Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive234

Atrocious treatment of April Fools celebrants

As everyone knows I like to keep a very, very low profile, so I'm sure my appearance here will come as a surprise to everyone. But I had to speak out. Just had to. I am a brand new member of the WP:Department of Fun and was really looking forward to our big annual event: April Fools. Being my first April Fools I wanted to celebrate with gusto. I "updated" Obama's picture on the Obama portal, and gave equal time to the right wingers by adding a caricature to the Timeline of modern American conservatism, and I created a really cool bot too. What did I get for my efforts? Barnstar? Awesome Wikipedian day? {{Filet-O-Fish}}? No, no and NO! Quick reverts and vandalism warnings on my talk page. Vandalism?!? That edit to the Obama portal was hilarious! What is the matter with you people? Can't you take the plugs out of your asses for just one day out of the year? My goodness another celebrant got blocked! We need to make some changes around here. April Fools is an important holiday and we can't abuse and screw over people who are trying to make things fun around here. – Lionel ^(talk) 05:35, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

re: Awesome Wikipedian: to my knowledge the last one was awarded on 21 February 2011 by User:Neutralhomer, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:54, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, sometimes too much is too much, as the other thread above pretty much proves.--Jasper Deng (talk) 05:38, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Fun is important, but even on April 1st, people need access to accurate information to get stuff done. We can have find ways to have fun without disrupting reliability, but it takes care. Dcoetzee 05:39, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Two observations:

• Barack Obama is a living person.
• Your other edits were made on 2 April. →Στc. 05:41, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

This still needs to be merged into this and then deleted. We don't want to confuse the bots in 50 years' time. Double sharp (talk) 09:35, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

To summarize:

• You committed several acts of vandalism, which you believe were justified because of a date that already had passed (according to UTC, on which Wikipedia is based) by the time of your second edit.
• Your vandalism was reverted and you were warned against perpetrating any more. You find this outrageous because you consider your vandalism "hilarious" and had fun committing it.
• In addition to complaining (and demanding that the community embrace vandalism) here, you've proposed a method of delaying future vandalism's detection, thereby ensuring that it remains in place longer (instead of being quickly removed by "humorless bores" who believe that the encyclopedia shouldn't be vandalised).

Did I miss anything? —David Levy 10:13, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

There is a standing gentleman's agreement that shenanigans will be accepted, so long as they do not disrupt the main space. This year much disruption of the main space was undertaken - to the extent that instead of ranging from "mildly amusing to peurile and idiotic" (seriously; the lack of creativity in the jokes was depressing to the extreme) they ranged from "idiotic to disruptive". I'd have blocked you on BLP grounds for re-inserting that image for a second time, so I suspect you were lucky. --Errant ^(chat!) 10:31, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Joke in the article mainspace, like this, is inappropriate. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 13:38, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd suggest going to back to keeping a low profile. The treatment you got was deserved. —SW— ^yak 13:55, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with pretty much all the above comments. Lionelt, you were lucky not to have gotten yourself blocked and if you try this shenanigans again you won't be so lucky a second time around. Raul654 (talk) 15:43, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, abouut 95% of the April fools stuff discussed here and elsewhere has been just irritating and disruptive, with no real humor about it. North8000 (talk) 15:58, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

The April Fool's Day "celebrations" are disruptive, annoying and almost universally unfunny. I would rather see Wikipedia shut down for one day out of the year than deal with the days of unneeded cleanup that we suffer through every year. Even the "gentlemen's agreement" to keep the disruption out of the mainspace failed. This year, for example, someone created a fake deletion nomination for Rugby football. They never tagged the page, thinking that would make it okay, but ignored the fact that we have maintenance bots that spent all day trying to "fix" the omitted template. It's past time we outgrew this annual farce. We have enough trouble cleaning up the existing vandalism. We don't need to inflict even more on ourselves. Rossami (talk) 17:39, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Lionel, to help you celebrate, I tagged all the articles in WP:Conservatism with the {{AfD}} April Fools Day template. I hope this helps cheer you up. Mojoworker (talk) 18:48, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I also gave him a Fillet-O-Fish. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 20:19, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps the OP's past partisanship has partially spoiled his present pursuit of playfulness. El duderino (talk) 05:47, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Changing standards

Why the changing standards? We've always accepted this kind of fun — for example, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Earth (2nd nomination) isn't mentioned anywhere in the nominator's relevant talk archive. When you do something that's been accepted in the past and are threatened for it, it's quite absurd. Nyttend (talk) 21:26, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm lazy, but did that involve a notice placed on Earth? Otherwise, it happened entirely out of article space, and thus is considered okay. The problem with the above is that he made the changes to mainspace articles on April 2, then complained when they were called out as vandalism. --Golbez (talk) 21:30, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

As I noted here this morning, I think we've evolved past the point where such things are feasible. The tent is too big. Tarc (talk) 21:37, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Nyttend, having organized the 2006 and 2007 April Fool's activities, it's a shame that April Fools day was achieved with such negativity this year. Lionel actions was unacceptable as it disrupted a few namespace articles, but in good faith. Most April Fools jokes are in Wikipedia mainspace, in which only the most experienced editors usually participate and it supposed to be a good laugh for an hour or two, and removed with no harm, and almost every other major website participates as well. I'm beyond shocked. Secret ^account 21:40, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I just saw the posting above, comparing it from 2006 to 2012, April Fools went way beyond overboard this year, and kinda disruptive, over 40 XFD nominations!!, so I'm striking above. Back in 2006/2007 there was like two or three. Secret ^account 23:28, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

This should be closed now There is already ongoing discussions over at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Ban April Fools pranks and down from there. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:01, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Earth (2nd nomination) was actually one of mine rather than Wolfkeeper's, (the threading got rather messed up in that one) and no of course I didn't template the article. Perhaps what we need to do for next year is to make sure that there are one or two non-mainspace jokes to set the example. I disagree with Tarc's big tent analogy - the community today is smaller than when we had User:Useight/Requests for signatureship. The problem is that it has started to drift back from humour in wiki space back to vandalism in mainspace, I gather that was the problem with April Fools six or seven years afo. But the solution to vandalism is to revert, block and ignore it. ϢereSpielChequers 09:06, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Death of Sian O'Callaghan vs WP:NOTCENSORED

At AfD, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Death of Sian O'Callaghan (2nd nomination), allegedly as "Law enforcement in the UK has requested deletion of this page in order to mitigate pre-trial publicity and ensure a fair trial for the defendant. The page can be restored later if the event remains notable.", per User:Fred Bauder

There is an obvious censorship issue here. Today an article about an alleged murder (and who could want to see a murderer escape justice?), but tomorrow do we see the UK government trying to cover up Jean Charles de Menezes? Also the obvious issue of UK jurisdiction over a US project.

Secondly there's an internal question of procedure. Consensus is clearly to keep this, yet Fred has blanked the article as a de facto censorship of it anyway. So if there's a legal requirement on WMF to do this anyway, why even bother having the AfD? This looks far too much as if AfD was given the opportunity to give the right answer, but when they failed to, they were over-ruled anyway.

On the whole, I'm surprised I haven't seen this here already - it's not just the usual run of AfDs. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:54, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Do you not know how to spell 'alleged'? Evidently not - I have taken the liberty of adding it where you clearly intended it to go. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:08, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

• I've already raised this at ANI... Nomoskedasticity (talk) 17:04, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

It is our encyclopedic content which is not censored, we do not, as a matter of policy, include news reports of criminal investigations, see Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Crime_perpetrators. We are a reference work not a news outlet. User:Fred Bauder Talk 17:13, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

BLP of crime perpetrators can still be followed without the deletion or significant redaction of the article. All you have to do is remove the portions of the article that mention a perpetrator and leave the rest that has reliable sources. There's a reason the U.K.-based websites that were reporting on it disappeared in the references, because U.K. law enforcement can ask U.K. websites like The Guardian, BBC and the Daily Mail to take it down. Wikipedia is subject to U.S. law, not U.K., so it would be no different than the People's Republic of China requesting deletion of the article about their firewall. All they can do is request it be taken down, and that's what happened. There's really no reason to remove any content outside of the BLP perpetrators content (specifically naming a non-public individual who had not been convicted, it's entirely fine to say there was an arrest and if there is a trial, they are rightfully named). — Moe ε 17:40, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Neither the Russian nor the Chinese case is before us. They would represent difficult questions, although not in obviously political cases; in that case we can stiff them; the problem comes in alleged criminal cases which are actually political in a situation where we have no way of determining the matter and are forced to assume general corruption which is not in fact the case. I would like to be able to respond in good faith to requests from either country.

U.K. law enforcement can ask us too and we can respond responsibly. We can do the right thing because it is right, not because we are ordered to. User:Fred Bauder Talk 17:53, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

"not because we are ordered to."

Would I be correct to read that as "In this case at least, we weren't ordered to"? Andy Dingley (talk) 18:41, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

From my perspective in the United States, yes. I'm not sure what our obligations are under English law. User:Fred Bauder Talk 19:01, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Had this been (exactly) a year ago, I might agree, because that's when the event had a majority of it's press as it was unfolding. A year ago, the article was 15 times as long as it is now in its current state. While I think you redacting the article and the U.K. government are doing so in good faith, that doesn't necessarily mean that it ensures the defendant in this case that he receives a fair trial. In fact, having been a year removed from it being a highly notable event, you're not likely to receive an entirely fair trail whether the material stays or goes. Information such as details in the case and the defendant's name are still all over the internet that anyone with Google or an internet archive can find. All the U.K. government did is request the news articles we were linking to be removed hoping this article be removed. This is unquestionably notable so the AFD needs to be closed, because there is undeniably a support for keeping the article and keeping it hostage with a protection and AFD is inappropriate. My recommendation is semi-protection with a discussion to re-add specific content so that it doesn't interfere with the impending trial. The article needs a good amount of its content restored while respecting the defendant's character, because without it, censoring the content like you have gives a false pretense that it isn't notable when it is. As for doing the "right thing", the right thing isn't to give a false impression of the article not being notable or to aid or give any government the authority to dictate notability. Orders from any government authority should be taken with a grain of salt in determining their true intentions. With that being said, we don't know their intentions, good or bad, which leads me to believe that unless there is a lawsuit where an office action occurs we shouldn't be ordered or comply to do anything unless it violates a law. — Moe ε 18:56, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

News reports of a criminal investigation are not a reliable source for our purposes with or without a request. User:Fred Bauder Talk 19:22, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Since that is a plainly false statement in view of standard practice per WP:RS, I can only imagine you intended it as a proposal for a policy change -- in which case it belongs at a relevant policy talk page. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:43, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

That kind of goes against standards at WP:RS like Nomoskedasticity said. In addition to that, when a source is a news article and a government starts pulling them down from the internet censoring it, it alters its notability by Wikipedia's own standards. Notability is defined by how many reliable sources cover the topic, so you can see the problem when news agencies start having to censor their publications. I hope you can see the problem with a haphazard compliance with a government request to remove such things. — Moe ε 21:16, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

There seems to be way too much conspirary theory stuff going on here. The removal of information and restrictions on publishing information in local sources on ongoing trials (sub judice) when that information, true or not, is consider likely to be unduly prejudicial, is a matter of routine in a number of commonwealth countries and is held to be important to ensure a fair trial not only by lawmakers and the police, but also by judges. This doesn't apply once all relevent trials are over and the information can be published barring restrictions for other reasons, but those aren't under consideration here. I haven't seen anyone suggesting we permanently remove information just because of requests by authorities, or remove information for reasons other then sub judice, so talking about government coverups of Jean Charles de Menezes or the Chinese firewall are missing the point. As I said elsewhere, and I'm pretty sure I've said before, I see no reason not to comply with a similar request from the Chinese, or anyone else. But the request has to be similar. Nil Einne (talk) 02:17, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I remember now there was the case of Peter Tobin, see Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 20#Current legal cases & Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive177#Admin deletes article per Scottish police (probably more discussion in other areas) Nil Einne (talk) 02:33, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Allegations are not encyclopediac - and we should actually extend this to all such implicit violations of WP:BLP. Cheers. Collect (talk) 18:24, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

We need beyond oversighting to community consensus on defamatory material of that nature. User:Fred Bauder Talk 19:01, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

All I can say about this situation is. End the censoring of information on the article now.--BabbaQ (talk) 20:46, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

• As this was (apparently) a request from UK law enforcement agencies (and not a private individual asking for information to be removed from their article), it should have been handed to the WMF. The WMF have access to legal counsel, who can advise whether or not the request should be complied with. If it should be, the article should be deleted as an office action. I am going to close the AfD - as "the UK police asked us to delete it" is not a valid reason within Wikipedia policy to propose deletion of an article. I am going to refer it to the WMF. I am not going to unlock the article, but I will take over the protection from Fred. The reason I am not unlocking it is that I want to see what the legal advice from the WMF counsel is, and I do not think the world will end if the article remains a stub for the next 24 hours. I apologise for not picking up on this sooner, would probably have saved some hard words. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:35, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
  • The need to lift full protection is not an emergency, so fine -- but if it is not deleted then it must be unprotected. What we've had here is an admin using admin powers to dictate content according to an idiosyncratic view of BLP policy -- ostensibly to remove information about a crime suspect but in fact removing a great deal of material that was not about the suspect. The issue here is not the article but rather the role of admins. (Since the ANI thread along these lines was closed, I'll pursue that issue here.) Nomoskedasticity (talk) 06:56, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Note: there was a parallel discussion going on here: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Improper use of full protection? -- Petri Krohn (talk) 22:44, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Motion to restore article in full

1. As nom. 140.247.141.165 (talk) 02:27, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

No: this was an office action and thus isn't allowed to be undeleted by community consensus. Nyttend (talk) 02:46, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

That's absurd. 140.247.141.165 (talk) 02:59, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

On what basis do you assert, Nyttend, that this was an office action? There is no office template on the page and there is no indication that User:Fred Bauder was acting, or was authorized to act, on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation, or indeed anyone but himself. If I've overlooked some place where this was claimed to be an office action, please let me know. If this were indeed an office action, it should certainly have been noted as such in the edit summaries and on the appropriate talk pages, and marked by the appropriate templates. We're not expected to read minds. - Nunh-huh 04:34, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Fred Bauder did not act for WMF, but on an OTRS ticket he probably should have referred to the office. As I understand it, Elen of the Roads did refer the matter and said it would only be 24 hours however she's doesn't control WMF. Although an individual arb is entitled to no special deference, I'd be inclined to give the office time to work, though updates should be posted even if they are only "no news yet".--Wehwalt (talk) 09:20, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I put an update on the talkpage in the small hours, and had a discussion with whoever was about. I am about to cautiously unlock the article down to semi protection. For various reasons, I'm not prepared to fully unlock it yet, but the input from IP editors at the talkpage is welcome. Elen of the Roads (talk) 09:52, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh, OK, sorry, didn't look there.--Wehwalt (talk) 09:57, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Seeing that the page was unilaterally deleted without qualifying under any criterion that normal admins are allowed to use, I figured that it was an office deletion; except of course for copyvios, I can't remember ever seeing an OTRS complaint being used to justify an immediate deletion without discussion and without fulfilling one of the CSD. For that reason, I figured that it was an appropriate office deletion, but now that I understand that it's not an office action, I am not at all pleased about this situation. Nyttend (talk) 21:55, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

I have to agree with the "I am not at all pleased about this situation." thought. This appears to be the action of an OTRS volunteer who is using their position to become an "activist". The only mitigating factor here is that the article appears to be receiving quite a bit of constructive attention now (even if I disagree with the idea that we (Wikipedia as a whole, rather than individual editors) should be concerned with the 'orders' of police in the UK (or anywhere else), it's hard to argue with the results in the article as of the last I saw it... other than the fact that I couldn't really have participated in crafting the article, even if I had wanted to.). As long as there's not going to be a repeat of this episode, I don't think that it's worth the "dramaz" to make anything more out of it, personally.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:27, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

• oppose If this is an office action, then the question is moot. If it isn't an office action, then we hide the article until it becomes clear it won't turn into one, and it returns a day or two later. That's reasonable compromise.

I'm not concerned here whether this article is blanked or deleted by an office action. I accept that some things are enforced by the WMF, for the best of reasons. If that's the case, then fine. I'm not screaming about government censorship - or at least not here at WP:AN, directed at the WMF.

What I am still concerned about though is two-fold. Firstly, why is this about deletion at all? Surely the existence of the case, and its notability is beyond doubt, and there can be no reasonable case for pretending the case isn't taking place - jurors will know this much at least. The real question, and the scope of an office action, is the extent of a sub judice blanking notice upon that page, stating that the case exists, is at trial, and that anything else is suppressed for the duration. If we have to act in that way because it's either a legal requirement by applicable law, or considered to be legally prudent to act so by WMF's counsel, then let's do that and be open about it.

Secondly, I'm still concerned over the AfD. If this was happening because of an office action, then an AfD is moot - so let's not pretend that there was ever anything up for the editor community to have any influence over! If this wasn't an office action, then the AfD was firstly unnecessary and secondly should not have been closed on the basis that it was.

I don't much like the WMF. Funny that, they've built this place - there's a lot to be grateful for. Yet of the few times I've encountered their actions (and WP:IEP still rankles), I find them to be needlessly secretive and worst of all, disrespectful of the editor community. Editors built this content, yet the WMF behave as if the editor community must not only be dictated to (perhaps it must, if that was counsel's advice here - I'm OK with that) but also the editors can't even be trusted with the information as to whether they're in control or being listened to. The worst sort of censorship is when it's no longer even permitted to discuss that censorship is taking place. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:59, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Concur with Andy, in full.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:18, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

The original lock and proposal for deletion were not done at the behest of the WMF but by an OTRS volunteer. WMF are of the view that absent a legally binding order, the community should decide how to tackle this issue, given all the aspects. See more below and at the article talkpage.Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:20, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely pitiful

It's sad that for all the claims of user-based governance and so forth, and for that matter, being hosted in a country where the UK's law enforcement has no authority, does nothing to prevent Wikipedia from hopping when some UK cop says frog. If the office folks have such a lack of spine, then perhaps they should be removed and replaced with someone more in tune with the community. Jtrainor (talk) 13:02, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, what happened to the whole "we are not censored, even when governments don't like it" thingie? Or do we have the backbone of jello?--Wehwalt (talk) 17:35, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Final update

Matter is now resolved - article has not been deleted, is semi-protected. Please read the article talkpage, where discussion is even now taking place as to the best way to present content in line with Wikipedia policies - which are what matter here.

On the "what to do if this happens again" question, the advice given to OTRS volunteers probably wants reviewing. The Foundation is clear that it will only take down content on receipt of a notice from a court of competent jurisdiction (I think the phrase is), so OTRS volunteers should not be deleting articles or starting deletion discussions on the basis of a request of this kind. However, Wikipedia editors are expected to edit in line with policy for one thing, and for another, editors in the country where the trial is taking place may be subject to local laws relating to sub judice, and should be made aware of this. It is therefore reasonable to (for example) hat note the article, or put the English jurisdiction sub judice tempate on the talkpage, or edit the article to remove information sourced to less than impeccable WP:RS, preferably current ones. WMF are clear that it is the community's decision as to what it does in these situations. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:16, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Should the AFD be resumed? - Burpelson AFB ✈ 16:25, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

No I closed it (if only to stop the bloody bot readding the template). "The rozzers asked us to delete it" was never a sound policy reason, so I kept it (although without prejudice to the person who started, who I honestly believe thought he was doing the right thing). If the community wants to start another one on Wikipedia policy grounds, that option is fully available. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:18, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

JMU student accounts

It looks like we have a batch new users with accounts starting with JMU*. I'm guessing that is "James Madison University" (based on some of the edits they've done). It would be nice if we could find whomever is heading up this group, determine what they are attempting to do & get proper welcomes distributed before we scare them all off ;-) . --Versageek 18:07, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Try {{welcome student}} and {{welcome teacher}} if you find the teacher. Usually assignments involve posting to the teacher's page at some point. Valfontis (talk) 20:26, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Link to usernames starting w/ JMU. (keep an eye on the create dates). Valfontis (talk) 20:35, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I see 16 accounts starting with JMU created on 2 April. According to the list of current USEP classes there's only one class at JMU and they're well past the new accounts stage. It seems strange to me because even for classroom assignments involving Wikipedia, it would be strange for students to all choose names starting with JMU. MyNameWasTaken (talk) 04:30, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Not all instructors make the community aware of their class projects. And I've seen at least one other project where all the students used a similar naming scheme. In that case the teacher ended up staying and making a bunch of valuable contributions, even some FAs. Valfontis (talk) 07:33, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

UFC 146‎‎

Can an admin swing by and look at UFC 146 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), it has had 300+ ip edits today, most unconstuctive and has been listed at WP:RPP for over 12 hrs. Mtking ^(edits) 12:46, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

•  Done --Fæ (talk) 12:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Expewikiwriter

I'm a little worried that the user's contributions are a little advertisingish at times. [1]

Consider Joseph Lani, David Jerome (author), Stone Bridge Homes NW, and others, possibly. 86.** IP (talk) 01:55, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

• Hi. What's up?Expewikiwriter (talk) 12:50, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Stonebridge Homes is pure puff/advert. Non-notable awards as a show of notability? 6th place in a non-notable "competition" is somehow notable? The President is non-notable by any means. I'd swear the person is being paid to write adverts on Wikipedia (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 13:49, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

• I see your point. I'm familiar with the company through a friend's son, who is employed there. My friend knows I've written Wikipedia articles (a passion of mine, for no pay - I'm a retired school teacher) and asked me to consider writing one for this company. I probably tried a little too hard to make it fit Wikipedia's standard for notability. I will take this as a reminder to be more vigilant in the future. For that, I thank you. Expewikiwriter (talk) 15:13, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

• Please help me to understand the problem with David Jerome (author); does the article not make clear his notability? Thanks.Expewikiwriter (talk) 15:22, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

It's a little hard to separate out te threads in it, as it's covering two sides of the person, but a lot of it's sourced to his website, and it's not clear how notable some of the mentions are. Maybe I just don't understand what counts as notable for a humour writer, as notability is relative. Can someone else look? 86.** IP (talk) 15:50, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks, 86. In the meantime, do you really think the article warrants a proposed deletion tag? Expewikiwriter (talk) 16:07, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

• Think you're right on that one. Could do with discussion first. However, note that just because you worked on an article doesn't mean you can't remove a tag, so, you know, do feel free. Also note that, if something is mistakenly deleted that way, the decision may be reversed simply by contesting the deletion. The procedure is meant as a sort of testing of the waters, to see if anyone has other views. 86.** IP (talk) 16:47, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, I was willing to give Expewikiwriter the benefit of the doubt until this happened. Not sure if this is trolling or socking or meatpuppeting, but it's weird. I'd be curious to hear an explanation for that edit. Valfontis (talk) 22:02, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Expewikiwriter also uploaded a logo that goes with this other user's draft. An SPI might be in order. Valfontis (talk) 22:35, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Expewikiwriter. The choice of username is lighting up my spam radar in a big way. MER-C 02:34, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

How unfortunate. 86.** IP (talk) 02:43, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Expewikiwriter - Looks like it's been confirmed. How incredibly unfortunate. 86.** IP (talk) 03:33, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I've blocked and tagged the socks but not the main account. I've got a list of over 40 articles that appear to have been created for promotion. What a mess. Regarding: "I'm familiar with the company through a friend's son, who is employed there. My friend knows I've written Wikipedia articles (a passion of mine, for no pay - I'm a retired school teacher)" it seems to me like a strange selection of articles for a retired teacher to write. I wonder how they got permission to use the photos. Valfontis (talk) 04:38, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I've blocked the main account. I have little doubt that this is a professional spammer, but in any case it is a user who has gone to some efforts to be deceptive, and has abused several accounts. JamesBWatson (talk) 07:46, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

The blocked socks are now asking for help, one, right after, another. Can someone more patient than me explain things to "them"(?)? Valfontis (talk) 17:10, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I think they understand perfectly well, and are just playing their game beyond to the end. it's not even worth blocking talk p. access, though I wouldn't oppose it. All we need do is watch for whatever new socks there will be. DGG ( talk ) 00:06, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Agree, it's all about the future socks. It's interesting that the socks are claiming to be students and the puppetmaster is a former schoolteacher. Hm. tedder (talk) 00:48, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Meanwhile, a NY-based IP has protested the deletion of 2tor, Inc. created by Expewikiwriter. It was nice of "them" to reveal their location. Valfontis (talk) 01:07, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Certainly it's not possible for you to know the intent of any author. TheExpewikiwriter account has been deemed in violation of one or more Wikipedia policies and has been cancelled as punishment. But the articles written by the account holders (several authors contributed Wikipedia articles through this one account) should be judged on their own merits (is the article spam? is the article objectively written? is the article sufficiently supported by legitimate secondary sources?). It appears that a few expewikiwriter articles have been indiscriminately deleted or tagged for the purpose of rendering punishment on the account holder(s). Consider the following:

• Harold J. Morowitz - The subject is a leading, and internationally known, scientist. The author of this article is a published researcher and professional associate of a colleague of Dr. Morowitz. Judge for yourselves, but it would appear that the article meets all standards for a Wikipedia article on a living person, and should not be tagged.
• 2tor, Inc. - Covered extensively in the national press, this company is one of the most important players in online education. No less than 4 experienced Wikipedia authors collaborated on this article. Because it had been posted and removed once before (please see the record), all due care was taken to make sure that this article would meet Wikipedia standards. In particular, care was taken to write it OBJECTIVELY and NEUTRALLY, and to support EVERY fact and detail with a legitimate reference source. Review and decide whether this article should have been summarily removed - and consider re-establishing it in Wikipedia.
• Joseph Lani - After hearing Lani on national late night talk radio for the third or fourth time (he is a familiar radio guest to late night talk radio fans), the author of this article decided that Lani deserved a presence on Wikipedia. The author did research, found articles, and wrote the article.Whatsongisit4578 (talk) 19:14, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

...You know, it's fairly obvious you're the same user. You aren't allowed to violate your block by creating a new account. 86.** IP (talk) 19:35, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Role accounts aren't allowed of course. Also please read WP:BOOMERANG, you just keep digging yourself in deeper, "Expewikiwriter". Valfontis (talk) 19:53, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

I've asked for another sockpuppet check. Probably obvious, but keep getting new ones, so... Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Expewikiwriter 86.** IP (talk) 19:59, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

For those playing along at home, three new IPs have contested proposed deletions of four articles created by Expewikiwriter. 38.96.37.10 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 98.116.123.25 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), and 50.9.6.141 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). Valfontis (talk) 20:22, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Other new users voicing an opinion on the works of Expewikiwriter include Phage434 (talk · contribs) Peace2012now (talk · contribs), Davidlomax (talk · contribs), 209.177.103.146 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), and 98.207.154.218 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). Valfontis (talk) 21:06, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Isn't it kind of pointless to delete prods while people are clearly paying attention? I mean, prods are at least reversible; AfDs aren't. 86.** IP (talk) 13:07, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, if the system worked the way it was supposed to, and people weren't !voting "delete" as a means of doling out punishment, at AfD at least an article has a chance of being kept if people actually !vote based on valid deletion criteria and look for sources before !voting. P.S. Here's a new IP also 173.73.144.58 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). Note IP 209* is from clarkhuotcocoon and IP 38* is from budovideos. Valfontis (talk) 14:47, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Another one. Special:Contributions/TechnicsSL1200 (though he may have a point in that case) 86.** IP (talk) 21:00, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

One more SPA: Molly Staples (talk · contribs) (NewOrleans.com) Valfontis (talk) 15:47, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Anarchangel

Anarchangel (talk · contribs)

I'm a bit uncomfortable with this user's admission here: [2], specifically,

So I will break with my tradition of taking articles off-site without mention. It is transcribed to http://hippie.wikia.com/wiki/Mundane_astrology and should be reintroduced at a later time.

That's problematic, because Creative Commons requires the authors to be credited. If Anarchangel is taking articles offsite, claiming them as his or her own, then putting them back on Wikipedia later, without crediting the original authors, that's basically a massive copyfraud, and it needs dealt with. 86.** IP (talk) 06:40, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

You need to complain to the relevant people at Wikia, then, who can actually deal with it. 87.114.248.222 (talk) 08:59, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, he's apparently bringing them back here, after some time, but without the names of the people who made the original, it's copyvio. 86.** IP (talk) 15:08, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

In which case, any articles which he brings back should be examined by an admin to see if the article is a copyvio - if such is the case, the user should likely be barred from such acts. Collect (talk) 18:28, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

What part of the {{WPN}} template did you fail to understand?

“ This article contains content from Wikipedia. An article on this subject has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mundane astrology. Current versions of the GNU FDL article on WP may contain information useful to the improvement of this article. ”

If someone else wishes to reintroduce material that was previously on Wikipedia, on my recommendation, then that is their business. I certainly never have personally, and I have no plans to do so in the foreseeable future. However, if there is a policy that restricts that, then I should like to know right now, because it would be wrong and I should like to have my say about it. Anarchangel (talk) 18:46, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

It's not just policy, it's a legal issue. If the article is deleted on Wikipedia, the history of edits is gone. By pating that work back into Wikipedia, you are re-introducing that material without the required attribution for all those edits. Thus, it violates the license. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:23, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I see the rationale. However, this is also the same as reintroducing an article from Userpace, or reintroducing an article that was previously deleted. In both those cases, the edit history is available to administrators, yes? So since the edit history is still available, there is no licence violation, no? Anarchangel (talk) 23:22, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Bit late to reply, had family matters to take care of. In the case of an article moved to Userspace, or deleted on Wikipedia, if it is moved back to article space and/or undeleted, the page history is there for all to see. However, if you just copy & paste the contents to a new article, none of that history is attached and, therefore, it has no attributions. And that's a license violation.

If you really want to recreate a deleted/userfied article, ask an admin to move it or go through WP:DRV to have it undeleted. However, if you republish the article's contents anywhere else (including a different Wikipedia article or new version of the previous article) you must include attribution for all the edits with the republished article. Otherwise, it's a violation of the license. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:47, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I have to say that the "What part of WPN" questions leads me to a serious concern that there may be a deep misunderstanding here. :/ "Wikipedia" does not own the copyright to that content; the individual contributors who contribute the material do. It is *they* who must be attributed. Providing a link to the article (not the AFD), so long as it is still alive, is regarded as sufficient attribution. If it is not still alive, you need a full list of authors. This is the reason why the content cannot be reintroduced to Wikipedia; without the history of the article, which includes the full list of authors, or a complete list using that content is a violation of the license granted by the contributors and hence of their copyright. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:39, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

See my query, above. The edit history exists, somewhere, surely? Anarchangel (talk) 23:24, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Also, thank you for noting the distinction. If the answer is no, the edit history does not exist, then I will take care to note the names of the individual contributors, probably on the destination talk page. Anarchangel (talk) 23:34, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

The edit history existing somewhere, only for administrators, doesn't help I'm afraid. :) Attribution must be accessible to comply with the license. When material is introduced form userspace, there's no licensing issue as long as the user who is introducing is the author - you retain rights over your own material and don't have to attribute it. Articles should not be reintroduced after prior deletion; their history is supposed to be restored at the same time. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 23:29, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

By the way, if you've copied content from articles that have now been deleted, I'd be happy to help you get a list of authors that can be put on the talk pages of the Wikia page. That would satisfy attribution requirements just as well as the link. I'm afraid I'd just need a list and - if the list is long- time. :)

--Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 23:30, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Of the 44 articles, all attributed as containing Wikipedia content, most have been redirected at AfD or kept, and thus have an edit history which not only exists, but is easily accessible. Some are originals. And then there are this seven, which were actually deleted after AfD. I gladly take you up on your kind offer of contributor lists. If you would prefer, just go ahead and ctrl-c; I'll do the parsing:

• Puget Trough prairie butterfly (moved to -flies, it says on the AfD), Nude & Breast Freedom Parade, Energy Art, High fibre composting, Northern California Solar Regatta, Virginia Good. Anarchangel (talk) 02:55, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

• At your talk page. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:26, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Wait a second, are you saying that it's illegal to copy content from Wikipedia?
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:55, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

No, not at all. It is not only legal, but encouraged. :) However, the content has licensing requirements that must be met. wmf:Terms of Use explains these requirements; where possible, a hyperlink or URL to the article or a stable version of the article, with history, is sufficient attribution. Where this is not available, a list of all authors will do it. It may be illegal to copy content without meeting the terms of the license, considering all factors. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 23:01, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I guess that this is about deleted content though (...right?), so... if content has been deleted from here, then how can there still be licensing issues at all?
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 23:04, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Copyright doesn't disappear when content goes out of publication; if it did, there'd be a whole lot more material we could reproduce. : ) Under the US laws that govern Wikipedia, the term of copyright is 70 years after the death of the author or, where the author is unknown (as will often be the case with Wikipedia content), 95 years after publication/120 years after creation (on Wikipedia, it would be the 95, since this constitutes publication). --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 23:08, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

OK, agreed, but if the content has been deleted from here then how does anyone know who the author(s) was(were)? Does the WMF hold the copyright on the content of deleted articles, since it's not possible to determine who the contributors were? I somehow doubt that we're talking about content that is "out of publication" (how would that even be determined?), if it's been "destroyed".
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 00:10, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Deleted content never actually goes away - it and its history are still visible to admins, and if it is ever to be used again its whole history can be restored. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 00:16, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, but how does that address the original issue here? As User:Moonriddengirl said above: "The edit history existing somewhere, only for administrators, doesn't help I'm afraid."
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 00:19, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't have much idea where you're going with this. :) So I'll just try to explain the way this works. John creates an article on Wikipedia. He doesn't give it to the WMF or even to Wikipedia; he owns the copyright. He licenses it liberally for modification and reuse, provided the terms of the licenses are met. The licenses require, among other things, that John receive attribution. Anyone - whether another Wikipedia contributor or a book publisher or a website owner - is free to reuse John's content, so long as they honor the license agreement. If they do not honor the license agreement, they may be infringing John's copyright (a matter for a court to determine, based on weighing a number of factors). The fact that some contributor or contributors on Wikipedia delete the article in which John originally placed the content doesn't change anything; there's nothing in our Terms of Use terminating licensing requirements upon article deletion. (WMF does not hold copyright on the content of deleted articles; the original contributors do...and always will, until copyright expires under the terms of US law.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:44, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Except that there is no copyright on Wikipedia. When we release anything we've created on Wikipedia, it's released as Creative Commons which isn't copyright, we're allowing free use of the material , it says so at the bottom of the page,

so copyright doesn't even figure into this discussion.

Creative Commons , simply put means :
We are free to:

to Share—to copy, distribute and transmit the work, and to Remix—to adapt the work Under the following conditions: Attribution—You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work.) Share Alike—If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same, similar or a compatible license.

Further, we can't copyright our own work here, nor can we waive Creative Commons or revoke it. There's no copyright on Wikipedia, just creative commons, so the usual "life of the author...." doesn't apply. Just my two cents. @-Kosh► Talk to the Vorlons►Moon Base Alpha-@ 19:57, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, there is, because American copyright law holds that copyright automatically exists when copyrightable material is created or published. Here that material has specifically not been released into the public domain, but has been licensed for use under the terms listed above, which does not change the status of the copyright -- which is, precisely, the right to determine how your material will be used. You can't license something if you don't own it, and each contributor owns the copyright on whatever they've created on Wikipedia, but has agreed to the licensing scheme by uploading it. The licensing terms exist only because the copyright exists, you can't have the one without the other. Once the copyright has run out, there's no longer anything to license, and the material falls into the public domain. (That will be interesting, 70 - 95 years from now, trying to unravel which words and punctuation date from when to determine which is p.d. and which is still copyrighted and licensed under CC.) Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:58, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Of course, I agree with User:Beyond My Ken. So, I'll note, does Wikipedia:Copyrights: "The text of Wikipedia is copyrighted (automatically, under the Berne Convention) by Wikipedia editors and contributors and is formally licensed to the public under one or several liberal licenses." Much if not most of the content on Wikipedia is under copyright. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:42, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Note that there is a new issue surfacing; material that makes up a summary on one article cannot be the same text as the text of another article? I surely hope not; it seems to me absurd that one WP article could be a copyvio of another. However, User:Nyttend made the deletion of Libyan Ground Forces, bypassing the AfD process, with the summary : "(G12: Unambiguous copyright infringement: Unattributed copying of much of Libyan Army (1951–2011))" Is this browbeating, hoping for the chilling effect of copyright infringement accusation to push through a new operating standard, or just inept editing? Until there is a decision, WP:G12 cannot be and should not have been applied, as neither the original article nor the copied text was an "unambiguous" copyright violation. Anarchangel (talk) 23:33, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Reusing Wikipedia content

The relevant policy is WP:Reusing Wikipedia content. Reusing content at Wikia is particularly easy, as it has compatible CC-BY-SA licensing (for most of its wikis) and compatible MediaWiki software. Full page histories can be transferred using Special:Export/Special:Import. Histories of deleted articles can be requested at WP:Requests for undeletion. Flatscan (talk) 04:54, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Volunteer needed

To act as a single-issue mentor/advisor for DegenFarang (talk · contribs). I'm trying to work with this user to get them unblocked, they have agreed to a topic ban and have agreed that if/when they get into any sort of conflict they will consult with a third party for advice on how to proceed. That's the whole job, no elaborate mentoring program or anything, just the occasional bit of procedural advice on how to proceed in a disagreement since Degen has had repeated problems in that area. It would be best if it was an admin or other experienced user who has no previous dealings with this user. Any takers? Beeblebrox (talk) 19:48, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

C'mon people, it's an easy job and you'd be helping a user not to repeat their own mistakes. It's a feel good task that just needs one previously uninvolved admin to make an occasional recommendation, not a babysitting gig. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:29, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

As long as DegenFarang does in fact adhere to the topic ban, I'd be happy to mentor him should he make occasional requests for a second opinion on my talk page. — madman 14:18, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Need someone to close RfC: Template:Cleanup - Should the reason parameter be made mandatory?

Resolved

Can someone please close the following RfC?[3] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:56, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

No need for this. Consensus has been determined to make the reason parameter mandatory. The request to the fully protected page to remove the warning has already been made. Please discuss before making unilateral requests for administrative closures. Administrative closure is not required.Curb Chain (talk) 13:15, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

If consensus has been determined, then the RfC should be closed. Why is it still open? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:01, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

If the RfC has reached a consensus, and it has run for at least 30 days, why not close it? What purpose is served by leaving it open any longer? ​—DoRD (talk)​ 16:36, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Curb Chain is the only one wanting to keep this open. Someone please close it so we can move forward. AIRcorn (talk) 19:35, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand Curb Chain's comment; no requests to require the warning have been fulfilled, and the last time the template was edited was this pair of edits by Rich Farmbrough to tidy the code. Nyttend (talk) 21:48, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

I want to preface this with the understanding that I have no clue about what's really going on with Curb Chain (I'm not trying to accuse, here). That being said, it appears that he's attempting to obstruct the process here for as long as possible. He makes no secret about his opposition to this or related changes (I'm including the last couple of deletion nominations here, in "related changes"), which should be apparent to most by looking at his statements in either the current discussion or in the most recent tfd discussions. I don't think that this is really an issue at this point, and likely won't be an issue as long as the RFC actually is closed and an edit is made to the template after we figure out exactly what changes should be made. It bears some watching of course, but... in my (admittedly limited) interactions with Curb Chain, he seems to be someone that can be worked with after it's obvious what the consensus actually is. He simply wants to ensure that his viewpoint is heard, as far as I can tell. If someone could close the discussion (which, Aircorn has already provided some significant work towards accomplishing), then I'm all but certain that things could move along here without further administrative assistance (outside of someone fulfilling an edit request eventually, of course).
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:14, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Y I closed the RfC.  Sandstein  15:38, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Dispute with editor

I have a serious complaint about one of the editors: the user name is Srleffler which quite blatantly break the "Five Pillars of Wikipedia". Frankly, if abuse of this nature cannot be dealt with effectively the credibility of Wikipedia is in serious doubt.

I made an edit to the following page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_radiation This page contains the following comment, which is not backed up by any citation and which is contradicted by many hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals:

"For low-frequency radiation (radio waves to visible light) most if not all effects are thought to be due to radiation power alone, acting through the effect of simple heating when the radiation is absorbed by the cell."

I corrected this mistake and added references to peer-reviewed research. Mr Srleffler, who - according to his profile - has no training or expertise at all in this field - deleted my corrections. None of his explanations makes any sense: it is clear that he has not read or even accessed any of the research papers (nor would he have the expertise to understand them if he did). Either he works for a telecommunications company and has a vested interest in this research being suppressed or else he deleted my comments out of spite.

Biological effects of Electromagnetic radiation

Srleffler's comments:

Hi. I undid your changes to Electromagnetic radiation. The changes you made seem likely to be controversial. Wikipedia requires that information can be backed up by a citation to a "reliable source". It does not appear to me that the BioInitiative Report website qualifies as such, so I have reverted the article to its former state.--Srleffler (talk) 02:36, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

[The Biointiative Report I refer to is a collection of reviews of the literature. I have no idea why he thinks that this is not a "reliable source".]

I have a PhD in biophysics from the University of Cambridge and have a fairly detailed understanding of the literature. Whoever wrote the original text had apparently not read a single one of the many hundreds of papers covering the biological effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation.

You have no relevant background in this field, so it is not clear why you believe that you are in a position to judge research which you have not read and which is, in any case, far outside your field of expertise or training. I suggest that a little humility might be appropriate here.

In any case, since you have destroyed my previous comments I have re-written them in more detail: they now include references to specific research.

This time, please have the professional integrity to actually check these before passing judgment on them. You will notice that my analysis, unlike most of the rest of the page, is based on peer-reviewed research. In particular, the original comment that the health effects of EMF are somehow caused by "heating" - which I have removed - was a personal opinion which was not backed up by any citation and which was contradicted by the last twenty years of research in this field.

I will be more than happy to take this matter to arbitration if necessary. It is extraordinarily important for people to be aware of the biological effects of non-ionizing radiation. I strongly believe that Wikipedia - which I use constantly - should be a source of reliable, accurate information, rather than simply reflect the prejudices of a few editors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TopGarbageCollector (talk • contribs) 11:24, 6 April 2012‎

Srleffler's comments:

Please see Electromagnetic radiation and health where the material you are adding would belong rather than on the general article. I've removed your addition as it was supported by two primary research articles and a rather dated 1979 article, please carefully read WP:RS. Vsmith (talk) 11:35, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

[He has removed my comments because they were supported by peer-reviewed research - he removed my previous one because it was supported by a review of the literature. Something is wrong here.] — Preceding unsigned comment added by TopGarbageCollector (talk • contribs) 15:14, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

This is a content dispute, not a cause for administrative action. You've already posted at WP:DR: please confine the discussion to that, more appropriate venue, and please avoid attacks on other editors. Acroterion (talk) 15:21, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) What we need here is WP:CIVIL discussion based on the pillars from all sides, not hyperbole about the credibility of the whole WP project or speaking from personal authority. I don't see any admin action required at this time--you have just started the WP:DR thread on this topic, which is the proper way to draw other editors into the discussion. It's quite possible the original content is problematic (either a mis-analysis or simply not up-to-date with more recent sources), but likewise it's possible that a website that collects reviews might have its own agenda or somehow else have selection bias in its content. All of those issues are easily in the scope of normal dispute resolution discussion processes rather than trying to trump all with administrative intervention yet. Fact is, your changes were controversial even if they wind up being correct after others have had a chance to hear more about it, and the previous content is cited even if you have additional information or evidence on the topic. DMacks (talk) 15:26, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#Electromagnetic radiation is the place. DMacks (talk) 15:28, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Bit of a backlog at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection

Hi all - just to let you know, there's a bit of a backlog at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection - if anyone has time to clear it, it would be most appreciated. Cheers, Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 22:59, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Incompatible with building an encyclopedia?

Collect (talk · contribs) states here that "and most of [8000 articles mentioning abortion] have a far clearer connection to "abortion" than this article has". "This article" is Pro-life feminism. As its relation to abortion is inherent in the title/subject of the article, this statement seems to me to show a POV-pushing mentality that is incompatible with building an encyclopedia. Should administrative action be taken? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:05, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Note the place where the comment is made, and the fact that it was in response to an editor asserting that any article which mentions abortion is under the abortion decision from arbcom. I have made zero edits asserting any personal position about abortion or evincing any personal interest in the topic at all. Also note that the actual statement I made is

I would also point out that "abortion" appears in on the order of 8,000 article spots (search raw count) on Wikipedia, and most of them have a far clearer connection to "abortion" than this article has.

Which is a verifiable statement of fact not connected in any way to any POV about abortion in any way whatsoever. In short, this complaint is ill-founded. Cheers. Now let's get on with actually writing the encyclopedia. Collect (talk) 22:14, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

(ec) I would also suggest that statements made on an Arbitration Committee page should stand - if the Arbitrators find the statement distasteful, it is their venue, and this is a remarkably inapt venue to decry what they regard as an acceptable statement. Cheers. @DV -- the !vote was in accord with those of many others. Trying to raise your view of an AfD discussion here is, IMO, irrelevant. Collect (talk) 22:24, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

And note that while I asked Arbcom if the 1RR restriction was superseded, Collect has been throwing walls of text at the page trying to make the question "is this article related to abortion", which is not the question I asked. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:30, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

LOL! Responses to inapt "charges" is not "throwing walls of text" anywhere. Rather I note that you had started that discussion before ArbCom, and almost immediately also started this simultaneously running discussion - which is an interesting tactic at best. Lastly, I have repeatedly stated my position that my queries about procedure (and not about whether ArbCom had removed decisions, which was not the question I asked at all) were the reason I posted there. I think you are now getting a teensy bit "involved" at this point, especially with a ludicrous assertion that my queries represent in any way POV pushing. Now can we let this WP:DEADHORSE rest in peace now that Roscelese amended the article in line with the BLP/N disucssion? Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:18, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

• Arbcom clarification request: 14:44, 3 April 2012
• Starting this discussion: 22:05, 3 April 2012

"Almost immediately", huh? And what does WP:INVOLVED have to do with starting noticeboard discussions, pray tell?--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:41, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

I, too, was taken aback by Collect's argument, as it is "creative", to out it mildly. He also made a "creative" AfD vote today here: [[4]], in which he considers three separate unrelated articles on three sepearate unrelated events in the same newspaper is proof that a "single source" makes a meaningful connection between them. It's difficult not to see "creative" arguments like this as motivated by anything else than POV-pushing. I'm trying, but straining. His off-the-mark answer above is not encouraging, though. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 22:20, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Ridiculous. The page in question is already a "judicial" location (Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification), so why refer anything for action here? Sarek shows poor judgement in raising the matter in another forum. Surely speech has to be free in approaching ArbCom, at least. What next: thought police? I sometimes disagree with Collect's editing; but there is nothing that requires action in this situation.

Noetica^Tea? 22:32, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

The clarification I requested is whether the 1RR restriction the community placed was superseded by Arbcom's discretionary sanctions. Collect's edits are not in question at that page, so raising this issue here is not forumshopping.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:30, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

The comment appeared to have been made in order to deflect a (justified) 1RR warning that Collect had been given, which is problematic, but as a comment, I don't really think it's actionable...? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:43, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• What administrative action is being requested here? Night Ranger (talk) 02:45, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, when an administrator posts something like this on the administrator's noticeboard - instead of ANI where we go for immediate administrative action - they're usually looking for discussion amongst admins for the best way forward (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:21, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Bingo. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:30, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

The only problem is that nothing remotely approaching any infraction of any sort occurred, the edit basically sought by me was supported at BLP/N and made by Roscelese, and no "POV" was remotely connected to any of the edits or discussions engaged in by me. The aside by someone upset at the likely AfD outcome on an absolutely unrelated article is just that - totally unrelated and out of nowhere. The ArbCom page discussion, from my point of view, was strictly a series of queries about process, needlessly muddied by this aside here. Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:12, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

...and that's exactly why it's here. SoV was verifying with his colleagues that either no additional action was required, or at least bringing a concern to people's attention. That is, after all, what AN is supposed to be for - it's not ANI. God forbid admins restrict themselves to IRC for discussions like this, there would be lynchings. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 10:42, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

An interesting concept, but the "incompatible" comment did appear from this vantage point to be a personal criticism of this editor, and one sans any rational foundation, and occurring during a discussion on an ArbCom board. But it is fine if it was entirely an intellectual exercuise on his part not designed in any way to discuss me, not to insinuate in any way any improper acts or position on my part, as your post appears to assert. Though I am curious as to why IRC is related to this - I would regard such "discussion" on IRC to be a splendid rationale to bar IRC discussions entirely. Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:15, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for letting us know. We'll alert him right away. 134.241.58.253 (talk) 00:13, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Editing with old account after user name change?

Okay, I'm confused... I ran across a spam-only account, User:X179396828, doing the typical WoW gold spam thing. When I searched for additional links on the spammed domain, I found the same links on the user and talk page of Landfish7 (talk · contribs) in the typical spammer format. I deleted them and then realized I made a big mistake as Landfish7 is not the spammer account. (I restored everything and deservedly should get a thwap for deleting without looking.) The spammer account is really Anfish (talk · contribs). And here is where I'm confused. Back in 2009, Anfish was renamed to Landfish7. Yet the logs show that the account Anfish was created just a few days ago. Perhaps I just don't quite understand how the user name change works. I thought that the old account gets locked out, but apparently it does not and somebody can create a new account with the old name? -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 05:13, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I believe that when an account gets renamed, the old username gets "freed up" as though it didn't exist, and so anyone could come along to create it. Whether that is a bug or a feature is up to the beholder to decide, but AFAIK, that's how the system works. --Jayron32 05:16, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

I think the way it works is that, if the old account has an SUL, then it cannot be recreated except by the SUL owner, so it's effective "locked out", but if it is not, then it's up for grabs. T. Canens (talk) 06:46, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Learned something new. Thanks. I blocked the Anfish account for spamming. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 07:10, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

That's the way it works. I don't think we had $wgCentralAuthAutoNew for CentralAuth in use then.  Hazard-SJ  ㋡  01:48, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposed topic ban of Pigsonthewing

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

---

See also: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive233 § Topic ban

I propose that this editor be topic banned indefinitely from pages relating to Jim Hawkins (radio presenter). There was a similar proposal at AN which can be seen here but this was never agreed upon. Pigsonthewing (Andy Mabbett) responded to the topic ban proposal by saying that "I have already indicated that I refrain from making contentious edits to the article, discussing them first, and as it is the community's wish, I am prepared to undertake not to mention the actual DoB at all. My other, undisputed, edits to the article have helped to improve the encyclopedia. "

On March 30th, Jimbo asked Andy not to further edit the article or interact on the talk page. Andy's reply on April 2nd was in the negative. Later on the same day Andy posted this addition to the article which appears to be true, verifiable, and well-sourced. Nevertheless it has provoked an unncessary, but entirely predictable, round of edit warring culminating in the article being fully protected for the duration of the current deletion review.

Andy has defended his article edits on the article's talk page and subsequent to the full protection has made an edit request to reinstate the removed material. to add further new material. (Assertion refactored after my mistake was pointed out. Apologies all round.) Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 21:08, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Andy asserts that he never makes contentious edits to the article, and I agree that from his own point of view they are entirely defensible; he can call on policy and precedent to do so. Nevertheless the fact that his edits are strictly correct does not mean they are not, in practice, disruptive to the activity of the encyclopaedia. I have asked Andy to consider a self-imposed withdrawal from the article and its talk page, but he is unwilling to do so and from his perspective cannot see that he has any responsibility for the disruption that has ensued. I don't think Andy is persuadable that he should leave this page alone. I reiterate that I make no criticism of the content of any recent edits he has made. It is the fact that he, Andy, has made them and the way he has done so that is disruptive and which the community now needs to put a stop to. I will inform him of this post now. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 22:24, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• Why is this even still necessary? There already was consensus for this topic ban in the discussion the other day. I don't know why it slipped into the archive without being formally enacted. It clearly should have been. I blocked him the other day for continuing his activities on the article, and only unblocked him on the understanding that he would heed what was by then a clearly emergent consensus. I'm quite prepared to block him again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:30, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Strong support. Andy needs to leave Jim Hawkins the hell alone. For him to continue editing Hawkins' bio after so many editors have raised concerns about him doing this (not to mention the fact that Hawkins himself feels harassed by Andy's continued focus on him) shows extremely poor judgment. It's disappointing he's chosen not to step away from this BLP on his own volition; I don't see any choice but to make it an official ban. 28bytes (talk) 22:32, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support. This cannot be allowed to continue, there is a certain amount of WP:GAME going on here, if it was not the date of birth or where he lives, it would be something else. Game over.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 22:38, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support per 28bytes. Girlwithgreeneyes (talk) 22:40, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

(ec)I refer my fellow editors to my full response to the previous suggestion, where contrary to above assertions there was no consensus for such a ban, and which is not quoted in full by Kim. I have not been involved in what Kim calls "unncessary, but entirely predictable, round of edit warring"; and Kim has said of the edits in question that "You have facts, precedent and logic on your side". Kim's allegation that I have tried "to reinstate the removed material" is untrue. FP withdrew his wholly unwarranted and out-of-process block after criticism of it from other editors. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:43, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I didn't say you had reinstated the material Andy, I said you had made an edit request. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 22:50, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

You said "made an edit request to reinstate the removed material". That is a lie. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:00, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Andy, I'm not going to wikilawyer this one. I'll leave it to others to judge whether what I said was a fair representation of the situation. I realise that you believe you are in the right on this but I implore you to count the numbers of people supporting my proposal. Either we are all under a kind of mass hysteria, or you are the one who is isolated. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 23:09, 2 April 2012 (UTC)#

I'm not asking you to "wikilawyer this one"; I'm pointing out that your claim is a lie. Unequivocally so. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:13, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Since Kim has now admitted that the quoted claim was false, and since it was nonetheless supported by a number of editors, his explanation of "a kind of mass hysteria" presumably applies? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:22, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

P.S. The substance of this Kafkaesque proposal appears to be that I have breached a non-existent topic ban. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:03, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support, per everything that was said at the previous AN discussion. This looks to me like a deliberate attempt to cause trouble. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:44, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Conditional support. I always think it's a good idea that people take a step back from editing when they become to heavily involved or emotionally invested in this issue. But I think this topic ban should also be extended to at least half a dozen other editors on both sides of the issue and should not just single one person out. There's a lot of hysteria and everyone needs to calm the fuck down. Gamaliel (talk) 22:47, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support. I didn't comment during the last topic ban discussion, because I assumed Pigsonthewing would voluntarily withdraw. But it seems he's determined to continue -- to the point of making edit requests even after page protection, and even though the subject has said he feels harassed by him. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:57, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
  • "making edit requests even after page protection" - That's how things are supposed to work. Furthermore, the page was protected due to an edit war, in which I was not a participant. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:02, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support I'm sorry Andy, but even though I do not believe you intend it to be this way, your presence at this article is clearly disruptive. Since you won't voluntarily remove yourself from the topic area, it behooves us to force it. Resolute 23:05, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support per everyone above. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 23:08, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose ...sorta. I basically agree with Gamaliel above. I've never seen this before just now, but this whole thing is weird (not least of all because I think that I actually agree with Malleus!). what I see is that some IP user has trolled a BLP article and several of the "usual suspects" on both "sides" have descended on the article to start sniping at each other with snarky comments. If Andy is "topic banned" here, then what about everyone else?
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 23:10, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. V = IR may feel slightly uneasy about agreeing with me, but he points out an ineluctable truth. An IP who may or may not be Jim Hawkins has been trolling that subject's talk page. Malleus Fatuorum 23:24, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose if IPs can talk here. I don't understand this: Pigsonthewing adds the place where the guy lives, ostensibly. What's the problem? Lots of articles have it. Whether it's necessary or not is another matter (but he does that radio show, so I think there is some relevance to it), and next you know everyone is at war. If Pigsonthewing is to be topic-banned for this little edit, then Silver seren and Malleus Fatuorum should be banned also. Bunch of trolls! But the funnest thing here is that Pigsonthewing makes an edit request, which is answered by Tarc--whose only response is "weren't you topic-banned?" Reminds me of a joke. Guy goes to a bakery. "Can I have a loaf of bread?" "Wheat or white?" "Yes." "Yes WHAT?" "Yes Mr. Baker." There was no reason given on the talk page. As for that edit war, I don't know what got up John lilburne's butt, but I think it needs forceful removal. And the reported harassment on the talk page, that's laughable. A radio jock feels stalked because someone puts his verified county of residence in the article? Come on. 66.168.247.159 (talk) 23:43, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you are allowed to talk here, IP. However, it appears that you are not making your decision on the full information, and that you are judging things on what you see on the talkpage. You'd have to look in the archives of the article, and click several of the links noted by Kim above to get a fuller picture, but suffice to say, for literally years, POTW has been poking the article's subject (by an adversarial approach, inflammatory talkpage headings[5], repeatedly trying to include information which has been determined inappropriate [6][7][8].) Other links to more recent edits that have since been deleted so you can't see them. Every single time, Hawkins has reacted and drama has ensued. Multiple, very experienced editors (including Jimbo[9], and Fae [10]who has supported POTW in the past, and others[11][12]) have asked POTW, for the good of the encyclopedia, to voluntarily agree to stop editing the article and the talkpage, and let other editors deal it. But he has refused. He is simply not helping the encyclopedia at this point and since he cannot apparently accept this at present, a topic ban is needed. --Slp1 (talk) 00:22, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You need to open your eyes as well. This ban has been called for because the article included material published by the subject himself in a nationally available magazine. Malleus Fatuorum 00:35, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

No, it is being called for because after been asked very nicely by several people to stop editing the article and talkpage because it is causing more disruption than it is worth, he has refused to do so. As Kim says above, this has nothing to do with the content of these particular edits. Slp1 (talk) 00:40, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

That position is quite simply absurd. Are you seriously suggesting that if any other editor had added that publicly available information then it would have been retained? Malleus Fatuorum 01:26, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• Slp, I am familiar with the history, including the last thread. It doesn't clarify anything, and Malleus's remark is quite pertinent. We're not talking about someone opening up a vault of family secrets. It's the county he inserted--not an address, not even the name of a town. Now how is that unacceptable? I conclude that it can only be because it came from Pigsonthewing. You gave some nice diffs--but they relate to this birthday issue, which isn't what was happening in the edit war that led to full protection. I can't disagree with Jimbo Wales asking Pigsonthewing to stop editing, but to enforce that goes too far. Not that I understand his fascination with the subject, mind you, which I think is a little OTT. 66.168.247.159 (talk) 02:46, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

It's impossible to know, yes, I suspect that if an uninvolved editor had added the info, it would not have been removed. To repeat, this is not about the content but about an editor who despite strong advice that it is best for this encyclopedia if he is not the one to add it. --Slp1 (talk) 11:40, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Seems to me that it might be useful to review WP:Harassment here. Whenever Jim Hawkins pops up, a couple of editors also appear, making minor but irritating edits for no good reason. Jim Hawkins is a radio presenter with a wider off-wiki audience than almost anybody here, and pissing him off enough to start attacking Wikipedia publicly hurts the project a lot more than leaving out the information that a marginally notable person lives in the same county that he broadcasts from. --Pete (talk) 11:51, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

"this is not about the content but about an editor" - the epitome of ad hominem. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:19, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

"...about an editor who despite strong advice that it is best for this encyclopedia if he is not the one to add it. " That's not ad hominem but a description of the problem with your tendentious editing of this article despite multiple requests that it would be better for all concerned if you withdrew. --Slp1 (talk) 12:40, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support If he wouldn't leave voluntarily then a topic ban is the next step. -DJSasso (talk) 23:44, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Funny use of the word "voluntary". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:37, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support Nice narrow motion here. Collect (talk) 23:55, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support - This article's existence has caused a lot of grief to the subject, and if the article is still retained (though I hope common sense will prevail at the DRV), then that grief would be largely mitigated by the removal of Pigsonthewing from it. He has been a resounding net negative there over a long period of time, bordering on obsesive. Tarc (talk) 00:18, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) The claim that the article's existence has caused any grief at all to the subject is unproven, and frankly unbelievable; the subject is clearly only concerned about the fact that his publicity is not exclusively under his own control. To label the inclusion of material published by the subject himself in a nationally available magazine as "stalking" is ludicrous, and to call for a topic ban on that basis is hypocritical, dishonest, and cowardly. Malleus Fatuorum 00:29, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  "Well thank you Professor Fatuorum for that penetrating insight into the mind and motivations of those who find fault with how the Wikipedia treats their biographies. Tarc (talk) 02:29, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• Speaking of unverified BLP information... Malleus is a professor? 66.168.247.159 (talk) 02:53, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

"Mind and motivations"?? Another typical example of irresponsible reading and comment. Read it again. There's absolutely nothing said or even implied re "mind" or "motivation". Nothing. If a kid dropped his plate of potato salad and someone commented "Hmm ... you've made a mess on the floor", would that be an "insight into mind & motivation"?! Good grief - go back to school and learn to read. Hint: words have meaning. Not your ridiculous imagination. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 07:54, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

I read it just fine, sport; Malleus thinks he knows better than the person himself about what his feelings on the article are. Pigsonthewing's actions on this page have been deplorable, and he needs to be removed promptly. Let me know if you need any more help figuring out what's going on here. Tarc (talk) 15:58, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support POTW's edits have been disruptive on this article and to this encyclopedia, and since it appears that he can't accept the need to withdraw voluntarily, this needs to happen via a topic ban to the article and the talkpage.Slp1 (talk) 00:22, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Neutral. Oppose. (vote changed after considering the comment by Tagishsimon, below) I think it would be a good thing if Andy were to step away from the article, but this has the feel of a show trial or a futile blood-sacrifice. At the end of the day, no-one has shown anything wrong with any of Andy's edits. It's just that the subject of the article wants him removed. In that circumstance it's fine to ask him to step away, but it's also OK for him not to do so, unless anyone knows of a policy that says otherwise. FormerIP (talk) 00:45, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  Checking your facts would be good. Malleus Fatuorum 01:23, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  • Explaining what you mean by that would be excellent. FormerIP (talk) 12:55, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support. When an editor is either unwilling or unable to disengage from an issue in which their presence - whether intentionally or through good faith actions gone wrong or misinterpreted - causes problems, then it's time for the community to step in and force the editor to disengage. To those suggesting Andy is not the only problem editor in this topic area: if other editors are felt to need time-outs also, please propose topic bans (and provide evidence) for them elsewhere (a sub-section, perhaps?), but piggybacking additional suggested editors onto this proposal is likely to just muddy the issue what to do about Pigsonthewing. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 01:28, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Question Andy is there a need for you to be the one to edit this page? Because it looks like, it's become personal, and if it has, you should just agree not to do it. Thanks. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:49, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Why does it matter, so long as the material can be attributed to reliable sources? Malleus Fatuorum 02:03, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Despite Hawkins' attempts to personalise the matter (with regular PAs both on- and off-wiki), I have resisted rising to such bait and have restricted myself to discussion of cited facts pertinent to his biography; and to raising his calls for vandalism on WP:ANI, as I have previously been advised to do. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:37, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

It matters because there are many editors who can edit the article; its not going anywhere -- it's here to stay for the foreseeable future and if Andy is the issue than there is no reason for him to be so. On the other hand, if Mr. Hawkins' wants to encourage people to keep editing and taking about his article, it's going to be edited and talked about, with or without Andy. So, I'm leaning toward no formal bans at this point, until we find if it's Mr Hawkins or someone on his behalf that is involved. I still think Andy should refrain. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:37, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose -- why should we be topic banning Andy for adding information to the article that the subject himself supplied to a magazine for publication, including on the web? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 02:08, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Comment -- IMHO, the subject of the article, should have 'no say' over what should/shouldn't be in the article or who should or shouldn't be around it. To have such control would be a COI. GoodDay (talk) 02:14, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support two way ban There are two people involved here who have acted in an infantile manner that continues to disrupt the article. One is Andy, the other is Mr. Hawkins himself. I therefore would only support a restriction that removes both parties from the situation. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:29, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per Sarek. Fighting censorship of reliably-sourced information is something that should evoke praise, not punishment. Nyttend (talk) 02:45, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Andy shouldn't be subject to any sanctions unless Hawkins is subject to at least the same. It's clear that the behaviour of Hawkins has been considerably worse than that of Andy therefore his editing and off Wikipedia conduct should be addressed either first or simultaneously at the very least. I would support a two way ban with that of Hawkins being the longer.--Shakehandsman (talk) 03:22, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry? You are proposing to topic ban someone who'd rather not have an article about themselves on Wikipedia from posting on the talk page, because they are objecting to having an article about themselves on Wikipedia? Now, there's an interesting proposition... AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:21, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. You're trying to ban someone who's enforcing site policy but opposing a ban of someone who's trying to censor something that he already put online himself. Nyttend (talk) 11:34, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Since when is it "enforcing site policy" to put whatever bit of information you can into a BLP as long as you can find a source for it? 28bytes (talk) 11:39, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. In addition, this is a piece of information that can only be found by manually trawling through 1000s of his tweets being into an WP article with a high googleranking. In any case, site policy is clearly and specifically against the inclusion of this info per WP:DOB, and thus POTW, who has year after year tried (and failed) to include the info has been doing the exact opposite of "enforcing site policy". --Slp1 (talk) 12:23, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

That's certainly not how I found it; nor how I found reference to it on Twitter. Why are you making things up? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:04, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I was not referring to how you found it, but how somebody looking for info now would have search for it. But in any case this was not my main point.--Slp1 (talk) 13:18, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

That is till not the case; Hawkins DoB is findable without reference to Twitter; he has referred to it on the BBC website. As for your main point; I refuted that in my response the last time a topic ban was proposed (link above) and found no consensus. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:31, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support, per Jimbo's comments at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2012 April 2#Jim Hawkins (radio presenter). PotW and MF need to be removed from this article, its talk page, and discussion of the article anywhere else on Wikipedia. Mjroots (talk) 09:43, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support, PotW appears to have demonstrated persistently vexatious behaviour and should have agreed to walk away from JH. A topic ban is now needed to speed up that process. Leaky Caldron 12:31, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
  • There is no evidence whatsoever to support your allegation of "vexatious behaviour". Indeed, even the poster of this asinine proposal says "I reiterate that I make no criticism of the content of any recent edits he has made". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:17, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
    • Speaking as the one who made this asinine proposal, I concur that the content of Andy's comments appears unexceptional. It is the fact that he is the one who made them which I do, indeed, regard as being vexatious. It's a process issue, not a content issue. I'm sure Andy you won't like your edits being called vexatious, any more than I like mine being called asinine, but we must agree to differ on this and just see what our fellow editors think. If our criticism of one another becomes no harsher I can live with that! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 13:40, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
      • Your criticism of me has already been much harsher; you're the author of this ridiculous topic ban proposal (having previously told me you would only do so if I discussed Hawkins' full date of birth). Asinine is a kind descripton. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:46, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support, pretty much per Jimbo on the DRV. If the subject of a BLP does not want you to edit his article (whether rightly so or not) we should take that into consideration. And in this case I'd say it would be best for everyone if PotW would find other articles to edit. --Conti|✉ 13:34, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose One of the best BLP-policy enforcers has edited within policy and worked to form consensus. Persons repeating bad arguments enough times are exhausting the patience of Wikipedia, and their broken-record advocacy has made weak-willed editors advocate unprincipled topic bans.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 13:31, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• support There's nothing about "carefully enforcing BLP policy" that requires one to continue poking the article's subject with a metaphorical stick. Walking away was an option that should have been taken. If AM won't take it himself, it's an appropriate time for a (pretty narrow and generally inconsequential) topic ban. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:58, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support; Hawkins has a fundamental problem with Wikipedia, and is unhappy in general. However Andy's actions on the article have been part of the main provocation on this issue for a couple of years - a provocation now largely ended and underlined. Except Andy refuses to step away from the article in a mature fashion and indeed insists he has done nothing wrong; refusing to empathise with the subject or even view the possibility that his actions have not been through-and-through positive. Through this he has demonstrated a troublesome attitude to BLP's; his refusal to maturely back away from the issue, and a stated intention to further harass the subject via Wikipedia, mean he needs to be actively limited from doing this. I don't entirely understand Hawkin's feeling of harassment or attack by Andy; however it is clear he feels this way and, as a mature adult, Andy should have been able to empathise and walk away. Not to do so reflect badly on his attitude and aims. --Errant ^(chat!) 14:00, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  Withdrawn: I've made my point to Andy that I find his actions and attitude here highly objectionable, underhand and not in keeping with the high standard Wikipedians should hold - but he has rejected all of those comments. Nothing is served by persisting this debacle; I made my point, there is no need to now hound Andy. --Errant ^(chat!) 08:34, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  Why are you making things up? Where has Andy said that he intends to "further harass the subject"? Malleus Fatuorum 15:01, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  You know; it's disappointing to see you making such a poor quality argument (i.e. inadequate claims of falsehood). He's consistently said he intends to continue editing the article. We can disagree over the term "harass", but in my book it counts - harassment takes many distinct forms (and I may be biased on this having suffered it myself). Hawkins claims the feeling of harassment from Andy (and others); even if we find it inexplicable (or reasonably consider it may be untruthful) there is a mature response; and that is to walk away. Otherwise we are persisting in harassment without any real obvious gain. --Errant ^(chat!) 15:08, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  Untrue. Andy has clearly stated he is restricting himself to discussing cited facts. There is nothing inexplicable about Hawkins trying to get Andy banned from the article. He wants to control every bit of information about himself that is exposed to public view. Well BLP doesn't work like that here. Just because he cries "harassment" doesn't make it so, and it is foolish to accept his word on it. --RexxS (talk) 15:34, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  It's harassment, in my view. Disagree if you wish, but kindly sod off with the high-horse accusations of falsehood (because if we are going that route, Andy has demonstrated a lot of falsehood in his handling of this). The long term story of this article is that it was started in a good intentioned way but, and this is as much as I can dig up, Hawkins had an internet troll who followed him round and around, part of which included attacking his biography. I'm sure (or at least hope) you can imagine that causing stress and discomfort; indeed I can actively empathise with him, having suffered at the hands of a similar (though much darker) campaign of harassment. Since that was ironed out, Hawkins obviously retains a low opinion of Wikipedia and does not want an article. Then we come to the latest ~2 year fall out involving the date of birth - Andy persistently raised the issue and gained the ire of Hawkins for doing so. Hawkins views Andy as harassing him over this - and any continued editing of the biography of any sort is exacerbating the issue. As there is no real need for Andy to keep editing it the mature response is simply to walk away and let others do the work. I've done this, at least twice. A subject contacted us via OTRS and I tried to help them remove problematic material and generally clean up their bios - but ultimately couldn't go as far as they wanted. Eventually I became persona non-grata, and they asked me to leave them alone. Which I did, leaving the issue largely resolved. Andy, however, has refused to do this - and is insisting on persisting the issue. There may be some element of attempting to control the article content; and we should limit this. But Andy is clearly a sticking point in any dialogue; and rather than shrug our shoulders and resign ourselves to alienation Andy should walk away and forget about the article. I object to the idea we shouldn't care what a non-editor thinks. --Errant ^(chat!) 16:02, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  Arguing that an editor is only adding a published date of birth or published location, and therefore it can't be harassment, is the online equivalent of someone being accused of real-life harassment, then deliberately walking past the target's house – while protesting "but I was only walking down the public highway!" Context is everything, and as anyone who has been harassed knows, senses are heightened by the experience, so the subject's perception has to be taken seriously, even if we don't share it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:53, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  Your walking away may have been fine, but it was a voluntary action. Your forcing Andy to walk away is another matter entirely.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:15, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  I don't agree; if Andy is unable to be mature over this issue then the community needs to take action. I don't want a witch hunt; I have my own personal, and strong, views on Andy's actions in this - and I've now made that point to him in the strongest way possible (there is no indication he noticed or cares), so that is fine. But I think he still needs to give the article space. Even if he had not gone near it for a few weeks this would have gone away and I wouldn't be supporting this - but he stepped back into that article knowing the context, knowing how Hawkins felt; the fallout here is at his feet. --Errant ^(chat!) 23:08, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  "Andy has demonstrated a lot of falsehood in his handling of this" - the only falsehood I have demonstrated has been that promulgated by others; like the lie in Kim's proposal, above, which a small, but nonetheless disappointing, number of editors unthinkingly endorse. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:40, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  Andy, sorry to be a pain but I know I wasn't lying because that's the utterance of a deliberate, knowing falsehood. I may have made a mistake, or I may have phrased something in a way that's open to misunderstanding. Can you be clear what it is in my proposal which is a lie? Maybe I can clear up the misunderstanding, or acknowledge my mistake. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 20:39, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  I think he's referring to your characterization of the edit request. You say that he requested that the information that he lived in Shropshire be reinstated, but the edit request actually requests that information about his column for Shropshire Life be added. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:49, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  I identified it clearly, above. You responded, but failed to remove it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:53, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  What you did Andy was to jump on me and call me a liar while remaining extremely vague about what was incorrect. Assuming Sarek's helpful explanation is the problem, then I wish you had been as clear to me yesterday. Please assume incompetence in me before you jump to conclusions of malevolence; I try to be neither but the latter is much more objectionable to me. I will go back to my proposal and reword it. My apologies to you for getting this wrong. It does not however change my view that it would be a net gain all round if you no longer edited this article. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 20:59, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  I did no such thing (indeed, I quoted the lie in full); your new comment is therefore a lie. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:17, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  Thanks for your generous acceptance of my apology. Or not. This disputatious, confrontational method you have of interacting is the problem Andy. I know from your contributions that you are a splendid editor and article writer but you have all the people skills and diplomacy of a {insert amusing comparison here}. That was my last attempt at temporising with you, I'll leave this discussion to run its course now. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 21:31, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  Bull. You keep poking him in the ribcage with a stick Kim, and when he says "Stop it!", you accuse him of being the source of the trouble and of having a bad attitude. Good one. It so sucks. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 08:29, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

  You declaimed, loudly, that you had not added the DOB to the article since 2010; certainly technically accurate, but even when challenged you refused to acknowledge raising the issue twice in the intervening time on the talk page. You consistently made this statement; apparently misleading people in the discussion. If anything this is the main reason I find your position untenable. --Errant ^(chat!) 23:08, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  I have never denied doing so; indeed, I have recently discussed my reasons for, and others' part in, that discussion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:13, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  Errant's claim that I have "stated intention to further harass the subject via Wikipedia" is a bare-faced lie. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:46, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - This proposal makes a complete mockery of "comment on the edit, not the editor" principle. Andy has stated above: "I ... have restricted myself to discussion of cited facts pertinent to his biography; and to raising his calls for vandalism on WP:ANI, as I have previously been advised to do", and while he maintains that self-imposed restriction, it is a complete over-reaction to attempt to silence him on this topic. None of those supporting would accept a proposal to topic ban them from an area where they were reasonably editing in the way that Andy has restricted himself to. If Andy were to breach his own restriction, then it would be time for this lynch mob to reconvene. In the meantime, there is no valid reason to ban Andy from "discussion of cited facts", unless we think it sensible to allow subjects of BLPs to dictate who can contribute to their articles. --RexxS (talk) 15:30, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - Are we an objective information source or an MMORPG? The article subject can have no other reason for wanting to remove information about himself from a Wikipedia article other than for spite, or to prove he can do it, or to win some kind of battle/crusade. The information Andy wants to add to the article is available throughout the internet, including the subject's own official Twitter feed as well as the BBC. The deletion request is made in bad faith. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 18:08, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support I agree with Beeblebrox's view, but in light of our inability to identify Mr. Hawkins, a ban on Pigsonthewing and his accompanying consistent disruption is needed. MBisanz ^talk 20:56, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
  • "…in light of our inability to identify Mr. Hawkins, a ban on Pigsonthewing… is needed" That beggars belief. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:33, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose I've spent a half hour trying to figure out what this is all about. We seem to have a wholly innocuous, uncontroversial and anodyne article, an editor adding normal cited info to an article (including info released by the subject); and an article subject showing signs of mental distress and asserting that the article is the cause. Sorry as I am for the subject's distress, if there's an issue to be dealt with here it doesn't seem appropriate to personalise it to a single or pair of editors. Editors who edit according to policy deserve support not condemnation. Wikipedians might want to discuss elsewhere what to do in a situation in which an innocuous, uncontroversial and anodyne article apparently causes mental distress to its subject. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:42, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose: Let's see if I understand this: a claque wants an editor in good standing to go away, he declines, so on that basis they declare him disruptive and seek a topic ban? (Oh, sorry, wait a moment, the subject of an article wants him gone too, because the subject feels hard done by over the article.) Seriously? I can drive editors I don't like away from areas in which I edit as long as I can wrangle up a few supporters to pile onto a bandwagon? The subject of an article gets veto power over who is allowed to edit it or not? This is a terrible, shameful precedent to set. Ravenswing 03:59, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
• Comment - This is a slightly unusual case here. The Wikipedia community wants the article kept, JH wants it deleted. Somwhere between the two we need to find a balance. Apart from post-2010 discussions on the talk page and elsewhere re JH's d.o.b., PotW's editing has been in accordance with policy. The topic ban, if enacted, should not be seen as something that has been done as a punishment, but something that has been done for the greater good of Wikipedia as a whole. Even though it means an individual editor making a sacrifice, and the subject of the article thinking that they have managed to achieve a little bit of control over the article. Mjroots (talk) 06:57, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Not sure you expressed that well, topic banning some people for the "greater good" sounds like a formula for anyone to go on a campaign to eliminate minority points of view. If there is to be a topic ban here, then it must be argued based on the evidence of disruptive editing rather than perceptions or in response to external lobbying. Either evidence of disruptive editing, against policy, exists, or it does not. --Fæ (talk) 07:09, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

There is evidence of some editing against policy, and other editing that whilst it would be within policy normally, can be seen as being disruptive solely because of who made the edits. For these reasons, I'm supporting the proposed topic ban of PotW. As far as I can see, the only way the article is going to go is if it is done by an Office Action. Until then, the best we can do as Wikipedians is to keep the article fully compliant with BLP and do as little as we can to further antagonise the subject, event if that means some individual editors, such as myself and PotW, keeping off the article. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the idea of JH having any control over the article any more than the rest of you. He doesn't, which is why the article is still here. Let him carry on with his off-Wiki crusade. By doing so, he isn't doing his cause any good at all. Mjroots (talk) 07:32, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. Please reconsider your wording, we should never impose sanctions based on who you are, but on the actions we see you make. This feels like the thin edge of the wedge, the same argument could be made for someone thought to have a political agenda, someone who happens to have been in prison, or someone following a fringe religion. --Fæ (talk) 09:08, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

"solely because of who made the edits" - More ad hominem bullshit, totally contrary to Wikipedia policy. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:53, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Not "making a sacrifice"; but "being sacrificed". I'm not your sacrificial lamb. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:53, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

• Regarding SlimVirgin's comments above; I feel harassed. It's affecting my health and my ability to work. Can someone please ban her from discussing me or my edits? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:58, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose If Idi Amin were alive I am sure he would start by editing his own page...he would then move onto lobbying Jimbo Wales...I'm sure he would eat some wikipedians...but I'm not convinced we would allow him to influence his wikipage by getting editors banned. Tom Pippens (talk) 11:01, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose if editors want to change BLP policy then the appropriate way is to seek consensus for a change of policy, not to bully or topic ban editors who follow a policy that you'd like to see changed. I've no strong opinions as to whether or not this particular BLP should be deleted, but if consensus is to keep it then those who lost that debate should back off and not try to restrict other editors from making edits that are within policy. ϢereSpielChequers 11:42, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. We are dealing here with the atypical case of an article subject who has announced his distress because he cannot control the content of the Wikipedia article dealing with him. There is no sound reason to believe that the content of Andy's edits is what actually distresses Hawkins; instead, what disturbs him appears to be Andy's refusal to accept his direction. That is not a sufficient basis to limit Andy's editing of the article, absent specific evidence of misbehavior. To allow this carries the danger of deterring other editors from making accurate, well-sourced, useful edits against the wishes of article subjects, which is in important ways a conflict with the WMF's policies on BLPs. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 00:19, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Andy hasn't actually done anything wrong and followed policy to the letter. Furthermore, when consensus deemed certain info shouldn't be in the article, he followed this and no longer tried to have the info included. If the nominator and others feel that BLP should mean more than what it currently does, they are free to try and expand it, though I see that even the suggestion of this in another area is being rigorously opposed. So, since Andy hasn't broken any policies and has refrained from certain edits when a consensus was made against them, I see no reason for a topic ban. Especially considering the rules that were broken by his detractors (3RR, anyone?). Silverseren^C 00:26, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose; Andy made a few edits that the subject didn't like. So if Charles Manson were to be angry at the people who posted the fact that he coordinated multiple murders, and demanded we ban the chief editors of that article, we'd accede to that? I don't think so; obviously that's not quite what happened here, but it's still pretty far out in terms of policy. And as is said above, once Andy was asked not to make certain edits he stopped doing it. Incidentally, do read Point 6 here, you may find some truth to it. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:28, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Charles Manson? Sheesh. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 01:31, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support, due to persistent policy violations and per the wording of section Wikipedia:BLP#Legal_issues – even though it should be clear that this is a band aid and does not address the core issue. --JN466 06:12, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
  • If Wikipedia:BLP#Legal_issues applies (I dispute that it does) then it allows for the editor concerned to use an article's talk page; I'm being castigated for doing do and the proposal you support would prohibit me from doing do. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:25, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

• Support.After the subject told Andy he didn't want his DoB in the article in 2009, Andy restored it four times. After someone pointed out WP:DOB on the talk page, Andy returned around two of the subject's birthdays, and argued on the article's talk page for the DoB's inclusion. You need to stay away from the article, Andy. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 01:31, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• I'm going to take a wild-ass guess here, that Andy thought it rather disingenuous of the subject to complain about his birth date being included in the article whilst twittering "It's my birthday" on his birthday on a feed which is linked to from his BBC Shropshire page - cf. [redacted]. It does not seem to me to be unreasonable to raise that apparent dichotomy on the talk page. The timing appears to arise out of Hawkin's announcement of his birthday. Isn't hashing out exactly how policy acts on an article one of the things that talk pages are for, not least in light of "Wikipedia includes full names and dates of birth that have been widely published by reliable sources, or by sources linked to the subject such that it may reasonably be inferred that the subject does not object" at WP:DOB? Sure, you may well prefer WP:DOB's "If the subject complains about the inclusion of the date of birth, or the person is borderline notable, err on the side of caution and simply list the year". But to argue that making a case for the first of these sentences is a cause for a topic ban seems to be dangerous nonsense. There is clearly something wrong with a complaint about birthdate from a complainant who publicises his birthdate. It is a valid subject for discussion. --Tagishsimon (talk) 02:10, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Simon, I'm not suggesting Andy was deliberately harassing the subject. His behaviour harassed the subject but that was incidental to Andy's purpose. He was defending content he believed should stand.

• 9 September 2009: An IP removes the first given name with the edit summary "Subject wants personal information removed. DOB and Real Name specifically. Subject would like this page to be removed, but if that won't happen then this will do."
• 12 September 2009: Andy adds to the body of the article, citing a blog comment by the subject, that his birthday fell on a particular day in the Christian calendar. It is quickly deleted, but quickly restored by Arthur Ruben.
• September 2009: User:[email protected] adds the DoB to the infobox. Mjroots reverts with edit summary "RV per otrs 3648175 - see talk page" and adds <!-- do not change to (date) without a reference per otrs:3648175--> to the infobox, but leaves Andy's identification of JH's birthday as the first sentence of the body of the article.
• 22 September 2009: DJ Clayworth removes it.
• 22 September 2009: Andy restores it.
• 22 September 2009: DJ Clayworth removes it.
• 25 March 2010: Andy restores the date to the infobox and body citing a Hawkins tweet.
• 25 March 2010: An editor adds that Jim was once a woman named Kim, citing a Hawkins tweet.
• 25 March 2010: Andy removes it.
• 25 March 2010: After Andy calls JH a liar, JH says to Andy, "I never said you got my birthday wrong. I said it was none of your damn business."
• 25 March 2010: Slp1 removes DoB info from body and infobox.
• 12 April 2010: Andy adds dob to infobox and body, citing tweets.
• 12 April 2010: Slp1 reverts with "Per consensus and BLP. Do not restore"
• 12 April 2010: Slp1 links to WP:DOB on the article talk page in a conversation including Andy, and Andy ceased adding JH's DoB to the article.

WP:DOB addresses concerns about identity theft. It says, "If the subject complains about the inclusion of the date of birth, or the person is borderline notable, err on the side of caution and simply list the year." (My emphasis). That's pretty clear to me. The subject complained, we should simply list the year. Simple.

But since then Andy has been agitating on the talk page for publication of the subject's DoB, citing an earlier part of the policy that is obviously modified by the quote above. I'm assuming Andy really believes that if he can solidly WP:V the DoB, it'll be fine to include it in the article, completely missing the point of WP:DOB.

The subject has made it very clear that he does not want his full name and DoB in the article. Andy has repeatedly restored it, despite the subject's wishes, and has been arguing on the talk page, for its inclusion. The subject says the situation is upsetting him. Some have responded with denial. Others accept that the behaviour may be upsetting him but assert that we at Wikipedia don't care about that touchy feely shit. Here's the news. Some of us do. This is a trivial article on a barely (I assert not) notable broadcaster. (This is not Phillip Adams or Melvyn Bragg.) The article's existence distresses the subject, so it should go. If it must for some perverse reason stay, despite it's utter worthlessness (most of the trivia it contains is on his BBC page), keep Andy and Malleus away from it. They've both insulted him. They're distressing an actual human. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 10:11, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Your claim that I have insulted Hawkins is false; as is your assumption about by beliefs. I have not added his DoB to the article since April 2010. I have already undertaken not to do so again. Concerns about identity theft are a red herring in this case, as the subject chooses to make his DoB known on both the BBC website and his publicly available, high-profile Twitter account. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:21, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Anthony, I can't speak for others obviously, but from my perspective: It's not that I don't care about this guy's feelings, it's that I find all of this to be disingenuous, at best. I find it hard to believe that a public figure would be "distressed" about things that he's saying being repeated by others. This all has a hyperbolic character to it, which wouldn't even bee a big deal except for the fact that the hyperbole is seemingly intended to disrupt the project. Obviously he's having some success at disruption, as well.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 13:40, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• Tagishsimon, you appear to have unnecessarily added and drawn attention here to personal data in contravention of WP:DOB. Could you please either withdraw or re-word to be more generic and avoid the direct link to the date mentioned in the article history? It is for this reason I originally removed the talk page history but then replaced it on request, while the discussions were ongoing. I still hope that once this fracas has died down the history will be quietly removed again (by an independent admin) in order for us to be seen to be complying with WP:DOB. I think it is perfectly reasonable to have an open discussion of the issues here without needing to repeat the specific personal information that Jim Hawkins has been complaining about. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 02:43, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• WP:DOB doesn't say anything about discussing such things in places that are not articles. Yes, we're not allowed to discuss private information or out anyone or things like that, but as has been stated by many people, DOB in this case isn't private, but public. We are following the subject's wishes by not including it in the article, but we are fully allowed to discuss it and even say exactly what it is outside of articlespace. Silverseren^C 02:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• No, BLP applies to talk pages and that includes this noticeboard. DOB is part of BLP. The information should be removed from this page. --Fæ (talk) 03:30, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• Yes, BLP does, but DOB doesn't, unless the DOB is private. BLP says that you're not allowed to discuss private or defamatory information elsewhere on Wikipedia. It doesn't say anywhere that you're not allowed to discuss public information. Silverseren^C 03:39, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• No, BLP states "If the subject complains about the inclusion of the date of birth, or the person is borderline notable, err on the side of caution and simply list the year. " that part of the policy applies to this noticeboard and this noticeboard is currently a violation of BLP due to Tagishsimon's additions. The information should be removed, now, not after a week of wikilawyering. --Fæ (talk) 03:46, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• What are you talking about? The line before that in WP:DOB is discussing reliable sourcing for the info and the line after that is discussing what else shouldn't be used in articles DOB is talking about articles! Not about anything else. Silverseren^C 04:16, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• The top of the page on BLP states "This policy applies to any living person mentioned in a BLP, whether or not that person is the subject of the article, and to material about living persons in other articles and on other pages, including talk pages." Consequently BLP applies to this noticeboard. The handy shortcut DOB within BLP takes you to:

Privacy of personal information and using primary sources
With identity theft on the rise, people increasingly regard their full names and dates of birth as private. Wikipedia includes full names and dates of birth that have been widely published by reliable sources, or by sources linked to the subject such that it may reasonably be inferred that the subject does not object. If the subject complains about the inclusion of the date of birth, or the person is borderline notable, err on the side of caution and simply list the year. In a similar vein, articles should not include postal addresses, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, or other contact information for living persons, though links to websites maintained by the subject are generally permitted. See above regarding the misuse of primary sources to obtain personal information about subjects.

The only mention of "article" is under the "similar vein", just reading this as plain English, this is not in any way a restriction of all of this section of BLP to article space and the opening of the BLP policy is completely unambiguous that is applies to the whole of Wikipedia, including this noticeboard. Please consider this my final statement, I am not interested in wikilawyering this to death, and the BLP violation on this noticeboard must be removed now, not after Silver seren decides to get bored stretching this out by equivocating. --Fæ (talk) 04:30, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

There's also mention about BLP being less restrictive outside of articles due to the need for discussion; BLP is meant to help protect article subjects from us, not from themselves, and if the subject talks about his birthday on the Internet then I really can't see the issue, because the subject himself put it there for everyone to see. Incidentally, I'm seriously beginning to agree with Ched Davis below me wrt the subject's true motives. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:46, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• Tagishsimon, Fae points to WP:DOB which, as has been repeatedly pointed out, states that the dob of birth of any BLP subjects must be omitted if the subject objects, no matter what the sourcing. This subject did object, as is his right. The issue was discussed in 2009, 2010 and 2011, and every year the strong consensus was that the date could not and should not be included. POTW was told to drop it by multiple editors and administrators. Yet he returned in 2012 to bring it up again and set off this shitstorm. Continuing every year to return to the talkpage to rehash the exact same argument, despite a strong consensus against it, is the epitome of I don't hear that tententious editing, and I am frankly appalled that so many editors are defending his actions. POTW has not done "nothing wrong and followed policy to the letter". Quite the contrary, in fact, as multiple editors and administrators have pointed out. --Slp1 (talk) 03:12, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• Should we then topic ban or block anyone who brings up a perennial proposal? Users are allowed to make discussions, but if consensus isn't with them, then it doesn't get enacted. In Andy's case, if no one responds to the proposal, then there is no consensus, easy as that. And if he's only bringing it up once or twice a year, I don't see the issue with it. People do that for a lot of different discussions, always to gauge consensus. Even if consensus has always been one way, it can change. It's happened before. Silverseren^C 03:36, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• Yes, we can and routinely do ban and block people, who after being told multiple times that their views are against policy and against consensus, continue to agitate for the same changes. Take a look at the history of any controversial article (Abortion, Eastern Europe, the Holocaust, Homeopathy, article names). And yes, you are right, that making perennial proposals doesn't have to be a particular problem if it doesn't bother anybody. But that's not the case here. Quite obviously. Year after year, POTW's perennial proposals caused a disruption to this encyclopedia, requiring the involvement of multiple editors, kilobytes of time and energy, and much acrimony. POTW has been told time after time to give it up, to leave things alone, including very politely by Jimbo, and Fae who has otherwise been supportive POTW , yet he won't agree to withdraw, because he has done nothing wrong. Indeed his response to these requests was to make more edits to the article and the talkpage. It's plainly disruptive to the smooth functioning to the encyclopedia. I can accept that POTW (and others) truly believe that there is nothing wrong with his edits per se. But that is not the point. To continue to make them when you know that after several discussions you don't have consensus and when others tell you it is best for the encyclopedia that you gracefully move on to other things, is the problem. It's a question of rights versus responsibilities. Smokers may be within their rights to smoke in public spaces, but it is best and kindest if they focus on their responsibilities to others in the community by butting out when they are asked by others to do so. --Slp1 (talk) 12:10, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• Neither Jimbo nor Fae have "told [me] to give it up, to leave things alone"; once again a falsehood is promulgated to add bogus weight to a featherweight argument. Acrimony, not least yours, is far from required. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:37, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Really? What about? "I just wanted to pop by and ask you, as a favor, that you not edit or interact on the talk page of this article.... it'd probably be best all around if you just avoided the topic" "But I beg you to rise above it. Walk away with dignity." "I think you've been annoying towards him, and that a topic ban would be entirely warranted. I also think it would be better if you just stepped back with dignity."(all Jimbo) and "I can see you have started making small amendments to the Hawkins article. Please take a step back and reconsider your approach... Many eyes are on the article and we should be able to trust the community to make good decisions about how to handle improvement or policy compliance."(Fae). [13]. These are clear requests for you to step back and away from the article. --Slp1 (talk) 17:15, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Really. Most of us learn to tell the difference between "tell" and "ask" in pre-school years. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:37, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I get your point now. Yes, you are correct that Jimbo's and Fae's posts were indeed polite requests rather than "tellings". But the change doesn't diminish the point; you have been requested many times, by many editors and administrators, for the good of the encyclopedia, to step away, and yet you refuse. --Slp1 (talk) 17:57, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Here's a problem with that ("you have been requested many times...") though: it seems as though the big thing driving the "requested many times" is the fact that Jimbo kicked it off, and it looks like a big part of this is a reaction to Andy not listening to Jimbo. I respect Jimbo and all of that, and I know that he has the good of the encyclopedia at heart, but, Jimbo also has responsibilities beyond the community. I'm a bit suspicious that most of his motivation over this comes from a "I'd like to get this guy (Hawkins) to quit bitching at me" kind of place. I don't know that, and he hasn't actually said anything about it, but... something about what he's said about Hawkins gives me that impression, for whatever reason.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:59, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I made similar recommendations for Andy before Jimbo stepped in, both on-wiki and by email. I don't disagree or agree with Jimbo for the sake of it. I would be quite happy to support any editor against Jimbo's viewpoint, if I thought that editor was clearly in the right and in support of our shared values. It may look like I was simply supporting Jimbo's opinion, but that was not my intention and I hope people are aware that I'm more of an independent thinker than that. --Fæ (talk) 19:29, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying, Fae, that you had been giving this kind of advice before, as well as discretely off-wiki. You did indeed. Ohm's law, I didn't mean to imply that Jimbo kicked off these requests to withdraw. In fact, his intervention came late in the day, though his requests are in keeping with many other editors over the years. Just a quick selection from the article archives, ranging from Jonasthunder "It's time to move on" from the birthday discussion in April 2010, to Fences and Windows "Drop it Andy" in April 2011, to Beeblebrox's March 2012 suggestion that POTW take off the costume and climb down, to Kim Dent-Brown, Future Perfect, Fae and my interventions on POTW's talkpage quite recently, all well before Jimbo got involved. There is no slavish following of Jimbo here. Finally, I don't think speculating on Jimbo's motives are appropriate. I don't read his interventions like that at all. --Slp1 (talk) 20:47, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• "The issue was discussed in 2009, 2010 and 2011…" - where in that discussion was it suggested that citing the subject's own refernces to his DoB on a talk page was against policy? You yourself participated in those dicussions, without saysing so, or removing the quotes. No other editor saw fit to remove those quotes. Nobody suggested such a breach on WP:AN until this year. I have already undertaken not to do so again. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:18, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I was remiss not to spot that issue. But I didn't (and haven't) given your mentioning the date (per se) in my posts as the problem. Instead, my point is that you have brought the inclusion of birthday issue over and over again against consensus, policy and recommendations, that has been extremely disruptive. As this very thread, the AFD, and the DR shows. --Slp1 (talk) 12:10, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me that Andy has shown an appropriate level of restraint in the face of this situation. It's obvious that Andy brought up the birth date issue in the past at points in time when the subject was advertising it himself though the media. That, combined with the obviously revisionist history that is being offered here ("I was remiss not to spot that issue."), gives this the appearance of a lynch mob rather than a well reasoned and legitimate concern about another editor's behavior.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 13:31, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Obviously I don't agree. Do you really think that responding to other people's tweets counts as "advertising"? It's not like he put in on his profile or anywhere that is easily searcheable. In any case, and this is key, he has repeatedly stated, that he does not want the date in his WP article, and he is backed up by WP's policy in this. To bring up with issue again and again, when the relevant policy has been pointed out and remains in effect, when you have acheived no consensus in the past and told to stop bringing up the subject is quite the opposite of "an appropriate level of restraint". It is a entirely legitimate concern. I'm sorry that you feel there is an "obviously revisionist history", but you are missing the point I was trying to make: that I have been entirely consistent. In the past I did not critique his birthdate discussion for violating WP:DOB on the talkpage, and thus I do and have not critique him for this now. Both of us made this mistake. --Slp1 (talk) 14:04, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• The subject's DoB hasn't been added to the article since April 2010. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:09, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. Steering clear of the article is good advice, but not following a sound bit of advice is not sufficient for a block or a ban. This is the worst case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT I've ever come across. It seems clear to me that the subject of the article doesn't like Wikipedia as a project for reasons that escape me, and is intent on disrupting it and attacking it. In such cases we should stick up for ourselves and not allow such disruption to take place. Adding verified, reliably sourced, cited information to an article is what we're all about. The moment we start punishing editors for doing that because of one person's point of view is the moment the whole project starts to violate it's own core principles, setting a precedent that can only lead to the project going belly-up. Respecting privacy is one thing, but using our privacy protection measures to game the system is something else entirely, and it's the latter that's happening here. waggers (talk) 07:35, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose as too severe. It is enough to note that edits to the article will be watched, and if actions seem rude, then report to WP:WQT to be logged for long-term focus. If he had called him an "idiot" or other outrageous insult, that would be different. A topic ban is a severe measure, too severe in this case. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:28, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support - the user seriously has a strong involvement with the article and should not be involved - he is unable to back off voluntarily and is there at the talkpage as we speak - . Youreallycan 15:22, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
  • There being no topic ban currently in place (as the author of this asinine proposal has made clear), not to mention no clear consensus for one here (repeating what happened when one was last proposed), the fact that I'm "there at the talk page as we speak" is evidence only that I'm continuing to improve the encyclopedia. Do feel free to point out if you have found any of my edits there to be contrary to policy. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:58, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
    • Well, this edit certainly suggests you don't know what "NPoV" means. 28bytes (talk) 17:27, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
      • Quite the opposite; but as I said; do feel free to point out if you have found any of my edits there to be contrary to policy. Rather than clutching at straws, I mean. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:15, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
• Limited Support - do and will support ban on POTW, from mentioning or discussing anywhere on Wikipedia, subjects DOB, subject to appeal, after the usual time. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:03, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - POTW has done nothing wrong. Topic banning several of the chronic anti-BLP single interest warriors trying to hang POTW by his toes for no reason makes better sense to me. Carrite (talk) 05:19, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Other involved editors

Any topic ban should be extended to User:Malleus Fatuorum, who has taken to calling Jim Hawkins an idiot on the talk page. --Pete (talk) 01:00, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

That's not actually true, but I did call Hawkins a pratt elsewhere. Twice I think. Malleus Fatuorum 02:06, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support topic ban of Malleus Fatuorum - for (a) calling Hawkins an 'idiot', and a 'pratt' (US contributors might like to look that one up in a dictionary), and for not being able to read a link that clearly shows him doing the former. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:15, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  No surprises there then. Malleus Fatuorum 02:21, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• Has MF been blocked for his violations of WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL? If he hasn't been blocked, why? 140.247.141.165 (talk) 02:41, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

You're... new around here, aren't you? Doc talk 02:46, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

140, you are well aware of the situation. No need for rhetorical questions. 66.168.247.159 (talk) 02:51, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

must be one of the other people who use this computer. there are many. 140.247.141.165 (talk) 03:00, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, right. Malleus Fatuorum 06:04, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• Loki may have used his mind-control mojo on the purple archer, Hawkeye. Ãvengers Assemble!  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 13:13, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• I think that this is an absolutely brilliant idea. Let's take an already highly polarized issue, pick out a couple of the high profile folks on one side of the conflict, and try to get them topic banned. What an awesome idea!
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 04:03, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't suppose you'd like to explain why an article on a vaguely-notable radio broadcaster has become a "highly polarized issue" in the first place? Nothing to do with the idiotic soapboxing that has gone on by the 'WP:NOTCENSORED - we can fill articles with any old crap' crowd? The simple facts are that what should have been a minor dispute over what is reasonable content in an article about someone that few have heard of, has instead become a magnet for the most ridiculous point-scoring, ludicrous waffle, and outright trolling, as one could possibly imagine. Of course Hawkins is pissed off - who wouldn't be, seeing such infantile behaviour. If we are going to have heated debates involving personal attacks, rent-a-mob editing, and general mayhem, let's at least find something that actually matters to do it over... AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:15, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

That may actually be compelling, except for the fact that at least half of the "infantile behaviour" is coming from Hawkins himself (if you believe that it actually is Hawkins here; but even if you don't he's on YouTube and apparently local and UK national radio screaming about what a hardship it is to have a Wikipedia article about himself in existence). Hell, at this point at least part of the reason that he's notable appears to be related to his anti-Wikipedia screeds! Apparently everyone can publish whatever they like about the guy as long as it's not repeated on Wikipedia.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 04:55, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Pretty much. More reliable sources to back up his notability with this will be interesting when forthcoming. Folks: if you want to be in the public eye for a living, expect the unexpected. It's an occupational hazard. Doc talk 05:04, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. BLP isn't an excuse to run roughshod over our site's policies and guidelines; we've banned people for trying to do that before (before my time, but Don Murphy is one such example; there are others). How is it that we demand COI editors give us a shrubbery before daring to contest information about their band/creation/product, but people obstruct any attempt to prevent semi-coherent, unfounded bitching from subjects in these situations? I would wholeheartedly support banning Hawkins from the article to prevent his trolling the talkpage with vague complaints any further. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 08:16, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support, per Jimbo's comments at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2012 April 2#Jim Hawkins (radio presenter). PotW and MF need to be removed from this article, its talk page, and discussion of the article anywhere else on Wikipedia. Mjroots (talk) 09:43, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Strained reasoning to leap to barring MF here -- as "search" times out in counting the number of times "idiot" appears on article talk pages. We ought not get carried away. (Note I !voted "delete" on the article) Collect (talk) 13:00, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Persons who faint when they hear disagreement can host tea parties in Stockholm. Some discussions and debates take time to resolve, and free discussion is better than more authoritarianism. Wikipedia has enough apparently authoritarian personalities clamoring for topic bans and blocks whenever there is conflict, and they should be repudiated.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 13:37, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose; Malleus did some trash talk on the AFD. But doesn't seem to have a stated intention to continue to poke at the subject (via the article). --Errant ^(chat!) 14:02, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  On a point of order, I have never "poked" at the subject. Sure, I think he's a self-important pratt who needs to rein in his neck, but that's life. But no doubt I'm not on his Christmas card list either. Malleus Fatuorum 03:01, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Is it still April 1st? --Dweller (talk) 14:31, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - If people can't stand Malleus' forthright and accurate condemnation of "hypocritical, dishonest, and cowardly" behaviour, then they need to seriously consider finding a more tranquil hobby. I'd suggest crochet may be suitable. Calling a pratt a pratt is not sanctionable. --RexxS (talk) 15:30, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Utterly absurd. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 18:11, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. Ridiculous melodrama. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:12, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose: I agree on the absurdity of this action. Ravenswing 03:59, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
• Belatedly, oppose. No cogent justiication has been put forward. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:16, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Of course. Are we going to let Malleus edit this BLP and its talk page after publicly calling the subject an idiot and a pratt, with no apology, no retraction? Is that the kind of people we are? Is that the kind of place this is? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 01:31, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  Your position is both illogical and dishonest; would you equally topic ban anyone from editing the article on Adolf Hitler who expressed the view that they disagreed with Hitler's position on the treatment of Jews? Have you even the slightest scrap of evidence to support your implication that my personal view of Hawkins has coloured anything I've written in his article? No, of course you don't; your position disgusts me. Malleus Fatuorum 03:06, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  First, Godwin's law. Second, Hitler's dead. Third, per WP:BLP, "Individuals involved in a significant legal – or personal – dispute with the subject of any article covered by this policy are strongly discouraged from editing such articles, and are advised to use the article talk page or an appropriate Wikipedia noticeboard if they wish to raise concerns." If you are trading insults with the BLP subject, you are in a personal dispute with them and are not the one person out of tens of thousands of WP editors who should be editing his biography. There's about 600,000 other BLPs, so what's so important about this one? --JN466 06:06, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  Godwin's law, as usual, is irrelevant, as is the fact that Hitler is dead. How many times do you suppose that George Bush has been called an idiot (and worse) here on Wikipedia? Have you called for every one of those editors to be topic banned? No, of course you haven't, because this is simply a display of your animosity towards me. What leads you to the conclusion that I have any intention of editing Hawkins' article anyway? He's a minor figure and there's really nothing more to say about him than has already been said. So put away your stick, it doesn't scare me and I'm unimpressed. Malleus Fatuorum 15:14, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  It's a civility thing. And it's about paying respect—not deference, respect, due recognition to our subjects as living, feeling humans, worthy of our concern. Of course you shouldn't have a hand in editing his article while peppering him with humiliating adjectives off the article. It's not about the quality of your work on the article. It's about the nature of your behaviour and its probable impact on the subject. People have feelings, Malleus. The rude things you say to and about them can hurt them. The things you have said about the subject disqualify you from any further dealings with him here. Go and do something else. It's one article where you're not wanted. There are 3+ million others where your universally admired talent and wit are most welcome. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 07:34, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  Where is the Wikipedia policy saying that editors must be fawning on talk pages towards the subjects of articles they work on? And if I'm to be banned from editing the articles of all those I consider to be idiots, that'll be a pretty big list. Malleus Fatuorum 15:33, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  Mmmm. If you equate respect and recognition with fawning, we're in two different universes. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 17:31, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  We're clearly in two different universes whether I do or not. But to restate the question in a way that won't allow you to avoid answering it so easily, which is the Wikipedia policy that forbids an editor from editing any article on a subject he or she considers to be an idiot, or in some other way distasteful? Malleus Fatuorum 17:37, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  There is none. That's an odd question. I had assumed it was rhetorical as, it's so, well, silly. Do you think the other editors can only pull you into line if some policy says you can't be a particular kind of arse hole here? Do you think policy lists, or should list somewhere all the different kinds of arse holy things a person is not allowed to do here? Strange. You can think what you like about people, Malleus, but when you call them an idiot and a pratt, you don't get to edit their article. Actually, maybe you do. This is after all Lord of the Flies. I't'll be instructive whichever way this goes. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 17:31, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  The question isn't even half as odd as your answer. Why don't I get to edit someone's article whatever I may or may not have said about them? No policy has been broken, there is no threat of any policy being broken, yet here you are arguing for a ban on ... what grounds exactly? That you don't like me? Malleus Fatuorum 17:54, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  If consensus develops here that you should stay away from that article, you'll be banned from it, per Wikipedia:Ban#Decision_to_ban #1. And I love you, Malleus. I am so pleased you're here. You bring wit and style to this often very dry place. I admire ninty eight percent of you enormously. But that 2% is very problematical. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 18:26, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  I shall do as I please whatever consensus develops here. Malleus Fatuorum 18:52, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  That's why I adore you so. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 19:01, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  Lolz, Nazis, surely this is the end of the discussion? By the way, the word is most commonly spelled as prat, the "pratt" variation is normally used for surnames and places, so the relatives of Boris Karloff might get upset if you keep using it that way. --Fæ (talk) 11:28, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  Really? That's not what the OED says. Malleus Fatuorum 15:20, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support topic ban. Ban MF from discussion of Hawkins in all namespaces. To refer to a public figure, multiple times, as an "idiot" or "prat" is unacceptable, and encouraging that only adds evidence for people to think badly of Wikipedia and its editors. Ban ASAP. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:43, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  Interesting to see all the usual suspects gathering here. Malleus Fatuorum 15:05, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - Unlike Pigsonthewing, there's no long-running pattern of harassment of the subject on MF's part. Lone intemperate comments are not sufficient grounds for a topic ban. Tarc (talk) 16:00, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Per Collect and Tarc (along with others).Intothatdarkness (talk) 18:32, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
• Accept that MF is not interested in editing the article. Would request that he refrain from discussing the article's subject. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:09, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Jim Hawkins

Those calling for JH to be topic banned from his article and its talk page would do well to consider that doing just that would give him more ammunition in his crusade against the article. Sometimes it is better to allow people such as this room to vent, rather than banning them from an article which they are the subject of. Hopefully, with MF and PotW topic banned, a reasonable number of watchers and semi-protection in place (this could be raised to permanant full protection as I recently proposed), this article can then settle down to its relative obscurity in a dark corner of Wikipedia. JH has been told a number of times how to get any inaccuracies in the article corrected, something he adamantly refuses to do. All info in the article checks out, there is nothing negative about him in the article. You can lead a horse to water... Mjroots (talk) 09:55, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Question re: .. with MF and PotW topic banned, - are you declaring a consensus or making a unilateral decision? .. or just speculating on solution? I'm asking because my perception is honestly unclear on how that sentence was intended. I certainly don't see any consensus for MF being topic banned from that at this point. I'm even somewhat questioning if PotW has firmly been placed under that restriction. — Ched :  ?  12:54, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I haven't been - though some people appear to believe that I've breached a de facto ban by editing after being given the option to withdraw voluntarily. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:21, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, as Andy says there is no formal, informal, voluntary, obligatory or de facto ban currently in place. Hence this discussion to implement a formal, obligatory ban which as far as I can see is not over. Until it is, no ban exists (and of course none may exist even then, depending on the closing admin's reading of consensus). Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 13:33, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

To be clear, I was looking into a crystal ball there, speculating what may happen if a set of circumstances was in place. It was not ny intent to present my comments as my imposing the topic bans currently under discussion on the editors in question. It is for the closer to determine whether or not the proposed topic bans should, or should not, be enacted.

PoTW, you seem to be missing the point of Jimbo's "request". IMHO, he wasn't asking you to stay away from the article, he was telling you to (I'm open to correction by Jimbo here if I've got it wrong). The way I read it was "I'm asking you very nicely to stay off the article; but, if you don't, there will be repercussions". This proposed topic ban is a direct result of your declining to accede to Jimbo's request.

(edit conflict) Thank you for the clarification, and ...

comment: I'm somewhat confused, and more than a little suspicious of this entire ordeal. First, if a person chooses a profession within the public eye, then I often think of the phrase "even bad publicity is better than no publicity" quote. Meaning that Mr. Hawkins appears to be more a local voice than a internationally known celebrity. As such I would think that he would be grateful for an article on a site with the exposure that WP has; especially as it is not inflammatory or derogatory. The article even attempts to document facts he himself has offered into public evidence. That he (JH or an accomplice) would raise such a fuss over PotW's efforts to document the article to me reeks of some sort of attempt to manipulate WP as a tool in a publicity stunt enacted in order to embiggen his popularity or fan-base. On that note, I'm more inclined to ignore the whole thing and let the article drift back to (as Mjroots says) some "dark corner" of obscurity. Cynical perhaps, but just IMHO. — Ched :  ?  14:31, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Ched, the nub of it is that JH, like Sally Boazman and others, doesn't get to control what goes into, and what is kept out of, the article and doesn't like it. Both have tried to get their articles deleted and failed. No doubt there are others. If the situation was reversed, and a non-notable person was trying to get an article kept on Wikipedia, I'd be doing my best to ensure it was deleted. Mjroots (talk) 14:41, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, that's not quite all there is to it. He's also unhappy that he has to go in and revert stupid shit that anonymous lulzers put in there about him. Not everyone thinks that having an article about them on Wikipedia is a blessing that they should be grateful to us for bestowing upon them. Not everyone feels honored that the number-one Google hit for their name is a biographical article on an open wiki that any idiot can add hateful comments to. Especially when we then turn around and insult the article subject for daring to be bothered by it. Don't think people aren't cataloging the various occasions Wikipedia editors have insulted the guy. Right here on this thread admins are calling him a troll and calling his complaints "semi-coherent, unfounded bitching." You think that reflects well on us? It does not. 28bytes (talk) 14:56, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

What reflects poorly on us is this pusillanimous kow-towing to someone whose complaints amount to "semi-coherent, unfounded bitching". We should have a bit of backbone and topic ban Hawkins. Malleus Fatuorum 15:10, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Whilst I'm not condoning any edits to the article that were in breach of BLP, the fact is that JH does not have to remove stupid shit from his article. There are plenty of other editors about who can do this. With the number of watchers of the article now, I would expect that any future vandalism of that sort would be quickly dealt with. Of course, long-term full protection of the article would prevent any vandalism in the first place, as I've said before.

JH should drop the Off-Wiki bashing of us Wikipedians. His continual sniping at us on Twitter is not doing his cause any good. Seems to me that he is still flogging a dead horse with the continual attempts to get the article deleted. In return, we, as Wikipedians need to ensure that the article remains fully compliant with WP:BLP. As Jimbo has said, it would be better if certain editors were kept away from the article as part of our side of the bargain, hence the two discussions above. Mjroots (talk) 15:31, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Also, to be fair it's not "admins" who are saying that, it's me. His actions strongly resemble those of a banned user regarding his article; one can only make vague accusations for so long before it moves from a concerned subject to someone trying to troll his way into getting his demands; I think we passed that point a while ago. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 15:36, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

In what way is the county he publicly acknowledges living in "stupid shit" any more than the county he was born in? And Mjroots, if Jimbo told you to jump off a cliff would you do that as well? Jimbo's opinion is irrelevant, or at least no more relevant than anyone else's. It's high time that Hawkins was topic banned from his article. Malleus Fatuorum 16:04, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not a chip for you to bargain with. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:32, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

When discussing "stupid shit that anonymous lulzers put in there about him", remember that Hawkins has asked his Twitter followers to enter falsehoods into Wikipedia, and specifically into our article about him. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:32, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I have a problem with "[if] a non-notable person was trying to get an article kept on Wikipedia, I'd be doing my best to ensure it was deleted.", because that draws a false equality between the two situations. A non-notable person is non-notable, and should be excluded. A notable person (even a marginally notable person, and nearly anyone who regularly goes onto the public airwaves has at least some notability) can always have an article, if it's warranted. This person is living in the public eye at least part of the time, so there should be no reason that documenting his public persona would be a real problem. The fact that he doesn't like Wikipedia and publicly speaks out about it on the air only increases his profile (bumping his notability up slightly), since he's using this site as a bit of a hot button topic. He's certainly not "world renowned", but he has enough of a public profile that at least some people be looking him up. Judgement can vary about how much interest is enough interest for Wikipedia to have an article on the person, but it seems as though that decision has already been made here several times.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:37, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• Comment Instead of engaging in off-wiki organized vandalism campaigns, why doesn't the subject go through the normal channels to find satisfaction for his complaints? This is an issue for OTRS, or perhaps the Foundation. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 18:16, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

He's been doing precisely that for six years. Nothing happens, The only good result is that at last all the crap is out of his article, but as we see, certain editors still want to harass him with trivial edits that are in themselves wikilegal, but have the effect of upsetting him even further. He's not one of us, he doesn't understand how all this stuff works and from his point of view we're all a wunch of bankers. --Pete (talk) 20:26, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

That works both ways of course. And nobody in their right mind could possibly call the inclusion of a simple fact published by the subject himself in a nationally available magazine as "harassment". Malleus Fatuorum 20:30, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia does. --Pete (talk) 20:34, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I did say "in their right mind". BTW, I don't believe that link says what you imply it does. Malleus Fatuorum 20:47, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

• Just to respond briefly to the notion that this only adds more ammunition for Hawkins' crusade against WP: Who cares? It is screamingly obvious he is making a big deal about his birthday not because he doesn't want it published, but because he hates Wikipedia. Whether we publish this already well-known information or not he will continue to hate Wikipedia. The only concern we should be worrying about here is disruption of the project, not some half-baked obstructionist nonsense from a person who will obviously continue to bad-mouth this project no matter what we do. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:37, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

  Yea, exactly. I really don't understand this desire to bend over backwards to appease this person... as far as I can tell, there's never even been anything embarrassing or really untrue in the article, he just doesn't want an article here.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 01:39, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

  When I first met him in 2006, I got the impression he considered Wikipedia a useful project. Since then, the way he has been treated by a few editors and the community as a whole has changed his attitude. The article was the focus of some very personal and untrue statements, it caused a stir then, being proposed for deletion twice and retained because he is, after all, a notable person, albeit marginally so. Since then he has had no joy out of it, and if you look back over the article history and the talk pages you'll see why. You'd understand things better if you could see the sections that have been removed entirely. It's not just wanting the article gone, it's wanting not to be harassed any more. I can't blame him for feeling upset, considering the way he has been treated and the things said about him. If we keep the article, then we should make sure that it isn't used as a vehicle for fresh attacks. Having said that, I do wish that he had been a little more temperate in his comments. But given the example set, he probably thought it was the way things are done here. --Pete (talk) 02:01, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

  What he thinks is immaterial. How much of any nonsense that was added to the article did he himself encourage? Malleus Fatuorum 02:54, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

  He didn't always seem to hate the article, unless he hated it enough to add his personal interests. Assuming this actually was him, of course. It could have been an imposter. Doc talk 07:24, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

  He was opposed to the article, and Wikipedia, in 2006. I didn't edit the article until 2009. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:33, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

• Well said, Beeblebrox, and you beat me to it - since when are we in the business of giving a tinker's damn what a subject thinks about Wikipedia? Our obligation begins and ends with presenting a NPOV, well-sourced article in which no information is given undue weight. There are thousands of living subjects who I'm sure would love to censor information they don't like out of their articles, and no doubt many would love to have veto power over who is and is not allowed to edit them. If anyone merits a topic ban here, it's Hawkins. Ravenswing 03:59, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Well said. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:33, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
• question ... ummmm .. so we are sure that this "IP" is Mr. Hawkins? Boy-howdy what hot time in the ole town tonight eh? So ummm .. has anyone pointed Mr. IP/Hawkins to the omnipresent WP:COI, WP:AUTO, etc, etc., etc., stuff? Don't mind me ya'all .. just a dumb ole American clod here wonderin why we're still feeding this stuff. — Ched :  ?  06:54, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
  • IIRC, I did so in 2009/2010. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:33, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support topic ban This IP who may or may not be JH has been continually insulting editors who have been trying to work with him and doesn't appear to be trying to actually improve his article at all. Considering that it seems quite clear that the article is going to be kept and IP/JH is not going to be editing constructively in regards to the article, per past behavior, I believe a topic ban is in order. Silverseren^C 00:34, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

There is not much doubt that the IP is Jim Hawkins, and this edit comes from a BBC IP address. I have asked Jim Hawkins to WP:DENY, but this goes hand in hand with Pigs and Malleus staying away from the article.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 08:24, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Indeed it does not, and as Andy said earlier about himself, I'm not a bargaining chip either. Malleus Fatuorum 15:39, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - Calling for Hawkins himself to be banned is about as nauseating an example of bad faith and bad common sense as one can find in this project. We let the likes of Malleus or Keifer Wolfowitz...or hell, myself...play fast and loose with civility around here, and some want to ban a guy because he's being a bit too brusque for your newly-discovered Victorian sensibilities. To invoke an 80's-ism, fuck that noise. Tarc (talk) 16:17, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  What has "faith" got to do with anything? Malleus Fatuorum 17:24, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  Way to cherry-pick there, bro, but I think we should take into account the fact that Hawkins is only editing here at all in an attempt to defend himself from what he sees as abuse. Tarc (talk) 20:01, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  Only started editing here, you mean? The reasons to remain editing here may be open to other interpretations - but there you get into that "faith" question, don't you? Franamax (talk) 20:46, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  Well, you show me the abuse and I might start to take your position seriously. I don't for instance, remember calling Hawkins a "nerd, loser, robot ... [or] coward". His claimed knowledge of someone he's never met and knows nothing about is quite astonishing, or at least it would be if he was even close to being accurate, and there's absolutely nothing in his article that's inaccurate or could in any way be considered negative. To give in to that kind of bullying would be the worst kind of cowardice, fuelled by laziness. Malleus Fatuorum 21:26, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• Not unless the subject has repeated, his alleged request for vandalism, since the one time (or recently)Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:11, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

All three

Much as I love Jim Hawkins as a person, I do look at his comments on Wikipedia and they are full of anger and frustration. He's personally involved in this, so of course emotion comes into it, but he really has not helped his case with intemperate language, understandable though it may be in his frustration and stress.

Exactly the same goes for the two experienced editors named above, who really should know better, especially as Jimbo asked them very nicely to stay away from the article.

In the interests of peace and constructive editing, I'd like to see all three topic banned here, as none of the three can keep from picking at the others. I'd like to encourage Jim to register an(other) account and contribute to other articles, for he has a wealth of knowledge on local and arcane subjects, and if he could learn some of the procedures and the jargon, he might cease bad-mouthing Wikipedia as a whole and help fill in some of the gaps in our coverage. I think in the various forums of discussion over this issue it has emerged that different editors have different views, often firmly held and forcibly expressed, and we are not all nerd clones out to get him. Or saint him.

Wikipedia is made up of many people, with different skills and knowledges and temperaments. It is amazing that it works at all, let alone that we have all together constructed a grand and useful resource. But work it does and if it is sometimes rough around the edges, we work on those edges.

If any of the three editors feel that they need to edit the article, they may request it through others, but I'm hoping that this article at least can remain free from controversy and unhappiness. And may I thank all for contributing. This has been an instructive exercise for me at least, to learn of the diverse views held by diverse editors. --Pete (talk) 09:13, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

"full of anger and frustration... personally involved... emotion comes into it... intemperate language... Exactly the same goes for the two experienced editors named above" - That's simply untrue; I've not used any intemperate language, for a start. And since you've already written about a gift you've received from, and time you've spent with, Hawkins, it would appear to be you who is "personally involved in this". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:10, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Others may judge your involvement in this. I don't, and if I have offended you, I apologise. I say what is past is past and we should look to a future where we can all contribute. I think it would be best if all three of you stay clear of the article because it has produced very little in the way of useful encyclopaedic information, but pages and pages of wrangling over trivia. Time to move on, surely? --Pete (talk) 11:23, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I didn't claim to have been offended by you; I pointed out that your assertions about me - where you do pass judgement on me - are false; and that you have a CoI. It is indeed time to move on: your false comments above help to prevent that. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:33, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Where exactly did Jimbo ask me to do anything in reference to this article? Malleus Fatuorum 15:41, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

On your talk page. You responded thusly. 28bytes (talk) 16:04, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you misread the question. I asked where did Jimbo ever ask me to do anything in reference to this article? Added to which Pete quite clearly claimed right at the start of this thread that Jimbo had asked me to stay away from the article, but that's not true, is it. Malleus Fatuorum 21:20, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, looks like I did misread it, my apologies. Jimbo made a request regarding the article subject, but not the article itself as far as I can tell. 28bytes (talk) 01:32, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support. What Pete posts for this proposal echoes nicely what has and is happening here. Jim Hawkins has, on his facebook page labled us: "Nerds, losers, robots and worst of all cowards. That's who I've been dealing with for the last couple of days #Wikipedia". I am none of those, nor are any other editors/admins here. This makes us objects in little negative boxes and as Pete iterates above, we are all multi-faceted. I so much fit into none of those categories that Mr. Hawkins would be amazed at who I am in real liife. It is a priviledge to remain anonymous here; not mandatory, of course...but I take advantage of it because I desire to just come here and make my gnomish edits and stay out of controversy and chaos. I promise to keep Mr Hawkins' article on my watchlist for as long as I remain (hopefully for many years). Regards, Fylbecatulous talk 15:30, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  Of the three editors mentioned here Hawkins' behaviour has been by far the worse, and is apparently continuing. Time for him to go. Malleus Fatuorum 15:46, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - As noted above; yes to Pigs, no to the other 2. Tarc (talk) 16:18, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose the existence of this section Bad Skyring, no restarting ongoing topic ban discussions under a new guise! Just because you're clumping them together doesn't make it alright. This is already being discussed above. Silverseren^C 16:30, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  Good point about process, but it looks like the ideal solution, allowing everybody to get on with other, more important things. Some people, and I'm as guilty as anyone, just like arguing over increasingly trivial and inconsequential details. I see very few editors join the discussion with anything like a full view of the situation. Given all the blankings and archivings, you've really got to have been looking at the thing for years, otherwise you get people coming in and saying, "What's the problem? The article looks fine!". Do we really want BBC personality Jim Hawkins, who is reading all this with absolute disgust, pull out his own files stretching back years and go off to have a long chat with some BBC crony to sink the boot into us? Because I've been looking at what people have said here and elsewhere and there are some comments that none of would be happy to have read out on air or worse, highlighted on screen. I don't go along with everything Jim says in his anguish over this sorry affair, but he does land home some very pertinent observations. To which people in this discussion have all but replied, "So what if you get raped when you go out and ask for it? You should enjoy it!" I realize that some editors have zero empathy with other human beings, but there is a lot of human interest in this thing, and if presented in that delightful way that journalists have of one-eyed outrage, we're going to be fighting a tsunami of unstoppable moral condemnation where it will do us no good to point out wikirules and process in our defence. Not that we foot soldiers would be fighting. It would be Jimbo and a few others taking the heat. --Pete (talk) 19:44, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  For pity's sake. No-one has been raped in this saga. Obviously. FormerIP (talk) 20:03, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  I'm getting rather tired of being called names ("I realize that some editors have zero empathy with other human beings") for refusing to just give in to the unreasonable demands of this guy. I realize that you're his friend, but this is getting a bit ridiculous.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 00:40, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

  I'm getting rather tired of that as well. Perhaps any topic ban should be extended to include Hawkins' fan club. Malleus Fatuorum 02:03, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

• comment I could likely be convinced that JH should stay off the article and confine his requests to the talk page. I don't however see enough to convince me that either PotW or Malleus have acted in a way to justify a ban from the article. — Ched :  ?  17:03, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose It's one thing to ban a couple of editors from the article, the subject is another thing altogether. Though I'd reconsider if his editing becomes problematical. I've looked at all of his article edits and many of his talk page contributions, and don't see this rising to that degree of seriousness. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 18:09, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  Judged by the same standard I don't see that any editing anyone has done warrants a ban, so why are we still discussing this? Because a vocal minority want to try and appease Hawkins by offering him a couple of sacrificial lambs? Malleus Fatuorum 21:37, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

The difference is you're just some editor; he's the subject of the article. If he were just some editor, and had called the subject of an article—what was it, a loser, nerd, coward, robot?—he'd have no business editing that article; not because he couldn't be trusted to do a balanced job, but because it's inappropriate, it's grossly insulting and humiliating. A mature, humane community wouldn't allow it. I am of the opinion this community has some growing up to do, so you're probably safe from an article ban. Sacrificial lamb? Naughty or thoughtless brats being told to go and play in another sandbox was the metaphor I had in mind. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 06:42, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Really? I've yet to see any convincing evidence that you have a mind, or that if you do you've actually ever used it. Malleus Fatuorum 17:25, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

In the interests of peace and constructive editing the editors should "de-escalate". Blocking effectively amends my previous sentence to shall "de-escalate". Both "should" and "shall" can achieve peace and harmony. It would be better if everyone just walked away for a bit. Can the idea of blocks...discuss the wider issues...amend BLP etc. Tom Pippens (talk) 10:53, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support. All three editors have engaged in excessive wikidrama, and have fallen well short of the standards they would usually uphold. As the subject of the article, Hawkins is entitled to express concerns about his privacy, but the way he has gone about this has done no good to either him or the article. Similarly, the response of the two established editors has deteriorated below the threshold of acceptability.
  The 3 protagonists have simply become too heated, so without wanting to cast any slur on any of the people involved, it seems best for everyone that the community now requires all of them to walk away from such a heated topic. Hopefully that enforced break from this topic will enable all 3 to resume the good work which they do elsewhere. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:42, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Time to ask for a close?

This proposal has been up for a few days now and I wonder if we are near exhausting the arguments? I'm not sure there's much purpose to be served by keeping going, and there is a danger that arguments simply get repeated and there's more opportunity for tempers to fray. As the OP I feel my proposal has had a run for its money and been given a fair analysis by all sides; I would have no objection to an uninvolved editor closing this now. Of course if others feel there's more to say, let's hear it, but if not shall we call it a day? Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 14:20, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

I think that it's definitely time to close this, especially since you yourself are saying that it's probably time (which I for one can appreciate, so thanks!). Based on today's activity here, it seems obvious that anything left to talk about is going to be nothing but interpersonal sniping.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:59, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Ban appeal from User:Claritas

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

---

In 2010, after a few thousand productive edits, I focused my energies on removing hoaxes from Wikipedia. Foolishly, I made a sockpuppet in order to see what would happen if a partially hoaxed article was created. This was an abuse of the trust of the Wikipedia community, and I regret it. I did, however, make sure that all the false information was eventually removed, and the end product was an article on an individual who otherwise may not have been covered.

When this activity was discovered, I foolishly started editing from another account, with the misplaced conviction that if all my edits were constructive, I would not be found out.

I am committed to improving Wikipedia, not disrupting it, and I regret my occasional outbursts. If you care to consult the contributions of my last sock, He to Hecuba, you'll see high quality mainspace contributions, such as the GAs on Gregory of Nyssa and Clement of Alexandria. I feel it's unfair that my sockpuppets are blocked not because I'm doing anything wrong but simply due to my past misdeeds. I was banned for block evasion, not disruptive editing.

If unbanned, I will never use an alternate account again. I will focus my contributions to article space. I'd obey a 1RR across namespaces and assist in work against open proxies and sockpuppetry, which I have significant experience with.

I am a teenager, and I feel I've matured a lot in the past two years. I recognize the problems with my past editing patterns, and I hope the community will offer me a second chance. I'm willing to wait out whatever time the community wills me to.--Claritas § 12:04, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Was originally posted on the user's talk page, copied here by me as the user is blocked, will notify the user of this thread. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 01:19, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Original ban decision and discussion. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 01:22, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - Last November he sent an e-mail to an admin from a sock account saying that he intended to continue socking [14]. And as recently as last December he posted to his talk page saying that he had admins making proxy edits for him. Constructive or not, banned is banned and not only should those admins be admonished but as far as I'm concerned the requirements of WP:OFFER hasn't been fulfilled due to the proxy editing. Come back when you've stayed away entirely for 6 months straight without getting people to proxy for you or trying to get people to chat with you on your talk page. Really, the kind of favoritism to certain people around here is sad and that administrators would proxy for a banned user is even more sad. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 02:58, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
• Well, no. Not when the user has been disruptively socking as recently as a month ago. 28bytes (talk) 03:13, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose for now. Claritas seems to have been unrepentent until recently. Some more time needs to pass for him to reach a maturity level where this misbehavior will be a thing of the distant past, instead of the recent past. Looking at his talk page, he has been getting people to proxy edit for him several times in the past few months; this suggests a lack of respect on his part over the fact that he is banned at this time. If he wants to come back, he needs to let it rest for a while and stop trying to get involved here while banned. Let's examine the standard offer from one year after the point of his last misbehavior - give him some time to think about how he got to this point, and learn from his mistakes. BOZ (talk) 04:56, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
• I don't know... I think that at least a trial unblock/unban might be in order here. I guess maybe I like to think the best of people, but the "until recently" aspect of all of this gives me reason to pause. If he's being generally constructive, even if he is socking, then the continuation of a block/ban seems more punitive than preventative. Maybe there's (much?) more to this then I'm willing to look for (and I'm perfectly able to admit that I'm not willing to look far), but the "disruptive socking" that 28bytes points to above doesn't really seem all that disruptive (I was expecting to see some sort of personal attack, or something similar; what's apparent in the linked to contribs is more like begging to be given a second chance than disruption).
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 05:21, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support - I'm seeing some good content-creation work in the contribution history of this editor. I'll serve as a mentor for this editor if the ban is ended and if they make good on their promise not to make use of an alternate account ever again. Carrite (talk) 05:34, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

(The following reply copied from Claritas's talk page, by request. See User talk:Claritas#Hi there for more detail -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:07, 7 April 2012 (UTC))

That's terribly kind of you to offer to mentor me.

I was thinking about an intermediate solution, wonder what you think about this. My content contributions are good. My ban evasion is a problem, but people seem surprisingly positive about a return in like three months.

I'm happy to wait it out. Would it be possible for me to have a proxying system agreed ? I could have a workspace at the bottom of my talk page, and copy articles there to improve them. Without having anywhere else to edit, my contributions could be completely supervised and it would probably result in a few more good articles for Wikipedia which simply wouldn't be created otherwise. I understand that BOZ thinks my proxying requests are a sign of immaturity, but I think they should be understood as an attempt to help Wikipedia out. --Claritas § 08:28, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

• - Its a decent request and with a mentor it may well be a good deal, The recent socking in March is a bit of a crux, three months no socking and no requesting proxy edits and I would support - user is a self declared teenager and maturing fast as this well meant request expresses. Youreallycan 07:55, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean "well-meant request"? I'm having a little trouble understanding your post-hyphen sentence. Nyttend (talk) 12:42, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

• Yes, the request and offer from the user to edit at 1rr and only from one account seems sincere to me and I would take his word on that. Youreallycan 14:56, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

• Ask again in three months- at which point I will most likely support. I don't have a problem with the proxy editing but the recent socking is just a bit concerning. Reyk _YO! 08:12, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. As recent as three weeks ago Claritas showed an inclination to sock. As such it would take a little more than 5 months until WP:OFFER can be considered. --Saddhiyama (talk) 08:29, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support but won't lose sleep if the opposers win the day. I was very surprised when the Claritas case came up, as I associated the name with sound work. I feel he/she wants to contribute, and with a mentor like Carrite could go straight. First proven sock, block again for three months. Any socking during block, ban. If they can edit legitimately, there should be no need for them to sock. Teenagers do change rapidly, and for a lot of them three months ago IS the distant past. If a 'not yet' decision is reached here, I would have no objection to a proxy edit section on their talkpage to help them prove themselves (themself?) as a valuable editor. I would see that as a halfway stage to mentoring. Peridon (talk) 10:25, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support I think reinstatement on the terms stated by Peridon. If he's serious, we get good contributions, if he's not, he's easily dealt with. Keep in mind teenage enthusiasms don't last forever.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:38, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose User "does not know why their sockpuppets are blocked". Really? A key component of WP:GAB is to acknowledge what led to the block. It's also key to STAY AWAY from this project while blocked. So far: massive fail. Reset the clock to a new 6 months for wasting the community's time with their inability to follow simple instructions. Proxy editing is not permitted - WP:OFFER says they go prove themselves on another Wikimedia project, and they have a lot of proving to do (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 10:47, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

• I have updated this to "strong oppose" based on his latest shenanigans: filing a "helpme" request on his talkpage to ask someone to badger me about my !vote above. No need for further proof that this editor is not ready for Wikipedia (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 12:49, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

• (The following reply copied from Claritas's talk page, by request. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:35, 7 April 2012 (UTC))
• Please assume good faith. I know it's not easy in my case, but my intention was not to badger you about your !vote. If you explain why the edits from He to Hecuba were problematic (outside of the block evasion) I'll better understand how I should behave once I'm unblocked. --Claritas § 15:24, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

• ...and now I'm a vindictive fool? Wow, I go the extra mile to show him the way forward, yet I'm vindictive. As per his actual request, I have full-protected his talkpage for 6 months. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 15:57, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

• On the fence. 28bytes and YRC make valid points about how recent the last sock was. However, others have noted good efforts by the user as well, and I'm almost always in favor of bringing people in rather than keeping them out. Some stipulations could go a long way towards making this work I'd think - and we do have more than enough folks hovering over the block button. If they are here to edit constructively, then I wish them all the best. — Ched :  ?  12:39, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
• Weak oppose per the socking issues. However, the proxy editing section is a good idea: when someone is blocked for socking and wants to make what are obviously positive contributions in a way that doesn't attempt to get around the block, we should encourage it. Saddhiyama's comment goes too far: when you decide not to do something prohibited because you know that it will have negative consequences, that's a good thing. Please come back with a new request after a few months without socking and I'll support your request unless major new problems surface. Nyttend (talk) 12:42, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

My comment didn't go too far, on the contrary Claritas din in fact sock on the very date that the user "cba to sock". And proposing socking as a viable alternative at all, regardless of the editor in that specific instance "cba", does not in any way show signs of a user maturing. --Saddhiyama (talk) 14:35, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. Saddhiyama points to the inclination to sock as late as three weeks ago, and both Saddhiyama and 28bytes connect this inclination to actual socking on the same day. Why not wait until this person is out of his teens and re-examine the issue at that time? Binksternet (talk) 15:30, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose. Per Burpelson, Saddhiyama, and BWilkins. I can't believe that Claritas has hired admins to proxy edit for him and he's threatened to continue socking - and did it using a sock no less. That lengthy ban appeal is a foolishly (right back at you!) stupid thing to do. I stopped reading halfway - nothing more than self-praise at having supposedly reformed his ways. That "does not know why their sockpuppets are blocked" act is common among other infamous banned editors who are still in denial at what they've done. --Eaglestorm (talk) 16:40, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose  This editor is not "blocked for socking", this editor is banned.  New sock created less than three weeks ago was used to unarchive a closed AN discussion.[15] The discussion itself was started by another Claritas sock, editing as an IP address.  The most recent post is a new round of bounds testing.  This editor has a long history of using project space to commandeer the time of other volunteers.  In this diff, I report on 45 AfD nominations in the space of five weeks by another Claritas sock, with 25% being 2nd, 3rd, or 4th noms.  Yes, I think the article Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Adamah deserves a better fate, but Claritas is not the only person in the world that can improve Adamah, and there is no deadline at Wikipedia.  IMO this should not be discussed again until at least four-six months have passed without any contact from Claritas, because proxy editing does not encourage behavior change.  At that time, more attention needs to be given to the maximum-2-pages-edited-in-a-rolling-24-hour-period editor constraint, as well as assigning a mentor/monitor.  Unscintillating (talk) 17:25, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

  I just took a look at the AN/I discussion which ostensibly "banned" Claritas (which look like a handful of editors rushing to judge a puppetmaster, to me), which is making me think that all of this is more about process wonkery and "you'll listen to me" power grabbing than anything else. The requests for three months or six months of "good behavior" lend even more weight to that, in my view (let alone adding a "process wonkery" aspect to all of this). Look, if someone, anyone, can point to recent article content disruption, from any of the socks, then I'll climb on board the opposition here. In thee meantime, the solution here seems really straightforward: unblock with a stern warning not to sock any longer and to stay away from the admin side of Wikipedia for a good long while. Why we would want to turn away editors who are apparently eager to be constructive is beyond me. I'm not looking to be confrontational about this (my level of caring about what happens to Claritas is nearly nonexistant, to be honest), and i hope that no one takes what I'm saying here personally, but... there it is.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 17:56, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

  For me, it's not a matter of requiring the editor "do time" of an arbitrary 6-month "sentence" to show they respect our authoritah, it's that I simply don't trust them to follow our policies, given that they were uninterested in doing so so recently. Would I trust them a couple of months from now? Quite possibly. I don't necessarily think it has to be 6 months, but I'm just not comfortable supporting the return of an editor who so brazenly evaded their ban just a couple of weeks ago and, from what I can see in their ban appeal, is not even owning up to doing so. I was a bit surprised to see that they'd not acknowledged this latest sock in their unban/unblock request. (If indeed it is the latest... is it? Or are they editing with another one right now?) Rebuilding trust takes time. Maybe not 6 months, but I don't think one month is too much to ask for. 28bytes (talk) 18:42, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

  I could agree with that (I'm fairly certain that I have agreed with that in the past), but... as far as I can tell, everything that's been problematic with this editor has to do with interactions with others in the Wikipedia space. I have yet to see anyone say anything negative about actual content, which is why we're all here after all (at least, that's why we're supposed to be here...). I don't see my position here as "forgiving and forgetting", but more along the lines of: let's make the punishment fit the crime; along with a hefty dose of remaining focused on article space.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:56, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

  If there was an effective way to keep him blocked from all Wikipedia space, but allow him to edit only articles and article talk pages, I'd be in favor of allowing that immediately. If the problem has been solely in Wikipedia space, and if we can't block him from just that, then we still have a problem. BOZ (talk) 00:59, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

  Well, that's easy enough; make it an unblock condition. If it's followed, great, if not, reblock. That said, I'd still prefer to see more non-socking time elapse before considering any type of unblock. 28bytes (talk) 01:02, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

  That solution would be OK, but hopefully he would not attempt to abuse it. I agree that more time needs to elapse before such a set of conditions should be considered. BOZ (talk) 01:10, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - in the strongest possible terms. Socking to get around a ban? No unblock for you. Period. → ROUX ₪ 17:28, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - once a sock-master, always a sock-master. GoodDay (talk) 17:47, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

It's a really bad decision to start socking, but completely incorrect to view this as something inborn and insurmountable. A huge fuckup which calls for penance and supervision. Carrite (talk) 01:42, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Mike Wallace death

Journalist Mike Wallace has died. His article is receiving a lot of hits, so it's likely worth a few eyes to revert vandalism. Night Ranger (talk) 14:36, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

So far, all the editing appears to be constructive. Well done all! --Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:50, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

This pattern is pretty much normal, in my experience. I wonder if this comment is an indication that all of the time you spend in the trenches dealing with disputes is starting to color your views a bit, Elen. Gotta be mindful of that sort of thing happening, you know?
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 20:11, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, "down the steps" (to the Bridewell) mentality is always a risk. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:28, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Please undo pagemove vandalism/deletion

A now-indeffed account moved the talk page for CompUSA to a new location that was then deleted. Can someone please restore it and move it back to the correct location? [16] Night Ranger (talk) 22:50, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Thanks. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 22:54, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you and you're welcome. Night Ranger (talk) 23:00, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I screwed up moving the article back to the correct place about three times and it appears I forgot to move the talk page properly the last time. You could have felt free to ask me to fix it directly. Cheers. Valfontis (talk) 23:42, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I couldn't really figure out exactly what had happened so I felt asking here was the easiest way to get attention to the issue. Night Ranger (talk) 00:56, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Use of Jimbo's user talk page for defamation of the LGBT community

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

---

As I have been threatened with an Arbcom case by a member of Oversight if I do not follow a dispute resolution process,[17] I regret being forced to raise a complaint here of general defamation by ErrantX. In this comment on Jimbo's page, he states I'm a well known critic of large swathes of the LGBT community (which, ironically, means they assume I am not part of that commmunity); they are objectionable, annoying and do as much to put back progressive views of homosexuality as the real homophobes. I read this as a direct statement that the LGBT are annoying and objectionable. The choice of what action to take here should be no different than general defamation against any other recognized minority group of Wikipedia editors. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 12:37, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh for fucks sake; this pretty much proves my point - criticise the LGBT community and you get lambasted by default, without any attempt to engage. My comment is explicit in discussing a "large swathe" of the LGBT community in general (in case that wasn't clear) as part of a discussion on that page. I stand by that statement; it upsets and depresses me that certain elements within a community, of which I am a member, are hindering progressiveness. In this edit you basically accuse me of homophobia. This is extremely ironic, because in case it is still not clear I quite like homosexuals - prefferably in bed. Fae is an angry person about this issue; I can sympathise with that to some extent. But I think he needs to grow a thicker skin - first in reading comments he perceives as homophobic, and secondly when discussing criticism of the LGBT. To be utterly clear to Fae r.e. my comment; I find certain elements within the LGBT community objectionable and annoying not because of their sexuality but because of their attitude - this includes certain activists on LGBT issues who are straight, I hope that clears up your confusion. And please don't blow up next time, it is tiresome. --Errant ^(chat!) 12:48, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Errant you can't say one thing in a negative light about LGBT people or practices on wikipedia without being accused of a homophobe. Basically anything less that enthusiastic about LGBT is taken as homophobic. But I have no idea what Fae expects by reporting it here. Pointless. Is Errant supposed to be blocked or banned or something? If there is one thing annoying about homosexuality and LGBT it is that people are unnecessarily overly defensive and aggressive about it and expect special protection from criticism.♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:03, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I think Fae's complaint is in essence a form of bullying - attempting to chill the legitimate expression of criticisms of a section of the LGBT community. However, IMO, taking advantage of it to then make a generic attack on the defensiveness of a group as a whole does not help. Paul B (talk) 13:13, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah its a touchy issue. A lot of people on here are very aggressive about it. If possible its probably best not to talk about it!♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:17, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

If there is one thing annoying about homosexuality and LGBT it is that people are unnecessarily overly defensive and aggressive about it and expect special protection from criticism; Yep, absolutely - and that would be pretty much the extent of my criticism within the context of Wikipedia. I perhaps should have been a little less vocal on Jimbo's talk, but Fae is just as vocal on those issues. And his last comment crosses a line for me into outright abuse directed at me, which I found a little upsetting (to the extent I would just have disengaged as non-productive). I don't want to be a martyr to this, but it probably needs sorting out. Either as a quiet word to Fae from someone he respects, or something like that. --Errant ^(chat!) 13:09, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

There is a difference most certainly between being completed opposed to people who happen to be homosexual and simply opposed to those who make a big song and dance about it and overly aggressive and objectionable in defending it and view anything less that "equal" is viewed with considerable angst and scorn. That bothers me, not homosexuality itself. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:03, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Dr. Blofeld, I have stated it is Salvio that is forcing my hand here by threatening Arcom cases. I have no expectations for any particular action and was quite happy to resolve any issues of response to WP:HOMO by open discussion rather than dispute resolution process. I am raising the matter here, so it can be logged that I followed a DR process. You are free to close it as resolved if you feel that is the most appropriate action to take. It may seem pointy, but it is the only whistleblowing process that has been made available to me if I am not allowed to have a frank conversation with ErrantX by myself. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 13:14, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation Fae. Although I think somebody who hasn't commented here should close this discussion..♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:18, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@Blofeld - Well; I don't have an issue with people that make a big song and dance about their sexuality; that's much the same as, say, a macho guy with large muscles going around without a shirt, or a girl with large breasts wearing skimpy clothing - it is all about displaying who you are. The problem, for me, is with those individuals who go searching for offence with the aim of calling out as many things as homophobia as possible. These individuals, for the most part, do it genuinely to try and progress their agenda. However, it eventually becomes harmful, as society in general push back. Being able to criticise that is important; but it is hard to do so because, as you note, my community is resistive to criticism (as homophobic...). This is basically the discussion I would have had with Fae had he not exploded on Jimbo's talk, and I don't think AN is the right place to have it. I, of course, invite Fae to discuss it further - he knows where my talk page is and has my email address. @Fae; your final comment crossed a line for me in being abusive; I think that is what Salvio was trying to convey, it was hardly conducive to a calm discussion!--Errant ^(chat!) 13:20, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

• - Wikipedia is not an online community of any sexual definitives. - The recent attempts to create one and defend it from any and all comments is getting silly. Go and write some content, there are plenty of specifically created online communities you can go join, this is an online content creating educational encyclopedic project - there is no LGBT community here or no other community for that matter, there are only, content creators, vandal fighters and wiki gnomes.Youreallycan 14:33, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
  • That statement is completely false. There are many different communities on Wikipedia, and one can easily prove their existence by examining the WikiProjects. It's one thing to bury your head in the sand, it's quite another to ask others to do the same. Viriditas (talk) 01:19, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia is neither a support group nor a lobbying group. Those who try to form either need to be slapped down. Jtrainor (talk) 12:42, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
      • You've made less than 30 edits from your account in the last four months, so I don't expect you to be very familiar with Wikipedia, but just in case you are interested, you should know that Wikipedia is made up of people who serve their own self-interest. Like "Youreallycan", you are free to deny this observable fact, and I'm free to call you out on it. The fact of the matter is, there are multiple communities that are active here. Youreallycan's comments are entirely false. Viriditas (talk) 12:54, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
        • Yes, well said JT. - User:Viriditas - please stop personalizing your comments/attacks, as per Arbcom - its highly discouraged and a form of WP:Battle - Youreallycan 13:05, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
          • You made a completely false statement when you said "there is no LGBT community here or no other community for that matter". There is nothing "personal" about pointing this out, nor do I have any idea what "arbcom" has to do with your false statements. Clearly, there are multiple communities on Wikipedia, and repeatedly claiming that they don't exist is false. Feel free to familiarize yourself with Wikipedia:LGBT#Community_department at any time. Viriditas (talk) 13:16, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

DYK 2-hour warning ignored

The bot posted the 2-hour warning about 1 hour and 15 minutes ago. It was ignored. The queues need to be updated within 40 minutes or so to keep everything on schedule. Note that prep area 3 contains a Kony 2012 hook that is being debated at Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#DYK_date_request with general consensus that the date request for April 20 should be honored. It would be advisable to return this hook to T:TDYK until either the 20th or consensus otherwise is determined.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 07:19, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Just a question (Wikipedia:Jimbo's Love Life)

I remember Wikipedia:Jimbo's Love Life being deleted in the past but I could not find it's AfD (Maybe Jimbo had it deleted?) Anyways the article is of poor taste and I am asking if it could be a possible WP:CSD given that this page was deleted in the past. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:06, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

User:7107delicious/Wikipedia stories. Page deleted per G10, user blocked indef. T. Canens (talk) 14:17, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Here is the problem

I am working at List of monuments of the Gettysburg Battlefield. However someone has added a large entry for the 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry Monument. Too large for a list. So i am trying to make it a separate article. Only it turns out it already IS a separate article, only when I try to go there I get sent back to List of monuments of the Gettysburg Battlefield. There is some sort of loop (redirect) at play that i do not understand and that I would like removed so that I can get that large chunk of text out of the list and in its own article where it belongs. Want to give it a try? How do I remove a "redirect" that I can't find? I have not been able to figuer out what editor did this redirect. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 15:42, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

This question has already been answered at the village pump; please continue the discussion there instead of posting this in multiple places. Best of luck, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 15:44, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I was not able to figure out from the Village Pump answer what to do - te answer that I received did not help me, so I came here. Carptrash (talk) 15:55, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

(ec)Not a need for Administrative assistance. At the top of the page where you are redirected to it'll say "Redirected from ___________________". The name of the redirected article will be a hyperlink that you can click to get to the underlying redirect. Please be aware that the article was merged previously, and turning a redirect back into an article unilaterally is typically bad wiki-form. Take a look at the reasoning for the merge and try to convince those who participated in the merge that the content you intend to put in meets the requirements for inclusion. Hasteur (talk) 15:45, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that I can not get to the 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry Monument article to remove the redirect. I know that there is some history, that this is "bad wiki form" but the article in question is a 'LIST and all the info contained in the 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry Monument is not appropriate for a list. Carptrash (talk) 15:55, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

It should never have been merged in the first place. I've recreated the article. Add the information to the list in your preferred format and link to the main article. Paul B (talk) 16:11, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank-you. Carptrash (talk) 16:16, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

User:Reema2210

The above-mentioned user, very likely formerly known as User:Reema m h and User:Reemaheliel, both who got blocked for spamming (see article Gulf Pharmaceutical Industries (Julphar) is back under a new name and continues spamming...Needs blocking again--Trex2001 (talk) 08:32, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Obvious sock. Blocked account and semi-protected the article for persistent advertisement attempts. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:39, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Edit request backlog

Category:Wikipedia protected edit requests has worked up a bit of a backlog. Some attention there would be helpful, thanks!
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 20:37, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Would like more eyes on an article, please

Howard W. Robertson is a poet and his article, though harmless, has a few issues. He appears to be notable but the main editor of the article is an SPA (might be the poet, s/he hasn't said), so though not obvious the article is a bit of an advert. The SPA editor has resisted most efforts to get the article to look like a somewhat normal Wikipedia article, without text like "the interconnected chiaroscuro of shadowy essence and shimmering everydayness". I don't hate poetry, but encyclopedias are supposed to be written prose. See the talk page and the creator's talk page for my (using my old username) and others' efforts at consensus and the editor's thoughts on what "community" means. Having a few more editors work on this might help the article's creator with the ownership issues s/he appears to be having. I abandoned this in frustration several years ago, and seeing very little change since then, I felt like taking this to a well-trafficked board would get better results. Feel free to direct me to a more appropriate venue. I'm not sure where since it's kind of a (stale) mixture of COI/copyediting/editwarring/dispute resolution sort of thing. Thanks. Valfontis (talk) 21:53, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I'll take a look. The worst problem is the description of the nature of his inspiration, sourced from himself--that's very common for visual artists, but first time I've seen it from a poet. I typically remove such as promotionally, unless they actually describe the work,or come from an actual 3rd party RS critic. Usually for problems like this its better to ask at the relevant WikiProject, not here. DGG ( talk ) 01:18, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

And it contains copyvio. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:01, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. We at WikiProject Oregon couldn't help, I didn't think to check with WikiProject Poetry. Valfontis (talk) 02:40, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Request unban and unblock of User:Ryan kirkpatrick

• Ryan kirkpatrick (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Is it clear that, after the restoration of 2012 Virginia Beach F/A-18 crash against my wishes, that the community is allowing Ryan kirkpatrick's edits again, making his ban worthless and void. Hence, I request a full unban and unblock of Ryan kirkpatrick. --MuZemike 22:24, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

A little WP:POINTy, don't you think? 86.** IP (talk) 22:33, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

The community cannot have it both ways – either Ryan is banned, or he is not. There is no middle ground. --MuZemike 22:36, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Anyone may revert an edit made in defiance of a ban, but there is a long distance between "may" and "must". So yes, there is middle ground. Besides, Jehochman is right when he says articles with substantial edits by others are not G5 candidates. This thread seems to me to be a major dummy spit. Reyk _YO! 22:44, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

First off, I do not consider the addition of a few extra references and links and some minor copyedits substantial, but I fear that I am fighting an uphill battle on that one. Secondly, as I have said before, if we're allowing banned users to waltz back here with open arms, then why have the ban in the first place? It's serving absolutely no purpose than to give the editing community extra busywork. --MuZemike 22:48, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you, MuZemike. But Wikipedia has no ideals left. Let's encourage all banned editors to create socks and edit, after all this is the encyclopedia any moron can edit. Night Ranger (talk) 22:59, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

We clearly need to find a way to deny banned and blocked users and I think the article should have been deleted. Dougweller (talk) 08:36, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I have a potential solution to this problem. It is quite radical, so please read and consider it carefully, because it is going to sound strange. It's called "let's not overreact." Bear with me, because this is going to be something no one here would consider reasonable, but I feel the need to try it anyways. First, banned users really are banned, and that will stay so. Second, we delete their contributions when doing so isn't distuptive to the encyclopedia. Third, recognizing that sometimes, on very rare occasions, one of those edits will sometimes get through, we don't lose our minds when it does, we still revert them going forward, we still ban them, but if it doesn't work perfectly, we shrug our shoulders and move on in the rare cases when we don't get to revert them because, by some quirk, it actually doesn't make sense to. I know this is against people's belief that Wikipedia is a grand game that one must "win", and that if banned editors get one single edit through the system, the game is "lost" and that we all have to give up. Instead of giving up, however, everytime this happens, how about we try not giving up, and instead just move on and continue to fight the good fight. Just a weird idea, I know, but lets just try it this once. --Jayron32 13:28, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

• Any user is allowed to reinstate the contributions that a banned user made. However, by doing so, they are also taking responsibility for them. But if the edits are perfectly fine and within policy, then there is no problem. If they are, however, copyvios, then there is a problem. I assume that the article in question that Ryan made was fine and it was only deleted because it was made by a banned person (still the stupidest rule on the encyclopedia), but any user is allowed to have the deletion undone and take responsibility for the article. This has nothing to do with "allowing" his edits as it has to do with salvaging usable content. Silverseren^C 21:49, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

If we're allowing him to create articles, then why exactly is he banned, or even blocked for that matter? Or are all of you folks going to continue to pretend that he's banned when, in actuality, he's not? As I said on Jimbo's talk page a while ago, if a ban fails, then we are obligated to reassess said ban. But I suppose the community would rather refuse to recognize that their own imposed bans are not working and that either something else needs to be done or that we must let him go and do whatever he likes. --MuZemike 02:17, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

If users are taking responsibility for the articles he makes, then that's their own prerogative. But that doesn't change the fact that he is banned and any sockpuppets should be blocked on sight. Are you really suggesting that we should be removing encyclopedic content just because the person who made it is banned? Our main objective is to build an encyclopedia, not to discourage blocked users or whatever the reasoning is behind the deletions. Silverseren^C 02:41, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

That's my point, hence the unban/unblock proposal. If we are not allowed to discourage banned users from contributing, then there is no purpose of having the bans or blocks in the first place. --MuZemike 02:52, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Because they weren't banned for creating articles. While a user can step up and take responsibility for the articles they created or other content they added, that doesn't mean we should willingly allow them to make further edits when they've been community banned. Silverseren^C 03:20, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Mike, back down a second and consider your position. You seem to be indicating that, once some article or edit has been made by a banned user, that article or edit can never exist at Wikipedia again, forever and ever, amen. That makes no sense. All that Silverseren seems to be arguing is that we can ban users without taking the rediculous position that everything they touch becomes poison. Yes, we should revert them on sight. But that doesn't mean that the entire enterprise isn't worth it if some random edit isn't reverted per WP:IAR. That's the whole point of IAR: when a rule, which is otherwise a good rule, in an odd instance, gets in the way of making the encyclopedia better, we ignore it. Thus, banned users are banned, and their edits get reverted, always, unless they shouldn't be. --Jayron32 04:59, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

The real problem here is that Jehochman resurrected the article when he should not have. The subsequent edits were not "substantial", as called out in the G5 criteria, nor were the contents of the article some critical nugget of information that desperately needed to be preserved. In fact, the article is currently nominated for deletion based on WP:NOT#NEWS reasoning. While I agree that MuZemike's call for an unblock smacks of waving a pointy stick, let's not forget the fact that Jehochman made a severe error in judgment and then chastized MuZemike for not having made the same mistake.—Kww(talk) 11:49, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Discussing the issue in general, it's a no-win situation. If we take the hard stance that a banned editor's contributions can and must be deleted to ensure that a ban has "teeth", then we might be cutting off our nose to spite our face. There's always the hypothetical situation where a banned editor reverts vandalism and you have to either allow the banned edit or allow the vandalism. In less extreme examples, you might be removing a useful reference or important fix to an article by reverting the banned editor. That's why our policy allows for another editor to vouch for the edit. Of course if that's done too often then it could be considered meatpuppetry, or at the very least it dilutes the effect of a ban. There's no perfect solution. Our current policy is that a banned editor is blocked (including any sockpuppets) and any edits made during the ban duration are reverted without question unless someone else takes responsibility for the edits. I think that's the least problematic approach, even though it can be frustrating. And yes, just because someone can vouch for a banned editor's edits, that doesn't mean they should (and in my opinion only very useful edits should be upheld, any edits that are of questionable worth should be deleted to enforce a ban). -- Atama頭 19:33, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Tomtomn00

Resolved

 – User unblocked. MBisanz ^talk 23:01, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Tomtomn00 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Meet Tomtomn00. He is a young editor who first came to my attention following his misuse of the rollback tool which led to User:Fluffernutter taking his rollback away. He has been emailing admins requesting the rights back, and has misrepresented some of the responses he got from those admins on-wiki. [18]

He has requested almost every user right available. For instance, he requested to become a bureaucrat on Kirundi Wikipedia, a wiki that he has no edits on, a wiki which which has no admins, a wiki written in a language he doesn't speak. User:Snowolf has a full list of his requests for user rights across English Wikipedia, Commons, Meta and other wikis over on Meta. This goes to show his primary intention in editing Wikipedia currently doesn't seem to be on building an encyclopedia. He makes explicit that his goal is hat collecting.

If it were just a bizarre game of "gotta catch 'em all" with user rights, that would be fine: slightly annoying for admins and 'crats, sure, but what is concerning is that almost every time he attempts to do anything, he usually ends up making the situation worse. See complaints about his non-admin closures at AfD, concerns about CSD tagging (just one of plenty), and having to have sensitive information suppressed from his userpage. There's lots, lots more in his user talk archives and his contributions: really ropey welcoming of new users on Special:FeedbackDashboard sticks out for me.

Despite patient mentoring from User:ItsZippy, Tomtomn00 has repeatedly and persistently failed to take any steps to address the concerns raised with his behaviour. I'm not convinced his actions are malicious, but something needs to be done. It'd be great if we could have an admin or user (including ItsZippy if they wish to continue) who could give him a last chance with an intensive boot camp-esque probation, but otherwise, I think we have to seriously consider calling a halt to Tomtomn00's editing career on the grounds of WP:COMPETENCE. —Tom Morris (talk) 18:50, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I have had an email based conversation with this editor around more advanced user rights, and (whilst respecting the confidentiality of those emails) would note that I have tried to explain to him that "getting" user rights is not really the point of being here. However I'm not convinced he's done anything as yet that requires exclusion from the project, unless you have some diffs to the contrary? Pedro :  Chat  18:54, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

• I don't think TomTomn00 has bad intentions, but as Tom Morris says, TomTomn just can't seem to get anything he does quite right, and doesn't seem to listen when he's told that he's doing it wrong. For instance, the reason I removed his rollback was because he was rolling back good-faith edits using huggle and it's default rollback summary, after people has spoken to him about why that was an error. When I told him this, he argued that a) Huggle just malfunctions sometimes, then b) that they were removals of content and he intended to roll them back as such (none of the edits I cited removed content), and then c) started trying to bargain back his rollback right ("I will not use huggle for a long time", then ""How about this one thing. I use Rollback to undo MY edits for at least 3 months"), and when that failed, began email-bombing admins requests for the right back (Courcelles, me, and Pedro appear to be at least three who've been contacted about this in the past few days).

  I'm also concerned by his attempts to mislead about his interactions with me after the fact - again, this reads to me less as malice and more as the "no one will notice if I just fudge the truth a little, right?" stylings of someone who lacks maturity. Between the (really, really determined) hat collecting, the inability to hear when he's corrected, and the apparent race he's in to do EVERYTHING EVER ZOMG, I think at this point we need to put the brakes on him. I could support a boot-camp style mentorship, where he "earns" the right to edit more extensively/do more tasks as he demonstrates mastery of them to a mentor, but short of that I think his bumbling outweighs the limited amount of useful editing he's doing at the moment. I would see this as less a "not ever" block than a "not now; please let us know when you can edit in a reliable manner" block. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 19:06, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

For total clarity, TomTom did not contact me about the rollback right, and I apologise if that is the implication. His email however was about other advanced rights on en.wikipedia. Pedro :  Chat  19:13, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

• User_talk:Tomtomn00/Archives/12#Your_userpage was my first interaction with Tomtomn that didn't reflect on him well. User_talk:Tomtomn00/Archives/12#Just_out_of_curiosity......... was my second. Teles' comment at meta:Steward_requests/Global_permissions/2012-03#Global_rollback_for_Tomtomn00_2 was my third encounter. I really don't see why we tolerate this sort of conduct that is documented in so many forums and therefore, I have blocked Tomtomn until he promises he will not request for any userright or tool access, from anyone or for any reason, for a year. MBisanz ^talk 19:21, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Wow, don't mean to question - but although he's shows a massive lack of WP:CLUE or WP:COMPETENCE, is he really that disruptive? (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 19:24, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Eh? I have a lot of time for you Matt - but just WOW. Which part of "preventative" was that block done under? As a recipient of TomTom's emails I feel empowered to speak out here. Pedro :  Chat  19:26, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

meta:User:Snowolf/Tomtomn00 documents to a astounding degree the number of near-frivolous userrights requests that this user has created, that people have needed to comment on and counsel him about. Tom Morris and Fluffernutter's comments, here and at Meta, demonstrate poor usage of tools that require other people's time to fix. Looking at his talk page, the majority of the current listed posts deal with poor edits he has made, people concerned about his edits/actions, and requests for other access rights. He's been counseled to stop wasting people's time requesting rights to things he is not skilled enough to do and continues to do it. This block is preventative to stop that conduct and is designed to "encourage a more productive, congenial editing style within community norms." MBisanz ^talk 19:33, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid the "naughty step until you learn how to behave" approach leaves a bitter taste in my mouth MBisanz. It works with my three year old; but she doesn't edit Wikipedia. And it's reserved for when she actually does do something wrong, rather than for when she's just being annoying. Pedro :  Chat  19:38, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I would have considered something else if he had not already consumed so many resources and shown no competence in improving his behavior. Scrolling through his talkpage is like a Who's Who for me of Wikipedians I know and respect (you included) who have tried to give him advice or teach him tasks to contribute, all of which he has ignored for many months. MBisanz ^talk 19:44, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, I don't thing anyone's going to disagree he's had his problems. I'm just not convinced an out of the blue block was ideal without any form of warning - however if that's your opinion I'm not in a position to second guess it, given you "outrank" me several times over. Pedro :  Chat  19:52, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Mmm, no? I blocked him as an admin and I profess no belief in my superior judgment skills in blocking compared to the other admins. And you're the senior admin anyway. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Pedro 2 is a solid five months senior to me (because that really really matters). MBisanz ^talk 19:58, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I was referring to the additional user rights you have (and well earned, not asked for, I might add in case anyone misinterprets that) that do imply superior judgement skills despite your modesty. I just think that this has come without a "formal" warning and as such is a little OTT. I agree he's had issues, I agree he seems to be hat collecting; indeed he's consulted me on additional rights. Nevertheless I'm still not convinced a block with a "do better and we'll unblock you" line was the right approach. Pedro :  Chat  20:05, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

That is a fair position and I appreciate your feedback on it. MBisanz ^talk 23:01, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

• edit conflicted a bunch of times :DThe two most interesting, in my opinion, episodes were the requesting Global Rollback, getting the request denied and re-filing it 3 days after... Also, I found this interaction over at simple rather concerning. In all the interactions I've skimmed thru as part of my research effort, I see the same pattern repeats: request of a right that they have no need for and no experience for, requests gets denied with mostly constructive advice, the user fails to comprehend the feedback, and after some time passes, simply re-files the request with no change in circumstances. Simply put, there's no change in behavior from October despite tons of feedback from very diverse users in very diverse forums. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 19:29, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
• Endorse Matt's block it was correct to stop the disruption of tomtom. --Guerillero | My Talk 22:27, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
• Neutral on the block As someone who has interacted with this user, I'm on the fence. If the entire point of someone's being here is to request rights frivolously, then yes, they're following proper procedures, but they're chewing up time needlessly. That being said, while he's lost rollback for having too many false positives, User:Tomtomn00/CSD_log is a sign, to me, that there might be something we can work with. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:32, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
• Note TomTomn agreed to my requested conditions on his userpage and I have unblocked him. MBisanz ^talk 23:01, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

As I was quite quickly blocked, I did not get a chance to say a word here. ~ ⇒TomTomN00 @ 00:12, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

1RR proposal at Shooting of Trayvon Martin

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

---

On March 27, I enacted 1RR at Shooting of Trayvon Martin to resolve a dispute at WP:AN. Since then, I have boldy extended this restriction through April 13. Generally, the editors of the page have been supportive of continuing it, but others have urged its termination; a recent poll is mixed.

I am therefore coming here to request the community formally place the article on 1RR under the following terms:

What does the community think of this request to alter and extend the 1RR sanction? MBisanz ^talk 20:20, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support and extend until at least the end of April, based on the number of ANI and other incidents it has spawned (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 20:24, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support - there is a terrible case of trial by wikipedia going on there and the more control of the article and talkpage the better. - En Wikipedia and its policy and guidelines are not capable of reporting on such an article in any kind of decent manner. - Thanks to User:MBisanz for keeping a bit of a lid on the issues there. Youreallycan 20:30, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
• Well Duh!---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 20:36, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support. 1RR is going to be vital to keeping this article BLP-compliant, considering how extremely polarizing the issue is. I would suggest the addition of an exit clause - perhaps something like "after [30|60|120|foo] days, this restriction may be brought back to AN for discussion if the article's editors feel it could be safely lifted." A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 20:39, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
• I'm cool with this as long as it doesn't continue indefinitely.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 20:41, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support - It's still in the news cycle, the talk page is still rolling over at an astounding rate... so this 1RR is an good stop-gap on edit warring. Shadowjams (talk) 20:51, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support - Zimmerman's attorneys just quit. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:12, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - at least until it is proven that it is still needed. We can't turn all our articles restricted just because we might get bad editors. We are supposed to be the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and simply extending restrictions because we can isn't in line with that goal. -- Avanu (talk) 22:34, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support Still a major news story and potential BLP minefield. AniMate 22:41, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
• Note I've added a 60 day expiration to the proposed text. MBisanz ^talk 22:47, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
• support The 1rr rule has been working great, with people talking about consensus. We aren't often achieving consensus, and the talk page discussions go on and on, but a discussion war is much better than an edit war. Gaijin42 (talk) 23:13, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
• Strongly Oppose There is no definitive proof 1RR has positive impact on the edits or discussion. I only know of two conflicts with editing that have come up, the first with Drmies actions which resulted in the 1RR and the second was another user who edit warred regardless of the restriction. Many editors are under a self 0RR in the article. Also the discussion is not because of 1RR, the article was heavily discussed on the talk page even before its implementation. While I am strongly against 1RR, if it is the will of the community I'll gladly support my fellow editors on their decision to see this extension and I am glad to see 1RR go up for official discussion. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 23:38, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support: 1RR encourages bold-revert-discuss cycles and discourages edit-warring. It is commonly applied to articles on politically charged topics of great active interest. 1RR hasn't prevented the article from remaining current (in fact, if anything the pressure to include the latest zOMG BREAKING NEWS!!11! about the case has carried the day regardless). I don't see the downside to maintaining the 1RR. MastCell ^Talk 00:05, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
• STRONGLY SUPPORT This subject is charged, and as such editors could run in circles trying to keep up with all the changes. There is some very civil "round-tabling" on the talk page. Therefore, I feel that 1RR should remain in effect. If editors have material they think would be beneficial, then they can place it on the talk page, let it be discussed, and then an administrator can place it or not. This will also reduce the "confusion" of the article. This is an encyclopedia, not a bulletin board. That is my 2 pence worth! --Mt6617 (talk) 00:53, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
• Strong Support as well. A highly charged topic that needs extra care. — Ched :  ?  01:03, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - Discussion on the talk page has been mostly civil; there is no indication that the 1RR is currently needed. Support re-adding the 1RR restriction for a ~2 weeks at the first sign of edit warring or gaming the 3RR, however. VQuakr (talk) 01:40, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
• Strong Support Appropriate for a flashpoint issue. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:05, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support 1RR has been working, helping to reduce the chaos on this very contentious article. Tvoz/talk 05:33, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support pile-on. KillerChihuahua^?!? 05:38, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

IP user breaching 1RR restrictions set out at WP:NCMAC

Greetings Wikipedians, I had originally posted this at the help desk, and have been advised to bring it to the attention of this page instead. User:109.242.108.54 has started to breach 1RR restrictions as set out per WP:NCMAC, in regards to the naming of "Republic of Macedonia". According to details at NCMAC, and also ArbComs decisions, when the country is being listed with other countries in articles, the we should refer to it as Macedonia. Both myself, and Kosm1fent (talk · contribs) have issued warnings to the IP; and the IP still re-reverts things back. The articles in question so far are:

• Macedonia in the Eurovision Song Contest
• Macedonia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012
• Template:Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest
• Template:Eurovision Song Contest 2012

Subsequently, the IP has accused myself of making up this decision, despite the fact its ArbCom's ruling; and has also request a page move (as shown here). What actions (if any) should be taken now, as I feel like we're hitting our heads against a stone wall. Thank you in advance. Wesley☀Mouse 10:54, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

• Discussion has now been moved to ANI, as that seems a more logical place to submit such an enquiry as this. Wesley☀Mouse 12:51, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Redirect request

I request redirect from ELLIS, DICK to Dick Ellis. This requires an administrator Tom Pippens (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:43, 11 April 2012 (UTC).

 Done waggers (talk) 13:31, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Request closure for merge proposal on Straight Pride

Request administrator to formally close proposal for merge: [[19]]. Thank you. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 12:15, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I'll take a look. waggers (talk) 13:41, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

 Done waggers (talk) 14:32, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

A request for assistance with a consensus matter

I'd like to ask if any administrators (who I assume are amongst those most familiar with consensus on Wikipedia) could take a quick look at a consensus-related issue I also posted about at Wikipedia talk:Consensus#A request for assistance with a consensus matter. Any input would be appreciated. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 20:59, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Tricia Walsh-Smith page. Another set of eyes please.

Hello. I am a bit concerned about the bio page on Tricia Walsh-Smith. One user who calls herself Fruitinlondon claims actually to be Tricia Walsh-Smith herself. On the talk page I have encouraged this user to treat the BLP page with great care and to comply with Wikipedia Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons guidelines. I have drawn this person's attention to our need to be very careful with verifiability, neutrality, and avoiding original research. In my opinion, this person has harmfully edited this page at times. I will be very grateful if colleagues will please have a look at this person's edits, as well as my thorough advice to him or her on the Tricia Walsh-Smith talk page. I've never had the experience before of dealing with an editor who claims to be the subject of the article. I don't want to get into an unhelpful contest of wills with that person. It would be unpleasant and ruin the joy of creating a fine encyclopedia through friendly discussion and collegiality. I'd rather just stop watching that particular page. Can anyone please offer me and / or the user any advice that will help to keep the page neutral, factual and scrupulously verified. Thank you for your time.GorgeCustersSabre (talk) 00:38, 12 April 2012 (UTC) .I've moved some material out of the lede that does not belong there, but I find this sort of subject too distasteful to work on, & am not going to edit further. Personally, I was about to delete the divorce material under NOT TABLOID, until I saw the extent of coverage. There's a discussion at BLPN, and I think that's where it should be continued. DGG ( talk ) 02:28, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Small Backlog

Could some admins help out over at Requests for page protection...seems there is a small backlog. Thanks.--MONGO 02:10, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

RPP backlog

WP:RPP has a 25-entry backlog. It would be nice if that could be cleared soon.--Jasper Deng (talk) 02:22, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

...and the backlog is building up again, need more admins.--Jasper Deng (talk) 04:36, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Change of content

Hello admin,

We need to change the content mention on following link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Punjabi-language_television_channels Day & Night News : It has collaborated with Canada-based G-Punjab to reach out to North Indian Diaspora in North America, particularly from Punjab. Though Day & Night News in India is a multi-lingual news station (Punjabi, Hindi and English), the service launched in the US is in Punjabi.

We need to change the upper text as Day & Night News in not available in US and not collaborated with G-Punjab. Please hope you change the text.

Regards Raman — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shaffsingh (talk • contribs) 09:20, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Go ahead if you have WP:CONSENSUS and/or reliable sources to do so. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Possible class project?

There is something very odd going on at Virtual education and Distance education with regard to recent contributions from numerous new editors. Is there some project going on of which I am unaware? - Sitush (talk) 23:08, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I should add that it has become apparent to me that this may be a push by people favouring charter schools and, in particular, Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School. That organisation is (in my limited experience of the subject matter) frequently the subject of promotional efforts here on WP. I do not know enough about the subject matter to really appreciate whether the edits are generally useful or not. - Sitush (talk) 23:22, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

As a temporary measure, I have protected the two pages for two days, pending discussion here. Any opinions on those edits? Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 19:57, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The semi has caused one of the SPAs to contact me and hopefully now I'll be able to find out more. Previously, they were moving too fast to catch. - Sitush (talk) 20:21, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I've now obtained details of the course leader and have made an appeal for an ambassador to act as liaison etc. Hopefully, that will resolve any issues. - Sitush (talk) 20:48, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Burmese history pages

A number of Burmese history related pages have come under another round of edits, now that the protection put a month ago has expired. This time by Opa-un. Some of the pages involved are: History of Burma, Nyaungyan Min, Taungoo Dynasty, Ekathotsarot, Timeline of Burmese history, Burma–Thailand relations. Based on the edits and the writing style, the user seems to be the same one who was banned as a sock puppet. Please review. Hybernator (talk) 00:50, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Shouldn't this go to WP:SPI? CMD (talk) 08:13, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The account is so obviously Thaizokku I'm getting tinnitus from the quacking. I'll reprotect the affected pages for a while and block the account. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 13:50, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. We need to protect Burmese–Siamese Wars and Htin Aung as well. Another sock puppet Nachunsk has popped up. Hybernator (talk) 23:09, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Question about IBANS

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

---

Is it an IBAN violation to remove something from an article which was added by the person with who you have the IBAN after an RFC? The consensus in the RFC [20]here is overwhelming, so would I violate my IBAN by removing the content? Darkness Shines (talk) 12:12, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Regardless of what the "official" answer is (I would say "violation", myself), why in the world would you want to run the risk of setting something off again? Surely you value the time of everyone that has had to deal with this insanity about a dozen times previously? No, just don't do it. --Floquenbeam (talk) 13:54, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I would say that it is. Let someone else do the task. Think of the IBan this way: you can violate the letter of the IBan which will earn you a block, or you can violate the spirit of an IBan which will earn you hours of stress at WP:ANI and then the letter of the IBan gets updated, and everyone thinks ill of you for a week. It's much better to just avoid the person you have an IBan with altogether and avoid doing anything that could even be construed as violating it.--v/r - TP 13:58, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The best option is to leave it alone, and let someone else deal with it. There are millions of users at Wikipedia, and if something needs to be done, someone else can do it. Wikipedia will not fall if one block of text that needs to be removed isn't, and if no one except you thinks it needs to be removed, it probably shouldn't be removed. If someone other than you also thinks it should be removed, they will do it. Either way, you shouldn't be the one doing it if you are under an IBAN or any other sanctions regarding you and another user being in conflict. --Jayron32 14:02, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

• Ok, thanks, just making sure I do not create any drama ) Darkness Shines (talk) 14:03, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Template backlog at RPP

A large number of templates have had protection requested for them if someone could swing by. Thanks. Calabe1992 02:01, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I've reviewed and acted on them all. - Rjd0060 (talk) 03:22, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Never mind - A user is going on a spree. If others can keep an eye on that page for a bit... - Rjd0060 (talk) 04:00, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

WP:RPP has a 24-entry backlog for multiple admins to clear.--Jasper Deng (talk) 06:03, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Many are by the same person who wants a load of templates protecting. Secretlondon (talk) 06:53, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I noticed them when I manually had to put some page on for Semi-Protection. There's loads of templates! Colourful Bling (talk - contribs) 16:25, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I left a question about this on George Ho (talk · contribs) talk page. Note that someone brought him up at AN/I this morning, mostly talking about redirects but also mentioning this. That discussion was closed (rightly so, I think) because George seems willing to discuss the issues, so we'll see what he says.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 20:57, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

File:Generalnakhtmin.jpg

This file was uploaded by User:Setnakhamwas at en-wp on 23 July 2009, found to be without valid copyright tag on 7 January 2011, transfered to Commons on 20 December 2011 by SreeBot, deleted at en-wp on 28 December 2011, and at Commons now filed for deletion because of its dubious copyright status. It would be helpful if someone could take a look into the history of this file at en-wp:

• Did User:Setnakhamwas ever add any license tags to this file, and if indeed which one?
• On which ground was the file kept after it had been tagged?
• Which license tags were present on 20 December 2011 when this file was transferred?

Thanks, AFBorchert (talk) 05:24, 13 April 2012 (UTC) (admin at Commons)

The file was uploaded with only a mention that "I (-Setna- (talk)) created this work entirely by myself.", no license tags were added and the uploader did not edit the page after that. While the uploader doesn't seem active on the English Wikipedia lately, he does have email enabled, so I would suggest you might want to contact him thru Special:EmailUser/Setnakhamwas. User:Sfan00 IMG tagged it as {{PD-art}} with an edit summary of "Original statue is ancient?" and subsequently requested that it be copied to Commons. The uploader commented in a related case, [21] which might give some clue in his intent. I would suggest that the uploader and SFan be directly contacted regarding the matter. I hope this answered all your questions, if not, feel free to poke. I will notify the user of this reply on Wikimedia Commons. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 09:58, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Snowolf, that is very helpful! --AFBorchert (talk) 11:16, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Hoax time

Resolved

 – G3'ed

Dennis Brown (talk) 02:49, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Per the Human voltage AFD, the article is blatantly misrepresenting sources. To quote one user: "Blatant misuse of book sources. Introduction to the anatomy & physiology of the nervous system lists 40 - 100mV as the potential difference across a cell membrane, not the voltage a human body operates on. Differential Diagnosis of Acute Myocardial Infarction Caused by Electrocution indicates something completely different than what the article is saying: "Electrical injury can affect many organ systems, it seems that the damage results from the conversion of electrical energy into heat", while the article claims that damage is caused by electrical imbalance. This is not salvageable." Is this misrepresentation enough to qualify as G3? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 17:44, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Radical right

Content dispute. No misbehavior, so nothing for admins to do. Discuss on article talk page, then take it to DR if necessary. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:28, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
[22] appears to make a lede saying that anyone who is more conservative than an official party is "radical." I postulate that such a lede is against Wikipedia policy as it makes an intrinsically contentious claim without any sourcing making the claim. This does not fit under any other noticeboard as since it is not sourced, RS/N does not apply, and since it is not a BLP, BLP/N does not apply, and as there are more than 2 editors 3O does not apply. Therefore I leave it on this doorstep <g>, trusting that common sense does apply. Cheers. Collect (talk) 18:29, 13 April 2012 (UTC) I've involved myself as an editor, and not administrator, but I completely agree. I removed the sentence and left a comment on the talk page.--v/r - TP 20:05, 13 April 2012 (UTC) Thank you very much. The whole misuse of "political spectrum" articles is a problem on Wikipedia. Collect (talk) 20:12, 13 April 2012 (UTC) Problematic wording has been restored. Issue as yet unresolved. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 01:34, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

WP:EWN backlog

Nothing major, but could use some attention. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:12, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Why is this Admin only?

So i was trawling though somewhere and came across a special page, "Unwatch Pages". Just curious why its admin only. Mrlittleirish 12:15, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

It's because it would be a juicy target for vandals. It's a list of unwatched pages - ie pages which nobody has on their watchlist. Any silly or dangerous edits made there might go undetected for a long time, hence its visibility is restricted. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 12:20, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Useful list - would it be possible to categorise them so we can get relevant Projects to take a look? GiantSnowman 12:49, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Can I have access to that page? - How many articles are on it ? Can an admin email me a copy of the articles on it so I can create my own watchlist to watch them? Youreallycan 12:52, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The list is far less useful than one might think. Please see the discussions at WT:Special:UnwatchedPages, particularly the last section. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 12:56, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I see the list of unwatched articles is so big that the watchlist at present is of little use. - thanks Youreallycan 13:05, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

• (e/c) A couple of notes:
  • It only lists the first 1000 pages (alphabetical order) that are unwatched. That doesn't get you past pages starting with "1". There is no way to skip ahead to look at any other pages.
  • It is admin-only.
  • It doesn't seem to be a high priority for the developers to change into something useful (I have no idea if a Bugzilla has been filed or not).
  • There's slightly more info at Wikipedia talk:Special:UnwatchedPages.

--Floquenbeam (talk) 12:57, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure it will be pointed out just how wrong I am, but wouldn't it be useful to have "Rollbackers" also have access to that page? It seems reasonable since those are usually the most trusted non admins.--JOJ ^Hutton 12:58, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps this should be a new user-right which can be assigned to trusted non-admins using the same careful scrutiny and diligence used to assign rollback? Then we could make a cute little icon and userbox that editors could add to their collections. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:04, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I like that idea Delicious Carbuncle. I use twinkle (which I notice has rollback option too), and detest vandals; to the point that I've been tempted to invent a cyber-vandal-swatter, similar to a fly-swat, but to whack vandals with. Wesley☀Mouse 13:08, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Delicious carbuncle was being sarcastic. --Guerillero | My Talk 13:51, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, it would be useful for people who have rollback rights to view. We could even start a Project so that no page goes unwatched. Where could we go to make something happen? Mrlittleirish 13:33, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I have started a new thread here to start motions of maybe minorly de-restricting this special page. Mrlittleirish 13:43, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I was being facetious. The paradigm of "fighting" vandals is misguided. It has lead to a hostile atmosphere where IP editors making corrections or removing BLP violations are routinely and blindly reverted for no other reason than they are IP editors. It has encouraged the participation of large numbers of "editors" who do no actual editing, but merely play a game called "fighting vandals". This willing volunteer body has allowed the WMF to ignore more effective and appropriate technological and social solutions to the problem of simple vandalism. Neither side of the game actually adds anything to the project -- the vandals change something and the vandal "fighters" change it back -- so the effort spent on this is by definition non-productive. If only the hours spent "fighting vandals" could be devoted to, say, volunteering in the vandal fighters' own communities... Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:11, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree completely with what you are saying, but the amount of pages that are actually unwatched could contain multiple BLP issues, copyright issues, the like, which could damage the reputation of the project as a whole. If we devoted our time to, first stop the vandalisers vandalising, and also improve the unwatched articles with the above violations, we can greatly improve the project as a whole. I can imagine there would be a fair few pages that could also get deleted, but go unnoticed because, well, nobody is watching them. Mrlittleirish 14:23, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

• McZillaMcBride lost his admiship for giving out the contents of this page--Guerillero | My Talk 13:50, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

  Have you got a diff? User:McZillaMcBride ? Are you joking? Youreallycan 14:06, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

  • User:MZMcBride is the one he's talking about. T. Canens (talk) 14:12, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

  Not quite, he gave a list of unwatched BLPs (obtained via a database query on the toolserver) to a banned user knowing that said banned user was planning to vandalize said BLPs as part of an "experiment". T. Canens (talk) 14:12, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

  Ah yes, thanks for the detail/reminder - Youreallycan 14:14, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

• I don't think that matters, this topic is about trying to get the special page de-restricted for trusted editors. Mrlittleirish 14:11, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

  This discussion would be useful if the page itself had useful content. As it is, I fell asleep after reading the first ten entries :) --regentspark (comment) 14:26, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

For the sake of interest, here are the current first 20 entries:

115th Infantry Regiment (Imperial Japanese Army)‏‎

11th Mississippi Infantry Monument‏‎

13th Infantry Regiment (Imperial Japanese Army)‏‎

1663 in India‏‎

1891 in Italy‏‎

1892 in Italy‏‎

1946 CCCF Championship‏‎

1953 CCCF Championship‏‎

1953–54 Scottish League Cup‏‎

1954 Uruguayan Primera División‏‎

1954 in Algeria‏‎

1954 in the People's Republic of China‏

1954 in the Republic of China‏‎

1954 in the environment‏‎

1954–55 AL-Bank Ligaen season‏‎

1954–55 Austrian football championship‏‎

1954–55 British National League season‏‎

1954–55 Bulgarian Hockey League season‏‎

1954–55 Czechoslovak Extraliga season‏‎

1954–55 DDR-Oberliga (ice hockey) season‏‎

Now somebody needs to go and watch all those vulnerable articles I've outed! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 14:35, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Hehe. Just watched the first 10. Mrlittleirish 14:42, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I got the last 10.--v/r - TP 20:55, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

• Note: I have unarchived this upon request. Not sure what's left to answer, but continue if you wish. — Ched :  ?  13:54, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

• Reason for request to re-open: To bring attention for people to comment here where there is currently an RFC ongoing for consensus to fix and open up this special page. Mrlittleirish 13:58, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I am giving out blocks of 1000 unwatched pages to those who are interested in adding to their watch list. Otherwise we would still be starting at "(" articles in the unwatched. My problem is that we only get 1000, and also that it does nt update immediately when something is watched. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:02, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

This actually makes the problem worse; because although there are thousands on the unwatched list. There are almost certainly many thousands more on the watchlists of only 3 or 4 - either inactive or not monitoring them properly. --Errant ^(chat!) 23:39, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

So, wait, keeping pages completely unwatched is better than having them on only 3 or 4 people's watchlists?
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 02:33, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I think the point is that there has been sufficient turnover among Wikipedia editors over the eleven years that the project has existed that the fact that a particular article has been watchlisted is not really a meaningful indication that anyone is actually still keeping an eye on it. It is not really worth expending a great deal of effort solely to achieve the 'paperwork' objective of moving articles off of this list, when we probably have millions of articles that aren't being watched in any meaningful sense. (This is also a scheme that, if widely-adopted, could be trivially defeated.) I don't know what the default setting is, but watchlists can be configured to display a maximum of 30 days of changes; this means that changes go unseen and unmonitored if an article isn't watched by someone who screens their watchlist at least once per month. I have a sneaking suspicion that the vast majority of Wikipedia articles fall into that category. We get away with it because the majority of Wikipedia page views come from a small population of high-public-interest, highly-watched articles. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:23, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Quite a number of soccer articles there, and I'm sure if we had a full list at WP:FOOTBALL there would be plenty of editors willing to monitor/improve said articles. I'll repeat my request to see if we can split the thousands and thousands down by topic. GiantSnowman 08:39, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

If you're looking for pages to defend...

...you don't need access to Special:UnwatchedPages. There are tons of little-watched articles that have been completely ruined over time by vandals, well-meaning people with extremely poor English skills, people who don't know what should and should not be included in an encyclopedia, people who insert lengthy, unwikified screeds that feature ALL-CAPS sections (and may or may not be copied and pasted from another website), and people who accidentally drop random junk such as '''Italic text<big></big>[[Example.jpg]]''' and their IP signatures into articles.

Renala Khurd is such an article. Chak 4GD is another. There are literally thousands of such articles. Some of these articles are on the unwatched pages list, some are not, but they all desperately need the community's attention. I spend many hours each week trying to cull the junk out of such articles, but I would greatly appreciate the help of anyone who has the time, skills and inclination to assist in the cleanup. 28bytes (talk) 19:16, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

This is exactly the purpose I see for myself on Wikipedia. I'm currently working my way through record albums on a project list. Some I only need to do my assigned task and move on, but others I edit for run-on sentences, wrong or lacking punctuation, phrasing, silly errors. But I discover them as an accidental tourist; nor am I a high output editor. So where, except by happenstance, do I discover the articles of which you speak (type)?  :)) I would love to help, but a list, a list, please, a task basket. Fylbecatulous talk 01:03, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Here you go! You don't need to edit it; as the articles are repaired, a bot will remove the entries from the list automatically. 28bytes (talk) 01:50, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! Fylbecatulous talk 11:12, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Jonathon Yip Sock

User:Nigel Gearsley is most likely a sock of Jonathon Yip, based on the editing style, the pages edited, and the type of edits. This has been a problem on these pages for a while. Semi-protection does nothing because the the sock just creates an account, does a few edits, then waits the few days it takes to go ahead and start editing again. There have been at least 3 other confirmed socks in the past several weeks as well.--JOJ ^Hutton 22:15, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I've blocked the account (obviously the same user as Jonathan Yip and others. Maybe a checkuser would like to peek. - Rjd0060 (talk) 00:22, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Whole nest of em. See SPI. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:10, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Jonathan Yip for y'all who are lazy. GiantSnowman 16:18, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

WP:AIV

needs some love, especially that IP mucking around with Materialscientist's user talk ;) The Interior (Talk) 16:35, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Took care of a few. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 16:51, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Backlog cleared, gracias. The Interior (Talk) 16:55, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Help needed at WP:SPI

We're really backlogged over at SPI. Not a lot of cases require checkuser, and many can be dealt with based on behavior alone. It seems as if many of the clerks (myself included) and other SPI regulars have been busy lately, and we have fallen behind. Any assistance would be a lifesaver. If you have any questions, you can contact me, or any of the other active SPI clerks or join #wikipedia-en-spi on freenode. Thanks for any help that you guys can provide. NativeForeigner ^Talk 05:34, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

CFD Backlog

There is a backlog of about 50 unclosed CfD discussions, going back to 9 March. The backlog seems to be growing. See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion#Discussions_awaiting_closure.

Please can some uninvolved admin help by closing some of them?

Some of the backlog involves complex debates, but most of it seems quite straightforward. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:15, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

I have just closed a bunch of them, and other admins have been at work too ... but there are still 28 open discussions, going back to CfD 2012 March 14. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:59, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Still not enough closures to shift the backlog, which now stands at 29 open discussions. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:10, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Backlog now stands at 24 discussions. Still need more admins to close discussions. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:34, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The backlog has now climbed again to 35 discussions, going back as far as CfD 2012 March 14. Still need more admins to close discussions. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:04, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Some progress, but there are still 24 open discussions awaiting closure. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:55, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Still climbing. Now 31 open. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:43, 16 April 2012‎ (UTC)

The backlog currently stands at 26, stretching back to March 28. Any volunteers to close some of these? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:28, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Spambots

Hi. We are currently under siege from several spambots and I'm due back to my wikibreak, so I thought I'd get you up to date because it's heading your way. Spambots like these come in large numbers but are quite easy to stop with an edit filter, generally speaking, if you can identify the patterns and find the ones that slip through the net. We have Filter 271 (admins only) set up for this, but some are still getting through. The filter's getting about 100 hits a day, depending on how many IPs I can be bothered to block. They are almost all from the Ukraine and Russia.

When checking a suspect IP spouting patent gibberish, check if it's triggered filter 271 (possible spambot) recently, because if it has it almost certainly is one. Please see if it needs blocking. Here's a few examples (more can be found in my logs):

• 94.181.143.56 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
• 109.87.146.36 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
• 50.117.112.86 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
• 176.8.248.25 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
• 178.137.183.93 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)

Check the filter logs. Drop me a line if I can help, but this is not something I'm now watching. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 13:02, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

How would these edits possibly be of any benefit to spammers? Either we've got some stupid spammers or some really brilliant ones. Nyttend (talk) 21:55, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I think you have to look at the potential histories of those articles, or imagine them on a totally unwatched wiki. It's about SEO context, as well as penetration testing, as well as a scattergun method; the links if any would mostly come separately but there's already been a few mentioned. They're mostly XRumer, btw, and really quite good, if you look closely. But obviously it's still just a bot and a long way off AI or even matching teh enwiki admin. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:36, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Several also appear to be former/current open proxies. Do we have a guide on how to test if an IP is an open proxy? I have blocked a bunch of them on behavioral grounds. What they post may make sense on some bulletin boards, but not in an article! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:16, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

And that's why bots will never rule over this world. There's a couple of false positives in the filter, but you can generally spot the spambots - they're the ones that keep going, or come from Ukraine. The best description I've come up with for these IPs is 'just generally bad'. They're mostly spam farms, with some zombies and cracked servers thrown in for good measure. A quick google of the IP is what I've been doing. If it's from Ukraine and there's under 100 Ghits, it might not be worth blocking. If it looks like a proxy, it probably is one. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 23:55, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

So far I've just blocked one; in my rationale I ignored the spamming and simply blocked it as an unapproved bot. How again does one check for open proxies? Nyttend (talk) 01:27, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

And then ... there is LiWa3/COIBot (on IRC) ..

• user '94.181.143.56' is listed. Last seen on 2012-04-14 23:02:11, frequency 15, confidence 90.36% - see http://www.stopforumspam.com/ipcheck/94.181.143.56
• user '109.87.146.36' is listed. Last seen on 2012-04-15 00:44:56, frequency 290, confidence 99.49% - see http://www.stopforumspam.com/ipcheck/109.87.146.36
• user '50.117.112.86' is listed. Last seen on 2012-04-13 01:06:33, frequency 61, confidence 97.56% - see http://www.stopforumspam.com/ipcheck/50.117.112.86
• user '176.8.248.25' is listed. Last seen on 2012-04-15 03:31:03, frequency 31, confidence 95.25% - see http://www.stopforumspam.com/ipcheck/176.8.248.25
• user '178.137.183.93' is listed. Last seen on 2012-04-14 08:43:45, frequency 11, confidence 87% - see http://www.stopforumspam.com/ipcheck/178.137.183.93

I've started detecting these, but do not have automated systems for reporting or reverting these (yet). However, when they start adding links, warnings will go over IRC in the appropriate channels.

These spambots are generally not only active on Wikipedia, they are also elsewhere, 'attacking' whatever they can. http://www.stopforumspam.com may be a good place to check these. I've changed the {{user}} above to the {{IPSummary}} which give (especially in spam/COI research) many more informational links for the users. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:16, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Doing the google search on the text(s) attempted to be added seems to show that it does not appear elsewhere on Wikipedia, but occurs frequently on other forums. This suggests to me that the edit filter is successfully doing its job by giving a warning, and the bot does not know how to respond to the warning and save. Since these are probably open proxies show we place a block notice on talk pages? THe spambot will not care. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:24, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

But a next user who uses it in good faith (after it is e.g. not a proxy anymore) may care to know why they can't edit. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:32, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

ProcseeBot does not label talk pages of open proxies either, but I have gone back over the last few days and put in talk page template. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:42, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Requesting an administrator to close this MFD

This | MFD has been running since April 2nd. I'd claim IAR and close it, but since it's one of my templates, I doubt it would fly  :). Will an admin kindly close it out. Thanks @-Kosh► Talk to the Vorlons►Moon Base Alpha-@ 16:39, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

IAR wouldn't have the slightest relevance to closing an MfD, first off. I just entered in an opinion to delete upon seeing what this was all about. If this thing is kept, I'd want a prohibition on actually using it to warn editors. Tarc (talk) 16:48, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Ditto. Bencherlite^Talk 17:12, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I am pretty sure he means "I'd IAR by closing it myself". Moving on...--v/r - TP 14:31, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Failure of protection

The article General relativity which is on the main page today (April 19, 2012) was protected, but the protection has failed. It has been edited by two IP-users and a new account since then. Please look into this. JRSpriggs (talk) 07:11, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

It was only protected from moves. Featured articles are generally not protected against edits, except in extreme circumstances. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:15, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Dershowitz–Finkelstein affair

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

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User Shrike (talk · contribs) has added a {{ARBPIA}} tag to the Dershowitz–Finkelstein affair Talk page without any discussion. See here for the edit and here for the editor notification of this discussion. While it has likely been added in good faith it does not seem appropriate for a page that covers an academic dispute between two American/Israeli professors.

I believe that the article subject, which has a tenious connnection to the I/A conflict at best, is outside the scope of ARBPIA sanctions without evidence of edit-warring or dispute. WP:BLP guidelines should be able to handle any problems that arise. My concern is that the ARBPIA ruling will make it difficult to handle any problems that may arise through future POV editing or editing by anons. This diff shows all the edits (two in total) that have been made to the talk page over the last three years. Likewise the article history, apart from three reversions of anon IPs, shows no edit-warring or content disputes over the same three years. It appears that the article is stable and has no need for the ARBPIA enforcement remedies.

An admin ruling on whether this article should be covered by the ARBPIA remedies would be appreciated. Wayne (talk) 15:49, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

My own opinion that it does connected because the issue is book The Case for Israel and the dispute between two known advocates for their causes. If any admin think that is not connected to the conflict.He can remove the tag.I wouldn't object--Shrike (talk) 15:53, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Seems to be clearly related to the I/A conflict, not even a stretch. The article lead makes that perfectly clear. The opinion of an editor of the controversy, and which side is right, will be directly linked to the underlying claims regarding the I/A conflicts. Monty₈₄₅ 16:02, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Quite clearly related.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:28, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely connected. The notice tag is appropriate. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 17:08, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Being peripherally connected is not enough. The remedies were instituted to resolve edit warring and content disputes which this article does not suffer from. Many stable Palestine/Israel connected articles do not have the tag for that reason. If it aint broke don't fix it. Wayne (talk) 04:52, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Capri Anderson (2nd nomination)

• AfD that has been open for longer than seven days. Erpert ^{Who is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?} 07:45, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

By rule, AFDs are kept open for at least seven days. If consensus is not immediately clear, or if there is active and beneficial discussion ongoing, it is common to let them go a couple more days - or to relist them to give an extra week. No need to panic. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 12:13, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, the extra week would probably do some good here. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 13:14, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Student editing

A new noticeboard for dealing with the Education Program and student editing issues:

• WP:ENB

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:08, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Director.sara

Please block this user for creating promotional content despite being warned. Thank you in advance--Morning Sunshine (talk) 05:52, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Already  Done by Bwilkins--Morning Sunshine (talk) 11:20, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Mills College

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

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This is possibly the wrong noticeboard, but...

This article has been heavily edited by SPAs. we know that the last two - Jkelsey and (minor editing) Millscollage - are likely and confirmed socks, respectively; the others are too old to check, but the behaviour - they show up for a while, edit only that article, and then disappear, may well indicate repeated socking. Examples: Clucas818 (talk · contribs), Vburnett (talk · contribs), Catsmith mills (talk · contribs). Or they might be alumni from the college with no ill intent whatsoever, but a minor bias. We can't know.

However, the article should probably be reviewed, check there isn't biases, and so on. It doesn't seem particularly awful, just a lot of advertising-ish language. 86.** IP (talk) 23:30, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh, note: I haven't notified anyone: They're either blocked for sockpuppetry, or haven't edited in years. 86.** IP (talk) 23:33, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

• Feel free to check and see if the tag can be removed. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 03:30, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Think that got it. Thanks! 86.** IP (talk) 15:35, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
    • No, thank you. Drmies (talk) 19:42, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Need at least one or two temporary frequent mentor

All of the listed mentors in my talk page are either busy or retired, and I think I need a temporary mentor who can frequently help me until at least one of them is back from WikiBreak. Fastily has retired, begoon is busy, and some others... I don't know, but, if there are no more active mentors at this time, I need a mentor who must substitute for Begoon until Begoon is back. See my User:George Ho/Block History #1. --George Ho (talk) 04:34, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I have been a bit busy, and must apologise to George for that. George has had some difficulties (in England we would say that he has a learning disability - a blanket term for things like dyslexia, autism spectrum, ADHD and other conditions), and occasionally needs to ask "is this a good idea". Sometimes it can take more than one go round to explain something, but once he gets it, he gets it very good. In fact, if people are interested, I come across editors who could do with a little extra help of this kind from time to time, and I would be happy to co-ordinate a little pool of support. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:00, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I am no mentor but I have interacted with George on a couple of occasions and it resolved ok - If he wants to ask me advice or something policy related question on my talkpage I will help point him in the right direction if I can - Youreallycan 23:11, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

merge

Hello. Please merge histories: 90 TV Program and Navad. thank you-- Alireza ^Talk 12:56, 21 April 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Samoon (talk • contribs)

That would not be helpful, because then we'd have some revisions of one page interleaved with some revisions of the other. I've simply redirected 90 TV Program to Navad. Nyttend (talk) 12:59, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Overdue RfD

Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2012 March 28#Legal terrorism has been open for more than three weeks, far longer than the usual week.  --Lambiam 22:02, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Closed now. Jafeluv (talk) 00:26, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Twinkle's "traverse" module

Could any admins that use (or would consider using in the future) Twinkle's "traverse" module please comment at Wikipedia_talk:Twinkle#.22Traverse.22_module? It would be much appreciated. Thanks, — This, that, and the other (talk) 02:15, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

UFC 145

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

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Can an admin have a look at this page, it is about an event going on as I type, and the MMA fanboys are using it as a realtime results service, it is next to imposable to verify what is correct and what is vandalism. Mtking ^(edits) 02:22, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

It was semiprotected just before you left this note. There were 45 edits in 11 minutes before the semiprotection, but in the 23 minutes since semiprotection, there's been nothing except three vandalism reversions and a bot adding the little semiprotection logo. Nyttend (talk) 02:37, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Opps .... missed that, thanks for looking anyway. Mtking ^(edits) 02:54, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Massive RPP backlog

As usual, WP:RPP is heavily backlogged right now.--Jasper Deng (talk) 02:37, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Muhammad RfC Edit War

I'm posting this on my talk page, on AN, and on the RfC talk page. I'm going to disregard any comments made after Xavexgoem closed. I'm also going to disregard any comments - especially inflammatory comments - made on the talk page after the RfC's conclusion. I don't know what Black Kite and Someguy are doing, and will of course take those comments into consideration should the three of us decide that it's necessary to determine the consensus. I would also like to point out to everyone involved that edit-warring over comments on the RfC is kind of annoying, and request that they stop. Thanks again to all who participated. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 04:08, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice. I was going to levy full protection, but it looks like Kww already took care of it. Nyttend (talk) 04:22, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

I was going to, but I figured that was best left to others. Hopefully the few admins involved will be responsible. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 04:24, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

User_talk:Compy90#Notification

Could I get another Admin to go check out Compy90's unblock request. He was blocked the other day indefinitely for not responding to an ANI thread. The blocking admin noted that any admin could unblock Compy without notifying him, because the purpose behind the block was to get Compy to respond. Compy has responded and the principle person who started the ANI thread has said that they are comfortable with Compy being unblocked. I would do it myself, but I feel like I have a conflict of interest here as I've worked with Compy on a regular basis for the past 6 years.---Balloonman ^{Poppa Balloon} 05:14, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Done. Seems reasonable. Of course, this is without prejudice to re-blocking if his behaviour is again disruptive. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 05:30, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Triumvirate needed for Muhammad RfC

Resolved

 – The RfC is now closed. Xavexgoem (talk) 00:25, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

It's about to close. We need 3 uninvolved admins to interpret consensus. It's a big case, and I wish anyone good luck for taking up the challenge. Edit: link Xavexgoem (talk) 22:00, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

My sympathies in advance to the poor souls brave enough to take up the task. Resolute 00:44, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Holy crap, the discussion is almost a megabyte? 95 pages of discussion and polling...Someguy1221 (talk) 00:56, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, at least it's not Verifiability or Abortion. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:09, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

I thought about participating, but I realized I had absolutely no idea where on earth to start. And I thought the PC RfC would be a bitch to close... The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:21, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

• I'll volunteer. I'm already doing the Abortion Naming one, how much more of an issue can it be?* (*sarcasm) Black Kite (talk) 01:27, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

I didn't intend to get anything done in the near future, so I'll also volunteer. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:38, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

My thoughts too. As I'm sitting here at 2:40am with a small child that appears to have lost the concept of sleeping (and most likely will keep it up for a number of weeks), why not? Black Kite (talk) 01:41, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Cool. Need just one more (unless I'm misinterpreting Northern Lights). It closes in about 20 hours. Xavexgoem (talk) 04:27, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

No, you read me right. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 05:05, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

I'll do it too; I've only just come back and thus have no stake whatsoever in the outcome. (Also, I'm filled with enthusiasm about the project again, which is kind of weird). Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 04:36, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Alright: Black Kite, Someguy1221, and Keilana. I'd get to reading ;-) Xavexgoem (talk) 04:46, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Woohoo. This will make for some great bedtime reading. :-P Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 04:48, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

This is going to make me sound like an incompetent, but I've never seen a RfC that needed to be closed by 3 a triumvirate (only ever seen the non-mandated ones). Do Black Kite, Someguy, and I need to reach a consensus on the consensus formally? (i.e. do we need to have a separate discussion after gauging consensus from the RfC individually, or should we treat this like a normal RfC?) Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 13:41, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

The way the four of us will close the PC RfC is that we'll all read over the discussions, come to our own conclusions, and then discuss it amongst ourselves to work out a decision. I'd assume that's more or less what you'll want to do. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 13:58, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that's generally how it works. Create a sub-page in the RfC, give yourselves headers, and come to your own conclusions. If there's a disagreement, then the three of you will need to find a further consensus between yourselves. Like Talk:Campaign_for_"santorum"_neologism/Triumvirate. Xavexgoem (talk) 19:36, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

There was an RfC at WP:V that required 3 admins to close. They kept their discussion off-Wiki which is what I would recommend here. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:56, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Sure, I suppose it doesn't matter much. But a summary needs to be provided, obviously. Don't know what you should do if someone one of the admins disagrees, though. Xavexgoem (talk) 21:26, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

I imagine it would be best to do it like a US Supreme Court decision. We each construct our own closing opinion in private, and we publish a communal opinion that is the intersection of our individual opinions. That is, publish as the official close only what we all agree upon. And then we can each optionally publish our personal opinion and reasoning. So I guess also similar to arbcom decisions with dissenting statements. Someguy1221 (talk) 23:12, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps someone should document some of these basic methodological ideas at WP:CLOSE. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:19, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Biruitorul

Please block this user for vandalizing pages: Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa and removing citations: Constitution of Hungary, Cold War, etc. I did not want to intervene. Thank you in advance--Jerminal49 (talk) 04:31, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

User:AGK

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

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A lot of templates on my watchlist show that during the last 24 hours they have been protected by User:AGK. Now apart from the fact that I am in favor of leaving protection levels for templates as low as possible, I'd like to know, is this spray of protections sanctioned? If not, perhaps they should all be reversed? Debresser (talk) 20:34, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Note that there are posts on his talkpage already. Debresser (talk) 20:35, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I am disappointed that you did not satisfy the general expectation that queries about administrator actions will be taken up in the first instance with that administrator. In any case, the templates being protected are those listed at Wikipedia:Database reports/Unprotected templates with many transclusions/5, and are unprotected but have over 100 transclusions. An administrator usually clears this database report every few months, in order to protect high-risk templates that have been overlooked as they become used progressively wider across the project. I am at a loss to understand who you think would "sanction" these protections, nor why they should all be reversed. You also ought to clarify that the posts on my talk page are, variously, about: requests for still more templates to be protected; for two (of hundreds or thousands) of templates to be unprotected; and of what seems to be a confused user who asked (in poor English) why the templates are being protected. AGK [•] 20:42, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment: There has been dispute over similar actions not too long ago. hf24 20:46, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Hf24, I do not see how there is significant parallel between that discussion. In the discussion you cite, HJ Mitchell full protected thousands of templates, thereby preventing almost every editor (aside from the few hundred active administrators) from changing the template without making an {{editprotected}} request. In my case, I protected the template from anonymous edits, which considering their wide usage across Wikipedia is wholly understandable (and allowable under our Protection policy). Aside from two POTD templates (which, like Articles of the Day, are not semi-protected despite their high usage) there has been no objection to the protection of a single template. In fact, where the WikiProject templates are concerned, the response has been rather positive - especially among projects with few or no administrator members. AGK [•] 20:51, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

• I'm going to hold off on protecting the remaining templates with many transclusions but no protection until this thread is closed. If anyone has the time and will, I would be grateful if someone could clarify at User talk:DePiep that I am not engaging in abusive, unapproved bot behaviour. I do not think the user is very experienced with Wikipedia, but he has posted repeatedly to my talk page and does not seem very interested in having a conversation. AGK [•] 21:02, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

User:DePiep has had an account since 2005, and has almost 30,000 edits, the majority in the Template namespace. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:28, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

In a way echoing Beyond My Ken's concerns, I have a very hard time believing that he was unaware that [23] and [24] are straight-up vandalism and is, in fact, not an "emergency bot shutoff button". --MuZemike 22:55, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

• Full support of actions This is standard operating procedure. --Rschen7754 21:36, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support protections. S-protection is hardly unreasonable here. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 21:40, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support semi-protection. JohnCD (talk) 21:45, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support semi-protection - SP of high-risk templates has been going on for a long time. - Happysailor ^(Talk) 22:07, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

I am involved, but not notified. Is AGK an editor? User:CityOfSilver? Whatever. -DePiep (talk) 21:51, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Someone says this is consensus? -DePiep (talk) 21:58, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Not sure how you're involved (except you seem to have a fly in your soup) and so should have been notified, unless your saying every user should be notified of admin actions? AGK & CityofSilver are editors, and AGK is also an admin. - Happysailor ^(Talk) 22:07, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

You were notified here, twelve minutes before you left this comment. CityOfSilver 22:12, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but I had to find it out myself, right? Now of course Happysailor may think me not involved. Suits them right not? But, dear Admins, why is this section title is User:AGK? -DePiep (talk) 22:27, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)All together: AGK is disrupting WP. Hundreds of edits, and not a single justification. Bot-like behaviour, whitchever edit automate used, but no bot home page available. Some other editors (admins?) came to the help. -DePiep (talk) 22:11, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Let's check the count. Rschen? Admin. Myself? Not. JohnCD? Admin. Happysailor? Not. CityOfSilver? Not. Beyond My Ken? Not. So, twice as many non-admins as admins have weighed in to agree with this action. It seems that you are alone—and not because of some admin conspiracy—in your lack-of-understanding-conflated-with-disproportionate-"disgust". ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 22:44, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

DePiep, your comments here (and on my talk page, to the effect that Wikipedia would be best served by me going away) are unreasonable and unjustified. Please stop. We are a collaborative community and your conduct is not appropriate. AGK [•] 22:15, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support protections as they are just non-controversial lock-ups by a trusted admin. CityOfSilver 22:12, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Disapprove and disgusted by semi-bot behaviour. -DePiep (talk) 22:16, 22 April 2012 (UTC) (me no admin)

• Support - I fail to see the problem here, and do not understand DePiep's objections. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:20, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

The fact that you do not undestand me does not say that I am wrong. So how conclude? -DePiep (talk) 22:41, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

• Question: What is this thread about? -DePiep (talk) 22:34, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

If you don't know what this discussion is about, why are you participating in it? - Happysailor ^(Talk) 22:46, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

My replies here were on individual comments. Did not you read them? -DePiep (talk) 22:51, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

• • When starting an ANI thread, you should be careful that the thread does not result in your criticism. See WP:BOOMERANG. --Rschen7754 22:44, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

We're in WP:AN - Happysailor ^(Talk) 22:46, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh goodness... someone make it stop. Please close this. Debresser originally asked this elsewhere, and then Armbrust moved it here ([25]), so let's hold up on the beating up on him. DePiep seems to be a little more annoying, but didn't bring it up here initially either. These protections are just fine, but maybe what we have here is a failure to communicate, with varying levels of blame shared by all parties? eh? Can we be done now? Shadowjams (talk) 23:25, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

• AGK has (again) been doing good work. I had a quick look at some of DePiep's comments about the issue and it looks like this drama is due to a massive misunderstanding about what "edit=autoconfirmed" protection means, and another massive misunderstanding about how to approach another editor when a problem is suspected. Hint: Start with a calm question on the user's talk page—just a neutral and simple question. That approach is both collaborative (we want to keep editors), and saves oneself from looking silly if it turns out that there is a simple explanation. Two other suggestions to anyone concerned about edits would be to read the edit summary (including its linked guideline), and test whether there really is a problem (go to one of the affected templates and obverve that the "edit" button is available, that is, a normal editor is not restricted by what AGK has done). There is no need for further discussion, although it would be good if a couple of admins kept an eye on the situation and firmly reject any further attempts to misguidedly poke AGK. Johnuniq (talk) 23:32, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Request reopening #User:AGK

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

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 Denied This was a clear cut case and the community has spoken.—cyberpower ^Chat_Absent 00:54, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Really, this talk was not finished. And even then, some edit had to be cancelled anyway: [26]. -DePiep (talk) 23:59, 22 April 2012 (UTC))

Please, drop the WP:STICK and back away. --Rschen7754 00:11, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

User:AGK -- admin

User:Rschen775 -- admin

Original post by: User:Debresser -- no admin

Conclusion: User:Cyberpower678 -- no admin

Me -DePiep (talk) 00:32, 23 April 2012 (UTC) --- no admin:

There is no restriction on non-admins closing discussions. Cyberpower678's close was entirely reasonable. Monty₈₄₅ 00:46, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

No non-admin problem claim by me (quite not). The closing editor was speedy and did not even write, nor wait. Now, what was the issue by the OP? -DePiep (talk) 00:51, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not an admin and I do them all the time. Ten Pound Hammer (non admin) closes AFDs all the time. Experienced editors will cleanup the simple and easy closes so that admins have more time to work on the more complicated stuff that requires action. It is pretty normal in situations where the conclusion is clear. It is preferred that the closer is minimally involved in the dispute, by the way. If an admin disagrees, they will reopen it. Dennis Brown 2¢ © 00:55, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Wow. I (really) came by to say goodbye & let it go, but now I discover the closing admin [27] (User:Cyberpower678), also declares this 2nd request denied. [28]. Now, who says they are Napoleon? -DePiep (talk) 01:35, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Goodbye and good luck, but I am sure that Mr Cyberpower will be most surprised and pleased to learn that you have promoted him. I think we are done here. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 01:45, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Possible compromised account of DePiep

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

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I have reason to believe that this user's account is compromised. This account was created in 2005 and has made 30,000 so it's really safe to assume this user knows how things work around here. Based on this as well as the diffs provided in the previously closed thread and their persistince about how User:AGK was not acting properly, I believe that that this is sufficient reason enough to believe this user's account is compromised and should be blocked as such on the side of caution. Any thoughts, supports, or opposes? I'm on a Wikibreak at this time so if you need me, please ping me on my talkpage.—cyberpower ^Chat_Absent 00:54, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

No. User is stubborn and clearly deficient in policy understanding, but we can't expect everyone to be cooperative, knowledgeable. DP has made most of his edits to templates, and so may not have had sufficient immersion in the protection-policy world. Besides, compromised accounts usually are identifiable by a sudden shift to plain vandalism. (Redacted). ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 01:03, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

userpage of deceased user

Could someone please protect the userpage of User:Mbdortmund, who died on April 17th; see de:User:Mbdortmund. --Túrelio (talk) 06:10, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Done. Jafeluv (talk) 06:13, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Procedure for an account with incorrect email address?

We've received a ticket on UTRS from a user who is not block and claims not to have a Wikipedia account at all, but has received a "password reminder" message from the wiki software. They are asking that the associated account be blocked, but of course I have no way of knowing whether the email address is actually associated with this account. Is there a class of users who could handle this request? --Chris (talk) 16:05, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I generally don't agree with self-requested blocks unless there's a valid reason. Given that this request is due to a password reminder, which doesn't pose any security threat (and is actually a somewhat common OTRS inquiry) I don't see reason. Rjd0060 (talk) 18:16, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think this is a self-requested block -- it sounds like this user may have had their email address compromised at some point, and someone else set up an account using it. At a minimum, we should consider disassociating the email address from the account on our end. --Chris (talk) 19:37, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

You can find out whether the email address is associated with the account by sending the account a message via Special:EmailUser. If the same address responds, it's associated. Jafeluv (talk) 19:43, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I would suggest asking the person to send you the entire email with full message headers intact. Based on similar complaints to OTRS in the last few days, I believe someone is phishing and the email may be coming from a non-WMF email server. --Versageek 20:26, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

As Verasgeek says, it's a spam issue from an unrelated site (apparently masquerading as a Wikpedia email). --Errant ^(chat!) 20:30, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Unusual number of Talk pages being created by IPs

If you check my recent deletion log ([29]), you can see that I've been deleting an unusually large number of talk page that have been created by IPs in the last few days. In some cases, these are pages where the Article itself has already been deleted, but in other cases no article ever existed. The creations seem to be by a wide variety of different locations. This could be a coincidence...or else something is up. I don't know what that "something" is...but I just wanted to alert others in case they have thoughts. Qwyrxian (talk) 14:03, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

To clarify, most are just vandalism--some filled with random characters, an exmaple image, etc. A few others are just random hoaxes...only 1 or 2 seem to legitimately have an encyclopedic purpose.

Wait a minute...are IP addresses supposed to be able to create article talk pages? Qwyrxian (talk) 14:06, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Talk pages are the only kind of mainspace pages that IPs can create, IIRC. Syrthiss (talk) 14:08, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

They can and do: some IPs have been very prolific (and helpful) in tagging pages for wikiprojects. Nevertheless, I often delete test pages, vandalism and misplaced article space contributions from IPs in article talk space, as well as deletion complaints and random junk. Acroterion (talk) 14:11, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Okay, momentary lapse or reason there. Nonetheless, I wonder if someone somewhere out in that great big network of tubes spilled the WP:BEANS about that ability, because these were not the helpful edits you mention above, and seem to be far more prolific than I've seen on the CSD lists before. But, maybe I just caught a random statistical fluke. Qwyrxian (talk) 14:19, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I also deleted a bunch of these earlier, but I don't think it's either random or an offwiki WP:BEANS violation. Every page of this sort that I checked was tagged by Aleenf1, as well as a few non-vandalism talk pages (e.g. Aleksandar Pešić) that s/he had tagged; if you check Aleenf1's userpage, you'll notice a barnstar given several months ago for clearing out orphaned talk pages. Looks to me like Aleenf1 ran a search for orphaned talk pages and has been tagging them en masse. This reminds me of a situation from when Mean as custard was new: s/he decided to search for and tag spam userspace pages, and we initially thought that there was a massive spike in the number of userspace spammers. Nyttend (talk) 15:36, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I was one of those who gave Aleenf1 a barnstar. They have been tagging orphan talk pages for a long time. No grand conspiracy here. For those who like to exercise your delete button, you are welcome to help with Wikipedia:Database reports/Orphaned talk pages or many of other reports at Wikipedia:Database reports. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 16:58, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Ah, that makes more sense. I was trying to find a connection in the page topics, the IP addresses, and style of editing, but didn't think to connect the nominator. I was surprised to see so many all at once, but it makes sense that this is something that would normally slip through the cracks until someone runs a report. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:24, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Interaction ban requested

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

---

I recently reverted a change MZMcBride made to Fastily's retirement message. His response was to call my actions brainless and suggest that my action was damaging Wikipedia. After several other editors on my talk page backed me up, and he decided to give me a lecture about image borders, I told him to get off of my page. He didn't listen and posted again, only for the comment to be removed by a passing admin, who told him that he would be blocked if he continued to post to my page. Today I noticed that he was taking a potshot at me on the page of one of the users that intervened on my talk page.

Since he's not getting the hint that harassment is unacceptable, I'd like for an uninvolved admin to impose a month long interaction ban between MZMcBride and myself. The ban would prohibit MZMcBride from:

• Posting on my talk page, at any time, for any reason, until 23 May 2013.
• Making comments about me, on any page, for any reason, until 23 May 2013.

Ideally, the interaction ban would be enforced by an immediate, no warnings, no second chances block.

In turn I will also not comment on his page or comment on him on any other page for the duration of the interaction ban.

Is anyone willing to do this?

Sven Manguard Wha? 20:09, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I'll simply repeat what I said elsewhere:

You're very dramatic lately and you seem rather hell-bent on creating some kind of feud between me and you. One doesn't exist, but you've been trying to rally people around the idea that it does. I'm not sure why this is.

As I said, I think you need to take at least a break from the project, based on my observations of your behavior. But that's ultimately your call. :-) From what I've seen, people who don't take breaks have a much higher likelihood of burning out completely.

Anyone else is, of course, free to analyze the diffs and such. If there's some prior history of bad blood between Sven and I, someone should please share that with me, so that I can attempt to make it right. Sven's current rhetoric suggests that I've engaged in heinous crimes (posting to a talk page is harassment?), but I don't believe that I have.

I'm happy to not post at User talk:Sven Manguard. As for calling Sven toxic, I believe his subsequent actions have only illustrated the point perfectly, though I can certainly refrain from belaboring the point. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:18, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Why on earth were you screwing around with someone else's retirement message? How incredibly rude and obnoxious! --Errant ^(chat!) 20:33, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Did you look at what was changed? I was mostly fixing a typo or two and clarifying a few abbreviations with links. Horrors. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:02, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I wanted to revert that edit as well. Ended up reverting Sven by accident so I reverted myself. Other people's messages aren't to be screwed around with period. ESPECIALLY IF IT'S A RETIREMENT MESSAGE. peeple r not to b scrwing wit oter peeples msgs.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Temporarily Online} 20:41, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Huh, that's an interesting view. Just out of curiosity, would you revert this edit as well? --MZMcBride (talk) 21:09, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

No. That is a public page much like an article and corrections to that can be made if necessary. Editing comments, statements, or anything else that is signed is highly frowned upon.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Temporarily Online} 21:18, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

For heaven's sake. Honestly, the dispute here is the sort of argument about nothing that many of us have grown sick and tired of. Common sense and common courtesy suggest that there is nothing wrong with editing a post to correct obvious typographical errors that there can be no real dispute the original poster would have corrected if he or she had caught them, especially if the post is somewhere it's meant to be read by a large number of people and the typos would be a distraction. On the other hand, one doesn't edit someone else's posts for substance or meaning, or significantly rewrite them, or to elide the poster's intentional idiosyncrasies of expression. If in doubt, leave it alone; if in no doubt, go ahead and fix it; and in any event, please find something substantially more important to argue about. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:26, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Like that do you mean? ;-) Malleus Fatuorum 21:30, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

My concern is not specifically that MZMcBride is changing what Fastily said as much as that MZMcBride refused to leave afterwards and then decided to continue to instigate from another page. That's why I want the interaction ban. Sven Manguard Wha? 21:34, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, this isn't an issue as much with MZMcBride's editing a retirement message (which is in poor taste) but his actions after doing this. Instead of engaging in constructive discussion with Sven regarding their disagreement MZ immediately leveled insults at Sven. Furthermore MZ has instigating and spreading this issue to other pages. It's entirely inappropriate and requires remedy. Basket of Puppies 21:37, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

• I've come out of retirement to comment here. Mz's behavior here is egregious and a clear violation of policy. His personal attacks and clear violations of WP:CIVIL are for some reason tolerated. I'll never forget when he replied to my technical difficulties with a litany of personal insults, including insane and called me a moron and stupid. He was cautioned then from making further insults yet this doesn't seem to have helped. I urge the community and administrators to consider blocking MZMcBride as long as necessary in order to prevent further violations of policy. Basket of Puppies 21:30, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
• Userpages do not belong to users. I for one fail to see what was wrong with a little tweaking to improve the original message. Its meaning and wording was not altered or changed in any way, and I don't see why Fastily would have any problems with it, let alone somebody else. There would be a point if Fastily himself reverted it, thus showing his disapproval of it, but otherwise I see no point in getting to a revert war over a some minor typos. Seems to me Mz was simply trying to do some minor tweaks to improve and make the message more clear. I for one would welcome if my messages were tweaked like that, provided their meaning was not changed, and fail to see why anybody would not. If one doesn't like it, they can just revert back and that's that. I find this discussion rather silly, there was no change in the meaning, just some minor tweaks for clarity, bah. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 21:46, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

  It's not so much MZ's editing of the retirement message as it is his actions following the disagreement. He immediately resorted to personal attacks, violated civility, and breached etiquette. This is habitual for him and it requires remedy. Basket of Puppies 21:52, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I sincerely apologize to the community for bringing Basket of Puppies out of retirement. I can't state clearly enough that I had absolutely no intention of doing so. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:58, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

• Without passing comment on the merit of this request, I wonder if Sven is receptive to closing this thread, waiting for a week, and submitting a new request at that time—if he still finds this necessary. AGK [•] 00:02, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Sure. If MZMcBride makes contact again I'm not going to wait the full week, but if he dosen't, there's no reason to bring it up later at all. All I ever wanted was for him to drop it and leave, and I wouldn't have started this request in the first place if I thought it could be achieved any other way. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:58, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
    • I think that's a good approach. I'll close this. 28bytes (talk) 01:10, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Consensus and editing with respect to guidelines

• I understand that Wikipedia is a wiki, meaning anyone can edit it. But shouldn't there be some kind of consensus before users make bold edits to guidelines? I ask this because of a disagreement going on here. Erpert ^{Who is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?} 17:54, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

• The relevant rule would be Bold, Revert, Discuss. If someone makes a bold edit that you disagree with, then revert it and start a discussion on the talk page to reach some sort of agreement between you and the other user. Silverseren^C 18:57, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
• Though I do agree that discussion should be had before making a bold edit to a guideline or policy, but there's no rule against it. Silverseren^C 18:59, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

• There isn't? Really? That's like someone coming up and changing something on WP:V. Erpert ^{Who is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?} 19:49, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
• There are no rules here at en wikipedia , there are only policies and guidelines and WP:BRD - is neither of them, its an essay, unaccepted by user consensus. - issue is about pornbio , yawn.Youreallycan 19:07, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

• The difference between editors who follow the excellent advice offered by WP:BRD and those who dismiss it as "just an essay" is that the latter tend to have lots of edit-warring blocks in their block logs. 28bytes (talk) 19:16, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

• I wouldn't agree with that - I have some experience with both blocks and WP:BRD - personally I follow BRD almost always. You comment seems a bit simplistic as sometimes other content concerns/mitigating issues are involved, regards - Youreallycan 19:22, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

• I agree, my point is very simple: BRD is one of the most valuable essays we have, and the more people follow its advice, the more smoothly everything runs. 28bytes (talk) 19:28, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

• Yes I agree, although I sometimes fall from its lofty height, its a conflict reducing way of editing. I think the reason its not policy is that policing it as policy would be impossible. - Youreallycan 19:34, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, the edit that bothers Erpert so much is hardly a bold one, but a relatively modest attempt to summarize a rough and limited consensus established by a long sequence of AFD and DRV discussions, as well as current discussion on the relevant talk page. Erpert, in a uniquely tendentious fashion, is insistent on the point that a guideline which was found unsatisfactory by strong community consensus after an RFC, with followup discussion approaching a consensus to simply eliminate it[30], should nevertheless be applied broadly and uncritically, without regard to the demonstrated community sentiment. This is pretty much a case where WP:NOTBUREAU should be seen as controlling policy, and Erpert needs to accept and respect the consensus demonstrated at the relevant DRV. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 02:53, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

• I asked a simple question about guidelines because of a dispute, not to bring the dispute here. Leave it where it is, please. Erpert ^{Who is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?} 07:01, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Content_changes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:22, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

The second paragraph of that section seems to contradict the first paragraph. Erpert ^{Who is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?} 04:33, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Um, no, it doesn't. What it's saying is, "don't invent a new process, then try to add it to the guideline yourself." Rather, a change in process needs to be gained by consensus, then the guideline should be edited to reflect that change. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 21:54, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I think it does. First it says "it is not strictly necessary to discuss changes or to obtain written documentation of a consensus in advance", but then it goes into "it is [...] bad practice to write something other than accepted practice on a policy or guideline page". Which is it? Erpert ^{Who is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?} 05:55, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

No, again, you're conflating two different things. Your first quote refers to consensus processes already in place. The second is about putting your own changes to process into the guideline. Maybe I can make it more clear with a (fictional) example:

Example 1) Timmy notes that deletion discussions with dozens of Keep comments, but at least one valid Delete comment are denied early closure by WP:SNOW. After clarifying that this is the consensus for how things should be, he edits WP:SNOW to reflect the current process.

Example 2) Timmy believes that deletion discussions with dozens of Keep comments, but at least one valid Delete comment should not be allowed to close early by WP:SNOW, but admins have been closing early, citing WP:SNOW. Timmy edits WP:SNOW to reflect what he wants the policy to be, even though that is not how things are being done.

In #1, Timmy is just changing the policy page to reflect what is already being done. In #2, Timmy is changing the policy page to reflect what he wants to be done. The former is fine, the latter is not. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 12:50, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

To be fair, WP:SNOW isn't a guideline. But the former example seems like jumping the gun; I mean, shouldn't he make a change like that after the discussion is over? And the practice might be accepted in that situation (probably as a result of WP:IAR), but that doesn't necessary correlate to all of Wikipedia. Anyway, both paragraphs still look like contradictions to me (your examples don't though). Erpert ^{Who is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?} 17:50, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

As I said, it was a fictional example. I picked SNOW at random, and not as a specific policy decision.

And no, you shouldn't make a change to a policy page for one instance. It's not prohibited, however you're likely to be reverted pretty quickly & corrected. If there is an ongoing trend, and there seems to be consensus for it, editing the policy to reflect that is fine. Either way, if someone objects, WP:BRD is the next step: discuss it on the policy's talk page.

The policy isn't contradictory, I think you're still misreading "accepted practice" to mean you have to get consensus first. You don't. It's probably a good idea to ask first, but not required. It's not "jumping the gun" to make a change reflecting the current trend. No prior discussion is required. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:09, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Software update?

Was the MediaWiki software updated just a few hours ago? The way the diffs are shown is very from before and a little harder to see.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Temporarily Online} 19:24, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

See here. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 19:26, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

And here (In case you don't scroll down far enough). I installed the new scheme some time ago and like it, but YMMV.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 21:33, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

WP:RFC/COI and WP:RFC/ARS

Both requests for comments on the conflict of interest policy and the article rescue squadron need closure. They've both gone on for more than a month and I think that's sufficient time to find a consensus. Hopefully, we can find three volunteers just as quickly as the Muhammed RFC did above. Regards, Whenaxis talk (contribs) ^{DR goes to Wikimania!} 23:55, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

• As I participated at WP:RFC/COI I wont comment regarding that one, but a brief review of WP:RFC/ARS looks like it could be closed by a single closer. Not that there is anything wrong with doing triumvirate closes if the closer(s) would prefer to do it that way. Monty₈₄₅ 00:16, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

  Yes, perhaps. One closer for WP:RFC/ARS. Whenaxis talk (contribs) ^{DR goes to Wikimania!} 00:46, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Personally, i'm not willing to close either on my own, even with the amount of RfCs I have closed. But I would be willing to assist in the closing of both since I have some free time running around the next few days. I would personally say three for each so we don't get stuck in deadlock. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 07:19, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

94.3.137.170

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

Can someone please turn off talk page access?--Jasper Deng (talk) 01:13, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Y Done Rjd0060 (talk) 01:31, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Article rename against consensus by administrator

There was a proposal to rename The Troll Hunter article to Troll Hunter at Talk:Trollhunter#Requested_move_1. Evidence was provided for the rename, and evidence was provided against the rename, and the consensus at the article failed to determine that a move was justified.

However when the debate was closed the article was moved to Trollhunter (which was a rename that was not proposed and not discussed), and the closer failed to present empirical evidence that the new title is preferred under WP:COMMONAME. In fact, the basis of the argument was simply that the New York Times used the Trollhunter spelling, but there are plenty of other reliable sources that deviate from this i.e. the NYT doesn't trump all other reliable sources.

The closure and rename has been brought up at Wikipedia_talk:Requested_moves#Strange_move_closure.3F and continued at Wikipedia_talk:Requested_moves#Arbitrary_break.3F, on the basis that the consensus at the article correctly determined that the rename wasn't warranted under COMMONNAME. I would prefer some impartial input at that discussion, because it seems like an administrator has taken a unilateral action that a consensus failed to reach. It sets a dangerous precedent IMO because it implies that administrators can trump the consensus arrived at through discussion. Betty Logan (talk) 17:56, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Technically, admins can override consensus, if said consensus flies in the face of Wikipedia policy. I'd have to go through all the pages linked first before weighing in on if that is appropriate in this case, which might be a while. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:06, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I would appreciate that. If there was a policy breach in the discussion then that's fair enough. My point of contention is not so much the end result (I can live with it) but how the decision was made. If the guidelines weren't being interpreted correctly the discussion could have been given some guidance; if he felt the correct rename hadn't been proposed it could have been added to the discussion and analysed on its own merits. I appreciate that discussions can sometimes misinterpret guidelines and policy, but if that is the case then I see no reason why the discussion can't be extended to take account of a revised understanding. I'm not asking for a review of the outcome, it's process I would like to see reviewed, since I think consensus was marginalised to an extent. Betty Logan (talk) 19:24, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

frankly from a quick read thru the discussion I think the article should have been kept at the first contributors preference per wp:engvar. Nil Einne (talk) 18:17, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

• I've honestly never understood the "first contributors preference" thing... but that's a completely different subject. It's not directly relevant to this particular discussion, but I wanted to mention the new Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closure review proposal here, since it's being designed to handle exactly this sort of situation. Regards,
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:57, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Where do I go to complain about these new T&Cs

Basically there's one thing that worries me - the term "applicable law". What does that mean? Could my contributions be subject to the law of, god, I dunno, Belarus?

And the clause about threats is very dangerous. What is a threat? If I say I am going to report someone to ANI if they don't stop their behaviour, is that a threat? Actaully I can find lots of scary things here... I want my mummy... Egg Centric 19:03, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Might help if you told us what you were talking about. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:08, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

On the top of every page on wiki I see "Our updated Terms of Use will become effective on May 25, 2012. Find out more" - sadly that goes to the foundation wiki which ain't editable.

As a side point it appears the banner is suppressed if you have the gadget to supress the fundraising banner enabled. That's why many didn't know what you were refering to.--Cube lurker (talk) 19:29, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Ah, that would explain it. Pretty sorry oversight on their part, using the same flag as fundraising banners. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:51, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

meta:Talk:Terms of use would be a better forum to comment on the ToU. MBisanz ^talk 19:46, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Please could others as disgusted as me that there was essentially a secret consultation, look at meta:Talk:Terms_of_use#Re-open_this.21 and add your calls to mine for this to be re-opened. Of course, if no one else does then I suppose no one cares, which de facto vindicates those behind this. But I'm disgusted. Especially as there's a rule I would have liked added - it should have been common sense, but since I encountered a complete lack of it ont he wiki I refer to, they need to be kept in line. Egg Centric 20:59, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

That's a horrid overreaction. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 22:16, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

"Secret consultation"? Hundreds of users managed to discover that so-called "secret", probably because it was repeatedly announced in multiple different forums over a span of at least four months before the Board's vote. If you managed to miss every single one of these announcements (and there are more than the half-dozen I've linked here), then you really haven't been paying attention.

Your question about "applicable laws" has been answered several times, but since you apparently missed it and haven't figured out how to search the archives at Meta, let me give you the summary: Which laws apply depend on who you are and where you are. Those laws apply whether the WMF maintains strict silence about their existence or whether (as they elected to do) they kindly point out in the TOU that there are laws in the real world about what you do on the internet. If you are an American national, editing Wikipedia from an American location, then American laws apply to you. If you are a Belarusian national or you are editing from Belarus, then Belarus' laws apply to you—and this would be true even if the WMF didn't have a Terms of Use agreement in the first place. If you want to know exactly which laws apply to your particular situation, then you need to take your own money and hire your own legal counsel.

As for an effort to reverse the TOU adoption: These terms were adopted by a vote of the Board. Getting them changed will therefore require another vote of the Board. The next Board meeting is scheduled for about six weeks after the TOU are scheduled to go into effect. Your actual choices as a user in the short term are therefore either to like it or to lump it. Making noise or badgering the staff won't have any effect. The only effective course of action is to change a majority of votes on the Board (which, again, ain't going to happen, but if you want to try, that's what you need to be trying to do). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:40, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

It should have had a banner. The announcement about the outcome had a banner. That there was to be a discussion could have done as well. Anyway, that is a side issue. The voting thing is far more important (now that the legal thing has been explained to me) - you should not be blocked from doing things on meta that you would be allowed to do on en in furtherance of voting on en. Enshrining that in the rules would have been a great idea and maybe it can still be an addemendum Egg Centric 18:09, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Having looked at the actual terms, it seems clear to me they're referring to long-term harassment of a user. "Threat" would mean actual threats against a person, not "I'm reporting you to ANI." For "applicable law," I'd read that as "law where the servers are located." Potentially "laws where the editor is located." — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:51, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

An example of 'law where the editor is located' came up recently in respect of a criminal trial taking place in England. The English media are subject to a general restriction (sub judice) on reporting a trial, and also were subject to specific reporting restrictions on this trial. If an English based Wikipedia editor had managed to find out what went on at the closed hearing and reported it on Wikipedia he/she would have been in contempt of the English court, and potentially could have gone to jail. All the WMF effectively is saying is 'you are also subject to the law in the country you live in', which is rather of the blinding obvious. Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:38, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps it's just there to prevent an editor who gets in trouble with local laws from suing WMF because it encouraged him to ignore those local laws? Nyttend (talk) 13:30, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I think it's there primarily as a courtesy, to remind users in difficult legal situations that just because the WMF is subject to California laws doesn't mean that they can't get in trouble with their local system if they write something that is legal in California but illegal in their location, not because of any liability the WMF could have. I believe that they honestly don't want their (e.g.,) Chinese users to get arrested, and breaking the illusion that local laws are irrelevant is one way to protect some naïve users. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:21, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

(ec) I don't think protection against confused users is their primary concern. In fact this thread itself seems to illustrate the need for such a term. It does seem a lot of people mistakenly believe that either because it's a US site or because it's the Internet they're somehow not subject to local (and potentially other) laws on libel, copyright etc or that only the foundation as hosters have any risk. Clearly it's not in the foundations interest to have its contributors get in trouble because of such an unfortunate misconception even if there's no legal risk to the foundation. Nil Einne (talk) 17:28, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Potentialy disruptive edits

Resolved

 – User blocked for 48 hours

Heads up Jordanspeled (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is changing a lot of categories related to Jews. There is nothing inherently problematic about this, of course, but a new user appearing out of nowhere editing dozens of categories related to an ethno-religious minority is worrisome. I have not notified this user, as it's possible that I'm just being overly sensitive and this is a tempest in a teapot. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:22, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Well I notified them for you. If they are doing it in good faith, look at the complaints on their talk page, it is better to be informed that people are talking about you rather than behind your back. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 12:28, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I have blocked the user for 48 hours. Daniel Case (talk) 14:15, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

May sanctions that are actively in effect be removed from a user talk page

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:User pages#May sanctions that are actively in effect be removed from a user talk page. Particularly, may an editor remove active block notices and community sanctions from thier talk page? Monty₈₄₅ 17:31, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Conveniently enough, we're doing a buy one get one free deal at WT:UP; there's another (unrelated) RfC directly below the one mentioned above. Feel free to visit both. ‑Scottywong| talk _ 21:59, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

WP:AFC/R#Redirect request: Father Knows Best???

I'm requesting a redirect for an episode of Perfect Strangers. The link is List of Perfect Strangers episodes#ep79. --George Ho (talk) 19:58, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Time to make WP:BRD policy?

If anyone's wondering where the thread went, it's at the Village Pump.[31] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:02, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

A backlog at RPP

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

---

Hello, any admins looking for something to do could help at the Requests for Page Protection. I would specifically note the BLP issues being inserted by IPs at Khurshid Ahmad (Professor of Computer Science) -- The Red Pen of Doom 21:28, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know, But something definitely needs to be done at RPP. Dipankan ^{(Have a chat?)} 15:49, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

94.3.137.170 again

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

Can someone please revoke talk page access again?--Jasper Deng (talk) 19:13, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't object, but why not wait? Don't feed the trolls, and all that, you know?
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:20, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Uh, I'd ignore for simply removing the block notice or unblock requests, but the NSFW images were over the top. In any case an admin removed access already, so everything's taken care of.--Jasper Deng (talk) 19:22, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Block / unblock review: FleetCommand

Moved to WP:ANI for speedier input. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rannpháirtí anaithnid (talk • contribs) 21:32, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Histmerge

Can an admin please histmerge ‪Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eidolon (apparition)‬ (2nd nomination) to ‪Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eidolon (apparition)‬ and move all the content to the latter title? Two discussions were created at the same time, and both had !votes made before the error was realized. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 21:47, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

 Done. JohnCD (talk) 22:28, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Double category

This is a duplicate of this one. could you please delete the first one? --Kasper2006 (talk) 16:12, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Please take one or both to WP:CFD. Nyttend (talk) 19:14, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Mediation and perhaps later arbitration needed for dispute at the article on Adolf Hitler

First of all currently I am really tired out, and have attempted informal mediation procedure in the past with other articles which has failed because no user wanted to mediate the dispute. Therefore I am addressing it here first, and am asking for administrators to assist in settling this dispute, perhaps by creating a section in the mediation section and raising attention for someone to mediate it because this is a serious issue in historical research.

The dispute is over when Hitler became an anti-Semite. One side says that he was an anti-Semite in Vienna in the 1900s and 1910s, as Hitler claimed he became an anti-Semite in Mein Kampf. The other side that I support, says that there is no verifiable evidence that Hitler was an antisemite in Vienna and that he became an antisemite later. I have used up-to-date reliable sources that have been praised by prominent historians, such as Hitler's Vienna: A Portrait of the Tyrant As a Young Man by Brigitte Hamann - she says that there is no verfiable evidence that Hitler was an antisemite in Vienna and notes that Hitler had multiple Jewish friends in Vienna and she names them and describes their relationship. The other source I have provided is Hitler's First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World War by Thomas Weber - Weber says that claims of Hitler being an anti-Semite during the war have been based on Mein Kampf - a book in which Hitler sought to promote himself. Weber investigated the files of Hitler's regiment in World War I that had been left unopened for almost 90 years and researched them - he found no evidence of Hitler being antisemitic during the war and notes that it was unlikely that the regiment was an environment that would foster antisemitism since Jews served alongside non-Jews in Hitler's regiment and that his commanders were not known for being antisemitic during the war or immediately after but that many had social democratic allegiances.

I have gone over this issue ad nauseum with users who dispute this, but they have failed to provide up-to-date sources that counter Hamann's or Weber's claims. I have attempted to add this new material while retaining the claims by Hitler and historians that say that he was anti-Semitic in Vienna. All my edits were reverted by a user. I believe that the attitude by some of the other users that is guiding their objection is Wikipedia:I just don't like it while not providing up-to-date reliable sources to back up their claims.--R-41 (talk) 23:48, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Mein Kampf must be treated as a primary source; it cannot be used by itself to establish any particular fact except that Hitler wrote such and such down and published it. If the people saying Hitler was hateful toward Jews from 1900 in Vienna have no other sources, then they are out of luck. Better scholarship should be brought forward, notionally equal to Hamann's naming of Jewish friends and Weber's investigation of regimental files. Binksternet (talk) 00:10, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

They have secondary sources, but those sources commonly use Mein Kampf as the source to describe Hitler's youth in Vienna and Munich - the historian Thomas Weber who I mentioned above, has noted that many biographies of Hitler use Mein Kampf to describe his youth years and Weber says of course like other wise historians that Mein Kampf is an unreliable source because it was written by Hitler to promote himself.--R-41 (talk) 01:11, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

This is a content dispute and you may not have much luck with administrators regarding help - particularly with something this charged. If there's a discrepancy, it's best to describe it, follow the most up-to-date sources, and describe the various viewpoints by attributing directly to scholars. Agree also that Mein Kampf is a primary source. Rely on the best secondary sources instead. I've written a few biographies and though I have no interest at all in Hitler, might peek in there. Truthkeeper (talk) 00:46, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

The discussion is at the bottom of Talk:Adolf Hitler#Dispute over whether Hitler was anti-Semitic whilst living in Vienna. I request your assistance by both of you and others who may arrive here, if you could address your concerns you have made here to also be addressed at that talk page and to hear out their concerns as well, again here is the link: Talk:Adolf Hitler#Dispute over whether Hitler was anti-Semitic whilst living in Vienna.--R-41 (talk) 01:08, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

As Binksternet notes, remember that you can always cite Mein Kampf as a source for what Hitler said. As long as it accurately reflects the book, nobody's going to dispute a sentence of "In Mein Kampf, Hitler claimed to have become an anti-Semite while living in Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century". Nyttend (talk) 01:42, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but looking at the talk page, I don't have much interest in getting involved. However, I've done a quick search for reviews for Hanmann's book, and found this here from Foreign Affairs in which they write: "Hanmann must be congratulated on her critical and discriminating approach to her sources and the fascinating double story she tells". My sense is that some small bit of this material should probably be included, whether or not we want to. Generally, I think it's possible for this to be done in a short few words, that some sources say x and others say y. Attributions to the authors are really almost mandatory in this case. Truthkeeper (talk) 02:16, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Capri Anderson (2nd nomination)

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

---

• This discussion has been open for over two weeks. Can it be closed? (If it's "no consensus", so be it.) Erpert ^{Who is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?} 08:04, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't look like it was ever transcluded into the April 12 log ... (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:32, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

At the moment, the AFD is transcluded onto the April 20 log, as it was relisted... Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 16:45, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh, by the way, I did it yesterday - and besides the attempted leading me into temptation by the OP, it was most clearly not "no consensus", because Wikipedia is WP:NOTAVOTE (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 10:41, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Infobox out of standard

In this talk page I explain the question. This is the diff (my revert was approved by an admin on IRC). May, at this point, to revert to provide you? What I've explained to the user directly in his talk, but he seems to want to insist. --Kasper2006 (talk) 16:12, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Umm, what are you trying to say? Please rewrite your comment so that we can understand you. Nyttend (talk) 20:16, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

If you followed the links was all clear. BTW The "infobox" used in this page: International Sailing Federation is "out of standard" (too long, too large, too much information), created by a newbie user without consensus and least but not last "misused" (it's an infobox created for a "national sport federation", but ISAF is an "international governing body" and all the others IGO used Template:Infobox Organization). I hope I was clearer (but once the French were not the ones you did not want to strain to understand? ;-) ) --Kasper2006 (talk) 03:28, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Kasper, for clarity, could you please explain why Yachty's preference is invalid, or incorrect, IYO. — GabeMc (talk) 04:56, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

But...of course. ;-) IAAF is an "international governing body", used Template:Infobox Organization, International Tennis Federation is an "international governing body", used Template:Infobox Organization, all IGB used that template. Why International Sailing Federation must to use Template:Infobox national sports federations that Yatchy created? May be is a "national sports federation"? No, of course. Yatchy in talk page of the infobox that he created, told me that he also seeks the views of the community. But, I reapet, the real question is: the "new infobox" (who has not obtained the consensus before creation), is too long, too large, too much information. --Kasper2006 (talk) 05:48, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Have you tried building a talk page consensus for your preferred version? — GabeMc (talk) 07:53, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

GabeMc I do not seek any consensus, I have no favorite template. I'm just saying that 827 sports federations for 32 years using the old template on wikipedia. Why today would have to change? It is he who needs to seek consensus, not me. --Kasper2006 (talk) 10:24, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Ok so 832 sports federations is surely a big enough number to justify having something designed for purpose not a general organisations template. 40 odd major federations with over 100 national members each makes the potential for 1000's of pages. I am happy to work with user to modify the template infact I would love some help with it by some clever people I am not a programmer. Anyone interested please join the conversation Template talk:Infobox national sports federations I find the tone of Kasper rants a little disappointing. I didn't hijack other people works I simply created something with good intention and implemented on the sport I love mainly on new pages. I am happy to work with people and am not possessive with the controlling its development. I just wanted something built for purpose and made a start point. I certainly will not use the template use outside of sailing until people have had chance to comment. The template has existed for 2 months without comment and I admit if I knew how to do it greater feedback from the community could have helped. Yachty4000 (talk) 10:24, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Personal attack by Rangoon11, abusive language.

I quote

Somewhat against my better judgement I actually did change the G5 (education) article yesterday to include England. And yet your response has simply been yet more trolling on other articles. What a thoroughly nasty piece of work you are.

im deeply unhappy with this insult, and would like action taken. No good wikipedia user should behave like this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Edinburghgeo — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.215.149.99 (talk) 00:16, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Action taken; see the user talk page for explanation. Nyttend (talk) 01:35, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

this makes me wonder why unmasked IP socks often go lashing out against legitimate concerns. --Eaglestorm (talk) 06:44, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Long-term subtle vandalism by IP hopper

I'm reporting this here instead of WP:AIV because of the long-term nature of the problem. Axolotl Nr.733 (talk · contribs) has found a long-term IP hopping vandal that has been inserting fake names in to articles for the last 3 years or so. See Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 62#Please help me "catch" a vandal (or group of vandals) Most of the IPs come from CitiCorp in the NorthEast, but a couple come from ISPs that geolocate to Florida, so there may be more than one vandal. I've asked for an edit filter here. I've found a number of articles that still have problems, so I'll start fixing those. Perhaps a database report should be run to find more information. Just a thought, 64.40.54.97 (talk) 11:44, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Ban appeal by User:Altenmann

On 11 April 2010, User:Altenmann was desysopped and community banned, which the user would like reconsidered. Accordingly, the Ban Appeals Subcommittee seeks comment from the community on suspending the ban and interested editors are invited to participate. For the committee, SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 12:55, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Appeal discussion

Removing a bad source

Spiritus-Temporis is an unattributed mirror of Wikipedia articles.

Evidence of mirroring

InvisiClues Wikipedia 18 November 2004 Wikipedia 18 February 2007 Spiritus-Temporis "Questions relating to the game were printed in the book. For example, "How can I kill the songbird?" An "empty" box was located below or following the text." appears in all three. Given the similarity of spiritus-temporis and Wikipedia 2007 oneis copied from the other. The use of the section from Wikipedia 2004 in all three and that spiritus-temporis is just an expansion of the early wikipedia text shows it comes first. spiritus-temporis claims copyright 2005 showing Wikipedia text came first. Post-hardcore Wikipedia 19 August 2004 Wikipedia 29 July 2005 Spiritus-Temporis Wikipedia 2005 and spiritus-temporis are both expansions of Wikipedia 2004, showing wikipedia came first. Arthur Chevrolet Wikipedia 18 January 2005 Wikipedia 23 December 2006 Spiritus-Temporis The later two include the clarification "he qualified for the Indianapolis 500 again in 1916" not in the Wikipedia 2005 version showing it came first. Other comparisons: Olu Oguibe Wikipedia Spiritus-Temporis Enrico Tellini Wikipedia Spiritus-Temporis Shirley Manson Wikipedia Spiritus-Temporis It appears the site used to credit Wikipedia (Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks/Stu#Spiritus-Temporis) but no longer does so.

Given that wikipedia mirrors are not reliable sources and not appropriate External Links all uses of Spiritus-Temporis should be removed. Is there an automated way of doing this to save individually going into over 200 articles? duffbeerforme (talk) 07:19, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

(for reference, all spiritus-temporis links) --Enric Naval (talk) 07:51, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Some of those links are on talk pages, and those could probably remain - our focus must be in the article space, and there are a lot of those as well. I see that this source has been discussed before, if the few talk pages I spot checked are an indication. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 15:18, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I really don't know how to get rid of them properly except by manually going through each page and chopping them. I've gotten rid of a few from mainspace so far, including about 20 today. Nyttend (talk) 13:07, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I hit another 25 by hand today, and will poke away more tonight. --joe decker^{talk to me} 17:19, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

And another 100 or so down. Probably only a dozen or so left in the mainspace, but I'm bushed... --joe decker^{talk to me} 05:58, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Request pending for Template:WikiProject United States

A request has been pending for Template:WikiProject United States that's going on 10 days with no action. Is there a willing administrator that could update this template? The changes have already been made and tested in the sandbox so all you need to do is copy the change from the sandbox to the live template. Kumioko (talk) 23:32, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

 Done - Agathoclea (talk) 04:25, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Someone to chat with User:Serbia100

So, his talkpage has basically been MFD'd, he's been blocked (which expired), his work has been reverted - pretty much all because he a) fails to communicate, and b) uses his sole communication channel to copy/paste what appears to be existing in article already. However, we appear to perhaps have a language barrier. Is there someone who might be able to have a word with User:Serbia100 in a language that they might understand? You'll have to do it in a way that gets their attention - like blanking and locking their talkpage temporarily until they e-mail you or something. I want to AGF that he's doing some real stuff here - but it's challenging with no communication (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 10:37, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think a mere language barrier can explain this behaviour pattern. The only explanation that I can think of is autism. Either way, I don't see any perspective of this user becoming a useful contributor any time soon. I've indef-blocked without talkpage access. I told him he is still welcome to contact an administrator per e-mail for an unblock, whenever he decides he wants to try doing something useful on this project. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:56, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

If I thought that was the best option, I would have done it myself (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 11:25, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

User:Wekn reven i susej eht speaks Serbian. Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:54, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I ja govorim na srpskom, treba li vam pomoć? I also speak Serbian if help is needed in translation. Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 21:53, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Shia Labeouf meme

A song named "Actual Cannibal Shia Labeouf" has ascended to memehood on tumblr and the internet at large over the past few days. There's already been some vandalism of the cannibalism and Shia Labeouf pages related to this, as well as some films that Shia Labeouf has been in, and I imagine that's only going to continue until the meme cools off a bit. So keep an eye out I guess. 184.35.8.119 (talk) 03:50, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

A bit confused here

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

---

By this report to AIV. Vandalism reported by a user with only 25 edits, but whatever, I've seen random reports before. But the only edit by the reported party (User:Asdfkmsfa) has been revdeleted...only I can't see it, and it doesn't show up in the deletion log. Does this mean it was oversighted? If so, why didn't the oversighter also block the user if it was such a horrible edit? I want to respond to the AIV report, but I don't want to block a user over a mistake, and the user seems to have made no other edits. Forgive me if it seems like a noobish question, I've just never seen something like this before. -RunningOnBrains^(talk) 05:31, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

PS, I haven't notified the user in case this is a pure vandalism case lest he spread it here. -RunningOnBrains^(talk) 05:32, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure why the oversighter didn't block, but yes, the edit was oversighted and I have gone ahead now and blocked the account. MBisanz ^talk 05:36, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

K thanks. In the future, is there any indication to see that something has been oversighted (a log maybe?) Or do I just assume if a revision is missing that's where it went? -RunningOnBrains^(talk) 05:46, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, no public log of it. If you get the "You cannot view this diff because one of the revisions has been deleted." message instead of the "One or both of the revisions of this diff has been removed from the public archives. Details can be found in the deletion log for this page. As an administrator you can still view this diff if you wish to proceed." message, then you know it was oversighted. MBisanz ^talk 05:59, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Loss of more and more and more established editors and administrators.

It has come to my attention that Wikipedia is slowly falling apart and will eventually crash. We are losing more established editors and admins faster than we can gain. I believe something needs to be done. User talk:Fastily has been driven from Wikipedia due its declining mentality. Any thoughts? Forgive me is I posted this on the wrong page.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 10:09, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Nuke it from orbit? We are all very replaceable, despite what we may think. New editors will happily take our places. They'll just have to start all over again from scratch, I suppose. Doc talk 10:25, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Fastily's departure was far more complex than that. Editors & admins come & go, it's how it's worked for the 6+ years I've been here. GiantSnowman 10:35, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Editors are not light bulbs. If the reward for years of volunteer service is to leave with your feelings hurt, that's poor return and may explain the "death spiral".--Wehwalt (talk) 10:39, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Exactly.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 10:41, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

It's been in a perpetual "death spiral" since day one. The sky is always falling. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy to those who see it like that. What more can be done? Just give up? That's probably not the best way to solve a problem. Not everybody always gets what they want. A "kinder, gentler" Wikipedia? A gold watch for your service. Doc talk 10:49, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Not day one, more like 2007.

See this graph of the number of active editors. Once some people started looking at the encyclopedia as something to skew toward their notion of the "ethical" (or the useful?) by taking out various stuff they don't like, its decay began. Look at Jimbo Wales' talk page for the past few weeks for how thoroughly and absolutely this decay will end. It is not merely that there won't be any editors - there won't be any content judged acceptable for them to edit, and no permission for them to do so (except via reviewer) even if they could. Wnt (talk) 14:24, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

As can been seen from my own talkpage, I'm feeling it myself. When even your "colleagues" can't read worth shit, take un-necessary potshots, lie, and refuse to live up to their word, how do we expect anyone else to? (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 10:50, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Not to say that this isn't a phenomenon of concern, but this example is problematic. The image-oriented Fastily has (demonstratively) shut down participation at en-WP and moved his focus to Commons, which isn't exactly losing him to the project. I'm far more concerned with the oppressive mentality against some of the sometimes prickly but extraordinarily useful content creators: Malleus, Kiefer Wolfowitz, Richard Norton, etc. That's a far more dangerous phenomenon affecting the longterm health of the project than a janitor or two moving from here to there, in my opinion. Carrite (talk) 19:34, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an unnecessarily frustrating and nasty place. Top of that list is that the bad guys so often prevail at articles and battles, or just keep wandering and hurting people as long as they are clever toknow how to mis-use the system. It would take about 6 policy changes to 70% fix that. North8000 (talk) 10:52, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I find that Wikipedia seems a much nicer community if you simply take some of the most dramatic noticeboards off your watchlist. Try a month's holiday from ANI, AN, AN/C etc. and you will feel better for it. The fact that these notice boards have been plagued and polluted by an off-wiki coordinated travelling circus is a problem that we should take seriously, and look at how we can improve policies to ensure obvious external manipulation for soap-boxing and lobbying does not seriously corrupt our consensus process. --Fæ (talk) 11:01, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Excellent advice! Until your friend is on those boards. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:08, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I thought of several when I wrote this, one returned with an Easter egg tree, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:55, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

You would give P.T. Barnum a run for his money when it comes to promotion. Congratulations. Doc talk 06:04, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Fæ, with all due respect, I think your statement here is actually an example of the very problem to which you are alluding. Critics of Wikipedia are not generally popular around here, but if there is a genuine problem with off-wiki sites that needs to be addressed, you should be starting an RFC/U or requesting that ArbCom start a case, instead of constantly making snippy remarks. If there is anything to your suggestion that "our consensus process" can be disrupted by a handful of editors who frequent off-site discussion boards where the discussions are publicly viewable, I wonder how that process is disrupted by those who hang out on the many un-logged IRC channels or who contact each other through email. It must be a very fragile process indeed. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:05, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think this is the right place to hold such a discussion. Some editors may feel this way, and general consensus may say it's not the best place to be, but for us to be replaced one day, we need to give off a good impression to the new wave of editors. We need to remember that this is a project that we should contribute to in our own spare time and we are supposed to enjoy it. If you don't enjoy being here, obviously something is wrong and you either need to take a break, or leave for good. (note: this is just my own opinion and I am not suggesting anybody should GTFO or anything. MrLittleIrish^(talk) 11:15, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Well said. This thread is going nowhere and should be closed. Doc talk 11:20, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Yep - if there's a problem, just sweep it under the rug. Just remember, when the house falls down - that rug won't matter too much now will it? — Ched :  ?  11:28, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Responding to Mr little irish ....or fix the problems, which starts with discussions like this. North8000 (talk) 11:29, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I think this is a great discussion to have and I recommend it should stay open for at least a couple of hours. I want to here what more the community has to say. I feel for Fastily. The point I opened this discussion is because of mainly civility issues editors are getting emotionally hurt and it would make perfect sense why they would no longer want to edit it. It's amazing to see how little things that could be easily fixed and it's blown way out of proportion here.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 11:36, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Responding to North8000. The problem is people (not naming a single editor, new or old) are contributing here like it's a job. This is supposed to be an enjoyment for ourselves and the general public looking for information. The project should not cause stress. Yes, we all disagree every now and again, but over time, the amount of petty arguments that have developed are beyond me. If you're not having fun, you're here for the wrong reasons. This is not a job. MrLittleIrish^(talk) 11:39, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Are you saying that because it's not a job and editors are free to leave, that folks should not try to recognize and fix problems? That is contrary to how volunteer organizations and volunteer everythings succeed. And contrary to what got Wikipedia to where it is today

For those who feel that the people picture is irrelevant, look at the end result The end result is that 90% of articles are 90% in good shape, 10% of it (including near every article on a contentious topic) is an absolute uninformative mess, and that it has plateaued out regarding fixing those areas. You don't have to argue the straw man of whether or not the sky is falling to simply understand that it has some serious problems that require fixing. North8000 (talk) 11:42, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Going off of what you're saying, who would want to edit this place of they got harassed for every little thing they do? You notion the fact that we are all replaceable which sounds so horrifying wrong in so many ways. It would say to indicate no one cares about each in the first place and if person disappears from the project, another will replace them and all is good. This brings me to my second point is the editor that will replace this established editor will most of e time have zero experience. That statement you made would be grounds to push me from Wikipedia because you basically reinforced the fact that we don't care for each other or support each other.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 11:54, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrary break -losing editors

I agree, those are very handsome lampshades. What kind of leather did you say they were made of again?--Wehwalt (talk) 11:45, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I think I know what you're getting at, but have no idea why. Doc talk 11:55, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I suggest that the articles are not worth the human cost.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:56, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

That's what I thought. Not a good metaphor. There is no "human cost" on this project compared to what you're alluding to. Seriously. Doc talk 12:03, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

. And no, there is no organized campaign to murder. That don't make what goes on here trivial, or right.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:07, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)x3Most of Wikipedia editors are human with about 45% of them vandals where about 50% turn to good faith editing. A portion of those editors work really hard and establishes good credit and becomes well known among the community. Here comes this asshole of a new editor finds a minor mistake this user made blows it up into a major issue when it really isn't and posts it on ANI and there goes this well established user's credit. What's more, this manipulative user manages to turn the ANI discussion in his favor and really discredits the established editor. Imagine how that editor feels right now.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 12:24, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

How do you determine these numbers? My impression is just the opposite: 10% are in good shape, 80% are two-line stubs (which is probably an exaggeration, but this is my imrpression anyway), and 10% are an absolute uninformative mess. Has any research been done.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:48, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking of built articles, I was sort of ignoring stubs, so, with that context on mine, we may both be right.North8000 (talk) 11:52, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

If this isn't the right place, what is the right place? I agree with Ched, sweeping it under the rug won't make it go away. --SPhilbrick(Talk) 11:49, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

FFS - I wasn't suggesting silencing anyone. Let's analyze all the shortcomings of the project in this thread. Doc talk 11:55, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)x3All due respect Mr. Little irish, and indeed you do bring a very relevant topic to the table - but I offer you this. MANY people take this project VERY seriously. They have invested untold hours, days, weeks .. no YEARS into providing the very best they could. When a new users walks in, and can call someone with 5 or 10 years tenure onto the carpet to be chastised for either a mistake - or some misunderstanding - then yes, it's no longer fun. Since we are on an admin. board, and discussing this because of an admin. I'll offer this. Truly good admins. do not always consider this fun. Truely good admins. do not want to block. Truely good admins. take every step they can to protect the project first. Trulely good admins. actually care about the editors. EVEN the ones that find fault with at every chance they get. What is the result. Civility policy my blue butt. That is a tool that manipulative people play to goad honest hard working people into getting sanctions. Swap out the civility policy for one of honesty, integrity, and consistency ... and maybe we could turn this 500 mph train-wreck that's headed for a cliff around. Just IMHO. — Ched :  ?  11:56, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

• Right on, Ched. A VOA, that's one thing, but every other block (or even unblock--I had a big one not too long ago) is agonizing to some extent. At the time of my RfA some whippersnapper (actually the latest incarnation of a troll, I think) stirred up the shit pot, and got another hot-headed (more experienced) editor involved in a back and forth--and I was supposed to hypothetically decided in a test question on my RfA. I was unwilling to block though I did not approve of the disruptor's edits. So, I get two "opposes"--one from each one--and I guess I was lucky that it didn't spread more. But that's the kind of thing that easily happens: the pot gets stirred, and every jackass you ever offended gets in on it. There's two in this very thread who have gotten on my case and who no doubt will pounce next time I get dragged to the board, but I think I can take the project seriously enough to not take that so seriously, as contradictory as it may sound. Drmies (talk) 16:40, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)This is an issue that needs to be talked about. I believe it's because or civility policies are under enforced and ridiculous ANI threads about such minuscule things that are blown way out of proportion. If you in disagreement don't see how that hurts an editor then I don't know what will. Sweeping it under the rug won't make it go away but tackling the problem will so, I propose we tackle this problem.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 12:01, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, for some people, their idea of fun includes: ganging up, rumours, attacks, vandalism, treating others like shit - and while they're likely to do that sometimes in real life, it's even easier in the online world as they never have to face up to it. When that concept of fun interferes with the neurotypical meaning of fun, there's problems (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 12:09, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

One important step in tackling a problem is a clear articulation of the problem. I'm reading some heartfelt concerns, but if an outsider asked me to summarize the problem, and cite examples, I wouldn't be able to. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sphilbrick (talk • contribs) 12:11, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @cyber - But that's the thing Cyber. "Civility" is such a subjective thing. BY POLICY, editor A can say "I feel it was a mistake for you to waste your efforts on such an article which is clearly worthless. (acceptable under policy as writen) .. editor B responds: "Kiss my royal ass" BZZZZ ... wrong answer. And because people are demanding "civility" - a 25 year old admin. trying to do what he thinks is right ends up telling a 60 year old scholar to go sit in the naughty corner. Do you really think that's gonna work so well? — Ched :  ?  12:13, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

(Responding to the unsigned comment). Well, the problem is that the environment is too aggressive here, and contributors and especially admins wear out very quickly. In many cases, nobody replaces them, in other cases, the replacement is much less qualified than the outgoing manpower. This the editor retention problem which is being discussed for years.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:16, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)WP:CIVILITY is no doubt a dynamic concept and I'm sure that all of us in this discussion known the general picture of civility and most of the admins know when the line of civility is crossed.

I wouldn't focus just on civility. For me it is frustration realizing that it is impossible to fix the articles that most need fixing....contentious articles. And that the problem is easily 70% fixed by tweaking some policies, but that such is unlikely to ever be accomplished. North8000 (talk) 12:20, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Plus obvious uncivil behavior is easily reigned in. Once the nasty person has mastered wikilawyering, they become near-invincible and impossible to reign in. North8000 (talk) 12:23, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

It's not only about civility. Making the project welcoming to Randy in Boise makes it unattractive to lots of other people. Tom Harrison ^Talk 12:34, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

(ec) What's obvious to you and I might not be obvious to others. See, it'd be so much simpler if we could block for simple douchebaggery - that would cover sketchy and deceptive editing as well as personal conduct. But with a decade of inertia, it's harder and harder to shift policies in ways that might be obviously beneficial (there's that word again). It's a huge project, there should be room for everyone who's willing to put in the work and the time into discussion - but it doesn't always work that way, and we need to fix that. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 12:37, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

• Also @Cyber - I think you make some very very good points here. And indeed civility is not the only issue. A thread like this begins and 30 people rush to say their piece because it's been on their mind for ages - but it all goes down so quick that few actually read the entire thing. And who said what first? Who is talking to who? There is often a rush to judgment that has to be revisited - and rehashed over and over again. There's quantity vs. quality. Privacy vs. transparentcy. Admins. bickering amongst themselves is also not a good thing. It doesn't provide a unified and consistant view - and that would confuse anyone. (but anything we say has to be in front of everyone - we have no private room to discuss things.) But perhaps it's the age of the project too. There are some editors here that have been here for years now. They know each other, and what to expect from each other. But each new person is an unknown. People get paranoid and wonder ... is that so-and-so with a new name? Small disagreements fester and become long term grudges until the pot boils over. People have come to know each other and broken off into their own little cabals. Some that struggle for some percieved power, when at the end of the day - it's one individual behind a keyboard. That can get lonely, and it's easy to think "I'm all by myself, how can I ever deal with them?" The closest thing we have to an "authority" is Arbcom. And yet they are just volunteers too. And who tells them when they are right and wrong? Yep, there's lots to work through if this project is going to survive, and I do hope it survives. — Ched :  ?  12:59, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

• True. If I had to guess how much longer Wikipedia would survive, I'd give it 5-10 years. After that Wikipedia will be total chaos. I'm going to head over to village pump in hopes of fixing some of these issues.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 13:08, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

• There's a difficulty in distinguishing between natural turnover and a death spiral. Wikipedia has been in decline for the past few years, the rate of new anything (articles, editors, admins, edits) have declined. The foundation is aware of this and is working to increase editor numbers through twee methods, be it wikilove or a friendly teahouse helpdesk. It's easy to see friends leave and draw the conclusion that the good editors are leaving, but in this very thread we have editors who've been here 6 years, and editors who've been here for just one. Editors who have tens of thousands of edits and others who have a few hundred. What am I saying? People come, people stay, people go. It's worth worrying about trends, but not individual cases. It is always sad when an editor leaves, especially when one who has put so much in, but if they push through the demoralised zone, they'll end up hating wikipedia, and that's not good. I know I'll leave one day, I'll probably do it quietly - there's only so much one person can do. Worm^TT · (talk) 13:13, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

  If you have me in mind as an example of an editor who is around for a year, I changed the account last year, but was editing since early 2007.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:34, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

  I think my point still stands either way, indeed the original poster hasn't been here a year... Worm^TT · (talk) 13:38, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

• I would hate to see you go and hate it more if you didn't at least tell me. If you were to leave you would killing a big part of WP:ADOPT and Wikipedia.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 13:21, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

• Ha, that's very kind of you to say, but misses my point. I'd say no one here is essential, least of all me - but no fear, I'm not near burnout yet! Worm^TT · (talk) 13:28, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

• We all come and go that's true but, we go when an editor just as established replaces us. Now we go because we burn out too quickly and those that replace us, are not experienced enough yet. There is no editor experienced enough yet to replace you when you burn out.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 14:14, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Coming back, "full circle" to the subject that was being discussed. Is there any empirical evidence that the project is in decline? The loss of any one contributor can be seen as problematic but is it indicative of any overall trend? or simply reflective of the eventual cycle of burnout? FWiW Bzuk (talk) 13:45, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

You know, this sort of sky-is-falling comment happens all the time, almost always in response to a resignation manifesto from a friend or being on the receiving end of some rudeness. The editor then assumes that because one person leaves, that we have an overall problem. I wonder whether any of you would be interested in the actual facts, which are these:

Number of users active in a given month

Number of users	December 2010	December 2011
Making >5 edits this month	34,055	34,000
Making >100 edits this month	3,478	3,490

As you can see, it's pretty much steady. Notice, please, that these are all the kind of "established editors" that the OP is concerned about: not people who made their fifth-ever or 100th-ever edit that month, but people who made five edits or 100 edits just during that month. Overall, I think there's still a minor downward trend, but it's minor: it goes up one or two percent this month, and maybe down one or two or three percent the next. (There is a non-trivial seasonal pattern as well.)

I admit that this is significantly fewer active editors than we had five years ago—back when vandalism had to be reverted by hand (anyone else remember those pre-Cluebot days?), back before Facebook provided an outlet for a certain class of users, back when Windows Vista was new, back when our American university students were still in middle school—but that was a long time ago. When you look at the recent past, our editor base has pretty much achieved an equilibrium. WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:49, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks WhatamIdoing, but I think (/hope!) you have your columns and row labels mixed up. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 13:52, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I really hope you've got that table the wrong way around ... --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:53, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I did; I've fixed it. (Let's not think about how many edit conflicts I've had today...) WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:55, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Note, that number is, within error margins, stable. Could you add the number of articles-to-maintain to those numbers? Total number of edits per minute? How many of these are article-edits? How many of the edits-per-minute pertain mainspace? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:06, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know where to get all of those numbers, but a quick search suggests that (for those two months) we saw approximately a 10% increase in the total number of articles, a 10% decrease in the number of new articles created, and a 10% decrease in the number of edits made (to any page, including by bots and unregistered users). Someone else may be able to find the precise numbers that you'd like. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:24, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Anyways, that we are talking about negative spirals may be a better indication that people are not generally happy with Wikipedia than the real numbers are. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:56, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The point what I am trying to make here is that experienced editors are retiring way before they plan to because of the problems we are facing here and the number may say one thing about our editors but it doesn't talk about their experience in my opinion.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 14:14, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Decline in number of active admins

Article growth

There's lots of charts here, which do show that the project has dropped in the past 4 years, even if there's not an overall decline. Active admins have declined, per the graph on the right, as has the rate of recruitment of new ones. Article growth has dropped, per the graph one the left. There's definitely a decline, and like I say, it's something that the foundation is looking at. I personally don't see it as a "death spiral" just yet, but it could get that way. Who knows? Worm^TT · (talk) 13:59, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

My own view (for what it's worth) is that the reason we've seen a slow-down is not anything to do with any bad atmosphere or animosity among Wikipedia editors, but simply a transition from start-up to steady-state. The encyclopaedia will never be complete, but studies show Wikipedia is already far more comprehensive in its breadth and depth of content than any traditional encyclopaedia. Essentially we've taken all the easy pickings and it's now much harder to find reliable content on subject matter that the typical editor is interested in that hasn't already been added to the project. The subjects that are left tend to be those that require specific expertise or a good deal of research, which leads editors to a choice of (a) leaving or taking a break, (b) putting in quite a bit more effort, (c) heading to an article they perceive as somewhat biased and trying to neutralise it. Those that have chosen option (c) obviously get into conflicts as a result and unsurprisingly don't like the grief it creates, but that's an indication that the project is alive and well, far from dying a death. waggers (talk) 14:00, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Not true. From April 12 to April 16, I ran across the following notable topics which need articles just in the course of ordinary editing and Refdesk answering:

• Phytobenzoar
• Antinutritive
• Gastrectasia
• Ascorbic acid oxidase
• Bangladesh National Women Lawyers' Association
• Centre for Equality and Inclusion
• Brodatz Texture

The reason why we don't see the incompleteness is that some people make a point of taking out every redlink because they think it "looks bad" to admit we don't cover everything in the world. Wnt (talk) 14:32, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Three of the above had articles already; I added the redirects. Phytobezoar is partially covered in bezoar but I will write an article on it specifically. I have a free picture somewhere if I can find it -- Samir 06:16, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Gastrectasia as defined as distension of the stomach is best dealt with on Wiktionary as it is little more than a dicdef, but I've redirected to gastric antral vascular ectasia as an accepted alternative name for GAVE. -- Samir 07:12, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

D'oh! I should have spotted the bezoar misspelling and searched better for articles to redirect to. Still, we haven't run out of work to do. Thanks for doing some of it! Wnt (talk) 19:46, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I didn't say there's nothing left to do, or that we have a complete, finished encyclopaedia. What I said was that there's now less content that's easy to add without doing lots of additional research. A few years ago I could add content using sources I had at my fingertips and on subjects I know well; to create the articles listed above I'd have to to a fair bit more work. waggers (talk) 10:38, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

The way that I would describe it, in terms of the end effect on the project, is that, due to solvable problems, the project has plateaued out at a level which at a much lower level than what it realistically attainable. North8000 (talk) 14:17, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

As with many of the others I also feel that Wikipedia is in rapid decline. Just in the last few months we have lost more than a dozen prolific editors and more leave every day. The bottom line is that Wikipedia is not a fun and friendly place to edit. There is too much drama, too many battles being fought over petty things, the horrors of the admin process are legendary, and the list goes on. Wikipedia was founded on some good principles but as time goes on those principles are being twisted and distorted. Non administrators are looked at as being non trustworthy, administrators act as though they are infallible. We pick and choose when to and not to enforce policy based on whether its our friend or not. Regardless of what the numbers show Wikipedia is in a downward spiral and its almost to the point were it won't be stoppable. We need to start working together and stop fighting, the teahouse is a joke, if you are a new user you don't even know its there. If we want to be serious about its use it should be linked from the left hand links or the main page. Same with the article creation process. Having them buried in the bowels of the pedia don't do us any good. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 14:26, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

• Users come and go - the wheels are still going round - its absolutely normal. - let the good , and the not so good, go in peace, and welcome the new. Youreallycan 16:23, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Is anybody willing (and having the stats) and add the numbers of GAs, FAs, and FLs in the left graph? This would actually show if we improve the quality of the articles (which is only counting). mabdul 16:24, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I hope this is just one of those glitchy patches. There are so many things which can add up to create problems, and there are so many different types of people in here, and so many ways of looking at things. BUT ... the biggest thing is that Wikipedians are, by and large, passionate people. We're intense. We're the kind of people who would probably rather stay in and edit than go out and party. And we lack cues, in print, that would help us resolve things face-to-face. (And some of us, like myself, are on the autism-spectrum and don't do so well picking up on real-life cues, and we tend to interpret things slightly differently from neurotypicals.) Almost everything that goes wrong in here seems to stem, in one way or another, from each side not really "seeing" what the "other side" is seeing. Simple misunderstandings and misconstructions; and they get blown up into mega-dramahz conflicts. I wish I had a magic wand! The thing which would make the biggest difference would be if we could internalize a kinder approach. Not "letter of the law civility", because some people have it down pat how to be bloody unkind and deliberately hurtful-with-malice-aforethought with never a naughty word. It has to be an internal paradigm shift, towards genuine kindness. Pesky (talk) 16:31, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

@Mabdul I wouldn't bother collecting stats on the numbers of FAs etc as an indicator of quality. A few years ago you could get an FA without using inline citation. The FA standard today is significantly different to the FA standard of our early years - plenty of our early FAs have been delisted despite being better now than when they went became FAs. Better indications of quality would include the average speed with which we revert vandalism and the number of typos on the pedia per thousand words. I think you'll find both are improving, it is definitely harder to find certain typos now than it once was. Our best indications of improving quality remain the serious studies into our quality relative to other information sources - such studies are usually quite encouraging. ϢereSpielChequers 19:43, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

• Two thing I see repeated above in essentially every post: There is a perceived (real or imaginary) editor retention problem, and there is a civility issue around the community at large. However, aside from the occasional editor who fades into the night like a spent star, writing a manifesto about their experiences (as Fastily has done, leading to this discussion), is there anything that correlates editor retention to civility? How many editors do we lose because their lives change, because they become tired of writing, or because they've added all they feel they can to their topics of interest? I'm certain we lose far more editors to life than to inside factors. Another thought is the effects the social networking revolution have had on our community, and this civility issue. As Wikipedia has grown, so has the internet as a communication medium. In the last few years, social networking has made chatting on the web the preference over instant messenging programs. Could this contribute to editors spending more time on drama/talk pages and less on actually writing articles? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 16:26, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

  The reasons why editors leave the project need to be investigated and I believe there were at least attempts (not mine) to do this, though I would not be able to point out to any conclusions right now. I am not sure incivility plays such a minor role. My personal experience was that I had to leave another WMF project for good because of incivility.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:36, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I think what the problem (if that is what it can be called) is not people quitting Wikipedia on a whim because of some witch-hunt as a few editors have classified it as. It is more a point of people lacking knowledge and understanding in how to edit properly, and/or learning from any erroneous edits that may occur. In all due respect, as someone who is non-admin, I find the admin team are here to help, assist, and provide advice on the editing protocols of Wikipedia as a whole. If users are unable to comprehend that advice in a constructive manner, then it is a fault of those people, not a fault of the admin team. At the end of the day, everyone is human, and prone to making mistakes. But if those people aren't being encouraged to learn from mistakes, and rectify them accordingly, then that too is the fault of the individuals, not the fault of the people willing to help. I've made mistakes on here in the past, and if it wasn't for advice from admin or other more knowledgeable users, then I'd probably be still making the same silly mistakes. Whenever I come across someone who has made a mistake, I encourage them to learn from them, by providing assistance, or pointing them into the right direction by means of procedural links or simplified knowledge based on my own learnings. Yes, people get blocked and whatnot, but those blocks are only issued because A) the user is crusading into a childish battle, rather than reading the advice being given; or B) they had listened to the advice, but decided to ignore it for whatever reasons. The world and its people within it are always evolving, as is Wikipedia and its editorial team. People come, people go; but if you wish to slow down the number of people going, and maintain the number of people staying, then perhaps encourage users to learn from mistakes, rather than shoot them down for making them. Wesley☀Mouse 16:38, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I know of about 15 editors who got chased away by nastiness, plus another ~5 who were about to leave who I sort of mentored to stay. All of these were newer editors, (some of them experts in their field) so it's not exactly applicable to this discussion. But I can tell you that while ALL 20 were due to nastiness, NONE were due to simple/blatant incivility. About 1/2 were primarily sincere efforts to correct wiki-errors that the newbie made, but sort of teaching them the wiki-system by beating them with a baseball bat. The other half were pissing wars where the experienced person knows how to safely conduct agression and pissing wars (and win) via wikilawyering. North8000 (talk) 17:02, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Waggers is right on, the decline of article edits are because Wiki is much more established than it was when I first entered the project in 2005. And with established editors leaving, they claimed all the time (including myself) that they are leaving because of drama or whatever the situation is and they almost always come back eventually, some within a day. Only a small handful of established editors has left the project because of "drama" and so on and that's sadly includes are several of our best article writers. A few others left the project because of harassment off-wiki which it is tragic. But at least 90% of established editors who stopped editing was because they got a job, relocated, got married, children, college and so forth and it was a gradual reduction until they lost interest. Secret ^account 17:09, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Lots of editors "leave" for different Wikimedia projects as well, mostly alternative language versions of Wikipedia. At some point in the future, I'm betting that there will be some sort of merger of the different language Wikipedia's into a single project which will have improved multilingual tools available. What's being used on Meta, Commons, and MediaWiki now is a start, but I doubt that it'll scale well to Wikipedia's size. But the fact that something already exists just goes to show, that's the path Wikipedia is likely headed towards.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 17:26, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

• Once or twice a year a thread begins saying that editors are leaving Wikipedia in droves and a lot of data is presented. The problem with data is that nobody ever seems to know how to read it or understand context or the bigger picture, and it results in misguided breaching experiments like WP:NEWT. Established editors leave from time to time, some of it is legit in that they're bored or burned out or feel the project has changed too much. Others are just DIVAS who will be back in a few days when the requisite number of people have begged them on their talk page to reconsider. Lots of established editors get tired of their identity and all the drama, typecasting and stress an extended presence can bring, they "retire" and then a short time later create a new account as per WP:CLEANSTART. Worrying about whether Wikipedia will be here or not is pointless and out of our hands for the most part. Wikipedia is just a website, and many other websites have come and gone, some of them better than Wikipedia. That's life. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 17:27, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
• Our core of active editors has dipped but now seems to have stabilised. Editing levels per day are less than the peak, but maybe not when you factor in the number of vandalisms and vandalism reversions that are not needed because of the edit filters. Our number of active admins has fallen by more than a quarter from peak, but seems to have stabilised in the 730-750 region, however it has only done so because the existing admins are staying around so long. RFA's drought has continued to worsen the first quarter of 2012 saw 5 new admins, the worst result since 2002. So at some point we will have to reform or replace RFA. More importantly, the vast majority of new editors do not stay, with only a tiny proportion joining the active community. The problems we found in 2009 with WP:NEWT are still here, lots of newby biting, incorrect deletion tags and assuming of bad faith. I suspect the ratio of {{fact}} tagging to simply reverting unsourced edits has continued to drift towards a de-facto requirement that all additions be sourced. Part of this is almost certainly due to the disconnect between our written and unwritten rules. The fifth pillar warning "all of your contributions can and will be mercilessly edited" might almost be rephrased "your initial contributions will probably be reverted". Part is I suspect down to the drift from collaborative editing to template bombing, a drift that the new Article Feedback tool is likely to exacerbate. Perhaps the time has come to fork EN Wikipedia, in one fork implement WP:ACTRIAL, and also extend sticky prod to all unsourced articles. In the other replace the maintenance templates with hidden categories, and introduce a 24 hour period of grace for new articles when the only speedy tags that can be applied are the badfaith ones such G3, G11, G12 and G10. If the Foundation hosted both forks within the SUL it would be easy to migrate stuff between them. ϢereSpielChequers 00:09, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Seems pretty impractical, as the drift between the version would increase as time went on, and reintegrating them afterwards would be a total nightmare. Better to use another wiki - like Simple English - as a test bed and compare the changes within each wiki. or something. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:41, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

• I find something that needs to be written about all the time both in old articles and new. So, I don't know why people leave but they should if they do not enjoy it. And thank you administrators for your time. I guess that does not get said enough. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:54, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Cyberpower, you've been an active editor for what, six or seven months? Let me point out something that's obvious to people with ten times your history on the English Wikipedia, before you get too worried about editors who "are retiring way before they plan to": there is a dramatic gap between highly experienced editors saying that they are leaving the English Wikipedia (a popular pastime) and these editors actually leaving the English Wikipedia. In fact, although I've seen a lot of resignation manifestos over the last few years, I can't think of a single one offhand that actually result in a zero-edit retirement rather than (at the very most) a wikibreak of a few months. Presumably there are some, particularly among editors whose return is likely to be met with a block, but most self-identified retirees don't even manage to go an entire week without editing. (I do know people who have left, but none that first posted a long message about why they were leaving.)

NB I say this purely as a general statement, not about any specific case. But if I were you, I wouldn't worry too much about this. In the meantime, go read meatball:GoodBye. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:35, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

With regards to RFA, I'll note that I've considered it and may not even be opposed to pursuing it, but I'm frankly not comfortable with the idea of self-nominating for a process that's sure to result in (unintentionally or otherwise) some confrontation with perhaps negligible gains both for myself and the project. Perhaps more importantly, I can't see how my participation in the project would significantly benefit from my having Admin Mojo, though if others have ideas I certainly wouldn't be opposed to hearing them...perhaps there may be uses for my approach to this project that I have not considered. Alternately, perhaps there could be (or is?) a listing of areas of Wikipedia where more administrative help is desired, so that individuals who might be willing to go through the RFA process could also have some idea of where help is needed?

In general though, I would ask...if the project continues to produce and maintain quality articles, then does the number of active editors or admins particularly matter? I'd rather see 500 active editors with 10 million quality articles, than 3 million active editors with 500 quality articles. My point is that there seems to be a theory that increasing the number of active editors/admins will increase the quality of the project overall; I'm not convinced that that's true, at least at this point in the project's development. Doniago (talk) 14:51, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Seems like a lot of responses have been to the effect of "the sky isn't falling, therefore there is no problem regarding losing editors". This is logically unsound, it is missing the whole middle ground which is: There IS a problem worth looking at and improving, and no the sky isn't falling. North8000 (talk) 14:51, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you North8000. I think there is a serious problem with editors leaving that needs to be addressed but it isn't quite yet at the point were Wikipedia is going to go under because of it. Wether that happens sooner or later is irrelevant, at some point, if we don't change some things, it will happen and simply turning our backs to it isn't going to help. Just look at the WikiProjects. There used to be a lot more active ones and now they are all dying off, that seems to me to be an indication of some problem. I also think that the numbers above are a bit misleading. They use editors with 5 edits but it doesn't say if those edits are vandalism, socks or valid edits. Why don't we look at the numbers of editors who made say 100 edits. This is low enough that it should have a significant number of users and high enough that it would wash out any vandals or socks most likely. It will also skip over the editors who only do a handful of edits and leave. It might also be interesting to see trends of edits in the different namespaces. Are they going up in nonarticle (Wikipedia, User, USer talk, Etc.) but down in articles space? Are they going up in talk spaces? Just showing the number of edits, IMO, does not give us an accurate picture of the problem. Kumioko (talk) 14:26, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Also, "losing editors" may be only one of many impacts from the causal issues, and only one of the many things that would get nicer if we fixed some of the causal issues. North8000 (talk) 20:22, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Why don't we look at the numbers of editors who made say 100 edits.

Kumioko, we did exactly that, as you'd know if you scrolled up to the table reporting editor activity. Between the end of 2010 and 2011, the number of editors making >100 edits per month went up (by 0.3%, a statistically insignificant amount) . WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:12, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

The project is constantly renewing itself, continously evolving. It won't last forever, but it's been around for 11 yrs & counting. Therefore, nothing to worry about. GoodDay (talk) 04:45, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Semi-arbitrary break 2 - Losing Editors

If all article editing ceased tonight, how long would you guys go on talking about it at the noticeboards? See, guys? We'll never die! Someguy1221 (talk) 06:03, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

For me, personally (but then that's just me!), whether or not the encyclopedia is sustainable with a massive drop in editors (if there were such a drop) isn't as important as the principle of having left n-amount of hurt and wounded people crawling off to lick their wounds. That's just inhumane, and I wish I could think of a better way to address it. When I was doing a lot of new page patrol I pretty-much-as-standard left an easily-pasted lump of hints and tips (with a good section on referencing, courtesy of Chzz) on the talk page of every newbie or nearly-newbie I encountered. Mind you, I was working at the "cold" end of the backlog (new pages that had survived 20 - 30 days, so no quick-zap vandalism). I'm wondering whether something kinda-automated, to do exactly the same thing, could be added to Twinkle's repertoire. Mine was more personal than any of the standard welcome templates, but applicable to pretty much every new editor.

I got a thankyou message on 17 April for the tips I left on a talk page last October; I've also had messages from other people who've seen them on someone else's talk page and found them useful. In fact, leaving those spiels of stuff on newbies' talk pages may be the single most valuable contribution I've made to the 'pedia! Is something like adding that stuff as a Twinkle option feasible? It would make it so easy for people to do; it takes a few seconds. And I think that actual words on the talk page are more likely to be read than clickable links. Pesky (talk) 06:35, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think anyone's suggesting (at least, I hope they're not) that it's acceptable to drive editors away through incivility or such, but I haven't seen anything conclusively demonstrating that any decrease in editors or adminship is due to preventable situations either. And if the departing admin/editor "gave as good as they got", I'm not sure it's legitimate to say that they're leaving due to something that could have been avoided. I don't imagine WP has much in the way of an exit interview process for departing editors. Doniago (talk) 19:08, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

@Pesky. Friendly used to be the tool for adding welcome messages, but it has now been folded into Twinkle - and yes Twinkle does have dropdown menus for welcomes to newbies. ϢereSpielChequers 19:19, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

(Comment without having read any of the above very closely) It's concerning that the number of active editors has been falling while, if I remember correctly, the number of readers has been increasing. To a large extent this reflects the fact that Wikipedia is now largely past its 'build' phase, and is regarded as being somehow part of the establishment and so is unavoidable - after all, the goal has been to develop a credible Encyclopedia. That said, there's still tons of scope to improve existing articles and develop new ones, and the - probably correct - perception that Wikipedia is now hard to get established in is a problem. Harassment of established editors (many of whom are admins) is also a problem, though I'm not convinced that it's getting worse. It's certianly not confined to Wikipedia: boorish behaviour is common on many websites. I'd like to see a drive to reduce the amount of 'red tape' in guidelines and policies and replace them with simpler statements of the expectations for editors. However, all editors can contribute to a nicer and more productive environment by remembering their manners and complementing good work (glib, but often forgotten - including by me). Nick-D (talk) 23:45, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

@NickD who said:"I'd like to see a drive to reduce the amount of 'red tape' in guidelines and policies and replace them with simpler statements of the expectations for editors." I couldnt agree more with you. Caden ^cool 00:16, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I actually plowed through this very long topic, and I thought I'd make it longer. I don't know where all the numbers come from and I find statistics misleading, so I have little confidence in them. The phrase "death spiral" automatically sets up red flags for me as melodrama. I think we should focus on the following things: (1) quality of editors and admins, not quantity; (2) quality of articles, not quantity; (3) more professionalism in our interaction. Personally, I've been tempted to leave Wikipedia at times because of the contentiousness, the lack of civility, and the obsession with trivia (was someone born on October 8 or October 9?) leading to interminable discussions, but I've found that the best method is to stop participating in the stressful discussion, whether it be on a noticeboard or about an article (someone else suggested a variation of this - Fae? - stop watching pages that upset you - I've done that, too). Another problem is we really don't do enough to support each other. Too much argument. We don't say enough that we agree with someone, we just comment when we disagree; we don't support others enough when they are unjustly attacked, we let it go, even if we think it's unjust. I have more to say, but in an effort to keep this of reasonable length, I'll stop.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:59, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree. However, when I started this post, I meant that we were losing more editors that produce quality content than we are gaining. If you need me notify me on my talk page. I'm going back to me wikibreak.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Temporarily Online} 19:06, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Obsession with trivia can be a good thing because it means people are determined to produce accurate content. Bbb23's other comments about people failing to support each other when unfairly attacked and lack of civility are spot on though. In the spirit of his suggestion I'm supporting and agreeing with him and others here and sincerely thank them for raising such important points.--Shakehandsman (talk) 00:14, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not delicate, I don't mind getting bruised if there's good to be done. So/but for me the most stressful thing (and a very stressful thing) is realizing that many things are unfixable / hopeless because the policies are written such that they so easily and frequently mis-used contrary to their intended purpose. In short, because wiki-lawyering works and wins. And once a miscreant masters it, they can beat people up with immunity. North8000 (talk) 20:02, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Causes of editor loss

Strictly enforcing WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL, and WP:EQ would go a long way in retaining editors. Who wants to volunteer for something when you are being treated poorly? 140.247.141.165 (talk) 22:38, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that overly strict enforcement would likely be used in editing disputes as a bludgeon against editors when the editor has expressed slightly intemperant comment out of frustration. Having to constantly take pains to express everything in the most civil of terms lest a minor breach of etiquette get you punished would drive away editors just as quickly or more so as the current civility issues do. Monty₈₄₅ 22:54, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly with this; civility crusaders create the same toxic environment that serially abusive editors do. It goes both ways. On the one hand, having a lawless, caustic, Youtube-comments-section style free-for-all is sure to drive people away. But on the other hand, who wants to stick around when you have to sanitise your every word for fear of getting sanctioned for a slightly snippy phrasing? You can't "strictly enforce" a policy to be civil and unoffensive. That in and of itself creates hostility. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 23:35, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I think you've nailed it. Viriditas (talk) 04:10, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Agreed.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 05:08, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree with the OP, to expand on it a bit, however, the issue is not the occasional impertenent comment, it is people who have established that they have no desire to treat any other editors with respect, and who act with a sense of entitlement to do so merely because they have a few featured articles under their belt. It's not individual, isolated acts of incivility that need to be stopped, we can let the occasional outburst slide with no great problem. It is people who have established that they have no intention of abiding by the basic rules of decency and civility, no matter what, that we need to eliminate, as they poison the editing environment. --Jayron32 23:06, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

You're living in some kind of a make-believe world. For instance, can you name even one editor who has "established that they have no desire to treat any other editors [my emphasis] with respect"? Malleus Fatuorum 04:33, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough, that may have been a bit of hyperbole. You are correct that no editor treats all people as such, but when conflicts arise, the difference is in how an editor treats others in the context of that conflict. Even in emotionally charged conflicts, all editors should be held to standards of decorum and civility, instead of personalizing and becoming insulting towards those with whom they have disagreements. We need to make clear that while a single isolated outburst of rudeness shouldn't be sanctioned, patterns of aggessive, incivil, or rude behavior should. When an editor frequently and over a period of time, shows that in multiple conflicts they often resort to insults, personal attacks, and other immature, incivil behavior, it needs to be dealt with, and dealt with harsher than it is now. That is, we shouldn't block an editor for the first time they call someone a rude name or tell someone to fuck off, but when such behavior becomes repeated and a regular manner in which an editor interacts with people they disagree with, again, when it becomes a pattern of behavior, then it needs to be stopped. We can forgive and forget over the individual outburst, but when it becomes a repeated occurance for an editor to treat those they disagree with aggressively or rudely, to the point of insult, it needs to be dealt with. --Jayron32 14:09, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

But once again it comes down to what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. There's lots of high fallutin' talk about administrators being held to higher standards than regular editors, but the truth is that they're not even held to the same standards. I could very easily name you several administrators who were they not administrators would have even longer block logs than they already have. I won't though, for to do so would undoubtedly be considered a "personal attack", but a look through my contributions may provide a few clues. Malleus Fatuorum 15:22, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

And as a supplementary question, do you think it's acceptable for any administrator to have multiple blocks for incivility? Malleus Fatuorum 15:24, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

That's an interesting question in and of itself, but I'm not sure that it's directly related to the subject that started this thread, which seems to me to be dealing with civility "enforcement" in general. On that topic, I think that the difference of opinion comes down to individual editor's priorities or focus. If the focus is on "policing" (as it usually seems to be on, for example, AN/I), then Jayron32's view that "all editors should be held to standards of decorum and civility" seems to dominate. If the focus is on content itself (as in a content dispute taking place on an article talk page or a User talk page), then Monty845's view that "overly strict enforcement [is used in] editing disputes as a bludgeon against editors" seems to dominate. I think that where Malleus is coming to this discussion from is, essentially, having been caught between those two paradigms and trying to deal with it. The real problem here is that this push-pull goes on all the time, and it's something that many established editors are quite familiar with. I know that I've personally learned when to simply walk away for a content dispute, because as soon as any content dispute ends up on AN/I (or just about any other dispute resolution venue) then someone is getting smacked around and likely blocked. The content suffers, but I'd rather not get blocked or get someone else blocked because eventually the content will get corrected. Opinions on that vary though (Malleus, for example, obviously isn't one to back down... which I think is fine, it's just a different approach), and it would be nice to rectify things so we're not living with such different cultures here on Wikipedia.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 16:05, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Applying those policies to administrators and not just to regular editors would be a step in the right direction. Malleus Fatuorum 23:20, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

What about something like a Wikipedia-version of Robert's Rules of Order for all editors, specifically when it comes to debate and decorum? Viriditas (talk) 04:43, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

As long as the donations come in, the project will continue. GoodDay (talk) 04:50, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not meaning to open a Pandora's Box of comments here (though I can already imagine how that will happen), but maybe what's needed is a process similar to WP:AN3, where civility complaints can be filed through a formalized process where multiple instances of recent and ongoing incivility must be provided along with at least one notification to the editor of concerns regarding their tone? Just an idea, and FWIW I'd recommend that more than 3 specific instances be requied. Five strikes me as a reasonable number if they are recent and the editor was asked to desist. Doniago (talk) 14:20, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

The nastiest treatment is by people who know how to USE the Wikipedia system to beat up people. It's the nastiest because it can then be done with immunity. North8000 (talk) 14:19, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Another reason experienced editors leave is because they are tired of fighting day in and day out with vandals and inexperienced editors who burn up hours of their day. — GabeMc (talk) 06:45, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

It's fairly rare for such an editor to present too much of a problem long term though, some return a few times but in my experience 95% of the time they don't cause long term stress. They certainly are a nuisance but North8000's point is the key one - it's the conduct of experienced editors (and just a general acceptance of incivility) which drives people over the edge and actually causes them to leave for good.--Shakehandsman (talk) 23:46, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Want a solution? Here it is.

On this site, "experience" translates to experience with wikipedia procedures. That is the complete opposite of how things should be.

What to do?

Simple. Abolish all rules and start over from fresh. There can be a core team of admins left over, but they will be there to do the community's bidding ONLY and will be permitted to do nothing else - not even say anything, except to ask questions if they're unclear about what they're being asked to do. There can of course be admin bots with that too. And say good bye to the guidelines as well. And the essays. They'll all be archived of course, for historical interest and future inspiration. But that's it.

Then we build the wikipedia "system" up again.

Oh, and when we do this, we shouldn't be quiet about it. We should be loud. We should attract the best minds in the world to come and draft these rules, guidelines and so on. Richard Dawkins devising evoloutionary biology guidelines. Peter Singer animal welfare guidelines. Chomsky language. And some Wharton MBAs coming up with the new procedures. Give them a week or two to do it. Every means of communication possible - on wiki, IRC, email, SKYPE, phone, hell there'd probably even be TV time for something this big. This has to be a big discussion and I believe it could involve over a million people.

So yeah... this would be massive. My question is: does the community have the balls? Especially since, if you are currently a "prominent" community member, you ain't gonna be after this. Egg Centric 19:14, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

It's certainly an interesting proposal, but like you, I'm not sure if the community would be willing to take it on. After being here for about nine and a half months, I think a fresh start of some sort for Wikipedia would be a very good thing. I'm not certain about scrapping everything, but yes, a fresh start for the whole project would be very nice. As a side note, I'm not sure that that admins' noticeboard is the best place for a discussion like this; perhaps Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) would be better? Chris the Paleontologist (talk • contribs) 19:58, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that didn't work out so well when they tried it on "Blood on the Scales". Your solution is tantamount to throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Not good. Viriditas (talk) 04:33, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

You could use an even more thorough approach to the same goal: abolish the community when you start afresh. Ban all the existing editors at the same time that you abolish all the rules. Then just let in editors who you think are good. Change the domain name and servers too. In fact Wikipedia's content policies (specificially the CC licensing) is designed to allow exactly this, it's called a "fork", and multiple people have done it with varying degrees of success. Citizendium is probably the best known of them. It's better than Wikipedia in some ways and worse in others. Same for Wikinfo. Veropedia is of course dead. None of these really got all that much traction, but on the other hand, I half-remember hearing that a fork of the Spanish Wikipedia ended up supplanting the original one. Anyway, good luck with your fork; you might want to make another post once it's up and running. 67.117.130.107 (talk) 00:44, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Your memory is ok, but apparently ends in mid-2004. Enciclopedia Libre, a Spanish-Wikipedia fork, was indeed more popular. But that only lasted from February 2002 to ~March 2004. It's not quite dead yet, but it's not going anywhere either. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:05, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

"Just let in editors who you think are good" - who is this "you" deciding who is "good"? You've abolished all the rules, remember... JohnCD (talk) 19:03, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I prefer evolution to revolution. That isn't to say that revolutions aren't sometimes necessary, but when they are it is because some establishment has sat on all possibility of reform. We aren't in that position, consensus makes change much more difficult than majority voting would, but it is still possible and it does sometimes happen. ϢereSpielChequers 19:22, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

What is this...the "Six Million Dollar Wikipedia"? "Gentlemen...we can re-build it....." LOL! I think this all can be nutshelled down to this......stop looking so close and reading the freaking tea leaves over what is happening here on Wikipedia. It isn't rocket science and it isn't the end of the world or the site. Statistics are an awful thing in the wrong hands and just ask yourself - who is leaving and how is that determined. Can I delete my account? I don't think so? So what is this about established editors leaving. I think we are talking time only here. And some editors have twice as much editing in as I do with the same time and some editors with almost twice the time even less edits than I. It's all overblown and hyped up. The problem is getting people to stick around longer and getting thold ones to come back. That just seems a little too "social media" like for me. Wikipedia can improve a lot of things here and there. Maybe another update to the formatting of the page, maybe some different types of mark up allowance (what can be done on wikipedia), maybe just getting the discussions rolling more to change consensus on things that directly relate to ease of use, and overall look. Maybe something as dumb as allowing some set skins to certain articles, or just pushing projects more for a more interesting and yet somewhat controled experiance for editors. We don't have to re-invent the wheel....but we could loosen up a bit.--Amadscientist (talk) 01:37, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Loss of editors is a problem, and also indicative of some problems that we should fix. No, the sky isn't falling, but we're plateaued out due to some problems that we need to fix. Incidentally, IMHO the area where Wikipedia has the worst retention rate and where it most needs needs to have a high retention rate is newer editors who are experts in their fields. I have seen many leave and have provided some partial mentoring to get some to stay and become editors North8000 (talk) 19:45, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

• You want solutions? Here are solutions... You want more administrators? Fix the dysfunctional RfA process, in which one NO vote counts as 3 YES votes and those holding the tools are regarded as members of some sacred priesthood rather than the Universal Set of Experienced Editors Who Are Vandal Fighters, as it should be. The tools really are NO BIG DEAL. You want more editors? Fix this lousy editing software that requires contributors to write code. Make it work as simply and intuitively as MS Word or Apple Pages or whatever WYSIWYG word processor you prefer. You want to reduce vandalism? Require registration an sign-in-to-edit. This is not rocket science.

I personally don't think there is a serious crisis in terms of participation. It's harder to make contributions now than it was in 2004. Don't believe me? Look at the quality of the referencing in ANY 2004 article you care to name and compare that to a decently constructed article of 2012 in terms of form and content... Things are at a much higher level now...

The project is a compendium of pop trivia on the one hand — which is much as it ever was. In terms of "hard coverage" encyclopedia articles, the project needs more experts, retired professors and the like. It is natural that there will be fewer people involved. If you want more of them, the editing process needs to be simpler, the difficulty of adding footnotes to form is the big barrier. Carrite (talk) 19:56, 29 April 2012 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 19:59, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

WP's loss of good editors has nothing to do with difficulty of adding footnotes, or even with random vandalism by unenrolled users. When I see a good editor leave, it's always because of frustration and burnout with the site culture, which mostly means tolerance of pushy jerks and every form of COI. WP:RAUL is kind of old now, but those not familiar with it might take a look. The current editing atmosphere is far more bureaucratic than it's ever been in the past, and the "reforms" that keep getting implemented are making it worse rather than better. The project lost its sense of purpose long ago, so what's left is slowly filling with poison. 64.160.39.217 (talk) 22:06, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

As Jesus O'Buddah once declared, "The burned out editors will always be with you." The key is to make sure that the river flowing into the reservoir is equal to or greater than the water flowing out the spillway. That requires more editors. WMF thinks the key is User Talk pictures of kittens, kicking grouchy content creators out if they can't mend their ways, and adding thousands of random "crowd sourcers" through outreach campaigns targeted to a mystical youth demographic. I content that given the developing LEVEL of content, what are needed are more grouchy old content creators with specialist expertise — which requires, first and foremost, editing software that will make their contributions possible. Carrite (talk) 16:07, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I do think North 800 is correct however, and we do seem to be losing a lot of newer editors with expertise in their fields and much of that is over confusion as to how their edits may be COI, POV or OR. Some leave over continued disputes over their contributions for POV reasons and some leave when a simple warning turns into a bite and their simple misunderstanding of policy and guidelines gives way to a perception of them as an undesirable editor. Specifics in regards to newly formed ediors and guidance in these areas could help a lot. More emphasis on COI editing, what it is, how to work within guidelines on such articles that may be in conflict ets. Being an expert in a particular field does not make you a COI editor. Being directly linked to a subject does. However, having a COI does not mean you cannot edit and educating, even the more established editors seems to be of great concern. I wonder if an occasional ad at the top of the wikipedia page that remains, similar to the Foundation announcements, should be used clarify problem areas of concern to the general community. Anything else might be very difficult to implement, such as some kind of auto generated Newcomer page with clarification of editing for pay, declaring a conflict if desired, what POV is and how to reference a fact etc. I don't know if this is possible, or even already done in some form, but it could help to guide future editors in the direction of collaboration if nothing else and give them a much better chance of surviving the first edit, which seems to be the problem. Many new editors don't make a second edit. If they do, there may not be a third.--Amadscientist (talk) 18:04, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Copyright backlog getting horrendous

This little cat first cried for your help on this issue in February 2010. Here he is again. Will you please, please help him?

• Wikipedia:Copyright problems
• Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations

Well, I was hoping to make good ground on the backlog at WP:CP today, but that was before I discovered to my dismay that the WP:SCV backlog stretches back almost as far. This means we're likely to lose rather than gain ground, because I can't even keep up when SCV is kept up to date ... not even when I give it every spare moment of the weekend I can muster.

Please, please, please, people. This is important work. Yes, it can be tedious, but it's usually not that hard. And even if you just pitch in a little, you can be a big help. "Many hands make light work" and all that.

You don't have to be an admin to work at WP:SCV. The instructions are in the collapse box at the top of the page.

Much of the work at WP:CP is limited to admins, but it's not all hard. There's pretty comprehensive advice at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/Advice for admins, and I am so willing to offer on the job training. And hire a maid to clean your house. (Well, not really. I'd have to justify to my family why I'm not taking care of mine. :))

For those who like the idea of handling text-based copyright issues but for some reason shy away from WP:SCV and WP:CP, we also have backlogs of over a year at WP:CCI. (I really recommend that the less experienced don't start at the oldest. Those tend to get old for a reason...they're hard.) But I'm not really here today to plead for CCI. It's the far-more urgent WP:SCV and sometimes-urgent WP:CP that need you most.

Please. We are drowning. Or, less dramatically but more accurately, really falling behind. :/ --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:03, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I looked at a few but without admin tools there's not much I can do so I stopped. All I would be able to do is just ask someone else to take action so I would mostly just be in the way. Kumioko (talk) 23:35, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh, there's tons you could do to help at WP:SCV. :) WP:NPP pick up on blatant issues quite often, but sometimes they don't - and sometimes the creators remove the copyright tag and the new page patrollers evidently don't notice that they were there. In those cases, adding a speedy deletion tag can be helpful. Sometimes there is a plausible chance that the contributor could offer permission (if User:CompanyX copies content from the website on Company X, say), and in those cases especially the proper course is to blank the article and use the template that {{copyvio}} generates to let them know how to give permission. Anybody can do that, and admins are not supposed to delete articles in such cases until a week after they have. Sometimes it's a matter of talking to somebody about how to handle Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing or Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. Sometimes the source is public domain or compatibly licensed, and they may need to be told how to attribute in accordance with Wikipedia:Plagiarism. Sometimes it's a false positive, and a note just needs to be added to the entry to document that the article has been checked and is okay. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 10:21, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I am not able to assist at the moment, with finals coming up. But I can give it real focus after May 8th, so remind me then, if you would. And, dear god, that kitten is the cutest thing in the world. Silverseren^C 02:37, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm in the middle of some content work with materials I have access to for a limited time (plus working on the RfC), but once the RfC (and school) are over, I'll try to help. I have decent database access through my library and community college, if that's a plus. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 02:51, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you both! Access to sources is great (although I do sometimes run by WP:RX when I can't get ahold of one, and that frequently works). And, yes, that kitten is insanely cute. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 10:21, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Last time you asked I was willing to help and immediately ran into this problem. So no, sorry, not the second time until the problem gets resolved. I mean not this particular article, which is already fine, but the attitude that bureacratic procedures are above all does not matter what.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:49, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

While I appreciate your willingness to help, I'm afraid that we do have policies against even temporarily publishing content that may be against the law. This is why potential copyright problems are blanked until the listing is closed, and this is why matters that might violate WP:BLP are removed while we figure out if they do...and not left in place until after. This is to help protect the encyclopedia, our reusers and the individuals whose rights may be violated. Your help in copyright work would be much appreciated, but I don't think it would be a good idea to change this practice as a matter of principle given what could be a risk. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 10:21, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

The point is that the copyrighted text was there for couple of weeks before I started editing (not obviously introduced by me, and it was not removed by anybody, though clearly identified and templated), was removed after I started rewriting it, despite the fact that I promised to finish the work in several hours, it was clear that I am currently working on the article, and my edits were reverted. Best luck with finding somebody willing to help.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:29, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

And the article was about events occurred 100+ years ago, so that it did not contain anything even remotely close to BLP.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:32, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I didn't intend to imply that it was a BLP issue; I simply note that legal issues including BLP and copyright have certain handling. In terms of the principle, and not the specifics of this incident, once content is identified, there is a level of diligence that can help minimize legal problems. This includes immediate removal. I can see that you are upset about this incident, and I'm sorry about that, but it didn't have anything to do with me and the principle is sound. If you think the principle is being misapplied in a particular situation, you can discuss that politely with the contributor with whom you disagree and seek dispute resolution if the two of you can't reach consensus. In general, though, I'm afraid that I can't guarantee anyone a conflict-free experience helping with copyright issues. But I appreciate your good wishes. :) There are always people willing to help out. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:32, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, indeed, I believe that the principle was being misapplied (in the end of the day, I was removing the copyrighted content, not introducing it), and I tried to discuss it with the editor, but the discussion did not go anywhere. I am absolutely sure they did it in good faith, and I am not so much interested in the article (and the article has been fixed by the editor anyway) so that I would go through the dispute resolution process, but it still remains by far my worst experience on this project since 2007, and I wish it would remain my worst experience still for some time.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:44, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I tend to avoid these lists, because of what amounts to OWNership issues by the regulars there. they have adopted a certain series of discrete steps, and I prefer to do things differently to get the same result. (I do not participate,in fact, in any Wikipedia project that uses coded symbols.) So I just work on my own with what I notice or what is called to my attention, which is in any case as much as I can handle. It;'s not just the machinery I dislike, it's the approach: in general the problem I have with the approach is the same as what Ymblanter noticed: those working at those boards prefer to remove, even if rewriting is feasible, and I prefer to rewrite when possible: both ways remove copyvio, but one gets us an article. An example is the list that MRG suggested for non-admins to do, she left out: rewrite to remove the copyvio, remove the copyvio portion, stubbify the article--all things that any editor can do. Similarly, unless someone is doing it repeatedly, the way to handle close paraphrase , copying within WP or failure to attribute a quotation is usually to just fix it, like any other error. And I disagree completely with the view that if something has been there for 100 hours, we are aiding violation of the law if we leave it in another few hours while we're working on it--it's de minibus--we should do whatever facilitates working on it. And for things that only might be copyright violations Wikipedia has no obligation, legal or moral, to remove until it's shown to be copyvio or we receive a takedown notice. In another direction, I do not blank and suggest giving formal permission if the material would be promotional--I delete using both G11 and G12 as a reason--there's no point telling someone to go through the trouble of giving formal permission if the material is unusable. DGG ( talk ) 17:13, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

<blink>Goodness. DGG, perhaps you didn't intend it to sound this way, but there are a lot of what seem to me uncivil comments in this, including your accusation that "those working at those boards prefer to remove, even if rewriting is feasible" which is demonstrably unfounded. I have personally rewritten from scratch hundreds of articles flagged for copyright problems and repaired or stubbed many, many more. In terms of ownership issues, you would be very welcome to join a constructive conversation about how to better handle copyright issues, although I can't imagine how symbols create an issue. They're simply easier shorthand than typing the same thing over and over again. They're not mandatory or hard. I do, however, disagree with you heartily that we have no legal or moral obligation to remove copy-pasted content. By the same token, we could retain BLP issues until they are proven to be defamatory - but this is irresponsible from a legal and moral standpoint. Copyright infringement, just like defamation, has the possibility of doing real world harm to people. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:10, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Chugging in on WP:SCV, which I did not know of before. Can't promise much, but I'll pick off some. Procedure is SCV -> CP if confirmed, right? --Alvestrand (talk) 20:56, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. :) CP is the right avenue if you think there's a chance of permission to be verified. If it's a blatant WP:CSD#G12, you can tag it for {{db-copyvio}}. Wikipedia:Text Copyright Violations 101 has some basic information. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:10, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

</blink>Moonriddengirl, learn to close your HTML tags :-) I have to agree with DGG's parenthetical statement: any page that requires me to use little coded symbols is confusing. It would help if the SCV process (and the RFPP process) suggested the templates rather than essentially requiring them. Nyttend (talk) 21:14, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

:D I have no objection to that. I'm pretty sure it'll be non-controversial and will add them immediately. I don't always use them myself, although they are easy at a glance to read when checking to see if a day is done. I created them for my own use after typing that an article had been cleaned for the billionth time - it's just so much easier to type {{CPC}}. Voila! It does it all for me. I've noticed the time you've been putting in at SCV, by the way, and really appreciate it. :) (Oh, but I won't take RFPP. It may not be noncontroversial there.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:18, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Noted in the group edit header that they are not mandatory. I'll explain the issues if it turns out be controversial. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:28, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

It's definitely an issue at RFPP; the first time that I worked there for a little bit, I left custom comments instead of the templates, and before long someone had left a message asking me please to use the template. Nyttend (talk) 21:40, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

DGG - With respect to your re-write comment, I'll be honest and say, yes, I have deleted articles and or content when a rewrite may have been possible. Did I want to do this, no, but given the backlog at WP:CP I thought it was more important to work through the backlog. What would we prefer - an article on something of marginal notability or stopping an ever growing list of blanked articles, some of which are bound to be high-profile. Personally I think it's the latter, hence the reason I sometimes delete articles I think could be re-written - although I will stub if I can. As for the symbols issue I'd agree with Moonriddenggirl that they're mainly there to help identify which listings have and haven't been dealt with and they certainly aren't mandatory. I agree with your comments on other tasks that non-admins can do but I don't see the point of your next sentence starting "Similarly, unless someone is doing it repeatedly,...". The reason we list these at WP:CP is to make sure they don't get missed, articles rarely get deleted for close paraphrasing and we fix the copying within Wikipedia problems by attributing properly. We also don't remove material that just might by a copyvio - if we can't find a source the tag is removed. Dpmuk (talk) 15:50, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

More eyes on the article List of current National Basketball Association head coaches would be helpful

The article List of current National Basketball Association head coaches needs a lot more people paying attention to it. At present there are only me and two other editors making changes to it as needed.

--184.6.219.143 (talk) 21:06, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

That's good of you, but why are more eyes needed? Are the constant coaching changes becoming a burden? :)--Wehwalt (talk) 08:51, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Pretty much. And some of the information in the lead is horribly out of date.

--184.6.219.143 (talk) 16:12, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

RPP backlock

There's a bit of a backlog at WP:RPP. I've done a little but there's still quite a list and I really need to go to bed. Could someone have a look? Thanks. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 21:44, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I cleared out a bunch of them. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 23:47, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

TFD closure needed

This TFD has been open since March and discussion has come to a standstill in the past week. Can someone close it please? It looks like a consensus to delete, since the lack of deletion owed to the Wikipedia:Soft deletion proposal which was soon rejected. Those presenting non-delete arguments are not backing themselves with policy, so I say it's a delete. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 00:43, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

 Done. In the future, however, please refrain from canvassing or making your arguments here. Any such discussions belong in that discussion, not here. Thanks. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 03:30, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Copyright Deletion

Earlier today I deleted Parvaresh-Vardy codes and list decoder as a copright violation of https://wiki.cse.buffalo.edu/cse545/content/parvaresh-vardy-codes-and-list-decoder It is a direct copy of the first half of that page. The author messaged me on my talk page. It appears that this is a college assignment. Would someone look at this and give their opinion on this article. GB fan 01:50, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I've undeleted. In response to a message that I left at the author's talk, the source page has been updated with an explicit CC-by-sa-3.0 release statement. Nyttend (talk) 02:51, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks GB fan 02:54, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Muhammad images should be closed, yes?

This talk page has turned into a talk page, and by that I mean a discussion forum. The RFC was closed a while ago and at least one of the closing admins stated here on AN that she wouldn't take comments made after the close into consideration (which I'm guessing is a normal practice and so I imagine the other two admins will follow suit).

Aside from the forum talk, there are examples of off topic and problematic behavior, such as this thread, wherein an editor educates us all on the possible motivations of those with whom they disagree content wise.

Lots of bickering, etc.

There are probably a few discussions which might work for the Muhammad talk page, but most of it is about the issue at hand which is currently being resolved by the aforementioned admin trio.

I would take this to WP:RFPP but who knows, this may be a more contentious issue than I think and could use the opinions of more than one admin. Anyway, if I haven't made myself obvious, I think the page should be locked for the good of the encyclopedia and the sanity of all those involved in the discussion :). SÆdon^talk 05:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Agree to the lock, as it's not being used to impove the page. Users should be directed to the Muhammad talk pages for improving that article, or to the closing admins (talk pages) to find out the status of the close. The talk page can be unlocked once a closure message is posted, whenever that is. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:49, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

What he said. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 17:43, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Admin refusing to participate in dispute resolution

There is a dispute over the structure of List of vegans, discussed at Talk:List_of_vegans#Legends.2Ftemplates. User:SlimVirgin has been claiming consensus for pushing changes through and I dispute she does have a consensus, so started a discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#List of vegans. So far she has refused to participate in the dispute resolution, claiming she does not need to: [32]. Administrator User:EdJohnston tackled her over her refusal to participate in dispute resolution, noting ...it seems to me that your insistence on removing the templates has no supporters but yourself. What consensus there is suggests that Betty's scheme is favored. SilmVirgin has refused to acknowledge this. She has also requested another editor on the article to write a program that will remove all the citation tempplates, which is expressly forbidden by Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Citation_templates_and_tools. Since EdJohnston does not believe she has a consensus for her changes, can you please compel her to participate in dispute resolution and to cease making structural alterations to the article until the issues are resolved at DR. Betty Logan (talk) 02:00, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• Please remember to notify involved editors as required. Notifications to SlimVirgin and EdJohnston made. Monty₈₄₅ 02:21, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
• This complaint is not valid and looks like forum shopping. Editors are not required to participate. Jehochman ^Talk 02:35, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

  If this complaint is not valid, I am going to take my efforts of Wikipedia. I have promoted articles to GA and FA status, but if there is not a legitimate process for settling a content dispute then I have no recourse. And this is not forum shopping; after filing a complaint at AN3 I tried being constructive by entering dispute resolution. Even EdJohnston said this was an appropriate step, and he advised me to come here if I was still dissatisifed, which I am. It is very clear that this would not be happening if the other editor was not an admin. Betty Logan (talk) 02:48, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• But if they don't participate, then that generally means that they are in the wrong and are trying to avoid responsibility. Silverseren^C 03:26, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• I've given three years of my life to this project working on articles and developing templates (just check my user stats), because I believe in free knowledge. You can't even give me one lousy dispute resolution process, where someone impartial decides what the consensus is. Betty Logan (talk) 02:54, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I think it's pretty strange to defend SlimVirgin over Betty in this case. It seems that SlimVirgin has been ignoring all objections on the talk page, refused to participate in dispute resolution, and is allowing her personal distaste for templates to guide her actions here. She has been dismissive of Betty Logan's attempts to insist on reliable sourcing (and, lets not forget, describing someone as a vegan is a WP:BLP issue, where strong sourcing is an absolute requirement). I've reverted the article to a version prior to SlimVirgin's participation. I suggest that she not return to editing the article until she participates in dispute resolution and agrees not to include statements about living people that don't meet WP:BLP.—Kww(talk) 03:30, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Kww, that was out of order. You've undone a lot of work, including adding new names and sources. I advise you to look at the page history, the serial reverting, and the talk page. Please revert yourself. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:41, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Here's your changes. I'm seeing only 4 new people added and about 5 source changes. The rest is just decapitalization and such, which isn't all that important. It's certainly easier to do it this way than to have to manually put the color coded stuff back in. Silverseren^C 03:48, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Just as it was sorted out, Kww has stirred it up again. The truth is that Betty Logan has been a serial reverter on that page for two years, barely allowing anyone else to edit it, but without improving it either. I'm all for a bit of OWN when it helps, but what he has done has caused the page to stagnate. Now, because I tried to help a new editor he was repeatedly reverting over the last few days, he has turned on me, and has taken me to, I believe, four noticeboards since last night. You have just rewarded that behaviour, and have undone a lot of work in which I added names and references that he had been removing. Please revert yourself. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:49, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

And now we move onto the bit where, when you can't get people to agree with you, you try to discredit the person you're in a disagreement with. Really, I could make a checklist and mark each one as you follow it, you've done the pattern time and again. Silverseren^C 03:57, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

It wasn't sorted out at all, SV: you were simply ignoring all objections to your edits. Pay attention to the DRN request, and enter into it in good faith, with the full expectation that you might not prevail. Sure, Betty is frustrated as all hell and lashing out, but I probably would be too.—Kww(talk) 10:13, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

SlimVirgin did not request that anyone write a program. I told SlimVirgin that I would write a program (at a later date, after I've completed my current project) and SlimVirgin agreed that it would be a good idea. The purpose of the program would be to convert templated refs to non-templated refs in order to see if makes a significant difference in the page loading speed. Certainly, neither of us had it in mind as a permanent adjustment as no permanent plan for the page had been determined. It was just talk during the discussion & testing phase that we are still in. --Andomedium (talk) 21:46, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

See Talk:Pain/Archive_4#Cite_ref; it has been tried manually and apparently does make a significant difference if there are many citations in the article (Pain has more than 100). WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:11, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the link. --Andomedium (talk) 15:32, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Forget it

Forget it, I've just had enough. I loved Wikipedia when I joined and now I absolutely hate it. You don't have fair rules for settling editing disputes, and you allow editors to destroy other people's work like what happened to User:Armbrust, the best editor you ever had. And you always take the admin's side and provide no mechanism for editors to have a consensus judged fairly and impartially. This is not a nice place. You probably think I'm a troublemaker because I'm a redlink, but I've promoted articles and peer reviewed film articles, and practically held the snooker project afloat with Armbrust. I want you to know how good I was though so here are the two articles I am proudest of:

• Don't Look Now – This is my favorite film and the article was shit when I joined Wikipedia. I single handedly developed it from this to this.
• List of highest-grossing films – I wrote all the prose on that, and designed and implemented the expandible tables at the bottom. I thought they were so cool, and really elevated the article. Under my guidance that article went from this to this

I think those two articles show me in my best light, it shows what I'm capable off when I'm allowed to edit fairly, although I doubt you give a shit. And you insult me by not even giving me the opportunity to have my editing decisions and my point of view heard fairly, by someone impartial. Over and out. Betty Logan (talk) 03:22, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, Betty, please don't leave. That was a really crass comment by Jehochman above, please ignore it. I'm sure there's people here that can help with this issue. Silverseren^C 03:26, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Betty, for what it's worth, I apologize to you that we have gotten off track here. I take responsibility for that. The situation now is that several of us are discussing on the talk page what the formatting of the article should be. We agree that the list needs something to prettify it, and there are several good featured lists that we could take our lead from. One consideration is not to add to load time (already slow) with unnecessary templates, and to make sure the page is easy for new editors to expand (i.e. not too fiddly -- the previous colour-coding was problematic in that regard). The discussion is going well, and you are welcome to join in.

My suggestion is that you take a couple of days away from the article, and I will do the same. Then when we're both refreshed, we can meet again on talk to discuss how to proceed. Nothing has happened at that article that can't be changed easily, so please accept this olive branch, then we can start again with a better relationship and work to improve the page together. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any agreement on the talk page with your view on the load times. Furthermore, I just tried loading both versions and there wasn't any time difference. You also don't have any consensus on the talk page for the removal of the color coding. Also, this polite, fake positive wording/speech methods that you use to imply that you're the one that has consensus and that you're the one doing all the work in the discussion is really just insulting to whomever you're speaking to. Silverseren^C 03:53, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Did you clear your browser's cache in between? It's (I've been told) a necessary step to get valid results in this instance. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:13, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Betty Logan seems to be making pointed comments at EdJohnston now.[33] Not good. Mathsci (talk) 03:56, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not seeing a pointed comment, i'm seeing someone upset and burned out. She isn't even being insulting or anything, so I don't see the issue at all. Silverseren^C 03:59, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

No. A section headed "Thanks for nothing" seems to be a critcism of EdJohnston's closing of the report at WP:AN3. Mathsci (talk) 04:05, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I think EdJohnston's close of it was appropriate, but I can fully understand Betty being upset as they are if I had to deal with a talk page discussion like that one with Slim Virgin. Silverseren^C 04:09, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Betty Logan objected to the close explicitly.[34] The discussion on the talk page is proceeding in a calm and orderly way. Mathsci (talk) 04:17, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

It was already going in a calm and orderly way. And considering there's been only one edit since then, Slim Virgin making an RfC on the color thing, there isn't really anything that has happened since to be judged whether it is calm and orderly. I assume these comments are just trying to defend SV, Mathsci? Silverseren^C 04:23, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

No, SV is not the problem here. Meanwhile Betty Logan has forum-shopped elsewhere.[35] Mathsci (talk) 06:06, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I suggest you follow SlimVirgin's example, extend the olive branch and let this go. Its probably past time to close this thread before someone makes things worse. -- Avanu (talk) 06:15, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

If only it was an actual olive branch and not a snake. Silverseren^C 06:42, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh, so every time someone else puts a message on Jimbo's page, it's not forum shopping, but now it is? Besides, there's no link back here or even an explicit mention, so it's not forum shopping. Silverseren^C 06:42, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Please cut back on the drama-producing rhetoric, personalised remarks and scarcely credible wikilawyering. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 06:55, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

So, essentially, you're not actually going to respond to what I say. I see how it is. Silverseren^C 06:59, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Please see Ched Davis' comments below: your contributions here seem to be in bad faith. Mathsci (talk) 07:26, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• I'm not going to enter into the meat of the disagreement itself, but I must say that when an editor (Slim) states I apologize to you that we have gotten off track here. I take responsibility for that. and Then when we're both refreshed, we can meet again on talk to discuss how to proceed. Nothing has happened at that article that can't be changed easily, so please accept this olive branch, - I find it rather unseemly for other editors to use language such as: this polite, fake positive wording/speech methods that you use and If only it was an actual olive branch and not a snake.. Let's try to do a little better please. — Ched :  ?  07:20, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• "I'm sorry people got upset" is not the same thing as "I'm sorry for what I did". Ken Arromdee (talk) 22:57, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

• I did go a bit overboard with that, but i'm extremely annoyed that everyone is ignoring what Slim has done wrong (and the canvassing below). Though I am, admittedly, not surprised at the response either. And now we've lost yet another editor. Great job everyone. Silverseren^C 07:31, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Canvassing

Right here. Saying "Please don't feel like you have to comment" is just a veiled attempt to pretend it isn't canvassing. Why wouldn't he feel compelled to comment after being informed of it? Silverseren^C 04:33, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

If you're going to list diffs under a section titled "Canvassing", allow me to help by adding a few more: diff 2, diff 3, diff 4. — Ched :  ?  07:23, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

How is any of that canvassing? Those are all proper processes to be used in a dispute. The RSN discussion is in agreement with Betty. The AN3 discussion was no consensus, but noted that there was no support for Slim. And Slim refused to be involved in the DRN discussion. Again, how is any of this canvassing? It looks to me like a continually agreement that Slim has no consensus and is refusing to actually discuss anything. Silverseren^C 07:35, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I see the RSN discussion is not the recent one I was thinking of, but one from a few days ago. What does that one even have to do with anything? Silverseren^C 07:37, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Personally I hope that Betty doesn't leave, and I hope she and SV can find a resolution to all this. I do understand that once frustration sets in, it's often difficult to see another person's side of things. I don't know Betty - but she seems to be a good-faith editor, and I hope she'll stay. I'm just saying that having seen Slim around for many years, I know that she too is someone open to reason and compromise. I haven't read through all the discussions on this, and I'm not really interested in the "vegan" topic itself. If it were me, then after a WP:3O my next step would be to start a RfC on the article talk page (perhaps even try to get it listed at WP:CENT - at the conclusion of the RfC, you get some sort of established consensus. If it can't be resolved that way - then some sort of WP:MEDCAB type of thing perhaps could help. (and I should have said earlier too - SS, I do admire you sticking up for another fellow editor - I'm just saying it's not necessary to "bash" one person, in order to "support" another.) — Ched :  ?  07:53, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Please Allow SlimVirgin to Proceed

My words may not matter much because I'm not an established Wikipedia user (I've actually made many attempts over the past seven years to become an active Wikipedia editor but each time I was discouraged by users like Betty Logan who are so eager to delete the contributions of other users) but I'd still like to show my support for SlimVirgin.

If you check the History pages for the List of Vegetarians and the List of Vegans, it's quite clear that Betty Logan is more interested in completely deleting new (valid) list entries than in finding ways to help retain them.
If a new entry has no reference, Betty completely deletes the entry.
If a new entry has a reference but Betty finds the reference unsatisfactory, Betty completely deletes the entry.
Betty doesn't try to help create a better reference.
Betty doesn't seem to care that the entrant's vegan/vegetarian status can often be easily confirmed with a quick Google search and a pinch of common sense.
Betty doesn't bother to list the entrant on the Talk page so that other users can try to find a better source (something that SlimVirgin has already begun doing).
Betty just completely deletes the entry and that's that. The name usually remains gone from the list unless the user who added it happens to return to battle Betty, or another user comes along at a later date to try to add the name again.

While viewing the page history, I found more than enough reversions to convince me that Betty Logan shouldn't be maintaining these lists. Unfortunately, I didn't keep a good record of my findings (I'll read through the history again if necessary).
One example that I can clearly recall is Kesha who was deleted from the List of vegetarians simply because the user failed to add her in alphabetical order.
I don't believe that Betty Logan knows, or even truly cares about, what's best for these lists.
I believe that SlimVirgin does know (or will soon determine) what's best for these lists and I believe that SlimVirgin truly does care about what's best for these lists. I've looked at a lot of SlimVirgin's past work and I am convinced that, if allowed to work on the lists unimpeded, SlimVirgin will produce better structured lists and a better system for expanding and maintaining the lists. --Andomedium (talk) 21:03, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. While edits like this are not a good way to behave, it's also important to source things. If the reference is missing, or unsatisfactory, then remove the sentence it's referencing. That's pretty standard for information about living people. SlimVirgin doesn't necessarily know what's best for these lists, because they're not her lists: they're lists on an encyclopaedia, and lists on an encyclopedia should always be referenced with good quality sources. The Cavalry (Message me) 21:14, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Certainly it is important to source things, and Betty Logan does not appear to be doing that. The reason we edit by humans is so the full range of appropriate actions should be considered. Before removing someone from a list of that sort, one should make at least a cursory check that there is not available documentation--at least by checking the Wikipedia article in case there is a link that can be copied over. Otherwise its operating like a primitive level bot, and we already have enough of these without turning ourselves into unthinking machinery. SV's edits over the years have shown her to be, in contrast, an extremely resourceful editor, who takes care in following the actual BLP policy. DGG ( talk ) 10:01, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

(Comment by Non-Admin.) SlimVirgin is one of the finest, if not the finest administrator I have ever encountered. I do not say this because she has always agreed with me. Quite the contrary. But she has ALWAYS been polite and informative and an encounter with her will make a better editor of you for it. Just thought it had to be said and this was a good place to say it. Mugginsx (talk) 12:17, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

(Another non-admin comment). Let me begin by saying that I, deliberately, have not reviewed the edits at the page in question. It isn't on my watchlist, and it's an argument I can do without. But I want to criticize what I see in a lot of this discussion: character endorsements or criticisms that, likewise, seem to be made by editors who know nothing more of the specifics than I do. I don't remember ever having crossed paths with Betty Logan, but I most certainly have done so numerous times with SlimVirgin. Comments that someone (who is, whatever else, a long-time active user) is generally resourceful or one of the finest do little to shed light on a specific incident, and are the kinds of things that give rise to the perception that we have so-called "vested contributors". Veganism is somewhat related as a subject to animal rights, and I have a lot of experience there, and have had some truly horrid experiences with SlimVirgin in that area. That doesn't mean that the same thing is happening here, but please forgive me if I have a Pavlovian response and worry that Betty Logan might have reason to feel badly. And yet, it has been my impression that SlimVirgin has been making a commendable effort to be on good behavior since her return from her illness. I, very sincerely, respect that and wish her well. So, reputations are not going to help us here. Actually, it ends up being a matter of looking at the edits rather than the editor, in the sense that the specific editing actions are relevant in ways that reputation is not. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:24, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I am no vested contributor. Look at my edit history before you make such a comment and you will see how unfounded it is. Mugginsx (talk) 11:10, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that that is what Tryptofish meant. I think they were referring to a tendency to overemphasize who the editors are (and possibly rule in their favor because of that) rather than on the substance of the dispute in question. North8000 (talk) 11:51, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I see. My apologizes. Mugginsx (talk) 13:14, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I just logged back in, and saw this, and I want to assure Mugginsx that North is correct, and I was not at all calling you (nor DGG, whom I also obliquely quoted) a "vested contributor". Rather, I was trying to say that your comments, amongst many other comments by many other editors here, reinforced the somewhat flawed perception held by other people that such "vested contributors" exist. In other words, the fact that certain users have a long history of positive contributions should not be a sort of "free pass" in the event of unhelpful contributions. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:06, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Need a new Admin attitude

Disclaimer: Before I begin, let me say that I know full well we have an ample supply of perfect, abundantly helpful, and unfailingly charitable administrators. The following comments are not intended to change the behavior or process of those admins, except to encourage them to help those few administrators who manage to fall short in minor ways.

The PROBLEM

Its becoming a tired refrain that when people bring an issue to the admin board for help, asking for 'X', invariably admins and other editors chime in on 'Y' and 'Z'. Far too often, it degrades into personal attacks, nitpicking on policy from all editors toward all editors, and generally unproductive tangents. Admins seem far too eager to use banning and blocking tools, and far too hesitant to apologize for mistakes.

The QUESTIONS

Is this the exception? Are these things the few public opportunities we have to see a generally streamlined and efficient administrative process at work, and are people misjudging admin behavior because of a few abrupt or insensitive comments?

What suggestions might improve this? Do we say "no tolerance for incivility from our admins"? Do we remove admins from the process and allow community consensus to develop first before an admin is allowed to use 'tools'? Would things like this help or hurt?

Could programming fix some of these things? After all, we debated 'bad' usernames at length simply because we let people sign up almost anything they like. Perhaps 'suggest-a-name' algorithims? Or maybe allow admins to have a temp-rename ability that would allow them to 'fix' a username by amending it to something that they feel is acceptable, without having to block someone outright (assuming it is a non-vulgar type naming issue). It could have 1 month temp duration before a block is instituted, which would give a non-problematic user time to work through consensus processes before they end up blocked.

Back on TARGET

Some admins have to shoot so often, they probably end up in the middle of the street at high noon without even trying. While we end up getting rid of a lot of bad guys this way, you might lose track of who is who.

I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is an Administrator, the most powerful editor in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk? - Dirty Mopper

We love a cowboy; we love a person who stands up for what's right and don't take no guff from nobody. But even John Wayne's characters sometimes realized that they needed to gain some perspective. Yeah, they were usually right, usually brave, and usually honorable, but they weren't perfect.

The KEY

If we don't appreciate the impact our actions have on others, we end up locking them out. I can't tell admins what to do, any more than I can train a cat to use a toilet (although some people have). But I can tell you that I have seen a lot of people who feel very excluded by the behavior they see on these boards. I can tell you they don't walk away feeling helped, they don't walk away feeling appreciative for your hard work, they walk away wondering why they bothered. I don't think that is what admins want. I would simply encourage admins to hold one another accountable for civility above all else. Getting policy right is important, no doubt. Getting relationships right takes more work, but in the end more people will appreciate the hard work that you do and even scramble to step up and help. -- Avanu (talk) 07:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• To be honest, I'm very surprised to see no reaction to this thread. I was looking forward to various views. I think you've (Avanu) have made some astute observations. (and while "technically 'off the record' - I do enjoy the bits of embedded humor). — Ched :  ?  19:24, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I kind of finding it hard to come up with a response to this; there is no clear direction that the above comment is going in. --MuZemike 20:51, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Hey Muz - how ya doin? .. yea - it's rather difficult for me to compose a reply as well. I agree with a lot of the observations though. In general, I think our project does need to re-evaluate our stance on many things. Definitely a mind bender IMHO, and I've seen more than one lately along this line. I think it's an indication that there are indeed things that need to change if we're to survive - and I do want to hear other view-points. — Ched :  ?  21:31, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

(non-admin Pesky) Is it possible that too many of our admins are getting a bit burned-out? People can subject themselves to too much stress without really noticing it happening. I don't know what the fix for that would be, but it might explain a part of the problem. Avanu's made some good points there (and I liked the humour, as well :o) ) MuZemike, I think it's a hard thing to respond to, so not surprised people may find it hard to come up with a response. It leaves me with a kind of hollow, empty, "Don't know what, don't know how" to do anything feeling. But, underneath that one, I also have a feeling that there may be things that could be done. It just might take a while to come up with them. Pesky (talk) 21:40, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• I can't help but to conjure up the recent South Park episode where Eric Cartman tries to deflect attention from his misdeeds by claiming horrific deeds done by those around him, including alleged deeds of those accusing him. His friends and peers ignore this attempt at redirection and keep the discussion on-topic. This sort of action, I call it the Cartman Attempt, is employed with great regularity on these administrative boards. Much to my shock it actually succeeds in a great many cases. If this were a court of law an attorney or barrister would object based upon scope and evidence not in the record. Unless the judge was off his rocker that day a Cartman Attempt would be immediately shot down. We have no true impartial judges here (except maybe for the Arbitration Committee) and those pointing to a succeeding Cartman Attempt are not likely to succeed. Often folks point to the WP:BOOMERANG page but this isn't very reassuring for those who are truly interested in justice. I beg Wikipedia editors and administrators to see the Cartman Attempt whenever it is employed and to not let it muddy the waters. 140.247.141.142 (talk) 22:33, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

It's basically a typical ad hominem response to others' points. And no, you're right; that should be discouraged. However, sometimes that can be difficult, as there are people who make rather ridiculous claims about stuff – of course, this is all dependent on your interpretation of "ridiculous". --MuZemike 22:50, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• Comment I've heard that diplomacy is the art of telling another person to go to hell in a respectful enough way that they actually look forward to the trip. Being able to do that requires an inner calm that wears thin after being faced with the same nonsense (person doesn't understand why he can't spam his product on every page in the wiki, etc.) for the 500th time in a week. That loss of calm (and therefore diplomacy) over repeated annoying incidents is called "burnout" and it happens to everyone. Forcing one's self to stay diplomatic while in a state of burnout is sometimes necessary, but it's stressful in its own right and increases the burnout.

  In a no-deadline, volunteer operation like this, a better solution is to just stay away from the affected area (or in intense cases, quit Wikipedia completely) until it stops bothering you and you are WP:COOL again. I think this thread is in response to Orange Mike blocking that newbie further up. Both threads are about failures of diplomacy. That incident struck me as showing burnout on the part of both Orange Mike and Future Perfect (and maybe others). The actual facts Orange Mike communicated were fine, but he could have been much more diplomatic, and that actually counts. A few editors (it's easy enough to spot them) are unusually skillful at this; the rest of us can all benefit from watching them and trying to operate the same way. 64.160.39.217 (talk) 03:21, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I will admit that I'm verging on burnout. Certain editors, especially JayEn and to a lesser extent Avanu, seem to believe that I should stop doing New Page Patrol, CSD, and UAA, so that new COI accounts won't feel intimidated in their attempts to use us as their advertising medium and fluff up the portrait of the people who pay the COIs' salaries. (Sorry, that's sure as hell what I'm hearing from you, even if you insist that's not what you're saying.) I have my own interest which I'd much rather be working on, but since these are areas where there is a constant backlog, I've felt it was my duty as an admin to concentrate on places where the Mop-and-Bucket was the most needed. I have compared doing NPP in particular to "drinking from the Magic Fire Hose of Sewage", and would just as soon leave it to others; but nobody else really enjoys doing it either, for obvious reasons (to those of us who've been on the front lines, anyway). Forgive me if I seem unrepentant for trying to do my best here; I know, I know, no good deed goes unpunished. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:37, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Why do NPP? It doesn't require a sysop bit. Nobody Ent 15:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

And I may misunderstand smth, but this page shows that there is a large group of users consistently doing NPP at least this year. Whereas I doubt that the majority of them (I am certainly not an exception) enjoys this work, the progress is consistent, and the backlog is now slightly over two weeks, so that if you feel that you are burning out, you can certainly take a break from NPP. Your contribution over there, as well as everybody else's contribution, is much appreciated.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:23, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I certainly didn't mean to disparage the work of anybody else who's doing NPP; but to me, a two-week backlog is just unacceptably high. NPP is one of the few places where we can act to stop the vandal, the attack-article maker, and the spammer and nip them in the bud, before they sneak by and become an embarassment to this project. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:36, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. To the extent there is a problem, I think it's too difficult to fix. We have a mix of admins just as we have a mix of editors. Some are more deft than others. Some are more prone to keep things on track. Some prefer to let users vent a bit. Everyone gets tired at times and says things they regret. For some it's easier to apologize than for others, although it doesn't necessarily mean that the non-apologizing editor doesn't realize they crossed the line. These boards have developed a certain culture. It's not always pretty, but it ain't gonna change anytime soon, although we will probably be discussing it in different ways at different times and still arriving at the same dead end.--Bbb23 (talk) 03:42, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't spend much time on AN or ANI so I may be off the mark, but from the occasional glimpses I take, I see these boards evolving dramatically. A big shift happened a few months back when Newyorkbrad stepped in and made some stern observations about the ethos. That precipitated a bout of sincere navel-gazing here that had a lasting effect on the maturity and sincerity of discourse. And I think I've discerned a continually growing readiness to self-correct which leaves me mildly optimistic about this project and the prospect of an improved quality of life here, led by the admin corps. (But then again, I could be dreaming.) --Anthonyhcole (talk) 17:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I've only really been active for about sixteen months, but I'm sure I've noticed a lessening of general "making allowances for each other", an increase in dramahz, an increase in people feeling upset in general, several editors leaving in despair, and much more what I'd call "irritability" around. Is everyone burning out? Or are we somehow beginning to set a bad example for newbies on de-escalating conflicts, conciliation, trying to find ways to work together instead of obliterating the opposition and undermining each other ... this place isn;t the same as it was even just over a year ago. It's a less happy place. If we can work out why it is, then we know where to start fixing it. Pesky (talk) 17:16, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Concur; ANI is vastly improved over 2 to 3 years ago. Why, many days it's downright boring (this is a good thing). Nobody Ent 23:38, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

FYI: OrangeMike, I never said or implied that you shouldn't do New Page Patrol. The blocked user asked Jimbo why they were blocked, and I showed a scenario where MANY people are being blocked summarily for having a name that they likely signed up under in good faith. Our policy on Usernames and Socks says that we need to exercise Civility with new users. Having a process in place to eliminate promotional or role accounts is a good one, and I recognize that it is labor intensive to have to warn, then follow up and block. So I recognize that we have competing interests. The question becomes, how do we craft a process that actually follows Civility AND is not labor intensive for Admins? I think it is doable, but we need a willingness to push for change rather than simply admit we can't have both. Civility is a pillar policy, not simply a policy. This means we should not ignore it. But we have to also be practical. So let's look for solutions. -- Avanu (talk) 17:42, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Infinite patience is not one of the tools that admins are given upon receiving adminship. As most people who've interacted with me know, I spend a lot of time handling some of Wikipedia's worst snake pits, especially with regard to Indian castes (have a look at Talk:Raju and Talk:Saini for what I'm up against; these are demonstrative, not exhaustive, examples). The community at large seems to demand that admins handhold every misguided editor who wanders in regardless of their potential as an editor, and we listen to endless streams of bullshit when that doesn't happen. I'll claim to speak for a couple other admins as well when I say that I'm not interested in being nice and friendly to someone who doesn't have this project's interests at heart. If you want to spam about your company or write a hagiography for your caste/social stratum, you can go do that somewhere else, because you're not doing it here. It's not that hard to find out what this site is about, nor should we assume SEOs are merely innocent victims of The Cabal And Their Tyrannical Rules^TM, because they're not; they come here to promote themselves and/or denigrate those who they feel stand in their way. I have no intention whatsoever of offering my time and efforts to such people; in Indian caste articles, at least, I haven't had an issue because the editors there recognize that it's not worth wasting time on people like those at the above-mentioned talkpages. When it comes to spam, the community seems to think that we're the people who have to be endlessly tolerant, whereas it should rather be the other way around; new users should be trying to integrate themselves into the community without us having to spend hours upon hours working with useless spammers and POV pushers. When I joined in 2010, that's how I went about things; I read the basic policies of the site. If new editors don't and create a mess, it's not up to admins to force them to and it should be on the person who created the mess to do their reading, figure out what the problem is, and take steps to rectify it. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:38, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Coddling is not required but respect is (or ought to be). I'm blocking you POV scumbag! not good. I'm sorry, your edits are disruptive and you haven't responded to notices on your talk page, so I have to block you fine. Nobody Ent 23:59, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Well yeah, that's what I shoot for, but sometimes we're condemned for not being willin to go further even when it's apparent that it's an exercise in futility. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:12, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - I've been very active in the COI area both before and after becoming an administrator. I'm very familiar with Orange Mike because he makes frequent reports to the COI noticeboard where I volunteer my time often. I don't know him well on a personal level, he's not a "friend" (not that I have more than a few people on Wikipedia I'd call "friends"). So I say this as an unbiased colleague. In my experience, Orange Mike is often passive in his dealings with COI editors, usually referring them to the noticeboard, rather than directly bringing down the hammer, so I can't see him having any sort of agenda or an increased level of hostility toward such editors than what is acceptable. I think he made a mistake in leveling a harsher block than usual in the username case discussed above, but we all make mistakes, I know I have before and will again. WP:UAAI suggests soft-blocking an editor who hasn't been disruptive yet if their username is unacceptable, and I've done that myself and I know that's not unusual behavior (I learned from watching others at WP:UAA). So I feel I have to speak up for someone who has been a huge help at COIN and elsewhere. -- Atama頭 23:20, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

General comment (not specifically addressing OM here) -- I don't think the situation is extreme in either way. I certainly don't see too many bans and blocks that are way out of line -- I rarely see anyone blocked who wasn't dabbling in gray area behavior. (Inconsistencies are a significant issue but that's not the topic here.) Do some admins sometimes get a little too intense in their interaction style. Yes. Are we going to magically fix that overnight? No. Does that mean nothing can be done? No -- we can gradually fix it, day by day, bit by bit. All we (bits or no bits) have to do is speak up -- but -- and this is really important -- we always have to evaluate whether our contribution will improve or worsen a situation. The fallacy is thinking that if our feedback to an editor (sysop or not) isn't met with You're right! I'm horrible, I'll never do it again!!! we've been ineffective. Most humans don't like to be cornered and demanding mea culpas is usually counterproductive. Just because you don't get a concrete reaction doesn't mean you're not having an effect. A lot of wiki-crap just can't be undone once done, so you have to think long term and strategically and just believe you'll make an editor a little more thoughtful the next time. Additionally, even if you have no effect on the editor you're addressing, you can affect other editors, and if an editor X was, in fact, inappropriately treated by an editor Y, the fact that someone said so can often make X feel less aggravated and more likely to start or contribute to positively. Nobody Ent 23:54, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Help needed to close old discussions at WP:MFD

Please see the oldest discussions at WP:MFD#Old business. There are a couple that are well over a month old. I would close them, but I've participated in some of the older discussions, and I've already been closing some of the others. Thanks! ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 03:07, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to whoever closed one of them. There's still one older discussion which needs to be decided and closed. Thanks in advance to whoever closes it. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 06:03, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

C:SD backlog

There's a pretty hefty backlog at C:SD. Can someone please chip it down? I've had two G6's in the queue for several hours now. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 04:49, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Are they really hurting anything? Does it actually matter if they hang out for a few hours?

If they're deleted in less time than a PROD or AFD takes to process, then they're still "speedy" (per definition at the policy). We don't have a mandate to maintain our two-minute historical average. Indications of a bit more thoughtfulness (say, like a three-minute average) might actually be desirable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:19, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but if a freaking G6 takes more than 24 hours to get taken care of, then that's just inexcusable. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 00:43, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

If the G6 does not include a proper reason then some may leave it for later. Anyway this backlog will have been cleared multiple times sine the alert was raised here. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:28, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

There's a difference between "Can it be done quickly?" and "Is it urgent?".

Sure, if a G6 is sitting around for 24 hours then that suggests that we have fewer admins than usual working on CSD. However, it's probably not a crisis; does the delay cause any harm? It's an uncontroversial technical deletion, like prodding but without a week-long wait. If something like a G10 were sitting around for a long time, that would be a bigger problem imho. bobrayner (talk) 08:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Bob: I wouldn't want an obvious G10/attack page to sit around for even ten minutes, but for G6/housekeeping, who cares if it sometimes takes a day or so? It's not really hurting anyone. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Any admins reading this I recommend installing User:Ais523/catwatch.js with at least csd:attack, so such pages get attention as soon as possible--Jac16888 ^Talk 19:04, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

User:Shrikanthv removing links to Siddha Yoga from articles

I have no personal association with Siddha Yoga. I came across this because a page was on my watchlist. Shrikanthv (talk · contribs) is removing internal links to Siddha Yoga with the edit summary (Removing link(s) to "Siddha Yoga": commercially motivated links , trying to get donations and sell articles , reference source is not meeting with WP ref criteria. Can someone look into this and decide if his edit are appropriate? Thanks! — goethean ॐ 16:37, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Nevermind, it looks like someone has undone his edits. And it looks like this is the wrong noticeboard anyway. Feel free to archive this thread. — goethean ॐ 17:48, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Cirt and Jayen466

Resolved by motion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Amendment that: The Cirt and Jayen466 case is supplemented as follows:

Notwithstanding other restrictions on his editing, Cirt is granted an exemption in order to edit the article Dan Savage bibliography, its talk page, a peer review for that article, and a featured list candidacy for the article. This exemption may be withdrawn by The Rambling Man at anytime, or by further motion of the Arbitration Committee.

For the Arbitration Committee, Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 17:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Discuss this

Talk page modification notification

Did anyone else get an email message saying their talk page had been edited? I got one, just one. Drmies (talk) 22:33, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Occasionally the settings in Special:Preferences changes to notify you, just go to your preferences and uncheck the box. I think there is a glitch that resets it every now and then, happened to me about six months ago or so.--kelapstick^(bainuu) 22:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Something odd is going on. I've never had the "Add pages I edit to my watchlist" box checked in Preferences, but at some point today all the articles I edited started appearing in my watchlist. I had to go in and uncheck the box, then manually remove the articles from the watchlist. Deor (talk) 23:06, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

It was a bad server setting for 16 minutes. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 126#Watchlist notification emails. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:24, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

The problem referred to by Deor is slightly different - a default preference change made at the same time as eNotifWatchlist that suffered from the same issue, but didn't get reverted at the same time as the ENotifWatchlist change got reverted. I pinged Reedy, who's just reverted that change as well. A load of people are going to have a few more pages on their watchlists than they did before, annoying but not killer I suppose. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 23:29, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Only posting so it's on record. I do have my preferences set to tell me when someone posts to MY talk page - but today I got a notice about someone ELSE's talk page being changed. I'm guessing from the oddities mentioned above that is was just some sort of server glitch. Thanks again for following up on this Drmies (and everyone else) — Ched :  ?  02:48, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Requirement for declaring an interest after off-wiki canvassing

After noticing over the last few months, Wikipedia Arbcom members, Admins and Oversighters creating and engaging with discussion threads on Wikipedia Review and Wikipediocracy, and then going on to use their tools and authority on Wikipedia in response to what I would consider to be canvassing off-wiki, I would like to propose a vote to clarify a possible interpretation of Involved admins:

Would you require users with sysop or other trusted tools on Wikipedia to openly declare their involvement of whatever sort in off-wiki prior canvassing when using their tools on Wikipedia?

Thanks --Fæ (talk) 14:25, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

!Vote on the need to declare an interest after involvement of whatever sort in off-wiki prior canvassing

• Absolutely support - anyone who thinks that they were wronged by anyone of authority (including the authorities of admins, such as deletion), should have the right to know such facts, as well as the community in cases where the decisions are appealed. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:32, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
• Comment - I think that these types of discussions often suffer from the deliberate distortion of the nature of sites such as Wikipedia Review and Wikipediocracy. These exist primarily as forums where contributors discuss Wikipedia and related subjects. Those contributors are individuals with widely disparate views and motivations. There is a tendency here to pretend that these sites are monolithic entities and to classify discussion as either "harassment" or "canvassing", depending on the which is most likely to achieve the desired result. I was a frequent contributor to Wikipedia Review until recently and various editors here tried to use me as the scapegoat for comments made there by others. This latest volley in the fight against "bad sites" appears to be another attempt to discredit admins who participate at those sites by implying that their actions have been negatively influenced by reading or participating in discussions on those sites. Those discussions may result in admins becoming aware of an issue and acting on it as a result, but Fæ's suggestion here makes it seem like they are proxying for banned editors or acting as meatpuppets. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:03, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
  • I have a conflict of interest which should be noted - I am the author of the blog post currently on the front page of Wikipediocracy, which deals with hardcore sex films on Wikipedia (not articles about them, but the actual films themselves). Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:07, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
• Off-wiki canvassing among admins and other functionaries has existed as long as I can remember, largely in the form of IRC discussion. I think that more transparency is always better, but I don't think this is a new issue nor one confined to the specific forums mentioned in the original post. MastCell ^Talk 17:23, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support Wikipediocracy is not the only site that has this issue, but the number of them doesn't really matter. Canvassing is canvassing and, for the most part, these sites are for a gathering of like-minded individuals, even if there are one or two outliers. So, it really is the definition of canvassing. This involvement should definitely be announced when becoming involved in a discussion as a result of this canvassing. Silverseren^C 17:39, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
  • I find this comment especially interesting coming from you, Silver Seren, since you were a regular contributor to Wikipedia Review and should have a better sense of what really goes on there. About half of the regular contributors to Wikipedia Review were banned users and others did not edit Wikipedia at all. It is rather hard to "canvass" people who do not or cannot edit Wikipedia, even by your "definition". Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:44, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
    • Having been a part of WR, I would think that helps me know full well that canvassing does go on. There's more than enough users on there that are also active editors on here. And there is a group effort on there when a specific article is brought up to enact something on-wiki. It's rather obvious. Silverseren^C 20:19, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
      • Can you think of a recent example where this happened? Since we obviously define canvassing differently, it might be helpful to see what you mean. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 20:38, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
        • Yes, the Jim Hawkins incident is an obvious example. The AfD on it wasn't created until after this thread was created and it is likely to have been instigated from that thread itself. And Delete votes from a number of known WR/Wikipediocracy users and/or readers began pouring into the AfD after that. Silverseren^C 01:38, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
          • I started the Hawkins AFD after a report at the BLPN which you see I mention in the deletion rationale diff - my opening the discussion had nothing to do with any off wiki comments anywhere as I had not read them, after multiple on wiki reports about the article I felt enough was enough. Youreallycan 07:53, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
          • Let me see if I have this straight. Hawkins had been complaining about this situation for years, as I understand it. A thread was started on Wikipediocracy to discuss it. After that, an AfD was started, which you suggest, without any evidence, was "instigated" by the thread. And after that, the thread which was opened before the AfD has somehow "canvassed" people to vote a certain way? What nonsense. This was discussed on multiple WMF mailing lists and Jimbo's talk page. Of course a lot of people participated. I didn't vote in the last AfD, but if I had, I would have voted to delete because that is what I think should be done in these cases, not because someone on WR or Wikipediocracy wanted me to. I imagine others hold the same opinion and would vote the same way. Perhaps it is issues like this that cause them to be contributors to those sites, and not those sites that cause them to get involved with the issues here? What an incredibly tone-deaf example. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 02:55, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
            • Weren't those discussions started after the AfD began? The Afd was really the starting point, all the talk page discussions and discussions elsewhere came after the fact. Silverseren^C 03:16, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
          • (ec)Do you feel that this affected the outcome of the on wiki discussion? Kevin (talk) 02:56, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
            • Likely would have, looking at the early parts of the discussion, if not for the subsequent posting to several noticeboards, which then brought in so many people and such chaos that no consensus was really the only option. Silverseren^C 03:16, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
              • The subject of the article requested that it be deleted in 2006, which lead to the first AfD. And again, same thing in 2009. All the while making comments on the talk page, on Facebook, on Twitter, and on the radio. And you think a discussion of the article on Wikipediocracy materially influenced the outcome? I was hoping you might come up with an example that had something to it, but this is just ridiculous. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 03:39, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
• Sort of support, ish, if it's amended slightly. I think the phrasing as Fae presents it here is imperfect when it comes to addressing the issue he wants addressed. If you want users (and I do believe it ought to be "users", not only "users with advanced permissions") to disclose when they've participated in discussion of a topic/action off-wiki, wording saying they must disclose when they've participated in "off-wiki prior canvassing" isn't likely to get you disclosures; it's more likely to get you a whole lot of neverending argument about whether thread X was canvassing. A more useful wording, I think, would be something like "users participating in discussions or actions on Wikipedia should disclose openly if their involvement was brought about by discussion off-wiki". In some cases this might be addressed by a one-time userpage notice - "This user participates in/on [IRC|Wikipedia Review|local Wiki-meetups|a consultancy related to editing Wikipedia] and may comment or act here on topics discussed or related to there". In other cases, it may be appropriate to add a note to an individual comment - "I came here because I saw the thread about this on site X" or, failing that by the commenter, a note similar in style to those we leave on SPA or unsigned comments "This comment left by a user who has participated in discussion of this topic on site X". There is a continuum here, ranging from things like "user asked for help in IRC help channel, so I helped them onwiki" all the way up to something like "I placed this block based on evidence I received in a private message from a banned user on Wikipedia Review". Even on the "clean" end of the continuum, I think there's little to be lost by just going ahead and disclosing, but I would hesitate to make it sanctionable to fail to do so for now, both because making it "encouraged practice" may be all we need, and because it may end up being used as a hammer against people ("You didn't disclose that you came here from Wikipedia Review thread X!" "That's because I didn't; I was just reading ANI and wanted to comment" "Impossible, you participate in Wikipedia Review, you must have come here from that thread. I demand you be sanctioned for failing to disclose!") and I'd want to see how that shook out before we started giving the requirement teeth. Why yes, yes I was bitten in the butt by drama recently because someone was upset about a topic being discussed on irc. Why yes, I do think disclosure is a good idea largely because it can help prevent situations like that in the future. Thanks for asking! A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:05, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
• I agree with the spirit of disclosing an off wiki reason that lead you to a particular discussion, but like Fluffernutter I fear where an enforceable rule could lead. Unless an editor has actively participated in an off-wiki discussion using connected identity, it will be impossible to tell if they saw an off wiki discussion and failed to disclose, or came to the discussion another way, despite frequenting the off-wiki location. If I were to idle in the IRC channel, and a discussion of an AN/I thread occurs, will I be imputed with knowledge of that IRC discussion even if I had IRC minimized and saw the activity on my watch list instead? Monty₈₄₅ 18:16, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - This strikes me as an effort via the backdoor to establish a BADSITES policy towards Wikipediocracy and its better-known-but-now-in-its-death-throes predecessor. An administrator participating there and then working at WP is no different than an administrator participating on WP mailing lists or IRC and then working at WP. People have lives, they spend their time as they will. Even if one accepts that so-called "canvassing" is a problem in the first place (and I personally feel that so-called "anti-canvassing" rules are merely a mechanism of clique control to the exclusion of more democratic mass participation), there's not the SLIGHTEST bit of evidence that there's a coordinated effort by Wikipediocracy or any other site to "canvass" for action at WP, using tools or not using tools. It's a paranoid perspective, in my view. Most of the obnoxious parties at Wikipediocracy not only don't have tools to be canvassed to be used, they're blocked or banned out altogether at En-WP. It baffles me how this is even perceived as being a problem at all. Carrite (talk) 20:21, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

• So you're saying that Wikipediocracy is the same as the mailing lists and the IRC, both of which are considered on-wiki and are subject to the rules of WP:CIVIL? Clearly then, Wikipediocracy should also be subject to these policies. Also, do note that people on the IRC have gotten in trouble in the past for canvassing. Organizing a group of people toward a specific article is canvassing. Silverseren^C 21:13, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

• So you're saying that the biographies of living persons noticeboard is canvassing and anyone posting there should be blocked? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 03:04, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• The BLP noticeboard is a neutral posting, since it is not a biased, partisan area. An IRC discussion between friends on Wikipedia would be canvassing and a discussion of known like-minded individuals on a forum is also canvassing, since in both cases, the purpose of notification would be to get votes or statements of agreement in the on-wiki discussion. Silverseren^C 03:16, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• Seren, it was the BLPN that first drew attention to the Hawkins issue by way of a section started by David Gerard who had been canvassed by the original author of the Hawkins article. As an aside I do believe that the origional author of that article has been appaleed by the churlishness of his fellow wikipedia editors, their lack of empathy, and gross impertinence towards a fellow human being. Your own attitude of demanding a doctors note is included in that above. John lilburne (talk) 07:47, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. I was originally mixed about this, but after further thought, I have to slip into oppose. Issues of canvassing in AfD's can be handled on a case by case basis, but a lot of the time someone saying off-wiki "Gee, this article about a BLP is a real hitjob" and people who read that forum who agree posting votes based on that reasoning (after reviewing the article themselves).. well, to ignore that a problem exists just because we don't like who's saying it would be cutting off our nose to spite our encyclopedic face. And while I deplore the actions taken by certain members of those sites (Self-disclosure: I am a member of two sites, one of which I have not made a single post, and the other I haven't posted at in six months or so), I think this action by Fae is motivated by the off-wiki attacks they have made against the proposer. I would suggest that such disclosure applies equally. SirFozzie (talk) 21:20, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
  • You may be confused about the proposal text, it asks for transparency, not that we should pretend that admins do not read off-wiki forums or to require that they can never take action if they have. Transparency is not "cutting off our nose". --Fæ (talk) 22:05, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. Per Sir Fozzie, Fluffernutter et al. The proposal is symptomatic of a WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality whereby evildoers (i.e anyone associated with WR or Wikipediocracy) have to be fought and exposed at every opportunity. Oversighters, admins etc who act on information they come across somewhere else should not be assumed to be acting in bad faith without evidence or forced to don yellow e-stars just to please Fae.--Peter cohen (talk) 22:55, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose – There should be corners of the web where one can speak their minds freely, frankly, and naturally without fear of being punished on Wikipedia. People who speak freely outside of Wikipedia shouldn't be forced to display yellow stars on every discussion page, on every closing statement, or every edit or log summary. Reporting Wikipedia news and ongoings shouldn't be a crime. Should a columnist be forced to wear a yellow star for writing a op-ed column about a political debate? The proposal degrades those who use forums and blogs by forcing them to wear yellow stars. It's an insult to those users' dignities, and it discouraged frank, natural discussions outside of Wikipedia. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 01:43, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• Except canvassing is something that users on Wikipediocracy do, including attempting to discover personal information on Wikipedians to use as chilling effects to stop certain people from editing, in addition to attempting to create legal actions against Wikipedia itself, such as through the chapters. I'm sorry, but "frank, natural discussions" are not what goes on over there. Silverseren^C 01:52, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
• So where on Wikipediocracy is this discussion mentioned that Wikipediocracy members are being/will be canvassed from to oppose it, all while insulting Fae continuously in the process? Silverseren^C 01:56, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
  • http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=305 – I don't see any canvassing or any insults. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 02:15, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
    • The canvassing comes from the thread existing, because it directs their users over here. Though I am happy that there aren't any insults. That's also rather surprising. Silverseren^C 02:19, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
• Addendum: This isn't about canvassing – Read Fæ's statement again. This isn't about canvassing. Fæ's statement isn't about drawing attention to a discussion page. This is about someone on the Wikipedia Review or Wikipediocracy pointing out a mistake or violation, which results in a sysop fixing that mistake or removing the violation. For example (probably not the best example): http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=299. If someone on a forum points out an image's inappropriate or inaccurate name, should a sysop seeking to give that image a better name really be forced to say, "Wikipedia Review said…"? I don't really believe a sysop acting on a mistake pointed out by the WR or Wikipediocracy to be "canvassing". --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 02:02, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• However, it is well known that Wikipediocracy is a group of like minded people, with only one or two members that disagree. Therefore, when one of the members brings up a discussion going on somewhere and berates it or praises it, it brings in the other members to vote or make a statement on-wiki to that effect. That falls exactly into the definition of canvassing, because it is notifying a biased, partisan group of people. Silverseren^C 02:07, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Becoming aware of a discussion shouldn't be a crime. Learning isn't a crime. Reporting news and events isn't a crime. I have the right to learn about these sorts of discussions. It isn't the quantity of !votes that counts. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 02:19, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• • It's that it is being presented in a biased manner. Learning of news from, say, Fox News is likely to prejudice one to a certain opinion because of how the information is presented there. Thus, in terms of informing people about a discussion, this type of biased informing is exactly what canvassing means. It's directly why WP:CANVAS exists. Silverseren^C 02:27, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. Too open to abuse -- look at all the screams that go up when someone says, "Oh, I saw someone mention it on IRC..." --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 02:24, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• If they were mentioning it on IRC to a group of friend, thus leading them to join the discussion and side with that person, then that is canvassing, yes. Silverseren^C 02:27, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• Nope. In the case I was thinking of, one admin said something like "Oh, fun, Admin B just blocked Admin C..." I looked at the case, saw that there was some related admin action that should be taken, and took it. Now, I wasn't canvassed to take that action, but if I had said that it had been inspired by an IRC conversation, I would have had to defend a perfectly normal action at far too much length.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:27, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. I was concerned on how I would word this (and still am), but I'll give it a shot. First, I have to say that I admire any display of transparency and all statements of honesty from editors. Now - over time we've developed a ton of rules (aka Policies) that with the best of intentions; but in practice they now utterly fail us. "Policy" is used more and more to batter people over the head with club-like bluntness. (CIV, NOTORG, CANVASS, etc.), and the loopholes in those policies are used to manipulate discussions. Now, on a more "off-wiki" sort of thought: What another editor reads, hears, participates in, signs up for, and which websites, IRC or chat venues, or email they exchange is simply nobody's damn business. And by the way - the sheer irony of posting this tread simply astounds me. — Ched :  ?  07:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. I like the idea, but Ched makes a good point — we simply have so many policies that nobody can keep track of all of them. Imposing yet another requirement will not help in building the encyclopedia, but it will help to inflame passions among those who are more concerned with building an encyclopedia than with keeping track of policies and thus reduce the number of people who are writing. Nyttend (talk) 13:20, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support as a concept, though not a formal rule Wikiprocess should be open. I consider it wrong to proceed on private information or as part of a cabal. What is used to hit people over the head is these private arrangements. (but some types of things discussed I never see, as I don't use irc & don't participate in projects that require it. And to the extent I see something on my rare random looks at WR/etc., if I see a movement developing there, my normal reaction is to find some reason to oppose it. If I'm asked on or off wiki to intervene in anything, I normally say so, though I do not necessarily say who it was who asked me, especially if it was off wiki by private email. DGG ( talk ) 17:20, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support in general one should disclose when !votes are the result of otherwise untraceable canvasing. This includes IRC, and whatever else. I see no reason not to ask that people do so. It's not reasonably enforceable, but still... Hobit (talk) 03:50, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
• Comment I agree wholeheartedly with Hobit above, but because it's not enforcable it would be a silly rule to have. Rules that can't be enforced or policed just serve to undermine the rest of the rule-book. But while on the subject I would say this: we have talk pages, we have essays, we have userspace, we have the village pump, we have the Signpost complete with "comment on this story" sections... there is absolutely no need whatsoever for discussions about Wikipedia content to happen anywhere other than on Wikipedia (unless it's a legal issue, BLP violation etc). So for somebody to set up an off-wiki discussion forum for things that should be discussed on-wiki goes clearly against the principles of the project in my opinion, and editors participating on such a forum are for the most part, knowingly/intentionally or not, damaging Wikipedia. waggers (talk) 08:12, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
  • If you would forbid articles like this, would you also forbid articles like this? How about articles like this? Should they be allowed, or forbidden as "damaging"? Should people be allowed to talk about Wikipedia on Facebook, and Twitter? I find what you say quite extraordinary. I imagine it's the sort of line the Chinese government might take, concerning discussions of the Chinese government. --JN466 13:11, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. Per Ched and Sarek pretty much. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 08:51, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support: if the good folks at Wikipediocracy or WR point out a problem that needs fixing, they should certainly be given credit for doing so.

  BTW: Would this also apply to requests on IRC channels, email requests to delete one's uploads, discussions of prior usernames with the members of ArbCom, and the "in camera" discussions at WMUK? --SB_Johnny | ^talk 11:34, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

  • SB_Johnny As you mention WMUK, your question seems pointed in my direction - yes; though a common sense interpretation of personal privacy, harassment or legal considerations may limit how much of the prior confidential discussions can be released. If use of tools on-wiki is the result of such discussions then we should always be as transparent as possible. For example, as an OTRS volunteer, I had a photograph (uploaded a few years ago) of a young woman exposing her breasts for a fun dare at a public concert deleted from Commons, after she emailed in explaining how being personally identifiable in the photo was a problem for her now. In theory, we could reject such requests as we have a full copyright release, though I would hope everyone understands that Wikimedia projects ought to be managed with respect, compassion and in confidence where information or images have a credible case of causing damage or distress to the models or other people involved. In that particular case, creating a lengthy deletion discussion would only draw unhelpful attention to the image and massively increase the distress for the model. If in the future we force that to happen as policy, then we should be totally fair and add extreme and dire warnings about the risks of irrevocably releasing images to Wikimedia projects in order to fully inform our contributors. --Fæ (talk) 12:05, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
    • Right. Agreed. (Putting a halt to uploading images of that nature from flickr (etc.) where people don't seem to understand the licenses would probably be a good thing for the same reason, but that's a whole 'nother topic ;-).) --SB_Johnny | ^talk 14:29, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose as Presented Transparency is a good thing, but 'badsite' is not. This proposal is too enmeshed in the later.--Cube lurker (talk) 17:46, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
  • If you could suggest an alternative wording that can improve the policy and side-step a badsites debate, that would be helpful. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 18:14, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

  This discussion's to contaminated. It started as badsites, the clock can't be turned back to make it into a genuine transparency proposal. Not here and now.--Cube lurker (talk) 18:34, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Per Sarek. And per Ched below, to note this proposal runs counter to the position Fæ took in an email on January 26 in a different situation. MBisanz ^talk 18:48, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Please note, I have asked Fæ to no longer contact me via email. MBisanz ^talk 20:46, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Archiving discussion only tangentially related to the matter at hand and that should be moved to a more appropriate forum or at least a separate thread, it really has no bearing on the proposal. Snowolf How can I help? 00:02, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I apologise for mistakenly assuming that a private email to you from 3 months ago, in consideration of your trusted roles as a bureaucrat, oversight and steward, where I specifically stated that I had been formally advised not to discuss certain matters on-wiki would be treated as confidential. Thank you for your clear statement that you take no responsibility for my wellbeing, I heartily recommend you make that advice far more public before anyone feels they might email you in confidence. --Fæ (talk) 21:25, 1 May 2012 (UTC) Well, since you've described the content of the email, I can respond here. It's fairly ironic that you are now proposing administrators be required to disclose off-wiki canvassing requests when taking action, when you, in January, canvassed me in an email relating to not discussing certain matters on-wiki relating to on-wiki conduct by yourself. I also reviewed your email from January, you did not mention any of those trusted roles and, regardless, none of those roles indicate a duty to keep the existence of communication private. I would assume all editors, particularly ones as active as yourself, know that there is no policy that prevents me from disclosing the existence of communication initiated by yourself via Special:EmailUser. (See WP:EMAILABUSE; "although you can describe briefly in summary what it contains or shows.") I would also assume that anyone on the internet knows that other users of the internet have no responsibility for their wellbeing beyond any contractual stipulations they have entered into. MBisanz talk 21:33, 1 May 2012 (UTC) Rather than policy, I always assume common sense and human respect applies and consider that part of our civil responsibilities as significant members of the Wikimedia movement. I certainly apply those principles in my roles as a Wikipedia admin, charity trustee and Wikimedia OTRS volunteer. If someone approaches me with related project or organizational problems, no matter who they are, they can always trust me to assume their emails are intended as confidential rather than finding them arbitrarily thrown into discussions on public notice boards months later. The only exception would be for legal matters, or if the emails were sent in my trustee capacity where even if confidential, they may be considered to be "on the record" by default and thereby I cannot guarantee they would not be made available in any necessary investigation. In this particular instance I draw a distinction between informing you about a background for which you may have been unaware, and what you believe is canvassing. If you want to see a good example of canvassing, take a look on Wikipediocracy and compare names expressing opinions in this discussion with active accounts on related discussions there. Even some of the people making personal or derogatory comments about me in this discussion are aware of my ethical approach to treatment of private email correspondence, as I have corresponded with some of them in the past, and would not dream of revealing anything specific about those confidential discussions. They are a part of how we can have difficult communications without causing unnecessary escalation or unintentional damage on a public forum. All of this is consistent with my reply here to SB_Johnny above on how to ensure transparency, as normally one asks for permission for what you need to say openly to use your authority on the projects if acting using confidential information, or you advise your correspondent(s) that you cannot act on the information yourself but explain what they can do to help themselves and retain their confidentiality. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 21:54, 1 May 2012 (UTC) Alright, so we disagree on some fairly core concepts. As I indicated, I have contacted the Ombudsmen, AUSC, OTRS-admins, and fellow Stewards so that they can investigate if my behavior was inappropriate in mentioning the existence of an email you sent me via Special:EmailUser. I'm more then happy to leave it to them to determine as we are unlikely to convince each other of the validity of the other's position. MBisanz talk 22:06, 1 May 2012 (UTC) In copying my confidential email to you to all those mail lists, you have revealed a private matter that I certainly had no intention of widely publishing. Your action was unnecessary escalation rather than using the basic primary response available to all of us with trusted tools, that is to resolve issues by simple discussion. I have not asked for an investigation into your behaviour, and I am extremely unhappy that you have shared a confidential matter with so many people. I have no idea how you can put this right for me, I hope members of those lists understand the nature of my concern when they read the email, and discover a matter that is absolutely no business of theirs and treat it appropriately by deleting it. --Fæ (talk) 22:16, 1 May 2012 (UTC) You indicated I had revealed information in conflict of my duties as a trusted user. Those are the entities that review abuse of the various trusted user tools. To clear my name without breaching your privacy by publishing the contents of the email publicly, my only recourse is for those entities to review my conduct. You should remember that when making allegations in the future. MBisanz talk 22:25, 1 May 2012 (UTC) A bizarre argument considering the email you copied to the lists was not the email you have referenced here and has passed on quite different private information. Consequently were I to have a complaint, it would be your inflammatory and unnecessary behaviour today, not information from 3 months ago. --Fæ (talk) 22:38, 1 May 2012 (UTC) You complained today to me via email about my public reference to a prior email you sent. Today's complaint was the email I forward to the review authorities as it was the one that referenced the alleged improper disclosure of private information by referencing the prior email publicly. MBisanz talk 22:46, 1 May 2012 (UTC) In what way are the multiple email lists you have inappropriately published a confidential matter to, without my permission, considered the appropriate review authority? I could imagine one such list might be the appropriate approach for an independent viewpoint to cover your own back, but copying to so many, appears to be a deliberate way of causing distress or using the lists as a punitive measure. Considering your statements have made it clear than none of the people on those lists is under any obligation to consider my wellbeing or the wellbeing of others likely to be affected in how they treat this information, and indeed by your own understanding of policy are free to re-publish it, surely you understand why I now see your actions today as inflammatory and massively increase the risk of this confidential information being made public for completely unnecessary reasons? It is not as if your original reference to my private email helped this noticeboard discussion, which I remind you was never about me, but about a general proposal. --Fæ (talk) 23:10, 1 May 2012 (UTC) If your email hadn't mentioned an abuse of my trusted access rights or had more specifically defined which trusted status I used to violate your privacy, I would have been able to more precisely tailor which reviewing authority was relevant. MBisanz talk 23:16, 1 May 2012 (UTC) Your behaviour today has directly put me and others at completely unnecessary risk when you could have simply removed your reference to a private email without affecting this generic discussion in any way. I suggest you follow up with the many people you have so widely circulated highly confidential information that they will be in no doubt is none of their business, to check if your inflammatory behaviour, which could have been so easily resolved through direct personal discussion, reflects badly on someone with trusted access. The fact that you have repeatedly refused to take any responsibility for my wellbeing or that of other involved parties, and in the process have forced me to raise my concerns about a highly confidential matter in public, by rejecting email correspondence, should be of general grave concern. Our community does not work by falling back on theoretical legal arguments every time there is a problem, if you are incapable of treating people in a respectful and civil way, then expecting the community to put our trust in you is misplaced. --Fæ (talk) 23:31, 1 May 2012 (UTC) I decline to withdraw my requests for review of my conduct. If my actions in referencing the email and indicating that I do not have a responsibility for your wellbeing outside of what is required by WMF/WP policy and the laws of my local jurisdiction are indicative of untrustworthy editorship, I full expect the reviewing authorities to act on me. Also, please show where I have been uncivil in this discussion or otherwise failed to respect you in my responses, as is required by WP:CIV, WP:NPA, or WP:HAR. MBisanz talk 23:38, 1 May 2012 (UTC) This discussion should really be best conducted somewhere else, as it is hardly relevant to this proposal and thread. If it is deemed necessary to conduct this here on AN, a separate thread or subthread would be handle it, tho I don't see what there is here for any of us to act upon. Snowolf How can I help? 23:41, 1 May 2012 (UTC) (edit conflict) You are replying to something I did not ask for, I certainly could not care less about your local jurisdiction, I am not threatening you with legal action for goodness sake. As for CIV, HAR, NPA - I suggest you take some time carefully consider the implications about revealing the confidential information about me and others and how we would be affected if the information goes public and the longer term personal problems for me, and potential reputational damage for others, that you would have caused by your actions. By failing to resolve the issue through direct discussion and forcing me to repeatedly try to explain myself in public without revealing the information itself, you have failed to be either respectful or civil with regard to my personal life or taken any apparent consideration of my long term safety. No, your behaviour is clearly unacceptable. --Fæ (talk) 23:53, 1 May 2012 (UTC) I see you throwing accusations that I violated your privacy, acted in an uncivil manner, and am untrustworthy; yet you have not filed for my recall or made a request at arbcom. Would you prefer I file at Arbcom to get an adjudication of your claims against me? MBisanz talk 23:59, 1 May 2012 (UTC) (edit conflict) Please don't rephrase my complaints. You have failed to be respectful or civil with regard to my person life. You have put me at unnecessary risk. If you want to help, then find a way to undo the problems you are creating for me. Please do not run around finding yet more ways to torment me and waste my time. --Fæ (talk) 00:07, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support; rephrase. It should be clear that if a known editor is engaging in a heated debate with an admin on WR, and that admin then finds a reason to block him on WP, there is "the appearance of bias". I would, however, say simply that "WP:INVOLVED can apply regardless of whether interactions occur on or off Wikipedia", to be clear. Indeed, an admin could be involved due solely to a bitter e-mail exchange or IRC conversation, though proving it could be tough. Wnt (talk) 22:29, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - while in many cases transparency would be worth encouraging, a policy to that effect would just add complication to complication even without singling out particular sites... although is AN really the place to be making policies? Or am I just misunderstanding this entire thing? — Isarra ༆ 01:49, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support nub of proposal. Good and bad criticism of wikipedia can come from many outside sources. If admin action is being taken because they saw X, then it "should" be mentioned, so as to clarify the discussion as to why and what exactly is being adressed. Seems like this should be developed at Village pump. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:45, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - This is just more witch-hunty butthurt over WR/'ocracy, nothing to see here. Tarc (talk) 13:04, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per Michaeldsuarez. Admins (and other users with elevated privileges) are trusted with their tools to step in with their own perspective regardless of the channel through which they were notified of the problem. There is no point forcing everyone to say "Facebook said", "Twitter said", or "this editor told me in the last WP:MEET" when the admin would've come to the same conclusion anyway had they stumbled upon the problem through a purely on-wiki channel like Watchlist or noticeboards. Deryck C. 14:46, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Jimbo's request

For those keen to shoot down what I still believe is a mild proposal, that those with admin and oversight tools should be held to a reasonable standard of transparency, when using their tools if they choose to engage with off-wiki attack forums, I suggest you take a quiet minute to consider this request put out today:

Those who think of themselves as my allies on this issue I appreciate very much. I need your help. You do not help me by participating in a forum run by someone who I think is dangerous to myself and my family, who has posted a photo of himself online with a semi-automatic rifle along with a sick fantasy about a gun battle with me.--Jimbo Wales [36][37]

Are you honestly comfortable that we are not just allowing this situation to happen, but as a collective we support those amongst our numbers with a trusted status on Wikipedia who are not open and honest about taking part and hence covertly legitimize the same forums that harbour and encourage people who make personal attacks, creepily engage in long term internet stalking and harassment, make false public sexual and personal allegations and issue anonymous on-wiki threats against established members of our community? My ethical compass is certainly troubling me greatly right now. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 21:57, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

reasonable standard of transparency???? Really Fae? Tell me - where was this reasonable transparency at your last RfA? HUH? How dare you try to point a finger at others. You sir have lost the last ounce of respect I might have ever been able to muster for you. Damn hypocrite. You dare try to point fingers at "those with admin ..tools". Good grief. — Ched :  ?  07:24, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

'

make false public sexual and personal allegations; a recent example, perhaps, in the case where an editor viciously attacked another on the grounds of homophobia, dragged him to a noticeboard and essentially forced him to out himself in defence of the charge? That sort of thing is pretty horrendous, I agree. Ethics is certainly a double edged sword. --Errant ^(chat!) 08:44, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Jimbo's request (quoted above) seems to be a false and personal allegation as well (see diff). The hyperbole really isn't helpful. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 09:26, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I take seriously threats against people, real or perceived. That being said, his deletion of a post to his talk page is regrettable, since it seemed a serious response. I suggest that we close this thread. There's really nothing we can do.--Wehwalt (talk) 09:30, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Wehwalt, the clue about what we can do might be in Jimbo's direct request. Everyone here has their free choice of whether to support attack forums by taking part in them, or denying them oxygen. It is interesting to see the list of names here who appear to be resisting my request for transparency (even resorting to irrelevant personal allegations about me) and who are also known to be highly active advocates of Wikipediocracy, and frequently use free speech and transparency as their justification. I think we are all aware that personal attacks, hounding and harassment are not the same thing as free speech. Now, rather than rushing to find a reason to close down this discussion, why don't we let our opportunity for free speech have a moment in the sun? Cheers --Fæ (talk) 10:21, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

As I deleted nothing, your paean for free speech might be better directed to Jimbo.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:54, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I would not dare advise Jimbo on how to manage his own talk page, I've had my fingers burnt on that one before. Interesting reference to Apollo you made there Wehwalt. --Fæ (talk) 11:09, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Uh oh. Um, I hope I have not offended, I have not enquired into the, er, orientations of the Greek gods?  :)--Wehwalt (talk) 11:22, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

This is yet more WP:BATTLEGROUND nonsense from Fae. Greg Kohs does seem to be obsessed with Jimbo. He has also been criticised in such places as Wikipedia Review and Wikipediocracy for some of his posts on Jimbo and especially his daughter. However, it is inconvenient for Fae's Battle to mention that neither WR (particularly before the schism) nor Wikipediocracy have a monolithic party line. Also Greg Kohs isn't an admin or Mod on either of those sites and I don't think he has ever been one. Perhaps we should consider whether the attempt to pursue a battleleground mentality to the extent that Fae is doing here is appropriate in an admin.--Peter cohen (talk) 11:37, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi again Peter, could you do me a favour, as you regularly contribute there, could you confirm who legally owns the Wikipediocracy website? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 12:12, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

What happened is that about a dozen people, Greg among them, got together to set up a new site when Wikipedia Review went downhill. For a while, we were unsure what to call the site, and Greg in particular bought a string of domain names people had suggested. One of these was for the name we eventually chose, i.e. Wikipediocracy.com. The site hosting is not paid by Greg, but by another member of the collective. We're hoping to have the domain name and hosting bills transferred to a non-profit within the next few weeks. Greg will likely be one of about a dozen trustees of the non-profit. It's correct that he has neither moderator nor sysadmin rights at the site. --JN466 12:53, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

(EC. Jayen's reply is going to be more accurate but I had written this already.) They are setting up some sort of not for profit trust to take over the ownership. I don't know the membership of the steering group and haven't been invited to join. Kohs may have paid the initial cash but doesn't manage the content and, although he might be a member of the steering group, he would be just one of several voices. As far as current ownership is concerned, I think he just happens to have been the person who made most preparations for a new forum in January after Selina was late paying for WR's registration then, when she fell out with him, Hersh/Herschel Krustovski and Gomi/Greybeard in quick succession they set in motion the alternative site. Although more people actively sided with those three, I think most people who have moved there have done so because it looks like being the only game in town rather than because they have a clear understanding of the rights and wrongs. But this is similar to lots of people contributing to or reading Wikipedia because it is the only show in town not because they necessarilly think it is superior to what Citizendium, Encarta or Britannica might have produced in its absence or that it has better policies than them. The fact that I contribute to Wikipediocracy is no more evidence that I support all of what Kohs and Herschel think or that I approve of them as individuals than the fact that I contribute to Wikipedia should be taken as evidence that I approve of you or Jimbo or agree with what you say. And that is the fallacy of your proposal here. The criticism sites are not monolithic and there is no party line. Various Wikipedia admins, functionaries and beaurocrats have participated on those sites and various other people monitor them even though they might not participate. This makes them different from the various closed lists that have featured in Arbcom cases regarding the Middle East and Eastern Europe.--Peter cohen (talk) 13:03, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining your understanding of the future situation. I look forward to Gregory Kohs no longer being the registered legal owner of the website and finding out who will be the new owner. Until, and if, that happens, I think it entirely accurate for anyone to call it Gregory Kohs' forum. Note, you probably mean "directors" rather than "trustees" if it is to become a not for profit. I will be interested in seeing who is prepared to take personal liability for the forum and put their full legal names in the public domain as directors. Depending on how the company is registered, it may well be subject to hate crime legislation, an interesting position for the future directors considering the current culture which enabled the recent faggot "fae got" incident which passed without any meaningful sanction against the person involved.

Peter, as you appear to be arguing against closed lists, and presumably must highly prize transparency, you may want to review your opinion in the above discussion where you appear to be against it for those who have trusted authority on Wikipedia.

By the way, most of us with a Jewish heritage would probably find your immediate comparison of my proposal for transparency with the holocaust, an extreme and offensive viewpoint. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 14:01, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Assuming that the planned non-profit organization will be in the US, you have two potential sources of information:

• Assuming that they manage to get tax-exempt status on the grounds that they're supporting Wikipedia's educational mission (a little dubious, but it would probably work in the end), you will not necessarily be able to find out who all of the directors (or trustees; for charities, the terms are used interchangeably in practice) are, because their gross receipts will be so low that their public reporting will be the 990-N, which needs to list only one officer (who might not be a member of the board). Seeking tax-exempt status isn't mandatory, and if they don't, they can avoid tax liability simply by not making any profits (which should be very easy for a website to arrange; this is the approach I would take if I were setting up a similar program).
• Assuming that they incorporate, you should be able to find out (from the state) the names of the president, secretary, treasurer, and agent for service of process (could be all the same person if not a non-profit; may be as few as two people if it is). Incorporation isn't necessary, of course, but it provides some liability benefits. If they incorporate, the individual directors (and owners, if it is not a non-profit) will not necessarily have "personal liability" for the contents of the website. That, after all, is the primary point behind incorporation: you can sue the corporation, but you can't win the assets of the people who run it or own it except in specific, unusual, and very severe situations (and online insults isn't one of them).

Whether or not an insulting speech in the absence of an independently criminal action (e.g., yelling a slur vs yelling a slur while killing someone) counts as a hate crime is outside my area of competence, so I'll leave that to others, but free speech laws are generally very broadly construed in the US, so I wouldn't count on it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:42, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Oh I think we reached the point some time ago where some consider that anything less than abject brown nosing is a 'hate crime'. John lilburne (talk) 14:59, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

It's probably not smart to scheme on a public noticeboard about how best to get around hate crime legislation; your call I guess. I fully accept John lilburne's implication that I am an abject brown noser. I'm naturally talented and have many years of experience in that department. Cheers --Fæ (talk) 16:28, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

It's probably not smart to scheme on a public noticeboard about how best to get around hate crime legislation... - Is that REALLY what you're reading in the comment above yours? I find that baffling. So-called "Hate Crime Legislation" wouldn't seem to have anything to do with anything in this specific instance, let alone there being any attempt to "get around" it. Is this some sort of veiled legal threat? I'm at a loss... Carrite (talk) 17:07, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Fæ, what are you babbling on about? You seem to have the recipient of the brown-nosing confused, and the rest of your comment is just completely bizarre. John lilburne (talk) 18:38, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

• Am I the only one who thinks it a bit hilarious that Jimmy Wales' "Those who think of themselves as my allies on this issue I appreciate very much. I need your help." is being quoted by the proposer as bolstering his backdoor BADSITES proposal? What "issue" is it to which Mr. Wales refers? Hmmm? It is, pretty clearly, his desire for users to be able to filter sexual content at Commons, set in motion by the activism of some contributors to Wikipediocracy on the festering situation there. Wales is essentially saying, those of you with me on the image filter issue are not doing me any favors working through that site, which is "run by" [incorrect statement by JW, per the above] a person that I see as a possible physical menace to me. The proposer is keen to hear what is useful to him, ignoring the basic issue involved and quoting out of context.

I'm not going to defend the words or actions of ANYONE at Wikipediocracy. Indeed, I find several of the principals there, including the Wikimedia-project-banned individual with whom the proposer is at war, to be obnoxious and consider them opponents. But the views and actions of a few are not sufficient to condemn that project as a whole, which in this case I believes serves a positive mission as a source of independent criticism of the systemic problems of WP. Carrite (talk) 16:44, 1 May 2012 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 16:45, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

• Carrite, you may not be the only one who finds Jimbo's personal request for our help hilarious, but I expect you would definitely be in the fringe minority. I read his request as genuine and I think most readers would accept it in good faith. --Fæ (talk) 17:10, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Whew, difficulty discerning meaning or something. I find YOUR quoting his comments made originally in the context of helping offended users mitigate the porno catastrophe that is Wikipedia Commons to be hilarious, not his seeking of help for those who don't want to see, y'know, naked butts of boys in ropes and stuff like that. Carrite (talk) 20:12, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Let's see, Gregory Kohs has been in a long-running, online (entirely online) dispute with Jimbo Wales. The two men can't stand one another and Mr. Wales gives as good as he gets. Some time ago, Mr. Kohs posts a picture of himself with a friend's rifle on his Facebook page. In the comments thread, a friend asks him something like "I hope you're not planning on killing anything with that." He responds, "I understand that Jimmy Wales often carries a gun, so I have to be prepared with counter-fire." [38]. Hmmm... Counter-fire. counter-fire. counter-fire. This is A. clearly a joke and B. A reference (in the context of the lame joke) to self-defense. Now, six month's later Wales (who would like nothing better than to shut Koh's up and smear his good name) writes: I think (Kohs) is dangerous to myself and my family, who has posted a photo of himself online with a semi-automatic rifle along with a sick fantasy about a gun battle with me. This is a classic, classic Wikipedia smear tactic against people you don't like/disagree with. Then Mr. Van Haeften, who has made a habit of accusing all and sundry of "homophobia" and "harassment" and "hate crimes" and posing a danger to his family, for the crime of criticizing him (I've been on the receiving end of this nonsense in the past) and for seeking for, well, transparency as to his past and current actions on various Wikimedia projects, tries to stir up a little wiki lynch mob against those who would dare to frequent the Wikipedia criticism site wikipediocracy.com because, because... the dangerous Mr. Kohs posts there too. If Mr. Wales is really concerned that Mr. Kohs is a threat to him or anyone in his family, he should seek a restraining order. As for the backdoor "badsites" policy, well, Mr. Van Haeften will just have to adjust to the fact that he's not going to get his way.Bali ultimate (talk) 17:38, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Dare I suggest it's probably a pretty heavy BLP violation... runs and hides --Errant ^(chat!) 18:06, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

BLP does apply to talk pages. Suggesting that a living person is a danger is definitely a BLP violation. Although I'm not stupid enough to try editing Jimbo's page. Ken Arromdee (talk) 22:52, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

• As usual, a lot of the rhetoric here is overblown. At the same time, while I don't subscribe to the stuff about hate crimes and gun battles, it's obvious that there are individuals whose interest in Jimmy Wales and his family verges on the uncomfortably obsessive.

  The whole thing is sort of ridiculous; obviously, the people who contribute to Wikipediocracy are not about to stop just because Jimmy Wales asks them to. And in the end, a discussion forum is just a discussion forum. If a website lost all redeeming value simply because it was frequented by a few nasty, obsessive pieces of work, then Wikipedia should have been closed down long ago.

  That said, there's a sort of icky, vindictive, excessively familiar undertone that runs through a lot of posts on those off-site forums, and it's fair to consider whether we as Wikipedia contributors want to be associated with that. MastCell ^Talk 18:39, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Nothing useful is happening in this discussion. I'd suggest a RfC or a narrower focused request for arbitration rather then continuing to attack each other. SirFozzie (talk) 18:14, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Observation & Admonishment The reference to yellow stars is in extremely poor taste. Please don't do that. 140.247.141.165 (talk) 21:59, 1 May 2012 (UTC) Sorry, but I'm not going to allow political correctness and the insistence for the use of Newspeak get in the way of a frank comparison. I won't compromise my language, ideas, and thoughts for the sake of not hurting someone's feelings. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 00:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC) I really don't see how something as petty as internet site 'loyalties' can be "frankly compared" to genocide. It's not "Newspeak", it's keeping things in a rational perspective. Get over yourself. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 00:10, 2 May 2012 (UTC) What if your country were to decree that any person who has read the Communist Manifesto, the Bible, the Koran, or The New York Times must wear a special patch that identified them as a reader of such material? Fæ's proposal isn't any different. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 00:17, 2 May 2012 (UTC) Guys, you do realize this is going to be another one of those legendary threads that people cite to indicate how nutty Wikipedia is? If you go on these other sites, you must! I don't see the proposal as a "yellow star". The way I interpret it - maybe someone will disagree - I see it as requiring admins who are involved with another party on one of those sites to acknowledge that fact and act accordingly when dealing with him. I proposed a rephrase above just to be double sure. Not a yellow star, just an ordinary recusal. As for the other stuff, well, clearly Jimbo has the right to remove stuff he's read and doesn't feel like answering from his own bloomin' talk page. We all have that right. And he has a right to ask his "friends" to avoid contributing to his "enemies" offsite, when there are potential threats involved. (Of course, whether they do so is another matter) And I don't necessarily have to believe the guy who made the maybe-threat that it wasn't a threat. I'm reminded of the Giffords cross-hair debate. Not saying I want him convicted in a court of law, but Jimbo doesn't have to believe him. Let's tone down the rhetoric here and make a commonsense interpretation that if you're in a knock-down drag-out with another editor, and you're an admin with your finger on the block button, your judgment might not be perfectly impartial. Wnt (talk) 00:44, 2 May 2012 (UTC) Yes ("how nutty Wikipedia is") - this thread is a great piece of evidence of the Wikipedia "fair game" mentality, where supposed WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL policies are simply suspended when the targets of personal attacks are critics - especially from high-status members of the hierarchy. Wnt, while there's many insults on both sides, and unarguably extensive acrimony, the particular mudslinging here should be completely out of bounds. Especially on a site which claims to have a civility policy (with endless debates over it). It just shows how selectively it's enforced, and what a large component there is of social power. When you give such utter nonsense defamation the slightest credibility, you show that smears work. That a strategy of throw some mud and see what sticks, can succeed via simply doing any damage at all. Note in view of the above, "yellow star", hyperbole issue aside, is not really the correct figurative descriptive. Rather, it's "bullseye". That is, effectively, participation in BADSITES combined with any action would be a basis for directing a fusillade of abuse at an admin, on the theory of giving aid and comfort to the enemy. It's obvious how this would work - Admin does something on a controversy, and "discloses" participation in BADSITES thread about it. Immediate flame about how could anyone ever support such a pit of devils by even entering their unholy lair, and this taints the soul forevermore. When admin denies being a witch's familiar, in response, have another recitation of all the utter evil which has been perpetrated by the fiends in human form. Repeat. At length. Or, in Wikipedianese, "drama". This thread is the proof. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 11:56, 2 May 2012 (UTC) Speaking of the attribution of evil, what do you think of the discussion at #Orange_Mike above? Especially the last section, #Larger_issue_unresolved. --JN466 12:28, 2 May 2012 (UTC) I'm not meaning to duck your question, but I've got some pretty complicated views about paid editing, and there are many things in the mix of my thinking - my knowledge of what Jimbo was doing with the business Bomis and now with the start-up Wikia, my having been at one of the fairly high-level Harvard talks about these sorts of sites, my general dislike of the exploitative nature of "Web 2.0" and its structure, the counter-intuitive nature of some of the way the human mind works, etc - it's kind of hard to put it down in short comment, and I'd probably get in trouble for some parts of it here. In terms of choosing my battles, PR people can take care of themselves, they get paid to do it. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 13:17, 2 May 2012 (UTC) The other comparison I considered using instead of the Yellow Star was that people had to attach a sound file of a bell and append "unclean" to their post. I've now realised that what Chairman Fae would really want is an Unwikipedian Affairs Committee in which anyone who is suspected of having posted to a bad site has to confess, recant and name some associates or be banned from the internet.--Peter cohen (talk) 14:05, 2 May 2012 (UTC) Nice ad-hom there Peter, though kind of you to call me Chairman Fae, I like it, much nicer than faggot "fae got". Strange how people call me the dramah queen when you are the one comparing a simple proposal for better transparency with the holocaust and the anti-communist witch hunts of the House Un-American Activities Committee. --Fæ (talk) 14:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC) Fae, did Peter ever call you a "fae got"? No? Then why the fuck are you implying that he did???!??! Can you stop being such an obvious and utter slime ball for just a second?VolunteerMarek 17:20, 2 May 2012 (UTC) Fae, you're letting yourself be trolled (and I don't just mean by Peter). And Marek, even if you're right on the point you still don't have to be vulgar about it, or take such glee in watching him lose his cool under provocation, or add extra WP:personal attacks of your own. Wnt (talk) 17:25, 2 May 2012 (UTC) Thanks Wnt. Interesting however, that I'm a slime ball because I dare mention that the owner of Wikipediocracy calls me a faggot by using a stupid pun on my name, and yet it is perfectly okay to use the holocaust as a casual way of making fun my proposal on this noticeboard. Nice Wikipediocracy travelling circus we see here don't you think? --Fæ (talk) 17:31, 2 May 2012 (UTC) Fae, if you're walking down an alleyway and a drunk hooker starts punching you, yes, you can punch her back, and yes, you can win the fight, but when the video comes out on the News at Nine you're still the one who's come out with problems. You have to hold yourself to your own high standard in stuff like this, and not get dragged down to the level of the people you're arguing with. In this case that doesn't refer to restraining your emotions, which you've kept in check quite admirably considering the circumstances, but rather to making sure that you don't become unclear or unfocused in your arguments. Not everyone reading knows the whole past conflict. Your clarification above is a step in the right direction. Wnt (talk) 17:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC) Well first off , there is the utter hypocrisy of a person calling for transparency given the underhanded method in which he gained adminship on this project by failing to disclose a previous disgraced account name. Second, the "fae got" bit was something uttered by Thekosher, a name long-banned and long-disgraced on this project. What Fae is trying to do is paint everyone who does not like them with broad swipes of the Kosher Brush(tm), hoping for a bit of guilt-by-association to settle into the minds of those who are reading this. Tarc (talk) 17:34, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Time for changes to the Username Policy? ROLE, ORGNAME and NOSHARE

Every policy has room for improvement, and the username policy is no different. I am not proposing (nor supporting/opposing) any changes myself. However, in hopes of drawing a wider audience to the conversation to achieve consensus I wanted to mention this here. In response to some potentially unclear wording in the policy we saw this RFCN and this conversation on Jimbo's talk page a number of editors are taking a stab at clarifying the policy. Admin who regularly review the backlog at UAA may want to review and comment. Your input on the username policy talkpage would be appreciated.  7  23:29, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

You might point out that WP:ROLE is not actually part of WP:Username, but part of the WP:SOCK policy. I think part of the problem in interpretation might have been the different goals of these two policies. The naming of users is primarily focused on avoiding confusing names and giving basic guidelines for new users, while the 'Sock' policy is about stressing the 1-to-1 relationship (1 human to 1 account) that is strongly preferred because of security and accountability concerns. -- Avanu (talk) 23:35, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

... Except that that's not actually what WP:SOCK says. Users are allowed as many accounts as they can use in a policy-compliant manner. Jclemens (talk) 01:30, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

You're talking about the exception, not the general rule. The policy still says what you just said. But if you're summing up general user creation policy in 1 brief sentence, you'd probably say "generally one human to one account", which is what I'm saying above. -- Avanu (talk) 01:39, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

See my most recent post on Jimbo's page for some ideas :-) (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 12:26, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

In that conversation I proposed to create/use a more gentle template to mark blocked organization-name accounts, Template:Legal person. But probably to go ahead and legitimize simply blocking accounts with such names on sight, given that the person is free to go ahead and start a new account anyway. Wnt (talk) 05:48, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Afd is attracting political crazies

This AFD should be monitored by admins very closely because Drudge Report has linked it's users to it. Lots of pollitical arguments are being made and oh yes there are socks. Hghyux (talk to me)(talk to others) 22:43, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

As I can see, IPs and new accounts cannot vote anymore. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 05:30, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Whatever, I weep for the administrator who will close this AfD. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 06:51, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Note that IPs and new accounts can still comment at the AFD's talk page - and several have already. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 18:30, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Confused

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

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I wanted my username to be changed from "Gay Mormon Boy" to "Mormon Man" and it was, but for some reason the "Gay Mormon Boy" account still exists. I am confused, and this was not the result I wanted. Can someone please help or explain this to me? Gay Mormon Boy (talk) 00:30, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

You re-created it by re-logging into it after I renamed you. Just don't log into it again and only log into your new username. MBisanz ^talk 00:31, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, thank you. Gay Mormon Boy (talk) 00:32, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

No problem, I know it's a flukey system. MBisanz ^talk 00:34, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I would very much like the "Gay Mormon Boy" account to be deleted, or blocked, or renamed to something completely neutral and uncontroversial. I did not want to recreate it, and I am most unhappy with its continued existence. I'm not sure I want to edit Wikipedia at all if it is still there. Someone help me please. Mormon Man (talk) 01:01, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I have locked it and you will no longer be able to log into it. MBisanz ^talk 01:05, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Mormon Man (talk) 01:10, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

What the crap is LOCKED? I've never seen that before. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:23, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

See meta:Global locks. MBisanz ^talk 01:29, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Abuse. Jafeluv (talk) 06:34, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

How so? Looks like a good solution to me.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 15:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Now that you were at it, you could have also renamed it...... --Enric Naval (talk) 16:21, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I could have, but then it would have auto-recreated if he ever tried to log in again. Locking it prevents him from logging in. MBisanz ^talk 16:45, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Abusive global block by MBisanz. 140.247.141.165 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC).

Bullshit. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:04, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.