Misplaced Pages

Use of inappropriate language by User:Ibn kathir

The User:Ibn.Kathir has been using quite aggressive language; baiting and insulting users. Such language can be categorized as attacks based on race, religion, /creed, etc. The user is continuously refusing to have a constructive dialogue over disputed content on Talk:Aisha despite being urged to do so by various users. Other users have tried to point out during discussion that they are uncomfortable with her/his words but s/he relies on same language. S/He during discussions at various times have used sectarian words discrediting all attempts for abusive in nature. He is too busy in pushing her/his agenda (of discrediting all Western and Shia Muslim sources & is even selective regarding Sunni sources & selection of matter from them, I quote her/him ,"...most published works in the west are either shia sourced or heavily rely on on your perspective since anything positive would obviously be sourced from Sunni primary sources and the west at this point in time is not Islam friendly, their are no other third party perspectives or sources on this issue since it is entirely Islamic...") to respect anyone's opinion &/or Misplaced Pages policies. It seems s/he has set her/his own guidelines and policy regarding acceptable references. Few of his comments are as follows:

• idiocy of the...
• i wont agree to any sunni sources that are quoted or sourced from shia or shia sources...
• turning this into a shia propaganda piece...
• More idiotic shia misquotes...

S/He has consistently shown his hate/dislike towards Shia, Ahmadiya, and western community in general & scholarship in specific. S/He has shown similar behavior on pages Talk:Criticism of Muhammad, Talk:Abu Bakr, etc.
Also, it seems User:Ibn.Kathir is employing sockpupputs to advance her/his cause, e.g. User:Ewpfpod, User:Howard.Thomas, User:Zaza8675, User:Jparrott1908, User:UmHasan, User:Markajalanraya, User:Allah1100, User:Rehan45n, User:Markanegara, User:MazzyJazzy, etc
--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haiderc_s 17:08, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Looks like a content dispute, from your explanation. If you think there's sockpuppetry involved, you should file an WP:SPI report. Also, User:Ibn.Kathir doesn't appear to be registered; did you misspell the username? GiftigerWunsch 17:14, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Believe it is Ibn_kathir.--Korruski 17:16, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Informed the user and corrected the username in the thread heading. GiftigerWunsch 17:25, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

"Looks like a content dispute" ? This matter was filed because of bad user conduct, how is;

More idiotic shia misquotes of sunni sources, why dont you just quote from your own books and stop trying to put words in our mouths you seriously have an inferiority complex if you constantly seek our approval like this. Only an idiot would think our scholars havent been over every single hadith with a fine tooth comb in the last 1400 years and suddenly you have discovered something no one else has.

simply a content dispute? Tarc (talk) 17:25, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I invite you to quote the entire sentence; I made it clear I hadn't been able to locate the discussion and that from the quotes the user provided it appeared to be a content dispute. GiftigerWunsch 17:30, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Certainly not a content dispute - civility with perhaps a racism undertone starting. Nothing blockable yet from what I see - of course, this is an issue that should have been at WP:WQA first ... (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 17:34, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, correct name is User:Ibn kathir. And yes it is regarding content dispute but it seems s/he agrees to nothing and keep using allegations and accusations towards users, communities, creeds, etc. I didn't requested for blocking anyone I just reported the happening and my concerns. The attitude of user is blocking activity on Aisha & it seems on other articles also. We have tried to engage the user but s/he refuse to be constructive contributor. --Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haiderc_s 17:40, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

You're right that it's not just a content dispute. I've warned them about crossing the line into abuse, hopefully they will take heed. Fences&Windows 23:42, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

The SPI report was filed on 30 November at Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Ahmed Ghazi by Faizhaider. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 01:47, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Those comments where not aimed at him and meant in the general sense which is different from saying someone is specifically an idiot, further more anyone who can check ip addresses will see i have only one account so i think the person reporting this is doing their utmost to silence any opposition to his views.Ibn kathir (talk) 07:38, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Calling a group of people idiots rather than a specific individual only magnifies the problem. If you are calling more than one person an idiot, its a personal attack against more than one person. It certainly doesn't excuse the behavior. --Jayron32 07:44, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

The way to handle this, Ibn, is don't comment on other editors, comment only on content and how to echo sources in the text. Keep in mind, some sources might not agree with other sources and more than one outlook on a topic can be cited, following WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT. Gwen Gale (talk) 07:52, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

if you read the entire section you may come to think the other persons actions where deliberate considering what i said earlier, hence my outburst, but yes you are right and i will tone it down. Just to clarify something Shia are not a race so their is no racist undertones. Ibn kathir (talk) 08:03, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Some do, sometimes and in some places, see Shia as ethnically linked. Either way, putting down a whole swath of believers in a given strain of faith can be every bit as harmful as a racial slur. Gwen Gale (talk) 08:10, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I never intend to silence any opposition, in contrary I (& others) tried to include user IK into the discussion and tried to address IK's views and comments even if they were opposite to mine (this can be checked by referring to the conversation on Talk:Aisha) but IK insisted on some points which are even contrary to WP standards (infact we were ready to accept that also and we asked for list of references IK will agree but to no avail). I only reported incident to ANI when it became unbearable for me (& to other users) so that corrective measures may be taken.--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haiderc_s 08:12, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

no less hurtful or harmfull than calling Aisha a wretched women, read the comments and you will clearly see that being said prior to anything from myself. She is considered a saint among my people. Ibn kathir (talk) 08:16, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Neither making a religious slur, nor answering with another slur, is on here. It only makes things worse (as seems to have happened). Gwen Gale (talk) 08:21, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I would like to add User:Ibn kathir insulted me as well in Abu Bakr and Islam and Aisha talk pages, and he called my contributions idiotic and garbages .--Aliwiki (talk) 17:14, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

User IK was the first person on Talk:Aisha to use words like idiotic and garbages and down play opinions of others by labeling them fringe/minority belief/opinion and addressing users based on their faith (religion/creed), geography, etc. e.g. Shia, Ahmadiya, Western, etc. User IK opinioned that no reference on the article Aisha is acceptable except Sunni sources that to interpreted by Sunni scholars and used by Sunni users i.e. practically user IK wants to block away all users from article who contradict opinion of User IK based on their faith (religion/creed), geography, etc. User IK is sort of running Non-cooperation movement added with insults and accusations which target whole communities save individuals.--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haiderc_s 17:48, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

a western person cant be anti western, the best muslims i have met in terms of hospitality and respect are the shia of iraq so im not anti shia, labeling something as inherently shia is not anti a community its just stating a fact, and none of what you have said is relevant on this admin board so i dont know what else you are trying to prove. I will concede that the incident played out different in my mind but the time stamps say something else, but as i clearly stated earlier i was reacting to the other users quotes and accusations in which he essentially said Aisha the prophets wife hated her husband and lied about him and then their is this blatant lie in which he claimed the prophet called his own wife "The spearhead of disbelief and the horn of Satan” i know the full context of the hadith and its explanation by experts in exegesis and it has nothing to do with Aisha, but again this has nothing to do with the admin board.

Ibn kathir (talk) 07:50, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I just wanted to add prior to the quotes i had advised the other editor that primary research would not be accepted and pointed him to the relevant wiki policy of primary research after which he thanked me for the advise and said i had made matters easier for him and not long after he quotes what i stated and said the above, i thought it was a deliberate attack against her. Ibn kathir (talk) 07:54, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

User Ibn Kathir, what was written in Aisha page, were from prominent western secondary sources. That western orientalists have reported Aisha's life the way you don't like is not problem of Shia, it's your problem, and you can not solve this problem by insulting Shia users.--Aliwiki (talk) 12:24, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

i dont know what you are talking about, random comments about things i haven't spoken about wont increase the likely hood of me being banned. Ibn kathir (talk) 07:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Recent comment of Ibn kathir at talk page of Aisha reveals user's stand, I quote user's comment on discusion page hereunder:

lets make things clear i wont agree to shia interpretations of sunni primary sources, i think that can be used as a baseline.

— Ibn kathir (talk) 07:41, 9 December 2010 (UTC), Talk:Aisha

Preceedings discussion can be reffered to see that user is dicrediting WP policies/guidelines/conventions and general consensus and suggestions given to User on various paltforms including thisand user is persistent in not having a constructive work or allowing it (if not involved atleast) to counter user is consistently threatning to block any further activity (thiks gor some sort of veto power & that everybody is obliged to consider and act accordingly). In my precceding comment I specifically said that, "I didn't requested for blocking", but now, imo a corrective action is needed. --Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haiderc_s 08:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

User:The Fat Man Who Never Came Back

User:QuackGuru

QuackGuru (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) appears to be a fairly disruptive editor. He has a strong POV on various issues, often seems not to understand policy, and is a serial reverter. He was blocked 11 times between 2007 and 2009 for edit warring, including one indefinite block. Nowadays he reverts up to 3RR, then stops to avoid a block.

The problem is that he immediately deletes all posts from his talk page, which means it's difficult for others to see the pattern of complaints about him. I know editors have broad leeway on their talk pages, but this has reached the point of being disruptive. Looking through the history, there seems to be one warning after another, all removed instantly. Should we require him to leave messages in place for a minimum period—say, two weeks? SlimVirgin 21:18, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable, I have left a 3RR note on his talkpage today as he reverted at Jimmy Wales three times without any discussion at all. He just deleted it immediately and left me a template when I had only a single revert to the Jimmy Wales article, clearly misusing the template completely. Off2riorob (talk) 21:31, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I know that you know that 3RR is a bright line rather than an allowance, so have you reported this editor to the 3RR page? There are folks there who are presumably adept at seeing gaming of the restriction. LHvU (talk) 21:37, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

He made three reverts without a single word of discussion, and then when I warned him about it he left me a warning, I imagine some administrators would have blocked but I didn't make a report there. I would have immediately if he had reverted after my warning. Off2riorob (talk) 21:44, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

SV appears to indicate that this is a pattern, and I am suggesting (I was using my LHvU account just above) that such behaviour may get more traction if reported to the 3RR board. As for your example, a single or infrequent incident may not be sufficient to draw a sanction and the removal of a warning is taken as evidence it had been read. The subsequent action of templating you is not appropriate, but again it is more serious if it can be shown as part of a pattern of disruptive/dismissive behaviours (recent, or ongoing per SV's commentary about the block history from 2007 - 09). LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:10, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I did prepare a report for 3RR, showing three reverts on the 4th and three on the 6th at Jimmy Wales, but I ended up not posting it. The point about the talk page is that, when you encounter problems with him, you look at his talk page and there's no indication that others are having similar problems, because he blanks after each post. If he were required to leave the posts in place, it might give him pause for thought before causing another editor to feel the same way. And it would make it easier for admins to track just how troublesome he's being. SlimVirgin 22:15, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

There was a recent AN/I complaint from another editor about the talk-page issue (among other things) here. SlimVirgin 22:21, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Seems like an issue to be dealt with via a well-prepared RfC/U. QuackGuru does deal with a large number of COI-laden fringe editors, so it's no wonder they get into disputes. Fences&Windows 22:53, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

RfC/U would be fine, but I would strongly support a requirement that he/she not delete anything from his talk page in the interim. The latitude given to users in this regard is clearly being abused. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 23:26, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

This would seem to be a departure from normal Misplaced Pages practice. It has long been held that deleting any message from one's own talk page is permitted at any time; a user talk page is intended as a tool for communicating with a user, not as a record of warnings, punishments, or scarlet letters. If a user has a history of disruptive conduct then there are appropriate processes for dealing with that (RfC/U, per F&W, falls into this category, as would reports of recurring edit warring to AN/EW), but demanding that he retain a list of transgressions on his talk page for all to see isn't one of them. +TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:29, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any rule that requires either retaining anything in particular on one's talk page (beyond certain notices), nor that the user have an archival process set up. The page's history is effectively the archive. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:51, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I suppose that if we particularly wanted a convenient record, someone could create one out of the history (and perhaps someone might choose to, as an illustration, if another RFC is put in place). But while I'm aware of the extra hassle QG's practice imposes on the editors that are communicating with him, I'm not sure that he's really doing anything "wrong" or that this board should be handling. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:56, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

It's just that, as you say, talk pages are for communicating, and constantly blanking is hindering that. They're not intended solely for communicating with the editor; it that were the case, we could just use email. There's an assumption of community communication, even if the editor is allowed to control it to a large extent. SlimVirgin 00:08, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Way back when, I was told that just zapping stuff from my talk page was extremely impolite, even though not technically against the rules. It seems that that sentiment has slid quite a bit since then, but it still turns up. Maybe there should be some more formal rules? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:42, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

The practice used to be (don't know whether it was written down) that you could do what you wanted with your talk page, so long as you weren't removing warnings too quickly that admins might need to see. A point would arrive where that was deemed disruptive, and an admin would arrive to restore them. Over time we've allowed more leeway, but I still think QuackGuru is on the wrong side of wherever the line is, because he effectively has no talk page. You post there, and it disappears, and reconstructing the thing from the history would be a fair bit of work. SlimVirgin 00:59, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I've been around for about as long as you have, SV, and I don't recall that ever being our usual practice. For as long as I can remember, we've been telling new admins who come to AN/I complaining that their warnings are being erased to quit edit warring on user's talk pages, and accept that the deletion of a message can be considered an acknowledgement that it was read. If an editor doesn't wish to engage in informal dispute resolution on his own talk page, there's no way to compel him to. It's up to the complainant to escalate to a higher level if there are unresolved issues requiring administrator intervention. User talk pages are for communication with that user, not with any hypothetical admins who might happen by in the future. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:10, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

If user talk pages were only for communication with that user, we wouldn't need them. We could just e-mail instead. The reason people often insist that issues be posted to talk pages, and not privately, is precisely because the community reads and to some extent has a stake in what goes on, which is why we don't delete user talk as a rule. He's not removing his own posts, but other people's. SlimVirgin 02:36, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

What, this issue comes again so soon? Not two days ago I said on this page: ...WP:BLANKING states "Policy does not prohibit users, whether registered or anonymous users, from removing comments from their own talk pages, although archiving is preferred." I've always felt that users should be permitted to remove comments they really don't want on their page, but routinely removing all comments, instead of archiving, seems counter to the communicative purpose of a user talk page, and in practice often has a certain chilling effect on discussion. If someone agrees with that, perhaps they could suggest (at the appropriate talk page) some kind of clarificatory amendment to the policy. ... PS TenOfAllTrades, if a user talk page is like email, it's not like 1-to-1 email, it's like a discussion list with many viewers, even if the conversation is only between 2 people. Either of those people deleting emails from everyone's inbox because they've been read is about as helpful as deleting talk messages. Rd232 02:00, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

TAIT, you are describing a fairly recent (past few years or so) development. Further back, users were not allowed to remove warnings from their talkpages. That caused enough useless drama that the practice gradually shifted to the idea that if a user removes a warning, that means they saw the warning, so it can be used against them. So practice in that area has been fluid. Obviously in some cases, keeping the conversations visible for a while helps manage ongoing disruption. So now we're seeing a situation (see the thing with Editor182 last night e.g.) where users can remove notices unless they get a formal restriction to leave the conversations up. An alternative way to manage the disruption would be to ban the user completely, so if they prefer that to getting a talkpage restriction, it can probably be worked out. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 01:24, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I think that while QuackGuru may technically be allowed to empty his talkpage and respond in edit summaries, it is part of a greater pattern of edit warring, deliberate misunderstanding of others, and POV pushing. We've now been in discussion for >1 week at vertebral artery dissection about how much weight to lend to isolated reports about deaths from chiropractic. I have provided two arguments (both based on WP:WEIGHT) that there reports are too infrequent. QuackGuru has managed not to address these despite repeated requests, and continues to insert "his content", including unrelated article text that was removed for legitimate reasons.

I see a general pattern of WP:POINT, and I'm getting a bit weary (on the VAD article) of having to edit under fire. JFW | T@lk 06:16, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

QG has done this for a long time, and it has the effect of "avoiding the scrutiny of other editors". Recreating the content of his talk page would be a real pain, IOW he's creating an obstruction to the process of figuring out what he's up to, and that's just plain an abuse of the right to delete content on one's talk page. He may have the "right" to do it, but that doesn't make it "right". The talk page is intended for real communication, but that is made impossible when he only responds in short edit summaries that often don't really address the matter, and are definitely not a real conversation, as is necessary for true collaboration. He's not a collaborative editor but a solo loose canon and often makes edits of controversial material that is under discussion, well knowing the discussion isn't finished (because he is making comments). He makes edits and claims "consensus" in the edit summary when no other editor has even hinted that there is a consensus or that the discussion is finished. It's a pattern that's been going on for years. I often stay away from such discussions because I know he can tie us up for literally months on small details. He'll make comments that show he's playing IDHT and he doesn't really respond to other's concerns in a constructive way. I AGF by assuming he's not taking his medicine. That's the BEST interpretation I can give this matter. His block log speaks for itself. He's given an unusually long leash for some reason and it needs to stop. -- Brangifer (talk) 08:16, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree on this - every interaction I've had with QuackGuru has been a pure contest of wills. He has a predefined idea of how things should be, and he doesn't respond to comments made by others: he simply repeats his points with an adamant insistence that they are obvious universal truths, and gets progressively more angry if he can't get his way. If[REDACTED] is serious about being a consensus system, then something has to be done about editors like QG - consensus discussions are almost impossible where he is active on a page.

I don't know what causes these problems. Sometimes I suspect there's an ESL issue - his language structure (on those relatively rare occasions where he types a full sentence) reminds me of some of the speech patterns I've seen in immigrants from eastern Europe - but other times I think it's an intentional tactic (or at least a very deep resistance to accepting any sort of compromise). If it were up to me, I'd suggest mandatory mentorship, because the only way QG is going to get past this is to have someone sit down and teach him the basics of civil, communicative discourse. Is there anyone who would be willing to do that, and any way to convince QG that he needs to accept it? --Ludwigs2 08:53, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd say the behavioral issues at the mentioned articles are sufficient to justify some sort of administrative action, there's really no need to try to get him on the talk page thing. If it is long-standing policy/practice to let users rule their talk pages as they will, this isn't the forum to try to change that. Tarc (talk) 14:13, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

• Only so you know, User_talk:Editor182 has lately been put on a very tight talk page archiving (no blanking) restriction as a condition for unblocking. Admin sanctions like this are ok so long as they can be appealed at ANI. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:22, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
• I absolutely agree that there are behavioral issues but I don't agree that there is a need to change talk page requirements here; I think it's downright wrong. If you can't communicate with the editor after more than one attempt, then that's what dispute resolution exists for; it's pure laziness if what is happening is that we're looking for ways to avoid it. If what is being alleged is that an editor is removing the original post and just retaining his reply (which could easily mislead users regarding what was originally said - especially if an editor is pretending to summarise what was said), then that's a separate problem altogether, and it's not permissible under policy to begin with. And hypothetically, for dodgy restrictions, you'd better hope that editors under such restrictions don't appeal. Hypothetically, if those restrictions are still in place, it's purely to encourage a new editor to be more responsive; hypothetically, should they dispute it after behaving, they will get assistance to have it overturned through whatever means necessary - and the outcome won't be a mere 'inconvenience' anymore, especially if particular administrators are trying to find ways to unilaterally impose sanctions in a manner that they have previously been warned about. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:13, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, yes, this is why it's so very important to let such an editor know they can always appeal at ANI. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:56, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

My point is that the appeal would not be limited to ANI if this has been an issue before - even more so if it was with the same administrator. It's just a hypothetical caution to administrators who are in that position. That it is allowed on the odd occasion does not mean it is acceptable or going to necessarily be OK in the future. I say necessarily OK because I recognise that there are very rare times where circumstances are100% exactly the same. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:16, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

• • And to address another point that I missed in my above comment, the reason email is not used for general Misplaced Pages communication is because we have no access whatsoever to those emails - not because of inconvenience. In the case of Misplaced Pages, we have access to what an user has said by way of the user talk history (especially for discussions which are not visible via archives). I'm surprised that some experienced administrators still don't get that. If that's too difficult, then it simply means you're either too lazy or need to brush up on your skills. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:45, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Nonsense. Admins are volunteers, and their time is a limited resource, routinely searching laboriously through a user's talk history in case there's something there they should know is impractical. It is not reasonable to allow a handful of editors to both attain lesser scrutiny and inhibit dispute resolution through excessively rapid removal of talk discussions. Rd232 17:20, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I tend to broadly agree with this. If an editor isn't stirring up many warnings and such, I don't think anyone much cares if they blank their talk page, but when there are many warnings and other worries, I think blanking wastes a lot of time and isn't fair to other volunteer editors. In some ways I guess this can also be taken as a civility thing. Gwen Gale (talk) 17:26, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

... and for some periods he couldn't even use the excuse of meaningful edit summaries as responses to the comments he was deleting. See this period, for example. I can see no reason for this, other than being deliberately disruptive. David Biddulph (talk) 17:33, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

• Many editors routinely delete rather than archive, as history is always available, which is not the case with emails, so SV's argument that we might as well email if we don't archive fails. We do not routinely assume bad faith and say it must be because they wish to avoid scrutiny. It is not "'part of a pattern of disruptive behavior" to do something specifically permitted by policy; I am disturbed that there are people voicing such a view; I suggest the entire question of removing posts be taken out of this discussion; while some may find it a bit more tedious to go through history than to go through archives, it is not in any sense a negative thing to do. I refer you to, for example, User talk:Tony Sidaway "A note about archiving" - are we to broaden this discussion to also castigate Tony and others who routinely remove rather than archive? If so, I suggest the debate belongs on the relevant policy page. If not, then cease mentioning it. KillerChihuahuaAdvice 16:11, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
• User talk blanking is an issue? Really? The history tab for QG's user talk is pretty easy to click and every warning QG has ever received is in plain sight in that history. If QG prefers a blank his user talk page, what's that to us? If there are perceived issues with the user's edits or personal interactions, that's something to discuss. But trying to control how a Wikipedian choses to organize their communications in user space is not, in my opinion, anything more than a needlessly punitive game. jps (talk) 16:27, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

• I don't agree that many editors routinely delete rather than archive.Users are recommended to archive their user talkpages. A minimal number do not archive and when you combine this users non archiving with his immediate removal of any comment placed there you do have an issue especially when there are warnings being added, it is impossible to discuss anything on his userpage, and discussion and being open to discussion is part of the normal, needed ,everyday workings or the wiki, one place it is not available is this users talkpage. Off2riorob (talk) 16:42, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

• A recommendation is not a command. WP:BLANKING makes it clear in the guideline that users are well-within acceptable practices to remove notices and warnings from their user talk pages. People who have QG in their sights, including you, seem to want to continually approach him on his user talk page with template notices. This is a form of WP:Wikihounding, which is a behavior I have seen you do to me as well (which is why I asked you not to post on my talkpage any more, and I thank you for stopping the problematic behavior). In short, I'd be more willing to accept that this was a problem if someone actually showed some evidence that discussion was necessary on his talkpage. Instead, all I seem to be seeing is people whining about the fact that he doesn't want you guys templating him. If you've got a problem with QG, there are dispute resolution ideas available that include ways to discuss these matters outside of his talkpage. jps (talk) 17:03, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

• I just read this and I didn't realize what it was about as you didn't provide any links and I didn't recognize you, but its User:ScienceApologist, you changed your name. Here is a link to the issue you are referring to for the log in case anyone wonders in future. Off2riorob (talk) 21:32, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

If there's been wikihounding of QG, that should also be dealt with. Gwen Gale (talk) 17:28, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

There have been circa 40 messages on QG's talk page since the beginning of November (roughly one a day), on a variety of issues, most by Ocaasi, but all told from 6 or 7 different editors. each message was either a request for discussion, a notification of some proceeding, or a plea to refrain from aggressive editing behavior (e.g. blanket reverts). Each was deleted without comment, or with some dismissive edit summary (he even took to writing his edit summaries upside-down and backwards at one point - neat css trick, I suppose). That does not strike me as wiki-hounding, but rather as fairly desperate attempts to get an editor to communicate and cooperate. please note for comparison that I got over 30 posts to my talk page over a 2-day period around the 25th of October (almost 60 posts over that week), and that was not considered wiki-hounding when I took the matter to ANI.

At any rate, this discussion has gotten sidetracked. I'm tired of QG's behavior, so the proper approach now is to open an RFC/U and settle this issue there. I don't know the procedure for doing that, so if someone wants to point me in the right direction 'll get on it, or if someone starts the proceedings themselves I will second it gladly. leave a note in my talk (I promise not to delete it. ) --Ludwigs2 18:03, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll point out, so it doesn't get forgotten, that there was also this recent WQA thread about QuackGuru, that also recommended an RfC/U. As for RfC/U itself, the information on it is here. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:31, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

The difficulty now is that, because he blanks his talk page after each edit, it'll take some work to reconstruct who's been complaining about what, so that a comprehensive RfC can be posted. SlimVirgin 18:34, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

well, I always believe that it's better to start small on things like this - rather than overwhelming people with uber-comprehensive diffs just give a good overview with a small selection of appropriate examples. it can be added to as time goes on, if needed. Let me read up on the process and see if I can get something working later today. --Ludwigs2 18:47, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I've been going over the RfC/U material, and I am beginning to think that it is not really worth the effort. QuackGuru did not respond to the previous RfC/U on him in 2007 (he did not post to the page at all), he did not respond to the Wikiquette I opened about him a couple of months ago, and neither case seems to have had any impact on his behavior. I see no reason to believe that he will deign to respond to a second RfC/U. Since I have no interest in building a new discussion just to be ignored by the person being discussed, I think it will be more effective to start up a community ban discussion, which (one assumes) will at least get his attention enough to guarantee his participation. I assume it would be best to start that over at wp:AN, so unless there are any objections to my starting that proceeding over the next couple of hours, I will do that there. --Ludwigs2 18:08, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Talk page archiving

• Some editing that is normally allowed may be restricted if the editing causes disruption on Misplaced Pages. We recently had a discussion where a user was restricted from blanking their talk page. I believe such a restriction might be appropriate here. If the blanking is being done to frustrate accountability, to obfuscate evidence of wrongdoing, to antagonize other users, or to dodge blocks by making it hard to see an accumulation of warnings, those may be valid grounds. Rather than holding a long talk-shop RFC on this subject, which is already pretty obvious, could somebody uninvolved in conflicts with the user please check their talk page history and give a summary of what they see? Jehochman 18:53, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I've asked nicely here. Let's wait for a response. Jehochman 19:01, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Extremely well put, Jehochman. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 19:44, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

• I see the editor reverting all posts, even nice ones. My preliminary look shows that he was previously topic banned from Chiropractic articles and there was some activity in regards to Pseudoscience. The block log speaks for itself. He doesn't seem to like having content disputes discussed in his user talk. Though this has also meant that warnings and concerns (which there are a lot of) have also been reverted. I don't agree that you should be skipping dispute resolution; resolving the allegations of POV pushing are more important than how convenient it is to access talk page records. Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:44, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

• It's pretty simple. The editor appears to be behaving disruptively, getting into disputes and refusing to carry on civil discussions. Ignoring warnings. Hiding warnings in an effort to muddy the view. This points to a lengthy or permanent block for disruptive editing, if all else fails. There have been plenty of warnings and prior blocks. WP:BURO. It does not seem that the facts of the matter are in dispute, so I don't see the need for dispute resolution. I see the need for plain talk, possibly backed up with editing restrictions. Jehochman 19:50, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

• (after ec) On the contrary; discussing content disputes should properly be carried out on the appropriate article talk page in preference to user talk; and if he's removing "even nice (posts) its clear its how he cleans up his talk page; if here were "hiding warnings" he'd be leaving the nice ones and removing the warnings, which by the way I have also seen and which is also allowable. None of this is blockworthy or even warning-worthy. If he fails to discuss edits on article talk pages, if he edit wars, those are indeed warning and or block worthy items, but I am deeply distressed to see his method of handling his talk page posts being discussed as a problem when it is so clearly within policy. Again I ask, are you going to issue a long block to Tony Sideaway and others who also remove "all posts, even nice ones"? Is this supported in policy? No, and no. KillerChihuahuaAdvice 20:00, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

• KC, I beg to differ. You reveal that you haven't been involved with QG lately and therefore you are speaking from ignorance. Your intentions are good, but in this case are misguided and not really addressing the concerns that have been mentioned. It's nice to speak of hypotheticals and not changing the way we do things, but the realities right now demand an exception be made to stop his disruptions. Topic bans on a number of articles should be made, and a (temporary?) ban against blanking his talk page for a period of time, including complete removal of its history, which he frequently has done. He runs in circles on article talk pages. Discussion there doesn't help because he just makes edits in spite of objections and claims consensus where there is none and uses reverting all the time. Appeals and warnings on his talk page (since nothing works on article talk pages) are deleted with no visible change in his behavior. His block log is huge, but his methods of disruption are so complicated that it's often hard to pin him down to a particularly grossly blockable offense, but his behavior is still very disruptive and his lack of communication removes an important possibility for helping him and dealing with him. I suggest you start editing and discussing on those pages for awhile and you'll see what's happening. THEN you'll be able to speak with more authority. -- Brangifer (talk) 21:34, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

• Two things: I'm worried about a slippery slope, and disagree that we must make an exception - indeed, I find exceptions of convenience are the most dangerous; none of his other actions, which are indeed of concern and of which you may call me as ignorant as you like have any bearing on this trend towards becoming more controlling as regards user talk pages; and Removal of his history? He's not an admin, how was this accomplished? KillerChihuahuaAdvice 21:40, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

• Oops! It's his user page, not his talk page, that gets the history scrubbed regularly by admins. I'll strike that above. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:26, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
• Ah, thanks, that makes more sense now. I knew I must be missing something. KillerChihuahuaAdvice 13:22, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

• I find that collaborating with QG is easier in the classical wiki sense. He makes a lot of edits to article space. Some of these edits get reverted and sometimes he reverts. I have not had a problem getting to a consensus with him when we've disagreed (and normally we get to a consensus with a lot less hemming and hawing than is typical of Misplaced Pages's interminable discussions — a characteristic of QG's style that I actually find admirable). jps (talk) 22:55, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

• My polite request is still sitting there. Let's see what the response will be. Jehochman 19:56, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

• A number of users who've been here for long enough seem to take heed of RfC/Us - such users don't pay as much regard to comments made individually at various points in time, but do sometimes pay attention to the Community's calls in DR (aka a RfC/U). It may turn out that he isn't responsive to the concerns, it may turn out that he is; I think this talk page thing is the least serious issue, and when confronted about each of the major issues and the views of the Community, at least we know exactly what has prompted the need for sanctions which are a bit more...final...if it comes to that. It also gives the Community the opportunity to endorse the parts which are respected, OK or constructive contributions, while it gives it the opportunity to specify each of the present issues - his not so constructive contributions at this point in time. It also gives him the ability to supply evidence of hounding if it is ongoing. We're not suggesting process for the sake of process when dispute resolution was enacted, or a process that should be skipped; we're suggesting resolving issues through the means available and if all else fails, involuntary outcomes or arbitration. If an editor has been here for this long and if there are such issues, and a RfC/U has not been filed, then that needs to be addressed - that will be the record. If he doesn't respond in the way you're hoping and then you do something stupid.... Ncmvocalist (talk) 20:12, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

• This discussion happens to be a part of DR.... Unfortunately a community wide RfC/U would be even more disruptive and timewasting and would only bring even more uninvolved individuals who would make more uninformed comments based on hypotheticals and policies, but not his actual behavior, as we've already seen in this thread. It is the involved editors who know what's going on. All we need is for a courageous admin to take action. -- Brangifer (talk) 21:40, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
• Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/QuackGuru was back in 2007; it would have to be Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/QuackGuru 2. The context of the previous RFC/U was very different, but the overall feel is familiar. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:49, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

• I blank my talk page after I receive a message and I would like to explain why. There are many reasons, actually. First, for context, I hate having a talk page. I recognize that it is a needed feature, but 90% of the messages are just a complete waste of time. Bogus warnings, false accusations, vandalism, or duplication or notifications of article talk discussions that I already have watchlisted. And I particularly hate the intrusive notification of your new message. It is like a ringing telephone - and I have the ringers turned off most of the time at my house. I am not one of Pavlov's dogs. OK more specifically, I blank my talk page

1. so that the messenger will know I saw their message

2. so I won't have to keep looking at it and keep investing energy in something from the past. I am here in an effort to improve the encyclopedia generally and individual articles in particular. The place to discuss things is in article talk pages or[REDACTED] project pages, unless the subject of the discussion is the editor.

3. To avoid wikidrama. Every message is treated the same - it's reverted. No possibility of drama. Look, I did the whole wikidrama thing and it sucks. My goal now is dispassionate editing.

4. I am not here for social networking. The whole talk page back and forth barnstar social networking side of[REDACTED] is something that holds no interest for me.

So please, if the editor in question is being disruptive somewhere, sanction for that, but not for blanking his talk page, which is clearly allowed under our current policies. Dlabtot (talk) 03:17, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

You misunderstand the issue here. Technically it isn't the blanking that's the primary issue, but that the blanking is part of his pattern of disruption, IOW he uses it in a disruptive manner. THAT'S why we even mention it. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:06, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

To illustrate, the use of a broom is usually a good thing and allowed, but if it is frequently used as a weapon, the user may be requested or required to stop wielding the broom. That's the problem here. QG is misusing an otherwise neutral right. That's disruptive. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:43, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

While I would generally agree that a user should be allowed to remove material from the user's own talkpage, in this case I agree with others above who argue against blanking without archiving. Sifting through page history and various diffs can be an inordinate burden, not just an inconvenience. Please correct me if I'm wrong: in some responses above there seems to be a basic misunderstanding of what User Talk is for, perhaps out of ownership issues arising from common/accepted usage. The guidelines for User talk page describe it well enough as "a way of helping other editors to interact with and understand those with whom they are working" -- therefore, "it is a mistake to think of user pages as a homepage." Also from User talk page # Blanking: "There is no need to keep on display and usually users should not be forced to do so." As it stands now the guideline allows for exception so why not exercise that in this case? -PrBeacon (talk) 07:46, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I must agree with Dlabtot here. Doing something well within policy cannot be "part of a pattern of disruption" as following policy is not disruptive. The history is there; if we sanction any editor for blanking we must therefore change policy or we are guilty of capriciously ignoring policy when convenient to suit ourselves and our convenience. I realize you disagree; my view remains firm, however. Puppy has spoken, puppy is done. KillerChihuahuaAdvice 13:22, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I think that we need to have much stronger evidence that the talk page blanking is part of the problem than what is presented here if we are to claim that there is an exception to usual Misplaced Pages practice. "It makes it hard for those of us who want to see QG sanctioned to convince the uninvolved administrators he's a bad egg when he maintains a scrupulously clean talk page." seems like a very poor argument. If you want to convince others that there is a problem, link to diffs. "I want it to be easier to visually show everybody how many notices he's gotten." is not a motivation, stated or unstated, we should even give the impression of accommodating. jps (talk) 15:19, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't see an issue with QG blanking his talk page. I also understand his frustration when questionable sources are used. Am patrolling some of the same lemmata as QuackGuru and his reverts have been appropriate. Had he not made them, I would have. Chartinael (talk) 17:16, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Talk page blanking can't possibly be an issue here, because even I, having encountered QG just a few times, know very well what the problems with this editor is. I have to say that I don't disagree with many of the points he makes, but I do see that he sometimes irritates other users in the way he goes about defending his points. Count Iblis (talk) 18:23, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Unresponsiveness of QuackGuru

Even though SlimVirgin notified QG of this thread, he is demonstrating his lack of willingness to communicate about a problem which he knows is bothering many editors. His silence here, while he has continued to edit elsewhere, speaks volumes. This is quite the very literal demonstration of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:15, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

His silence while continuing to edit could just be evidence that he's mulling over his options. WP:AGF, please. jps (talk) 15:20, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

At least he hasn't removed the last few posts from his talk page, so there may be progress. SlimVirgin 16:35, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

That just means he's being careful because he's under observation. That's typical and doesn't indicate any improvement, but rather sneakiness. Not long after the ruckus is over he'll be back at the same behaviors. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:09, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• See Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard#Community ban for User:QuackGuru. SlimVirgin 15:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

IP 70.127 edit warring and using personal attacks at Mercy11 on Oscar López Rivera

Pashto language

This issue involves a dispute with user Lagoo Sab. It was about style as well as content of the official language section of above lemma. I have asked for a 3O on 06-12-2010 which was given by user Ironholds. Lagoo Sab had nevertheless re-edited saying both of us are biased resulting in a dispute as well as what I consider personal attacks as well as hypothesizing about my identity. I have encorporated suggested changes into the section, restructured it to account the undue weight notice entered by Lagoo Sab. And am simply frustrated as of now. I will provide diff links in the process but would appreciate assistance. Chartinael (talk) 22:23, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

• To give further context as to the user behaviour - personal attack, personal attack and assumption of bad faith, discrediting of a source based on the writer's ethnicity and religious beliefs, personal attack and assumption of bad faith. Ironholds (talk) 22:31, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Sorry, I dealt with it before I saw your report here, but I came to the same conclusions you did after seeing his report at WP:ANEW. He's blocked 24h. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 22:45, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Actually that's discrediting a source on the grounds that not all sources are reliable. Which they aren't. I, too, have seen books where paragraphs or even chapters have been copied from the WWW. I've also seen books that aren't academic works. I own several. ☺ And the correct response is, as you did, to point out that the author is a credentialed expert writing in xyr field of expertise.

    The response that you missed out on was noticing the possible conflation of official language with language with the largest number of L1 speakers. It's not necessary to take a census to determine the former. Uncle G (talk) 01:06, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

    • "That claim is made by Rizwan Hussein, a Shia book writer" is fairly clearly aimed at impugning the writer and therefore the source :P. Ironholds (talk) 03:41, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
      • Only if one regards "shia" as an insult. Why are you regarding it as an insult? Uncle G (talk) 07:41, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
        • Without looking further into this, I am well aware that if someone who identifies as a Sunni were to comment that a source was produced by a Shia that this might be an attempt to deprecate the source - much like a Protestant noting a source was written by a Catholic in regards to some matters. In some cultures such commentary would not be considered extraordinary, but it is inappropriate within Misplaced Pages. Part of WP:NPA notes the use of "affiliation" to diminish another editors contribution as being a violation of policy. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:41, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
          • You're confusing "another editor" with "person who authored the source under discussion". Uncle G (talk) 22:42, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
            • According to all sources Shi'as are around 15% and Sunnis up to 90%. So whenever someone says such book writer being used as a source is a Shia, it's basically saying that the view of the book writer is a minority view. This is especially important when the book writer is discussing information relating to Sunnis. In this case, the Shia book writer Rizwan Hussien is writing about Pashtuns who are about 99% Sunnis.--Lagoo sab (talk) 22:58, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
              • Please, ascertain and source your knowledge about Hussain's religious views. Furthermore, be so kind and explain to us why you believe his religious views if he holds any affect his academic reasoning and research. Whatever his religion may or may not be, Hussain does not hold a minority view on the languages of Afghanistan nor the Pashto-Persian language conflict there, as many other sources support his findings. Chartinael (talk) 09:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Timeline of Conflict

This is regarding the conflict I have with user Lagoo Sab since the lemma first came to my attention in October 2010.

The lemma came to my attention in October of 2010 when user: timbaland made changes on the -de version regarding size of native speakers from 33 mio to 50 mio referencing the -en lemma. After looking into the speaker population issue I referenced the numbers according to safe, but agreed on academic estimates and introduced an official language section. Another attempt to up numbers without reference was made by an IP a few days later. The German lemma stayed at that.

At the same time I looked into the -en lemma, trying to figure out how the high numbers were sourced. The source was the ethnologue differentiating between speaker population and ethnic population. Since the Pashto lemma is about the language, the speaker size should be the figure stuck to and in the lemma on ethnicity the higher number ought to be found. However, there seems to have been an ongoing dispute as the higher numbers replacing lower although unreferenced numbers as well were entered by Lagoo Sab This issue caused Lagoo Sab to call me a POV-Warrior as he found the ethnic population and corrected outrageously wrong numbers entered by another editor which I replaced with speaker population referenced by several academic sources as the ethnologue gives an estimate on ethnic population suggesting speaker population is higher than given. Backing figures up with Encyclopaedia Iranica, UCLA Language Project and Ethnolgue

My version of the story goes like this:

• My first edits on Pashto language in July 2010:
• User:Tajik from Germany lowers percentage of Pashto-speakers:
• IP 94.219.198.90 from Germany insulting and attacking Pashtuns lowers percentage of Pashto-speakers:
• IP 94.219.198.90 from Germany again with his OR and POVs:
• I reverted his unsourced OR and POVs which was quickly reverted on the same day by User:Cabolitae . These users and the German IP stopped editing the article and User:Chartinael who claims to be from Germany began editing the article in October 2010 by lowering the percentage of Pashto-speakers from 50 to 20 million. I am cerain that User:Chartinael, who described himself to me as a German by nationality and citizenship, is a Persian (Iranian-Afghan) living in Germany. I don't care about this, I'm only against lies and putting false information. If I sound weird, it's probably because I don't drink alcohol and I'm a devouted Muslim who is forced to tell the truth. I believe that all my deeds will be revealed, from tiny ones to major ones, on the Day when I have to face God to be judged. So therefore, it serves me no such good to make even a tiny lie anywhere. If you don't believe in God, I also understand that and I have no problem with you. Just ask yourself when you do good or bad deeds very secretly that nobody but only you saw them, then how come when you do the good deeds something good always happens to you and when you do bad deed something always bad happens to you. That's proof that somebody is always watching over us even when we think we are all alone.--Lagoo sab (talk) 23:40, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Regarding your initiation on the Pashto Lemma:

You removed with your initial edit ] the graphic image of language distribution without comment.

Regarding the Tajik -edit you somehow forgot to mention that you added the 42 Mio without giving a source where as on his revert he actually explained his reasoning.

How can a bad edit be an insult. Revert was absolutely appropriate. More than that, what does this have to do with your dispute with me?

You reverted a correct ranking change once and twice and re-reverted yourself - what exactly constitutes OR and POV? yours or the other editors? And again, what does this have to do - this is clearly before I ever came into the lemma.

Regarding your certainty about my person and identity. I don't care what you think about my identity or my ethnicity as long as you don't go around making false accusation. Let me tell you though, that I tell the truth although not being forced by anyone - I just think it is the right thing to do. I don't care what religion you adhere to, I don't care where you are from but I care about keeping a lemma academically sound. The only one I have watching over my action on WP are Wikipedians.

Again, do not judge another editor nor a source based on religious or ethnic grounds. Stick to the academic view point. Although academics are always subjective and influenced by who they are at least they are taught to not let that affect their research and findings and to be as objective as possible when drawing conclusions. Chartinael (talk) 09:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The Official language Section and the Issue of Speaker and Ethnic Population

Lagoo Sab has been keeping an eye on the official language section, reverting edits that were unwarranted (32%) with other good edits (comparison of pashto and persion on socio-economic level) or regarding Persian being the lingua franca

After an edit by Bejnar in the official language section replacing unsourced stuff with more unsourced although slightly more correct stuff, I rewrote part of that parallel in and -en when Lagoo Sab made changes removing and replacing sources especially adding a rather full quote from a public domain paper not published by an academic publisher which I contested and Lagoo Sab reverted . After reverting back and forth with no sign of Lagoo Sab understanding the difference between speaker and ethnic population, he took the issue to the talk page although he even quotes his source correctly . He backs his POV claim against me with UCLA, which has an even lower estimate of speaker population cherry picking the percentages and doing OR applying them to figures from other sources while realizing that the speaker population is only an estimate. User Ketabtoon supports Lagoo Sab, while mixing and mingeling with sources, applying percentages taken from source a at year x to raw figures of source b from year y saying primary census data is to be used instead of secondary academic data - which I contest but was willing to use the higher number backed by an academic paper as well. At no avail, WP:OR continues with Ketabtoon which I contest again pointing out again that speaker and ethnic population are not identical while Lagoo Sab says estimates are fine if they are generally accepted and my safe and academically backed numbers are OR I leave it at that. Especially after the 3RR rule has been called on me by user Kaddoo who also hypothesizes about my identity but thinks better of it.

I checked back about a month later starting right of with reverting nonsense edit by Kaki joe and restructuring section which was inconsistent. Revert from Lagoo Sab without comment. On December 1st, I checked back and saw that he had gone back to the official language version which I consider bad in style and consistency. So I restructured once more asking him for explanation through the comment which Lagoo Sab rvv on the 6th calling me an anti-Pashtun POV-pusher and a Tajik ethnocentric without discussing it as requested on the talk page on December 1st . Instead he called me a POV-Warrior writing persian ethnocentric bullshit being obsessed with hate. At that time I explain to him again that I have no pro- nor anti-Pashto POV and that I realize that discussion is futile as I am dealing with a fanatic. Lagoo Sab differs and says I am user:Sommerkom or user: Phoenix2 with whom it seems he has issues. He disregards reputable academic sources as an unverifiableTajik biased demonstrating my low? level of intelligence continuing on to comparing implicitely me to Hitler because I am German. Which again leads to wild hypothesizing regarding my identity here as well.

Third Opinion

I then refute to asking for a 3O regarding the disagreement regarding Phrasing / Structuring of Official Status Section in Pashto Language article here and informing lemma-editors in talk-section after restructuring to make both versions easily comparable. User Ironholds responds to the 3O request and user ReporterMan removes 3O thereafter.

Sources

Lagoo Sab dismisses sources as Tajik and Shi'a thus on the basis of ethnicity and religion of author while the CAL source is claimed to be neutral despite the fact the the authors Farid Younos and Mariam Mehdi may or may not be biased thus dismissing academic publishers like Routledge, Ashgate and others. He has issues with Rizwan Hussain a source and dismisses his research methods although Hussain used in several other lemmata as stated by me in response.

Lagoo Sab enters a new source into the discussion (Tariq Rahman) which he also entered into the lemma as an external link. After reviewing article, which btw is published in the academic journal which gave excellent reviews to the Hussain source Lagoo Sab dismisses, I make a statement to the effect, that not all ethnic pasthun speak pashto - which was backed by this new source and contested by Sab himself , saying that I have issues . Ironhold, however, finds this notion "ludicrous".

Ironhold asked me if all the Pashtuns speak Pashto language and I said yes, but as a first language only. He calls that "ludicrous". I said he has issues if he doesn't believe my facts. If he wants to know he should read the Pashtun people article instead of asking me questions in tlak pages.--Lagoo sab (talk) 23:25, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Ending Conflict?

At that time I had taken the issue to the administrative notice board asking for intervention while at the same time Lagoo Sab took the fact I reverted his adding a royal title to the rulers as a way to call a 3RR on me. And this is where we stand. I would like to be able to edit without being assaulted immediately as a non-intelligent tajik shia ethnocentric with a bunch of sockpuppets and would like somebody to explain to Lagoo Sab that academic publications are preferable to tertiary internet sources. Basically, I would just like to not be in the focus of his persian-pashto tunnel view. Chartinael (talk) 12:21, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Talk about excessive investigation, it is unnessary to make such a long report when the issue is very minor. And the issue is that Chartinael's edits try to draw a conclusion that Pashtuns (42-60% of Afghanistan population), who are the founders of Afghanistan in the early 18th century, forced Pashto language on the population of Afghanistan. This kind of sensitive information should be explained to readers in a very unbiased and neutral way. In the early 20th century, Afghanistan was witnessing modernization for the first time, with western-built universities and schools being established. The majority of Afghanistan's population were Pashtuns (speakers of Pashto language) so it was the only thing to do for the government by making Pashto and Persian both the official languages, which is because about half the population speak Pashto and the other half Persian. But the article isn't explaining this properly, it is trying to say that the leaders of Afghanistan were Persian-speakers and they decided to make Pashto the official language. The article has irrelevant information but missing very important things like what I'm focusing on. Who cares if Amanullah Khan (just one individual) was able to speak Pashto or not? One source provided says he couldn't but the other one states that he made speaches in Pashto, so which one are we suppose to believe? I suggest we start a "History" section and explain the history of Pashto language.--Lagoo sab (talk) 23:17, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I consider excessive investigation into issue a core element of research - even it is on minor issues like wikipedia. To me it is evident that you cannot distance yourself from your history. Pashto was used in the 20th century as a means to establish national identity. It is a symbol to unify. It happened and happens all over the world. It is a mechanism. There is no sensitivity involved. It is a fact. Persian as a language could not be used as it was not associated with the natural borders of the Afghan Empire. It was also the language of the previous rulers. This is the reason why Pastho was not established until the 20th century when it became necessary in order to obtain independence and assert a national identity. See, the leaders of Afghanistan were Persian speakers. Persian was the language of the ruling class. But they are politicians. Politicians lie. Muslim or not. They want to further their interest and that interest is to stay in power. In order to achieve that they come up with all sort of ruses, like: hey, we need a national symbol, what could we use? Language is always good. That is the reason why Amanullah had to make speeches in Pastho although he didn't speak Pashto. Emphasizing on the differences to other People another ... This is the reason why Dari is called Dari and not Persian and Urdu not Hindi. And speakers of Serbian insist they speak an other language than Croatian. And with the fall of the wall czechs and slovaks started to emphasize on local orthographies to make two languages out of one. It is about drawing borders, securing power. Blame the colonial powers for messing with your regions as badly as they have done. They drew borders as they saw fit and created alliances so the the asian people allienated themselves.

All this is too much for a section on the status of Pashto as an Official Language. It suffices to say when it became an official language where and why. The detail about its use and abuse as a symbol could be dealt with in a lemma the Language conflict in Afghanistan kinda like the Urdu-Hindi conflict or whatever.

I continue to see that you feel you need to protect pashto. To you this is about numbers and portrayal. I understand that this must be hard for someone involved as deeply as you as an Afghan national - and I mean Afghan national to only refer to citizenship, no more. This is why people who are emotionally involved ought to step back and try to assume a neutral perspective. The lemma and the section in question is merely descriptive and not judgemental. See, I would have not taken the CAL source because I think this entire quote is judgemental and not throwing a good light on the Pasthun teachers. It also makes it sound as if the pashtuns don't give a damn about the other people forcing a language onto them although all were happy with using persian as the lingua franca. To me, this is too short as it leaves out the historical context which btw is very well described by Tariq Rahman whom you added as an external link. However, you insist to keep that full quote in - so fine. However, you read the same papers I do, but you draw different conclusions ... you say, the rulers didn't use Persian and complain about that. At the same time you include a statment like "Persian was the language of the court" not realizing that the court is the royal court ... thus the ruling elite. All I am asking is that you step back and think about things. I like a lot of your edits. Except for the "King" part which is against WP:NCROY - thing is, you felt by taking away the title, I was insulting the pashtun royals - which I wasn't. Nor was I expressing hatred by not capitalizing pashto in one of my edits . You add interwikilinks, tidy up wording, find new sources. You even take CAL with blatantly Persian authors as a source. But some edits are crap, Pashtuns do not become any better when upping numbers and rankings and adding every location where there are communities all over the world. You are a proud people and there is no need to start being nitpicky about shit like that. If the numbers are old and newer census numbers are needed, you people need to start getting those, letting academics into your country, cooperating on a scientific level with academics worldwide, getting your people educated, pressuring the ruling class to make sure every one can get schooling. But people all over the world have a variety of religious beliefs and a variety of ethnic backgrounds. To dismiss interaction with them on those grounds will not ascertain that pashto cultural heritage, history and language are well studied. I - for one - would love to make field studies about Pashto. And to be honest, if your behavior is representative of the general cultural attidude to others, I cannot risk that. Chartinael (talk) 09:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• You're jumping from one topic to another in every sentence and I can't follow your argument. I'm not going to reply to everything you have mentioned but here are a few points.
• WP:NCROY doesn't relate to Afghanistan or Asia, it also doesn't speak about King being used next to someone's name inside another article.
• Barbara Robson and Juliene Lipson (with Farid Younos and Mariam Mehdi) are Persian authors? Who say they are? To me they are Americans (under a cooperative agreement with the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration of the U.S. Department of State ) and the information presented by them on Afghans is very neatly written and it's the same as what all other sources say.
• I'm protecting things in Misplaced Pages from those who's interests are to bash Pashtuns or Pashto language, that's all. Misplaced Pages is not a place for this and I'm sure you know this by now.
• I'm not here for politics talk, my hobby is just to make Misplaced Pages articles look nice and neat so that readers thank me for presenting information to them in a very realistic and un-biased way. As I've said before, I'm a religious man who believes that doing good deeds come with rewards.--Lagoo sab (talk) 00:15, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

BLP violations by User:Delicious carbuncle

• Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Repeated BLP violations by the user in question, despite requests to stop and 3:1 consensus at WP:RSN against using a questioned source that fails WP:RS on a WP:BLP page.

1. Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) adds controversial info sourced to website "www.truthaboutscientology.com" to WP:BLP page on Jamie Sorrentini, diff link
2. After talk page discussion, this issue was taken to WP:RSN. At the RSN discussion three editors, myself and two others, did not support use of this website as a source.
3. Fifelfoo stated, "Unreliable. Self-published; absence of recognised expertise; no editorial oversight."
4. Becritical commented, "There's no indication that the site is reliable."
5. Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) was shown a prior Request for Comment on the matter, where dispute resolution did not find consensus to use the website as a source, at Talk:Catherine_Bell/Archive_1#Request_for_Comments_-_Use_of_the_.22truthaboutscientology.22_website from 2007.
6. In a strange edit summary actually acknowledging there is no consensus supporting use of a questionable source in a BLP, Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) willfully violated BLP anyways, and added the questionable info back with the website source that fails WP:RS, see diff link.
7. I posted a note to the user's talk page, asking him to stop the BLP violations at the BLP page, and stated the issue would be reported if the disruptive behavior continued, see diff link.
8. Despite the 3:1 consensus against using this website source from the WP:RSN thread, and the WP:BLP issues involved as mentioned at the user's talk page - Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) proceeded to add this website source and questionable info to the BLP page, now a 3rd time, see diff link.

Requesting a previously uninvolved admin take action here. The info violates WP:RS and violates WP:BLP. It is contentious, poorly sourced info about a BLP, and should be removed from this BLP page. Admin action should be taken with respect to the disruptive behavior of Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs); deferring to uninvolved admins to review. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 07:52, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

• This looks also as though it has WP:ARBSCI implications, especially remedy 13 and remedy 4. --Jayron32 07:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes, however the user has not been previously notified of WP:ARBSCI by an uninvolved admin. In any event, it seems actionable simply under the repeated WP:BLP violations, itself. -- Cirt (talk) 08:03, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
    • DC has now been notified that all Scientology articles are under ARBCOM sanction. I have also removed the contested text per WP:BURDEN and WP:BLP pending resolution of the issue. I have no opinion over the reliability of the source nor of the appropriateness or relevence of the text to the article in question; the removal of the text is purely administrative as Misplaced Pages policy is clear that contested text of this nature is to be left out until the dispute is resolved. --Jayron32 08:24, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

He obviously meant the edit summary to be "there appears to be no consensus on NOT using this source and it is used on other BLPs" We really need to have a consensus for or against using it, it seems to be a wider issue. I see no indication of editorial oversight as I said before, and would not use it. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 09:06, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Reply by Delicious carbuncle

I am not a Scientologist nor an activist against Scientology. In fact, I have no particular interest in Scientology and have no strong opinion on the reliability of the source that seems to have sparked this tempest in a teapot, but I hope that this episode does get the attention of ArbCom as there is clearly something very wrong in the area of Scientology-related articles.

1. I identified Jamie Sorrentini as a Scientologist, citing a source that at that time was being used in other biographies of living people (I know this because I copied the citation from another BLP to save myself a bit of typing).
2. Literally within a minute of my adding that reference, Cirt had removed it, claiming it was not a reliable source.
3. After I point out on the article's talk page that Cirt has used that source themselves, they state "I have not used that source for years, after discussion on multiple talk pages and consensus against using that website as a source".
   1. The first statement is simply wrong, as this same source had been added by Cirt to articles as recently as August 2009, including BLPs (eg Barret Oliver). What is more , as recently as April, Cirt left the source in a BLP when they went on a spree of trimming information from BLPs of Scientologists.
   2. The second statement (about consensus) appears to be wrong, although it is repeated by Cirt in the WP:RSN thread that they started ("Consensus in the past at Scientology-related talkpages has been that it is not an acceptable source and fails WP:RS"). When Cirt provides a link to this consensus, it is a discussion from 2007 that is inconclusive and where Cirt (editing at that time as User:Smee) is in favour of using the source. Cirt later contradicts their earlier statements by stating that "There is not consensus now, there was not consensus then...".
4. Minutes after saying "there is not consensus now", Cirt posts in the RSN thread saying that I had gone against consensus and "violated BLP" by adding the information back into the article. Again, this was a source that was being used in other BLPs and the RSN thread was still very new.
5. In messages left on my talk page and elsewhere, Cirt uses the phrase "3:1 consensus" meaning that three editors have suggested that the source is not reliable and one (ostensibly me) believes it o be a reliable source. This appears to be a novel interpretation of consensus.

Although I was not aware of the extent of Cirt's involvement with that source, my feeling is that they were content to use it so long as it suited their purposes. Once I used it to label Jamie Sorrentini as a Scientologist (and note that there appears to be no dispute that Sorrentini was a member of the Church of Scientology), Cirt decided that it was no longer a reliable source. Only after this dispute began did Cirt remove the source from CoS-related articles. And only after being questioned about it did Cirt remove sections in BLPs that were left unsourced or poorly sourced by that removal.

To be plain, Cirt's purpose here and on Wikinews is to advocate against the Church of Scientology (hereafter referred to as CoS for brevity). Not to ensure a neutral point of view, but to identify, minimize, and add negative information about members of the CoS and the CoS itself. This is the sole reason for the puff piece Cirt created about an otherwise unremarkable minor actress named Jamie Sorrentini who has split from the CoS and become a critic. It does not suit Cirt's purpose to have her labelled as a Scientologist, hence the aggressive reaction to my edits, by which I hope Cirt has helped to make the real issue clear. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 02:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Comment: The simple issue here is of Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) adding a poor source website that fails WP:RS to a WP:BLP page, then when this was clearly disputed and consensus did not exist to re-add the source, repeatedly, to the WP:BLP page, Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) did so anyway, despite objections to the source from multiple editors at WP:RSN. -- Cirt (talk) 08:16, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

You can certainly fault DC for using a BLP to make his

Cirt, do you dispute anything that I wrote about your anti-Scientology POV-pushing, and the disturbing ownership of Scientology-related BLPs that you have demonstrated through your actions in this tempest in a teapot? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• There is quite a difference from adding the link in as an EL and using it as a reference in an article. Furthermore, the consensus at the RSN discussion is quite apparent and it seems to me that you are the only one arguing for this, even when multiple other users have clearly explained why it shouldn't be used. Also, you went ahead and added the information back in, twice, essentially starting an edit war. I agree that something needs to be done about this, especially in light of the ARBCOM sanction in the article area. Silverseren 19:52, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
  • You seem to be misunderstanding the situation, Silver seren - no one is arguing for the use of that source. I have agreed that it is not a reliable source, and it has been removed from all articles where it was used as a reference or as an external link. The issue is now Cirt's POV-pushing and anti-Scientology activities. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:47, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
    • DC, can I suggest that if you have specific BLP or NPOV concerns with entries edited heavily by Cirt that you attempt to engage him directly about those concerns first? To my pleasant surprise he immediately addressed two such concerns when I brought them up at the RS/N. See Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#BLP_Problems_remain_in_two_entries. Just a suggestion. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 22:02, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

AWB users using misleading edit summaries

I recently complained about an AWB user changing referencing system (introducing named refs where not otherwise used) while using an edit summary indicating that what they were doing was "clean up". I started a discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:AutoWikiBrowser#Please use informative edit summaries, asking the people using AWB to use more informative edit summaries.

Today I came across this edit on my watchlist, with a user introducing named refs to an article. The edit summary was:

(Typo fixing, typos fixed: suddently → suddenly using AWB

The typo was there and needed fixing but the change in referencing, a far more significant (and in my view, detrimental) change, wasn't mentioned in the edit summary.

Although the use of individual diffs will almost inevitably make it seem that way, I don't want to make this about individual users. This problem is systemic. Even when making changes which, in my view, are highly useful, such as introducing persondata templates, AWB users will often give no indication in the edit summary of what they are doing.

Links to other discussions:

• User talk:Bender235#Change of referencing system with misleading edit summary
• Misplaced Pages talk:AutoWikiBrowser#Please use informative edit summaries (see the discussions immediately below as well)

I don't believe that it would be considered acceptable for a user editing manually to consistently give misleading edit summaries. Is it just fine to do so when the editor can hide behind AWB? --Hegvald (talk) 14:16, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Since this is an AWB general fix, this whole issue would be solved if AWB adds a "general fixes applied" to the edit summary. —bender235 (talk) 14:20, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

According to

Ugh, anything to fix messy referencing like that is a good idea I think. But, yeh, it would be nice to see clearer AWB edit messages--Errant 14:24, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

There was no "messy referencing" needing "fixing" in the relevant articles. --Hegvald (talk) 14:42, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Personal view; duplicate refs is poor layout. I fully support the idea of combining refs for better clarity and cleanliness. You're welcome to disagree, but I think it looks horrid and is a throwover from uptight paper-based (academic) referencing of little use to online readers --Errant 14:44, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

For what its worth when I do this type of change I usually use something like fix portals, brackets, typos, dates, links, references, categories and formatting. Most folks wouldn't know what a "General fix" was. --Kumioko (talk) 14:32, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

The user probably had the "general fixes" checkbox checked, and saved the edit without thinking about the other changes being made (note that there are several things which may be adfded incidently for the same reasons, such as adding {{Persondata}}, changing normal spaces to no break spaces ( ), and others). The edit summary can hardly be called "misleading" if one considers what the user was actually trying to do - (s)he actually did' fix the spelling mistake. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:39, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

If I completely rewrote three sections of an article and fixed a typo in a fourth, wouldn't it be misleading if the edit summary only said "fixing typo"? It is misleading by omission. --Hegvald (talk) 14:50, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Considering that the named references allowed the refs to be combined, I really don't see why this is a problem. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:41, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I also agree that this was a useful edit and although there are times that the edit summeries could use more clarity sometimes it woudl be impossible to accurately capture every edit made to an article in many cases. --Kumioko (talk) 14:54, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I think there's a subtle point here - intentionally deceptive edit summaries are a cause for concern, but unclear or ambiguous edit summaries...while not optimal...are more something that should be taken up with users on a case by case. Syrthiss (talk) 14:56, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe anything in this edit can be called typo fixing, but it is the only summary used. This one has a very minor typo fix, but considering that it doesn't change anything in how the page works or looks, I don't think either of them are good use of AWB and both fail the rule of "Avoid making insignificant or inconsequential edits". Fram (talk) 15:15, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I switch to the edit summary "Typo and general fixing" whenever the diff shows any general fixes in addition to my intended typo fixes. If the consensus here is that this is not a good enough edit summary, then I will have to leave the general fixes turned off until such time as AWB can itself generate a concise and correct description of whichever general fixes have taken effect. I see no point in using a fits-all-edits summary such as "fix portals, brackets, typos, dates, links, references, categories and formatting" (copied from above) if only one or two of these have actually been done to the given article; the AWB user interface does not provide a decent-sized edit box for keying in a per-article edit summary; and having to key in a per-article edit summary would slow down the typo fixing enormously. (30,000 typo fixes and counting). -- John of Reading (talk) 15:41, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Given the number of probelems that AWB fixes and that the users themselves can create their own I think that forcing AWB to account for every different change is too burdensome of a requirement to levy on the developers. There might be some improvements that can be made (ill leave that to the developers to decide) but IMO we need to live with a more generic edit summery such as the one I have given. Turning off general fixes IMO negates much of the reason for using AWB. I do admit that we AWB users should be careful about what summery we use so its more clear what we are changing and I admit that I have been guilty of that myself. --Kumioko (talk) 15:55, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the point is that "general fixes" is such a meaningless statement as to be the equivalent of a blank edit summary. Every edit fixes an article at some level, so saying "I fixed it" isn't helpful to anyone. Users should leave descriptive edit summaries which say exactly what is done, as much as possible. If any edit makes such large and varied changes that the edit summary box isn't long enough to list them, then you write "see talk page" and leave a detailed note there. This shouldn't be a negotiable issue. I have never used AWB, but if it allows users to leave more descriptive edit summaries, and they are just choosing not to, then its not AWB's problem, it is the problem of the individual user. --Jayron32 15:57, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

What you are asking for would require the AWB editors to evaluate every edit being made and change the edit summery every time for each article. That isn't realistic especially when there is no way to pick and choose what edits to perform. Nor is leaving a seperate note on the talk page. AWB is designed to make a lot of minor changes to articles and this would basically eliminate any gains made by using AWB. If this happens knowone would be able to use it, not even bots and we would have to go back to doing every edit manually to make sure that all the edit summeries are as "descriptive as possible". Is that really what you want? A bot and AWB free Misplaced Pages? --Kumioko (talk) 16:14, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

No, and I would ask you to NOT tell me I said things which I did not say. It is rude to misrepresent the statemenst of other people, and I take offense that you are doing so. What I am saying is that in cases where the individual user is doing something that requires a descriptive edit summary, they should leave one. Bots do this all the time. Users doing semi-automated editing using AWB are not exempt from the requirement that they leave edit summaries which notify others accurately of what they are doing. If you can't use AWB (or Twinkle, or Huggle, or any of the others) correctly then you shouldn't use them, period. There are hundreds of users who use these tools every day who DO leave the proper edit summaries. Using the tools in such a fast and reckless manner as to be completely unaware of what changes they are making is a problem. One should know what is done to articles after one edits them, when someone using AWB does actual damage to an article, "Sorry, I was using AWB and didn't know what it was doing" is NOT an excuse. --Jayron32 16:30, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

When bots edit they are usually restricted to a specific edit (adding persondata or dating maintenance tags for example) and they usually say something like general fixes. Most bots usually disable Regex typo fixes, general fixes and template redirects. To put this into perspecitve here is a link to the general fixes page of AWB. This is just one group of the edits made done by AWB. The typo fixes are seperate, the template redirects are seperate, individual find and replaces are separate, etc. I have more than 2000 Find and replace changes in my talk page group alone, I have another 1500 in the other three that I use. It would be unrealistic to have an edit summery that described every edit. In some cases yes (as in the additions of talk page banners I am currently doing), in many cases its impossible. And that could change from one article to the next. You are not asking for it to be used correctly you are trying to make it so that its unusable by making long and overly descriptive edit summeries. And every one of those users doesnt use an edit summery as descriptive as what you are asking for and they certainly arent leaving notes on talk pages explaining them. I agree that we need to be careful when making summeries but this is a rediculous knee jerk reaction that will have serious remifications. --Kumioko (talk) 16:40, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I think we're arguing at different points here. My main concern is not that AWB be stopped from doing what AWB does well, in the right hands. I have no desire to slow editors down who are using it correctly. Perusing the "general fixes" page, I don't find anything controversial there that would need special attention in an edit summary. My concern is in editors who hide behind their tools in justifying their errors, or who use the tools deliberately to mask controversial edits. I concede your point fully; it is not my intent to say that editors who use AWB properly should be made to stop and manually make every edit, if that was the impression I made upon you, I apologize for making such statements, and retract them. Instead, my only point is that editors need to exercise due caution when using such tools that they don't become a problem of themselves. There is clear evidence above, in diffs provided, of users whose edit summaries misrepresent their edits. That these misleading edit summaries were left by AWB rather than by a manual edit makes no difference in my mind. The responsibility to get it right still belongs with the person who makes the edit, regardless of how it is made. To sum up, yes, I concede that I overstepped in my statements which would require every tiny correction to be individually noted in an edit summary. It was not my intent (in my head) to give such an impression, but re-reading what I wrote, it DOES look like I was saying that. Let me retract and merely state I only want users to use automated tools responsibly, and where errors arise, they should be the responsibility of the person, not the tool, and the person who makes them needs to own them and fix them. --Jayron32 17:06, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I understand your point now and sorry I got heated there for a minute, ya scared me. --Kumioko (talk) 17:15, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

One point that may have been misunderstood above: I agree that some people might not understand what "General fixes" means in an edit summary. If the AWB user changes the edit summary to include "General fixes" (i.e. a link to the AWB General fixes documentation, like I did in the edit summary when I added this comment), then anyone viewing the edit summary could click on the link to see the list. Hopefully, people viewing this list would agree with Jayron32 that these fixes are not controversial and wouldn't need individual attention in an edit summary. GoingBatty (talk) 19:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Usually, if AWB editors stick to the fixes that AWB already implements, they will be OK, because AWB avoids automatically doing things that are controversial. So nobody is likely to complain about the default edit summary if AWB is used in a conservative way. I do think it would be helpful for AWB to build a better automatic edit summary listing the fixes that were applied. But many AWB users manage to avoid any complaints, so they must be doing something right.

In this case, it looks like Bender235 was running an out-of-date, buggy version of AWB that was adding named references when it wasn't supposed to. I think this has been fixed in AWB; see Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser#Named_references. Bender235 just needs to update to the latest version to get rid of this problem (and avoid making similar changes manually, of course). — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:36, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

The bug described at Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser#Named_references is part of version 5.1.0.0, which is the latest stable release. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:30, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. Hopefully the AWB devs will fix that soon; in the meantime Bender235 knows to watch out and undo the bug before saving. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:36, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

We are working in fixing right now. There 'll be a new release soon. We are now doing code review. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:05, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Code review is done. Next release tonight or tomorrow depending on free time in real life. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Mangochiboy

This user is inserting fake billionaires, fake yacht owners, and fake recycling companies rather like two anon IPs last week. For example:

• no such company
• no such company
• no such company or chairman

and others. --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:20, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Limbeone seems to be related. - David Biddulph (talk) 19:39, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps WP:SPI time? Ks0stm 19:58, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I have blocked both indef as vandalism-only accounts, but I don't see any harm in looking for additional socks. Looie496 (talk) 20:13, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

 Confirmed the following accounts are the same:

Mangochiboy (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

Limbeone (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

Truthtell9986 (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

Malawiboy (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

Sherwoodexports (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

Arielexports (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

Seekandyoushallfind (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) TNXMan 03:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

81.218.147.77 (talk · contribs) looks like another. - David Biddulph (talk) 12:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Out of process admin-speedy-delete by User:RHaworth

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

WP:FORUMSHOP. Please keep this in one place. --Jayron32 05:13, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• LikeJudasOfOld (talk · contribs)
• BeowulfMacCool (talk · contribs)

RHaworth speedy-deleted Litton Industries bombing, an article about the bombing hailed as the first terrorist bombing in Canada in 1982, falsely claiming it was a duplicate of Squamish Five from which it was a valid WP:FORK. I'd like the article to be reinstated and would appreciate if somebody could explain to the administrator that he is not to simply delete things that were just created ten minutes' prior and had a dozen edits improving the article as well as a meta-note that the article was under construction, about a valid historical event. My attempt to speak to him on his talkpage resulted in a brusque "I don't care, enable eMail on your account" which is likewise aggravating. When the other editor (not me) who was working on the article also contacted RHaworth to ask that the article be un-speedied (and suggested that he could pursue traditional deletion if he wished), he simply accused the other editor of being my sockpuppet. LikeJudasOfOld (talk) 00:24, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

As a note, he deleted it based on A10, which says "A recently created article with no relevant page history that duplicates an existing English Misplaced Pages topic, and that does not expand upon, detail or improve information within any existing article(s) on the subject, and where the title is not a plausible redirect. This does not include split pages."

Clearly this article, a split page with a substantial page history considering it was created only 20 minutes earlier and had 20 improvements by two authors, and substantially expanded on the small paragaraph in the Squamish Five article by writing an entire article on the bombing...did not qualify for Speedy. DRV does not need to decide whether or not it deserves to live, it just needs to restore the page and let any user who wants it deleted find a valid reason to propose their idea. But deleting out-of-process without reason is not what WP is about. LikeJudasOfOld (talk) 03:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Tit for tat deletion nominations

• Mohammad Reza Taheri (AfD discussion)
• Bahram Soroush (AfD discussion)
• DrPhosphorus (talk · contribs · checkuser · block user · block log · edit count)

After Mani Nouri (AfD discussion) was nominated for deletion with the rationale "Fails WP:ENT", DrPhosphorus, an account seemingly created to argue for keeping in that AFD discussion, has been going around nominating other Iran-related biographies for deletion as "Fails WP:ENT". These are all incomplete nominations, and I spotted them first as such. I was going to roll the nominations forward, adding the missing step, until I noticed the pattern. This seems like simple tit-for-tat disruption. Uncle G (talk) 00:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• In regards to Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Mohammad Reza Taheri, what to do? One editor has already commented, and the article looks very deletable. Drmies (talk) 04:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
• Just recently, I have decided to be provide constructive help in wiki. It is a bold assumption that the existence of my account and my activities only serve to save an article. My deletion nominations for Mohammad Reza Taheri (AfD discussion) and Bahram Soroush (AfD discussion) are in neither arbitrary nor emotional. Both persons as far as I know, are unrelated to each other and also unrelated to Mani Nouri. Thus, the term "tit for tat" is really inappropriate for this case. Back to reality, both nominated articles lack references and the persons are not notable enough. There exist not even one international reliable reference for them. No books, no newspaper articles... The tv shows etc are just like a self-made webpage and in my opinion as reference of no value. The article on Mohammad Reza Taheri (AfD discussion) provide vague information on a person with no significant achievements. He is just a "researcher" in one of the least accredited universities in Iran. Why does he deserve a biographical article in wiki? Uncle G made some strong allegations against me and my activities based on no real facts. If I was him, I would wait a few days, observe the activities, recognize a pattern and then go public. Currently, he just made wrong accusations and I think either he proves that my intention was to disrupt or he apologizes. DrPhosphorus (talk) 07:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Given your behavior, it is a very reasonable assumption that you're a sockpuppet with the purpose of disruption; whether or not your nominations are correct is irrelevant. What is relevant is that if you're a sockpuppet, you're disrupting[REDACTED] to make a point, and doing such under an alternate name is clear avoidance of scrutiny. In your first edit, you find AfD, show understanding of wiki markup, and know how to sign your name. This is not behavior of a new user.— Dædαlus 00:05, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

You even know how to use templates.. you're clearly not a new user.— Dædαlus 00:06, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough

WP:POINT violations through AWB by User:Rich Farmbrough

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Rich is hereby repeatedly trouted for involving himself unhelpfully in MFD discussions in a retaliatory manner. Essentially minor kerfuffle and we have bigger issues, let's ignore it unless it's repeated. Rd232 12:48, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I have been in a conflict over User:Rich Farmbrough's use of AWB and bot edits for the last month or so. In retaliation, he has now considered it wise to reply to twelve MfD's on pages by Geo Swan (half of them nominated by me) in the space of 2 minutes, plus one five minutes before, all of them with an absolutely incorrect edit summary, and the exact same argument, no mater what the reason for the MfD nomination was. (see his contributions of this morning, between 07.02 and 07.09

Please consider examples like Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Geo Swan/working/Guantamao expl a, where the page was already deleted by the author before Rich vored keep (and where his keep is quite amusing when compared to the actual page), or Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Geo Swan/The voyage of the Berserk II, which is not abotu a BLP problem but where he kept his rational of "there are no BLP issues here." which he used on all these pages.

Can he please be blocked for misuse of AWB, WP:POINT violations, misleading edit summaries, and WP:WIKIHOUNDING (when in conflict with an editor, come to pages completely unrelated to that conflict just to oppose the other editor...). Fram (talk) 08:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Comment: I agree with this analysis by Fram - the behavior by Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) as described above, does indeed seem to be problematic and inappropriate. -- Cirt (talk) 08:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

This is a mass attack on Geo Swan's user pages and is with-out foundation. It has nothing to do with WP:POINT. It is simply that a couple of editors have decided to have as much of Geo's workspace deleted as possible. The crazy rationales - saying that citing a US government document about a Guantanamo detainee is a BLP violation of that detainee - are only kindly described as Kafkaesque. Fram's ceaseless attacks on my edits are one thing, but this crusade against a tireless editor in search of providing WP with a thorough and balanced coverage of an important institution are quite shameful. Rich Farmbrough, 08:24, 9 December 2010 (UTC).

Editors will also note that Fram not only speedily deleted pages from Geo's user-space on wholly specious grounds, he also refused to email a copy of the page to Geo. Rich Farmbrough, 08:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC).

Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs), please provide evidence to back up your above claims, or otherwise please remove them promptly, thank you. -- Cirt (talk) 08:41, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Fram (talk · contribs) - the talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 09:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC).

This has been to DRV (Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2010 November 8), and afterwards one of those two to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive649#A drv question and to User talk:Moonriddengirl/Archive 30#Your opinion please. And yes, I refuse to post copies of pages I consider copyright violations or BLP violations to users. I have however not objected to other admins doing this. I don't believe that actions which have already been discussed at DRV and ANI a month ago can be used as an excuse for Rich Farmbroughs sudden disruption now. Fram (talk) 11:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I would just like to endorse a particular part of Rich's comment; none of this seems to have anything to do with POINT. As such I think Fram may need to consider in future spending a little bit more time thinking out his comments, to avoid making baseless accusations (unless he can explain why this is a POINT violation, which he has not yet done). No other comments on this at the moment - Kingpin (talk) 09:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough feels that I am having a crusade with crazy rationales (never mind that the vast, vast majority of those MfDs and AfDs have been deleted, so apparently not so crazy after all), and instead of taking this up with me, starting an RfC, starting an ANI section, whatever, he disrupts the AFD process by adding identical, often irrelevant rationales to those AfD's. How is this not equivalent to "Do not disrupt Misplaced Pages to illustrate a point"? See the nutshell of WP:POINT: "This page in a nutshell: When you have a disagreement with other users, state your point plainly and continue to discuss the matter if necessary. Do not play games to get a point across to others." Rich Farmbrough clearly is playing games to get the point across, and thus fits the POINT description perfectly. Fram (talk) 11:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Community restriction requested

Given User:Fram's history with User:Geo Swan it has been suggested that he disengage from his combative stance, in particular but not exclusively in regard to admin actions. I would suggest that the community request that he do so forthwith. Rich Farmbrough, 08:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC).

Please provide evidence to back up your above claims, or remove them forthwith. -- Cirt (talk) 08:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

See Fram's user talk page for the history: look at the speedy of User:Geo Swan/Guantanamo/Abdul Zahir charges

You appear to be particularly combative at the moment Rich, considered taking a cup of tea? Fifelfoo (talk) 08:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I am! I was just going to let all this wash over me, when I popped over to Fram's talk page, and started seeing how he was using his Admin powers perusing a personal agenda of "clensing" Geo Swan's pages, the extent of which I was hitherto unaware. Speedying pages in someone's userspace for spurious BLP reasons is bad enough, but refusing to email them the content of the page seems downright hostile. Rich Farmbrough, 09:13, 9 December 2010 (UTC).

And look at User_talk:Coren/Archives/2010/November#Your_advice_please where Fram makes a not so thinly veiled threat at another admin "your own actions might come under scrutiny". This section also bears testament to the effect that the unremitting attention of Fram was having on his chosen target. Rich Farmbrough, 10:00, 9 December 2010 (UTC).

Creation of articles from leaked classified documents

Because this topic is relevant to almost every noticeboard, I'm posting a brief incident report here. meco (talk · contribs) and Wnt (talk · contribs) have been spearheading the creation of encyclopedia articles based on leaked classified documents from WikiLeaks, using the leaked cables to support the majority of the article. This was recently discussed at Talk:United_States_diplomatic cables leak#List of vital sites, with both meco and Wnt ignoring the points raised in that discussion. Wnt took this a step further, and created a new article, Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, which is primarily based on a classified, February 2009 cable from the U.S. State Department that lists foreign installations and infrastructure considered critical to U.S. interests. U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the information "gives a group like al-Qaeda a targeting list" and British prime minister David Cameron said the list damages the national security of the U.S., the U.K, and other countries. Because this list was uploaded from the classified leaked documents and lacks enough secondary sources for a standalone article, I redirected it to the United States Department of Homeland Security. Wnt restored it soon after, and I once again redirected it. We have a problem that needs to be addressed by the community. Since the WikiLeaks cables are considered "raw data", they are primary sources. The content in question here has been described by the BBC as "one of the most sensitive", and by CNN as "key to U.S. security". According to meco and Wnt, this means Misplaced Pages must host an article on the subject and include classified content from leaked documents. I leave this matter for the community to decide, as this issue will continue to come up in the coming days as more documents are released. As Misplaced Pages editors, we need to show self-restraint and self-control when using leaked primary documents, and doubly so when we are dealing with leaked classified documents considered vital to global security. Viriditas (talk) 02:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Surely this is dealt with by WP:PRIMARY? Physchim62 (talk) 02:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I think Jimbo Wales and the Misplaced Pages legal team are looking into this. At least that is my reasonable guess. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 03:00, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

e/c The issues of "classified" and "leaked" and so on are irrelevant. For the most part at least, there's little doubt they're authentic. The problem is that they're primary sources -- and often consist only of ephemera (the views of a given foreign service officer, often quite junior, in one place and time). This makes them great stuff to be trolled through and synthesized by historians. Your average[REDACTED] editor? Not so much. But there's no need to reinvent the[REDACTED] wheel here. Treat them for what they are -- primary, non-peer reviewed sources. Which is to say, with great caution. Any article built entirely around these kinds of cables should be deleted on site. But judicious use of cables, properly attributed and handled by wikipedia's army of crack researchers, should be ok.Bali ultimate (talk) 03:01, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

There's also a COPYVIO problem, at least at Talk:United_States_diplomatic cables leak#List of vital sites: close paraphrasing of the BBC which exceeds acceptable levels (even for me, and I'm usually quite cool about such things). Physchim62 (talk) 03:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The redirect requires deletion. The immediacy of this issue requires further clarification by the community because it is going to keep happening over the next month. Obviously, we are here to write articles based on secondary sources, but Wnt is trying to get around this by briefly quoting a secondary to support the creation of a stub, and then filling the majority of the article up with content directly from the leaked, classified documents. In my opinion, Wnt (and others) are purposefully trying to game the policies and guidelines to write articles based solely on classified documents. That's why this requires administrator attention. Viriditas (talk) 03:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes that sort of thing is a problem and should not be tolerated. However, it's not only tolerated, it's supported, every day here. Misplaced Pages supports the invention of fake "topics." Go no.Bali ultimate (talk) 03:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

This isn't "gaming the system", but following the rules. An article has to have sources to meet the general notability guideline. So I came up with several such sources - more are easily available - and used some sources published by the agency that created the CFDI, and used a definitive primary source. This primary source in turn provides numerous search terms to find more secondary sources. Right now, people all over the world are writing news stories about many of the specific sites listed in this cable - about what was meant, whether it was out of date, what it's importance is. The primary source lets us find these sources and compile that expert analysis from secondary sources that people here say they value so highly. Wnt (talk) 07:13, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• The cables are PRIMARY. Articles written from PRIMARY sources are SYNTHESIS and ORIGINAL RESEARCH. Warn the editors; Speedy or AFD the articles depending on current deletions policy. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:09, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The leaked documents are leaked! Even if it was Misplaced Pages's responsibility to safeguard U.S. security (and it isn't), it is too late for that. They are however primary sources however, and should be treated as such - at best as a source for quotes to add a bit of colour to proper reporting of what reliable secondary sources say. Anything else is likely to be OR from people perhaps a little over-enthusiastic with their interpretation. This isn't our job either. Topics need good verifiable secondary sources to justify creation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. Writers do have ethical obligations in every field, and in an encyclopedia, the policies and guidelines are based on such obligations: Why should we use reliable sources? Why should we be careful writing about BLP's? Why do we care about a NPOV? These are all ethical problems requiring responsibility, self-control and restraint. As I said in the discussion linked above, we're not here to write articles in the vein of The Anarchist Cookbook. Viriditas (talk) 03:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

As a Brit, I have no more 'ethical problems' with dealing with this in a neutral manner than I would if the leaks came from anywhere else, but this is beside the point. Nothing written in Misplaced Pages is going to alter the fact that the documents 'have' been leaked. If we report this issue in a responsible manner (i.e. using verifiable secondary sources), nothing will appear that isn't out there already. Even if the odd bit of 'primary' were to be included in an article, this isn't releasing anything that isn't already known. I think it highly likely that anyone intent on using the leaked documents for hostile purposes will acquire their own copies, rather than looking for snippets on Misplaced Pages. I think are normal policy (properly applied) is quite adequate - though perhaps we need to remind people about BLP policy on naming non-notable people, if for no reason than that is ignored too often anyway. The 'Anarchist Cookbook' issue seems a bit of a red herring to me, as 'articles in the vein of' it would violate WP:NPOV. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

In any case WP:HOWTO covers the case of The Anarchist Cookbook! Well, it used to... Physchim62 (talk) 03:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump, the red herring here is the notion that because "the documents have been leaked", there's nothing we can do. That isn't true. We only write encyclopedia articles based on good secondary sources, and we do so carefully and with good judgment. Just as we don't tell people how to make weapons or hack into the Pentagon, we don't provide them with a classified list of sensitive installations and say, "do with it what you will, it is out of our hands, we're just Misplaced Pages editors." What you are forgetting is that WikiLeaks provides these documents to journalists, who do have ethical obligations and are supposed to be professionals. The raw data was not meant for use by Misplaced Pages editors who may not, and who in your case, refuse to recognize and accept this great responsibility because of a refusal to act professionally. We've got the ethical foundation in the policies and guidelines, and nothing in them says we write articles with an attitude of "well, that's that, it is out of my hands, I don't care." Just the opposite, in fact. Why do we care about accuracy? Why do we care about getting BLP's right? Why do we care about copyright? Viriditas (talk) 03:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Half the pintards out there think Wikileaks and this site are linked; let's not give them any more fuel. HalfShadow 03:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Reply to Viriditas: I'll not comment on whether I rate the ethics of the average journalist any higher than the average Misplaced Pages editor, but I will point out that you are wrong about access to the Wikileaks documents. Anyone can download them. As for your comments about me refusing to recognise responsibilities, I consider it unworthy of response as a gross distortion of what I wrote. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:02, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The stuff released by WikiLeaks has been vetted to make sure it can't do any damage to lives of people. What is now going on is that the US government is finding herself in the same boat as e.g. the Chinese government is in when issues regarding dissidents/Tibet etc. are raised. They will invoke national security as a real life version of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Count Iblis (talk) 04:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I know; funny as hell, innit? HalfShadow 04:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) That is 100% not the issue. The issue is that this is basicly a bunch of unfiltered emails (i know, "cables", whatever, same thing). You can't source a Misplaced Pages article to a bunch of unfiltered emails. The reason we don't allow primary sources like this to be the main source of references for an article is that there is no analysis of those sources. Misplaced Pages cannot be the first place of analysis. If as person wanted to, they could simply cherrypick specific cables to use as references and build a case to "prove" anything they wanted to in a Misplaced Pages article. We don't do that here. Its not the role of Misplaced Pages. It is the role of reliable secondary sources like newspapers, magazines, peer-reviewed journals, or respectable book-publishing scholars to weed through these cables and then report on what they find. Only after someone else, outside of Misplaced Pages, has assigned meaning to these cables should that information be used in a Misplaced Pages article. Right now, its a bunch of unfiltered communications and none of us has any idea what ANY of it means. So we shouldn't use it in articles, period. When the BBC does a major piece on some aspect of something they found, and researched, and checked into, and confirmed, and THEN reported on; we use the BBC source. But not before that. --Jayron32 04:18, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Yup. Normal policy applies. No synthesis. Use WP:RS, Work within WP:BLP (for a change...) If some idiot wants to compile a list of 'potential terrorist targets' using the cables, it won't get on Misplaced Pages, not because it is a 'security threat' (which it is unlikely to be, for the reasons already given), but because it isn't acceptable content. End of story. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:25, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• All of our normal policies should apply here. For there to be individual articles on any of the specific documents leaked by Wikileaks, there needs to be a certain amount of significant coverage in secondary sources about those documents. However, on the other side of the field, if there are enough secondary sources to qualify an article for inclusion as a stand-alone article, arguments based on it being about classified material are irrelevant. Once released by a source, classified material becomes public. The source in this case is Wikileaks. Once released, the material is free to be used by both newspapers and any other group, since it has devolved to public information upon its release.

To summarize: articles need enough secondary sources to qualify under our policies and guidelines. If a topic does qualify, arguments for deletion of said articles because they are classified information should be considered irrelevent. Silverseren 04:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I would like to note that reprinting any material that is in the "cables" released could be possibly be covered under the Espionage_Act_of_1917 and could lead to repercussions against Misplaced Pages. All editors should be careful to not jeopardize the project in such a way. No matter who all has done so before it could still be done on a case by case basis and people and organizations fined and/or jailed if it is determined to be. The Espionage Act has already been upheld to not violate First Amendment rights of free speech since it involves the act itself, not necessarily the material. And reproducing classified material wouldnt be justified just by saying "well, they did it too". I dont know where the whole WikiLeaks thing is going to go, but I dont think we should get involved in any way with it. Wolfstorm000 (talk) 04:41, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Ooh! Scary legal threat. Edison (talk) 06:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

No, that's not how it works. The original releasing agent of the material is liable for the "damage" caused by its release. The releasing agent in this case is Wikileaks. Thus, the government is entirely able to sue and/or prosecute Wikileaks under the Espionage Act. However, since Misplaced Pages has nothing to do with Wikileaks, we are not in liability with them. Furthermore, like I said above, once information is released by an agent, that material then becomes public and other sources that utilize that material are not liable for holding and/or re-releasing it. This is why newspapers and other news sources are able to discuss and re-release the classified information, because they are a secondary agent that had the information after it was made public. It falls under the First Amendment of the Constitution, namely, freedom of the press. And, because Misplaced Pages uses news reports to make our article, making us a tertiary source, we also fall under freedom of the press and are that much more removed from the original documents. If the government had the audacity to try and prosecute Misplaced Pages, it would also have to prosecute every news agency that ever made an in-depth news report on the documents, since it is their information that we are utilizing for our articles. Silverseren 04:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages does not give legal advice. Please don't. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I was expecting to argue this issue at AfD, not ANI. We haven't even had time to properly start an edit war! I must strongly object to the continual bait-and-switch between policy issues and legal issues on this topic. There is nothing illegal about discussing "classified" information that has been widely disseminated on web and news sites all over the world. So then we get into arguments about "primary sources" - but those are policy arguments, which at most would be used to try to excuse specific changes within the article. And when those run out, we run into "ethical" arguments. But I'd like to know what kind of ethics it that demands us to pretend that we are protecting secret information, at the expense of actually abandoning WP:NOTCENSORED like it was yesterday's news.

Now as for specifics, I should point out, that in the article I created, I have secondary news sources as well as the primary source; and the secondary sources attest to the apparent authenticity of the primary source. Now some people on Misplaced Pages, especially when they're trying to promote a point of view, like to disparage primary sources; nonetheless, there is nothing that gives a person a better idea of what is in a list of things than the list itself. And do note that the primary source (the 2008 Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative list) is being used as a source about itself, which is the most kosher use for such a source. Wnt (talk) 04:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Let's suspend legal and ethical issues for the moment. Please read WP:PRIMARY; it will explain everything. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 05:04, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:PRIMARY would be useful if only primary sources had been used in the article being discussed. However, as can be seen], there were secondary sources involved. Only a few, admittedly, but that means that it should have been taken to AfD. A redirect edit war was not the way to go. Silverseren 05:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll add that my article is about the "Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative". The primary source that I cite contains text that identifies itself, as confirmed by secondary sources, as the "Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative (CFDI) list". So I am using this primary source as a statement about itself. I fully understand that there are very problematic uses of the cables as primary sources - for example, the widely disseminated news stories that China wouldn't mind if South Korea took over North Korea, based on a leaked cable which quotes a South Korean defense minister stating that opinion. But that's not what I did here. Wnt (talk) 05:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I think one of the other issues is that the secondary coverage isn't really solid enough to warrant a stand-alone article. Of course, like i've been saying, that means that it should have been taken to AfD, not just automatically redirected. Silverseren 05:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Agenda driven editing is not good, unless the agenda is to create high-quality encyclopedic content. If editors are out to make a WP:POINT by creating lots of original research articles based largely on primary sources, not only should those articles be deleted, but the editors causing massive disruption in that way ought to be blocked. Editing in such a volume as to win a dispute by overwhelming the other side, in contravention of policy, is strictly prohibited. Jehochman 04:57, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether I'm being addressed by Jehochman above, so I'll specify I don't think that I'm the one trying to "win a dispute by overwhelming the other side" when I make up a new article. I feel like I'm the one being overwhelmed by accusations of policy violations, being unethical, and being threatened that the ancient legal evil that attacked Eugene Debs has crawled out of Lake Totenkopf and is about to start chasing Misplaced Pages editors. And the agenda foremost on my mind when creating the list section of the article was to take a confusing jumble of unfamiliar terms and convert it into a sea of pretty blue Wikilinks so that you could look up and understand all the sites and networks of pipelines and cables. I should be a poor inclusionist if I did not observe, by the way, that due to unreasonably restrictive standards, Misplaced Pages's coverage of corporations is so poor that even many corporations identified by the U.S., a foreign country in their lands, as critical to the U.S. economy, have not been deemed worthy to have their own Misplaced Pages articles. I'll also say there is nothing shameful about an agenda of using the cables to add facts to Misplaced Pages articles. We've just been handed a treasure trove of inside information such as the world has rarely seen. Yeah, it should have been kept secret, but it wasn't, and now we have new information about all kinds of topics. That's as conventional of an encyclopedic agenda as there is, and it is also as radical as Wikileaks: because the premise of SIPRNet is that 1 in 500 people is entitled to know the truth, and the rest aren't. Wnt (talk) 05:57, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

To say something about your statement "I'll also say there is nothing shameful about an agenda of using the cables to add facts to Misplaced Pages articles." What you are doing by adding things straight from the cables to articles is to confuse data with analysis. As they stand right now, the cables are basically raw data. We have no idea what they mean. Random statements taken from those cables, out of context from the entire situation that generated them, serves no purpose at Misplaced Pages. What needs to be done is someone who knows what they are doing, and is an expert in either investigative journalism or international relations or both needs to sit down with the cables, sort through them and generate a reliable story that lets us know exactly what they mean and can explain why they think that. Misplaced Pages is not the place to do that. When John Doe in a cable says something, I don't know what he means. I don't know what its in response to, I don't know how it relates to other parts of the world the cable refers to, but is not covered by this current data dump. I don't know shit. I know he said what he said, but I have no means to put it into context such that I can extract meaning from it enough to use it appropriately in a Misplaced Pages article. THAT is why we need secondary sources. Secondary sources do the hard work necessary to provide the context necessary to extract meaning from primary sources. The cables themselves are useless until they are analyzed. --Jayron32 06:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The primary source was not being used to interpret anything in the article. It was being used to source a list of infrastructures. See my response below. Silverseren 06:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

However, we're discussing a single article that was created that did have some secondary sourcing. The question I have is why the article wasn't taken to AfD. The efforts by Viriditas to redirect it seem to be against policy. Silverseren 05:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

People often mistake "Articles for deletion" as a delete/keep only discussion, when there are other options such as redirection. This is probably covered more broadly at ANI. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 05:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Can I suggest we (or rather you - I'm off to bed) stick to discussing the general principle here, rather than getting drawn into debates over specific articles. As I see it, since those advocating 'restraint' are really only suggesting that we don't engage in OR, and the majority of remaining comments are saying much the same thing, we are close to consensus anyway: Work within policy, properly applied. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The problem may lie within the interpretation of said policy, rather than the policy itself or the work involved in applying it. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 05:11, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with that, but it also stands to reason that policy was not followed by Viriditas. The whole edit war of redirection, unredirection, and redirection should have never happened. I put more blame on Viriditas for this because s/he should have followed policy and taken the article to AfD. Silverseren 05:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

<Undent>My two cents: WP:Primary and WP:BLPPRIMARY could usefully be edited to prevent use of primary sources that could reasonably put people in physical danger, even if those primary sources are available elsewhere. BLPPRIMARY already says: "Do not use public records that include personal details, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses." So why do that but allow use of secret records that could get people killed?Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

See my comments above. The reason we don't use primary sources isn't because they are secret or harmful. Its because, without the acompanying analysis provided by secondary sources, we have no way to assign meaning to things that are in primary sources. Secondary sources (news outlets, scholars, things like that) will read through the cables, analyze them, work with other known information to construct a story about what they all mean, verify their story, confirm it independently, and THEN report it. That sort of work is what is needed before we can use information. Raw data (and that's all the leaked cables are) isn't of much use to anyone unless we can put the raw data into context. We can't put them into context ourselves, that's the textbook definition of WP:OR. We wait for someone reliable to do the work to put them into context, then we report what THEY find. That's why we don't use primary sources. It has nothing to do with rights, or privacy, or secrecy, or liability. Its all about the core purpose and values of Misplaced Pages. This is a WP:5P issue and nothing else. --Jayron32 06:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

However, like i've been saying above, the article did have secondary sources, so this continued throwing around of WP:PRIMARY is unfounded. If you actually look at the article, you'd see that the primary source was only being used to source the list of infrastructures. ALL of the other sources in the article were secondary. Silverseren 06:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm still talking in the general, not the specific. If your article doesn't meet the problems I laid out, then I'm not talking about you. People, however, keep trying to say that these cables are somehow useful to Misplaced Pages. They aren't. They are next to worthless until someone else comes along and tells us what they all mean. Insofar as you have found someone that did that, you may be OK. (I am not saying that your secondary sources are good, and I am not saying they are bad, I am just saying, you know!). The problem is that people are expressing the belief that the cables themselves are good sources for Misplaced Pages articles. --Jayron32 06:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:Primary: "Primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Misplaced Pages....."

Jayron32: "we don't use primary sources."

Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) No, we don't use primary sources to build an article around. Primary sources are useful in limited ways. For example, if we have an article about, say, an important chemical process, while the main text of the article is cited to reliable chemistry texts which discuss the process and its applications, it is quite appropriate to also include the primary publication that introduced the reaction as a supplemental source. Likewise, using the cables as supplemental references in articles which are reliably sourced to good, solid secondary sources may be appropriate. However, the use of the cables as the sole or main source to build an article is a bad idea. You conveniently left out of your quote from WP:PRIMARY above "...but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them." and later " Do not make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about material found in a primary source. Do not base articles entirely on primary sources." (bolding original). The problem is claiming that the cables can be used to write Misplaced Pages articles. They cannot. They can be used to supplement articles in very limited application. --Jayron32 07:00, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Some cables are primary sources, essentially telegrams from an individual official back to Washington. But others are "scenesetters" compiled by a group of embassy personnel to brief a visiting high-level official. These seem comparable to a secondary source in nature. Whether primary or secondary, they will often turn out to be useful - for example, a quote from a foreign politician will often be quite informative in itself, without further explanation, simply as an insight into his opinions. Wnt (talk) 06:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, do WP:VALINFO and WP:USEFUL apply here? Whose Your Guy (talk) 07:18, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Jayron, as I pointed out above, there are certain public record primary sources that Misplaced Pages currently prohibits BOTH for basing a whole article on, and ALSO for mere supplementation purposes. I'm saying that leaked national security info should be added to the list. Otherwise, clever editors will find a way to use it as supplementation instead of as the core of an article.Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Leaving out "private data" from an article already risks running into censorship, but the hope is that it is not really encyclopedically relevant anyway. It is a prohibition on specific types of facts of low importance. Your proposal is to ban information according to the route by which it reached us, regardless of its (generally large) overall significance. We should not allow the small errors of one policy to turn into the larger errors of the next until we end up ruling out coverage of major world events. Wnt (talk) 07:37, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Anythingyouwant, adding "national security" to the list of things to exclude is a very bad idea. Many governments around the world use those two words (or one of many commonly-known related terms) to suppress all kinds of information, sometimes for no understandable reasons at all. (Unless you consider "someone with a lot of power doesn't want this known" to be an understandable reason.) If you think we have enough of a headache with ethnic/nationalist squabbles on Misplaced Pages, allowing "national security" to be a reason not to use a primary source will make those squabbles feel like playful noogies. The best solution in any case which may involve those two words is to continue to use such sources (per our guidelines, of course) unless explicitly told not to by the Foundation: since they're the ones who'd be on the front lines in any tangle involving freedom of speech vs. national security, our best course would be to defer to their decision on the matter, not matter how stupid it is. -- llywrch (talk) 18:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I've raised the issue at Wikipedia_talk:No_original_research#FollowIng_reliable_sources.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:31, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• I agree with most of the editors above that the classified or leaked status of the cables is not relevant for us (we are not the US government), but their status as primary sources is: they are "accounts written by people who are directly involved, offering an insider's view of an event", as described at WP:PRIMARY, and have not been subject to editorial oversight. As such, articles should not be based exclusively on them.  Sandstein  07:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

In covering the documents in question, CNN announced that it "is not publishing specific details from the list, which refers to pipelines and undersea telecommunications cables as well as the location of minerals or chemicals critical to U.S. industry." However, this did not stop User:Wnt from citing the CNN article and publishing specific details from WikiLeaks. This is most certainly relevant for us, as this is incredibly poor editorial behavior that is not condoned by Misplaced Pages. Here we have reliable secondary sources that admittedly refuse to print the details, and yet we also have Misplaced Pages editors who ignore the secondary sources and decide to publish the details from the primary sources anyway, because they know better than the secondary sources. Furthermore, Silverseren's laughable claim that "the primary source was only being used to source the list of infrastructures. ALL of the other sources in the article were secondary" is highly and purposefully deceptive. Wnt's original article was 24,876 bytes, of which only 3,664 bytes were sourced to one secondary source (CNN), with the rest coming from WikiLeaks. The rest of his sourcing was a combination of original research and misuse of primary sources. A later revision by Wnt added a BBC source and a Times Online source printed by The Australian, expanding the article a little more, but with the majority of the article based on primary sources that CNN refused to publish. So, we have secondary sources that refuse to publish sensitive classified information that a Misplaced Pages editor feels they can safely ignore. Wnt should be blocked for doing this. Viriditas (talk) 07:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I slept through this part of the debate, but I just want to say that the New York Times is close to the bailiwick of Joseph Lieberman, who has been running around intimidating companies like Amazon.com by various methods. I feel like they've been intimidated rather than educated. When I read the list I see nothing that looks like an ingenious opportunity to do harm that al-Qaida would never have thought of --- to the contrary, I suspect that many of these sites are on the list because they've been the targets of previous terrorist attack. That's a big supposition of course, assuming that things like the Internet cable cuts in previous years were in fact attacks, but in time as the secondary sources are added for each of the items on the list, the truth should become apparent. Wnt (talk) 15:01, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Here, i'll break down the sources that were used for you. There were the news articles (this, this, this, and this). There was a book (this). There was a website - Army Technology (this). There were two company links, ones that were mentioned in the article (this and this). There were two links to Department of Homeland Security informational pages (this and this). And there was the link to the cable document from Wikileaks (this). That was the entiriety of the sources.

Of these references, the department of homeland security ones were used primarily in the lede as an intro. Then three of the four news articles were used to make the paragraphed content section. The rest of the article was the list of infrastructures. The Wikileaks cable link was attached to the opening sentence of the list, which stated what the list was of. The company links, the other news link, and the website link were all attached to individual things in the list.

Now, can you tell me again what was wrong with this article? If you are going to say not enough secondary coverage, then fine. But that means you should have taken the article to AfD, as any other editor would do when following process. Instead, you started a battle of redirection with the article. For reference, this version was the one I was lookng at while making this comment. Silverseren 08:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The article itself was created out of process, when its original proposal was rejected on the parent talk page (linked in the first comment). Wnt ignored that consensus and created it anyway, along with a detailed list of sensitive sites -- even after the single, solitary secondary source he relied upon rejected the detailed list. This doesn't require an AfD, it requires a behavioral readjustment. Here, we have Wnt ignoring the discussion which rejected the proposed article in the first place, and ignoring the secondary source he himself relied upon to create the article, which also rejected the detailed list. The sources you refer to above aren't even worth discussing as no article on Misplaced Pages could ever be created with them. Viriditas (talk) 08:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

If you would actually read my previous comment, you would notice that there were four news articles. Yes, CNN says that it won't disclose any specifics, but the other three (this, this, and this) do specifically discuss the items in the list. Not all of them, of course, but quite a few, including the various pipelines and materials in various countries. Presumably, CNN didn't put any specifics because it is a US paper and its protecting its own interests. The other three are not US-based, so they don't have a problem discussing things. Silverseren 09:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Which reliable secondary sources support the subject of the article, Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, and which support the existence of the list items in whole or in part? That's right, the answer is none. Viriditas (talk) 09:33, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Aside from the issues with WP:PRIMARY, I really don't see any problems here. The requirement is that content is verifiable, and – for better or for worse – these cables have been leaked and are now publicly available. I notice that some editors above are making, "Let's not make Misplaced Pages look too connected with Wikileaks," type comments. These have no relevance to our content policies and should be discounted. WP:CENSOR is the standard which applies here. ╟─TreasuryTag►pikuach nefesh─╢ 08:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Synthesis is the relevant policy. While they are editors, Misplaced Pages editors are not political scientists and political sociologists. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• What exactly is being synthesized in the article, the list? Silverseren 09:18, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Comment: The WP:AFD process is the appropriate method to deal with assessing community consensus regarding notability and whether Misplaced Pages should have article(s) on this. -- Cirt (talk) 08:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Except we've already had three discussions on this topic, with the editors above refusing to acknowledge the most basic policies and guidelines supporting article creation and development. Now, we can look forward to a fourth discussion to make it "official"? Sounds like unnecessary bureaucracy. Viriditas (talk) 09:35, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Looks 100% fine to me. We have notability established in multiple reliable sources, critical coverage in reliable sources. The classified nature of the primary source is irrelevant. And primary sources are not disallowed, simply to be treated with care. As third party RS's have identified this as the CFDI list then it can be legitimately used to source the contents of the list. There is no issue here. --Errant 09:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Could you please name a single reliable secondary source that supports the article subject as found in the current title, as well as a reliable secondary source that supports the contents of the list? I looked and did not find any. This appears to be a serious problem. Viriditas (talk) 10:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

*floods* Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. I can go for 100 if you want. Want me to? :) Silverseren 10:31, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Viriditas, I think you misunderstand the point of WP:PRIMARY. The list is identified as what it puports to be according to reliable sources, the initiative exists as recorded in reliable secondary sources. Now, there is the issue to discuss whether to include the actual list in entirety, and in fact I would tend to agree with not including the list. My thinking there is not to do with primary sourcing (primary sourcing is absolutely fine if no OR is conducted, and notability is already established), but rather to do with having an unwieldy list sourced to a marginally verified document. But the notability of the article topic is, I think, not in question --Errant 11:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I have misunderstood nothing. There are no reliable secondary sources about the subject. All of those sources linked above are about WikiLeaks and regional installations that were named on leaked secret cables from the State Department, as well as reactions to the leak from officials. Reliable secondary sources about the Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, also referred to as the "Department of Homeland Security list on overseas sites" are simply non-existent. So, my original creation of a redirect to the DHS was entirely supported. What we are seeing are attempts by editors to create new encyclopedia articles with every new classified document released from WikiLeaks, even when the coverage amounts to little to nothing. Per WP:RS, "sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article, and should be appropriate to the claims made. If a topic has no reliable sources, Misplaced Pages should not have an article on it." There are no sources on the topic of the Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, only passing mentions to it in sources about leaked documents from WikiLeaks. I can't see it being anything more than a redirect to the DHS. Viriditas (talk) 12:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok, you may have a point there. Although there is sourcing pre-dating the leaks. So; take it to AFD and make the case. --Errant 12:11, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

There seems also to be a problem also with WP:NOT#NEWS here. Just because WP is not censored, doesn't justify us being used as a dumping ground for material taken straight out of a primary source on the backs of a few news clippings. This 'mass creation' of articles in such a fashion might satisfy a few egos in the competition to create new articles, but it seems to me not to be the route to proper encyclopaedic content. --Ohconfucius 14:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Because of a considerable amount of good editing done by Silverseren recently, the sourcing of the article has been strengthened considerably. Many thanks. Wnt (talk) 16:52, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

 Administrator note In reviewing the sources at Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, there are many good sources, but there is also a large amount of information that is either unsourced or sourced to an inappropriate primary source. I have left a note at that article's talkpage that the primary source should be removed. Anyone who wishes may remove it, along with any other information in the article which is not sourced to a reliable secondary source (such as respected news and journal articles). --Elonka 06:22, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

On Viriditas and this article

Viriditas recently placed this notice on Meco's talk page. It seemed a bit houndish to me, but I decided to take a moment to investigate his claims of consensus. The article's talk page doesn't seem to tell much, since there is very little discussion at all and that can hardly be called consensus. But the cable's talk page discussion was quite revealing. It seems to be Viriditas arguing extremely harshly about not having the article exist, with Meco and Cyclopia arguing against him. Furthermore, this discussion is not about making a separate article, but about having a section on the vital lists in that article. Also, Meco perfectly summarized the statements from editors in the discussion here. It seems to me that this entire ANI discussion is him being a bit pointy. I still have no idea why he doesn't just put the article up at AfD. Silverseren 09:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

This is my last edit to this thread. Feel free to close. Viriditas (talk) 12:13, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

But don't leave now. There's more to come! I'm sure your perspective will still be appreciated. __meco (talk) 13:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, there's more to report on the surreptitious machinations of Viriditas (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) in this conflict. Let me serve you a few items:

1. At the top of of the section to which this section is an addendum, Viriditas begins their "incident report" by asserting that "meco and Wnt have been spearheading the creation of ...". Now, if one checks the edit histories of both United States diplomatic cables leak, its talk page, Talk:United States diplomatic cables leak, and the article which Wnt created, Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, this user's first post on either of the first two was this edit to the article at 18:26 (and this is their only edit to that article) adding a wikilink to the article which they had begun writing at 06.45 on Dec 8. Wnt's first post on the talk page was this post at 23:22 on Dec 8. I.e. by all likelihood Wnt knew nothing of the ongoing conflict and wasn't involved in spearheading anything. Unless Viriditas knows something that isn't immediately apparent, Wnt's role in this is simply a gross misrepresentation of the facts. (correction: according to Talk:Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative Wnt cofirms having had casual knowledge of the ongoing discussion. However, this information was given at 05:14 on Dec 9, so it should not impinge significantly on Viriditas' "spearheading" claim vis-á-vis Wnt. __meco (talk) 15:06, 9 December 2010 (UTC))
2. On Talk:United States diplomatic cables leak Viriditas repeatedly accuses me of disregarding consensus and making unilateral moves. Viriditas claims that five editors have told me off, but this I'm supposed to ignore in cavalier fashion. In this section I make a summary of the the preceding discussion ("perfectly summarized", according to Silver seren above), where I show that Viriditas' asserted consensus is no such thing, i.e. again a blatant misrepresentation.
3. Then, finally there's the matter of the redirect and the section which I wrote for United States diplomatic cables leak on the cable detailing facilities worldwide that are critical to US national security. The section I wrote was taken out of the article by Viriditas, who claimed I was violating consensus against having this section , Viriditas self-appropriates unilateral emergency powers and makes a drastic re-organization of the article—purportedly to reduce its by claimed unmanageable size—moving all discussion of substantive cables content from the article (reducing its size from 166kb to 43kb) to Contents of the United States diplomatic cables leak, a page which was originally created on Dec 1, then at the same time reverted to a redirect, but now, in one unilateral, undiscussed (well, there had in fact been discussion, but that turned out to oppose having this fork as a separate page) move recreated, of course, completely bereft of any mention of the sensitive facilities cable. (Now, I immediately went to AfD with this article, however, seeing that whatever shenanigans had caused the recreation of this article at this point in time, having this AfD process ongoing besides all else was not the best strategy going forward, I withdrew the nomination. Viriditas' actions in this, however, are still salient points to be considered in the context of the present discussion.)

In my opinion it is Viriditas, and nobody else, who has been shown attempting to game the system in this case, and I would suggest that their repeated display of inappropriate and disruptive behavior should call for them to be banished from editing on this subject. __meco (talk) 13:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

When Viriditas first redirected the article, I noticed on his user page that he had a userbox saying that he followed a 1RR and preferred to talk through disputes. As I felt that redirection was grossly inappropriate, I put the text back and summarized my position at Talk:Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative. I wish he'd followed his stated preference, because I think he's simply wrong with his idea that one article's talk page can prevent creation of another, sight unseen. Seriously, I think that even if there had been a formal and well-attended !vote at that talk page that said specifically "You, Wnt, shall not start the CFDI article", it still would have no basis in Misplaced Pages policy. In general I don't think we have a policy that provides a way to ban the creation of an article in advance, even here on ANI; we have WP:SALT, but that's only for repeated creations of bad articles and there's still supposed to be a way around it. Wnt (talk) 14:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The redirect action which Wnt mentions here is not the same one as I'm discussing above, just to avoid any confusion. I didn't mention the inappropriate redirecting of Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, but it is yet another incident that goes to show the M.O. of Viriditas on this subject. __meco (talk) 14:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

All of a sudden, Viriditas's obsession with deleting content in the United States diplomatic cables leak article and people out of the talk page is starting to make a lot of sense. 122.60.93.162 (talk) 03:53, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikinews

Not commenting on the specifics of whether these articles should be on Misplaced Pages (I haven't looked at them in detail) but I just wanted to note that Wikinews does accept articles based on primary sources and to some extent original reporting. I'm sure more contributions to their Cablegate coverage would be welcome. the wub "?!" 13:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Answer: WP:NOT#NEWS. --Ohconfucius 15:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Wikinews != Misplaced Pages. Wikinews is another Wikimedia project. (Or, to explain it at length, The Wub is wisely suggesting that anyone who wants to write articles based on material from WikiLeaks should take it somewhere else -- such as, but not limited to, Wikinews.) -- llywrch (talk) 18:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• • Are we still discussing the notability of the page, even after the links I gave in the above section? Fine, have some new ones, here, here, and here. Are we good now? Silverseren 19:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Kailashgupta180

Could I get an admin to look at User:Kailashgupta180. Since joining Misplaced Pages in July, user has done one useful thing: creating an article on a Khiddirpur, a village in India. This is a great addition to the encyclopedia. Unfortunately, at the same time, the editor has been highly disruptive, essentially trying a large variety of methods to create an article about himself and his website under a variety of names (Kailash gupta, Www.kailashgupta182.wikia.com, and Kailashgupta182). Furthermore, the editor has added personal information to the Khiddirpur article numerous times--either a link to his user page, as here, or an email address, as here. This additions were done both with his accoutn and with an IP address (e.g., ). The rest of the user's time has been spent polishing his user page, which is somewhere between myspacey and resume-like. I have tried numerous times to inform the user of policies, but I've never gotten a response. The user was given a final warning by User:Eeekster on creating pages about himself back on 23 July (), and that held, until today when he created the two newest ones (both tagged for speedy deletion). I don't see how spending any more time trying to teach or channel this user is going to help, because we're not getting any indication that the user understands, is listening, or is willing to follow our policies. I invite an admin to consider a block of some type; given the lack of useful edits after the initial article creation, I'm tempted to recommend an indefinite block, to last until such time as the user is demonstrates that xe understands our policies and purpose. I'm off to notify subject and Eeekster nowQwyrxian (talk) 06:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Seems to me like the user just doesn't get it. He doesn't understand[REDACTED] policy, nor do I think he is ever going to try to. All, or most of his edits are vanity edits, including the article he created, which, I think he made solely because he was born there, and wanted to put himself in that article at some point.

I regret not AGF'ing on this user, but he seems to be well beyond the stage of gentle rebuking - Amog | 06:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the editor is maliciously inclined or even intending to be disruptive, they are simply incapable of understanding the purpose of WP (and I am not suggesting they are mentally incapable either, but more culturally differentiated). Should it be found necessary to remove them from the project I think it would be courteous of us not to label them as disruptive or a vandal. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I also don't think he's maliciously inclined, just persistent, and very likely not reading the comments we're making on his talk page (or possibly not understanding them). The only time anyone used the word "vandal" has when I reported xym to AIV; I only chose that route because I knew it was a fast, easy way to get a very short block, that I was hoping might actually catch the user's attention. I was hoping that such an action could prevent the need to bring this to ANI. Unfortunately, it didn't. However, I do think the edits definitely meet the definition of "disruptive"; see WP:Disruptive editing. Unlike WP:VANDAL, which focuses on the intention of the user (to hurt the encyclopedia), disruptive editing only cares about the effect of the person's actions. In my opinion, Kailash's edits are "disrupting progress toward the fundamental project of building an encyclopedia," because they must be regularly reverted and no amount of discussion seems to be having any effect. Thus, we need the behavior to stop. I would really prefer that the user come to understand how WP works, because the Khiddirpur article is actually decent by the typical standards of India location stubs. Thus, this user has (or, at least, had) something useful to contribute; that doesn't make up for having to revert his vanity edits every few days. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:31, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Flobot222

Flobot222 (talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log)

This editor seems to rack up warnings on an almost daily basis. They are only editing India/Pakistan/Persia related articles, specifically concerning ethnicity, and obviously making lot of contentious edits, seemingly based on the manifest that the user insists on having on his/hers talk page. Yet the user has never used an article talk page, but has instead preferred edit warring, both the quick and the slow version.

I am not terribly familiar with the subject matter at hand, but it seems to me we have an SPI that are unable to keep their neutrality as well as unwilling to engage in discussion about their edits either on article talk pages or their own. As such I have my doubts that this editor is an asset to the project, although with some friendly but stern advice they might become one. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I've just noticed this after warning them (different edit) and posting at the Edit warring board (4 removals at Jemima Khan). Very recent editor and pretty much every edit gets reverted or flagged for the same race-related POV push? Andy Dingley (talk) 11:06, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello both of you, Can you present diff links to contested edits? So far I haven't seen much that I'd feel too much out of place. I consider the Jemima Khan edits fine. There is no reason to emphasize on religion or converting to another in the lead. Reviewing some edits:

• Edit taking out unsourced section describing a people (Kaul) through physcial attributions.
• This edit is bad, but it appears he may not know what a cognate is.
• This edit is good as is this another good one

I would like to understand which POV you are referring to, especially what race-related POV he is pushing? Again, please provide diff links. I found a few crappy edits, like the one Saddhiyama complained about . Chartinael (talk) 12:01, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Is the username not against our username policy at it has bot in it? Mo ainm~Talk 11:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

He got blocked for the username, although I don't see how his user name violates that policy. Chartinael (talk) 12:01, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

...unless your account is an approved bot, your name should not end with "bot". Mo ainm~Talk 12:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, I have inquired with blocking admin: The user name does not END with -bot, it contains -bot- I do not see, how this is a violation. Also, he is new why not point the potentially misleading fact out to him and suggest a change. Chartinael (talk) 12:15, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

If the account is only blocked for username violations then they are welcome to request a name change. Mo ainm~Talk 12:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

It's not a username vio, I don't think... —Jeremy 19:04, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The username policy is not well written on this point. I understand why any name with "bot" in it isn't banned, but it should specify that any name which could be 'easily misunderstood to be a bot's name should be verboten, as is the case here. The username block of Flobot222 may not have been within the current written letter of the policy, but it clearly fits its intent. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

2002 Gujarat violence

Hi, Please refer to article 2002 Gujarat violence. User Shovon (talk) is repeatedly vandalising a sourced peace of content. Kindly resolve. Wasifwasif (talk) 13:00, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

No, he's not vandalizing, he's disputing something. This is a content dispute, not vandalism. In his mind, he's not trying to damage the article, he's trying to make it better. Whether he is actually making it better is a different issue, as is whether he is behaving properly. But he is not vandalizing anything. Please learn the correct meaning of vandalism, see WP:VANDALISM. --Jayron32 13:13, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

By the way, the article has now been Fully protected for a period of 1 week, after which the page will be automatically unprotected.. Please use the article talk page to discuss the problem instead of reverting back and forth with someone. If you cannot come to a consensus at the article talk page, seek outside help by following any one of the steps described at Misplaced Pages:Dispute resolution. --Jayron32 13:16, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

User:CactusBot

Could someone block my bot for 12 hours? There was an enhancement suggestion I want to implement and I've currently no access to the computer where bot runs.--Cactus26 (talk) 14:33, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Done. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks.--Cactus26 (talk) 14:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Policy on Classification by Ethnicity, Gender, Religion and Sexuality

Hi, I have a problem with the article White Argentine. In the article I mentioned many people who are Argentine by birth and by option (they immigrated when they were children and stayed in Argetnina until their death, or they are now living there). All those people mentioned in the article are perfectly Caucasian by phenotype, and all have European/Middle Eastern ancestry. To see the names, check this older version of the article, for they are now removed. This is because some users appeared criticizing the article and alleging that mentioning all those persons without a source that explicitly define them as "White Argentine/Argentinian" was a breach to Misplaced Pages's BLP policy. Is that true? Because I read the article of WP policy on categorization by ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality, and the topic "Race" is still under dispute. Besides, one of the users that criticizes the article is also involved in the proposal/discussion/RfC of the policy itself. If the matter isn't still resolved, can they apply a rule that it is not fully valid yet? If I provide sources that every living Argentine mentioned in the article is of predominantly European ancestry, isn't that enough to define him/her as White? Please, help me clarify this doubt.--Pablozeta (talk) 12:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

It's not clear to me what administrator actions you want here. But anyway, Misplaced Pages:BLPCAT has been part of BLP policy for a long while and is linked from the page you link to. I can't remember if the par specifically mentioning lists has always been there but I think it's been clear for a long time it's meant to apply to them. Of course even without that section, labelling a LP without a clear source (whether using WP:Syn reasons or not) still wouldn't be acceptable since it's a basic part of BLP. Nil Einne (talk) 15:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

When in doubt, the principle of self-determination is paramount. You need to provide evidence that a person thinks of themselves as a member of the category. In order for a person to be listed at the White Argentine, or categorized with a similar category, you need to provide clear, unambiguous evidence that the person thought of themselves in those terms, such as a direct quote from the person where they call themselves that term. Race is not a term which has any basis except one which is culturally determined, so there is no absolute "scientific" means of identifying a person with a race. Treat race like religion; if a person doesn't clearly state they are a member, don't include them. --Jayron32 15:35, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

"All those people mentioned in the article are perfectly Caucasian by phenotype". When the misused term from genetics is replaced by what Pablozeta apparently means, this amounts to "they look white to me". Also, Pablozeta himself has stated that the term 'White Argentine' (or any reasonable translation of) isn't commonly used in Argentina (here). On this basis 'White Argentine' isn't an ethnic group at all, and therefore cannot be the subject of an article about one. This is all going over old ground, and the relevant policy has been explained to him numerous times. The article as it stood when I and other 'outsiders' first became involved seemed to me to be in gross breach of WP:OR, WP:SYN, WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:BLP. Given that Pablozeta seems unable to understand this, I have, along with others, sought to correct the worst errors of the article, though it clearly needs more work. It is of course debatable whether the article is necessary at all, given the excellent coverage of Argentinian migration, ethnicity, culture etc in other Misplaced Pages articles. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Andy the Grump - this is a huge problem with articles about ethnicity in all of latin america. American racial categories are being conflated with ethnicity and applied into a context where they are not valid or mean something else, and with no supoporting sources people are being conscripted into racial groups (posing as if they were ethnic groups) based solely on subjective perceptions of their family background or phenotype. It is clearly not viable.·Maunus·ƛ· 17:10, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• - The User:Pablozeta clearly wants an answer to this as today he has asked the exact same question here and at the Vilage pump and twelve different sysop talkpages. - Off2riorob (talk) 21:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Requesting review of my removal of talk page access of TFM

Based on comments left at User talk:Newyorkbrad, at least one editor is requesting a review of my actions regarding the removal of talk page access of User:The Fat Man Who Never Came Back. I should note that yes, I did use an incivil edit summary during the process. That was wrong, and I should not have. Regarding the issue of whether or not TFM should be allowed talk-page access, there was an unblock request on his talk page which I attempted to respond to. In responding to his unblock request, I made no less than three attempts to discuss conditions for an unblock with him. All I was trying to ascertain was the sort of restrictions that he would accept if unblocked. He never once responded to my inquiries, except for some attempts to make light of my attempts. I renewed my efforts several times to get him unblocked, but he made no indication that he wished to participate in his own defense. After it became clear he wasn't directly interested in further improving Misplaced Pages, I went to Newyorkbrad to consult with him; he had recently restored TFM's talk page access, after a previous admin had removed it. With NYB's advice and consent, I re-removed TFM's talk page access. If there is consensus to restore it yet again, that is if consensus among other users is that TFM should continue to have access to his talk page, I will restore it myself. --Jayron32 17:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

If the editor was not constructively using their talkpage for unblock requests, then they probably don't need access to it. They can of course still email the arbcom and appeal their block directly, as well as emailing any other administrator on the list. Syrthiss (talk) 17:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Don't feed the trolls. Rd232 17:45, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Let's close this thread quickly before anyone else gets a laugh out of it. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 17:52, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you should block someone's talk page access just because they are joking around and playfully mocking you there. Jokes are a good thing. Jokes do not equal disruption. Anthony (talk) 20:15, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

It was very, very obvious that he was just joking, as he usually does. You know when he is being serious, as can be seen in his unblock request, which was serious and to the point. I do not believe that he said anything in the discussion on his talk page that warrented removal of his access to it. Silverseren 20:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The seriousness of the unblock request merely throws the trolling elsewhere on his talk page into sharp relief, and in this context bringing down the curtains on his little play is appropriate. Rd232 20:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure he was joking. I made no less than three serious attempts to redirect the discussion to his unblock request. He "joked" every time. At some point it ceases being joking, and becomes "lets see how many people I can piss off". That's kinda trolling, isn't it? Let me ask you Anthony and Silver seren a question: if he did wish to be unblocked, why did he not take my questions regarding his unblock request seriously? More to the point, how should I have phrased my discussion with him to elicit a serious response from him? I am being serious here in wanting help. I don't know what I could have done better to engage him in discussing his unblock request, if you have ideas on how it could have been done better, please let me know.--Jayron32 20:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, the "no fun with your mates" thing was a little over the top, and no one would really agree to that. The problem isn't fun with his mates; the problem is fun with people who do not want to have fun with him. I think a compromise might have been possible on-wiki; I don't know for sure because I don't know his ultimate motivation. But you pretty much gave him a take it or leave it option that no one would have taken. Sure, he handled it unhelpfully too, but since you asked. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the main problem was that, at the same time you were asking him your questions, other users were not being very couteous to him within the same discussion. I know I would get rather pissed off if some of those comments were directed at me. It's quite clear that he tries to use humor or sarcasm to diffuse tension and as a response to the discourteousness of others. Silverseren 20:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok, but then let me ask you this Silver seren. Was I, in the messages I left at his talk page, being discourteous with him. What in my comments indicated that I was being discourteous in some way. I am trying to see where I could have done something differently, rather than what other people were doing. I have no control over what others were doing, only myself. --Jayron32 20:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I understand that and, no, you weren't being discourteous. However, the fact that others were was not very conducive to him properly "debating" with you over what his restrictions could be. So, he did what he does in this sort of thing, he jokes about it. And I think the joke about "laughs with his mates" was actually hiding it being a real question. I know I would pretty much die and leave Misplaced Pages altogether if I was restricted to only editing articles. Silverseren 20:59, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The difference, of course, being that you've not done the sort of gross dirsuption he's done, which includes among other things, creating sock accounts for the sole purpose of trolling. This whole discussion is predicated on the belief (which I still hold) that he's not here to improve the encyclopedia, he's here to take the piss out of as many random people as he can. The more chances he gets to do that, the more emboldened he becomes in his trolling. You are clearly here to improve the encyclopedia, so no one is telling you that you deserve sanctions. TFM appears to have different motives. --Jayron32 21:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Are there other socks that I don't know about? I thought it was just the one alt? Silverseren 21:25, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah, you mean this? Silverseren 21:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

No, I mean User:Bad edits r dumb. --Jayron32 21:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Is it untrue then that, as TFM said here that multiple other users knew Bad edits r dumb was him? Becuase, if they did, then it's not a sock, but a known alt. Silverseren 21:30, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 2) See Category:Suspected Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of The Fat Man Who Never Came Back for the four socks. Eagles 24/7 (C) 21:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

To silver seren: That other users knew about an alternate account doesn't mean that the alternate account wasn't being used abusively. Being known by other editors doesn't mean that the alternate account is instantly allowed to do anything. I have some (particularly painful) arbcom decisions I can reference regarding this if you want. --Jayron32 21:45, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Folquenbeam. I think the problem was your proposal was something that most people would reject. He did it his way. Anthony (talk) 20:48, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• (e/c) In this particular case, I understand your (Jayron) motivation, but it might have been better if you'd thrown up your hands in frustration (perfectly understandably), but allowed Gimmetoo and possibly others to take a crack at it. The only real disruption going on was the annoyance it was causing some people who were watching the page; a better solution in these cases (IMHO) is to not watch the page anymore. Because there were (again, IMHO) other, rather less helpful people than you on that page as well, I don't think it's a bad idea for TFM to engage Gimmetoo (or others) via email, rather than continue the zoo. But I'd have left that up to him. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I've looked again for a distinction between his interactions with Jayron32+Gimmetoo and with others - and I don't see it. YMMV. Rd232 20:48, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

This option should not be unchecked by default; editing of the user's talk page should only be disabled in the case of continued abuse of the talk page. I don't see "continued abuse of the talk page". Not debating someone on his own terms is not abuse. Bad decision, undo. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I should note that I wasn't debating him, I was trying to unblock him. --Jayron32 20:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• So undo the talk page lock-out. But if anything, I think it will only lead to a quicker community ban of TFM. Gwen Gale (talk) 20:47, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Yeah, I actually considered that; for reasons that I also disagree with (but can only argue so many things at the same time), this kind of talk page behavior frustrates some people to the point where they think a community ban (rather than unwatchlisting the page) is the solution. If the page is unblocked, I'll probably point that out to TFM. As I said above (or below, I'm getting lost in the threading) email might be a more productive path for him right now. That's what I'd do if I were him. But I'm not. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, that's way close to what I was thinking, hence I wasn't too worried about the TP lock-out, about which I'm truly neutral. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Well, "I made no less than three attempts to discuss conditions for an unblock with him. All I was trying to ascertain was the sort of restrictions that he would accept if unblocked." sounds like an attempt at debate to me. I appreciate your good intentions, but I see no reason for removing talk page access. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:48, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. I take your point here. --Jayron32 20:52, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• I don't think it was in TFM's best interest to subtly attack User:Access Denied, who, although his comments were very direct and possibly aggressive, was only trying to aide in the discussion. Edit summaries like "replies... and whoever access denied is, please leave the grownups alone" and "young man, go back to the clubhouse. this is not helping matters." are condescending and belittling of another editor. His comments in the discussion were silly and unhelpful, especially his last response to Jayron32. I would support the revocation of his talk page access, and I think discussing matters privately with Gimmetoo would be the most beneficial. Eagles 24/7 (C) 21:09, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• And you think this as a first comment from access denied out of the middle of nowhere is appropriate, in response to TFM's unblock request? And this response, when TFM clearly explains that it was a legitimate alternate account. Has he ever used a brother excuse or did access denied make that up? (As also can be seen from TFM's comment, he can be serious, for those who say he never is) Silverseren 21:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't believe TFM on that. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree with the comments AD made on his talk page either, but it wasn't like TFM was responding to a personal attack with another one. And, FWIW, TFM claims User:Mike R is his brother (though I highly doubt it, since they both edit the RefDesk and have the same idea of humor). Eagles 24/7 (C) 21:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yeah, Bad edits r dumb was NOT a legitimate alternate account despite his claim. It was a clear good-hand/bad-hand sock account which existed solely for the purpose of trolling. Given that the TFM account has quality article edits to fall back one, one can at least claim that the person behind them maybe, perhaps, at one time was willing to do some article work. But the BERD account was absolutely beyond the pale. And the brother comment was predicated by TFM claiming that User:Mike R was his brother, a claim I might note that was not confirmed and was likely just more trolling. --Jayron32 21:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

However, you are supposed to assume good faith that Mike R is his brother, like he added here. If you don't have any proof otherwise, then it shouldn't even be talked about. Silverseren 21:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I was unaware that Mike R had confirmed that. You can ignore any objections I had to that. My mistake. --Jayron32 21:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Why are you still talking about him? He's gone, he can't post in his page: everybody wins. Stop wasting text on him. HalfShadow

Okay, your response is definitely not appropriate and clearly biased. Silverseren 21:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• • (edit conflict) (repsonse to Halfshadow) Because some people believe he should be able to post on his page, and those people have a right to be heard. I take your post to mean that you support the revocation of his talkpage access, however reasonable people may disagree, which is why discussions like this can be important. --Jayron32 21:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Unless you can tell me how someone who's posts over the last week basically boil down to "Hurr-de-durr; I can haz cheezburger" help as a whole, I'm not seeing your point. HalfShadow 21:37, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, you miss the point. I agree with you 100%. I think his talk page access should be shut down, since I fully believe he has no intention to do anything else except piss off as many people as possible. However, I also believe that I am not the sole arbiter of all situations at Misplaced Pages, and as strongly as I hold my beliefs, I also recognize that it is unhelpful to ignore the opinions of others in matters such as this. I believe his talk page access should be removed. That's why I was the one who removed it. But I also don't think that my opinion on this should be the only one that matters. Now, if given at least 24 hours or so, it may turn out my opinion is the right one. Or it may be the wrong one. But we won't know if we don't talk it out, now will we. --Jayron32 21:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Because this user's edits to their talk page were not constructive, removing talk page access was appropriate. They have been told who to contact if they want their block reviewed.  Sandstein  23:31, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Well-stated. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:09, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Indeed. Drmies (talk) 05:52, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
• Please, please close this thread. To those who are concerned, repeatedly making jokes when told to stop is disrupting the wiki to make some sort of point, and whatever "incivility" Access Denied (talk · contribs) may have committed does not excuse incivility on the part of User:The Fat Man Who Never Came Back. Best advice was already given by Rd232 above. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 01:45, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• Closing this wouldn't be proper when there is disagreement on the revoking of talk page access, which there does seem to be, since opinion is split. Silverseren 01:48, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Email notifications

Recently I got an email saying that I had requested a new password from Misplaced Pages. I hadn't. Possibly phishing? --Perseus (t • c) 18:01, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Or, someone requested a new password to annoy you or attempt to access your account. Apparantly that happens fairly frequently. They can't get it without access to your email address, though, so it can probably be ignored.--Korruski 18:06, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

If you get one of those emails and you didn't ask for it, it's a vandal trying to get your password. Just killfile it and continue using your old password - it will still work, and the email will be irrelevant after a few hours. —Jeremy 18:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Is there a place to put things like this somewhere where new users can see it so they know whats going on? Maybe in a FAQ format or something? Wolfstorm000 (talk) 04:34, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Forward the IP to an admin as well; might as well teach him not to bugger around. HalfShadow 04:53, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Unregistered bot?

It would appear that Fti74Bot (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is an unregistered bot. WuhWuzDat 18:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Blocked. Nakon 18:59, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

LOIC

In short, I'm after a bit of input from administrators here. Should LOIC include a link to the tool at the bottom? Technically it's not an illegal tool, but... is it appropriate? A few people have come up to me via email and IRC and voiced their concerns, so I thought I'd bring them up here. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 18:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

(I'm not an administrator.) I would say there's no problem with having the link there, but the article might benefit from mentioning the warning given about the tool by Carole Thierault from Sophos as quoted by the BBC here Keeping the link while also having the article potentially slightly misleading, could be a problem. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:30, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

(I'm not either.) Articles on software generally contain a link to that software's official website. I think we should do the same here, unless someone can come up with a compelling reason not to. Maybe bring this up at the Software project? They should be used to dealing with issues like this... Bobby Tables (talk) 19:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

...a 16-year-old boy was arrested in The Hague, Netherlands, in connection with the distributed denial-of-service attacks against MasterCard and PayPal.

(Neither am I!) Open source software mate. It's nothing you can't download from the second Google link that turns up if you search for it. We can't control it's use/misuse (and we shouldn't, either). If someone wanted to download the LOIC, I think not listing it on the article really isn't going to make a difference - Amog | 20:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I suggest looking to see if there is a standard among similar articles - do they or do they not have a link to an application/download within the article. We simply stay consistent with that. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC) Realising, of course, that there may not be consistent practice...

LOIC is a legitimate Sourceforge collaboration, and it shouldn't be off limits to Wikipedians just because it can be misused. An e-mail client can be misused. However, I'm not so sure about the third external link offering a Javascript version of LOIC pre-set to point at Paypal with the comment "We need your help in support of wikileaks leave this page firing as long as you can". I'm kind of surprised such a page hasn't run into some misfortune by now, but in any case I'm not sure it's an encyclopedic resource. Wnt (talk) 22:09, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

(not an admin) Most software pages have a link to the project or download page. I agree with Wnt that we should not link to any "preloaded" examples, however, as that's not NPOV. --Nuujinn (talk) 22:13, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The PayPal issue seems to be moot, PayPal has just capitulated. The WikiLeaks funds kept by PayPal will be released, but Paypal will not do any further business with WikiLeaks. Count Iblis (talk) 23:15, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Last1234

This user is basically using Misplaced Pages as a blog and apparently nothing else. As they're Spanish, I'm not sure warnings would accomplish much. Could someone fluent inform him/her that we're not here so they can talk about their day? HalfShadow 22:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Can you give some diffs? I mean this and this is not a whole lot of material, which is the page prior to you blanking it. That much of a blog he can have, no? And blanking someone's user page is not very nice. But he hasn't done anything else at WP, either. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 22:31, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, but that's my point: that's literally all they're doing; check any edit from his contribution list. We're essentially being used as a blog by this guy. HalfShadow 22:35, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

All edits seem to be to their user page - gotta agree. Ravensfire (talk) 22:41, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

"these i love? let me know when you go to go I'm here to eat if you send a msg that I thought I was gonna eat it avias ia seen, because I ate one evening I had wings and white soup .. ok no alcanse not see ke ke and ate good antojaton I love wings and gave me time almorse ambre grabs a single with potato Takita esque love my mother that we ate only echo my brother is not, so I expect more tanito Later, he went to Aeon teran about the other guy turns .-- and I took a bottle of water, but it passed the vdd .. ambre ke kiero ok but not bad going t kiero ke estes bn eat many tortillas t eat? I ate 2 love stoy I'm mal-paso qe NADM cmiendo well in the morning my mom gave us tangerines to my bro and i ami I ate like 3 for that and in the morning, breakfast biscuits Coko. if tragooo of more: S I'm a pig. ambre I have much love bb and t extranio HOW can you do you're going to borrow money from dany or wave I miss you t remember tmabien ke avia he paid 20 pesos to a senior to go to truck ke returned it to me and dani me peresto 50 cones and the ntp ago sii love is good, with that the aces is good to have the lunch at 4:30 so you do not forget, if you c love leave at half past four I will not eat love ke oki then i eat afueraaa ... or algooo cometee ai ke tacos sold out or a cake. aurita love me if I buy something if you open aver puestesito outside where they sell cakes Jaaj oki is good if you can not talk much we talk right now .. NTPP for these seating ke t going to take oke? NADM not you say well, if they are your bosses ai. aseleres ok i do not no no t worry if it takes me is ke I can not answer but left the vato aki ke estava aaOK this Abii I love deciia.aa Ndama I have a lot flojeraa: S and T, and love simple salts and lack pokito This is the ultimate long extranio t ce and bb if I'm missing some, please Czech times when Tengs time, I feel weird and dicindote this will porqe all day I was angry. but hey tmb xs I miss you hope to see you soon that was what i feel strange desirme ke tambn me extranias and I hope you love me and see me soon? No longer is neither qe said. the schedules. qe checks do not want you to stay next week nurse at night. I'm tired tmb: (morning show?"

Yeah, fine. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 23:09, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I've warned the user about this problem. If it continues, a block is required.  Sandstein  23:25, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Recently there was another Spanish-speaking blogger, user Ryute, although there's no other apparent connection that I'm seeing offhand. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:02, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The porn chatter? That was fun. I don't see any connection either. Drmies (talk) 05:54, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

visually impaired user with Asperger's syndrome has sought assistance with ongoing issue

Hi,

A visually impaired user with Asperger's symdrom has sort assistance via a form on the wrongplannet.net website: http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=3234813#3234813

As he feels he has been a victim of cyberbullying and has suffered a meltdown.

He says he has been unable to resolve the dispute, or identify how to as he has great difficulty navigating the[REDACTED] site, undoubtedly due to his visual imparement, but Asperger's is a type of none veral learning disability, which affects people differently, but can mean that some people have near insurmountable difficulty in none verbal communication or forms of social communication.

People with the Syndrom can also have quite extreams of emotion or sensory perception, resulting in what's called a meltdown, which can be quite traumatic, even though to a more typical person the event may seem quite minor. (for instance, some people can have a melt down when it's raining because of their sensitivity to touch)

Due to this rather odd circumstance I felt it better to raise the issue of the Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents as the person may well need quite significant assistance and guidance beyond a more normal or more draw out approach.

he says the pages involved are: http://en.wikipedia.org/2PR_FM

http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/2PR_FM#2PR_FM

and that his user-name/login has been blocked as he's undone the changes a number of times.

I realise that the normal approach would probably be page protection, asking for a ban on the other use and getting his account re-instanted, but he couldn't even find out how to reach the admin sections and asked on wrongplannet if anyone was a[REDACTED] admin.

I'm passing a link to this onto him, I've put a link to the discussion on wrong planet above and below.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=3234813#3234813 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.197.127.230 (talk) 23:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, none of that will be happening. While it may be difficult for him to grasp, by Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines, Whitewater11 was in the wrong and the people he is asking to have things done to were in the right.—Kww(talk) 23:13, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Both of those pages have been deleted. You should communicate to him that that he can't have whatever he wants on Misplaced Pages. Misplaced Pages doesn't have a mechanism for special treatment of users with handicaps in terms of what content it accepts. Also, users are treated the same socially regardless of their handicaps. That is because the goal is to write an encyclopedia. Although anyone is allowed to edit, their edits must meet Misplaced Pages policies or they will be deleted. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 23:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Becritical, but comments like "users are treated the same socially regardless of their handicaps" are completely unacceptable. You seem to be saying that Misplaced Pages has a policy of excluding people with handicaps. I hope that this is not what you intended. Misplaced Pages's policies are byzantine and obscure enough even for those of us without visual or social handicaps, to suggest that we should not attempt to support editors with such disabilities is just crass. DuncanHill (talk) 23:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't want to speak for Becritical, but it may be better to say that Misplaced Pages does whatever it can to be accomodating to people's disabilities, but that in this case asking that Misplaced Pages's core policies be set aside does not amount to an accomodation. That is, there is nothing inherently discriminatory about equal application of WP:5P. Policies like this are relevent to content, not to persons. Nothing has been done here that represents a lack of accomodation for the user's disability. I don't really see how having disabilities necessarily trumps the requirement to follow core Misplaced Pages policies. This is my stance on the issue; I am fully willing to see that users are able to work within Misplaced Pages as fully as possible, including working to include people who, for whatever reason, need to access and work with Misplaced Pages in nontraditional ways, perhaps because of a disability. However, content must be judged on its own merit. --Jayron32 00:15, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it was just a rather poor choice of words on his part. I'm sure he did not imply that we should exclude people based on handicap in the slightest. Yes. we do need to be accommodating to those with special needs, but at the same time they cannot use said handicap as a disruptive battering ram; we already saw this happen with User:Sven70 a while back. –MuZemike 00:23, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, it would have been unacceptable if it were untrue. Can you tell me of an instance in which users are treated differently in the social milieu of Misplaced Pages because of their handicaps? Of course I understand that individual editors may make allowances -I certainly have in the past-, but I'm not aware of anything beyond our general environment of collaboration; and that of course is extended to all users. I'm not aware of any policy or any general guideline or other way in which Misplaced Pages recommends handicapped users be treated differently, but if I'm wrong but please enlighten me. However, calling what I said "crass" seems very uncalled for. It was completely factual so far as I know, and it was also in no way inconsiderate. The user was asking for special treatment of some kind or else the meltdown wouldn't have been relevant and wouldn't have been included. We can feel sorry all we want, but I just don't know how we would treat a handicapped user differently here. I came in after Kww, who I thought was rather brusque, and tried to explain things in a more thorough way. He says "none of that will be happening...While it may be difficult for him to grasp..." and then you get after me for poor choice of words? BE——Critical_{__Talk} 04:08, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

But to return to our sheep, it is possible that someone at WP:WPACCESS may be able to offer assistance or advice. DuncanHill (talk) 23:33, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

If anyone from the off-wiki site wants to point the user towards my talkpage, I work with Asperger's children and young people on a daily basis, and may be able to assist. Black Kite (t) (c) 00:17, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I am the one with asperger's and am not in a position to touch any of the articles, as they are both about me and my station, thus if I do any edits, this would be a Conflict of interest on my behalf. However I find this material about Misplaced Pages rather contradictive, as for example, the 2PR FM article had a number of third party sources, and so did my article. I found it bizarre how the article on WSFM 101.7 does not get challenged as all it's references are from the station's website, without any third party references. Can you tell me why they seems to be one standard for one, and another stand for another with this issue. Stating what Misplaced Pages is and what it is not, is beside the issue if their is no consistancy of conduct. MBoerebach (talk) 00:29, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I should note that Misplaced Pages has 6,943,789 articles in it, it takes a long time to go through every one. The fact that someone, who is dedicated to finding it, can easily discover an article or two which does not meet the current Misplaced Pages policy is unsurpirisng. Misplaced Pages articles are judged against established guidelines, not against each other, largely for this reason. Thank you for working hard to find articles which are not appropriate to Misplaced Pages. However, the existance of other articles is really irrelevent towards discussing the merits of the article you created. --Jayron32 00:35, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, it appears someone from Misplaced Pages (going by the name "TheAnthropologist") seen this here on ANI and is there to help on WrongPlanet. I recommend Whitewater111/MBoerebach stop making new accounts and work with this user. I would also recommend that another, neutral admin go to WrongPlanet and help out as well. Once that takes place and the user understands the processes of Misplaced Pages, I would recommend giving them the option to request an unblock (which I hope they would) and work with the adminship if they wish to resubmit their article about their radio station. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 00:37, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, technically we do have consistency, but clearly with 3,000,000+ articles there will inevitably be some that dip below or rise above those markers. I'd agree that WSFM 101.7 is a shockingly badly sourced article, though it looks probably notable. Meanwhile, the sources in the 2PR FM article I would suggest are more suited to back up the notability of your article (which I note is up for deletion at the moment) because they mainly talk about you - I would suggest you add them to your own article and mention 2PR there. Black Kite (t) (c) 00:41, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Without getting into a tit for tat battle, the accusation of noting thatI've created several accounts is offensive. As I noted above, I'm not editing any of the articles, because I indeed have a conflict of interest. I find that three of my articles withing the space of a week being targeted for deletion rather threatening. For all we know Kww and AussieLegend be the same person? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MBoerebach (talk • contribs) 00:54, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

First of all, Kww and AussieLegend are not the same person. They are clearly two different people. However, looking at Whitewater111 (talk · contribs)'s contributions, the only thing they have solely done after creation is try to get your article kept at the AfD. It's reasonable to assume they're your sock, and we don't take kindly to votestacking here.

In their very first edits, they seem to automatically know how to use[REDACTED] markup and sign their posts.. not typical behavior of 'new' users. Secondly, looking through their contributions, you both also share some similarities. For instance, in the post above this one, you use the word 'noting' in reference to Homer accusing you of abusing multiple accounts, and here, the sock uses roughly the same language; you use variants of 'noted' quite often. Another diff.

Given the above information regarding this case, I'm going to request a CU. If they are your sock, I suggest you admit it now, unless you want to risk a block on your main account.— Dædαlus 01:27, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Please link to the CU when you create it. I recommend an uninvoled admin block the MBoerebach sock and leave the main account, Whitewater111, unblocked....if it is shown to by the CU to have only the one sock. I recommend this because the user is (I believe) new and does have Aspergers with limited eyesight. This should be taken into account when deciding what to do. I know this won't be the most popular recommendation and I am probably stepping on some rules, but I feel leeway is needed. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 01:49, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Checkuser is at: Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Whitewater111. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 01:58, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I guess I came a bit late, but I don't think a block is necessary right here right now. We know it's him and he knows we know it's him and as long as he only uses one account from now on, there's no abuse going on. However I would take this opportunity to warn him that any further use of additional accounts, even just one, will be taken as evidence of attempting to evade scrutiny and could lead to a block of all of them. —Soap— 02:02, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Both about the alternate accounts and editing the article, as that is what the alternate accounts did.— Dædαlus 02:38, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

There may be some misunderstanding here. I don't read anything that MB said above, as trying to say that he did not have multiple accounts (although I can see it is very easy to read it that way). He could see that we've already been given the link to where he admits off-wiki to getting banned at least twice, so it seems there would be little point in such a deception. I also read "I'm not editing any of the articles" as meaning that he is not doing so at present and won't in the future (presumably after the idea of COI was pointed out to him), not that none of his accounts had ever done so in the past. (Whether any of his accounts edited any of the articles after he said "I'm not editing any of the articles", I haven't checked.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 02:49, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

MB, after reading the various things said and done by your accounts and the IP you used, and the polite warnings given by AussieLegend and others, I would also suggest you should apologise to AussieLegend, JayJg and Kww. Cyber-bullying is a major problem that should be taken seriously, and it is very unpleasant for people to be accused of it just because of how you reacted to them not agreeing with content you wanted to put on Misplaced Pages. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:48, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Using the main account, the user has declared the three accounts and an IP. Though late, this is a good faith effort by the user. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 03:49, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Ongoing disruptive editing by IP user 81.168.20.115

Over the past year, IP user 81.168.20.115 has been continuously adding unsourced details to the Bonnie Tyler article, despite several warnings by other editors not to do so (both in the article's edit summaries and three warnings on the IP user's talk page). The issue, concerning worldwide sales, has been discussed at great length on the article's talk page in the past and consensus is that such a detail should not be added to the article without definitive sources. User 81.168.20.115 (obviously an overzealous fan) has refused to enter into any discussion and has failed to respond to any warnings given, adding unsourced details back to the article regardless. I think perhaps a block would be beneficial. Diffs:-

• 16 Dec 2009
• 08 Jan 2010
• 21 Sep 2010
• 02 Dec 2010
• 03 Dec 2010
• 08 Dec 2010
• 08 Dec 2010 #2
• 09 Dec 2010

Kookoo Star (talk) 00:52, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not inclined to block when there's been no real attempts (ie attempts that are not templated warnings) to engage this editor who may be acting in good faith. And it seems there might be some sources on the IP's side: , The editor may have seen these news articles recently and added the content accordingly. If the sources are questionable, that is a discussion that needs to be had on the article's talk page. --Mkativerata (talk) 04:10, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

i sent him a plate of cookies help him cool off. maybe that might be enough to chill his mizzerole and either way maybe it might alow for more collegial editing admonostrophere. User:Smith Jones 04:23, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

With regards to the source mentioned by Mkativerata, a couple of articles from a site promoting Wales-online is hardly a definitive source for global record sales. They are neither an authority on the matter nor are they impartial (Bonnie Tyler is welsh, and they promote all things welsh). That source would fail WP:RS in a second. And given the dates of those articles (both within the past couple of weeks), you can see that they came after the IP user began adding their inaccurate details to the Bonnie Tyler article. If anything, it is likely the Wales-online website saw that incorrect information on Misplaced Pages, placed on here by the IP user, and used it. It is more than obvious that the IP user is not acting in good faith as s/he has had repeated warnings, there is already a lengthy discussion about this subject in particular on the article's talk page (which the IP user has failed to take part in), and the edit summaries of other people who have reverted his edits in the past year have clearly stated that the sales claim is unsourced and wildly inaccurate. One of Misplaced Pages's biggest problems is over-zealous fans who add all manner of excessive claims to articles of their idols. It undermines Misplaced Pages and is the kind of thing that gives it a bad reputation. As contributors, we should all be doing more to tackle this kind of blatant vandalism rather than allowing it to continue, especially when problematic editors have already been given the benefit of the doubt again and again. Kookoo Star (talk) 05:09, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The diffs don't bear that out. This article was published on 23 November; the IP only started throwing in the 100 million figure on 2 December (before that the IP was pushing 80 million). I see no reason but to assume good faith here. It looks to me like a content dispute, not a case of vandalism. --Mkativerata (talk) 06:08, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Legal threat

Hi,

after reverting twice an edit of Drjdemornay (talk · contribs) on the article Rebecca de Mornay, the user threatened me of legal actions: . As per WP:NLT, I report these here. Badzil (talk) 01:18, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

There is no "Wikimedia fraud department" - unless it is a secret one for perpetuating frauds. Seriously, this isn't a legal threat it is just a troll.--Scott Mac 01:21, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Someone calling his lawyers? Call that as you want but this is legal threat to me and therefore I'm reporting it. Badzil (talk) 01:23, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The account should probably be blocked for probable impersonation - unless he can verify his identity to OTRS.--Scott Mac 01:24, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

No "Wikimedia fraud department" but that is definitely a legal threat. RBI. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 01:25, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

We do not ignore legal threats. We check to see if the user has reason for complaint (e.g. we really are libelling them). Then we block pending settlement of any outstanding legal dispute through the proper legal channels. Legal threats are not something we treat as vandalism - they may be entirely justified. It's just that people who wish to pursue legal avenues can't also edit wikipedia.--Scott Mac 01:38, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

You do have a point there. In your block notice, do direct them to the OTRS email address in case this is a justified legal issue. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 01:43, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it helps to look at what's upset them and ask "is the complaint legitimate, and can I put it right?". Sometimes we end up jumping on people for perceived legal threats, while refusing to investigate the genuine libel they are legitimately complaining about. (see WP:DOLT.)--Scott Mac 01:52, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

User was blocked by Scott MacDonald; I added on to the block reason for making legal threats. Malinaccier (talk) 01:32, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. Badzil (talk) 01:33, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

In future, please don't change my blocking reason without discussion. The blocking reason is now incomprehensible to any new editor and does not match the note I left for the user. Don't change an admin action without discussion - that was totally unnecessary.--Scott Mac 01:40, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Four points and three questions:

• I can find no evidence that Rebecca de Mornay actually has a brother by that name. A billionaire would likely be mentioned somewhere, I think. So who, precisely, is being impersonated?
• This is the second account to make the "I'm her brother." claim. The first was Monaco1112 (talk · contribs).
• This brother information was first introduced to the article by a third single-purpose account, Fidelio11 (talk · contribs).
• Fidelio10 (talk · contribs) is an obvious sockpuppet of Fidelio11, and reintroduced that same information.
• Has no-one yet noticed that this "from the family" information has de Mornay being the stepdaughter of her own stepbrother? And an "Angela" as her mother rather than the Julia George in de Mornay's printed biographies?
  • "The Key To Rebecca". Saturday Review. Vol. 12, no. 1. 1986. pp. 30–34. {{cite magazine}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • Tykus, Michael J. "Rebecca de Mornay". Contemporary theatre, film, and television. Vol. 29. p. 135. ISBN 9780787631888. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |isbn10= ignored (help)
• Has no-one noticed that if this were a family member correcting stuff, the first thing that xe'd probably correct is the birth name, which is Rebecca George in all printed biographies (that I've read) that mention it and also is as listed in Room's Dictionary of Pseudonyms?
  • Room, Adrian (2010). "Rebecca De Mornay". Dictionary of Pseudonyms: 13,000 Assumed Names and Their Origins (5th ed.). McFarland. p. 141. ISBN 9780786443734. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |isbn10= ignored (help)
  • Segrave, Kerry; Martin, Linda (1990). "Rebecca de Mornay". The post-feminist Hollywood actress: biographies and filmographies of stars born after 1939. McFarland & Co. pp. 265–269. ISBN 9780899503875. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |isbn10= ignored (help)
  • Aylesworth, Thomas G.; Bowman, John S.; Fairbanks, Douglas (1992). "De Mornay, Rebecca". World guide to film stars. Great Pond. p. 69. ISBN 9781566570077. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |isbn10= ignored (help)
  • Sleeman, Elizabeth (2001). "De Mornay, Rebecca". The International Who's Who of Women 2002 (3rd ed.). Routledge. p. 131. ISBN 9781857431223. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |isbn10= ignored (help)

Oh and the article is in need of some serious correction after all of this back and forth, too. There are some sources. Have at it. Uncle G (talk) 03:39, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

"She has an elder brother of one year who is now a Billionaire - Jonathan De Mornay". Um, yeah. Corvus cornix_talk 05:04, 10 December 2010 (UTC)