Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive656

Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome + pending changes
Would anyone have any problem with me breaking the rules and placing pending changes on this article just for a day or two? As you can see at No original research/Noticeboard, most of the recent edits are poor quality IP edits, yet the most important updates are coming from IPs. Magog the Ogre (talk) 18:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds sensible.-- SPhilbrick  T  18:12, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If the well-meaning but generally unuseful IP edits continue, semi-protection should be considered for a few days. I have not seen much OR, though. Even the poorer edits have not strayed far from the reported facts. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:18, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Alright, ✅. I know PC is unpopular in some circles but this seems to be a textbook time to use it, and it shouldn't be more than a few days. Magog the Ogre (talk) 18:21, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Smith Jones and this page
When I was an administrator, I first came upon when he made several uninformed comments to various issues brought up on this page. I requested on four separate occasions that he stop making these comments and it was clear in 2008 to me at least that he does not have the competence to provide any insight in matters that often require administrative assistance. This is not the first time he has been brought up here (see IncidentArchive351#User:Smith Jones and Archive179#User:Smith Jones) so this behavior of his is not new and has persisted over the past two years. A cursory review of his more recent comments brings up things such as this, this, and this.

I honestly have not looked into his article edits, but it is pretty clear that whenever he is on this board, it does not do anyone any good. I believe that Smith Jones should be subject to a ban from any of the noticeboards unless he is directly involved with the issue at hand.— Ryūlóng (竜龙 ) 22:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * this thread smacks of retaliation becuase i suggested that you and pmanderson were having problems avoiding edit warring on certain topics. if you want me to stay off your threads, thats fine, but only an administrator and/or the community has the right to tell me where i can and cannot edit and i dont feel as if i have to continue take orders from you. you dredge up old mistakes of mine that i have long since apologized and atoned for repeteadly in order to smear my name (how would you feel if i did that to you??) and you try to use the fact that i disagree with you as some kind of proof of misconduct. if you dont like my edits, you have no obligation to read them. User:Smith Jones 22:47, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Please close this thread unless we need to discuss a ban on Ryulong for defaming good editors.--William S. Saturn (talk) 22:51, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Ditto. We've been through this before, and no action has ever been deemed worthy of consideration. Smith Jones's mode of communication may be unconventional, but WP:AGF, you know. Rodhull  andemu  22:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * i freely admit that ive made dumb comments here before but i feel that the past 2 years i have tried to comment less and comment more substantively. you can check my editing history if you want. User:Smith Jones 23:04, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This has nothing to do with retaliation. I have just been seeing the same questionable edits from Smith Jones on this page and it just so happened that he was doing it in the thread concerning my recent block. I've assumed good faith, but he clearly does not know how to hold himself on this page. He may be fine in the article space, but on WP:AN and WP:ANI he only gets in the way.— Ryūlóng (竜龙 ) 23:22, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, Smith Jones came up with a good solution on that page. I fully support his comments there.--William S. Saturn (talk) 23:26, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * On what page? All I have ever seen him do is get himself involved in disputes that are brought to ANI and provide nothing of worth to the conversations.— Ryūlóng (竜龙 ) 23:28, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Overlooking the typos (which he later fixed), I fully support the comments he made here. The only incompetence is reflected from the opening of this inappropriate thread, and the misguided view that your opinions on community matters are superior to Smith Jones'.--William S. Saturn (talk) 23:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

User Dogemperor and WikiLubber and MegastarLV
Very inactive and sporadic user,, shows up to add report to Sockpuppet investigations/WikiLubber and to Long-term abuse/MegastarLV. With regards to Special:Contributions/Dogemperor, this seems rather curious. Thoughts??? -- Cirt (talk) 23:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Glad to comment on this (and incidentially, if I've reported it to the wrong place, I do apologise--I have been inactive on Wikipedia for a while, and am trying to contribute usefully; if I did this the wrong way, please feel free to let me know so I don't err again).


 * I had noticed in a check for files for deletion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion) which had no less than 11 images removed from the same user (MegastarLV); a check of the userpage shows that MegastarLV has had rather longterm imagevios of multiple game-show articles (particularly America's Funniest Home Videos since at least 25 April 2010 and apparently ongoing, including with edit wars where nonfree content has been replaced after removal. The evidence on the user's [|talk page] shows no less than 56 separate requests for either speedy deletion of files, removal of orphaned non-free content, or flagging of non-free content from 25 April 2010 to 6 December 2010 (the most recent material being speedily deleted including [|this and 11 more non-free images flagged for speedy deletion due to imagevio in the same list for Files for Deletion for 6 December 2010]).  User has been warned no less than 6 times over imagevios alone, with evidence the user has attempted to pass off nonfree images as Creative Commons licensed[][][][][][].


 * In addition, there is evidence there is a broader abuse/vandalism issue that makes report simply for longterm copyvios inappropriate (I do realise that it's iffy to list here as the user themselves have (miraculously) NOT yet been blocked to my knowledge, but the amount of various sorts of abuse here are pretty staggering). Among other things, there is evidence the user is engaging in vandalism[], has attempted merges of articles without community consensus and has been warned about this[], changes to various infoboxes without community consensus[][][], randomly changing styles of articles with established style guides[][] (the latter also involving changes in infoboxes), and at least two cases of edit warring[][].


 * I also did have some concerns based on one of the ANIs of sockpuppetry; an ANI noted below re the edit-warring on The Price Is Right article notes that user WikiLubber has engaged in similar abuse; a view of WikiLubber's talk page and user page indicates the two accounts have engaged in a similar history of tendetious editing of articles on gameshow-related pages, hence the request for checkuser.


 * According to a check I've done, MegastarLV has been involved in no less than two WP:ANI discussions, the first being [|a case on 21 September 2010 involving edit-warring and potential talkpage vandalism and wikistalking involving this user], and a second case [|as recently as 24 November where MegastarLV reported what was apparently an innocent IP address for vandalism of articles he himself had perpetrated].


 * If I reported this in the wrong place, I apologise; my intent was solely to get admin eyes on what may have been an abuse issue that slipped under the radar, and I do apologise if I was out of place in this. Dogemperor (talk) 00:03, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Creation of articles from leaked classified documents
Because this topic is relevant to almost every noticeboard, I'm posting a brief incident report here. and have been spearheading the creation of encyclopedia articles based on leaked classified documents from WikiLeaks, using the leaked cables to support the majority of the article. This was recently discussed at Talk:United_States_diplomatic cables leak, with both meco and Wnt ignoring the points raised in that discussion. Wnt took this a step further, and created a new article, Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, which is primarily based on a classified, February 2009 cable from the U.S. State Department that lists foreign installations and infrastructure considered critical to U.S. interests. U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the information "gives a group like al-Qaeda a targeting list" and British prime minister David Cameron said the list damages the national security of the U.S., the U.K, and other countries. Because this list was uploaded from the classified leaked documents and lacks enough secondary sources for a standalone article, I redirected it to the United States Department of Homeland Security.  Wnt restored it soon after, and I once again redirected it.  We have a problem that needs to be addressed by the community. Since the WikiLeaks cables are considered "raw data", they are primary sources. The content in question here has been described by the BBC as "one of the most sensitive", and by CNN as "key to U.S. security". According to meco and Wnt, this means Wikipedia must host an article on the subject and include classified content from leaked documents. I leave this matter for the community to decide, as this issue will continue to come up in the coming days as more documents are released. As Wikipedia editors, we need to show self-restraint and self-control when using leaked primary documents, and doubly so when we are dealing with leaked classified documents considered vital to global security. Viriditas (talk) 02:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Surely this is dealt with by WP:PRIMARY? Physchim62 (talk) 02:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I think Jimbo Wales and the Wikipedia legal team are looking into this. At least that is my reasonable guess. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 03:00, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * e/c The issues of "classified" and "leaked" and so on are irrelevant. For the most part at least, there's little doubt they're authentic. The problem is that they're primary sources -- and often consist only of ephemera (the views of a given foreign service officer, often quite junior, in one place and time). This makes them great stuff to be trolled through and synthesized by historians. Your average wikipedia editor? Not so much. But there's no need to reinvent the wikipedia wheel here. Treat them for what they are -- primary, non-peer reviewed sources. Which is to say, with great caution. Any article built entirely around these kinds of cables should be deleted on site. But judicious use of cables, properly attributed and handled by wikipedia's army of crack researchers, should be ok.Bali ultimate (talk) 03:01, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * There's also a COPYVIO problem, at least at Talk:United_States_diplomatic cables leak: close paraphrasing of the BBC which exceeds acceptable levels (even for me, and I'm usually quite cool about such things). Physchim62 (talk) 03:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The redirect requires deletion. The immediacy of this issue requires further clarification by the community because it is going to keep happening over the next month.  Obviously, we are here to write articles based on secondary sources, but Wnt is trying to get around this by briefly quoting a secondary to support the creation of a stub, and then filling the majority of the article up with content directly from the leaked, classified documents.  In my opinion, Wnt (and others) are purposefully trying to game the policies and guidelines to write articles based solely on classified documents.  That's why this requires administrator attention. Viriditas (talk) 03:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes that sort of thing is a problem and should not be tolerated. However, it's not only tolerated, it's supported, every day here. Wikipedia supports the invention of fake "topics." Go no.Bali ultimate (talk) 03:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This isn't "gaming the system", but following the rules. An article has to have sources to meet the general notability guideline.  So I came up with several such sources - more are easily available - and used some sources published by the agency that created the CFDI, and used a definitive primary source.  This primary source in turn provides numerous search terms to find more secondary sources.  Right now, people all over the world are writing news stories about many of the specific sites listed in this cable - about what was meant, whether it was out of date, what it's importance is.  The primary source lets us find these sources and compile that expert analysis from secondary sources that people here say they value so highly. Wnt (talk) 07:13, 9 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The cables are PRIMARY. Articles written from PRIMARY sources are SYNTHESIS and ORIGINAL RESEARCH.  Warn the editors; Speedy or AFD the articles depending on current deletions policy. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:09, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The leaked documents are leaked! Even if it was Wikipedia's responsibility to safeguard U.S. security (and it isn't), it is too late for that. They are however primary sources however, and should be treated as such - at best as a source for quotes to add a bit of colour to proper reporting of what reliable secondary sources say. Anything else is likely to be OR from people perhaps a little over-enthusiastic with their interpretation. This isn't our job either. Topics need good verifiable secondary sources to justify creation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I disagree. Writers do have ethical obligations in every field, and in an encyclopedia, the policies and guidelines are based on such obligations: Why should we use reliable sources?  Why should we be careful writing about BLP's?  Why do we care about a NPOV?  These are all ethical problems requiring responsibility, self-control and restraint. As I said in the discussion linked above, we're not here to write articles in the vein of The Anarchist Cookbook. Viriditas (talk) 03:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * As a Brit, I have no more 'ethical problems' with dealing with this in a neutral manner than I would if the leaks came from anywhere else, but this is beside the point. Nothing written in Wikipedia is going to alter the fact that the documents 'have' been leaked. If we report this issue in a responsible manner (i.e. using verifiable secondary sources), nothing will appear that isn't out there already. Even if the odd bit of 'primary' were to be included in an article, this isn't releasing anything that isn't already known. I think it highly likely that anyone intent on using the leaked documents for hostile purposes will acquire their own copies, rather than looking for snippets on Wikipedia. I think are normal policy (properly applied) is quite adequate - though perhaps we need to remind people about BLP policy on naming non-notable people, if for no reason than that is ignored too often anyway. The 'Anarchist Cookbook' issue seems a bit of a red herring to me, as 'articles in the vein of' it would violate WP:NPOV. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In any case WP:HOWTO covers the case of The Anarchist Cookbook! Well, it used to... Physchim62 (talk) 03:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * AndyTheGrump, the red herring here is the notion that because "the documents have been leaked", there's nothing we can do. That isn't true.  We only write encyclopedia articles based on good secondary sources, and we do so carefully and with good judgment.  Just as we don't tell people how to make weapons or hack into the Pentagon, we don't provide them with a classified list of sensitive installations and say, "do with it what you will, it is out of our hands, we're just Wikipedia editors." What you are forgetting is that WikiLeaks provides these documents to journalists, who do have ethical obligations and are supposed to be professionals.  The raw data was not meant for use by Wikipedia editors who may not, and who in your case, refuse to recognize and accept this great responsibility because of a refusal to act professionally.  We've got the ethical foundation in the policies and guidelines, and nothing in them says we write articles with an attitude of  "well, that's that, it is out of my hands, I don't care."  Just the opposite, in fact. Why do we care about accuracy? Why do we care about getting BLP's right?  Why do we care about copyright? Viriditas (talk) 03:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)


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


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

The stuff released by WikiLeaks has been vetted to make sure it can't do any damage to lives of people. What is now going on is that the US government is finding herself in the same boat as e.g. the Chinese government is in when issues regarding dissidents/Tibet etc. are raised. They will invoke national security as a real life version of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Count Iblis (talk) 04:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I know; funny as hell, innit? Half  Shadow  04:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That is 100% not the issue. The issue is that this is basicly a bunch of unfiltered emails (i know, "cables", whatever, same thing).  You can't source a Wikipedia article to a bunch of unfiltered emails.  The reason we don't allow primary sources like this to be the main source of references for an article is that there is no analysis of those sources.  Wikipedia cannot be the first place of analysis.  If as person wanted to, they could simply cherrypick specific cables to use as references and build a case to "prove" anything they wanted to in a Wikipedia article.  We don't do that here.  Its not the role of Wikipedia.  It is the role of reliable secondary sources like newspapers, magazines, peer-reviewed journals, or respectable book-publishing scholars to weed through these cables and then report on what they find.  Only after someone else, outside of Wikipedia, has assigned meaning to these cables should that information be used in a Wikipedia article.  Right now, its a bunch of unfiltered communications and none of us has any idea what ANY of it means.  So we shouldn't use it in articles, period.  When the BBC does a major piece on some aspect of something they found, and researched, and checked into, and confirmed, and THEN reported on; we use the BBC source.  But not before that.  -- Jayron  32  04:18, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yup. Normal policy applies. No synthesis. Use WP:RS, Work within WP:BLP (for a change...) If some idiot wants to compile a list of 'potential terrorist targets' using the cables, it won't get on Wikipedia, not because it is a 'security threat' (which it is unlikely to be, for the reasons already given), but because it isn't acceptable content. End of story. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:25, 9 December 2010 (UTC)


 * All of our normal policies should apply here. For there to be individual articles on any of the specific documents leaked by Wikileaks, there needs to be a certain amount of significant coverage in secondary sources about those documents. However, on the other side of the field, if there are enough secondary sources to qualify an article for inclusion as a stand-alone article, arguments based on it being about classified material are irrelevant. Once released by a source, classified material becomes public. The source in this case is Wikileaks. Once released, the material is free to be used by both newspapers and any other group, since it has devolved to public information upon its release.
 * To summarize: articles need enough secondary sources to qualify under our policies and guidelines. If a topic does qualify, arguments for deletion of said articles because they are classified information should be considered irrelevent. Silver  seren C 04:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I would like to note that reprinting any material that is in the "cables" released could be possibly be covered under the Espionage_Act_of_1917 and could lead to repercussions against Wikipedia. All editors should be careful to not jeopardize the project in such a way. No matter who all has done so before it could still be done on a case by case basis and people and organizations fined and/or jailed if it is determined to be. The Espionage Act has already been upheld to not violate First Amendment rights of free speech since it involves the act itself, not necessarily the material. And reproducing classified material wouldnt be justified just by saying "well, they did it too". I dont know where the whole WikiLeaks thing is going to go, but I dont think we should get involved in any way with it. Wolfstorm000 (talk) 04:41, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Ooh! Scary legal threat. Edison (talk) 06:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * No, that's not how it works. The original releasing agent of the material is liable for the "damage" caused by its release. The releasing agent in this case is Wikileaks. Thus, the government is entirely able to sue and/or prosecute Wikileaks under the Espionage Act. However, since Wikipedia has nothing to do with Wikileaks, we are not in liability with them. Furthermore, like I said above, once information is released by an agent, that material then becomes public and other sources that utilize that material are not liable for holding and/or re-releasing it. This is why newspapers and other news sources are able to discuss and re-release the classified information, because they are a secondary agent that had the information after it was made public. It falls under the First Amendment of the Constitution, namely, freedom of the press. And, because Wikipedia uses news reports to make our article, making us a tertiary source, we also fall under freedom of the press and are that much more removed from the original documents. If the government had the audacity to try and prosecute Wikipedia, it would also have to prosecute every news agency that ever made an in-depth news report on the documents, since it is their information that we are utilizing for our articles. Silver  seren C 04:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

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


 * I was expecting to argue this issue at AfD, not ANI. We haven't even had time to properly start an edit war!  I must strongly object to the continual bait-and-switch between policy issues and legal issues on this topic.  There is nothing illegal about discussing "classified" information that has been widely disseminated on web and news sites all over the world.  So then we get into arguments about "primary sources" - but those are policy arguments, which at most would be used to try to excuse specific changes within the article.  And when those run out, we run into "ethical" arguments.  But I'd like to know what kind of ethics it that demands us to pretend that we are protecting secret information, at the expense of actually abandoning WP:NOTCENSORED like it was yesterday's news.
 * Now as for specifics, I should point out, that in the article I created, I have secondary news sources as well as the primary source; and the secondary sources attest to the apparent authenticity of the primary source. Now some people on Wikipedia, especially when they're trying to promote a point of view, like to disparage primary sources; nonetheless, there is nothing that gives a person a better idea of what is in a list of things than the list itself.  And do note that the primary source (the 2008 Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative list) is being used as a source about itself, which is the most kosher use for such a source. Wnt (talk) 04:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Let's suspend legal and ethical issues for the moment. Please read WP:PRIMARY; it will explain everything. :| TelCo  NaSp  Ve :|  05:04, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:PRIMARY would be useful if only primary sources had been used in the article being discussed. However, as can be seen], there were secondary sources involved. Only a few, admittedly, but that means that it should have been taken to AfD. A redirect edit war was not the way to go. Silver  seren C 05:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I'll add that my article is about the "Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative".  The primary source that I cite contains text that identifies itself, as confirmed by secondary sources, as the "Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative (CFDI) list".  So I am using this primary source as a statement about itself.  I fully understand that there are very problematic uses of the cables as primary sources - for example, the widely disseminated news stories that China wouldn't mind if South Korea took over North Korea, based on a leaked cable which quotes a South Korean defense minister stating that opinion.  But that's not what I did here. Wnt (talk) 05:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I think one of the other issues is that the secondary coverage isn't really solid enough to warrant a stand-alone article. Of course, like i've been saying, that means that it should have been taken to AfD, not just automatically redirected. Silver  seren C 05:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Agenda driven editing is not good, unless the agenda is to create high-quality encyclopedic content. If editors are out to make a WP:POINT by creating lots of original research articles based largely on primary sources, not only should those articles be deleted, but the editors causing massive disruption in that way ought to be blocked.  Editing in such a volume as to win a dispute by overwhelming the other side, in contravention of policy, is strictly prohibited. Jehochman Talk 04:57, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure whether I'm being addressed by Jehochman above, so I'll specify I don't think that I'm the one trying to "win a dispute by overwhelming the other side" when I make up a new article. I feel like I'm the one being overwhelmed by accusations of policy violations, being unethical, and being threatened that the ancient legal evil that attacked Eugene Debs has crawled out of Lake Totenkopf and is about to start chasing Wikipedia editors.  And the agenda foremost on my mind when creating the list section of the article was to take a confusing jumble of unfamiliar terms and convert it into a sea of pretty blue Wikilinks so that you could look up and understand all the sites and networks of pipelines and cables.  I should be a poor inclusionist if I did not observe, by the way, that due to unreasonably restrictive standards, Wikipedia's coverage of corporations is so poor that even many corporations identified by the U.S., a foreign country in their lands, as critical to the U.S. economy, have not been deemed worthy to have their own Wikipedia articles.  I'll also say there is nothing shameful about an agenda of using the cables to add facts to Wikipedia articles.  We've just been handed a treasure trove of inside information such as the world has rarely seen.  Yeah, it should have been kept secret, but it wasn't, and now we have new information about all kinds of topics.  That's as conventional of an encyclopedic agenda as there is, and it is also as radical as Wikileaks: because the premise of SIPRNet is that 1 in 500 people is entitled to know the truth, and the rest aren't. Wnt (talk) 05:57, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * To say something about your statement "I'll also say there is nothing shameful about an agenda of using the cables to add facts to Wikipedia articles." What you are doing by adding things straight from the cables to articles is to confuse data with analysis. As they stand right now, the cables are basically raw data.  We have no idea what they mean.  Random statements taken from those cables, out of context from the entire situation that generated them, serves no purpose at Wikipedia.  What needs to be done is someone who knows what they are doing, and is an expert in either investigative journalism or international relations or both needs to sit down with the cables, sort through them and generate a reliable story that lets us know exactly what they mean and can explain why they think that.  Wikipedia is not the place to do that.  When John Doe in a cable says something, I don't know what he means.  I don't know what its in response to, I don't know how it relates to other parts of the world the cable refers to, but is not covered by this current data dump.  I don't know shit.  I know he said what he said, but I have no means to put it into context such that I can extract meaning from it enough to use it appropriately in a Wikipedia article.  THAT is why we need secondary sources.  Secondary sources do the hard work necessary to provide the context necessary to extract meaning from primary sources.  The cables themselves are useless until they are analyzed.  -- Jayron  32  06:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The primary source was not being used to interpret anything in the article. It was being used to source a list of infrastructures. See my response below. Silver  seren C 06:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * However, we're discussing a single article that was created that did have some secondary sourcing. The question I have is why the article wasn't taken to AfD. The efforts by Viriditas to redirect it seem to be against policy. Silver  seren C 05:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * People often mistake "Articles for deletion" as a delete/keep only discussion, when there are other options such as redirection. This is probably covered more broadly at ANI. :| TelCo  NaSp  Ve :|  05:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Can I suggest we (or rather you - I'm off to bed) stick to discussing the general principle here, rather than getting drawn into debates over specific articles. As I see it, since those advocating 'restraint' are really only suggesting that we don't engage in OR, and the majority of remaining comments are saying much the same thing, we are close to consensus anyway: Work within policy, properly applied. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The problem may lie within the interpretation of said policy, rather than the policy itself or the work involved in applying it. :| TelCo  NaSp  Ve :|  05:11, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I agree with that, but it also stands to reason that policy was not followed by Viriditas. The whole edit war of redirection, unredirection, and redirection should have never happened. I put more blame on Viriditas for this because s/he should have followed policy and taken the article to AfD. Silver  seren C 05:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

My two cents: WP:Primary and WP:BLPPRIMARY could usefully be edited to prevent use of primary sources that could reasonably put people in physical danger, even if those primary sources are available elsewhere. BLPPRIMARY already says: "Do not use public records that include personal details, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses." So why do that but allow use of secret records that could get people killed?Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * See my comments above. The reason we don't use primary sources isn't because they are secret or harmful.  Its because, without the acompanying analysis provided by secondary sources, we have no way to assign meaning to things that are in primary sources.  Secondary sources (news outlets, scholars, things like that) will read through the cables, analyze them, work with other known information to construct a story about what they all mean, verify their story, confirm it independently, and THEN report it.  That sort of work is what is needed before we can use information.  Raw data (and that's all the leaked cables are) isn't of much use to anyone unless we can put the raw data into context.  We can't put them into context ourselves, that's the textbook definition of WP:OR.  We wait for someone reliable to do the work to put them into context, then we report what THEY find.  That's why we don't use primary sources.  It has nothing to do with rights, or privacy, or secrecy, or liability.  Its all about the core purpose and values of Wikipedia.  This is a WP:5P issue and nothing else. -- Jayron  32  06:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * However, like i've been saying above, the article did have secondary sources, so this continued throwing around of WP:PRIMARY is unfounded. If you actually look at the article, you'd see that the primary source was only being used to source the list of infrastructures. ALL of the other sources in the article were secondary. Silver  seren C 06:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm still talking in the general, not the specific. If your article doesn't meet the problems I laid out, then I'm not talking about you.  People, however, keep trying to say that these cables are somehow useful to Wikipedia.  They aren't.  They are next to worthless until someone else comes along and tells us what they all mean.  Insofar as you have found someone that did that, you may be OK.  (I am not saying that your secondary sources are good, and I am not saying they are bad, I am just saying, you know!).  The problem is that people are expressing the belief that the cables themselves are good sources for Wikipedia articles.  -- Jayron  32  06:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:Primary: "Primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia....."
 * Jayron32: "we don't use primary sources."
 * Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * No, we don't use primary sources to build an article around. Primary sources are useful in limited ways. For example, if we have an article about, say, an important chemical process, while the main text of the article is cited to reliable chemistry texts which discuss the process and its applications, it is quite appropriate to also include the primary publication that introduced the reaction as a supplemental source. Likewise, using the cables as supplemental references in articles which are reliably sourced to good, solid secondary sources may be appropriate.  However, the use of the cables as the sole or main source to build an article is a bad idea. You conveniently left out of your quote from WP:PRIMARY above "...but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them." and later " Do not make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about material found in a primary source. Do not base articles entirely on primary sources." (bolding original).  The problem is claiming that the cables can be used to write Wikipedia articles.  They cannot.  They can be used to supplement articles in very limited application.  -- Jayron  32  07:00, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Some cables are primary sources, essentially telegrams from an individual official back to Washington. But others are "scenesetters" compiled by a group of embassy personnel to brief a visiting high-level official.  These seem comparable to a secondary source in nature.  Whether primary or secondary, they will often turn out to be useful - for example, a quote from a foreign politician will often be quite informative in itself, without further explanation, simply as an insight into his opinions. Wnt (talk) 06:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, do WP:VALINFO and WP:USEFUL apply here? Whose Your Guy (talk) 07:18, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Jayron, as I pointed out above, there are certain public record primary sources that Wikipedia currently prohibits BOTH for basing a whole article on, and ALSO for mere supplementation purposes. I'm saying that leaked national security info should be added to the list.  Otherwise, clever editors will find a way to use it as supplementation instead of as the core of an article.Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Leaving out "private data" from an article already risks running into censorship, but the hope is that it is not really encyclopedically relevant anyway. It is a prohibition on specific types of facts of low importance.  Your proposal is to ban information according to the route by which it reached us, regardless of its (generally large) overall significance.  We should not allow the small errors of one policy to turn into the larger errors of the next until we end up ruling out coverage of major world events. Wnt (talk) 07:37, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Anythingyouwant, adding "national security" to the list of things to exclude is a very bad idea. Many governments around the world use those two words (or one of many commonly-known related terms) to suppress all kinds of information, sometimes for no understandable reasons at all. (Unless you consider "someone with a lot of power doesn't want this known" to be an understandable reason.) If you think we have enough of a headache with ethnic/nationalist squabbles on Wikipedia, allowing "national security" to be a reason not to use a primary source will make those squabbles feel like playful noogies. The best solution in any case which may involve those two words is to continue to use such sources (per our guidelines, of course) unless explicitly told not to by the Foundation: since they're the ones who'd be on the front lines in any tangle involving freedom of speech vs. national security, our best course would be to defer to their decision on the matter, not matter how stupid it is. -- llywrch (talk) 18:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I've raised the issue at Wikipedia_talk:No_original_research.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:31, 10 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with most of the editors above that the classified or leaked status of the cables is not relevant for us (we are not the US government), but their status as primary sources is: they are "accounts written by people who are directly involved, offering an insider's view of an event", as described at WP:PRIMARY, and have not been subject to editorial oversight. As such, articles should not be based exclusively on them.  Sandstein   07:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In covering the documents in question, CNN announced that it "is not publishing specific details from the list, which refers to pipelines and undersea telecommunications cables as well as the location of minerals or chemicals critical to U.S. industry." However, this did not stop User:Wnt from citing the CNN article and publishing specific details from WikiLeaks.  This is most certainly relevant for us, as this is incredibly poor editorial behavior that is not condoned by Wikipedia.  Here we have reliable secondary sources that admittedly refuse to print the details, and yet we also have Wikipedia editors who ignore the secondary sources and decide to publish the details from the primary sources anyway, because they know better than the secondary sources.  Furthermore, Silverseren's laughable claim that "the primary source was only being used to source the list of infrastructures. ALL of the other sources in the article were secondary" is highly and purposefully deceptive.  Wnt's original article was 24,876 bytes, of which only 3,664 bytes were sourced to one secondary source (CNN), with the rest coming from WikiLeaks.  The rest of his sourcing was a combination of original research and misuse of primary sources.  A later revision by Wnt added a BBC source and a Times Online source printed by The Australian, expanding the article a little more, but with the majority of the article based on primary sources that CNN refused to publish.  So, we have secondary sources that refuse to publish sensitive classified information that a Wikipedia editor feels they can safely ignore. Wnt should be blocked for doing this. Viriditas (talk) 07:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I slept through this part of the debate, but I just want to say that the New York Times is close to the bailiwick of Joseph Lieberman, who has been running around intimidating companies like Amazon.com by various methods. I feel like they've been intimidated rather than educated.  When I read the list I see nothing that looks like an ingenious opportunity to do harm that al-Qaida would never have thought of --- to the contrary, I suspect that many of these sites are on the list because they've been the targets of previous terrorist attack.  That's a big supposition of course, assuming that things like the Internet cable cuts in previous years were in fact attacks, but in time as the secondary sources are added for each of the items on the list, the truth should become apparent. Wnt (talk) 15:01, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Here, i'll break down the sources that were used for you. There were the news articles (this, this, this, and this). There was a book (this). There was a website - Army Technology (this). There were two company links, ones that were mentioned in the article (this and this). There were two links to Department of Homeland Security informational pages (this and this). And there was the link to the cable document from Wikileaks (this). That was the entiriety of the sources.


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


 * Now, can you tell me again what was wrong with this article? If you are going to say not enough secondary coverage, then fine. But that means you should have taken the article to AfD, as any other editor would do when following process. Instead, you started a battle of redirection with the article. For reference, this version was the one I was lookng at while making this comment. Silver  seren C 08:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The article itself was created out of process, when its original proposal was rejected on the parent talk page (linked in the first comment). Wnt ignored that consensus and created it anyway, along with a detailed list of sensitive sites -- even after the single, solitary secondary source he relied upon rejected the detailed list.  This doesn't require an AfD, it requires a behavioral readjustment.  Here, we have Wnt ignoring the discussion which rejected the proposed article in the first place, and ignoring the secondary source he himself relied upon to create the article, which also rejected the detailed list.  The sources you refer to above aren't even worth discussing as no article on Wikipedia could ever be created with them. Viriditas (talk) 08:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If you would actually read my previous comment, you would notice that there were four news articles. Yes, CNN says that it won't disclose any specifics, but the other three (this, this, and this) do specifically discuss the items in the list. Not all of them, of course, but quite a few, including the various pipelines and materials in various countries. Presumably, CNN didn't put any specifics because it is a US paper and its protecting its own interests. The other three are not US-based, so they don't have a problem discussing things. Silver  seren C 09:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Which reliable secondary sources support the subject of the article, Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, and which support the existence of the list items in whole or in part? That's right, the answer is none. Viriditas (talk) 09:33, 9 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Aside from the issues with WP:PRIMARY, I really don't see any problems here. The requirement is that content is verifiable, and – for better or for worse – these cables have been leaked and are now publicly available. I notice that some editors above are making, "Let's not make Wikipedia look too connected with Wikileaks," type comments. These have no relevance to our content policies and should be discounted. WP:CENSOR is the standard which applies here. ╟─TreasuryTag► pikuach nefesh ─╢ 08:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Synthesis is the relevant policy. While they are editors, Wikipedia editors are not political scientists and political sociologists. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * What exactly is being synthesized in the article, the list? Silver  seren C 09:18, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Comment: The WP:AFD process is the appropriate method to deal with assessing community consensus regarding notability and whether Wikipedia should have article(s) on this. -- Cirt (talk) 08:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Except we've already had three discussions on this topic, with the editors above refusing to acknowledge the most basic policies and guidelines supporting article creation and development. Now, we can look forward to a fourth discussion to make it "official"?  Sounds like unnecessary bureaucracy. Viriditas (talk) 09:35, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

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


 * Could you please name a single reliable secondary source that supports the article subject as found in the current title, as well as a reliable secondary source that supports the contents of the list? I looked and did not find any.  This appears to be a serious problem.  Viriditas (talk) 10:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * * floods* Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. I can go for 100 if you want. Want me to? :) Silver  seren C 10:31, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Viriditas, I think you misunderstand the point of WP:PRIMARY. The list is identified as what it puports to be according to reliable sources, the initiative exists as recorded in reliable secondary sources. Now, there is the issue to discuss whether to include the actual list in entirety, and in fact I would tend to agree with not including the list. My thinking there is not to do with primary sourcing (primary sourcing is absolutely fine if no OR is conducted, and notability is already established), but rather to do with having an unwieldy list sourced to a marginally verified document. But the notability of the article topic is, I think, not in question --Errant $(chat!)$ 11:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I have misunderstood nothing. There are no reliable secondary sources about the subject.  All of those sources linked above are about WikiLeaks and regional installations that were named on leaked secret cables from the State Department, as well as reactions to the leak from officials.  Reliable secondary sources about the Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, also referred to as the "Department of Homeland Security list on overseas sites" are simply non-existent.  So, my original creation of a redirect to the DHS was entirely supported.  What we are seeing are attempts by editors to create new encyclopedia articles with every new classified document released from WikiLeaks, even when the coverage amounts to little to nothing.  Per WP:RS, "sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article, and should be appropriate to the claims made. If a topic has no reliable sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on it."  There are no sources on the topic of the Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, only passing mentions to it in sources about leaked documents from WikiLeaks.  I can't see it being anything more than a redirect to the DHS. Viriditas (talk) 12:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, you may have a point there. Although there is sourcing pre-dating the leaks. So; take it to AFD and make the case. --Errant $(chat!)$ 12:11, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * There seems also to be a problem also with WP:NOT here. Just because WP is not censored, doesn't justify us being used as a dumping ground for material taken straight out of a primary source on the backs of a few news clippings. This 'mass creation' of articles in such a fashion might satisfy a few egos in the competition to create new articles, but it seems to me not to be the route to proper encyclopaedic content. -- Ohconfucius ¡digame! 14:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Because of a considerable amount of good editing done by Silverseren recently, the sourcing of the article has been strengthened considerably. Many thanks. Wnt (talk) 16:52, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

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


 * It didn't work. I tried to carry out the consensus opinion, but have met with tag-team efforts of Selver seren and Meco. I will stand aside and let someone else have a go. -- Ohconfucius ¡digame! 11:49, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Careful. That source and its use seems to meet the requirements of WP:PRIMARY - people who yell "that is a primary source and must removed immediately" I find usually miss the fact that primary sources can be used :) --Errant $(chat!)$ 11:54, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I second that - I was surprised and disappointed to read Elonka's comment. I should note by the way that the sum total of people who have want to keep a primary source and happen to be working on an article do not constitute a "tag team".  Edits like this are essentially original research.  I want to keep the list in full agreement with the source I took it from, not revise it based on personal opinions.  Also I should add that since the CFDI list was compiled by DHS working with other government agencies and quoted in an official cable requesting further input, I would suggest it may actually be a secondary source anyway. Wnt (talk) 13:39, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Primary sources are easy to misuse. In the case of non-controversial information, a primary source is occasionally appropriate.  But as soon as information is challenged, the requirement for sourcing becomes more stringent.  --Elonka 14:40, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, see, that is subtely different from what was originally contended :) However, WP:V simply requires a reliable source. Primary sources cand be reliable and useful if used with care purely for factual information; in this case sourcing the content of the list to the list is exactly the sort of careful use allowed. --Errant $(chat!)$ 14:44, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The use of should be severely restricted. It should only be used for clearly administrative purposes. In particular, using it in what amounts to a ex cathedra statement in a content dispute is entirely inappropriate. Seriously. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:03, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

We should edit these articles as we would any other articles and respond to calls for censorship of the content just as we would were the calls coming from a government like PRC. We don't need to carry the water of a government which conflates journalism and treason. The biggest issue I see here is WP:PSTS. We can't build articles on primary sources, but we can add details which other secondary sources skipped over. For instance, if the NYT does a story on the vatican complaining about Irish priests being brought to justice for child abuse but doesn't publish the cable, we can excerpt it. But if nobody writes about some cable between the US ambassador to Luxembourg we can't very well construct an article over it. This is not rocket science. Protonk (talk) 18:07, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

On Viriditas and this article
Viriditas recently placed this notice on Meco's talk page. It seemed a bit houndish to me, but I decided to take a moment to investigate his claims of consensus. The article's talk page doesn't seem to tell much, since there is very little discussion at all and that can hardly be called consensus. But the cable's talk page discussion was quite revealing. It seems to be Viriditas arguing extremely harshly about not having the article exist, with Meco and Cyclopia arguing against him. Furthermore, this discussion is not about making a separate article, but about having a section on the vital lists in that article. Also, Meco perfectly summarized the statements from editors in the discussion here. It seems to me that this entire ANI discussion is him being a bit pointy. I still have no idea why he doesn't just put the article up at AfD. Silver seren C 09:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This is my last edit to this thread. Feel free to close. Viriditas (talk) 12:13, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * But don't leave now. There's more to come! I'm sure your perspective will still be appreciated. __meco (talk) 13:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, there's more to report on the surreptitious machinations of in this conflict. Let me serve you a few items:
 * At the top of of the section to which this section is an addendum, Viriditas begins their "incident report" by asserting that "meco and Wnt have been spearheading the creation of ...". Now, if one checks the edit histories of both United States diplomatic cables leak, its talk page, Talk:United States diplomatic cables leak, and the article which Wnt created, Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, this user's first post on either of the first two was this edit to the article at 18:26 (and this is their only edit to that article) adding a wikilink to the article which they had begun writing at 06.45 on Dec 8. Wnt's first post on the talk page was this post at 23:22 on Dec 8. I.e. by all likelihood Wnt knew nothing of the ongoing conflict and wasn't involved in spearheading anything. Unless Viriditas knows something that isn't immediately apparent, Wnt's role in this is simply a gross misrepresentation of the facts. (correction: according to Talk:Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative Wnt cofirms having had casual knowledge of the ongoing discussion. However, this information was given at 05:14 on Dec 9, so it should not impinge significantly on Viriditas' "spearheading" claim vis-á-vis Wnt. __meco (talk) 15:06, 9 December 2010 (UTC))
 * On Talk:United States diplomatic cables leak Viriditas repeatedly accuses me of disregarding consensus and making unilateral moves. Viriditas claims that five editors have told me off, but this I'm supposed to ignore in cavalier fashion. In this section I make a summary of the the preceding discussion ("perfectly summarized", according to Silver seren above), where I show that Viriditas' asserted consensus is no such thing, i.e. again a blatant misrepresentation.
 * Then, finally there's the matter of the redirect and the section which I wrote for United States diplomatic cables leak on the cable detailing facilities worldwide that are critical to US national security. The section I wrote was taken out of the article by Viriditas, who claimed I was violating consensus against having this section [I have copied it to the talk page where it can be easily read on yellow background). Obviously floundering in their frantic attempts at having this information kept out of the article, Viriditas then becomes highly "creative": at 14:42, exactly two hours after I had added the section to the article, Viriditas self-appropriates unilateral emergency powers and makes a drastic re-organization of the article—purportedly to reduce its by claimed unmanageable size—moving all discussion of substantive cables content from the article (reducing its size from 166kb to 43kb) to Contents of the United States diplomatic cables leak, a page which was originally created on Dec 1, then at the same time reverted to a redirect, but now, in one unilateral, undiscussed (well, there had in fact been discussion, but that turned out to oppose having this fork as a separate page) move recreated, of course, completely bereft of any mention of the sensitive facilities cable. (Now, I immediately went to AfD with this article, however, seeing that whatever shenanigans had caused the recreation of this article at this point in time, having this AfD process ongoing besides all else was not the best strategy going forward, I withdrew the nomination. Viriditas' actions in this, however, are still salient points to be considered in the context of the present discussion.)
 * In my opinion it is Viriditas, and nobody else, who has been shown attempting to game the system in this case, and I would suggest that their repeated display of inappropriate and disruptive behavior should call for them to be banished from editing on this subject. __meco (talk) 13:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * When Viriditas first redirected the article, I noticed on his user page that he had a userbox saying that he followed a 1RR and preferred to talk through disputes. As I felt that redirection was grossly inappropriate, I put the text back and summarized my position at Talk:Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative.  I wish he'd followed his stated preference, because I think he's simply wrong with his idea that one article's talk page can prevent creation of another, sight unseen.  Seriously, I think that even if there had been a formal and well-attended !vote at that talk page that said specifically "You, Wnt, shall not start the CFDI article", it still would have no basis in Wikipedia policy.  In general I don't think we have a policy that provides a way to ban the creation of an article in advance, even here on ANI; we have WP:SALT, but that's only for repeated creations of bad articles and there's still supposed to be a way around it. Wnt (talk) 14:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The redirect action which Wnt mentions here is not the same one as I'm discussing above, just to avoid any confusion. I didn't mention the inappropriate redirecting of Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative, but it is yet another incident that goes to show the M.O. of Viriditas on this subject. __meco (talk) 14:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * All of a sudden, Viriditas's obsession with deleting content in the United States diplomatic cables leak article and people out of the talk page is starting to make a lot of sense. 122.60.93.162 (talk) 03:53, 10 December 2010 (UTC)


 * My summary of the situation is:
 * Viriditas should learn WP:NOTCENSORED by heart and take notice of all the cases listed in WP:COMPREHENSIVE to make himself acquainted with the fact that we do not censor sourced information (even primary sourced information) just because it's "sensitive". Our imperative is to give as much as possible full and unbiased coverage to our readers of notable information.
 * To my knowledge, there is no need of having prior consensus to create an article: we invoke consensus to remove them at AfD.
 * WP:PRIMARY does not prohibit to use primary sources, as the leaks are, but requires secondary sources to give them context and interpretation. "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements that any educated person, with access to the source but without specialist knowledge, will be able to verify are supported by the source. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source." . Now, Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative seems to source to the primary source just the bare list, while all the context comes from secondary sources. It seems roughly fine to me. If anything, this is something that has to be discussed at the talk page as a content issue. But there is absolutely no problem with the existence of the article (notable by any standard) and with exposing the full list (remember, we're not censored, at all). -- Cycl o  pia  talk  16:56, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That was a wonderful summary. Silver  seren C 20:39, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * And to update this section, Viriditas again resorts to unacceptable modes of putting their position forward, obviously completely ignoring any and all criticism that has been directed at them. Either that, or this user simply fails to possess the basic community skills required for partaking in a joint project such as this one. __meco (talk) 10:14, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

FYI, Viriditas just tried to convince me that since we sometimes remove unimportant people's names for BLP concerns, we should censor all sensitive information, and still wikilawyers about primary sources without getting the gist of WP:PRIMARY. Weird. -- Cycl o  pia  talk  12:22, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, WP:PSTS does state that our articles should be based on secondary and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. It is generally accepted that an article should not mainly be based on primary sources. Citing a primary source should be an exception, not the main content of an article. In general, we should also reflect the editorial judgment of our sources, rather than substituting our own judgment. -- JN 466  14:19, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, but the articles we're talking about -at least, the ones I've seen- are mainly based on secondary sources, and use the primary source only to document the bare, raw list. It's not different than a plot synopsis sourced to the book/movie itself. I strongly disagree about reflecting the editorial judgement: sources are what give us information, but it's up to us and only us, as a community, to decide what to do of their information. We are a free encyclopedia: if sources choose to be censored, this doesn't mean we choose it, too. WP:COMPREHENSIVE, again, is a good read to understand that this is common practice here. -- Cycl o  pia  talk  16:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I would argue that Jayen466's idea about using the sources' "editorial judgment" is flawed:
 * Many, many sources chose to mention some specific items from the list within their own region. If they truly believed that "editorial judgment" required them to censor list items, why would they name some?  And why wouldn't they at least name items in some other part of the country...?
 * The editorial judgment of a newspaper involves making articles a certain length, for a certain audience, and covering breaking news. We have more space available, a broader audience, and an encyclopedic focus.  So how can we possibly base our editorial judgment on theirs?
 * Wikipedia has an educational mission. A newspaper's mission is to maximize its ad revenue by appealing to a broad audience while not offending corporate sponsors.  That's why our NOTCENSORED policy trumps their "editorial judgment".
 * The purpose of appealing to sources in general and secondary sources in particular is to get reliable (or more correctly, verifiable) information. It is not to gather votes about what should be published.  I base this on the admittedly controversial idea that the purpose of a journalist is to report the news, not to decide how to censor and skew the news. Wnt (talk) 17:00, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The idea of using a source to document what no other source would print should not be unfamiliar to us --- this is an encyclopedia, so we do that constantly. If a source contained no unique information, you wouldn't actually need to cite it. Wnt (talk) 20:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikinews
Not commenting on the specifics of whether these articles should be on Wikipedia (I haven't looked at them in detail) but I just wanted to note that Wikinews does accept articles based on primary sources and to some extent original reporting. I'm sure more contributions to their Cablegate coverage would be welcome. the wub "?!"  13:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Answer: WP:NOT. -- Ohconfucius ¡digame! 15:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Wikinews != Wikipedia. Wikinews is another Wikimedia project. (Or, to explain it at length, The Wub is wisely suggesting that anyone who wants to write articles based on material from WikiLeaks should take it somewhere else -- such as, but not limited to, Wikinews.) -- llywrch (talk) 18:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)


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


 * I was looking to create a stable resource explaining the CFDI, which could be added to over time, rather than a one-time news report that would become locked and unable to integrate further information. Because of this general preference I have very little familiarity with Wikinews. Wnt (talk) 02:12, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

The censorship brigade
Let us have no more of this Pentagon-inspired garbage about "lives put at risk", "threats to security", and the like. If WP succumbs to the same self-censorship as imposed on the media and internet sites by the current Chinese regime (and the US administration), we may as well close down today. The leaks were by American citizens, not WikiLeaks, and they are fair game for anyone in the world now. Many wikimedians are very supportive of WikiLeaks's actions, and I, for one, believe Mr Assange deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for his heroic efforts to damage the culture of secrecy that is used to keep a whole political class in power. Information originally released by WL should be subject to no different rules than any other information on WP. 03:14, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The above comment made by User:Tony1
 * You can't stuff the genie back into the bottle. -- Ohconfucius ¡digame! 04:01, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Endangering American troops would be unforgivable. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:04, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it's already been extensively discussed (by the media even) that there has been no proof that any troops have been endangered by any of the leaks from Wikileaks. In terms of the Afghanistan and Iraq War documents leak, the Pentagon released a statement that they were wrong in their earlier assessment and that none of the documents represented any real danger to our troops. Silver  seren C 04:10, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

None of this has anything to do with Wikipedia content. Put a cork in it... AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:10, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Abusive edit on Jordan and related articles
There is a person (at least I believe it to be a single person) editing from multiple Jordan Data Communications IPs abusively adding anti-Israel edits (in the latest iteration, a large photo of a pre-Israel British Palestine passport) to Jordan and related articles. I'd like some thoughts about whether, at least, should be semi-protected. (I actually don't think the activity level warrants it yet, but I'd like to hear some other thoughts.) --Nlu (talk) 04:17, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * On further examination, appears to be the same person as and .  I've blocked Arabmuslim12 indefinitely.  --Nlu (talk) 04:21, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * There looks like you get some vandalism on that page, good job keeping up on it. What is the point of the passport photo? I remember discussion about things like this a long time ago, but no sure what point their trying to prove. Wolfstorm000 (talk) 04:29, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I must say I don't understand it; my guess is that the person was asserting the passport showed that Palestine was a part of Britain which the UN had no power to partition — or something like that. Whether the point is legitimate or not (and I must say I don't understand the supposed logic), the posting of that large of a graphics file is clearly abusive.  --Nlu (talk) 04:35, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I was just wondering, if its a valid point they want to raise or present if there was a way to peacefully add it. However, if s/he has not made it apparent what it is they are trying to do, then I agree, it would be disruptive. Wolfstorm000 (talk) 07:00, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Viriditas in Talk:United States diplomatic cables leak
User:Viriditas has been engaging is a wide variety of disruptive editing in Talk:United States diplomatic cables leak. He has breached WP:CIVIL, WP:PA, WP:3RR and WP:EDITWAR. Dispite numerous attempts to reason with him, he remains totally unreasonable and belligerent.

Viriditas is frequently engaged in uncivil behaviour towards User:Meco, in violation of WP:CIVIL and WP:PA. Diffs: First Second

Viriditas has continually sought to collapse an entire section in Talk:United States diplomatic cables leak, in violation of WP:3RR and WP:EDITWAR, where a discussion was taking place regarding the appropriateness of the use of primary sources (diplomatic cables sourced directly from WikiLeaks) vs the use of secondary sources (such as media reporting on leaked diplomatic cables). While part of that section should rightly be collapsed (because it is a petty off-topic tangent), Viriditas has rejected my attempts to limit the collapse to off-topic content and insists on collapsing the entire discussion. Diffs: Third Four Five Six Seven

It appears that numerous other editors are concerned about the recent disruptive behaviour of User:Viriditas, see here.

It must be noted that I cannot notify User:Viriditas in his user talk page because he has locked that page, which effectively blocks all comments (including warnings and notifications).

I am new to Wikipaedia so please excuse any mistakes in this AN/I post. Uncensored Kiwi  Kiss 13:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * User:Viriditas didn't protect his talk page; the protection was placed by User:Bwilkins. It's only semiprotection, not full protection; anyone can talk with that user on his talk page except for anonymous and brand new users. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 13:54, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I had mistakenly assumed it was locked because I received the message "This page has been locked to prevent editing." when I tried to issue a warning to him and when I tried to notify him about this AN/I. I am a new user. Uncensored Kiwi  Kiss 13:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * My attempt to notify User:Viriditas about this AN/I has been deleted by Viriditas. Uncensored Kiwi  Kiss 14:02, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Enough with the ridiculous trolling. Please see Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive654  The new account "Uncensored Kiwi" cannot contact me on my user talk page because he was responsible for me having to request page protection when he edited as .  This is beyond silly.  This user is a troll by every sense of the definition. Viriditas (talk) 14:05, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't really see the problem with User:Viriditas's edits at Talk:United States diplomatic cables leak. I see a pretty spirited content dispute, but the subject is pretty fresh in the news- give it six months, and I'm sure a reasonable consensus will emerge.  -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 14:11, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Spirited discussion is one thing, collapsing relevant discussion about reliable sources, in violation of WP:3RR and WP:EDITWAR, is another. Uncensored Kiwi  Kiss 14:16, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If you want to talk about the reliable source guideline or a problem with interpreting the guideline, the place to go is WP:RS/N. Viriditas (talk) 14:20, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * But there really was no need to repeatedly archive that section. The dispute is about using a primary source (Wikileaks' copy of the cables) on that article, so it is an on-topic discussion. Please stop trying to archive it, and we'll not have a problem. Fences  &amp;  Windows  14:44, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * There was a need at the time, as the user was solely focused on off-topic personal attacks. I've unarchived it.  The particular dispute is not really focused on using a copy of the cables (we aren't using them in that article) but how to understand and interpret the primary source guideline in relation to that problem.  The scope exceeds the article talk page, and WP:RS/N is full of past discussion on the topic.  I'm not seeing a need to recreate the wheel here. Viriditas (talk) 14:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I haven't followed the entire exchange, but I caught some of it and I thought User:Viriditas was the voice of reason.-- SPhilbrick  T  18:15, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, you know what they say about a little knowledge, lol. Uncensored Kiwi  Kiss 22:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I've been involved in the larger Wikileaks debate, but this looks like a bizarre and unimportant sideshow. I just want to point out that without any evidence that Kiwi is anyone else, we should discount the idea.  This is a highly political issue in the U.S. and we'll have new users with strong opinions joining every day - they're not all the same person. Wnt (talk) 00:21, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * On the contrary, there are boatloads of evidence demonstrating that Kiwi is 122.60.93.162, and nobody is questioning this fact except for you. One curious thing about it, however, is that he seems to be very friendly with User:Meco, as if they know each other. Viriditas (talk) 02:29, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, searching Wikipedia for "122.60.93.162 checkuser" I didn't find anything. If you have a boatload of evidence, by all means, unload some.  Now as for friendliness, in case you haven't been reading the papers, we've officially entered the world's first information war, and that makes us all Comrades (LOL). Wnt (talk) 05:13, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Will no one rid us of this turbulent sniping?--Wehwalt (talk) 02:44, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Odd how the OP says he is a new user (twice here, so far), for all of two days, and is already coming to ANI with diffs and the demeanor of an experienced editor. - PrBeacon (talk) 03:40, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * For those who are interested, I was an anonymous WP editor for a short period. I even got into trouble while I was an anonymous user because I spammed warning templates to Viriditas when he deleted all my posts. I registered a username when I realised that my stay in Wikipaedia would be more than transient (I blame WikiLeaks - no one else was doing updates for cables about New Zealand).
 * PrBeacon, as for my knowing how to do an ANI, all I had to do was search "WP:ANI" (I see editors threatened with an "ANI" all the time in the talk pages - Viriditas himself is constantly telling people to "take it to ANI"). The, I just had to follow the instructions, observe how other editors did ANIs on this page and not be completely stupid, and here I am. The only tricky bit was figuring out what a diff was (solved by searching "WP:DIFF" - see how easy that was?). It seems that anyone can quickly find out anything about Wikipaedia just by doing a search or tying in WP:anything. I'm not sure what you mean by my "demeanor". Are you referring to my choice not to trash-talk back at Viriditas? PrBeacon, am I now to apologise for not being an ill-mannered retard?
 * As for User:Meco and I being friends, I first encountered that user a few days ago. I like him, if for no other reason than because we appear to share interests and views vis-a-vis WikiLeaks. I have made a couple of posts to his user talk page, about this ANI, because it is readily apparent on the Talk:United States diplomatic cables leak page that he was experiencing the same difficulties with Viriditas that I was (but Viriditas is considerably more hostile towards him). Uncensored Kiwi  <font color="Gray">Kiss 07:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

This is my first post in this section. I notice that Viriditas is again (see User talk:Cyclopia) directing personal attacks and innuendos at me asserting I'm part of a conspiracy with Uncensored Kiwi. Now I have already presented concrete evidence in another discussion on this page, WP:ANI that none of the accidental admins who actually keep abreast of what's being reported on this page seems to have taken any notice of. __meco (talk) 08:43, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Dear new editors and editors interested in Wikileaks. Glad to see you, hope you stay. We have a big encyclopedia and needs lots of help. Please keep in mind that Wikipedia is more civil than {drop in your favorite internet chat forum}.  Please be collegial to the other volunteers. Disagreements are expected, as is robust intellectual discussion.  Please do try to assume good faith of the regulars if they get a little preachy about policy, and also try to give the newcomers some slack when they make mistakes or fail to understand how things work.  Now, this thread should end, and you should all continue editing. Jehochman Talk 12:32, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Jehochman speaks wisdom, people. A little bit of sniping in the past; the past is the past, nothing further to do here. Magog the Ogre (talk) 17:25, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

could someone review this?
Could someone please review my block of User talk:Zxoxm? It may be mistaken, or not, I need to sleep and since they've appealed the block, don't want to leave them hanging if I was wrong. Any admin can unblock as they please without asking me. Thanks. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:29, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I looked at the unblock request and I am not sure that the behavioral evidence is sufficient for a sock block. Both users are pushing the same fringe POV about water fluoridation, but not in an identical manner. I don't know how widespread these fringe beliefs are. On the other hand, leaving Zxoxm blocked simply on account of the questionable merits of his edits (e.g., ) would not be a great loss to Wikipedia.  Sandstein   21:56, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Zxoxm is an unambiguous sock. --jpgordon:==( o ) 22:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I've revoked his talk page access. Creating more socks and then claiming they're not his; he's not fooling any of us. –MuZemike 23:33, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * There is also, who just submitted a false positive report on Edit filter/False positives/Reports. I would just respond with a long explanation about why we avoid POV edits, but I looked at the edit history of the article and saw this.  I am assuming it's the same person, but would like to post the link here before doing anything.  —  Soap  —  02:41, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * There are lots of folks with this particular WP:FRINGE belief; I'd say AGF applies as to suspicions of sockpuppetry. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  15:29, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed there are. The belief is so widespread and strongly held that it could lead to nuclear war. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * No, it's the fact that we are allowing communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the International communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids! –MuZemike 17:13, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Gentlemen! You can't fight in here; this is the War Room! Half  Shadow  18:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah. ANI. The socks haven't been blocked for their PoV. One wonders if the user even believes what he claims. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:24, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

User Allahlovesyou
User Allahlovesyou has been deliberately distorting article in bad faith against all other sects. User breached the 3RR rule here with more than 8 edits a day on the same article and accused other editors of falsifying information on Wikipedia. User also identifies other editors as per their belief here and seems to be intolerant by his actions. User warned here. - Humaliwalay (talk) 06:51, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * 8 edits in a row is not a violation of 3RR if they are consecutive (i.e., the cumulative effect is one edit). This section is redundant to the above section. Magog the Ogre (talk) 17:24, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not distorting any article, and I didn't violate 3rr for Humaliwaly to put a warning on my talke page. Here is my defense:
 * I have corrected the section on the "Five pillars" in the Islam article by putting "The Five Pillars of Islam are 5 simple rules or 5 obligations that every Muslim (Sunni and Shia) must satisfy.", which is backed by the Central Intelligence Agency, Encyclopedia Britannica, PBS, Washington State University, University of Calgary, BBC, and many many other academic sources..
 * User:Aliwiki (who is promoting Shia Islam) opposed this edit and completely removed these sources.
 * Now User:Humaliwalay (who is also promoting Shia Islam) came and began doing the same things what User:Aliwiki was doing, removing well accepted academic sources and replacing it with a http://www.al-islam.org (a website to promote Shia Islam) . The current verion is not very clear on Islam. The Behaviour of Humaliwalay is very aggressive, he/she has no respect for edits made by other knowledgable and neutral editors. I think Humaliway has a personal problem with me because he/she has filled my talk page with strange messages, and now he/she wants to start an edit-war hoping to get me blocked. However, I'm not stupid to fall for this, I will wait until someone who fully understands the situation. In the meantime, can someone please follow Humaliwalay's edits and try to warn him/her to stop behaving this way.--AllahLovesYou (talk) 17:40, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

User:188.141.24.232
Individual using this IP has a history of inserting false information into entertainment related articles. See User:Adambro/ent v. I blocked them on November 4 and since that expired they have been active again no doubt inserting more false information. Adambro (talk) 09:03, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I've blocked them again, for longer this time. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:01, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

RevDel needed at Danny Way
An IP has vandalized the article by adding scurrilous claims regarding a nonnotable private person. I've just removed the text from the article, but it should be removed from the history as well. The person is real and is or was recently a high school student. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 17:48, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

✅ see also CAT:RFRD. Rd232 talk 18:25, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Vladimir Platonov
Please take edit disputes about living persons to WP:BLPN. No admin intervention required. --TS 20:49, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

An editor is removing sourced text from the above article as being ' Family problems irrelevant in this article'. The 'family problem' led to an arrest for attempted murder and a resignation from a university. Is the SPA editor User:Amartin1910 right to do this or am I right to restore the material? I have requested the editor to discuss the matter on the article talk page, with no result. User:RadioFan reverted a similar edit from an IP. I have no personal interest in this matter - I just saw section blanking and removal of sourced material. Peridon (talk) 17:53, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * My quick look determines that none of the statements are sourced. The only reference provided seems to be to support the claim of early retirement which is not in the source provided. The source provided is a statement from the University of Waterloo that they are looking into the matter. It does claim a conviction and charges for serious crimes but a better source should be required for contentious statements like this in a BLP. These claims should be removed and should not be added back until better sourcing is provided. And care should be taken to keep strictly to the sources. WTucker (talk) 18:12, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The reference provided is a press release from his employer (a public university) and specifically addresses an assault conviction. This seems to be a sufficient source as it provides specifics on the charges in question.  The claim of being charged with attempted murder should be removed as the only available reference doesn't support it (only the assault conviction).--RadioFan (talk) 01:09, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The attempted murder change was mentioned in an earlier reference, and a later one, both from the same source. - David Biddulph (talk) 04:11, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The section has been restored with these additional references. No indication that removal of this material was based on WP:BLP concerns, only WP:IDONTLIKEIT.  I'll place an additional (final) warning on the editor's page.  This is technically a WP:SPA but its pretty clear this editor is new and is very unfamiliar with Wikipedia's policies.  If it happens again, this editor should be blocked however.--RadioFan (talk) 16:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * What an amazing amount of license you took. From where are the following facts that you restored sourced? Was an arrest performed? Who performed the arrest? How do you know the wife's name? How do you know the attack was in the home? How do you know they were divorced? How do you know the date of the plea? How do you know there was a plea? How do you know it was a lesser charge? How do you know it was aggravated assault and not just assault? How do you know the name of the judge? How do you know about the conditional sentence and that it was house arrest with specific details? How do you know the sentence was amended and how do you know he took early retirement? Is this restoration truely in keeping with WP:BLP? WTucker (talk) 20:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Continued editing of this section is of course welcomed. What is not welcomed is complete removal (which is what is being discussed here).  Your edits apper to be very good ones, thanks for doing that.  If there are additional discussions about the content, I'd suggest it be taken to the article's talk page.--RadioFan (talk) 01:51, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * From WP:BLP: "...contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced should be removed immediately and without discussion." WTucker (talk) 02:20, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I did ask the removing editor to go to the talk page, and notified them of this discussion. There doesn't seem to be any result from this. I'm quite happy with the new version - thanks for sorting things out. Peridon (talk) 10:59, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

WTucker, please dont misunderstand. I dont have a problem with your edits, they are great. The problem was with the original editor removing the section entirely, including the well sourced parts. The issue was brought here because of SPA concerns. We all seem to be in agreement that the latest version is quite acceptible and the original editor has chosen not to weigh in on this, I think this issue can be closed. Any objections?--RadioFan (talk) 12:52, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * No objections. I just saw WP:BLP being ignored to keep unsourced contentious material in the article. It was and is contentious material about a living person which was unsourced or poorly sourced. It should have been removed on first sight and not returned to the article until properly sourced. All's well that ends well but the path taken was problematic. WTucker (talk) 14:24, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In which case there would have been less confusion if those deleting the text had used different wording for their edit summaries. None of them gave any suggestion that it was the sources which were the point of contention, nor (as pointed out above) did they explain their concerns on the article's talk page. - David Biddulph (talk) 14:44, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You are right about the confusion from the edit summaries; but WP:BLP doesn't require proper edit summaries nor discussion. WTucker (talk) 15:00, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Islam
This is a content dispute that should be resolved on the talk page and, if necessary, by content RFC. No admin intervention is needed. --TS 20:53, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

According to the Central Intelligence Agency, Encyclopedia Britannica, PBS, Washington State University, University of Calgary, BBC, and many other academic sources, Islam is based on "Five pillars" (1. shahadah, 2. Salah, 3. Sawm, 4. Zakat, 5. Hajj). User:علی ویکی began an edit-war with me, by removing all the sources I've added. User:علی ویکی is making up his own pillars for Islam by using this Shia website, which are not mentioned by any of the above major sources. User:علی ویکی refuses to discuss but rather accuses me of trying to own articles. Can someone please help resolve this matter, I don't want to get into an edit-war.--AllahLovesYou (talk) 02:10, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * First off, the editor you named has NOT refused to discuss this with you, they simply have not replied to your comment. In my book, that does not count as non-discussion.  Secondly, I placed an ANI notice on the talk page of the editor as required.  Whose Your Guy (talk) 03:17, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * After looking at the source he used, I've changed it back. That source seems to agree on the five pillars but it includes additional acts with a different status in Sunni/Shia theology that don't rise to the level of pillars. Sol (talk) 03:26, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

What User Aliwiki has done is just inclusion of 5 Pillars of Islam as per Shiite Beliefs [which was in the article earlier as well, deleted by User Allahlovesyou], Aliwiki did not remove the Sunni faith's 5 pillars of Islam but reinstated the deleted portion. Rather I can see User Allahlovesyou removing entire Shia section here which is the result of this Edit conflict commencement. No one disagrees with sources cited by User Allahlovesyou, nevertheless the act of deleting big portion of an article without any reasoning reflects biased approach. Thanks - Humaliwalay (talk) 06:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I looked at the source Aliwiki had provided which seemed to include the same five pillars of faith. The additional acts he'd included are good info but don't look like they are pillars. I could be reading this incorrectly. Sol (talk) 06:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello everyone here. First of all, I answered user Allahloves you on his talk page. Second I'd like to note this user has an animosity against Shia Islam and if one has a fast look to his talk page and his contribution  can easily recognize this undeniable fact. Third point, about especial case of Islam article; about reliability of the source I used see here, also edit of user Allahlovesyou is obvious ownership and s/he wants to confine Islamic articles to Sunni Islam and some minutes after undoing my edit, a third user here undid his edit. As a summary, User Allahloves you must stop ownership of Ismc articles, and let the Islamic pages reflect both Shia/Sunni ideas and if s/he sees somewhere lack some sources, instead of deletion due to WP:IDONTLIKEIT, s/he must use the tag CN and in some hours I or other Shia users will provide reliable source for it.--Aliwiki (talk) 12:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Islam article includes both Sunnis and Shias. According to all the sources, Islam (Sunnis/Shias) follow 5 pillars. If there are some Muslims who follow additional acts then that should come in the end, not in the front. I'm not against Shias, I'm against editors who are trying to twist information in Wikipedia. The way User:Aliwiki presented it in Islam article obviously confuses readers. I've been following some Shia editors who have been falsifying information to mislead Wikipedia readers.--AllahLovesYou (talk) 14:34, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * With articles such as Islam and Christianity, (and a host of other religious and ideological articles), irreconcilable religious in-fighting is all but inevitable. In such cases, perhaps such pages should be disambiguation pages from which the different sects (etc) can be reached. <font color="Blue" face="Mistral">Uncensored Kiwi  <font color="Gray">Kiss 14:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If all users respect others ideas and don't feel ownership of a religion to their sect, there won't be any edit war. Edits wars start when someone tries to impose his/her idea to others.
 * User Allahlovesyou. Keep you animisity against Shia in your heart, and don't affect wikipedia articles by your idea. What you don't like is not false information. myse ntences are clear, informative, and correct; Even if you believe they are confusing and unclear (which is right of any user), you must put a tag, not to delete the whole information. You must change your behaviour to be able to continue contributing in Wikipedia. Deletion with excuses such as majority in population is strongly rejected according to Wikipedia policies.--Aliwiki (talk) 15:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

User Allahlovesyou is completely biased and is known for personal and racial attacks. Earlier also he used such wordings and was also warned by another editor here. He took back his words later nevertheless User's actions at present reflect the same bias. User above has clearly accused all Shias of putting misleading information on Wikipedia as if he is the only one who is an excellent editor. Look here a complete distortion or to some extent can be called vandalism he did, despite of warning he removed Shiite 5 pillars and put it as additional acts with References Tag on it despite being the fact that section was having a citation and was not forcing its views on all Muslims it was confined to Shias only. One thing has to noted this major action was not notified on talk page irrespective of the fact that it was getting discussed here.

User Allahlovesyou says that he keeps an eye on all Shia editors and prevents them from incorporating misleading information on Wikipedia. May I know who are those Shia misleading editors and how he came to know about their identity. rather the user himself can be seen as anti Shia by actions. - Humaliwalay (talk) 06:34, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Afd Troll
Article 1 : Articles for deletion/Patrick Bouvier Kennedy (2nd nomination)) Article 2 : Articles for deletion/Patrick Bouvier Kennedy (2nd nomination)

Note the extra bracket. is nom. User page says he's a sockpuppet. Seems to be only disruptive to me. Outback the koala (talk) 08:24, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I've speedy kept the debated. His first edit (other than to his userpage) was to nominate the articles for deletion. Seems to be rather suspicious. Stickee (talk)  09:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah. A good Wikipedian with no reason to hide who loses their password doesn't start a new account that says "Oh shit I forgot my password" and then dare people on their user page to find their old account name, the good Wiki-citizen creates a new account name similar to their old account name so that everyone knows who they are, and then accounces the old identity on their user page. The dynamic is all wrong here, and a block is in order for disruptive bad faith AfD nominations. Beyond My Ken (talk) 10:19, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Block for trolling. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 16:07, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Note that I've reported the user to UAA since the username contains profanity. <font face="Verdana" color="#900000">Giftiger<font color="#FF0000">Wunsch  <font face="Tahoma" color="#0060A0">[TALK]  16:11, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ that is the same as .  TN <b style="color:midnightblue; font-size:larger;">X</b> Man  16:50, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I've usernameblocked the for the clearly implied word "shit" in their username. If they continue to edit disruptively under yet another username, this can be escalated. -- The Anome (talk) 16:55, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * One would have to wonder how, if they really lost their password, is still editing as of yesterday.   Corvus cornix  talk  21:43, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I've asked them for an explanation, noting that good-hand-bad-hand accounts are forbidden.— <font color="Green">Dæ <font color="Blue">dαlus + <font color="Green">Contribs 08:19, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Wikicopter has a template on his userpage claiming to be an alternate account of . I wonder if this is true? AirplanePro seems to be a really productive editor, although hasn't edited since August. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 18:58, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I thought it was a matter of the person changing usernames. From Wikicopter's RFA I got the impression of a maturity problem that will hopefully go away with more experience.  This Forgotpasswordsht was inappropriate and annoying, but pretty small potatoes on the scale of things in terms of malevolence and disruption. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 19:06, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

sockpuppetry
I have discovered a sockmaster with atleast five user accounts and a dynamic IP who is has been actively editing for the past twenty days or so. It started as normal reverting of a new user and after some digging i have found he has been editing with many accounts and IPs. The oldest account goes back to 2006. I opened an SPI, but there is a backlog there and he is editing regularly daily. Also the evidence is very clear that its socking. Can someone take a look and ban the socks and the dynamic IP range 117.193.32.0/19.

The accounts involved are User:O0I1E3S5, User:Qarub, User:Katheeja, User:Prakashbabu77, and User:Shinas and several dynamic IPs from range is 117.193.32.0/19.

1) User:O0I1E3S5 is IP 117.193.37.73 (IP started argument that gbooks shouldnt be used as sources ) and continued to do after logging in as O0I1E3S5) He created this account for the purpose of edit war. At the end of the day logged out, copied all the discussion in his talk page to mine as the IP)

2) User:Qarub is IP 117.193.37.73 - IP starts edit war in Rajkiran that birthname is to be used, couple of days later Qarub comes along and does the same. IP removes description of the image of tomb of Mahmud of Ghazni from Somnath article.  Few days later Qarub removes the same image file from Mahmud of Ghazni article and Ghazni article

3) User:Katheeja is User:Qarub - Katheeja uploads a file on and Qarub uses barely 2 hours later. Katheeja has not used the file anywhere

4) User:Prakashbabu77 is User:Katheeja Katheeja uploads a file on  and Prakashbabu77 uses it 4 minutes later . This account was created to edit Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazagham article. Katheeja has not used the file anywhere

5) User:Shinas is User:Katheeja. Shinas uploads a file on  and Katheeja adds it to an article 18 minutes later. Shinas has not used the file in any article (Both accounts are old and have become active in November 20010 after long periods of inactivity). They also both uploaded the same image with the same description twice within 30 min of

6) User:Shinas edits logged out from 117.193.32.0/19 range as shown by this diff (IP blanks the criticism section and Shinas starts editing the article four minutes later)

7) All the above users have the habit of using a single "fx" as edit summary without explanation for large content changes

8) Similarity in User pages. The new accounts created in the past week (Qarub, Prakashbabu77 and O0I1E3S5) create their userpages and talkpages as their first edits to make them blue links.

There is a sockmaster operating from the IP range 117.193.32.0/19. The IP range is from Chennai and belongs to the state isp BSNL which provides dynamic IP's contributions from both IP ranges are overwhelmingly about the same subjects (Islam in India, Islam in Tamil Nadu). Contributions begin in the middle of Nov 2010. I haven't been able to identify the original sockmaster for sure. But these five accounts are sure his sockpuppets. As this IP range is usually quiet, there is a high chance that most of the new accounts created from it since Nov 20 are sockpuppets of this master. --Sodabottle (talk) 20:44, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You might just want to wait for the SPI to give conclusive results. / ƒETCH COMMS  /  22:56, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This is why I dislike SPI. It's bureaucratic and slow. Jehochman Talk 12:57, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll take care of it, give me a minute. Nevermind, I misunderstood Sodabottle's note. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 17:45, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * And another one too. The SPI needs addressing soon. &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  19:34, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Good grief. Another sock, has filed an "uninvolved" AN3 report on another editor who was edit warring with one of the socks, with no mention of the sock. &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  19:39, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I've taken a look at the case and did a bunch of work for it. SPI case is here if you're curious. And if there are other things to address, please list them over there so we have a full record of this editor's history. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 19:50, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * For convenience, the SPI is here Sockpuppet_investigations/Shinas Ugh... I'm having one of those days. SPI is already linked above. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 20:08, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I've added material to the SPI, if anyone would like to take a look. TN <b style="color:midnightblue; font-size:larger;">X</b> Man  20:13, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Interesting. Anyway, I've marked the SPI case closed for now, and I've marked this resolved as well. If that was premature then let me know and I'll undo it. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 20:19, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

User:SweetBabyGirl06
SweetBabyGirl06 has been engaged in disruptive editing concerning articles of actors and musicians, especially the former. What this person likes to do is add personal information about given individuals usually without supplying verification or sources of any type, so the information has significant evidence against it being true. Edits like these are somewhat typical of his or her editing style and the information displayed within. This month, this person has been especially interested in the articles of Jackson Rathbone and Nikki Reed. Also, I reported this person for sockpuppeting; you can see it at Sockpuppet investigations/SweetBabyGirl06/Archive. There is more evidence on the other side of that link. SweetBabyGirl06 and 173.217.160.99 have noticeable similarities, as some articles have been edited by both accounts in close proximity of each other. This can be noticed in the history log of Ernie Reyes, Jr. for November 6-7, 2010, the history log of Nikki Reed for December 12, 2010, and the history log of Jorge Pallo for September 1, 2010. The sockpuppet case was unsuccesful, because of some reservations User:HelloAnnyong had about the case. Even after both user talk pages had been reminded to log in before editing wikipedia by HelloAnnyong, though, both names continued being used for editing. On December 12, 2010, 173.217.160.99 was blocked for three months due to abusing editing privileges. See User talk:173.217.160.99. At one point, SweetBabyGirl06 heavily edited the Michael Raymond-James article (log history), and a person identified himself as Michael Raymond James denied the information posted by SweetBabyGirl06. As of this post, the most recent edit from SweetBabyGirl06 has been this edit done less than an hour beforehand. This person has been adding unverifiable and false information to multiple articles, even after being repeatedly told not to do so; the person has not discussed his or her own changes. SweetBabyGirl06 is a single-purpose account which has received several warnings and will very likely keep up these unencyclopedic practices if a procedure does not take effect to stop this. Thanks. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 06:54, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * As you said, is currently blocked for three months for continuing to edit that way. That will essentially force SweetBabyGirl06 to log in. As to their actual edits: I think they're violating BLP left and right, but until recently there haven't really been any warnings. Someone issued a level 2, and I just issued a level 3. Maybe I'm being overly cautious here, but I think being diligent about warnings is the way to go. Level 4 is next, and if they continue, they can be blocked. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 03:16, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Cool, thank you for the assistance in this situation. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 04:06, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Inappropriate discretionary sanction at AE?


During the discussion regarding User:Delicious carbuncle, above (here), User:Future Perfect at Sunrise made the following critical comment to carbuncle - "If you feel those articles are problematic, then go and fix them, otherwise drop the stick, or this is going to become a boomerang for you." After no remedies were enacted at AN/I User:Cirt filed an AE report on carbuncle - here. Discussion at AE was ongoing but no remedies had been proposed yet. In fact the only administrator commenting in the result section made it sound like the time for remedies had passed. Cirt then directly appealed to Future Perfect on his talkpage to have a look at the AE discussion. Future Perfect's first edit at the AE discussion was to impose a rather Draconian remedy on carbuncle. I tried twice to appeal to Future Perfect's good senses asking them to retract their remedy in order to allow an uninvolved admin to handle the case, the response was no. Was this action appropriate on their part? They threatened carbuncle at AN/I with a "boomerang" that they then made sure came back to hit him in his face. They also did this directly after an appeal by the filing party to come to AE. Thanks for your input.Griswaldo (talk) 20:47, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * As stated at AE and Future Perfect talk page, I dont disagree with the sanction Though i think indefinite one was overkill. I do think this is a serious case of WP:INVOLVED and would a preferred an uninvolved Admin to make the sanction. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 21:01, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * As an uninvolved admin I agree with Future Perfect's actions. These sorts of comments at Wikipedia Review followed by DCs actions on Wikipedia are not appropriate. If this had been this users first action I would agree that a warning would be sufficient but it is not.  Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 21:12, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Given your joint history in the TM arbitration case, and Cirt's unswerving support for you and Will in that case and since then in your struggles with the TMers, I can think of some 800+ active admins who are more uninvolved than you when it comes to Cirt. -- JN 466  21:18, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec)Doc James, there are questions about your own levels of "involvement" here by other editors at AE. I would prefer some truly uninvolved comments here. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 21:19, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It seems that anyone who edits Wikipedia by these criteria is involved. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 21:24, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I am sure you can find a few admins here who are not regularly involved in arbitration cases on cults. This wasn't an adjudication by "uninvolved" admins, it was a kangaroo court. It is a longstanding problem. Actually uninvolved admins don't bother turning up at WP:AE, with one or two honourable exceptions, because it is a thankless job. -- JN 466  21:27, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed some one outside the NRM/Cult Cabal would have been preferable. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 21:33, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Here is the ANI thread where Cirt pledged not to solicit admins any more. I guess it's an improvement that Cirt solicits on-wiki now, rather than off-wiki, but this is not how fair and impartial adjudication is supposed to work. -- JN 466  21:36, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This discussion does not appear useful to me. Per Requests for arbitration/Scientology, the sanctioned editor can appeal the sanction to WP:AE if they believe that the sanction is flawed for some reason. Any community discussion about this sanction should take place in the context of such an appeal, because only in that context can it cause the sanction to be overturned or changed. Without objection, I will archive this thread.  Sandstein   22:15, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Sandstein it is disconcerting to me, and should be to any member of this community, that editors here can get this type of swift satisfaction at AE by leaving a note at another admin's talk page. In a discussion where many, including the first commenting uninvolved admin, didn't see anything actionable per "arbitration enforcement" one doesn't just show up after being asked by the filing party to have a look, and start handing out sanctions without discussion.  I don't care if the letter of the law doesn't forbid this, it makes a mockery out of arbitration enforcement and instills zero confidence in the rest of us.  I wont even mention the patently strange nature of the remedy itself.Griswaldo (talk) 22:54, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * On the face of it, Fut Perf's action seems reasonable to me. My take on the earlier ANI thread is that truthaboutscientology.org reports on Scientology course completions as documented by completion lists published in Scientology's own materials such as its "Celebrity" magazine.  These magazines are available to the public and verifiable, and I don't think see them as having a reliability problem unless someone disputes a report.  The BLP concern in my opinion should be about the info's notability (relevance to the life of the subject) rather than its accuracy.  If DC inserted a reference to someone taking a Scientology course without mentioning that the person had left Scientology, that's tendentious insertion of negative material into a BLP, and if anything calls for tougher sanctions than Fut Perf imposed.  67.117.130.143 (talk) 22:25, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Consensus at RSN appears to have been that truthaboutscientology.org is not a RS. Note that there a lot of people leaving the CoS these days who continue to describe themselves as "Independent Scientologists"; she and her family have posted on Independents' blogs. We may need a new category at some point. -- JN 466  22:37, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Maybe not. Cirt also asked me to take a look at this, arguing basically that Jayen has got it in for him. I haven't had time to look over the whole thing, but indefinitely preventing DC from ever raising an issue about Cirt's actions about scientology is not an appropriate sanction to hang off the Scientology case in my opinion. Yes, action is needed because of DC's WP:POINT disruption, and I am not objecting to a sanction on article editing, but there does at first glance appear to be some valid criticism in there, and silencing it entirely is not the way to go. Rather than this sanction, DC should be sanctioned to either start a formal process or shut up about it. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree with Sandstein and agree that this thread should be hatted. Leave it for an appeal. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:43, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Done.  Sandstein   22:50, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

It didn't sound like Elen agreed with hatting this. I stand by my original concerns, and believe this is a much larger issue than what happened to Carbuncle specifically. No one should be able to solicit the type of satisfaction that Cirt got when he went to Future Perfect's talk page. That makes a complete mockery out of arbitration enforcement, and quite frankly, out of our very system of adnimship here. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 22:58, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * An appeal, which will be heard by uninvolved administrators, will no doubt consider allegations that the sanction imposed was affected by improper conduct. An AE appeal is a much better and more structured format to consider those issues than ANI. --Mkativerata (talk) 23:13, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I think continued discussion is fine, but I don't see any problem with doing it at AE instead of here. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 23:17, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Appeal filed: Arbitration Enforcement action appeal by Delicious carbuncle. <b style="color:navy;">NW</b> ( Talk ) 06:34, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Long-term disruption
Long-term disruptive edit/prolific socker.

Based on comments brought up at Sockpuppet investigations/Grundle2600 (where the latest batch blocked six socks), I'm bringing this here for discussion. There seems to be no indication that Grundle will stop anytime soon. He seems to enjoy it (however pathetic that is). Full-protecting the most frequent targets isn't an option, and range blocks would have too much collateral. Do we have other options, or do we continue to block on sight.  Grsz <b style="color:red;">11</b> 22:03, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You could try WP:LTA, but my impression is that this is largely ineffective in stopping known trolls and vandals; it serves as a convient means to keep all of the evidence and editing patterns in one place, but ISPs generally don't take any action based on abuse reports from Wikipedia volunteers. The other option is to use WP:EDITFILTER to block his edits directly; this may be marginally effective, but he may learn his way around this.  He's not really trying to hide, so he's easy to block.  So many people know his patterns that he's usually reverted and blocked within minutes.  Give it time.  Even prolific trolls like Willy on Wheels and the HAGGAR troll network got tired and backed off.  Eventually Grundle will get a girlfriend/boyfriend who will take an interest in him sexually, and after that he will probably lose interest in being an annoying troll.  Until then, it's Whack-A-Mole... -- Jayron  32  22:14, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * ROFLOL The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 22:17, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we could order one of these.  Grsz <b style="color:red;">11</b> 22:31, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The following articles were created by sockpuppets of banned user Grundle2600. You should delete all of these articles:

2010 Portland car bomb plot

Aiyana Jones

HD 10180

Into The Universe with Stephen Hawking

Megaleledone setebos

New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case

Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation

Sack tapping

Spinoloricus sp. nov.

Crtt87 (talk) 22:46, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Grundle! You'll never beleive this We where JUST talking about you LOLThe Resident Anthropologist (talk) 22:50, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Just so he doesn't get the wrong idea: Grundle, you created miniscule stubs whereas others have actually written the aritcle. Just don't want you to have the wrong impression that you're actually contributing. No need to reply, I know you're reading this.  Grsz  <b style="color:red;">11</b> 23:13, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Please explain how this edit constitutes "disruption." Gnbr23 (talk) 01:05, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Above is the first and only edit from this account. Obvious sock is obvious. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:17, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

My issue is that we are not going to stop him, period, so why try. The ban is completely useless, and we may be better off unbanning and unblocking him and simply dealing with his edits instead of trying instead of repeatedly bashing our collective heads against the wall. –MuZemike 02:14, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You may be correct that there would less effort and hassle in dealing with his behavior as an unblocked editor than the amount of time and effort put into controlling him as a banned user, but not only is the message it sends extremely damaging to the project's ability to control its borders -- make yourself annoying enough and we'll let you back into the fold -- but unblocking him also removes any potential incentive to Grundle himself to behave as an unblocked editor. If he screws around, whaddya we gonna do, block him? By unblocking him we've shown that threat to be toothless. No, this is not a situation where comparing costs doesn't make much sense.  Such vandals should never be rewarded for their vandalism, and our energy would be better off put to thinking about technological solutions to the problem, or, I'm afraid, systemic changes to the project which would make vandal control more efficient, such as loosening some of the restraints on Checking Users. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:13, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Recapistrulating to the trolls is morally reprhensible. this project is too valuable to just hand over to any troll or vandal who is willing to fill out a bunch of account creation forms in one sitting. the admin should consider blocking his account creation powers,, or if thsts impossible just blocking his account. that should teach him a lesson about screwed up with Wikipedia. User:Smith Jones 02:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "Recapistrulating." Are you actually Norm Crosby in disguise? :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:19, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * WP:RBI - it's not like Grundle is terribly subtle for long - eventually, he hits one (or usually more) of his favorite articles with the same stuff. Revert.  SPI.  Block.  Ignore.  If LTA can't do anything, it's about all that can be done.  It's not going to hurt to try LTA though. <b style="color:darkred;">Ravensfire</b> ( talk ) 03:20, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Would appreciate some feedback
I've stupidly been dragged into an edit-war over something extremely trivial and thought I should probably explain myself here, after realising and stepping back. At Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Education in Australia there was some discussion over removal of a field from Infobox Australia school private which resulted in one editor deciding to start changing all Australian school articles from using Infobox Aust school to Infobox school without any real consensus to do so. After the discussion that resulted, he's started changing articles again, although this time there is a sort of very informal agreement to go to Infobox school. During the process he's changed enrolment figures from "n,nnn" format (which is standard Australian practice and supported by MOS:NUM) to "~nnnn" format, which is also supported by MOS:NUM. The current issue started simply enough with me restoring the commas and one school motto translation. After another discussion, which seems to be going nowhere, I added a citation to the motto translation, which this editor has now removed twice, neither time with an explanation as to why he has removed the citation. Since there was no attempt to provide an explanation for removing the citation, and after all the silly removals of the commas that I'd reinserted, I believed he was deliberately being disruptive to make a point. For this reason, I reverted his unexplained removals of the citation as vandalism and warned him on his talk page. I would greatly appreciate opinions from other editors as to whether this was a correct course of action. --AussieLegend (talk) 14:00, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Just as a note; even misguided attempts to improve the wiki are not treated as vandalism. So I would avoid doing that in the future. As to the other matter; looks like a simple dual translation, I am not sure I see the issue. --Errant $(chat!)$ 14:08, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: Original poster apparently missed a ~ or two; message was posted by User:AussieLegend. In addition, the author under discussion was not notified of this thread as required; I will do so now. Frank  &#124;  talk  14:10, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The reason I stepped back is that I thought I might be being too hard on him. It has been frustrating though, trying to work with this editor as he seems not to listen to other editors. An example is at WT:EIA where he is still arguing that including a comma contradicts MOS:NUM, when I've already quoted the relevant portion on my talk page that says that using a comma is supported. And that's just the latest example. Thankyou for notifying him about this discussion. Unfortunately I got sidetracked by his edit warring complaint. --AussieLegend (talk) 14:34, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Further note: User:Danjel has reported User:AussieLegend at Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring; that seems a more appropriate venue for this discussion anyway. Frank &#124;  talk  14:16, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The point of this discussion was to get some feedback on my actions. I didn't even realise there was a report until after I'd started this discussion. --AussieLegend (talk) 14:34, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Besides the discussive point above (about n,nnn being standard Australian practice - I'm Australian and I disgaree), I'm continuing with this issue over at Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring. -Danjel (talk) 14:44, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

And it looks like both have now been blocked 24 hours for edit warring. –MuZemike 17:06, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * ...and this has been added to WP:LAME. –MuZemike 06:54, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

User:RedKnight 1 and unexplain deletions
User:RedKnight1 has deleted a massive amount of sourced information from Seymour Expedition in this edit. He claimed he would explain yesterday, but a day has passed and he has so far not done so. If he does so again, i hope he will explain exactly why and how the information he deleted was POV. In the meantime, i restored the deleted information, since a day has passed from since he promised to explain the deletion.Дунгане (talk) 20:58, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * How does this need administrator intervention?  Sandstein   22:55, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It doesn't. Fences  &amp;  Windows  23:12, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the user was trying to ask whether he had done the right thing. I'm not so sure he got an answer, except maybe implicitly. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:59, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Potential WP:CANVASSING by User:Cirt
Cirt canvassed at least four admins today, while an arbitration enforcement thread was ongoing, using non-neutral messages: --
 * Future Perfect at Sunrise,
 * EdJohnston,
 * Elen of the Roads, further discussion,
 * FisherQueen.

Prior non-neutral posts to admin talk pages on the same matter: - Previous thread about Cirt's soliciting other admins off-wiki:
 * HelloAnnyong,
 * FisherQueen,
 * GraemeL,
 * Jayron32,
 * Future Perfect at Sunrise.

Previous thread about Cirt's behaviour in content disputes: -

One of the above admins, Future Perfect at Sunrise, closed the AE thread, forbidding from ever bringing a complaint against Cirt again in this topic area.

I am slightly concerned that Cirt's actions here may not have been within the spirit of WP:CANVASSING. Views? -- JN 466  00:46, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I have to say that my initial reaction, pending an explanation from Cirt, is one of dismay. These are non-neutral messages. Admins regularly patrol AE. There was no need to procure admins to look at the AE request, let alone using messages of this kind. If a party to an AE request has concerns about the behaviour of another party, the concerns should be addressed within the AE request. I have to say that if I received a message of this kind on my talk page, I would feel quite uncomfortable intervening. As EoR said in response to a concern about the message on her page, "asking people to take a look in this way has the potential to blow up in Cirt's face".--Mkativerata (talk) 00:55, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * One could also argue that this matter could well have been brought up within the AE request as well. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * and it strikes me it was hardly necessary to do more than just point to the matter--the people notified would not have failed to understand.   DGG ( talk ) 01:20, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Maybe Jayen and Cirt should stop interacting. Much of this seems to be related to their personal chemistry and history.   Will Beback    talk    01:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Cirt and Jayen's extensive history is undeniable, However Cirt should know knows better than this. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 01:40, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

There's no mileage in shooting the messenger. Also, I'm beginning to get annoyed at people whose sole function seems to be trying to argue that one can't discuss this here (wherever here is). Over at AE, several voices were saying hours ago that nothing further can be raised there - it has to wait for DC to make an appeal. So there is absolutely no point in sending it back there. It doesn't concern DC or Scientology in any case, just the behaviour of Cirt.

Cirt must not canvass in this way. End of. I wasn't particularly concerned with the first message, as I've never had anything to do with scientology, DC or Cirt, so it seemed a reasonable request for an uninvolved admin to have a look. The second communication from Cirt was concerning, because it obviously wasn't a neutral request. I have advised Cirt that this type of action is likely to have unwanted consequences, and the community ought to recognise that this is not proper behaviour, no matter whether the intent was innocent.Elen of the Roads (talk) 02:02, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The point is well taken that you have had no dealings with Cirt, DC or Scientology, but it should be pointed out that Future Perfect had made the following comment to DC at AN/I prior to taking Cirt's solicitation - "If you feel those articles are problematic, then go and fix them, otherwise drop the stick, or this is going to become a boomerang for you.". I highly doubt that Cirt missed that.Griswaldo (talk) 03:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

(ec)User:Jayen466 is not, by any means, the only editor dismayed by what transpired there. The first admin to comment at the AE request had this to say to one of the solicited admins, after that solicited admin decided to act upon the request. When Cirt contacted you to ask you to look at this request, he made you involved, especially when the message might as well have said "please go over to AE and sort out Delicious carbuncle for me". I also voiced my concern, and so did ResidentAnthropologist. In fact I'm still dismayed about the situation. No editor should be able to solicit this kind of instant satisfaction at AE. NEVER. If the person who files an AE asks an admin specifically to go over and have a look at it that admin should not be the one to act on it. That's pretty much common sense. This is especially true when that admin is known to the person who filed the report to agree with him to one extent or another, and such was the case with Future Perfect, and no doubt the other admins solicited by Cirt. I doubt he flipped to a random page in the phone book so to speak. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 02:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This can and should be discussed here. Are there previous instances of Cirt being warned about these kinds of messages. If so, I would go so far as to suggest an appropriately tailored discretionary sanction (or, because the scope of Arbcom discretionary sanctions in Scientology seem to be more limited, a community-imposed restriction) to prevent it happening again. --Mkativerata (talk) 02:52, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It appears there is form, eg --Mkativerata (talk) 03:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Proposal (Cirt)
Reading the diffs above it appears this has happened multiple times in the past, and Cirt has been admonished for it (eg at ANI) multiple times. There is the case of contacting a fellow administrator off-wiki in respect of a block, and contacting User:DGG to procure a sanction in respect of which Cirt was involved. If Cirt is unable to see what the problem is (having been admonished previouslt), the community needs to impose a restriction accordingly. If this was a first sign of trouble, a restriction would be heavy-handed. But it appears to be a repeat problem. I propose as a community-imposed restriction:
 * Cirt is prohibited from posting on the user talk pages of uninvolved administrators or contacting uninvolved administrators off-wiki in relation to disputes in which Cirt is involved

Comments please. --Mkativerata (talk) 03:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Regretfully support as slaps on the wrist have failed to get the message through. Only Caveat language seems a bit broad but frankly cant see a way to tighten it without making it ineffective. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 03:52, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Um... considering his dicking around, should he even be an admin anymore? Half  Shadow  03:54, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that's the question nobody has wanted to ask. Both parties have been disruptive, but I don't think anyone more or less than the other. It's not a behavior we should accept from an admin. We wouldn't take it from the run of the mill user.  Grsz <b style="color:red;">11</b> 03:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Desysopping would have to be taken to Arbcom, and Arbcom will require that community attempt to address and resolve concerns first. I should add that these concerns are largely unrelated to Cirt's position as an administrator - such messages would barely be any less concerning if they were from a non-admin. --Mkativerata (talk) 03:58, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't really care one way or the other, it just strikes me as "not the sort of thing an admin should do". Half  Shadow  04:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Before this goes any further I would like to hear from Cirt. Certainly he can shed some light on to this topic. I don't think there is any rush, is there? Basket of Puppies 06:08, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: I am sorry. My actions in posting to those user's talk pages in that manner, was inappropriate. has been WP:WIKIHOUNDING and following me all over Wikipedia for over three years now. I admit that his actions got the better of me, and have made me quite frustrated indeed.  shows up time and time again to disputes where I am involved and where he previously was not involved, comes in, and posts a comment, often taking the opposing position to whatever I am involved in. Unfortunately, I did not take the higher road, and I let my emotions get the better of me. AE was not the proper forum to address the WP:WIKIHOUNDING by . I will strive to work on my behavior in the future. I hope that  will as well, and I hope that he will avoid the inappropriate WP:WIKIHOUNDING that has gone on now for over three years against me. -- Cirt (talk) 06:40, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This seems like a perfectly good explanation of the situation. Cirt has recognized that his actions were less than ideal and has pledged to not preform them again. I don't see the need for any formal sanctions or anything else. Thoughts? Basket of Puppies  06:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If this was the first such mea culpa for this behaviour, I'd agree. Unfortunately it's not. --Mkativerata (talk) 06:59, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Cirt, that is unfair. We both work in some of the same topic areas. We have a number of the same articles on our watchlists. I have as often agreed with you as not when you have been in dispute with other users. Examples:
 * Cirt posting on Jimbo's talk page that I agreed with them and praised their work
 * Cirt in a conflict with Dbachmann; I backed Cirt up on the content question, because Cirt was right on content (even though the way they approached Dbachmann was wrong). (Further down I suggested we make the article a sortable table; Cirt agreed, and did a hell of a lot of wonderful work reformatting the entire list, for which I thanked them)
 * Maunus, an IP and Resident Anthropologist arguing against Cirt that Hassan should not be listed in the article, as he is not a scholar; I backed Cirt up and provided a source that settled the matter in Cirt's favour
 * Even when we have disagreed on content, we have resolved matters amicably enough, and you have thanked me often enough for my appreciation of your content work:
 * Xenu
 * BLPN thread on Miscavige
 * Even though I have been horrified sometimes at the way you treat other editors, I have sung the praises of your ability as a researcher. You have a barnstar from me. I supported you at your RfA. Please be assured that where I have disagreed with you, it was strictly on content and policy grounds, and because of the WP:OWN problem that mars your work and makes you have goes at other editors, like Dbachmann here and Scott MacDonald here. It's not personal. I respect you and like you, and I am sorry the cases where I do disagree with you cause you irritation. -- JN 466  11:08, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I do not think that the issue raised by Jayen466 should be discussed in terms of canvassing. Canvassing means selectively notifying people with the intention of influencing a consensus. However, arbitration enforcement actions are not based on consensus. Like speedy deletion or blocks, they are made by one single (uninvolved) admin acting on their own discretion. There is no consensus to sway. So, by definition, AE actions cannot be canvassed. As long as the admin who acts on the request is uninvolved and considers the request on its merits, it does not matter how they learned about the request. Whether it is proper to ask admins to take AE actions directly is another matter, unrelated to canvassing. I have always declined AE requests that were asked of me directly and asked people to post them on WP:AE, for the sake of transparency.  Sandstein   06:41, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Canvassing means selectively notifying people with the "intention of influencing the outcome of a discussion in a particular way". Consensus has nothing to do with it. Selectively notifying admins that will probably decide in your interests is most certainly canvassing. --Conti|✉ 06:59, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Whatever it is, it's worse than traditional canvassing. Especially as Cirt, being an admin, can be perceived to have "pull" with other admins. --Mkativerata (talk) 07:01, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: Thank you, and, I agree with your above comments. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 06:54, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

(undent) I agree with Will's comment above. People need to get back to writing an encyclopedia. Both Cirt and Jayen have done a lot of great work but probably need to interact less. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:28, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * What little interaction Cirt and I have is productive in terms of improving article content. Will Beback turns up at most every RfC and noticeboard discussion involving Cirt, and invariably in support of Cirt. Note that Will Beback's block log dates back to an occasion when I reported him at AE. -- JN 466  11:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Comment If Jayen and Cirt have a lot of overlapping interests Cirt's request seems entirely unreasonable, particularly without more evidence of actual hounding. I also hate to say this, but in the few times I've been invovled with an issue where Cirt is heavily invested or being criticized the same faces show up repeatedly to defend him blindly. It is very difficult to understand what the true consensus is in those situations. Again, as much as I hate to discuss Wikipedia this way, if Cirt is going to invite friends to all his scuffles he's going to have to assume that some antagonists are going to show up as well. I don't say this lightly btw, and I've commented on this cliquish behavior elsewhere recently, (Col Warden RfC). I truly despise both sides of it -- the allies and the antagonists. My point though is that Cirt appears to work his allegiances more than most, so it is a bit hypocritical to think that he is just going to be able to stack things in his own favor without some of his critics showing up to turn the tables. If he was willing to ask his friends to stop involving themselves everytime he needs help I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to ask other editors to back of as well. Consider that here we are asking for a baby step in the same direction - for Cirt not to actively solicit admin help everytime he wants satisfaction. Indeed that would be the ideal solution, but how likely is it that people here stop acting like their in a gang? Not very.Griswaldo (talk) 13:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Cirt, I do think this is down to not seeing how your actions look, rather than Machiavellian intrigue (Machiavelli would have used email). That said, can you agree that in future if you lodge a complaint somewhere, you understand that you should not then go and ask not previously involved admins to have a look at it. This will save a lot of trouble in the future, believe me. Elen of the Roads (talk) 11:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: Elen of the Roads, yes, you are right, I can agree to that, it is a most reasonable and logical suggestion, thank you. As to the above comments from Will Beback and Doc James, I must say it is indeed quite creepy to time and time again be subject to the disturbing WP:WIKIHOUNDING against me by . It does not matter whether he shows up to oppose something I am doing, or even be supportive &mdash; the issue is that he is repeatedly following me around and showing up multiple times to conflicts I am previously involved in, that he has not been previously involved in. I do not care whether he comes up and is positive or negative about something, I just wish that he would stop interjecting himself into disputes I am involved in where he is not, altogether. I agree with Will Beback and Doc James that it would be beneficial for the project and the Wikipedia community as a whole if were to voluntarily agree to interact less with me. Thank you. -- Cirt (talk) 12:13, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Cirt, I am not in the habit of checking your contributions history, and I don't have your talk page watchlisted. When I do comment on articles you are working on, it is usually because your disputes with other editors have spilt onto Jimbo's talk page, which is on my watchlist, or onto one of the noticeboards. When I comment, I comment on the merits, without prejudice to you. -- JN 466  13:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Support the proposal by User:Mkativerata. The problem is recurring, and my faith in apologies and promises is limited. If the behaviour stops, the restriction will never have to be invoked, which will be the best solution all round. -- JN 466  13:36, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * At this time I oppose sanctioning both parties. They should both consider this thread a warning: (1) Cirt, do not try to handpick admins to resolve disputes.  Instead, post to a noticeboard, notify the involved parties or those with prior knowledge of the dispute, and let matters proceed. (2) Jayen466, stop hounding Cirt.  I've been around since the first Scientology case (COFS) in 2007 and am well aware of your and Cirt's history of conflict in the field of New Age religions. Please don't join any issue related to Cirt that you aren't already involved in, (2b) and Cirt, likewise, you are expected not to jump into Jayen's issues. If you two want to work together, feel free to leave polite invitations or offers of assistance on each other's talk pages. Jehochman Talk 13:40, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * @Jehochman: Alright, your admonitions are indeed reasonable. I will take them to heart. -- Cirt (talk) 13:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I have not been hounding Cirt. Matters are raised at public noticeboards to gather community input. This is a normal community process. If you feel I have been insulting to Cirt, or done anything other than commenting in good faith on matters brought to the community's attention, please provide evidence. Otherwise, I can only observe that you are also a fairly regular visitor to discussions involving Cirt, and that Cirt is one of the top ten posters to your talk page. -- JN 466  14:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Jehochman, I already try to avoid posting or editing in areas where has previously interjected himself, but I have not. I will continue to avoid joining any issue relating to the user. It appears  is refusing your request to respectfully do likewise with regards to myself. -- Cirt (talk) 14:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Jehochman - 's failure to stop WP:WIKIHOUNDING me, is now evidenced, today, right now, by his active refusal to abide by your request above, and activity at AE diff link (again, taking opposing stance to dispute I am involved in, etc.) -- Cirt (talk) 14:28, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you being serious? Even if Jayen decides to heed Jehochman's request he's already fully involved in the issue you are linking to.  In other words, even Jehochman's request (which I in no way agree with myself) does not require him to do that.Griswaldo (talk) 14:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I will leave that up to the judgment of Jehochman. One example is the extreme amount of conflict generated by 's work on the article Scientology in Germany. I guess no one noticed at the time, but though I have an interest in the subject matter &mdash; I completely avoided the article and the conflict there involving, and I did not interject myself into his disputes over there with other editors. Under Jehochman's request, the same behavior would be expected of towards myself. -- Cirt (talk) 14:42, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That article is a GA, and was reconfirmed as a GA after a GA review. The "extreme amount of conflict" involved a sock and one editor, User:Wispanow, who has since acquired a block log to match the one he has on German Wikipedia and was warned at WP:AE. Since Wispanow's demise, the article has been extremely stable, receiving no more than half a dozen edits over the past half year. That is not an "extreme amount of conflict". However, I do appreciate your having stayed away from the article, but then I don't tend to edit your FAs or FACs either. If the community says it's an FA, I am quite happy with that. -- JN 466  15:02, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, Cirt, right now I feel hounded by you. If I see you violating BLP policy, as in this edit or at List of Scientologists, which led to posts on Jimbo's talk page and several BLPN threads, and to your removing the information you had added in violation of policy, as it did here, how is it in the interest of the project if I fail to comment? I can see that it is in your interest, because as you have said, my interventions have been a source of profound irritation to you, but please look at the article outcome. We are not here for self-gratification, but to generate NPOV content. That is done through collaboration, and team work. The number of editors who have complained of your WP:OWN problem is legion:     . So is the number of editors who you have claimed are "hounding" you. -- JN  466  14:43, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This is exactly the problem with requests like Jehochman's, and sanctions like Future Perfects. The net result is not to prevent disruption but to remove people who might call Cirt on POV pushing from Cirt's general area of interest.  Until I see a consensus that Jayen is hounding Cirt, I think Jehochman's request has no merit.Griswaldo (talk) 14:54, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

For the record I support User:Mkativerata's proposal above. And I should add that I have found Cirt to be quite reasonable when I have interacted with him, but only after some sort of drama created by his aggressive defensiveness has died down. What I haven't found reasonable is how he seems to frequently take his content opponents to AN/I and related noticeboards. My first interaction with him was in the Daryl Wine Bar AfD, and its fallout, where he spuriously reported his opponent User:Njsustain to AN/I. Then he dragged User:THF to AN/I recently because THF opposed him at another AfD, and now he took carbuncle's bait and jumped to AN/I. When he runs into trouble with an content or POV opponent this appears to be the pattern he is follwoing. Report them to AN/I and ask his admin friends to help him out, or simply ask admin friends to help him out. I think that behavior really needs a thorough looking into, unless Cirt is able to see it himself and promise to keep it in check.Griswaldo (talk) 14:56, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose, lopsided and unnecessary. Per above comments and opposition to this proposal by admins Sandstein, Jehochman, Will Beback, and Doc James, and per my responses above to suggestions made by Basket of Puppies and Elen of the Roads. -- Cirt (talk) 15:08, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It's a bit disingenuous to put it that way. Only Jehochman has commented that he "opposes" sanctioning, and even that was a general comment about any sanctions and not directed towards this proposal specifically.Griswaldo (talk) 15:13, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm also confused because Elen's comment is in line with the proposal and not against it. She has advised you to do exactly what the proposal suggests you should do. Not to "canvass" in this way.  So if you plan to take her advise then why would you object to the proposal?Griswaldo (talk) 15:16, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Support --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:17, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I see you have posted recently as an admin at AE. Perhaps you could have a look at Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement? (who previously has a history of making almost his entire evidence presentation in the Scientology arbcom case be an attack against me) is attempting to use my report against as a desperate tactic to railroad in yet another irrelevant attack against me. Thoughts? Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 15:20, 13 December 2010 (UTC) Are you serious? I think that it takes a bit more than a "um, yes, my bad, but he is WP:WIKIHOUNDING me, it would never have happened if he wasn't WP:WIKIHOUNDING me, did I mention that he is WP:WIKIHOUNDING me?". That is a grievous act of misconduct, especially on AE where first mover has a virtual carte blanche. I submit that Fut. Perf. should not have acted on the message, that by having such a message posted to him he should have excused himself as a matter of course. I support the proposal above, I would also urge Fut. Perf. to vacate his motion at AE in this instance and leave it to someone else. <i style="text-shadow:grey 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;"><b style="color:#937">u</b><b style="color:#836">n</b><b style="color:#736">☯</b><b style="color:#636">m</b><b style="color:#536">i</b></i> 15:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * For the record, this thread is a mess, tl;dr stuff. We just have the same litigants repeating their positions more and more stridently. Please stop now and drop it.  Unomi, I am especially unimpressed with the way you are belittling another editor making jokes about their concerns. Jehochman Talk 16:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Huh? I see serious concerns about the way an editor is using "hounding" to deflect attention from or excuse his own behavioral issues.  Asking Unomi to "please stop now and drop it" amounts to saying, "you're perspective on this is unwanted here" and that is utterly inappropriate in my humble opinion.Griswaldo (talk) 16:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You've made your opinion clear, several times. Do you think repeating it again is helpful?  Please stop it now and drop it is directed at all the litigants who are prolonging this unproductive discussion, not just Unomi.  And yes, unhelpful comments such as belittling other editors are not welcome.   Jehochman Talk 16:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I, on the other hand continue to be impressed by your self control, were I to engage in your level of brown-nosing I would have thrown up long ago. Jehochman, it is impossible to read the messages that Cirt left and not find them completely unbecoming of anyone, that this was done by an admin who understands the dynamics of AE makes this a rather serious situation indeed. Cirt's apology is here: :Comment: I am sorry. My actions in posting to those user's talk pages in that manner, was inappropriate. has been WP:WIKIHOUNDING and following me all over Wikipedia for over three years now. I admit that his actions got the better of me, and have made me quite frustrated indeed. shows up time and time again to disputes where I am involved and where he previously was not involved, comes in, and posts a comment, often taking the opposing position to whatever I am involved in. Unfortunately, I did not take the higher road, and I let my emotions get the better of me. AE was not the proper forum to address the WP:WIKIHOUNDING by . I will strive to work on my behavior in the future. I hope that  will as well, and I hope that he will avoid the inappropriate WP:WIKIHOUNDING that has gone on now for over three years against me. -- Cirt (talk) 06:40, 14 December 2010 (UTC) if that is not a joke in and of itself I don't know what is. I am sick and tired of the mentality that excuses that kind of behavior, if you can't clean up the shit then at least stop pretending that it smells of roses, Jehochman, you either owe Jayen an immediate apology for alleging that he is hounding Cirt or provide evidence for community perusal, casting aspersions should be well below you. <i style="text-shadow:grey 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;"><b style="color:#834">u</b><b style="color:#733">n</b><b style="color:#633">☯</b><b style="color:#533">m</b><b style="color:#433">i</b></i> 17:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * And while he's at it he might consider not bullying other editors into silence as he's doing here, and over at AE as well. People make points, others refute or try to refute those points, and then those people return to argue some more.  That's the nature of discussion.  Please stop trying to censor it Jehochman.Griswaldo (talk) 17:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * When points are made rudely, such as with insults such as "brown nosing", they are likely to be disregarded. If you have a point to make, say it once and say it politely.  Repeating your point while becoming more and more strident, insulting and assuming of bad faith is not at all productive. Jehochman Talk 17:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Oppose Not needed as user has already agreed to alter behavior. Only a continuation of the above. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Third such ANI discussion in less than two months. Each time Cirt pledged to alter behavior.. Do you see any reason that it will stop now? The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 19:54, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think that people who write about their Wikipedia conflicts on Wikipedia Review, as Jayen has done, are in a position to complain about canvassing. He comes to this with unclean hands. If anything, canvassing on-wiki is less of a problem than using off-site forums.   Will Beback    talk    20:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * WR is a public forum (the relevant thread is linked at AE). Half of our arbitrators have accounts there. My WP account is openly linked there. I haven't said anything there that I haven't said here, and I have not asked anyone to go and close AE threads in my favour. So what is your point? -- JN 466  00:04, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see any diffs showing a request to close an AE, simply to look at it. Writing about an issue on WR is an implicit invitation to go look at the WP thread. Gossiping about him behind his back and talking about his activities with severe critics of WP doesn't seem like a helpful behavior to resolving your disputes. You write about him there and he writes about you here. I propose that both of you try to avoid each other rather than following each other around.   Will Beback    talk    00:42, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

AE Appeal
It might not be obvious to some commenting just above that there is another forum where the canvassing is also being tackled. Carbuncle is appealing his AE sanctions - Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 16:19, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Admin User:The ed17 and BLP
Cliff Lee is fully protected. I saw that had edited the article to insert an unsourced allegation concerning this living person. When I asked him if he would really edit a BLP without providing a source, his reply was "Are you serious? Read my edit summary, and feel free to go to Google News and read the 935 articles.". I replied that "Go read Google News" was not a reliable source for a BLP, and he replied back, "I'm sorry that I don't edit things in one swipe. Please don't ever berate someone over easily provable pure facts that aren't even controversial". Is this the proper BLP attitude for an admin? Corvus cornix talk  08:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Full story: I changed the intro, then moved down to edit the "Return to Phillies" section of the article. I was in the process of adding the same information with references when I replied to Corvus the first time. The information in question is "Lee will sign a $100 million, five year contract with the Philadelphia Phillies, contingent on him passing a physical examination.[two refs]" and in the lead, "[...] who is currently a member of the Philadelphia Phillies." Not exactly the most controversial information I have ever seen in any article, much less a BLP. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 08:28, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * .. And that justifies your hostility towards them how? You could have easily told them you were in the process of citing a source, instead of asking if they were serious.— <font color="Green">Dæ <font color="Blue">dαlus + <font color="Green">Contribs 09:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Very true, I should have mentioned that. The "are you serious" stemmed from the multiple news outlets which were all posting the story for an hour before Wikipedia was edited to reflect them. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:44, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * With the article blocked, there was no rush to post the info. I have to ask what I typically do about BLP's: If you don't have a source, how do you know it's true? And if you do have a source, why didn't you post it? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:39, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I also question the assertion that he's a member of the Phillies yet. It seems that he has agreed to terms, but his becoming a member of the Phillies seems to be contingent on passing a physical. The reports are saying that he has agreed, not that he has signed a contract yet. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:42, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I didn't post it in the lead per WP:LEAD. I did, however, cite it farther down, just not in the same edit. Please see Cliff Lee. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:44, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You did, in fact, re-post the comment to the lead for which full protection had been applied to prevent: ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:29, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I have asked the "locking admin" to come here and comment. I don't think locking the page was necessary, and I also think you bent the rules a bit, though well short of being desysopped, more like maybe not being allowed to have dessert tonight. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:47, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, admins shouldn't edit fully protected articles unless there's a very good reason (such as a major breaking news story in which the article needs to be updated to retain credibility). This particularly applies when the duration of full protection is relatively short, as is the case here. That said, Ed's edits were clearly made in good faith and 1) followed an edit request on the article's talk page and 2) were sourced to a reliable source following User:Corvus cornix's post on Ed's talk page . Given that Corvus cornix noted that the "edits you provided are valid" after a source was provided  this seems to be much ado about not very much. I'd suggest that the best action for Ed to have taken would have been to have lifted the protection given that what was being edit warred over had now been confirmed, thereby ending the scope for the edit war to continue - with a note to the admin who implemented the protection, of course. Given the amount of edit warring from registered accounts which was going on in the article, I also endorse the original decision to implement full protection - that's a pretty standard response (disclaimers: 1) I know nothing about baseball 2) I've worked with Ed on a number of articles and in my former role as a coordinator of the military history project and think that he's a first-rate editor and admin). Nick-D (talk) 10:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * What Nick-D said. Rd232 talk 11:04, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I see where the edits were reverted. Ed's mistake was in re-instating the assertion that Lee is now a Phillie, which is not necessarily the case. It's not really a BLP issue, though; it's simply a technical factual matter. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Ed, keep in mind that random editors patrolling BLP's (especially protected ones with ongoing edit wars) may not be baseball aficionados caught up in breaking news about the subject. Your edits to the article (from the description here) had only slight problems at worst, but it would have avoided some drama if you'd kept your responses to Corvus more matter-of-fact, e.g. instead of "are you serious" etc. (expecting Corvus to be following baseball news), you could say "this is an ongoing event getting tons of news coverage and not controversial; I'll add sources from [google news link] to the appropriate part of the article in a minute".  For that matter, if you're going to edit a protected article on your own initiative (I guess ok in this case per NOTBURO) then you should probably always announce on the talk page what you're doing before you start, inviting people to speak up if they have any objections.  That would have also given a place to link to a news search.  I do think Corvus overreacted a bit by opening this thread instead of just checking the news, but that's par for the course around here.   67.117.130.143 (talk) 14:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * ↑ This. We're never in such a rush that we can't add a source, and not everyone who edits will be looking for up-to-the-minute news on the subject. Not a big deal in this case, but it's something for everyone to keep in mind in the future. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 16:07, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment I fully protected it at the behest of an editor at WP:RFPP. A lot of editors kept changing the lead, when the fact remains that Lee is not yet officially a member of the Phillies. Semi-protection was tried, but the same stuff was still happening. As for editing through full protection, that should not be done unless it was a thoroughly uncontroversial edit. When I protected, I checked the page, and it did say that Lee had agreed to terms, citing a source. That's all that had to be said.  Enigma <sup style="color:#FFA500;">msg  16:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps wise to go to semi-protection now. I don't know that there's more to be said about what Ed did.  Yes, it looks like he made a miscall, but that happens, and unless there's a pattern of such things, it is pointless to keep beating it into the ground.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:14, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Based on the discussion on the article talk page, unprotecting now would immediately resume the edit war. Best to keep it protected until Lee signs (or doesn't sign). ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:12, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep protected per Bugs and WP:NOTNEWS. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 19:54, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yep. It can't go back to semi until the signing is official, really, unless you want non-stop edit-warring. As for my comment above, Baseball Bugs asked me to comment here, so there are my thoughts, even though it's basically rehashing what's been said.  Enigma <sup style="color:#FFA500;">msg  20:39, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your input. The article currently has a bare-bones reference to the tentative deal, and that's sufficient for now. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:22, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Blocked for following WP:BRD?

 * It is clear that multiple editors have objected to the mass-conversion, either by reverting, or by asking Bender235 to stop. Bender235 is reminded that, even though he may not have broken a specific rule, he did cause a degree of controversy, and is therfor advised stop making changes to reflist in articles. — <b style="color:#008">E''dokter</b> • Talk  • 22:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

While I'm roaming around Wikipedia, I frequently see articles with 20 or more refs, that could use a multi-column reference list. I know there is no clear cut recommendation on Wikipedia whether to use columns or how many, but that it's up to the article's editors to decide on the reference list style they like. Now I (as a person that has never contributed to the article before) could either start a discussion on the talk page to find out whether there's consensus, or I could rather be bold, wait until someone reverts, and then discuss the changes. The latter is the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, and that's what I've been doing over the last couple of years.

In recent months, however, tow admins (User:CBM, User:Rd232) are wikihounding me throughout Wikipedia for this, claiming that I'm not allowed to edit an article I was not "actively involved" in. Which is kind of surprising, because IMHO one of the Five Pillars says: "You do not own articles (nor templates and other features of Wikipedia). If you create or edit an article, know that others will edit it, and within reason you should not prevent them from doing so." In my opinion, this means everyone can edit every article, no matter how long he edits on Wikipedia or actively involved he was in the article. No one "earns" they right to prevent others from editing just by "actively contributing" to an article.

Just yesterday, Rd232 has threatened to block me if I would continue to make "this type of edit again to an article you're not actively involved in". Is he correct? Is following WP:BRD a valid reason to get banned for? —bender235 (talk) 11:56, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * They've explained to you why not to do it. So don't do it. Beware the boomerang. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:05, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, they did. But in my opinion they are not correct. This is certainly not a "rule" that only applies to me, so if I'm not allowed to edit an article I previously wasn't "actively involved" in, then who is? —bender235 (talk) 12:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * From what is presented here, those edits seem fine, particularly the second one. If you were making these changes en masse that would be a different issue; but as it stands there seems no reason for anyone to stop you making such edits. Suggest chastising those two gently. (with the caveat that they are made on very long lists of references where the change is duly warranted) --Errant $(chat!)$ 12:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, I've amounted nearly 100,000 edits over the last couple of years, and quite a number of them were reference list style changes. So what does "en masse" mean exactly? —bender235 (talk) 12:13, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * If you were going through articles and changing shed loads of them to this method with no obvious need. As I said; it does not appear that is the case so there is no reason for anyone to dispute this practice. Having checked on the last several (10 or 15) times you have done this, the changes are 100% fine and improve the article. I see no reason why you should not continue to make these changes where they seem warranted. --Errant $(chat!)$ 12:14, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Bender235 does make the changes en masse       . There are many more, and the pattern extends over a long period of time. If this was just a single article that he had been editing, I would never have noticed; the issue is that Bender235 goes from one article to another changing styles to suit his taste. Our guiding principle is to avoid that sort of editing. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:16, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * "Our guiding principle is to avoid that sort of editing."
 * That is the main question. Am I allowed to make reference style changes? Is anyone allowed to? Because this isn't just about me, CBM also tries to prohibit User:Thecheesykid to make these kinds of edits. Which essentially means whether CBM, just because he's an admin, is allowed to impose his prefered reference list style on Wikipedia? —bender235 (talk) 12:25, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I am not going to block anyone or protect any pages, just use my powers of persuasion. As far as I know Rd232 responded to the last ANI thread as an uninvolved admin; he closed the ANI thread saying you should stop these edits, but you persisted, which led him to warn you (again) to stop before being blocked. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I'd hardly call that en masse in the context of the other edits. And all of the cases you provide (which I checked previously) seem improvements and 100% fine. Going to a column based layout makes the article nicer; where there is no dispute that is an entirely uncontroversial change, and attempting to stop such work is just disruptive and pointy. Sorry. --Errant $(chat!)$ 12:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * As far as I know Bnder235 made no other edits to those pages, so I don't know what "other edits" means here. There are hundreds of these diffs - Bender235 makes it a habit. The point is that "fine" is not a justification for changing styles on articles like that. Like WP:ENGVAR, the principle is that editors should not go around setting things to their personal preferences. Other editors have pointed out the Bender235 that they don't prefer the style he is changing to, so he knows it does not have consensus. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:33, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm well aware that there is no Wikipedia-wide consensus to use columns in reference lists. Just like there is no consensus not to use them. It has to be decided on every single article, by finding the consensus there. And how do I kickstart the consensus-finding process? Per WP:BRD. —bender235 (talk) 12:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Uh, all the other wiki-gnome edits he peforms of course! As I may have stated before I believe you have a "wiki-lawyering" perspective of that policy and have missed the spirit of it - which is to avoid silly disputes over which style article references should take. In this case, long reference lists are turned into widthed columns and it makes the page a little neater; such edits appear to have not been disputed or rejected and Bender is not going round every article he visits imposing this style. In this case; the spirit of the policy says "it's great". Someone came by and made a similar edit to one of the pages I was editor (in fact the sole writer) of, and I was quite happy with it having not known of the option before and liking the neater reference layout. This is all just nonsense --Errant $(chat!)$ 12:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree the spirit is to avoid silly disputes over style. But the way we achieve that is by telling people not to go around changing the style based on their personal preference. Here is another quote:
 * (Just to underscore that editors disagree about this) I, for one, prefer to see my references in one column, because it makes it easier to pick out the the author names running down the far left side. In fact, if it were possible, I would prefer that they didn't "wrap" at all. Multiple columns are just too dense. CharlesGillingham (talk)
 * The reason that we have rules on the stability of styles is to respect these differences of opinion. You may prefer multiple columns, but others don't. The way we handle such things is to tell everyone to leave the styles alone unless there is a wiki-wide consensus that some style should be adopted universally (e.g. WP:MOS). &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:45, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * And in this case a long list of references is reasonable cause to suggest a column layout. And the proper process to follow is WP:BRD. I see zero issue here except a lot of nonsense and hand waving for zero net gain. --Errant $(chat!)$ 12:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If there was consensus it was a reasonable cause, it would be in the MOS. The reason it is not is that people do not agree about it. That's why I quoted an editor who explicitly says he does not like that style: to underscore that there is not consensus about which style is better. It's just a matter of personal taste, and personal taste is not a reason to make stylistic changes to large numbers of articles. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:51, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I think what Rd232 means is those "cosmetic" changes should not be made en masse in that manner (e.g. they should only be made when a more substantive edit is being made at the same time). Also, BRD doesn't necessarily give you "one chance" on every article. IF somebody has asked you to stop, in some cases you shouldn't then claim BRD again simply because it's a new article. - Kingpin13 (talk) 12:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * So someone could deny me the right to make a certain type of edit on Wikipedia in general? —bender235 (talk) 12:20, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Umm... Yes. Anyway I'm just clarifying what it appears Rd232 means, as I don't think your accusations of article ownership are fair. - Kingpin13 (talk) 12:22, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not accusing him of claiming ownership. I accuse him of attributing ownership to whoever "actively contributed" to the article I was implementing a reference list style to. But there simply is no rule that says just because you've edit a particular article longer than others you've earned the right prevent first-time contributors from editing. Actually Ownership of articles says exactly the opposite. —bender235 (talk) 12:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The same argument you are making would apply to WP:ENGVAR: why should the person who edits an article first get to set which type of English it uses? But the fact is we don't let people change these things based on their personal preference, and we do default to the first established style in cases of disagreement. Here, it is clear there is disagreement with your edits. Just moving on to another page and making the same edits that were disputed before is no better than re-doing the disputed edit on the same page. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:36, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see where WP:ENGVAR differs from WP:CITEHOW. It doesn't say "the first contributor has the right to cement the article style", but rather "in case of disputes (American or British English, columns or no columns) the rule-of-thumb solution is keeping the original style". WP:ENGVAR does not prohibit anyone from changing to another variety of English if there is consensus for it. Just like WP:CITEHOW does not prohibit me from adding a columns feature to the reference list unless there's consensus (among the article's contributors, not among Wikipedia users in general) not to do it. —bender235 (talk) 12:45, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The rule is not that you can go around changing ENGVAR or other styles, and then require people to object at each individual article. Because if someone else objects about one article they are likely to object about many or all of them. In this case your changes are obviously disputed, so you should stop making them. Making the same change to a different article doesn't start a new dispute; even less when you make the same change to dozens of articles. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Uhm, no, thats is not how it works, the article contents are under the purview of the current editors of that article, they may object or they may find the changes reasonable, that is the beauty of BRD. Censuring Bender235 for what seems to be good faith attempts at improving the article seems a bit over the top, I could understand if he was engaging in edit warring or employing less than constructive argumentation on the talk pages, is there any evidence of that? <i style="text-shadow:grey 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;"><b style="color:#585">u</b><b style="color:#484">n</b><b style="color:#384">☯</b><b style="color:#284">m</b><b style="color:#184">i</b></i> 13:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If you make an edit, and someone reverts it, and you make the same edit to a different page, and it is reverted there, and then you move on and make the same edit to another 12 pages, and then another 12, at some point it becomes edit warring even though you are never re-doing the edits on any particular page after they are reverted. This is what Bender235 has been doing: he knows that editors disagree with his edits, but he keeps moving on to more pages. I think some of the principles in the Date Delinking arbcom case are relevant here, such as the advice not to go around making the same change on numerous articles in an attempt to wear down the editors who disagree with the change. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * All he can know is that the editor reverting disagrees, I must admit, having read through the previous ANI thread, the thread on Template talk:Reflist that it seems to me that you are overstating the support you have regarding these edits. The issue seems to be that some column widths are too narrow, not that it must be 2 (as on lower resolution monitors, even 2 columns could lead to an undesirable degree of wrapping.) There should be no issue of 'wearing down editors' as I would imagine that each of these articles have a number of non-overlapping active editors. Let them decide. <i style="text-shadow:grey 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;"><b style="color:#599">u</b><b style="color:#498">n</b><b style="color:#398">☯</b><b style="color:#298">m</b><b style="color:#198">i</b></i> 13:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Here are quotes of comments Bender235 received the last time his edits were discussed on ANI: I think these make all the points I would make myself. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * @Bender, Let me say also, that you should not be replacing &lt;references /> with Reflist willy-nilly. Several editors have said so here. Bender's replies here seem to me to amount to just asserting that "Reflist is better". It has been explained here why you should not go around making this change. CBM is being entirely reasonable and polite. Bender, you should please participate in central discussion about whether such a change should be made wikipedia-wide, but just stop it now! --doncram (talk) 20:28, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I would think it unlikely that we would change our policy to permit this sort of instability in article formatting--the rule to observe the original style is one of the most sensible rules in the entire MOS. Following it will eliminate this sort of conflict over trivia. If we ever do have an agreement on preferred reference style, this would beanother matter, but I doubt very much that the agreement would be for any of the existing formats. DGG ( talk ) 00:56, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In general, even if you're doing something you see as reasonable, if a bunch of editors say you should chill out, that really ought to give you pause. —chaos5023 (talk) 19:26, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Questions
 * Is there a link to the previous ANI discussion that is being referred to? <i style="text-shadow:grey 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;"><b style="color:#581">u</b><b style="color:#480">n</b><b style="color:#380">☯</b><b style="color:#280">m</b><b style="color:#180">i</b></i> 12:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, this archive, and a sub-thread thereof. - David Biddulph (talk) 13:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In his recent activities, has Bender235 been edit warring over these changes? <i style="text-shadow:grey 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;"><b style="color:#581">u</b><b style="color:#480">n</b><b style="color:#380">☯</b><b style="color:#280">m</b><b style="color:#180">i</b></i> 12:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * While it is true that generally we try to retain the original stylistic choices in articles, clearly some tweaks need to be made as an article matures, such as for example cleaning up ref sections. <i style="text-shadow:grey 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;"><b style="color:#581">u</b><b style="color:#480">n</b><b style="color:#380">☯</b><b style="color:#280">m</b><b style="color:#180">i</b></i> 12:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I am not terribly savvy regarding the differences between references/> and Reflist, is there a reason to prefer the former over the latter apart from 'momentum'? <i style="text-shadow:grey 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;"><b style="color:#581">u</b><b style="color:#480">n</b><b style="color:#380">☯</b><b style="color:#280">m</b><b style="color:#180">i</b></i> 12:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Two previous AWB discussions are and .  I don't know of any significant edit warring recently, but another editor (not Bender235) changed the reference styles of several hundred articles this week, so it's not just a case of one or two articles being changed.


 * The difference between &lt;references> and reflist is font size, and there is a proposal on the village pump to standardize these. But the difference between and  is more significant, especially for editors with large screens. Recent discussion on Template talk:Reflist showed there is strong opposition to the appearance of the "colwidth" style. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 13:05, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * There was opposition to settling on a too low value for colwidth; as per your and Chaos5023's exchange:

I made the original proposal one month ago because the usability project seemed to be claiming that we should switch from the fixed-count method to the width-based method quite generally. However, there is no way to tell whether there was actually broad consensus for that sort of change. It seemed at first like there was consensus, so the change was made. That led to more feedback, and more it is now clear that there is not consensus for any large-scale switch to width-based formatting. Given that fact, it stands to reason that articles that use a fixed-count format should not be changed en masse to the width-based method, because (despite what the usability project thinks) there is not consensus that a width-based format is an improvement. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:08, 1 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah, this is the sort of reasoning that raises my hackles with you. A clear consensus that Reflist should not misrepresent its behavior by taking a specification for a fixed number of columns and turning that into a width-based columnization is absolutely not the same thing as a consensus that width-based columns are not an improvement over fixed column counts. —chaos5023 (talk) 21:11, 1 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think it is as clearcut as you seem to think. <i style="text-shadow:grey 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;"><b style="color:#599">u</b><b style="color:#498">n</b><b style="color:#398">☯</b><b style="color:#298">m</b><b style="color:#198">i</b></i> 13:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

To answer Unomi's questions: —bender235 (talk) 13:07, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive652
 * No, I have never re-added my change after it has been reverted. To be honest, I rarely started a discussion either, I just left the article as it was, accepting that some editor does not like the proposed reference list style change.
 * The way I see it is this: someone starts an article with only a few refernces and no columns in the reference list. Now the article gets bigger and bigger, and more refs are added. Now the reference list could use columns. But who's allowed to add them? Everyone that comes along and recognizes the "problem", or just an "actively contributing" editor of the article in question?
 * I think the problem, bender, is that you are looking at your edits in isolation; that is each article is looked at of itself, while others are complaining about the pattern of behavior. If you, once, did this, this conversation wouldn't be here.  The reason people thinks this rises to the level of disruption is that people find the behavior problematic, and have asked you to stop before, and you have not.  It isn't reasonable, if you do this 1,000 times, that 1,000 times people have to object individually to the problem for each article.  People object to the practice in general.  That you wish they wouldn't object is irrelevent.  The object exists in good faith, and has existed as a general objection for YEARS.  It's the repeated refusal to acknowledge others objections that is the problem, not your action on one article.  -- Jayron  32  13:12, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If I did this 1,000 times (could be), than it is still 1,000 different articles, with 1,000 different editor groups who may or may not like the change. In fact, there are articles I introduced columns, CBM reverted it saying I was not allowed to do the change, and then another editor came along and restored my edit because he like it. The thing is: as long as Wikipedia MOS do not say "use columns everywhere" or "do not use them at all", the decision whether to use them has to be made on each article alone. Which makes it absurd to prohibit me (or anyone else) from introducing these changes in the first place. —bender235 (talk) 13:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You keep claiming that there is not an established convention. There is and established convention.  The established convention is don't change it.  -- Jayron  32  14:24, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Please cite the Wikipedia policy that says "you're not allowed change the style of any article".
 * Because in my opinion the rule in question (WP:CITEHOW) does not say "you're not allowed to make any citation style change", but rather "if you change the style, and some else reverts it, avoid an edit war by simply keeping the established style". —bender235 (talk) 14:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, see you do not represent a consensus of one. As you say, "in your opinion".  However, in the opinion of multitudes of Wikipedia editors who came before you, and in the opinion of everyone commenting here, your interpretation of said statements is incorrect.  The statements mean "Don't change established conventions where they firmly exist".  That you are claiming that horses have five legs doesn't mean that they do.  The attitude of "I don't care if everyone else who comments says that I am wrong, I am going to continue doing it" is disruptive.  You asked for opinions on the matter.  Everyone keeps telling you that you are going about it incorrectly.  Eventually, you are going to have to relent.  -- Jayron  32  14:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You've got a strange perception of reality. Just look around this discussion, there is by no means a consensus that the "establised style" cannot be touch by any means. Read Errant's comments above, or User: Unomi's below. —bender235 (talk) 15:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * (ec)It would be nice if Rd232 and/or CBM would come here and comment on the matter. I'm not seeing where the OP notified them. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:19, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * He didn't. I have done so.-- <font color="#96C8A2">K orr <font color="#96C8A2">u  ski  <font color="#96C8A2">Talk 12:20, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * To be fair, he did leave us a note in a thread on his talk page, which we would have seen the next time we checked it. Thanks for notifying us, Korruski, so we can get on with the main issue. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:28, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Why are we doing anything major decision wise without hearing from Rd? Without him we are only acting on our own interpretation of what he is thinking. S.G.(GH) ping! 12:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the thing that we are all missing here is the background behind this sort of thing. The reason there are prohibitions against making trivial changes to articles, whether its adding the "U" to humor or making minor changes to all of the references or the stupid "date delinking" mess that went to ArbCom, is that it pisses people off. That we wish it did not piss people off isn't the point. It does, so we have established guidelines that say "don't do it". The problem with bender's changes isn't that they are major, its that they are minor and cause major conflict. Its that, in the past, these changes have invariably caused conflicts out of proportion with the substance of the changes. Look at this rediculous shit here today? We want people not to care. But they do. So since a) People care and b) The changes don't matter, default to the behavior that does not cause predictable conflict. Period. It's not about BRD here. These aren't bold changes, they are trivial changes, and insofar as people object in good faith, just don't do it. -- Jayron  32  13:01, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Discussions are good to have though, from my reading of the threads the brunt of the issue seems to center around a too small value for the colwidth EM. Now I am sure that such changes should be made with care towards legibility of references, but I don't think that we can, or should, argue for not trying to improve the reference sections, as they are, to my mind, the most important sections that we have ;) <i style="text-shadow:grey 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;"><b style="color:#758">u</b><b style="color:#657">n</b><b style="color:#557">☯</b><b style="color:#457">m</b><b style="color:#357">i</b></i> 13:45, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment: "Blocked for following WP:BRD?" is a funny thread title. I warned Bender235 not to continue his actions, because continuing to do them amounts to (unintentional) disruption. Jayron32 explains the reasons why people shouldn't do this sort of thing, and Bender235 has continued to both make and assert a right to make them after being told he shouldn't. I'm not sure there's anything else to add. Rd232 talk 13:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

This is, by the way, not only about reference list w/ or w/out columns. The same argument could be made about my implementations of Citation templates (recent examples, , ). I did that on probably a couple of thousands of articles as well, as do other members of WP:WCC. By definition, however, this changes the "established style" of the references. So am I (and everyone else) allowed to that, or does WP:CITEHOW prohibit it? —bender235 (talk) 14:12, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The relevant part of WP:CITEHOW is "Citations in Wikipedia articles should be internally consistent. You should follow the style already established in an article if it has one; where there is disagreement, the style used by the first editor to use one should be respected." Where there is clearly an established style of using cite references, it's correct to change individual references to match that style. Issues arise only where consensus isn't very clear (in which case, discuss), or where someone wants to impose a new style (generally, don't). Rd232 talk 14:20, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The long standing, and in my opinion correct, principle is that matters of style in the cases where there are several options is the decision of the main contributor to an article. This principle does not give ownership but rather has the purpose of avoiding style wars - because as we all know it is silly to argue in matters of taste. So yes - don't impose styles on articles that are already using another one based in a conscious decision by other editors.·Maunus· ƛ · 14:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Right, but that still leaves room for attempts at change. The main contributor(s) are perfectly able to revert on their own, the issue is if we are going to presuppose that the current main contributor(s) have even considered if such changes could improve the article, the straight forward way to find out is via BRD. <i style="text-shadow:grey 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;"><b style="color:#599">u</b><b style="color:#498">n</b><b style="color:#398">☯</b><b style="color:#298">m</b><b style="color:#198">i</b></i> 14:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That way madness lies. Have the contributors to this page considered how pretty it is to have the first word of every paragraph highlighted in pink? What about this page, and this one... etc? The reason style issues are somewhat bureaucratic on Wikipedia is because the alternative is anarchy; and unlike with content, we don't have verifiability from reliable sources to adjudicate things, it's basically convention and personal preference. The status quo balances these reasonably well; unleashing BRD in the way Bender235 wants and you seem to endorse is simply untenable. Rd232 talk 15:13, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Wow, this turned into a debate of extremes, didn't it? So in your opinion, if we allow everyone to edit every article (is this still Wikipedia here?), sooner or later someone will color all text pink because he considers it an improvement. Let's put aside that Manual of Style (text formatting) already prohibits the use of coloured text in general (unlike the use of reference lists with columns), how would you solve this problem? By assigning the sole right to edit an article to the article's owners? By determining that the creator of an article gets the right to cement the article's style for all eternity? —bender235 (talk) 15:24, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * So, basically, anything that is done in good faith and isn't specifically disallowed is OK? Fine, we can do that: it's called an edit restriction. PS I suggest you look up argumentum ad absurdum. Rd232 talk 15:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, anything that is not explicit prohibited by Wikipedia rules (like coloring text pink), everyone should have the right to implement per WP:BRD. That's not to be confused with the right to impose it on the article, because that's not what it is. It's a way to find a new consensus for the article's style. —bender235 (talk) 15:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * LOL for pointing me at argumentum ad absurdum, because that's exactly what you should read after comparing my edits with someone who would color all text pink, which fits the definition of apples and oranges. —bender235 (talk) 15:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Bender, re "This is certainly not a "rule" that only applies to me, so if I'm not allowed to edit an article I previously wasn't "actively involved" in, then who is?" -- I would say you received a personalized edit restriction based on a repeated series of drama-provoking edits that you did, but maybe that was not made sufficiently clear to you. Edit restrictions are standard WP remedies to problems like this these days, and they are precisely rules that apply only to you.  It might help if Rd232 clarifies this, e.g. by imposing a formal restriction.  Such a restriction (based on above discussion) seems reasonable to me so I'll pre-endorse it.  67.117.130.143 (talk) 15:14, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I had at one point in fact intended to propose a formal edit restriction if Bender235 didn't desist; but then felt the actions had risen to a level of being disruptive, for the way they continued despite the user talk discussion. I've been hoping that with this ANI discussion Bender235 would come around and that neither blocking nor edit restriction would be necessary, but it doesn't seem to be headed that way. It might also help to clarify policy (probably WP:CITEHOW), but that will inevitably take longer, so will only help here if Bender235 agrees to desist pending the outcome of any such discussion. Rd232 talk 15:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * So CBM or Rd232 ars authorized to deny me the right of WP:BRD? No they are not. —bender235 (talk) 15:24, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Well that's revealing, isn't it? BRD is an essay on minimising edit warring, not a right to make contentious changes willy nilly and see if they stick. And quoting myself from your talk page: "The root problem here is that if the logic of BRD is permitted to apply for a campaign of mass changes then it applies equally to reverting that entire campaign. Permitting that is simply too disruptive, particularly when it's a matter of personal preference and you know some people don't like the change being made. In that case, you might as well skip the editing and say "for argument's sake, I've made all those changes, and someone else has changed them back, now what?"" Rd232 talk 15:27, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Exactly. BRD doesn't apply to style changes since this is not something that can be rationally discussed - it is a simple matter of trying to force one arbitrary preference over another - this is clearly disruptive when done over a wide scope of articles - especially articles to which one has not added any content. The style guides statements that style choices should be deferred to the main contributor is exactly to avoid this kind of unproductive editing and let editors focus on content - I suggest that Bender235 leave this issue and go improve the encyclopedia by adding content and sources instead of campaigning random cosmetic changes.·Maunus· ƛ · 15:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * So essentially every member of WikiProject Citation cleanup, who fixed broken citations, implemented citation templates, and re-designed the reference section, had no right to do this, because it violated the rule of first-user-cements-the-citation-style? Did I understand this correct? —bender235 (talk) 15:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds like you're trying to be tendentious, but taking your question at face value: fixing broken citations is fine, implementing citation templates when it's not the established style is not, and "re-designing the reference section" is too ambiguous to answer. Rd232 talk 16:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Fixing a citation inevitably changes the citation style (like here), so your answer is inconsistent. "Re-designing" the ref section means adding columns or removing them, widening or shrinking them, depending on what suits the article best. So that is all considered illegal? —bender235 (talk) 16:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "Fixing a citation inevitably changes the citation style" - only if the style of the citation is inconsistent with the article's established style. (We've been over this.) Rd232 talk 17:50, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This is getting absurd, the 'rules' regarding main contributors having the say was never meant to exclude the introduction of change, it was to avoid a tug of war if edit warring arose. Again, the contributors to the articles in question are likely quite capable to make up their own mind. The only 'edit warring' that I have seen evidence of is where you, Rd232, follow Bender235 around and, seemingly, reflexively revert his changes. Please stop misrepresenting the intention and function of giving the main contributors the final say, and allow that neither you nor CBM constitute the main contributors. <i style="text-shadow:grey 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;"><b style="color:#567">u</b><b style="color:#466">n</b><b style="color:#366">☯</b><b style="color:#266">m</b><b style="color:#166">i</b></i> 16:17, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Clarification: I reverted 2 of Bender235's edits which he made after I thought he'd got the message via the user talk discussion that these changes should not be made on pages he's not an active+substantive editor of. (I had even unwatched his user talk page.) I didn't revert before that, or any previous ones. Rd232 talk 17:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Please accept my sincere apologies for getting it wrong, I should have checked both edit histories :( sorry! <i style="text-shadow:grey 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;"><b style="color:#769">u</b><b style="color:#668">n</b><b style="color:#568">☯</b><b style="color:#468">m</b><b style="color:#368">i</b></i> 17:39, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In defense of Rd232, he only reverted my edits today. User:CBM is the original wikihound here (,, , led to , , , , and literally hundreds more). —bender235 (talk) 16:25, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It seems that you admit that you changed hundreds (thousands?) of articles, and claim it's justified by "BRD", but then complain when someone takes you up on the "R" part. That's the problem with trying to apply BRD to stylistic changes: everyone has an opinion, but we don't want everyone to go around implementing their opinion on hundreds of articles that they otherwise never edit. Any change that is going to affect hundreds or thousands of articles needs a stronger basis than personal preference and BRD. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 16:33, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You are free to remove the columns feature where ever you don't like it, including where I originally added it. But please don't do it reflexively per some Wikipedia rule you misunderstood, and accuse me of rule violation in the process. Also, accept that the actual "main contributors" of the article in most cases favour the columns set, and will on their part revert your edit as well. —bender235 (talk) 16:45, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Look it is never a problem when you are fixing something that needs to be fixed - i.e. something that is broken or inconsistent. It is a problem when a single editor tries to enforce a single arbitrarily preferred style throughout wikipedia without having any kind of consensus backing. You should have stopped implementing the change wholesale as soon as you found out that a considerable amount of editors disagreed with it.·Maunus· ƛ · 16:51, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * You have no rights here (well, apart from the right to leave), only privileges. And if you are disruptive your right to edit can be withdrawn by any admin, yes. Black Kite (t) (c) 15:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

It should be noted that part of the backstory here is the fairly recent introduction of the <tt>colwidth=</tt> parameter to Reflist, which enables Bender's usage of <tt>colwidth=30em</tt>. The parameter and its use probably merits further discussion at Template talk:Reflist (maybe with an RFC). Rd232 talk 16:11, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Here is part of that story. The usability wikiproject made a recommendation that the "colwidth" parameter was better than the fixed column count parameter. Bender235 and others began going through and making large numbers of articles use "colwidth". Bender235 claimed there was consensus this was an improvement, and initially other people at Template talk:reflist agreed. So they made a change so that the default would be to have a flexible column count. That change led to numerous complaints from editors with wide screens that they preferred the fixed column count. This was somewhat ironic, because the people who are claimed to benefit from the flexible column count are people with wide screens. In any case, the default was restored to a fixed column count, and it is now clear that there is not any widespread consensus that a flexible column count is better. Neverthless Bender235 has continued to change articles to use the flexible column count (via the colwidth parameter). This is exactly the type of situation that the "keep the established style" rule is meant to cover: when there are different ways to format something, with advocates on either side and no general consensus. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 16:23, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * "So they made a change so that the default would be to have a flexible column count."
 * LOL. What CBM deliberately forgets to mention is that he started a proposal to modify Reflist so that  actually produces a flexible column set. That obviously upset a lot of people and had to be reverted, because "colwidth" should not be used everywhere. If there are only two or three refs, "colwidth=30em" would split them up to four or more columns on large screens, and no question that's ugly. If you enter , you do that for a reason. There is absolutely no need to disallow the use of fixed columns, or flexible columns, for that matter. —bender235 (talk) 16:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * "If you enter, you do that for a reason. " - that is exactly what you are not taking into account when you change the style away from   based on your personal preference of what looks better. The presumption made by the MOS is that articles should not be "corrected" or "fixed" from one optional style to another. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 16:42, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Your problem is that you for some reason believe that WP:MOS should have a general rule how reference lists should look like (e.g. "columns everywhere", or "columns nowhere"). But that is wrong. Articles with 3-4 refs don't need columns in the ref list. Articles with 100-200 refs definitely do. There is no and will never be a one-size-fits-all resolution. —bender235 (talk) 16:54, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that there is no single style that fits all articles - that is why optional styles should not be changed without prior concensus on the talkpage. ·Maunus· ƛ · 16:59, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Don't you realize that this doesn't work in practice? I mean if I see maybe a dozen articles that could use "colwidth", am I supposed to start a dozen discussions on the article's talk pages? What if no one reacts? How long do I have to wait for reaction? Weeks? Months? Wasn't WP:BRD established to prevent this bureaucratic nonsense? —bender235 (talk) 17:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, you are supposed to discuss this on each and every article, since there is no global consensus. Don't like it? Try to reach a global consensus. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 20:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * If there was a consensus about the best formatting for articles with many references, a bot would go through and make it so, and AWB would make the change by default. But there is no such consensus, which is why nobody should go around changing hundreds of articles as if a resolution had already been worked out. If you think there is consensus for the edits you are making, start a discussion somewhere and get consensus for it. I'll be happy to run the bot that goes through and makes the changes. Until then, as long as you know the edits are disputed, continuing to make them is disruptive. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 17:01, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Good point. If there is an actual site-wide consensus for using multiple columns in certain situations, we might as well clarify that, and then implement it a bit more systematically (while still allowing local deviations from that consensus). One of the points Bender235 made which actually has merit is that many people don't actually know about how to do multiple columns. So get a consensus and a bot or AWB general fix, problem solved much better. Rd232 talk 17:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Move to Close

 * I suggest we close this discussion as it is clear that consensus and policy does not support wholesale changes from one optional style to another. I suggest that User:Bender235 be cautioned not to continue to implement stylechanges wholesale over a wide range of article unless by prior consensus at the articles talkpage. ·Maunus· ƛ · 16:59, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Second the motion to close. Bender has been presented with evidence of widespread (not universal, but still widespread) objection to his edits.  Continuing to behave in the same manner in the face of these objections is disruptive, however there is nothing further to be gained by belaboring this point any further.  Closeing is a good idea.  -- Jayron  32  17:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree that there isn't much that this board can do in this matter, I still hold that final say over the presentation of the articles should stay with the main contributors to the articles in question, this does not and should not, prevent other editors from proposing changes, either via BRD or by starting a discussion on the talk pages. It is somewhat ironic that the suggestion of getting community 'consensus', which is often decided by a comparatively small group of editors, would result in precisely the disenfranchisement of actual article main contributors, by way of seeking to mandate one form over another. Anyway... <i style="text-shadow:grey 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;"><b style="color:#846">u</b><b style="color:#745">n</b><b style="color:#645">☯</b><b style="color:#545">m</b><b style="color:#445">i</b></i> 17:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm fine with Bender gettig a formal restriction backed by possible blocks, since this same stupid drama has arisen many times so these more drastic measures may be needed. They should certainly be used if it happens again.  Either way, the closing admin might note ,
 * "Fait accompli: Editors who are collectively or individually making large numbers of similar edits, and are apprised that those edits are controversial or disputed, are expected to attempt to resolve the dispute through discussion. It is inappropriate to use repetition or volume in order to present opponents with a fait accompli or to exhaust their ability to contest the change. This applies to many editors making a few edits each, as well as a few editors making many edits." 67.117.130.143 (talk) 17:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * and are apprised that those edits are controversial or disputed
 * But if  is controversial, why is that feature available?
 * are expected to attempt to resolve the dispute through discussion
 * How can this be solved thru discussion? Its not possible to do it in general. So on each specific article? That would pretty much deadlock any introduction of change on Wikipedia articles from now on. —bender235 (talk) 17:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I suggest that User:Bender235 be cautioned not to continue to implement stylechanges wholesale over a wide range of article unless by prior consensus at the articles talkpage.
 * That is ridiculious. With that kind of bureaucratic nonsense Wikipedia can't be improved anymore. It simply wipes out WP:BOLD and WP:BRD, which say "act, wait till someone reacts, and discuss", not "start a discussion, and hope someone participates". —bender235 (talk) 17:05, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You are not listening: this is specifically about trying to enforce an optional stylechange across a wide range of articles. As long as the stylke change is optional introducing it is not automatically an improvement, and introducing it in the way that you are doing is only disruptive. You can improve all you like, but this is not improvement this is just change. And as for your suggestion that the process of consensus making on individual articles is absurd that suggests to me that you have amore fundamental problemw ith how wikipedia works. ·Maunus· ƛ · 17:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * widespread objection to his edits
 * That is not true. —bender235 (talk) 17:07, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * BRD relies upon the third step, discussion, to avoid chaos. It's a means to achieving consensus, not for departing from consensus. The proper use of it depends on the acceptance by the community. It is pretty clear that you do not have it here.   DGG ( talk ) 17:11, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * But if  is not "accepted by the community", why is it available in the first place? Why not have the feature completely removed instead of keeping it, but prohibit people from implementing it? And how am I supposed to find out the consensus on a specific article w/out using WP:BRD?—bender235 (talk) 17:19, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT much? People are not prohibited from implementing it. Create a new article, and no-one will object if you use it. Implement it in an article you've made substantive content changes to, and it's a local consensus issue. Go around doing it wherever you feel like - that's disruptive, and therefore not permitted. PS You've heard of talk pages, right? Rd232 talk 17:28, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * By going around and implementing it I am trying to find out the local consensus. For god's sake, that's how WP:BRD advises anyone to act to avoid a deadlock discussion on the talk page for weeks and months.
 * And again, on Wikipedia there is no such thing as user's with more right to determine the style off an article. Just because you contributed the majority of the content doesn't mean you earned the right to decide on the style of the reference section, and everybody else doesn't have that right. That is just nonsense. —bender235 (talk) 17:34, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Multiple admins have explained to you why this is policy. At this point, the most productive thing you can do is follow CBM suggestion above on pursuing discussion re a global consensus, which can the be implemented more systematically by bot and/or AWB, instead of haphazardly as it is now. Rd232 talk 17:41, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * No, for crying out loud, that should not be done. There is no need for a global consensus. Leave that decission to local consensus on the specific article. —bender235 (talk) 17:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * So, which is it? Are you going to seek consensus on each and every article you want to change first, or are you going to try and achieve a global consensus? You seem unwilling to do either, based on your statements here on ANI. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 20:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I always acted this way: first I made the change. If it wasn't reverted, I did nothing. If someone reverted it, I did nothing, too. That's it. No meaningless debate, no edit war, no nothing. I can't believe this is now all wrong. —bender235 (talk) 22:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Motion to close this is getting ridiculous, per Carl's explanation above, Bender actually had consensus to go ahead with the change (and this is a trivial change), as with any change, there were members of the community that didn't like it, it happens, but rather than get consensus, it appears that the consensus is being ignored.  Yes, i looked at the page, and as of right now, consensus reflects differently.  At the risk of being accused of being a policy wank, I'd say, either overturn the consensus which allowed the change to begin with and establish a consensus for what sort of formatting would be supported that way it's abundantly clear what's not acceptable for format.   It that gets changed again (against consensus) then it removes any argument of "I didn't know" as it's there in black and white.  Just my two cents.

KoshVorlon Naluboutes ''AeriaGloris 17:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * "Bender actually had consensus to go ahead with the change"
 * No, I never had. There never was a consensus to use  in general. There never was a consensus to use   in general. WP:MOS simply leaves it to local consensus on the specific article.
 * What Carl (CBM) is refering to above was a proposal of his in which he suggested that inserting  should generally produce a flexible column set. That upset a lot of people, and got rightfully reverted. I never supported the idea, because there should be all options available. Some article look better with , some with  . Some might even look better with  . Just leave that decision up to local consensus. And allow people to kickstart the consensus finding process by making an edit, wait for the reaction, and then discuss. That's all I want. —bender235 (talk) 17:45, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * When all is said and done, what you want is to use an essay (BRD) to impose your stylistic change unless someone complains about it - but only editors who've previously edited the article count. The net effect is that you seek to appoint yourself as some kind of Stylistic Super Editor. Um, no. To make global stylistic changes (for certain types of situation), get a global consensus: it's really not complicated. Rd232 talk 17:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * No, I'm using WP:BOLD. I just cite WP:BRD as an instruction how to use WP:BOLD to avoid improvement deadlock. And no, everyone counts in determine consensus.
 * And lets's look at it from your perspective. You're trying to deny me the right to make certain edits based on a rule (WP:CITEHOW) you still misinterpret. Like User:Unomi already tried to explain to you: "the 'rules' regarding main contributors having the say was never meant to exclude the introduction of change, it was to avoid a tug of war if edit warring arose." —bender235 (talk) 18:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You should read the entire BOLD guideline especially this section BOLD (also note that it is a guideline not a policy). Also what you are being denied is 1. not a right but a privilege. and 2. not certain edits, but a certain way of editing (wholesale previously undiscussed changes).·Maunus· ƛ · 18:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I read WP:BOLD, and it covers my edits. Now find me that policy that says "before you change something on an article, discuss it". Because WP:CITEHOW says the opposite: change it, and if it gets reverted, discuss and in the end its better to restore the status quo. —bender235 (talk) 18:25, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * BOLD covers individual edits, not mass changes to multiple articles. You've been told this multiple times. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 20:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * So am I allowed only to add a article per day, or what? —bender235 (talk) 21:22, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * what. See the proposed editing restriction, which is an articulation of established practice as discussed increasingly ad nauseam. Rd232 talk 21:33, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I'd like to close this long, inconclusive thread with one personal comment. I think that dates of birth & death ought to be linked, but a lot of other editors don't. (And the WP:MOS be damned.) Now I could spend my time fighting this decision on linking, or I could be working on improving content: which do you think is the more productive decision? And which do you think will result with someone being valued more as an editor? Sometimes one must concede the battle to win the war -- which is to create a useful & reliable encyclopedia. -- llywrch (talk) 18:29, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I fail to see how screwing around with this one formatting item, while doing nothing else with the article, is any kind of improvement. But if the editor continues to fall back on BRD, then here's a possible counter-measure: Find the thousands of items he's changed, and run a script reverting all of them. That will force him to discuss the changes individually on thousands of pages. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Llywrch, you're comparing apples and oranges. WP:MOS clearly says birth & death date should not be link. But WP:MOS does not say whether reference lists should use columns or not. So by implementing "colwidth" on some articles, I do not violate a WP:MOS guideline, because there is none. This is simply a case where discretion is better than rules. Whether an article uses flexible or fixed columns (and how many), should be left to local consensus. —bender235 (talk) 18:42, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Hence the need to revert all your changes - to lead to active local consensus. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:43, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Bender, you need to generalize from the example I offered you, & apply it to your own situation. I used my personal example to explain a point you appear determined not to understand. The only reason you haven't been told to stop adding to articles -- or being blocked from editting -- is that the majority of Admins here don't think this matter is worth more than a warning. Yet. You are skating on thin ice here: Rd232 has raised a rather intricate point here -- I'm not sure I understand it entirely -- so instead of going thru the bother of sanctioning you, you have been warned. Count your blessings, because WP:AN/I often hands out rough justice. Now leave this thread & go do some more wikignoming, but do not add that  tag to any articles for a while, say a month or three, or you will suffer the consequences. The horse is dead; it is time to put down the stick. -- llywrch (talk) 22:01, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Now leave this thread & go do some more wikignoming
 * I am now longer allowed to do any gnomic edits. Haven't you read this discussion? According to CBM, WP:BRD is meaningless. Instead, I'm supposed to always ask for permission before doing things like, , , , , , , and . And I certainly won't do that, because it's ridiculous. How long am I supposed to wait for reaction on articles' talk pages, before making citation cleanup? A week? A month? Or even longer? I simply won't do it. —bender235 (talk) 22:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This silliness is getting tedious. The rules on fixing citations and change cite formats are quite clear, and have been explained to you explicitly here several times. As for the stylistic change you want: you can propose it on the talk page and walk away and let someone else implement it, or come back a week later. Rd232 talk 22:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The rules on fixing citations and change cite formats are quite clear
 * Yes, clear to most people. Like User:Unomi, who already explained to you that this "'rule' regarding main contributors having the say was never meant to exclude the introduction of change, it was to avoid a tug of war if edit warring arose." So what WP:CITEHOW actually allows me, you are now trying to take away with an edit restriction. This is just disgusting. —bender235 (talk) 22:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Well I give up on trying to persuade Bender235. Suggest cutting to editing restriction to avoid wasting any further time on this: User:Bender235 may not change reference styles in articles he has not either created or made substantial content changes to. Rd232 talk 18:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * No Or, just stick with the BRD guideline, and boldy revert maybe 1,000 of his bold changes. If he reverts again rather than discussing, then you've got him for edit-warring. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * When I did revert his changes as you sugggest, he started accusing me of wikihounding. There are always more articles for him to edit, so even if we revert 1000, it appears he is set on doing another 1000. Given the amount of time that has been spent discussing the issue, the restriction seems necessary, unfortunately. The goal is to prevent having the same discussion going on at 1000 articles, rather than to encourage it. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 19:02, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The restriction only limits Bender235 to doing what we expect editors to do anyway: to not make trivial style changes across articles that they are not otherwise editing. Given that several people in this thread have pointed out this expectation, with no sign that Bender235 acknowledges it, making this into a concrete edit restriction seems like a reasonable way to put the matter to a close.&mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 19:02, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I see your point, I'm just not sure the restriction has solid backing in the rules. The user's wikihounding argument is bogus, a smokescreen often used by editors who don't want their activity scrutinized. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:04, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The main basis is MOS and WP:CITEHOW. The issue of making stylistic changes across large numbers of articles has also been addressed at Requests_for_arbitration/Date_delinking and Requests_for_arbitration/Date_delinking. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 19:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * One final question: since when does a user earn additional "sovereign rights" by making "substantial" edits to an article? I thought Ownership of articles, one of our five pillars, clearly says: no matter how skilled you are, no matter how long or how much you've contributed, you still have no more rights to edit an article as any other user. No one owns an article, or is in charge of being the style police, just because he contributed more to the article other users. Has this Wikipedia policy been defunct over night? —bender235 (talk) 22:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * One final answer: MOS. Rd232 talk 22:16, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * And even that guideline says: "Where there is disagreement over which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor." It is a rule for when disagreements arose, not a rule that prohibits any change to article per se. —bender235 (talk) 22:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The preceding sentence is "The Arbitration Committee has ruled that editors should not change an article from one guideline-defined style to another without a substantial reason unrelated to mere choice of style". Rd232 talk 01:04, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Mass article merger
I would like some admins to take a look at the ongoing discussion on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Automobiles here, where a mass merger was proposed, so far involving 36 articles (and the list keeps growing) to be merge in a batch fashion, without any discussion in each article page, which I believe it is a blatant violation of Wiki policy and procedures on how an article should be merged. But please, can some admins drop by and provide some guidance about the right way to do a merge. Thanks.--Mariordo (talk) 05:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * If any policies were violated, we will more than happily open up 36+ individual merger discussions on the "appropriate" talk pages. However, to me, this seems like a ludicrous notion, but if that's the way it must be done, then so be it. OSX (talk • contributions) 06:11, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Mariordo, the aim of the discussion was not to mindlessly merge 26 or so articles with their larger counterparts, but to discuss a resolution the issue of repeated information and the lack of 'rules' surrounding the topic of articles of specific trim levels of cars. -- Pineapple Fez 06:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Mariordo, this is the wrong forum; this is a forum for requesting admin action on specific behaviour. Content disputes must be worked out amongst editors. --Errant $(chat!)$ 10:33, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Errant: I believe that Mariordo is requesting admin action regarding a specific proposal to bypass Wikipedia merging policy. I request that you reopen this discussion pending admin review of this proposal.  Ebikeguy (talk) 17:39, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

. That way discussion remains centralized but anyone watching any of the articles will be informed. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * There is a simple resolution to this. Add merger tags to each article, but link them to the page where the mass merger discussion is taking place. Like this:
 * This is what I would have suggested. WP:Merging is not policy, but I expanded the relevant paragraph, as these combined discussions at relevant WikiProjects have been used in the past. Flatscan (talk) 05:34, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Desno and 31st Golden Raspberry Awards
What is up with this? 31st Golden Raspberry Awards appears to be a hoax page, creation of page about something that has not yet happened yet in 2011. Disruption? -- Cirt (talk) 13:56, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Update: Please see also, Sockpuppet investigations/Onelifefreak2007. -- Cirt (talk) 14:02, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Not a hoax, surely, just a case of WP:CRYSTAL? Any reason not to just go through the AfD process?-- <font color="#96C8A2">K orr <font color="#96C8A2">u  ski  <font color="#96C8A2">Talk 14:13, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * See the prior version of the page. -- Cirt (talk) 14:39, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Meh. Bit odd, but doesn't seem desperately disruptive. I'd just let AfD take its course.-- <font color="#96C8A2">K orr <font color="#96C8A2">u  ski  <font color="#96C8A2">Talk 15:58, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Hoax articles are clearly disruptive, and in this case, verging on a BLP violation.  Corvus cornix  talk  18:56, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not the article that's a hoax, it's the content. There's no harm in creating a skeleton article ahead of time. But in this case, that would result in stripping it down to about 3 lines of text, which seems fairly useless. The article seems acceptable and accurate now. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The 31st Golden Raspberry Award nominations hav enot been made yet. How is this article not a hoax?   Corvus cornix  talk  02:00, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The tentative dates for nominations and presentations have been announced on their website. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:42, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Block review—image remover


I have blocked this user for 24 hours for persistently removing the images from the article on Ali against consensus and in spite of warnings. The editor has previously been in conflict over a similar issue on the Muhammad article, as may be seen from their edit history and warnings on their talk page. This is of course a hotly contested issue, hence this request for review of the block. Favonian (talk) 16:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Obvious edit warring is obvious. No objections here to block.  -- Jayron  32  16:55, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The editing pattern to date is patently disruptive; looks like a good call. Doc  Tropics  17:51, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Per Doc Tropics, the blocking seems like it was the right thing to do. - <font face="Century Gothic" color="#2B65EC" size="2">Dwayne  was here!   &#9835;  18:52, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Another matter where where personal principles collide with those of the Wikipedia ethos - appropriate sanction under the circumstances. Any future sanction should, I feel, continue to make clear that the individual editor has the option to regulate their viewing of such material but not of others; and that sanctions will increase upon resumption of these disruptive edits. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:44, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed, good block, we can't let religious doctrines dictate what is and is not posted here. Suggest severely escalating block length if this behavior recurs. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree. Good block, and keep them escalating per Beeblebrox.  Saebvn (talk) 03:04, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Varlaam's recent edits


At Hedd Wyn (film), Varlaam has made various disruptive edits concerning the description of the film (Welsh, British, or both). A discussion has been taking place on the talk page about it today, though Varlaam has not joined in. Varlaam was warned earlier by two users about this behaviour, with Rockpocket warning that further such edits would lead to a block measured in weeks.

Despite this, in this edit, Varlaam for some unknown reason decided to describe the film (a Welsh-language film about a Welsh-language poet) using " 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England ", which frankly I regard as good an example of trolling as Varlaam's use of " 🇲🇿 Mozambique " on this article earlier today. I would have blocked for this latest edit, but had earlier expressed a view on the issue on the article's talk page. Looking at Varlaam's recent edits, though, I found this disruptive edit changing "mum" to "dad" on the article of Cheryl Campbell. I am tempted to block for the latter, too, particularly given the user's history here (see block log) but thought I would bring this for further opinion rather than risk a contentious block. Thoughts, please? BencherliteTalk 21:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I have blocked this editor for two weeks, since the previous, shorter blocks don't seem to have made much of an impression. As I shall not be around for the next 12 hours, please feel free to adjust this as the community sees fit. Rockpock  e  t  00:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Good block. Varlaam needs to cool off a tad. GoodDay (talk) 03:29, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

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


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

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


 * This looks also as though it has WP:ARBSCI implications, especially remedy 13 and remedy 4. -- Jayron  32  07:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, however the user has not been previously notified of WP:ARBSCI by an uninvolved admin. In any event, it seems actionable simply under the repeated WP:BLP violations, itself. -- Cirt (talk) 08:03, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
 * DC has now been notified that all Scientology articles are under ARBCOM sanction. I have also removed the contested text per WP:BURDEN and WP:BLP pending resolution of the issue.  I have no opinion over the reliability of the source nor of the appropriateness or relevence of the text to the article in question; the removal of the text is purely administrative as Wikipedia policy is clear that contested text of this nature is to be left out until the dispute is resolved.  -- Jayron  32  08:24, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
 * He obviously meant the edit summary to be "there appears to be no consensus on NOT using this source and it is used on other BLPs" We really need to have a consensus for or against using it, it seems to be a wider issue. I see no indication of editorial oversight as I said before, and would not use it. BE—<span style="background:black;color:white;padding:3px 8px 5px 0px;text-shadow:white 0.118em 0.118em 0.118em;font-size:100%;">—Critical __Talk 09:06, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

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


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

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

To be plain, Cirt's purpose here and on Wikinews is to advocate against the Church of Scientology (hereafter referred to as CoS for brevity). Not to ensure a neutral point of view, but to identify, minimize, and add negative information about members of the CoS and the CoS itself. This is the sole reason for the puff piece Cirt created about an otherwise unremarkable minor actress named Jamie Sorrentini who has split from the CoS and become a critic. It does not suit Cirt's purpose to have her labelled as a Scientologist, hence the aggressive reaction to my edits, by which I hope Cirt has helped to make the real issue clear. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 02:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: The simple issue here is of adding a poor source website that fails WP:RS to a WP:BLP page, then when this was clearly disputed and consensus did not exist to re-add the source, repeatedly, to the WP:BLP page,  did so anyway, despite objections to the source from multiple editors at WP:RSN. -- Cirt (talk) 08:16, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You can certainly fault DC for using a BLP to make his [WP:POINT}, but the point remains well made. Any admin should really take a good hard look at Cirt's history (including that of User:Smee) before closing this matter.  The fact that scientologist probably deserve it is neither here nor there.120.23.73.50 (talk) 09:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Cirt, do you dispute anything that I wrote about your anti-Scientology POV-pushing, and the disturbing ownership of Scientology-related BLPs that you have demonstrated through your actions in this tempest in a teapot? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)


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

Scientology-related article fall-out
Rather than spread this out across WP:RSN, WP:BLPN, and WP:NPOVN, I am going to post items here to back up my allegations of Cirt's anti-Scientology agenda. I believe it is glaringly obvious, but some recent examples may be helpful. Bear in mind while reading this that Cirt is an admin who is very well-versed in our policies and guidelines, that my interest here is our neutral point of view (not Scientology), and why this thread was started. To make sense of this, it is also helpful if you know that Jamie Sorrentini is someone who has split from the Church of Scientology and is now publicly critical of that group.

Only after I used the source to cite that Jamie Sorrentini was a Scientologist did Cirt object to www.truthaboutscientology.com. Cirt repeatedly and falsely claimed there was consensus against using this source and inaccurately claimed that they had not used it "for years". In fact, there was no such consensus -- although there is now -- and Cirt had used this same source for the same purpose as recently as August 2009. More to the point, that source was left in biographies of living persons edited by Cirt, as this example from April 2010 shows. It was only after Cirt had started this thread and the RSN thread that they went through and began removing it from articles.

I fully support the removal of the www.truthaboutscientology.com source, but although Cirt is normally a very careful editor, their edits have left us with some problems: Much of this could be attributed to plain sloppy editing, which would be unlike Cirt, but in each case it serves Cirt's purpose, which is to identify, minimize, and add negative information about the CoS and associated individuals. The flip side of that is creating articles about anti-Scientologists like Jamie Sorrentini and oddly controversial wine bars. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:33, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Heron Books - this article, which has a large Scientology footer on it and lots of Scientolgy categories, appears to exist only to label it as related to Scientology. Where it previously used that source to identify the founding headmaster as a Scientologist (i.e. a WP:COATRACK article), Cirt's removal has left it with no source at all for the connection to Scientology. Although untouched by this, Delphi Schools appears to be in a similar situation (and is similarly a coatrack article).
 * Barret Oliver is now identified as a Scientologist, completely unsourced.
 * Alexandra Powers continues to be in Category:American Scientologists despite the removal of the poorly sourced identification. This article could probably be speedily deleted for lack of notability.
 * On Lee Baca, Cirt removes the reference (which was actually applied to the 'wife of the subject) but then takes another swipe to remove what appears to fairly innocuous material sourced to CoS sites. Heavy-handed removal of positive or neutral material about people associated with the CoS seems to be a pattern with Cirt. Note that Cirt failed to remove an unsourced statement about the Baca's salary.


 * This has absolutely nothing to do with your actions explained above and is clearly an attempt of misdirection of the topic onto Cirt in order to avoid coming under further scrutiny yourself. Bringing up events from the past (events that are about content disputes no less) about another user in a discussion about your own conduct is not appropriate. Silver  seren C 21:43, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Silver seren, considering that all Scientology-related articles are under an ArbCom probation, I fully expect to be under a great deal of scrutiny for this. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:06, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * FYI, I asked Cirt to remove this material. It is trivial at best.Griswaldo (talk) 22:16, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Silver I can't make heads or tails of how you get from here to there. I think it is clearer than day that User:Delicious carbuncle inserted that reference specifically to make a WP:POINT -- and yes I think he ought to be admonished for violating WP:POINT.  However, what he is now doing appears, again rather obviously, to be the larger point he was trying to make in the first place.  By all means take issue with his methods, I think there are issues to take with them, but lets not pretend to misunderstand what is going on.  Carbuncle, if you think there are serious NPOV, or BLP issues with some of Cirt's articles you should have posted to the NPOV/N or BLP/N and not inserted an obviously unreliable reference to one of his articles to illustrate your point.  That said, I think at this point this is exactly the type of productive thing that can come out of this.  I have already, myself, started addressing some of the issues.  Please keep them coming.Griswaldo (talk) 22:11, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * As some one who has a lot of interaction with Cirt, due to our similar interests (though completely ideological perspectives) I am unsure of what your problem is. I suspect it because you believe him to be paid editor with COI. That being said I cant see what the problem is other than your irritated with him and assume things that may or may not (and knowing Cirt are not.) If you feel so strongly collect evidence in RFC/U but really I fail to see any issue apparent here. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 02:56, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I am not irritated with Cirt, nor do I believe them to be a paid editor (although that has been suggested by others, as the link you provided shows). My "problem" with Cirt is the campaign against the CoS which they are waging on Wikipedia. Cirt does a lot of good work in both an editorial and admin capacity, but it is time to put a stop to their rather blatant POV-pushing. As much of a problem as the pro-Scientology activists have been here, we should be looking for a neutral stance rather than having one of our admins using Wikipedia to advance their own ideological position. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 03:33, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This is not the proper venue then, I but heads with him more often than not. Cirt does good work thus people at WP:NRM and balance him out quite adequately for NPOV. His extensive collection of work demonstrates the ability for neutrality. start an RF/U or drop the stick there is nothing here that needs immediate Admin attention. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 04:07, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Out of curiosity when do you butt heads with him? I agree that I'm not sure this is the right venue.  RFC/U does seem more like what carbuncle is looking for unless he wants to just tackle the content issues in which case there are several applicable noticeboards, and I already mentioned two above.Griswaldo (talk) 05:08, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * While the noticeboards can help with individual articles, they are not intended to deal with a pattern of biased actions. I have placed notes on the relevant ones linking to this discussion. There is no need for an RFC/U as all Scientology-related articles and editors are already covered by the WP:ARBSCI ruling. I have notified ArbCom of this discussion. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:36, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

More fallout: Speedyclick.com & Doug Dohring
Two more examples of articles from which Cirt removed the www.trthaboutscientology.com source: Speedyclick.com & Doug Dohring. Speedyclick seems to be a defunct company that is "notable" for being started by two Scientologists (and sold two years later) and later being associated with spamming. It's another coatrack article: "Connections with Scientology The founders of SpeedyClick, Farid Tabibzadeh [4] and Shahab Emrani [5] [6] are both OT VIIIs, the highest currently attainable level of the Church of Scientology. Doug Dohring, Scientologist and CEO of NeoPets, was a significant shareholder and personal acquaintance of Tabibzadeh and Emrani[7][8]. Donna Williams, co-founder of NeoPets, worked as an administrative assistant at SpeedyClick for a short period of time. Like NeoPets, SpeedyClick was run according to Scientology business management techniques."

I am not sure how it is relevant that the former owners were Scientologists, but the source used is something called "Freewinds 45 (Scientology publication)". Note what Cirt said when questioned by another editor about {http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lee_Purcell&diff=401216959&oldid=400929558 removing Scientology sources] from an article just days ago: "In particular those primary sources are notoriously unreliable and will say whatever they wish to manufacture, in order to promote the parent organization. Get it?". So it is ok to source membership in the CoS to CoS publications, but not to cite that someone was the MC at an event?

In the external links section, there are links to what purport to be (but are likely not) the personal websites of the former owners, identifying them as Scientologists. Remember that this article is ostensibly about a company not about the former owners. The section that links those named individuals to spamming either relies on dead links or is fabricated since I could turn up nothing relevant at Spamhaus. (Finally, could someone remove the AdPro Auction spam from Speedyclick? I'd rather not touch anymore CoS-related articles in case people misunderstand my goals here.)

Doug Dohring (see Speedyclick.com excerpt above) would seem to have been quite successful in business, but you might not know that from our bio. Like the former owners of Speedyclick, he is linked to spamming with non-functional Spamhaus links. Using CoS primary souces, the article states this:"According to the Church of Scientology's magazine Source, Dohring completed the course OT VI[17], which, according to Scientology, means that he is progressing on a program to become 'essentially a being able to operate free of the encumbrances of the material universe'.[18]"

I can see no reason for including that quote except to make Dohring appear foolish. Although they removed the one source that was under discussion, Cirt, an admin who claims to be very concerned about my possible violation of WP:BLP, managed to overlook all of the things that I have pointed out in articles that are in Cirt's primary editing area. I am sure if someone wants to start digging, it won't be hard to find much more evidence to back this up. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:27, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The case is well made that Cirt is an attack account. I'm sure this will be dealt with now. Right?Bali ultimate (talk) 22:36, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The above comment clearly violates NPA. Silver  seren C 23:10, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Why are you spinning all of this as if it was a Cirt problem? Did Cirt introduce those problems in the articles? (assuming for the moment that they are problematic, which I cannot judge yet). No, apparently he did not. He hardly edited these two articles at all, and the only edits I can find are those where he removes those external links, an action which you say is justified. What kind of twisted logic is this: he went and touched an article, uncontroversally fixing a problem, so now he's suddenly responsible for all remaining problems in that article, real or perceived, that he happened not to fix? If you feel those articles are problematic, then go and fix them, otherwise drop the stick, or this is going to become a boomerang for you. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:47, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if it's a Cirt problem, but the references to publications such as Freewinds is certainly problematic. A fair few of the articles are just unsourced coatrack articles, and although I have every respect for Cirt, there does seem to be an ongoing issue as to whether or not in-house magazines such as Freewinds are actually good enough for references on BLPs. Chase me ladies, I&#39;m the Cavalry (talk) 23:03, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The simple cases are in the "Scientology-related article fall-out" section above. In Barret Oliver for example, Cirt did add the source. When Cirt removed the source, they left Oliver identified as a Scientologist with no sourcing at all. Cirt is an admin. An admin who claims to be very concerned about WP:BLP. Scientology is their primary editing area. Cirt reacted very aggressively to my sourced addition that someone was a Scientologist, yet when they edit BLPs they accidentally leave people identified as Scientologists with no sourcing at all? In multiple cases? So you are suggesting that Cirt is merely incompetent? Sometimes? But that the rest of the time they are fastidious? Really? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 23:12, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * So he committed an error of judgment by adding that external link (not "source"), and then he later fixed his own mistake by removing it again. So what? It still wasn't him who inserted the claims about Sc. membership in the article – that was in there unsourced even before his first edit. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:18, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I echo Future Perfect. Are you seriously going to say that any user who edits an article must immediately notice anything bad that's in it and removed it or it is their fault that the bad stuff is in there? That is utterly ridiculous. It is not his responsibility to remove all of those things from the article. If he had been the one to add them in, that would be one thing. But he didn't. This is a completely frivilous section and an utter waste of time. ANI should not be used for content improvement. If you don't have any actual situations to report based on a user's conduct, then this discussion should be closed. Silver  seren C 23:09, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not just that Cirt has left BLP violations inserted by other editors; this edit is as clear a BLP violation as any I've seen. At Talk:List of Scientologists Cirt insisted for a long while that anyone who had ever done a Scientology course should be listed as a Scientologist, because that is the definition of a Scientologist the Church of Scientology uses (to inflate their membership statistics). Listing people like Chaka Khan, Gloria Gaynor and Will Smith as Scientologists spawned several BLPN threads, and got Jimbo involved. Cirt wrote a complete puff piece on minor politician Kenneth Dickson (Articles_for_deletion/Kenneth_Dickson_(2nd_nomination)), because Dickson at the time stood against another candidate deemed too friendly to Scientology. Cirt has in many ways become more cooperative and proactive in recent months when there have been disputes, and has written some articles on Scientology of late with whose neutrality I was genuinely impressed, given Cirt's history in this topic area, but no one should pretend that Cirt's hands are entirely clean here. They are not. -- JN 466  01:54, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That doesn't change the fact that ANI is not the place for this content discussion. Take it to the article talk pages or make a subpage somewhere, but it shouldn't be at ANI. Silver  seren C 04:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * ANI is, however, the place to discuss editor behavior. If these edits do show a pattern of tendentious editing, that can be dealt with here. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 23:20, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, I'm lost, can someone explain why that video link is a BLP violation? I'm sure I'm missing something obvious, but I'd appreciate the explanation anyways.  Hobit (talk) 03:12, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It is a self-published YouTube video, airing various allegations against living persons, including rumours of sexual abuse. It fails WP:BLPSPS. (Imagine your son making a YouTube video about all the things they didn't like in school, and you including that video in our article on the school.) -- JN 466  16:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I've only listened to parts and didn't hear any names (I'm not doubting you though). If there are such clear BLP issues, why not nominate the file for deletion?  In any case, I think the accusations in the file are of abuse, and much stronger than just things she didn't like (yes, being made to sleep without  adequate protection from the weather is abuse.) Don't think that has anything to do with the BLP issue, but your attitude about such claims worries me quite a bit.  It's more than a child complaining, it's an adult describing abuse they suffered as a child and to brush that aside as a child describing things they don't like bothers me quite a bit. Hobit (talk) 02:46, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It is self-published, Hobit, and the people who ran the school are mentioned by name in the article. We either have a BLP policy or not. In Roman Catholic sex abuse cases we don't include links to self-published YouTube testimonials about sexual abuse suffered at the hands of Catholic priests either, no matter how harrowing or genuine they may appear. We wouldn't even do this if there had been an actual verification of the crime and conviction in a court of law. If you tried, you would find yourself here on this board and subject to sanctions within a very short time. -- JN 466  11:39, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Case study number one: Michael Doven
Michael Doven is apparently an actor and a producer. His biography was created almost solely by Cirt. We actually get four sentences into the lede before Scientology is mentioned (if you discount the completely unnecessary reference to well-known Scientologist Beck in the second sentence). Like other BLPs of this type, it is a coatrack on which to hang information about the individual's connection to the CoS. There are four paragraphs in the section labelled "Career" - the first is fluff the rest are about Scientology. Those who doubt my accusations against Cirt should simply read this article and ask themselves if this is just a normal BLP or if it is something more. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 00:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that this article was problematic. It did have the appearance of a Coatrack. I think that it has improved drastically now, with Cirt's colaboration. One possibly remaining problem is whether it conforms to WP:EGRS, and whether the person in fact selfidentifies as a scientologist.·Maunus· ƛ · 02:12, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Please see action by in edit to article, see edit summary: "remove neutrality tag - Cirt has argued well for the merit of included material" -- thank you very much for this. This comment and action is most appreciated. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 03:42, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Case study number two: Jamie Sorrentini
Jamie Sorrentini (the article involved with the start of this ANI thread) is an minor television actress. Most similar bios do not survive AfD, but they are usually created by publicists or the actors themselves, not by Wikipedia admins. It may be helpful to connect some dots here:
 * 15 July 2010 - Marty Rathbun, well known critic of the CoS, posts on his blog a piece by "Jamie Sorrentini Lugli" about her split with the CoS.
 * 15 July 2010 - Cirt creates Jamie Sorrentini
 * 16 July 2010 - Cirt creates Daryl Wine Bar and Restaurant. The restaurant is named after one of the founding partners, Daryl Sorrentini, mother of Jamie Sorrentini, and herself a former member of the CoS.
 * 8 October 2010 - Rathbun posts an entry entitled "Free Daniel Montalvo". According to Rathbun, Jamie Sorrentini and her husband Tiziano Lugli got Montalvo released from jail by posting his bail.
 * 9 October 2010 - Cirt uploads the image of Daniel Montalvo uses on Rathbun's blog entry to Commons
 * 9 October 2010 - Cirt creates an article on Wikinews entitled "Scientology defector arrested after attempting to leave organization". One of a long series of anti-CoS articles created by Cirt. There likely isn't a lot of positive news about the CoS, but nor is there a need to write negative pieces, except by choice.
 * 22 October 2010 - Rathbun posts an update about Daniel Montalvo, including the information that his lawyer is John Duran.
 * 23 October 2010 - Cirt uploads an image of John Duran (plus two cropped versions)
 * 23 October 2010 - Cirt makes nearly a dozen edits to John Duran including adding the image from above.

I haven't taken the time to find further correspondence between Rathbun's blog and Cirt's edits, but it should be blindingly obvious by the above that Cirt is in lock-step with a well-known critic of the CoS. It should also be clear that Cirt's contributions on Wikinews need to be examined to get the whole picture. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 01:49, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * yah, and that proves nothing as far as WP:NPOV is concerned, because wikipedia is not concerned with your personal opinion, personal motivation, or even where you get your inspiration. Even WP:COI doesn't say "if you get your inspiration from" or "people with the following opinion/occupation can't...".  All of those articles you mentioned are sourced,  verifiable, and a few went through heavy discussion to validate their notability.Coffeepusher (talk) 07:08, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: Yeah, I read the blog. That is in and of itself a non-issue. Actually, if from there I find BLPs that need quality improvement, that is a good thing. This is simply an attempt by to deflect attention away from the user's BLP violations. -- Cirt (talk) 17:48, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * There is nothing for me to deflect. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * User:Cirt is requesting Arbitration Enforcement under WP:ARBSCI sanctions for User:Delicious carbuncle at WP:AE

Cirt's anti-Scientology articles on Wikinews
Cirt is also an admin on Wikinews. Here are some of their articles on Scientology, in the order that they appear in a listing of Wikinews articles created by Cirt: The eleven I have listed appear in the first twenty-five articles on that list. An article on US politician Sharron Angle could probably be included in that list, since Cirt includes a hyperlink back to their Wikinews article on allegations of coerced abortion. Note also that in the talkpage comments of the "forced abortions" article, two editors take issue with the closing paragraph of the article which is, inexplicably, all about Angle.
 * Author Amy Scobee recounts abuse as Scientology executive
 * US federal judge and Florida judge clash over Scientology wrongful death case
 * Scientology defector arrested after attempting to leave organization
 * Australian Senate Committee recommends formation of Charities Commission
 * Women reveal accounts of forced abortion in Scientology
 * Author of My Billion Year Contract reflects on life in elite Scientology group
 * Senator Xenophon of Australia calls for criminal investigation into Scientology
 * Blown for Good author discusses life inside international headquarters of Scientology
 * New book Blown for Good reveals details inside Scientology headquarters
 * Court in France convicts Scientology of organized fraud
 * Academy Award-winning film director Paul Haggis leaves Scientology

Note that some of those articles are interviews conducted by Cirt. Cirt's point of view is made very clear by this series of articles and the evidence I have thus far offered should show that their edits here are not neutral at all, but very much in keeping with that anti-Scientology viewpoint. I have no opinion about the appropriateness of their activities on Wikinews, but the time has come for their activities here to be dealt with. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:06, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * so if Cirt is not being neutral, how is he distorting the viewpoints that are being published in reliable sources, since that is the qualifying factor in WP:NPOV. from what I have seen of the reliable sources available Cirt is editing in regard to weight, not distorting the information presented in these sources one way or another, and verifiability.  to prove that he is not neutral from wikipeida standards you will have to present that he is willfully distorting those reliable sources, or that he is suppressing the other viewpoint when presented with reliable sources...neither of which is accurate.  I have personally seen Cirt defend pro-scientology edits when they are compliant with policy, and oppose critics who do not comply with wikipeida policy.Coffeepusher (talk) 17:04, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * this entire section is an obvious example of gaming the system to prove a point.  The discussion was opened up regarding Delicious Carbuncle's use of an inappropriate source, soon thereafter s/he agreed that the source was not a reliable source and then since the discussion was going on, proceeded to use the ANI as a soapbox for his contempt of Cirt's editing in an attempt to discredit an editor.  This argument strangely familiar to Justallofthem's, justanother's, Justahulk's, Alfadog's, etc. attacks on Cirt, up to and including the wikistalking of Cirt on Wikinews.  At best this entire thread is a direct violation of WP:POINT, at worst sanctions have already been instated as a violation of "...refrain(ing) from any form of advocacy concerning any external controversy, dispute, allegation, or proceeding."Coffeepusher (talk) 17:23, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: This is absurd. Many of my contributions to Wikinews are Featured Articles on that project. This is merely an attempt by to deflect attention away from the user's BLP violations. -- Cirt (talk) 17:49, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Is anyone expressing agreement with DC that there is a problem needing admin attention here? If not, I recommend that this thread be closed/archived. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:31, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I have placed a comment on DC's talk page asking him to cease gaming the system.Coffeepusher (talk) 19:35, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Coffeepusher, on your user page you call Scientology "The fruity little club that scrambled Chef's brains". Unlike you, I have no dog in this race - my concern is neutrality. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 20:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * This is the wrong venue. Article content can be dealt with on article talk pages, or the various noticeboards; if DC wishes to comment on Cirt's editing in general, he should prepare an RfC/U or go to WP:AE. -- JN  466  20:08, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * you are right, I do have that printed on my page...which is an allusion to what television show...what was that show called...it was a direct quote from what show that I have watched over and over and over...that show that insulted EVERYONE including 3 organizations I belong to and I still love it...that show that I own every single DVD from and even have a "oh my god they killed kenny" keychain that I have owned and used since the first season... so is it a political stance or a direct reference to a cartoon?Coffeepusher (talk) 20:10, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Note: has failed to attempt any previous form of dispute resolution, content-based-RFC, discussion at article talk pages, discussion at my user talk page, or anything of the sort. -- Cirt (talk) 20:12, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Sanity Check at AE
Please look over that enforcement request and my suggested solution. A couple of outside opinions from other administrators, whether agreeing or disagreeing, would be helpful. Most of the people are fairly constructive, but there are signs of behavior that lead to the previous ArbCom case. I'm just looking to impose a bit of calm and push them towards WP:DR to sort it out, while leaving little room for any further disruption. Vassyana (talk) 03:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement


 * It looks pretty complex to review well... Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 10:22, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

As I commented at AE overly harsh and punishing the victim of baiting behaviour rather than the perpetrators. Given the behaviour complained about is not ongoing this is punitive rather than prevantative. Wee Curry Monster talk 10:24, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Malcolm Schosha and User:Kwork
This is a multiply banned user. Kwork got dinged years ago, then was allowed to "vanish." He somehow was allowed to return as User:Malcolm Schosha got banned under that account too (mostly for serial and unfounded accusations of antisemitism against people who disagreed with him). That discussion is here.. He's then been found to be socking through IPs, advocating for other banned/indef blocked users, throwing around unfounded and hateful accusations against others (me among them, if that wasn't obvious). When i came up against him, i figured out who the IP belonged too by looking at old talk pages and archives of noticeboards like this one. If I were to be subject to such stalking and abuse now (without the background i have in my head at this point) I wouldn't be able to put two and two together. Why? A series of "courtesy deletions" of the "Malcolm Schosha" talk pages and user pages. If one goes to any of the old noticeboards and stumbles across the name Malcolm Schosha (or, as i did, looks at the "global contributions" of one of his IPs and find him correcting his own logged out edits on commons, where he's still somewhat active as "Malcolm Schosha") and try to look at the user's contributions, you find he's been airbrushed out of history. It turns out that, as a courtesy to this banned abusive editor, an account called User:Kwork2 has been created for his old contributions. But you'd never find it or stumble across it in the same way. It's my understanding that banned, abusive editors don't have a right to vanish, or courtesy blankings, or what have you, particularly ones with a recent record of socking to abuse others. As I see it, a nationalist edit warrior (who repeatedly said he intended to sock and edit as he sees fit, when he sees fit) is being enabled by this obfuscation of the history. What do i want? While i think the talk page of Schosha should be restored, i'll let that go. All i want is a redirect from the old name User:Malcolm Schosha to the "courtesy rename" of User:Kwork2. Why? So others will have as good a chance of catching him and his abuse when/if he turns on them. Would be interested to hear the reasoning behind these favors being done for this fellow, and why they're being done (obviously emails/chatroom stuff).Bali ultimate (talk) 20:10, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Here's his contributions under the name "Malcolm Schosha" at commons. . Have a look at the block log. Reminisicent of his own behavior here.Bali ultimate (talk) 20:17, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Malcolm Schosa has done lasting damage to a lot of articles (see his tactics at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Judaization_of_Jerusalem/Archive_1 ) and contributed to the dreadful state of the Middle East topic. It's difficult to understand why his contribution record has disappeared, other than to make it easier for him to return and carry on where he's been forced to leave off. MalcolmMcDonald (talk) 21:16, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "Courtesy deletion" of a usertalk page? We don't do that (or at least, admins who aren't intent on acting contrry to policy don't do it). DuncanHill (talk) 22:58, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * uhh Duncan you should prolly check the page then; Malcolm's user talk page was deleted for courtesy reasons. User:Smith Jones 23:10, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That's bizarre. What possible purpose could erasing the history of a disruptive editor serve? Sol (talk) 03:29, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Any deleted talk pages should definitely be restored; these should be deleted only in exceptional circumstances. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 03:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * According to the log, the userpage was deleted because "The intent here is to minimise drama and reduce disruption." Looks like it may have backfired a bit. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 04:22, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * i thinkt here are issues with the right to wp:vanish here. his talkpage should be deleted since without it peopele can still interact with him as if hes still here, even though hes not. that is contrapositive to the purpose of the concept of the right of vanishment. User:Smith Jones 05:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Vanishing is a courtesy to users who make a credible announcement of their permanent departure from the site. If the vanished user breaches the courtesy by coming back, the vanishing can and should be withdrawn.  Restore the pages as appropriate. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 06:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The account has been renamed. While the redirect remains (and that is 100% of the content that I deleted, a redirect) he will continue to obsess over it. If it's gone, there is a chance he might not. WP:RTV. He freely acknowledges that any attempt to evade the block would be trivially easy to detect as his style is distinctive, and he understands that if he does come back then so will the redirects and templates. The issue is not that he's trying to obscure previous issues with an account, but that the account was in his real name. That is a mistake fro which we can and should allow people to recover, even if they are to remain blocked. Given that he has an account on Commons it is possible this was set up as a unified logon, I don't know; I have registered and blocked the account so that cannot happen again. Guy (Help!) 09:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Last time he lied repeatedly, including claiming when caught that the fact he was socking was known about and approved of by Arbcom. His style had nothing to do with how I uncovered him when he was attacking me. I uncovered him because i looked at the contributions of the account "Malcolm Schosha." That is now impossible. What you've done is against policy, standard practice, and common sense. As for the "real name" -- that was his choice. He continues to use his "real name" on commons, where he also has a horrible reputation, so I think you're being taken for a ride when he tells you (by personal email) that his real name is a concern here. All you're doing is helping to cover the tracks of a serial abuser and sockpuppeter. The redirect should be restored. Bali ultimate (talk) 12:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Admins can still see everything, the way it's set up now. That said, I wholly agree that MS has asked for this as a way to cover the sad wake(s) he has left behind, likely for another comeback, which for both the project's sake and I would think, his own peace of mind and privacy, mustn't be allowed. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:59, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In my case, I had to figure out who was harrasing me myself. What an admin might be able to see was irrelevant, and will be if this guy starts taking shots again at me or anyone else. This makes it easier for him to harrass again without being uncovered. The banned user is being enabled by JzG here.Bali ultimate (talk) 13:10, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe I can say, JzG isn't trying to enable anything of the kind. However, I do agree the lack of a redirect will hinder non-admins from looking into things if (which is to say, when) he does try to come back. There can be no "fresh start" on en.WP for this user, he's had at least three or four already. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:35, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Could have a bot replace every reference to User:Malcolm Schosha with User:Kwork2, but that's probably too disruptive. Barring that, I think he's forfeited the right to have the accounts unlinked given the consequences for enabling socking. Disclosure: Schosha almost made me quit WP. Rd232 talk 13:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I had thought of that yesterday, but I've never seen it done cleanly and tidying up the loose bits would take scads of someone's volunteer time so I didn't bring it up. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Schosha continues to be active as "Malcolm Schosha" at a website called wikibias, a site where wikipedia editors gathe to coordinate efforts to fix what they perceive as bias against israel in wikipedia articles. Much of their work focuses on outing and harrasing editors here. For instance: . Most recent post of his i find there under the name "Malcolm Schosha" is Dec. 1. This stuff about his real name is a red herring.Bali ultimate (talk) 13:53, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I would say that's true, Bu and given that, I don't see harm in a redirect. Truth be told, only since this has come up again, I wouldn't care if all the histories of all his accounts were restored, though keeping them out of public view may indeed tamp down some kerfluffle. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:32, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Let's at minimum get the redirect back. As stanard practice, the talk page shouldn't have been deleted and should be restored, but i'm not going to fight about it. But the redirect is the minimum and I guess that will go back on shortly.Bali ultimate (talk) 14:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * User talk:Malcolm Schosha should never have been deleted - blanking and/or redirecting are acceptable, but we don't speedy usertalk pages. They can go to MfD, but even then it's rare for them to be deleted. DuncanHill (talk) 14:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * It won't tamp it down a bit. Schosha also infests the lowers rungs of the Wikipedia Review; getting these gift courtesy blankings/deletions...which should be undone IMO...hasn't altered his obsession one bit. Tarc (talk) 14:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC).
 * I agree that the talk page should be restored -- though it could live at "Kwork2" with a redirect. Interesting to find out what led Administrator Jpgordon to provide a "courtesy deletion" on Nov. 11 2010. In the logs, we see that Gwen had deleted the talk page in June 2008 per his first request to vanish and then that the talk page was restored by Happy-melon in May 2009 with the note "RTV has not been adhered to, restoring." Why exactly are rules and practices being bent into pretzels for a banned troll who made life hell for many contributors in good standing?Bali ultimate (talk) 14:49, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * None of the several deletions of the usertalk page were acceptable in policy. We don't speedy in RTV, and we don't speedy just because someone's a prolific banned troll. DuncanHill (talk) 14:52, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * User talk:Kwork should have its history restored too. A lot of admins do seem to have been bending over backwards to protect this person. DuncanHill (talk) 15:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * User talk:Kwork was deleted in November 2007 by User:Pedro with edit summary "User request - right to vanish - after due consideration. Should be restored is user returns. content was: ' {{:db-userreq|rationale=rationale. Since my actual name is on my user page, and in some talk page discussion, I would like to have my user page and". User:Malcolm Schosha was created in January 2008. So either Schosha isn't his real name, or he was screwing around with the original RTV request, because it would hardly make any sense to RTV because of privacy and then create an account not that long after with your real name! Rd232 talk 16:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

[header removed] It is frustrating that I can not explain on AN/I what I am trying to get done.
 * I have received an email from User:Kwork2 via the Wikipedia email, which he has asked me to convey to the board.

It was never my intention to have my user pages deleted, and I did not request it. Neither am I trying to hide anything. What I wanted was to have the two tags ('banned' and 'sock') that were on the top of my user page and talk page removed and replaced with 'retired user'. I wanted nothing else changed.

The reason I wanted that done is because anyone on the web who does a search will see that, but the rules they refer to exist no place in the world but WP. The tags made me sound like a wiki-criminal or reprobate, and I am not. So the request seemed rather small, but has (so far) proved out of reach.

I only requested that my user name be changed when my request to remove the tags proved futile. But I would be quite satisfied to have my user pages restored to their former state as User:Malcolm Schosha, IF the tags are not placed there.

No doubt it was a mistake to edit with my own name; but, considering that I did, I think the request to put 'retired user' instead of the other tags is a modest request and changes nothing essential about my block.

I have promised that I will not return to WP. I have moved on to other things.

Perhaps you could convey this to the thread.

[signature removed]

DuncanHill (talk) 16:29, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Trouble is, he's a twice banned user with a history of using socks to evade his blocks and attack other editors (which is what led to the page having "banned" restored to it after he started socking again. He's forfeited any standing here by his own behavior, for which he alone was and is responsible. And he continues to use the internet handle "Malcolm Schosha" to attack others elsewhere.Bali ultimate (talk) 16:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I must say, he learned years ago how to find admins who didn't know him and were willing to help with civil requests. That email is not unlike the first I ever got from him almost two years ago (?). It began, as I recall, with a request for "retired" tags. Over time, with input from other helpful-minded admins, it became yet another "fresh start." I could look into the background further but I don't think it's worth my time. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:35, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, he found me and I'm not an admin. The history of the talk pages should be restored, as there was never any justification for deleting them. DuncanHill (talk) 16:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Here's the simple truth: if we insist on having a redirect, he will waste the Foundation's money responding to a frivolous lawsuit. And the benefit we get form this is... is... is... no, actually, I can't see any benefit. Other than the satisfaction of making it plain just how much we don't like him, which I think he already knows and so do we. Is there anything worng with shoing a little class here? Guy (Help!) 16:53, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This has the effect of enabling him (I accept that's not your intent). Lawsuit? What nonesense. On what grounds? He'd be laughed out of court (indeed, prolly out of the lawyer's office when he asks one to take the case). He's just throwing empty threats (apparently) by email. The benefit is not to allow him to try to drive more editors away -- you know, the editors who haven't been indefinitely blocked and banned.Bali ultimate (talk) 17:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The benefit is not facilitating a sockmaster in escaping detection of future socking. Why should we believe he won't sock again, when he's still active in coordinating in the dissemination of his beliefs on WP? Let him sue, it's not our problem (and he's probably bluffing anyway). Rd232 {{sup|talk}} 17:02, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "The tags made me sound like a wiki-criminal or reprobate, and I am not." We seem to have a disconnect here: that's exactly what the tags are there to warn people of. He's got a laundry list of blocks on both accounts and appears to have dedicated a lot of time to earning his ban. If he wants a "Retired user" tag he should have retired. Removing his history does nothing but makes it easier for him to come back. Whether or not Malcolm Shoscha is his real name, he's indemnified WP from any privacy tort by volunteering it as his user name. Sol (talk) 17:28, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

What's the concrete objection to User talk:Malcolm Schosha being undeleted, blanked (in whatever fashion), and renamed without redirect to User talk:Kwork2? Uncle G (talk) 17:27, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Uncle G -- do you have ANY idea that cost of defending of against even a frivolous lawsuit? Malcolm Schosha could burn away thousands ofdollars of Wikimedia Foundations money if he sues us under the WP:NLT barnstar. in the same time, we are also in the middle of one of the most comrpehensive fundraising campaigns in history. it would be a tragic and monsterous crime for this devious fiend to suck away all the money that has been raised so far in this foundations fundraising. Pehraps before we make a move we should contact Wikimedia Foundations legal counsel and seek his or her advice and assistance on how to proceed. User:Smith Jones 17:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In amongst all that hyperbole, I cannot see an actual answer to my question. I repeat:  What's the objection?  Uncle G (talk) 20:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The problem is the absence of the redirect from User talk:Malcolm Schosha to the new page (and from User:Malcolm Schosha to the new user page). Why? The redirects allow people who come across the edits/discussions involving "Malcolm Schosha" to actually find his history, rather than come to a complete dead end. That's the objection to the absence of redirects in a nutshell (and such redirects are standard practice). This is the general nature of the objections from others in this thread. If i'm misunderstanding, and it's possible to simply rename everything so that all the old links go seemlessly to "Kwork2" i wouldn't have a problem, and i doubt others would either. Is that feasible, i.e. if one clicks on User:Malcolm Schosha you're taken directly to the new page (and the histories) without redirect? Bali ultimate (talk) 20:59, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * No, not with the way that MediaWiki works. But that's an objection to a different thing &mdash; an objection to having no user page rather than an objection to restoring and renaming the user talk page.  Consider the real Malcolm Schoshas of this world.   (Is this this person's real name?  There's certainly doubt about that.  And do you have reason to think that there's no-one else in the world named that?)  They find Google Web coming up with "Malcolm Schosha, Wikipedia troll and sockpuppetteer" high in {{plainlink|1=http://www.google.com./search?q={{urlencode:"Malcolm Schosha"}}|2=the list of results for their names}}. That's one reason not to have everything in the name "Malcolm Schosha".  But, as I've noted and as several others have noted, it's not a reason for the user talk page history to not be available, behind a blanking, at User talk:Kwork2, which at least would enable you and anyone else, along with {{plainlink|{{fullurl:Special:Log|type=renameuser&page=User:Malcolm+Schosha}}|this log entry}} and {{plainlink|{{fullurl:Special:Log|type=newusers&page=User:Malcolm+Schosha}}|these log entries}} to find where the user went and read the old user talk page discussions, should that be necessary. Having the user talk page alongside the renamed account satisfies the sockpuppetteer, satisfies the people who want the talk page history available (when they come across an edit that leads them to Special:Contributions/Kwork2), and (additionally) prevents harm to the real Malcolm Schoshas of the world.  I'm trying to determine whether there's a concrete objection to that state of affairs, because it seems like a reasonable, and simple, compromise amongst competing interests.  Uncle G (talk) 21:29, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If i follow you, that wouldn't satisfy me. I found this guy because i found a discussion of User:Malcolm Schosha. What i want is to be able to click on that link and get to somehwere that allows me to review his contributions and history. Right now it's a dead end, and will remain so by your proposal. I'm not concerned about satisfying him, and i'm particularly unconvinced by this "real name" nonsense. That was (and on commons and other sites, still is) his choice. There's no reputation risk for other m schosha's, if any exist (which is doubtful). It just shows that someone misbehaved on a website and got booted. Let's stop enabling this guy, particularly since it violates the websites policies and guidlines dealing with banned users, RTV, and so on.Bali ultimate (talk) 21:35, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It would make things harder to understand any socking to come (which is likely, given the background) and easier, in time, to get what would be more or less his 5th "fresh start." I don't like saying it, but he has always gamed steps taken in the name of this project's forgiving and worthy outlook on tidying up the userspaces of those who have left, even under a cloud, to to speak. Gwen Gale (talk) 17:42, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The project's attitude to user talk pages is we don't speedy them - just some admins refuse to abide by policy. DuncanHill (talk) 17:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The current, fairly new policy is that only bureaucrats can delete user talk pages under WP:RTV and that such deletions are seen as exceptions. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:09, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Policy for quite a long time has been that user talk pages are not eligibly for speedy (including RTV) and that MfD is the venue for their deletion. DuncanHill (talk) 14:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Maybe we should just tell trolls and sockers that the easiest way to get the evidence of their misbehaviour concealed is to threaten a lawsuit, and that certain admins will bend over backwards to help them. DuncanHill (talk) 17:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The account {{plainlink|{{fullurl:Special:Log|type=renameuser&page=User:Malcolm+Schosha}}|has already been renamed}} to {{user|Kwork2}} and the talk page would at least be associated with the account whose contributions history it matches. What's the objection to undeleting it and having it there?  That's what people are (in part) pressing for.  What's the objection to that?  Uncle G (talk) 20:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Maybe a compromise is possible: stick a "retired" tag there, but also link manually (not with template) and as politely as possible to the ban discussion and socks. Rd232 {{sup|talk}} 17:56, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * i agree with the above. although perhaos we should redact the link to the ban discusions and the socks. if this user is actually leaving, why maintain a secret file against him?? there is noer ason to continue to menace someone who has left the project; what is he going to do, badmouth us on some other site?? that hath never been a policy on Wikiepdia b4 and it should not become one now!!! By closing the book on this incident, it limits the amoun tof drama created and helps make the proejct more efficient and mature. User:Smith Jones 18:00, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Only saying, most of the time, RTV and other tidying done by request when a user leaves doesn't stir up much if any fuss, so we only hear about it when someone has come back and caused disruption. Mostly, from what I've seen, the way this kind of thing is handled on en.WP is most of the time indeed "mature" and "classy." This can be (and is now and then) gamed, but not all that often. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:06, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In response to some of the above lawsuit discussions....whatever is decided here should not at all be made in concern with "spending the WMFs money" or similar sentiment. That is an ugly, slippery slope to go down. Tarc (talk) 19:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. If someone sent me an email threatening to sue WmF I wouldn't even answer it, but would likely forward the email to arbcom. Likewise, I don't think talking about legal management is within the bounds of ANI. Gwen Gale (talk) 20:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * We had a recent RfC about deleting talk pages when users want to vanish, and the consensus was that they should not be deleted as a rule. The idea that this is an exception because it's his real name doesn't wash (whether it's his real name or not), because he set it up after he was blocked as Kwork, so he can't say he was a newbie who didn't understand the dangers of using real names. Regardless of what happens to the user pages—whether they are deleted, linked, or directed to new names—the talk pages ought to be undeleted, because they were not written by him. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 19:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that the user talk page should not have been deleted, and have asked JzG to restore it and to send it to MfD if he still believes there are good reasons for its deletion. I also see no harm in restoring the redirect to the renamed account. WP:RTV is normally extended only to users in good standing, which this user is not. It is not our job to speculate about lawsuits. If Foundation staff believe that any action is required to avoid a lawsuit they will take that action per WP:OFFICE. Until then, we should proceed as per our normal policies.  Sandstein   20:20, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Remember: JzG just deleted redirects made afterward by Shell Kinney (for the user talk page) and Bali ultimate (for the user page).  It is {{admin|jpgordon}} who is the person who actually deleted the original user talk page and user page. Uncle G (talk) 20:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, yes, thanks. I've notified Jpgordon about this discussion.  Sandstein   21:19, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

This seems fairly simple, and although I've repeated the question already once to Smith Jones, who didn't answer it, it deserves general repetition. Non-administrators want the user talk page around, so that they can keep track of things, and I find myself sympathetic to that. "Malcolm Schosha" wants things not to come up under xyr (possibly) real name in a Google WWW search. It seems possible, at least to me, to accommodate both sets of people by undeleting User talk:Malcolm Schosha, blanking it (in some fashion), and renaming it without a redirect to User talk:Kwork2. That way the user talk page, with all of the prior discussion, is visible to everyone, associated with Special:Contributions/Kwork2 which is the account's current name, and not associated with the name "Malcolm Schosha" (the new {{user|Malcolm Schosha}} account now belonging to JzG, as stated above and {{plainlink|{{fullurl:Special:Log|type=newusers&page=User:Malcolm+Schosha}}|as recorded in the log}}). What are the concrete objections to this? Uncle G (talk) 20:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I have none, but it is also not clear to me why we should seek to accommodate a disruptive banned user at all by disassociating their former username (which is picked up by Google in many places) from their edits. The right to vanish is normally granted only to editors in good standing. If they choose to disrupt Wikipedia under their real name, they have to bear the consequences.   Sandstein   21:19, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If the google search is the complaint, can't we just "noindex" it the way this page is (i believe). I would not object to that -- i'm concerned with people inside wikipedia being able to keep an eye on all this; i don't care if they can find the userpage or not on google.Bali ultimate (talk) 21:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec) Uncle G, you mention the problem that a Google search for the name still links to various disruption-related pages. Can't that problem be solved by NOINDEXing the relevant pages? I think the request to be able to connect the "Malcolm Schosha" signatures to the banned account and its contributions (e.g., with a link from User:Malcolm Schosha to User:Kwork2) is reasonable. By the way, meta:User:Malcolm Schosha, where he is not blocked, still contains a lot of googleable personal information put there by the user themselves.  Sandstein   21:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * sory, Uncle G -- I didnt see your original repetition; it wasnt a deliberate attempt to ignore you. I am not too concerned over the Google image bu t i am worried that this users right to vanish is being tempered by the fact that he can be constantly blackballed and cockblacked using his prior bad acts regarldess of whether or not he has reformed. the cornerstone of WP's antivandalism and pro-vanishing policy is that a user who doesnt want to participate in the project any more can just leave without being having to worry that they will be continually monitored, tormented on their talk pages, or followed around off-wiki. Instead of linking to his bad history on his user page, why not just undelete his talk page and post the history there, or a link to an external page maintained by the community. User:Smith Jones 22:18, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * RTV is a courtesy we may grant to users in good standing. This guy's multi-banned, so we should move things back to the MS account, which seems well-out-of-the-bag per Bali's extern, and point the others at a {{tl|banned}}/{{tl|indef}} tag at user:ms ("{{tl|retired}}" is simply off-the table). the prior user page history can be deleted, but the talk should be restored. There are lot of links and sigs pointing at u:ms and folks should be reasonable able to find the laundry. nb: no OFFER for this POV-warrior. Cheers, Jack Merridew 22:23, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The out of process talk page deletion is now being discussed at Deletion review/Log/2010 December 12. Of course, if the talk page is undeleted, it should be courtesy-blanked.  Sandstein   23:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I have restored User talk:Kwork per the discussion here, the other one should be restored as well but since it is at DRV now, I thought it better to let that one run its course. Fram (talk) 11:55, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Looks like both Kwork histories will wind up being restored, which is ok by me (as to policy). Perhaps letting non-admins know about the link between MS and the Kworks by putting up a retired tag, with something like see User:Kwork2 in the edit summary only, would do the trick. MS can always go to WP:BASC with any other questions. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:09, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I think we have a consensus to restore the redirect. How about this: A redirect at User:Malcolm Schosha to User:Kwork2 underneath a "noindex" tags for yahoo and google to opt out of the searches. That way privacy satisfied, my and other concerns that future socking will be easy to uncover satisfied. Random internet searches won't lead to the page.Bali ultimate (talk) 23:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Speaking as an uninvolved user, that sounds like the ideal solution: restore, redirect, tag as banned and "noindex". That allows us to follow the user's history, while keeping the world-at-large-via-Google from hitting those pages. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :{{sup|Bite}} 23:25, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Makes sense to me: {{done}}. Rd232 {{sup|talk}} 10:44, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry but I have re-deleted the userpages; they serve no useful purpose given the ex-user's stated intention to leave Wikipedia permanently. The primary concern here is that they involve the renamed user's real name and interfere with the desire to separate him from the project. The pages should be restored if the user returns to Wikipedia and resumes socking, but otherwise there is no point to doing so. I express no view on the talkpage deletions; they honestly do not trouble me, but I understand that others may have issues with those. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:04, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Except that he's a known liar, a frequent abuser of socks (to abuse editors in good standing here) and you've just helped to cover his tracks yet again, overriding a rather extensive consensus, both here and at the recent DRV. What gives you the right to act by fiat, and against the interest of being able to uncover his bad behavior in future. Are you one of the arbs that he claimed was in his pocket the last time he was caught brad? You're way out of order here, at any rate.Bali ultimate (talk) 13:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Not the first known liar who abused other editors that Brad has gone out of his way to help. DuncanHill (talk) 14:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree in principle with Bali ultimate. Also, Brad deleted the "Kwork2" userpage, not the Malcolm Schosha one... his name isn't Kwork so the deletion rationale doesn't seem to apply. The sockpuppet tag should be reinstated to the Kwork2 account for purposes of keeping track of someone who has "vanished" multiple times in the past, only to return and resume his disruptions. I would suggest a soft redirect from the MS account talk page (which is already robot.txt'd out of the Google spider). His old MS user page can probably stay deleted since that's what was upsetting him so much. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 13:47, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Well I'm sorry too, because you don't seem to appreciate that (a) this user's stated intention is worth zip; he's socked repeatedly and AFAIK continues to coordinate activities on Wikipedia offsite (b) their primary claimed concern was their real name showing up in Google, which my noindexing took care of (c) they exercised RTV as User:Kwork allegedly because of privacy concerns only to return as User:Malcolm Schosha, allegedly his real name! So his privacy concerns may be taken with a pinch of salt; and at any rate noindexing is sufficient. Rd232 {{sup|talk}} 14:01, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Struck a point I picked up from someone else without confirming myself, since Schosha objected to it (via Wikipedia Review). I believe the original reference I picked up was related to Schosha's moderation of a forum on Yahoo groups, but I haven't confirmed that activity or the significance thereof, and at this point it doesn't seem worth doing so. Rd232 {{sup|talk}} 11:04, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Can someone recreate the Kwork2 userpage that was deleted out of process and against the wide consensus formed both here and at DRV? - Burpelson AFB ✈ 15:33, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This is seriously worrying. I have great respect for Newyorkbrad, but none, including he, are above the deletion policy or the wheel-warring policy. By deleting that page instead of taking it to WP:MFD, he has repeated an administrative action opposed by several administrators (notably the most recent recreator of the page, Rd232). From WP:WHEEL, bolding in original: "Do not repeat a reversed administrative action when you know that another administrator opposes it. (...) Wheel warring usually results in an immediate Request for Arbitration." Is there a good reason why such a request should not be made in this instance?  Sandstein   17:39, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes he overrode the consensus of this discussion, the recent MFD, standing policy and practice and he's been asked to reverse the decision, which he has not done. Incredibly high-handed and innappropriate -- now the histories of the sock evading IPs are gone, an ability to link the banned accounts to their past actions is gone, etc... I'll certainly take this to arbitration if it isn't dealt with quickly.Bali ultimate (talk) 17:43, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Whoa. He re-deleted the user pages, not the talk pages. That doesn't do much to cover up a history, but does help address the person's concerns about real-life harm.  I do not see that any harm is being done to Wikipedia by Brad's action that would outweigh the potential for real-life harm he is seeking to avoid.  Wikipedia is not a pillory. alanyst {{sup|/talk/}} 17:59, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * While this has been messy, I can say, there is no way Malcom will ever get away with socking or another "fresh start" on this website, however the Kworks are handled. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * NYBs actions go against consensus here and that at the DRV. As with the Fences&Window's bad unblock of Colonel Warden last week, this is the sort of thing that should be clearly reversed immediately. Tarc (talk) 18:20, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Absolutely no more reversals. Extending the chain of disputed administrative actions at this stage would be a very bad idea.  Instead, those who are concerned about the action should discuss it until a final consensus emerges.  Jehochman {{sup|Talk}} 18:22, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Final consensus did emerge and one Admin overrode it unilaterally. The deletion rationale for "Kwork2" is that it's that users real name, but his name is NOT "Kwork2". It needs to be undeleted and correctly tagged as a sock. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 18:24, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Pardon me, but fuck that logic. That is the issue that came up with Warden; an admin can perform an action and then another admin can, with absolutely no leg to stand on at all simply reverse that action.  And then THAT is where the oh-my-dreaded wheel-ewarring comes to play, where if anyone tries to restor the CRSTAL-CLEAR consensus, Then THAT admin is the one that is at fault while admin #2 goes scott-free?  I believe it was Black Kite who reversed F&W that time anyeays and was roundly supported for doing so.  The same should happen here.  Now. Tarc (talk) 18:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Any banned editor wanting to make it harder for the rest of us to see what they got up to is strongly urged to engage in sockpuppetry, on and off-site harassment, and legal threats. DuncanHill (talk) 18:29, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * As I've said, MS has gamed RTV for years. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:36, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Worth noting the discussion on NYB's talk page, where he indicates, amongst other things, that he won't stand in the way of undeletion. DuncanHill (talk) 21:14, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * As indicated, I've set forth my views on my talkpage, at some length. (Although, less length than it would have been in the past; I've given some attention to the authors of voter guides who opined that some of my posts are too long.) My intention in deleting these particular pages was not to show disrespect for the views of other editors, but to address an issue affecting this particular banned user, in a fashion that calculated to further that banned user's separation from Wikipedia. Based on my four years of experience, I think that our approach to tagging the userpages of banned users is terribly misguided and counterproductive, and this is an instance where we are perpetuating a negative interaction between the banned user and Wikipedia rather than trying to put an end to it. Those interested in my thoughts on this matter in further detail may find them on my usertalk.
 * I still believe very strongly that the action I took was best for all concerned and should be allowed to stand. I hope that some other editors with significant experience in dealing with significantly troublesome users might weigh in here with their opinions, which I believe would generally parallel mine. However, if in spite of these views there remains a consensus here to reinstate the tags, I will not interfere further. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm confused as to whether we're discussing his user pages, which can be deleted on request, or his talk pages, which should not be deleted without consensus—for the simple reason that he did not write them. The deletion of user talk pages by admins should be rare. See Right to vanish. I can only see deletion of the user pages in Brad's log, but I can't find the talk pages, so if someone could explain the current state of affairs, that would be very helpful. SlimVirgin  {{sup| talk|  contribs }} 21:42, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * By the way (and yes, I've known about this all along), NYB missed deleting User_talk:Malcolm_Schosha. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:46, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay, thanks, Gwen; I see the talk page history is there. That should be moved to User talk:Kwork2, so that the new account's history (contribs and talk page history) is intact, just under a new name. SlimVirgin  {{sup| talk|  contribs }} 22:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, spot on, as you say. This has all been handled very messily, but then, MS has always stirred up messes on en.WP. Gwen Gale (talk) 22:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, done that. Rd232 {{sup|talk}} 22:11, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * (ec)Brad, there are better ways of changing policy and practice than to try to force them through by ignoring what has been said in an ongoing debate. I think it shews very poor judgement that you went ahead with the deletions without even attempting to see if there was any consensus for them - this thread was open, you must surely have been aware also of the DRV relating to the user talk pages, but you imposed your own solution without consultation. You are also, I am sure, aware that your position as an arb makes it very hard for others to meaningfully challenge you when you choose to use your admin tools in such an issue. Few admins would want to risk their tools to take you on. DuncanHill (talk) 21:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, per consensus here and Newyorkbrad's comments on his user talk page, I've recreated the user page as a noindexed redirect to the user talk page, which has had its history restored and is blanked apart from a mention of the renaming to Kwork2, and also noindexed. I think that might just make everybody happy? Schosha gets his privacy respected, and the link between the Schosha name and the Kwork2 edits remains for information purposes (primarily possible sock detection). Rd232 {{sup|talk}} 22:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Whatever we do, the account's contributions and its talk page history must either be at the same place, or linked. SlimVirgin  {{sup| talk|  contribs }} 22:11, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Contributions and talk history are now at Kwork2. User:Malcolm Schosha, as noted above, is a (fully protected) noindexed redirect to User talk:Malcolm Schosha, while User talk:Malcolm Schosha, also noindexed but not protected, merely notes the rename to Kwork2. With any luck, that's an end of it. Rd232 {{sup|talk}} 01:09, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That seems fine. Thanks for sorting it out. SlimVirgin  {{sup| talk|  contribs }} 02:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Good enough. The Kwork2 had the old language from the MS talk psge on it that made no sense in its current location so I replaced it with the sock template, leaving in the noindex stuff. Guess I'll mark this resolved. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 14:57, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I have created User:Kwork2 as a redirect to User talk:Kwork2, which seemed to be reasonable. DuncanHill (talk) 15:02, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I replaced the sock template with a note; AFAIK he wasn't actually blocked for socking, and anyway this labelling isn't necessary. Rd232 {{sup|talk}} 15:16, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

RevDel Request
I would like to request a RevDel under the second paragraph of WP:CFRD for my user page at User:The C of E. I am requesting this because last night unknown to me an IP, 89.242.208.253 vandalised my user page and left some rather rude, insulting and offensive comments about me in it here. Thankfully Duncan reverted it but I'd like it if the slander from the IP could be RevDel'ed please as I'd rather not have it left there to be read as I don't think that people should have to read rude vandalism if they had a look through my history. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 08:53, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Which of the RevDel criteria do you think it meets? It just seems like normal vandalism of the sort which we usually revert and leave behind to me... <font color="#C4112F">╟─TreasuryTag► pikuach nefesh ─╢ 08:57, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The Grossly insulting, degrading, or offensive material one. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 09:02, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * 'But not "ordinary" incivility, personal attacks or conduct accusations' – <font color="#00ACF4">╟─TreasuryTag► international waters ─╢ 09:12, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The content of the edit seemed to go beyond an "ordinary" attack in my opinion so I deleted it prior to refreshing this page and seeing your comment, hope that is okay. Camw (talk) 09:24, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 09:30, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree, that went pretty far beyond ordinary incivility. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Well you'd know – <font color="#00ACF4">╟─TreasuryTag► Counsellor of State ─╢ 17:59, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Removal of AfD tag
Page:

User being reported:

Johnsy88 continues to remove an AfD tag for an article nominated for deletion. He also continues to remove a "failed verification" or "dubious" tag for content that is under discussion on the talk page. TFD (talk) 15:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * This issue has been discussed with an admin (NawlinWiki) who has originally flagged the issue, consulted with myself via his discussion page and resolved the issue and this issue has now been brought up again by the above editor TFD, The reason for my removal of the deletion tag is due to the previous discussion with the admin. I would also like to mention that the above editor has been involved in the editing of the article Unite Against Fascism and has also had previous issue against my user name attempting to persuade me to change my user name under the presumption and prejudiced assumption that the number 88 was due to a link to Nazism. the user TFD has also made factless assumptions about my editing and request for help by apply canvassing label to my user page discussions in the past and i feel that this user is targeting me for an unknown reason Johnsy88 (talk) 15:28, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi Johnsy88. Articles for deletion is a week long discussion/debate over the merits of a particular article.  Any Wikipedia editor may start one up and any Wikipedia editor may contribute to the discussion. After the week is over an uninvolved administrator will judge a rough consensus to either keep the page or delete it.  Just because one admin told you the article looked ok doesn't mean other wikipedia editors feel it is ok.  At these debates admins and regular users have the same say, so if 2 admins think an article should be kept and 6 regular editors feel it should be deleted, the debate could easily be closed as "delete".  Because it is important to let readers and editors of the article know that a deletion discussion is occuring, the deletion tag must remain on the article for the full week. If you want the article to be kept I would advise you to look over the reasons why deletion was proposed and attempt to fix the article so that it meets the objections.  Them  From  Space  15:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The particular issue of the removal of AFD tags doesn't really need to come here; I have warned the user that he will be blocked if he continues, as he clearly knows this is against the rules. In general, though, I would say that this editor seems particularly inflexible when confronted with Wikipedia policies, instead choosing (as in the above comment) to believe that there is some sort of organized campaign against him. Johnsy, I can assure you that there is no such campaign, and I think nearly every editor who has tried to work with you has operated civilly and politely when trying to explain the rules to you. (ESkog)(Talk) 15:36, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I have restore the AfD tag, with an edit summary which explicitly states it should remain until the discussion is closed. Johnsy88, please note that NawlinWiki knows quite well that the tag should remain as long as the discussion is open, and what the rules are for closing it. I find it hard to believe that he would advse you to remove an AfD tag - you may be confusing it with the PROD tag which he added earlier. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 15:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * i resent the accusation of inflexibility considering that in nearly all cases i will attempt to resolve any issue with consultation with the opposite editor. What i feel is plain to see is that the editor TFD has on more than one occasion appeared to attempt to use other tactics (accusations of nazi code words in name, non suitability of article) when discussions have failed to produce an outcome that would benefit him (discussions on the UAF article).


 * If i am breaking policy by removing the Deletion label (which i now fully understand i am) then that is my fault and i humbly apologise for my mistaken removal.


 * What i would say is considering the weight of sources that prove the article should exist due to the notability of the person "sabby Dhalu" i would say that their is a probability of an agenda when it comes to the flagging of the article for deletion. Johnsy88 (talk) 15:48, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Johnsy, you need to comment on the articles, not the editors. Accusing editors of having an agenda for nominating an article for deletion when insufficient sourcing about the subject has been provided is not generally a good idea around here. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:53, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * We call it the "assume good faith" policy; and it's one of the necessary social lubricants which makes this project viable. Don't ignore it. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  15:56, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I understand and although i stand by my opinion of above mentioned editor i am willing accept deletion of the article above (please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Sabby_Dhalu#Sabby_Dhalu) due to the fact that i am in the wrong with regards to the requirements for acceptance of an article on policy grounds. Johnsy88 (talk) 16:00, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Denigration of Australian National Awards
In the discussion the Ditmars and Aurealis Awards, Australia's national SF awards that have a long and proud history, have had their value and worth repeatedly questioned by User:Ttonyb1 and User:EEng

I would therefore request an administrative ruling that recognises these awards are important, notable and that being nominated for or winning one would be suitable to contribute to WP:CREATIVE. I am not suggesting that these be suitable as sole criteria, but that they be able to be included without prejudice.

If these awards are not given suitable recognition, this may create an impression of bias against Australian literature. Punkrocker1991 (talk) 01:58, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment I am not sure how I have Repeatedly questioned the awards. My comment in the AfD to Punkrocker1991 was, " I am unfamiliar with the Australian awards listed. If you are saying they are adequate then, I can only assume they are. Assuming as such, the article will most likely survive the AfD."  Punkrocker1991, I suggest you get your facts straight. As far as the alleged bias I find that to be absurd.  <span style="font-weight:bold; color:blue; text-shadow:grey 0.4em 0.4em 0.5em; letter-spacing: 2px; padding: 1px 3px;"> ttonyb  (talk) 21:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Lol, the Ditmars ARE a non-notable award. Half my friends are winners.  The Aurealis awards, yes, are almost certainly notable.  But more to the point, this isn't a matter that requires administrator intervention.  It can be resolved through normal discussion, and more importantly WP:CREATIVE is in any event subordinate to WP:N, and if in doubt you can decide the matter by whether the subject passes the general notability guidelines. - DustFormsWords (talk) 02:05, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * How are the Ditmars, an award that has been presented annually since 1969, a non-notable award? Are the Hugo Awards similarly non-notable, afterall, their processes are quite similar? Punkrocker1991 (talk) 02:17, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The Hugos (and Aurealis awards) are typically covered by both the mainstream press, and the major SF news sources. The Ditmars generally only receive attention within Australian fandom.  - DustFormsWords (talk) 02:53, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I beg your pardon, while I hold to the above, and the Aurealis awards certainly do have better mainstream coverage (which is what comes of being backed by a publisher) after doing some searches I think there's sufficient evidence that the Ditmars are notable, at least to the extent that I've seen less notable awards kept at AfD. But, again, fixable through normal discussion. - DustFormsWords (talk) 03:01, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, actually I think I know you personally, Punkrocker1991. (Does your last name rhyme with "bar"?)  If I'm correct you've been a Ditmar nominee and maybe winner yourself, and probably not well-placed to independently comment on their notability. - DustFormsWords (talk) 02:07, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I am probably who you're thinking of, but can't work out who you are. I have been nominated for and won Ditmars, Aurealis and other Awards. But then so have the likes of Greg Egan, Margo Lanagan, Jonathan Strahan, Sean Williams, Garth Nix and a host of other people. I have also been a reader, critic, reviewer and contributor to the Australian SF community for 20 years. Am I wrong to think that this means I might have some knowledge in the field? Punkrocker1991 (talk) 02:17, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll email you. - DustFormsWords (talk) 02:49, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Am I wrong to think that this means I might have some knowledge in the field? No, but it might also mean that there is a conflict of interest. Orange Suede Sofa  (talk) 02:57, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Knowledge and interest in a field does not necessarily translate into a conflict of interest. if it was an article about this writer, or one of their works, sure, but not something as general as an award in the genre one works in. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:01, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I apologize for the unclear wording&mdash;I should have pointed out that I was referring to the fact that Punkrocker1991 has been nominated for and won the award in question. To me that indicates a much closer connection to the subject, particularly when determining if the award is notable. I assume good faith and am not claiming an actual COI, but the current language at WP:COI is just fuzzy enough that this example could be open to interpretation. Orange Suede Sofa  (talk) 04:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You seem to think that admins are some sort of judges. I think you're looking for dispute resolution, not this page.   Corvus cornix  talk  02:10, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, for crying out loud, as stated over and over,  I never questioned the value of these awards, but merely pointed out that the subject of the article under discussion did not win them.  What a lot of fuss over imagined slights!  EEng (talk) 13:36, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * After reading the discussion at AfD, anyone will see that this thread here is spill-over from an acrimonious debate. (Part of the reason for the dispute is due to problems in Wikipedia's definition of notability for writers, but I don't see a way to improve on the definition without introducing subjective opinion -- & thus original research.) I pity the Admin who closes the discussion, because it's clear one side or the other will continue fighting to keep or delete the article. Other than that, as Corvus cornix writes above, there's nothing here that an Admin can do for all involved. -- llywrch (talk) 18:51, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Not acrimonious as far as I'm concerned. It's beginning to look like the subject might be notable after all.  Too bad Punkrocker didn't spend less time complaining about imaginged disrespect, and more time reading policies and guidelines (on notability likely, and on opening an ANI thread for sure!) and marshalled the evidence systematically and clearly in the first place.  EEng (talk) 19:52, 15 December 2010 (UTC)