Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive172

User:Tarinth
's contributions are almost totally !votes on AfDs. And the !votes I have read (about ten in the past ten minutes) are practically nothing but bizarre. Before I start throwing templates or criticisms at him/her, am I totally off base here? User:Zoe|(talk) 00:15, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, a polite note that one's AFD contributions are likely to be taken more seriously if it's not one's only contributions to the project? Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 00:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * AFD is not a vote. The quality of the argument is the main thing, not the quality or quantity of the 'voters'.
 * At a quick glance, some of the comments are a bit harsh, but the few I looked at were superficially resonable. Any particular contribution(s) that worry you?  Regards, Ben Aveling 07:19, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * This one caused me to sit up and take notice. User:Zoe|(talk) 16:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * That seems to have been an exception, an attempt to express a close call decision humorously. This more recent Afd Tarinth participated in reasonably constructively: Articles_for_deletion/Iowa_Electronic_Markets, and this one quite constructively, actually improving the article under consideration: Articles_for_deletion/Argument_from_beauty. Tarinth isn't quite up on our fine points (Articles for deletion/Nick Cater) but seems to be making a good faith effort. AnonEMouse (squeak) 18:42, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks, this feedback is why I brought this here. I appreciate the input.  User:Zoe|(talk) 21:35, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I was surprised to find this here, as I was searching on my own name in response to another issue on the noticeboard. If you have feedback regarding my contributions Zoe, I'd suggest approaching me directly with your feedback.  While I've made a lot of contributions regardng AfD's, I've also contributed significant content for articles like MMORPG and have provided valuable additions to things like Evolution.  While I'd prefer not to receive templates on my talk page, I'd request that if you think that some of my comments have been "bizarre" that you could approach me about such comments directly.  As for Articles for deletion/Nick Cater, my comment there is more of a typo that argues more for not contributing when tired moreso than for my misunderstanding of Wikipedia (yes, I'm well-aware that we're not a dictionary.) Tarinth 16:48, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I didn't want to approach you until I had made up my mind how I wanted to address it. User:Zoe|(talk) 00:16, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Tourettes Guy
I'm posting this here instead of WP:RFP because it affects many articles. I noticed a pickup in vandalism to TS, and found *www.tourettesguy.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=7* (de-linked due to address now on blocklist)  Not only is Tourette syndrome being hit more frequently now, but also the several articles about the fictitious "Tourettes guy" that have been AfD'd (and DRV'd). I reluctantly concur that Tourette syndrome may need semi-protection for a while, and a closer eye may need to be kept on the TS daughter articles, and the various Tourettes Guy articles.
 * Articles for deletion/Tourette's Guy
 * Articles for deletion/Tourettes Guy
 * and there's a deletion review somewhere, but I can't find it.
 * Articles for deletion/Tourette's Guy
 * Articles for deletion/Tourettes Guy
 * and there's a deletion review somewhere, but I can't find it.
 * Articles for deletion/Tourettes Guy
 * and there's a deletion review somewhere, but I can't find it.

And, we also have sockpuppetry involved:

Thanks, Sandy Georgia (Talk) 17:23, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * November's deletion review in case it's informative. There may be others. -- Siobhan Hansa 17:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * July's and December's. &mdash;Cryptic 18:12, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * There's something really wrong with our DRV process if that many DRVs about TS can happen without me becoming aware of any of them - why is there no notification process on the article talk pages? Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 18:23, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I was sooooo tempted to use that f word again... yes, it's me, the real Tourette's Guy :o) Sandy, these DRVs had nothing to do with Tourette's, last time I checked it out there was pretty broad agreement that "Danny" doesn't even have Tourette's. I'm looking into whether we should be asking for spam blacklisting to help with the links. Guy (Help!) 19:10, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * oh, I don't think he has TS - he's just a drunken slob - but they've been adding their links to the TS article for a long time, and I'm sorta/kinda the only TS editor on Wiki, so you'd think I'd know what they're up to :-) We do need some help - I've seen their activity elsewhere.  Worried about WP:BEANS, though.  (And hold the coprojokes - you can't afford any right now - someone might take 'em the wrong way :o) Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 22:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Addendum: Centrx removed the WP:SALT from at least one incarnation, which had already been deleted six times, so I have made them all protected redirects to Tourette's Guy - if anyone deletes the protected-deleted there please let me know and I'll restore it. If we've learned one thing about these people it's that they are persistent. Guy (Help!) 19:14, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Also, and  - Talk:Porcupine will give you a fair idea of the kind of nonsense we get from this source. Guy (Help!) 20:04, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Blacklisted. Guy (Help!) 21:46, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

User:Ilena revisited
(WQA Dec 14, AN Dec 26, WPQ Jan 3) appears to be slipping back into her previous behavior after a week of marked improvement since the previous AN, thanks in no small part to the help of some very patient editors. With over 400 edits since early December, she still doesn't appear to understand WP:V and WP:NPOV, resulting in her edit-warring and other disruptive behavior which she supports with personal attacks against those who hold viewpoints other than her own. She recently indicated she would be contributing to Wikipedial much less over the next week, which I think is the ideal time to discuss the situation again, as opposed to timing of the previous AN, where she attacked everyone who even hinted at having a viewpoint she didn't like. Ronz 17:58, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It might be helpful if you provide some diffs with evidence of this behavior...--Isotope23 18:11, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * (chosen from her last 50 edits) --Ronz 20:53, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Another take on cause & effect with Ronz' machine gun policy cites, below.--I&#39;clast 23:50, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The problem has been three-fold:
 * She does not realize that Wikipedia doesn't deal in truth - we deal in verifiable facts. And when I point this out to her, she provides links that are not reliable sources.
 * The opposing editors in the dispute have been doing the same thing, which seems to be ending up in a tit-for-tat dispute where both sides are just going to come out of the matter looking very, very bad, and possibly blocked.
 * Ilena is very used to being on the defensive, after harassment by some of these editors in real life and on usenet. People have brought baggage onto Wikipedia, and this has fed her defensiveness.  This leads to the unfortunate side effect where she gets in this mindset where if someone is not for her, they are against her.
 * Cheers, * Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me  &bull; Neutrality Project  ) 18:19, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Peter deserves the Order of Lenin for the hard work he's put in mentoring Ilena. That said, harassment is a two-way street, and Ilena's not exactly an innocent victim here. I think there's really one issue: Ilena is here on Wikipedia to argue her case in a real-life feud with Stephen Barrett. It's a conflict of interest and also very disruptive to import a real-life feud into Wikipedia (which, after all, is ostensibly not a battleground). It could work out OK if she is able to understand and apply Wikipedia's core principles. Peter is an optimist, and I am a pessimist, as to the likelihood of this happening - credit to Peter. The question is, why do we cut someone with Ilena's contribution history so much more slack than we give a hard-working, productive admin)? But Isotope23 is right - please provide diffs to support the claim that she's backsliding. MastCell 19:52, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to agree with MastCell. WP:AGF but it appears there are several parties involved in this dispute who are bringing their usenet baggage here.  That said, I don't really see what Ronz is referring to.  There were a couple of edits on the 3rd to the Barrett v. Rosenthal article where a description was changed back and forth.  Without diffs it is hard to say if this is the problem User:Ronz is concerned about, but I will say that neither description is in any way sourced.  The edit war shouldn't have been engaged it, but that text should be sitting there uncited if it is disputed.  That said, User:Ilena seems to have a penchant for using article talk pages to air her grievances against other editors as well as continually claim bad faith on their part.  As Peter has alluded to above, there may be good reason she has these opinions based on her experiences elsewhere, but someone probably needs to remind her of WP:AGF and that she needs to treat Wiki as separate from her ongoing issues with people outside of the 'Pedia as well as a reminder of Verifiability not truth.--Isotope23 20:08, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

The thing is, I don't think censure of Ilena will be constructive, as it's just going to mean that a biased article is going to stay biased. For the most part she has been "playing nicer" by staying to the talk page, minus an incident of baiting.

I would like to propose a community remedy, but I'm unsure if it's something the community can do. Specifically, I would like to propose that, , and , as parties to this content dispute, are banned from editing these articles for a term agreed upon here, and must discuss changes they wish to make on the talk page. I, myself, voluntarily recuse myself from editing under this term due to my association as a mentor of Ilena. Thoughts? * Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me  &bull; Neutrality Project  ) 20:16, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * How am I party to this content dispute? If I am, then so is, .  and anyone who ever edits these sites.  I have no baggage wtih usenet, and I have no interest in POV in these articles.  Excuse me, but I really do not see this.  I welcome input as to where I have been biased or engaged in any dispute here, except to discuss what the the court ruling was (and was not).Jance 20:29, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't have any Usenet baggage either. I have always deliberately steered clear of her. Keep in mind that it was her making the first attacks (myriad) that started her problems, both on Usenet, in the courts, and here. That doesn't justify harsh replies, but "who started it" is an important factor here. Before she came here, the editing was getting along just fine. The Barrett v. Rosenthal article wasn't even started by any Barrett friends as far as I know, and that's how she found it. It had been started apparently by some lawyer types (or others interested in California law cases) who were interested in the case. She immediately started violating multiple rules here, and when anyone advised her, she replied with attacks and claims of POV reverts against her as a person, when it was only trying to get her to follow policy. Let's not start attacking the victims of her attacks.


 * Her very first entry on the talk page was a personal attack on me. My first article edits were not objectionable in any way, yet she attacked me and apparently assumed that the articles condition at that time was controlled by Barrett supporters, when they had actually not been involved at all. I had just discovered the article by chance. I think a block of the named editors (the victims of her attacks) who be a gross injustice to editors who had been working just fine before she started attacking all of us and violating multiple rules here, while editing in a severe COI situation, which means it is her who should be blocked from editing the article, and be limited to civil discourse on the talk page.


 * I take my hat off to Peter for his attempts to mentor her. I only fear his lack of understanding of Ilena's past history and consistently aggressive Usenet behavior (which she has brought here) has caused him to be too optimistic, but his attempts deserve our respect. Good for him! -- Fyslee 21:45, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * As much as I love the show Arthur, I had to edit your username templates above...--Isotope23 20:33, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid it's still not right. It was probably me.  &mdash; Arthur Rubin |  (talk) 20:51, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Gotcha... I didn't know which "Arthur" this referred to, I just added "user5" so we were not seeing the template for the PBS kids show. I would hope he and Buster Baxter are not involved in this dispute.--Isotope23 20:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I wasn't proposing censure here, at least not at this time. Without diffs it is really hard to say exactly what prompted this complaint in the first place, but from looking through Ilena's history I don't see anything current that would warrent a block or ban at this point, particularly given her claim that she is going to be off Wiki for a while.  Blocks and bans are meant to prevent problems, not be punative.  That said though, I'm inclined to agree with you Peter that if this silliness is continued, everyone involved in edit-warring here, particularly those who are actually connected to this outside 'Pedia should be slapped with a topic ban on anything related to Barrett v. Rosenthal for several months.  They are wasting other editors' time, yours included, with this nonsense.--Isotope23 20:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Or maybe mediation. It worked for NLP for a while, anyway. Guy (Help!) 20:41, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Right, I don't see any evidence of an RfM or an RfC here so tossing around community bans is a bit premature. Let WP:DR work its magic first.--Isotope23 20:45, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with Guy; maybe mediation is an appropriate next step. Many of the content disputes are actually relatively minor (6 reversions on whether to call a publicist a "publicist" or not, without any actual sourcing?!?) They don't exactly require ArbCom's attention - all that's needed is potentially some third-party input to smooth things over. I think Ilena considers me one of Barrett's minions, so I don't think I fit the bill. The problem with blocking all involved parties from editing is that the article will likely just sit there - the only people who really edit it at this point are the ones Peter has suggested blocking. Although, if the goal is to cool things off, perhaps it would work? MastCell 21:01, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Full on topic bans all around is the nuclear option; I don't think we are there yet. Better to start with an RfC and move on to RfM if that doesn't help.  I've had my own experience being referred to as a shill of sorts on another unrelated topic and I'd say, yes that probably much excludes you as being an acceptable 3rd party.  I'd be willing to have a look and make a few suggestions as a completely uninvolved party (I'd never heard of the case or any of the personalities involved here until it started showing up on WP:AN/I.  I'm probably as neutral as it is possible to be on this topic.--Isotope23 21:09, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand my proposal. Allow me to clarify. Article bans are a preventative measure, not enforced by blocks unless the editors break them. The idea is to give a "cooling off period" to diffuse a dispute, and I think such a period would be helpful. Thoughts? * Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me  &bull; Neutrality Project  ) 21:04, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * As I said above, I think an RfC to bring fresh outside perspective, and a RfM if that doesn't work would be good first steps. I don't think this has boiled over to the point where an enforced cooling off is needed yet.--Isotope23 21:24, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * And I object to Wizadry's proposal that I have a 'side' or am involved in any dispute re this entire issue. A review of my edits would verify that I am not.  I have also never participated in any of the external debates or usenet groups.  I am tired of being dragged into this.  Jance 21:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with Isotope23. An RfC may well be a constructive tool (NOT a forum to attack Ilena) to air the case and allow Ilena to learn more about wikipedia ettiquette, as well as the principle of truth vs verfiability. I think a soft ban of users from the Barrett related pages would be premature. Especially for editors such as jance who do not appear to have any direct connections to the topic outside wikipedia or have not shown any bad faith editing. David D. (Talk) 21:51, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Not to put too fine a point on it, Ronz has heckled Ilena with excessive (imho) & tortuous policy reading usages since she showed up that can be very anatagonistic, having had milder heckling issues with Ronz' policy broadsides myself that I considered to be with little merit if not provocative. My take is that sometimes "pro-Barrett" editors are playing with fire on WP:BLP issues with respect to Ilena w/o any recognition. I strain to identify, understand and address some underlying issues although I think that I am fairly aware of many relevant factors. I am hopeful that the "baggage problem" of several can be analyzed, mediated and defused to the general betterment of WP and editors. IHMO, this "revisit" is divisive, premature and unnecessary.--I&#39;clast 23:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * As someone who's been trying to help Ilena, I take great offense at these personal attacks against me. Now's the time to revisit, when it's obvious there are still serious problems, when she's tried to give herself some time to cool off (which I think is admirable), and when the editors that have been helping her feel there's little more they can do without further help or other intervention. --Ronz 00:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Could we see diffs for Ronz's provocations? Or diffs of the WP:BLP concerns re Ilena? There's a simple way to solve the "baggage problem": apply the conflict of interest guideline. It exists specifically to address such situations, and to prevent the importation of outside interests/feuds to Wikipedia. Ilena's had umpteen chances, and we're still hearing the "Ronz/Fyslee made her do it" argument. At some point, that dog won't hunt anymore and Ilena needs to edit responsibly or face a community sanction. I think we're at that point. MastCell 00:12, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I concur with MastCell, except that Ilena is not the only party to this, and we shouldn't treat her as such. Such is why I put forth my proposal earlier, as I felt it was a light-handed approach to the situation while sending a clear message.  Cheers, * Peter M Dodge  ( Talk to Me  &bull; Neutrality Project  ) 00:36, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Peter, this makes no sense. If there are two or more have a conflict, then consider them.   However, your arbitary selection of editors does not.  Why do you suggest that I, for example, and not MastCell or Ronz, be blocked?  I have no more conflict than MastCell or Ronz, even Arthur.  So you need to articulate your reasons for your 'selection', and you have not.  I am getting real sick of your dragging me into this.  Jance 01:29, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * MastCell: Here is Ronz earlier deletion (rv) of the (I think) latest WP:BLP related item (for both SBarrett & Ilena R) in contention. This is a critical point for both parties, with SB's constant assertion of defamation, with his admission of "approximately 40" lawsuits in several years(!), it is *the* undeniable counterpoint on Dr Barrett's decades of such assertions & legal demands/threats, all relatively unchallenged in the press.  Here are two of Ronz', ' "TLA" policy dumps", add a few more, multiply it a couple dozen times when they are not compelling or appropriately used, in the middle of tense edits & negotiations, and then flat denial after quoting the policies verbatim, e.g. WP:NOT, WP:OR; Ronz' immovable replies:  WP:NOT, WP:OR. Ditto NPOV and others.


 * Here is Ronz over-reacting, "being over offended" and starting to "build a file" where my choice is ignore it or likely endure an escalation of noise if I call him on it. Look at the edit links carefully to see if you think that is the basis of a warning. A similar, more focused exchange with another editor, see difs  thru.


 * "Ilena's had umpteen chances"? I'll agree on a persona that took lots of work, in some senses, never a first chance, where "pro-Barrett editors" policy interpretations were somewhat different than the verbatim policies and Ilena didn't know the rules well enough to back her intuition, lots of frustration.  That kind of early clash seems part of the "bipolar" scenery here, I am just bewildered by such hypersensitivity in such a "rugby club". I accept a certain amount of polarzation given the editors' situations. I had hoped to address bilaterally (Thanks). Lately we seemed close to edit stability, at which time Ilena would proabably lose interest (she isn't going anywhere w/o support).  Peter is suggesting COI article bans (just  BvR? or the  QW/  SB /  NCAHF series articles too?) perhaps very late in the article's process.  I felt like we were close to necessarily coming to closure on the BvR, SB, NCAF articles, when Ilena was already leaving the field, and that someone filing this premature AN/I has unnecessarily turned it into a  free-for-all (as above), jeopardizing a quality closure on the articles, & tearing up a lot of hard earned collaboration from over the holidays.--I'clast 13:40, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * None of this has anything to do with Ilena's relapse in behavior, nor relates to it. I've listed 20 of Ilena's last 50 edits (covering only 3 days) as problematic.  Perhaps you should take your personal gripe with me, which you show goes back a month and spans over 1,000 of my edits, to an appropriate venue. --Ronz 16:43, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe the best solution for now is to drop this entirely, and see what happens. I do agree wtih MastCell that the Barrett article(s) are near stability.  I don't like the idea of talking about one editor when she is not here, and not causing disruption.  Further, in NCAHF, both "pro" and "anti" Barrett editors agreed that one editor was a problem- the article was unlocked, and if that editor causes disruption again, presumably he will be dealt with by admins.  I suggest we adopt that plan for this situation, as well.Jance 20:30, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that's a fine idea. If there's further trouble at the articles, I'd suggest a formal request for mediation, since the content disputes tend to be fairly minor. I do want to emphasize that we need to stop making excuses for Ilena. This is not about Fyslee, or Ronz, or other editors - whose behavior has at times been provocative. Right now, Ilena has had umpteen warnings, in plain English, and has been cut a massive amount of slack. It's fair, at this point, to ask her to take responsibility for her own edits and actions, stop blaming others, and follow Wikipedia policy. If she feels she's being harassed, or that Ronz/Fyslee are misbehaving, then bring the matter here, or get an advocate (eg Peter Dodge) or an outside admin to help. That's how things work, and she's been on Wikipedia long enough now to understand that and start playing by the rules. MastCell 23:54, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

User:ThomasK and User:84.114.131.26
I know I committed a lot of vandalism. I apologize to all affected. I'm now redemped and going to fight vandalism. Please unblock the IP and the account. Thanks -The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.98.78.106 (talk)
 * There is a DO NOT UNBLOCK message associated with that IP. Viridae Talk 09:47, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes because i did a lot of vandalism. I'm now on the opposite site. Please unblock. -The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.98.78.106 (talk)


 * The IP you're posting from now has been blocked twice in the last few weeks as well (including once on Tuesday). As such, consider this request denied.  In any event, the unblock of an IP address involved in such extensive vandalism should, if anything, be taken to ArbCom via e-mailing the arbitration list.  Ral315 (talk) 10:04, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The WHOIS stating that the IP is in Germany but with contributions in English and to a random Missouri High School suggests an Open Proxy, as well.-Ryulong ( ****** ) 09:51, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The complete whois does not list this IP as an open proxy. However, its from Germany, so you never know. &mdash; Nearly Headless Nick  10:11, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the message from Alkivar makes it pretty clear this is moot. Just as a FYI, the same message is being spammed around at other process pages, eg. WP:RFPP. Daniel.Bryant [ T . C ] 12:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Looking at your contributions, you don't look like you have reformed much. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 23:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

User:Nardelli, User:Enriquecardova and more
I am suspecting that has recently made edits using these accounts:, , ,. I am not sure if the number of edits qualify for CheckUser yet, but the nature of the edits are very much the same as those of Enriquecardova. User:Nardelli's first edit is this immediate talk page message on the Egyptians article and his third is this massive deletion of the entire history section. I am going to revert this edit but if these are sock accounts, I'm anticipating a lot of edit warring because Enriquecardova has a history of such behavior on Controversy over racial characteristics of ancient Egyptians (see his talk page history as well). He also edited Egyptians using an IP and I asked him on his talk page not to do that (he said he wasn't logged in). We actually appear to have reached consensus on a different issue. I'd like to assume good faith, but given the history of disruption I'm highly suspicious. I'd appreciate some community input. &mdash; [ zI?*Id@ ] &middot;    *   19:23, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * As expected, he began engaging in disruptive editing, . &mdash; <font face="Tahoma">[ zI?*Id@<h> ] <font color="#daa520">&middot;   <font color="RoyalBlue"> *   22:54, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Disputed indef block of User:Nkras
Nkras was indef blocked by Zscout370, and several editors are requesting a review of the block. The relevant talk pages are User talk:Nkras, User talk:Coredesat, and User talk:Zscout370. &mdash; coe l acan t a lk  &mdash; 02:27, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * To simplify, Nkras was asked not to repost content from an article called Traditional marriage, which was deleted via an AFD. While the deletions of the reposted content were by Coredesat, I was the one who did the block. I chose an indefinite block because of one of the summaries Nkras used to recreate the content. The summary, as repasted at User_talk:Zscout370, felt like taunting and refuse to listen to consensus. He was blocked before, though it was retracted some time later by that same admin. I feel that it was his intent to disrupt Wikipedia by reposting the content, and with his recreation statement, I felt that he would have caused more harm than good. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 02:35, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * i've taken it to ArbCom. Zscout370 made very clear he wasn't changing his mind and i, for one, don't want to waste my breath with him. we don't need to kneel down and beg admins to just act like decent people.  we don't need to beg them at all.  they need to take their role as servants of the project more seriously than that.  i dunno how long Zscout has been an admin, but i'll bet he likes power and tossing it around. r b-j 05:06, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Please see my comments on the requests for arbitration page. The Arbitration Committee will not consider this matter until earlier stages in dispute resolution are exhausted. This discussion is the appropriate place at which a consensus on this block should be reached. I will add that while the block appears harsh, personal attacks on the blocking administrator do not advance the discussion. Newyorkbrad 05:09, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Wow. That's quite a jump there, going from a block that you disagree with to complete assumption of bad faith and personal attacks.  POV forks are bad.  Immediately recreating them after they are rightfully deleted (AfD here) is bad and reeks of intentional disruption and violation of consensus.  If the user has no history of this, then okay, shortening the block might be acceptable; however, my understanding is that is not the case here and in fact the user had been blocked for POV pushing before.  Where is the evidence that they are here to build an encyclopedia consistent with our goals?  I don't see it.  -<font color="#333333">bbatsell   ??  05:24, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * My (now deleted) summary of the matter is at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Nkras&oldid=98587038#Overreaction.3F &mdash; coe l acan t a lk  &mdash; 06:55, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * That + the responses from the blocked party pretty much sums up and ends the matter in my book. Unless there's something big I've missed in reviewing this, I firmly endorse the block. -<font color="#333333">bbatsell   ??  07:11, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm also of the opinion that the indefinate block is an excessive time period. User:Nkras has a strong opinion on the subject of marriage and what is the definition of marriage. I came to article when a WP:RFPP was placed granting full protection and later removed that same protection after discussions on the article talk page had taken place. During those discussions Nkras was an active participant but he was also able to agree to a IMHO reasonible compromise see this discussion. Whist a block for his actions were necessary IHMO is that a short term block to enable him to consider his actions would have been sufficient. Additionally Arbcom set a precedent of restricted editing to other editors who have strong opinions than Nkras which should also be considered like at Talk:Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy with User:Raphael1. Gnangarra 07:43, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I am Strongly Oppose this indefinite block. I was one of the users who was both affected by (and highly irritated by) his contentious edits. However, the fact remains that he was the principal author of the compromise reached about the opening section of the Marriage article. He drafted the text that now stands, with input of several other editors. It is a classic example of how Wikipedia is supposed to work. Yes, he has made several mistakes in his time at Wikipedia, but he has learned from them, and I have seen him grow. As to his recreation of the traditional marriage article, as has already been pointed out, it was substantially different from the article that was deleted. While the admins who acted against the recreation may not have known this, it goes a long way towards clarifying his intentions, and his frustration at seeing it deleted once again. I would like to add that this entire situation has been highly stressful for many editors here. One user has already left the project due to the block of Nkras, and I am considering leaving myself. I urge you to rescind this block, which is causing more damage than it was supposed to prevent. Jeffpw 10:27, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

"+1">S em]] 11:02, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * While I fully endorse this block, its duration seems to me too harsh. Nkras has only one previous block, and it was lifted only one hour later. He's not a persistent troblemaker, and block no longer than a week is appropriate in this case, IMO. [[User:MaxSem|Max<font size=
 * Per Maxsem. While I fully endorse this block, an indef is a bit much. Give him a week off and make it absolutely clear to this fellow that "Consensus" is absolutely vital and that we must stick by it. What is more, also make it clear to him that DRV exists for a reason. Though an indef is a bit much, this editor's conduct sticks badly in the craw. Moreschi Deletion! 11:55, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The block was totally appropriate, especially given the edit summary for the recreation and the statement "I will not agree to any "consensus"". I fully endorse the block. Zscout should not be in any way sanctioned for what i deem to be a perfectly appropriate block of a user who specifically stated they will ignore concensus achieved and judged upon by a neutral administrator at AfD, and go and recreate an article after specifically being told not to (but rather to go to DRV) three times! However, I would agree to an unblock in a week's time or so, on the provision that if he recreates the content, or acts disruptively in any form related to Zscout, Cored. or any other editor involved, he is blocked indef. Daniel.Bryant [ T . C ] 12:13, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I absolutely agree with you on two points: no sanctions against Zscout370 (it was one, isolated overreaction in good faith) should be taken, and that when an if Nkras will be unblocked, his next action against consensus should result in indef or something close to that. But even such incivil and stupid comment as the one you've quoted shouldn't result in indef with no serious violations in background. Max<font size="+1">S em 12:35, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) I think this could be put down to a series of unfortunate events. I don't think Zscout's reaction could be accurately described as an "overreaction"; it was more the fact that he might have seen a bunch of edits that screamed "indef" at him, and missed all the good stuff. It's why we have WP:AGF, and I think Zscout is entitled to a lot of it, and Nkras a little bit as well :) Also, see Mangojuice's comment below - he sums up the distinction between "indefinite" and "infinte" quite nicely; this misunderstanding is probably cause for most angst. Daniel.Bryant [ T . C ] 12:58, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I think Zscout acted correctly on the information available, whats happening here is an act of good faith from those that have interated with Nkras knowing that once the initial heat is removed from the action he's capable of reaching a consensus. With this knowledge the community wants to extend to Nkras the opportunity to again participate as such I think an appropriate warning to Nkras that further such actions wont be tolerated and that the indefinated block will be reimpossed if he repeats such actions. Gnangarra 13:14, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I fully endorse Zscout's decision to indefinitely block. The user in question has disrupted Wikipedia and has made statements that he will continue to do so.  Remember that an "indefinite" block is not an "infinite" one -- if Nkras changes his attitude the situation could change.  But until then, I see no reason to allow him to return to editing after time off -- time seems unlikely to settle his behavior.  Mango juice talk 12:55, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Perfectly summed up - this distinction (indefinite != infinte) is probably the cause of all the angst in this dispute. Another perfect example, from 5mins ago, is here. Daniel.Bryant [ T . C ] 13:01, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * How does Nkras demonstarte a change in attitude without being able to edit? Gnangarra 13:14, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Emails and talk page discussions (assuming his talk isn't protected) saying that he will not be disruptive would show a good faith attempt at a change in attitude. Oh and agree with Mangojuice and Daniel Bryant (and assumedly Zscout) that indef != ban.  Its amazingly simple to shorten a block if assurances to stop disruptive actions are forthcoming. Syrthiss 13:23, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I have emailed Nkras, and urged him to email Zscout to discuss this block and how to have it removed. And to paraphrase what was stated above, if we as a community are to assume good faith on the part of administrators, I would hope that admins can extend the same courtesy to new users who are still learning how the Wiki process works. Jeffpw 13:34, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * While I fully respect the decision to block any user with repeated disruptive edits on "hot" topics that claim to "ignore consensus". However, I cannot help but feel that a few things were a little off with the way it happened. First, ZScout said at the RfA discussion that the user's eit summaries were "taunting the admins". I've got the feeling that Nkras's edits were not the main reason why ZScout blocked him, but more because he refused to respect the admin's "authority". Then, the "consensus" citation is off context, as Nkras was making a very good point, per WP:IAR. Furthermore, while I like the technicity and poetry of the infinite/indefinite disambiguation, it not fair to the blocked user (nor is it textually correct: "Infinite block" wouldn't apply to its duration, but to all its aspects, so it couldn't apply here): There is a reason why we have 24h, 1weekand 2 weeksblocks. Else we could just indefblock everyone and be done with it. An indefblock makes a user feel at the mercy of the first admin. That's good sometimes: some people need to understand that there is a regulation mechanism here; but right now it's a tad too much.
 * Now, I'd like everyone to understand me real good: I don't like that guy, and if after his 1 week block and some good explanations about why there are talk pages he went back to disruptive edits, commentsand summaries, and then was bloocked indefinitely, I'd be more than happy. But after a short block to let him browse the policies and guidelines, and make his own mind as to wether he wants to be a part of this or not. Not before. Thanks for reading.--SidiLemine 14:37, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * << I've got the feeling that Nkras's edits were not the main reason why ZScout blocked him, but more because he refused to respect the admin's "authority". >>
 * That's assumption of bad faith without a shred of evidence. In fact, he wasn't going against the authority of administrators, he was going against the authority of the community. WP:IAR does not apply to violating consensus (<< I will not agree to any "consensus" >>), it applies to skipping unnecessary and inapplicable process. -<font color="#333333">bbatsell  ??  15:38, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I endorse the indef block of Nkras. He is not a bumbling newbie. He appears to be an upholder of 'absolute truth', which explains his refusal to accept consensus. As such, he is unlikely to accomodate himself to the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia, where, after all, verifiability comes before 'truth'. --  Donald Albury  15:20, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I disagree, Donald. Nkras has been here for exactly 2 months, and of his 289 edits, only 76 are to articles themselves. The vast majority are on various talk pages, which doesn't really give one experience in consensus building or constructive editing. In my eyes, he is relatively new, and deserves a chance to learn from his mistakes. Jeffpw 15:30, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * "Being unlikely to accomodate" doesn't mean he won't. Unblocking the guy after a week, and watching him closely won't cost much. If he really is the absolute truth upholder you say he is, it won't take two hours after that to ban him once and for good. Oh, and verifiability is not consensus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by $yD! (talk • contribs) SidiLemine
 * I think part of the issue here is that some of you don't have the perspective admins have. I have had the experience in the past of giving a user the benefit of the doubt and trying to monitor their behavior.  Several times, in fact.  I've learned to be conservative because, let's face it, the upside to any one editor being honestly involved in the project is usually small, but there's a very big downside to disruptive ones.  A couple examples that spring to mind are User:Hurricane Devon and User:Aquafish, that I was personally involved in.  The truth is, one admin watching closely means that they have to divert a good portion of their attention, and be on-wiki 24/7, and spend a lot of time analyzing borderline behavior, agonizing aboud whether to reblock, possibly discussing with other admins, whereas that time could be spent much more productively if the user was simply blocked.  Mango juice talk 16:23, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I endorse this block. shows complete contempt for Wiki ways in the face of some very patient explanations of how to go about this the right way.  No angry mastodons, thanks. Guy (Help!) 16:04, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * While I am the first to admit he was at times obstructive and contentiopus in his edits on the MArriage article, the diff above gives a distorted picture of events there. This diff and this one and |this last one here clearly show he was working quite collegially with other editors after tempers had died down. Please try to show a complete picture of his editing on Wikipedia, and not only negative examples. Jeffpw 16:19, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment on process. One of things that bothered me about this dispute and the reason for my limited involvement, was that User:Nkras was given no explanation by the blocking admin of the unblock procedure. I would hope that the subject of such sanction would always have it explained to them at the time how they can have the decision reviewed. I wonder if there are any thoughts on this point? As to the block itself- yes, an indef block does seem rather long. But given that Nkras has not in his later posts to his talk page expressed regret for his disruption or an undertaking not to disrupt in the same manner again, I recognise that he gives little reason to trust him. WJBscribe (WJB talk) 16:29, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Didn't he change his ways even before being blocked? Anyway, I think I can say that we have reached a consensus that while a block is in order, an indefblock is too much. Now we probably should decide upon the reasonable length the block should have. I personally think one week is enough. --SidiLemine 16:41, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Support for SidiLemine's compromise block, with the proviso that Nkras is put on some sort of monitoring/mentoring restriction. Jeffpw 16:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * This isn't a vote. Theresa Knott has asked for Nkras to clarify his future behavior, let's start there. Mango juice talk 16:48, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Mangojuice, we all know this is not a vote. This is a discussion of whether this indefinite block was appropriate or not, and an attempt to reach consensus about what should be done. As such, my support of SidiLemine's attempt at a solution was appropriate. Please don't be pedantic. Jeffpw 16:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Peace. Mangojuice does make a totally valid point. Until Nkras has clarified how he intends to conduct himself in future there really is no way of determining how long a block is appopriate. If he says, "I will do everything in my power to undermine this scocially left institution," he prob shouldn't be unblocked. If he says, "I am very sorry and promise to always work towards concensus constructively in future," a shorter block might be appropriate. Without his response the discussion is slightly hypothetical. WJBscribe (WJB talk) 17:09, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. Blocks are preventive, a credible commitment to no further disruption would likely be persuasive in an unblock request.  That said, the block is warranted due to the statements made.  So.  See what happens, I think.   Guy (Help!) 17:15, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Herein lies the problem with editors, editing articles they have strong personal feelings about... I agree with what Mangjuice said above.  Based on Nkras's statments in some of the diffs provided above he appears ready to embark on some tenditious editing in regards to this topic.  I'd like to see him submit a request for block review or comment on his userpage committing to working on a consensus instead of editing in a way that could be seen as disruptive or WP:POINT-making.  the ArbCom is premature.  I don't see any evidence RfM or RfC was ever pursued here.  We have those for a reason.--Isotope23 17:28, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * OK. Is he aware that he should state that helearned, and won't do it again? And slightly off-topic, isn't therea risk in these kind of situations that the guy just understands he got banned, and doesn't even come back to check his talk page? Just asking. We also have block warning templates for a reason. --SidiLemine 17:43, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * He has edited numerous times since the block; in my opinion, the tone of those edits is not at all an improvement and more clearly delineates his role as a POV warrior. Check his contribs.  Plus, he was blocked for POV pushing once before; that's about as big a block warning template as you can get.  He apparently expressed enough regret to get CanadianCaesar to unblock him before the block was to expire, but he went right back to it only a few days later.  -<font color="#333333">bbatsell   ??  17:50, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Plus, there are pointers to this discussion and the WP:RFAR on his talk page. Just because he's blocked doesn't mean he can't read those discussions.  Mango juice talk 18:31, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Nkras posted on his talk page, stating that during a block of two weeks, he will study up on policy. I am pretty much fine with that because it shows that Nkras has made error and is making some effort to fix it. I am not sure what policies that Nkras should read other than WP:NPOV and Deletion policy, since those are the two core issues. What do yall think? User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 23:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Discussion of the unblock by Nkras himself: User_talk:Nkras. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 23:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

(losing indent) I am not happy with the last sentence. I will not agree to his terms so to speak. However I do think he should be unblocked. I propose this - we unblock for a different time period - say a week (or even straight away if you like). We advise him to read up on the relavent policies. He can choose not if he likes, I don't care. When he comes back if he engages in further disruptive edits we block him indefinately - end of discussion. That way we don't have to negiotiate with a problematic editor or have to concede to him some power to be the arbiter of truth, and still give him a chance to learn to edit in cooperation with others. What do people think? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 01:59, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I will probably let this ferment for a day or two, since you, myself and another person told him about the last sentence. While it is good he is addressing the block, I just do not see anything that convinces me yet of if the block should be shortened, let alone lifted. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 03:17, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I am very disappointed at Nkras' reaction. The last sentence he wrote in his "unblock proposal", User:nkras reserves the right to edit and discuss articles based upon objective truth and fact without retaliation by Admins or Editors. suggests that he will continue the same practices that led to the current situation we find ourselves in. Though I have been one of the most vocal proponents of having his block rescinded, I don't feel it is up to Nkras to dictate the terms of his reentry to the community. Nkras has been given a very thorough hearing, and I am now satisfied with whatever decision the administrators wish to return. Jeffpw 05:44, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I am uninvolved, but after reading his skewed proposal, I will have to say I will vehemently reject it. His last sentence is an equivalent to upending not only his entire proposed "compromise," but also core Wikipedia policies with it with his "I'm-right-and-you-better-get-the-hell-out-of-my-face" attitude. Sorry, we're not here to mollycoddle one single editor that the community barely trusts anymore. We're not here to be forced onto a negotiating table with an editor who has blatantly and steadfastly refused to accept consensus as a benchmark for inclusion in Wikipedia, detailed ad nauseum in various pages spanning Wikipedia and beyond. --210<font color="#0000C0" face="Comic Sans MS">physicq  (<font color="#0000C0">c ) 06:09, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * "...and beyond"? &mdash; coe l acan t a lk  &mdash; 06:38, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * IRC. Oh yes, I forgot that that place is admin/editor cabal only. Never mind. --210<font color="#0000C0" face="Comic Sans MS">physicq  (<font color="#0000C0">c ) 23:00, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * As to the block itself, I have no comment; I'm just trying to clarify things. He considers "kosher" important as an example of language usage. To understand the point he's trying to make with the example currently on his talk page, one may need the context of the preceding discussion. It's referenced in several places at Talk:Marriage/Archive3, but gets detailed in the section preceding this diff with an addendum here. &mdash; coe l acan t a lk  &mdash; 03:24, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I've decided to try unblocking him. I feel generally that indefinate blocks are for hopeless cases and I don't (yet) feel he is one. Although my discussion with him hasn't been 100% what I asked for, it has gone well enough. He is not IMO the sort of nut that needs to be permenantly banned. What he does now will prove me right or wrong. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 01:04, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Art Dominique sockpuppet army
The banned user is a long-standing vandal with a huge number of socks, most of them currently blocked. A series of them were blocked, based on a checkuser report (see most recently archived case from 3 January, 2007). A newer checkuser was filed for another bunch of socks of this user (4 January 2007), but that checkuser was declined as "impossibility to check". The declining checkuser didn't want to explain why it was impossible. I'm not really contesting that decision, but I still think someone should look at these socks and block them if they think there's a good reason. The connection to Art Dominique is here. As you can see, one of Art Dominique's socks was determined to be a subaccount of.

Hope someone will review these. TheQuandry 22:16, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks highly likely, blocking (even though most are inactive) for safety. Guy (Help!) 22:57, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The checkuser declined per a technical reason, which for WP:BEANS sake, will not be explained further. Checkusers are under no obligation to explain why they delined - most declines aren't even given an explination at all, but rather ". ~ ". Take it to SSP if you have to, in the future. Cheers, Daniel.Bryant [ T . C ] 00:27, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Don't be shy about posting new suspects to the checkuser page, either. Just because these were declined doesn't mean future checks against new socks will be.  There is a rather trivial technical reason why these were declined that has nothing to do with the merits of the request. Thatcher131 03:20, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Just don't post the exact same content again as a copy-paste; ie. the equivalent of a :) Daniel.Bryant [ T . C ] 04:03, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Yep, I understand the reason why it was declined and I'm fine with it. I just figured this method would be quicker, before AD logs in and finds all his most recent socks banned, and decides to start using older ones. Thanks everyone. TheQuandry 02:25, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

3RR with myself?
Can you have a 3RR revert war with yourself? I've recently decided to edit a page. I couldn't decide on certain format. I would reformat every so often correcting typos and wikilinks. (You don't have to answer this if the answer NO.) obviously it would be rediculus to have an edit war with yourself... unless you have some split personality. Or what if an administrator thinks you edit something, back in the year 2004, then you revert it in 2005, and then you put it back in 2006? Is there a time lapse between 3RR? --CyclePat 03:31, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Re your first question: no; re your last: 24 hours. See WP:3RR. However, you might want to make more use of the "show preview" button. Chick Bowen 04:28, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It takes two to tango CyclePat. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 04:59, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:IAR. - Merzbow 07:31, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I can think of a case where you might get blocked for this. Say you edit under your registered name then also as an unregistered IP. If you then violated 3RR under your registered name (against your unregistered one) it would appear to Admins as if you were edit warring and you could indeed be blocked (IMO). THe moral of this story is: Dont argue with yourself. Or at least, if you do, do it under the same name! 8-)--Light current 22:03, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you everyone! 8-) If only every case here at AN/I had this "lighter current" of humour!!(Pun intended). A lecon though is that I will definatelly need to work on the "preview" button. Finally, though it's probably funny, I'd actually hate to see a real case of someone arguing with himself here on wikipedia! --CyclePat 02:28, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Anon user
Just see this anon user:

LOL, haha, you fuckin loser Wobbs, yeah maybe I am Epf......NOT. Although he shares some views with me on race, hes some dumb Italian-British mut from Canada that actually annoys me. I have used other accounts on here, but with other anon. accounts, not as a registered user (which is allowed by Wikipedia since IP #'s change all the time). Hahaha, Wobbs, you are a fool, especially with how you place so much emphasis on those books recently released by Sykes, etc. which are a minority opinion in the world of population geneticists and other researchers. For your information, Racial Reality isn't a "neo-nazi" site you anarchist loser with no hope because your life is meaningless and you don't know ANYTHING on what you read about with these issues. RR is a neutral point of view that seeks to refute neo-nazi, white supremacists, multi-racial, race-denier, assimilationist, biased opinions that influence works including the authors of those books you mentioned. Stick to being a pathetic lab assistant and get a life you fuckin tool and stop vandalizing pages and makin edits to suit your twisted opinons you fool. Hahaha, wow, do u accuse 'sock pupety" of everyone who gets under you skin you douchebag ??? 69.157.107.88 23:37, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

You can see him at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Wobble#Anon_user_conduct

What shall we do about him? Veritas et Severitas 18:46, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Subsequernt edits seem less problematic and responded to warning . I say we watch and wait.  Guy (Help!) 19:07, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, he reposted an even nastier version of the above again on Wobble's talk page, so I blocked him for 24 hours for abusive behavior, personal attacks, and disruption. Antandrus  (talk) 21:53, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * User:Eoganan repeated the latest set of personal attacks on my talk page and User:Wobble's and as a result has been indefinitely blocked. As I mentioned in my block notice to him, IP addresses used by the editor to evade this block and make further personal attacks should be blocked without notice. Gwernol 22:41, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * He's now being asked to be unblocked on the basis that if we don't he'll go on an IP rampage and disrupt Wikipedia. I'll leave it to another admin to respond to that... Gwernol 22:48, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I've done so. Jkelly 22:55, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, enjoy this. I wonder how he thinks he'll upload a virus onto the Wikipedia servers? Gwernol 23:03, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * "Wikipedia allows ignorant and nihilist opinions on its articles which are insulting and detrimental to many people, so I will take down the whole thing. Numerous new IP's and user accounts will be vandalized many articles as possible and I plan to insert my newest virus into the system by "next week".....Also, User:Wobble, User:Epf, User:Gwenrol and others will be located and assaulted." posted by
 * Certainly there should be a block on sight policy for IP that vandalise the three named users. David D. (Talk) 23:22, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The last part of that edit could be taken as a threat of physical violence. Given that the IP resolves to Ontario, Canada, which is also where one of the named targets, User:Epf, is (according to his user page) located, I believe it might be in order for someone to give the local police a call.  Even though it's unlikely that the user is really planning to carry out his threat, just making it seems a serious enough matter to be brought to the attention of the authorities.  The cops can then contant the abuse department of the user's ISP, being in a better position to sort out the matter with them than we are.  Anyone in Canada want to do this, or do I have to make an international phone call?  -Ilmari Karonen (talk) 02:54, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I've sent an e-mail to the Ontario Provincial Police Crime Prevention Team and the abuse department at sympatico.ca. Let's hope they'll handle this from here on.  —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 18:58, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Street Fighter II

 * I'm having a problem at Street Fighter II. An anonymous user (67.36.63.229) is constantly adding miniaturized pictures of the characters and flag images into the character list in this article.  This could be characterized as a content dispute, except I believe the accepted method of handling things like this is discussing and reaching consensus on the talk page, and the user simply does not respond to messages I leave him on his user talk; he simply keeps reverting the page back to his version.  While it is only one user, I feel the article should be semi-protected so he will at least be required to discuss the issue in some fashion before making his changes.  By the way, he was previously blocked by User:Kukini for adding false information to Cammy; one of his first edits when the block expired was to add that false information back in. Danny Lilithborne 02:52, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Have sprotected the page for a while. Hopefully this will get some sort of response. If, when it is unprotected he continues then let me know and I will give him a short sharp block for disruption. Viridae Talk 02:59, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

==Regarding the sock puppeteer Illythr (Roobit, Whiskey, 68.39.144.136, 88.108.136.138, Jatrius, etc.)==

Administrators: My user name Ahven is a fish was posted - along with some other usernames - at the checkuser page a couple of days ago. I became blocked, along with user Masa62 and some others, suspected of being sock puppets. I've contacted Masa62. The two of us have contacted the Administrator who blocked us, to please reverse the action. So far there hasn't been an answer back.

Masa62 and I reside in a high tech university city, where the same IP address can be used by thousands of people. As each of us use only one user account, we ask you to please reverse the action taken by the checkuser administrator.

While the checkuser process was going on, I posted the below information about the user Illythr to the checkuser page commendations, but the message became deleted, twice. Some of the below allegations against the user Illythr have previously been revealed by various users at the Continuation War talk page. These allegations prompted user Illythr to go after the opposing users through the checkuser page, as an attempt to turn a lost debate to a victory.

Below, please find information which we want you to use for blocking the user Illythr indefinitely from editing Wikipedia: --


 * (I picked up from the message sent to users User:Sebbeng and Húsond, and used it as a frame, adding more info about the misbehavior of the user Illythr, which ought to justify the blocking of his various user accounts. Yesterday, a settlement offer was accepted on the Continuation War talk page, to end a deadlock.  This drove the user Illythr on a rampage, and that rampage spilled to this page as well.  It also led to his violations of the Continuation War talk page, in several ways.  Note, that Illythr replied to a comment pointed to him, yesterday.  In heat, he forgot - for just a second -, that he was signed in as Roobit.  These are the type of things, this user can be seen doing in regular bases.  The very bad thing is what he has been doing, and what he could continue to do, to the information of Wikipedia.)

The user Illythr uses several accounts to terrorize Wikipedia's articles, which fact can be shown clearly by much evidence. That is the reason why the matter has been brought up by users on the talk pages and elsewhere, including the Finnish Wikipedia (the signer of this message was not the first to request the blocking of user Illythr). Below, please allow an explanation and related leads (for the vandal control to catch this abuser of Wikipedia):

Loosing on the Continuation War talk page debate, - in desperation - the user Illythr appears to seek rescue by trying to blackmail and criminalize the opponents, by unfounded allegations of any sort. With false accusations, he appears to have now targeted the parties that revealed his actions not suitable for Wikipedia (in the talk page comments).

In the Continuation War talk page on Dec 24, 2006, the user Illythr was pointed out - with evidence - of having used a couple of user accounts in a highly unjustified manner.

At this point user Illythr came to defend himself with an us-signed message:   (his IP address was registered as 68.39.144.136)

Simultaneously, his alleged duel account, Whiskey (e.g., the two accounts used the rare and personal nah word, nine weeks apart), left the crime scene for days, to quickly establish a user page for his protection, after three years of solid and continuous strong POV pushing to the articles relating to Finnish wars of the 20the century.

Three of the users' main accounts, Illythr, Whiskey and Roobit, had up till then fiercely fought to push un-sourced POV, propaganda, claims (lies) of the Cold War period Soviet Union to be included in the Continuation War article, and related articles.

At 18:31 Dec 24 (UTC), the several user accounts of user Illythr were discussed in light of initial evidence (more came later).

At the same time, the user Illythr was asked to please revert his vandal style action where he archived messages of other users, while refusing to archive a highly radical POV article written by his alleged sock puppet account Roobit.

Despite of continued pleas for the user Illythr to revert his action and to also remove the radical article by "Roobit" from the top of the talk page, in manner accptable to all parties, he refused to cooperate (relatet pleas can be seen e.g. in the history file of the talk page:   "Please, archive in chronological order").

Instead, the user Illythr has continued fighting fiercely to keep the text on the top of the talk page, by all means.

Thus, administrators, please help: see to it, that the text Request to move or delete article   will be finally transferred to the archives, where much newer and appropriately sourced writings have been placed by the user Illythr. Please, also see to it, that the user Illythr will no longer get to terrorize and dominate the talk page - or related pages - in question, by clearly playing against the rules.

Despite of the clear evidence provided on Dec 24 of misuse of user accounts by the user Illythr in very unacceptable manner, he was not reported further. Instead, he was asked to begin cooperating from thereafter. He appeared to agree (except that he wanted to finish off by making a "check user" of someone on the opposing site first).

Hours later (16:04, 25 December 2006 (UTC)), the user User:Sebbeng pointed out that the user account Roobit seems to belong to an unwanted sock puppeteer. This alleged sock puppeteer, Roobit, originally posted - without signing - the extremist Stalinist POV writing on top of the Continuation War talk page, presenting of which on top of the page user Illythr so fiercely to move or delete article fights for, resorting to strong-arm techniques not acceptable in Wikipedia.

Despite of continued pleas from other users  for user Illythr to archive this old radical text, along with all the other newer messages of other users which he had archived  (11:25 Dec 23, 2006 (UTC))  - not in chronological order -, he refused to comply, e.g. here at 19:47, 24 December 2006 (UTC):   (notice, how he forgot to sign in - the IP address became visible: 68.39.144.136).

This constitutes vandalism. This also must be among the reasons why the user Water suggested for the user account Illythr to be blocked from editing in Wikipedia. I agree in that assessment.

The user account Roobit received a "last warning" in reference to personal attacks from the user User:Sebbeng on Dec 3, 2006, due to personal attacks like the one shown here:. To make an impression of being two separate people, the fiercely "cooperating", nah saying user accounts Illythr and Whiskey accounts only in recently began communicating through their user pages, as the allegations of the misuse began surfacing.

A bit closer look to the related user contributions by the accounts in question reveal a pattern of same wordings between the accounts. A number of other characteristics common to his user accounts are easily noticeable as well, such as use of space in the beginning of typing when editing is done etc. (more evidence against the puppeteer is available on the talk pages and in the Finnish Wikipedia, as well), also the smileys and signatures:


 * ;-) --Whiskey 20:07, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
 * ;-) --Illythr 20:11, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
 * ;-) Roobit (14:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC))

On January 3, 2007, unsigned and using the account Roobit, Illythr made a mess of the Continuation War talk page :
 * 1. by top posting (despite of several requests for him not to do so)


 * 2. by posting between the lines


 * 3. by even posting between the words, as in here: ,


 * 4. by not dating any of his comments


 * 5. by not even signing many of his comments


 * 6. by not using the line margins for paragraph, etc.


 * 7. by using insulting language, as in here:

Why this rampage, even worse than normal? The reason is the very same, as in his contacting the checkuser - see here:

He went wildly mad about the settlement being reached earlier yesterday morning - before the rampage of Illythr - by those who follow Wikipedia rules, see here:

This was Illythr, who was upset about this proposal to end the deadlock:

From the piece of conversation copied below, one will be able to see, how the user accidentally uses his "wrong user account", Roobit, when he intends to answer to a questions as Illythr (this has happened before):   "… I did? First of all some … Roobit"

This kind of distructive behavior of the user Illythr needs to be stopped a.s.a.p. Illythr is an extreme reverse image of a friendly sock puppeteer.

Besides, under all three main accounts of his in the Continuation War concersation, the user uses offending and threatening language, which is not suitable to Wikipedia:


 * … it will be as easy to blow your statements up than theirs. So why do you want your statements blown up? --Whiskey 14:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


 * "are you smoking something? …" --Illythr 19:34, 24 December 2006 (UTC)


 * "… some scumbag declared me a sock puppet …" Roobit 09:17, 3 January 2007 (UTC) (time copied from history file)

In the example below, the user intends to answer as Illythr, but accidently uses his Roobit account (forgets to sign in with his other user name):


 * Ooooookay... Could you, perhaps, help such a development by providing reliable sources to the claims in the disputed section? --Illythr 14:52, 1 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The text is full of links, built-in sources, and quotes. Besides, as you can see from the history notes, the text was just being worked on, when you so rudely - without notice - suggested for the text to be locked.  (Ahven is a fish)
 * I did? First of all some scumbag declared me a sock puppet … Roobit

AGAINST THE NATURE OF WIKIPEDIA, THE MULTI-USER ILLYTHR OPENLY DEFENDS LYING IN WIKIPEDIA (does it with similar wordings, in all of his accounts):


 * "… The totally different thing is then, does it provide the correct view." --Whiskey 10:06, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


 * "...doesn't need to provide the correct view to be present, only the mainstream view." --Illythr 10:03, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * "Something need not be true to be accepted as true. It only needs to stick around long enough." --Illythr 10:03, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * "So it is not necessary for photos to be authentic to be used in the article" …--Whiskey 22:25, 24 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Nah! This article is still full of juvenile exaggeration and sureness of those who don't know.;-) --Whiskey 00:53, 20 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Military aid? Nah. Ever seen US soldiers manning Soviet military installations, say, during the Caribbean Crisis? --Illythr 15:11, 22 December 2006 (UTC)


 * this article seems to be quite neutral, as it draws flak from left and right.;-) --Whiskey 20:07, 6 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Hey Whiskey, noticed any Marxist statements in there? ;-) --Illythr 20:11, 6 June 2006 (UTC)


 * … Happy New Year;-)" Roobit (14:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC))


 * Ahven is a fish 14:19, 4 Jan 2007 / 8 Jan 02:56 (UTC)

Grossly offensive comment
I believe an immediate block or at least a strong final warning is warranted for this edit. I suppose it could go to AIV, but I don't think this user deserves four warnings. Newyorkbrad 02:36, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Blocked, 48 hours. If someone wishes to extend it I would be quite happy to see that happen. Viridae Talk 02:38, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Probably a vandal account. See edit to Jimmy Wales. Grandad 02:40, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Damn, Jkelly already beat me to the indef-block. EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 02:42, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Boy it is fun to be an admin, all the wonderful people you meet! HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 02:41, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Loooongcat is an internet meme associated with extreme stupidity. Banning is the best solution. --<font color="#ff66ff">Cyde Weys 02:41, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I just had a look at the userpage with all the trolling including a "Vandal and proud of it" userbox and was going to extend to indef but someone beat me. Viridae Talk 02:43, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I indef-blocked; it was a vandal account. Jkelly 02:44, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks all. Now who wants to check for all the username variations with different numbers of "o"s? Newyorkbrad 02:46, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh, that is easy. Use Special:Listusers. Entering "Longcat" gets this list. Though it seems they've all been blocked already. Actually, I see that this doesn't produce a list of all the "oooo" variants, as those are not sequential in an alphabetical list. I think there is a list if users by when created, so the "created users" log could be checked to see if accounts like this were created at the same time. Carcharoth 03:32, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I checked from Lo to Loooooooooooos, and only one Loooongcat. Incidentially, nothing has been done about User:Longcat, which appears to be an spa for voting on Articles for deletion/Longcat. NB. Longcat is now a redirect to 4chan, explained by a Longcat section in an old version of the article. Interesting what you can find in old versions of articles! :-) Carcharoth 03:44, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

The user has appears to be POV pushing using personal attacks.


 * Personal attack 1 in response to a test3
 * Personal attack 2 in response to reversion
 * User impersionation - and incorrect datestamp.
 * Left a bogus "npa3" on my page after having his first personal attack reverted.

Looks like a standard procedure here. --Sigma 7 04:02, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I took a small leap here and blocked the user 24h for the third diff above - signing another user's name to any message is completely unacceptable, and I think obviously so even to a newish user. The user's other contribs do seem to indicate an intent to disrupt. | Mr. Darcy talk 05:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Very old copyvio
A user, Bm79, brought to my attention yesterday that most of the Azerbaijan (Iran) article was originally copied from The Columbia Encyclopedia. This apparently goes back to October 2005, when created the Azarbaijan article. In January 2006, the content was merged into Azerbaijan (Iran), and has stayed there every since, although it has been greatly altered since then. Even though it's changed, is it still copyvio? If so, should the article then be rewrote, or reverted back to September 2005? I'd appreciate people's thoughts on this. Thanks, Khoikhoi</tt> 04:26, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Hum. My advice would be...
 * a) Leave Azarbaijan as redirect; knock Azerbaijan (Iran) back to just before the copyvio was merged in, and work from there; then
 * b) see if you can find any other articles the user who pasted it in did this to.
 * Sucks, I know, but the text we have is definitely derived from theirs, and we can't keep the copyvio around even though we've polished it. Shimgray | talk | 04:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Reverted and "back-merged". Shimgray | talk | 04:53, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
 * No, we actually can keep it. Ideas themselves cannot be copyrighted, only works. Reference articles are already not very unique, and if they're re-written, then you've basically used the original work as a reference, plain and simple. It's not the same thing as re-writing something like a poem, which would be a copyvio. I think it's important to avoid copyright paranoia. It's also important to take into consideration Wikipedia's position as a non-profit entity and the use of this material for educational purposes vis-a-vis copyright law.--Beautiful Scars 04:55, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It's derivative work. Copyright paranoia has nothing to do with this, it's clearly a copyright violation.  Wikipedia's policies do not reflect any relaxation of copyright policy because it is controlled by a non-profit organization; since our material is licensed under the GFDL, anyone can use it, not just non-profits.  -<font color="#333333">bbatsell   ??  05:01, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I did read it before posting those comments; it was clearly a ripped-off version of their text. The "rewriting" was re-ordering a couple of sentences and tidying it up; the "history" section read like a second draft of the original. If people had taken the source material and rephrased it in their own words we would have no problem - but they hadn't done this. We were reprinting Columbia's article and passing it off as a) our own and b) licensed under the GFDL, which is plain and simple copyright violation. This is not "copyright paranoia", it's a plain and simple fact.
 * Wikipedia's educational and non-profit use gives us much latitude wrt fair use, but it doesn't give us the ability to relicense other people's material as free content, which is what we were doing here. Shimgray | talk | 05:03, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Now that I look closer, I do notice now that it reads very much like the Columbia article. I admit that I was going off the summary presented above, rather than my own comparison, and I apologize for that. I withdraw my objections.--Beautiful Scars 05:11, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
 * No problem. Shimgray | talk | 05:20, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I've left a note for the original author (who was very new at the time, so probably an honest mistake rather than wilfulness) to see if they remember doing any others. Shimgray | talk | 05:20, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Sock Puppetry, Vandalism & SPAM on Bharatanatyam page
Hello,

I would like to bring to your attention of the recent activity on the Bharatanatyam page. Some of the users once in a while will take off information from the site such as the origins of the dance from Tamil Nadu, also some of the historical mentionings of the dance in Tamil literature. There seems to be some kind of POV advocacy which pops up once in a while. Also, there are some users whom are posting links to advertisements. Furthermore, I have noticed that these users do not have their own user name page. Below are the following user names which have been involved in such activity:


 * User:Jayajaya (note: possible sock puppetry)
 * User:Anitaa (note: deletes information which has already been cited, adding POVs)
 * User:61.247.253.102 (note: warned 3 times for spamming, and blacklisted on wikipedia)
 * User:Sangeeeeta (note: possible sock puppetry)
 * User:Sakthi24 (note: previously warned for spamming)
 * User:Bluegurl0095 (note: possible sock puppetry)
 * User:SadirAttam (note: this one actually admits avertizing on wikipedia - User talk:SadirAttam

I have also posted messages on the Talk:Bharatanatyam page after each incident. Much work has been put into this topic with cited sources. This continuous POV editing, deletions, and Spamming does not help the article one bit and is becoming a nuisance. Hopefully this will stop.

Wiki Raja 06:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Block for review - Cool maestro
I have indefinitely blocked User:Cool maestro, who has uploaded scads of obviously copyrighted images tagged with gfdl-self. He specifically claims to own the copyrights. I hadn't communicated with the user prior to blocking, but others (such as User:BigDT) had, and I noticed Cool maestro had blanked those messages off his talk page without responding and was continuing to upload more material. I invite review from the community on this; I've been deleting his image uploads that are clearly copyrighted (and ones that aren't, such as Image:Cool indian.jpg and Image:China dude.jpg) are probably copyrighted but not obviously so. It's my position that if I hadn't blocked him right away, he would continue to upload images he almost certainly doesn't own and create a huge mess that would need cleaning up. Whereas, if he somehow actually owns copyrights to all those movie posters, and yet uploads images with names like "Cool indian", it can be worked out through email, and permissions@wikimedia would need to get confirmation anyway. Mango juice talk 19:27, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Ugh, what a mess. Sounds like a good move to me, given the amount of work the user would create if left unchecked.  -- <font color="#3D59AB">Merope  19:30, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this was a very appropriate block. User:Cool maestro needs to understand and acknowledge the copyright issues here before continuing to edit.--Isotope23 19:45, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Endorse block. Take a look at the upload log for this user.  Numerous copyright violations invalidly tagged with "GFDL self" descriptions. *sigh*  Can&#39;t sleep, clown will eat me 19:49, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I just blocked for precisely the same behaviour with precisely the same images. Guy (Help!) 10:26, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm going to see if any more turn up. A RFCU may be in order. G  e  o . 06:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
 * This IP added content similar to Alks. if this is Coolmaestro's IP we may be able to see what other socks he has  G  e  o . 06:45, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Incivility, disruptive editing, and stalking-like behavior from Isarig
has been disruptively editing several pages, and his behavior seems to be a result of a dispute between he and I over the Juan Cole page, which is now in mediation. A couple of days ago, he showed up on the Qur'an desecration controversy of 2005 and began obsessively reverting an edit that I had made (I had deleted the reference to "piss christ" from the article). I thought my edit was reasonable, but it was strongly objected to by an anonymous user. Isarig, who has apparently never edited that page before, suddenly showed up to defend the anon editor and to revert my change. He was asked to stop disrupting by other editors including myself. I sent the page to RfC and I explained the main reasons why I thought the "piss christ" reference was both irrelevant and trivial. I also explained that it was better situated on a general article about desecration rather than the article about a specific incident of Quran desecration that occurred at Guantanamo Bay. He never bothered to add the link to the general desecration article, but insisted that it belongs on this more specific article, even though his main argument is that they are both forms of general desecration and/or religious intolerance. This suggests to me that the only reason he is making the change on that article is to "get back" at me by reverting a change I made rather than because he actually believes his own arguments. I feel that such behavior is disruptive and I asked him to stop. I stated that if he felt strongly that "piss christ" was something specifically related to the Qur'an desecration controversy of 2005 then he should be willing to write a couple of sentences indicating what the link is between the two and enter those sentences in the article, so that the reference does not seem to come out of nowhere. He refused to do so. It seems his only interest is in one-upping me, and indeed, in another dispute a few weeks ago, he admitted as much. Instead of allowing other editors to comment on the RfC, he has continued to repeat himself on that section of the page, without responding to the arguments I brought up. That section has become a long mess of tit-for-tat arguments, making it unlikely that many other editors will take the time to sort the arguments out there and actually move the dispute forward. It is alarming to me that such energy has been expended over something that seems to me utterly noncontroversial -- adding the words "piss christ" to a totally unrelated article.

While this dispute was ongoing, I made an edit to the article Qur'an desecration, another article that Isarig had never edited before. Again, he showed up out of the blue just to revert me, and has already reverted me three times in 24 hours. I asked him to stop stalking my edits and he threatened to report me (which to me was the final straw, leading to this report). This is a pattern in my interactions with this user -- he revert-wars over petty items; he refuses to acknowledge any POV other than his own, he accuses me of personal attacks while at the same time personally attacking me. He constantly threatens to report me over minor infractions while at the same time engaging in personal attacks that are often vicious (witness, for example, this comment and this comment, from a while back, where he specifically attacks me for my occupation, tells me that I am not fit for employment in my job. While those comments are from a while ago, he again brought up my occupation as a means of attacking me -- a direct violation of WP:NPA, which suggests that personal attacks include "Using someone's affiliations as a means of dismissing or discrediting their views - regardless of whether said affiliations are mainstream or extreme." Throughout the discussion on that page he charged me over and over with "insulting other editors" yet never cited a single example of where I had done so. I am tired of being sucked into arguments with him over petty reversions. I am here to improve the articles, not to get into shouting matches and ego battles with other editors. I don't like reporting people to WP:ANI because I prefer these matters be settled in discussion; however, when he threatened to report me for accusing him of stalking - which he has demonstrably been doing - I felt the time had come to make a report. I hope his disruptive editing, and previous blocks for incivility (in particular, a libelous comment made a while back about the subject of a WP:BLP) will be taken into account when determining how long of a block his behavior merits. csloat 22:29, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
 * This might have risen to a legitimate instance of Wikistalking, but you're harming your own case through forum shopping and selective presentation of evidence. You fail to mention that six weeks ago I responded to those same diffs at WP:PAIN and rebuked you for conduct unbecoming the dignity of the academic profession.  If dispute resolution has failed so badly that you feel the need to post a biased plea for intervention here then I could open a request for arbitration - the duration and scope of the conflict make that a realistic option - yet I caution you that arbitration is slow, messy, painful, and embarrassing.  Would you like to proceed? <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charg e!  23:41, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Conduct unbecoming the dignity of the academic profession? I'm sorry, but this has absolutely nothing to do with my profession, that was my point.  And if you have a complaint about my behavior in the classroom, or other aspects of my profession, please take it to my supervisor -- I will happily provide you with all the personal information you need about me to register your complaint.  In the meantime I will ask that you, Isarig, and anyone else, refrain from using my profession to personally attack me.
 * In your "rebuke" you said neither side was above reproach, and I agreed with you. I did not cite the older incidents above to make the same complaint again -- I cited them to establish that Isarig's reference to my profession was out of line and followed from a historical context of such comments; that it was not just a single offhand reference.  I most certainly did not expect to receive a similar insult from an administrator.  I am not "forum shopping," and I resent the accusation.  I cited the older incidents only to establish the history of the current dispute.  Please note that when you "rebuked" me you removed your comment specifically directed at my "aggressiveness" and that I responded to you, explaining why I responded to Isarig the way I did.  I have backed off of being so aggressive, as you recommended, but Isarig's abusive behavior continues.  I feel the most recent wikistalking is something that cannot be resolved in WP:DR.  I initiated mediation on the Juan Cole page, and we were asked by the mediator to avoid editing the article, but Isarig has continued to edit war with other users on that page even though I have backed off of it completely.  Meanwhile, he stalks me on the Quran desecration pages, making arguments that seem tongue in cheek at best if not complete sophistry.  I have opened an RfC on the Quran page, and presumably that will eventually reach some resolution, but what is to stop him from stalking me to another page and starting this whole mess over?  I am trying to follow your advice from before and not get sucked into these wars, but he is pursuing me relentlessly.  I feel that your approach is to reward the more abusive user by signalling that his abusive actions will be successful (and even joining in on the insults directed to my profession!)  I don't know what you do for a living, but how would you like it if I started saying that your conduct on Wikipedia made you a disgrace to your profession?  It doesn't matter if you are a teacher or a janitor; the insult is out of line. csloat 03:02, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

This has got to be one of the most blatant examples of bad faith and sheer Chutzpah I've seen on Wikipedia to date. csloat accusing me of incivility? After telling an editor to "grow up", and this and this (accusing other editors of not being in "their right mind") - all examples of incivility from just the past 24 hours! This from an editor whose user Talk page is full of warnings about personal attacks and incivility, from numerous editors.And the nerve of accusing me of "stalking" him, after he suddenly appeared on a  page I had been editing, reverting an edit of mine and then accused me of stalking him on that page! I've warned him twice today to cease making false accusations of stalking, and I guess he believes that the best defense is an attack. Isarig 05:00, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Dispute resolution is over there, guys. Not here. --jpgordon&#8711;&#8710;&#8711;&#8710; 05:58, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem, JP, is that I sent them to dispute resolution six weeks ago and they're back to square one. I'm one step away from giving the matter to ArbCom.  Since this is here on the board anyway, does anyone have a softer alternative? <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charg e!  06:38, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * All I'm asking for is the objectionable behavior to stop. I could go through and point out the distortions in his comment above (e.g., my first edit to the Said page was not a revert of anything Isarig did; in fact I had no idea he edited that page at all until he reverted me -- which is why I thought he was stalking me there [something he subsequently did on other pages; see above]; or I could point out that the admonition to "grow up" - the one thing that I said that could be characterized as a personal attack in the recent disputes with him - is something I subsequently struck out and I asked Isarig to show good faith and strike out his accusation that I was a "liar", which he did not do).  There is currently mediation on one of the pages we have a dispute over, and there is now an RfC on another page -- I think individual disputes will eventually be resolved but my problem with Isarig is that it has become personal and he is now following me to unrelated pages and reverting things out of what seems to be spite.  If he is willing to back off, I am too. But someone besides me ought to tell him that this behavior is objectionable.csloat 07:50, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * You have wikistalked me to at least 3 pages (Edward Said, Middle East Media Research Institute, Efraim Karsh), you falsely accused me of stalking you on one of them when it was in fact you who were stalking; you falsely accused me of stalking you despite being warned not do to so; you repeatedly use uncivil language when addressing me and other editors, and have been called on it (the above 3 are merely the tip of the iceberg from the last day alone); you are continuing to misrepresent facts (i.e.: I struck out the description of your comment as a "lie" after you had struck out your own uncivil comment) - and have the gall to complain about my behavior? Isarig 15:59, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Please stop the false accusations Isarig. I did not stalk you on any of those pages, as you are well aware.  You demonstrably stalked me on two pages about Quran desecration -- the only reason you showed up on those pages was to revert my changes and to pick a fight with me in talk.  The above "3" only identifies one instance of actual incivility and it is one I struck out and apologized for.  (I had not seen that you struck out the word "lie" as you never mentioned it in your comments; I thank you for that, and perhaps we have some basis from which to move forward).  I have the "gall" to complain about your behavior because it is beyond the pale, and because you continually threaten to report me for nothing while at the same time relentlessly violating the very rules you accuse me of violating.  As I said above, all I want is for this behavior to stop. I just don't have time for this.  Wikipedia is something I find valuable and rewarding, but my interactions with you have soured me on the whole enterprise. csloat 18:49, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Every single one of those pages I have mentioned are pages where I had been editing, and you had not, and you suddenly showed up shortly after one of my edits there to either directly revert one of my edits, or introduce a change in a section I had been editing that is contradictory to what I was writing. By your own definitons, these constitute stalking. Each one of the 3 above constitute an instance of incivility, and if you don't think that saying that an editor who defends a certain position is "not in his right mind" is uncivil, then that is perhaps the root of the probelm - you have no concept of what civility means. Isarig 23:13, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I never showed up to a page that I had not been editing just to revert you. On the Said page I edited for the first time; I was reading student papers at the time that were about Said's work, and it occurred to me to take a look at his wikipedia page.  As I stated above I had no idea you edited that page before me - I don't always examine the history page before editing a page - and as another editor has confirmed, I did not revert you -- it was you who immediately reverted me.  Stalking does not mean editing the same page as someone else -- it goes to the motivation for the edits.  When you are going to the page specifically to revert war against someone that you had another edit war with in the past, it is considered stalking.  The MEMRI page, as you know, I first went to the talk page and engaged the discussion; I did not revert you until it became pretty clear that your position in the discussion was indefensible.  And you are really distorting things on the Karsh page - my first edit there appears to have been fixing a name problem on the Juan Cole link that another user had created.  My first edit that you objected to was a month later, and it was an edit that you immediately reverted without discussion.  All of that was months ago; to say I stalked you there is absolutely untenable.  However, your actions on the Quran pages are clear cut -- you appeared there out of the blue and focused all your energy there on reverting warring against me, and you got quite abusive in the talk section.  Your claim that I "have no concept of what civility means" is rich; it is itself more uncivil than the comment by me you claim is uncivil!  When I said I don't think anyone in their right mind would go to the Qur'an desecration controversy of 2005 looking for information about the Piss Christ, I was making a rather obvious point that the two have nothing to do with each other, not attacking a particular editor.  Can you say with a straight face that if you wanted to know more about a controversial artist from the 1980s you would type in Qur'an desecration controversy of 2005?  It seems to be a stretch, at best, to call that a personal attack. csloat 23:29, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know what your motivations are (or were) when you appeared on the pages you had editied shortly after I did to introduce a different POV than mine. Perhaps it was all an inoccent coincidnce as you allege here - orperhaps you were wikistalking me. The point is - that the same is ture of my actions. You have no idea what motivated me to edit the Quran desecration page (and never bothered to ask), you just assume I was stalkign you given the same set of circumstance that apply to your own 3 cases of stalking. Either all of them are, or none of them are. The when I defed a certain edit (as I did), and you say that whoever defends such an edit is not in their right mind you are attacking me, and being uncivil. UIt is plain and obvious to anyone who reads yoru comments. If you want certain alleged behaviour to stop, you need to stop. Isarig 23:35, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I didn't say it was an "innocent coincidence" -- I said you were distorting the facts, and as I have shown, they are extremely different in the instances you cite. My POV was obviously quite different from yours long before we started editing any of this stuff, so POV difference is not evidence of any stalking.  Specifically showing up to start revert wars is.  I did not say you were not in your right mind; I said nobody in their right mind would come to the Qur'an desecration controversy of 2005 looking for information about the Piss Christ.  It is plain and obvious that you are distorting my words.  I am going to take a break from all of this for a while, so forgive me if I don't respond when Isarig repeats his comments.  I think I've made my case. csloat 23:43, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Please stop this misrepresentation. What you wrote in the edit I linked to above was "I can't believe anyone in their right mind would defend the addition" - which is what I did . I am quoting you verbatim - there is no need todistort your words - they are damning in their own right. Misrepresentations will not get you anywhere. Isarig 00:33, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * You also linked to this edit above, where I wrote, "The fact is, nobody in their right mind would come to this article expecting to read about the Piss christ." It is amazing that you immediately accuse me of misrepresenting things when you know for a fact that I was not. You are right about the other link but it is not a personal attack -- I said "I cannot believe anyone in their right mind would defend the addition." I did not say that anyone who defends the addition is not in their right mind. You could infer that but you could also infer that I don't believe you; given our prior interactions that would be the more obvious conclusion. But in any case it is a ridiculously minor point - there is nothing "damning" about any of this. The real issue here is the aggressive edit warring, the smearing of other editors, and the wikistalking. On the first two of those charges at least, it is pretty clear that I am not the only editor who has found your actions unacceptable. csloat 01:51, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Isarig on some points and disagree on others, but his/her smearing and slander really has to stop. Isarig is far too eager to call other Wikipedians "liars" if they disagree with him and I am willing to pass on to an administrator proof that his similar past accusation against me (which remains unretracted) was false. Famousdog 19:01, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Isarig behaves like a pathalogical edit warrer, bringing the brutal methods of the Israeli Arab conflict to the pages of Wikipidea. Abu ali 20:28, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Abu Ali brought this to my attention, presumably since I was involved on the Said page. Obviously I don't know the full situation, but I can say a couple things: 1. Sloat's first edit on Said wasn't a revert of Isarig, but an edit of information put up by Jayjg..  2.  Isarig then reverted Sloat and has proceded to edit war against a number of editors on that page over several days,  including Zero0000, Sloat, Filius Rosadis, and me.  I'd note that Isarig's last comment in talk on that page is on Dec 29, which was responded to, while he has reverted the page four times since then.  That's all I can really say about the situation. Mackan79 21:16, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about the stalking behavior, but I've certainly found Isarig to be obsessive and unreasonable on both MEMRI and Juan Cole. Also see this example of way over-the-top biting a newbie The newbie's sin was editing his own talk page. Sheesh. Time for a wiki-holiday, Isariq. --Lee Hunter 21:24, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I haven't been following these disputes, but I see little wrong with the 3RR warning Isarig left on Jgui's page, mentioned by Lee Hunter above. I also find Abu Ali's comment above to be way out of line, and possibly indicative of the kind of attitude that Isarig has been up against. There's an increasingly concerted effort by a number of editors to blacken anything to do with Jews, Judaism, or Israel, often involving violations of WP:V and WP:NOR and poor editing in general. Some of the criticism is perfectly legitimate, of course (when it comes to Israeli government policies), but some of it definitely isn't, and it often veers toward apparent hatred of Jews in general. In addition, there's often obvious sockpuppetry involved, and therefore a reminder not to bite the newbies misses the point.
 * It gets tiresome having to deal with it, but I don't know what the solution is. SlimVirgin <sup style="color:Purple;">(talk) 22:16, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It wasn't the 3RR warning itself (although it was blunt to the point of rudeness) it was the strange hissy fit (see the edit comment) when the user removed the warning from his talk page. --Lee Hunter 23:55, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The 3RR warning was a polite explanation of the 3RR rule, and a request for self-revert, as a gesture of courtesy for a newbie. There was nothing blunt nor rude about it, and it is probably much softer than WP's standard 3RR template. You come here to complain about uncivil behavior, and you call my edits a "hissy fit"? Have you no shame? Or at least, a decent mirror? The user removed the warning with an edit summary that called a valid warning for an acknowledged 3RR violation "a bogus threat". Isarig 00:12, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Excellent summary. Jayjg <small style="color:DarkGreen;">(talk) 23:00, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Excellent summary of what? Are you folks seriously suggesting that my dispute with Isarig is part of a vast antisemitic conspiracy?  I don't think Abu Ali's comment was reasonable either, but it is hardly evidence that he or I are part of some kind of neo-Nazi conspiracy, and I find the accusation out of line. csloat 23:11, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * SlimVirgin's comment "There's an increasingly concerted effort by a number of editors to blacken anything to do with Jews, Judaism, or Israel" is a thinly veiled personal attack] and attempt to accuse me of antisemitism. As SlimVirgin is an admin on WP, he should know better. [[User:Abu ali|Abu ali 22:41, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Turnabout is not really an answer, and Wikipedia is not a soapbox. There is no justifiable reason for posting that someone is bringing the brutal methods of the Israeli Arab conflict to the pages of Wikipidea. Jayjg <small style="color:DarkGreen;">(talk) 23:02, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Note that SlimVirgin has repeated his accusation of antisemitism against me below Editing Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Any examination of my edit log will show that this personal attack is baseless and defamatory. Abu ali 22:57, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Where exactly is this accusation of antisemitism? Tom Harrison Talk 23:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * He wrote of "an increasingly concerted effort by a number of editors to blacken anything to do with Jews, Judaism, or Israel" and stated that "some of it definitely isn't, and it often veers toward apparent hatred of Jews in general." That seems pretty clear to me; what isn't clear, exactly, is who he's referring to.csloat 23:13, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * If it's not clear that he's refering to you, then don't go out of your way to take umbrage. There was no accusation that you or anyone else is part of a neo-Nazi conspiracy. Setting that up as some kind of strawman is at least as abusive as anything anyone has said to you. Tom Harrison Talk 23:21, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not setting up a strawman; the words he used were "increasingly concerted effort" that "often veers toward apparent hatred of Jews in general." I didn't take umbrage; I just asked who he was referring to.  How is that abusive? csloat 23:33, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Abu Ali, my comments were deliberately not aimed at individuals &mdash; for obvious reasons, but also because my intention was simply to highlight the problem in general. Regarding your own edits, I'm not familiar with them. My only criticism of you is that your comment above was out of order ("Isarig behaves like a pathalogical edit warrer, bringing the brutal methods of the Israeli Arab conflict to the pages of Wikipidea"), and perhaps illustrative of the hostile atmosphere Isarig finds himself editing in. SlimVirgin <sup style="color:Purple;">(talk) 23:15, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * If your criticisms were not aimed at me, then who precisely are these editors who you refer to. "There's an increasingly concerted effort by a number of editors to blacken anything to do with Jews, Judaism, or Israel, often involving violations of WP:V and WP:NOR and poor editing in general. Some of the criticism is perfectly legitimate, of course (when it comes to Israeli government policies), but some of it definitely isn't, and it often veers toward apparent hatred of Jews in general." You are making a serious accusation. So as a minimum you should be specific. Abu ali 23:31, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't know how more specific I can be. There are editors whose life's work seems to revolve around making all things connected to Israel look bad. Whether you're one of them, I have no idea, because I've never looked at your edits. It gets to be a bigger problem when it involves making all things connected to Jews look bad too. I'm not going to start giving lists of examples. I've given an example below of User:Kiyosaki, but the specifics don't matter. What matters is what we do about the general issue.


 * Wikipedia is not here to be used as a platform for pro- or anti-Israel editing. Or do you disagree with that? SlimVirgin <sup style="color:Purple;">(talk) 23:56, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * User:Kiyosaki has been banned. The specifics do matter. If there are other editors who have behaved in an antisemitic manner, name them so that the can be investigated and dealt with. If there are no others then please be so kind as to withdraw the accusation. Abu ali 10:25, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Please note that SlimVirgin has still not withdrawn his accusations of antisemitism. Neither has he substantiated them. Is this conduct acceptable from a admin? I also note that Arbitration Committe member Jayjg describes SlimVirigins accusations as an "Excellent summary". Is this the same Arbitration Committe which is supposed to discuss the issues at hand? Abu ali 10:38, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment - There is occasional anti Semitism on WP. And homophobia. And racism and prejudice of all kinds, as well as appalling incivility etc. SlimVirgin as someone who is easily identified with Jewish and Israeli topics is better placed than most to notice an increase. It's our jobs to find the incidents, remove them and deal appropriately with the malfeasants, not to slap down the editor who brings the problem to our attention. --Dweller 10:51, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm staggered that you can actually condense this whole thing down to "a bunch of editors out to get the Jews". Where the heck is that coming from? One of Isarig's (and his "teammates"') most egregious rv wars is his belligerent insistence that the Juan Cole article include a defamatory insinuation that Cole is literally a protocols-of-scion anti-semite and that the article must not include Cole's response to the charge. I'm offended by your remarks. --Lee Hunter 00:09, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I am sorry you feel offended. I can only repeat: I'm not familiar with this dispute, or with your edits or Abu Ali's, and I keep repeating that the individual accounts don't matter anyway. What matters is that there is an extremely hostile editing environment around some of these articles, as Abu Ali's comment to Isarig amply demonstrates. It's this general problem that we need to take seriously. Perhaps you could address that substantive point &mdash; but not with reference to any particular article or editor. SlimVirgin <sup style="color:Purple;">(talk) 00:17, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Please do not engage in misrepresentations in order to make a point. The dispute you are referring to on the Juan Cole article is currently in mediation, and I have proposed and accepted several compromises there, and explictly wrote both that the specific quote you object to is not one I am insisting on, as well as stating that Cole's response to the accusations against him (from serious academics published in reliable sources) should appear in the article. Isarig 00:25, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

My opinion on this was solicited. I personally have not had any problems with Isarig. There were some disputes between Isarig and others on the talk page for Al-Aqsa Intifada. There were disputes between many people on that talk page. But it seems like the disputes have been resolved in the last few days. I think, though, that part of the problem I am feeling from reading the incident noticeboard, and various talk pages, is that people are taking sides, instead of attempting to maintain NPOV wikipedia pages. I urge people who have strong viewpoints about the issues on such highly-charged topics dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflicts to set them aside while editing wikipedia pages. I hope people from all sides of these issues sign on to WikiProject Arab-Israeli conflict and pledge to work on related wikipedia pages in an NPOV way. NPOV does not favor or block viewpoints on the Arab-Israeli conflict pages. NPOV allows all significant sourced viewpoints to be put on those pages. Some people from all sides have been favoring particular POVs by selectively censoring or diminishing other sourced viewpoints. And some of the discussion on those pages has been really over-the-top instead of being focussed on the article content and meeting wikipedia guidelines. People have been making too many reversions without discussion. Resulting in slow-motion edit wars. --Timeshifter 00:26, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I do not understand why a complaint about "bringing the brutal methods of the Israeli Arab conflict to the pages of Wikipidea" is considered out of line but a complaint about "an increasingly concerted effort by a number of editors to blacken anything to do with Jews, Judaism, or Israel" is not. I would say we'd do well to avoid both.  I would add, however, that I've seen relatively few statements like the former, and when they do appear it's usually from some short-lived crank like Kiyosaki.  Statements like the latter, on the other hand, are routine on articles related to Israel/Palestine, and they are quite common even from influential editors with administrative powers.


 * As for Isarig, he and I have had our share of encounters. I think he can be a wilfully obstinate, baldly ideological revert-warrior (in the current Juan Cole dispute, he is claiming that Cole's dismissal of charges of antisemitism as "outrageous" constitutes an ad hominem rebuttal, and therefore cannot be included alongside the article's coverage of said charges).  Beyond that, however, I've never once even suspected that he might be stalking me, and as regards personal remarks I've never found him to give worse than he got, and I'd know.  I think csloat is a good and reasonable editor, and we share a position in the Cole dispute, but I don't think the stuff about Isarig's personal attacks amount to much.  Csloat says hey you'd fail my class, Isarig replies hey maybe you're not qualified to teach - this is all just rhetoric.  Who says talk pages can't have a little verve and color.


 * I don't know what policy on this is, but temperamentally I'm inclined to agree with Jayjg that going around user pages gathering up a posse seems like harassment. --G-Dett 00:36, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I wrote "harassment" above, where I should have said something like "bad form." Harassment has a technical meaning, and I have no idea if the action in question qualifies.--G-Dett 14:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Seems to me there was full transparency to what he did, which is what we should want. Mackan79 16:01, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Point taken, Mackan79.--G-Dett 20:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)--

Soliciting negative comments about an editor by User:Abu ali
After a WP:ANI report about my conduct was filed, User:Abu ali, with whom I have had several content disputes recently, has been soliciting negative input about me from any editor I have been engaged with. Today alone, he as solicited more than a dozen such editors to partcipate in the report. I find this to be a severe vioaltion of numerous WP policies, including WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF and WP:NPA. -The preceding unsigned comment was added by Isarig (talk o  contribs).
 * If you examine my contibutions, you can see that I informed other users of Isarig's WP:ANI, and did so openly and onwiki. I did not tell people to contibute to the ANI report or tell them what to say. The charge that I was "soliciting negative input" is false. The comment to the effect that this is a "severe vioaltion of numerous WP policies, including WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF and WP:NPA" is baseless, and coming from Isarig, hypocritical. Salam/Peace/Shalom Abu ali 22:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * This is silly. Abu Ali asked me what I thought, since I was involved in the incident.  This report wasn't even filed by Abu Ali, was it?  So, on behalf of Sloat, Abu Ali solicits comments on an ongoing ANI.  This is inappropriate? Mackan79 22:32, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm copying my comment from the thread above, as it seems to be relevant here.


 * I haven't been following these disputes, but I see little wrong with the 3RR warning Isarig left on Jgui's page, mentioned by Lee Hunter above. I also find Abu Ali's comment above to be way out of line, and possibly indicative of the kind of attitude that Isarig has been up against. There's an increasingly concerted effort by a number of editors to blacken anything to do with Jews, Judaism, or Israel, often involving violations of WP:V and WP:NOR and poor editing in general. Some of the criticism is perfectly legitimate, of course (when it comes to Israeli government policies), but some of it definitely isn't, and it often veers toward apparent hatred of Jews in general. In addition, there's often obvious sockpuppetry involved, and therefore a reminder not to bite the newbies misses the point.


 * It gets tiresome having to deal with it, but I don't know what the solution is. SlimVirgin <sup style="color:Purple;">(talk) 22:16, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Are you accusing these users of anti-semitic editing? If not, I'm not sure why you think this is relevant. Mackan79 22:59, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to partially agree with Isarig here. Based on the strong phrasing and large number of these messages, they appear to constitute canvassing for support and near-harassment of a particular user. I would strongly advice Abu ali to stop. You don't explicitly tell people what to say, but a message like "Have a look at ... disruptive editing, and stalking-like behavior from Isarig. What do you think?" give the recipient a pretty damn strong hint of the response you want. Daveydw ee b ( chat/review! ) 22:34, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong phrasing? Abu Ali wrote "Have a look at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Incivility, disruptive editing, and stalking-like behavior from Isarig. What do you think?" on each page. What else was he supposed to write? If someone has been edit-warring inappropriately, how else do you uncover this other than through the comment of those who were invovled? You can point out that Abu Ali brought this to others' attention, but to act like it was some sort of breach of the peace seems pretty out there. Mackan79 22:59, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Daveyweeb, Ali's quoting the actual title of the section on this page there, not writing those words himself, so it's a little unfair to say he's leading people on with that comment. I also don't know of any wikipedia policy against letting other users know about WP/ANI reports about users that they have had negative (or positive) interactions with in the past.  Finally, Slimvirgin, can you explain what any of this has to do with antisemitism?  I found your comment only tangentially related at best to the earlier dispute when you posted it the first time, but I fail to see any connection at all to the dispute here. csloat 23:04, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Looking around for people who you think have been in conflict with someone you don't like, then canvassing them to go beat up on him on AN/I, is harassment. Jayjg <small style="color:DarkGreen;">(talk) 23:05, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. That doesn't appear to have occurred here. csloat 23:35, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It doesn't appear to have occured here? What do you call the selective solicitation of 14 different editors who have been in conflict with me, to come and comment on a complaint against me? Isarig 00:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that editors who have been abused by you in the past are perfectly entitled to have their say here. Abu ali 10:11, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Well at least Abu ali admits it. &lt;&lt;-armon-&gt;&gt; 10:47, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but what is Abu Ali admitting here?--G-Dett 14:56, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Canvassing. &lt;&lt;-armon-&gt;&gt; 15:41, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Csloat, my concern is that there's an increasingly hostile editing environment around articles to do with Jews, Judaism, and Israel. I've been editing for over two years, and while we've always had that problem, it's clearly getting worse, and the lines between legitimate criticism of Israeli government policy and antisemitism are becoming ever more blurred. A good example of that was User:Kiyosaki who turned up a few weeks ago to disrupt Allegations of Israeli apartheid. It was obvious to many of the editors used to editing these pages that Kiyosaki was a bigot, pure and simple, but it wasn't obvious to some of the anti-Israel editors on the page. It took us some weeks to work out whose sockpuppet he was, but he was finally exposed as the account of an old-time, well-known antisemitic editor. During the time he was editing that article, however, he caused a lot of disruption and bad feeling.
 * That example isn't isolated. We see antisemitic editors all the time trying to take advantage of anti-Israel POV to cause ill feeling and problems for editors they perceive as Jewish. Usually they out themselves over time, because they get more and more extreme, but not always. It's a problem I would hope all editors of goodwill would help to look out for, because it affects both "sides" of the Israel debate equally. It makes editors who tend toward support for Israel feel stressed and under constant attack, and it makes editors more critical of Israel look bad when they find themselves supported by antisemites. It makes Wikipedia look bad to have these articles veer back and forth between POVs, with bad-faith sockpuppets gleefully holding sway on talk pages and threatening regular editors with the ArbCom. The same problems crop up, for the same reason, on pages to do with Jews and Judaism. I see it as a problem we should all work on together. SlimVirgin <sup style="color:Purple;">(talk) 23:34, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that antisemitic editors should not be welcomed here, but I just don't see how it's relevant to this particular discussion. I'm not anti-semitic or anti-Israel myself, and I haven't seen any evidence that anyone else in this discussion is.  True, Abu Ali's comment comparing Isarig to the Israeli military was over the top, but it wasn't anti-semitic.  I think we could all stand to take a deep breath and relax here, and I'm going to volunteer to be the first to do so.csloat 23:39, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It was Abu Ali who has tried to switch the focus to antisemitism, but it's not only a question of that. It's that there are concerted efforts to make Israel and Jews look bad, for whatever reason. The motive is sometimes antisemitism and sometimes an unexplained obsession with making sure that Israel looks evil. The motivations don't really matter just as the individual accounts don't. What matters is how we deal with it, because Wikipedia isn't here to make Israel or Jews look good or bad, and that was the discussion that I was trying to open up. I see the complaint against Isarig as possibly an example of the problem, given Abu Ali's inappropriate comment. SlimVirgin <sup style="color:Purple;">(talk) 23:50, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Excuse me, but it was you who brought up the false accusation of antisemitism. And I note that you have not apologised or retracted your accusation, on the grounds that you are not familiar with my edits. (look here Special:Contributions/Abu_ali) Several edit wars with Isarig and his friends from WP:Israel concern their insistence on inserting libelous accusations of anti-semitism or association with anti-semites to discredit authors who are critical of Israeli government policy. Any accusation of antisemitic behaviour should be thoroughly investigated and dealth with. But accusations of antisemitism (or of any other form of racism) should not be thrown around in a light minded manner. Abu ali 10:11, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Personally I have seen a great deal of hostility coming from all sides of these debates. Mackan79 00:10, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree with csloat, Abu Ali and Mackan79 on these last points. I'd add that if "the lines between legitimate criticism of Israeli government policy and antisemitism are becoming ever more blurred," it is in large part because editors like Slim are tenaciously blurring them.  Indeed the whole point of alluding to "an increasingly hostile editing environment around articles to do with Jews, Judaism, and Israel" is precisely to blur those lines.  I have been involved in a lot of contentious pages related to Israeli-Palestinian issues, where Isarig and Slim have also been heavily involved, and with the exception of a couple of sideshows produced by cranks like Kiyosaki, I have never seen this "concerted effort by a number of editors to blacken anything to do with Jews, Judaism, or Israel."  On the other hand, on any of these pages one can find a concerted effort to blacken anything to do with individuals - Jewish, Arab, or other - who are prominently critical of Israeli occupation policies.  Isarig is involved in one such blackening effort right now at the very article that precipitated the present discussion (he's arguing that the article on Juan Cole should include an accusation that Cole's writings "resonate powerfully" with the central argument of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but should exclude Cole's dismissal of the attack as "outrageous").  Slim has tended to either condone or actively participate in blackening efforts of this kind, often by "blurring" lines as she has done on this page, and creating an incredibly specious spectrum of guilt by association, beginning at one end with anyone who disagrees with her about the root causes of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and extending all the way out to the antisemitic fringe.--G-Dett 15:28, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the allegations of antisemitism are actually irrelevant and beside the point here. I am an anti-Zionist Jew, and I am being stalked and harassed over the pages of Wikipedia by a series of one-off accounts and sockpuppets who do not like my edits to articles on Israel-related subjects. Every day, I have to search to find which articles have been vandalised with derogatory comments about me. Today, it was Gilad Atzmon, Roberto Rosselini, Pig and Camel. Yesterday it was Faisal-Weizmann Agreement, Folke Bernadotte/temp, Israel Shahak, David Raziel, Convoy of 35, Al-Khisas massacre, Roberto Rossellini, Farouk Kaddoumi, Great White Records and Gilad Atzmon. And there have been dozens more. The person responsible (and I'm definitely not pointing the finger at Isarig) is not making antisemitic attacks on me, but is certainly making a concerted effort to make me -- a forthright critic of Israel and Zionism -- look bad. So when SlimVirgin notes "an increasingly hostile editing environment around articles to do with Jews, Judaism, and Israel", she should recognise that it is not only supporters of Israel who face this hostility and abuse. RolandR 00:13, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry you've had to put up with that. I've blocked the latest account that was attacking you, and you should feel free to let me know if it happens again. You're right that the hostile environment affects everyone. The problem is not only antisemitism. It's also that some editors feel that using Wikipedia to paint Israel black is a legitimate way to use the encyclopedia, and of course it isn't. We end up with toxic talk pages, terrible articles, and editors who feel victimized and bullied. It would be good if good-faith editors on all sides could try to come up with a solution together. SlimVirgin <sup style="color:Purple;">(talk) 00:26, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with the second part of this entirely; I just wish people could acknowledge the extreme partisanship on all sides of these issues. In my view, there's simply an extreme shortage on the assumption of good faith.  People immediately revert edits without making any attempt to follow the guidelines in WP:Revert.  If they've seen something generally similar before, they simply assume its included for the same dumb reason.  All in all, many seem to have stopped caring, if they ever did, about the spirit of editing on WP.  I think this failure to be civil and assume good faith, much more than any latent bigotry of WP editors, is the source of hostility. Mackan79 03:07, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Abu Ali was simply performing a useful service in alerting me and others to this complaint. Isariq has been relentlessly belligerent and the displeasure of his fellow editors should be addressed. The fact that he has offended such a wide swath of the WP community is evidence of the disruption he has caused. There are many other editors who share Isarig's POV and sometimes his stubborn streak, but they don't create nearly the unpleasantness. --Lee Hunter 01:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * This "useful service" has already been described by several editors here as harassment. And here you are applauding it. No more needs to be said about you or your contributions to this debate. Isarig 01:30, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Lee even if you got the "alert", showing up here to to put the boot in regarding Isarig's belligerence, is a bad look when one could arguably call you even less civil at times and note your own hair-trigger rv button. Isarig has little patience for weak arguments and off-topic soapboxing on talk pages. If his opponents refuse to "stay down" and keep coming back with more of the same, usually peppered with personal attacks, instead of staying on point and forming better arguments, he won't let up and will keep knocking them down. The problem for them is that most of the time he's right. True, perhaps not the paragon of civility, but on the other hand, I've not seen him attempt to suppress anything contrary to his POV so long as it was reliably sourced and written according to policy. This can not be said of the editor who filed this ANI, and the "wide swath of the WP community" you refer to, are for the most part, composed of trolls like User:Will314159 who you didn't see fit to comment on. I don't expect you to like the guy, but I had expected more grudging respect. &lt;&lt;-armon-&gt;&gt; 12:00, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Please note Armon (who has supported) Isarig in various disputes used the phrase "he won't let up and will keep knocking them down" (my emphasis). I think that this acurately descrives Isarig's style of editing and discussion, a style which Armon oviously approves of . Abu ali 10:26, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * If I approve of anything, it's that from what I've seen, Isarig generally stays on point and makes better arguments than his opponents. The problem is that most people, when they lose an argument, especially when it's shown to be weak, turn their embarrassment into anger at whoever "beat" them. This in my view explains a lot of the hostility for Isarig here. I believe that, like Felix-felix below, "I don't think he ever gave worse than he got" and I've also seen cases of him giving a lot less. Should he be more civil -sure. &lt;&lt;-armon-&gt;&gt; 12:19, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Well call me Isarig the Second, because I didn't see that as an example of being uncivil so much as firmly pointing out to Elizmr the absurdity of asking for "respect" for her suggestion that Cole was, as she put it, "internalizing" the themes of the protocols of Zion. I don't mind saying that anyone who proposes such an appalling and incendiary idea will lose my respect immediately. Regarding Will314159, I don't know anything about him and I don't know why you bring him up. --Lee Hunter 15:55, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * She was making a general comment in response your protests (or sloats) that Cole objectively couldn't have "internalized the themes" because his is a prof. The inability to respect anybody who doesn't share one's POV is likely an insoluble problem for a lot of editors, but it's not something to be proud of.
 * As for Will314159, we edited the same pages with him for months and you didn't notice how out of line his behavior was? OK, but it amazes me. &lt;&lt;-armon-&gt;&gt; 12:19, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, that is incorrect. The only person who talked about "internalizing the themes" was Elizmr and her comment came completely from left field and out of context with the previous discussion. She wrote: "And to throw my 2 cents in, like it or not, it is a well known fact that (very unfortunately), the protocols are very prominent in the ME media. It is not suprising that ME historians and scholars would have internalized some of these themes." This after demanding that we respect her opinion. Respect is earned, it's not a God-given right. --Lee Hunter 20:05, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Armon, calling most of the people who commented here "trolls" is uncivil at best. Your claim that Isarig has not tried to suppress anything contrary to his POV is incorrect; as you know, you and he are involved in mediation on that very issue on the Juan Cole page.  Your claim that I have done so is also totally inaccurate; that has not occurred.csloat 01:57, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The mediation is public. It seems I'm more opposed to using a particular post from Cole's blog as a source to reframe criticism into a Cole/Karsh fight than he is -and I've also submitted 2 alternatives which I believe are better and from RSs to use instead. Poor evidence for "suppression". &lt;&lt;-armon-&gt;&gt; 12:19, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know where the podium is but well i can speak throughout the window. It's a pitty that the discussion has taken this way. In brief, i have to say that SlimVirgin's statements are not helpful and harm the community IMO. I read that and feel that there's much bias when you say there exist some antisemitic editors. I feel bad because the scope of the accusation is so large. Please give us names Slim. Abu Ali was clear on his accusation though i don't agree with the brutal ways of Isarig. That accusation was directed to one user who could of course reply or rebute that. Yes, true that Abu Ali started it but let's not forget that it was directed to someone who can easily respond to it and not to a group of phantoms. The problem w/ Slim's accusations is that nobody can reply. It is a kind of unsourced edits in wiki jargon. But i will do reply and say that whether there are an orchestra made of anti-semitic editors and their fans or not over here, remains irrelevant. I will ask about names indeed especially when Slim uses the term obvious.

It should also be noted that i've heard the same accusations re anti-arab and anti-islam editors for more than a dozen of months. Have we reached a solution to catch those anti-x (in case there are) wherever they are here in wikipedia? Unfortunately No! Why? Because established editors and concerned admins think the phenomenon got only one side and is only limited to the side admins think they are victims. That's wrong, anti-x editing is well-spread around wikipedia but i don't believe there's infamous orchestras. There are individuals who carry much POV and fight for that and don't risk banning as account recreation is made easy. So let's stop making vague accusations and be concrete to try to get rid of these problems. At least, let's try it. Cheers -- <font size="2px" face="Verdana"><font color="DarkSlateBlue">Szvest  - <font style="background: gold">Wiki me up (R)  11:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

For the record, I've had recent and fairly brusque encounters with Isarig, who, as outlined above is an obsessive, ideological, and pretty rude edit warrior.(on the Oliver Kamm page) However, much like G Dett, I don't think he ever gave worse than he got, but I haven't experienced stalking by him, to my knowledge.Felix-felix 16:56, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I find this comment by Isarig to be offensive: "This 'useful service' [soliciting comments] has already been described by several editors here as harassment. And here you are applauding it. No more needs to be said about you or your contributions to this debate."

I was one of those editors solicited. I had not had any negative interactions with Isarig, and I so noted that here. I noted that I thought some disputes had been resolved at Al-Aqsa Intifada. Boy was I wrong. Today, there have been 2 mass reversions. One by an admin. I would appreciate if this utterly toxic atmosphere would end. If it keeps up I will be making an incident report here, and I will be soliciting comments from others who have had interactions with these 2 editors. --Timeshifter 02:48, 6 January 2007 (UTC)(->)


 * I've been recently stalked and harassed by user Isarig, so i'm not surprised that he is doing this for a long time, going through user contributions and reverting, stalking and harassing. In my observation he does not assume good faith, really rude, and leaves false edit summaries. I'm really surprised that after assaulting, stalking so many users nothing was done to prevent this kind of behaviour, which seems like his signiture move. Mnemonic2 05:18, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Mnemonic2 has been a user here for two days who has made some questionable edits; don't give that opinion too much weight. -- Kendrick7talk 05:27, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * User Kendrick7 was recently blocked for 3RR violations. He seems to take wikipedia too seriously constantly attacking other editors, edit warring, making baseless accusations, and in an effor to make a personal attack he lies about when i made my first edit. Also one can read all articles without registering an account. Mnemonic2 05:56, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * You made your first edit a week ago, my mistake. I would love to meet some of these editors I constantly attack. -- Kendrick7talk 10:01, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Durova blows the referee whistle
This particular dispute has always been tough to adjudicate. The main participants are well informed and highly articulate, yet some of their methods violate policy in ways I rarely see among editors who know how to spell. The mediation looks like it may indeed succeed at its own narrow aim. Yet the dispute is larger and spreading. I find it oddly appropriate that the Edward Said biography has joined the affected pages: during his years at Columbia University that English department had a reputation as street brawling for Ph.D.s.

In specific reply to csloat, my rebuke spoke to that dichotomy. The debate about libel and slander touched an area I studied in graduate school and your knowledge of that subject does appear to be professorial as does your articulate writing style. Topically these are high level discussions. That contrasts with forum-shopping, personalizing disputes, bad faith assumptions, incivility, edit warring, and deceptive complaints - behaviors more characteristic of a weak undergraduate. My criticism has nothing to do with how you conduct a classroom and everything to do with this website where expert contributors in the humanities are uncommon and too many of the weak undergraduates I normally referee are eager to assume the worst of any authority figure. If the opinion hurts your feelings I am sorry; I know of no milder way to express this earnest evaluation.

This does not, however, vindicate the other parties. Normally I would wait for mediation to work but this particular conflict has seeped onto too many pages and accumulated new disputants as it spreads. The main question I confront now is not whether but how to open an arbitration request: who and what are involved? <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charg e! 06:21, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Are you canvassing opinions here? &lt;&lt;-armon-&gt;&gt; 10:43, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * For the record I think both SlimVirgin's veiled insinuation and Abu Ali's outrageous rhetoric are damaging to this whole enterprise. For me, this issue boils down to the speed with which Isarig assumes bad faith, makes and then repeats baseless allegations. From my own experience: A secondary issue is the fact that the Wiki guidelines on reliable sources are frankly open to interpretation, for example, terms like "expert" are weasley worm-can openers and the massive "previously published work" loophole doesn't help the issue. Finally, I, for one, was not "rounded up" by anybody. Cheers! Famousdog 15:13, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I think arbitration is premature here. Most of the issues being discussed stem from the Juan Cole article, which is in mediation, and good progress is being made there due to the efforts of User:Martinp23. The broader issues brought up by User:SlimVirgin - the hostile editing environment surrounding Israel and Jewish-related articles may warrant a a differnt approach, but agian, I'm not sure Arbitration is the solution there. Isarig 18:06, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Then I'll hold off for now. I'll also caution you about disruption, Isarig.  The only reason I haven't blocked you for the Quran desecration controversy/Piss Christ quarrel is because the waters are muddy.  Everybody, please slow down and disengage.  And try not to graft the Arab/Israeli conflict onto this already messy dispute. <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 02:03, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Isarig is one of a small group of editors (the others are Amoruso and Shamir1) who endlessly push a particular pov into mid-east-related articles. A large fraction of their edits are reverts, usually to reinstert the junk they have copied from worthless propagandistic sources. It would be a tough assignment to find any substantial improvement to any article due to their efforts over months. The proper place for this discussion is before the arb ctte. --Zerotalk 09:24, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The remark above is a personal attack against three editors and should be removed by the editor who wrote it. Elizmr 10:05, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The remark is not a personal attack, it is a complaint. I don't know Amoruso and Shamir1, but it is a valid comment on Isariq's work. --Lee Hunter 20:09, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Zero's remarks are based on evidence that has cited many times in talk pages and in this Request for Assistance. Isarig has become particularly disruptive. As well as removing well-sourced information, for example here, he posts abusive fake "warnings" on talk pages  and refuses polite requests that he restore WP:RS-compliant material. If action is not taken Isarig should at least be warned that he must abide by policy in future. Wikipedia simply doesn't need editing of this standard. --Ian Pitchford 11:41, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The disputed remark looks like a comment on behavior, not character or personality, and I accept it as such. I have cautioned Isarig in this thread.  I'm not going to open an arbitration request right now, although I would probably do so if petitioned in the future, and any editor in good standing can initiate a request themselves at WP:RFAR.  If someone chooses to do so now and seeks my advice in crafting the request I will provide it. <font face="Verdana"> Durova Charge 03:29, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I have just checked Isarig's edit log and it looks like this discussion and the threat of arbitration has brought an impovement in Isarig's conduct. Long may it contnue. I agree that there is no need for arbitration right now. But someone should keep an eye on the Israel related pages to ensure that the truce is maintained. Abu ali 11:45, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I've been recently stalked and harassed by user Isarig, so i'm not surprised that he is doing this for a long time, going through user contributions and reverting, stalking and harassing. In my observation he does not assume good faith, really rude, and leaves false edit summaries. I'm really surprised that after assaulting, stalking so many users nothing was done to prevent this kind of behaviour, which seems like his signiture move. Sorry i first posted this at the wrong place. Mnemonic2 05:49, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I can't be the only one who finds it ironic that we have a message complaining about Isarig going through a user's contributions list right below a message by another user admitting to going through Isarig's contributions list. Both sides need to gain perspective and disengage. - Merzbow 06:38, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

209.244.43.209
I unblocked as per this conversation. was caught behind the autoblock on this one. This stems from Requests for checkuser/Case/Bowser Koopa. However, I want to get input on this. I'm curious if I should reblock the IP address with the indefinite expiration time but make it for anonymous only (and disable account creation). Would this be more appropriate? Or should it just be the outright unblock? Thanks, Metros232 16:49, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Generally IP addresses should not be indef blocked, as they may be dynamic. To find out if any abuse is coming from this IP address, you will have ask a checkuser.  Try crossposting this question to the Requests for IP check section of WP:RFCU.  They won't disclose the names of users on the IP, but should be able to determine if any current or recent users of that IP have been vandalism. Thatcher131 02:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Well that's the thing. It was indefinitely blocked by a checkuser.  Dmcdevit blocked it on December 10 as a result of the checkuser.  My concern is that now that I unblocked the IP because of the autoblock effects on The Showster, a user who is possibly innocent and just got caught up in the checkuser somehow, other accoutns can be used on this IP for further vandalism.  That's why I'm posting this here, to see if the block should be reinstated as a more soft block, allowing The Showster to use it without allowing new vandals to be created.  Metros232 02:43, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, you should definitely ask Dmcdevit, then. Since he's on light duty for a couple more weeks, I would also ask Mackensen, who is pretty active. Thatcher131 12:16, 7 January 2007 (UTC)