Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Florentino floro

Primer for those new to this dispute
Unfortunately, it seems to me that people commenting on the main page have not taken a close enough look at his edits, so I've made this list. This part should contain only diffs that show an immediate cause for concern, to encourage readers to examine Floro's editing pattern more closely--as it stands, they see a few valid-sounding edits and assume we're the ones who are taking him on bad faith. --Migs (talk) 03:38, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) This edit is a concise summary of the problem with Florentino Floro.  In it, he goes off into a long rant about how maxsch's most recent edit is misleading and detrimental to Wikipedia. The claim he makes, among others, is that max deliberately changed the number 1864 to 1870 to mislead people. The fact is, the edit Floro is complaining about was made by Floro himself! See here: . Aside from his usual incoherent rambling and active assumption of bad faith, Floro's edit is wholly irrelevant to the subject at hand anyway, but he makes a big deal about how historical and notable it is simply because he read about it somewhere.
 * 2) Floro makes wild and irrelevant statements, among them: at least two incorrect accusations of sockpuppetry, a frighteningly detailed listing of my personal details (or it would be frightening if I were actually the person he claims me to be), and a declaration that the editors involved in this dispute are somehow linked to plane crashes in India.  (more linked below)--Migs (talk) 07:06, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 3) Floro adds information about a very minor injury suffered by Miriam Santiago --an irrelevant but normally forgivable edit; however, consider his defense: he cites his failed injunction against her, and goes on to claim that it is an omen because he claims to see the future.  This is far from an isolated incident--it has been his editing pattern since 2006.

There is some redundancy with this list and diffs linked below

Discussion
There are a number of things I'd like to say. Where do my comments belong? I'm not sure if they belong here in the discussion page, or if they should go under "additional views" (as I've dealt with Floro before and thus am not an "outside perspective"), or if they should be appended to maxsch's statements (as I'm not sure if I'm formally involved with the dispute). --Migs (talk) 11:05, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I haven't used one of these before, but I think discussion does go here on the talk page. I have more to say too, but I was going to wait until there were a few more comments.maxsch (talk) 13:58, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Alright, I'll just post here and move it to the main page once I figure out where it belongs. --Migs (talk) 15:31, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment from Felipe Aira
On the main page, Felipe Aira said "But if he's happy with it, and it makes Wikipedia better why block him?" The point we're trying to make is that it makes Wikipedia worse. Below are several diffs which show that his edits are damaging to the article namespace and not just the talk pages. His edits don't have to be malicious to be a problem; he's wasting a lot of editors' time just writing things that need to be condensed, or more often, deleted entirely. --Migs (talk) 14:25, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Statement from Cma (21 July 2008)
After reading the outsider's view that Algabal posted, I think I see the most problematic thing about Floro. I think the reason he's managed to stay on Wikipedia so long is the fact that his edits are not blatantly bad, but rather, convincingly relevant-sounding. He's learned how to keep his edits shorter, and to cite sources, but I should point out that it took two years for him to learn that, and even then, his edits are of questionable relevance. At worst, they contribute absolutely nothing, such as the Kofi Annan edit maxsch linked, and at best, they have debatable importance--if Algabal would be so kind as to specify which edits he deems okay, I am certain that there will be a reasonable number of editors who would disagree with their notability.

This, I think is the main problem--he cites sources, and the general mindset to seeing a sourced, concise edit is to consider it valid. This is no doubt reinforced by the fact that until recently, he had been copy-pasting the exact same edit he made in the article namespace to the talk page, occasionally prefacing it with words like "notable" or "landmark" when they are in fact not notable at all. A casual editor who has doubts about the edit would just see the talk page edit assume that Floro knows what he's talking about, and consequently gloss it over while they look for something more obviously bad. For instance, a casual glance would tell you this was relevant, as it appears to be some historical event. All he did on the talk page was to paste the exact same thing, adding only "I added this since it is a stub." Here's another pair for good measure: and

That all his contributions to the article namespace are made in good faith, I have no doubt. However, I must call into question the quality of his edits. Certainly, he's made good edits, and possibly a good number. However, the many run-ins he's had with Filipino Wiki editors indicate that his noise to signal ratio is far higher than is acceptable. For instance, take the conversations here: and here  (the latter has some overlap with the former, but search for "Bolinao"). Several editors here--not merely maxsch--argue with Floro, to no avail. --Migs (talk) 15:31, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Statement from Cma (22 July 2008)
These two edits are very recent (less than a few hours old), and are a pretty concrete case against Floro: and.

As he has been doing for the last several months, Florentino Floro continues to accuse maxsch and me of conspiring against him. I think his own arguments to this effect, though, prove that our close watch on him is justified. He provides arguments that are irrelevant, in poor taste, and as a glance will tell you, fairly incoherent.

Furthermore, there's something I didn't mention before, because as far as I knew, he had learned to stop doing it. Floro's most recent edits, however, tell me that he still hasn't learned. When he started, Floro had a pattern of making several edits and arguments, justified not through reasonable arguments, but through evidence that he can see the future. He'd since been told not to do that, but he has made it clear with these edits that his self-justification of his "powers" is still the underlying principle behind his edits. --Migs (talk) 15:05, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Examples of edits that superficially appear relevant but are not on closer inspection
Mangatarem,_Pangasinan 

Supreme Court of the Philippines  

Kamala Harris 

Philippine Eagle 

Most of Floro's edits to this next one are applicable but here are two I randomly picked out. Reynato Puno  

Etc

 * 1) Floro is reprimanded for not even reading the very article he sources

Other points that need to be addressed

 * 1) Floro's claims of a Filipino conspiracy against him, and his constant mention of crab mentality
 * 2) Floro's tendency to reply "Noted", "Yes sir, thank you for the advice", and "Yes, sorry, I'm new here", despite being here for two years, then not following the advice anyway (eg: Any of the long replies he's made after being told to be quick and concise).
 * 3) Floro's tendency to brag about his "achievements" of having 4000-5000 edits and 2 years of service on Wikipedia (or as he calls it, "citing" his edits)
 * 4) Floro's pattern of saying "landmark" or "notable" in his talk page edits when in fact there is nothing notable about his edit  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cma (talk • contribs) 15:19, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 5) Floro's history of being disruptive on the internet in general--easily verifiable as he himself has personally "written" a book consisting of 900 pages of him copy pasting posts from blogs and threads in forums he's posted in
 * 6) Floro's claims of being psychic are probably relevant, as he used to justify his edits by claiming he could see the future--that is, until several of us told him to stop saying that. It's likely to be relevant as his edits still reflect the pattern of him making edits that "verify" his supernatural abilities.
 * 7) Floro's other accusations--that I am a sockpuppet of maxsch, that maxsch is trying to hide something due to his IP coming from India, the  and the fact that most of our recent edits single him out--each being, if not untrue, then irrelevant, justified, or both.
 * 8) Floro's habit of writing something, then spamming a bunch of people's talk pages with links to piece he wrote --Migs (talk) 15:07, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 9) And on a related note, his habit of treating Wikipedia talk pages like a Livejournal, such as here, where he expresses frustration at his career being destroyed.  --Migs (talk) 15:07, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 10) Floro's wanton editing of any Wiki article whose title appears in a news article on GMA/ABS-CBN news.

Response to Algabal's position
I think user:Algabal is missing the point. He says that the diffs I point out are "much ado about nothing." But there are real wikipedia policies being violated. In the example of Miriam Defensor Santiago, is it wrong of me to point out that floro has exaggerated the reports of her injuries, and also to point out that he has filed lawsuits against her. This is a clear violation of wp:BLP and wp:COI. And it is not an isolated incident, a very similar thing happened on the Hilario Davide, Jr. page. I would ask why Albgabal is so worried about "alienating" Floro? We have to address issues of behavior on wikipedia, and sweeping abuse under the rug is not a reasonable response. maxsch (talk) 17:54, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * To put Max's comments in perspective: Florentino floro was a former judge who was dismissed from his position, and his dismissal was promulgated by the Philippine Supreme Court (which deals with administrative matters in the country's judicial system). (You can Google his name to verify this, and given time I might also be able to find newspaper articles on this in libraries (Filipino newspapers don't have good archiving systems on their websites, so libraries are the best places to go)). I don't think Chief Justice Davide was sitting on FF's administrative case as he already retired by 2007 (you can verify it here) but at any rate, I have to admit and I do agree that Florentino floro seems to have a particular interest with articles relating to Filipino judges (Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago used to be a judge). I have yet to review the edits he made to the said articles before I can post my own comments (I also didn't know he filed charges against Sen. Miriam until I saw this RfC)---what I'm trying to do here is to point out that, given these circumstances, there mighy be a conflict of interest on how he handled those articles. --- Tito Pao (talk) 01:05, 23 July 2008 (UTC)


 * One more thing: I do think FF is a diligent editor, and to be fair with him he has made many contributions mostly to Philippine-related articles. The way I see this RfC is that there are some issues that need to be resolved on how he makes some of the edits. --- Tito Pao (talk) 01:20, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Quick reference section for Floro's history of incomprehensible ranting
Here, anybody may feel free to add links to some of Floro's more outstanding edits, with one-sentence descriptions. Add only edits he's made which are obviously nonsense; his abundance of edits that look correct will have to be addressed separately.
 * 1) For unknown reasons, Floro performs internet detectivery to find out my identity (and incidentally, is completely off-base).  --Migs (talk) 13:06, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 2) And another epic and incoherent reply once more here, a day later  --Migs (talk) 11:52, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 3) For the third time in three days, he throws more nonsensical accusations at the parties involved in this RFC  --Migs (talk) 13:35, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 4) On the talk pages of other editors, he pastes the same thing, apparently not understanding that the category on my user page is a joke  --Migs (talk) 13:06, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 5) Floro delivering one of his incoherent rants about how India, the province of Plaridel, plane crashes, maxsch, and I are all connected  --Migs (talk) 13:06, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 6) I'm not even sure what this is about but I think he's accusing me of something  --Migs (talk) 13:06, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

"Expiry" date
Sorry for having to ask this late...is there a certain "expiry" date (lolz) for this RfC as with other RfCs, in the same manner that, way, AfDs have a usual time frame before it's closed? I just need to know how much time I have. Thanks. --- Tito Pao (talk) 01:53, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that there is no specific deadline, the RFC will only close when some conclusion is reached. That said, I don't think there is any reason for you to wait to comment. maxsch (talk) 03:09, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply :) Actually, I'm trying to squeeze in as much time as I could in reviewing FF's edits. I was supposed to do this last weekend but personal commitments prevented me from doing so, and I'd need all the time I have to review his edits (and, I guess, right from the very first one :P ) --- Tito Pao (talk) 03:21, 28 July 2008 (UTC)


 * There is no expiration date for RfCs on user conduct. They are closed whenever some uninvolved editor decides that either (a) everyone has agreed and it's all settled or (b) agreement will never be reached.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:31, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Conclusion comments

 * I agree with Wizardman in his conclusion and I endorse the current version. «  Diligent Terrier    [talk]   20:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Blocked
Note that the user has been blocked indefinitely and see. dougweller (talk) 08:29, 23 November 2008 (UTC)