Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive112

User:212.32.97.36
Not quite sure if this is the right place to post this, but this person is vandalizing.  §  Eloc   §  01:01, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * When has enforcing WP:NFCC been called "vandalizing"? Civility is an issue, sure, but I'm not seeing the vandalism. hbdragon88 (talk) 01:19, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It "vandalizing" when the other person disagrees =). Actually, this seems related to the this discussion about User:212.32.112.152. Suggest Eloc discuss the matter there and mark this as resolved. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:16, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

The X-Files and "unofficial mythology episodes"
A couple of days ago, I noticed that there was a section in The X-Files for unofficial mythology episodes.

For those not aware, the "Mythology" episodes are specific set of episodes chosen by the creators to be of significant importance to the show's continuity, and deal with the themes of alien abduction, colonization, etc more strongly than others.

Underneath the mythology section of the article, there was a subsection for unofficial episodes, and a little blurb that went "Certain X-Files episodes were omitted from the official mythology DVD releases, even though many fans consider them to be part of the mythology.[citation needed] The following is a list of those episodes" and it went on to list various episodes that editors thought were related to the show's mythology despite not being referred to as such by the show's creators.

I removed it, stating that it was fancruft and original research. After all, who decides what should be considered mythology if the creators themselves don't? There wasn't even an opinion piece or article to back up their claims. A couple of editors agreed with me, but a lot of other editors thought it was important to the article and that the episodes themselves should count as verification.

There's a rather lengthy discussion about this here. Frankly, the whole thing is ridicilous. I have laid out the rules that the section violates, but no one is listening. I would appreciate it if an admin or someone with a better grasp on the rules could set things straight here.--CyberGhostface (talk) 01:38, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe you want the door down the hall. --ElKevbo (talk) 01:42, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Template:Asian capitals controversial changes and subsequent revert war
Enough. Discuss on the talk page instead of bickering here. — Kurykh  04:46, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

I have what I think are some valid concerns over what's been happening over at Template:Asian capitals. A few days ago an editor decided to make a very controversial change arbitrarily deciding that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel, without bothering to try and reach any kind of consensus. Everyone acknowledges there is controversy over the status of Israel's capital, but there is no consensus over the arbitrary change that was made. A revert war has consequently taken place between both sides, and most recently Victor falk decided to re-revert to the controversial change and immediately requested protection, which was granted by Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry. It seems like if the page is going to be protected while this dispute is resolved, it should be protected to the pre-dispute state, in order to get a clean slate and hopefully bring back some rationality to both sides. Said Admin, Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry, believes the request sounds reasonable, but he recommended I bring up the issue here. Newtman (talk) 00:14, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * No, per The Wrong Version. In a revert war, what version got protected stays protected until a consensus has been established. Reverting it now will only cause more drama that we don't need, on top of the drama you already have on your hands. — Kurykh  00:23, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I appreciate the sarcasm of The Wrong Version, but I also think it's a little silly that a random user can come onto a article, make a reversion on a page that's finally been stable an entire day *while* an active discussion is going on in the talk page, and then immediately request protection. It's very weasily and backhanded.  But so be it. Newtman (talk) 00:34, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * But now that the page is protected, this is the best we can do without creating more unneeded "admin abuse" and "admin is biased" complaints. — Kurykh  00:38, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment A minor detail: that revert is the only one I've made to Asian capitals. When I'm engaged in talks where there's a lot of steam, I have some kind of 1RR or 0RR where I won't make changes unless I feel it could be acceptable to all parties, and doubly so when it comes to the palestisraelian wikiwar. Also, I'm bit irked by being called "a random user", furthermore with on top of that the insinuation that I didn't care about the discussion, and finally obfuscating the fact that I engaged in it trying hard to have a sensible conversation. I put that page on my watchlist when there was an RfC over wether Afghanistan should be in Central or Southwest Asia, so I've followed it from the very beginning--victor falk 01:14, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * That's nice, but you still decided to make a controversial edit that was still being discussed in talk, and then immediately requested protection on a page that had been stable for an entire day. Unless a page is actively being warred on or being vandalizing, protection only stymies consensus seeking.  You were active on the talk page, so you must have been aware your revert wouldn't have been acceptable to all parties, which kind of makes your "comment" bunk. Newtman (talk) 02:32, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

The history shows that one of the editors in agreement with Victor Falk modified his original edit to some sort of middle ground, at which point the revert-warring stopped and productive discussion ensued. 22 hours later in the midst of discussion in which no edits to the template took place, Victor Falk reverted to his preferred version and immediately requested a full-protection due to edit-warring. Whether intentional or not this looks like some sort of gaming the system.  Tewfik Talk 01:51, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Since it's always the wrong version, why not mine? Protecting the version before mine that you referred to is perfectly acceptable to me, though I find it inferior from a copy-editing point of view.--victor falk 03:20, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Request for Unprotection I'd like to request an uninvolved admin look at the case for protection of this page, on the basis of the previous comment. I can't understand the reasoning behind protecting a article than hadn't been touched for a full day, while active discussion was going on in the talk page. Especially a protection request from a user who had deliberately made a controversial edit immediately before said request. Newtman (talk) 02:44, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * For one thing, this is the wrong venue. Second thing, are you done discussing and and reached a consensus? — Kurykh  02:54, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, what is the right venue? The administrator who granted the protection has already refused to reconsider, and WP:RFPP doesn't appear to be the right venue to dispute an administrative action. Newtman (talk) 03:03, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The right venue is to stop the edit war, pick the wording and then go use editprotected when it is settled. Ask that admin to unprotect as well. Cavalry (I guess that's the way to call him) is perfectly right not to unblock until it's settled. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:20, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I think you're missing the point. There was no active edit war when the page was protected.  It had already settled down, and was being discussed on the talk page. Newtman (talk) 03:29, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't really care what is to considered the current version at the time of my request for protection, mine or Eleland's. I made it as a preventive move, a signal if you want, that the discussion was in danger of going nowhere and redegenerating into edit-warring. Now that nodoby can be tempted to unilaterally making changes, it might be more constructive. I'm wholly open to request unprotection before Dec 21 if it has progressed, even if no consensus has been reached yet, to test different versions. It not a trainwreck at all, there has been many positive and constructive inputs, and I think there is a definetely a potential for reaching a satisfying consensus.--victor falk 03:46, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Really? If that was the case why did you "unilaterally" make a change right before requesting protection? That seems rather counter-constructive and of questionable motives. Newtman (talk) 03:49, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I uphold the protection. Now spend your time discussing instead of pointlessly bickering. I don't give a damn about who's version is correct; discuss and hash out a consensus before asking for unprotection. — Kurykh  03:59, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, this ANI posting is spurious, and I already pointed to The Wrong Version as soon as it was brought up on the talk page. The dispute actually goes back several months, I believe I was the first one to modify the template to indicate Jerusalem's disputed status, and it stuck for nearly a month before being reverted, then the reverted version stuck for just over a month, then I reverted and that stuck for a month.... so to talk about the "consensus version" as if this was some arbitrary drive-by action is a little rich. &lt;eleland/talkedits&gt; 04:18, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Who said anything about a "consensus version"? I merely said things had quieted down until Victor decided to make a change and immediately plead for protection. Anyway, it's clearly a waste of time to argue about it, and hopefully the editors on both sides will be able to come to a sensible compromise in the next couple of weeks (who knows, it could actually happen!) Newtman (talk) 04:43, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Okay, sorry to comment outside the archive. But I'd like somebody neutral and experienced to review user Tariqabjotu's use of admin tools here: he reduced the length of protection after he had previously given his opinions on talk, ie, involved himself in the dispute. Granted, the one month protection seemed long, but I'm not sure he was wise to take it upon himself to fix that. &lt;eleland/talkedits&gt; 07:04, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay; thanks for commenting, but if you don't have any objection to the result of the action, why are you bringing this up? --  tariq abjotu  07:15, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Indefinite blocks
Could I ask for some advice on how indefinite blocks are supposed to work? I've been reading WP:BLOCK: "'An indefinite block is a block that does not have a fixed duration. Indefinite blocks are usually applied when there is significant disruption or threats of disruption, or major breaches of policy. In such cases an open-ended block may be appropriate to prevent further problems until the matter can be resolved by discussion. If not one administrator will lift the block, the blocked user is effectively considered to have been banned by the community. In less extreme cases, however, the more usual desired outcome is a commitment to observe Wikipedia's policies and – if unblocked – to refrain from the problematic conduct in future.'" My impression was that indefinite blocks are mostly used on vandalism-only and simple disruption (trolling) accounts, but that the more normal procedure with problematic accounts that are editing the encyclopedia without vandalising (and either were, or could be, productive editors), is to warn the editor and impose a block of a definite length, relying on other admins and editors to see the previous block and reason for the block, and take this into consideration if further blocks are needed. I thought the pattern was generally to have blocks increase in length, and at some point for the editor in question to be warned that they may be indefinitely blocked the next time, and then to carry out an indefinite block if the problematic behaviour continues. What I'm actually seeing though is people jumping straight to indefinite blocks without the intermediate steps. In some cases, I think a long block of weeks or months is a better option, but I'm unclear what the general opinion is on shortening from indefinite to a long but finite block length. One question I would like answered better is where individual admins differ on when to jump straight to an indefinite block in the cases of non-vandal accounts, and how much warning is needed and of what nature? My feeling is that in most cases warnings and discussions and a block of a finite length (even if very long) should nearly always be tried before an indefinite one, but I do get the feeling that other admins are prepared to place immediate indefinite blocks on non-vandal accounts much more readily. I've recently pointed this out in several cases (in one the account was already unblocked, but in the other case the discussion has not really made much progress). I think the two mindsets can be summed up as follows: So when is it acceptable to jump straight to indefinite blocks, and which is the better way to approach indefinite blocks? My concern with (A) is that it can leave the blocked editor feeling they need to appeal the block immediately, and it feels like the presence of the indefinite block is being used to try and force a change in behaviour (it would be better for such change to be genuine, rather than forced). It also presumes that people reform completely and become model editors following a block, when a more normal pattern is for people's behaviour to improve to a degree, and then to continue improving as they get more experienced with Wikipedia. With (B) once a block of definite length is in place, things are much clearer - the user is given a definite period of time to reflect on their behaviour and can then demonstrate they have reformed when the block has expired, as opposed to trying to demonstrate this in the wording used when asking for an unblock. I personally feel it is easier to judge someone by their actions after unblocking, as opposed to what they say in an unblock request.
 * (A) Indefinite blocks are not a cause for concern because people can always use e-mail or the unblock template at some future point, and we should trust the unblocking admin to deal with the matter correctly. It is OK to put an indefinite block in place and then wait for signs of a change in behaviour.
 * (B) Indefinite blocks should only defer a decision between a definite block length and a ban. It is better to decide on one or the other relatively soon, and if a definite block length is the decision, to reduce the indefinite block to that length, to leave a clear blocking reason, and trust future admins to see this past record and issue a longer (or indefinite) block if needed after the current block has expired.

I do think it is important to be consistent about the point at which we jump to an indefinite block, and how to handle it from that point onwards. Which is the better way to approach indefinite blocks? A (leave as indefinite until unblocking or shortening is thought to be OK) or B (after discussion, decide on a definite block length or turn into a ban)? And what happens if even after discussion admins disagree on what should be done? What then? If the original blocking admin insists on an indefinite block in the face of disagreement, should the onus be on those wanting an indefinite ban to open a community ban discussion? What happens when admins disagree over whether a user has reformed? Carcharoth (talk) 01:22, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * There are some conditions (e.g. WP:NLT) where we clearly need to indefinite block until the matter is resolved. In other situations (e.g. a long term user who may have worn out their welcome), a long but definite block length (1 week to 1 month) while we have a community discussion about locking the door and tossing away the key is appropriate.  It might be helpful to have a definemyblock that works like unblock for users who have recently indefinitely blocked, but asks for a reviewing admin to define a limited block length instead of totally undoing the block.  GRBerry 01:34, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of a "definemyblock" template to request an admin to review the block length - but what if the reviewing admin can't decide or leaves it as indefinite - what then? But getting back to that template, what would be needed to get that up and running do you think? I think it should also include a warning that requesting a defining of a block might turn into a discussion about a community ban, and that sometimes just taking a break and returning later is better. The other thing I forgot to mention was that recently someone pointed out the "|category=" trick to turn off the categorisation into "temporary wikipedian pages" that the indef block tag does when put on user pages. Where is the best place to discuss whether that should be default behaviour, or where to put a note reminding admins to use this little trick in cases where an account has a long history of contributions and the user page should be kept as a record of who made those contributions? Carcharoth (talk) 01:53, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * People now seem to be using indefinite blocks on "vandal only accounts" when only a few edits are involved, and there is really no purpose. Perhaps the idea is that it closes the episode, but that is not what the policy says. As I see it, we need to maintain a gradated scale of blocking--going immediately to the final level loses the impact--it ought to be clear that it is being done as a last resort. DGG (talk) 03:27, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * While looking into one such example of an indefinite block, I found a good example of another such block, one that involved just such a jump. The initial example was a block that was later undone: see here. The other (vandalism-only) example I found from a quick look down a list of blocks by that admin was this one. I apologise in advance for using these two blocks from a single admin as examples (I've notified the admin on their talk page). Please can we discuss the general applicability of the cases and what lessons (if any) can be learned (eg. tweaking of policy pages), and not whether the blocking admin was right or wrong (which seems fairly clear already). First case: (1) User:Martinlh: Five edits of a clear BLP-type nature (three removals of the sourced but possible BLP material on 13 October, 2 November, 20 November) - response was "(account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (Disruptive SPA)" (later undone); (2) User:Declan7: Five experimental vandalism-type edits on 14 and 15 November, followed by a 24-hour block and a warning. This was followed by another such edit ("declan rules") on 20 November. Just as people sometimes feel the need to test the "anyone can edit" button, so they may feel the need to test those doing blockings ("will they catch me this time?"). It turned out the answer was yes, and the 24-hour block became indefinite (I suspect other admins might have tried another warning and short block). What puzzles me is the block log summary referring to the original 24-hour block: "I can only assume Ragib erred". The implication there is that the admin who blocked indefinitely indeed thought that the correct response would have been to block indefinitely straightaway. Clearly wrong. It is entirely possible that the person behind the "Declan7" account was only experimenting and having fun, and has no intention of editing Wikipedia again. It is also entirely possible that if this had been handled differently, the person involved might have carried on editing Wikipedia and become a productive editor. Sure, they can create a new account, but they might not bother now. This is, I think, the whole essence of what don't bite the newcomers is about. Carcharoth (talk) 05:34, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Hmm. This seems to have got lost in the noise a bit. Is there a better place to discuss this? Carcharoth (talk) 13:44, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

block log not transferred in name change?
I just noticed that my block log appears to not have been moved to my new account name, which is kinda weird since during my first rename, it was (the first block happened prior to my first renaming)., Should/could something be done about this, e.g. "merge" the block logs? |dorftrottel |talk 04:05, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It can't be done, but thank you for your honesty. I've put a note in your block log to this effect. east. 718 at 04:08, November 22, 2007
 * Ok, thanks, that should prevent the impression I'm trying to hide something. Still curious though that it wasn't moved along the rest of my account. All other logs appear to have been moved correctly. |dorftrottel |talk 04:12, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Block logs can't be moved with a user rename, because your username is the item being actioned in the log, rather than being the actionee. Cheers, east. 718 at 04:14, November 22, 2007
 * Ah, that clears it up, and now that I looked, I noticed that the first block was actually 5 days after my first renaming, not before (on the occasion, I finally re-created the original Kncyu38 account to prevent impersonation)., Thanks again, have a nice one. |dorftrottel |talk 04:21, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Once again, I am impressed by the efforts Dorftrottel is making to be completely open about his past history and to move on from it. Guy (Help!) 13:46, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Accessibility problem
Dear Admins,

I would like to ask if it is possible to change the size of the letters in the upper links of the Recent changes page (from This page to Challenges) from small fonts to normal fonts, according to the accessibility guidelines of Wikipedia for the visually impaired. My idea is not to adjust it for only myself by employing some more or less complicated technical trick, but to make Wikipedia pleasant for all, including the short sighted and the elderly with weaker sight. The former may adjust the css in their browsers but the letter usually do not know about such tricks and have a lot of problems because of the small letters on homepages. Could Wikipedia be friendlier towards them by avoiding too small letters? The article Accessibility says: If necessary, use or  (See: Style and markup section). My question is: are small letters really necessary here? Looking forward to your answers. --Hunadam (talk) 11:28, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * For reference, I think we're looking at MediaWiki:Recentchangestext. Seems like quite a few links, to me... might be helpful if we could organize or reduce the clutter, maybe? I might take a stab at it, but I'm off to bed, here, in a moment. – Luna Santin  (talk) 11:57, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Luna, maybe we should put the topic to Village pump (proposals)? --Hunadam (talk) 12:27, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Wilhelm Steinitz (chess) page.
This morning I made a few additions to the "Wilhelm Steinitz" page, also trying to arrange better the images, which were somewhat scattered. In my opinion the previous article, though full of many data, was a little messy and the sections not well-arranged. In the end when I saved the page, the last sections, namely after "Contributions to chess", had disappeared. Notice that I did not work on these sections. Don't know what happened but I don't have enough experience to fix the matter myself, though it should not be difficult. Thanks for the assistance, --Gabodon (talk) 13:21, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * You put ref/ instead of /ref at the end of some references, and this has the unfortunate result of hiding huge portions of the text (as they are supposedly inside the ref, instead of outside them). I have corrected it (I hope I corrected them all!). Fram (talk) 13:40, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Albert Johnson (disambiguation)
User:The-G-Unit-Boss moved the Albert Johnson disambiguation page to Albert Johnson (disambiguation) then redirected the Albert Johnson page to Prodigy (rapper). I redirected Albert Johnson back to the Albert Johnson (disambiguation) page but need someone who can do an overide to fix up this mess. Thanx. Handicapper (talk) 14:24, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Please block my old username
Hello, i have recently been renamed from User:AFUSCO. I have recreated the account here and wish to have it blocked indefinitely for my security. Thank You Alex 'fus 'co5  14:52, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Please also remember to disable the autoblock Alex 'fus 'co5  14:57, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't understand; why would you recreate your old username, then ask for it to be blocked? The rename effectively removed the old account, so why bother recreating it? Shadow1  (talk) 15:48, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I've indefinitely blocked User:AFUSCO, though. Shadow1  (talk) 15:51, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * i recreated it because it says on WP:CHU that it is a good idea to recreate your old username. Also i would like to prevent users from editing with that name because i still have talk pages with my old signature on it. Also thanks for blocking Alex 'fus 'co5  15:54, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The recreation is very important to prevent someone else registering the name and vandalising; that can cause a lot of confusion, and happened recently. The block is less important because the only person with the password has no reason to edit through it anyway. --ais523 15:58, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Proxy posting for banned and blocked users operating through Tor nodes
As an example of this problem, has been restoring disruptive posts,  of banned editors operating through Tor nodes      Krimpet seems to reject the idea that banned and blocked users aren't allowed to post.

I'd like to clarify how disruptive posts emanating from Tor nodes should be handled. I'd also like to know whether an editor is allowed to restore such posts after they have been removed by another editor. It seems like removing such posts to deny recognition is the policy a good idea, and that when an editor takes that action, it should not be reverted. Comments and advice? - Jehochman Talk 02:57, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


 * One, which banned user is this alleged to be? Two, since when is Deny recognition policy? Picaroon (t) 03:03, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The banned user appears to be (No need to name them) or a meat puppet, but there's absolutely no way to ever know for sure because they are posting through a Tor node. We sort of have to make a best guess by the message that they are sending.  Are we now going to say that banned users can do whatever they like as long as they use Tor nodes?  That seems rather unwise.  Additionally, I have received email correspondence that strongly suggests involvement of (No need to name them).   - Jehochman  Talk 03:10, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


 * You said the same thing with ...  Daniel  03:26, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Have you proof that the user is somebody else? If so, please share the information because there was a massive disruption and Arbcom is still investigating the incident, as far as I know.  - Jehochman  Talk 03:33, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * ArbCom has taken the close-to-unprecedented step to investigate your own and Durova's actions and judgement in that incident via private email without opening a case, but welcoming evidence from everyone. Any information I or others have provided to ArbCom via their private mailing list is exactly that - private. It just needs to be noted that your assertions of "this is clearly MyWikiBiz" is currently not as persuasive as it could be.  Daniel  03:36, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Indeed, I requested the investigation myself. ;-)  Check your email, Daniel. I've sent you new evidence and CC'ed Arbcom. - Jehochman  Talk 03:45, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I requested the investigation also. And if you're not aware, Daniel, I was harassed via e-mail by a person who claimed to be that same IP.  Nobody wants to get to the bottom of this more than I do.  Durova Charge! 11:23, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Jehochman, I was writing a reply to your post on my talk page. I would have gladly discussed this there; why did you bring this to AN/I before I got a chance to respond, other than to cause more ridiculous drama?
 * Removing a critical comment as "a post from a Tor node" is not policy - we don't even have a clear position on blocking Tor nodes right now. I specifically stated, multiple times, that I restored the comment because obscuring and removing discussion just feeds the trolls and gives them more nonsense to speculate on. The proper thing to do would be to let the comment stand on its own, perhaps rebut it, or just have people ignore it. Transparency is sorely needed here - it's a very effective weapon against disruption of every stripe, yet many prominent editors are taking the opposite approach. -- krimpet ⟲  03:11, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I brought it here because this isn't really a disagreement between you and me. It seems to be a lack of clarity about how to handle disruptive editors using Tor nodes. I am hoping that others can provide clarity. I think letting banned users post through Tor nodes is a very, very bad idea and am hoping that the community consensus will confirm that. - Jehochman Talk 03:14, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The title of "Krimpet proxy posting for banned and blocked users operating through Tor nodes," directly accusing me of impropriety, seems to suggest that you intended me to be the primary topic of this discussion. -- krimpet ⟲  03:18, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * (edit conflicted 2x) Actually, Krimpet, your second restoration stated in the edit summary that you thought the blanking had been an artifact of an edit conflict - although I had specifically mentioned TOR nodes in the body of my post. That should have been quite clear, and at that point taking the matter to talk pages would have been a good idea.  I haven't looked through the entire history yet, but it appears your first restoration got reverted by a different administrator.  Bold-revert-discuss would have been a good idea.  ArbCom has expressed who's who clauses in many decisions: when it's difficult or impossible to determine specific identities, remedies can be fashioned in ways that make identification unnecessary.  Blanking those posts looked like a WP:DUCK application of WP:BLOCK.  If you disagree, please discuss your reasons.  Durova Charge! 03:19, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * My initial restoration of the comment was reverted by you as you added another comment, without mentioning that you were removing the comment again. This is why I restored it, assuming good faith that this removal was not intentional. -- krimpet ⟲  03:26, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * In that diff you cite the text of my post includes the statement Incidentally, TOR nodes keep posting cricitisms of my actions to this thread. It's become a rather good honeypot for that purpose. I'll double check, but I think the restoration you did after that was the second one.  If it's an honest misunderstanding I'll certainly be glad to work things out.  Hope you can see how the confusion arose.  Durova Charge! 03:41, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, that was the second restoration. Here's the first one 13 minutes earlier.  Now that I double check, I did reblank it myself.  Durova Charge! 03:45, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

No need to cast blame. I'd like to come to a consensus about how to handle these situations so we have no more reverting when an editor deletes a post of a banned user operating through a Tor node. If we can agree, then going forward we will have smooth sailing. - Jehochman Talk 03:27, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Every time I see someone citing WP:DUCK I can't help but think of Monty Python's take on the proper approach to witch hunting. Yes, someone may indeed weigh as much as a duck... but burning them for it is far more disruptive than just ignoring them would ever have been. Block accounts and IPs for what they do. Blank messages only if they contain information that should be private. The 'banned user' hunts just create big unruly mobs making a mess of things with torches and pitchforks... and that's not even counting what happens when you get it wrong. --CBD 11:40, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

please dont discrimate chinese because of some bad users. thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.111.94.195 (talk) 12:00, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Errm, once again, Jehochman has a rather distorted idea of Wikipedia policy! There is no rationale for reverting the non-disruptive contributions of blocked (as oposed to banned) users, nor for reverting the contributions of users editing through Tor nodes. From Blocking policy:
 * "An administrator may reset the block of a user who intentionally evades a block, and may extend the duration of the block if the user engages in further blockable behaviour while evading the block."

From Open proxies:
 * "Open or anonymising proxies may be blocked from editing for any period at any time to deal with editing abuse. While this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may freely use proxies until those are blocked."

Even if these two policies specifically said that such edits could be reverted (as in the case of bans), which they don't outside of the imagination of two or three admions, Krimpet would have been quite within her justifiable use of administrative discretion in not reverting them for the benefit of discussion on the encyclopedia. This is a farcical thread which seems only designed to draw attention away from the controversy surrounding one of its contributors. Physchim62 (talk) 12:46, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Are we no longer blocking Tor nodes on sight? Tom Harrison Talk 13:07, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * AFAIK, yes, under Open proxies. There is even a bot available to do it, should the Community wish that. However, we do not revert non-disruptive edits made through these nodes before they are blocked. Disruptive edits may, of course, be reverted under Disruptive editing wherever they come from! Physchim62 (talk) 13:43, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Banned users posting through Tor nodes
Back to business. We are talking about what to do when a banned user posts through a Tor node. Obviously checkuser cannot determine whether it's a banned user or not because Tor nodes anonymize the source. Hence, we must look at the content of the post. When a post appears from a Tor node that looks like the same message being pushed by a banned user, can that message be removed? I say yes because we obviously don't want to give banned users a free pass to post whatever they like through Tor nodes. Any other comments? - Jehochman Talk 15:49, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Remove the post; block the ip. In general, any post can be removed. Posts by banned users should be removed, and may not be restored. Nobody has to enforce a ban, but nobody gets to prevent enforcement either. I don't know to what extent checkuser tells us anything about Tor users. Tor or not, it never infallibly identifies the editor. A somewhat seperate issue, Tor nodes are blocked on sight. Tom Harrison Talk 16:06, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


 * So if an edit summary indicates the removal of a banned user's post, that post should not be restored without some sort of clarification or discussion with the editor who performs the removal in good faith. Right?  If an editor restores posts of a purportedly banned user without any agreement that it's not a banned user, then the editor is effectively proxying for a banned user. Does that view reflect the consensus? - Jehochman  Talk 16:14, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Just make it clear what's happening. The issue of Tor nodes is a red herring in this argument; if I were banned, "rv banned user Jpgordon" (for example) should be a sufficient note to other editors not to restore the edit without discussion. --jpgordon&#8711;&#8710;&#8711;&#8710; 17:02, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

This should not be a license for admins to revert edits which they don't like. If there is evidence of disruption, of course those edits should be reverted: if there is no evidence of disruption, administrators would be better spending their time helping out at WP:AIV, CAT:CSD or many other pages where there really is disruption, rather than trying to fit the post to the troll. Physchim62 (talk) 18:22, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


 * By the way, Physchim62, you restored a post by banned user to your talk page.   is an obvious sock in the sequence of  and .  Those are known socks of, who is banned.  You might want to remove that post. Jpgordon is the one who seems to have tagged Earthboat. - Jehochman  Talk 19:05, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


 * In my case, Durova simply started blocking and after realizing that she did not have the right banned user, she went with another one, also wrong. Since I am not in any trouble with WP; I am not using a TOR anything, why does she or anyone have a right to block me, take away my posts and hurt innocent people around me? Songgarden, Deutschland. 11-19-07 217.81.37.228 (talk) 20:39, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


 * For God's sake, people! They are laughing their asses of at us!  Here we are arguing whether it's OK to remove trolling form a Tor node if we are not entirely sure it's a banned user, and we have a policy that says using Tor is verboten - anyone who wants to contribute to the debate can do so using their Wikipedia account, it's free to register and if they are blocked or banned then they can... do the other thing. Guy (Help!) 23:16, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * As Jpgordon said, the Tor question is a distraction; banned users are banned users. And as Tom Harrison said, "in general, any post can be removed". This is the important part. Tor or not, banned or not, it doesn't matter; if a post is disruptive, remove it. This is common sense that I think pretty much everyone here agrees with, right? WP:BAN allows for the removal of banned editors' posts; it does not prohibit the removal of other disruptive posts! Guy, I'm afraid that even you are eyeing this red herring like it's a delicious treat. It is not against the rules for constructive editors to use Tor. We just block Tor due to its potential for abuse by destructive users. This distinction is subtle but important; if it's overlooked, we'll end up punishing good users who manage to use Tor even though they aren't breaking the rules. ··coe l acan 16:31, 21 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Guy hit the nail on the head. This is absolutely ridiculous. And for the record, I find User:Physchim62 and User:Daniel's comments to be uncivil, unhelpful, and unnecessary. Jehochman and Durova are doing their jobs, and it's shamefully petty of you to inject your biases and personal ouchies with them into a simple policy enforcement issue. This sort of thing is getting all too common. Bullzeye (Ring for Service) 02:15, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

returning from hiatus: update me on policy please (is page recreation vandalism?)
I have not been active for a while (okay, a little longer). I was surprised to hear of a user being indefinitely blocked for vandalism for recreating an autobio about himself (as well as some of his friends). His claimed achievements are personally remarkable -- I do not know of many rappers who get their bachelor's degrees at the age of 18 -- though I would agree that whether that info is encyclopedically notable is another matter. Of course everyone thinks their band is notable or deserves recognition, but is repeated creation of such content vandalism?

I should at least think such matters should be classified properly as a content dispute. The user might deserve a block, but I think it would send the wrong message to indefinitely block a person for vandalism when he was vain (and yes, consensus-violating) at worst. The user was not intentionally bearing malice against the encyclopedia, and the user seemed intelligent enough to demand an AfD for one of his articles. Besides the issue of the rationale given for the block, the length of the block is another. Horror forbid that I be one of the "Old Guard", but there was a time when administrators were very, very careful with applying indefinite blocks. Maybe "24 hours cooling off time" is seen as too light now. I hope this place has not grown so big that it has grown cold and insensitive to the situation of each misguided user. Elle <font color="#CC9920">vécut heureuse à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!) 19:16, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Generally speaking, repeatedly doing anything that you've been repeatedly warned against is vandalism. Indefblock would seem pretty unusual to me in such a situation, though, unless the account matched the pattern of a known repeat vandal. 24 hours would be a lot more common. On the other hand, I'm not really an admin who specialises in blocking, as you can tell from my actions log... --ais523 19:27, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmm. I had the impression from WP:VAN that vandalism was "repetitively and intentionally making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia". The only part I see here that describes this user's case is "repetitively". In contrast, under the "what vandalism is not" section, I see, "Repeated deletion or addition of material may violate the three-revert rule, but this is not "vandalism" and should not be dealt with as such."
 * In any case, I am wondering whether to go ahead and unilaterally commute this user's block. I am just confused because one sysop indefinitely blocked him; the user appealed and two other sysops reviewed the request and denied it both times, so I was unsure whether the policy consensus had changed that much. Elle <font color="#CC9920">vécut heureuse à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!) 19:48, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm the one who blocked him, and although I did it based on my understanding of how the policy worked (full set of warnings and continued reposting of a speedied article after those warnings) I haven't been an administrator long enough to be absolutely certain that what I did was right. I doubt I ever will.  In fact, I will happily relinquish this situation to anyone who cares to commute the block, without complaint, because I think this situation may have engaged my emotions a little more than is perhaps appropriate and my judgment may have been affected.  That's the reason why I took the article to AfD (well, actually, it was because the creator asked me to rather than speedying it, but I thought it was best to get more opinions) and I mentioned there that that was the case.  I still do hope to learn from this situation and, who knows, we might be able to get some useable content... I'm pessimistic, but not ruling it out.  Whatever happens, if someone unblocks him, I'm keeping my hands entirely off anything to do with this user as much as possible.  Accounting4Taste: talk 20:55, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * No, don't self-deprecate yourself, I appreciate your judgment. But it was just that I noted one block on his block log, and that was indefinite. It's just that I would have given a 24-hour (or maybe a 7-day block) first. I was unsure whether the blocking policy had changed. Reading from WP:INDEF, I read, "An indefinite block is a block that does not have a fixed duration. Indefinite blocks are usually applied when there is significant disruption or threats of disruption, or major breaches of policy. In such cases an open-ended block may be appropriate to prevent further problems until the matter can be resolved by discussion."
 * So the question is: was this user's disruption significant? It was definitely persistent, but it was nothing like that of a "on Wheels!" malicious vandal for instance. At worst, he just created a few vanity pages. So here I go, commuting this person's block to 24 hours, since there has been little objection (unlike the topic below!) Elle <font color="#CC9920">vécut heureuse à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!) 21:30, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Not the correct place...
Hello everyone. You sysop folk seem a knowledgeable lot, and I don't know where to go. I've dreamed up a crazy new idea for a central page letting wiki-elves to be know different places they could help out. How/where/when/why/what/who should I ask/talk to/tell/do? Ideally it will have links from appropriate pages in WikiProjects, other Wikipedia: pages, etcetera. The final destination envisaged is Volunteer. Please reply on that talk page. -<font color="Purple">Pump  me  up  22:37, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

List of BloggingHeads.tv contributors
I've closed the afd discussion for this article as per no consensus, but when I've tried to remove the afd tag, it didn't worked because of a filter. Can somebody else try to remove it. Looks more likely a spam protection filter error as no links were touched, removed or added, nor were there recent contributions to the page. I'm not registered at all to WikiMedia. -- JForget 00:31, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * ✅. I deactivated the blacklisted link. MER-C 01:39, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks MER-C -- JForget 01:47, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

The Shitts
The AfD for this article was opened over a week ago and there have been no comments in the last seven days. Maybe time to close/relist? Guest9999 (talk) 01:54, 23 November 2007 (UTC)]]

Afd Discussion as being closed as delete. -- JForget 02:04, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. Guest9999 (talk) 02:09, 23 November 2007 (UTC)]]

Oversight log request at the VP
I've posted a proposal to partially open up the oversight logs to administrators. Please comment here. Thanks! :) --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 03:35, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Zealous Newbie on Bullying and Workplace bullying
User:Parriswolfe has been editing Bullying and Workplace bullying for the past day or so (also using a couple of anon IP User:99.232.193.242 but with no real intent to deceive by so doing that I can see) she began by trying to post her own site, on a freeserver, as a citation and from there has progressed to POV pushing. It seems she is involved in a campaign to change Canadian law on some aspect of workplace bullying and sees the whole topic in terms of that and fervently believes Wikipedia should be a vehicle for that change. I have tried...she even got pretty abusive with me by email...I think she is, essentially, a good faith editor, she just needs somebody with better communication skills than me to explain how Wikipedia works and why she cannot use it to launch her campaign. --Zeraeph (talk) 06:48, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Did anyone try telling her about WP:SOAP? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:08, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Tried the whole of WP:NOT but didn't try that specific yet. Will now. But it is more as though she has the whole topic reinterpreted in terms of her own campaign and research, it's really rather odd IMHO --Zeraeph (talk) 07:22, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I've exchanged e-mail with her, too. I don't think it's doing much good, though. :(  I remain hopeful that she will change her ways but her current efforts are disruptive even if they are well-intentioned.  --ElKevbo (talk) 16:21, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Zeraeph - You are correct I do need someone with better communication skills to explain how to change a link - I think the brochure advertising services link should be removed and reset to the related research. To-date every time I have reset the link to Namie's actual report from 2003 you switch it back to the sales brochure.

http://www.bullyinginstitute.org/bbstudies/WBIbrochure.pdf this link does not go to a research study that supports what it is citing.

however this one does - http://www.bullyinginstitute.org/res/2003results.pdf - Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI) 2003 Report on Abusive Workplaces October 2003 by Gary Namie -- The Occupation Health and Safety Act links: You keep putting a link to a guide to "interpret" the Act, not the actual updated act. Wikipedia it viewed publicly as a place to review actual factual information. Thus the actual document of the Act is more substantial than a guide. Please locate in the actual Act where "psychology harassment" or "Bullying" is covered. If you can not support your findings with either the actual act or the name and phone number of your source at OOHS then you should not put it on Wikipedia as an Act that protects again "bullying".

here is the link to the act http://www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/hs/workplace_violence.html Workplace Violence] Ministry of Labor, Ontario, Canada.

Parriswolfe (talk) 13:56, 23 November 2007 (UTC)______

you put on the "Bullying" discussion board that those of use on a "freeserver" are less creditable than some one on a paid hosting domain - -- "The person with no credibility here is you, particularly when you keep removing a thoroughly verified link to a Government site on the grounds that bullying is restricted to psychological harm.

Gary Namie is named, qualified, peer reviewed, and has his own domain, you are using a freeserver to promote your own ideas, as is the unnamed owner of the other site you refer to. Please stop vandalising the article. If you are as serious about your work as you say then I am sure you can find reliable, verifiable, academic sources to cite in support of your point in accord with WP:RS. --Zeraeph (talk) 17:12, 21 November 2007 (UTC)" ---

How do you substantiate this fact as truth?

I asked you to provide the name of your source in my e-mail -

here are our e-mails - let your peer read for them selves.

(E-mails removed. Oversight needed?  --ElKevbo (talk) 15:37, 23 November 2007 (UTC))

Please can read and make there own minds up Parriswolfe (talk) 13:56, 23 November 2007 (UTC) Tamara Parris

... is gay vandals
Just to let my fellow admins know, I've recently had some success with stopping "... is gay" type vandals without resorting to the block button (handy especially when they're posting from a school IP etc) by leaving a talk page message headed something along the lines of GAY vandalism

My rationale was that anyone who thinks that describing someone/thing as "gay" is an insult would be embarrassed by the word showing up in big letters on their talk page.

I've not done this enough times yet to make the results statistically relevant, but early results are promising. --Dweller (talk) 17:42, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * That is hilarious. I should try that too. --BorgQueen (talk) 17:48, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Not it's not hilarious. It's gay:)--victor falk 01:43, 23 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Amusing, but I don't see how this would stop anyone since people who are vandalizing aren't typically worried about how their Talk page looks. --<font color="#0000C0">David <font color="#0000C0">Shankbone  17:59, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * But they are likely to be highly embarrassed to have the orange bar come up and anyone in class see just how "gay" they have been here. Always thought it an odd term of abuse myself, though. "Straight" would be far more insulting. There would be nothing worse that I could imagine than someone saying "Redvers is just like 90% of the population! Ner-ner ner ner-ner!" Insult me however you like, but don't call me boring. ➔ REDVEЯS would like to show you some puppies 21:00, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Orange bar like when you get a new message? Is there a screen shot somewhere one can see how it looks like? "Redvers is like 90% of the population. He thinks he's not straight":)... --victor falk 01:43, 23 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm gonna give it a shot. JuJube (talk) 05:39, 23 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I have to say I don't like the idea - "gay vandalism" sounds just like the kind of homophobic "... is gay" comments we are trying to stop. DuncanHill (talk) 10:48, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I suppose it might seem like it, which is ironic and unfortunate. If I put "GAY" vandalism that should address even the appearance of impropriety on my part, as I'm moving from the ambiguous use of an adjective to a quote. --Dweller (talk) 12:20, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * That sounds better - and I would like to make it clear that I never thought for a moment that there was any hint of impropriety on your part. DuncanHill (talk) 12:23, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Heck, don't worry. That's useful feedback. --Dweller (talk) 13:06, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Reword the Fundraising Bar
"From the fundraising blog – Why Wikipedia Does Not Run Ads"

If WP doesn't run ads, what's the big thing at the top of the page? I'd think "Ads" is too general of a term to use for that bar, because there's no way for anons and visitors to Wikipedia to get rid of it. Isn't the huge message at the top just an advertisement for people to "Donate now for free knowledge"? Isn't that kind of an oxymoron? <font color="#FE474B">♥ Fr  ed <font color="#4169E1">il  04:30, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * "Advertising is a paid, one-way communication through a medium in which the sponsor is identified and the message is controlled by the sponsor." The message is not promoting any sponsor, but rather soliciting direct donations. Donation is the other way to support a website, besides advertisement. You may not like it, but the word for what you don't like is something else besides "ad". And it is "free knowledge", because readers are not being billed for their access (besides gratis, it's also libre). Except you; you will receive your bill in the mail in four to six weeks. ··coe l acan 05:53, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Should we be advertising the fact that we don't run ads? Doesn't the lack of running ads convey this? -- Jreferee    t / c  06:44, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe. I think the idea is to remind people "we don't run ads [and that's why we have to beg from you now]." I have no idea what is the best way to run a donation campaign, though. ··coe l acan 07:39, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * That's it. I'm getting out my mailbox-destroying hammer :P I agree with Jreferee though, the fact that we don't run ads is enough but I don't think we need to brag about it so much. <font color="#FE474B">♥ Fr  ed <font color="#4169E1">il  18:12, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * This does not need administrative attention, please comment at Fundraising redesign, thanks! :). -- lucasbfr <sup style="color:darkblue;">talk 18:25, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Speedy delete question
Does anyone else think that 2005 Rose Bowl and several similar articles fits WP:CSD or another WP:SPEEDY reason? -- Jreferee    t / c  06:39, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think so. There is a small amount of content but the context is clear. There may be an argument for a merge/redirect to Rose Bowl. Catchpole (talk) 13:05, 23 November 2007 (UTC)


 * another comment For future reference: questions of this type can be taken to Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion. In my opinion, the article really doesn't fit the WP:CSD process in general because it is a potentially controversial deletion; I believe there used to be a statement to this effect in WP:CSD ... I'll drop a note on the talk page there to ask about that, because I think it should be there.  To address the question of specific speedy deletion criteria: It does not fit WP:CSD; I've had at least one conversation in the past (sorry for not putting a link here) about whether articles that consist entirely of transcluded or subst'd templates are covered under A3 and I believe there is a leaning toward the feeling that if the templates are substantially filled in that A3 does not apply; however, I don't think there is is a strong consensus position on this point.  In the specific case of 2005 Rose Bowl, the WP:CSD criterion might apply as there is no contextual statement that would provide information for someone unfamiliar with American Football information on what the content means. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 14:16, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It technically meets the criteria, but this is an obviously notable topic so I don't think it's very productive to delete the article. Hopefully someone will add prose before too long... --W.marsh 15:19, 23 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Discussion moved - Please direct all other comments to this thread at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion. Thanks. -- Jreferee    t / c  15:52, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Vandal
is currently anon-only blocked and account creation blocked (and has previous). He is now refactoring his talk page to include obscenities and gloating that "ban didn't work". I reported it at AIV, but a bot removed it because of the existing block. DuncanHill (talk) 11:02, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * fixed by Dweller. Pedro : Chat  13:08, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Many thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 13:14, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * For future reference, WP:RFPP would be the place for a request like this since the page needs to be protected. Metros (talk) 13:15, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

First Party Content Creation
Please will someone with more experience around here than I (which wouldn't be difficult) take a look at the request for guidance at: Talk:History of IBM.

The message is from an IBM person who might be able to provide Wikipedia with much useful information and citations about IBM, but is unsure of the protocol.

Thank you, Wanderer57 (talk) 16:26, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Somebody's using us to store their dirty picture collection
User:Esskater11/Dirty images Somebody's using us as a server for naughty pics, and inviting others to add them -- Orange Mike 07:24, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Several of those images have been uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons more than two years ago in some cases. Image:Aktfoto-2.jpg, Image:Orgasm.jpg, and Image:Keeani Lei 3.jpg are all examples of images that are free and whatnot. The only thing is that Wikipedia is not censored, and if someone needs to use such an image in an article in any language. He hasn't uploaded any of those images and he is merely suggesting that if someone finds an image that is not on his page, then they can add it.— Ryūlóng ( 竜龍 ) 07:35, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, if they're all duly licensed... I'm a fierce defender of WP:CENSOR myself, so I won't complain. Somebody had brought the question up on a help page, so I thought this was the venue to bring it to. -- Orange Mike 08:01, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * There doesn't seem to be any disruption to the encyclopedia stemming from this page's existence. It is rather bizarre, using Wikipedia to store your porn, but as Ryulong points out, we aren't censored. If desired, a MfD discussion could be filed (under WP:NOT, File Storage areas), but otherwise the best course of action is to let it be. <font color="#2A8B31">Anthøny 13:11, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think this is a reasonable use of User-space at all. The point of uploading pictures is to contribute to the encylopedia.  This use violates WP:NOT.  Also, the items on Commons mentioned above are only linked to User pages on en.wikipedia.  The point of Commons is to provide storage space for re-use of images in articles, not on user pages.  I agree with WP:NOT, but insisting that things like this contribute substantively to article content is a completely different matter from tolerance via WP:NOT.  --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 16:48, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Some of those images are of clear encyclopedic value. If they are all free images, I see no harm in having them here. Has anybody discussed the images with the user? Jeffpw (talk) 16:55, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree with Ceyockey. I don't see much need for a page of someone's favorite dirty photographs off the Commons.  Awhile back I became dismayed by the proliferation of amateur camera phone cock shots and self-promotional porn pics that were proliferating on the body part articles.  In an attempt to "raise the bar" I asked a model friend of mine if I could photograph his body for Wikipedia, which gave rise to User:DavidShankBone/BodyParts (several photos have been removed for reasons as they relate to my other work on Wikipedia).  Something like that contrasts with what seems like a "Wikifilth" blog on a User page (several of my photos are found on that blog).  I'm extremely against censorship on Wikipedia, but I think User sub pages should have a purpose that advances either a person's work on Wikipedia, showcases their work or advances the Project in some way.  I have no problem with people making political views or other things known on their User page since I think it aids us in understanding their perspective and edits.  But not a gallery of "I like T&A and here's some dirty photos."  I also think that some of those photos on that page have no encyclopedic value and should be deleted if they are not being employed on one of the projects. --<font color="#0000C0">David <font color="#0000C0">Shankbone  16:59, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with Orangemike. As long as all the images are properly licensed (which they actually may not be, some of them have logos for other sites), then I see nothing wrong with it. GlassCobra 17:12, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * another one? Eh generaly not a problem athough a fair number of such pics tend to turn out to be copyvios.Geni (talk) 17:17, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yup just deleted one from commons.Geni 17:22, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd say Geni's approach is the best one to take about this: if the images are copyvios, remove them. If this leaves enough open-source pr0n to raise a concern... well, as long as the user's collection is not disruptive, I don't see that it's worth the effort to remove this page from userspace. And seeing how it's simply a collection of image links, without any commentary, I don't find it disruptive -- although I'm underwhelmed at the kinds of "dirty pictures" this fellow has found on commons. (Two girls hugging each other is a "dirty picture"? IMHO, they look silly, not erotic.) He'd be better off subscribing to something like the venerable usenet group alt.binaries.pictures.erotica -- or whatever replaced it nowadays. -- llywrch (talk) 01:24, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, User:FT2 has boldly deleted the page in question; http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=User:Esskater11/Dirty_images. Basically there's little chance of reaching a consensus on something like this when anyone can be WP:BOLD and impose their will on the community. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 12:30, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * ...and I've boldly undeleted it and sent it to MfD, as I believe it might in fact have more than a snowball's chance in hell of being kept. Let's continue the discussion there.  —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 13:32, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you. As I stated before, some of the photos have clear encyclopedic value (I'm thinking of the antique ones). Jeffpw (talk) 13:39, 20 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Policy reminders: just reminding people of some policies here, I see some might have been misunderstood
 * The policy titles may be misleading for example "Wikipedia:not censored" does not mean none of the pages on wikipedia are censored, it only applies to articles and images (re-read the policy if you don't believe me), for the policy on how user pages are censored please see WP:UP. Personally I disagree with this policy, however it is policy so we must abide by it, and avoid by any "widespread offense".  This means for example user pages must abide by Islam which forbids representation of anything on earth or in heaven.  ( The Christian and Jewish old testament also forbids this, however due to the evolution of drawing techniques since Moses, it doesn't take into account most modern drawing techniques only carving or sculpting to my knowledge.  )According to the policy we should also be aware of the laws of the PROC.  When adding content to user pages we must be careful not to land Chinese people in jail for reading it, as it is likely this would cause "offense" to them.
 * Also the deletion by User:FT2 was against policy, for a page to be speedy deleted it must meet one of the criteria listed on WP:CSD, however he did not say which one he was applying, and as far as I can see none apply. (note: the "article" category can't be used for user pages).  Jackaranga (talk) 15:23, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Um could someone just go and re delete it? Seriously i was just waiting for it to be deleted anyway, <font style="color:#FFFF00;background:#000000;">Esskater <font style="color:#000000;background:#00FF00;">11
 * Page speedy deleted under WP:CSD. EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 19:25, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Where did Esskater11 make the request? I can't seem to find it...  --ElKevbo (talk) 23:41, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
 * In the discussion. Oh, and two lines above you!  BencherliteTalk 23:47, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, okay. Carry on then! :)  --ElKevbo (talk) 23:59, 21 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm coming late, but I very strongly feel that deleting this page is very inappropriate and has been so for the only reason that the picture are arguably "pornographic". Suppose one wants to contribute to pornography articles? Recently I made a picture gallery in the Felsic article and I intend to the same in mafic. Suppose I'd have a page userpage:victor falk/pictures/stones as a convenient way for overviewing, on what grounds should that page be deleted? Even if I had a bizarre sexual stone fetish? If I was an admin, I'd immediately undelete this page and leave a notice on the user's talk page to the effect that "i've undeleted the page per [this argument]; if you really want it deleted just say so." I'd prefer not to have to fill a formal DRV, but continue the discussion here for convenience's sake.--victor falk (talk) 20:59, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid it is not inappropriate to delete in a user's subspace when the user requests it, as is what happened here. --Deskana (talk) 21:02, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I know. I haven't check the user, his contributions, still less the page in question and I don't want to (tough I checked his talk page, red-linked, I think at very least it is courteous to engage people when it's potentially sensitive like that). I don't contest this particular deletion, it's for principle's sake. That he has requested its deletion indicates he indeed used it as a porn collection, but that's irrelevant. Check out ejaculation's talk page, there is a father complaining that his twelve-year old daughter had it bookmarked. Whatever one may feel about that (I personally think that man is rather naïve), it is absolutely clear that wikipedia has no business in controlling whatever purposes users and editors use it for.--victor falk 00:42, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

"This means for example user pages must abide by Islam which forbids representation of anything on earth or in heaven. ( The Christian and Jewish old testament also forbids this, however due to the evolution of drawing techniques since Moses, it doesn't take into account most modern drawing techniques only carving or sculpting to my knowledge.)"
 * Is just wrong, both in regard Wikipedia policy, and in regard Christian and Jewish traditions and law. It's clear that it's quite allowable to make "graven images" in the Jewish Bible; it's just not permitted to worship them.  Whether it is permitted to make them so that someone else can worship them is another matter.  &mdash; Arthur Rubin |  (talk) 23:17, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

JzG using admin tools in a dispute he is an active participant in
<div class="boilerplate metadata discussion-archived" style="background-color: #f5f3ef; margin: 2em 0 0 0; padding: 0 10px 0 10px; border: 1px solid #AAAAAA;">
 * The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Again, I hate to be a bother, but I feel I should point out that JzG has just used his admin tools on WP:NPA. As people familiar with this issue know, JzG is a very active participant in the dispute. The page had been protected by an uninolved admin. Nonetheless JzG has decided to change the policy to the version he supports by editing a protected page, removing the note that a proposed policy was disputed. 

Again, at this point I've lost faith for the police to police themselves here, but isn't this supposed to be a very naughty thing-- the kind of thing somebody is supposed to lose their tools over?


 * Using your admin tools as an advantage in an on-going dispute.
 * Editing a protected page so as to advance your own POV in that dispute.
 * Removing the notice of an on-going dispute, when the dispute clearly exists.
 * Even having text on a policy page when that text is highly disputed, since policy pages are supposed to only have text that is clearly supported by consensus.

So, if even this doesn't get so much as a warning, I might as well pack it up, eh? --Alecmconroy (talk) 02:43, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Ah, I guess I should note that 45 minutes after he edited the protected page, he also used his admin tools to reduce the page to semiprotect. Not as egregious a violation as leaving it fully protected, but still-- he should NOT be using admin tools in this issue. --Alecmconroy (talk) 02:47, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Are you in an Arbcom case with him right now? This is the second complaint you've filed against him today.  Any chance you could add this to the arbitration evidence?  You'll get better results there than here. - Jehochman  Talk 02:51, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Amazingly enough, it looks like the arbcom case most relevant to this this issue isn't going to get accepted. I'm _really_ not trying to be a bother, I promise.   I seem a lot of really problematic behavior going on, and I'm trying to alert the project to it so it can get fixed-- I'm not trying some sort of vendetta-- if I really am the problem here, if it really would just be best for the project, I'll disengage from the whole mess--  I'll shut up if all I'm doing is making trouble.  But it seems like there is a problem here, and I ought to at least take a stab at doing my part to mop it up.


 * I know someone suggested an RFC, but MONGO's behavior was much more egregious than JzG's, that RFC went nowhere, and Arbcom looks like it's going to dodge the issue. To go through the same formal dispute resolution with JzG,  who's behavior is far less severe than Mongos, seems like it really would accomplish nothing.  --Alecmconroy (talk) 03:01, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Yep, there's no point raising concerns about an admin's actions here. DuncanHill (talk) 02:54, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Au contraire. If one is in a conflict with an administrator, one should raise issues in as many different forums and noticeboards as possible. Otherwise, someone might overlook the matter. Be sure to hit the mailing list, Jimbo's talk page, and anything else that comes to mind. Raymond Arritt (talk) 03:00, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * No, there's no point, admins never do anything wrong, they are superhumans who are always right! And of course, policies don't apply to them in the same way they do to everyone else. DuncanHill (talk) 03:02, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Do you want to try talking with him? I could help, and if there are diffs to prove that he's done something wrong, I will certainly call him out.- Jehochman Talk 03:05, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I think Alec provided diffs already - and was told to go elsewhere. I certainly don't wish to talk to Guy/JzG, I've done that before. DuncanHill (talk) 03:06, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I showed multiple personal attack diffs related to this dispute. Those diffs, combinded with mailing list posts andWT:NPA shows Guy has been actively involved in the dispute.  The diffs show him clearly editing the protected page.  For him to sling personal attacks and abuse admin tools on the same subject on the same day-- this pretty much is a litmus test in my eyes for whether the Wikipedia system works at this time. --Alecmconroy (talk) 03:10, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * He seems to have now removed the protection. AGF, he used it only for the purpose of completing his edit--which, frankly, does not in this case seem very controversial. Yes, he should have asked someone else, but I don't see any real harm. whether or not the disputed tag belongs is of course for further discussion. DGG (talk) 03:24, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * DGG, even if he had just unprotected the page while he was involved in the dispute, that would still be a violation.  He's a participant in the dispute-- he doesn't have the right to act as an admin, and he's been around long enough to know that.   Editing the protected page-- that's even worse.  Editing it so to remove the reference to an ongoing policy dispute-- that's even worser.  And then, personally attacking everybody who disagrees with him with vulgar mudsling-- that's worst!


 * If this behavior is okay, then basically, what the system is telling me is that he can accuse me of being a bad-faith editor, he can say I don't give a shit about the encyclopedia, he can edit a protected POLICY page against without first getting consensus, AND he gets to use admin tools in the same dispute. Jesus!  If all that is acceptable behavior, why not just let him use his admin tools to ban me for even disagreeing with him in the first place-- it would save us all a lot of discussion.


 * I'll get over it. In the scheme of my life, this is a very small deal. But if this is really the best Wikipedia can do when it comes to dealing with behavior problems, Wikipedia is in deep deep trouble.  --Alecmconroy (talk) 03:32, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * You do not use admin powers in disputes you are involved in. "for the purpose of completing his edit" is not an acceptable excuse.Geni 03:31, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I am sorry to disagree with you, DGG, but the addition was indeed controversial; he was editing in disputed text to a policy that has been the subject of much controversy for the last six months. This only adds to the drama surrounding a policy that has been discussed at ArbCom no less than four times in that same period. It is embarrassing and really quite sad to see admins behaving in a way that would get 95% of all other editors blocked (justifiably, in my opinion) for disruption.  Risker (talk) 03:35, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, Guy can be uncivil when his buttons are pushed; all of us are. No, nobody cares. Just deal with it and move on. <small style="background:#fff;border:#090 1px solid;color:#000;padding:0px 3px 1px 4px;white-space:nowrap">east<big style="color:#090">. 718 at 03:57, November 22, 2007
 * This blaming the victims will be the death of the project. If mongo cusses someone out, it's their own fault for mentioning a subject that upsets him.  If Guys slings personal attacks and violates all the rules, that's what you get for daring to 'push his buttons'.  --Alecmconroy (talk) 04:41, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Why was this thread closed? DuncanHill (talk) 04:01, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Because you should go to WP:RFC. This has been said again and again. — Kurykh  04:06, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Because when a non-admin is abusive he gets blocked, but admins get to be abusive with impunity. And why did you refactor my question below? DuncanHill (talk) 04:09, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I did not refactor anything. I just subordinate the thread below under this one, as the two are related. As we have told you, you are describing a long term problem. Don't expect us to block him right now just to appease you. If you don't want to go to WP:RFC, that's your choice, but don't bitch at us because you are ignoring our advice. — Kurykh  04:12, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Question to admins
Why is it OK for admins to use language and behave in ways that would get non-admins blocked? DuncanHill (talk) 04:02, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * And related question, why do admins close off attempts by non-admins to have these problems aired? DuncanHill (talk) 04:04, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * You have no idea how tempting it is to say "Because we can block you and you can't block us back". But really it's because admins are established members of the community. Experienced users (admin or not) are usually given more leeway when it comes to civility because their positive contributions outweigh the negative. Admins are not "untouchable" they should not be incivil, but it is definitely understandable why they get pushed to the edge. There are so many deletions that are questioned (a non-notable garage band whose article was deleted wants to have it back), blocks that are "unjustified abuse of adminship privileges" and protections of the wrong version. The backlogs don't get any smaller, see CAT:AB and most of the time there are complaints. Admins get a pretty hard deal and so there is more leniency when they are rude. James086 Talk &#124;  Email 04:18, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * What effect does that (sometimes understandable) leniency have on non-admins confidence in the admin system? DuncanHill (talk) 04:19, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * And do comments like "nobody cares" help calm or inflame feelings? DuncanHill (talk) 04:23, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Not exactly diplomatic, but succinct; two threads on the same topic on the same day does get people annoyed, as that means good advice wasn't acted upon. — Kurykh  04:29, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * You may be interested in this, it's one of my favourite single talk page posts and should explain the level of stress that Wikipedia can exert on people who take this whole thing really serious. |dorftrottel |talk 04:32, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I actually like this better. <small style="background:#fff;border:#ff8c00 1px solid;color:#000;padding:0px 3px 1px 4px;white-space:nowrap">east<big style="color:#090">. 718 at 04:37, November 22, 2007
 * Well, if that level of arrogance is what floats your boat - I'm glad I'm not you is all I can say after reading those last two diffs. As for the comment about good advice not being acted upon - the point is, there probably wouldn't have been two threads on the same admin on the same day if other admins actually took the behaviour of their colleagues as seriously as non-admins take it. DuncanHill (talk) 04:54, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I take Wikipedia seriously - which is why I get upset by behaviour which undermines it. DuncanHill (talk) 04:55, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * This isn't an issue that we can wave a magic wand over and solve it in an instant. We told you the avenue to channel further discourse into. You did not do that. Hence our exasperation. — Kurykh  04:58, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I see that some admins have tried reasoning with Guy, is there any evidence that he has responded positively to this? And why should it be so much harder to deal with an admin who is out of line than it is to deal with a non-admin? I can understand a bit of leeway on occaision, but there does seem to me to be a problem here which is not specifically about Guy, but rather about the way the admins as a body respond to both criticisms of admin behaviour, and misbehaviour by admins. Personally, I would prefer to keep off the specifics of Guy's behaviour for the time being. Given what has been said above by various editors, and the very mixed response from admins, my concern is that the system is failing. I have said elsewhere, I have great respect and trust in some individual admins, but cannot put any faith in "admindom" as a whole. I feel that this is a major weakness for the Wikipedia, and closing threads when there is clearly an outstanding problem is exactly the sort of thing that undermines my trust. Telling people "go away somewhere else" is (contrary to the intention) not helpful, as again it reinforces the appearence of admins refusing to act on "one of their own". A certain degree of group-loyalty iss natural, and can be beneficial at times, but not when it makes a group appear as if it is "closing ranks". I hope I have managed to make sense and remain calm - I think there are some very serious issues here, much more than can be dealt with in an RfC on a single admin, who may well be under the weather.DuncanHill (talk) 05:11, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Several admins have made it fairly clear that they're not going to do anything to JzG, so you're only recourse, as they've suggested, is an RfC. I know an RfC is a pain because it's so time-consuming to write, to find all the links and diffs, to notify everyone involved, and then to make sure it's written well and correctly because it will serve as a permanent record and will be used as evidence of the conduct of everyone that participates in it.  Also, as the MONGO RFC3 and ArbCom2 case request appears to show right now, it might not end up doing any good anyway after all that work.  But, what other recourse do you have?  There is no figurative "adult" that you can go to that will quickly and decisively correct the childish behavior on display.  It's one of the weaknesses of the Wikipedia structure, and I guess we'll just have to deal with it. Cla68 (talk) 05:33, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * As I said, I'd rather not get into one specific admin (the problem is broader than that), but if the opening an RfC is so offputting, then pointing people to RfC is a very effective way of ensuring an issue is not properly raised.DuncanHill (talk) 05:38, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

This is off-topic, but why are there two concurrent threads on this? — Kurykh  05:34, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * DuncanHill, you must also realize how many accusations of "admin abuse" we get a day. Some are legitimate, but most of them are frivolous. Hence we reject the obvious whining ones while we funnel the rest to RfC. Admins are essentially impervious to accusations of "admin abuse," not out of power hunger, but out of necessity. — Kurykh  05:37, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Why not just act when you can see there is a problem? Is it actually that I have misunderstood, and that admins in fact are unable to take action against other admins? To fail to act on genuine complaints because there are also frivolous complaints again is bound to undermine confidence. DuncanHill (talk) 05:41, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Why do you insist on doing something that doesn't fit the situation? We block only if the person is a net detriment for the project, whether acute or chronic. If you mistrust the RfC process, that's fine. But don't blame us for inaction if you don't heed our advice. — Kurykh  05:56, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm really starting to think that you have good intentions, but you are starting to blow the issue out of proportion. — Kurykh  05:57, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm glad you are starting to think I have good intentions - what did you previously think my intentions were? DuncanHill (talk) 06:11, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * (ec) Sorry, I worded it incorrectly. It should be "I'm think you have good intentions, but I'm really starting to think that you are blowing the issue out of proportion." I hope I wasn't insulting you, or at least I am not insulting you now. — Kurykh  06:14, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * "I would prefer to keep off the specifics of Guy's behaviour" - It doesn't work that way. You can't ask for action to be taken without providing concrete evidence. If you don't want action to be taken, what is the point of this thread? Mr.  Z- man  06:13, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I started this thread (before an admin combined it with another) as a general question about admins. But I am used to admins not reading threads properly before commenting on them. DuncanHill (talk) 06:15, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * OK, I'll change my question - is there any forum on the Wikipedia in which it is acceptable and approipriate to raise questions/issues relating to the general functioning of the admin system and admin behaviour in general? DuncanHill (talk) 06:18, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * There is no "admin system." There is WP:RFA where people become admins, there are admins, who are all independent people, there are policies that admins enforce, and individual admin actions. As for behavior in general, if there is no actual issue, we really don't have a forum for that. Either the mailing list or perhaps the village pump. If there is an issue, here is good, but you need to be a little more specific as to what the general problem is with all or most admins and prove that it isn't just some admins. Mr.  Z- man  06:25, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * You know, what you just described is an emergent system. It's certainly not a formal system, but it is a weird sort of self-sustaining thing, with properties and behaviors of its own. We're each part of it, and... in a way responsible for it. I don't know. -GTBacchus(talk) 06:42, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, the problem with most admins is that they turn a blind eye to the some admins who behave improperly. When specific issues are raised here, the response is "go away somewhere else" or "we don't care" or "we have such a hard time, we are allowed to be rude" or "it doesn't matter that an admin acted contrary to policy", or "you shouldn't criticise an admin who has entirely failed to pay attention to a thread or to a users contributions before he sticks the boot in". We can't discuss issues in general - even thought this would help reduce the heat on individual admins. Admins complain about the complaints they get - has it ever struck any of you that a better and more transparent and accountable way of working would reduce the complaints you face? DuncanHill (talk) 06:44, 22 November 2007 (UTC)06:37, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It's because admins are just users; experienced users. The only way to "police them" is via dispute resolution.  There's no admin system, wherein we all play cops or something.  It's not that we don't care, it's that there's nothing we can do.  Experienced editors who do not see a problem with their behavior in general are unaffected by anything admins can do.  You need to go up the ladder, to ArbCom or a community sanction. --Haemo (talk) 06:43, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Community sanction on all admins? I think that would be a trifle excessive! DuncanHill (talk) 06:45, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Admins are not "just users". They can, for example, override protection in disputes they are involved in. DuncanHill (talk) 06:47, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Admins are users with a few more tools. B'crats are users with still more tools. Etc., etc., etc. — Kurykh  06:48, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Technically, everyone should have tools. Only vandalism issues cause this not to be the case.  Other than that, admins are just users.  And I was suggestion using community sanction on specific admins as part of dispute resolution, not on all admins. (That wouldn't even make sense). --Haemo (talk) 06:51, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * And I have been trying to explain that the problem I perceive is not one that can be dealt with by targetting individuals, it is about ways of working generally. DuncanHill (talk) 06:55, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * So what do you want us to do? Propose solutions yourself. Note that I said "solutions," not "goals." — Kurykh  06:57, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Do I ever talk about goals? My apologies if I have. And where do I suggest solutions? I have already been told that there isn't a forum relevant to the problem. DuncanHill (talk) 07:03, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Just say it here. — Kurykh  07:09, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I have started working on some ideas on a userpage (valuable therapy for certain recent stressful events!), need a little time to work them out more fully - including improvements based on the discussions already here (there have been some interesting and valuable points raised). When I do bring them here, I would really appreciate it if people could avoid the "don't care" or "go away" responses. DuncanHill (talk) 07:13, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, good. You found a forum. Now, um, are we still on the subject of JzG, or are we now done with the generalized discussion so that we can archive it due to our oft-repeated answer that we realistically can't do anything? — Kurykh  07:15, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, there was a reason I started this as a new thread rather than as part of the JzG one! DuncanHill (talk) 07:18, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Here is an honest answer to Duncan HIll's question. It isn't. If you look at the history of a number of non-admins you will find just as much nonsense in edit summaries - the fact is simply that a long track record of contributions to the encyclopaedia earns you a certain amount of slack. Wikipedia is run by humans, and humans can look past textual nonsense. Some people use colourful language, and some other people don't like that. It doesn't make using colourful language good or bad, the question is, was the encyclopaedia being served by any particular action? In the case of the edit to which Alecmconroy originally objected, he characterised as a "personal attack" the following link summary: (Supposed consensus version was entiurely written by sockpuppets, including one banned user. How about letting some people who actually give a shit about the encyclopaedia have a go? What the admins here will have done is looked at that dispute and seen the context.  Let's have a look at that:

Edits by size

User            Edits   bytes of tot - BenB4	          91	586916	24% 146.115.58.152, 67.98.206.2	  38	545810	22% Privatemusings	   56	448837	18% Miltopia	  16	140747	6% WAS 4.250	  15	131911	5% Semiprivatemusings, MOASPN	           6	112243	5% Random832	   9	 83492	3% Alecmconroy	   8	 70204	3% Will Beback	   7	 67625	3% Dtobias	           4	 36202	1% Neil	           3	 30863	1% GTBacchus	   3	 26001	1% DHeyward	   3	 25432	1% Bfigura	           2	 18680	1% David Gerard	   2	 18092	1% Mangoe	           2	 17702	1% Hoplon	           2	 17653	1% It.wiki:Twilight   2	 17390	1% Squee23	           1	 10394	0% Raymond arritt	   1	 10323	0% JzG	           1	 10111	0% JoshuaZ	           1	  9924	0% CBDunkerson	   1	  8620	0% Tom harrison	   1	  7804	0% 86.148.219.194	   2	    72	0% -- Total	         303   2453048

So 75% of edits by content size were by BenB4 (sockpuppet of indefinitely blocked user), Privatemusings (sockpuppet by his own admission), 146.115.58.152 and 67.98.206.2 (the same editor, admitted and supported by contemporaneous blocking for disruption on Jewish Defense League), Miltopia (now banned) and Semiprivatemusings / MOASPN (sockpuppet).

Not a great track record, then, especially for a contentious area. Of course, it wasn't entirely the work of sockpuppets and disruptive editors. Only mostly.

So yes, I was guilty of an oversimplification. Had Alec said "whoa, that's an oversimplification!" then I'd have agreed there and then. But that isn't what happened. What happened was that Alec came here loudly complaining about a personal attack. Against which person, exactly?

But even that's not the whole story, because the immediately preceding version was a revert by LessHeard vanU with a rather peremptory edit summary, I note the WP:BOLD rewrite of a edit which had existed with consensus since 8 November, am now WP:REVERTing it so it may be WP:DISCUSSed on the talkpage. Now, this "consensus version" had already been blanked twice and reverted, and there really was no significant productive debate on Talk, because everybody had lost interest in something that was clearly going nowhere. What LessHeard reverted was two edits by - and I can't stress this enough - two editors who had historically been on opposite sides of the debate, both edits taking the proposal in the same direction. I don't think LessHeard showed much respect to David Gerard and I by simply reverting what was a good faith and collaborative attempt to break a deadlock which has poisoned the community for months, and given enormous enjoyment to trolls and abusers.

So the most thorough answer I can give to Duncan is that if someone brings a concern here and states it in neutral terms and asks for input - for example "I just saw this, I am somewhat concerned, what do other people think?", then they will get, in my experience, a fair hearing. If they do the same on the talk page of the editor whose conduct concerns them, they should also expect a fair hearing. Strong assertions of abuse based on an a priori assumption of evil intent and presenting only part of the story will be given short shrift, regardless of whether the subject of the complaint is an admin or not. And a partial presentation of something which is perceived as an attempt to gain allies in a dispute, and which is shown to omit important or relevant mitigating circumstances, will usually lead to a speedy rebuff. And for good reason.

So now I encourage people to go to Wikipedia talk:Linking to external harassment where you will immediately see that points raised in good faith are being discussed in a calm and rational manner. Distilling Alecmconroy's comment to the bare essentials (there is a problem at Linking to external harassment), we see that, no, there is not a problem there, everybody seems to be getting on just fine. There being no problem to fix, no administrative action is necessary.

Apologies for the length of this, I hope it answers your question. Guy (Help!) 12:58, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * (and I started writing the above before the archive template was added; having spent 45 minutes calculating the edit counts etc. I am too stubborn to simply drop it now. Plus the question deserves an answer). Guy (Help!) 13:01, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

The thing that disturbs me most

 * The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Here's the most disillusioning part of the whole experience with filing the complaints against Mongo and JzG. It's not that nothing came of it-- I can foresee a lot of circumstances where nothign would come of it, but I wouldn't be so disappointed in the project. If I realized I really was in the wrong, for example-- well then that would actually be a good thing, since it would mean the project was handling things appropriately.

The upsetting thing is-- nobody really is even bothering to defend MONGO or JzG. Nobody's saying "Oh, Alec, you're mistaken-- admins are allowed to edit protected pages even if they're part of the dispute-- you were confused". Nobody's saying "Oh, Alec-- TECHNICALLY these don't qualify as personal attacks, let me explain why".

In general, people don't even bother to defend JzG or MONGO anymore. Not even a token defense. The general response has been for people to jump straight over the whole "defense" step, forget it even exists, and just attack the messengers. And attack them hard.

Does anyone actually believe JzG didn't violate NPA's provision that says "Don't comment on the contributors" when made his comments earlier tonight? Does anyone really believe JzG didn't abuse his admin tools by editing a protected page when he was part of the dispute??

I see very few comments denying that he did. What seems to be implied--- what I emotionally feel like I'm hearing is: "Sure, he did lots of things wrong. I know that.  But I'm not even going to give him a 5 minute warning block because..."

The "because" clause may vary. "Because you're a troll, Alec" is one I seem to hear. "Because he's an admin, and you're not" is another I seem to hear. "Because he's my friend" or "because he's generally a good person" or "because he's more valuable to the encyclopedia than you are" or "because even though he does horrible things all the time, he does even more good stuff, so he's earned the right".

(obviously, I'm not trying to single out any particular people who responded here-- I'm collating all the reponses I've gotten to trying to get MONGO and JzG to adhere to NPA and other behavior policies. )

--Alecmconroy (talk) 06:18, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Alec, you are picking a poor fight. The admin did unprotect the page forty-odd minuted later, so ultimately no one is going to see it as a big deal. -- Kendrick7talk 06:25, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * We don't give 5 minute blocks. We're not calling you a worthless piece of crap. We are not attacking you. We are only expressing our exasperation towards your response to a relatively minor issue. You demand accountability, we told you where to go, and you did not do that. We are tired of saying the same thing over and over. We are tired of you ignoring our advice. We are tired of misinterpretations of our statements. I will say this one last time: go to RfC. — Kurykh  06:30, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, Kurykh, I owe you an apology if you think I was talking about you personally. By and large, I was discussing the above personal attack thread and the RFC I filed against MONGO for his similar behavior.  In both instances, there were very clear personal attacks.  Many others uninvolved came forward to substantiate the behavior problem.   And absolutely nothing happened, no blocks were made, no warnings issued-- and so the behavior problem will persist.


 * When I complained about MONGO's behavior, people told me that was the right forum-- I should goo to RFC. When I filed and RFC, people told me that wasn't the right forum, I should go to Arbcom.  I went to Arbcom, and they've told me arbcom isn't the right forum.  Along the way, I was attacked often, but MONGO was rarely defended.  Now we're going through similar behavior problems with Guy.


 * Admins issue warnings for personal attacks all the time. Admins issue blocks for repeated personal attacks all the time.  So it seems like it might be useful to bring whatever complaints I have here, since the RFC/Arbcom process hasn't born fruit with MONGO who I think everyone can agree is at least 10 times as disruptive as Guy. --Alecmconroy (talk) 08:29, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm not really clear what you want to happen here. It's hard to do anything about a situation like this because:
 * These people know what they are doing, and either don't see a problem with it, or don't care.
 * The most other admins can do is tell them not to do it, but see (1), this accomplishes little.
 * There's no system for community de-sysopping at the moment so the only options are WP:RFC or the ArbCom. Really, what can admins do here?  Block them punitively?  That's about it &mdash; and that's not what blocking is for.  This is a prime example of where admin tools are not useful, because the only thing that will rectify the situation in the way you'd like is an authority taking away the tools as abusive use, or by having the people come around to your point of view.  Either way, admins can't really help; what you need is people they respect telling someone that they believe their actions were poor.  That's why people have suggested a request for comment &mdash; but in marginal cases like this, it's not going to generate very much light.  Sorry if this is kind of depressing, but it's my frank assessment of these sorts of situations &mdash; some longstanding contributors, often admins, frequently push the boundaries of our core behavioral guidelines.  However, since these guidelines basically require a desire to reform, and an ability to see wrongdoing on their part, they achieve little &mdash; that's why you get people saying "oh that's just XXX".  There's not a good solution to offer you here, and I don't believe one exists because of the consensual environment we've created here; not only is it hard to get rid of tendentious editors, but it's even harder to correct marginal behavior from otherwise good contributors.  This isn't going to change without a culture change on Wikipedia &mdash; and in my opinion, I'm not sure I'd like the culture change that such a change would entail.  --Haemo (talk) 06:34, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * We have got a system for community de-sysopping at the moment; it's just extremely slow and painful. -GTBacchus(talk) 07:19, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Does anyone know where it is? DuncanHill (talk) 07:21, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * All over the place. — Kurykh  07:24, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Not behind a "beware of the tiger" sign then? DuncanHill (talk) 07:26, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It's in Detroit. I mean, you might be standing in its wreckage now... I mean, its foyer. It involves no clear procedure or documentation, but there are usually multiple RfCs, a couple or three RfArbs, several people just leave... yeah. They tend to accompany developments of new areas of policy, or else some kind of notable policy shift. It's extremely slow and painful, and it's inevitable like seasons. Wikipedia's growing. Ouch. Try and watch where you step. -GTBacchus(talk) 07:25, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * And here's the thing that disturbs me most. Look at Wikipedia talk:Linking to external harassment.  Do you see some unhelpful comments there?  And are they from me?  I am working with David Gerard to fix something that had rather dubious provenance.  David and I have been in opposition pretty much all the way through the links debate; the fact that we can agree as far as we have is a good sign, I think.  This entire discussion makes no sense to me.  What is Alec trying to achieve?  Some kind of sanction against me for trying to fix something that was broken, and in the process working collaboratively with one of my previous opponents?  How is that bad, exactly?  Guy (Help!) 07:40, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It's the personal abuse and the misuse of admin tools he was complaining about. This has been pointed out to you on your talk page by admins (before you deleted the threads). DuncanHill (talk) 07:53, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I see no misuse of admin tools here. The page is being edited cooperatively; it was reasonable to unprotect at that point. Protection is just for stopping sterile edit-warring, not for putting productive collaboration on hold. That version is the closest to consensus I've seen in months. -GTBacchus(talk) 08:04, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, you have to consider things in the context of the personal attack thread above-- I get very uneasy when I see someone engaging in rampant personal attacks, apparently with total immunity, and then using their admin tools in the same dispute.  As I say--  if there are no consequences (not even warnings) for people breaking WP:NPA when attacking anti-Badsites people and no consequences for violating WP:ADMIN on badsites-related topics, then the project probably would be best off just giving MONGO his bit back, letting him blocking the whole lot of people who are anti-badsites, impose BADSITES by dictate, and just be done with it.   It would destroy any illusion of justice, Wikipedia would soon be the laughing stock of the world, but at least it'd be quiet on WP:AN, with nobody complaining twice lack of enforcement of NPA against a popular set of users.  --Alecmconroy (talk) 08:41, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The laughing stock of the world? Over admin abuse? That would be one incredibly bored world; sign me up. I could rule them in a week. As far as "no warnings," what am I, chopped liver? I'm not the only one, either. Uncivil admins are regularly called out for incivility, and regularly lose their bits. It takes longer than some would like, but I've seen it happen many times. You also mention "illusion of justice": anybody who seeks "justice" from an encyclopedia is going to be disappointed. We're a group of people, doing what we can, and we're all fallible. Try not to stake so much on a set of rules being followed; Wikipedia really isn't about rules when you get right down to it. It can be frustrating, but working with the wiki requires a different approach. It's much less formal than you're making it. WT:NPA is looking more cooperative than it has in a long time, with people from both sides of the BADSITES aisle signing on to the same version. That's much more important than formalities about who unprotects the page when. We're making progress. It's like learning to swim... you can let go in situations like this, and the wiki will hold you up. We just ride it out, and try to be do it politely, and everything's great. I don't think I'm articulating this very well; it's quite late at night, and apparently signal/noise got smaller than epsilon a little while ago... Tomorrow's Thanksgiving where I live. Thank you for participating here. Thank you for your passion, and for your patience. That goes for the lot of you. -GTBacchus(talk) 09:50, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Hehe-- well, the laughing stock of the world wouldn't come from admin abuse-- it'd come from things like the Michael Moore purges. It still may.


 * The whole MONGO rfc/arbcom case has been a real disappointment for me. I really thought the project would be able to rise to the challenge, and from where I sit, we failed it.  It'll be okay-- just as there is no deadline for perfecting an article, there is no deadline for bringing an end to behavior problems-- but that end isn't going to come today.


 * As for Guy-- his real sin here was to continue the pattern of personal attacks.  If you just look the minor misuse of admin tools at it without seeing how MANY attacks he's thrown my way, I look like a lunatic complaining here.   But it really has been going on too long.  I wrote two essay and more talk post and ML posts than I can imagine trying to get it to stop. Hopefully, my complaints here have stopped him.  If the pattern continues, I guess I'll follow the advice and file an RFC.  --Alecmconroy (talk) 10:32, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I should have said perceived misuse. DuncanHill (talk) 08:06, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Either way, there's nothing for it but to file an RfC if you think it's appropriate. If you do so, the more neutrally you word it, the better chance it will have of having any positive effect. I know what a lot of people say, but I think that some good does come of those things, sometimes (which is not to say that I would endorse one here). -GTBacchus(talk) 08:14, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Seems the signal to noise ratio here has passed beyond deafening.--MONGO (talk) 08:14, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Really? I'm getting something out of it. If nobody else wants the thread, archive it; I don't care. -GTBacchus(talk) 08:17, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * There have been some very interesting points made in this extended thread, and some attitudes have become much clearer - always helpful. But it really doesn't seem likely to achieve anything concrete now in terms of changing behaviour or improving the atmosphere. Archive away - but I do want it noted that I am not convinced that it was right to combine my "questions to admins" with the preceding thread. I think that that action muddied the waters when I was trying to get away from concentrating on a single admin. DuncanHill (talk) 08:29, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Is it just me, or does anyone else see just a wee bit of hipocrisy when someone keeps screaming to have something done to somebody because they haven't been super sweet but they then also support linking to websites where some of our editors have been in some cases viciously attacked...I dunno, but one wonders if the accusers of others being problematic aren't indeed far more problematic than those they accuse of being problematic. Sure we can file a new Rfc if you want Alecmconroy...wait...that would be one a week...who's going to be on the list for next week, one wonders...Oh wait...I can't make personal observations about Alecmconroy can I? That is a personal attack...er, incivil is it...only Alecmconroy is allowed to make personal observations, and only then are they not personal attacks or incivil. Why not just take JzG to arbcom...then you can have two...no, three (counting Privatemusings) cases all at once. Yes, drama will be achieved at all costs won't it...where would we be without it? The hell with the encyclopedia, right...I mean, who reads those articles anyway...is that it? Well, I guess I best get back to writing some more articles (I'm somewhere over 330 articles at this point...few FA's thrown in too...all indications of a problematic contributor, surely)...hopefully, someone, somewhere will read them and help me make them even better.--MONGO (talk) 11:28, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

I don't care who this guy is or what the circumstances are. Violation of WP:CIVIL is not acceptable and should not be allowed whether you are a newbie, an anonymous user, an admin, or God himself. Likewise with abuse of admin tools in a dispute you're involved in. BTW, as this discussion is obivously ongoing, someone should probably remove the archive thingie. 23:42, 23 November 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jtrainor (talk • contribs)

Request block
I'm here to request the block of IP, 72.171.0.146; as he keeps on vandalizing biographies of living persons.  <font color="DarkBlue">Lex   T / C    Guest Book   20:34, 23 November 2007 (UTC)


 * WP:AIV is the venue my friend. No vandalism in 30 minutes so not blocked. I'll watch it. Pedro : Chat   —Preceding comment was added at 20:54, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

General note
Note that the Australian federal election, 2007 is being held today, and it's been an incredibly bruising campaign. Admins associated with recent changes patrol may wish to note this in light of any edits they see on Government or Opposition figures, parties or candidates, with special regard for WP:BLP and WP:NPOV - we have all the main ones watchlisted but might miss something obscure going on in the dark corners. Thanks :) Orderinchaos 23:44, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I love elections :/ ... — Thomas H. Larsen 01:48, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Appreciate the heads up. Currently Australian federal election, 2007 is semiprotected until tomorrow, although as of this moment I've seen a fair amount of recent editing at Maxine McKew and Kevin Rudd (latter semi'd, but plenty of aged accounts). Special:Recentchangeslinked/Australian_federal_election,_2007 is a decent place to watch, if you're not sure what to look for. – Luna Santin  (talk) 10:42, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Please note that a lot of editors (anons and some established editors) have been editing various articles to put Kevin Rudd in as Prime Minister. The Australian political system leaves about a week and a half after polling day before the change of Prime Minister. I have had to protect Prime Minister of Australia and other pages have seen this editing. Sam Blacketer (talk) 10:45, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that Prime Minister of Australia and Australia need full protection the other article should be open and let "anyone edit" as much a possible with short protection if the edit wars get to heated. I'd also be cautious before blocking established editor for 3RR violations. Gnangarra 11:05, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep an eye on Template:Prime Ministers of Australia as well. --Carnildo (talk) 11:15, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Full protection for that one there nothing to edit until sworn in by GG, 10-14 days away. Gnangarra 11:33, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Sockpuppets and RfA
I wish to ask for input from administrators on an issue which I think I may be encountering. The sockpuppetry policy has changed and been disputed so much recently that I cannot make a positive determination myself.

Is it a prohibited use of an alternate account to !vote in RfA's with what some would consider a disruptive manner (continuing on disputes and bad blood, no evidence despite being requested to provide it), while editing actively with another account (and participating in other RfA's with the other account)? In particular, given the reasons for !voting at the particular RfA's have been disputed and discredited as absured etc. (even by bureaucrats, if I recall correctly), is it permissable to use one account to !vote in a way which reflects badly on that user casting it, while maintaining a "good" account to support other RfA's? Especially when the "good" account looks like it's being primed for an RfA itself while the other account has failed RfA's in the past and now sits dormant except for these disruptive/contentious/"absured"/controversial !votes?

Furthermore, would everyone feel it is a justifiable use of checkuser to confirm a link between the two accounts (for accountability purposes), even if such a link did not result in blocks? I have no desire to block or take action the alternate account as it is doing good work (as I said, it seems to be being primed for a RfA), but I'm wondering whether people think such a link should be confirmed for the purpose of accountability in the future.

Cheers,  Daniel  04:21, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * As I've said before, if a person's currently active "good hand" account is indeed being a good hand, it would be best to block the person's semi-dormant "bad hand" account. However, as I've also said before, you cannot determine with an absolute degree of certainty that certain discrete behavioral "hats" users wear (e.g., "wikipedia hats" on wikipedia; "IRC hats" on IRC) will not one day be worn simultaneously.  For now, I say take no action unless that person's current "good hand" account starts editing in patterns similar to that of that person's "bad hand" account.  Regards, —<b style="color:#002BB8">Animum</b> (talk) 04:29, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * My contestion is that this user would surely garner opposes at their own RfA for the comments made under the "bad" account because of their nature. However, because there's no link between the "good" and the "bad", this accountability is lost and therefore the "bad" account has basically got a free license to say what it pleases without bringing back (quite rightful) opposes onto it's "good" RfA. I'm merely wondering if others share the view I have that this break in accountability is not on.  Daniel  04:32, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I guess the main account should make those comments itself or the bad-hand account stop making them: If you don't have the cajones to do so under an untarnished name, don't do it. Period. —<b style="color:#002BB8">Animum</b> (talk) 04:54, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Exactly my opinion :)  Daniel  04:57, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I would be very concerned about the suitability of an editor to be an admin who holds a bad hand account. Disclosure of such an account would be expected (at least by me) at RfA, and I would suggest that the failure to disclose such an account would be grounds for desysopping if discovered later. Perhaps the previous suggestion that all RfA candidates be checkusered is a good idea (if it is not already being done on the sly.) - Crockspot (talk) 04:38, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It hasn't been done, although I wish to have it done if consensus here suggests it's wrong for this person to be using these two accounts in this fashion. The user has also shown no inclination to disclose the account, either.  Daniel  04:40, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * To me, it is a matter of trust. I have an alternate account that I was considering eventually running for RfA. My user page discloses this account, but the alternate account's user page does not. So I guess you could call that a discrete disclosure. There are many checkusers who participate in RfA, and I suspect (and hope) that at least one of them checks out candidates. I would not feel comfortable running that account for RfA without disclosure at the RfA, and I would expect to be outed if I did not. - Crockspot (talk) 04:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I think the differences are you didn't use this other account solely for disrupting RfA's with pointless opposes which have drawn extensive criticism, and also you declared it some way (this user hasn't even acknolwedged they've moved on to a new account on any forum, despite having a Commons RfA under both usernames and establishing themselves to the point of closing AfD's here).  Daniel  04:54, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * In such a case, I would say that it needs to be disclosed, whether voluntarily or not. We don't need admins who cannot be trusted. - Crockspot (talk) 04:59, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It seems to me that RfA opposes, in general, are disruptive, in that following many opposes are comments full of indignation, abrasion, etc. At the same time, however, they can be constructive.  But nonsense, widely disupted or discredited oppose votes are disruptive without any constructive purpose.  I think that sockpuppet accounts used to make such votes should be considered "bad hand" accounts and blocked.  That said, I don't think that the sockmaster should be publicly connected with the sockpuppet, at least on a first occurence - I would prefer a strong admonition from similarly disrupting RfA in the future, and a warning that future occurences will be revealed.  --Iamunknown 05:09, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The policy on alternate accounts pretty clearly states that using them to avoid scrutiny is a bad thing. I consider all socks as being the same person; just because someone is helpful under one name and a jerk under another one, the person is still a jerk. If they don't want the link between accounts to be documented, perhaps they should, I dunno... not be disruptive. Once they start using a "good hand/bad hand" relationship with their accounts, what the person wants becomes irrelevant, as what is best for the project is paramount. EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 05:36, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree, and will be opposing this user's RfA if/when it comes based on his/her actions with the alternate account. However, the issue is complicated as both users are sufficiently established, although one has become inactive since "retiring" and is now merely used as a RfA opposer on very shaky reasoning (and questionable motives in a number of cases), really. This further added to my concern about what action should be taken, given the nature of both accounts as estbalished Wikipedians.  Daniel  06:03, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Daniel. I revamped the sockpuppetry policy. The whole thrust of that policy is that it relates to the use of two accounts where that use has some causal connection. Without a causal connection between the two accounts, the sockpuppetry policy doesn't really apply. If you don't know of a link between the two alternate accounts, I don't think checkuser is appropriate if neither account is bad enough to block. If a person is use one account to !vote in a way which reflects badly on that user casting it while maintaining a "good" account to support other RfA's and you are aware of the link between the two accounts, there are ways to look at the use of both accounts to present a claim of a causal connections. In any event, the sockpuppetry policy now only requires a consensus that misuse has occurred. It does not require actual proof that misuse occurred and there is no requirement that the actual misuse be particularly identified. If someone is helpful under one name and a jerk under another one, the person is still a jerk and consensus is not going to put up with such crap. While consensus might not be able to articulate exactly what is wrong with the person's use of the alternate account, consensus need only say that they don't like what that person's been doing and that they are putting a stop to it by ending that person's privilege to use alternate accounts. Message: You can be a jerk with one account but you can't be a jerk and have multiple accounts. --  Jreferee    t / c  06:04, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not a case of proving that they are both operated by the same person — the user has conceded as much, via private email (even when I didn't name names here, they still sent me an email about it asking me to stop being a so-and-so or words to that effect). I was just wondering if consensus thought it's a legitimate use or not, to have one account for using at RfA to say things the user doesn't want to say with their currently-being-primed-for-RfA-or-at-least-it-seems-that-way good account.  Daniel  06:09, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * You know how consensus works: Consensus is as consensus does. For this person, consensus might determine that such use is misuse and remove their alternate account privileges. For a different person, consensus might determine that such use is not misuse. Consensus gives admin tools to one person and denies admin tools to another person. It is that unknown that is designed to keep people in line and striving to be civil. As stated in the policy, the consensus needs to run five days and be closed by an admin using top and bottom templates. You can run the consensus anywhere, but I haven't figure out where the best place for such a discussion would be. Perhaps RfC might be a good place. I'll set the discussion up if you want. -- Jreferee    t / c  06:29, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * My first response would be to inform the editor that should he run for RFA, you will oppose on your stated grounds and you will make your reasoning known early and often. However, given the recent disruptions of RFAs over similar allegations, it might be best to punt this to Arbcom.  Forward them your speculations and confirming emails and ask them to contact the editor privately and advise the editor to avoid seeking adminship without their consent, to avoid public disclosure and opposition. Thatcher131 06:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Given the user emailed me after I added this thread and asked me to leave him alone, I'm pretty sure he's aware of what I'll do. I was skeptical of forwarding this to the ArbCom as I wasn't aware whether consensus considered it abusive enough. In addition, it isn't as abusive as if the user was !vote-stacking. However, I will do so of course if consensus here says ArbCom should deal with it privately.  Daniel  07:02, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It's never a bad idea to ruin things like this past the arbitrators. In general they are far enough from the daily fights on Wikipedia as to make their opinion independent, and they have access to CheckUser and other tools. Guy (Help!) 10:42, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Wow. As a non-admin who sometimes has to cope with the necessary evils of having admins telling other editors what to do, the last thing we need on Wikipedia is sockpuppets voting in an RfA.  Without knowing or offering an opinion on what is going on in this specific case, in general sockpuppet RfA voting in a disruptively contentious way is a picture perfect example of abusive behavior, and I would question whether anyone who has ever done that and not reformed is a viable administrator.  With all due respect for Crockspot, who I consider a fine admin, the thought of admins running and much less being sockpuppets is also chilling (though there may be exceptions, so it might be okay with appropriate disclosure during the RfA and possibly a restriction or promise about future use of alternate accounts, and then letting the users make up their own mind).  We really need administrators who will take a calm, fair, neutral approach to things and avoid drama.  That's the norm but there are some obvious exceptions, and I think that engaging in all kinds of mystery, intrigue, and unnecessary drama is a good warning sign that other things are amiss with an editor.Wikidemo (talk) 11:46, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Sock puppetry seems rather clear to me. Any use of secondary account to create the impression of false consensus (including a weak opposing point of view to enable the master account to "steam roll" over, thus making his argument look more effective) is forbidden. <font color="#2A8B31">Anthøny 12:05, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, that part is unambiguous and uncontroversial. A few other parts of the sockpuppet policy have been in flux lately.  You could argue that editors, especially newbies, are not getting a clear message.  Because of that we may have to forgive some past sins if and when the policy becomes stable.  Wikidemo (talk) 12:15, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * You may be right. I have no idea when it changed to be more encouraging to multiple account use, but the results are pretty clearly not good.  I think the nutshell currently on that policy is fair: The general rule is: one editor, one account.  It's obvious some people have been misled into thinking that using a separate account for contentious issues is actively encouraged, when the intention was only ever to say that it is not forbidden, if you have a good reason.  Guy (Help!) 12:41, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * For what little it's worth, this user's original account has "retired". <small style="background:#fff;border:#ff8c00 1px solid;color:#000;padding:0px 3px 1px 4px;white-space:nowrap">east<big style="color:#090">. 718 at 14:24, November 24, 2007

Discussion page Talk:Australian federal election, 2007 used as forum.
Recently the page mentioned in the header was used as a forum to discuss how people should or shouldn't fill in ballot forms. I felt this was wrong, mentioned that (was treated uncivilly), then the conversation exploded. I started a revert war to stop it. My bad. Hours after, IMHO, there was some resolution (the conversation stopped, someone agreed it shouldn't have happened) I was reported and banned for 3RR. I did 3RR, so I understand why I was punished. I have no problem with the conversation being returned now that it has stopped, but was removing it to stopping it. I did do wrong, yes, but there are others who I feel did equally wrong and I think they did it pointed out to them what they did and why it was wrong... Duggy 1138 (talk) 07:53, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * As you've acknowledged, revert warring wasn't the best choice, and that led to the 3RR block. The thread doesn't appear to relate to improving the article, however. *shrug* Probably not a big deal worth getting people so upset over, keeping it or getting rid of it. Any other opinions? – Luna Santin  (talk) 10:23, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm mostly annoyed that I acted in good faith, made a mistake and was punished, and that others who didn't have continued to believe and act like they were right.
 * Duggy 1138 (talk) 10:56, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you could tag it with a "keep discussion on topic" template (I'm sure I've seen one, check WP:TEMP), and have a word on the perpetrator's talk pages, but otherwise, as Luna stated, it's not worth getting all hot and bothered about. <font color="#2A8B31">Anthøny 11:57, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Seems fine, but it doesn't change the fundamental behaviour of two of the participants... especially one who still has an "I don't care" attitude. Something needs to be done to remind him that he should care about the rules.  I'm not asking he be punished, but he needs something to wake him up.
 * Duggy 1138 (talk) 12:28, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

User:OaklandParkBoy
Account created to vandalize Megan Meier article with ED drama website. Clear bad faith account, probably discarded, brought up for possible block to prevent the creator using it once it has waited out the new user time. Not worth wasting time with usual vandal process. John Nevard (talk) 09:29, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed it seems a bit... odd. Looks like this particular blog does have a fair number of incoming links, though (checked on google), so I'm not sure if it's safe to automatically presume their intent was to disrupt (or participate in coordinated disruption), without more information. They did give the link some context, instead of just pasting it over and over. Checked a bit, and it doesn't look like a mass of people/accounts have been inserting similar links. Something to watch, but dunno if we'd gain much from blocking. Open to input from people who might know better, though. – Luna Santin  (talk) 10:54, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Granted, the user was inserting uncited information. However, I don't think this warrants a straight vandalism block as you suggest ("not wasting time with the vandal process"). Perhaps try and get some discussion going on his user talk page - the guy hasn't even been welcomed yet. <font color="#2A8B31">Anthøny  11:53, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Heavy backlog at Requested moves
Hi. If there are any users or admins experienced with page move discussions, I just thought Id point out that there has been a huge backlog at Requested moves for a while now. Thanks. Tbo 157  (talk)  11:18, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll have a look...--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 15:01, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I've done some of the ones I can do without admin tools--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 15:06, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, we know about the backlog but unfortunately getting enough people to actually do something about it is not proving to be very successful. GDonato (talk) 15:08, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I could try and help. I did 4 the other month. :) <font face="tahoma" color="green">Rudget .<font face="tahoma" color="green">talk 15:28, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks.  Tbo 157   (talk)  17:21, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

If you've always wanted to be paid to edit...
The Core Contest. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 15:42, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Nuvola apps important.svg|25px]] Please stop. If you continue to introduce inappropriate pages to Wikipedia, you will be blocked from editing. :) <font face="tahoma" color="green">Rudget .<font face="tahoma" color="green">talk  15:44, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Everyone take a bow
A few moment ago CAT:CSD was actually completely empty, including no image backlog. That is a first in my experience.-- Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:31, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * What?!?!? That's amazing!--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 15:37, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * You may thank us CSD patrollers by donating us rogue points in the sekrat cabal channel. <small style="background:#fff;border:#800080 1px solid;color:#000;padding:0px 3px 1px 4px;white-space:nowrap">east<big style="color:#090">. 718 at 15:40, November 24, 2007


 * It's the same now. I must get back to new page patrolling again, that ought to get another 15... :) <font face="tahoma" color="green">Rudget .<font face="tahoma" color="green">talk 15:41, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * WP:SSP is empty now too! — Rlevse  •  Talk  • 18:44, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Great work, team! Your salaries are going to be doubled. Look under the mat in the hallway.   Wanderer57 (talk) 05:40, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

New copyright law in France
Just informing people that there will maybe be a new copyright law in France, which obliges ISPs to monitor people's connections for copyright infringement, and ban the users from the Internet if they are caught. So any French users should be careful, and remember there is no such thing as fair-use in France, so you won't be able to view or upload fair-use images anymore, or you risk being banned from internet. Perhaps wikipedia should prepare a system that blocks IP addresses from France from viewing Non-Free media or it will loose almost all French users as there really is no way of being sure to never see a fair-use image, they can crop up anywhere unexpected. Jackaranga (talk) 16:05, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * This really sucks by the way, it's the end of the internet, there is copyright infringement all over the place, so many sites display images they don't own the rights to :( Jackaranga (talk) 16:08, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * That article says nothing of the sort. <small style="background:#fff;border:#ff8c00 1px solid;color:#000;padding:0px 3px 1px 4px;white-space:nowrap">east<big style="color:#090">. 718 at 16:12, November 24, 2007


 * You do of course mean any user of any nationality located in France, not any French user, and while it might affect our copyvio policy (ie a user in France posting a copyvio would be breaking Frenchj law) hard to see it would affect our fair use policy or us. Thanks, SqueakBox 16:36, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * If this law goes ahead wikipedia might consider blocking French IP addresses from viewing non-free images out of courtesy, to avoid them being being banned from internet. It's so easy to see non-free images by accident, just browsing articles.  Just a thought anyway.  If this law spreads to other countries, wikipedia will have to do something or else all the users from those countries will be lost, either banned from internet, or too scared to browse wikipedia in case they see a non-free image.  Jackaranga (talk) 17:04, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * With all due respect, I don't think it will be our job to make sure that French users are babysat into not viewing a part of the site. I think if they want to avoid being banned from the internet that they will avoid it anyways. If they don't, the risk is theirs, not ours. — <font color="007FFF">Save_Us _ 229 17:22, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I think you're overreacting, Jack. It means nothing along the lines of you can't access a fair use document from another country. What it means is that you can't keep uploading copyrighted material to YouTube, and having YouTube be complacent in it. It also means that you can't say "I took this picture" when you didn't. And amen and thank Heavens for such a law. But if you credit an image, on the English Wikipedia, on American servers, then you do not fall under this law. The Evil Spartan (talk) 19:13, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Just to say that they will be able to view fair use images. If they weren't able to then they wouldn't be able to view anything that's copyrighted, which is about 99% of the internet (I've always hated fair use, by the way)--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 20:32, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I think you will find that the French law will allow for some use along the lines of article 5(3)(d) of the EUCD, namely
 * quotations for purposes such as criticism or review, provided that they relate to a work or other subject-matter which has already been lawfully made available to the public, that, unless this turns out to be impossible, the source, including the author's name, is indicated, and that their use is in accordance with fair practice, and to the extent required by the specific purpose

Fair use material on Wikipedia (including images) should largely fall within that exception. Jheald (talk) 21:18, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Any new law the French government enacts will need to be compatible with the treaties they, and most of the western world, have signed related to copyright law. I belive (but am not sure) that the treaties require "fair use" of some form or another. ---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 21:51, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Note that section 122.5(2) of the French law, even as amended by DADVSI, also explicitly permits
 * copies or reproductions strictly reserved for the private use of the copyist and not intended for collective use

That should put into the clear anything you see in a web browser and don't redistribute. (Though the DADVSI page says not P2P networks). Jheald (talk) 21:58, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Kevo-723
Looking at the contributions of, it seems highly likely that he is the same user as who was blocked indefinitely as a vandalism-only account. DX-Kevo was blocked on 21 June 2007; Kevo-723 was created the following day. A large proportion of DX-Kevo's edits involved inserting plausible-looking but incorrect information into existing articles about Joe Tompkins (a real person) [, ], Ben Milan (a non-notable, perhaps non-existent person) [, ], or both [, ]. Kevo-723 is now showing exactly the same modus operandi [,, , , ]. It would be unfair to say that every one of Kevo-723's edits were vandalism: there is constructive work on the Liu Song (snooker player) article, but that plus correcting an odd missing full stop seems to be the extent of his/her useful contributions. — ras52 (talk) 20:05, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Category approved for deletion over month ago still there
Resolved I couldn't figure out where else to bring this up, or what other avenue to take. The category "Watchmen" as approved deletion Oct. 14 at Categories for discussion/Log/2007 October 14, yet it's still up. What do we do at this point? Thanks for any information. --Tenebrae (talk) 22:30, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It was deleted on the 23rd October, . It's since been recreated.  Let me refresh my memory on speedies for categories and I'll be right back. Hiding T 23:02, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'll do the legwork, it can get deleted as recreated material. Hiding T 23:03, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Policy for the discussion of policy
See Village pump (policy). Guy (Help!) 23:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Protection
I'm concerned that page Media help (Ogg) is not protected. We're telling people: go ahead, download and run these programs, we say they are safe...  It wasn't until after I'd downloaded and installed a new codec that I noticed it wasn't protected and anyone could have gone and change the links...to who knows what malware. I'd like to suggest permanent protection due to its links. RJFJR (talk) 23:55, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * That's a really good point. I've protected the page indefinitely. -- krimpet ⟲  02:17, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

BLP Policy and Family Portraits
I would appreciate if an admin with background in BLP policy would take a look at this Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons Wanderer57 (talk) 03:45, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Gettysburg
Hi. Please check the article on Gettysburg. The first paragraph is pretty bad. I do not have an account, and I don't know how to edit things or join the "talk." I'm hoping a "wiki" professional will be able to clean it up. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.201.200.154 (talk) 05:13, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I removed the vandalism. Thanks. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 05:21, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Auschwitz (& in general) lengthily protection violates policy
Enough. This is a content dispute; go to Talk:Auschwitz concentration camp and discuss there. — Kurykh  03:14, 26 November 2007 (UTC) <div class="boilerplate metadata" style="background-color: #f5f3ef; margin: 2em 0 0 0; padding: 0 10px 0 10px; border: 1px solid #AAAAAA;">
 * The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


 * From Wikipedia:Requests for page protection#Auschwitz concentration camp by -70.18.5.219 (talk) 20:27, 22 November 2007 (UTC):

"Unprotect [Auschwitz] please: No valid reason given nor existing for indefinite protection or - in other words - this indefinite protection is arbitrary, unjustified, and - so - in violation of the policy (see Talk:Auschwitz concentration camp. -70.18.5.219 (talk) 09:41, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting oppose.svg Declined Jmlk  1  7  10:39, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * But vandalism ended with the protection on May 29, '07, right?! So, you just have imagined it that, if vandalism happened in the past, it shall continue. But you have had no evidence, only supposition that vandalism will return once the protection is lifted before vandalism actually returned (occured). That lack of occurence has violated the fundamental rule of WP:PROT that "Semi-protection should not be used: As a preemptive measure against vandalism before any vandalism has occurred.". So, please lift that unjustified protection of Auschwitz concentration camp. Sincerely, -70.18.5.219 (talk) 19:52, 22 November 2007 (UTC)"


 * I am sympathetic to this request. It appears standard to lift semiprotection after 3 months, and there has been virtually no discussion of why long-term semi-protection is required on that page, till you brought it up at least. If no one objects, I am going to lift semi-protection. Elle <font color="#CC9920">vécut heureuse à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!) 20:52, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I object. I notice the anon IP is also editing the Oświęcim article, where Auschwitz is located, and using a source celebrated among Holocaust deniers to lower the death toll there by half. Could your desire to have the Auschwitz article unlocked have anything to do with wanting to revise the death toll in that article, too? I have reverted your edit to Oswiciem, using the toll from the Auschwitz museum, and providing a ref. That seems a reliable source, to me, rather than a Holocaust revisionist. Jeffpw (talk) 20:53, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * What has happened to assuming good faith? Also poisoning the well doesn't help. If 70.18.5.219 decides to run a revert war we can just block him, and besides, he seems a dedicated good-faith user. I am not sympathetic to holocaust deniers (and this stance has not been admitted by him, so we cannot just assume anyhow), but extended semi-protection is generally a bad idea. If anything starts happening again I will reinstate semi-protection. Is that agreeable to you? Elle <font color="#CC9920">vécut heureuse à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!) 20:58, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I just looked at his contributions and saw what he had added, and how suddenly in one article that he could edit, the death toll was halved, in spite of extensive research supporting the higher figure. You call that poisoning the well? I find that odd. Though I am not an admin myself, I would prefer to gain a wider consensus among admins before you unprotect.Jeffpw (talk) 21:06, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I tend to disagree with unlocking this page. Permanent semi-protection is a must for some articles. Things related to the Holocaust like the articles Adolf Hitler, The Holocaust and Auschwitz will probably be mushed into the same category. I'm not sympathetic to letting POV pushers or blatant vandals persistantly editing these articles. — <font color="007FFF">Save_Us _ 229 21:07, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, so the consensus is that the semi-protection is to be permanent to prevent POV edits? The original protection was for vandalism. Remember that we are potentially keeping constructive edits out with semi-protection, and there was a great deal of controversy when the idea of semi-protection first came forth. Also, I didn't mean to accuse anyone, but simply because the IP might have a vested interest at stake does not mean his argument is invalid -- that's what I meant by poisoning the well. I took your pointing out of his "contribution" with good faith, but I do not think the fact that he tried to modify the death toll necessarily invalidates an unprotection request. But I appreciate your caution and I will definitely wait now.
 * Anyway, if for example a congressman's intern requested that a page on the congressman be unlocked because the last protection event was half a year ago, I understand that the intern might have a vested interest. Still, I would unprotect it and monitor said intern's actions, since I would have unprotected it had it been brought to my attention by someone else. Perhaps the intern really wants to make good faith edits, like correct stuff. And if he/she doesn't, then we can reinstate protection or make a simple block. Elle <font color="#CC9920">vécut heureuse à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!) 21:19, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

(undent / ec) Much as it pains me, as it is not in the spirit of the project, I must agree with Jeffpw and Save_Us 229 here. We must remember that Wikipedia's reputation for accuracy and reliability are now been called to account daily by the media, and high target/profile articles are most likely to both be abused and also commented on by external entities. I should also add for clarity that Jeffpw and I have communicated regularly in the past, and that my belief in his argument has nothing to do with our "wiki-friendship" or similar. Pedro : Chat  21:22, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Elle. While I am not against POV edits per se, as they can lead to a solid neutral article if watched carefully and counter-balanced by others, I consider holocaust revisionism to be vandalism. Wikipedia has had a lot of problems with this in the past, and it makes for a lot of work (and stress) for editors who truly want to build a great encyclopedia. Some POVs are better confined to the article about that POV--the Holocaust denial article, in this case. Jeffpw (talk) 21:25, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Happening to have a POV is fine. After all, most of us edit in areas we're interested in to at least some degree, and so have some viewpoint regarding that area. On the other hand, attempting to push that POV into the article is unacceptable and should be stopped at once. Dedicated POV pushers are far more destructive and harmful than vandals, especially with lunatics like the Holocaust-deniers. Seraphimblade Talk to me 21:43, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I didn't mean to say that I tolerated POV-pushing, perhaps I was misunderstood. I meant to say that it was rather bad-faith to assume that the user would immediately compromise the NPOV of the article (if it has been NPOV in the first place). In any case, I am also concerned that such a lengthy semi-protection has stopped many a useful contribution from anons. Also, have we established that this user is in fact, a holocaust revisionist, or is that merely our suspicion?
 * On the other hand, I would also request the IP outline the full scope of his proposed changes. It is rather frustrating not to be able to edit an article yourself, but if there are inaccuracies as you say, Mr. 70.18.5.219, and this request is denied again, surely you would not hesitate to outline your changes for someone else to perform instead, perhaps on a talk page? Or do you expect immediate opposition to your changes? In that case, then we have a content dispute, and it would not be a good idea to implement the changes anyway, at least till discussion is resolved at least. Elle <font color="#CC9920">vécut heureuse à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!) 22:10, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The center for genocide studies says there were approx 1.5 million killed at Auschwitz.
 * The BBC, a neutral source, gives us this toll of over one million.
 * Here we see the anon IP lowering the death toll by half, based on a holocaust revisionist article.
 * This site debunks the source the anon placed in the article he could edit.
 * Here the Auschwitz Museum directly refutes the source the anon IP used.
 * I am not saying the anon is a Holocaust denier. It could be that he was simply taken in by the bullshit put out by deniers on the net. But do we need to spend countless hours correcting the inaccuracies of well-meaning anon IPs, who have no stake in how this project turns out, while they are operating as the tools of venomous anti-Semites? S/he could just register and edit at will, if s/he was sincerely interested in improving the 'pedia. The fact that they have agressively tried to get this unprotected on more than one page, while at the same time introducing inaccuracies into another article on the same subject, speaks volumes about the need to continue to protect and be vigilant on this subject. Jeffpw (talk) 22:30, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Careful though. I have come across many dedicated anons (although the side-effect is that their address is hard to recall off the top of one's head) who refuse to create an account, either out of principle, or they enjoy the attention of being a prolific anon editor. Besides, there is still a concern over blocking legitimate edits from others. Are expecting a flood of undesirable edits, save those by this IP or his friends? Semi-protection can always be reinstated -- but it's been six months. Take Turkish people for example -- there is a long-running dispute over that too, and content disputes between Turks, Russians and Greeks are so common that if I had a penny for every time one occurred I would probably be a millionaire, but protections for that page are common but irregular. Furthermore, the article doesn't look like it suffers waves of vandalism, unlike George W. Bush for example. It seems that the page does not suffer as much infamy as the Holocaust page itself, the Iraq War, etc.
 * Going over the protection policy, I also note that indefinite semi-protection is valid for pages that suffer heavy vandalism, but vandalism is not equivalent to a content dispute. Otherwise, we should lock the global warming page indefinitely as well.   Elle <font color="#CC9920">vécut heureuse  à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!) 23:16, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Elle, I think we have a very basic difference of opinion about what constitutes vandalism. To me, the deliberate insertion of material which would cause the average reader to consider that the Holocaust either did not occur, or was not as terrible as has been presented, is outright vandalism. It not only perpetuates anti-Semitism and is considered a hate crime in many countries, it is bad science and brings this project into disrepute. This is not a mere content dispute I am concerned about, but something much more insidious. I looked at the history of the article, and saw the protecting admin's, Anthony.bradbury, summmary of his edit. It was unusual and I would like to know what he meant and how he feels on this issue. I have asked him to join the discussion. Jeffpw (talk) 23:30, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed that it brings the project into disrepute, but the main thing here is that I am worried about blocking constructive editing. At this point, does long-term semi-protection do more harm than good? If a content dispute broke out -- i.e. a revert war -- it would be appropriate to fully protect the page, not semi-protect it. (I'll also add that though I don't excuse holocaust denial, accepting only evidence that augment the estimates of the death toll but never accepting studies that decrease it is potentially unhealthy.)
 * Semi-protection is for dealing with "obvious" cases, where you know you will have a flood of things that are clearly to be reverted, obvious vandalism, obvious POV insertion, etc. but where logistics forbid admins constantly reverting each one. So, indefinite semi-protection is to resolve this infeasibility, at the expense of any constructive anon edits.
 * The situation you describe is to remedy "non-obvious" content disputes. In this case, you actually had to look into his source to verify his claim, and you had to cite evidence to show why his post was a bad edit. Semi-protection is not a remedy for these types of disputes.
 * It is also a rather bad idea to expect the revisionism to come only from anons, and I suspect you mean the semi-protection to be a sort of filter for POV content. That is why semi-protection is generally not used in content-disputes, e.g. where the registered users are not blocked but the anons are, in order to filter out the anons from being able to revert war. This is not what semi-protection is meant for. Even though the global warming article endures constant POV insertion from random people and revert wars are somewhat common, the article is currently not on indefinite semi-protection. The people who watch that page know that this means they will have to revert POV-pushers quite often. During times of rampant vandalism however, the article is put on semi-protection.
 * Why is this the case? Well, sometimes POV-pushers also have legitimate claims in their edits (among the bad ones), or they do point out important qualifications. I just dealt with this in the Augusto Pinochet article. This is less the case for here, but even so, you just remember while the response to simple vandalism is knee-jerk, the response to a more complex issue of a POV dispute should not be. If a person inserts POV material into the article and cites a source, immediately reverting it is the "easy way out". Rather first, we should take a look at the source, to see if it's of merit, then we should see whether any of the edit is salvageable. Then, and only then, do we perform the revert, if one is required. This is in contrast to where we just automatically rollback simple vandalism. Too many times I have seen people revert POV edits but neglecting to restore the stuff that was legitimate. Semi-protection is like a "last resort" bot. It is like an automated, automatic reversion of all anonymous edits. We use bots for simple vandalism -- we don't use bots to replace discerning editors who are intervening in content disputes or dealing with violations of 3RR. Furthermore, there is a reason we don't classify POV-pushing, however disreputable it may be, as clear-cut vandalism. There is a reason why the exception to 3RR applies for simple vandalism only. The distinction is important, even if both types of edits (holocaust-denying POV-pushing and vandalism) are bad faith.
 * Again, if we had a bot in the MediaWiki script that immediately and accurately detected obvious vandalism and stopped it-- but did not intervene in content disputes, then semi-protection would be obsolete. [Currently our bots aren't too effective yet -- they detect things like page blanking and such.] Semi-protection is not supposed to catch people who POV-push. That is for editors to deal with directly. Elle <font color="#CC9920">vécut heureuse à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!) 00:41, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I was going to support keeping the protection, but now I agree avec elle. The real reason for having it protected is the frequency of disruptive edits. That can be remedied by having eyes on it.--victor falk 02:28, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

United States was semiprotected for several months. Someone unprotected it; it had to be reprotected within 3 hours due to high volume of anon vandalism. Sorry, but we have to protect some of our more targeted articles, I can imagine this is one. --Golbez (talk) 05:44, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break 1

 * From: -70.18.5.219 (talk):
 * So, what a big deal that you had to re-protected it within 3 hours, please?! At least you knew that it requires re-protection instead of guessing, which is against the fundamental rule of WP:PROT that "Semi-protection should not be used: As a preemptive measure against vandalism before any vandalism has occurred." Auschwitz deserves the same test for 3 hours every 3 months in a gesture of civility.
 * There are two separate issues: unprotecting Auschwitz clearly protected to support one POV against the other, so absolutely not NPOV by any stretch of imagination, and - the second - my edit of the same subject in Oswiecim, which was one sided - I admit - because I found the existing to be insufficient and started a process oriented on collaboration with other editors hopefully civil, who could have pointed the deficiencies, so they would have been subsequently corrected, but instead, my edit there was brutally erased killing any collaboration or cooperation, and - actually - seeming to be a first step in a war. So sorry, sad, and regretful action against a slow, but civil way of editing.
 * Thanks Elle <font color="#CC9920">vécut heureuse à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!), and it seems that Jeffpw (talk) does not understand, what NPOV actually is.  A neutral point of view (NPOV) [may] represent s the middle of extremes (if possible) or [discuss various] both sides of the issue (this seem to apply to Auschwitz).  You do not need to protect Auschwitz, but just allow both views to be presented in different chapters. The truth will prevail. THIS IS NPOV! Yes, Wikipedia is also about the Earth considered flat... you like it or not!
 * BTW, almost all of my mother's side of family died in Belzec, and of my father's - in Treblinka (which is well edited possibly, because it remains unprotected), I had to flee the Communists, who jailed me after protesting at the 40th anniversary of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising their holding in house arrest the only surviving leader of the Uprising (Marek Edelman); I can still talk to an Auschwitz survivor in my neighborhood. I do not believe that protecting Auschwitz - that protects mediocrity of its current editors - serves well the article and the integrity of Wikipedia at large.
 * I edited the subject in Oswiecim just to demonstrate a higher level of consideration Auschwitz sadly lacks. The same way since May I edited Intel's microprocessors.  There were some initial mistakes, and people PLEASENTLY helped to fix them, so a much higher level structure of leads remains up to this day. That synthesizing structure of leads is difficult to achieve, and many Wikipedia leads remain quite primitive. It is easy to fill in data, as you did it Jeffpw (talk), but it is difficult to write well even with mistakes, as you did not, but you insist to kill the effort of others under a pretext used by all dictators in all anti-democratic systems without freedom of expression. Sincerely, -70.18.5.219 (talk) 07:08, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Elle, if I am reading you correctly, it seems you are considering the anon's request to lift protection even though it has been shown he is following a Holocaust revisionist line in editing other articles. To accede to this request is simply to open Wikipedia to another avenue of extreme point of view edits and vandalism (and yes, I see POV edits in this situation as vandalism, plain and simple). I have stated my case at length above and will not weigh in again unless I see something here that requires direct comment. However, I will say that the time spent discussing this anon's request, even after it was shown he had added disreputable sources to a related article, is symptomatic of the problems we will be opening ourselves up for if semi-protection is lifted. I have a lot better things to do than police articles against vandals, but seemingly spend half my time here doing just that. Jeffpw (talk) 10:06, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * From Protection policy: specifically says semiprotection should not be used to lock out anon editors in a content dispute and should be used only to prevent continuing disruption]. From WP:VAND about POV-pushing "Though inappropriate, this is not vandalism in itself unless persisted in after being warned." Naturally this we don't want anyone linking a Denialist website to this article, but that is not different from standard, common or garden POV-pushing. We can't lock out POV-pushing. We can, however revert it continually. These are major articles on everyone's watchlist, and people revert on sight for things like this. Relata refero (talk) 11:12, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Relata, using your logic, we should also unprotect George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein, as they are on even more watchlists than the Auschwitz article. A little common sense is needed. If an article attracts a disproportionate number of vandals (as this one has, based on the 8 protections it has received this year alone) then it deserves long-term protection. Jeffpw (talk) 13:15, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Look again. Extreme POV edits are not vandalism by our definition. If you disagree, go and slug it out at WP:VAND. Therefore your analogy falls by the wayside. Relata refero (talk) 13:41, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * "and yes, I see POV edits in this situation as vandalism, plain and simple" -- this is a dangerous assumption to make though -- they are both bad, but for different reasons, and different responses are needed. Semi-protection is meant to block clear-cut cases of vandalism, not to filter people of a specific view. Like if it happened that semi-protection only blocked holocaust deniers, I myself would care less. But the fact is, constructive editors are being left out. George W. Bush faces lots of obvious vandalism, not POV-pushing. Be wary of using "vandal" as some sort of catch-all term for "worthless editor". The other question is, do we expect waves of POV-pushing? Elle <font color="#CC9920">vécut heureuse à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!) 14:07, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * On another note, I don't think our anonymous editor's definition of NPOV is correct. NPOV is not achieved by listing the two different sides of a story -- that just makes for a very disjunct article. NPOV discusses various points of contention. A bipolar article is not an NPOV article. Elle <font color="#CC9920">vécut heureuse à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!) 14:10, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The key phrase in that post was "in this situation". In any event, administrators have had to protect this article eight times this year alone. So yes, I would expect to see waves of POV pushing and vandalism. Articles don't get semi-protected on a whim. Nor should the protection be lifted on a whim. I am glad we are discussing this so thoroughly, though I must point out that there is as yet no consensus to lift the protection. Jeffpw (talk) 14:13, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Simply because it was semi-protected eight times in a year does not mean that currently it will experience a new wave of vandalism. If you examine the history actually, there was only sporadic vandalism in May that triggered the protection, and it was generally not the waves of POV-pushing as you feared. Otherwise, we should semi-protect all our controversial articles -- this is not what semi-protection is meant for. Global warming was put up on semi-protection again -- it routinely is, but it is not on long-term protection. Perhaps I am old -- there was a time when people used semi-protection as a last resort, assumed good faith and cared about the potential block of constructive edits. POV-pushing can always be reverted -- do you expect waves of POV-pushing too? But the loss of good edits cannot be easily be reversed. Elle <font color="#CC9920">vécut heureuse à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!) 14:27, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Santayana comes in handy here: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Though it is only my personal sentiment, WP:AGF is often mushy headedly applied on Wikipedia. Vandals and POV pushers have been given gar too much leeway to achieve their goals due to those policies. If an article is protected more than once a month on average, then obviously AGF is not going to be very effective. While the Utopian ideals of Wikipedia may have looked good in theory, in practice they have led to a lot of extra work for editors who could better be editing article sthat interest them than reverting bad faith edits. If I had my way, policies regarding anon editing and POV pushing would be much more strict than they are now. Since that will never happen, I do strongly plea for protection and care of articles most vulnerable to damaging edits. Auschwitz is among those articles. Jeffpw (talk) 14:51, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Semi-protection is done to save the work of CVU and RC patrol; editors do need to consider other edits that are not clear-cut cases of vandalism. Have we seen waves of POV-pushing. There are many other cases where articles have suffered nasty anonymous edit wars -- take communism for example, but again semi-protection is not meant as a remedy against them. When I mentioned AGF, I meant to say that it was not healthy to assume that all anonymous editors were going to be malicious. Perhaps we need an RFC on this semi-protection question, if there isn't one already. Elle <font color="#CC9920">vécut heureuse à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!) 15:21, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * This is one of those articles that realistically has to stay semi-protected, partly because of random vandalism, partly because of Holocaust denial. If people want to edit it, they can register an account. SlimVirgin  (talk) (contribs) 17:48, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Holocaust denial is an unacceptable fringe theory we don't want on major historical articles. However, fringe POV-pushing is not a reason for semiprotection and never has been. If this page in particular is subject to sustained vandalism, then its OK, but I don't see that in the history. Diffs? Relata refero (talk) 22:26, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break 2
Everything comes to the issue whether to allow unprotection every 3 months (or so) or not for - maybe - just a few hours; is it really so big deal to do it knowing that data is protected, instead of speculating, please? My understanding of NPOV is close to that expressed by Elle <font color="#CC9920">vécut heureuse à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!) despite my simplified description above just corrected. Please, do not forget that the revisionists managed to lower the Auschwitz death count from 3-4 millions to just 1.1 quite rightfully - despite their questionable motives - proving that NPOV means accepting results of digging regardless, who is digging and why, and not discriminating against anyone, because of... a point of view (neo-fascists won their First Amendment Skokie case; remember?). The protection policy is widely abused, as I mentioned in Wikipedia talk:Protection policy, so I suggested improvements to the vandalism definition (Wikipedia talk:Vandalism) to make blocking easier to use for replacing the abused protection. The main question remains whether Wikipedia can afford cutting out valuable anon IP editors, when protecting articles, or not. A short unprotection every 3 months or so does not seem to be a big price to test a possibility of such an inclusion, or does it, please? -70.18.5.219 (talk) 20:22, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I can't tell whether you genuinely misunderstand WP:NPOV or you are deliberately not listening to us. NPOV means "discuss there are two sides of the issue", not "present both sides of the issue and think for yourself." Your casting us as censoring fascists do not help your cause. We do not see policy as the glorious answer to all of our problems, hence we have WP:IAR, a principle that lets us ignore rules when rules get in the way of us improving the encyclopedia. We keep the Auschwitz article de facto permanently semi-protected because whenever we have removed it, there's too much vandalism for us to keep pace. It impacts good-faith anons, yes, but we are willing to pay that price. You will be better served if you discussed on the article's talk page instead of railing here. — Kurykh  20:37, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I will not engage in debate with the IP about the merits (or lack thereof) of Holocaust revisionism. This is not the place or the issue. The issue is whether this specific article will be improved if it is unprotected. It will not. The IP has options open if s/he wishes to edit the article. S/he can register. It's free and easy. S/he can also ask an admin to make the edits for him or her, after setting the text in his or her sandbox or talkpage. In answer to the last question of whether Wikipedia can afford to lose the "valuable" contributions of anon IPs, in this case I think Wikipedia will actually be improved without them. Jeffpw (talk) 20:42, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * We don't know for certain. Just because a particular IP has asked and has shown a distressing tendency to quote from denialist websites doesn't mean there aren't ten others with no such intention who can't edit and aren't pushy enough to come here. Relata refero (talk) 22:28, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * All you need to do is check the diffs in the article history. The amount of crap from anon IPs (and, to be fair, from registered POV pushers) far outweighs the stellar contributions of the others. AGF only goes so far before it turns into a synonym for naiveté. Jeffpw (talk) 22:35, 23 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The issue is only whether to unprotected Auschwitz or not, but NPOV is at its core (please, distinguish between revisionists and Holocaust denial loonies out of consideration here). Right now, administrators disallow debating revisionists' position, revisionists are pissed off and damage the article, so it is protected. To me, it resembles shutting up opposition, allowing for only one point of view, and controlling press, like the communists have done.  Kurykh , you do not like the comparison, so tell, what would you call it, please? The history of the issue can also be viewed as the fact that the revisionists caused the reduction of the initial number of dead from 3-4 millions to just 1.1 everyone else conceded, and, despite that, Wikipedia does not debate their quite extensive work, so they vandalize the article.  But nobody damages unprotected Treblinka, which is not disputed.  So, it is logical to infer that the discriminatory position of Wikipedia administrators is at least partially to blame for the vandalism they subsequently use as the excuse to keep the discriminatory protection.  Very clever [sic!] way to degrade Wikipedia's credibility and... integrity.
 * Coming back to the essential NPOV (which is much older term than Wikipedia), the phrase "First: Negotiating [discussing] neutrality with others" does not imply, how the neutrality should look like, but the WP:NPOV phrase "Debates within topics are described, represented and characterized, but not engaged in" clearly encourages to present "both sides of the issue" in a neutral manner - exactly the opposite of  Kurykh  claim, which is a completely unsupported (by any inference) personal opinion just composed as: it is, because it is. So, debating the revisionists' position also in Auschwitz is actually encouraged by Wikipedia. Unprotect the article, and I will show you, how to do a neutral article presenting bipolar issue, please. Imagine someone browsing Internet in search of Auschwitz, who stumbled on one of many seriously looking revisionist's articles, and who than wants to consult it with Wikipedia. What can be found there about their position? Nothing! So, how Wikipedia's neutrality looks like, if it does not debate also the revisionists' position? Like incomplete, biased, and - so - without credibility and... integrity thanks to you.
 * The Soviets had constitution worded similarly to American, only the meaning of words was... different, so when you ask Russian refugees, if they are for democracy, almost all say yes, but when you ask them, what does democracy mean, they usually say... hmmm? Similarly is with Wikipedia's neutrality on Auschwitz. When you ask, does neutrality mean without bias, everyone says yes, but, when you ask, is the revisionists' position debated, you would hear hmmm?, and then... we do not like them. It is a "funny" kind of neutrality (in violation of the policy: "Debates within topics are described, represented and characterized..."), don't you think so, please?
 * Great things are often attributed to individuals, and not masses, which are synonymous with commonality or mediocrity. If you protect article, usually the editing fervor dies up, and only mediocrity remains.  That explains a relatively poor level of protected articles versus better quality of unprotected ones.  The protected ones simply lack inspiration from anon IP editors.  Poor quality means low credibility, means deficiency of integrity, which is most desired. I have nothing else to add. -Sincerely, -70.18.5.219 (talk) 10:52, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The revisionism you cite, the lowering the death toll from 4,4 million to 1.1, is not revisionism at all, but a figure agreed upon by multiple governments after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The revisionism you used in the Oswiecim article had at its core an agenda of lowering the Jewish death toll in an effort to dilute the profoundly unique horror of the Holocaust. It is worth noting that the research you cited was debunked by Holocaust scholars familiar with the subject, and the article was rejected for publication by Der Spiegel, for which it had been written. That you would conflate the two examinations of the death toll at Auschwitz is troubling to say the least, and makes one wonder if you are simply cherrypicking in an effort to make your case.
 * The "debate" you wish to see in the article has no place there. Those wishing to discuss Holocaust denial can edit that article. The Auschwitz article is about what we know happened there, not what anti-Semitic quacks think about it 60 years after the war's end. NPOV is not achieved by including every fringe theory of every event. And Wikipedia is not a website to tolerate hate-mongering masquerading as scientific research. That we have wasted so many hours here even discussing this is, to me, a sign that unprotecting the article will only lead us back to a situation where protection will once again have to be instituted. Jeffpw (talk) 11:31, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * PS: Jeffpw (talk), the "revisionism" I have talked about has always been the only legitimate revisionism there, i.e. historical revisionism and nothing else. If I wanted to talk about Holocaust denial, I would have called it as such.  You are mistaken calling Holocaust denial just "revisionism"; it is Historical revisionism (negationism).  Have you ever seen me using the word "negationism", please? No, I have NOT used it! My arguments have always been strict and precise, and my almost whole family died in Holocaust, so how I could have support Holocaust denial in any way, please? It is nonsense! Please, do not imply saying things, which were not said, to support your argument. This is not a good way to discuss anything!
 * The figure agreed upon by multiple governments article you quote includes "The revised Polish figures".  Can you see the word "revised", please? This is the kind of historical revisionism I have been talking about.  Polish government revised the figure just around July 17, 1990 shortly before signing the German-Polish Border Treaty on November 14, 1990. That Polish claim of 4 millions dead has always been a matter of contention with Germany. In other words, 'the Poles wanted German monies, so they admitted the truth about Auschwitz death toll just before receiving them with the treaty! I clearly stated sever times that by revisionism I meant the "reduction of the initial number of dead from 3-4 millions to just 1.1".
 * But politics (in Germany and everywhere else) is usually initiated and probed by think tanks. The latest German attempt to reduce Auschwitz death toll I cited before is such a think tank debate (by Fritjof Meyer, Dipl. DHP, Dipl.-Politologe, Dipl.-Kameralist, Leitender Redakteur. Der Spiegel, Hamburg) - though flawed, but serious enough to meet the qualification of the Wikipedia's NPOV policy phrase "Debates within topics are described, represented and characterized,...". Its synthesis deserves to be mentioned (next to a neutral synthesis of the rebuttal analysis of Franciszek Piper - Fritjof Meyer) according to NPOV, as I also argued previously.
 * I have suggested to unprotect Auschwitz just to make that Wikipedia policy possible to strengthen the article increasing Wikipedia's credibility and integrity, and nothing else. Your arguments have been to continue to violate the Wikipedia's NPOV policy! Even, if the mix up of legitimate historical revisionism with illegitimate Historical revisionism (negationism) is disregarded, your arguments are biased and - so - unacceptable. That is very regretful and discouraging, please. Sincerely, -70.18.5.219 (talk) 21:56, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you for making my point for me. The link I provided to revised figures from the Auschwitz Museum is historical revisionism. The link you were using to lower the death toll by half was Holocaust revisionism. If you clink the last wikilink to revisionism, you'll see that it redirects to Holocaust denial. Further, you'll see that Holocaust deniers prefer to call their work "revisionism", and that legitimate scholars are quick to point out how it differs from legitimate historical revisionism. As a quick aside, I never called you a denier or Holocaust revisionist. In accordance with WP:AGF, I also postulated that you could have been taken in by the site you used in your research. However, the net result was the same: pseudoscience and Holocaust revisionism was introduced into the article, from a discredited source. Jeffpw (talk) 22:50, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

PS #2: No, I did not. "Historical revisionism" pertaining to Holocaust can be called "Holocaust revisionism" according to the generic meaning of these 2 words. The link, I used, refers to Holocaust revisionism the same way it does lowering the death toll from 3-4 millions to the accepted now 1.1. "Holocaust revisionism" is just semantics or generic, harmless term by itself. The same way your arguments "legitimate scholars pointed out..." or "discredited source" are without any substance, because they can cover anything. An abuse of a that term do not preclude using it according to its generic meaning, as I did. E.g., using "Negro" as an offense does not discredits "United Negro College Fund". Hence, juggling terms or semantics - you do - does not prove anything. The substance counts, not the labels, and - effectively - you advocate continuing violating WP:NPOV, as I previously inferred.

Before Poland got money from Germany in 1990, they denied 1.1 million death toll at Auschwitz calling it "Holocaust denial", but after they had got money, they stopped. Before that, Galileo's books were on the Index, and the Copernicus' theory was called a heresy, etc. WP:NPOV includes characterizing, representing, and describing debates within topics - you deny - and "debates" mean disagreeable aspects (there are no debates, when all agree). The 1.1 million death toll - considered now as an Auschwitz's truth - was called "Holocaust denial" only 20 years ago (German payment to Poland changed it). Since that Holocaust truth was achieved through a paid revision, it can be called "Holocaust revisionism" too. So, Auschwitz actually includes "Holocaust revisionism" from just 20 years ago. WP:LEAD explicitly advocates "briefly describing its [topic's] notable controversies". It means, that there is place in Auschwitz for a chapter presenting the facts of its very notable "Holocaust revisionism" controversy including governments, treaties, etc. (in a neutral way). Wikipedia readers have a right to know it all according to WP:NPOV! -70.18.5.219 (talk) 06:32, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * That belongs on the relevant talk page, in this case Talk:Auschwitz concentration camp. Now will you please go there? This is a content dispute, and content disputes do not belong on this board. — Kurykh  03:11, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Moving without consensus
What is the proper procedure when an editor moves an article to a new name when such a move is under discussion on the talk page and no consensus has been achieved? Anoshirawan moved Dari (Afghanistan) to Dari (Persian) in just such an instance. He had been warned about edit warring in that article and as Kavaiyan pointed out on 2 November 2007: "There he goes: Anoshirawan continues his edit war." I don't want to edit war, and previous RFC's have gone relatively un-responded-to. I am trying an RFC here, but my last one at RFC on Template:History of Afghanistan received no responses in 22 days. Previous to that my RFC Request for Comment: Persian Cromwell, fact or fiction? did get a response, but was unsuccessful in generating consensus. --Bejnar (talk) 03:06, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Try listing the move at Requested moves, with a pointer to the location where the RfC is in progress. You would then have the services of an administrator to close the discussion, and you might get some help if an editor goes against the consensus. Also, posting an issue at a related Wikiproject is sometimes useful. All three of the above RfCs seem very esoteric and most people might be scared off from participating. Surely there is an active Talk page somewhere in the topic area where you can find experienced editors to ask for advice. EdJohnston (talk) 03:28, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Simmons Arboretum
Could someone check this article's discussion page and let me know why it won't let me edit/create it? I'm trying to add the tag to it but it won't let me do anything. It's just this article as I can edit any other article. Thanks. --  ALLSTAR  echo  16:06, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * ✅ <small style="background:#fff;border:#4682b4 1px solid;color:#000;padding:0px 3px 1px 4px;white-space:nowrap">east<big style="color:#090">. 718 at 16:12, November 25, 2007
 * Thanks, but what was causing the problem?? --  ALLSTAR  echo  16:38, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Who knows? All's well now. <small style="background:#fff;border:#800080 1px solid;color:#000;padding:0px 3px 1px 4px;white-space:nowrap">east<big style="color:#090">. 718 at 16:46, November 25, 2007

Deletion review - new admin
Hi. Im a new admin. After testing the deletion function at the new admin school, I deleted the article, Khancoban (band) per CSD:A7 after performing a google test and checking the history. Could an experienced admin check that I have done it correctly and if I was right in deleting the article. Can I also ask if there is a template I can use to inform users that their article has been deleted. Thanks. Tbo 157  (talk)  17:14, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Don't know about a template, but delete looks good to me, the ref was myspace (not reliable), and they've only released one album. — Rlevse  •  Talk  • 17:41, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the review. Tbo 157   (talk)  17:48, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * For notability deletions, you can inform the creator via nn-warn-deletion. Other CSD notification templates can be found at Category:CSD warning templates. -- JLaTondre 17:55, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Tbo 157   (talk)  18:24, 25 November 2007 (UTC)


 * If you get twinkle you can warn much easier. Spartaz Humbug! 20:24, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

David Berkowitz, Son of Sam
I am having a dispute over the religious background of David Berkowitz and his family. My sources clearly state Berkowitz, his birth parents, and adoptive parents are all Jewish.

For some reason unknown to me, User:Brewcrewer fanatically removes this information from the article despite being aware of supporting quotes from Berkowitz himself.

He refuses to discuss why he is deleting my edits, and instead slurs me as an "anti-semite". I am Jewish, which makes the whole situation even more absurd. He also systematically trolls my many other contributions. I am suspicious of his motives to say the least. Graham Wellington (talk) 18:21, 25 November 2007 (UTC)


 * On a very early view, it looks as if both of you are edit warring and may have broken the three revert rule. Sam Blacketer (talk) 18:26, 25 November 2007 (UTC)


 * User:Brewcrewer is systematically trolling my contributions in a targeted manner. Can you put a stop to it? I'm not sure if its allow in Wikipedia, but sure does feel like cyber-stalking. Graham Wellington (talk) 21:25, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Suspected misuse of PD-self
What is the correct manner for reporting the suspected misuse of PD-self? Image:Arrivavoyagernew.png is listed this way, but it turns out that it has been screen-grabbed (or something) from this online magazine. --RFBailey (talk) 19:17, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:PUI. <small style="background:#fff;border:#4682b4 1px solid;color:#000;padding:0px 3px 1px 4px;white-space:nowrap">east<big style="color:#090">. 718 at 19:35, November 25, 2007
 * Thanks! --RFBailey (talk) 20:06, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Backlog at Copyright problems
Could use a hand here if there are any admins experienced in this area. Normally it is just me and Alvestrand working this page but I have been busy with school and the backlog is reaching the one month mark. Sometimes people breeze through and delete the obvious ones, but the most help is needed on the tougher cases that take time to investigate and solve. Feel free to message me with questions on how to work this page. Thanks --<b style="color:#6666FF;">Spike Wilbury</b> <b style="color:#000000;">♫</b> talk  16:29, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Article mistakenly tagged as copyvio
I recently created an article Richard Quiller Couch with public domain text from the old Dictionary of National Biography. Another editor tagged it as a copyvio, he has agreed that he made a mistake, but neither of us are sure what the proper way to get the tag removed is. Any help please? DuncanHill (talk) 16:36, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Removed... in the future, you can just edit it out the same way it was edited in...--Isotope23 talk 16:42, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks - neither of us was sure if we could do that, as the tag says to wait for an admin to deal with it. Good to know. DuncanHill (talk) 16:44, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:FIGHT
A new essay decree essay. - <font face="comic sans ms"> Kathryn NicDhàna  ♫ ♦ ♫ 22:30, 25 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The shortcut WP:STFU ("Shut the fuck up") should go. I can only see that upsetting people. The essay itself is ... well, I suppose if you found it funny it would have a purpose.  Neil   ☎  10:23, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm slightly perplexed by this cabal decree, I mean everything it says is true, as in first degree truth. Normally these cabal things contain gross exaggerations based on the worst behavior observed.  This one contains no exaggerations, it's a reformulation of basic policy, I don't know why it's a cabal decree.  Jackaranga (talk) 14:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll take STFU off the page. I think it's funny and appropriate, but acknowledge it could be abused. Whether it's an essay or a decree is obviously still up for debate ;-) - <font face="comic sans ms"> Kathryn NicDhàna  ♫ ♦ ♫ 17:47, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The CABAL was unhappy with the wording on the page, and so has suitably altered it to more accurately reflect reality. Everyone is encouraged to edit war vociferously over this new wording, and to file no fewer than two requests for comment and one ArbCom case in response.  For the CABAL, Şalom `alaykum wā-Moloch!, Haemo (talk) 20:44, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

whomever wrote that has far too much time on their hands and I have modified the page accordingly Jtrainor (talk) 22:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Strange
Can anyone explain why when I checked this diff yesterday, as well as the actual edit being highlighted, I think all the categories were replaced by the word "personal" (which is why I reverted as vandalism)? Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 14:32, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It's a problem with the diff engine, I'm not sure precisely what. The same thing's happened to me on occasion as well. The diffs tend to fix themselves after a while, making figuring out what happened difficult. It doesn't cause any problems on the actual page, though, unless (as has happened many times) a user sees the diff and mistakes the software error for vandalism. --ais523 15:08, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks FTE. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 21:31, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Any more discussion needed? (Deeceevoice)
Please see Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Deeceevoice. I added archive tags there after the link from the main noticeboard (ANI) got archived because the thread had gone inactive. Deeceevoice has queried this, so I am noting this here to help decide how to handle this. There is confusion at the moment over whether subpages should be used at AN and ANI at all, and if so what for. Are they are to separate out large threads, or to encourage (or discourage) continuing discussion? My view is that they should be archived as normal if no new discussion has taken place for 2 days, hence my placement of the tags and the note to continue elsewhere or start a new thread. Thoughts? Carcharoth (talk) 16:42, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * First banned from editing Afrocentrism, then banned for a year, then temporarily reinstated for commenting on the ANI -- and not for article main spaces? And on ridiculously trumped-up/completely unsubstantiated charges?  U betcha there's more discussion needed!  deeceevoice (talk) 17:03, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * As I understand the terms of Probation, any editor placed on probation can be blocked from editing certain articles or content. As the question seems to be about the editor's conduct regarding certain content primarily, I could see the one-week block indicated in the ArbCom decision (I think this is the first incident since that decision was handed down, right?) and perhaps blocking the editor from problematic content for a month or longer, however the rules apply in instances like this. I am, however, not an admin, and want it noted that I'm not so familiar with these matters that I might not have made a mistake in what I said above. John Carter (talk) 17:19, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * That might make sense -- except the diffs used to substantiate the charge of POV pushing have been roundly debunked as essentially bull. The entire case is flimsy as hell.  With all due respect, you might want to bother to familiarize yourself with the case before you suggest any sort of "remedy".  Indeed, if you're taking the time to comment on a case, then I should think you have a responsibility to do so.  People offering uninformed opinions about precipitous admin actions are not helpful;indeed, quite the contrary -- and are precisely how this case got to where it is now.  deeceevoice (talk) 17:30, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * To make it easier to find the archive, I renamed it to be included in the normal AN/I archive hierarchy at Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive332. I do think that if further discussion is needed, a new thread should be opened. Thatcher131 17:31, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * And what is the sense in opening a new thread? Simply de-archive the old one.  This is time-wasting and counterproductive, further buries the matter and convolutes things.  deeceevoice (talk) 17:37, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the first post of this thread to see the rationale. Really, for someone who offers as much "advice" to others as you seem to seek to do, you yourself have apparently acted without familiarizing yourself with the opening statement of this thread. And, with all due respect, the violations of civility seem to even be possibly continuing here as well. John Carter (talk) 17:53, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I read the rationale here and the one the user gave when he archived the ANI. That rationale assumes a lack of interest in continued discussion, and such clearly is not the case in this matter -- which is why I inquired about the matter, which is why we're discussing it here.  And with all due respect, carter, you have absolutely no basis for any concern about violations of civility -- unless, of course, you're referring to your own comments. ;o deeceevoice (talk) 18:22, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * If the thread had been on ANI, instead of a subpage, a bot would have archived it. The discussions on subpages shouldn't be prolonged merely because the bot doesn't cover them. ANI is not for prolonged discussions. If a discussion needs to be moved elsewhere, archive the ANI discussion, copy and paste the discussion to a new venue (or link to it), and notify the original ANI thread of the new location. If ANI is still the right location, start a new discussion or unarchive the original discussion. But beware of forum shopping. Carcharoth (talk) 18:31, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that de-archiving the discussion thread is the more sensible route. It's direct and uncomplicated.  This business was already spread across two, separate venues.  No sense in adding a third.  People already have to read what's been said about this matter in two places.  Adding a third is just counterproductive/pointless.  deeceevoice (talk) 18:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Feel free to dearchive it then and see what people say. Just make sure you do it properly. And archive this disucssion at the same time. Personally, I think a summary from you, starting a new thread, would be best. Then we can be clear on what you want from this, and what issues need to be examined. People are more likely to read a summary than re-read the entire discussion again. Carcharoth (talk) 18:46, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * You have been unblocked, what is the purpose of continued discussion? To beat up the blocking admin?  Wrong web site.  To discuss ongoing poor judgement by the blocking admin?  Open an RFC.  To have all your editing restrictions lifted?  Appeal to ArbCom.  What else needs to be discussed at this point? Thatcher131 18:28, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but that is not exactly correct, Thatcher. As it stands now, I've been unblocked only temporarily to comment on the ANI, with the proviso that I not edit article main spaces.  There has been absolutely no formal decision reached with regard to the ANI.  The bogus charges haven't been withdrawn.  I'm still in limbo.  My accusers need to come up with something meaningful/legitimate -- or formally drop this.  If they've backed off, and my editing privileges have been reinstated in full, then someone needs to make that plain, and if "discuss[ing the] ongoing poor judgement [sic] by the blocking admin[s]" for abuse of their authority is the result of continuing this until some sort of reasonable resolution is reached, then so much the better -- ;p -- because, IMO, no one is more deserving of a sound thrashing, figuratively speaking, than those who've wasted our time in this trumped-up matter. deeceevoice (talk) 18:38, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict)Perhaps the fact that the requisite three admins agreed to a block/ban, which seemingly is all that is required in this instance? But I don't see how that requires discussion. I can't myself see how any sort of "innocent on all charges" verdict is even a remote possibility here. Presumably the request was made to allow the editor to be allowed to edit mainspace articles again, based on deeceevoice's first comment here, but that would be appropriate to ArbCom as stated above. I agree there doesn't seem to be a real rationale to keep the discussion open, other than simply to keep denegrating those who disagree with the editor. Having said that, it would be nice if this page had at a dedicated subpage for prolonged discussions, particularly for cases like this one where discussion may have been reduced due to the civil holiday in the United States. Alternately, just keeping discussions open over 3- or 4-day weekends might help as well. John Carter (talk) 18:48, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Good point. Those on the other side of the pond can forget things like Thanksgiving. Carcharoth (talk) 18:49, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * If three admins agreed to blocking for one year, then they should reimpose the block and all sign the log at Requests_for_arbitration/Deeceevoice. In which case Slrubenstein or any other admin who wants Deeceevoice unblocked needs to appeal to Arbcom.  If, following the discussion (which died on the vine), there are no longer 3 admins willing to block for one year, then Deeceevoice should consider herself free to edit everything except Afrocentrism and ask Slrubenstein to clarify whether he meant to lift the topic ban as well as the block (and if so, ask him to log it).  In this case I would advise any other admin who thinks you need to be reblocked to file an Arbitration request, since that is the appropriate venue for good-faith disputes among admins. Thatcher131 18:53, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * There was no clear decision reached from what I can tell; the discussion just petered out, and that's the problem. Since I remain unblocked from Afrocentrism, the charges not having been substantiated, and from editing article main spaces -- again, the charges not having been substantiated, I will assume the status quo (my freedom to edit wherever I will) unless and until I hear otherwise.  Because the unblock by User Slrubenstein was from both these venues, and because he never recanted either -- and in fact specifically addressed the matter of alleged POV pushing at Afrocentrism, I must assume that was his intention.  If someone has another take on this matter, then say so now or hold your peace.  deeceevoice (talk) 19:29, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * As a matter of procedure, please ask Slrubenstein to confirm on the Arb case log page that he also recinded the topic ban. Your talk page is not clear on the matter, and it could be read either way. Best to avoid any ambiguity. Thatcher131 19:35, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, what I'm going on is the ANI discussion page, because it is subsequent to Rubestein's posts on my talk page and informed by discussion from all sides. For this reason, I think it is a clearer reflection of where he stands on the matter of the bans. deeceevoice (talk) 19:49, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Done, Thatcher. Request made.  Thanks for taking the time. :)  deeceevoice (talk) 20:02, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Unrevertable vandalism
For the second time this month, I find myself unable to revert vandalism on the Wonders of the World article. Every time I try (using either the undo link or by editing old versions of the article from its history), Wikipedia just times out. If someone could revert back to the pre-vandalism version (diff), I would greatly appreciate it; warning notes  were already left for both anonymous editors. Thanks, Kralizec! (talk) 19:02, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. Will (talk) 19:04, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Procedural question concerning searching/replacing shortcuts
Avoid self-references has been renamed to Self-references to avoid.

The new shortcut is WP:SRTA.

Is it acceptable to search for WP:ASR and replace it with WP:SRTA based on the above name change, or does another discussion need to be started somewhere?

I figured it would be best to clarify this issue before I use AWB to search/replace.

I look forward to your replies.

 Th e Tr ans hu man ist    23:20, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Who cares? <small style="background:#fff;border:#191970 1px solid;color:#000;padding:0px 3px 1px 4px;white-space:nowrap">east<big style="color:#090">. 718 at 23:28, November 26, 2007


 * It is generally better to list the old shortcut on the page and not make the changes. If after a few months a new page wants the old shortcut, shortcut revisions can be decided upon at that time.  GRBerry 23:31, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the clarification. I was thinking that if it were updated, people would become aware of the name change faster.  The old name was causing problems of misinterpretation, and still does for those who are not aware of the name change.  The acronym "ASR" ("avoid self-references") implies that all self-references should be avoided, which is why the guideline's name was changed in the first place.  Where are shortcut revisions decided upon?    Th e Tr ans hu man ist    23:36, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed. In this case, 1038 pages have links to the old shortcut. Unless another page urgently needs the shortcut, there is no need to fix this. Also, people need to get used to not using the previous short-cut. Not sure what happens with non-linked uses, such as WP:ASR. I think the AWB search and replace only uses 'what links here'. Carcharoth (talk) 23:37, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Where is the usual place for posting a discussion to search/replace a shortcut?  Th e Tr ans hu man ist    23:44, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The pump might be a good place. Cheers, <small style="background:#fff;border:#008080 1px solid;color:#000;padding:0px 3px 1px 4px;white-space:nowrap">east<big style="color:#090">. 718 at 23:48, November 26, 2007
 * Thank you. The proposal has been posted at Village pump (proposals).   Th e Tr ans hu man ist    23:56, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Plot Summary vs Teaser
I'm not involved enough with Wikipedia to try to solve this situation myself, but if someone feels like attempting it... I have noticed in many film and novel articles there is a plot summary, but it is not actually a plot summary at all. It is a 'teaser', ending with something along the lines of "and then things get interesting", or whatever. The point is that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a movie and novel advertisement or fan site. There should be no fear of spoilers, of giving away the ending of a fictional work. At least, that's how I view an encyclopedia. I thought someone who knows how might want to create one of those boxes that goes at the top of an article saying "the plot summary is not encyclopedic" or something like that. Just an idea! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andyandy68 (talk • contribs) 21:41, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Call me a cynic, but we should've seen this coming when it became a crime to transclude . &mdash;Cryptic 22:36, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * -- Some of us did. Jheald (talk) 23:05, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * This is a good idea. I've noticed this too &mdash; I don't think it's a result of the spoiler guidelines, but rather a result of people getting lazy and just copy-pasting from review sites, or being influenced by them. --Haemo (talk) 22:43, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe teaser plot summaries do have a higher chance, in practice, of being copyright violations than detailed plot synopses. Whenever I see a one-paragraph plot summary that reads like advertisement copy, I search for it on google to see if it was literally copied from a promotional site. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 23:02, 25 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I was just about to say exactly what CBM said.  This isn't a new trend at all, it's just inexperienced editors pasting in jacket blurbs and the like. --Tony Sidaway 06:56, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Bernard d'Abrera


OTRS ticket 2007080210005311. Bernard d'Abrera has complained that his biography consistently belittles his work, which is a fair criticism - he is not, as the lead stated for some time, a "butterfly photographer", he is a respected taxonomist whose work cataloguing the Natural History Museum's collections has been cited in many independent works. A user,, is rather hotly disputing this, and also inserting peacock into a section that (IMO) factually describes a very substantial reference work covering the collections of the Natural History Museum. The problem is that d'Abrera stuck his head over the parapet and signed a petition in favour of creationism. This has not affected his access to the museum, at which he has high level clearance, and has not prevented his publishing company from contracting with the museum to produce fine-art reproductions of the works of John Gould. Mr. d'Abrera freely describes himself as a polemicist. That does not mean we need a hatchet job, of course. Some additional eyes would be appreciated. Guy (Help!) 11:06, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Much of what is in dispute (the details about his career) seems to be sourced to the references that are already present in the article; there is simply a lack of footnotes, which can be easily remedied. Some of the language is rather flourished (throughout the article), perhaps I'll have a go at reworking it. --bainer (talk) 11:20, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Guy (Help!) 11:56, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * As the subject of this complaint, may I chime in? I was not venturing an opinion over whether d'Abrera is a taxonomist or not, merely that the statement that he is one was (and remains) unsourced. The peacock-tag was perhaps over the top, and I apologise for it. I have already reached a resolution with JzG on one of the errors contained in his edits (the official title of the NMH), the other remains the statement that "PhD researchers must embrace evolutionary theory" is a "fact", which appears to me to be a violation of WP:NPOV (and now that I think of it outright untrue, given a fair number of Creationists with PhDs). I am not a major editor of this article (three edits, one of which was a revert, prior to this incident), but was concerned with the addition of statements in advance of, and in two cases in contradiction of, factual support. <font face="Antiqua, serif">HrafnTalkStalk 14:05, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * In this case "NPOV" appears to equate to belittling the subject, in very many past revisions. He has published a scholarly review of the entire British Museum collection of butterflies and moths; he describes himself as a taxonomist and is cited by scholarly works on lepidopterae.  Why would we have a problem with that?  It's certainly a good deal more neutral than "butterfly photographer", which completely fails to do justice to the fact that he provably has a British Museum security clearance and a publishing contract with said museum.  Guy (Help!) 14:18, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * If you have a reliable source for the statement that "He has published a scholarly review of the entire British Museum collection of butterflies and moths", then this statement should most certainly be included in his article. I have seen numerous misrepresentations of the qualifications and affiliations of people associated with the Creationist movement, so yes, I do have a problem with accepting d'Abrera's self-description at face value. Given that no organisation with the official name of 'British Museum (Natural History)' has existed for 15 years, I will admit to having doubts if he has current clearance or contracts with said organisation. Can you confirm that these were issued later than 1992? Finally, I have not expressed any objection to removal of previous material, and have only raised a NPOV issue over the statement, as fact, that "PhD researchers must embrace evolutionary theory". <font face="Antiqua, serif">HrafnTalkStalk 14:52, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Have you checked the citations of his work by independent authors? It is pretty clear that in the field he is respected. It looks to me as if your rather obvious bias against creationism (a bias which, incidentally, I share) is colouring your judgement. This level of rhetoric is not really appropriate when discussing a living person, especially when they are already sending complaints. Guy (Help!) 14:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I have attempted to (finding full articles is problematic). The first I was able to find cited dA for the identification of butterflies, the second gave him as one of a long list of citations for diversity (including morphological) of a family of butterflies. This would be consistent with his book merely being a photographic record of the NHM's collection (and listing pre-existing museum classifications of that collection), which was my prior understanding as to their content. Taxonomy involves the assignment of classifications to new (or I suppose previously misclassified) species. While it is possible that dA does this, these citations are no evidence that he does so. Such evidence would involve him classifying of previously unclassified species, or discussing methods of classsification. You have provided evidence that his books are notable and respected (which I have not disputed), not that they contain original taxonomic research. Re: "level of rhetoric", if you don't want an honest answer, then don't ask the question. And you still have not addressed my NPOV issue. <font face="Antiqua, serif">HrafnTalkStalk 16:03, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * May I suggest "biologist"? There appears to be a scholarly reference that him as such. A biologist who specialises in entomological taxonomy, or in the publishing of biogeographic catalogues, should serve as a useful compromise, besides being impeccably referenced. Relata refero (talk) 16:11, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't have a problem with biologist, whether the subject will or not I don't know. He believes his work lies in taxonomical cataloguing.  Whatever, it's being dismissed as a mere photographer that he clearly finds most offensive.  Actually I think a good photographer is a great thing to be, and those collections are very fragile and kept in dark conditions to avoid fading, so it's almost certainly a very specialised skill, but that's what he complains of so let's do our best not to gratuitously offend him.  Guy (Help!) 16:32, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay, colour me confused. The above Google-books link was to a book by Philip J. DeVries, I could find no mention of dA on that page (let alone reference to him as a biologist). A review of this book states "The photographs are of high quality and were taken under the supervision of Bernard D’Abrera who remains in a class of his own when it comes to assembling photographic plates of butterflies."
 * I would have no problem with calling dA an "author of entomological taxonomic catalogues" or similar -- though why he should wish to be known primarily as such when it is his photography that is "in a class of his own", I don't know. <font face="Antiqua, serif">HrafnTalkStalk 16:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Search within the book for his name. He's included in a concluding list of relevant biologists, and the writeup says that his catalogues are "famous ofor their lavish illustrations" and are "the only readily accessible references to global butterfly diversity." Relata refero (talk) 17:18, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * He is mentioned on a number of pages: pXV, he is thanked for his help with "photographic techniques", p58, he is cited as a source of a photograph. I presume you are talking about p61 where he is listed as part of a section on "Modern-Day Workers in the Neotropics" as part of a chapter on "Butterfly Biologists and the New World". Citing the chapter title for "biologist" seems a tad tenuous, but I must admit that I'm tired of this argument, so if people are insistent I'll let it slide. <font face="Antiqua, serif">HrafnTalkStalk 17:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

As the primary author of the article being complained about above, I think it is appropriate that I weigh in. I am stunned at the misrepresentations here.

Where is the evidence that BdA is a biologist? He is in a list of biologists in some non-peer reviewed publication? He has no degree in biology. He has no position as a biologist. He never had a professional position as a biologist. As far as a I know, he has no peer-reviewed publications as a biologist in a mainstream biology journal. There is no and I mean NO evidence that this person is a biologist, or a taxonomist. Has he been responsible for any changes of the accepted taxonomies of lepidoperta based on published peer-reviewed taxonomies? Or has he merely provided the raw data used by lepidoperists by performing the invaluable support function of photographing these collections? I think the literature supports the latter, although I am open to correction if someone can find WP:RS and WP:V sources to the contrary.

RE: the statement This has not affected his access to the museum, at which he has high level clearance, and has not prevented his publishing company from contracting with the museum to produce fine-art reproductions of the works of John Gould. I am stunned at this. The museum has "high level clearance"s? What sort of clearances does the museum use or issue? Are these comparable to the cryptologic clearances of GCHQ? Of the UK military? Clearances for diplomatic security, such as those issued by Foreign and Commonwealth Office? What sort of state secrets or proprietary information are inside the Natural History Museum? What evidence do we have that BdA is in possession of such a clearance, if these clearances even exist? What sort of evidence do you have for his current "access to the museum", any more than a member of the public visiting the museum? I am curious to know if this putative evidence contradicts the official statements and unofficial statements of the NHM that I am in possession of regarding the past and current relationship between BdA and the NHM.

A lot of the other statements above I find so misinformed as to be comical. I researched the subject of this article extensively for weeks. I contacted several outside organizations and individuals about him, including his alma mater, the National History Museum, his colleagues at the NHM and other organizations associated with creationism that know him or have had contact with him. This is just ridiculous. If the subject has published third party statements for some of his claims, that contradict the official position of the NHM about his relationship with the NHM, let him produce them.--Filll (talk) 19:06, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

It's pretty obvious that d'Abrera isn't a scientist, but rather a very gifted photographer who has photographically documented the BM's butterfly collection. However, calling him an "entomological taxonomist" is clearly a misuse of the term. In the course of normal usage, "taxonomy" is often used in a manner which overlaps with "[[systematics]" although, as the article explains, there is a distinction between the two. Occasionally, the term "classical taxonomy" (or something of the sort) is used to describe older, non-phylogenetic groupings.  It appears (based on this note) that d'Abrera has taken this usage and run with it, creating what appears to be a "new meaning" for the term "taxonomist":
 * Since his earliest volumes, Bernard d’Abrera has steadfastly been concerned with the need for strict observance of the rules of philosophy in the science and craft of pure taxonomy, sensu Linnaeus, in the study of all orders of natural history, where the ‘species’ is the terminal taxon, because of its scientifically demonstrable natural fixism. He is thus an unapologetic Aristotelian in that he professes the axiom of typology, in which ‘like-begets-like’. Therefore, for the last 25 years, he has been an outspoken foe of all cod-scientific theories of ‘Origins’ (itself, by definition, a serious metaphysical concept, beyond the remit and competence of the physical sciences) that broadly comprise Evolutionism. Thus, he suggests that such baleful and irrelevant theories seriously compromise any true scientific study of the natural world, which should only be based on collection & curation, observation & measurement, laboratory experiment & prediction, and a generous helping of common sense.


 * In 2001, in his now famous Concise Atlas of the Butterflies of the World (Hill House Publishers (Melb.& Lond.) the author launched a systematic and scholarly critique of what he sees as the patently unscientific, profligate, and self-serving posturings of the quasi-religion of Evolutionism. He did so on the basis of wishing to free himself and his readers from the neo-Darwinian hegemony and hubris of the scientific establishment, and ‘the viscid, asphyxiating baggage’ with which that establishment continues to burden and impede the true and profitable study of the natural sciences. He further argues that genuine natural science should be based solely on the living fauna & flora (which is also represented in museums), and not on tendentiously speculative and unprovable theories of the past that are best consigned to the realm of pure science fiction.

While d'Abrera's books are widely used tools for identification, they do not appear to be taxonomic works - they are more akin to popular guides to trees or wildflowers. In a book review in the journal Ecology Arthur Shapiro of UC Davis characterises d'Abrera's work as
 * Butterflies of South America by Bernard d'Abrera (1984. Hill House, Victoria, Australia) was essentially a miniature, geographically restricted version of Lewis and suffered from errors, poor writing and an almost complete lack of biological information. The same can be said of d'Abrera's expensive series of color monographs of the Neotropical butterflies, which aside from being produced in lavish coffee-table style and priced out of the market are basically catalogues of species represented on pins in the British Museum. – Arthur M. Shapiro Ecology, Vol. 69, No. 3. (Jun., 1988), pp. 875-876

Gifted photographer - yes. Entomological taxonomist? I see no evidence to support that assertion. Guettarda (talk) 20:57, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Why is this on AN? This is what talk pages are for. John Reaves 04:46, 27 November 2007 (UTC)