block them. That's their discretion. I'm just not in support of that. Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :D} 23:07, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I had retreated from the article roughly 6 months ago; I returned because I perceived an opportunity to fix the article; it appears that I was wrong with that. Previously I have broken 3rr in other controversies, but this was because in both cases statements from reliable sources that I had added were removed without justification from the respective articles. Wdford is trying to pull the same stunt here - removing the view of reliable sources from the article without going into a discussion based on these sources. I have mentioned 3 academic sources so far that describe one side involved in the controversy as "Eurocentric." However, even if I would throw another dozen sources at Wdford, he would still refuse to acknowledge the view of reliable sources. The topic of this article, Ancient Egyptian race controversy, extremely controversial. I actually have found two historians by know who describe it as culture war. I think I can honestly say that I am the only editor at Misplaced Pages I know who has an overview about this controversy, but there is no reason why I would have to work on the article. Unlike other editors I don't have a special point-of-view that I need to propagate through Misplaced Pages. I do think that having a good article on the topic would help the Americans find a truce in their cultural war, but that is not enough motivation for me to keep up with this. So unless I get an affirmation that articles on Misplaced Pages should be based in reliable sources (and not on individual editor's pov), I will simply retreat from the article. For already in the my first comment on my edit I made clear that this sentence was based on a reliable source, and Wdford can't possibly intent to write an article based on reliable sources when he argues against that sentence by calling it a "blatantly Afrocentric opening sentence". diff He should know that the historian I've quoted is not an Afrocentrist; he should at least have stopped to revert when I brought a quote from another historian, Stephen Howe, to whom he later himself referred. As far as reliable sources go, I don't need to put up with this, and I will not. Since it is rather unlikely that there will be another editor who could write a balanced article on the controversy (all you can expect from the other currently involved editors is material on skin color, skull shapes and Y-chromosomes), I would suggest that you propose that article for deletion. Zara1709 (talk) 00:23, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I know that at one point Vassyana was considerded as a mediator, I wonder if he could not be called in to manage this case; everyone woul dhave to agree and agree to abide by his process. For myelf, I have three comments: first, I think it is always a good idea for people toagree n general principles or a framework for moving ahead, and then just follow where that leads. Zara seems to have set up just such a framework and fram an admittedly quick glance it looks like the has broken work down into good stages. Two: introductions are not worth getting caught up in, especially when an article is being revised because introductions have to introduce the whole article. If the intro is the point of contention, just drop it for now and work on those parts you can agree on. When you have done that you may find the intro easier. Finally, after multiple protects and blocks, I think everyone should agree to a zero-tolerance policy on incivility. Wdford, if you fel you have to further your argument by labeling Zara "topic-ban Zara" as you have here, I conclude you have no game left to contribute to this discussion as an adult. You may as well leave. (My apologies to Wdford whom I misunderstoo) Zara, I have not checked everything you have written but off course this would go for you too. Why should anyone care about this article if it is only a space for personal attacks and squabbles? Try - I say this to all people involved in the dispute - to show how this is a conflict of ideas, and others may wish to get involved and perhaps even help resolve disputes. If anyone slings another drop of mud I would take that as an admission that they have nothing left to support their side so they are not worth listening to. I hope these comments provide the basis for a framework for everyone to work together. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:43, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Please note, Slrubenstein, that I did not label Zara as "topic-ban Zara". I was suggesting to ROUX that actually topic-banning Zara is a possible solution to her threat to start an edit war, in response to his suggestion to topic-ban me. I’m sure that when you read that entry carefully you will see this, and will appreciate that there is a world of difference between my sentence and your assumption.

Re Zara's repeated complaints about her proposed opening sentence – I have stated more than once on the talk page that I accept the accuracy of the quote, but that I object to using it as the opening sentence of the lead section as I feel that it mis-defines the controversy. I hear and agree with Slrubenstein’s comment that lead sections must introduce the controversy as a whole, and that is specifically why I feel that this particular wording is misleading and inappropriate.

I did however include Zara’s sentence in my last attempt at correcting the lead section, but not as the opening sentence, and I reworded it slightly to better clarify the context. Although every sentence I added was referenced in detail, Zara nonetheless reverted this entire effort with the comment “wdford, your 'content' has so many problems that I don't even know where to start”. This is her usual alibi for not explaining why she is reverting referenced material, although she accuses me of disruption for deleting her preferred sentences without first providing a detailed explanation.

For those who are concerned that I am adding “unsourced” material, please check my contributions to the lead section that Zara reverted at – they are fully referenced.

Re her insinuations about my adding an unsourced section on the controversial issues around ancient Egyptian art, my intention was to expand this to briefly describe inter alia the accusations by Prof Manu Ampim that artwork showing the ancient Egyptians as black people have been systematically destroyed, while fake artwork has been inserted into museums etc to deliberately misrepresent the ancient Egyptians as being lighter-skinned than he believes they really were. He even accused a respected scholar – Prof Frank Yurco – of deliberately misrepresenting evidence, even though Yurco was actually quite correct, and he did so after Yurco was dead and couldn’t defend himself. (See e.g. http://www.raceandhistory.com/manu/book.htm for a taste, although the Prof is apparently a published author on the subject and there are many better references available.) I think such a conspiracy theory would qualify as controversial, and it is a widely disseminated theory. However this initiative was instantly reverted by Zara before any progress could be made, on the basis that I did not first obtain her consensus to add the section. I let it go at the time with the intention of following a consensus process, but please do not mistake my conciliatory approach for a mea culpa – I could have built that heading into a valuable and fully referenced section given half a chance. Hopefully that chance will come again.

Finally, I am more than happy to work with Master of Puppets to resolve matters.

Wdford (talk) 01:31, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Article full protected for 3 days

I would like to encourage all the warring parties to calm down and try to work together. To encourage that - the article is fully protected (administrators can edit only) for 3 days. Further multiparty disruption after the protection expires will be followed by multiparty blocks. This is not acceptable behavior. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:37, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok, well, it seems that protection was decided upon regardless. I'm not in the position to remove the restriction, and I offer my full apologies to both Zara and Wdford. I still encourage you both to reach a consensus, of course, and I'm still more than happy to provide assistance if any is required. Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :D} 07:36, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks MoP, but 3 days of edit protection is not such a big deal. We have never before had an admin on the article who was prepared to get really involved in actually administering the process, so I am really looking forward to working with you. Huge respect. Wdford (talk) 09:21, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I hope I can help you guys settle this without any more blocks or things of that sort. Cheers, Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :D} 01:03, 10 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)

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)

Admin urgently needed to fix mistaken entry

Infobox made math calculation unreliable. Acme Plumbing (talk) 03:31, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/Template:Did_you_know/Queue

then see Queue 3, which is scheduled to go next.

then see http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Peter_Connell&action=history

That article clearly does not comply. It is an article from 2008. I can see why the 5 day old age can be stretched a bit, but 9-10 months is too much. It is also not nearly a 5x expansion. If recognition is desired, GA or FA can be attempted but massive bending of the rules to get DYK is not right.

An administrator is needed to replace that DYK with another. Thank you Acme Plumbing (talk) 03:15, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

• "Illegal" is a bit strong, even if it was a problem, but DYK expansion is based on the prose content of the article, not its absolute size. If you follow through the article's history, the 5x expansion rule has been more than satisfied. Alansohn (talk) 03:18, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

My math shows it has NOT met a 5x expansion. On 11 July 2009, it was 3,379 bytes. It is now 11,973 bytes. That is a 3.5x expansion which is good but not up to DYK criteria. Acme Plumbing (talk) 03:23, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Why is the DYK something that requires admin anything (other than it being on the main page)?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 03:26, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Only an admin can add or remove things from the queue where it is now. Acme Plumbing (talk) 03:28, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah... but DYK counts only prose, which means only the single sentence in this version (july 11) is counted which amounts to 86 characters. Expansion began on 2 August, and Peter Connell now has 3855 characters. This should be discussed at WT:DYK if there's a problem with that. ≈ Chamal  ¤ 03:29, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes. It's been expanded about 40x. Law _{type! snype?} 03:33, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry! I just found out that the byte count in the history can be corrupted by an infobox. I brought it here because of the quick response that DYK talk doesn't have keeping in mind that the DYK was next in line. Thank you. Please don't block me for making a false, but well meaninged, police report. Acme Plumbing (talk) 03:35, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

1. we don't do that and 2. we aren't the police. Viridae 04:30, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes you are. Yes you do. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:39, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Lol Mike R (talk) 00:45, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Facebook event to recruit Arab and Muslim editors to contribute to the Gaza War article.

You need a Facebook account to view the event page that is under discussion

In January 2009 (incorrectly typo'd at Facebook as '10), unknown Misplaced Pages editors organized a Facebook "event" with the stated goal of recruiting "Arab and Muslim contributions to the Misplaced Pages page on Israel-Gaza Conflict". The event has three administrators, but only one of the names match any WP user names: User:Mustafaahmedhussien. 118 people signed up and there were 48 maybes.

These recruiting efforts made strong headway into the article as major NPOV-violations have been included in the article in the name of a consensus. For example, the second line of the article proclaims that the conflict is known as the "Gaza Massacre" in the Arab media. The use of this term has not received coverage, let alone any mention, in mainstream sources, yet this name is given prominence in the second line of the article. Similarly, a number of repugnant tasteless pics were placed in the article, including one of a dead, burnt Arab baby, in the name of a concensus. There are other NPOV issues with the article, but this is not the forum the resultant content problem; these are merely two examples of the problem created by this "event".

A year and half ago, a major witch-hunt went underway that culminated at Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/CAMERA lobbying in which a bunch of editors were banned for being part of a group intending to correct anti-Israel POV's. Due to this, non-anti-Israel editors of the Gaza War article are frequently harangued and accused of working for the Israeli government, CAMERA, or another organized entity.

While the CAMERA situation was problematic, this is of far greater concern. The CAMERA situation involved a few editors, but this event involved way over a 100 people, and that's counting only those that signed up officially.

One WP user who is an example of a probably Facebook recruit is User:Thrylos000. S/he first appeared on Jan. 4 and edited until Jan 11. Almost every single edit concerned the Gaza War, including arguing vociferously for the inclusion of "Gaza Massacre" .User: Cryptonio is another. He appeared on January 7 and has mainly edit warred at the Gaza War article. Another example is User:Falastine fee Qalby ("Palestine in my heart"), who with clear POV on his sleeve, started editing on January 11 and whose first edit was to the Gaza War article.

What I'm hoping would result from this post is that we find out which Wikipedians are behind these recruitment efforts and ban them, just like we banned the editors involved in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/CAMERA lobbying. Secondly, we need to figure out how to deal with these off wiki POV recruitment efforts in the future. Sincerely, --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 04:49, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Obama articles have similar gang members, both the "Obama is a Muslim" gang and "Obama is perfect" gang. If Misplaced Pages had an Editorial Board for Exceptional Cases, this board could decide on content for only the most contentious articles. Then recruitment would not matter. On the other hand, if you oppose an editorial board for exceptional cases, then don't have it. Acme Plumbing (talk) 05:41, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

First of all, let's at least be aware that this group hasn't had any FB activity since the beginning of January 09.

With that said: With these canvassing approaches, it's fairly easy to discern who's a meatpuppet of the larger organization. They shall be treated as such. But: innocent until proven guilty (or walks and looks guilty, like a duck). One witch-hunt is no better than another witch-hunt, particularly a stale one. Xavexgoem (talk) 06:49, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

For anyone reviewing this ANI, it's important to remember the CAMERA affair, which involved far-reaching sanctions to any user even remotely involved, and there was considerable damage done even to users who were not involved in any way. Obviously I am just as angry at those who orchestrated the CAMERA affair against everything Misplaced Pages stands for, especially User:Zeq, but the fact remains that the affair significantly harmed every editor suspected of being pro-Israeli (regardless of whether they were involved), and is still mentioned a lot today (like this attack page up for deletion now). Unsurprisingly, it also made its way into a series of accusations into the recent West Bank/Judea and Samaria arbitration case.

Now, I'm not saying that the same should be applied to pro-Palestinian editors just for the hell of it; especially I do not wish anyone's name to be needlessly dragged through the mud, and there are quite a few positive pro-Palestinian editors on Misplaced Pages. In terms of direct sanctions however, it is only fair that they are applied to every editor clearly involved in this Facebook event. Brewcrewer listed a few who were certainly involved, and should certainly be sanctioned, even if this happenned 8 months ago (whoever doesn't edit anymore should probably be indef'ed). However, as he said himself, there are likely a lot more editors involved, and if a few serious admins take some time to find more users, this isn't really a "witch hunt", but a preventative measure for more such acts. I'm not sure some people realize the weight of the situation in principle—if nothing at all is done here, we will be seeing all sorts of Facebook groups pop up regarding influencing POV on Misplaced Pages, including the aforementioned "Obama gangs". Personally I can think of one user who was quite certainly involved in this affair and still edits actively today. I'm sure there are more. I will e-mail the name to any administrator who wishes to have a better look at this.

Finally, the claim that this is stale does not really hold up. So most of the clearly-involved editors haven't edited since; however, the article in question, Gaza War, still suffers from the serious problems inflicted during this affair, and any attempt to NPOV it will likely meet with a "no consensus" today, even though consensus to add some of the POV parts would not have been established in the first place was it not for this affair. I therefore strongly encourage administrators to have a deeper look into this. —Ynhockey 08:13, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I can correlate data and such. Could you drop me that e-mail? I was more hoping it wasn't stale, personally :-p Xavexgoem (talk) 08:30, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

The article is a complete garbage. Editors on both sides have to clean up crap and then get sucked into debates over international law concerns. It is not a project on how to present NPOV information regarding a military conflict but an outlet to mention reports reports from human rights observers. This article has had plenty of time to stabilize and has not. Editors should be ashamed. This includes people I enjoy (Nab is great, Ashdod is resourceful, Sean is funny, and several other decent dudes) and myself. Screw outside recruiting. We should be better than that and we certainly could have gone the distance on this article. GA is a myth right now. When it all comes down to it the editors who have devoted time to it have little sympathy for shenanigans so random editors are not the concern. There are a few editors that are so biased they should not be permitted to edit anything related. They have left. Look at the archives. I don't hear a thing from many of them. Wikifan said it and he was right. The article will change. I am not going to waste time going through the archives or my recollection of hurt feelings to look for one article only editors or any other jerkoffs. They have moved on and we still have a terrible article. We can fix it without worrying about them unless you have a specific editor to call out for campaigning. Chances are they got caught up in the sweep of overtly rude and biased editors a couple months ago.Cptnono (talk) 11:31, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps those who are alleging a mass conspiracy here can point to specific correlating edits and editors, which of course would be supported by actual evidence? Rounding up a handful of editors that Brewcrew doesn't like and noting that they edited an article in January isn't terribly convincing. Remember that what sunk CAMERA was the access to their e-mail archives, which pointed to exactingly specific "edit this article on this date", "make friends with this editor (i.e. me) and sway them to your side", etc... So unless someone can gain access to the facebook group and see if there were specific coordinations and instructions, this is much ado about nothing. Tarc (talk) 11:44, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

While I sympathise with and support the objectives set out in brewcrewer's final 'What I'm hoping' section I think we need a bit of a reality check here.

• The Gaza War article is already subject to discretionary sanctions so any suggestion that a Facebook group has an influence over the content amounts to a statement that discretionary sanctions are not working. If that is the case (and evidence would need to be provided to support that) then that needs to be addressed in addition to investigations into off-wiki recruiting.
• For this Facebook group scenario to be a genuine problem that affects content there needs to be evidence to support the notion that standard mandatory policies such as WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:OR are not being implemented in the article. Many content issues have been discussed at enormous length and repeatedy. All discussions are documented and available via the index and search options. If there is evidence to support the assertion that previous or current content resulted from the influence of people that signed up for the Facebook event then it will be in there somewhere. While it's true that there have been strong POVs at play at times in discussions, plenty of wikilawyering and a great deal of drive-by POV vandalism by both pro/anti Israeli/Palestinian editors, my experience is that by and large, there has been quite a lot of effort to reach consensus that meet mandatory content policy requirements. Consequently statements like 'These recruiting efforts made strong headway into the article' and 'examples of the problem created by this "event"' are inconsistent with reality in my view (in addition to not being supported by evidence at the moment). Both sides in content disputes (such as the Gaza Massacre issue etc) have generally used evidence/RS/wiki-policy based arguments with disagreements often amounting to disagreements over how to measure/achieve WP:V compliance. Yes, there's been a lot of nonsense in the past but things seem to have calmed down a great deal.

If there is an organised group of editors trying to make the article pro-Palestinian or anti-Israeli then I think a quick look at the citation density in the article and the kinds of references used (which includes a large number of Israeli sources) suggests that they've been pretty ineffective. Yes, as cptnono it could be improved e.g. spin off intlaw stuff, focus on what happened or whatever but the idea that an organised group has successfully shaped the article seems pretty implausible. Sean.hoyland - talk 12:11, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, if memory serves, on the CAMERA case the effect those editors had on WP was virtually nil, yet all the involved editors were perma-banned. Other than the fact that this case involves possibly vastly more individuals, is there some other compelling difference between the two? IronDuke 20:28, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I haven't said there is a difference between the two. I support brewcrewer's request for investigation/action. However, editors with a battleground mentality are problematic whether or not they're part of an off-wiki assembled group. Ultimately what matters most is ensuring that core policies on content and talk are implemented. If there is evidence that the discretionary sanctions are not working then that is significant. For interest, at least one of the editors in the CAMERA group came back as a new user and got banned again. They were extensively involved in the Gaza War article amongst others over an extended period. Sean.hoyland - talk 02:36, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

..and by the way, that user Tundrabuggy is the user brewcrewer has used in his second diff to illustrate that 'non-anti-Israel editors of the Gaza War article are frequently harangued and accused of working for the Israeli government, CAMERA, or another organized entity'. It seems like an odd example to choose. Sean.hoyland - talk 05:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

off wiki canvassing?

So, what do people do when we see off wiki campaigning?
See, for example, this Ussenet google search where people are canvassing for edits to problematic Satanic Abuse articles. NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 10:19, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Protect -> investigate -> sanction violators -> unprotect. -- FayssalF - 11:46, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

That's a good method. Sanctions have often been dealt out in these cases. Two arbcom cases were CAMERA and WP:ARBMAC2. — Rlevse • Talk • 11:49, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I would agree with the above. It would take a checkuser painstakingly looking at, for example, Gaza War, and seeing who edited it and what CU reveals about them, scrutinizing January in particular. IronDuke 17:58, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

What's all the fuss about here? More Palestinian editors who are under represented anyway would not be so bad provided, of course, they stick to the usual wiki rules. Now, you could argue that since you have two sides and you can't really decide who is right or wrong based on the sources, the balance of the article may change. But why would that be so bad if the matter isn't settled anyway?

These sorts of disputes and the pre-occupation of editors with them distract from more important problems on wikipedia, like the one raised by me here. Just imagine that a student would have read the flawed version of the article and have learned a mistaken thing that leads him to make errors. That's a far more serious problem. One has to think about how to make sure editors don't edit nonsense into articles but the usual wiki rules are too much focussed about dealing with politics articles where you have two equal sides.

I don't think you could just ban editors from editing the gaza war article just because he/she was recruited on facebook. But if such arbitrary rules are somehow enforced, then one has to explain why no action can be taken against proven kooks who edit nonsense in science articles. :( Count Iblis (talk) 03:06, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree it is bad taste that a Facebook group exists for the sole purpose of editing Misplaced Pages with a given POV, and that this should be exposed. Thank you for bringing it to the community's attention.

However this falls firmly in the "Storm in a Teacup Department". CAMERA's disruption, which I have addressed in for example the diffs provided by brewcrewer, was not just the case of some unruly pov meatpuppetry: it was a financed project of an NGO with an agenda, who was paying staff, including its highest level staff, to organize, direct, and provide logistical support to an organized corporate effort to influence Misplaced Pages. In this sense, CAMERA's situation is not about meatpupettry, but about spamming, about a corporation advancing its business interests in Misplaced Pages via disruptive means. This is an encyclopedia written by amateurs as a hobby, and any and all efforts to make it professional should be swiftly countered, be it MyWikiBiz guy or be it a political NGO.

For example, pro-any-issue groups, boards, and mailing list as a general rule discuss wikipedia, and even collaborative editing. This is frowned upon, but inevitable, and only in egregious moments, when it acquires a disruptive quality, should it matter. As a matter of routine Brewcrewer, Wikifan12345, and Tundrabuggy exchanged on-wiki (and one would guess, off-wiki) collaborative talk around given articles and new articles in their sandboxes: there is nothing wrong with this. There is nothing wrong, either, with someone setting up a blog or mailing lists with interesting sources, ideas, etc for Misplaced Pages, as long as it amateur. There is actually nothing actually "wrong", but it would be it very bad taste and a noob error, to setup up a facebook group. What is wrong is when you involve money and mobilizing clout to disrupt Misplaced Pages's consensus content building process. CAMERA did that and judging by their track record of decades as an extremist organization, continues to do this, with better operational security.

Borderline uncivil language on "witchhunts" certainly continues the pattern of disruption of a group of editors that will continue to waste our times advancing their political agendas, instead of advancing the collaborative spirit that has built Misplaced Pages. The community has generated two powerful tools for this WP:IPCOLL, to allow for multi-partisan meta-collaboration on the topic area, and WP:ARBPIA, for the swift resolution of allegations of egregious disruption. Used together, both community tools should suffice to both generate well-sourced, neutrally presented, relevant content for our readers, and to take care of any instances of disruption.

However, it is the same editors now raising this thread who refuse to participate in wither of those two efforts, or do so under protests. If they did, they would be able to engage instances of meatpuppetry on the part of all editors in the same manner they are always handled, by the community. In this sense, protestations of "witchhunting" are a case of of the pot calling the kettle black: what are the possibly unfounded, un-evidenced accusations against a number of editors mentioned in this thread if not an attempt at a retaliatory witchhunt? Why not discuss this first in good faith in the WP:IPCOLL and WP:ARBPIA? Why continue to waste the community's time and energy if no specific examples of content disruption are provided? This is just one more attempt to "settle scores", and should be ignored as such. --Cerejota (talk) 12:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

User:NiveKJ13 and User:GMA Fan

• This user (NiveKJ13) keeps Accusing me of sockpuppeting. I am not a sockpuupeter. Look at User talk:NiveKJ13 for evidence. He also vandalizes my talk page too. GMA Fan 9 August 2009 9:04PM

This matter can be explained in my talk page and in the administrator Mufka's talk page. And FYi, this is started by GMA Fan himself. And remember the thing Mufka have kept telling you?...never call edits that you don't like a "vandalism". --NiveKJ13 (talk2me) 04:13, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

NiveKJ13, because your edits are very similar to Witchy2006's edits. Like blanking portions of LaLola (Philippine TV series). GMA Fan 9 August 2009 9:15PM

I have explained that to Mufka and it has been resolved. But what did you do?..you still continued adding the accusation in my talk page even though it has already been resolved. --NiveKJ13 (talk2me) 04:21, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

OK Can we stop aguring and cooperate like friends. Misplaced Pages is a plae where everyone should cooperate. GMA Fan 9:23PM 9 August 2009

I wasn't arguing. You're the one using capital letters here. Showing only that you are angry or shouting. Its very unpleasant for the person you did that to even bother to cooperate with you. --NiveKJ13 (talk2me) 04:34, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Fixed the threading in this, a bit. For the record, Ebhoy (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) is also Erickbhoy (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki), who is blocked in connection with two or more SPI cases. Looks like GMA Fan has done some socking, previously, but has hopefully stopped -- as would be wise. There's a lot of unnecessary bitterness going on, here. – Luna Santin (talk) 10:29, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Also, now might be a good time for NiveKJ13 to explain any relation between that account, WikiMemoryBot, and Witchy2006. – Luna Santin (talk) 12:53, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

NOTE: GMA Fan (talk · contribs) has been blocked indefinitely for combat by Mufka (talk · contribs). -Jeremy 23:05, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Shnitzled

Per these edits , and , can someone please indef block User:Shnitzled? Note also the block history, and this past ANI discussion, there is little evidence that this user wants to contribute anything meaningful to wikipedia. Stepopen (talk) 19:21, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Blocked indefinitely. Several previous blocks combined with those particularly harsh personal attacks certainly imply Misplaced Pages would be better without this individual. ~ mazca 19:26, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

How does it feel to know that I have about 19 other dorment accounts and over 50 IP's I can edit from? Ouch! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.145.27.196 (talk) 21:13, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's certainly the sort of thing that will bring Misplaced Pages to its knees. It's not like all of your edits and accounts can be fixed with a single click of a button, or anything. Dayewalker (talk) 21:20, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Shnitzled for anyone interested. --Jayron32 21:22, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

• You'd think someone who thinks they're so clever would understand that every time they post on a new IP, they simply allow that IP to be blocked. I mean I understand most sock-users frankly lack intelligence, but it's still embarrassing to watch. HalfShadow 21:45, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Plagiarism?

It says here: http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Plagiarism "If you find that an editor persists in plagiarising others' work after being notified of this guideline, report him, or her, at the administrators' noticeboard so that an administrator can respond to the issue."

There are some texts at the Asmahan article that are almost exact copys from the sources and very little changed from them. Here is the source: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JI20Ak04.html

Texts from the source: "She escaped by night on horseback" "She disguised herself as a male horseman and rode all the way to the Syrian-Palestinian border." "she returned to Damascus where she paraded through the streets with her husband Hasan" "The Free French reneged on their promise of independence and a disgruntled Asmahan shifted her allegiance to the Nazis in revenge. She boarded a train and headed to Ankara, where she wanted to meet Franz von Papen, Hitler's ambassador to Turkey and master of Nazi espionage in the Middle East. British officials at the border refused to let her pass, and she was deported to Beirut"

I tried to change a couple words, and rewrite some sections to try to avoid plagiarism, but they have been reverted several times by user Arab Cowboy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Asmahan&diff=306840098&oldid=306838133

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Asmahan&diff=306843722&oldid=306841694

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Asmahan&diff=307028837&oldid=307025361

He also added the exact same comment from the author in the middle of a quote, exactly as in the book: "(although she was in reality a third cousin, twice removed)" Page 37 http://books.google.com/books?id=Eca2pXOX-F8C&pg=PA37&dq=%22why+I+am+the+daughter+of%22#v=onepage&q=%22why%20I%20am%20the%20daughter%20of%22&f=false

I notified him twice, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk%3AArab_Cowboy&diff=307015009&oldid=306114934 and here http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Asmahan&diff=306841694&oldid=306840348

Dont know what more to do from here. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 20:52, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Why hasn't anyone answered to this?--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 06:03, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Maybe the copyright violations board is more appropriate, see Misplaced Pages:Copyright_problems. Cheers 70.49.2.18 (talk) 06:15, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Er, perhaps because we're volunteers and this looks like stepping into a mine field? Sarah 15:59, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

User Supreme Deliciousness is again abusing the system! He's crying plagiarism and is selectively removing or modifying text only to promote his own agenda. This, too, will not fly, SD! --Arab Cowboy (talk) 09:09, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know anything about that but it would be much better to address the concerns raised than personalising it. Please try to Assume Good Faith. Misplaced Pages takes plagiarism and copyright infringement very seriously and if the Misplaced Pages article is plagiarising a source text or using someone else's ideas or words without appropriate attribution, it needs to be fixed very quickly. No one should be restoring text flagged as problematic without addressing the concerns raised. The article Supreme Deliciousness claims is being plagiarised is copyright and isn't licensed under a free license but even if it was under a free license, we still shouldn't be copying unique phrases or sentences or generally using someone else's ideas without appropriate attribution. Sarah 15:59, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Non neutral biased title

Hi I am requesting administrators to take a look into this article Syrian occupation of Lebanon, please read the talk page Talk:Syrian occupation of Lebanon. A number of editors such as myself have been trying to move the title to a more neutral title "Syrian military presence in Lebanon" that is more reflective of the historical and political reality. But unfortunately the administrators who have had the final say on this article tend to be very biased by virtue of the fact that they don't look at the arguments and evidence and sources presented and always argue that there is no argument while editors such as myself have presented endless sources and proof. We just had a discussion where editors voted 8-6 in favor of moving the title name, but one administrator came and reverted the name change. I am asking for neutral administrators who have not edited or are not involved in or have not taken sides with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to take an honest and sincere look into this, because as an editor on Misplaced Pages I know that NPOV is the rule and not POV and this title is inherently POV, Please check the arguments and sources provided. Here are the facts. 1) The Lebanese president in 1976 requested Syrian military intervention. Unlike the majority of occupations Syria did not enter Lebanon by itself. The head of the lebanese nation requested that Syria intervenes. 2) The Arab League voted in favor of sending a peace-keeping force that was to consist of mostly Syrian soldiers. Therefore Syria was given 2 mandates to intervene in Lebanon, whereas the other belligerents such as Israel was never given any official mandate. 3) ALL non-biased sources such as PBS have termed the Syrian military intervention as a "presence". 4) Whereas almost all sources presented from the opposing editors are all biased, for example the former Bush administration. Politicla partisans like Daniel Pipes and Alan Dersowitz. 5) A number of honest editors have correctly pointed out that Syria's mandate expired in 1982 and that after that it was a legitimate occupation, but the problem is that the article speaks of the first 6 years which has no legitimate evidence of an occupation.

Any suggestions or ideas to resolve this because the current title is obviously biased and contradictory of the historical events. I ask any administrator that believes in Misplaced Pages's neutrality to take a look into this.George Al-Shami (talk) 21:04, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any evidence the discussion was closed in an inappropriate manner. There seems to be evidentiary-based arguements being based which support both sides, and neither side in the discussion displayed controling a clear consensus. Based on that, the standard is to maintain the status quo. Any arguements on the substance of one side or another should occur at the article talk page itself, but as far as the administrative action, I can find no fault with it. --Jayron32 21:15, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Hey Jayron I appreciate your input, but the point that other editors and myself are trrying to make is that the status quo is biased; what can we do to fix or resolve that?.George Al-Shami (talk) 22:52, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Obviously you do, or you wouldn't be asking to have the status quo changed. Find reliable, mainstream sources which clearly back up your point without the need to add any extra interpretation or reading into it; start an WP:RFC to bring extra eyes and uninvolved editors to comment. That would be a good start. --Jayron32 05:44, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

user:Jclemens

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)

User:Wildhartlivie's ownership of article John Dillinger

Originally filed for mediation, but User Wildhartlivie has made it clear he is not interested in resolving this via mediation. Apologies if this is in the wrong place.

Article John Dillinger

Who is involved?

Just a list of the users involved. For example:

• User:Wildhartlivie
• User:Little Professor

What is the dispute?

Wildhartlivie claiming ownership of article John Dillinger, as evidenced by frequent reversions to his own version of the article (6 reverts to his own version in the last 6 days alone:)

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=John_Dillinger&diff=306923038&oldid=306915019

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=John_Dillinger&diff=306346351&oldid=306345023

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=John_Dillinger&diff=306332470&oldid=306327208

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=John_Dillinger&diff=306270579&oldid=306265823

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=John_Dillinger&diff=306222634&oldid=306200431

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=John_Dillinger&diff=305995100&oldid=305992902

and inappropriate use of comments within the article to discourage editors from interfering with his proposed version of the page], without any consensus being established or even discussed on the article's talk page. Using unhelpful incivil language to new editors when his hidden comment instructions are not complied with - ().

Also incivility towards other editors when he has been cautioned on the above matters

What would you like to change about this?

Offer education to user Wildhartlivie regarding WP:OWN, inappropriate use of hidden comments within the article to maintain his proposed version of the article rather than discussion on the talk page, and reminder of WP:CIVIL

It's not clear from the diffs provided that this is an ownership issue. Wildhartlivie is maintaining the article by asking that sources be used to justify content changes. This is not unreasonable. If you want to make the changes to the article, provide reliable sources--particularly if they counter what has been printed in existing sources. When you do and your edits continue to be reverted and you are given spurious excuses, then it might be time to look at ownership issues. --Moni3 (talk) 23:42, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. Would be grateful for your views on the use of inline hidden comments viz "THERE IS NO PLACE FOR IT. THE ONLY THINGS BEING INCLUDED IN THIS ARTICLE ARE DIRECT DEPICTIONS OF DILLINGER IN FILMS OR TV. HE WROTE NO SONGS, SONG REFERENCES IN TODAY'S MUSIC MARKET OR ON SOUTH PARK ARE NOT RELEVANT." My understanding was that, given the availability of the use of the talk page to discuss the issue and obtain consensus, and[REDACTED] guidance at WP:TRIVIA, such inline comments would be both redundant and discouraged.

In addition, the user appears to have taken ownership of other articles including Scarlett Johannson and Johnny Depp, the latter also resulting in multiple reversions with no edit summary, with associated self-confessed incivility, as per 1 and 2. Nevertheless, would be happy to leave this issue alone if needs be. Regards, Little Professor (talk) 14:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I saw the hidden note, and perhaps it is necessary given the film that is coming out. Trivia sections are discouraged and the note I imagine is to ward off multiple additions to the article in said South Park and Family Guy references. The hidden note is one way. I would have laden the article down with so many citations that that would discourage many users from placing trivial items in it. Both ways work and neither necessarily denotes ownership. Neither does bragging. I've seen Wildhartlivie around, so I am sure she is aware of the policy on ownership. I have written 14 featured articles and I own none of them. Saying that I wrote all of an article does not imply or mean that I own it. Reverting additions to the article that reference reliable sources, saying that such additions are unnecessary because I wrote the article and it is complete and intact the way I wrote it is ownership. Telling other editors to back off from tinkering with the article is definitely ownership. But removing problematic and unsourced edits is not. If you want to improve the John Dillinger article, you are welcome to do it. You should check out every book on Dillinger written, read all of them, then summarize what they say about his life. --Moni3 (talk) 15:29, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Moni. I was writing a response when you posted this. I've tried to explain this or discuss monitoring of this article with this editor but rather than respond or discuss, he reverted my messages to his talk page under the guise of "rv rant" and "rm rant #2". An administrator, Garion96 reverted his removal of the hidden note on John Dillinger, calling it a "helpful hidden comment". When I responded to his template today, and admittedly had lost patience with this issue, I still tried to explain the rationale behind the edits here, only to have it reverted "per WP:CIVIL" and a personal attack template left on my talk page here. I would really like this editor to stop leaving unwarranted templates on my talk page, as he has done here, here, here, and here. He notified me that he had filed an AN/I complaint here, when in fact it was for mediation and did not notify me of this posting. None of this helps sort out any issues, especially when he refuses to respond to talk page requests to discuss it. It is bordering on harassment. Wildhartlivie (talk) 00:59, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• What would I like to change about this? Apart from the undue formalism, the realisation that Wildhartlivie is not a "he" would be a step forward. Due diligence, you know. Rodhullandemu 01:03, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

In what way would it be a step forward? I'm not sure how the gender of the editor affects the disputes in question? Little Professor (talk) 14:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Wildhartlivie (talk) 01:10, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The fact that Little Professor left templates that are meant for new users, shows that Little Professor did not prudently look at Wildhartlivies contributions and history on Misplaced Pages. If Little Professor is a new user, perhaps a template explaining "harassment" should be left on his/her talk page. Wildhartlivie deals fairly with others and she only reacts after reasonable measures have been exhausted. Little Professor's complaints and warring appear to be frivolous and meant to agitate and harass, rather than mediate any legitimate complaints he/she may have, if any.--Victor9876 (talk) 04:55, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Have checked WP:TM and WP:UW, but have yet to find any guidance stating that templates are 'meant for new users'. My understanding was that all contributors are expected to follow Misplaced Pages guidelines, regardless of their history or previous contributions. I would welcome clarification on this matter if I am wrong. Little Professor (talk) 14:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

May be referring to this: WP:DTTR. --Moni3 (talk) 15:29, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Racist user

Tajik (talk · contribs), a very racist, controversial and disruptive editor with long history of blocks, is still vandalizings pages of groups of people he doesn't like , he's edit-warring, he uses sockpuppets and annon IPs to curse, abuse, attack, insult, and offend people of other races. Here he is cursing at other editors and also adding in the article that the mother of a politician in Afghanistan was raped by ethnic Tajiks He did the recent vandalisms on Kabul, Afghan (name), Abdullah Abdullah (politician), Talk:Jamal-al-Din_Afghani, Sher Shah Suri, and others. He is constantly editing articles pertaining to Afghanistan and its people with very negative view. By trying to evade from admins, he first edits with his usual user name and then vandalizeand edit-war with a set of IP # but all appear to be in the same location in Germany where he lives. He and the IPs share the same view, always refusing to accept Afghanistan's existance in the 18th century , , giving Tajiks a good name and the people that he hates (the Pashtuns) a very negative image almost every page he visits. He is trying to change Afghanistan into Iran and remove the Pashto language from every article, which is the one of the official languages of the country. I'm pretty sure he is using those IPs and socks, he is trying to change his writings when he uses IPs to fool admins.119.73.1.41 (talk) 00:45, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

While I appreciate your input and research into this, the evidence you present isn't quite strong enough. Millions of people feel very strongly about issues like this, and Germany has a pretty large population. Just because they originate from the same region and share similar views does not mean they are the same user. I'll look into this further, of course. Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :D} 01:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Notified user that they are the subject of this conversation. Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :D} 01:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

You didn't get my point. I'm saying Tajik (an Afghan) is in the same location (city or town) in Germany as the IPs (each city in a country uses different ISP with different IP #s), Tajik and the IPs edit the same articles on Misplaced Pages at same timing, with same view, and they even attack other editors in a very same way, they also speak the Afghan Persian language. I don't think there is a single German who constantly edit Afghanistan articles. Anway, Before defending himself against his actions.. Tajik always first speaks about the people who report him so that way admins focus on them instead of him. Look at the bottom both Inuit18 (sockpuppet) and Tajik did just that. Tajik is not allowed to revert more than once, so obviously he uses IPs and sockpuppets that are usually not detected or reported. Interestingly, sometimes he even uses annon IP to talk to himself on talk pages , which is another way to try to fool us. Tajik is not one of those who will leave and allow others to edit Afghanistan related articles, he wants to be in full control and keep all the negative things he added in them. Tajik is also on Youtube and a number of other sites where he is spreading so much racism against the Pashtun people. His favorite ID is ParsistaniTajik, the following is a link to one of his Youtube ID. http://www.youtube.com/user/ParsistaniTajik --119.73.7.144 (talk) 15:44, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

talk has reported a very important issue. If we look at Tajik (talk · contribs) contributions, we can clearly see that majority of his/her edits are focused on giving a negative image to Pashtuns in[REDACTED] or removing Pashto related content in wikipedia. He/She is playing a double standard role here in wikipedia. If an article is about a Tajik warlord the user avoids adding anything negative about the personality, however if it is about a Pashtun warlord, the user tries its best to give him/her a negative image. The same goes for political parties. These are some of the topics which he has vandalised - POV:

Karim Khoram, Afghan Social Democratic Party (Afghan Mellat), Kabul, Maidan Shar, Murghab District, Jawid Sharif and many more.

The user does not keep a neutral point of view when editing an article. (Ketabtoon (talk) 06:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC))

Both of these users are vandals and sockpupptets.--Inuit18 (talk) 08:06, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

This is just a waste of time. The IP - who, b.t.w. is the IP-sockpuppet of either banned User:NisarKand or banned User:Khampalak (see checkuser; 119.30.78.26 and 119.30.72.64 are confirmed IPs of banned User:NisarKand) - is himself vandalizing various articles, deleting sourced material etc. Ketabtoon (talk · contribs) has just been reported to an admin because of his destructive behaviour. I have no problems with a checkuser file, comparing my IP to others. But I also would like to ask admins to compare the IPs of these two users with the banned users mentioned above. Thank you. Tajik (talk) 08:55, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The admins are very welcome to do a checkuser on me and go through my edits. (Ketabtoon (talk) 14:07, 10 August 2009 (UTC))

I worked on this issue a lot in 2008. I don't have time this morning to delve deeply into this thread, but later this evening I will set aside some time (about 12 hours from now). Kingturtle (talk) 11:41, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Theserialcomma and continued hounding

User:Theserialcomma was blocked for five days not very long ago for baiting other users. The discussion can be viewed here.

Today, Theserialcomma decided to harass me on my talk page. He has been asked not to post on it before. In that message he accused me of misusing rollback, also managing to bring up the fact that I lost rollback a year ago. Incidentally, I used twinkle, not rollback, and using tools to remove malicious external links is very well within policy. Also incidentally, I redeemed myself and my rollback rights were restored. This is, I believe, the exact kind of baiting that the Misplaced Pages community voted to come down harder on.

He also nominated a user subpage I maintain, User:McJeff/BlockLog, for speedy deletion as an attack page, and when that was declined, for MfD. I have seen other users keep a page about their block logs, but that is up to the community to decide whether this is appropriate. However, I believe his nomination is bad faith in that he only nominated it because he is the user blocked for baiting that it mentions, and that it was deceitful to write the MfD trying to make it sound like he was concerned about someone else's welfare rather than for personal reasons. See also .

Just to show that this is a repeating pattern. A couple days ago, Theserialcomma decided to complain about a dispute he personally was not involved in, because one of the involved editors, User:Tothewolf, was someone he had previously been in a dispute with, and in fact was warned by Admin User:Jéské Couriano to stop - see this discussion on his talk page.

Aside from the fact that he has been warned for baiting and continues to do so, an issue I have here is that TSC is trying to reignite an old feud. The last hostile interaction I had with him dates back to October 29, 2008.

Incidentally, TSC also has a months old very polite request to stop hounding me in his talk page history. McJEFF 03:15, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

i expect User:Jéské Couriano to come in here any minute and block me. he's been harassing me and threatening to ban for me for a while now. i hope this community will review the situation before User:Jéské Couriano jumps the gun. Theserialcomma (talk) 03:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Listen to me good, TSC. You already have several users who are on your ass, myself included, because you repeatedly harass other users. I am just about tired of seeing your name pop up here every week in connection with another fragging accusation of harassment/hounding/stalking. And your response to each one is to pull a CofS or otherwise marginalize the complaint. I suggest you do yourself a favor and stop harassing other users. If you do not, someone will block you (but it won't be an involved administrator like myself). -Jeremy 04:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

oh jeske couriano, how i knew you'd show up here. first you accuse me of harassment without any diffs, just a link to my contributions (that is too vague, my personal harassment-admin), and then you, a representative of wikipedia, make an attack on me by comparing me to something allegedly to do with scientology, which is totally irrelevant to this conversation. if you have a grudge against scientology, leave me out of it. and if you are going to accuse people of harassment, you should provide diffs. and finally, stay away from me. really. Theserialcomma (talk) 04:17, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Which I do until you show up here again as the subject or starter of a thread. Your whole paragraph above is a dodge. -Jeremy 04:44, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

you and i have no feud, mcjeff. i left you a personalized message on your talk page about what i perceived to be rollback misuse on an article we both edit. that was a good faith message. you have lost rollback before for similar abuse, so there should be no further misuse. and you did use real rollback, not twinkle rollback (see ]). you are mistaken about that. second of all, i nominated your subpage for deletion because it's an attack page on me and serves no purpose for the encyclopedia. perhaps the community could view and decide for themselves if that helps[REDACTED] in any way.

and finally, when you mention in your attack subpage that i (unnamed) was blocked for 5 days, what does that have anything to do with you being blocked a year ago? because i was blocked for 'baiting' a year after you were blocked, you think that's necessary to mention in your subpage? please. Theserialcomma (talk) 03:28, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment - I thought you meant this edit when you posted. McJEFF 03:34, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• mcjeff has informed the admin who blocked me for 30 days for 'baiting' User:Nukes4Tots ]. he is clearly shopping for support for getting me blocked. note, i was blocked for 30 days for 'baiting' a user User:Nukes4Tots who's been blocked up to 10 times under various sock accounts, but it was my first block ever on wikipedia, after a year of being in good standing. the block was reduced to 5 days based on the community saying it was an excessive block. furthermore, i hope that neither jeske couriano nor georgewilliamherbert get involved in this. i have no faith in their abilities to treat me fairly. Theserialcomma (talk) 03:36, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
  • i knew jeske couriano was after me, but i didn't realize he would be this fast: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages%3AMiscellany_for_deletion%2FUser%3AMcJeff%2FBlockLog&diff=307099215&oldid=307091309. wow. jeske, leave me alone. Theserialcomma (talk) 04:09, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Complaint Withdrawn (and struck through) after discussion on TSC's talk page and an amicable solution. McJEFF 04:13, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Ratel warring? vandalizing? bad faith?

User Ratel is trying to archive an active discussion in Aktion T4. This User Ratel is clearly involved in the discussion.

• First attempt to archive the active discussion
• Second attempt to archive the active discussion
• Third attempt to archive the active discussion
• Fourth attemot to archive the active discussion

• First warning
• Second warning

comment made by 190.25.101.144 (talk) 03:53, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The code will only archive conversation without inactivity for four days. I agree with what the user who started this thread: Talk:Action T4#Talk page etiquette. This particular thread you're talking about also seems to diverge somewhat into forum-like territory. –xeno 05:44, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Ratel? I remember that name. Wasn't that this guy who was here just a few days ago, Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive556#Harassment? 70.49.2.18 (talk) 06:07, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Please note that I am not the issue here. The IP above, 190.25.101.144, has totally wrecked the Talk page at Aktion T4 with ravings that filled the page and chased all other users away. Now he is resisting any attempt to archive old conversations. I suggest you have a look at what transpired on that Talk page before making any further comments. Note that this IP has also reverted the page about 7 times in the last 24hrs. ► RATEL ◄ 07:41, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I have commented there and closed the discussion there. Everything useful has been said,and a good deal more . DGG (talk) 08:11, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• In the discussion it was asked for a "reliable" (according to Misplaced Pages Policies) source, supporting that Aktion T4 was euthanasia and any euthanasia is not unlike Aktion T4, because the current article claims the contrary in this section: Aktion_T4#T4_and_euthanasia.
• There are a lot of sources, but at least one "reliable" source was provided in this post:Talk:Action_T4#propaganda_pro_euthanasia_.3D_crime_apology. This source (Alexander Leo, Medical science under dictatorship, New England Journal of Medicine, No.241, pages 39-47) states that Aktion T4 was euthanasia and any euthanasia is not unlike Aktion T4
• User:Ratel claims euthanasia has nothing to do with Aktion T4 and he is involved in the mentioned dicussion.
• Therefore: why is he allowed to archive exactly all the discussion including the post providing the demanded source?
• Note that User:Ratel posted his first attempt to autoarchive the discussion some hours after the post providing the demanded source.

comment made by 190.27.99.91 (talk) 17:38, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

IP-based pedophilia activism

Based on and , would it be possible to stop further editing from 71.253.11.98 for an appropriate period of time? Erik9 (talk) 04:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

this is one of the cases where the proper time is indefinite. I've done the block. DGG (talk) 05:19, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Endorse the block, but not the length. Reset to 90 days (it's a dynamic IP). –xeno 05:24, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

OK. didn't realise it was dynamic. DGG (talk) 07:36, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the two diffs, they appear to be run of the mill vandalism. --Farix (Talk) 19:23, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

75.5.239.210

User:75.5.239.210 has spent the last hour plus removing phrases like "award winning" from articles. Is there a remedy for this? Deserted Cities 05:29, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

1) Warn. 2) Wait to see if warnings stop him. 3) Report to WP:AIV if warnings are ineffective. --Jayron32 05:38, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I saw this IP editing a few of the articles I have watchlisted. The user is simply following WP:ACTOR#On-going projects/to do lists. — Σxplicit 06:56, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Not really, they are simply deleting information that speaks to each subject's notability that indeed should be in the lede. If not in the first sentence then so be it but deletion is unhelpful. -- Banjeboi 08:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I've already filed a report on this IP at Misplaced Pages:Content noticeboard#Emmy bad, 2 and a half hours ago. Unfortunately, as is the case with most of those off the wall noticeboards, no reply or action has been taken since. S/he isn't following WP:ACTOR#On-going projects/to do lists because if he was, instead of removing the "Emmy/Golden Globe award winning" totally, S/he would be moving it out of the first sentence further down in the lede per Remove lead sentence mention of "______ Award-winning" and/or "______ Award-nominated". This can and should be included in lead sections, but not in lead sentences. Please change leads to include mention of major awards, but do so in context.. -    allstar▼echo    07:33, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

And after leaving h/im/er a note on h/is/er talk page, and after undoing many of the articles, h/she reverted me. Someone else feel free to have fun with this one. -    allstar▼echo    08:01, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

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)

Jeffrey_D._Gordon

• Note that this still requires action.   bsmithme  08:28, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

This article needs administrator attention. There are two editors who continue to remove content from this article which I have reviewed to be properly sourced content and verifiable by a reliable sources (I could be mistaken, though). And while I may be mistaken, the editors continue to apparently ignore the talk page to discuss the issue.   bsmithme  21:13, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Could you provide diffs and identify the editors who are having a problem. The format below may help you organize your presentation. Jehochman 22:27, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Locus of dispute, or action in dispute

Disagreement over WP:BLP on Jeffrey_D._Gordon. The two editors believe that a section added by user Geo_Swan is libelous and should be removed.

Involved parties and confirmation they have been notified of the discussion

• Antoniomarg8
• Robclement
• Geo_Swan

Description of the dispute and the main evidence

1. I found that the article had had a substantial portion removed by Robclement so I initiated an investigation.
   1. Robclement did use an edit summary describing the action.
   2. Robclement did blank the talk page replacing it with what I think is an except from WP:BLP.
   3. Robclement did make an entry on the article's talk page after blanking.
2. After reviewing the quotes, statements, and facts asserted for the section in question, I found that they were both referenced and that the references were reliable. Substantiated by this source (Miami Herald) and this source (Washington Post).
3. I undid the revision by Robclement then added a reply to the article's talk page and asked that further changes be discussed there.
4. My revert was then undone by user Antoniomarg8 without edit summary or talk page discussion.
5. I assumed good faith and undid user Antoniomarg8 edit.
6. My edit was again reverted by user Antoniomarg8 again without talk page discussion.

• Furthermore. After further investigation I found that user Antoniomarg8 subsequently vandalized user page of Geo_Swan multiple times. 1 2 3 INV:5   bsmithme  23:40, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
• Further note. The talk page was blanked and I am not sure the best way to restore it.   bsmithme  23:59, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Comments by other involved parties (Please include diffs to substantiate your claims)

Comments by uninvolved editors

I think the source may support the addition of this content. Editors need to discuss whether the biography is balances, or gives undue weight to these controversial matters. The two accounts who have been removing the content appear to be single purpose, and may very well be controlled by the same editor. We should not overlook the possibility that one of the real life people involved in this matter may be trying to influence the content of Misplaced Pages. I think it may help to leave messages for the two new editors welcoming them, and asking them not to remove sourced content, not to edit war, and not to use more than one account. We should also advise them how to address concerns about the content in a productive way. Should those steps fail, a block might then be necessary to prevent further problems, but I think we need to try the lesser steps first. Jehochman 02:37, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I think those suggestions should be executed by someone else. I will not be taking action on this matter in order to prevent appearing bias and disingenuous.   bsmithme  03:45, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Remarks by closing editor

Unresolved archived thread

A thread has been auto-archived before it was formally closed: Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive556#Topic ban for User:Wikifan12345. Can someone sort that out, and perhaps an uninvolved admin close it? Rd232 08:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Threads get archived without being formally closed all the time. This page would be huge without it. Why should this thread be any different? Can't any further discussion be done on Wikifan's talkpage? --Atlan (talk) 10:22, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the best way forward is to make a report at WP:AE and point to the recently archived discussion, as there is a clear case for discretionary sanctions under WP:ARBPIA. There's posibly a better chance of finding someone uninvolved there as well. Kevin (talk) 10:33, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Block Review:

Tarc (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was blocked for violating the 3RR policy after being reported by William S. Saturn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). I noticed that after looking at the diffs that each one is a different piece of text as if William S. Saturn was tendentiously trying to add a bit of text against consensus with Tarc reverting them. I also noted that one of the diff's provided was of a completely unrelated revert. I also question this warning as it could be construed as questionable in intent. Could someone please review this block. Brothejr (talk) 10:07, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with this block. He made 4 reverts within 24 hours. The fact that it was a different piece of text doesn't matter. I also don't see how the warning was questionable. Saturn's behavior is irrelevant to the block. If Tarc wants to argue the block, I'm sure he can do it himself.--Atlan (talk) 10:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Looks like a standard block. Reverts do not have to be to the same material and there are four here in 24 hours. From my point of view William S. Saturn may have been trying to find compromise wording since the talk page shows an ongoing discussion of how to handle the caption. Shell 10:25, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• It should be recorded to Misplaced Pages:General sanctions/Obama article probation/Log of sanctions since the article is under the WP:ARBCOM probation The user in question, Tarc is well enough to know it because he has been listed as a guilty party of the ArbCom case.--Caspian blue 11:52, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The fly in the ointment here is that Tarc was acting to try to keep the article more neutral, to remove pointy comments and questionable sources. Baseball Bugs carrots 12:34, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, nobody ever thinks that they're the bad guy.--Caspian blue 13:04, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The edits speak for themselves. Tarc's edits were good, i.e. neutral. The edits he removed were not. For example, he removed a link to WND. WND is not a valid source. Baseball Bugs carrots 13:08, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Unforetunately, the reasons for violating 3RR don't include sound editing... Soxwon (talk) 13:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

BINGO .... ladies and gentlemen, hold your cards - we have a winner! — Ched :  ?  13:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The argument is being made that the complainant in the case should also be blocked for violating the 3-revert rule. Regardless, this does elevate the visibility of this pages' problems so that previously-dormant editors might get re-involved. 0:) Baseball Bugs carrots 14:51, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

that doesnt really hold up. Misplaced Pages is a place of collegial editing, and Tarcs behavior on the Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories article has crossed the line set forth by the article probator guarantys. 15:49, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Which simply means that others will have to monitor the article and be sure Saturn doesn't try to slip that junk into it again. Baseball Bugs carrots 16:07, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I think that this 3RR rule doesn't make any sense if it leads to automatic banning. What should happen is that a 3RR violation could lead to someone being reported and then one can look into the matter. If you violate 3RR in order to revert changes that bring the article very far from any accpeted consensus of the regular editors on the talki page, then one should look at the editing behavior of the other editor, even though he/she may not have violated 3RR (as the first edit does not count).

So, if on the Global Warming page a comes around and he makes edits that are technically not vandalism, I still have the right to revert an unlimited number of times without me being blocked. That may be necessary if the other regular editors aren't around for some reason (as I suspect happened yesterday).

Also, I made a pre-emtive report here in which I claim to have the right to violate the 3RR rule on the entropy page for a good reason. Count Iblis (talk) 16:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Edit warring the entropy page... There's a joke in there somewhere. Wikidemon (talk) 16:59, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:3RR exists to rpotect pages from being the battlegrounds of an edit war. by reverting over and over instead of using the talkpage to review debates, you are seesneitally circumventing the usual dispute resolutin processses and simply using your force of time to control how articles go. thats not fair to either the readers or to the other editors, which is why people like Tarc need to be following the rules instead of going vigilante just because they think that someoen else has allegedly violated the rules. User:Smith Jones 16:45, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

It won't kill Tarc to sit out a few more hours. However, if I had been handling the block review, I would have reduced the block.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:48, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

(ecx2):The 3RR rule is fine the way it is. I think a 3RR exemption for reverting to the consensus version is a really bad idea and could possibly give a great deal of leverage to editors owning articles. Anyway, this is not the place to discuss policy changes.--Atlan (talk) 16:49, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that is a really bad idea, the assumption and guarding on grounds of consensus is nothing more than a way to control an article. Regarding Tarcs block, the guy that brought the case even talked to him first and then after explaining it to him then offered not to report him if he reverted his last edit, I should be so lucky to get so many chances. Looking at the comments he has put in his unblock request he still hasn't got the point. (Off2riorob (talk) 16:54, 10 August 2009 (UTC))

• There are several things going on at the same time. First, guarding against disruptive edits and fringe opinions is a fine thing to do. Editors who wish to change the content on a page are welcome within reason and within guidelines to present their proposal and try to gain consensus for a change, but talk of article ownership, abuse, etc., is not very helpful - it's really an unfounded accusation of bad faith and it's not going to go anywhere. Second, Saturn's edits to promote fringe birther theories and generally disparage Obama in the past few weeks have been problematic, and go to the very reason for Obama article probation in the first place. An incident Saturn started landed on this page a couple days ago and indirectly resulted in a couple blocks that are now before Arbcom. Sooner or later Saturn is going to have to tone it way down on edit wars and civility. Third, Tarc indeed violated 3RR and should not have done so even to oppose what Tarc thought of as (and which I agree is) poorly sourced POV editing. On the technicalities, Saturn was within his rights to file the 3RR report, gave Tarc the courtesy of a notice and opportunity to self-revert, and only filed the report when Tarc refused. Tarc made the common mistake of thinking that reversions of different pieces of text do not count towards 3RR. However, I don't see any reason to keep the block if Tarc says it won't happen again - blocks are preventive, not punishment. Fourth and finally, it is too bad whenever someone gets blocked for good faith efforts to maintain the article when they're right on the content. Not because it's okay to edit war - no matter what the content is, as long as it's not vandalism, copyvios, or gross BLP violations, it's always best to avoid editing confrontations. The problem is that most good editors who stay on the topic area long enough will end up with bruises and blemishes from scrapes with problematic editors. We've had some terribly manipulative editors on the Obama pages, the worst being some extensive sock farms run by puppetmaster(s?) that got better and better at wikigaming. They point to the block histories as a vindication. It would have been far better for an administrator to warn Tarc away. Anyway, the take home is that Tarc ought to be unblocked upon promising not to further edit war, and we should encourage Saturn to try to get along.Wikidemon (talk) 17:17, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

This edit tells you all you need to know about the POV-pushing shenanigans that Saturn is up to. Baseball Bugs carrots 17:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Are you calling shenanigans? I agree that this statement suggests a particular opinion about the birther movement, namely that it makes a legitimate claim questioning Obama's citizenship, birth, eligibility, etc. The opinion that this is a respectable question can lead to some disagreement about how the material should be presented. However, everyone is entitled to an opinion, nothing wrong with that. As long as you can edit collaboratively with others, you can believe whatever you want. If you're not editing in a collegial way, sometimes it's best to leave it at that and not look too deeply for what's in someone's heart of hearts. Wikidemon (talk) 18:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I was a bit severe in my assesment. It is his first block after almost 6000 edits. If he wrote an unblock request understanding and accepting why he was blocked I could support the unblock, not that my opinion carries weight. I also appreciate wikidemons added insights. (Off2riorob (talk) 18:44, 10 August 2009 (UTC))

Based on discussion here, and my own experience with Tarc (we don't always agree, but he has clue), I've reduced the length of the block and he should be unblocked about right now.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:06, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I've got a problem with the initial block. 2 of the 4 'reverts' listed in the 3RR report weren't actually substantive, repeated reverts of content. The first 'revert' was never repeated (the bit about Pat Boone) and the second and third reverts are two different portions of a sentence. the fourth revert is an honest to god revert to the third (though additional content has been added in between). I know that 3RR isn't an entitlement, but this seems to have been a case where we treated 3RR like a tripwire and automatically blocked Tarc without looking at the totality of the situation. I'm sure the blocking admin disagrees, but I feel the initial block didn't reflect the content of the posted diffs to 3rr. IMO, there was no vio. Protonk (talk) 19:11, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

That's the angle I went with the initial unblock request, I'd always thought that different material didn't stack like that, and certainly #1 shouldn't have counted at all as it was effectively a plain edit, and in a different section of the article entirely. There goes my clean block log, though. Its like a sharpnel wound rather than a direct hit, so I'll wear it like one of John Kerry's purple hearts. ;) Tarc (talk) 19:23, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes welcome back Tarc, a small lesson learnt, take care not to get into too much trouble as they get bigger, regards Off2riorob (talk) 19:33, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

On another note, can an admin evaluate the entry in Misplaced Pages:General sanctions/Obama article probation/Log of sanctions? IMO this was a straight 3RR and really had nothing to do with article probation, but beyond that I don't think it is a great idea to let the complainants put their own spin on the text. I removed the entry with a summary that if an admin wishes to re-add then so be it, but hell, the page hadn't even refreshed and it was already reverted by Saturn. Do we have a stalking issue to deal with now? Cliffsnotes; 1) was this all a part of article probation, and 2) do non-admins get to add block/ban notices? Tarc (talk) 19:40, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• I've reverted the addition. Whether or not the blocking admin feels that it belongs there is up to him/her. Protonk (talk) 19:45, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
  • The page itself was created by a "non-admin" and has a long list of "non-admins" warning to other non-admins or colleague editors. Besides, editors who did not violate 3RR, have been listed there for disruption and the article talk page says it is under the Obama case probation. Even if some people do not consider the first one is a revert, he made one more revert that the report did not list, so Tarc clearly violated 3RR anyway. Unless he is removing vandalism or BLP, well, there is no excuse for 3RR violation in general. The blocking admin just abides the rule. However, it is certainly not a bright idea that William S. Saturn added the log as well as Tarc reverted it as soon as his block was lifted. Given that William S. Saturn first edited the page, the stalking accusation is really dubious. Any third party or blocking admin can add the name, but well, I can see "involved people" added some logs there.--Caspian blue 19:59, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure if that was a response to me, but here goes. It's fine if a non-admin adds folks to the sanctions page. It's not fine if a party to a dispute adds another party. Nothing will come of that but drama. Protonk (talk) 20:06, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
      • • Not specifically directed to you nor Tarc. I said what the page has that edit history.--Caspian blue 20:28, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
      • I think I'm the "non-admin" in question, and I agree with Caspian Blue that we shouldn't read too much into this list. I created the page when I divided the old Obama probation page into several sub-pages and moved them from article talk space to[REDACTED] space under the general sanctions page. I'm one of several editors who have regularly added reports to the log of sanctions, and I've been fairly haphazard in deciding what to add. There are plenty of blocks and bans that were for things like sockpuppetry and 3RR that did not follow the Obama probation path. But also there have been sanctions that nobody bothered to record. As it stands the log is mainly useful for keeping a record of Obama-related article problems and gauging the level of trouble over time. I've tried to separate out simple vandalism, trolling, and sockpuppetry because those sanctions aren't controversial and don't have much to do with article probation. If we want it to be more of an official log we should start a new section that's reserved only for actions where the administrator in question issues the sanction with reference to article probation. Wikidemon (talk) 20:16, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
        • Done - going forward we shouldn't have any question about official versus unofficial logs. It still makes sense to compile in one place the the disruption issues on Obama pages, but at the same time adding someone's name to the list should not be used as a mean to shame them (except in the case of trolls / socks / vandals, where it is helpful to be able to quickly identify past offenders who have returned). Wikidemon (talk) 20:28, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Nobody is addressing the fact that the Obama articles are under special probation due to repeated contentious edits. The edits by Saturn should have led to his being blocked. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 20:07, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• Or maybe start with a warning? I'm not sure that an authoritative neutral administrator has ever asked him to chill out. Wikidemon (talk) 20:16, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• • • Er, a solitary edit on the sanction page is not "edit warring", caspian. Also, that last edit you linked was many hours after the fact, as well as being a reversion of clearly problematic material ,if not plain vandalism. You did look at what that edit actually, y'know, edited, didn't you? It can be more clearly seen here that I removed the labeling of the Obama's opponents as "lunatic fringe activists", as well as the removal of some original research-ish editorializing casting aspersions on McCain's "is he or isn't he natural-born?" case. Tarc (talk) 20:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
      • I modified to the phrase "edit war" to "revert" per you request.--Caspian blue 20:28, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Slavery in ancient Greece

An IP has done several removals in a row on the article, and it would be tedious for me to undo them all. Would some admin do it, please, and see about the editing pattern of Special:Contributions/72.83.124.187? --Milkbreath (talk) 10:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

His only changes are to remove the word "pseudo" in front of either Plato or Aristotle on four occasions. Is this not correct? I would not have thought that would be too tiresome to remove, and rollback is inappropriate as the edits appear to be good faith. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 10:34, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

You assume that I want to be bothered, and that I'm good at any of this, and that I know that your "rollback" is any more trouble than typing what you've typed here. For future reference, assuming I know anything is starting off on the wrong foot. Yes, the "pseudos" belong, just as the "OMG, it's so awesome" he put in another article (which I can't seem to undo, strangely) does not. --Milkbreath (talk) 10:40, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Pardon? Perhaps you can't undo the 'awesome' edit because someone else removed it two weeks ago? Rollback is for removing vandalism - this did not look like vandalism. Have you considered adding WP:TWINKLE to your gadgets. This will allow you to revert multiple edits while using an edit summary. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 10:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I have removed the IP edits using Twinkle, and left a welcome note on the editor's talk page. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 11:00, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Yet another editor pretending to be an administrator

44 sweet (talk · contribs) has added him/her self to the Administrators' category and the Administrators willing to make difficult blocks category. I'm not sure what action is appropriate here. They've also been removing the blocked template from User:Bigen182, Dougweller (talk) 10:41, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Eh. If he keeps readding it then we would have cause for concern, but I'd say to keep an eye out, considering this gem of an edit. \ Backslash Forwardslash / {talk} 11:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

lulz .. well, I left a note - hopefully he'll "get it". — Ched :  ?  11:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Or doling out page move warnings for a user that hasn't moved a page since June. Looks like a POS account. seicer | talk | contribs 11:51, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Do we need Category:Non-administrators willing to make difficult unblocks? Hans Adler 12:36, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

As supreme ruler of wikipedia, I'll be happy to deal with this. --Cameron Scott (talk) 12:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Your Majesty -- Deville (Talk) 14:04, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I see he has Twinkle - I'd take it away if I knew how and wasn't scared that the supreme ruler would get cross or I'd start another 'adminz be bad guyz and abuse me' thread. Dougweller (talk) 15:32, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

 Note: Twinkle revoked. Nja 22:11, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, somebody is going to have to tell Jimbo that he's been replaced, when he gets back from vacation. "All hail the new king" — Ched :  ?  16:07, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Where are the Rouge Admins when you need one? Edison (talk) 19:41, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, wasn't paying attention. You need Jimbo blocked again, or is the main page thing again?--Wehwalt (talk) 20:57, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

←Sorry, I meant to post this last night, but I removed the two categories and left him a note on his talk, followed by a longer (and nicer, I might add) note from Ched. I agree with \ /, if he continues to act this way, then further sanctions would ensue. Otherwise, I think it's settled for now. →javért 22:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

User:PProctor

Articles related to organic metals are potentially highly visible since this area was recognized with a Nobel Prize a few years ago. This article and some related ones are closely policed by User:Pproctor. PProctor is apparently the embittered student of a John McGinness (one-time nominee for deletion for non-notability, authored by PProctor). McGinness is not mentioned in the Nobel presentations. Proctor also emphasizes other minor contributions in an apparent ploy to detract from the contributions from the Nobel Prize winners. I have tried to edit in this space, but I dont really have the time and few other editors have expertise in this topic, much less the stamina to duel with the skillful and persistent PProctor. PProctor is something of a conspiracy theorist in his other edits. The situation has prevailed for many years, which is unfortunate because again, as the Nobel committee tried to communicate, the area is an important one in the scientific community. My recommendation: that PProctor be banned from editing on topics related to organic metals. The justification for the ban would be conflict of interest. Thanks,--Smokefoot (talk) 13:57, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

There does seem to be some evidence of WP:OWNing going on there. This reversion looks like the editor has positioned him/herself as a gatekeeper. This looks like a pretty messy situation around specific technical material. Toddst1 (talk) 14:25, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The material is pretty technical and "simple" efforts to rectify the situation be reverting various of PProctor's edits will be unsatisfactory. PProctor has owned these articles for so many years that his strange views are woven deeply into the fabric of this and related articles. The phase of having skillful, non-technical editors swooping into this space is long passed and such admins will be foiled by PProctor's well-honed tactics and scientific jargonology. The problem is intractable. Sorry for the bad news.--Smokefoot (talk) 14:48, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok. You'll need to prepare a pretty detailed case then if you want the editor restricted. Toddst1 (talk) 15:35, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Advice please

Following the handy guide at the top of the submission page here - kudos on that BTW - I filed Misplaced Pages:Wikiquette alerts#Help with personal attack which is now being recommended to being sent here. Should it be and if so how should it happen? -- Banjeboi 14:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Looked very quickly - one more comment like that should earn the editor an "indef" vacation. Full Stop. — Ched :  ?  15:49, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

So ... does anything need to be done? Should the WQA be deferred to here or this thread to there or ? -- Banjeboi 21:11, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

No edits from that account since you posted the Wqa and he was warned. I would think, let an admin know if it happens again and cite both the Wqa and this thread. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:19, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Is Crowley-Gates an Obama related page?

I hope this is the right venue for this question. (Please advise!)

I have a request for clarification with regard to Obama article probation and the Gatesgate/"beer summit" article (more properly the Henry Louis Gates arrest incident); for example, specifically, Are discussions about the White House get together with officer Gates, Obama's friend Professor Gates and the president subject to its strictures? (We are also in the midst of a discussing of this matter on our talkpage here: Talk:Henry Louis Gates arrest incident#Note: Features of "Obama article probation" that pertain to this page.)

Note that I'd especially be interested in hearing input from admins and editors with experience with Obama article probation issues, however anyone's opinion will be appreciated. Thanks. (Oh and furthermore there very recently was a thread on ani/3r concerning the incessant edit warring that has been going on on the page with regard to what phrase to use to refer to the White House meeting between Gates, Crowly, and the president; this edit warring has spilled over into the article's talkpage, filling it up somewhat with discussions of editor conduct rather than strictly concerning issues about article content.) ↜Just M E here , now 14:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Is someone seriously questioning whether the article on the meeting between Obama's friend, Obama, and a cop Obama insulted, related to Obama? I'm gonna have to go with "YES". I would think it was painfully obvious that meetings involving a person were involving that person, but maybe I'm wrong. Padillah (talk) 14:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

There was a ruling on it recently, and the answer was, "Yes, it is Obama-related," and hence it falls under the arbcom decisions on Obama-related pages. Baseball Bugs carrots 14:49, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment I think the question is badly phrased. Justmeheremow placed the article on Article Probation, and was reversed. I would imagine that if the outcome of this discussion is to say the article is Obama-related, he will do so again. That is the wrong question. The question is, should this article be placed on article probation? That should be faced squarely, not gotten in through the back door. Not all Obama related articles are on article probation, you know--Wehwalt (talk) 14:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'll rephrase the question. Thanks, Wehwalt. ↜Just M E here , now 14:56, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Suggest that you do it under a new heading and close this topic to avoid confusion.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:59, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

OK. ↜Just M E here , now 15:00, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I think hiding it and continuing in place is better. –xeno 15:07, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thread poster objected, so unhidden and split. –xeno 15:31, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Should Henry Louis Gates arrest incident be on article probation?

With regard Obama article probation and the Gatesgate/"beer summit" article (more properly the Henry Louis Gates arrest incident) -- for example, Shouldn't discussions about the White House get together with officer Gates, Obama's friend Professor Gates and the president subject to its strictures? We are in the midst of a discussing of this matter on our talkpage here: Talk:Henry Louis Gates arrest incident#Note: Features of "Obama article probation" that pertain to this page.

Note that I'd especially be interested in hearing input from admins and editors with experience with Obama article probation issues, however anyone's opinion will be appreciated. Thanks. (Also there very recently was a thread on ani/3r concerning the incessant edit warring that has been going on on the page with regard to what phrase to use to refer to the White House meeting between Gates, Crowly, and the president; this edit warring has spilled over into the article's talkpage, filling it up somewhat with discussions of editor conduct rather than strictly concerning issues about article content.) ↜Just M E here , now 15:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

FYI, I removed the probation tag because it was placed by a non-administrator. A probation tag should be placed by someone willing to enforce it, imo. I'm not too familiar with this though, so no prejudice to someone putting it back if that is faulty reasoning and/or an administrator steps forward to oversee the page. –xeno 14:42, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The probation is for Obama-related articles "broadly construed". The only reason anyone cares about this incident is because President Obama spoke about it at his press conference. So I would say yes, the probation should definitely apply. (This is without looking at the talk page to see what the particular issue is.) But in general, it should apply. --B (talk) 15:12, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

What? This was big news before Obama stuck his oar in.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

It was on the news, but it wasn't a full media circus. The Q&A at the press conference took it from being an "oh and by the way" news item to the lead item on every broadcast. Obama is an integral part of the story. --B (talk) 15:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Oppose I've monitored the page since near the beginning and weighed in now and then. I don't think there's anything on the page that normal measures can't handle.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:13, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

As B points out and as noted here, under the terms of the community-imposed measures to deal with Obama articles, "Pages related to Barack Obama (broadly construed) are subject to the following terms of article probation." In my view at least this is not particularly up to debate—the Gates affair is clearly Obama-related if we construe that phrase broadly, even though it would still have been a major issue had Obama not become so directly involved.

Ultimately putting this article on probation is not that big of a deal. It simply allows admins more latitude to deal with problems if they come up, and forces editors there to be more careful about civility and edit warring, which is not a bad thing and could actually prevent problems. If there are no real problems on the page right now (I have not checked), then admin enforcement won't really be needed, and the fact that the article is "on probation" won't really matter. If problems arise then it will be easier to deal with them. To my mind at least, it's best to avoid picking and choosing what articles are on probation or not and simply take "broadly construed" at face value. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 15:22, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The probation puts editors in some pretty tight handcuffs. What about applying it only to the (so-called) "beer summit" section? –xeno 15:29, 10 August 2009 (UTC) Striking portion. I thought this was one of those tighter restrictions with 1RR across the board and the like. The handcuffs aren't that tight. –xeno 15:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd be worried about that causing too much wikilawyering. It really needs to be all or nothing. --B (talk) 15:31, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, anything is up for discussion. The fact that the community has placed all Obama-related articles on probation can be revisited at any time. But under the current rule, as it exists, the article is on probation and it's not really an arguable point. If the community wants to make an exception for it or change the rule, that, of course, is an option. Also, Xeno makes a very good point that unless one or more admins care about it enough to enforce the probation (which I can't commit to regularly monitoring), it's rather moot. --B (talk) 15:31, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Well I don't think we're revisiting the topic of Obama article probation here, though of course we could. And obviously we need admins to do the enforcing should that become necessary. But whether an admin is watching the page now is not really relevant. If the article is on probation, and I think it should be obviously, and then if problems come up and no admin is there helping out, an editor working on the page could post a note here on ANI saying, "trouble at Henry Louis Gates arrest incident, could an admin come over and help enforce Obama article probation." I think we're making this a bit more difficult than we need to. I don't think being on probation is that big of a deal (I would disagree that it "puts editors in some pretty tight handcuffs"—if you don't edit war or behave in an uncivil fashion, which you should not be doing anyway, you have no problems, and anyway you would always be warned first if there was a problem) or that it will hurt article work in some way. If it's not needed, great, but if a mess erupts over there it's clear at the outset that administrators can handle the problems under the terms of the Obama probation, and the very fact that the rules are a bit tighter could help prevent problems before they arise. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 15:42, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, by that logic, it would be cool to apply the terms project wide.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm game! (seriously) ↜Just M E here , now 20:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• Commment - there is no requirement for prior consensus, or administrator approval, before adding Obama article probation notices to pages. I disagree that there are any "handcuffs" associated with being on probation - it just requires good behavior of the sort that editors should be showing anywhere. However, if there is a consensus against a page being on probation, or if the probation just doesn't fit the page, it shouldn't apply. Despite the "broadly construed" language, Obama probation has so far been applied only to specific pages that are mainly about Obama (or his administration, family, career, books by or about him, etc) - it has not been applied to articles about other people and things that happen to contain sections and topics relating to Obama. That would argue against applying probation to the Gates page. We may want to consider that because the problems (the same editors and the same problems) tend to go from one page to another, so it might make more sense as a topic probation than article probation. I would favor that but I think it's something we ought to discuss first. Wikidemon (talk) 15:34, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Are there any other articles that are analogous to this one in terms of Obama's relationship to the subject that are not considered to be on probation? --B (talk) 15:36, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
    • As far as I know, no. The probation tag has only been applied to half a dozen articles or so, and they were all directly related to Obama. There are probably some other pages generally assumed to fall under probation but without a tag - again, very closely related. Wikidemon (talk) 15:43, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
      • I think there are any number of articles which probably could/should be considered Obama-related but are not tagged. I'm guessing the only articles tagged are the most obvious ones, like Presidency of Barack Obama, and perhaps some where particular problems have cropped up. I don't think we need to go through and systematically tag every Obama-related article (and obviously an article is not officially "under probation" until it is tagged), but if someone, as is happening here, thinks an article should be under probation and if on the face it is Obama-related, then let's go ahead and put it on probation. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 15:53, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

In a sort of procedural question, Shouldn't we try to discuss whether the article is already on probation in the 1st part of this discussion, only concentrating on whether it should be, in this secondary part? Unless both issues will likely become intermingled in any case. In fact -- Never mind....

Come to think of it, the whole question is resolved, since BigTimePeace is the premiere admin with concern Obama related pages' probation and obviously doesn't mind if this page is added. Anyone agree with my assessment that therefore this is a done deal, or are there related issues, ramifications, procedural issues and whatnot and so on that will still need to be worked out? In other words, should I put the notice back up on the article's talkpage or not?

• From what I understand the operation of the probation, there's really nothing officially much different than normal, it's just that editing behavioral guidelines are simply watched more stringently, am I right? For example, with regard to edit warring, taunting, etc., we'd tend to template a drive-by contributor who threadjacks with a personal comment or does a 2nd revert (which is already assuming bad faith or edit warring, technically, but can now be stringently enforced on such a page) with an extremely polite warning telling them there's zero bad behavoir allowed on the page, under probation (with no indulgences granted to long-time editors believing themselves "just protecting the page," so as not to allow unfairness issues to arise). And instead of clogging up the page with inter-editor issues, these can be relegated to user talkpages or to "Obama articles probation" subpages, right? ↜Just M E here , now 16:32, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
• I don't see any necessity to probation the article, there is nothing going on there that shows me that it needs extra control. Off2riorob (talk) 16:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• For me, the compelling evidence about what gets covered by the Obama restrictions are the actions of the editors at those articles. Once an article starts to receive the same sorts of wacky conspiracy theorists and revisionists that led to the restrictions in the first place, that's when the restrictions appear. Insofar as the articles in question have not become targets, then I see no reason to extend the probabtion. However, the sorts of editors who the probation targets have a long history of testing the boundaries of the probation by finding new and increasingly esoteric articles in which to push their agenda. Insofar as these articles have not become a target, then they are not covered by the probation. However, this is not a permanent state; the probation extends to any article which displays the sort of problems that led to the probation as soon as the problems arise. --Jayron32 19:00, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
  • That sounds like a very reasonable answer/policy. --B (talk) 20:04, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Uncyclopedia vandalism from User:Euclidthegreek

Euclidthegreek (talk · contribs)

This user is repeatedly attempting to import uncyclopedia nonsense. He has attempted to make "Euclidthegreek/AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA..." and "User:Euclidthegreek/There is no article here"; both copy pastings of Uncyclopedia pages. He has also attempted to vandalize mainspace as seen here and created vandalism pages at Jimbo II of Misplaced Pages and Tiny Cube. After a final warning for vandalism, he created the redirect "WP:ONWHEELS". There is a fine line between being funny and being blatantly unconstructive. Triplestop x3 15:29, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm having a tough time imagining this user being very productive. Does anyone have enough of a math background to know whether his dodecahedron-related changed are correct or are they rubbish? --B (talk) 15:34, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

User(s) blocked: 31 hours (talk · contribs).. Since the editor had only received a single warning, I opted to AGF and give them a final chance before being blocked indefinitely. — Kralizec! (talk) 15:42, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The user claims to be this disruptive IP I reported a few days ago. Celestra (talk) 15:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Israel Project

There seems to be an organized effort to remove criticism at Israel Project. (See previous Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive556#Anon_self-identifies_as_involved_editor.2C_deletes_material_embarassing_to_The_Israel_Project) Edits are coming either from anons or from new single-purpose accounts.

• 94.188.130.146 (talk · contribs) - self identifies as "I am in charge of the web department at The Israel Project." Section blanking.
• 84.228.211.216 (talk · contribs) - edit comments read "I am the Web director at the Israel Project. Please stop accepting hate edits abour our group." Section blanking.
• 66.208.24.163 (talk · contribs) - section blanking of same section as above.
• Freebloggers (talk · contribs) - currently edit warring, 3RR problem. See . --John Nagle (talk) 15:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Request 48 hours of semi-protection to quiet down the changes by anons. --John Nagle (talk) 16:23, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

A checkuser for these would result in "probably" (and confirmed for the latter 2). --jpgordon 20:28, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Block of Antihijacker

I have indefinitely blocked Antihijacker (talk · contribs) for harassing Jorfer (talk · contribs). I'm reasonably sure that Antihijacker is the anon IP who was repeatedly vandalizing Jorfer's home page yesterday. As Antihijacker's edits, taken out of context, might appear innocent to some observers, I am bringing the block here for review. -- Donald Albury 16:57, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

He has also vandalized others, if this is the same person. - Denimadept (talk) 17:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Endorse block. Toddst1 (talk) 18:45, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Any idea who User:Gregor8159 is, who removed this thread and a related one at User talk:Jorfer?--Atlan (talk) 19:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

He's blocked, that's who he is, as a sock of none other than Antihijacker. -Jeremy 20:07, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I suspecy Kinkyplays (talk · contribs) is another sock. --bonadea contributions talk 20:13, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I now have also seen User:Beardedmanners who may be involved with this. - Denimadept (talk) 20:30, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Blocked all, range blocked temporarily. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 20:38, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Legal threat

. And take a look at that editor's edits. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 20:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Fairly civil, he didn't threaten to break the other guy's legs with a lead pipe.Goodmorningworld (talk) 21:55, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, most legal threats don't involve leg breaking. I fail to see your point. Anyway, this was a pretty veiled threat, if it even was one. I don't know if any action is required.--Atlan (talk) 22:08, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

How veiled is I won't see to it that you are indicted for Obstruction of Justice? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 22:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec) It's also a few days old. Looking at the IP's edits, I'm guessing he has a fair amount of tinfoil on the grocery bill, so perhaps best ignored for the moment? Tony Fox (arf!) 22:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The threat is a few days old, but the user continues to edit up to and including today, and has not retracted the threat. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 22:17, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Seems loony tunes and harmless. If you really want the ip blocked for a while, then I guess we can, but I would just as soon not do anything. Protonk (talk) 22:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I agree that single sentence is not veiled at all, but in context I thought it was pretty meaningless, based on assumptions like Tommy being employed by the government. Whatever the case, I just can't really take this seriously.--Atlan (talk) 22:24, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

← (edit conflict) Public encyclopedia? Somebody better set this IP's mind straight and fast. MuZemike 22:27, 10 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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